XXI Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Jos 24:1-2a, 15-17, 18b
Ps 34:2-3,16-17, 18-19, 20-21
Eph 5:21-32
Jn 6:60-69

Good morning! I know it’s really early in the morning and I had to write out my homily because I know I’m not quite all there yet, but I’m going to ask that you put your thinking caps on for what I am about to say because I am going to be talking about binary numbers.  Ready? There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those that don’t. No worries if you don’t understand the joke, it’s the computer engineer in me that just had to do that.

The reason I bring up binary numbers is because I am simply fascinated by what can be done with them, machines and computers are all running on ones and zeroes and yet we are able to have HD TV, computers performing billions of calculations a second, and calculators doing advanced calculus.  All from two simple numbers or in layman’s terms: on or off.  When you think about it, our lives are filled with decisions that we have to make.  We either do this and say no to that or we do that and say no to this, we drive this route rather than that route; we take this vacation rather than that vacation.  Our lives are filled with yes’ and no’s, choices .  When we take this route, we are saying no to that route.  When we buy this car, we are saying no to all the other ones.

In today’s Gospel, the last of the “Bread of Life” discourse from John 6, the people are questioning Jesus. They are unable to accept such difficult words that He has just claimed that his flesh and blood are true food and drink, This saying is hard; who can accept it? They say.  They murmured and questioned, and finally they leave because they cannot handle what Jesus is saying.  Jesus asks Peter, Are you going to leave to?  He is faced with a very difficult question: he is having just as much difficulty as the others, but he resolves to allow for his faith to lead him.  To Whom shall we go? you have the Words of eternal life. When we are faced with the difficult crossroads in our life, we must resign and resolve ourselves, to defer to God in leading us and guiding us in making these difficult decisions.

So our lives are filled with binary decisions, yes’s and no’s.  However, there is a different kind of binary choice that I would like to talk about – being polarized.  Sometimes we reach a point where things become a little myopic.  We get flustered or frustrated and what seemed like a few choices before is now polarized to a fight or flight of situation.  The more highly charged a situation gets, the more polarized people can get – and so you don’t have many yes’s and no’s but rather a very narrow view and our vision becomes blurred and we don’t realize that there is always a choice to follow the will of God.

For example: Let’s say a wife and husband are ready to go out somewhere nice, “Honey does this dress make me look fat?”  BOOM! Instant deer in the headlights for this poor guy – a potentially highly charged situation.  A zillion answers are rushing to this man’s mind as he wants to say the right thing and of course he has to say it in the right way with the precise and correct tone of voice that projects confidence and truth to his answer.  This may seem like a mine field for any man; the situation becomes highly charged and the option or freedom to respond is greatly limited.  He has to give an honest answer, with charity, that will not anger and or disappoint his spouse.  In reality, this is a simple question with a yes or no answer.  [“Honey does this dress make me look fat?”... “Yes, you look beautiful honey!”]

When we take a look at the passage from Ephesians, we come to – at least in this day and age – a very controversial topic.  Growing up, the boys would looooove this passage and the girls would never be able to get past those first lines – “wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord.”  So the how does one respond to something that is so highly charged, that can be so polarizing.  There is that temptation to get very polarized and upset about what we are given here in this passage.  But if we take it slow, we can read and accept what St. Paul is trying to say and reject what he is not saying.  We have choices, we do not have to get “polarized” but rather meditate on this passage and see the beauty of the Word of God speaking to us: no agendas, no polarization, but rather truth in charity.

The very first verse: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ, should tell us that this is not about marital hierarchy and male dominance, but how does Christ fit in the marital relationship.  The following verses make an analogy that the wife is to the Church as the husband is to Christ.  St. Paul outlines this with an analogy, but he does not stop there.  Husband love your wives…DUH!  Again, if we stop there and have the temptation to get polarized: the guys got it easy.  When compared with the wife’s responsibility and the husband’s, it would seem pretty one-sided.  But we read on…

Husbands, love your wives,
even as Christ loved the church
and handed himself over for her to sanctify her, ["A crucifixion type love", cf. http://youtu.be/7E9doP6EtHk ].
cleansing her by the bath of water with the word, [allowing the Scriptures to cleanse, purify and sanctify]
that he might present to himself the church in splendor,
without spot or wrinkle or any such thing,
that she might be holy and without blemish. [to be holy and clean and pure as the day of her baptism]
So also husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
He who loves his wife loves himself.
For no one hates his own flesh
but rather nourishes and cherishes it,
even as Christ does the church,
because we are members of his body.

Wow…. This passage is just so profound and beautiful.  We all know what happened to Christ when He came to this world and handed Himself over for our sanctification.   Guess what men… you have a nearly impossible task ahead of you.  You have the responsibility to do what Christ did in this world for your wife: to lay down your life for your wife, your family, to not only provide for their material well-being by working, but also to sanctify them and get them to heaven.  That is your responsibility – it is practically saying, “If your wife and your family don’t make it to heaven, it’s your fault!”  You got to holy-fy your family and if you don’t, you have failed as a husband and father!  And this responsibility is as serious as Christ on the Cross.  Husband love your wives – this kind of love is a sweating drops of blood at the garden of Gethsemane, being scourged at the pillar, being crowned with thorns, bearing a heavy cross, mocked, ridiculed and finally crucified with nails in your hands and feet, and pierced in the side kind of love.  And all this done out of complete and utter love and devotion for the sanctity of your wife and your family.

Wives out there do you want that kind of responsibility for your family?   I know I wouldn’t, I can barely keep myself together let alone other people.  I know a lot of wives would not want that kind of task: to be in charge of somebody’s salvation.  But you know what? I would not be surprised to see some of you wives and mothers out there saying, that they are already doing that, that they have already taken that responsibility.  That’s great; just know that you are doing more than your fair share – doing your husband’s job.  The question you must ask yourself next is, am I doing my job, am I subordinate to my husband?  =)  Are you letting him and allowing him to do his job?  Women in general have come so far in recognizing the dignity of their sex and I hope true injustices, especially in the workplace, be rooted out.  My challenge to you is not to be polarized and react to the command for you to be subordinate, but rather to explore what God is really saying through the writing of St. Paul, to explore how the feminine Church is to the masculine Christ and see how you can fulfill that admonition.  What is the Church without Christ?  And what are you without your husband?  If you are thinking “good riddance”, then I must say I fear for the future of the Church.  There are qualities and differences between the two that do not necessarily imply superiority or demean the other but have a respectable dignity in both.  Do not let the word “subordinate” polarize any of you in thinking one is better than the other.

And Husbands – it’s time to step up to the plate – if your wives are going to be subordinate to you, you had better be a true Christ figure for your family – perfect in example and self-sacrificing in love, no complaining, but selfless love for all the members of your family, just like Christ is for His Church.  Otherwise, your wife must fend for herself and her salvation.  Remember the vows that you made on your wedding day, recommit yourselves and take the example of Christ and His Church as your example.  I challenge you to ask yourself how you are going to lead the family in sanctity and by way of life?  Are you prepared to offer yourself?  To have a crucifixion kind of love for your spouse?

We are at a binary crossroad in our life.  This is a highly charged passage that can either lead us astray in our relationship with our spouse and perpetuate the consequences of Original Sin since the time of Eden, or it can lead to a deeper conversation and experience of God’s plan of salvation.  You can either be swayed by the trends and fads of a feminism that is divorced from our Faith or a feminism that exalts the true dignity of women in all her goodness and beauty as God had originally intended.  You can be swayed by the trends of machismo that is misogynistic and self-serving or one that is in imitation to Our Lord Jesus Christ.  The choice is yours today.

Solemnity of the Assumption, Cycle B

Rv 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab
Ps 45:10, 11, 12, 16
1 Cor 15:20-27
Lk 1:39-56

The Chinese have a traditional celebration next month called the mid-autumn festival.  I guess it would be similar to an Oktoberfest or some other fall festival dealing with the harvest.  It is based off the lunar calendar and growing up here in the United States, I don’t think I get the full effect.  There are many stories and legends of the origin of the festival but its main focus is on the moon.  As I understand it, the moon is at its fullest and roundest all year long.  And when you look at the moon at the time of the festival you will see it really is bigger and rounder than any other full moons.  The day of the celebration of the full moon is coincidently the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the year or August 15.  Again this is based off the lunar calendar so the celebration is always in September.  But I find it fascinating that there is a happy coincidence of August 15 being a Chinese celebration of the moon and for Catholics a celebration of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

She is often compared to the moon as Christ is compared with the sun.  Why?  We see in Luke’s gospel: My soul magnifies the Lord. Magnificat. …my spirit rejoices in God my Savior… From this day all generations will call me blessed.  Her glory is not her own, but rather comes from God who has blessed her.  Just like the moon – the light does not come from itself but rather it comes from the Sun.  Our lives too must reflect that analogy.  We are his instruments, we are to be His light in the darkness of the world.  We should follow the example of Mary as she leads the way for us.  To be God’s light to the world.

The reason we celebrate the Feast of the Assumption is because it is our destiny.  Because God has conquered death and sin, we have salvation. Mary is no less in need of a Savior and it is by special favor and grace that God has allowed her to be assumed body and soul into heaven.  It is not by her own volition and complete merit, but rather because of God’s favor it is only fitting that she is given this privilege.

An early Christian father, Saint John Damascene once wrote:

“It was necessary that she who preserved her virginity inviolate in childbirth should also have her body kept free from corruption after death. It was necessary that she who carried the Creator as a child on her breast should dwell in the tabernacles of God. It was necessary that the bride espoused by the Father should make her home in the bridal chambers of heaven. It was necessary that she, who had gazed on her crucified Son and been pierced in the heart by the sword of sorrow which she had escaped in giving him birth, should contemplate him seated with the Father. It was necessary that the Mother of God should share the possessions her Son, and be venerated by every creature as the Mother and handmaid of God.”

She has done what we will hope to one day do.  Why should we celebrate the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary?  Why is it a day of obligation?  It is because we are obliged to discover the rewards of eternal life – a sneak peek into the resurrection.  We will all one day die, but it is our belief that we will have eternal life with Him, that we will be raised on the Last Day.  If we have any doubts that this will happen, we only have to look to our Lady, Our Blessed Mother, who has shown us the way that we will one day go.  Where there will be a new heavens and a new earth – as St. Paul writes, When this mortal body has clothed itself in immortality, then will be fulfilled the word of Scripture: Death is swallowed up in victory.  We celebrate this victory, where the evil one has struck at His Heel but she has struck at his head.  For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death, for "he subjected everything under his feet."  

Let us celebrate the queen that stands at our Lord’s right hand, let us remember that we will one day join Our Lord with the Blessed Mother and all the saints in heaven.  Until that day, we will have to “settle” for heaven on earth with the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

XIX Sunday Ordinary Time, Year B

1 Kgs 19:4-8
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
Eph 4:30-5:2
Jn 6:41-51

You know television shows – especially ones with an intricate plot and cliff hanger endings usually like to review what had happened the weeks before to keep the viewer up-to-date with what they are about to show.  It’s great because those shows usually come on once a week and you don’t remember all the details of what happened last week.  I sometimes have problems remembering what happened yesterday so I know it’s always a good idea to review what has happened so we can focus on what is happening now.

So we are now in our third week of the “Bread of Life Discourse” in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John.  The first week had the feeding of the 5,000 with the loaves and fishes. The second week or last week the crowd followed Jesus to Capernaum where He told them that they were looking for Him not because they wanted to learn from Him but because they wanted a free meal.  Jesus told them to look for the bread that comes down from heaven.  Next week we will get to the real meat of Jesus’ “bread of life discourse” and flesh out those details.  [see what I did there?] The week after that we will have the epilogue and the aftermath of Jesus’ words.  For this week however, we see how Jesus raises the ante and we are left with a nice little cliff hanger at the end.

So the last thing Jesus said last week was: I am the bread that came down from heaven. Okay…..? Because we are used to singing “I am the Bread of Life” and “One Bread, One Body” it seems no big deal for Jesus to say I am the bread….  You would think that the crowd would make a fuss about Jesus comparing Himself to bread.  But they didn’t because they took it to be a metaphorical understanding.  He has made these kinds of claims before: I am the vine, you are the branches. I am the Good Shepherd, I am the Gate.  So it wasn’t unusual for Jesus to make a claim that He was bread.  They got that.  However, they begin to question His parentage; because if you remember last week He started talking about His Father.  Well everyone in town knew that His daddy was Joseph and that he was a carpenter.  So the crowd was really murmuring about Him claiming that He was the bread come down from heaven.  [“What is he – some kind of space man? This is crazy talk… we know His mother and father…. they have that nice little hut with the white picket fence on Nazareth street.”]

Jesus knows that they are murmuring but doesn’t address it – He is on a roll.  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draw him, and I will raise him on the last day. His Father sent Him to draw people to the Father.  These words are profound.  He at once makes a distinction between His earthly foster Father: Joseph, and His heavenly Father – and that this heavenly Father draws all people to Himself through His Son: Jesus.  Everyone who listens to my Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father.  I have always wondered about this confusing circular language that John’s Gospel uses (I in He, He in I, He is me and I am Him).  However, if you are trying to express the infinite mystery of the Trinitarian Godhead with either the written or spoken word, it doesn’t matter if you are Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, or Ernest Hemingway, you are gonna have a tough time doing it.

When Jesus refers to the Father sending Him we recall the Incarnation: the Word made Flesh.  The Father – God – reveals Himself through His Son – the Word made Flesh.  We now see a tangible reality something that we can somewhat comprehend and engage.  The love of the Father is so strong that He sends His Son to us to show us the way to the Father.

Our part then is to believe in the One whom the Father sent: Amen, amen I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. That seems easy enough right?  The first step for us is to believe in Jesus Christ, who came down from heaven and was made flesh – to believe in everything that He says.  If He said that He is the vine, we believe He is the vine.  If He we are the branches, we are the branches.  [If He said He is a carrot, we believe He is a carrot.]  But He says to us, I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died…I am the living bread that came down from heaven.

Jesus reiterates this statement once again, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. I am the bread of life.  He’s repeating it because the next thing He says will really blow the crowd away.  They had enough trouble with believing that He had a Father that was not Joseph.  I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” The bread that I will give my flesh for the life of the world?! 

Okay…? [Jesus has officially left the reservation!!] Imagine what the crowd is thinking right now:  “Okay we can understand that He is metaphorical bread that gives life.  We can maybe understand that yesterday you just fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fishes that you might be somebody who knows a thing or two about the divine and that you *might* be greater than Moses – maybe, just maybe but we have some serious doubts.  We are really having trouble with the fact that you are saying that you are the Son of God, that Joseph is not your father and that you came down from heaven and that you are equating yourself with God – cause you know, that’s blasphemy.  And now…. You are saying that this bread that comes down from heaven – you – will be given for the world to eat – your flesh as bread for the life of the world.  There is no way we are going to believe that this metaphorical bread that you are talking about is your actual flesh.  Jesus you have bitten off more than you can chew!!

If you can imagine this statement after this kind of build-up and context, you can only imagine what would have happened if Jesus had not said and done all those things these past two weeks.  We are human beings living in a linear temporal space, we take things in one thing at a time and cannot even begin to comprehend this wibbly wobbly timey-wimey stuff .  Our Lord feeds us only with the amount that we can handle; St. Irenaeus said “He [Christ] might easily have come to us in his immortal glory, but in that case we could never have endured the greatness of the glory.  Therefore it happened that he, who was the perfect bread of the Father, offered himself to us as milk [because we were] like infants.”  You know, those who receive Holy Communion on the tongue should really ponder this when they receive:  we are being fed like infants – like my baby niece and some spaghetti, she gets more on her face and on the wall behind her than in her mouth when she tries to feed herself – when one receives on the tongue they are reminded that they are totally dependent upon God to feed and sustain them.

Our Lord indeed gives us Himself, the living Bread of Life, as food to sustain us and keep us going.  If Elijah journeyed forty days and forty nights to the mountain of God from the bread and drink of angels, how much more could we go on with the Eucharist?!  We often do not realize how awesome this gift is – that God has come down from heaven, He has given us His flesh for us to consume so that we may be joined together with Him: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord, the Responsorial Psalm says,  I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall be ever in my mouth.  The mouth that receives the most Holy Eucharist should also be the mouth that offers praise and thanksgiving to Him for all His manifold blessings.  And following the example of St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – to be imitators of God, as beloved children, to live in love as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us.  I pray that we our sacrifice of praise would be worthy before the Lord that we go to Him with a child-like manner, that we can love each other as Christ loved us: offering ourselves to God as a fragrant aroma before the Lord.

NB: Wednesday is the Feast of the Assumption.  It is a Holy Day of obligation.  The ASSUMPTION is that you are going to be there! =)

XVIII Sunday Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Ex 16:2-4, 12-15
Ps 78:3-4, 23-24,25,54
Eph 4:17, 20-24
Jn 6:24-35

If you will remember back from last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the multitude with five loaves and two fish.  This is the context by which we can understand what is going on in this passage taken from Chapter Six of John’s Gospel today.  There is actually a small passage that is skipped and goes in between what we heard last week and what was proclaimed today.  But for now just put in the back of your mind that Jesus had just fed 5,000 people with five loaves and two fish; and that He and His disciples went across the sea to Capernaum, where we find today’s Gospel.

The crowd had already been following Jesus wherever He went.  They would go wherever He went because He was doing some things that you just didn’t see every day.  And when they finally found Him, they asked, Rabbi, when did you get here?  This sets Jesus off on a small speech.  He says, Amen amen… whenever you hear Jesus saying the double “Amen”,  He is about to say something that is profoundly true.  We end our prayers in “Amen” to ratify and accept what has been said to be true.  But Jesus begins with the “Amen” to emphasize that what is going to say is Truth and we are to pay attention.

Jesus tells the people that they are looking for Him because they were getting their stomachs filled.  In other words, they were following him because they were out for a free meal – kinda like those things you get in the mail where they’ll give you a free dinner at a nice restaurant, all you have to do is listen to “small talk” about how this guy has an opportunity that you don’t want to pass up. The people weren’t really there for Jesus, they were there for the food.  So Jesus calls them out: …you are looking for me not because you saw signs but because you ate the loaves and were filled.  He practically accuses them of not recognizing the miracle that was just done and that all they wanted was a free meal.

[rant] How many times have we not recognized the miracle that has happen before our eyes?  How many times have we asked “Why should I go to Mass, I don’t get anything out of it!  I don’t get what Father’s saying, it’s boring and the music is this or that….”  And we MISS the fact that every time we come and celebrate the Mass, ordinary bread and wine is turned into the Body and Blood, Flesh, and Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord.  There is a miracle that happens before our eyes and we don’t even recognize it.  [mutter] “I don’t get anything out of it!”  YOU GET THE BREAD OF LIFE and you witness a miracle before your very eyes.  [/rant]

Do not work for food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life…  

Jesus tells us to work for the food that endures for eternal life.  And the people ask, What can we do?  This answer to this question should be quite obvious for the average Jew at that time: Follow the Commandments given to them by Moses, follow the Law, worship the Lord God with all your heart, with all your might, with all your soul.  But Jesus turns this obvious answer on its head and gives this in reply:  This is the work of God, that you believe in the one he sent.  This is puzzling for the Jews.  It’s an answer that they don’t quite understand.  Just like us, if you are going to make a change in the status quo you are gonna need to back it up with some sort of authority.  So the people ask for signs; miracles for them “ratify” the authority of the prophets.   You would think that would be enough: feeding 5000 people with five loaves and two fish; and having twelve baskets full of leftovers.  Not good enough for the crowd apparently.

In order for the people to accept Jesus’ authority, they want Him to outdo what Moses had done.  We hear in today’s first reading what Moses did.  This serves as a footnote to what the people are demanding in the Gospel.   It seems a few hundred years’ time has not changed the people much at all.  Still grumbling and still looking for miracles despite what they have already seen.  So Jesus answers again with a double “Amen”:  It was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven.  So Jesus is telling the people: there is a proverbial “man behind the curtain”.   Moses didn’t give them that bread the Jews ate, it was God – Our Father in heaven who is behind all of this.

Jesus is leading these people into thinking not from a material standpoint – that is, thinking with their stomachs and appetites, but with eyes of faith – a spiritual reality that they have yet to understand.  Jesus builds on the physical and the material so that the spiritual may be understood.

It is only natural that we want to satisfy our natural desires and appetites.  If we are hungry, we get something to eat; if we are thirsty we go get something to drink.  We are bored, we find something to do, we are busy we find time to rest.  We are lonely, so we call up a friend.  These are the natural appetites and desires that every human person has.  However, if we stay with our stomachs, we will never be able to tap into the grace that allows us to go beyond the natural into the supernatural.  By our baptism, we have membership in the supernatural life.  But because we are so preoccupied with only satisfying the natural, we forget the supernatural.  We forget about paying attention to what God is doing in our lives: raining down bread from heaven.  The Jews in the time of Moses called that bread Manna – a pun for “What is this stuff?”  Because they had no idea what it was.  How many times in our lives have we missed the Manna from heaven, and question “What is this all about God? I don’t get it.”

When you think about what you are attracted to the Mass: be it the music, the preaching, the fellowship, or the community – you have to ask yourself:  are these superficial feelings that make me feel warm and fuzzy or should there be an even deeper reason?  The warm fuzzies are your emotions and your appetites, but Jesus is calling for something even more here: a greater reality – the supernatural, the Divine – which is revealed in the celebration of the Eucharist.  If we miss the supernatural in our life, if we miss the divine moments that God gives us, we are missing out on our inheritance: what is rightfully ours as Sons and Daughters of God’s family.  [It’s like having a gym membership and never going!]

Today God calls us through St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians – we must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds.  We must no longer live like secular society around us – looking for and searching for things that make us happy, warm, and fuzzy.  We cannot keep on searching for those temporary feelings of hunger and thirst.   These will pass away, but the bread that Jesus gives is ever lasting – the enduring sustenance that is Jesus Christ.  We must put away our old self and former ways of life, be renewed In His Spirit – put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.