Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

At 10:00 am I was called and asked to do a communion service at St. Joseph's Hospital in Kirkwood, MO. There is normally a mass at 11:30, but the priest's father passed away this morning. Here is my short-notice homily.

Good morning! My name is Mike Buckley. I’m a permanent deacon in the Archdiocese of St. Louis and a volunteer pastoral visitor here at St. Joseph’s. I have some sad news to report. Your usual celebrant, Father Jim Krings lost his father, Arthur Krings

For those of you who haven’t run into a deacon before, let me briefly explain who we are and what we do. There are three orders of clergy in the Catholic Church: bishops, priests, and deacons. Deacons receive the sacrament of Holy Orders, just like the other two. The difference is that our ministry is one of service. We can’t say mass, hear confessions, or administer the sacrament of the sick. We can do weddings, baptisms, and funerals.

Most of us minister in hospitals like St. Joseph’s, or in prisons, or in nursing homes, or in some other service capacity. Deacons minister on college campuses and in airports. With deacons doing a lot of this service work, priests are freed up to do the things that only they can do. Since I can’t say mass, this morning we will have a communion service. A communion service is like a mass with no consecration. We will distribute the Body of Christ reserved in the tabernacle. Since there’s no consecration, the homily can be longer.

As we prepare to receive the Body of Christ, I know you’ll join me in prayer for Fr. Krings and his family, and of course, for the soul of his dad.

It’s always a sad time when we lose someone we love. If Fr. Jim were here, I know he would tell us not to grieve his father’s death, but to rejoice for his life. That’s what our faith teaches us: That when we leave this world, it’s a beginning, and not an end. That death isn’t moving from light into darkness, but that it’s moving from a dim light into a light that’s so bright, we can’t even imagine what it must be like.

Picture yourself moving from a dark room, illuminated by a single candle, into the brightest sunlight you’ve ever seen. The light is so bright that you have to cover your eyes with your hands until they can get accustomed to the intensity of the light. If you can imagine that, well that’s just a tiny fraction of what lies ahead for us when we enter into God’s kingdom.

St. Joseph’s Hospital is a place of beginnings. Every day we experience the miracle of new human life. When you hear the lullaby play over the PA system, you know that God has blessed someone with the gift of a child. Where there were two, now there are three (sometimes even four or five or more). On two different occasions, my wife and I walked in through the front door of this building alone, and walked out holding our new son.

It’s likely that sometime today, two people will enter the hospital, either through the front door, or through the Emergency Room. It may be a husband and wife. It may be a child and a parent. But, one of them will walk out of here alone. There won’t be any music. There will be silence and sadness.

Maybe there should be music. If entering this life, with its disappointments, it’s illnesses, it’s poverty, and it’s sadness inspires song, how much more should moving into eternal life make us want to sing?

While it seems like this world is often heading in the wrong direction, I’ve noticed in the last few years that funerals have taken a much more positive tone. We seem to spend a lot more time thanking God for our loved-one’s life than being angry at having that person taken away. There are exceptions, of course. But it does seem to be a trend. It’s unusual to attend a funeral where people don’t actually laugh out loud at some happy memory of the deceased.

So, we pray that Fr. Jim and his family will be filled with happy memories of Arthur and with the joyful hope that someday they will meet again in God’s heavenly kingdom.

But, that’s not what I came to talk about. Today is the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the partroness of the Americas. Our Lady’s appearance to Juan Diego near Mexico City, in 1531 is the only time that the Blessed Mother has appeared in this part of the world. To put that in perspective, it was just 39 years after Christopher Columbus landed here for the first time. It was 89 years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. It was 245 years before the Colonies declared their independence from England. And she hasn’t been back since. I wonder why not?

Either Jesus is so happy with us that He doesn’t see a reason for sending her back, or else He thinks we won’t listen to her anyway. It’s something to think about as we prepare for His birth in just under two weeks.

Mary, did you know?

Tonight we commemorate the single most significant event in the entire history of the world. This was something so earth-shattering that even athiests measure time from its occurance. On this night, more than 2,000 years ago, the Son of God was born of a woman in a lowly cattle stall in Bethlehem and hardly anyone even noticed.

Tonight, I'm going to try to take you back to that holy night, to try to recreate some of the feelings of the people who DID witness this earth-changing event. But, I need your help. You're going to have to supply the imagination and the faith to make it work.

First, I'd like to tell you a little bit about MY family. Many of you know this, but my wife, Jan, and I have four kids. They range in age from nineteen to thirty-two. So, it's been almost twenty years since there's been a child born in the Buckley family. And, as the time goes by, you have a tendency to forget just exactly what it was like when a new life enters the world.

But all of that changed when our oldest son, Mike, and his wife Jennifer, announced that we will become grandparents this coming April. All of a sudden, the excitement, the anticipation, the wonder that are part of a new life all came rushing back. Modern science has taken away the mystery of whether the child is a boy or a girl. She's a girl. But all the rest of the exciting, and sometimes frightening, questions are still there.

What will she look like? What color will her eyes be? What color will her hair be? Will she be ok? (Please God, let her be ok!)

I remember how excited Jan and I were when each of our kids was born. There's no feeling in the world like meeting your own son or daughter for the first time. It truly is a miracle.

But, now I'm going to be a grandfather. What are grandfathers supposed to do? How am I supposed to act? My grandparents died before I was born, so I'm not sure. Wait! My late father-in-law was a wonderful grandfather. My kids loved him. What did he do? Oh yeah, he gave them beer. They'd sit on his lap and he'd share his beer with them. Is that what grandfathers do? There are lots of questions.

Suddenly, I have an entirely different take on a new birth. The Gospels don't say anything about Jesus grandparents. If they were still alive, they probably weren't there for His birth. They aren't mentioned. I suppose that they might have been in their home town registering, just as Mary and Joseph were in the city of David. But, what I really want to focus on tonight are Mary and Joseph.

This is where you have to help me. I want you to close your eyes and pretent that you were there on that winter night in Bethlehem. Think about the last time a baby was born into your family. Maybe it was your son or daughter, maybe it was a grandchild, maybe it was a brother or sister, or a niece or nephew. Try to bring back the feelings you had that day. Think about the sounds and the smells. Remember, except for his natural father, Jesus was a baby like any other baby. Sometimes He was quiet. Sometimes He cried. Sometimes he had that fresh, clean new baby smell. Sometimes He didn't smell so great. There were no Pampers in those days.

Now, here's where you're going to have to use a little more imagination. Mary and Joseph had the normal sights and sounds and smells that are part of every birth and we can all relate to that. But, they also had the sights and sounds and smells of a cattle stall. There was straw. There were cows and sheep and other animals as well. There was no heat. It must have been quite a night!

Of course, this hadn't been a normal pregnancy from the very beginning to the very end. Moms, think about this: You're nine months pregnant. The baby is due any minute. And you have to get on a donkey and ride to Rolla, MO. What must that have been like? Dads, imagine that you had to walk along side Mary, riding that donkey to Rolla. It's about as far from St. Louis to Rolla as it is from Nazareth to Bethlehem.

Like Mike and Jen, Mary and Joseph knew in advance the sex of their baby. The angel told Mary that she would have a son. Even with ultrasound, there's always the possibility that our granddaughter could turn out to be our grandson. It's a very small possibility, but it could happen. The doctor told us that our daughter, Megan, was going to be a boy. But, Mary and Joseph knew that Jesus was a boy. God doesn't lie.

But, what would He look like? Obviously he wouldn't look like Joseph. Or would He? After all, anything is possible for God. Would He favor Mary? That would seem logical, but they really didn't know. Being Jewish, hair and eye color were pretty well set. In spite of the blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus that we've seen in the movies, Jesus was a Jew. He had dark hair and eyes. But Mary and Joseph had all the questions that any new parents, plus a whole lot more.

What would this “Son of God” be like? Would He walk and talk immediately after His birth? Would He take over as head of the family? Would he be like the baby Stewie on the cartoon Family Guy, or, would He be just like any other baby? Who knew?

Before mass the choir sang one of my favorite Christmas songs, “Mary, Did You Know?” I hope you were here to hear it. But, if you weren't, I'm sure you know how it goes. It asks questions that I'm sure we would all like to ask Mary, and Joseph too.

“Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will one day walk on water?”
“Mary, did you know
that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters?”
“Did you know,
that your baby boy has come to make you new?
This child that you've delivered,
will soon deliver you.”

And a question that we know she knew:
“Did you know,
that your baby boy has walked where angels trod?
When you kiss your little baby,
you've kissed the face of God. “

And Joseph, what about Joseph? He was only the baby's step father, but what a night it must have been for him. What had he gotten himself into? Already he had taken on the responsibility of a child who wasn't his. He had married Mary to save her from the scandal of being an unwed mother. What was to come? What else would be asked of him? He had no way of knowing that he would have to give up his business and move to Egypt. He had no idea that just when they got settled in Egypt, he would have to turn around and move back. He couldn't know the heartbreak of searching all over for the young Jesus when He was lost only to find Him in the temple and hear the words,” Didn't you know I must be in my Father's house?” Imagine what that felt like, how that must have hurt. No, there was a lot that Mary and Joseph didn't know.

But, on this night, the excitement of becoming parents must have erased any worries that they might have had. Holding that tiny baby for the first time, even surrounded by smelly cows and sheep had to be the best moment of their entire lives. Jan and I have had that feeling four times. Mary and Joseph would have it only once. Shepherds and kings would be coming soon to pay homage to the newborn King, but on this night, in this stable, Jesus WAS Mary and Joseph's world.


In the days to come, the new parents will learn more about what the future holds. The shepherds will come. The three kings will come bearing gifts. Soon, they would meet a man named Simeon in the temple. Simeon recognized who Jesus was. He told Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."
Then, in one of the great lines of all the Gospels, Simeon takes the baby in his arms, blesses God and says, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation...”
OUR eyes have seen God's salvation too, and it's there for each and every one of us, if we want it. All we have to do is say “yes” to Jesus, just as Mary said to the Angel all those many years ago.


So, as you head out into the night to spend this wonderful evening, and the glorious day of Christmas tomorrow, with family and friends, remember that for a few minutes on Christmas Eve, you were there with Mary and Joseph and their little baby. Remember that the baby born on this night so many years ago was God's greatest gift to us; the gift of salvation. Please don't forget that gift in the excitement of the material gifts that come with Christmas.

Friday of the Second Week of Advent

Last night as I was sitting in my office thinking about this morning’s readings and wondering if anyone was going to be here, I had a couple of thoughts. One is that we’re almost half way through Advent. Just 15 days from today we’ll celebrate Christmas Eve. The time is really flying by.

The second thing I thought of was that this Advent is just as hectic as any other Advent, even though I had resolved not to get caught up in all the secular foolishness that happens during this time of year.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks for the Lord. He says “I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good and lead you on the way you should go.” He goes on to say “If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river, and your vindication like the waves of the sea.”

It’s true. He does teach us what is good in many different ways. He sent His only Son to live as one of us, to set us on the right path. He gave us Divine Scripture, both the Old and the New Testaments, so that we would know what He wanted for us and from us.

Jesus established the Church, and appointed Peter and the Apostles to spread the Good News. Remember He gave them the power to bind and loose. He said, “Whoever hears you, hears me.” Then, down through the ages, He has inspired many men and women to speak on His behalf. Learned men like St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and others from the past have helped us to understand God’s will for us. More recently, twentieth century writers like my favorite, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, whose work inspired the Advent booklet that Fr. Gary sent us. In the 50’s, Bishop Fulton Sheen brought the faith to millions of people through the new medium of television.

More recently, Mother Angelica used the medium of cable and satellite television to bring the Church’s message to people all around the world.

Even my feeble attempts to spread the Gospel are divinely inspired. As Father Benedict Groeschel often says, Jesus road into Jerusalem on the back of a jackass, and He’s still doing it today.

The message in our Advent book today concludes with the prayer, “Lord, free me from all my false worries and concerns so that I can know and appreciate your boundless love for me.” Isn’t that what it’s really all about; His boundless love?

A lot of free-thinking people have the attitude that “The Church can’t tell me what to do.” But, you know what? It’s not the Church, it’s God speaking through the Church that He established over 2,000 years ago. I’m not smart enough to understand all the ramifications of stem cell research, or birth control, or abortion, or capital punishment, or a lot of the other things that we have to worry about today. So, I have three choices. I can try to figure these things out, and have maybe a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Or, I can take the attitude that the Church doesn’t have any business telling me how to think, or how to vote, or what to do and I can take the side opposite what the Church teaches. That’s what I used to do. It didn’t make any difference what the Church said, I would always jump over to the opposite side. Ask my wife. She knows.

Or I can take the third choice, which is to believe that Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” I can believe that Benedict XVI is not only smarter than I am, but that he is surrounded by people who are also smarter. And that, as a descendent of Peter, he is incapable of making a mistake when it comes to matters of faith and morals.

Like the book says, “Lord, free me from all false worries and concerns so that I can know and appreciate your boundless love for me.” In the prayer that follows the Our Father during mass, we pray, “Deliver us Lord from every evil and grant us peace in our days. In your mercy keep us free from sin and deliver us from all anxieties as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Think about those words. We ask God to keep us from being anxious while we wait for the Lord’s coming.

He’s trying. But, sometimes we just won’t let Him. We create our own worries. He gives us everything we need to be free from anxiety, but sometimes we just won’t cooperate.

As we enter the second half of Advent, my prayer for you is that you will have a peaceful two weeks of preparation for the Lord’s coming. Don’t let the crazyness get to you. Take time to relax and reflect on that boundless love that Jesus has for you, and for me, and for all believers.

Friday of the Second Week of Advent

Last night as I was sitting in my office thinking about this morning’s readings and wondering if anyone was going to be here, I had a couple of thoughts. One is that we’re almost half way through Advent. Just 15 days from today we’ll celebrate Christmas Eve. The time is really flying by.

The second thing I thought of was that this Advent is just as hectic as any other Advent, even though I had resolved not to get caught up in all the secular foolishness that happens during this time of year.

In the first reading, the prophet Isaiah speaks for the Lord. He says “I, the LORD, your God, teach you what is for your good and lead you on the way you should go.” He goes on to say “If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river, and your vindication like the waves of the sea.”

It’s true. He does teach us what is good in many different ways. He sent His only Son to live as one of us, to set us on the right path. He gave us Divine Scripture, both the Old and the New Testaments, so that we would know what He wanted for us and from us.

Jesus established the Church, and appointed Peter and the Apostles to spread the Good News. Remember He gave them the power to bind and loose. He said, “Whoever hears you, hears me.” Then, down through the ages, He has inspired many men and women to speak on His behalf. Learned men like St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas and others from the past have helped us to understand God’s will for us. More recently, twentieth century writers like my favorite, Thomas Merton and Henri Nouwen, whose work inspired the Advent booklet that Fr. Gary sent us. In the 50’s, Bishop Fulton Sheen brought the faith to millions of people through the new medium of television.

More recently, Mother Angelica used the medium of cable and satellite television to bring the Church’s message to people all around the world.

Even my feeble attempts to spread the Gospel are divinely inspired. As Father Benedict Groeschel often says, Jesus road into Jerusalem on the back of a jackass, and He’s still doing it today.

The message in our Advent book today concludes with the prayer, “Lord, free me from all my false worries and concerns so that I can know and appreciate your boundless love for me.” Isn’t that what it’s really all about; His boundless love?

A lot of free-thinking people have the attitude that “The Church can’t tell me what to do.” But, you know what? It’s not the Church, it’s God speaking through the Church that He established over 2,000 years ago. I’m not smart enough to understand all the ramifications of stem cell research, or birth control, or abortion, or capital punishment, or a lot of the other things that we have to worry about today. So, I have three choices. I can try to figure these things out, and have maybe a 50/50 chance of getting it right. Or, I can take the attitude that the Church doesn’t have any business telling me how to think, or how to vote, or what to do and I can take the side opposite what the Church teaches. That’s what I used to do. It didn’t make any difference what the Church said, I would always jump over to the opposite side. Ask my wife. She knows.

Or I can take the third choice, which is to believe that Jesus wasn’t kidding when he said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church.” I can believe that Benedict XVI is not only smarter than I am, but that he is surrounded by people who are also smarter. And that, as a descendent of Peter, he is incapable of making a mistake when it comes to matters of faith and morals.

Like the book says, “Lord, free me from all false worries and concerns so that I can know and appreciate your boundless love for me.” In the prayer that follows the Our Father during mass, we pray, “Deliver us Lord from every evil and grant us peace in our days. In your mercy keep us free from sin and deliver us from all anxieties as we wait in joyful hope for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” Think about those words. We ask God to keep us from being anxious while we wait for the Lord’s coming.

He’s trying. But, sometimes we just won’t let Him. We create our own worries. He gives us everything we need to be free from anxiety, but sometimes we just won’t cooperate.

As we enter the second half of Advent, my prayer for you is that you will have a peaceful two weeks of preparation for the Lord’s coming. Don’t let the crazyness get to you. Take time to relax and reflect on that boundless love that Jesus has for you, and for me, and for all believers.