Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

The Dream of Saint Joseph
Antonio Palomino, 1697, Public Domain

December 22, 2019
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 7:10-14
Psalm 24:1-2, 3-4, 5-6
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-24

King Ahaz was a clever politician. He had been invited by two other hostile but larger kingdoms to enter an alliance against the super power of the Assyrians who had crushed all other smaller and neighboring kingdoms. He refused the entrance into an alliance against the Assyrians not out of fidelity to God but out of a recognition that such an alliance could not overcome the Assyrians. These two smaller kingdoms then decided to march against Ahaz and his kingdom of Judah and threaten the life and existence of Ahaz and Judah. So, Ahaz decides to outdo his enemies in cunning and negotiates a truce with the Assyrians that guaranteed the protection of Judah by the Assyrians against these enemies, but also demanded that Judah worship the false gods of the Assyrians. Ahaz cuts a deal for survival. Ahaz trusts more in the power of a king than in the power of God. What Ahaz truly has is a problem of faith and not a political problem. What Ahaz lacks is the gift of the Holy Spirit that is known as the “fear of the Lord.”

Advent in many ways is about this gift of the Holy Spirit, the “fear of the Lord.” The Blessed Virgin Mary sings of the fear of the Lord in her Magnificat recorded in Luke’s Gospel, “He has mercy on those who fear Him in every generation.” As Pope Benedict XVI wrote, “Perhaps this is a phrase with which we are not very familiar or perhaps we do not like it very much. But "fear of the Lord" is not anguish; it is something quite different. It is the concern not to destroy the love on which our life is based. Fear of the Lord is that sense of responsibility that we are bound to possess for the portion of the world that has been entrusted to us in our lives.” It is the sense that we are accountable to God and we do not want to fail Him because He loves us. The fear of the Lord offers us the willingness to do whatever God asks of us.

Ahaz is unwilling to ask God for a sign in the face of an attacking enemy. He has made up his mind, and he is unwilling to seek recourse with God. Ahaz is unwilling to listen to the prophet Isaiah who tells Ahaz not to fear the two smaller kingdoms, but to remain faithful to the true and only God. Isaiah challenges Ahaz to ask the Lord for a sign; Ahaz refuses to do so with pious language but not out of authentic piety — he refuses out of his unwillingness to trust in anything but his own political bargaining. Yet, Isaiah declares the sign of contradiction as the sign of the Lord, “A virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, God is with us.” Because of his lack of willingness, Ahaz sees the prophesy of Isaiah as a riddle and not as a mystery — he has no time for mystery. Ahaz dies as a defeated king, the result of his own idolatry.

Joseph is a descendant in the line of Ahaz. Joseph is a just man. He is rich in faithfulness to the Law. Not simply compliant, he fears the Lord, the God of Israel. Joseph possesses the richness of fidelity that manifests confidence in the Lord’s faithfulness to Israel expressed in the Law of the Covenant. The richness of justice in the old covenant included a sense of authentic piety in the face of mystery. Joseph is confused by Mary’s situation precisely because he is a just man and not only procedurally compliant. Joseph knows Mary. Joseph knows Mary to be truly who Mary is — pure and undefiled — even if he does not fully understand the cause of the purity of Mary. Joseph encounters a mystery. He is not baffled by a riddle, so he decides on the measured course of the Law so as not to presume upon God but to rely upon God. He proposes to himself a quiet divorce because he is unwilling to expose Mary to the treatment of the Law which Joseph knows Mary does not justly deserve, though he does not know why she doesn’t deserve such treatment.

God speaks to Joseph the just man, filled with righteousness, in a dream. He is told in his dream by God through an angel not to be afraid to take Mary into his home as his wife because it is through the Holy Spirit that Mary has conceived her child, whom Joseph is entrusted with the mission of naming him Jesus. As a righteous and just man, faithful not to his own negotiating skills but to God, Joseph is able to recognize what Ahaz was unwilling to do. Joseph recognizes the sign of Emmanuel, the sign promised by Isaiah the prophet — a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel. There is no chance for the bargaining with a false god in the disposition of Joseph who becomes the husband of Mary, and through the marriage with Mary becomes the foster father of Jesus and the guardian of Jesus and Mary. The fear of the Lord prompts Joseph to enter into the mystery of redemption. The entrance into this mystery involves a willingness to trust God and not simply a mistaken course of pride not to rely on God’s love and faithfulness — the course that Ahaz chose out of pride though expressed deceptively in pious language.

Karl Marx once said that human beings are not free if they owe their existence to the goodwill of someone else. If human beings are not autonomous, they are not free, they are dependent. Marx’s words underscore the problem that we are faced with today when we treat the mystery of God’s salvation of us as a riddle to be mastered by us and not a mystery for us to enter into with fear of the Lord — to live as Marx suggests is to see faith as naiveté, to see hope as wish, and to see love as slavery.

Advent is about our preparation for entering into the mystery of Christmas, not about the solving of a riddle through a course of pious compromise. Advent is about asking God for the willingness to do as He asks us to do without self-assurance but with reliance upon the confidence of love. The annunciation of Mary and the annunciation of Joseph of which we read in today’s Gospel show us how we should enter into the mystery of our redemption by Emmanuel. Mary’s annunciation is direct. She converses through the angel Gabriel directly with God. There is no room for doubt about the reality of Grace and the clarity of her call and of the freedom of her “yes” to God to be His Mother. By comparison, Joseph’s annunciation happens in the fog of a dream. He hears God’s mission conveyed through the angel, but he does not converse with the angel. Joseph responds with silent obedience, a characteristic of the fear of the Lord. Obedient silence is required for entrance into so profound of a mystery.

Joseph represents the faithfulness of the old covenant which manifests God’s fidelity. Yet, it is a faithfulness that in itself lacks the saving power of Grace — the Grace that fills us with God’s life because Mary was first filled with God’s Life, full of Grace, totally dependent on God. Faithfulness to the law and dependence upon Grace are both required of us for our willingness to be saved by God as God desires to save us through the humanity of His Son. As the theologian Joseph Ratzinger wrote, “The human agents who bear the promise are of great importance: Joseph and Mary. Joseph stands for God’s faithfulness to His promises to Israel, but Mary embodies the hope of mankind. Joseph is father according to the law, but Mary is mother with her own body: it is on account of her that God has been able to become one of us.”

At every Eucharist, we approach the mystery of our salvation. We don’t solve the riddles that baffle us in our efforts at achieving autonomy. At every Eucharist, we receive God’s uncompromising love for us through an act of faith and a sacrifice of hope that seals for us our participation in the new and eternal covenant of perfect love. In this sacrifice God fulfills the righteous fidelity of Saint Joseph that is brought about through the truly free and grace-filled “yes” of the Blessed Virgin Mary. At every Eucharist, we tremble at the gift and mystery of Emmanuel, who nourishes us with His Body and Blood that we might reject the idol of self-serving compromise and instead receive the grace of willingness to live in the mystery of God’s salvation of us through unconditional love.

Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit for the Guidance of the Legal Community “The Red Mass”

Photo by Ben Torres/NTC

September 26, 2019
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Acts 2:1-11
1 Corinthians 12:3b-7, 12-13
John 15:26-27; 16:12-15

In our Gospel reading this evening Jesus promises to send us an Advocate who will speak on our behalf. The Greek word for this is parakletos. Jesus is speaking of the Holy Spirit whose Pentecost is spoken of in the first reading for this evening’s liturgy. Parakletos literally means mouthpiece. It is a term that carries legal connotations, a parakletos is a legal advocate who pleads a defendant’s cause — a lawyer. Thus, the Holy Spirit is the Advocate who pleads on our behalf in the divine economy of Christ’s restorative justice.

The Advocate speaks on behalf of the restorative justice merited by Christ for our salvation. This divine justice is measured by His bias in favor of those most wounded and prone to be wounded by sin and its effects. Yet, Christ’s justice is not simply the substitution of one bias with another form of bias whereby those who are oppressed change places with the oppressors and the dominated become the dominators and vice versa. That would be a form of revenge structured by narrative and implemented by a coercive force that simply repeats the cycle of sin. Revenge, like all sin, is incompatible with God’s nature and impossible for God to perform.

The restorative justice merited by Christ is also not the “eye for an eye” sense of justice measured out by the old and provisional covenant established in Sinai between God and the Israelites. The justice of the Mosaic covenant was clearly provisional until the coming of the Messiah who would establish a new and lasting covenant. Saint Paul clearly indicates in his letter to the Galatians that the law of the old covenant and its works cannot save us, but that salvation depends on the promise of God fulfilled by Jesus Christ.

The restorative justice of Christ is the truth fully revealed by Him through His life, His preaching and miracles, His suffering, His death and resurrection, and His ascension into heaven. Jesus Christ is the truth who simultaneously reveals and absolves our sins and who restores a right order that surpasses even the paradise of the Garden of Eden before the fall. “O happy fault, o necessary sin of Adam, that won for us a savior who is Christ, the Lord,” as the Church exults every Easter Vigil. Christ entrusts the completion of this mission of redemption to the Church, each of the baptized who receive the Holy Spirit and carry it out in their daily lives.

This mission of carrying out Christ’s restorative justice entrusted to the Church especially belongs to those who have been given the vocation to serve as lawyers or civic officials in our society. Lawyers have a vocation of advocacy exemplified by the work of the Holy Spirit who never speaks for Himself. The vocation of advocacy of lawyers requires a selfless life ordered by reason and informed by faith. It requires a commitment to the truth in order to guide sound moral judgment. The sound moral judgment of lawyers made in the integrity of every aspect of their personal life guides how they will advocate on behalf of their client. Without a sound commitment to the truth as ascertained by reason and informed by faith, the practice of law and accompanying jurisprudence becomes merely the technically efficient imposition of a coercive narrative in place of a different narrative. Every time this is done, the woven fabric of the common good becomes frayed and tattered, and the weak and the vulnerable are harmed. The moral virtue of fortitude is essential to remain strong in the vocation of advocacy directed to our destiny in the Lord’s Kingdom. As Saint Cyril of Alexandria once said: “With the Holy Spirit within us, ‘it is quite natural for people who have been absorbed by the things of this world to become entirely other-worldly in outlook, and for cowards to become people of great courage.’”

In our society, justice is brought about and upheld for the common good through the mitigation of law and the dedicated service of lawyers and civic officials. Yet, the law can only promote justice if it is understood and promulgated as an ordinance of reason and not as a dictate of the imposed and coercive will of the legislator or judge. Law is not simply an act of coercion on the part of the state or of the court; the law is not the mere substitution of one narrative for another narrative; the law is an ordinance of reason and reflects moral judgment. Law can only perform this function if the lawyers and civic officials live according to the order of right reason with ever-developing virtuous character.

When law is enacted as an ordinance of reason, it fosters the right order of justice engendered by the truth in its entirety. On the contrary, when law is enacted or upheld as a coercive force of the will on the part of the legislator or judge it results neither in justice nor freedom but in an uneasy truce balanced precariously by mutual self-interests. As Pope Leo XIII wrote more than 130 years ago in his encyclical Immortale Dei, “the best parent and guardian of liberty amongst human beings is truth.”

Photo by Ben Torres/NTC

The events of Pentecost displayed in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles reveal God’s continued undoing of the effects of sin. The event of Pentecost specifically brings about the undoing of the sinful effects of Babel. Whereas human beings at Babel sought to make themselves like God — establishing their lives according to their own autonomously selfish initiative, behaving as if God did not exist (or if He does exist He doesn’t matter much) — the result being chaos and disorder from the confusion of speech, the fomenting of distrust, the systematizing of discord between and among human beings, and the abuse of power and violent injustice.

At Pentecost, the initiation of the Church’s life, it is the divine initiative of grace that compels the apostles to understand and to speak in the languages of the then-known world. Each nation hears the Gospel preached by the apostles in their own vernacular. The understanding comes through the Advocate and it involves and enables the active and graced response of human beings. It is the fullness of the truth revealed in Christ that transcends languages and cultures. That which humanity has previously inflicted upon itself as part of the chaotic result of the arrogant sin of Babel, the confusion of languages, is now redeemed by Christ’s victory over sin through the activity of the Holy Spirit in animating the Church.

At Pentecost the Holy Spirit redeems the sin and punishment of Babel, the confusion of tongues and the ensuing rancorous entropy. At Pentecost the Holy Spirit does not erase the difference in languages by imposing a uniformity of speech or the haughty pretense of a global vision; rather the Advocate of the truth redeems the effects of these differences and enables understanding where before mistrust and confusion existed as the bitter fruits of sinful difference in language. Division is reconciled and communion is fused through the power of the Holy Spirit who universalizes each and all peoples, Jews and Gentiles, to become one People of God without destroying the integral character of local communities or the identity of nations united and joined together by sound borders. Neither justice nor mercy dispense with the moral order nor do they deny good or evil. Faithful members of the Catholic Church, especially lawyers and civic officials blessed with the vocation of advocacy, promote justice not because it’s good strategy or because it serves our presently preferred expediency, we promote justice because that is what is required for us to be converted and configured to the rationally-apprehended truth and goodness of God fully revealed in Jesus Christ, the mystery into which the Advocate draws us.

The cause that the Advocate pleads is the mission of communion of the Church. The defense of the Advocate is offered against the return of the distrust, chaos, and violence of Babel, the work of the Devil — the great accuser. The Holy Spirit is the advocate that will not allow the chaos of Babel to return to human beings through their graced participation and belonging in Christ’s Church as grasped by faith, strengthened in hope, and shared in love.

The same temptations of Babel remain in our fallen, yet redeemed, world of today. There are voices in education, politics, law, and the arts who reassert the arrogant claims of Babel as narratives and programs that dehumanize persons by a systematized pretense that God does not exist or if He does exist, He doesn’t matter much. Such narratives include the redefinition of when human life begins or ends, the ever-undulating fluctuation of gender ideology, and the redefinition of marriage as merely a permissive contract between individuals.

We are gathered here in this Eucharistic assembly to ask the Advocate again that we become a stronger part of the Church’s mission, to forgive and to redeem our sins, and to bring to us order out of chaos. We pray that we be a part of Christ’s plan, not that we subvert His plans into our own. This is not only good news — it is urgent news. We are speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit and in divine providence the Advocate needs and calls advocates. This is the reason that lawyers and civic officials who have received the vocation of advocacy are so especially needed in our society today. The Advocate is generous in the gifts He offers, I urge you to step forward to receive these gifts anew, praying again with open hands that you will be good stewards of what is offered to you by God.

Good Friday: Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

April 19, 2019
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42

Pilate asks Jesus if He is a king. Pilate is interested in what narrative he will receive from Jesus in answer to this question. A narrative is nothing more than a story that conveys a partial perspective of the truth that is really nothing more than articulated opinion. Narratives are frequently offered out of self-interest. Pilate was used to dealing in the narratives of so many interested parties who came to him in order for him to impose his power upon a situation in favor of their private interests. People would come to Pilate, as had the high priests, to give him their narrative in such a way that their interests could coincide with those of Pilate, and then they could get their way. So, the high priests speak their narrative that Jesus has made himself to be a king — a rival to Caesar as well as a rival to them — so it would be for Pilate’s convenience to do away with Jesus to improve his political standing with Caesar. Pilate wants to hear Jesus’ narrative in asking Him the question because he wants to know if Jesus has interests that coincide with his own that are even better than what the high priests have brought him.

Jesus answers Pilate not with opinion but as the Truth. Jesus is the Truth. Jesus tells Pilate, “You say that I am a king, for this I was born and for this I came into the world to testify to the Truth; everyone who belongs to the Truth listens to my voice.” Pilate cynically answers, “What is Truth?” This question of Pilate sums up his sad narrative: Pilate belongs not to the Truth but rather to nothing. This narrative remains a dominant narrative in our media, in our political life, and in our own rationalizations for our personal and social sins.

Jesus does not say a lot in this Passion account; He speaks less as the Passion account moves closer to His death. He is silent in the midst of the angry screams and accusations made by the crowds; He is silent in the midst of the scheming casuistry of the high priests; and He is mostly silent before Pilate. At one with Him in His silence is His mother, Mary. She stands with Him at the foot of the Cross with the Beloved Disciple with an immaculate love that surpasses even the naturally powerful bond between a mother and her son.

Pope Francis observed, “Festive acclamations and brutal torture; the silence of Jesus throughout his Passion is profoundly impressive. He also overcomes the temptation to answer back, to act like a ‘superstar.’ In moments of darkness and great tribulation, we need to keep silent, to find the courage not to speak, as long as our silence is meek and not full of anger. The meekness of silence will make us appear even weaker, more humble. Then the devil will take courage and come out into the open. We need to resist him in silence, ‘holding our position,’ but with the same attitude as Jesus. He knows that the battle is between God and the prince of this world, and that what is important is not putting our hand to the sword but remaining firm in faith. It is God’s hour. At the hour that God comes forth to fight, we have to let him take over. Our place of safety will be beneath the mantle of the holy Mother of God.”

The silence of Jesus and the accompanying silence of Mary are because God is speaking now. God is speaking the Truth and not offering a competitive narrative or compelling argument certainly in the manner of the high priests who seek control of a corrupt system of religious leadership, or Pilate who seeks political advancement as a transfer from Palestine, or the crowds who seek the compelling narrative of a messiah like Barabbas. God is speaking the Truth and offers no narrative to impose His way through manipulation. He speaks the Truth fully that no narrative could ever fully encompass except the fullness of the Truth spoken on the Cross. Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that “human salvation demands the Divine disclosure of Truth surpassing reason.” God’s Word is eternal and it is spoken on the Cross. The Cross of Jesus is the Truth to which He testifies. The Truth is Himself. The fullness of the Truth is the unconditional love of God who gives His Son to ransom us from the power of evil and sin. He gives His Son that we might not settle for any narrative of lies conjured and cobbled together as partial truths when God offers us instead the fullness of the Truth who is Jesus. He gives His Son as the Truth which like love cannot impose itself on anyone. The Truth and Love that are Jesus requires a free acceptance in loving obedience of a share in His Cross. As Pope Benedict XVI wrote in Deus Caritas Est, “It is only by looking at Jesus dead on the Cross for us can this fundamental truth be known and contemplated: God is Love. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move.”

Jesus Christ on the Cross is the Truth spoken by God. Jesus Christ on the Cross reveals the Truth of humanity in all its death-dealing ugliness rooted in the sin of the Garden and the lie of the serpent. Jesus Christ on the Cross at the same time reveals the Truth of God in all His perfect justice, life-giving mercy, and healing forgiveness that pays the price of sin and death by the sacrifice of His own Son.

Mary standing at the foot of the Cross of Her Son, preserved from stain of sin at her Immaculate Conception, is the only human being who can say in communion with God, “to ransom a slave I gave away a Son.” As Pope Francis recently preached, “At the foot of the cross, Mary thought once more of the words that the angel had spoken about her Son: ‘He will be great… The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.’” (Lk 1:32-33) On Golgotha, Mary witnesses the rejection by sinful humanity of that promise: her Son’s brutal death on a cross among thieves. On Golgotha, Mary at the same time witnesses the fulfillment of that promise by God standing at the throne of Her fully human Son, which is the Cross where He wears His crown made of thorns and vanquishes the power of Hell and cunning of the devil, for in His dying it is finished. Mary with Christ keeps silent, because God is speaking.

Palm Sunday

April 14, 2019
Saint Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 50:4-7
Psalm 22
Philippians 2:6-11
Luke 22:14-23:56

As a child attending St. Mary’s Catholic School in Des Plaines, Illinois, I was taught by the Sisters of Saint Francis of Mary Immaculate. Among the many lessons I learned from their dedicated ministry and vocation was how to prepare for death by making an act of perfect contrition. The sisters were clear that preparation for death was not just preparation for an event but meant truly preparing to meet Jesus who loved each of us unconditionally as our friend. The sisters were very good teachers and the point that they made to me included the distinction between “an act of perfect contrition” which was a simultaneous act of faith, of hope, and of love, and “a perfect act of contrition” which was simply the concise recitation of a formula. To paraphrase Sister, “A parrot can recite a perfect act of contrition; only a person can make an act of perfect contrition.” For those of us given to scruples and insecurities, my eighth-grade teacher, Sr. Mary Christine, answered the question as to what one was to do if one didn’t have the time to make an act of perfect contrition. “What if the plane is crashing and I do not have the time?” I asked. She said, “simply speak the name of Jesus in love, say ‘My Jesus. Mercy.’”

In our Gospel today, the repentant thief addresses Jesus by His first name at the time of his death. It is the only time in any of the four Gospels when Jesus is addressed by His first name. The name “Jesus” means “the Lord saves”— “Joshua”. The penitence of the thief involves perfect contrition made from a recognition of the Lord’s unconditional love and mercy for all around. The repentant thief makes an act of perfect contrition from the perspective of his own cross united to the Cross of Jesus. It is strikingly different than the embittered and angry response of the other thief whose circumstances are objectively the same as the repentant thief—except for contrition and self-awareness that comes from uniting his cross with the saving Cross of Jesus. The penitence of the thief on the cross opens the door at which Jesus knocks—the door of friendship—to know and to be known as a friend.

The crowds in the Gospel of today are filled with people who have willed not to know nor to be known—they are each anonymous individuals who identify with each other only circumstantially. They offer us an example for reflection on the individualism of today whereby we shake off all of the relationships and communities that enable us to flourish as human beings. Such communities include marriage and family, church and neighborhood. In the face of authentic humanity in Jesus Christ, the crowds choose anonymity and isolation. For them, Jesus is a cause or an event, not a friend. They have no use for His Cross.

The Sanhedrin and Pilate along with Herod condemn Jesus. The Sanhedrin condemns Him as a “blasphemer” even though they are not mistaken about His true identity. Pilate and Herod condemn Him as a “usurper” of Caesar’s power and of Herod’s status. Each of them is using Jesus as a means to their own respective and selfish purposes. Herod and Pilate become friends but not in the true meaning of friendship that Christ offers. Herod and Pilate have selfish interests that coincide. Jesus is useful to them and they are not His friends. They want no share in His Cross.

On this Palm Sunday, as we begin Holy Week, we reflect of the Passion of Jesus, who loves us as a friend and invites us to such honest friendship in authentic contrition and repentance for our sins. This is the only way to true humanity—the trust and vulnerability involved with friendship—offered to us unconditionally by Christ in the mystery of His Cross. We have a choice to make. We are offered the time for a decision. Our lives will end as we live them. Will we live with Jesus as a cause for a religion of our own making? Will we reject Jesus as a means to achieving our own purposes? Will we live and die with Him as our friend, with our cross united with His Cross—with us contrite for our sins because of His love for us? My Jesus, Mercy.

Homily for The Midnight Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral

December 25, 2018
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

There is a proverb that says, “You become what you love.” In the Garden of Eden and thereafter, the world loved darkness and became dark. The human intellect became dark with error and falsehood; the human will became dark with lust and anger; the human character became dark with sin and vice. Yet, God loved us and so He became one of us in Jesus that we might through His free gift of freedom love light and become light and one with Him. This is what we celebrate tonight at Christmas.

Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. He is given the name Emmanuel, the name that means “God is with us.” He is given that name by Joseph who belongs to Him as His foster father; He is given that name by Mary who belongs to Him as His Mother. Yet, the world as represented by Caesar Augustus, to whom He does not belong, rejects Him and chooses to regard Him not by His name but by the darkness of a number—the darkness of the census. The darkness that the world loves is a darkness that prefers to enumerate in the places where God prefers to call by name; these places where God calls humanity to name and to be named. It is not coincidental that the prince of darkness, the prince of this world, is known by a number (666) and not by a name. It is poignant when we consider that in the not too distant history of the world, the Nazis dehumanized the Jews by tattooing a number on them and removing from them the human dignity of having a name. There is belonging in the gift of a name, there is possession in the ascribing of a number. Numbers are added, multiplied, divided and subtracted. Names reveal and conceal the mystery of a person, a person to be known and not a person to be used. The world that loves darkness rejects the Divine gift of humanity, the gift that is made known by the luminous intimacy of a name, Emmanuel—“God is with us”.

Jesus is born that we might love the light and that in the light we might receive again the redeemed gift of our full humanity lost by the sin of our first parents in Eden. Jesus is born that we might know Him and in knowing Him might belong to Him that we might truly know each other and love and belong to each other beyond the temptation of quantifying each other by a number. Jesus is born that we might truly love God by first being loved by Him and not simply love the number of things that we ascribe to Him only from the distance of ingratitude.

Jesus is born as the light of the world that He might free us from our burdens and burden us with His freedom. As we heard in our first reading from Isaiah, “For the yoke that burdened them, the pole on their shoulder, and the rod of their taskmaster you have smashed, as on the day of Midian.” Christ frees us from the burden of anonymity. He frees us from the burden of ignorance and fear. He frees us from the burden of violence and rage. He frees us from the burden of autonomy and compulsivity. He frees us from the burden of apathy and isolation.

Jesus, the light of the world, burdens us with His freedom to respond to God’s call to each of us to belong and to show that belonging by each of our actions. As we heard in our second reading taken from Saint Paul’s Letter to Titus, “The grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope.” This is a burden Christ imposes upon us. He burdens us with His freedom to do as we should and not as we simply prefer. He burdens us with His freedom from godlessness by giving us knowledge of the truth. He frees us with His burden of justice and beauty. He frees us with His burden of mercy and forgiveness. He frees us with the burden of belonging to God and others—a burden that requires sacrifice on our part. He frees us with the burden of the Cross—the burden of love.

We witness the burden of His freedom in the love shared selflessly between husband and wife belonging to each other in marriage tenderly committed to fidelity, permanence, and openness to God’s gift of children despite the darkness of such problems as unemployment and sickness. We witness and share the burden of His freedom in the love that a mother offers in carrying her child belonging in her body and enduring the burdens of childbirth despite the darkness of its pains. We witness the burden of His freedom in the love of a father dedicating his life in the protection and formation of his children as belonging to a family despite the darkness of fatigue and worry. We witness the burden of His freedom in the selflessly chaste and obedient life of a priest in service as a pastor belonging to Christ and His Church despite the darkness of temptation to ignore the wolf and to become only a hired hand. We witness the burden of His freedom in the inclusion and generosity that we manifest for the vulnerable and marginalized in our society despite the darkness to quantify and dismiss them as only an abstract problem. The light that shines in the manger of Bethlehem surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the shepherds and angels, and even the animals—is the inconvenient light of unconditional love. God loves us and becomes one of us in the Holy Child of Bethlehem—willing that we should be saved by the fullness of His humanity. God is swaddled in our human condition that our human condition might become redeemed humanity—freed from burdens and burdened by authentic freedom. He is born that we might truly be free that we might be burdened in the love of God and of each other. Today is born our savior, Jesus Christ the Lord.

Homily for Priestly Ordination of Fr. Jonathan Demma and Fr. Maurice Moon

May 19, 2018
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Exodus 33:7-23
Psalm 89: 21-22; 25-27
Philippians 3:3b-14
Mark 3:13-19

Hoy en su ordenación al sacerdocio, ustedes son llamados de nuevo por nombre. En su ordenación al sacerdocio, Cristo les llama amigos y ustedes ven Su cara en la manera de la cara de un amigo. Son llamados para estar con El y son enviados a profetizar a Su pueblo por medio de predicar, enseñar y ejemplificar La Verdad entera de Su Evangelio.

El carácter profético de su vocación sacerdotal se nutre por el tiempo que ustedes pasan con Cristo en oración así como pasan con un amigo. El Pueblo de Dios, los cuales son hechos la Iglesia por medio de la celebración de la Eucaristía, depende sobre su tiempo pasado hablando con Cristo así como hablan con un amigo.

Para lograr Sus deseos para todo Su Pueblo, en llamarlos por nombre y llamarlos Sus amigos, les ofrece más en su ordenación sacerdotal. Cristo les ofrece una parte particular y especial en Su identidad como Hijo. Comparte con ustedes la intimidad de Su oración sacrificial de consagración hablada al Padre en la Ultima Cena a través del cual ustedes como sacerdotes-celebrantes dicen Sus palabras en El, pero con la voz de su primera persona—“Esto es mi cuerpo, esta es mi sangre.” Por hacer así, como un sacerdote ustedes reciben de Cristo la participación de la intimidad entre Jesús y Su Padre, con quien El ha conversado primero en escoger llamarles por nombre para seguirlo como Sus sacerdotes.

The Book of Deuteronomy reveals a promise that is unique and different than many of the other promises regarding the coming of the Messiah, unveiled in other parts of the Old Testament. In the Book of Deuteronomy Moses speaks, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, that is the one to whom you shall listen.” The point of the promise is that the Messiah will be a new and ultimate prophet, superior even to Moses. He will be a prophet who will fulfill the Covenant of the Law.

The role of the prophet distinguished God’s chosen people significantly from the surrounding Gentile tribes. Other tribes attempted to force entry into the future and to manipulate it through the employment of magicians or charmers; but because Israel had been chosen by the one true God and given the gift of faith—they received prophets from the Lord in place of charmers. What is the difference?

Charmers cajole idols and conjure future events for the purpose of selfish gain in an effort to control the future with the result that the false gods dominate the lives of the charmers and of those who listen to them and thereby making them slaves. Prophets, on the other hand, discern and reveal the authentic desires of God for His People. Moses, as a prophet, revealed God’s desire of the exodus of His chosen people from slavery and from sin. Authentic prophesy requires that the prophet first listen and then speak intimately with God on God’s terms. God’s terms include in God’s time.

We see in the history of God’s chosen people that there are sad moments when Israel and their prophets become afraid and impatient with God’s timing and so they set aside prophesy for the false and inebriating seductions of charm. When this occurs, the chosen people choose their own slavery in place of God’s desires for them.

Moses is the prophet of the Covenant—the Ten Commandments—the prophet of the Law. His prophesy establishes Israel’s identity as belonging to God and to each other. There is a strong communal element to Moses’ vocation as a prophet. This wandering group of exiled slaves and refugees from Egypt become one people, that is, God’s chosen people through Moses’ prophetic vocation and leadership. Moses reveals God’s desires for them. Moses speaks the truth to them. The Truth liberates them from slavery.

Our first reading today tells us that before Moses speaks to Israel of God’s desires for the people, Moses first listens and speaks with God as with a friend. The people worship in unity each in their own place when Moses converses with the Lord in the tent of intimate friendship; they not only follow Moses’ example but they also rely on Moses’ intimate conversation with the Lord God for them to worship authentically and to become their truest selves—to receive their clear identity as the chosen people of the Lord united in the Covenant with Him. This covenant and unity come about because of Moses’ intimate conversation with the Lord as with a friend. Yet, despite this closeness, Moses’ request to see the face of God is refused by God.

It will be for Jesus, the prophet greater than Moses, to speak to the glorious face of the Father not only as a friend but as a Son. Jesus fulfills the Covenant made by God with Moses. As we read in the Gospel of John, “From His fullness we have all received, Grace in place of Grace, because while the Law was given through Moses, Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only Son, God, who is at the Father’s side, has revealed Him.” The face of God is revealed to us in Jesus Christ.

Today’s first reading from the Book of Exodus leads us to consider our Gospel reading from Mark in which we read that Christ spends the entire night in conversation with God before descending the mountain and calling His Apostles each by name. Jesus’ conversation with God surpasses even the nearness of friendship extended by God to Moses. Rather, Jesus speaks with God face to face with the intimacy and trust of God’s Son. As the Son, Jesus both reveals and is the face of the Father that Moses longed to see. In descending from the Mountain he calls each Apostle by name—He calls them and speaks with them as friends—they see His face as a friend sees another friend’s face. They are commanded to be with Him at the same time that they are sent to prophesy to the Truth of God’s desires of redemption for His people—the desires incarnate in Jesus Christ Himself.

Today, in your ordination to the priesthood, you are called again by name. In your ordination to the priesthood Jesus Christ calls you friends and you see His face as that of a friend. You are called to be with Him and you are sent to prophesy to His people by preaching, teaching, and exemplifying the entire Truth of His Gospel. In the celebration of the sacraments you will prophetically reveal God’s desires for His people. These desires include entrance into eternal life, freedom from original sin and membership in His Church through Baptism; these desires include the merciful absolution of sins and correction of vice in the Sacrament of Penance; these desires include the prophetic witness of the permanent, selfless, and life-giving love of the Sacrament of Matrimony in the consent made between a man and a woman; these desires include the healing of sin’s effects in illness and death through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick; and most especially these desires include the celebration of the Eucharist whereby His People see Christ’s face in your proclamation and preaching of the Gospel, in each other as members of the gathered assembly, in your attentively reverent and priestly presence as celebrant and presider, and most especially in the bread and wine consecrated through your praying of Christ’s words becoming His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

The prophetic character of your priestly vocation is nourished by the time that you spend with Jesus in prayer as with a friend. The People of God, who are made the Church through the celebration of the Eucharist, depend upon your time spent speaking with Christ as with a friend. Just as the chosen people of the Old Testament depended upon and followed Moses’ example of intimate and prayerful conversation with God in order that they could worship authentically, thus, the Priestly People, His Church, depends upon your prayerful conversation with God in Christ at the Eucharist and also in your ongoing life of prayer spoken with God as with a friend. Christ desires that you treat Him as a friend and not as a passing acquaintance or as a periodically useful benefactor. The People of God depend on this. Without this patient friendship, the prophetic aspects of your priestly vocation run the risk of becoming corrupted into a type of charm resulting in manipulation for your selfish entitlement and the people’s inebriation with a false gospel of consumption based upon their ideological preferences.

To accomplish His desires for all of His People, in calling you by name and calling you His friends, He offers you even more than friendship in your priestly ordination. Christ offers you a particular and special share in His Sonship. He shares with you the intimacy of His sacrificial prayer of consecration spoken to the Father at the Last Supper whereby you as the priest celebrant speak Jesus’ words in Him but with the voice of your first person—“This is my body, this is my blood.” In so doing, as a priest you receive from Christ the participation of intimacy between Him and His Father, with Whom He has first conversed in choosing to call you by name to follow Him as His priests.

The Rite of Ordination begins with the expressed desire of the Church that you be ordained as priests. Your worthiness is attested to, as much as any human being’s worthiness can be attested to, for the enormous responsibility and privilege of the priesthood. Earlier I began by choosing you as brothers for the priestly office. In a few moments, I will address you again but this time as sons.

The promise of obedience that you will make to me and to my successors is the obedience not of a slave but of a son. It is an obedience that involves loving discipline and not simply minimal compliance. It is an obedience that is relational and communal, not private and subjectively interpreted. As the obedience of a son it requires of me as your bishop the reciprocal attention and care of a father for the sake of the unity and mission of the Church desired by Christ and prayed for specifically by Him at His Last Supper that all may be one. In other words, the People of God require that we make ourselves available to each other in this filial relationship of obedience frequently and intentionally. Otherwise we run the risk of wrongly considering obedience to be an unjust hindrance to personal autonomy and further to misunderstand the fatherly office of bishop as needed only annually as a dispensary of sacred chrism for one’s own private ministry. Neither the bishop nor the priest should be presumptuous of the integrity of this relationship as essential to the health and life of the Church as intended by Christ and desired by the Father.

I would offer to you one final point for reflection. To assist us in receiving His gift of a priestly share in His Sonship, Christ has also given us the gift of Mary, His Mother, to be our Mother too. As He died on the Cross for our salvation He entrusted to the Beloved Disciple the care of His Blessed Mother—our care for her and her care for us. Christ is specific in that she is to be our mother and we are to be her sons. While she is the Mother and Help of all Christians, she offers in a particular way her motherly care for us as Her Son’s chosen priests. She assists us in cultivating the virtue of purity of heart; she fosters in us a sense of approachable compassion for all of God’s People; she assists us in pondering with docility the Word of God in our hearts and enfleshing it through our preaching; and she guides us as she guided the stewards at Cana by encouraging us to do whatever He tells us to do. Most especially our Blessed Mother assists us in saying yes to God with trust in the midst of frightening circumstances that would be overwhelming and insurmountable without God’s Grace. She saves us from arrogance and offers us confidence to fulfill the prophetic responsibilities of our priestly vocation. Pray to her.

Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lord’s Supper

March 29, 2018
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

The human condition retains the residue of original sin even though a Christian is washed clean of sin by the sacrament of Baptism. Theologians refer to this residue as concupiscence, that is to say a tendency towards sin and towards giving into temptation and towards selfishness. The freedom from concupiscence is offered to us by the Lord Jesus in His call to follow Him. Following Him includes following Him on His way of the Cross; it is not simply living one’s life by an ideal worldview that has been put together by oneself from different statements and phrases of Jesus for one’s own personal and private philosophy of life.

The first reading from Exodus speaks of the Passover. The Israelites are spared the last punishment to be visited upon Egypt. They are commanded by God first to prepare a meal to be eaten as part of a sacrifice; they are to eat with their shoes on their feet as a people in flight. They begin by fleeing and seeking refuge from the oppression of slavery. They begin their flight as a mob of refugees but it is the Covenant made between God and Moses on their behalf that makes them a people on pilgrimage to the land promised to them by the Lord God.

Tonight’s reading from John’s Gospel recounts the events of the Last Supper of Jesus and places its emphasis upon the washing of the feet by Jesus of His disciples with His command that they go and to do the same in ministry of others. The Israelites were dry shod on their Exodus but the Lord fulfills that first Covenant by having His disciples remove their shoes that He might wash their feet. Jesus is not in flight from oppression; Jesus is processing obediently and decisively to the victorious fulfillment of the Father’s mission to conquer sin and death and to destroy the prince of this world through His perfect act of obedient and sacrificial love. This is perfect charity. It is the life of the Trinity that envelops the life of the Christian.

It is the Eucharist, the sacrament of perfect charity, which establishes our belonging to God and to each other in Christ. It is not our shared opinions and practices that validate the Eucharist as some sort of ideal and abstract symbol of flexibly interpretive meaning but of little value in reality. This is why the norms and expectations for reception of the Eucharist are so clear and binding for members of the Church. It is the Eucharist that enables us to make the journey with Jesus that is the Way of the Cross — of our sufferings and of our sins carried by Him and with Him in His perfect act of sacrificial love. The washing clean of the grime on the feet of the disciples — symbolic of the residue of original sin, which is to say concupiscence — is necessary and represents the life of sacramental grace that enables each of us to serve as Christ serves and but first to love as Christ loves. Without this sacrifice of the Eucharist as confected by the offering of the priest and our participation in it, the washing of feet becomes simply self-congratulatory altruism.

As Saint John Paul II spoke at the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in 2003, “During the Supper, knowing that His “hour” had now come, Jesus blesses and breaks the bread, then gives it to the Apostles saying: “This is my body”; He does the same with the cup: “This is my blood.” He commands them: “Do this in remembrance of me.” Truly this is the witness of love taken “to the end.” Jesus gives Himself as food to His disciples to become one with them. Once again the “lesson” emerges that we must learn: the first thing to do is to open our hearts to welcoming the love of Christ. It is His initiative: it is His love that enables us, in turn, to love our brethren. Therefore, the washing of the feet and the sacrament of the Eucharist: two expressions of one and the same mystery of love entrusted to the disciples, so that, Jesus says, “as I have done... so also must you do.” Christ enables us to do as He has done.

The mandatum of Jesus becomes the measure by which our lives as human beings, and not simply as compliant allegiants to abstract ideals of vaguely understood Catholic doctrine, will be measured and judged by God. Thus, the Eucharistic bond that blossoms forth in the lowly and slave-like washing of our neighbor’s feet will not give way to any other standard of how we live our lives here and now in the United States of America or anywhere else — it is a standard that trumps all other customs, laws, and philosophies of life.

Tonight’s celebration of the Eucharist — the Mass of the Lord’s Supper — is structured in such a way as to end abruptly with a procession with the Lord Jesus Himself leading us to the altar of repose — the Lord’s gift to us of a spiritual Gethsemane. It is part of one large liturgical celebration of the Triduum. Our feet are washed as His disciples so that we can make this procession willingly with Him and with confidence in His sacrificial love that enables us to love by first receiving the gift of His unconditional love which requires humility, trust, and a willingness to change on our part. Without the grace of this willingness, we risk taking the path of Judas who sneaks away into the darkness of night closed off by the self-sufficiency of his own greed and refusal to be loved and therefore to love.

Finally, as Saint John Paul II preached, “What will happen tomorrow, Good Friday? What does the cup of the New Covenant mean in the blood of Christ? It means death on the cross. It means His heart pierced by the spear. It means the hour of Christ’s passage from this world to the Father: it means the love with which He loved His own who were in the world: “He loved them to the end.” The Chalice of the New Covenant therefore means Life “because love is as strong as death.” The love that leads Christ to accept the Cross will reveal His full and definitive power in the resurrection: ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’”

Homily for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve

December 24, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 9:1-6
Psalm 96: 1-2, 2-3, 11-12, 13
Titus 2:11-14
Luke 2:1-14

“There was no room for them in the inn.” So Mary and Joseph and the unborn Christ child go to the stable where Christ is born. He is wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger. All of us recognize this verse and these images, even if we are only vaguely familiar with the story of Christmas.

Yet, this expression that there is “no room in the inn,” the image of swaddling clothes, and the symbol of the manger are so much more than a commentary on the human condition’s insensitivity to the plight of those in need. These images also reveal to us that in coming to us through the Incarnation, God will no longer tolerate man only making room for God as a small compartment within man’s life. Humanity has no other option in moving forward than to decide whether or not to belong to God.

For now at Christ’s birth, when man has no room for God, God makes room for man in the fullness of divine life. God meets us where we are in our humanity — in the stable, in the darkness, in the margins of society and family life, in the dank smell of sin and corruption — but God does not leave us there. The Son of God, the Prince of Peace, does not first reveal Himself to the exalted and the powerful because they are not like the shepherds who are keeping watch; the exalted and the powerful think that they already have made a small place for God in each of their lives that He might fit into their own plans. The exalted and those esteemed greatly by the world are not keeping watch tonight, because they are preoccupied with their own purposes.

This idea of “keeping watch” is a central theme of Jesus’ message as presented throughout Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel begins with shepherds keeping watch and staying awake in the dark of night. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus asks His Apostles present to keep watch with Him and to stay awake in the dark of night. The shepherds are watchful people because in their poverty they cannot offer God a small part of their lives. They depend totally on His Providence; it’s all or nothing and so they are watchful for Him. As Pope Benedict XVI once observed, “Only a watchful heart can instill the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable.”

The shepherds arrive at the stable and they find the Infant Jesus swaddled in rags. They encounter God who has swaddled Himself in the human condition so that humanity can be swaddled in Jesus’ divinity through the grace of Baptism. This swaddling of the Infant Jesus highlights that God has made Himself to be vulnerable through the full humanity of Jesus — but even more so, God has made Himself to be the most vulnerable among all vulnerable human beings: He has become a swaddled infant. In the vulnerable Infant Jesus we see God’s refusal to tolerate any longer His being offered only a spare room in man’s life. God demands not capitulation to His power on our part, He only asks for our love.

The celebration of Christmas Mass at Midnight has always most vividly called to mind the mystery of God made Man, Emmanuel, God-with-us. The celebration of warm joy in the midst of cold and darkness reminds us most beautifully that Christ is the light of the world shining brightly in the darkness — the darkness of our lives and of the world. In a special way, the placing and blessing of the statue of the Infant Jesus in the manger scene places all of us gathered here tonight in that original manger scene. It helps us to belong in the manger spiritually and to remember who belonged there on that great night so many years ago.

Who belonged there in the stable? The angels proclaim the birth of the Christ child and the shepherds hear them. The shepherds were in the outskirts and fields, caves and valleys seldom venturing into the town. The shepherds are watchful because they have no place of their own so they have no spare room for God in their lives. In their watchfulness God reveals fully in the Infant Jesus their place in God’s life and not God’s part in their lives. The shepherds who are unrecognized by so many are the first to recognize the Infant in the manger as the Christ. In so doing, the shepherds belong to Him in the stable.

Mary and Joseph, having heard their respective calls through the Archangel Gabriel and through another angel are blessed by their respective and extraordinary graces; they recognize the true identity of the Infant Jesus who is born tonight because they have been watchful and attentive to God in faith and in reverential love. In so doing, Mary and Joseph belong to Jesus in the stable.

As we look at the stable, we see the ox and the donkey on either side of the Infant Jesus with Mary and Joseph. Even the ox and the donkey belong to the Christ child as the Anointed One — Emmanuel — God-with-us. Why aren’t the donkey and ox mentioned in the Gospel story? The ox and donkey are not mentioned in Luke’s Gospel, many literalists object. Yet we read in the very first chapter of Isaiah in its third verse: “An ox knows its owner, and a donkey its master’s manger; but Israel does not know, my people have not understood.” The presence of these animals fulfills the prophesy of Isaiah and the ox and donkey belong there.

Who isn’t watchful and who chooses not to belong in the stable? Herod, the Roman Empire’s bureaucrats, the inn keepers, and others who are too busy and too preoccupied to belong.

The philosophers, the experts, and those who already have a spare room for God in their lives miss the song of the angels and the birth of the Christ Child. In keeping a spare room for God, they choose not to belong to Him but to treat Him as an occasional guest whom they invite when they are bored. They are either asleep or about other evil business transacted in the dark of night; the very darkness in which the light of the Christ Child now shines so brightly.

Reason itself, unaided by faith, does not permit us to watch for the mystery of God’s victory in the defenseless Infant Jesus who conquers humanity by vulnerable love. Reason, unaided by faith, fosters isolation and selfishness in each of these groups who choose not to belong in the stable. This is the selfishness which darkens the intelligence of human beings so that they miss their true identity of belonging to God and to each other as His children; they sadly prefer the tinseled allure of individualism. This darkness still pervades in much of our world today. Yet, the light of the Christ Child shines ever brighter in its midst on this Christmas morning.

As Pope Francis remarked about this Gospel, “The newborn Child challenges us. He calls us to leave behind fleeting illusions and to turn to what is essential, to renounce our insatiable cravings, to abandon our endless yearning for things we will never have. We do well to leave such things behind, in order to discover, in the simplicity of the Divine Child, peace, joy and the luminous meaning of life.”

So fallen humanity receives its Savior in a manger, a place where animals go by instinct to feed. Yet, the same Christ child will grow and as a man nourish our fallen humanity with the redemptive banquet of His Body and Blood, the Eucharist — the Sacrament whereby we can truly belong.

Yet, do we belong here tonight? Or, are do we prefer the company of the cunning Herod who sees the Christ Child as a threat to his power and caprice? Are we with the indifferent Roman bureaucrats who ignore the Christ child until the status quo is threatened? Are we in commerce with the inn keepers who have not even a spare room for the Christ child or His parents except insofar as they could add to the profit margin?

Are we willing to accept the gift of belonging in the stable with Mary and Joseph? Mary, weary from travel and child birth, exhausted in the stench of a stable, the only place of refuge; Joseph, saddened and shamed for not being able to provide more in the keeping of his promise to the angel in serving as the guardian of Mary and Jesus.

Our gift of belonging to God in Christ requires our not having a spare room for Him but embracing in our weakness His room for us; it requires our swaddling in His divinity through the gift of Baptismal Grace; and it requires our being nourished and transformed at the banquet of His sacrificial love, the Eucharist.

Christ is born again in our lives. His light shines in the darkness of our selfish human condition. He welcomes us back to belong again to our redeemed human nature that was wounded by sin but now in the manger surpasses even the original state of our humanity in the Garden of Eden. Today is born our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. May His light and His love bless us with watchful hearts.

Homily for Priestly Ordination of Fr. Stephen Hauck and Fr. John Martin

Photo by Juan Guajardo

May 20, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 61:1-3
1 Peter 5:1-4
John 15:9-17

Several years ago, when Bishop Vann was transferred from our Diocese of Fort Worth to the Diocese of Orange, each and every one of us began to pray that Christ would send us a new bishop for the good of our local church. As a priest of this diocese, whose term of assignment was approaching its end, I prayed with particular zeal and specificity for this intention. I prayed ardently that Christ would send us for our bishop, a patient man, a man of reticence of speech, and a man with enough aversion to controversy to at least stay out of the newspapers. Our faith teaches us that God answers all prayers but sometimes He says "no." That was the case on November 12, 2013 when I received a call from the papal nuncio who informed me that the pope had appointed me to be the new bishop of Fort Worth. With disbelief, I quickly responded to the archbishop, "Your Excellency" (we use such salutations when we want very much to get our own way). "Your Excellency, there are certainly very many priests and bishops who are more patient, more prudent, and more experienced than me to be the bishop of Fort Worth." To which the nuncio responded, "Your Excellency, the pope knows that but he has chosen you."

I tell that story because Christ’s choice of you to follow Him and to serve His people as priests is not based upon your talents. Christ’s choice of you is not made reluctantly by Him because of your weaknesses. Christ’s choice to call you is based upon His love for you and for His people; it is a love that is fully displayed in His Sacrifice of the Cross. Your priestly vocation is an act of Christ’s generous love for you and for His people, the Church. Your priestly vocation is not a career or a form of self-identification. Christ’s choice is trustworthy and it is decisive in offering you a particular share in His mission. His choice enables you to make a decision that is as firm, trustworthy, and purposeful as His.

This is important because we too frequently misunderstand choice in our contemporary world as being an expression of a type of freedom that is indifferent to permanence and stability. We mistakenly think that to be free means to maintain as many options among abstract goods as possible. Choice becomes only the temporary expression of my current and changing preferences indifferent to reality or to anybody else. This too often adversely affects discernment of a vocation where the discerner becomes paralyzed in making a decision from among such abstract goods as priesthood or marriage. Yet, in fact, priesthood and marriage are not abstract goods. They are very real. They involve very real human beings responding to the very real God. They only become misunderstood as abstract goods when we draw our attention away from Christ by placing our focus on our preferences in considering these vocations apart from Him who extends the invitation and the call to us to love.

Perseverance in our vocation and our discernment requires simplicity of heart in order that we can say, “yes when we mean yes, and say no when we mean no, for as Christ teaches us, anything more is from the evil one.” Trust in Christ ensures our perseverance and spares us from indecision and the sadness of not belonging to anyone.

How do we come to recognize with clarity that He has chosen us? The Gospel from today offers us some insight. The Gospel includes a series of sayings that alternate between commandment and love. These are held in tandem, commandment and love; they express the rhythm of Christian life and discipleship. Follow Christ’s commands, do so out of love — His for you and the Church, and yours for Him and His Church. The more we obey, the more we love, and the more we become His friends. In this friendship we hear His invitation and are able to respond to it and to trust Him.

Christ’s choice for us is permanent and lasting and far from being indifferent. He will never take it away. In order for our choice to respond with reciprocal permanence and love to His choice, His assistance is required because of our weak and wounded human condition. This assistance is brought about through the grace of anointing with chrism. Anointing with chrism marks us as belonging to Him and to each other as brothers and sisters and sons and daughters of His Church. It is His brand upon each of us the baptized as His sheep, the sheep of the Good Shepherd who seeks the lost sheep. Anointing on our heads with chrism at Baptism and Confirmation makes us belong to Him, and each of us to each other as brothers and sisters and as sons and daughters of the Church born through Baptism. The anointing with chrism is permanent and far from being indifferent. It shows us as belonging to Him by His choice and by our choice to accept His choice.

Today’s celebration involves a further choice by Christ to call these men into deeper belonging and particular service with a further response required by our candidates for ordination. Therefore, another anointing with chrism is required to bring about sacramentally the permanence of Christ’s call and their response to a priestly vocation. Dear sons, your hands are to be anointed with chrism. This anointing of your hands makes them belong to Christ as His hands. He remains in you and you in Him manifested by the ongoing tandem of obedience and sacrificial love. Your hands belong to Him and His hands belong to you. Never forget that Christ’s hands constructed and created as a carpenter at work, His hands healed the sick, His hands cleansed the leper, His hands imparted mercy as they wrote upon the ground to free the woman caught in adultery and to admonish the self-righteous to conversion. His hands washed the feet of the disciples, His hands offered the bread and wine at the Last Supper in instituting the Eucharist, His hands were pierced and bloodied by nails in the freely-offered sacrifice of His life at the crucifixion, and His wounded hands were glorified at His Resurrection and they dispelled the darkness of doubt by their open display to Thomas. He gives you His hands to become your hands in the anointing with chrism that you are about to receive. He gives you His heart, the heart of the Good Shepherd who cares for the lost sheep through the imposition of my hands accompanied by those of your brother priests with whom you will soon belong as brothers in the priesthood.

You will belong even more profoundly to Him in a deeper way through your use of these anointed hands for His mission of salvation in your perseverance in ministry as His priests. Use these hands well. Offer the sacrifice of the Mass daily with them, absolve sinners with them, anoint the sick with them, baptize and mark new members of His Church by using chrism with them, bless His people with them, comfort the afflicted with them. Remind those who are on the margins of the sheepfold that they belong to Christ through their anointing with chrism at baptism, for you will today be anointed to anoint them and to mark them as belonging to Christ, to the Church, and to nobody else as a possession. Because your hands belong to Christ through this anointing, do not fill them with lesser goods and possessions selected by indifferent choices. If you were to do so, you would go away sad like the rich young man who could not decide to answer Jesus’ call to follow and to belong to Him or to anyone else.

In our contemporary world, in which we are to bring joyfully the Gospel of Christ, the people of God especially need your ministry as priests to be reminded that they belong to Christ and to each other and are not isolated from either. Joyfully receive this share in His mission with which He entrusts you.

Homily for Good Friday, Celebration of the Passion of the Lord

April 14, 2017
St. Patrick Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 52:13-53:12
Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25
Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9
John 18:1-19:42

The high priest questions Jesus in the account of the Passion that we have just proclaimed. The high priest questions Jesus about his disciples and about his doctrine. Jesus’ responds to the high priest, “I have spoken publicly to the world. I have always taught in the synagogue or in the temple area where all the Jews gather, and in secret I have said nothing. Why ask me? Ask those who heard me what I said to them. They know what I said.”

Jesus’ response reveals that it is for us to answer the question of the high priest. We’ve heard Jesus speak to us. Well, do we know what He taught us and what he said to us? Do we really believe it? How do we answer the high priests of our contemporary world when they ask us what Jesus has taught us in the Gospel revealed in Sacred Scripture and in the Tradition of the authentic teaching of his Church? Do we witness clearly or do we run and hide? Do we stand at the foot of the Cross with the Blessed Mother and the Beloved Disciple, or do we deny Christ as we lurk in the shadows of conformity with the contemporary world steeped in relativism and apathy for all that is good and true?

Perhaps, Pilate too frequently provides the grounding for our response to the high priest’s question with his own cynicism, “What is Truth?” The manipulative character of Pilate is displayed when he moves from asking cynically as to what is truth to his self-serving declaration before the crowd that he finds no guilt in Jesus. How can one witness to guilt or innocence, right or wrong, virtue or vice, if one has no room for the truth? Pilate with firm purpose omits to state that he finds Christ to be innocent. Pilate lies by omission. He short-sells the fullness of the truth. It is the Truth that is crucified today and every day when we cowardly fail to witness to the high priest’s interrogation of the nature of Christ’s doctrine—the Truth in Love.

Without Christ we are lost. So, Jesus gives us Mary, his own Blessed Mother to be our mother as his last gift to us from the Cross. Mary shows us the bravery of discipleship and silently answers the high priest’s interrogation by her attentiveness at the Cross of her Son—her witness to the Truth. Her loving and hopeful surrender to the will of the Father in assisting Jesus’ obedience to the Father’s will in offering his life for our salvation strengthens us and shows us what we must do with gratitude for all that Jesus has done for us. Mary shows us that there is nothing secret with her Son’s mission or doctrine. We cannot hide anything that Christ has revealed or taught us in Scripture and Tradition. We cannot adequately live our Christian faith, given to us by Christ, without the assistance, example, and intercession of our Blessed Mother who stands by us in our own share in her Divine Son’s Cross. The answer to the high priest’s question that Jesus asks us to answer is that of love, the sacrifice of the Cross, the statement of truth, the fullness of the truth spoken with courage, and hope in the face of sin and death.

Homily for Holy Thursday, Mass of the Lord’s Supper

The Last Supper, Leonardo da Vinci

April 13, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Exodus 12:1-8, 11-14
Psalm 116:12-13, 15-18
1 Corinthians 11:23-26
John 13:1-15

One of the first bitter fruits of the sin of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve did not trust God, was the loss of trust on the part of human beings towards God, between man and woman in particular and among human beings in general. This introduction of suspicion in place of trust produced domination and oppression; in place of love it produced violence and possession. The first reading from Exodus speaks of the Passover. The Israelites are spared the last punishment to be visited upon Egypt. They are first to prepare a meal to be eaten as part of a sacrifice; they are to eat with their shoes on their feet as a people in flight. They begin by fleeing and seeking refuge from oppression. They begin their flight as a mob of refugees but it is the Covenant made between God and Moses on their behalf that makes them a people on pilgrimage to the Promised Land. The Lord keeps His promise.

The Israelites by God’s mercy are led dry-shod through the Sea, as we will sing in the Exultet this Saturday night at the Easter Vigil. Israel’s oppressors are drowned; their freedom is given to them by the Lord. That gift of freedom is the fruit of God’s Covenant. It is the Covenant by which God makes them a people with an identity and a sense of belonging. They move from slavery and being possessed as property to freedom and belonging to God and to each other. The Lord keeps His promise.

The Lord Jesus celebrates the Passover meal with His chosen disciples, each called by name. He washes their dry feet, made dirty by the grime of their sinful human condition. The Lord Jesus washes their feet and commissions them to do the same for others. The Lord keeps His promise.

The Last Supper is the first Passover fulfilled. The Last Supper first prefigures the lasting Passover; the Lord’s giving of His life freely on the Cross. The Lord who has power to lay down His life and to pick it up again—does so with unconditional love for us in His Cross and Resurrection.

The Passover is about trust. The trust of Moses is imperfect and incomplete so he is prevented from entering the Promised Land. The trust of Jesus is perfect and complete and He leads us each washed clean into His Kingdom. Jesus is trusting and obedient to His Father’s Will because He completely loves the Father. Jesus trusts Peter, although Peter will deny him out of fear and weakness. Yet, Jesus knows this and intentionally trusts Peter. Jesus trusts the three apostles to stay awake with Him to pray—although Jesus knows that each of them will fall asleep. Yet, Jesus knows this and intentionally trusts the three apostles. Jesus trusts Judas as His apostle, although he knows that Judas will betray Him. Jesus is not suspicious and He is not naïve in His trust of Judas or the other apostles. Jesus is intentional and conscious about His trust because it is part of His mission of redemption. The capacity to trust is part of the human condition that is in need of being redeemed. Jesus is fully aware and He trusts. The Lord keeps His promise.

Jesus trusts the disciples with His mission, to wash each other’s feet with mercy and forgiveness—part of trust. Jesus trusts the Apostles with the ministry of the priesthood to celebrate the Eucharist and to shepherd His people. The Eucharist is about trust. The trust of the Eucharist is an intimacy of agape; it is an intimacy of charity. The Eucharist makes us become the Church and not simply a congregation of like-minded individuals. The Eucharist gives us the grace to trust.

In making us to become the Church the Eucharist is also so closely identified with the other sacraments. The Eucharist as a covenant of trust between Christ and His Church is united with the sacramental covenant of marriage, the trusting and complete self-donation of a man and woman to each other with intimacy that confers holiness on husband and wife. The sacrament of Holy Orders, especially the vocation of the priesthood, is laden with trust, the trust to say "yes," the trust to persevere in obedience and celibate chastity, the trust of the Seal of the Confessional. Jesus entrusts all of this to His Church and to his priests serving within the Church. His gift of Himself on the Cross is at the heart of the gift of His Body and Blood on Holy Thursday. The gifts of the bread and wine become His gift of His Body and Blood at Mass that in turn make us His Church. In doing so, Jesus knows our sinfulness and He trusts us as He frees us to trust Him. The Lord keeps His promise.

Jesus, I trust in you!

Homily for Chrism Mass 2017

Photo by Donna Ryckaert

April 11, 2017
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Fort Worth, Texas

Isaiah 61:1-3a, 6a, 8b-9
Psalm 89:21-22, 25, 27
Revelation 1:5-8
Luke 22:14-23


Today, in this liturgy, we will bless and consecrate the holy oils that we shall use in the administration and celebration of the sacraments throughout the coming year: the Oil of the Catechumens, the Oil of the Sick, and the Sacred Chrism. As priests, and as your bishop, we each will renew publicly the promises that we made on the day of our ordination. How are these two actions united in this Liturgy, the blessing of oils and the renewal of our promises? The relationship between these actions cannot simply be functional or only ceremonial. The relationship between these two actions—the blessing of oils and the renewal of priestly promises—is centered on Jesus Christ—Priest, Head and Shepherd of the Church. It is Jesus Christ, the Word made Flesh, who calls each one of us and saves us from sin. It is Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, who is the fulfillment of the prophesy of Isaiah that we have read today. It is the prophesy that Jesus read in the midst of the synagogue as recorded in Luke’s Gospel. It is the prophesy that Jesus reads again sacramentally in the proclamation of this Gospel at this Chrism Mass.

The Oil of the Catechumens addresses the restlessness of the human heart. It is the restlessness that can be settled by God alone. The Oil of the Catechumens is applied over the heart of the one who is to be baptized. It makes manifest the mystery that God seeks us out even before we desire to seek Him. God comes to us before we are baptized and washed clean of sin. The Oil of Catechumens reminds us as priests that we are stewards of the Lord’s mysteries and not their masters. It is God who initiates our salvation and gradually prepares us for the fullness of the truth that we can only understand by the light of faith. Faith answers this restlessness. The Oil of Catechumens prepares us for the gift of faith that saves us from the darkness of restlessness and the confusion that corrupts our reason because of the effects of original sin.

The Oil of the Sick is the visible sacramental of the healing and merciful mission entrusted to the Church by Jesus. It is used in the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick in which God’s faithful people, wounded and suffering because of sin and its effects of violence and illness, receives the Grace of forgiveness and healing offered by God from within. The anointing manifests the healing first of the relationship between the person and God by His forgiveness of sin. It manifests secondly the healing of the ruptured relationship among persons because of the injury caused by sin. Finally, it manifests the healing and redemption of physical and spiritual suffering brought about because of the Devil’s assault on the originally created right order of the world brought about by our own sin and selfishness. This oil signifies the hope and fortitude of Christ’s healing compassion and the victory of His Cross over despair, presumption and fear.

The Sacred Chrism is a mixture of olive oil and sweet-smelling vegetable oils. The anointing with Chrism that takes place at Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders is the fulfillment of the promise spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, “You shall be called priests of the Lord, men shall speak of you as ministers of our God.” Each Christian receives the Holy Spirit and becomes one with God’s priestly people at Baptism. Each Christian is strengthened for this mission at Confirmation. Each Christian becomes a member of God’s priestly people through anointing with Chrism. Each priest and bishop shares particularly in Christ’s sacrificial mission through being anointed by Chrism on the hands—where Christ was pierced for our salvation—hands that healed others. Each bishop is also anointed with Chrism on the head—where Christ was pierced by a crown of thorns in mockery and rejection of the Truth. Priests and bishops are anointed with Chrism to teach, to govern, and to sanctify, as being ordained in the image of Christ, Head and Shepherd of the Church. In so doing they are ordained to foster the authentic unity found only in the Truth of Jesus Christ and not in passing consensus of opinion. This is the unity for which Jesus prayed.

Chrism sacramentally manifests God’s healing of the confusion of egotism. It manifests the Triune God’s conquest of the chaos of autonomy. It makes real the liberation of those caught in the self-absorption of sin. The anointing with Chrism brings about our belonging in communion with Christ and our neighbor as His people, the Church. This anointing unites us to Christ in the ministerial priesthood as brothers in service to this priestly people as we are configured to Jesus as Head and Shepherd of His Church. Chrism manifests the sense of belonging that comes with communion as opposed to the alienation and isolation wrought upon us by sin and selfishness.

As priests, each of us ministers sacramentally because of the anointing at our ordinations. It is Christ who ministers through us; it is our humanity that either clarifies or conceals that mystery to the benefit or detriment of God’s People. God chose to save us through Jesus’ humanity. Christ has invited us, His priests, to walk with Him more closely than other Christians only for the sake of revealing this mystery to God’s Priestly people through our lives and the earthen vessel of our humanity. We are anointed and ordained for that mission and none other.

Our priestly ministry uses the oils that we will bless and consecrate—the Oil of the Catechumens, the Oil of the Sick, and the Sacred Chrism—not just functionally or in a minimalist celebration of a rite or liturgy—but in the mystery of our priestly lives and friendship with Jesus and with each other. We use the Oil of the Catechumens at Baptism, but this oil also affects our ministry when we recognize humbly that the people whom we baptize are first brought to us by God. God has been very much at work in their lives before we ever encounter them or they encounter us. As priests, we listen to our people in their restlessness and we pastorally indicate where God is present to them and where he is leading them—to the bath of Baptism—to the light of faith—where they find true rest in the presence of God. This is an especially important aspect of our ministry today where so many voices in our society attempt to trick us into living as if God does not exist; or, if He were to exist, that He really does not care about us.

We use the Oil of the Sick not just when we go to the hospital (and we should do so frequently) to administer the sacrament of the sick; or when we celebrate this sacrament communally in the context of Mass on select Sundays or Feasts. This oil also affects our priestly ministry when we articulate the hope and confidence that God provides to people who suffer from illnesses. It affects our priestly ministry when we preach the truth that death does not have the final word. It affects our ministry when we courageously do not succumb to the cynicism of our times that sees life as nothing more than a selfish and brutish existence with the weak and the vulnerable being cast aside like failures of nature’s lottery.

We use the Chrism not just simply at the administration of the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation or the ordination of priests and bishops. Chrism imbues our priestly ministry as we heal the alienation of people who have mistakenly decided not to belong to God or to anyone else. Sacred Chrism affects our ministry when we heal those who passively accept estrangement from God, from their neighbor, and from themselves. The Sacred Chrism with which we were anointed at all of these indelible sacraments in our lives unites us intimately to Jesus Christ and converts us to be men of communion—at one with God and at one with our brothers and sisters for the salvation of all—including ourselves. Chrism makes us one with Christ who came to serve and not to be served; who preached the truth, who healed the sick, who welcomed the stranger, who freely gave His life in the unconditional love of His Passion and crucifixion. In our share in Jesus’ ministry we foster the identity of the baptized as the People of God who otherwise might be seduced by the lie of individualism to not belong—to become a non-people.

The initial reading by Jesus of this prophesy of Isaiah (in Chapter 61) was fulfilled in the hearing of its proclamation by those gathered. Yet, we must remember that in its fulfillment Jesus was rejected and scorned by the people because of the shock of His obedience and love for the will of the Father over all other things. This people did not want to acknowledge its fulfillment of salvation in the here and the now of Jesus’ reading, preferring to treat it as some abstract ideal. The fulfillment was accomplished by His Cross, the sacrifice of love.

As priests, the anointing with Chrism at our ordination enables us intimately to be one with Christ—this also includes oneness with His rejection and the rejection of His Gospel—by a seemingly religious people enamored with and made complacent by the status quo. This day, on which we renew our promises and on which our faithful people pray for us, can offer us an opportunity for an examen of our priestly ministry and of the effectiveness of our preaching of the Gospel. Do we make clear Christ’s fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy by our lives, ministry and preaching? Do we preach more than the status quo of complacency and cynicism? Do we preach communion and belonging in the face of individualism and autonomy? Do we preach the dignity of matrimony in the face of selfish and utilitarian relationships? Do we preach mercy in the face of illness? Do we preach compassion in the face of abandonment? Do we preach the peace of God in the face of restlessness? Do we share intimately in Christ’s rejection because of our fidelity to His Gospel and Mission that is fulfilled in our hearing?

As Pope Benedict XVI preached several years ago at the celebration of the Chrism Mass, "The bath in which the Lord immerses us priests is Himself—the Truth in person. Priestly ordination means: being immersed in Jesus Christ, immersed in the Truth. I belong to Jesus in a new way and thus, I belong also to others, that His Kingdom may come. Dear Brothers, in this hour of renewal of promises, we want to pray to the Lord to make us men of truth, men of love, and men of God. Let us implore Him to draw us ever anew into Himself, so that we may become truly priests of the New Covenant."

Photo by Donna Ryckaert