Last Year: The Annunciation

Normally we celebrate the Solemnity of the Annunciation today, but this year March 25 falls on Palm Sunday. The Annunciation has been moved to April 9, but it was one year ago today that Archbishop Cordileone blessed our Perpetual Adoration Chapel. In the past 12 months we have tripled the hours of Eucharistic adoration, with hundreds of people from all over the city praying before the exposed Heart of Jesus day and night. God has chosen our parish to provide the Sacred Eucharist of His Divine Son, our only hope and unfailing consolation. Every week I see saints being formed before the Presence of the Eucharistic Heart of the World. Thanks be to God.

This Year: Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

Palm Sunday, the only Mass of the year with two gospels, two colors, two themes, and two names: Palm and Passion Sunday. The Mass begins in green (life) and ends in red (death). It begins with joyous song and ends in empty silence as we move toward Good Friday.
It begins with an altar decorated with bright palms and ends with a barren and stripped altar after the Holy Thursday Mass later this week.

Blood

The altar is clothed in red today, red for the blood of Christ as we hear the entire Passion read in three parts. In horror movies blood means death, but in the Bible blood means life. The Jews revered blood as the principle of all life. A man was forbidden to approach his wife during her menses, out of reverence for the sacred blood which transmits human life. To this day, orthodox Jews do not consume an animal until its sacred blood has been drained from it. One does not consume blood, but Jesus would give his blood for us, and command us to drink it. Blood taken is death, but blood given gives life. A man's blood given for his family day by day provides for the life his wife brings into the world through her blood. Christ’s blood is life for us.​

Silence

This week ends in silence on Good Friday, the only day of the year that has no Mass, a liturgy that begins and ends in silence. As God’s blood is life rather than death, so God’s silence is joy rather than sorrow. “In the silence of the heart God speaks.” We must silence our own clamoring self-will, we must die to ourselves, in order to hear the still soft voice of God. He does not shout, like we do. Only in silencing ourselves can we hear a baby's breath, an old woman's sigh, a gentle breeze.

Emptiness

This week ends in the emptiness of an altar stripped after the Holy Thursday Mass. The barren altar speaks to us, inspiring us to strip our wills so that God may fill us. Even God cannot fill a soul that is full of expectations and demands, of angers and resentments. God will not force himself upon us, as we do upon ourselves and others. The altars of first Christian centuries were built to resemble empty tombs. Mass was held upon this empty tomb of Christ, an emptiness that would be filled with God’s glory because He emptied himself on the Cross.


an ancient Christian burial box built to resemble the empty tomb of Christ.


Sacrifice

Every human story is an echo of this empty tomb, the story of one who sacrifices himself for another. I flew to Washington last week to visit my mother. On the plane I watched one movie going east and two movies going west. All three of them told the same story: sacrifice. It’s the only story that really holds our attention. In Bridge of Spies a lawyer risks life and career to defend a Russian spy; in Born in China (a wonderful nature film), a snow leopard dies trying to feed her cubs; in … ahem … Wonder Woman [I fast forwarded through the bad scenes to get to the story’s conclusion], the heroine offers her life to protect others from violence (after showing the viewer dozens of scenes of intense violence, of course). Every story worth telling is the story of one person’s sacrifice for another, and that’s why we listen to the entire story of the Passion every year. It’s the only story worth listening to.
 
Mom

Last week I spent a few days with my mother. She needs 24-hour nursing care because she is dying. Death is gaining the upper hand with my mother’s tortured body and failing mind, although God may permit her to wrestle with death some months more. I sat for hours in her room, which became my chapel. I prayed my breviary out loud at her request, and quietly when she slept. We her children must prepare ourselves for the silence and emptiness, the absurdity of death. My sister in law, who lost her mother last year, recently told us to prepare to lose her bit by bit. She hardly eats and her big boned body is down to 88lbs. Her twisted and bent frame is hardly recognizable. Who can make sense of this, and what can prepare us? Only Jesus. The Son of Man let his body become twisted and bent, and let death and silence and emptiness swallow him. But he entered into that emptiness with brave faith, and in so doing made a way for my mother. He made a way for each of us. And so:
 
Crown him with many crowns                         
The Lord upon his throne …
Awake my soul and sing                                  
of him who died for thee
and hail him as thy matchless king                          
for all eternity.
​

(This Homily was preached to the Missionaries of Charity in San Jose, Costa Rica, during their annual retreat)

The Pope’s Wife’s Mother

Our Lord enters first papal apartment in history only to find the Pope’s wife’s mother in bed with a fever. In today’s third installment of the second Gospel (we will cover the entire Gospel of Mark this year), Jesus enters St. Peter’s home in Caper-naum (“Nahum’s Village”) for the first time. This little house will serve as Our Lord’s home base during his three years’ public ministry. St. Peter’s first order of business is to bring Jesus to his mother-in-law, whom He heals with one word. It doesn’t take long for news to spread around the fishing village that there’s a healer in town, and he’s not charging anything. That evening “the whole town” was at Peter’s door. Apparently every one of the 1500 inhabitants of Capernaum were sick. It’s the same today. When the priest offers a “healing Mass” [with the Sacrament of Anointing], everyone comes up to be healed.
 
In fact, every one of us bears some physical and/or spiritual infection within us, for to live is to suffer. Thus spoke the prophet Job from his ash pit, covered with boils, in the first reading. “Is not man’s life on earth a drudgery?” he asks. “I have been assigned months of misery ... I shall not see happiness again.” This world of suffering is what Jesus showed your foundress Mother Teresa in her third and last vision: a dark sea of the poor calling out for help, with the crucified Christ in the midst of them. Jesus asked her: “Will you go into the dark holes of the poor? They don’t know me and so they don’t want me. Come, be my light.”

“Everyone is Sick”

The world is full of sick people, and Jesus Christ can cure everything and everyone. In today’s gospel, Peter’s home becomes a field hospital. Every cure took a little energy out of him, so “rising very early” Jesus went off to a deserted place to pray. I can certainly testify that only prayer restores a priest’s curative energies. I would not be able to function if not for the daily holy hour. But Simon “pursues” Jesus, interrupting his morning holy hour with the newsflash: “Everyone is looking for you!” Everyone? Is everyone sick? Apparently so. “Let us go on to the nearby villages,” Jesus replies. “For this purpose have I come.” Our Lord does not refuse to go into the dark holes of the poor, into the stinking sickrooms of every one of us. In Mother Teresa’s third vision, Jesus presses her: “Come be my light. I have asked you. She (pointing to Mary) has asked you. Wilt thou refuse?” Mother Teresa did not refuse. She became the 20th Century’s greatest servant of the poor, a willing slave, really, of the poorest of the poor.

A Free Slave

​In today’s epistle, Paul calls himself a slave. “Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave,” he writes. He is a “free slave,” motivated by love rather than compulsion. That’s why every one of you became a Missionary of Charity. Your fourth vow is “to render wholehearted and free service to the poorest of the poor.”
 
So, sisters, while there is daylight, let us work. By our vows, and by our baptism, we have freely become slaves of love to our adorable Jesus. We follow Him who gave up sleep and food and even prayer to serve the world. Where there is sickness, let us bring Christ. Where there is ignorance, let us bring the Word. Where there are demons, let us call on the Holy Name. Once a co-worker called Mother Teresa to say she was burning up with a fever and couldn’t come in that day to serve the poor. Mother replied, “better to burn now than burn later.” I don’t think that poor woman came in that day, but Mother gave her something to think about. A good mother cares for her sick child even when she herself is sick. Let us pray to the Blessed Mother, and let us pray to Mother Teresa, to help us be good mothers to this world full of sick people, so long as God is pleased to give us strength.

Time is Running Out

“I tell you, brethren,” St. Paul wrote to his contemporaries 2000 years ago, “time is running out.” Time is still running out, and we, like him, live in the End Times. Everything passes but the Word of God, Jesus Christ. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” Christ said, “but my words will not pass away.” It’s healthy to climb a hill over a large city, such as Twin Peaks here in San Francisco. Gaze over the panorama of shining glass and steel buildings and say to yourself: this will all burn someday. No earthly city lasts forever. We should consider everything sub specie aeternitatis, in light of eternity. “The world in its present form is passing away,” concludes St. Paul. If we want to be eternally happy, we have to keep our minds focused on the one thing necessary, which is not Google or Tesla or American politics or climate change. The one thing necessary is God’s Word. Are we in right relationship to Him, because time is running out.

Nineveh

Time was running out for the Ninevites, and that is why the first reading is from the prophet Jonah. Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire in 700BC, was the largest city in the world at the time. Today the city of Mosul in Iraq is built on part of its ruins, because Nineveh was destroyed in 612 BC. All cities eventually get destroyed. Only God’s Word lasts. God had sent Jonah to the city of Nineveh to speak His Word to them. “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed” was his message. Thankfully, the people listened to God, through his prophet Jonah. They converted—that is, they turned from themselves to God—and so saved themselves and their city. The city would be destroyed later, through the infidelity of a later population, who chose not to turn to God for help.

They Followed Him

​Which brings us to the Gospel. God sent his beloved Son Jesus to earth in the forty-second year of the reign of Caesar Octavian Augustus. He came to a lakeside in the Galilee region of the Roman Empire and proclaimed: “This is the time of fulfilment. The Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent and believe in me.” Some believed, but most didn’t. Of those who did believe were two brothers, James and John, sons of Zebedee, of the village of Capernaum. They had what appears to be a successful fishing business. “Come follow me,” Jesus called to them from the lake shore, “and I will make you fishers of men.” They left their father in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
They did that because they realized that time was running out. All they knew—their fishing business, their nation, their very lives—were passing away. Only this man that stood in front of them would last. Only Jesus lasts.
Do we sense that urgency in our lives? Probably not. We are pretty comfortable. As comfortable as James and John were in their successful fishing business. Jesus calls us like he called them. Will we refuse him? The most basic answer to that call is right here, at Sunday Mass. Thank you for coming to Holy Mass. Never miss a Sunday Mass if you can help it. Another practical way to follow Jesus will be next week at the Walk for Life. We are our brother’s keepers, God says. Just over 1 million human lives are lost each year in America because of our unjust laws. Do we defend these voiceless people, truly the poorest of the poor in America? Let’s stand with them, and advocate for reform of our abortion laws. I hope to see you on Saturday morning at the cathedral at 9:30 for Mass with our Archbishop, and then in front of City Hall at 12:30.

Every other Sin

In our second reading, from 1 Corinthians 6, St. Paul affirms the Jewish teaching on the sacredness of the human body. He warns against “immorality”— meaning sexual immorality: “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the immoral person sins against his own body.” St. Paul, and the whole Christian tradition, sets sexual sin apart from every other sin, because the flesh is sacred. An impure person doesn’t just sin “in” his own body. He sins against his own body. He shoots himself in the foot.

The Flesh is Sacred

Is human flesh really that important, we might ask, we who breath the air of a post-sexual revolution society. Isn’t the body just a meat machine, and sex just harmless recreation? No. The body is more than that. St. Paul defines the human body as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Everything you do in that body, from eating to driving your car to smiling at a difficult coworker, either honors or dishonors the Holy Spirit. But sexuality is in a class apart. Sexuality is fundamentally sacred, because it is relational; it makes us capable of love, portraying the self-gift that makes us human, and makes us divine. Sex is so sacred that some of us consecrate our flesh to lifelong celibacy. We offer our manhood to God in the way a girl offers her hair to God when she takes the religious habit (in the 1984 movie Mother Teresa, a beautiful young Indian woman says the decisive moment was cutting off her hair before taking the veil: “I wanted to give God what was most precious to me”).

Glorify God in Your Bodies

​“Glorify God in your bodies,” Paul concludes in today’s Epistle. All this is predicated on the fact that “your bodies are not your own—you have been purchased at a price.” In two weeks 50,000 people will witness to this fact in the Walk for Life West Coast here in San Francisco. We will gather en masse in front of City Hall, standing athwart the abortion industry’s mantra, taken from the sexual revolution’s playbook, “my body, my choice.”
 
Really? Your body? Tell me how you made your body. Who gave it to you, and how much did you pay for it? Can you change the chromosomes in even one of your body’s 37 trillion cells from male to female? No, you can’t. And you don’t. The so-called sexual revolution shamelessly lies about human nature and Mother Nature. It’s long past time to call these falsehoods out. There is a God and we are not He. We did not make our selves. We are part of a greater and more beautiful world than the little universes we imagine for ourselves.
 
To glorify God in our bodies means to be fully human, fully the sons and daughters of a loving Father in heaven, for he takes delight in our delight. It seems a small thing to have sex with another person these days, and true enough we have tried to make sex small. But sexuality, which is so essential to our natural personhood, will not be made small. You can try to break the natural law, but you only end up breaking yourself against it. We have destroyed much of the human nature God has given us. The western world is a wasteland of broken bodies and broken hearts. And yet our loving Father is always ready to welcome us home. He will restore us, and rebuild us, if we turn to Him. Blessed be He, forever and ever.

Holy Family Sunday

While all the Christmas decorations are still cheering us with warmth and bright color, Holy Mother Church celebrates the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. “The family,” wrote St. John Paul, “is a necessary good for peoples, an indispensable foundation for society… it is a unique good for children.” But the family has been in decline for the last 40 years in our country. Children suffer most from infidelity and divorce, but no society can survive long without stable, loving families. More than half of children living in urban areas have no father at home, and in some areas of our nation only one in ten black children ever see their father at home. 75% of American children entering adulthood without the “necessary goods” only a family can provide is a ticking time bomb for the common good and public safety. What to do? Well, as Fr. Patrick Peyton said, and Mother Teresa loved to repeat, “the family that prays together stays together.” We must pray. We must pray together at Sunday Mass, and we must pray quietly in solitude before the Blessed Sacrament, begging God’s help.

“Son, How could you do this to us?”

But let’s take a closer look at the Holy Family. The Gospel on Holy Family Sunday does not portray Jesus, Mary, and Joseph as free of conflict. Rather, we see the one occasion on which Mary expressed what seems like frustration with her Son. He had just become a teen-ager (in those days a twelve-year old boy was already an adolescent). Jesus’ parents had lost him for three days, but it is clear that the boy was not lost; he intentionally separated himself from his parents, knowing the anguish it would cause them. Mary reprimands Jesus: “Son, what have you done to us? Behold your father and I have been searching for you in sorrow.” We should take courage in the fact that even the Holy Family suffered misunderstandings and confusion. Tragically, people often give up when they reach an impasse with a spouse or children. Mary did not panic. She took a deep breath, she closed her mouth, and she accepted what she could not understand (“she kept all these things in her heart”). The boy Jesus, for his part, submitted himself to his parents’ authority, even though he was not bound to do so. None of them insisted on their “rights” to control the situation. They submitted themselves to each other in patient and loving reverence. It is these acts of humility that brought joy and health to the Holy Family.

Unhealthy Families

But most of our families are not healthy. As I mentioned, scarcely one in ten African American children in some parts of urban America know their fathers, and those same children are six times more likely to see their family members murdered than white children. By some statistics, Blacks commit homicides at ten times the rate of whites. Could it be related to the fact that in some areas only one in ten Black children know their fathers? A Latino woman told me on a plane a few years ago that everyone in her family—herself, her second husband, her children, and even one of her grandchildren, have been divorced and in therapy. The scope of devastation when the family breaks down is incalculable.

We can pray for better health

​What to do? One thing is to attend church, together. A 2013 article in the NYTimes stated: “Religious attendance boosts the immune system and decreases blood pressure. It may add as much as two to three years to your life. The reason for this is not entirely clear.” The reasons God is good for us may not be clear to the New York Times, but it’s clear to most of us. Many of you have told me with tears how few of your children practice the faith any longer, even after 12 years of Catholic schooling. How to save the American family, and America, if our children won’t even come to church? Well, we can pray for them, and pray for them before the Blessed Sacrament. I’ve known quite a few couples who faced crises in their marriages that would almost certainly end in divorce. One or both simply spent many hours before the Blessed Sacrament, and miraculously they saved their families. Three priests told me in my first week of seminary, when I was 26 years old, that if I didn’t do a holy hour every day, I wouldn’t survive as a priest. Half of the men I was ordained with have left the priesthood, but these were not the priests who did the daily holy hour. What can we do to rebuild the family? Come to the Holy Family, to the Blessed Sacrament. Let us pray.

Rose Colored Vestments

“Gaudete Sunday” takes its name from the first word of its opening scripture verse, the introit from Philippians 4, which is also the Epistle for this Mass: Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete. Dominus prope est. “Rejoice in the Lord always: again I say it, Rejoice!... the Lord is near.” From the perspective of a sinner facing judgement, the nearness of the Lord is fearful, as in the Dies irae sequence. But from the perspective of the sinner facing final redemption, his imminent arrival is joyful. We want to get on with the necessary judgement so we can get through Purgatory and on to Heaven. We want the Lord to come quickly, because the arrival of the Lord is always our supreme good. Thus the priest and the altar clothe themselves in rose vesture to indicate the joy of the Lord’s imminent arrival.

Joy is More than a Feeling

St. Paul does not ask but commands us to be joyful, in the imperative. He does not suggest; he requires that we radiate joy. Remember that birthday party when you were pouting and your mother said “You will be happy!” St. Paul can command joy because joy is not just a feeling. As they say in Retrouvaille, a program for troubled marriages, love is not a feeling; it is a decision. I will love you, even when I don’t love you! I will radiate joy, especially when I don’t feel joyful. Sound “inauthentic” or “fake?” It’s not. It’s simple fidelity. Contemporary culture, following the dictates of the sexual revolution, commands us to follow our feelings. Jesus commands us to overcome our feelings and to practice goodness even and especially when we don’t feel good. The good news is that we can choose to exercise joy even when things around us make us feel sad.
 
Joy is a virtue: it’s a habit we form by repeatedly choosing a good behavior.
Joy is a duty: God calls his disciples to radiate confident joy in his divine providence, the unshakable conviction that “all things work for the good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28). Joy is a net by which we catch souls, beginning with our own. A sad Christian is a bad Christian. We can lose our own soul by grumbling, by complaining, by falling into a pervasive negativity. When we grumble we throw God’s gifts back in his face. Complaining is a kind of blasphemy. And finally, joy is possible. God does not command the impossible. We all know people who have suffered terribly but remain serenely joyful.

Prayer Guarantees joy

How can I retain that joyful peace when so much is wrong within and without? St. Paul’s answer is clear: prayer. “Rejoice in the Lord always,” he says. “Have no anxiety at all, but by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” Like everyone else, I struggle with sadness, frustration and discouragement. Religion is a hard sell these days. Being a priest in a culture that marginalizes priests because it ignores God, and progressively despises religion, is not easy. You all struggle with discouragement with your own spouses, children, co-workers, and that worst of all enemies, yourself. Personally, what saves me is getting my old carcass out of bed and into the chapel every morning (after brushing my teeth, of course). Silent prayer before the Sacrament saves me.
 
The Star of the New Evangelization

​The great image of Our Lady of Guadalupe to my left is still with us, as we are celebrating as it were the Octave of her feast (last Tuesday). She brought joy to an entire continent at the lowest point in American history. The most highly developed civilization on the American continent, the Aztec empire, was in its death throes. When she appeared to Juan Diego Cuatloatatzin in 1531, his civilization and the sacred beliefs of his ancestors were being destroyed by the Spaniards. She said to him, “Know for certain, my son, my littlest one, that I am the perfect and ever virgin holy Mary, mother of the true God, through whom all things live... I ardently desire that they build me here my sacred house, where I will show Him, I will exalt Him and make Him manifest. Where I will offer Him to all the people with all my love, my compassionate gaze, my help and my deliverance, Because I am truly your merciful mother, Yours and mother of all who live together in this land; now my son, my smallest one, you have heard my voice; go and do everything as best you can."
 
She appeared on the hill of the Aztec mother goddess Tonantzin, but she said she was the mother of God, not a god herself. She wanted to bring the one true God, which the Aztecs themselves called the true God, through whom all things live, to both Mexica and Spaniard, so that both peoples would know how much they are loved. You know the rest of the story, how Juan Diego opened his tilma to pour out roses for the bishop, roses the Lady had arranged in his tilma with her own hands. As the roses fell to the ground so did the bishop and his attendants, for this is what they saw. A woman with hands folded, praying in the European way, and her left leg bent in dance, praying in the Mexica way. So it was that the Lady brought the joy of prayer to both races, leading to their reconciliation and the mixing of these two peoples to form what is now the Mexican race.
 
Our Lady leads us in this dance before the Ark of God, for she is herself the Ark, within which rests the Divine Presence. The black maternity belt over her womb frames the only four-petal flower on her gown, the Aztec symbol of divinity. “Rejoice,” she says, for the “Lord is near,” just here in my womb, under my heart. “Let nothing disturb you;” she finally told Juan Diego, “am I not here who am your mother?”
 
For more information on Our Lady of Guadalupe, watch this video: Guadalupe: The Miracle and the Message ​

Advent Looks Forward
We have entered the Season of Advent and most of us are thinking of Christmas—certainly the department stores have been thinking about Christmas for the last two or three months. But Advent is not about Christmas, or at least not Christmas as a monthlong shopping spree. The Mass readings and prayers speak of the end of the world; “there will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on earth nations will be in dismay, perplexed by the roaring of the sea…people will die of fright….” But amidst this confusion Christ the Redeemer will return. Christmas means “Christ’s Mass,” and every Mass points toward His Second Coming—when Christ will return on the clouds of heaven with great power and glory, not as a little babe but as supreme judge. He will bring justice and order and true peace to those who have believed in Him. “Wake up!” the Apostle says in the Epistle today. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh.”
 
The “Holiday Season”
God affords us much comfort in this season, a holiday warmth that literature and art rightly portray: the Christmas star, the charming beauty of the divine child in the manger, choirs of angels singing in the sky. Christ was born in Bethlehem, however, not to make us comfortable on earth, but to guide us to heaven. Advent looks forward to His Second Coming, be that the last day of human history or the last day of your personal history. Every bit of our faith, and every Mass, looks to the next life. Yes, Advent points to Christmas, but Christmas points to heaven. As Jesus himself was a wayfarer on this earth, spending only three decades on this planet, so we too are wayfarers and pilgrims, on our way to our true fatherland. Our Christmas parties and shopping and tinsel must not replace Advent’s guiding purpose, which is to prepare ourselves for the day Christ will return to submit everything to his Father.
 
People will die of fright
In the Gospel today, we hear of confusion and terror: the sea and the waves will roar; the powers of the heavens will be shaken. It is for these days that we must prepare, because they will surely come. But we who believe will not die of fright. “When these things begin to pass, look up,” Jesus instructs us, “because your redemption is at hand.” We spend our lives longing for his return, when all his disciples will pass with him through the splendid gates of his Eternal Kingdom. It would be an unspeakable tragedy if even one of us were to lose our eternal soul. Advent calls us to keep our final end in mind during the Christmas parties and shopping adventures, but also to keep in mind the proximity of our redemption. Now is the time to prepare for judgment; now is the time to hope for redemption.
 
Dressing for Mass
I spoke of one simple way to prepare for Our Lord at the English Masses last week, and I say it now at the Latin Mass: we should dress for Mass in our Sunday best. The clothing we put on for Sunday Mass should be consecrated, reserved for this sacred purpose: to honor God for his Sabbath Sacrifice. Someone gave me a gift card to Macy’s recently, and I bought a nice pair of shoes with it. These shoes look good and feel good, and cost a bit of money. I decided to keep these shoes on a shelf the whole week, and use them only for Sunday Mass. I will use my scuffed up, well-worn work shoes for daily Masses, but on Sunday you will see my polished, more formal footgear from now on. Formality, like other aspects of the sacred, has been denigrated, even mocked, in our era of Blue Jeans. We must recover a reverential formality. We honor Christ’ sacred presence on Sunday by wearing better than ordinary vesture. If I appear for Sunday Mass now without my Sunday Shoes, I want you to call me on it! “Father, where are your Sunday Shoes?”
 
Our Lady
When Christ returns he will clothe us in the fullness of holiness and glory. Let us do our best to anticipate that final coming by clothing ourselves, inside and out, in humility, holiness, and charity. Consider Christ’s Holy Mother. In every painting she wears a veil, a sacred garment reflecting her interior consecration. Let us also clothe ourselves, especially on Sunday, with holiness. Our Lady will help us prepare for Christmas, and for the Second Coming. Even as we shop and enjoy parties and write cards, let us bring Jesus and Mary to every Advent activity—a decade of the rosary or the Angelus and some real Christmas carols at every Christmas party—so that we will be prepared to meet Christ when he returns on the clouds of heaven.

 
Happy Thanksgiving
On Thursday we give thanks to God for our dearest country, the blessing of living in America. Rendering thanks to God is a simple duty of Christians and of Americans, as our first President decreed in 1789: “Whereas it is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits, and humbly to implore his protection and favor—and whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me “to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God …."
 
The President and our government deserve our thanks and respect as well; St. Paul calls us to obey the king and all just civil laws; the catechism teaches us to pay our taxes. But God must have our first thanks, and our first loyalty. We serve our country best by rendering witness to something greater than our country. Presidents Washington and Lincoln would agree that citizens exercise loyalty to their president by exercising fidelity to their God. Abraham Lincoln confirmed his predecessor’s 1789 proclamation with his own of 1863: “I invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States … to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.”
 
Citizens of Heaven First
“We are citizens of heaven first,” Archbishop Chaput writes in his little book Render Unto Caesar. Catholics should not be less involved in politics, but more; not less visible but more visible as Catholics in society. The entire Western system of democracy, rule of law, and free economics developed through 3000 years of Judeo-Christian jurisprudence. Christian practices of democracy and human rights have been adopted by the entire world. Who best can guide politics to the Common Good than Catholics guided by Gospel principles? “The Catholic Church,” concludes Archbishop Chaput, “cannot stay, has never stayed, and never will stay out of politics…. Living our Catholic faith without excuses and apologies, and advancing them in the public square, are the best expressions of patriotism.”
 
Our Talent of Faith
I say this because Christ’s parable today speaks of talents, and St. Paul tells us we do not walk in darkness, like those who do not believe. God has given us the great gift of faith: we are in church this morning, and most of America is not. What are we doing with that precious talent, our faith? Are we keeping it all to ourselves, on a little altar at home, or are we spreading it? How many people have we won over to Jesus this year? We can at least invite our friends and relatives to Mass, and if they don’t come, pray for them daily by name. What about our enemies? Have we prayed for them by name? If I go to God with only the one talent he gave me at my baptism, he will say to me “You wicked, lazy servant!” I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to hear that on judgement day. Every Catholic has the solemn duty to evangelize, to win souls for Christ, to bring them to Mass and bring them to prayer, in whatever way we can.
 
Sober and Alert
St. Paul urges us to be “alert and sober” in his letter to the Thessalonians. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief at night. When people are saying, ‘Peace and security,’ then sudden disaster comes upon them.” Two years ago, our nation’s highest court told God that we don’t need His help in ordering our lives together. Our government redefined marriage and family, the most fundamental cell of society. Disaster is surely coming—the chaos that will inevitably result from this further decline of the family. It happened to Rome when senators began divorcing their wives. A great society that had been built on strong family life began to disintegrate. It is happening to us too. Increasing acts of random violence and domestic terrorism are not random: they are domestic. We have largely lost the domus, the home. As Archbishop Chaput wrote, the times demand not less but more overt political involvement by faithful Catholics, providing that stability which only faith can provide for our nation. We give God thanks this Thursday for our dear country, and we pray Him to preserve it as one union under his divine protection.

Sex and Money

Some say a priest should never preach on sex or money. I even would say that our bank accounts are more private than our bedrooms. How many of us would be comfortable seeing the details of our finances published in the parish bulletin? Before going any farther on this topic, let me just say that money is good. Wealth is a blessing, but blessings can quickly become curses because God gives his children blessings to be shared. If we hoard rather than share our blessings, they rot, and they infect us. If I keep all my love to myself, or never share my talents, or do not give time to others, and if I hold tightly to all my money, these blessings become curses. Share your blessings and they bless you; keep them to yourself and they curse you.
 
Love of Money

We are on the third and last of our annual stewardship commitment weekends. Two weeks ago we planned how we would set aside some time for God in prayer this year; last week we planned how to share some of our talents in building our community; this weekend we plan what financial gifts we will return to God. Someone joked last week that the time and talent weekends were a dress rehearsal for the really important one, the money talk. In a way he is right. Wealth has a more stubborn grip on us and needs greater attention. St. Paul says in 1 Tim 6:10 that the love of money is the root of all evil. Pretty strong words. I remember my seventh grade history teacher asking us why we went to war with England in 1776. We didn’t know, so he drew a huge dollar sign on the blackboard. All wars are driven by money, he said. In fact, greed drives almost all conflicts, from marriage disagreements to world wars. That’s why it’s crucial that we Christians free ourselves from the love of money by giving a portion back to God. Tithing frees us from wealth’s tyranny.
 
Question: Does God need our money?
Answer: Obviously not, because he owns it all in the first place. In an absolute sense, even the Church does not need our money. It’s God’s Church, and he can run it without our money if he needs to. Don’t get me wrong. Your pastor still has to pay the electric bill, and your gifts support the Church in some very important ways. But God does not command us to tithe because He needs our money. He commands us to tithe, rather, so that we will learn to trust Him. Tithing helps free us from the love of money (so does prayer). The more we love money, the less we can love God and love our friends. In other words, we don’t give to a need; we have a need to give. And most of us Catholics have a long way to go in this department. The average Catholic gives just under 1% of our income away, but God asks for at least 10%. I don’t think we Catholics are inherently stingy, but I think we don’t think our money has much to do with our spiritual lives. We just don’t plan or even think about tithing. That’s why I’m bringing it up today.
 
Five Wise and Five Foolish

Let’s look briefly at the Gospel. Five wise and five foolish bridesmaids. The wise ones planned ahead. They loved the bridegroom enough to plan for him. When he arrived at Midnight, they were ready to go with him. Planning is an act of love. “This parable,” writes one author, “illustrates the kind of preparedness Jesus expects of his disciples.” How many of us plan our gifts to God and his holy Church? We could plan our time better, for example, and get to Mass a little earlier. We could plan our tithe better too. Most of us toss into the basket whatever we have in our pockets. We give God pocket change. Is that all He means to us?
 
Last year at this time I planned my tithe, and I did it again yesterday. I realized that over 12 months I’ve become negligent and thoughtless. And my circumstances have changed—we priests got a small raise in salary, but my tithe was not adjusted accordingly. After communion today, after we have received the Body of Christ, God’s supreme gift of Himself, I am going to lead us in a little spiritual exercise of planning our financial gifts to God. Planning my tithe yesterday hurt a little. I realized I was not giving what I could be giving, that I had a little too much extra money hanging around: money that rots and spreads infection. Mother Teresa once said “what would we do with extra money? Bank it? I’d rather die!” Those of us God calls to live in the world do need bank accounts and money in savings, but how much? Let’s let God guide us to greater freedom by submitting even our finances to His perfect will.

What we value in life

Today is our annual Stewardship Commitment Sunday. Every year we take stock of our personal relationship to God by considering the manifold blessings He pours upon us and how we share those blessings. God gives us an abundance of Time, Talent, and Treasure. Do we return a portion to him in grateful praise? Do we make gifts of our Time in prayer, our talent in charitable service, and our treasure in financial gifts to others? How we spend our time and money is the real indicator of how we are seeking happiness in life. Show me your day planner and your visa account and I will show you what you value in life. Today we look at all God has given us and plan gifts in return.
 
All time, all energy, and all wealth are God’s, and it all returns to Him, sooner or later. Why wait until “later,” on the day of our death, when we will have to surrender everything? I heard of a priest who died with a million dollars in the bank, which he willed to Mother Teresa’s sisters. But how much more wonderful to have given that money personally while he was still alive! Most of us will die regretting the time we did not spend with the people we loved. Let’s examine our souls this Sunday so we don’t die regretting anything.
 
Time is Prayer

They say time is money. Certainly time is the most precious resource we have. We Americans, in fact, and especially we San Franciscans, seem to have a lot more money than time. We are always strapped for time. But God gives us 70 or 80 years of time on this earth to prepare for heaven. He gives us 168 hours a week. What do we do with that time? If we don’t spend any of it with God in prayer, we cannot be very healthy or happy. Prayer opens me up to God’s blessings, and makes me capable of loving others. But God is patient. He doesn’t pout or complain if we miss Mass on Sunday, or don’t show up for our weekly holy hour, or neglect the Rosary, or never open his Bible. He does not nag us, so we must be mature in planning our time with him. After communion, I will lead us in a practical exercise—filling out a prayer planning form—the first of our three stewardship commitments.
 
Talent: Are we building up the Church?

​We also consider “talent:” what strengths has God given us, and how do we use these talents to support others? Most of the talents we share with others will be outside the parish—helping our children and spouses, friends and colleagues. But for Catholics the parish is also a vital community. A Catholic is happiest when he or she commits some degree of service to the local parish. Social and service groups like the Knights of Columbus, Filipino, Chinese, or Latino clubs, our Mother’s Club and Young Adults fellowship, our Legion of Mary: these give us scope to exercise our talents right in our home parish. Teaching catechism to our children, serving on a parish advisory board, volunteering in our school or preschool, or serving the homeless are other ways to help build up the community.
 
In the Gospel Jesus points out that the Pharisees preach well but they don’t put their own good intentions into practice. “They lay up heavy burdens but will not lift a finger to help others carry them.” To be Catholic, to be Christian, to be human is to lift a finger to help others carry life’s burdens. It is simply good stewardship. Jesus says the Pharisees do not “practice what they preach.” I’m sure they had good intentions, but somehow, they didn’t act on those intentions. They were not faithful to their own beliefs. In the words of my favorite animated movie, Horton Hears a Who, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant; an elephant’s faithful 100 percent.” I’d like to be a little more like Horton and a little less like the Pharisees. Jesus calls us to walk with each other, to work with each other. Christian stewardship is walking with each other on the long road to heaven, helping each other to be strong on this journey.
 
Allow Our Blessed Mother to guide your prayer and your charitable service. She appeared many times to simple folk, most recently to three shepherd children in Portugal, always with one goal: to lead them in prayer so as to be more charitable to others. “Pray the rosary,” she said, “so that people will not lose their souls.” Let’s make a quick prayer to her as we plan our gifts.

Note: Below is the prayer planning form (Stewardship of Time Commitment Form) that we used at Mass