Presentation of the Lord

It has been 40 days since Christmas.  Some churches remain decorated for Christmas until today.  Since then we have celebrated a whole series of epiphanies, or events of God showing Himself to the world: Christmas, the Epiphany when the magi bring their gifts, the Lord’s Baptism in the Jordan, the Wedding Feast at Cana are all epiphanies of the Lord showing Himself.  Today we celebrate another one.  When Jesus is presented in the temple, God is showing himself to the world.

All the candles for the year are blessed on today which is also known as Candlemas.  It is appropriate to focus on the candles because they bring light into the church.  We recall that day when the Light of the world, Jesus was brought into the temple.  Sin and evil hide in the dark shadows.  But Christ comes as the brilliant shining light.

And what a rich story we hear today: Old Simeon recognized the Christ of the Lord.Do we recognize Christ?

The Canticle of Simeon is prayed daily at Compline or Night Prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours.  He says: “My eyes have seen your salvation,” not just Christ, but salvation, the act of being saved.  Saved from what?  Is there something that will ruin us?  Yes, sin entered the world.  Sin messed things up.

Today’s feast only makes sense to us if we acknowledge sin as a reality in our world.  A couple days ago, Pope Francis quoted Pope Pius XII: “The greatest sin today is that people have lost a sense of sin.”  And because of that we lose the meaning of the Kingdom of God.  If sin is not real or not important, then anything goes.  So why has God made His presence with us?  Because it is real, it is important, and He loves us too much to be separated from us.

We baptized Christians are called to build up the Kingdom of God.  The pope said that the loss of a sense of sin is always a sign that the Kingdom of God is diminishing.  We pray for the coming of the Kingdom daily in the Lord’s prayer: “Thy Kingdom come.”  We’ll pray it here together in a few minutes.  We are praying that we will allow the Kingdom of God to grow in our midst.  We need salvation.  Pope Francis points out that it can’t come from our cunning, our cleverness, or our intelligence in doing business.  It comes from God’s grace and how we train for it every day in the Christian life.  He reminds us that Christian mediocrity will never cut it.

The good news is we have a Redeemer to imitate.  We need a redeemer.  We have been redeemed.

And there is more good news.  Simeon reminds us that Jesus is for the people of Israel and the Gentiles, all nations.

It’s interesting that the Presentation we celebrate today is one of the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary.  It is a joyous occasion.  It is an epiphany when God shows himself to us.  But notice this Gospel is also used when we celebrate Mary as our Sorrowful Mother.  Simeon predicts “you yourself a sword will pierce.”  She would witness her Son’s act of redemption as he is tortured and dies on the Cross.

Anna is a great witness to all of us of the importance of redemption, the importance of God in our lives.  She worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer.

As if that’s not already enough good news, we hear a little bit about how God does it in our second reading from the letter to the Hebrews:  Jesus shared in our humanity fully – flesh and blood.  He redeems everything he assumes.  He assumes our flesh and blood – He redeems our flesh and blood.

The temple was God’s dwelling place.  We acknowledge Mary as God’s dwelling place as she carried him in her womb and presented him to the world.  What about us?  We are also God’s dwelling place.  We receive him in a very real way in the Eucharist and the other sacraments.  Now, our task is to present him to the world.  Mary brought the Light to those in darkness.  We must also bring Christ the Light to those in darkness until no one remains in the darkness.

Pro-life homily

Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  Behold love.  Behold the one who offers himself as a gift so that we may have life and have it abundantly.  That is the definition of love.  And great saints have been imitating the love of Christ for 2,000 years.  They realized that love is sacrificing one’s own comfort for the good of another, and they imitated that love.  That sacrificial love of the Lamb of God is the Good News.

You and I are also called to imitate that sacrificial love.  Parents daily make sacrifices so their children may have life and have it abundantly.  There is nothing more beautiful.

But there’s bad news today.  Love’s opposite runs rampant in our land.  Some who get the news they are parents ask the child to sacrifice her life for the comfort of the parent.  On this Respect Life Sunday, we acknowledge that this is the opposite of love.  And it has been legal in our country for 41 years.  And it happens over 3,000 times a day.  Meanwhile married couples waiting to give sacrificial love through adoption continue waiting.

Today the words of Isaiah from our first reading have special meaning.  “Now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb.”  The Lord formed all of us to be His servants from the womb.  All of us have a unique task to serve the Lord and each other, no matter if we are wanted or unwanted in the womb.

No reason will ever justify taking the life of the child in the womb.  Some may say:  The mother is poor.  She can’t afford a child.  We don’t fight poverty by killing born people who are poor.  So we can’t fight poverty by killing unborn people who are poor.  It can’t happen anymore and we are the ones who have to stop it.

It is up to us to actively change the culture of death into a culture of life.  We can’t be shy about speaking up about the beauty of sacrificial love.  We have to get engaged in the battle for God’s most precious gift of life.  If we don’t know what to say, we have to find out what to say.  We can ask someone engaged in pro-life work how to get trained.

We have to let our politicians know we are pro-life, and killing the unborn is not acceptable.  It is our duty to let them know with our voice and with our vote. 

Now is the time to pray and act.  Please pray for our youth groups who are traveling to Washington for the March for Life on Wednesday.  I’m taking 21 students from Fenwick with 4 other chaperones.  These students will brave the severe cold to give a voice to those whose voice cannot yet be heard.  These students will make a sacrifice so that others may have life.  Their love encourages me.  More importantly, pray for the healing of those who suffer the wounds of past abortions.  Many of them were told lies.  Many of them were convinced they had no choice.  The burden of regret is becoming more well-known for both men and women.  Nobody needs to carry that burden.  The Lord will bring them to healing through his Church.

Religious Persecution Homily

“Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name.”  These are words from our Lord in today’s gospel.  Persecution is guaranteed for the Christian.  Regarding persecution, the U.S. Bishops have issued a “Special Message” which they rarely do.  Furthermore, it has unanimous passage of the bishops.  I’m not sure how many but we have 265 active and 180 retired bishops in this country.  Archbishop Schnurr has asked priests to spread it far and wide.  It can be found in its entirety at www.catholiccincinnati.org or at http://www.thecatholictelegraph.com/american-bishops-issue-statement-on-hhs-contraceptive-mandate/16365

I read part of it at Mass today: “[T]he government is refusing to uphold its obligation to respect the rights of religious believers. Beginning in March 2012, in United for Religious Freedom, we identified three basic problems with the HHS mandate: it establishes a false architecture of religious liberty that excludes our ministries and so reduces freedom of religion to freedom of worship; it compels our ministries to participate in providing employees with abortifacient drugs and devices, sterilization, and contraception, which violates our deeply-held beliefs; and it compels our faithful people in business to act against our teachings, failing to provide them any exemption at all.  Despite our repeated efforts to work and dialogue toward a solution, those problems remain. Not only does the mandate undermine our ministries’ ability to witness to our faith, which is their core mission, but the penalties it imposes also lay a great burden on those ministries, threatening their very ability to survive and to serve the many who rely on their care.”

The ministries that suffer are feeding the poor, healing the sick, educating the young.  If all the bishops of this country are correct—and I’d like to think they are—it brings to mind several questions:  What is the hold up? Why has this persecution been happening for over an year and a half?  Are we in denial that a persecution is actually happening?  Maybe this is why about a year ago Francis Cardinal George of Chicago said: “I will die in my bed. My successor will die in prison. His successor will be martyred.”  Back to the questions that come to mind: Is religious freedom not important any more?  It was important to our founding fathers.

We have had a major election since March of 2012 when all this started.  If Catholics are such a large voting block, why are the persecuting politicians still in office?  Have we willingly forfeited the very basic human right of religious freedom in exchange for a promise of handouts of temporal goods?  Is it too abstract?  I hope not.  It forces people to pay for the killing of human beings.  It forces people to pay for the very things that have been proven to destroy families over the last 50 years.

There is Good News:  Christ has a plan that works.  The challenge is the same:  Christ has a plan that works.  The evil one and the culture of death do not want us to bring about his plan.  The Lord tells us in today’s Gospel: “It will lead you to giving testimony.”  The message is countercultural, and Catholic Christians will have to act in a countercultural way.

I wanted to preach on vocations today.  The Archdiocese is celebrating Vocation Awareness Week.  I love preaching on vocations.  However, the more time I spent with this Gospel, the more I kept coming back to the Special Message of the Bishops.  It reminds me of the thing the bishops have been saying over the past year and a half:  We didn't ask for this fight.  We would rather not be in it.  We would rather be in the business of teaching, healing, feeding.

Are we up to the challenge of the Cross?  Are we up to giving the Christian testimony to the next generation by our example?  Christ has set the example for us.  Now we are to set the example.  Hopefully, the Lord’s words at the end of the Gospel will be consoling: “By your perseverance, you will secure your lives.”

Catholics: Get active in politics.

It looks like there are currently three opportunities for faithful Catholics to participate in the political process right now.  We must get active.  Our voices must be heard in the public arena.  If our voices for the culture of life are not heard, only those of the culture of death will be heard.

1.  The United States House of Representatives has passed the Pain-Capable Abortion Ban.  This would make abortion illegal after 20 weeks, which is when scientific evidence shows babies in the womb are able to feel pain.  The bill has been introduced in the Senate.  One source reports that it would save about 18,000 lives per year.  This would be a nice incremental step in the right direction.  We would still have another million lives per year to save in this country.  We should contact our senators asking them to support the ban.

2. The Senate has passed the Employment Non-Discrimination Act which has been hanging around Washington for about the last 20 years.  The last news I heard was that John Boehner, Speaker of the House, was not going to allow it for a vote.  This is good news!  The Catholic Bishops of the United States oppose the bill because it would punish those who disapprove of sexual conduct outside of marriage.  We should contact Speaker Boehner asking him to hold firm in his decision not to allow the vote.  We should also contact our own representatives asking them to oppose the bill.

Be forewarned: One thing we will continue to hear from those in the culture of death is that the Church should not be concerned because churches, their offices, and parochial schools will be exempt.  This drives me crazy.  What about the Catholic business owner who wants to live his or her faith in the workplace?  Freedom of religion goes well beyond the 50 minutes we spend in church on Sundays.  We are called to have Christ as Dominus of our lives.  I use the Latin "Dominus" instead of the English "Lord" to show we should let Him dominate our lives.  I cannot take credit for that.  Fr. Robert Barron just said it about an hour ago in a speech in Philadelphia.

3. Cardinal Dolan recently sent a letter to John Boehner asking him for swift action on immigration reform.  We should support the efforts of the bishops as they strive to protect human dignity.  With our broken system the way it is, we end up with an unjust arrangement that makes it easy for human beings, made in God's image, to be exploited.  They deserve protection of the law from exploitation because they are made in God's image.  Then there are the issues of destruction and separation that happen to the family because of the current broken system.  We need policies for strong families because families are the building blocks of society.

Respect Life Sunday

“Destruction and violence are before me.” These are the words of the prophet Habakkuk in today’s first reading.  On this Respect Life Sunday, we draw attention to the destruction and violence that continues against innocent human life, especially the unborn.  And sometimes we may feel like the prophet Habakkuk as he cries out:  “How long , O Lord?”  As Christians, our actions are to show the unique and priceless value of every human life.

Perhaps one of the ways we can support the unborn is by supporting their mothers who are afraid, scared and worried about the unknown.  We can do this in many ways.  One of these is through crisis pregnancy centers.  These women and girls should know that we will help make life as easy as possible for them during this temporary situation.  We are called to Christian generosity to give them everything they need so they can choose life.

And sometimes the obvious needs to be pointed out:  Nobody stays pregnant forever.  It’s only temporary.  And the death of an innocent person is a little too permanent a “solution” for a temporary inconvenience.  But people overcome by fear and anxiety make such rash decisions every day.  For those who have made these decisions in the past, there is great hope for healing.  There is no longer any need to carry around these secrets that cause overwhelming regret and emotional pain.  All people who have been complicit in abortion can get the healing they need in Project Rachel or any number of apostolates for healing the Church offers.  These apostolates reflect the compassionate heart of Christ.  And of course, they are confidential.  There is a loving God who desires to forgive and heal all who turn to him.  His offer of forgiveness and healing remains constant no matter what we have done.

There is a culture of death.  It’s not mysterious.  It shows itself whenever someone has to die in order to make the life of another person more comfortable or convenient.  That’s it.  And our bishops have pointed out for over a year that the HHS mandate from our federal government is immoral.

We Christians have an important role to play as citizens.  Last year, Pope Benedict challenged all the faithful to move beyond mere collaboration to a shared responsibility in the Church.  Our responsibility is to engage the culture as Christians.  It’s not just the job of the clergy, but of all the faithful.  No matter how we decide to get engaged, let’s remember the words of St. Paul that we heard today:  “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather or power and love and self-control.  Do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord.  Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”  Our bishops continually remind us that we must express our Catholic faith and morals in the public square whether it’s done in the voting booth, contacting elected officials, raising awareness, organizing events or whatever.  Voting is a moral act, so we are not to participate in evil with our vote.

The other thing we have to do as a Christian people is pray.  October is the month of the Rosary.  This is great opportunity to reinvigorate our prayer lives and beg the Lord to change hearts in the culture.  Pray for our country.  Pray for our world.  Pray for all who have chosen abortion in the past that they will seek God’s forgiveness, healing and loving embrace.  As we pray for the conversion of hearts, we recognize more and more the awesome dignity of all human beings at every stage of development, the pinnacle of creation, wonderfully made in God’s image.

Tattoos and abortion

Two articles comparing tattoos to abortion in Washington D.C.
You'll be amazed to find out which one may require a 24-hour waiting period.

http://www.lifeissues.org/thelatestnews.html

http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2013/09/24-hour-waiting-periods-ok-for-tattoos-but-not-for-women-contemplating-an-abortion/

Take 'em to task

One thing that drives me crazy is when people hang out with a bad crowd and they justify it by saying: “Jesus hung out with sinners and ate at the homes of the Pharisees.”

Notice in every one of these instances in the Gospels, Jesus is either taking the Pharisees or sinners to task, or it is a person who is ready for repentance and conversion.  The Lord had the power to read their souls.  The Lord knew the hearts of Zacchaeus, the woman at the well, and the woman caught in adultery.  Never once do we see Jesus becoming chummy with hardened sinners and leave them in their sin.  That would not be loving.  And He is the most loving of all.  He takes people to task or approaches those who are ready to leave sin behind and see what God has to offer.  So, if we hang out with the bad crowd, we better be ready to take them to task lest we become hardened in our sins.