Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion @ St. Peter Chesaning / St. Cyril Bannister

HOMILY - PALM SUNDAY OF THE LORD'S PASSION

MARCH  27/28, 2021

Born in London on October 10, 1865 – Venerable Cardinal Rafael María José Pedro Francisco Borja Domingo Gerardo de la Santísima Trinidad Merry del Val y Zulueta, or more simply Cardinal Rafael Merry del Val, held many important positions within the Church. 

The son of a Spanish nobleman who was descended from Irish merchants, Merry del Val held doctorates in both Philosophy and Theology as well as a license in Canon Law. He was ordained in 1888, was made a monsignor in 1891, sent as Apostolic Delegate to Canada in 1897, named titular Archbishop of Nicaea in 1900, and served as the secretary of the 1903 conclave that elected Pope St. Pius X. That pope named him Cardinal Secretary of State; while his successor, Benedict XV, appointed him Secretary of the Holy Office. He died during surgery for appendicitis in 1930, and his cause for canonization was opened in 1953.

A prayer, titled The Litany of Humility is often attributed to him. And if he didn’t write it, he most certainly made it more well known. 

At the front of the church are prayer cards, if you’d like to take one home and pray it. I first discovered it in 1993, and found it difficult at first to pray.

Humility is not something that is very well appreciated in modern times. And if you find yourself struggling with it, too, don’t give up. Keep praying.

Today is Palm Sunday. 

And we just heard the lengthy reading of the Passion from St. Mark’s Gospel. 

The Old Testament reading from the Prophet Isaiah is a foreshadowing of Our Lord’s Passion, written roughly 700 years before Christ.

The Epistle reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Philippians, is considered to be an ancient Christian hymn … a Creed of sorts … praising the Humility of Jesus Christ, and attempting to recognize the great emptying He experienced in surrendering His Divinity and becoming a mere human.

The word St. Paul uses for “emptied” is the Greek word ἐκένωσεν from the verb κενόω … which implies a total self-emptying, and giving rise to the Theological term “kenosis” is defined as “[t]he voluntary renunciation by Christ of his right to divine privilege in his humble acceptance of human status.”

Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen has compared it to a human being becoming a snake, or in a homily to children to becoming a puppy. It's still you on the inside, but you're sort of trapped.

Nonetheless, as we enter into Holy Week 2021, let us reflect upon the great humility of God … first in His incarnation as a fetus at the Annunciation, His birth as an infant at Christmas, and now in His total annihilation at the hands of wicked men in His Passion and Death.

As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ – in the Most Blessed Sacrament … another of His great expressions of His humility … let us pray that we might have a share in His kenosis and divest ourselves of any obstacles that might keep us from living out the fullness of our life in Christ, both here and in eternity.

5th Sunday of Lent @ St. Peter Chesaning / St. Cyril Bannister

HOMILY - FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT
MARCH  20/21, 2021

Twice, in his campaign speeches – once in 1959 in Indiana, and again in 1960 in Pennsylvania – President John F. Kennedy, the 35th president of the US, made reference that 

[in] the Chinese language, the word “crisis” is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity.

He’s wrong.

But, it’s not his fault. Twenty years before, in the overseas missionary magazine The Chinese Recorder, in an article titled The Challenge of Unusual Times, an unidentified author made the observation that

[without] the danger there cannot arise the opportunity. It is very fitting then that in this time of "danger-opportunity" there should go forth a call to a Forward Movement in the Christian Church in China.

This mistake was carried forward a month later, and then repeated over and over, year after year. And even into the present, where in an episode of The Simpsons, Lisa tells Homer that the Chinese use the same word for “crisis” as they do for “opportunity.” Leading Homer to coin the neologism, “crisi-tunity.”

It’s not Lisa’s fault, either … but she’s wrong, too.

And, while it may be good advice – that is, to look for the good possibilities underlying a bad situation – it isn’t a linguistic factor in the Chinese language.

Today is the 5th Sunday of Lent.

In the Gospel, we hear several rapidly shifting scenes – from Greeks looking for Jesus, to three sayings of Jesus and further reflection relating to His Passion, and the voice of God the Father booming from heaven in confirmation.

In the final words of this particular section of John chapter 12, Jesus says:

Now is the time of judgment on this world.

There is a single Greek word in the original, which is translated here as “time of judgment.” That word is κρίσις (kree-sees) – the word where we get the English word “crisis.”

The Greek word has a slightly deeper meaning, implying a cut-off point … or a separation … a decision between right and wrong, good or bad, justice or injustice.

This can be reflected back to the second reading from Hebrews chapter 5, where the entire section is a comparison of the Old Testament priesthood and the new priesthood of Jesus Christ … who it is argued had a superior title, ordination, sympathy, and sacrifice.

Which is all foreshadowed by the passage from Jeremiah chapter 31, which speaks of a new … and arguably better … covenant between God and His holy people, where God’s law and God’s will would be found inside, not outside of peoples’ hearts.

Every choice we make for good or for ill … stems from a “κρίσις” a time of decision. Scripture reminds us over and over to choose God … choose the good … choose life – eternal life.

We are coming up on Holy Week in just seven days. We’ve made it this far in Lent 2021. We've been admonished toward increased prayer, fasting, and almsgiving … to deepen our walk with Christ and our relationship with the Almighty. 

Many choices … many opportunities … many κρίσις-es. 

Now is the “time of judgment” … the time to dig a little deeper … the “Christ-itunity” to sprint toward the finish line.

As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ; let us pray that we may take full advantage of what is laid before us. And in making our choice for God in Christ, may we know His mercy and love, as well as His power and grace in our daily lives.

4th Sunday of Lent @ St. Peter Chesaning / St. Cyril Bannister

HOMILY - FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT

MARCH  13/14, 2021

The Space Transportation System was a NASA project for a partially re-usable low Earth orbital spacecraft operated from 1981 to 2011. More commonly known as the Space Shuttle, the first shuttle – Enterprise – had no orbital capability, but the other five – Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavor – flew a total of 135 missions over 30 years.

Two of the orbiter vehicles were lost in mission accidents – Challenger in 1986 on take-off, and Columbia in 2003 on re-entry.

One week ago, Saturday, Allan McDonald passed away. Mr. McDonald was an engineer and the director of the Space Shuttle Solid Rocket Motor Project. In January 1986, he refused to sign off on the final launch of Challenger which suffered a catastrophic failure 73 seconds after take-off.

McDonald testified before the Rogers Commission that June as a whistleblower, revealing the coverup by his own employer – Morton Thiokol and NASA. He was initially demoted, but eventually was promoted to vice-president of engineering. His story is told in the book Truth, Lies, and O-Rings. 

Those who worked with McDonald remember his Laws of the Seven R’s – “Do the right thing for the right reason at the right time with the right people, and you will have no regrets for the rest of your life.”

Today is the 4th Sunday of Lent, sometimes referred as Laetare Sunday, from the Entrance Antiphon from Isaiah 66, “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful, all who were in mourning; exult …”

Whereas on Gaudete Sunday, the 3rd Sunday of Advent, the focus is on “Rejoice, the Lord is near,” today’s focus is more of time-out. We’ve been praying, fasting, and alms-giving for 25 days, and Easter is a mere three weeks away.

It’s not a time for slacking. St. Paul reminds us that “by grace [we] have been saved through faith, and this is not from [us]; it is the gift of God … so no one may boast.”

And in the Gospel, we hear that “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”

Everything we have and everything we experience is God’s gift to us. 

Normally during Lent, we have individuals preparing for the Easter Sacraments – the Sacraments of Initiation. 

Without that, this year, we may miss that we, too, are called to re-trace the path of preparation to reclaim or enhance our own experience of those Baptismal graces of Faith, Hope, and Love.

While this may sound esoteric, those supernatural virtues inform us in soul, mind, and heart – Faith informs the soul, Hope informs the mind, and Love informs the heart.

Our Lenten practices, too, allow us to work on soul, mind, and heart through growth in the human or cardinal virtues of temperance, prudence, and fortitude.

Temperance is tied to the soul, and is when we draw our focus away from the pleasures of this world, and direct our thoughts and actions to the joys of heaven.

Prudence is tied to the mind, and is when right reasoning directs our actions – letting the Word of God and the Will of God operate in what we say and what we do.

Fortitude is tied to the heart, and is when we strengthen our resolve to resist temptations and overcome obstacles and persevere in doing good.

And Justice ties them all together, giving us the disposition to offer what is due to God and to give what is due neighbor.

All of this can be summarized in short as “doing the right thing at the right time for the right reason with the right people.” And in doing that, we can be assured that we “will have no regrets for the rest of our lives.”

Lent is a period of spiritual training to allow us to draw closer to God’s will and to conform our lives more closely to the Gospel by drawing closer to the Cross. We are at the “half-time” of Lent, let us continue to move forward in Faith, Hope, and Love.

As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us pray that the manifold graces of this Most Blessed Sacrament may save us through faith. Knowing that it is the gift of God, may we strengthen our resolve to follow Christ to Calvary, and … eventually … to Glory in heaven.

3rd Sunday of Lent @ St. Peter Chesaning / St. Cyril Bannister

HOMILY - THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT
MARCH  6/7, 2021

The Encyclopedia Britannica was published in its first edition between the years 1768 and 1771. It consisted of three volumes. By the second edition, it was 10 volumes. Its fourth edition, published between 1801 and 1810 it was up to 20 volumes. 

The last printed edition was the fifteenth, printed in 2010 – 244 years after the first edition. It consisted of 32 volumes containing 32,640 pages and weighing 130 pounds. From a data processing perspective, it contained approximately 1 gigabyte of information.

Compare that to the human brain, which at the most recent analysis, contains about one petabyte – or one quadrillion, or a one followed by 15 zeroes. 

Since we’re in church, I should mention that the Bible contains only 4.13 megabytes of data. 

And finally, according to Google, the entire Internet contains 1.2 exabytes – that is, 1.2 followed by 18 zeroes – or a quintillion bytes of data.

For what it’s worth, that’s only 1,200 human brains. So, I think we’re still safe … for now.

Today is the third Sunday of Lent. 

And in the First Reading, we hear the 10 Commandments proclaimed to the assembly. Ten sayings, which many of us can remember … or if we can’t remember all of them, we’re pretty sure a lot of them start with “Thou shalt not.”

St. Paul, in the first chapter of the First Letter to the Corinthians, is taking them to task for breaking up into factions. He tries to corral them back into focusing not the wisdom and knowledge of the various teachers who have arisen, but rather on,

Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The Gospel reading gives us the scene of Jesus’s cleansing of the Temple, where He

made a whip out of cords / and drove them all out.

This story from Chapter 2 of St. John’s Gospel is the second of three parts.

In the first, Jesus shows His glory in the Wedding Feast of Cana – where the miracle is a foretaste of the Eternal Banquet to which we are all called.

The second is the cleansing of the temple, where Jesus shows His zeal – that is, His enthusiasm and dedication … His energy and motivation – for the Gospel.

And the last line of the Gospel, the third part, reminds us that

Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, / and did not need anyone to testify about human nature. / He himself understood it well.

Now that doesn’t sound very nice at first hearing. But we know that that is not the end of the story.

Rather, Jesus – being God – does know us all … and understands us well. 

And He provides us with supernatural helps – that is, the “power of God” – through grace … in the form of the Sacraments. 

He knows and understands us … but doesn’t leave us floundering without assistance.

Which, however, begs the question: Do we know and understand Him?

Knowledge can be something as flat and sterile as data … facts and information. Knowledge can be practical … a skill or practical understanding. And knowledge can be abstract … an awareness or familiarity.

But God wants us to go beyond the mere superficial knowledge.

Our Baptism has incorporated us in Christ … as members of Christ … and we should have direct experience of Christ.

This, then, through God’s revelation – in the Person of Jesus Christ, “the Word made flesh,” and through the Word proclaimed in Sacred Scripture – provides us with 

the power of God and the wisdom of God

to live out the Gospel according to the Will of God and within the Plan of God. 

And this power, wisdom, will, and plan are shown in the power of Cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

As we approach this altar to receive the Sacred Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, let us pray that in our Lenten practices, we may deepen our knowledge of the Gospel and grow in holiness and virtue.

And through the power of that Cross, may we know the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus our Lord … above anything and everything else (cf. Phil. 3:8).