Are You Ready?

 

4^th Sunday of Easter

Cycle A

Good Shepherd Sunday

What happened to Peter? Who was this guy? In all the gospels, Peter is quoted only about 25 times, and those are usually short responses to Jesus or exhortations no more than a couple sentences long. None of them are particularly eloquent and in some of them he sticks his foot in his mouth. The longest conversation quoted is actually his denial of Jesus. He had never preached or taught, he never spoke in public, he wasn’t an intellectual, nor a particularly peaceful or thoughtful man, definitely not courageous, and yet he was able to stand up in front of thousands of people and preach his longest, most eloquent, most persuasive and most theologically deep teaching, so persuasive that over 3000 people asked to be baptized because of it. There was a strength and confidence and courage behind it. It’s as if he was a new man.

But something happened to Peter, and the other apostles, at Pentecost. Something radical had changed them. Peter was different because his experience of Jesus was different. Peter had witnessed Jesus every day for three years, yet he still denied him. But then he experienced the risen Christ, and was filled with the Holy Spirit, and he was truly a new man. It’s one thing to know Jesus the man, it’s another to know Christ and allow the Spirit to transform you. Peter was finally ready to truly become an apostle. The resurrection changed everything.

And what changed for the people in the crowd? These were some of the same people who fifty days earlier had cried out for Jesus’ crucifixion. Now, it seemed so easy, too easy, for them to accept him as the messiah and ask for baptism. They had heard Jesus teach in the temple. They had seen the proof of his wonderous signs. They had witnessed his suffering and death. But that was not enough for them to follow him. They had to experience the risen Christ, if not personally than through the experience of others. The facts did not convert them, the testimony of those who had seen him alive again did.

The resurrection changed everything. Now they were ready.

I always thought it was amazing that 3000 people were baptized in one day…until I saw it happen in Atlanta last year. And adult baptisms increased almost 40% in the US alone this Easter to between 45,000 and 50,000. That doesn’t include the tens of thousands of protestants who entered into full communion with the Catholic Church this year. The total estimate is 120-130,000. Why the resurgence in the Church? Why now are so many people ready?

Over the past 36 years that Nancy and I have been preparing people to enter the Church, there have been several times we were surprised that someone we had been seeing at Mass every Sunday for decades was not Catholic. They had been coming with their family but never thought it was time to join, until one day when someone asked them, and the time was finally right. One man actually was on the parish council and he wasn’t even Catholic. Another woke up one day and after 28 years of his wife gently inviting him, he decided it was time. He was ready.

The message hasn’t changed. The call hasn’t changed. We just have to be ready.

Maybe that’s why so many people are coming to the Church these past few years. They had known of Jesus for a long time but now they finally know Jesus. They have been called by God their entire lives, but now they can actually hear and understand that call, accept that call. They have finally experienced the risen Christ in his Church.

And maybe that’s why Catholic church attendance has been growing. Perhaps people are realizing the emptiness of secular humanism and are searching for the truth. All the old arguments against faith have fallen flat.

Maybe we no longer need proof. It is time to become a disciple. It is time to embrace the truth.

And it’s not just happening to converts. Many of us have heard the scriptures read and preached every Sunday, have received him body and blood, soul and divinity for years, but one day we’re ready to accept him for who he truly is. Like Peter, we are willing to be changed.

Today we hear Jesus say that there is no other way to salvation except through the gate, and he is that gate. That is oftentimes a difficult saying for people to accept. They have been taught to believe that there are many paths to God, that they are basically all the same and God doesn’t care as long as we’re good people. But Jesus never says that. He is the gate, the only gate. He is the way, the truth and the life. Not a way, a truth, and a life. No one comes to the Father but through him. St. Peter says that there is no other name by which we are saved.

They have also been taught that there are many different paths in Christianity, and they have been going from this church to that, trying to find one that fits their own particular worldview, rather than seeking the truth. They see the Catholic Church as just one of many, rather than the fullness of the revelation of the truth of Jesus Christ, and therefore the path to salvation.

And that can be a stumbling block for some, because it requires taking up our crosses daily and following him. And that cross may be humbling ourselves to the truth. That cross may be changing our lives and acting differently. That cross may be our repentance for all the years and times we crucified Jesus with our sins. If there is truly one truth, then one must follow it, no matter what it demands.

Those 3000 people that day didn’t ask Peter, “what must we believe?”, they asked “what must we do?” They had just realized their sin and were repentant. Peter’s words ripped away the veil of their self-righteousness and exposed their inmost hearts, but they also offered them the mercy of God through baptism.

That is the same path people travel to Jesus and his Church today. There are so many ways to study and hear the proofs of faith. Many people believe but still don’t know what to do to be saved. The answer is the same today as that first Pentecost. Repent and believe in the gospel, the good news that God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to free us from our sin and offer us the chance for eternal life.

That message is not just for the newcomers. We could all use a bit of conversion. We should all renew our baptismal commitments. We should all become more committed to the truth. We could all use a bit of repentance. Are we ready?

Because when we are, we’ll find that he has been waiting for us the whole time.

 

Dreamer

 

4^th Sunday of Advent

Cycle A

 

Are you a dreamer?

 

What are your dreams? We talk a lot about the American Dream. Is that what you want for you and your family? Success, money, possessions, the ability to make something of yourself? Do you have dreams for your children and grandchildren, that they have a life even better than yours? Have you lost your dreams? Are dreams only for the young? Has life sabotaged your dreams? Do you have dreams for eternal life, pondering and wondering what life in heaven will be like?

 

Joseph was a dreamer. Matthew records four dreams of Joseph. In his first dream, Joseph is told “do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins”. In his second dream, Joseph is told, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him”. In his third dream, Joseph is told, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead”. And in his fourth dream, Joseph is warned to go instead to Galilee rather than Judea.

 

Joseph had other dreams, probably very simple dreams. He probably had dreams of what his life with his new wife would be like. He was a worker, a businessman and a craftsman. He probably had dreams of what kind of life he could provide for his young family. But Joseph also had different kinds of dreams. In his dreams God spoke to him and asked for his obedience. They were clear communications from God, and they required a willing recipient. Joseph was open to the voice of God and listened in faith as that willing recipient.

 

We honor and revere St. Joseph as one of the greatest saints, and rightly so. First and foremost, he was great because of the choices he made in life. Today’s Gospel refers to him as a “righteous man” and as a man who “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” Therefore, his greatness is primarily on account of his moral righteousness and obedience to the will of God. We often reflect on Mary’s yes to God in the annunciation; Joseph was also given the choice to participate in God’s plan, even though he most likely didn’t understand exactly what that entailed. Like us in our lives, Joseph came to understanding gradually, through living every day in the presence of God Himself.

 

Joseph also responded with complete submission and full determination. The commands Joseph received were not insignificant. His obedience required that he and his family travel great distances, take up residence in strange lands, and do so all in faith.

 

It’s also clear that Joseph took his vocation seriously. Pope Saint John Paul II gave him the title “Guardian of the Redeemer.” Over and over, he showed his unwavering commitment to his role as the guardian of his legal Son, Jesus, and of his wife, Mary. His life was spent providing for them, protecting them and offering them a father’s heart.

 

In so many ways, Joseph was just like us. Unlike his son, he was not a great teacher, yet he taught the Son of Man how to read and write and to measure and use tools. He was not a miracle worker, yet he healed the cuts and scrapes when his little boy fell down. He did not preach, in fact, he speaks no words in all of scripture, yet he was the first witness to the Messiah when he named his son Jesus, God Saves His People.

 

We are all called to participate in God’s plan for our lives and for the salvation of the world. Like Joseph, we are called to do so by being obedient to God’s call in our everyday lives. Raising our families, supporting our children in their missions, being completely devoted to our spouses.

When Joseph doubted, God gave him a dream, and he trusted in it. When Joseph was afraid, God gave him a dream, and he trusted in it. When Joseph was unsure of what the future would bring and what he should do, God gave him a dream, and he trusted in it.

 

Be a dreamer. Dreams are good, if they follow the will of God. Even the American Dream can be good. Because dreams are all about hope. God has placed His dream within you. When you doubt, trust in the dream. When you are scared, trust in the dream. When the future is uncertain, trust in the dream.

 

Because His dream for you is eternal life.

 

He's Ready for You

 

1^st Sunday of Advent

Cycle A

As I get older, I tend to think about my mortality more than when I was younger. I think most of us do. There are more years behind us than ahead. Friends our age are dying. We’ve lost our parents and sometimes our siblings. Our bodies start failing us. Maybe we’ve gone through a serious illness. When we are young, we feel invincible. We don’t think about our own deaths. As average lifespans get longer, many young people are never touched by death. Grandparents are in their lives, healthy and active. Or they live far away, sight unseen.

Death is for the old. When a young person, especially a child, dies it is always seen as a tragedy. We have become desensitized by the violence and death we see in the media. Two whole generations have never lived through a major war. Death always seems to take us by surprise, and I think it is because we don’t think about it. We don’t want to think about it.

I have seen more and more people my age and older falling away from God, and it doesn’t make sense to me. I would think that as death is closer people would prepare for it, try to get closer to God and many do, but what must have happened in those other peoples’ lives to have caused them to either shut themselves off from the reality of God or even more common, to become indifferent to faith. I would think that now is the time to get ready for the inevitable, to make changes in my life to correct bad habits and atone for sins of the past, to make my peace with God and others while there’s still time.

I don’t think most of those folks are actively rejecting God or their faith, they just have lost interest. They are indifferent to faith, it has faded in importance, or life has beaten them down so much they have come to a fatalistic view of death. It will come, there’s nothing they can do about it, and after all, why should they worry about an afterlife? It either isn’t there or everyone will go to heaven. They don’t think there will be consequences for their actions.

The church teaches that there are three comings of Christ. The first is the actual incarnation in the person of Jesus of Nazareth 2000 years ago. The second is the final judgment, when Christ will come in all his glory to judge the living and the dead. The third is… today. That’s the coming that most affects us. We weren’t there 2000 years ago to witness the first coming, and we have no idea when he will come again in glory, nor can we control it. The only thing we can control is our acceptance of Jesus’ coming into our lives today.

 

If we take care of Christ’s third coming, the second coming will take care of itself. It is through the third coming that we are prepared for the second.

 

You have been preparing for today for the whole of your life. You have been preparing for your death from the day of your birth. You have been making ready for the coming of the Lord from the day you were baptized.

How ready are you? What have you done with the grace that God has given you throughout your life that has brought you to today? More importantly, what do you intend to do going forward? How will you respond to God’s call in the future?

It’s the first Sunday of Advent. New Years Day for us Catholics. The word Advent means coming, as in the coming of an event that has been anticipated. Today we begin the new liturgical year, and as you can see, the colors have changed to purple from green, we have our Advent wreath all set up and lit, and the gospel readings are from Matthew rather than from Luke. Of all four gospels, Matthew has the most references to God’s judgement, that it is a reality we need to prepare for.

 

Every year, as we prepare to celebrate and commemorate Jesus’ first coming at Christmas, the readings focus our minds and hearts on His second coming. And so, we are called to remember that there will be a judgement day, there will be a time when Jesus will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. And we need to prepare for it.

 

One will be taken; the other will be left behind. How many times have we and a friend been at an event, or heard a homily or listened to a talk, or read a book or an article, and one of us gets it and the other one doesn’t? Many times, our understanding of these things is due to our openness to the message, our level of commitment to it, or our level of knowledge about the subject. It’s the same with the gospel. We are all here this morning celebrating together, hearing the same scriptures and saying the same prayers. Who will be taken and who will be left behind? Which of us will acknowledge Jesus’ coming into our lives this day and which of us won’t? And which of us will use that knowledge to change our lives in preparation?

 

The Son of Man will come when you least expect him. When you don’t think he’ll show up. When you don’t want him to show up. When you think everything’s going just fine and you don’t need him. When you don’t have time for him in your busy lives. He has a habit of just showing up, uninvited, at the weirdest times.

 

Those are times of opportunity. The beauty of the gospel is that you can accept it at any time in your life. Even if you haven’t exactly been a saint, and few have, you always have the chance to choose God. Whether you recognize or acknowledge it or not, God has always been there, calling you to him. Even at the very last moment of your life, if you’re finally ready, He’ll be ready for you.