3rd Sunday of Easter--We Have an Archbishop!

"We have an Archbishop."
This was quite a week!  Unless you've been living in a cave, you know that after months of waiting and months of endless uninformed speculation, the Holy Father has sent us a new shepherd, Bishop Robert J. Carlson from the Diocese of Saginaw, MI.

The archdiocese held a press conference on Tuesday to introduce the Archbishop-elect.  He seemed personable, very bishop-like in his comments.  He's an Irishman from St. Paul, MN which is a good thing.  He's also a story-teller as most good Irish priests are.  Not surprisingly, the local press started their negative spin almost immediately.  The Post published their first negative piece just 24 hours later.  (He takes instructions from the Vatican!)  But local television didn't even wait that long.  On one station, they interviewed a woman who said, "I just hope he's not as controversial as the last guy."  No word whether the woman was Catholic or not.

If that woman were here, I would ask her why she wants a non-controversial leader.  Isn't controversy exactly what our Church is about?  Has there ever been a public figure in the history of the world more controversial than Jesus?  Hasn't our Church been the center of controversy ever since? 

Today we hear from St. Peter, by way of St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles.  We hear from St. John, and we hear from Jesus himself, again through the writing of St. Luke.  Three men.  All intimately familiar with Jesus and all giving us a controversial message.

Peter says, "Repent, therefore and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away."

John tells us, "Those who say 'I know Him', but do not keep his commandments are liars and truth is not in them."

Finally, Jesus Himself speaks to the Apostles and to us, "Thus it is written that the Christ would suffer and rise from the dead on the third day and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be preached in his name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem."

You can't get much more controversial than that! 

I spent some time this week looking at some of the things our Archbishop-elect has written and said and I'd say he is controversial.  In January of last year he wrote a "Pastoral Letter on Evangelization".  Here's how he began:

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“The good diffuses itself”: It’s an old theological principle. But you don’t have to be a theologian

to know what it means. When we find a good restaurant we want to share it with our friends, and

we do. When we hear a good song we want to share it with our friends, and we do. When we see

a good movie or read a good book or find a good recipe we want to share it with our friends, and

we do. The good diffuses itself. The good wants to be shared, and anyone who resists the desire

to share it is rightly called selfish. [I think he just called me selfish.]

It’s a curious fact about many Catholics, however, that there is one good thing that we are reluc-

tant to share: the good news of faith in Jesus Christ. [I think he just called all of us selfish.] For one reason or another, our culture tells

us that it is selfish to keep good things to ourselves, but rude to share the good news of Jesus

Christ. And, for one reason and another, we have grown comfortable with this double standard.

We have believed what our culture has told us.  [So, we're supposed to go against the culture.  I think that's called "controversial"]

The time has come to challenge our culture, and ourselves. The time has come to stop follow-

ing our culture, which tells us to keep God out of the public square, and start following the Lord,

who tells us that we will be his witnesses to the ends of the earth  (Acts 1:8).  If sharing the good

news about worldly things is an expression of joy and an outpouring of love for the people with

whom we want to share that joy, then it just makes sense that we would show our love for those

same people by sharing with them the joy of following Jesus Christ.

It’s time for us to stop conforming to the world, and start transforming it. It’s time for a new

springtime of evangelization."  [I think our new Archbishop may be very controversial. He wants us to go against the culture and proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.   I don't know about you, but I like him already.]

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I'm not going to read you the whole seven page letter, you can find it easily online, but obviously it's about evangelization.  It's about the hostility of our 21st century culture to Jesus' Church, a culture of that views murder as a choice.  So what are we supposed to do when faith and culture clash?  As the Bishop points out, this isn't new.  We've been down this road before.  Like the kids say, "been there, done that". 

The early Christians lived during the heyday of the Roman Empire.  For the first 300 years of the Church, the climate was very anti-Christian.  It varied from unfriendly to the new Church to openly hostile.  At times, Christians were even killed.  But, as we know, the Roman Empire is long gone while the Church is still alive and growing more than 2,000 years later.  Even the Empire's language is gone.  It's pretty ironic that the only place you still hear Latin spoken today is in the Catholic Church.

But how did the Church survive?  What was their secret?  It's no secret, it was the words and deeds of the Christians themselves that drew new followers into the Church and made it a force to be reckoned with.

The bishop points out that the word "martyr" means witness.  Even though we think of martyrs as those who gave their lives for the faith, early Christian martyrdom just meant bearing witness to Christ in words and deeds.  He writes, "This is our roadmap.  The Church today, like the early Church, needs people who are ready for martyrdom--people who are willing to let their words and deeds bear witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ, people who are willing to make sacrifices so that the truth of the Gospel can be heard, our culture challenged, and our world transformed."

Jesus revealed Himself by His words and by His actions.  Do we really think that people would have listened to Jesus if he had just been a preacher?  In the history of the Jewish people there had been lots of preachers.  Good, inspired preaching was nothing new.  No, it was Jesus' acts that made people stop and listen.  Without the healings; without the exorcisms; without the multiplication of the loaves and fishes; they might have thought this was just another guy roaming around telling stories.

Today is no different.  We can tell the story.  We can talk about Jesus, how He died and rose from the grave to pay for our sins.  But like St. James said in his letter, "What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?  Can that faith save him?  If a brother or sister has nothing to wear and has no food for the day, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well,' but you do not give him the necessities of the body, what good is it?  so also faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead."  (James 2: 14-19, 26)

"Good works" is a pretty generic term.  What are these "good works" we're supposed to do?  It can be a lot of things.  It can be stopping to help someone with a flat tire.  It can be taking a casserole to a friend who's dealing with an illness or a death in the family.  It can be bringing a yellow Meal-a-Month bag to church.  And, of course, it can be contributing to the Annual Catholic Appeal.  Once a year we ask you to be as generous as you can to support all the good things that the Church does in the community. 

You may be thinking that it's a rough economy.  You really can't afford to give any more.  But look at it this way.  There are people in this community who are in great need; greater need than any of us.  But, and this is important, how do we know that this time next year we may not need the services of one of the agencies supported by the ACA?  There are a lot of people in our community, right here in this church, whose situations have changed dramatically since April, 2008.  Many of us have lost jobs.  Many of us have gotten sick.  Many of us have just gotten a year older and find ourselves in need of services provided by ACA agencies.

I'm not going to take your time to go over all the good things your money does, you can read about it in the pamphlets in the pews, or check it out on the archdiocesan web site.  I'm just going to close with another quote from Archbishop-elect Carlson's letter, "Through our words we can offer the world something to believe in.  But it's our deeds that give the world a reason to believe---or not believe---the good news that we proclaim."

Easter Sunday

THIS IS THE DAY THE LORD HAS MADE, LET US REJOICE AND BE GLAD IN IT!
 ALLELUIA, HE IS RISEN!
This is the day when Jesus conquered sin and rose from the dead.  He conquered sin.  He didn't eliminate it.  Sin's still around, but by dying and rising, Jesus Christ has made it possible for us to live forever in paradise in spite of our sin. 

When Jesus was crucified, Satan thought he had won.  He had sent Judas to betray Jesus and must have danced for joy when he saw them come to take the Lord away.  But his victory was short-lived.  Satan didn't realize that when Jesus died, He took the weight of our sins with Him and when He rose in glory that first Easter morning, our hope of ever-lasting life was assured.  Satan had the lead in the game, but Jesus hit a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth.  He scored a goal in overtime.  He kicked a field goal in the final seconds.  He rose from the dead!  Try to top that, Satan!

Here we are, more than 2,000 years later, still pinning our hopes of salvation on the carpenter's son.  And He's still there for us.  And I would suggest that we need Him now more than ever. He didn't just die for our sins but He's also there for us to help us get through this life in preparation for the next.  Our protestant friends might ask if we've accepted Jesus as our Personal Lord and Savior.  Of course, the answer is "yes".  Our relationship with Christ IS personal.  He walks with us every day, side by side, to show us the way.

 Let's be honest.  The world is in a mess right now.  The unemployment numbers are high but unemployment is more than just numbers.  There's not a week that goes by that someone I know isn't telling me that they've lost their job.  It stops being about statistics when you or someone you know is out on the street.  Including inlaws, three people in my family have lost their jobs in the last four months.  Could there ever be a time when you need a personal relationship with Jesus more than when the paycheck stops coming in?

On a more global scale, war and the threat of war are a constant part of our lives.  Just last week North Korea test fired a long-range rocket.  Iran may soon have nuclear weapons if they don't already.  Our country is involved in two wars that show no signs of ending.  Pirates, not the lovable Disney-type with parrots on their shoulders, but ruthless, evil, murderous pirates are threatening American ships and lives in international waters.  In times like these, who do we turn to?  Our government?  Other countries' governments?  The UN? 

What about natural disasters?  It seems like we've been having more of them recently than we had in the past.  It's the beginning of tornado season here in the midwest.  Just last week there was a deadly earthquake in Italy.  Our neighbors in North Dakota are fighting devastating flooding and unless I missed something in geography class, it would seem like all that water will eventually end up around here.  The natural law is God's law.  These things are going to happen.  When they do, who do we turn to?  FEMA?   Jefferson City?  State Farm?  

Hopefully you see where I'm going with this.  God loves us so much that He gave us His Son.  The Exultet, or Easter Proclamation that was sung at the Easter Vigil mass last night contains these words:

"Father, how wonderful your care for us!  How boundless your merciful love!  To ransom a slave you gave away your son."    Who would do that?  Would you?  Would I?  I don't think so.  But God did it because He loves us in a way that we won't ever understand until we come face-to-face with Him in heaven.  In the mean time we'll just have to do our best to comprehend something that's incomprehensible. We'll have to rely on God's word.  That's called "faith".  And sometimes "faith" requires us to believe some pretty outrageous things.

Jesus left Peter and his successors in charge of His Church and that Church never makes a mistake when it comes to matters of faith and morals?  C'mon, they're just men.  How can they be "infallible".  But Jesus told the Apostles, "Whoever hears you, hears me." And we believe it by faith.

We're supposed to believe that Fr. Gary turns bread and wine into Jesus' Body and Blood.  That's crazy talk!  Prove it!   But Jesus himself said it, so our faith tells us it must be true. And where there's faith, there's no need for proof.  In fact, where there's truth, there's no need for faith.

And the most outrageous thing of all, Jesus rose from the dead.  How can that be?  It never happened before and it's never happened again.  Men don't rise from the dead.  But Jesus is more than just a man.  He's the Son of God.  He can do anything.  It might seem impossible but our faith tells us that it happened.

And that's what we celebrate today.  Christ has died.  Christ has risen.  Christ will come again.  He's the light at the end of the tunnel.  He guides us through this troubled world knowing that something is waiting for us that's so amazing, so incredible, so wonderful that our feeble human minds can't begin to imagine it.  But until we experience it for ourselves at some unknown future date, we take comfort in knowing that Jesus is walking by our side, helping us to endure unemployment, an unstable world, natural disasters and the personal disasters that all of us have to deal with as we pass through this life. 

So, where is this "Jesus" that's supposed to be walking with us?  I"ve never seen him.  Oh, you've seen Him alright, you just didn't recognize Him.  The Apostles on the road to Ameus didn't recognize Him even though they knew what He looked like, so don't feel bad if you've seen Him and didn't know who He was either.  Like I said, He's the Son of God, He can do anything.  He can appear as your spouse, your parents, your kids, or that homeless person you try not to make eye contact with as you walk by.  He might even be your boss, telling you that your services are no longer required.  You just don't know.

Easter Sunday is the ultimate recognition that tremendous good can come from seemingly bad things.  If Jesus' death, the crime of deicide, the killing of God, can lead to the greatest event in the history of the world, then there's no reason that with God's help, we can't turn any situation into something good.  It may seem impossible.  We may not see it right away.  But it's there just the same. Our faith tells us so.

Palm Sunday--Crucify Him!

Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!  I don't know about you, but those words have always creeped me out.  It's been a few years since I've sat in the pew on Palm Sunday, but I still remember the strange feeling I had as I said those words.  But why?  It's just a reading in church.  We're not really  asking that anyone be killed.  Crucify Him!  Crucify Him!  We're like actors in a play. Or are we?

When you think about it, what we're doing on Palm Sunday is verbalizing what we do every time we commit a sin.  He died for our sins, so when we sin aren't we really saying "Crucify Him!"?  Of course the difference is that when we sin we're usually saying it in private as opposed to saying it in public, along with our friends and neighbors, as we reenact the Passion on Palm Sunday.

But make no mistake, when we fall, when we sin against God, either in what we do, or in what we don't do, we're adding our voices to the chorus calling for Jesus to die for those sins.  We may excuse ourselves for any number of reasons but in the end only  God can forgive us, and that's only possible because Jesus paid the price for us.

When Mel Gibson's movie "The Passion of the Christ" came out a few years ago there was some controversy.  Was the movie blaming the Jews for Jesus death.  Was it blaming the Romans?  Who's fault was it anyway?  In the end, it was our fault.  Us.  Sinful you and sinful me.  That's why He died.  The Jews and the Romans were just facilitators. 

As we continue on with mass, and as we live out the last few days of Jesus' life on earth, as we recall the Last Supper on Holy Thursday and His death on Good Friday and His glorious resurrection on Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, let's keep His passion in our minds, especially our part in it.  Even though we only read the Passion twice a year, our weakness and our sinfulness cry out "Crucify Him!" every single day.
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