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Twenty Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Jim Deiters

 I remember trying to preach on this Gospel about Jesus and a little child to our young school children last year.  When I started talking about Jesus’ love of an innocent child, one of the fourth grade boys raised his hand and said, “Maybe children were different at the time of Jesus, but my 2-year-old sister is anything but innocent!”  I don’t think I did a very good job that day of making my point about Jesus using the example of a child to get his adult disciples to stop worrying about their own self-promotion of being the greatest.
 The main point that Jesus was TRYING to make that day with his disciples was that his teachings and example would eventually lead to his suffering and death by those who rejected him.  Disciples, then and now, often become deaf to Jesus’ teachings, as we get caught up in our own self-grandiosity. 

 What I find most interesting is how the Church sets up a connection between this Gospel where Jesus talks about his death and resurrection…with our first reading from Wisdom that portrays a just person being condemned for his virtuous deeds.  Since these two readings reveal that a person who loves others and works for justice will face condemnation by others, then we need to understand what this working for justice really is…since we claim it is a central part of our discipleship.

 Now, a homily is not the time to do a thorough explanation of the Church’s teaching on justice, but I think it is worth at least reviewing some basic points since “justice” is one of the four cardinal virtues, along with temperance, fortitude, and prudence.  Sadly, the devil has used the Church’s very teachings on justice to pit us Christians against one another in partisan views.  We must admit that as followers of Jesus, we Christians march to the beat of a different drummer.  Too many want to water down Jesus’ ideas of justice; perhaps out of fear of exactly what the book of Wisdom says happens to the just person being ridiculed and condemned…which we also see happen in the life of Jesus.

 Defining justice is no small challenge, given its broad use over the centuries.  Our Catholic teaching on social justice has its roots in the philosophy of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.  But the Catholic Church began speaking boldly about justice issues in the late 1800’s as the Industrial Revolution led to an exploiting of women and children working in factories.  Pope Leo XIII then speaks out about the value of the human person and human labor.

 Then it was in 1931 that Pope Pius XI first coined the term ‘social justice’ to bring together the various components of justice like ‘economic justice’ between employer and employee… and distributive justice pertaining to how a society takes care of those who don’t have the basic human needs.  Pius XI saw the necessity of a description of justice directed at community: hence, social justice.  He wanted to emphasize the broader ramifications and ripple effect when people act unjustly.

 Therefore, social justice is a virtue that emphasizes the responsibility of citizens to use their gifts and talents to improve the common good of their communities. In other words, we are called to be people for others.  More specifically, the Church lists seven main areas of concern that we must be involved in:  life and dignity of the human person, family life, community and participation in society, protect the rights of others, preferential option for the poor, the dignity of work and the rights of workers, solidarity with the underprivileged, and care for God’s Creation.  Interestingly, most of these seven are what young adults are most concerned about and might be more involved in the church if they knew these were core to our faith.

 Given that our reputation as Catholics is ‘on the line’ these days in terms of credibility, it seems we must cling to more than ever, our core teachings about living this Gospel of Jesus to make our Catholic faith appealing to those in the world looking for something to make sense of our broken world. 

 Why all this talk of justice today?  First, it is a rare opportunity that the scriptures highlight this virtue.  And secondly, as the great Jesuit missionary Fr. Pedro Arrupe said, “We cannot separate action for justice from the proclamation of the Word of God.”  Therefore, in our primary goal of evangelizing others about God’s love for them in Jesus, we must integrate what we profess here in the Word and the Eucharist…with what we stand for out in the world.  Let us pray for the Holy Spirit to help us assimilate this Body of Christ we receive into our words and actions when we leave here as people willing to be the “servant of all”….and give our life for the sake of Justice in God’s Kingdom.

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Twenty Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Jim Deiters

On my annual retreat last year, a group of us priests arrived for our first conference and the director arrived in the chapel, came up to the podium and asked, “What are you afraid of? ”  Then he went and sat down and left us in silence for 20 minutes.  His question, with the deafening silence, was like him putting a big mirror in front of one’s soul.  What are YOU afraid of?
 
Many have fears about what is happening in the Church these days; parents have fears about their children; some are anxious about finances or a relationship; and with age, comes fears about health and death.  Fear is a natural response to the unknown.  It can be used to motivate us…or…we can let fear make us withdrawn and anxious.
 
In our scriptures today, God comes to the aid of those living in fear and assures us humans that he is with us and helps us when we are afraid.  In the first reading, the Israelites are living in fear since they are trying to find a new life after the Assyrians destroyed their homes and temple.  In today’s terms, they represent the millions of refugees worldwide who wait for a land and home to live in safely; or the thousands in our own area and country living in domestic abuse situations.  Most of us will never know this kind of fear.  Through the prophet Isaiah, God assures the Israelites, and all those who live in fear for their lives, that he is with them and leading us to a better place.
 
In the Gospel, we can only imagine the fears of the deaf man who would have been excluded from so much community life.  And his speech impediment left him misunderstood by many.  We still have a long way to go as a culture in learning from those with disabilities about how to include them and meet their needs. 
 
Through this powerful story of Jesus healing the deaf man, the writer Mark want us to put our SELF into the story with our own disabilities and fears…seeking Jesus to heal us.  Particularly we are being asked to name the sin, brokenness and fears that related to our hearing and our speech.
 
In this sense, I’m proposing a connection between the fears we have…and what we listen to and speak.  Are not many of our fears based on who or what we choose to listen to?  In a sense, we live in a cultural deafness, where we don’t even know how to LISTEN to one another…as civil dialogue is rarely heard or modeled for our young people.  We enable ‘deafness’ when we get addicted to a negative news station or buy into television advertisements that tell us to be someone other than a daughter or son of God.  And both teens and adults become deaf to their own inner God-given beauty when pressured by peers to be something we are not.
 
Words are important! Words we speak and words we listen to make a difference.  That’s why lies are so damaging…since they are an abuse of words that put fear or anger into the ears of others. Can you see the sinful connection between fear and what we hear and speak?  Will we Christians work with Jesus’ healing power and break the cycle?  It starts with words of truth and love and forgiveness.
 
Ultimately it is THIS WORD of God, which comes directly to us from Jesus…that serves as a sort of ‘special education class’ for all of us who have some form of ‘speech impediment’ and need a new language and way to talk and listen.  Wouldn’t it be interesting to listen to a recording of our self at the end of each day to examine our words and listening skills… compared to Jesus as GOD’S Word?  Similarly, do a review each day about what ‘voices’ we listen to and how much they influence our thinking.  Are the words that we let into our ears making us a more loving, caring, compassionate person like Jesus?  How can we choose to spend more time opening our ears to the sounds of nature…where God’s amazing creation sings a song of unity and creativity?  Or listen to a Catholic station or App for spiritual insights?
 
Carefully choosing what words we allow to come into us and flow out of us…can either add fear to our life and others…OR contribute to God’s dream for justice and peace for every human person.  The beautiful Sacrament of the Eucharist is Jesus’ way of physically touching our tongue and opening our ears to heal them from a deafness to the cry of the poor…or any speech impediment that has had us speaking anything but love and truth.  As the Body and Blood of Christ touches your tongue today…hear God say to you as he did to the Israelites, “Fear not!  I come to save you!”

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Twenty Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Mark Dean, OMI

Guest presider Fr. Mark Dean preaches on the challenges facing the Church amid the abuse crisis. Fr. Dean used the image below by artist Fr. Sieger Köder, which is based on the story of the Prophet Elijah in 1 Kings 18-19. 

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time 
LISTEN TO THIS HOMILY
Fr. Jim Deiters
 
There are many things I learned about myself and humanity during my six weeks of time off for my back problems.  It begins with having to embrace one’s frail human condition...and then getting a very small glimpse into the lives of those living with a disability...to rediscovering the very goodness of people... experienced through your faithful prayers and care and in the St. Elizabeth hospital staff.  But above all since I was not here, I rediscovered how much the Eucharist, particularly celebrating Mass with you, is the center of my life.
 
 How providential that on my first weekend back with you, we begin this sixth chapter from the Gospel of John, which is the quintessential section of the bible that highlights our Catholic theology on how we understand the Eucharist and the Mass.  It would be helpful if we each took the time to read the whole sixth chapter of John’s Gospel in one sitting.  In the context of Sunday Mass, we will reflect on sections of it for five weeks, which summarizes how much Jesus makes clear the importance of his Body and Blood as the sustenance for life in God.
 
From an historical perspective, we remember that John’s Gospel was written about sixty years after Jesus’ Death and Resurrection.  This means that the Early Christians had been celebrating the Eucharist for six decades and now John is putting together all of Jesus’ teachings on the Eucharist in this Gospel section.  As we will hear in the upcoming weeks, it is obvious that from the beginning, Christians clearly believed that the bread and wine change into the Body and Blood of Jesus...that helps us on the path to holiness. 
 
 But before John gets into that theology, he prefaces it with this miraculous story of the multiplication of loaves and fish...which in itself is considered probably the ‘first Eucharist’ that Jesus celebrated with his disciples.  It is a story about God’s abundance: how Jesus feeds those who are hungry in body and soul; and how the Eucharist gathers and unites people.  I invite us to focus on that second element - the gathering and unifying aspects of the Eucharist.
 
 The setting for this miracle is on a mountain.  And John paints this image of a large crowd coming toward Jesus.  Jesus always has a magnetic attractiveness that keeps drawing people to himself.  Every Mass, at which Jesus presides, is a meant to be a drawing force...that invites and attracts people from all walks of life to know they are welcomed here and fed...with the true Bread of Life for our deepest longings.
 
 How wonderful then, that in a world usually segregated by membership, status, nationality, or skin color, Jesus gives us the world the Eucharist to be totally different from that...and be a place where all are drawn upward to a mountain of holy inclusion!
 
 We hear this echoed in the Eucharistic Prayer we will pray together in a few minutes.  Listen closely to such phrases as “O Lord, you never cease to gather a people to yourself” and later in the prayer, “In your compassion, gather to yourself all your children scattered throughout the world.”  Singing the Great Amen at the end of this prayer is a risky thing since we are saying “YES” to working with God to end divisions...and help gather those who have been scattered...or who don’t have the resources to get up the mountain we sometimes claim is our own. 
 
 What a challenge it is for us... to put into practice in our daily living the ‘gathering and unifying’ that Jesus does in the Eucharist.  Do any of our words, actions, or political persuasions need to change...in order that I am a person more like Jesus...who seeks to unite the human race as one Body of Christ?
 
 It is truly a joy and privilege for us to be invited and gathered on this mountain with Jesus...where we get to hear his veryWord spoken to us...and partake in his Body and Blood.  But as good as we may feel to have such a holy Encounter with God...the Eucharist also should disturb us and make us more aware of how many children of God are scattered… or feel unwelcome or unworthy to be here.  
 
So that we never take for granted the sacredness of what we are about to eat, let us take a moment to think about anything in our words, thoughts, judgements, or actions that are not as welcoming and inviting as Jesus is...and we ask the Holy Spirit in this Eucharist to convert our hearts and minds.
“O Jesus, we hunger for you to save us!”

TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Deacon John Gomez

He Is Out Of His Mind/Who Are My Mother And Brothers?
Last month, many of us were captivated by the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Some of us were interested in seeing the fairy-tale wedding of a princess, others could hardly wait for their first glimpse of the well guarded wedding dress, still others wanted to see which celebrities attended because of the Duchess’ connection to the world of entertainment, and others approached it from a more technical perspective—orchestrating the movement of people, providing security, even conducting the ritual itself, the preaching of Bishop Michael Curry. There was also quite a bit of drama leading up to the wedding: with Meghan Markle as a commoner, an American, and a divorcee would Queen Elizabeth give her consent to the union; and with Thomas Markle, the Duchess’ father, conceding he had worked with an American celebrity photographer in staging a series of paparazzi-style photographs showing him preparing for the ceremony. It made me think that each of us has certain rules that we’re expected to follow to respect each other’s rights and responsibilities regardless of whom we call our family.

In today’s gospel reading we get a peek at those rules for Jesus’ family. Like the British royal family today, Jewish families in the first century were governed by a considerable amount of tradition. Some of these traditions were simple and practical such as expecting the eldest son to continue the family business because of the family’s considerable investment. For example, if the family owned a winery, then the vineyard, wine presses, and warehouses for aging the wine would be quite expensive. In the case of the Holy Family, Joseph probably had tools that he used as a laborer. Some were probably for carpentry or masonry work that he performed. There may also have been a workshop or space in the home that was set aside for any projects that he was working on. Other rules were focused on familial relationships and the community. When the father passed away, the son would take the mother into his home because she would have no other means of support to put a roof over her head or food on her table. Also, they didn’t understand how the disease of leprosy spread from one person to another so they established a rule to exile lepers from the community.

Jesus’ ministry often disregarded these traditions. Considering just the stories in the Gospel of Mark leading up to today’s reading, you can almost hear the town gossips, “Have you seen Jesus lately? Ever since he went off to be baptized, he hardly spends any time working in the shop. He is out of his mind. Poor Mary, she’s left all alone. I don’t ever see her eating. You know she won’t beg. Jesus needs to stay home and take care of his mother. He is out of his mind. I heard that Jesus touched a leper over by Capernaum. Thank goodness when the priest examined the man he was clean of leprosy, but what was Jesus thinking. He is out of his mind. He is constantly in the company of sinners and that tax collector Levi, he doesn’t observe the fast, and he pays no attention to the Sabbath picking grain from the field and healing people. HE IS OUT OF HIS MIND!”

Jesus’ relatives are actually saying, “People in this family don’t behave that way.” His family didn’t understand the nature of Jesus’ ministry. They were surprised when he began preaching; he came from a poor carpenter’s family. He wasn’t a Levite nor did he have any special training like the scribes, Pharisees or Sadducees. Certainly his parents, Mary and Joseph, taught him the foundations of his faith but he wasn’t a rabbi’s student. His words and actions conflicted at times with their familial beliefs and traditions; they wanted him to stop. They were even willing to come as a group to seize him, carry him away from the crowds, and remind him of his roots—of their family traditions.

Jesus’ oddly worded response, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” is a fundamental question: What does it mean to be family? People may refer to a “blood relation” or will say that person is my biological parent. I maintain being family is something that goes far deeper, encompassing our entire being, not just our physical make up but how we see the world. We have heard that our parents are our first teachers; from them we learn the way that people treat each other, sharing responsibilities, celebrating each other’s joys and consoling each other’s sorrows, implanting morals and values that influence the way we respond to everyday events for the rest of our lives. While we may not be a member of the British royal family or a first century Jewish family, we are guided by the traditions of our families all the same. Jesus’ question should make us ask, “How should I behave as part of God’s family?”

Catholic social teaching provides us with part of the answer to the question. The person is not only sacred but also social; God created us not to live in isolation but in communion. Marriage and family are the central social institutions that must be supported and strengthened, not undermined. As Catholics we believe people have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking together the common good and well-being of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. How we organize our society—in economics and politics, in law and policy—directly affects human dignity and the capacity of individuals to grow in community. Human dignity can be protected and a healthy community can be achieved only if human rights are protected and responsibilities are met—to one another, to our families, and to the larger society.

Jesus completes the answer by redefining family and in the process giving us a great definition of the church. He portrays a vision of the family of God. Jesus acknowledges that discipleship may cost our old, natural family ties. But if we do the will of God, we will discover ourselves as members of the new family of God. Despite Jesus disappointment that his family and the scribes rejected him, he proclaims the good news that all who do the will of God will be accepted into the family of God. Jesus’ statement moves the value of human relationships beyond the physical or biological to the spiritual. I believe he is saying that as important as physical relationships are, they are not as important as spiritual relationships.

My wife Mary built the spiritual relationships within our family by ensuring that as our children were growing up we always had dinner together. Sometimes dinner was squeezed in between sports or band or scouts, but we always sat down together. On more than a few occasions we were all seated with food on the table waiting for the last person to join us. We all knew that we wouldn’t start while there was an empty seat and whoever the missing person was knew they had a responsibility to join the rest of the family. It was a special time when we shared the news of the day, learned from each other, shared a smile or a tear, and knew that we were important and loved just the way we are.

Likewise, the family of God joins together to share and learn and know that we are important and loved at this altar table. If we want to be able to answer Jesus, “I am your brother” or “I am your sister” then being joined at the table of the altar is an important part of our family tradition. We know that Jesus in His perfection was criticized, scorned, mocked, and suffered because He claimed God as His Father. It will be the same with us if we follow in His ways. Following Jesus and fulfilling His divine will in our lives will not always be accepted by others. Yes, acts of kindness and mercy toward the less fortunate will generally be seen by all as a good and virtuous thing to do. But there are many things we are called to say and do by the Gospel that will invite the criticism of others. When this happens and they say, “He is out of his mind,” we should not be astonished, hurt or scandalized. We should not become angry or resentful. We should recall the false judgments made against Jesus and not allow what we experience from others to deter us from following the will of God. We should claim our family’s tradition, following in the very footsteps of Christ, through the self-sacrifice of the cross to the glory of God.