Homily for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

The other night my cousin was telling me about a book he’s currently reading called “The Year of Living Biblically.” It’s written by A.J. Jacobs, a journalist in New York, who is ethnically Jewish but grew up in an entirely secular home. He decided that in order to understand the world, and the fact that religion isn’t disappearing into post-Enlightenment rationalism as many had predicted, he was going to try to live the Bible as literally as possible for a whole year.

Now, living the Ten Commandments is one thing – even considering the very strict interpretation Jacobs gives to Commandments such as keeping the Sabbath day holy. But Jacobs goes beyond even that, striving to follow all the Old Testament’s seemingly innumerable rules about ritual purity, dress, grooming, ritual sacrifices, and food.

This probably seems completely crazy to most of us – not only because we’re well-catechized Catholics and we realize that Catholics are not Biblical fundamentalists, but also because it seems so absolutely impossible to follow each and every miniscule command of the Law in modern, twenty-first century America.

Frankly, many of us might have a very similar reaction to today’s Gospel from St. Matthew’s account of the Sermon on the Mount. In it, we hear Jesus say quite explicitly that He “has not come to abolish the Law,” and that “not the smallest letter, or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the Law.”

Indeed, in the lines that follow Jesus goes on to examine six specific laws – and the commands that Jesus gives not only include the entirety of what the law required, they go beyond and surpass what was commanded by the law.

For example, the first law that Jesus discusses is “You shall not kill.” Jesus goes even further to state: “whoever is angry will be liable to judgment.”

Of course, we recognize that anger is a disposition that can lead to murder. So we see that Jesus is not doing away with the law against murder, He is rather forbidding even the disposition, the state of mind that might lead to such a terrible act.

This is what Jesus means when He says elsewhere in the Gospels that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes: Jesus is requiring that we go beyond fulfilling the letter of the law and also fulfill the deeper, even more demanding spirit of the law.

What Jesus commands in the Sermon on the Mount is so demanding that many of us are left to wonder if we can seriously expect to live this way – or is this really a fool’s bargain, like A.J. Jacobs attempting to follow every miniscule Biblical rule in the midst of modern Manhattan.

Into that uncertainty, our first reading from the Book of Sirach, speaks a measure of hope. The very first line of the reading states simply but powerfully: “If you choose, you can keep the commandments.”

Of course, Sirach is speaking about the commandments of the Old Testament. But clearly the Church pairs this reading with today’s gospel from St. Matthew in order to teach us that doing what Jesus commands in the Sermon on the Mount is indeed possible for us.

Yes – Jesus calls His followers to live lives of heroic virtue. Yes – following Jesus means trying to live in a way that often seems impossible – even crazy. But it can indeed be done – even in our modern, sophisticated, and technological lives.

In our second reading, St. Paul says in his Letter to the Corinthians: “we speak a wisdom to those who are mature, not a wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age who are passing away – rather, we speak God’s wisdom, mysterious, hidden, which God predetermined before the ages for our glory.”

The wisdom of the Sermon on the Mount is not the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of the Beatitudes that we heard two weeks ago, and the wisdom of the commandments we have heard today is certainly not conventional wisdom. But it is God’s wisdom – mysterious and hidden – and more powerful than human wisdom; and as St. Paul says, it is ordered from the beginning, not for our torment, not to be impossible, but to be the source of our glory.

Brothers and sisters, the saints – perhaps especially the many saints and blesseds of our own age, raised to the altars by Pope John Paul II – show us not only that the commandments can in fact be fulfilled – they also show us the glory that is to be obtained by following them. Their lives are our model in every age, and their prayerful intercession is the supernatural assistance we know that we will need to do even that which seems impossible . . . because nothing is impossible with God.

"The airplane has unveiled for us the true face of the earth."

When Fr. Jim's work in Washington was basically done, we had a few hours for fun before a snow storm rolled in and Jim had to get to Baltimore for his flight. Since Jim was an aerospace engineer when he was in the world, I thought he'd enjoy a visit to the Dulles annex of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum.

I had the pleasure of seeing this museum a few years ago with Scott Cullen, but it's still fascinating to see up-close the space shuttle Enterprise . . .

. . . and historic planes like the Enola Gay, which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima:

Of course, one goes to see the impressive collection of aircraft, but for architectural enthusiasts the museum is also housed in an amazingly beautiful hangar space with lots of natural light and interesting views from numerous ramps and balconies.

Jim and I also spent a little time in the National Portrait Gallery - though the Rockwell exhibit is now closed - and dared to spend a few shillings to enter the International Spy Museum. It was actually worth it for a once-around . . . unless you're a pre-teen boy, in which case it is probably the greatest thing ever!

(Quote from — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, 'Wind, Sand, and Stars,' 1939)

Meanwhile . . . back on Staten Island . . .

. . . my poor parents were digging out, yet again, from a major snowstorm. 

It seems all my prayers for snow are being answered - the snow is just being mis-delivered to my former addresses on Staten Island and in South Bend! Hopefully the next big one will catch up with me in my current postal code!

March for Life 2011

Not that you'd know this from the national press coverage, but two weeks ago over four hundred thousand Americans gathered on the Mall in Washington, D.C. for the annual March for Life. I was among the marchers again this year, and once again joined with over three hundred and fifty Notre Dame students who made the long bus trip from South Bend.

On Sunday evening, Fr. Jim Gallagher, Fr. Terry Ehrman and I concelebrated the Vigil for Life at the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Last year, I was lucky enough to land a seat directly behind the Shrine's Rector and the concelebrating bishops. This year, I may have gotten an even better seat: we concelebrated from the first row of chairs on the top step of the high altar. This gave us an even better view of the thousands of young people that packed the Basilica for the Mass.

On Monday morning, after saying a morning Mass for Life for the students of Little Flower School (the pastor and associate pastor were at the Verizon Center for the jam-packed Archdiocesan Mass) I took the Metro from CUA to the Mall. As you can see, I was there a bit early . . . 

. . . so I spent some time touring, and warming up inside, the Smithsonian Castle. Later on I met up with the Notre Dame and Holy Cross College contingents, and especially with the seminarians from Old College and Moreau Seminary. On a personal level, the real highlight of the weekend was having the chance to see so many brothers in Holy Cross, from the seminarians, to my classmate Fr. Jim, and my former rector Fr. Bill. Old Collegians Brian, John, Karl, and Karlo even made the trip out to Little Flower for Mass on Sunday morning. I was very proud to be able to introduce them to the parishioners here.  

The award for the most interesting sign of the day goes to this banner, thanking the Holy Father for writing the document that will allow former Anglicans to come into full communion with the Church, while maintaining much of their liturgical tradition.

After the March Fr. Jim hung around D.C. for a few days to meet with several young men who are discerning a vocation to the Congregation of Holy Cross. I've had the privilege of meeting with many of them myself, this past semester, and they are a great bunch. Jim and I also had the chance to do some sightseeing together . . . more on that in a bit . . .

Homily for the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A) and World Day for Consecrated Life

If you pay attention to the best-seller table at our local Barnes and Nobles, you might have noticed over the last several years, a trend toward what historians call microhistory.  That is to say, there’s been a popularization of histories that “search for answers to large questions,” like the stories of empires and revolutions, “in small places,” like in the story of a fish.

You think I’m joking.  Mark Kurlansky was a writer for the New York Times until he stormed onto the microhistory scene with his 1998 book entitled, Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World.

In 2007, Kurlansky followed up with a book that proved to be even more popular, simply yet ambitiously called Salt: A World History.  Kurlansky argues that because “salt is so common, and easy to obtain, and inexpensive that we’ve forgotten that from the beginning of civilization until about 100 years ago, salt was one of the most sought-after commodities in human history,” like crude oil is today.

In fact, salt was one of “the first international commodities of trade. Trade routes that have remained major thoroughfares were established, alliances built, empires secured, and revolutions provoked” all because of the salt trade.

Kurlansky explains that, “salt represented wealth.” The Romans, the French, the Hapsburgs all taxed salt to raise money.  Indeed, salt itself was used as money – that’s the etymology of the word “salary.”

Salt was one of the elements – pun intended – that led to the downfall of the French monarchy: farming peasants resented a salt tax that burdened them more than the aristocracy.  And in India, the British regulation of salt resulted in Mahatma Ghandi’s "march to the sea" to collect salt which galvanized resistance to British rule.

Kurlansky goes back in history to explain why salt was such an important commodity.  He notes that, “Homer called salt a divine substance,” and that in the ancient world salt was associated with fertility – in part because fish in salt water have more offspring than animals on land.  He reminds us that salt prevents decay, and protects from harm – and so it has always been understood that “evil spirits detest salt.”

More scientifically, Kurlansky explains that salt preserves – and in the many centuries before modern refrigeration, “salt provided the principal way to preserve food.”  Salt also helps clean and purify – that’s why we buy Dead Sea cosmetics and gargle with salt water when we have a sore throat.

Even more fundamentally, “blood, tears, sweat - almost every part of the human body contains salt, which is necessary for the functioning of cells. Without both water and salt cells cannot get the nourishment they need, and they die of dehydration.”

In summary, the point of Kurlansky’s microhistory is that “salt is essential to our existence . . . and because our need for salt is so fundamental, its history encompasses that of humanity.”

In today’s Gospel, Jesus refers to His disciples as the salt of the earth.  Unfortunately, we’ve heard this a hundred times, so we gloss over it as a cute simile.  But Jesus is not merely saying that disciples are the “spice of life,” or that we add a nice flavor to a world that would otherwise be too bland. 

Jesus is saying that discipleship helps preserve the good in the world, and helps to purify society; that disciples protect the world from evil, and that therefore evil spirits detest us.  He is saying that disciples must be present in every cell of society and that without us the world cannot have life or function the way it is meant to function!  He is saying that, like salt, being a follower of Jesus is essential, and fundamental, and that discipleship encompasses the whole of human history and experience!

Many people in the world today take salt for granted and don’t pay it much attention.  In fact, many people devote themselves to pointing out salt’s detriments, and try to limit their intake or to eradicate salt from their diets entirely.

So too, Christian discipleship is easily taken for granted on the one hand, or completely ignored on the other.  Many people desire only to point out the flaws of those who strive to be disciples, and try to expel discipleship from the public square entirely.

If this is in fact the case, then perhaps it’s because we disciples have become like salt that has lost its taste.  Perhaps we ourselves have forgotten how fundamental and essential discipleship is to our own existence, and to the life of the world.  Perhaps we have failed to be present, as disciples, in every cell of society, assuring the nourishment of the public body, preserving the good, purifying that which is sickly, and repelling that which is evil.

Perhaps we have ourselves taken our discipleship for granted, and settled for an hour a week on Sunday, instead of allowing the entirety of our lives to be ordered toward discipleship with Jesus.

All of us need to regularly examine our lives, and to evaluate the authenticity and the vitality of our discipleship.  We need to find means of support for our life of discipleship, especially in prayer and the Sacraments, in the Scriptures, and in the fellowship of a community of disciples. Being with other disciples helps hold us accountable, but it also provides us with proven patterns of growth in discipleship and good examples to emulate in following the Lord.

Today the Church in the United States celebrates just such communities of discipleship as it observes World Day for Consecrated Life.  It is a day to recognize and thank men and women religious – sisters, brothers, and priests – for the role they have played in the life of the Church and to pray that many more young men and women will answer the call to religious life.

Soon to be Blessed Pope John Paul II wrote that, like salt for the body, or discipleship for the world, consecrated life is “essential for the life of the Church” – and that therefore, despite whatever challenges particular orders may currently face, “the evangelical vitality of consecrated life will always be present and active in the Church.”

If we think back over the history of the Church in this country – which I spend so much of my time studying – one cannot help but be amazed at the parishes, soup kitchens, orphanages, and especially schools and hospitals that have been built in this country by numerous religious orders.  Brothers and priests, but especially religious sisters, have built educational and health care systems here in the U.S. that are the envy of the entire world.

And yet, that’s still not why consecrated life, and men and women religious are essential to the life of the Church.  Consecrated life is essential to the life of the Church not because of what religious men and women do, but because of who they are. 

Men and women religious live, pray, and work together in community and are bound to each other and to Christ by their profession of the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.  These are things that the world’s wisdom doesn’t understand, or worse, detests, because by their very lives religious call into question our human fascination with wealth, pleasure, and power, and they point beyond this life to the kingdom that is to come. 

By their vowed life religious make present in the world “the characteristic features of Jesus, the chaste, poor, and obedient one;” they provide for all disciples a reminder of Gospel virtues, and they do so, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, relying not “on human wisdom but on the power of God.” 

I would invite the young men and women of our parish and school to discern if God might not be calling you to make Christ present in the world through your life as a consecrated religious – as a religious priest, brother, or sister.  Like any life worth living, it is challenging – but it is also deeply rewarding to follow the Lord in a community of disciples.

Brothers and sisters, let us all pray as families and as individuals in thanksgiving for God’s gift to the Church of consecrated men and women.  Inspired by their vows, faithfully lived, may we all live our own commitments with greater fidelity and become evermore the salt of the earth and the light of the world.