Solemnity of the Nativity of John the Baptist

Mass of Thanksgiving
St.Mary's Immaculate Conception Catholic Church, Brenham, TX

Is 49:1-6
Ps 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 14c-15
Acts 13:22-26
Lk 1:57-66, 80

I’m very happy to be here to worship with you this Holy Mass.  I served here this past academic year as a deacon.  I was ordained to the priesthood in Dallas on June 2nd, three weeks ago.  It is tradition for newly ordained priests to return the places that have been important in their lives and celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving.  1) to give thanks to God for the gift of the priesthood. 2) to let you all know that priests don’t just suddenly drop out of the sky, they are made through the love and support of the community. I’ve come to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving with you all today.  I would like to thank you all for your prayers and your support through my last year in seminary and I want you all to know that you have been a great part in my formation.  I will be serving the Diocese of Dallas in the future and will officially start my ministry at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Plano, a suburb north of Dallas.  But that’s enough about me, there are other greater things to celebrate today.

Today is a very special day.  Sunday is the Lord’s Day, it is reserved exclusively for the Lord because it is the day of the Lord’s Resurrection.  Therefore, saints’ feast days are not typically celebrated unless it has to do with the Lord.  However, today is an exception.  In the Church’s calendar, we celebrate the birth of only three people: Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist.  The saints’ feast days are usually the day of their death, but for Jesus, Mary, and John the Baptist we celebrate in a special way their birth.  Now, Jesus and Mary we can easily understand but what about John the Baptist, why him?  Why not St. Joseph?  Because John’s birth is unique and specifically mentioned in the scriptures - specifically the Gospel of Luke.

If you do a close reading in your bibles of the Gospel today, you will find that the birth of John the Baptist has very close parallels with the Old Testament stories.  In the Old Testament, which is a foreshadowing of the New Testament, it usually has the great leaders being born of a woman who has been considered barren.  This happened with Samuel and Samson.  Both men were granted to their mothers who consecrated them to the Lord.   John the Baptist is no different.  As Samuel and Samson and all the other great leaders of the Old Testament preached the Kingdom of God and the Laws of the Lord, John the Baptist would be THE herald for the coming of the Messiah.  Therefore the birth of John was essential to God’s plan – to fulfill the role of prophet in the truest and fullest sense.  In other words, where other prophets may have failed or been unsuccessful, this prophet would actually be able to see his prophecy truly come to pass right before his eyes.

You will also in a close reading of the Luke, the parallels between the birth of John the Baptist and Jesus Christ.  The two accounts are right next to each other. And where Zechariah is struck speechless, Mary is hailed and praised.  Elizabeth who was barren is found with child, Mary is a consecrated virgin found with child.  These two stories mirror each other and bring out God’s wonderful plan of bringing Jesus Christ into the world to save mankind.  But why do we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist today, June 24th?

I don’t want to alarm you, but did you know there are 183 shopping days left until Christmas? John the Baptist is so connected with Jesus that their celebrations are also connected.  Jesus is born on December 25, which is considered to be one of the darkest nights of the year near the Winter Solstice.  It is in that darkness where man can look to Christ to be the light of the world.  Christ is the light in the darkness.  And you can guess why John the Baptist the birth of John the Baptist is where it is.  John is the brightest, the pinnacle of the line of prophets announcing the coming of the Messiah.  His holiness is unmatched among men and Jesus praises him as just below the Angels.  He is listed right up there with the Holy Family in the Litany of Saints.  Therefore John the Baptist is at the Summer Solstice – the longest and brightest days of the year, the peak of humanity before the coming of God.  What fascinates me then is how John the Baptist announces the coming of the Lord: when the Messiah comes, I must decrease and He must increase.  John’s “days” get shorter in the year.  And Jesus’ “days” gets longer.

What is truly amazing about our faith is how the celebration of our feasts, the timing of all of our celebrations are not random arbitrary days, but days that are carefully thought out in the mind of God.  He is able to link the cosmos – the astronomical cosmos – together with human history.  So that when we worship and as we worship we are worshipping with the order of the cosmos.  The Psalms say that all of creation worships the Lord – this is not just something pretty but is a reality that we often fail to realize.   When we worship, we worship in time and we worship in eternity.

As we celebrate the Solemnity of the birth of John the Baptist, we call to mind the meaning of John’s name: “YHWH has shown favor”.  God has shown favor by giving His grace to us through the Sacraments and most especially in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.  God gifts us with this intimate relationship with Him – and so we offer thanks in our worship today.  We give thanks for our faith, our relationship with God, and all the many blessings that He has bestowed on us today through the gift of the priesthood and most of all His Son in His most Holy Body and Blood of His Son our Lord Jesus Christ.

XI Sunday, Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Mass of Thanksgiving
St. Rita Catholic Church, Dallas, TX

Ez 17:22-24
Ps 92:2-3, 13-14, 15-16
2 Cor 5:6-10
Mk 4:26-34

I’m very happy to be here at St. Rita’s this morning.  I served here for my pastoral assignment three years ago as a seminarian with now Bishop Mark Seitz.  And now I’ve come to celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving with you all.  I would like to thank you all for your prayers and your support through my seminary years and I want you all to know that you have been a great part in my formation.  I look forward to serving the Diocese of Dallas and the parish to which I have been assigned: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.

A few years ago, my Brother got married the day before Father’s Day.  The next day, we were at Mass and the pastor told all the fathers in the congregation to stand up for a blessing.  I immediately looked over at my Brother; he shook his head a little shocked, “Not yet!”  =)  Actually, my mind was going in a very different direction.

Sometimes I have these moments, and perhaps you may have them too, where the obvious becomes extremely profound.  It was a moment that made me stop to think.  What makes a Father a father?  In my mind, I was thinking that since my brother just got married he was automatically a father.  I had equated husband-hood with father-hood.  Obviously, you need to beget a son or a daughter to become a father; just because you say the words on your wedding day doesn’t make you a father – rather it is the children that make you a father or make you all parents.  Looking at it another way, it’s only after your next generation comes into being that your status is changed or elevated to fatherhood.  Your fatherhood depends on your children and your children depend on you.  There’s this intimate and unique relationship between fathers and their children.  Fathers love their children and sacrifice for them and the true fathers will put their life out for their children.  There is no doubt in my mind, that the fathers here today would be willing to do that.

Our readings today are poetically fitting.  The first reading from Ezekial speaks of taking a tender shoot off the crest of the cedar.  The strong cedar tree being transplanted to a high and lofty place – bearing fruit and providing the birds and animals shelter all around it – will grow to be majestic cedar.  Fathers hope that their children will grow to be just like them and even to go further and beyond their own – each generation growing stronger and better than before.  Likewise in the Gospel, our Lord compares the kingdom of God to a mustard seed or seed scattered about the land to grow and bear fruit.  It is a celebration of life and an example for us to follow in our own families.

However, if we were to just look at these passages and stop there, we would be remiss.  We talk about celebrating Father’s Day, but we miss the most important of fathers: me, Father Reuben.  [Kidding – we’ll get to me in a moment]  All Fatherhood comes from and finds its meaning in God the Father.  Isn’t it interesting that the first Person in the Holy Trinity is referred to as “the Father” only after the Incarnation of His Son, Jesus Christ?  And what does Christ come to do on earth….. besides save it?  He gives us a new relationship with God, with the Father.

It doesn’t take a psychologist to know that the apple does not fall far from the tree and that children often imitate their parents in how they raise their children.  It also doesn’t take a sociologist to know that there is a decline in good male role models – fathers, specifically.  And this is where we can take a cue from God the Father.  As Jesus Christ leads us to the Father, we become first and foremost in our baptism and initiation into the faith, adopted Sons and Daughters of the Father.  We are to live as true Children of God.  This reality becomes apparent every time we receive the Eucharist.  Communion is our oneness as God’s family and as we also pray the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father…” You must not only know it in your minds, but believe it in your hearts that your Father in heaven loves you and desires you to follow Him.  You must walk by faith and not by sight.

Your Christian example – living out your faith daily, whether at home, at work, at the mall, on vacation, or wherever you are – is the fruit that is borne from being Children of God.  As parents, you must do this for your children.  As children, you follow your parents’ example of living the life of a true Christian.  As single people – you are no less important because you are still a child of God and one day you may be called to be a parent.

For priests though, things seem a little bit different.  Priests seem to go against everything I just said: they are single and have no children and yet they are called Father.  Our protestant brothers and sisters often question why Catholics call their priests Father.  There is something to be said for spiritual fatherhood.  As St. Paul says in first Corinthians (cf. 4:14-15) I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.  Priests have renounced this world with promises of celibacy and obedience – a radical imitation of Christ so as to be a Father to all through the Gospel.  Men renounce the earthly fatherhood for a spiritual fatherhood here on earth.  Therefore priests stand as a foreshadowing, a foretaste of the heavenly reality - the love the Father has for His children.  After Jesus ascended into heaven, he did not leave us alone. He gave us the Holy Spirit, the Church, and her priests to guide priests to incarnate the Father’s love for His children.

Therefore, priests do not have any biological children, their spiritual children are boundless.  This has become more and more real to me each day.  Every morning when I wake up or I have a moment to myself I suddenly realize: “Oh my God, I’m a priest!!!”  I need to take a survey of the brand new fathers and mothers out there… did you have that experience?  Or perhaps you are continuously having that realization?  “Oh my God, I’m a parent!”  But also I am starting to grow into the role, besides celebrating the Mass, but feeling more and more fatherly each day.  I am looking out for all my spiritual children – praising the good, speaking out against the bad, and hoping for the best.  You parents have it easy with maybe a few children.  I will soon have a whole parish to father – twins? Hah!

Father’s Day is a day to remember our Father’s hard work and sacrifices even if it seems like a consolation prize to Mother’s Day celebrations.  Whereas Mother’s get taken out to a nice meal, Father’s still have to fire up that grill for their own BBQ.  But seriously, although it is a day to celebrate fathers, let us not forget our Father in heaven.  He is the preeminent example and model for us all.  He sends His Son to us to give us an example of what it means to be His children – how we are called to love one another as He loves us.  The Father loves us to the point of sending His Son to die for us on the Cross, to sacrifice for us.  Fortunately, God is not calling us to sacrifice our children, but rather He does this to show how far He is willing to go to be able to call us His Sons and Daughters.  God has invited us into this intimate relationship with Him – let us respond in kind with our love for Him.