As with Zacchaeus, what tree do I need to climb in order to encounter the Lord more deeply?

During this jubilee year of mercy, we are invited to pray over the Gospel through the lens of mercy.  The story of Zacchaeus is our story as well.  How does the Lord encounter you in your life?  As was the case of Zacchaeus, what would it take for you to realize that you need the Lord?

It is worth noting in this Gospel account that both Jesus and Zacchaeus sought each other out.  Zacchaeus climbed the sycamore tree to get a better vantage point from which to see Jesus.  In turn, Jesus called forth Zacchaeus by name saying:  “Zacchaeus, come down quickly for today I must stay at your house.”  The joy is palpable between them.

The back story on Zacchaeus:  He was an unloved sinner.  He is not an attractive person.  He worked for the enemy as a Roman tax collector.  He had become a wealthy man, perhaps by overtaxing the poor.  His physical smallness matched the low esteem in which he was held. 

There was shadiness to this tax collector’s life.  He was a marked and hated by his fellow Jews.  Zacchaeus had taken advantage of people.  Then, and this is such a significant in his faith journey, there was a moment of awareness in Zacchaeus that is lifestyle led to loneliness and greediness.  He was coming to the awareness that there was more to life than getting rich by taking advantage of people. 

At this point, Zacchaeus just wanted to see Jesus.  And so, he climbed the sycamore tree hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was going to be passing by.

The second  significant moment of grace in this Gospel account is when Jesus stopped and caught sight of Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree.  Jesus looked into his heart with love and invited him down as Jesus wished to come to his house today.  Zacchaeus, at that moment, experienced himself as loved by the Lord.  This beautiful moment of encounter with the Lord was a conversion moment in Zacchaeus.  Nothing would ever be the same.

This is our story as well when we experience ourselves as being loved by the Lord.  Nothing is ever the same.

Now notice the sharp contrast between Zacchaeus as he is the recipient of the Lord’s extravagant mercy and unconditional forgiveness, and the crowd of the so-called righteous who grumbled judgmentally at God’s mercy.   In this Gospel account, Jesus desired to save not only the sinner Zacchaeus, but Jesus wanted also to save the people who were so ready to condemn Zacchaeus.  As a sinner’s home became salvation’s house for Zacchaeus, Jesus was directing this message to the religious leaders of his day that God is extravagant in mercy and unconditional in the forgiveness of sins.  Instead of anger and violence and judgment, they are to proclaim to one and all the merciful love of God to people in need.

Who are the lost in the Gospel today?  Is it Zacchaeus who rejoices in the compassion and forgiveness of Jesus or is it the righteous who grumble that Jesus is staying at the house of a sinner?

Jesus is inviting Zacchaeus to experience repentance and to move forward into life and the fullness of life.  The folks who were accompanying Jesus were left grumbling at God’s mercy.

Where do find ourselves in this Gospel account as we gather for this celebration of the Eucharist.  Are we aware of our need to encounter the Lord as did Zacchaeus or are we more focused on our judgments on the worthiness or unworthiness of others?  Are we scandalized by the extravagance in which Jesus reaches out to others?

In the Gospel, Zacchaeus’ conversion journey began with his awareness that he wanted more of life that what his wealth provided him.  He had been isolated by his greed and wealth.  He wanted to experience the love he saw in the followers of Jesus.  This awareness of his need for the healing and forgiving love of God provides the fertile soil to experience the extravagance of God’s mercy.

As we gather for Eucharist, please God we too have that awareness of our need for God’s healing love.  If you recall last Sunday’s Gospel about another tax collector, his simple prayer:  “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”  Do we come before the Lord in a spirit of humility? 

I invite you as pray over this Gospel is to ask yourself the question:  What tree do I need to climb in order to encounter the Lord more deeply in my life? 

Maybe we need to climb the tree of humility.  What would that look like?  Beginning with ourselves, are we aware that the Lord already looks into our hearts with great love?  Do we believe that we are God’s beloved?  Do we love ourselves as God loves us?  There came to Zacchaeus that desire to encounter the Lord.  May we too have that awareness as we celebrate the Eucharist this morning?

Do we need to confess that there is a bit too much righteousness in us that leads us to grumble when others are showered with the extravagance of God’s love?   Are we a tad resentful with others that they don’t deserve the good fortune that our extravagant God provides them?

As we imagine ourselves as Zacchaeus in the Gospel account, may we be in touch with that side of ourselves that struggles to accept God’s unconditional love.  Initially it was Zacchaeus who was seeking Jesus.  Now Jesus is seeking Zacchaeus.  Jesus makes the bold proclamation:  Today salvation has come to this house.”  To put this in our language:  “Zach” got saved.  He was born again!

The power of this liturgy is that Jesus is speaking these same words to the Church of St. Joseph in Penfield, NY:  “Today salvation has come to this house.”

Z

Like Zacchaeus, may we live our lives with transformed hearts—taking the risk of being loved and healed and forgiven by the Lord.

O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

When the late Benedictine Cardinal Basil Hume learned that he had terminal cancer, he specified that this Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican was to be the Gospel for his funeral liturgy.  When asked why, the Cardinal explained:  Two short months ago when I learned of my terminal cancer, I was at first temped to think “If only”…”if only” I could start all over again, I would be a much better monk, a much better abbot, and a much better bishop.  But then on second thought how much better to come before God not to say thank you that I was such a good monk, a good abbot, a good bishop, but rather I simply want to say to the Lord: “O God. Be merciful to me a sinner.”  For If I come empty-handed, then I will be ready to receive God’s gift of his merciful love.

Indeed, this beautiful Gospel can make every day of our life a jubilee of mercy.   May we come before the Lord not impressed by our own accomplishments, but rather in a spirit of humility we are loved and healed and forgiven by the merciful love of Jesus.

The unspoken question in today’s Gospel:  which of the two:  the Pharisee or the publican tax collector are you?  In our personal inventory of the actions of our lives, there is probably a bit of the Pharisee and a bit of the publican in all of us.

The Pharisees were for the most part religious people.  Most of the people held them in high esteem.  We can point to many accomplishments in our lives.  Many “I” statements:  I succeeded in school; I make good money; I know the right people; I support the Church and charitable causes; I once worked in a soup kitchen.

If you listen closely to the Pharisee’s prayer, he really isn’t speaking to God, the evangelist Luke says:  “He spoke this prayer to himself.”  He probably was one of those churchy types whose very presence makes you aware that you don’t measure up.   

In contrast, the publican comes empty handed before the Lord and simply says:  “O God be merciful to me a sinner.”  This weekend we are welcoming into our First Reconciliation preparation process many, many of our younger parishioners.  They are beautiful, beautiful boys and gifts.  They are God’s beloved, but they are not perfect just as you and I are not perfect.  We are teaching them to pray the beautiful heartfelt prayers of the publican:  “O God be merciful to me a sinner.”  This prayer does not lessen their self-esteem; rather this prayer makes them even more beautiful before our loving and forgiving God.

Today we celebrate annual Stewardship Commitment Sunday.  We are asking you to place your stewardship commitment card in the second collection today.  If you neglected to bring the commitment card with you today, all is not lost.  We invite  you to use one of the commitment cards in the pews today.  Simple write your name on the card and your  stewardship commitment of time, talent, and treasure.

Let me quick to say in the light of today’s Gospel, we are not trying to turn you into a proud Pharisee by which you list all of your proud accomplishments on the commitment card.  That is not the intent.  Rather we are to follow the example of Cardinal Hume and Pope Francis, we come before the Lord empty handed and trust that we will be the recipients of the extravagant merciful love of Jesus;

We come empty-handed before the Lord because we have spent ourselves in the service and love of others.  We make a generous commitment of time, talent, and treasure because we already are the recipients of the merciful of Jesus, and we are told by the Lord himself to share what we have been given.  As a disciple of the Lord Jesus, we cannot not give of ourselves in praise of God and in service of one another.

Please God we do not consider our plate as already too filled to be available for others.  As long as the Lord keeps on loving us, we are to keep on loving others -- in gratitude for the love we have received.

As previously mentioned, we will now give you a few minutes to fill out the stewardship commitment card and then to place it in the second collection which will be for the purpose of collecting the commitment cards.  Again, a reminder to put your name on the commitment cards.

If you have your commitment card already filled out, praise God.  Take these three minutes to be still in the presence of our God.

   

My funeral homily for my very good friend, Father Ray Booth

Our heartfelt loving support goes to Fr Ray's sister-in-law Ellie and Fr Ray’s nieces Karen and Mary Ellen and his nephew Paul, grand nieces and nephews, and great grand nieces and nephews.  Our heartfelt loving support goes to the faith community of St. Louis, his spiritual home for the last 17 years.  This altar and this sanctuary has been such a part of my prayer life as well.  Additionally, my friendship goes to his and my fellow priests and to our beloved Bishop Matano who expressed such beautiful pastoral care to Fr Ray especially in his time of illness.  Welcome to everyone.  Fr. Ray’s death does not extinguish the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.  He now shares in the fullness of light.

Bishop Matano, I will ask you at the outset to grant me a little relief from the liturgical police if this homily strays a bit into words of remembrance.  I will try my very best but I loved this man, Fr Ray Booth, so very, very much.  Mind you, we are both Germans, we were not huggers, we were not given to saying” I love you” to each other.  Did I mention we are hard-headed Germans?  But he has been such a gift to my priesthood and to my life.  I will never be able to thank him for all that he has meant to me.

The Scriptures Ray chose for his funeral were well chosen, of course.  I’m only sorry he did not include one of his numerous funny stories at the beginning of his homily.   Some of them were actually funny.  

The Scriptures today describe beautifully why Ray Booth was such an inspiring priest – one who was a profound mentor for me in my 48 years as a priest.

The first Scripture reading was from the first letter of John.  We read:  “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”  The first key to Father Ray’s priesthood was that he was simply a person who loved people.  In the way he loved, he revealed to us God who is love.  His friendship with me and to all of us was so giving and unselfish.  In June of 1980, when Father Ray was the pastor of St Christopher’s, he invited to me live at St Christopher’s rectory as I was a young special worker, the diocesan Ministry to Priest Director.  His love and friendship and sense of humor were so infectious.  We so enjoyed giving each other the business.  This was back in the day when St Christoper was removed from the ranks of the formally canonized saints.  I used to give Ray a hard time saying that he was the pastor of the only Church of the diocese that was not named after a saint.  I referred to the parish as Mr. Christopher. 

In June of 1999, I returned the favor to Father Ray and invited him to live at St Louis rectory as a senior priest.  I think the parishioners of St Louis will agree that this one of the smartest decisions I made in my 12 wonderful years as pastor.  He enjoyed the penthouse suite at the rectory.  Although I was a more experienced priest at this time, he was still the face of Jesus to me in helping to understand the meaning of priesthood.

Lest you think I am trying to canonize Father Ray at this moment.  I would say, as you know,  many priests are famous for bringing parishioners to the beautiful shrines around the world:  Fatima, Lourdes, Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Holy Land, St Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Fr Ray’s preferred shrine is in Saratoga Springs – the famous racetrack.  He prided himself as being a pretty good handicapper of the ponies.

In the second Scripture reading,  Paul writes:  “Neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, not things present, nor things to come can separate from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

I mentioned the first key to Father Ray’s priesthood was that he was a beautiful human being – such a good friend to one and all.  The second key was his deep spirituality.  He was a prayerful and faith-filled disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Nothing separated him from the love of God.  In our younger days, Ray and I and our support group of priests enjoyed winter ski vacations for many moons out West and in Europe.  We called them pre-lenten pilgrimages.  As we got older, we traded in our skis for golf clubs and enjoyed golfing vacations in Puerto Rico.

We would begin each day with the Liturgy of the Hours.  One of our favorite lines in the 95^th psalm – the invitatory psalm.    Looking out on the ocean we prayed:  “He made the sea.  It belongs to Him.”  Looking out at the ocean was a genuine retreat setting for us.   To pray the psalms together, to celebrate the Eucharist together gave me such a beautiful view into his contemplative faith-filled spirit.

To this day, every time I pray that 95^th psalm:  “He made the sea; it belongs to me.”  I think of Ray and am reminded of the God moments we shared together.

Even in his last days when he experienced such restlessness, when he was so sleep deprived,  when it would break your heart to see him so restless, nothing would separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Father Ray enjoyed life.  We shared so many, many laughs together, but know in the depth of his soul, he was a deeply spiritual priest, he was a soul friend to so many;  he was a gifted preacher of God;   He celebrated Mass with such faith-filled conviction;  he was a Christ-like minister to people;  he was loved by everyone who knew him.  He was a priest’s priest.  Fr Ray was a prayerful priest who loved being a priest and who loved to serve people and he loved to wash the feet of God’s poor as Jesus commanded us.

 At the motherhouse of the Sisters of St Joseph where he spent his last days, along with Therese Lynch his dear, dear friend for 50 years, we celebrated the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick with Ray.  It was such a God moment for Therese and I to pray the Our Father with Ray (we added the Hail Mary for good measure).    Then I somehow knew  all will be well.  Therese, although you seek no recognition and probably are mad at me for mentioning your name, your goodness to Fr Ray will  be a source of your salvation.  This I know from the depth of my being.

The Gospel proclaims the presence of the Risen Lord to the foundational disciples Mary Magdalene and Joanna and Peter and John and then the two disciples on the way to Emmaus.  In this Resurrection liturgy, we rejoice in the presence of the Risen Lord with Fr Ray Booth and the presence of the Risen Lord to all of us who mourn his going home to God.

The Risen Lord appeared to the two disciples on the way to Emmaus as a stranger in their midst listening and asking them questions.  As those of us who knew Fr Ray, he too was such a good listener, loved to asked questions, loved to provoke a little dialogue, and tease a bit as well but he revealed the presence of the Risen Lord to the many, many people he ministered  to in his 59 years as a priest.

In his words and the way he lived, Ray proclaimed the joy of the Risen Lord.   In the words of Pope Francis, the joy of the gospel was part of his DNA.  As the disciples said to one another:  “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way,  and while he opened to us the Scriptures?”

In the Gospel account, Jesus appeared as a stranger to the disciples and they failed to recognized him initially.  In our friendship with Fr Ray, we recognize him easily, his ready smile, his great sense of humor, his care and love of each of us.  He was not a stranger to us but rather a good, good friend.  My connection with the Emmaus account, there were and are times when I had trouble recognizing the stranger in my midst – the Risen Lord.  It was Ray’s friendship that help give me  the spiritual sightedness to recognize the presence of the Risen Lord in our lives.  Thank you, Fr Ray, for your priestly ministry in leading all of us to the Lord.

As we transition into the liturgy of the Eucharist, I am so grateful that Fr Ray and I and so many of you are Catholic, the best way for us to grieve the loss of this good friend and faith-filled priest is to do what he did all his life from the day of his First Communion 80 years ago.   May we give thanks to the Lord our God in this mystery of the Eucharist, and may we be fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord with the Bread of Life and Cup of Salvation.

I love you, Father Ray.  More importantly, welcome into the mystery of God’s immense love for you.  We will see you again.

Our lifelong journey of faith is a spiritual marathon. In the various seasons of our life, we need to trust always in God's abiding presence.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples to pray always without becoming weary.  Wow!  We see in the first Scripture reading, when Moses grew weary in prayer, the Israelites were losing in the battlefield.  But with the aid of his friends Aaron and Hur, Moses became strengthened again in prayer.

The evangelist Luke again and again reminds us that faith is essential to discipleship.  Today’s Gospel parable tells the account of the widow who because of her persistence was able to get the assistance she needed from the judge.  She is the example of perseverance – she simply won’t be put off and finally the unjust judge  gives in.

The widow may have reminded us of people we know:

                                --the single mother determined to get her children a valued education and getting them access to quality health care.  She would persist in coming to government offices, principals of schools,  hospitals and doctors’ office.  She had little concern for what people think of them, how she appears in the general public or whether she is being a nuisance.

Are there groups of people who are the widows of the modern world?

                                --ethnic minorities throughout the world

--women looking for equal opportunities in society.

                                --poor nations standing for their rights before the world community.

Who are the widows in the life of the Church?

                                --Are their people who would not be welcome in our parish community?  Are their people who feel like widows relative to our parish community?

And so, we ask ourselves:   In all truth can we join in solidarity with the widows of our society?

Do we recognize that the widow in today’s Gospel has so much to teach us?      

                Lesson #1:   All holy desires grow by delay.  While naively we might want to think in our prayer life that we need merely to ask for things and we get them.  Lord, help us to understand your wisdom that we are to pray always without becoming weary, without losing heart.  Remind us that when you delay to help us you ensure that there will always be faith on earth.  For me personally, I have a close priest friend who is dying.  It seems cruel to see him so frail and helpless and so restless.  I ask myself why.  It would be merciful for the Lord just to take him home.  But I need to live in God’s time for Father Ray and trust completely that he is in God’s loving hands.  In the delays of life, we are to pray always without becoming weary.

There was a time in my life when I was a marathon runner – 26 miles and 385 yards.  My sister thought this was crazy.  She didn’t like to drive her car for 26 miles.  To train for and to run the 26.2 miles takes some perseverance.  There is a grace to sprint short distances at full speed, but there is grace in the perseverance that is needed to run a marathon.

Our lifelong journey of faith is a spiritual marathon.  In the various seasons of our life, in both the green pastures and the dark valleys, we need to trust always in God’s abiding presence.

A fundamental faith question for all of us is:  In the hard times of life, do we bail out from trusting in God’s unconditional love for us or do we have the gift of perseverance we trust that our God goes with us in all experiences of life?

                Lesson #2:   No one possesses the truth, everyone seeks it.  Lord, help us to seek the truth humbly and perseveringly, like the widow in the Gospel, crying out day and night even when it delays in revealing itself to us.  Seeking the truth means more than memorizing the catechism for the right answers.  Seeking the truth is a humble way of living and encountering God by which we confess:  Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet.  We are always in the process, in the journey of faith of discovering more fully the mystery of God’s presence in our lives.  I believe Lord, help my unbelief.

As we seek the truth in this year of mercy, we are called to be vessels of mercy in the lives of the widows, the poor, and the strangers in our midst.

We pray that your church may be like the widow, always coming in search of new solutions, with the confidence that if we do not meet with success, it is merely that you are delaying to help us.

Lord, at this time in human history many are seeking vengeance for terrorist attacks.  We pray that your Church may be in word and in deed the prophetic voice of Jesus telling his disciples the parable of the widow seeking justice against her enemies.

                Lesson #3:   The God figure in this parable is not the judge but the persistent widow.  This parable invites us to think about that God never gives us on our faith community.  Like the persistent and resilient widow of the gospel, God never gives up on us.

 Yes, we could  be more faithful in our full participation in Sunday Eucharist; yes we could spend more time in prayer at our Eucharistic Adoration; yes, the families of our parish could be more committed to family prayer; yes, we as a parish could be more mission-minded in serving the needs of the poor.  But God, like the widow in the Gospel account, continues to call us back to a life of discipleship.

What is our image of God?  May the persistence of this widow give us an insight into God’s unending love for us.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.

Gratitude is not just a social grace to learn to say thank you; gratitude is a habit of the heart.

The story of the ten lepers is a very familiar one, and everyone is reminded of the need for gratitude.  We are to live in gratitude.  All of life is a gift to us. May we live with an attitude of gratitude for the ways that are lives so richly blessed.

But today, let take a different view of the story.  Lepers in ancient times were seen as unclean, as people to be shunned and kept far apart.  It was one of so many things for which society ostracized individuals.  When Jesus cured he told the lepers to go to the priest who could end their isolation and restore them to the community. 

In a sense, the power of the priests and the temple and Jesus sending the lepers are a challenge to what the church is and does today.  Like it or not, do we subconsciously isolate and cast aside others in how we treat or welcome them to the church and to our worship and friendship.  Do we consciously or subconsciously push away people for one reason or another finding them not worthy of our fellowship?  Jesus was a man present to anybody he met, and he shunned no one nor did he judge anyone.

Jesus was no pushover, but he was a man who was grounded in love, and as God on embracing that mission of love calling on all to follow him.  Did he cast aside anyone as he traveled the roads or cities of his times?  How often did he point out that Love of God was central, and that the temple and law were to facilitate and serve women and men, not to burden and harden their journey.  Anything separating us from each other or from God is not then in God’s plan.  Unnecessary burdens or regulations or laws are just that and should be abandoned.

Truth be told.  In some way or another are we not all Samaritans and lepers, outsiders and outcasts, yet graciously admitted to the covenant by a love that dares to violate boundaries in order to make us whole again.  How then could we ever dare to judge or exclude a fellow leper?

All of us agree, I think, that we wish to be a Church of welcome.  We wish to exclude no one.  But are we willing to back those words up with actions?  Do we really know why former parishioners have chosen to worship somewhere else or not at all?  What is our level of commitment to St Joseph’s Church that says we are stakeholders, we are stewards to the mission of our Church that says we are a Church of love, of welcome, of service to one another and service to all in need.  How committed are we to be the disciples of Jesus – disciples who witness to the compassion, the forgiveness, the welcome of Jesus?

To be the Church of Jesus demands much more than a competent staff;  to be the Church of Jesus demands the commitment of the entire community of the baptized.  For us to provide the worship, the faith formation,  Catholic education, pastoral care, the youth ministry, community building, evanglization, and heartfelt welcome to new parishioners demands the commitment of the entire community of the baptized.  This means the commitment of each one of us to share the unique giftedness that is ours.

How do we make this happen?  It happens when we become a stewardship parish – a stewardship parish in which everyone fills out a stewardship card sharing a bit of time, a bit of talent, and a bit of treasure in the service of becoming a Church which witnesses of the Love of Jesus in all that we say and do.  If it is true that love is the first requirement of a disciple of Jesus, if it is true that love is not just a feeling, but it is an action, it is a decision, it is a way of living by which we commit to be a church in which we are better together.  Our stewardship commitment holds us accountable to our parish mission and  vision.

When we are a prayerful as shown in our stewardship of time, when we make a commitment to sharing our talents for the benefit of our parish ministry, when we tithe to the parish as well to the diocese in our CMA pledge, we are the real deal in helping to make the mission of St. Joseph’s parish the mission of Jesus in which all are welcome and no one is judged or excluded.

Our stewardship commitment Sunday is two weeks from today in which we ask you to place your stewardship commitment card in the second collection.  If for some reason you did not get a stewardship commitment card in the mail or have lost track of the CMA pledge card, please let our information team member know this in the gathering space after Mass.  We will gladly solve that problem.

Coming back to the Gospel account, we see the Samaritan healed leper coming back to give thanks.  God’s healing love is a free gift (a grace) that is given to the ten lepers in the Gospel accounts and God’s gift of His love is given to each one of us, but God’s love to us demands a response, a RSVP.  We are to live in gratitude; we are to live a life of stewardship in which we show our gratitude by sharing what we have with others.

Gratitude is not a just social grace in learning to say thank you.  Gratitude is a habit of the heart.  Gratitude enriches us:  it opens us to experience the bounty of God and others.  The more we become grateful people, the more we will find to be grateful for.

The same is true for the life of stewardship.  The more we hold ourselves to be accountable for our stewardship commitment, the more blessed our generosity becomes and the more we experience in the depths of our being a hunger for God.

The great mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.

Today Jesus sees ten lepers from afar and shows extraordinary mercy.  Jesus looks upon us as well and shows extraordinary mercy.  We are called to be witnesses of the extraordinary mercy of Jesus in the lives of one and all.

                                                                                                                                

Instead of wanting more, may we live in gratitude with our God-given gift of faith, even if it is only the size of a mustard seed.

During the last sixty or seventy years, sadly there has been a loss in our ability to trust others. 

As a young boy living in the 19^th ward in the city of Rochester, I would ride my bike up Thurston Road to Genesee Valley Park, leave my bike unlocked, play a Little League baseball game, and then get back on my bike and ride back home to Inglewood Drive.  In so doing, l felt completely safe and never gave it a thought that it would be necessary to lock my bike.

Today, my parents would be accused of serious neglect if I were not supervised more carefully.  There were six of us, and my mom did not drive.

We see this lack of trust in all aspects of our life.

We find it more and more difficult to trust our government leaders, our presidential candidates.  There has been a crisis of faith in our Church leaders.  The leaders of our banking systems come under suspicious scrutiny. The increase in the number of divorces are symptomatic of the loss of trust in family life.  It was once believed that science and technology would make our world a better place.  Then it was education that was supposed to lead us to respect each other and treat others better than had been the case.  But in some ways they all have failed us.

Our everyday dealings with others depend upon trust.  Unfortunately people betray that trust.  We have to teach our children:  “Stranger Danger.”  At St. Joseph’s School, we have to much more vigilant about locked doors and the need for video cameras to keep unwelcomed people from entering the school.

The issue of trust was familiar territory for the prophet Habakkuk – even his trust in God was shaken.

The prophet Habakkuk lived about 600 years before Christ.  The Jews were in desperate shape.  They were being threatened by their enemies and falling apart internally. 

In the first Scripture reading, Habakkuk cries out to God:  

“How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?  Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?  Why do you make me look at injustice?” 

Habakkuk had wondered where the absent God was.  In the second Scripture reading the apostle Paul had a radically different experience of trusting in God.  Paul had come to know through faith in the crucified Christ that God was never absent but endured our suffering with us.  In today’s Scripture passage, Paul is encouraging Timothy to a similar faithfulness.  He says: “Stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.”       

As we pray over the Gospel today, let’s, you and I, stand in the shoes of the apostles who said to the Lord:  “Increase our faith.”  Let us also hear the Lord say to us:  “If your faith is the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

                                                                                            

Jesus is telling us:  “Don’t let yourself off the hook!  You have already plenty to accomplish all that I ask.  The apostles are suggesting that Jesus needs to give them more faith.  Jesus is telling them they have plenty of faith already.  So stop making excuses for yourself.                  

                             

We are all capable of feeling sorry for ourselves as a parish community, are we not?  We do not have as many people as Sunday as we once did.  Our religious education needs more vibrancy.  We need more people to support our Eucharistic Adoration.  Not enough people fill out their stewardship commitment cards each year. Our CMA goal of $74,000 is too much.  That should be the goal of a larger parish. 

In having the faith even the size of a mustard seed is an incredible God-given gift.  The potential of the faith that we have is enormous.  In fact, nothing is impossible with God.  When our gift of faith is a quality of life, a way of living, and a way of seeing, we will encounter the Lord in all that we say and do.  Our faith that has already been given us has the beautiful potential of enabling us to see all people as having immense human dignity made in the image and likeness of God.  As we gather at Mass today, you may have come with family members, but with faith-filled eyes may we see all of us gathered as sisters and brothers coming together in the name of Jesus.

When we trust in the faith that has been given to us by our faithful God, to raise $74,000 CMA dollars to help people in need across our diocese is very, very doable.  In fact, it is a privilege for us to share from our resources to help others in need.  This is not a burden.  This is living out our high calling as disciples of the Lord Jesus. 

In a spirituality of stewardship in which everyone commits a bit of time, talent, and treasure, the potential we have as a parish community is comparable to uprooting the mulberry tree and planting it in the sea.

The Lord doesn’t hand out any excuses to us.   We are to trust in God’s providence, and we are to share our five barley loaves and two fish with each other.  Be assured that miracles will happen.  We will trust in one another when we encounter the Lord as we encounter one another.  The Lord will increase our faith by making us more aware of who we are already are as God’s beloved sons and daughters.

As the prophet Habakkuk proclaimed, “Write down this vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.”  As a people of faith, as a people with faith the size of a mustard seed, our vision for our parish is full of hope and abounding with the inner peace and joy that comes from the Lord.

Have a blessed day.