"Do not be afraid...I am with you," says the Lord.

“Are not two sparrow sold for a small coin?  Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge.   Even all the hairs of your head are counted.  So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

In the first Scripture reading, the Prophet Jeremiah needed to hear those words of Jesus: “Do not be afraid.”   He was the reluctant prophet.  He knew what it was to be afraid.  Indeed, Jeremiah’s prophetic career was riddled with countless fearsome experiences.  When called by God, he feared he was too young.  He feared he would not know what to say or how to speak to his contemporaries in God’s name.  He feared facing others with the truth of their sinfulness.  He feared to speak God’s Word.  He feared not to speak it as well, and when he spoke it, he feared its consequences.  In the Scripture reading today, his hearers wanted to denounce Jeremiah and to lay a trap for him.  You didn’t have to tell Jeremiah about fear.  He was an expert on the subject.

To the first disciples, Jesus says:?  “Fear no one…What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light.  What you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops…Do not be afraid.” 

What does Jesus do after giving these awesome marching orders to his disciples?  Sell them life insurance.  Give them bullet-proof vests.  Teach them how to diffuse conflict.  No!  Jesus simply repeats:  “Do not be afraid.” 

What about ourselves and our fears.  Perhaps it’s all we can do to get here to Church on Sunday mornings and we’re supposed to be shouting the Word of God from the housetops?  No way.  I don’t want to be seen as a religious fanatic.  Yet, Jesus is telling us:  “God even knows every hair on your head.  So stop being afraid.  You are of much more value than any sparrow.’

Isn’t that amazing?  God knows everything we go through and nothing that happens to us escapes the Father.  Even if we die, it doesn’t happen apart from God.  Even if we seem totally abandoned, even if our prayers don’t seem to be answered, even if everything seems hopeless, God knows and God cares.  If that’s the case, we can stop being afraid.

How can we really stop being afraid. Is there something we can do to stop being afraid?  No.  The only way we can stop being afraid if we trust in God’s promise to us.  The God who watches over even the commonest of birds will take care of us.   Our best response to God’s promise is simply to celebrate, rejoice, and give thanks.

Yes, but…Who can believe this?  Who can live without fear?  We are suspicious even of promises.  We are always hearing of promises that aren’t kept.  Our grandparents may promise to leave us the farm when they die, but who’s to say they won’t go bankrupt and lose the farm before that?  Even the promises made on one’s wedding are not always kept.  Regrettably the life experience of many of us have taught us to be suspicious of promises.

                                                                                                                                           

Yet Jesus made many incredible far-reaching promises:  not only about God knowing every hair on our heads and promising to care for us, but also remember some of the other promises of Jesus:  “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”  “I go to prepare a place for you.”  “I am with you always.”  “ I tell you, your sins are forgiven.”  From the Beatitudes:  those who mourn will be comforted; the meek will inherit the earth; the pure in heart will see God.”

But when Jesus was crucified, these promises seemed to be all cancelled out.  He had failed.  He was just a dreamer.  Even his disciples no longer followed.  In the accounts of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, they are nowhere to be seen at the crucifixion.  All of them deserted and fled.  Pete denied even knowing Jesus.

Thanks be to God.  Jesus’ death was not the end of the story.  God raised Jesus.  God made sure that Jesus could keep his promises.  Even death will not keep Jesus from keeping the promises He has made to us, because we die with Him and we will be raised with Him.  That’s a promise.  And it’s the basis for our hope in all the other promises.  Even the sparrows don’t fall to the ground apart from God the Father, and we are of greater value than many sparrows.

From the Gospel, Jesus says that “Everyone who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.  That’s a promise.

What is so important in our spiritual journey is that when we are limited to be suspicious of promises, based on our old eyes of experience where we have been hurt, we are not able to embrace the promises of the one who lived and died and rose again so that we no longer have to be afraid.

Today’s readings call us to re-consider our Christian vocation.   Each of us was baptized to share in Christ’s prophetic ministry.  We need to stop and ask ourselves if we are willing to step into the space where the way to the world contradicts the Gospel and say:  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”  It means we must love our world enough to be part of making it what God created it to be.  When I can live without fear, I trust in the talents that God has given me and can freely share the joy and hope of the Gospel with one and all.  I truly believe that my future and your future is full of hope.  Why?  Because God who is a God of love promises to be with us all day until the end of time.

What about you?  What will it take for you to live without fear?  Are you willing to trust in God’s word to you?  “Do not be afraid.  I am with you.  I know full well the plans I have in mind for you – a future full of hope.’

Today that same crucified and risen Lord is in our midst, allowing us to stop being afraid because of the powerful love of God on which the promise is based:  “Even the hairs of your head are counted; you are of more value than many sparrows.”  The promise continues in the mystery of the Eucharist as we hear Jesus say that “this bread is my body, given for you,” and “this wine is my blood, shed for you.”  We receive Christ in the bread and wine because He promises to meet us there.  In this sacrament the promise is visible and touchable.  “Take and eat; take and drink.”  As we do this in remembrance of Him, we can stop being afraid.  Amen.

Have a Blessed day.

The Eucharist is a Communion with God and with one another, not a free lunch.

With today’s feast, Bishop Salvatore Matano has inaugurated the Year of the Eucharist as a major part of our diocesan celebration of our 150^th anniversary in 2018.  In the most recent edition of the Catholic Courier, you will find a copy of the Bishop’s pastoral letter on the Eucharist.  During the course of the coming year, may we affirm in prayer and in action that the Eucharist is the source and the summit of our prayer life.

Today we celebrate the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ.  As we reflect on the mystery of the Sunday Eucharist, we are reflecting on the central prayer of our faith tradition.  We are part of a tradition that is nearly 2000 years old.  The Sunday Eucharist is our participation in the paschal mystery of Christ Jesus.  The Sunday Eucharist satisfies the deepest hungers of the human heart.

 With our physical nutrition needs, a good nutritionist would emphasize the value of a healthy breakfast to begin the day.  If you are skip a meal, breakfast would not be the meal t to skip.  And yet, some of us, myself included, often begin the day simply with a cup of coffee.  Regrettably, I don’t miss eating breakfast.  My physical hunger often doesn’t kick in until later in the day.

If skipping breakfast is relatively easy to do, it is also easy to skip spiritual food.  It’s too easy to skip daily prayer and the weekly celebration of the Eucharist.  We often don’t seem any worse for the wear and tear.  But over the long haul, we can get out of touch with our deepest spiritual hungers.

The thrust of Bishop Matano’s pastoral letter on the Eucharist is that far from being a pit stop for fast food and entertainment in the journey of life, the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ is the necessary sustenance for the spiritual growth of each member of the community and for the community itself.  The way we are wired is that for us to satisfy the deepest hunger of our human hearts, we need to be connected to the mystery God’s love that is within us.  It is in the mystery of the Eucharist that we encounter the Lord most deeply.

Physically, sometimes it takes a cardiac event or some other scare to wake us to the physical exercise and diet that is necessary for our health.  This is regrettable.  So too in the spiritual life, the busyness of life can keep us from being connected to our deepest spiritual hungers.

As a Eucharistic community, we gather with an attitude of gratitude.  We gather to give, to give thanks to the Lord our God.  We give thanks because we have been fed and nourished at the Table of the Lord with a food that enables us to live as Jesus lives, to love as Jesus loves, to forgive as Jesus forgives.   We have a spiritual need to give thanks, to love as Jesus loves, and to forgive as Jesus forgives.  This spiritual nourishment is abundantly shared with us at the Table of the Lord.

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Deuteronomy, what Moses wanted the people to remember was that in their wandering when they were fed up with God and afraid they would die, God remained with them, putting up with their complaints and seeing to it that both their basic and deepest needs were met.   Moses’ message to his people was not to forget how the Lord led and fed them with the manna from heaven.  They needed to recognize God’s loving presence through their times of trouble.   In the Exodus journey of the Israelites, it is God who seeks communion with His people, not the other way around.      

   

What St Paul tells the Corinthian in today’s second reading offers us a commentary on Jesus’ offer to be living bread for us.  Speaking of the community’s Eucharistic meal, Paul reminds his people that eating and drinking in the name of Christ implies being united with him in his self-giving, in his dying and his rising.  It is communion, not a free lunch.

So too for us, it is such an important message for us as we celebrate the Eucharist.  It is communion, not a free lunch.  While receiving the Eucharist is beneficial to ourselves, we are called to be missionaries to the world.  The effects of the Eucharist are to be shared, not hoarded.  We are to be Christ to and for one another.  I would mention four wonderful examples of how are to share the grace of the Eucharist with one another: 

• ·         After Mass today, you are invited to become a member of the Knights of Columbus to engage in the works of mercy sponsored by the Knights.
• ·         This Tuesday Evening at 7:00 pm The Director of Mary’s Place is giving a presentation on the refugees in the Rochester area and what we can to help.
• ·         Next weekend, Father Damien Milliken will be preaching and asking for our financial and spiritual support to support a high school for girls in Tanzania.  This education opportunity for these deserving girls gives than an opportunity for employment that they would not otherwise have.
• ·         On this Father’s Day, we honor and thank our fathers, living and deceased, for the love that have shared with them.  And we pray and bless all the fathers of our faith community for witnessing to us so beautifully examples of unselfish love and service to your children and to all the children of St Joseph’s Parish.  Thank you.    We have so many opportunities to make a difference in people’s lives.

Between the 13th and the mid-20^th centuries, Catholics often celebrated this feast of Corpus Christi with elaborate public processions that focused on Christ’s miraculous presence in the consecrated host carried aloft.  That custom of the Eucharistic procession is most beautiful.  But it is also important to note the readings the Church has chosen for this feast changes our focus from the symbolic procession to a contemporary Exodus journey.  Today’s Scriptures lead us to realize that celebrating the Eucharist calls us to go of our ourselves, to move beyond our preferences and appetites, and to take up Jesus’ offer of communion with Him.  This is a journey that will be every bit as frightening and grace-filled as the one on which Moses led his people.  Our advantage over our Israelite ancestors is that we can learn from their experience and go beyond it.  Christ promises us not just his presence, but the communion that gave him life.

The Mass is our greatest prayer; we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.  Yet it is what we do outside the Mass that also determines the genuineness of the offering we make at the altar each Sunday.  By our mutual love and, in particular, by our concern for those in need, we will be recognized as true followers of Christ.  Go in peace glorifying the Lord by our lives in all that we say and do this day and every day.   As you journey on your contemporary Exodus journey of the beauty and the challenges and the joys of your week, may you be connected with the Eucharistic life of Christ that is within you so that you may recognize and encounter the Lord in each and every person you share life with this week.

Have a blessed day.

A summary of the great mystery of the Blessed Trinity is found in three words: God is love.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen   This is how we begin our liturgy, and this is the way we most often begin our prayer. We profess our faith in God as a Blessed Trinity, in the communion of three persons.

All of us have been baptized in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  We began our journey of faith with receiving the Spirit of Christ into our hearts and souls.  With each sacrament we receive, we deepen the life of Christ Jesus with us.

Embedded within us is a Trinitarian Spirituality.   We believe in God the Father who is our creator and life-giver.  All is a gift of God.  We believe that God sent his only begotten Son, Christ Jesus, into the God to reveal God’s love for us and to be our Savior and Lord.  We believe in God the Holy Spirit who, on the great feast of Pentecost which we celebrated last Sunday, was sent to us as the Breath and the Spirit of God who will be with us all days until the end of time.  We are the recipients of the gifts of the Spirit that are to be used and shared in the service of one another and the building up of our faith community.

A summary of the great mystery of the Trinity is that God is love.  God is revealed as a communion of persons.  The love that is within the union of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is shared with us.  As the Gospel proclaims:  “God so loved the world that He gave us His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life.”

What is eternal life?  Eternal life is our life with God.  It is our unending relationship with Jesus.  Eternal life is in contrast with “temporary life.”  It means life that can survive every form of death; can survive failure in relationships in family or the work place; can survive defeat or humiliation; and can survive even the loss of a loved one.  Eternal life transforms death into a rebirth into the fullness of life with God.

Our participation in the life of God is seen in the liturgical greeting that the priest gives immediately following the sign of the cross in every Mass.  “May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.”  This is the greeting St Paul gave to the Corinthian community in the second Scripture reading.

Plain and simple, we are God’s beloved sons and daughters.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  God is love.  As we participate in the divine life of God in the sacraments, we share in the love of God and are God’s beloved.

We might expect the feast of the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity that celebrates such a complex core belief would include long Scriptures readings helping us understand the mystery.  Surprisingly, it is the fact of fewer words that may clue us into the depth of this mystery -- it will be explained by words, but it must be known in the experience of God that goes beyond words.

We see in the first Scripture reading from the Book of Exodus on Mt Sinai that God offers to his chosen people a covenant relationship of love, but the Israelites commitment to this covenant is unsteady at best.  In this account, Moses goes to the mountain in order to intercede on behalf of a sinful people.  Moses hopes to convince God to be merciful, but neither the people or Moses himself have earned this gift, but God’s forgiveness is given anyway.  God is revealed as a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and of great kindness.

The very brief passage from the Gospel of John comes from the story of the encounter between Nicodemus and Jesus.  Recall that Nicodemus has difficulty perceiving the deeper truths.  He sees the surface while Jesus challenges him to look with the eyes of faith.  These verses summarize God’s gracious plan of salvation.  They are words of beauty and joy, simple and sublime.  The fundamental basis of our relationship with God is not a matter of guilt or expiation.  There is not price to be paid or reward to be earned.  First and last there is merciful love.

It is good we have such brief readings this Sunday.  The fact reminds that we need to go beyond words.  May we meditate on the mystery of the Trinity, let the words sink in, and allow our hearts to go beyond words on a page to the experience of God.

I would like to share with you a profound experience of God that I had recently.  It was about noon on Friday, May 26 at Strong Memorial hospital.  I was holding in my arms my grandniece Taylor Mae  (No, I was not consulted as to a saint’s name to be given this most beautiful child.)  Taylor was just 12 hours old, the very day of her birth.  My niece Emily, the baby’s mother, was with us beaming with such beautiful joy as she had just this day given birth to her 5^th child.   There are no words that can express my joy in holding this child of God, and there are no words that can express the joy that I saw in the face and the eyes of her mom.  For me, this moment was a beautiful spiritual experience of God’s love as I held this newborn child.

Indeed, this was an experience of God that goes beyond the words I can express in a homily.  My heart was just deeply moved by the profound gift to life that was given to our family.  For me as I try to experience God deeply in my prayer life, as I reflect and meditate on the mystery of the Trinity, this experience of holding Taylor in my arms was a prayer that went beyond words.

To see the joy on my niece Emily’s face deepens the experience of God’s love in my life.  I am sure over the course of years Emily and her wonderful husband Josh will have many things to worry about in raising five children – be it how to finance their education, how to form them in their faith journey, and how to deal with life questions they will surely experience for better or for worse.  Yes, yes, yes, to all those questions they will face one day, but I do know on this day Emily and Taylor and I were filled with a profound experience of God’s love.  And I trust in God’s promise that He will be with Taylor all the days of her life.

While I may question the name given to my grandniece, perhaps even more important is that her mom was at the Ascension Thursday Mass 12 hours before giving birth and therefore Taylor was at Mass within the womb of her mom.   I rejoice therefore that Taylor went to Mass on the day of her birth.  For me, it doesn’t get better than that.

I rejoice also in this liturgy in which we bless our home schooled students as they move to another chapter in the life cycle.  I am deeply by the love and faith of the parents of these precious students.  Thank you for living out the blessing that was given on the day of your child’s baptism that you are to be the first and best teachers of your children in the ways of faith.  Thank you for teaching your child how to pray, how to love, and how to share their giftedness with us in their faith community.

On this day of the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, we give thanks for the mystery of God’s love in our lives, and we give thanks for the ways we share with each other the blessings we have received from God.

Have a blessed day.

At the first Pentecost, Jesus chooses the very ones who abandoned and betrayed Him -- to be the wounded forgiven healers who are to preach the Good News of God's gracious mercy and love.

Pentecost is the third great Christian feast.  On Christmas we celebrated the birth of Christ, our Savior.  On Easter we celebrated his victorious resurrection from death.  Today we remember Christ’s giving of the Holy Spirit.

Our Gospel today takes place on Easter evening, after the disciples had discovered that the tomb was empty and Jesus had appeared to Mary Magdalene.  Jesus told her to tell the disciples that He was risen, which she did, but they did not understand.  So on that first evening they were gathered in a house with the doors locked, because they were afraid – afraid of being killed, just as Jesus had been killed three days before.  But Jesus was among them and He said:  “Peace be with you.”

"Peace be with you." A greeting, yes, but not just, "Hi, how are you?" "Peace" is a huge biblical word. It refers to a wholeness, a completeness, a divine healing that envelopes people.  To this scared group of followers, the Risen Christ begins by bringing the peace of God.

Jesus said it twice.  "Peace be with you." We are not to miss it. And in between his speaking, he showed them the marks in his hands and sides which he had suffered on the cross. Then it began to dawn on them. This was really Jesus, who had been crucified, who had died on the cross, but now he was alive. And it says that the disciples "rejoiced" when they saw "the Lord." Their lives were changed from disabling fear into joy by the presence of the risen Lord.

"Peace be with you" is just the first sentence. Then Jesus continues, "As the Father has sent me, so I send you." God the Father sent the only Son from heaven to save the world and now that Son says, "That's how I'm now sending you." Can you imagine those disciples? Here they were, huddled in fear, hiding in a house with locked doors, just trying to save their own skins. And Jesus comes and says he is sending them to save the world. What a turn of events. The disciples were on the defensive; now Jesus sends them out on offense.

Defensive Christianity is not a biblical idea. The posture of Christian disciples is not hiding in fear trying to protect themselves. No, disciples are sent.  To be a follower of Jesus after his resurrection is to be sent. In fact, our word "apostle" means "one who is sent."

Defensive Christianity is not a biblical idea.  For me as a priest when I  worry about our school is doing, worry about parish finances, or worry if I’m doing a good enough job at pastoring, it’s so easy to be defensive.  But as disciples and apostles of the Lord, we are sent forth proactively to proclaim the Lord’s hope and joy in our midst.

After Jesus had told them that he was sending them, it says that he "breathed on them."  Jesus breathed on those disciples and if that was not plain enough, his words told them what it means: "Receive the Holy Spirit." "Receive the breath of God." In that moment, the risen Christ raised those fearful, faithless followers to newness of life.

This is what Pentecost is: the giving of the Spirit, the giving of new life, from the Father through the Son. The Holy Spirit is what makes it possible for people to go when they are sent. The Spirit is God's active, personal presence that accompanies those who are sent. And the Spirit brings the content and the power for the task for which Christ's followers are sent. Jesus says, "Receive the Holy Spirit. Go and forgive sins." That's what being gathered is all about: that the followers may be forgiven and renewed, sent and equipped, in order that all people may be reconciled to God by having their sins forgiven.

What would it like for you to possess the gift of forgiveness – the gift to forgive even those people in your life right now who don’t deserve it, even people who act unlovably.  This is the Gospel the Spirit impels the disciples to preach.  They can preach forgiveness because they have experienced it.

The Spirit-filled gift of forgiveness leads us to possess the gift of welcome – so much so that in our faith community there are no strangers or enemies.  Even more in our world, there are no strangers or enemies.

The Pentecost grace leads us to experience the gift of joy – all of life is a gift of God for which we are to be thankful.

Now it may seem that the gifts of forgiveness, welcome, and joy seem too good to be true.   For all of us have been a little battle-scarred by the realities and fears of life.  Yet,  we seek to experience Pentecost as the feast of locked doors.  Where are the locked doors in our lives?  Where do I find myself isolated in fear, living behind emotionally doors, hanging on to anger and refusing to come out of hiding?

With the grace of Pentecost, locked doors are blown open.  At the first Pentecost, Jesus chooses the very ones who abandoned and betrayed him – to be the wounded, forgiven healers that are to preach the Good News of God’s gracious love and mercy.  The strategy of Jesus is that the disciples were forgiven forgivers.

Jesus hasn’t changed his strategy with us.  Who are we as the faith community of St. Joseph’s?  We are God’s forgiven sons and daughters.  In the feast of Pentecost, we receive the gift of forgiveness so that we will be sent forth to share the forgiveness and mercy of God with one another and with all.  Pentecost promises that the Holy Spirit can be released in each one of us that ushers us into an inner peace of forgiveness and love.

On this day of Pentecost, as we now come to the Table of the Lord, may we reflect and claim our God-given giftedness.  Further, may we all commit ourselves to using our God-given giftedness in the service of one another.

Have a Blessed Day.