Focus On What You Have, Not On What You Don’t Have

Kyle Maynard

(Twenty-eighth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on October 9, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Luke 17:11-19.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-eighth Sunday 2022]

His name is Kyle Maynard.  I first heard about him back in 2005.  I mentioned him in my Thanksgiving Day homily that year.

He was born in 1986 with a rare disorder known as “Congenital Amputation.”  Because of it, he has extremely short legs, deformed feet, and arms that end at the elbow joint.

But Kyle Maynard is happy—and thankful.

And he’s refused to let his physical shortcomings hold him back in his personal growth and development.  With a deep faith in God—and with lots of encouragement from family and friends—he’s done things that many people were convinced he could never do.  Without the assistance of prosthetic limbs, for example, he learned how to eat using regular silverware!  (Don’t ask me how, but he did!)  He also learned how to write—and type (reportedly at the rate of 50 words a minute, which is a lot faster than many healthy people type!). 

He’s even been involved in sports.  He actually wrestled on the University of Georgia’s wrestling team, after having a very successful high school career in which he compiled a pretty impressive record of 35 wins and 16 losses.

And he climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania back in 2012—without any assistance.  He climbed (or maybe I should say “crawled”) all 19,340 feet to the top of the mountain in 10 days.  Later on that year he was awarded an ESPY for being the “best male athlete with a disability”.

I saw Kyle interviewed in 2005 on the 700 Club television program.  During that interview, he made a number of noteworthy statements, but one of the most important was that he refuses to focus on what he doesn’t have in his life.  Rather, he makes the conscious choice every day to focus on what he does have—on the abilities and talents and gifts he does possess.  So instead of becoming depressed because he doesn’t have two normal legs and two complete arms (which is what many people would do in his situation), he chooses to focus on his faith, and on the ability and opportunity he has to help other people deal with the trials they are currently facing in their lives.  His message to them is: “With the help of God and others, I have overcome many of the obstacles that were placed in my path because of Congenital Amputation.  You can do the same thing in your life, with respect to the obstacles that you are currently dealing with.”

Focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have.

Those who are truly grateful—like Kyle Maynard—do that: they focus on what they possess, not on what they lack.

Consider the leper in today’s Gospel story from Luke 17.  On the day he was healed by Jesus, there were many things he didn’t have.  That should be obvious.  He didn’t have a nice home to go back to.  (Because he was a leper, he had been living in isolation with other lepers, perhaps for many years.)  He didn’t have a job; and he probably didn’t have many friends—at least he didn’t have many friends among the Jews, since he was a Samaritan.  But once he was healed, it’s clear that he wasn’t focused on any of those things.

His focus was on what he did have at that moment: faith in Jesus, and restored physical health.  And so he was grateful.

Focus on what you have, not on what you don’t have.

Perhaps some of you are saying to yourselves, “That sounds pretty easy to do, Fr. Ray.”

Well, don’t be fooled!  It isn’t easy!—which is precisely why I bring it up in this homily!

In fact, we are currently living in a consumer culture in which we are being programmed—subtly taught—every single day to focus on what we lack, on what we don’t possess!

And this is very easy to illustrate.  I ask you: How many advertisements are you exposed to during an average day—on TV, on the radio, in magazines, and on the internet?

Lots of them, right?  Too many, for sure!

And what’s the underlying message contained in 99.9% of these advertisements?  Very simply, the message is: You don’t have this!—you don’t have this great car; you don’t have this camera; you don’t have this toy; you don’t have this new video game; you don’t have this super laundry detergent.  But you should!

And how about the hedonistic and materialistic messages that come at us constantly, especially in the media?—You don’t have the perfect boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse; you don’t have the perfect body like those athletes and Hollywood models; you don’t have as much money as Elon Musk or Bill Gates.  You don’t have, you don’t have, you don’t have ...  

No wonder so many people are depressed and dissatisfied these days, even though they have so much!  They are programmed to be that way!  Or perhaps I should say, they have allowed themselves to be programmed that way. 

This, incidentally, is one of the reasons why suffering is not the worst thing in the world.  Admittedly, none of us likes to suffer.  We’d much rather prosper and have it easy.  That’s human nature.  But if we reflect on the experience of suffering for a moment, we will realize that it often has a positive effect in our lives.  Specifically, it “deprograms” us!  That is to say, it stops us from focusing on what we lack, and gets us to zero in (for a change) on what we do have. 

Think of Kyle Maynard: his suffering certainly has had that effect on him. 

Think, too, of some of the victims of natural disasters, like Hurricane Ian.  They also illustrate the point beautifully.  After losing their homes and all their earthly possessions, many of those who’ve lived through these storms have been quoted as saying things like: “I am grateful that I still have my faith;” “I am grateful that I have my family;” “I am grateful that I survived, and that I still have my health;” “I am grateful that I have such caring and devoted friends who are supporting me through all this.”

Their suffering has caused a radical shift in their focus—and has made them grateful.

The choice, it seems to me, should be pretty clear at this point: If you choose to focus on what you have, you will develop an attitude of gratitude in your life.

On the other hand, if you choose to focus on what you don’t have, in all likelihood you will simply develop an “attitude”!

Dear Lord, help us—as you have helped Kyle Maynard—to have the right focus!

 

“GUARD the Deposit of Faith!”—St. Paul's Command to Timothy and to All Priests

 

(Twenty-seventh Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on October 1, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Habakkuk 1:2-3, 2:2-4; Psalm 95:1-9; 2 Timothy 1:1-14; Luke 17:5-10.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-seventh Sunday 2022]

 

It happened many years ago, but I remember the encounter as if it occurred yesterday.  I happened to be in Warwick one afternoon, and I ran into a married couple that I knew from the northern part of the state.  During the course of our conversation the wife said to me, “Fr. Ray, please keep us in your prayers.  My husband and I have been trying to have children for nine years.  Tomorrow I'm undergoing “in vitro-fertilization” for the FOURTH time.  Please pray that it works so that we can finally have a child.”

Well, immediately, I was put on the spot.  That's because the Catholic Church, in the name of Jesus Christ (not in its own name, but in the name of Jesus Christ) teaches that in vitro fertilization is immoral.  The desire to overcome infertility is, of course, a good desire.  But, as St. Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans, we may never use an evil means to attain a good end.  IVF is an evil means.  Why?  Not because technology is involved.  The Church is not against technology as such.  In fact Jesus, through his Church, teaches that some medical methods of treating infertility are quite acceptable.  But any method which REPLACES the marital act is immoral.  And, unfortunately, IVF does that: children are conceived—not through the loving union of two parents—but rather in a petri dish.  And there are other immoral dimensions to this procedure. For example, the method that's normally used to obtain sperm is immoral, as is the common practice of destroying some of the eggs that are fertilized.  Lest we forget, to destroy a fertilized human egg is to destroy a human being made in the image and likeness of God.

Well, as gently as I could, I tried to explain all of this to the woman and her husband.  And, not surprisingly, they were devastated.  The wife finally said, “Fr. Ray, do you hate us now for having done this 3 times?  Will you think less of us when you see us in the future?”  I said, “Of course not.  You're wonderful people.  And besides, in the past you didn't realize this was wrong—as many other Catholics don't realize that it's wrong.”

Then she added this comment, which I will never, ever forget: “But Father Ray, our PRIEST told us it was okay.  We went to see him before we did any of this, and he said that as long as they intended to put all the fertilized eggs back, it would be fine.”

At that, my blood pressure went through the roof!  I was livid!  Not at the couple, but at the priest, who should have known better!  You see, instead of telling these two people the truth, instead of being courageous and giving them the right message, he told them what he thought they wanted to hear—probably because he didn't want to offend them.  And what was the end result of his “compassionate act?”  Well first of all, he put me in a terribly awkward position; and secondly, he made it much worse for this good, sincere couple.  In trying to be a “nice guy,” he ultimately caused them to experience more pain when they finally learned the truth—the truth that he should have told them in the first place!

Why do I mention this incident today?  Number one, because this is an issue which many Catholics are unclear about; and number two because our second reading for this Mass is addressed to Timothy, who was one of the very first leaders in the Church.  St. Paul wrote two letters to Timothy, in which he tells the young priest how to be a true shepherd in the family of God.  But nowhere in either of the letters does Paul say: “Tim, be a nice guy.  Don’t ever offend anybody.  Tell people exactly what they want to hear.  Give them an easy message.”  Rather, Paul encouraged him to speak the TRUTH in love, even if it hurt—even if it was offensive to some.  For example, in the text we just heard he says (and here I’m using the old New American Bible translation), “[Timothy], take as a model of sound teaching what you have heard me say, in faith and love in Christ Jesus.”  Now Timothy must have heard Paul say many difficult things, because Paul did that on a regular basis. That's clear from his many New Testament letters.  He was not a wimp.  He was not afraid to confront the pressing social and cultural issues of his day. And make no mistake about it: Paul suffered for being so honest and truthful.  That's why he also tells Timothy, “Never be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but with the strength which comes from God bear your share of the hardships which the gospel entails.”  In other words, “Tim, if you intend to be a good priest, get ready to be opposed by some people when you speak the full truth of the gospel.  It's happened to me; it will certainly happen to you.  Don't think you'll somehow be exempt from the experience.  But don't be afraid either.  God will give you the strength you need to deal with it.” 

Then, a few verses later, Paul gives him this most important instruction: “Guard the rich deposit of faith with the help of the Holy Spirit who dwells within us.”  The key word there is the word “guard.”  Notice that Paul DOESN'T say “change the deposit of faith if you feel like it;” he doesn't say “water down the deposit of faith if it challenges you too much.”  He tells Timothy to "guard it."  That's because neither Paul, nor Timothy, nor Peter, nor anyone else had the power to change it.  The same is true today.  Now this is something that many modern Catholic lay people (and others—including some bishops in Germany right now) don't seem to understand.  They want the Church to change her teaching on the priesthood, and on certain aspects of sexual morality.  The Church does not have the power or the authority to do such a thing!  It never did, and it never will!  All the Church can do is what Paul says here.  All it can do is GUARD and PROMOTE the deposit of faith (which is the full gospel of Jesus Christ).

I am confident that Timothy followed Paul's instruction.  Which means that if he had been a priest today, and a married couple had come to him seeking guidance on how to deal with their infertility, Timothy would not have given them the wrong advice in order to be a nice guy. He would have gently, patiently (and courageously) explained to them the clear teaching of the Church on the matter.  And he would have helped them to explore morally acceptable options to deal with their difficult situation—like NaPro technology, which treats infertility with natural methods that are based on good science.

I ask you today to pray that we will have more leaders of this type in God's family.  And it's certainly in your interest as lay people to do this: because good priests like Timothy not only save their own souls, they also take many lay people with them to heaven.  Bad priests, on the other hand, do exactly the opposite. 

And we’ve had far too many of them in the Church in recent decades, as we are all painfully aware.

St. Paul and St. Timothy, pray for us—and pray especially today for our leaders: for all bishops, priests and deacons in the Church. Pray that they will speak the truth in love to their people ALWAYS—as you both did.  Amen.

 

The Prodigal Son: He Made a Good Confession

 

(Twenty-fourth Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on September 11, 2022, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Luke 15:1-32.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-fourth Sunday 2022]

 

He made a good confession.

I’m talking here about the prodigal son.

The boy made a good confession—a very good confession.

Now I know that he never entered a reconciliation room like the ones we have here at St. Pius; nor did he use the traditional opening statement, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned”; nor did he receive a formal penance from a validly ordained priest or say an act of contrition.

But he made a good confession nonetheless—because all the elements that the Church says are necessary for a good, valid confession were present in his story, either explicitly or implicitly.

Let me begin by asking you the question: What 4 elements are necessary for a good confession?  Do you know?  In other words, what 4 things are required for a person to be absolved of his sins in the sacrament of reconciliation?

Every Catholic should know these, for lots of reasons—not the least of which is that his eternal salvation might hang in the balance!  Think about it.  If a person has committed a mortal sin and he needs God’s forgiveness, he won’t know if he’s actually received that forgiveness, unless he knows what God requires of him, and what God requires of the priest! 

If he’s ignorant of those things, then all he can do is hope that he’s been forgiven.

Well, if you paid attention when you were in Catholic school or in Catechism class, you know the answer.  The four elements of a good confession are: contrition, confession, absolution and satisfaction.  Contrition, confession and satisfaction are acts of the penitent; absolution is, of course, the action of the priest.

Applying this, now, to the story of the prodigal son . . .

First of all, let me say that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that this boy was in the state of mortal sin.  Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters say, “There is no such thing as mortal sin.  It’s not in the Bible.”

Oh yes it is!  St. John, in chapter 5 of his first letter speaks of it as “deadly sin” or “the sin unto death”—which he explicitly distinguishes from lesser sins (what we would call “venial sins”).

And mortal sin is present by implication in this story of the prodigal son—because what does the father say to his older son at the very end—after this boy gets all upset that his dad has thrown a big party for his wayward brother?

The father says, “We must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again.”

The older brother could have said at that point, “Now wait a minute, dad, bad-boy baby brother isn’t dead.  He’s very much alive and having a grand old time with his friends—which is precisely why I’m so upset!”

But the older brother understood: His father was speaking in spiritual terms, not in physical terms.  And from that perspective, the younger son had been dead!  He had cut himself off totally from his father and family through his materialism and fornication (and probably a lot of other things!).

So how did the reconciliation happen?

Well, first there was contrition.  The younger son experienced true sorrow for his sins.  But it’s very clear from the details of the story that his contrition was not what we would call perfect.  It was what we would call imperfect. 

Perfect contrition is being sorry for your sins because you love God deeply and are sorry that you’ve offended the Lord whom you love so much.  Imperfect contrition is being sorry because you’re afraid of going to hell!—you’re afraid of being punished for what you’ve done.

Now obviously it’s much better to have perfect contrition—but the really good news is that you only need to have imperfect contrition to receive God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Notice why the prodigal son finally made the decision to return to his dad.  It was not primarily because of love; it was first and foremost because of fear!  He was afraid that he was going to die! 

And he was right!  If he had kept hanging around with Porky Pig and Company, he probably would have died.  So he said to himself, in effect, “You know, I had it pretty good back home.  Even my father’s servants ate better than this!  Maybe if I go back my dad will take me in and make me one of his servants.  It’s worth a shot.  At least I’ll get a roof over my head and three square meals a day!”

Which brings us to confession—the second step in the reconciliation process.  When the prodigal son finally met his dad face to face, the first thing he did was to confess his guilt—clearly and honestly.  To his credit, he didn’t try to minimize what he had done.  He didn’t make any lame excuses for his behavior.  He called his sin “sin”—“Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.” 

One of the things I can relate to in this part of the story (perhaps you can, too) is “the rehearsal”.  He rehearses his confession before he makes it.

Have you ever done that?  I have—lots of times!

The father, of course, forgives immediately and welcomes his son back into the family.  And in the process, he doesn’t throw the boy’s sin back in his face.  That’s significant.  He reads his son’s heart; he hears the words of sorrow and repentance—and that’s enough.

Which is precisely the way it is with us after we go to confession.  God forgives and he also “forgets”—which means that the sin he’s forgiven never comes between us and him again.  He knows we did it (of course—God knows everything!), but he treats us as if we had never done it.

The absolution in the sacrament of reconciliation comes when the priest says, “I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” 

The absolution in this story is not as explicit.  But it’s there!  It’s implicit in the words and in the actions of the father.  It’s implicit in his joy, in his embrace, in his kiss—as well as in his gift of a new set of clothes, which are definitely the clothes of a son—a royal son!  They’re not the clothes of a servant.

This brings us, finally, to satisfaction (which, by the way, has nothing to do with the old rock song by the Rolling Stones!).   If we’re truly sorry for our sins, we will try to make amends for them—to make “satisfaction” for them.  In other words, we will try to undo whatever negative consequences our sins have caused in the lives of others.  This is, not surprisingly, the purpose of the “penance” the priest gives during a confession.

Now we can do this—we can make satisfaction for our sins—through words, through actions—and even through prayers.  If you’ve ever been to me for confession you know that when I give a penance of prayers I will almost always tell you to pray those prayers specifically for one or more of the people you’ve hurt by your sins. 

Praying for those we sin against is one way of undoing some of the consequences of our negative actions toward them.

This idea of satisfaction, like absolution, is not explicit in the story of the prodigal son.  But it can be reasonably presumed.  If this boy was truly sorry for how he had hurt his dad, then you can be certain that after he returned home he tried to be the best son he could possibly be from that moment onward.  And you can also be sure that he tried to reach out to his brother and smooth things over with him—because that relationship was also in need of some big-time repair.

If the prodigal son was not willing to do those things, I would question whether he was really sorry for his sins in the first place!  I would question his contrition.

Personally, I think he was so grateful to his dad—and so thankful to be home—that he happily spent the rest of his life making amends for the things he had done in his past.

So there you have it: the story of the prodigal son’s good confession.

It’s my prayer today that this story will provide some added incentive for us to make good confessions ourselves in the future, because the real reason that Jesus told this parable in the first place was to move us all to repentance—sincere, heartfelt, genuine repentance.

 

If Philemon had Written Back to St. Paul, What Would he Have Said?

 

(Twenty-third Sunday of the Year (C):  This homily was given on September 4, 2022 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read the Letter of St. Paul to Philemon.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twenty-third Sunday 2022]

Today’s second reading comes from one of the shortest books of the Bible: the Letter of St. Paul to Philemon.  (The entire work consists of only 25 verses.)  It concerns a runaway slave named Onesimus, who was owned by a wealthy Christian from the city of Colossae named Philemon.  Now one side note here before I go on: Human slavery was an accepted reality in the first century world.  It’s repulsive to us (as it should be); but back then (unfortunately) it was an accepted part of the culture.  

Now some people will ask: Why didn’t St. Paul and the other New Testament writers speak out more forcefully against slavery?  Well, lest we forget, at the time Christians were in no position politically or socially to change any of the laws of Rome.  In fact, after the Resurrection of Jesus, it was not long before Christians became outlaws in the empire and part of the luncheon menu for some hungry lions.  Furthermore, many of the first Christians (including St. Paul) believed that the second coming of Christ would probably take place within their generation.  Consequently, changing laws and social structures was not a big concern.  Their advice was for people to make the best of things as they were, since the world would probably end very soon.  But it’s interesting: in spite of the fact that slavery was socially accepted, good Christians like Paul did perceive the injustice of it.  That's easily discerned from what he says in this letter.  In fact, Paul’s whole purpose in writing to Philemon was to get him to treat his runaway slave with mercy and accept him back as a brother in Christ.  Some scholars even say that Paul was asking Philemon to set Onesimus free—a very radical request for the time.  Listen once again to what Paul says here.  After he tells Philemon that he had met Onesimus in prison and converted him to the faith, the apostle writes:

I should have liked to retain him for myself,
so that he might serve me on your behalf
in my imprisonment for the gospel,
but I did not want to do anything without your consent,
so that the good you do might not be forced but voluntary.
Perhaps this is why he was away from you for a while,
that you might have him back forever,
no longer as a slave
but more than a slave, a brother,
beloved especially to me, but even more so to you,
as a man and in the Lord.
So if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.

 

Now, if you’re incredibly curious like I am, you come to the end of this letter and you say: “What happened?  Did Philemon treat his runaway slave (who probably was also a thief) with mercy?  Did he accept Onesimus as a brother in Christ and eventually set him free?”  Well guess what.  We don't know the answers to any of those questions!  But we can certainly speculate on the matter.  The thought occurred to me in preparation for this homily: perhaps Philemon wrote back to St. Paul after Onesimus returned.  And perhaps Philemon had the attitude about law and morality that many contemporary Americans have.  If that was indeed the case, his return letter probably went something like this:

My dear brother Paul, may the grace and peace of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior be with you.  I greatly appreciate your correspondence, and I thank you for sharing your opinions with me.  However, I have made the decision to keep my brother Onesimus in slavery and to discipline him severely.  I know that you will not agree with me about this, but I am for “choice”, and I have made the choice to be severe and to enslave him once again.  This, of course, is my legal right under the current laws of the Roman Empire, and in my mind whatever is legal is moral.  Consequently, since the laws of Rome permit the enslavement of human beings, in my mind this must be morally acceptable in the eyes of God.  And besides, my dear Paul, it would be very bad for me economically to let this man go.  He’s a very good worker, you know!  I lost a great deal of money during his absence.  Hopefully he’ll be able to make that up in the next several months of working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week.  I have a saying, and I believe it applies here: “Christianity is Christianity, but business is business!”  But don’t worry: I will certainly let Onesimus off for an hour each Sunday for Mass.  Peace be with you, Paul.  You are in my prayers.

 

That’s what Philemon would have said if he had the mindset that many contemporary Americans have: Americans who say it’s morally acceptable to attack innocent human life because the unjust laws of our country allow it (and they still do allow it, in spite of the overturning of Roe v. Wade); Americans who vote their wallets and their pocketbooks rather than their consciences; Americans who leave their Christianity in church, and who live the rest of their lives as if God didn't exist.  Dear Lord, my prayer today is that the real Philemon treated Onesimus with justice tempered with mercy, and that he eventually set his slave free because it was the right thing to do!  In other words, Lord, I pray that Philemon actually PRACTICED and LIVED the faith that he professed with his lips. 

And I pray for us and for all Americans who claim to be Christians in 2022—that we will do the very same thing.