Tag

RCIA

The Morning Star That Never Sets

Monday, April 17

Matthew 28:8-15

What is the day after Easter?

Easter.

And the day after that? Easter, too, and the day after that, and that, not just through the Octave of Easter but through Ascension and Pentecost and Ordinary Time and all the year, because Christ is Risen, and everything is changed, everything is charged.

As the Deacon sings in the Exultet: may this flame [of the Easter Candle] be found still burning by the Morning Star; the one Morning Star who never sets, Christ your Son, who, coming back from death’ domain, has shed his peaceful light on humanity, and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

I heard this sung at Easter Vigil this year at St. Joseph’s in Colbert, Washington, north of Spokane, where my youngest brother Ted was baptized and confirmed and received first communion. I never dreamed this would happen. My brother is a fine, fine man, a man with integrity and compassion and strong intention, and it’s been such a grace to see the Spirit move in him and to see him slowly changing.

We were talking over coffee earlier Saturday, and he was describing a problem that’s developed among a few of his close friends, and how a few years ago he would have just said, to heck with it, I’m not going to have anything to do with these people. But because of RCIA, and this new commitment, and this change going on in him, he stopped, and stepped back, and asked himself, simply, and honestly, what would Jesus do in this situation? And he realized the answer: the kind thing, and the hard thing, and that this is what he should do, too, try to help, not expecting to succeed necessarily or to get his way, but not taking sides and not letting things go either. And I know he means this, and I know this is Christ, this is the Spirit, working in him.

St. Joseph’s is a country church, small and intimate, and I was struck again as I was even in Rome by how homely and humble and human the Church always is. These high, solemn rites are performed by ordinary human beings just like you and me. But they are high and solemn, and Christ is present in them, Christ came into the ordinary world and rose from it and sent his Spirit into it, and though my brother will be tempted as we all are, and there will be ups and downs, and the elation he feels now will fade, and come back, fade and come back, it was such a grace to see and to feel that elation. Because this is all real, and this is true, and this is imperishable.

This is Jesus Christ, the Morning Star that never sets–the Risen Son of God, who lives and reigns for ever and ever.

April 17, 2017

Homily

Scales

All Hallow’s Eve

Philippians 2:1-4; Luke 14:12-14

I have a friend in Spokane, a really fine man, who has decided to become Catholic. But the other night was the first night for RCIA, and my friend was tired from work, and he just didn’t feel like going, so he started making excuses in his mind.

But something told him to go, he said, and he forced himself, and right away, driving through the autumn leaves and the evening light, he started feeling his heart lift a little. And then, when he got to church, there was a small group of people there, and the priest, and they prayed together and started talking, and by the end of the evening my friend was recharged, rejuvenated.

And on the way home something clicked. My friend is a musician—he plays in a band—he’s a very good guitarist—and he thought, going to RCIA is like learning the scales and practicing and doing what you need to do to learn an instrument, and you do it so you can play, so you can make music.

And the Eucharist is the music. The Eucharist is when you sing.

And you can’t do it alone. You need other people. You need the people at RCIA and all the people in the parish and you need all the people in the Church today throughout the world and you need all the writers and poets and theologians and you need all the saints who have ever lived, the whole cloud of witnesses.

Because what we believe as Catholics is that all the ties that bind us together in this life do not end with death but that the saints in heaven and all the angels pray for us and support us and keep us going when we don’t feel like doing it ourselves, and when we can’t.

And they’re playing, they’re singing, here on All Hallow’s Eve, all the angels and the choirs of angels, and all the saints, and one day we will join them, we will be singing and playing with them forever, and we can glimpse that now, through the Eucharist, we can feel that a little now, on the wet road through the autumn leaves, in the evening light.

October 31, 2016

Homily

To Become Who We Already Are

Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time – Deuteronomy 30:10-14; Colossians 1:15-20; Luke 10:25-37

In the face of that baby we can see the stars.

I know a man, a fine, thoughtful person, who has decided to become Catholic, and he has asked me to help him get started. He doesn’t know the Bible very well or theology or many of our traditions and practices, and I’m of course really glad to help as best I can. And this is what RCIA is for, in part, and the Catechism.

Faith is in the love of this man for his wife and his children and his grandchildren. Faith is in his kindness and his compassion. Faith is in the music he plays—he’s in a band on the weekends—and in everything that gives him pleasure.

But it seems to me that the three readings for today are a really good place to start. They put everything into perspective, because as the reading from Deuteronomy says, faith isn’t finally complicated or a question of terminology and ideas. “For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.” We don’t have to climb mountains or cross seas. We don’t have to read every book in the world. No, faith is “something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts.” Faith is in the love of this man for his wife and his children and his grandchildren. Faith is in his kindness and his compassion. Faith is in the music he plays—he’s in a band on the weekends—and in everything that gives him pleasure. Faith is in his desire to be Catholic, in his very attraction, in the pull itself, and all the terminology and all the history and all the particular practices of the mass are various ways of expressing this longing, this hope, this inner goodness, and honoring it, and acting it out.

When this man comes to understand the teachings, they will be deeply familiar. He will realize that he’s known them all along.

July 7, 2016