Peter, Benedict—and the Advice of God the Father

 

(Second Sunday of Lent (C): This homily was given on February 24, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 9:28-36).

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Second Sunday of Lent 2013]

 

 

My homily today is about Peter, Benedict—and the advice of God the Father.

Simon Peter, the man who would become the very first pope, was present at the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mt. Tabor (as we just heard in our gospel reading from Luke 9).

During that event, God the Father gave him a very important message.  The message started off like the one the Lord had given to the bystanders at Jesus’ baptism three years earlier.  There, at the Jordan River, at the moment Jesus came up out of the water after being baptized by John, God the Father had said, “This is my beloved Son.” 

Here, at the Transfiguration, the heavenly Father said similar words.  He said, “This is my chosen Son.”  But then added a command, a bit of what might you might call, “heavenly advice”; he said, “Listen to him.”

That command—that advice from the all-knowing and all-powerful heavenly Father—was certainly meant for James and John as well, but it had a special application to Peter as the future leader of God’s spiritual family on earth.

Peter needed to listen to Jesus even more than the others did, since he was to be responsible for shepherding the whole Church as its first pope.

Here now, are a few of the things that Jesus said to Peter (and his fellow apostles) in the time between the Transfiguration and the Crucifixion.  These are some of the words of Jesus, in other words, that God the Father wanted Peter to pay attention to:  

Jesus said, “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.  If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.  Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.  And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

That’s from John, chapter 15.  Then, in chapter 16, Jesus said this to the future Pope and to the other apostles there with him at the Last Supper:

“I have told you this so that you may not fall away.  They will expel you from the synagogues; in fact, the hour is coming when everyone who kills you will think he is offering worship to God.  They will do this because they have not known either the Father or me.  I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you.”

It didn’t happen immediately, but Peter eventually took these words of Jesus to heart.  And so I’m sure it didn’t surprise him in the least when he was condemned to death by Nero, and crucified upside down in that area now known as St. Peter’s Square in Rome.

Peter had taken the Father’s advice, and had listened to Jesus—and so he knew exactly what to expect.

And so have the men who have succeeded him in the papacy.  They, too, have heeded the Lord’s advice and listened to Jesus on these and other matters—with the exception, of course, of the few bad popes that we’ve had over the years (Alexander VI Borgia and some others). They, unfortunately, did NOT listen to the majority of the things that Jesus said!  They were too busy sinning to listen!

Our present and soon-to-be-former Holy Father, Benedict XVI, is stepping down, I believe, because he is sincerely convinced that this is the will of God for him and for the Church.  As he said in his statement the other day, “After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry. . . . In order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfill the ministry entrusted to me.”

His message there is, very simply, that he’s done his best to listen to Jesus (as every pope should), and he believes that this is what Jesus wants him to do, so that the papal ministry will continue to be powerful and effective in the Church and in the world.

Like it or not, my brothers and sisters, John Paul II (and to a lesser extent Benedict himself) changed the way the ministry of the pope is exercised.  And that change, I believe, is permanent!  Before John Paul II, popes stayed in Rome most of the time and were much less visible to the general public—thus in generations past it was fairly easy for an older Pontiff with declining health to live out his last days in relative quiet.

Not any more!  Because of the standard set by John Paul II (and also, to some extent, by Benedict) popes these days not only have all their duties in Rome to worry about; now they also need to be healthy and energetic enough to travel all over the world on a regular basis—attending World Youth Days, and making pastoral visits to various countries.

Well, Pope Benedict has come to the realization that he can’t do these things effectively anymore, and so he’s humbly resigning so that someone else who’s younger and healthier can.

He’s not leaving the priesthood—he’s not rejecting his call to be a bishop; he’s simply retiring from active, public ministry.

And he’s helping the popes who will follow him, by making it easier for them to resign if they prayerfully discern that they need to.

Now what’s been interesting to follow is the reaction of the world to this announcement.  By the way, don’t ever believe the lie that says that the Catholic Church is irrelevant.  When people say, “Aw, the Church is old fashioned; the Church is out of touch; the Church needs to get with the rest of the world; the Church is irrelevant and needs to modernize” do not believe them!

The Catholic Church is not irrelevant—and events like the Holy Father’s resignation prove the point.  People don’t pay attention to things that are irrelevant, do they?  I sure don’t!  People ignore things that are irrelevant and passé and out of touch with reality!  But notice that almost EVERYONE PAYS ATTENTION TO THE Catholic Church!  Even the hedonists and materialists and secularists in the media want to know what’s going on in the Church and what she teaches (even if it’s only so that they can ridicule it all).

We, my brothers and sisters, are blessed to be members of the most relevant institution on the planet!  We’re always relevant, of course, not because of ourselves, but because of the One whose truth we uphold and teach in its fullness.

His truth is timeless—and deep down inside most people know that.

But since many of them don’t want to accept and live the truth, they try to undermine it by attacking Catholic leaders like the Holy Father—as many have done in recent days.  They’ve accused him (among other things) of being a willing member of Hitler Youth, soft on child abuse, anti-Semitic, hateful of Muslims and women and homosexuals (all of which, by the way, are lies!)—and on and on the list goes.    

But what’s really sad is when the attacks and the ridicule come from within—from those who call themselves Catholics!   How fitting it is that in today’s second reading, St. Paul speaks of certain people in Philippi who, “conduct themselves as enemies of the cross of Christ . . . [and] whose minds are occupied with earthly things.”  Please note: The people Paul was talking about in that text were not the pagans and atheists and devil worshippers who were living in Philippi at the time.  The people he was talking about in those verses were members of the Church!  They were professed believers in Jesus Christ who were attacking Paul and trying to undermine his ministry.

Pope Benedict can relate, I’m sure.

But I’m also sure that Benedict, like St. Peter and St. Paul, expects this kind of treatment!  He expects it, because he, like Peter and Paul, has followed the heavenly Father’s advice and has listened to Jesus: “If the world hates you, Benedict, realize that it hated me first. . . .‘No slave is greater than his master.’  If they persecuted me, Benedict, they will also persecute you. . . . And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

In conclusion, does that mean we should feel sorry for Pope Benedict XVI and pity him?

Not at all!  Quite to the contrary, we should rejoice for him—because God always rewards his faithful servants who suffer for his name!

Always!

That’s certainly good news for Pope Benedict; and, if we imitate him by being faithful to Jesus in our lives, it will also be good news for us.

The Word for Lent: Foundation!

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Ash Wednesday 2013]

St. Paul, Clarence, and “The Holes”

George (played by Jimmy Stewart) and Clarence (played by Henry Travers)

(Third Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on Sunday, January 27, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read 1 Corinthians 12: 12-30.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Third Sunday 2012]

In today’s second reading from 1 Corinthians 12, St. Paul says, “God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended;” or, as the verse is translated in another version of the Bible: “God has set each member of the body in the place he wanted it to be.”  (1 Corinthians 12: 18)

That line makes me think of a great scene from the movie I spoke about in my Christmas homily, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

Clarence, the guardian angel of the main character, George Bailey, was trying to dissuade George from killing himself by showing George what the world would have been like if he had never been born.  But it wasn’t an easy task for Clarence!  For a long time, George convinced himself that the changes he was seeing in his friends, family and surroundings were just the work of his very creative imagination—or the result of some magic trick performed by Clarence.

What finally made it clear to George that what he was seeing around him was real, was when he tried to visit his mother (who, of course, didn’t recognize him and called him crazy), and when he went to the place where “Bailey Park” used to be.  (Bailey Park was the housing development that George had helped to finance through his Building and Loan Company.) 

In place of the beautiful homes that used to be there, all George saw in front of him were gravestones.  Clarence said to him, “Are you sure this is Bailey Park?”  George responded, “Well, this should be Bailey Park.  But where are all the houses?”  Clarence answered, “You weren’t here to build them.”

Then George looked to one side, and he spotted a gravestone that had the name of his brother, Harry Bailey, chiseled into it.  George had saved Harry from drowning when they were children.  Harry had gone on to become a war hero during the Second World War.  But the dates on his gravestone read 1911-1919.

As George knelt on the ground looking at the stone in disbelief, Clarence said to him, “Your brother, Harry Bailey, broke through the ice and was drowned at the age of nine.”

George immediately jumped up and screamed, “That’s a lie!  Harry Bailey went to war!  He got the Congressional Medal of Honor!  He saved every man on that transport!”

Clarence shot back, “Every man on that transport died!  Harry wasn’t there to save them because you weren’t there to save Harry!”

It was the perfect illustration of what Clarence had said to George a little earlier in the film: “Strange, isn’t it?  Each man’s life touches so many other lives.  When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?” 

St. Paul would most definitely agree, based on that line from 1 Corinthians 12 that I quoted to you just a few moments ago: “God placed the parts, each one of them, in the body as he intended.”

According to the teaching of 1 Corinthians 12, we, together, make up the body of Christ, which is the Church.  This means that, individually, we are like the various parts of a physical body: we each have different roles, different gifts, different functions in God’s plan for the salvation of the world.  And yet, just as all the different parts of a physical body are supposed to interact with one another and work together for the good of the body as a whole, so too we in the Church (and in the world) are supposed to interact with one another and work together for the good of all.

That’s the will of our good and loving God.

So obviously what we do (and what we don’t do) in this life affects not only ourselves; to some extent what we do and what we don’t do affects everyone else, because our lives are so closely intertwined with the lives of others.  St. Paul makes that point here by saying that, if one part of the body suffers, all the other parts of the body suffer with it.

We all know this by experience, I’m sure.  If you have a toothache or an earache, for example, it’s not just your tooth or ear that suffers.

That one hurting part of your body affects your entire physical organism in a negative way.  And it ends up making you miserable—from head to toe!

It’s a terrible thing when one part of your body hurts and everything else seems to hurt with it. 

But do you know what’s even worse, my brothers and sisters?  What’s even worse is when you’re missing a part of your body!  What’s even worse is when all the parts of your body that should be there aren’t!  

Just ask anyone who’s had a part of their body amputated, or who was born without one or more of their limbs.

This was the lesson George Bailey learned from Clarence, when he got to see what the world would have been like if he had never been born.  He came to understand that he was a missing part of “the body”—and that his whole town was suffering because of his absence.

And so it is in the real world, when God wants people around, and they aren’t!

As Clarence said so prophetically, when a person isn’t around who is supposed to be around, “he leaves an awful hole.”

I ask you this morning, how many “holes” have been left in our world because of the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School last month, and because of the many other murders and acts of violence that take place in our country every day?

How many “holes” have been left in our nation because of abortion, since that horrific practice was legalized 40 years ago this very month?

Last I knew, about 55 million!

If God has a plan for each and every human person (and he does!)—a plan which involves their interaction with other people in the body of Christ and in the world—then what happens when someone who’s an important part of that plan isn’t there?

If you have a young son or daughter, for example, and it was part of God’s plan for that son or daughter to marry one of the children killed in Newtown, Connecticut, last month, how will your child’s life be affected in the future?  Or what if the person whom God wanted your son or daughter to marry was aborted and never made it out of the womb?

Or what if, in the plan of God, one of those children from Newtown was destined to become a great scientist—maybe the scientist who would unlock the secret to Parkinson’s Disease and discover a cure?

The “hole” that person leaves will certainly have a negative impact on my life!  I can guarantee that.

I remember seeing a cartoon several years ago that made the point in an extremely powerful way.  In this cartoon, a man looks up to heaven and cries out, “God, why haven’t you sent us people with cures for cancer and Aids, and answers to world hunger and all our social problems?”  A voice comes from heaven: “I did.”  The man says, “But, where are they?”  The Lord responds, “You aborted them!”

Among the almost 55 million who have been killed in the womb in the last 4 decades, don’t you think there were at least a few great scientific minds?  And perhaps a few economists, who would have had the insights that we need to turn our sick economy around?  And perhaps a few people who would have developed successful businesses to put some of our unemployed citizens back to work?  And maybe even a few good priests and religious who could have saved some souls who otherwise will die in the state of mortal sin?

Clarence, the angel, was right: “Each man’s life touches so many other lives.  When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole.”

May God help us all to take this truth seriously, and then to make every effort—by our words, by our deeds, and yes, even by our votes—to prevent any more “holes” from afflicting our world.

Jean Valjean and the Grace of Baptism

 

Jean Valjean (played by Hugh Jackman) receiving the silver candlesticks from the Bishop of Digne (top); then, after his conversion, with his adopted daughter, Cosette.

 

 

(Baptism of the Lord (C): This homily was given on January 13, 2013 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I. by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Titus 2: 11-14;
3: 4-7; Luke 3: 15-16, 21-22.)

 

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Baptism of the Lord 2013]

 

 

“I am reaching, but I fall, and the night is closing in, as I stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin.”

As many of us know, those are the words of Jean Valjean in the musical (and now the movie), Les Miserables—both of which are based on the Victor Hugo novel of the same name.

Valjean says these words after the Bishop of Digne has extended to him the mercy and forgiveness of Jesus Christ—mercy and forgiveness that Valjean definitely did not deserve!

Most of you know the story, but for the benefit of the few who don’t: the basic plot centers around this man named Jean Valjean, who lives in France at the beginning of the 19^th century.  Valjean spends almost 20 years behind bars doing hard labor on a chain gang. 

Why? 

For stealing a loaf of bread to feed his starving sister and her child! 

Not exactly what I would call “perfect justice”.  And so, as you might imagine, Valjean comes out of prison a bitter man: full of anger, full of hate, full of unforgiveness.  And because of the yellow ticket he’s forced to carry—which identifies him as a paroled criminal—nobody treats him kindly.  Nobody, that is, except the Bishop of Digne.  This holy man takes Valjean in, feeds him, and gives him a place to sleep.  Valjean responds to these acts of love by running off in the middle of the night with some of the bishop’s silver!  The police quickly catch him (Valjean never was a very good thief) and they bring him back to the bishop.  Well, both the thief and the police are shocked when the bishop insists that he gave the silver to Valjean as a gift!  He even chastises Valjean for leaving behind part of the present: two valuable silver candlesticks.  The police, of course, are forced to let Valjean go, and so they leave the scene.  At that point the bishop says to Valjean (and here I’m quoting from the musical):

But remember this, my brother

See in this some higher plan;

You must use this precious silver to become an honest man.

By the witness of the martyrs,

By the passion and the blood,

God has raised you out of darkness,

I have bought your soul for God.

By the way, in the new movie version of the story, they changed that last line to, “I have saved your soul for God”—which I like even better.  It makes the point even more powerfully.

At that moment, grace is offered to Jean Valjean:  the grace of forgiveness, the grace that Jesus Christ won for him and for all of us by his passion, death and resurrection.

Valjean then goes through an internal struggle.  He’s been touched by this act of kindness and love and he suddenly wants to change, but how can he?  How can he possibly wipe away his terrible past and live a new life?

Well, the simple answer is that he can’t!  He can’t merit the grace that will change his life and make him pleasing to God—which is precisely why he says those words I quoted to you at the beginning of my homily: “I am reaching, but I fall [in other words, ‘I am trying to escape from my sins and from my evil past, but, by my own power and merits, I realize that I can’t do it!’, and [thus] the night is closing in, as I stare into the void, to the whirlpool of my sin [a whirlpool that threatens to take me down forever!].”

Of course, the good news for Jean Valjean was that he didn’t have to do it by his own power and merits!  As the Bishop had reminded him, “by the passion and the blood”—that is to say, by the passion and the blood of Jesus Christ—the grace of justification, the grace that could cleanse him and make him pleasing to the heavenly Father, had already been purchased for him.

All Valjean needed to do was accept it. 

And he did!

Here, my brothers and sisters, we learn an important lesson about Baptism, and about the grace of Baptism (which is what the Church calls ‘sanctifying grace’).  This is the grace that makes us pleasing to God.  It’s the grace we need in our souls at the end of our lives if we want to be able to enter the kingdom of heaven!

But this is a grace that we can’t earn or merit initially—which is a tough idea for some Catholics to swallow, since they actually believe that they can somehow “earn” the grace of salvation by their own good deeds.

Ask Catholics and other Christians the question, “Why should God let you into heaven?” and many of them will respond by saying things like: “He should let me into heaven because I’ve obeyed the commandments,” or “He should let me into heaven because I’ve performed many acts of charity in my life,” or “He should let me into heaven because I’ve been a really good person”—or something along those lines.

But all of those answers are wrong!

Please hear this: The only reason God will let you or me or anyone else into his eternal kingdom is not because of anything we have done for him; it’s because of what his Son, Jesus Christ, has done for us through his passion, death and resurrection!

We cannot save ourselves; it’s impossible!  God, in his mercy and love, has to save us—which is precisely why he gave us the sacrament of Baptism!  Through Baptism we are freely given the grace that Jesus won for us on Good Friday and Easter Sunday.  In fact, that’s precisely what it means to have original sin “taken away”!  Original sin is not like the personal sins that we commit in our lives and confess in the confessional; original sin is actually the lack of something: the lack of sanctifying grace!  Original sin means that we come into this world without sanctifying grace in our souls.

And, as I said earlier, we need this grace in our souls if we want to be able to pass through the pearly gates when we die!

The early Fathers of the Church used to say that, when he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, Jesus “sanctified the waters”.  In other words, Jesus didn’t need to be baptized, because he had no sin.  He received the baptism of John (which had no power to forgive sin in and of itself) to give us an example.  He did it as a sign of what he wanted his followers to do after his resurrection; and as a sign of the fact that the Christian sacrament of Baptism would have the power to forgive all sin and give us eternal life!

Now does that mean that keeping the commandments and doing good deeds are not important?  No, it doesn’t!  Those things are extremely important!  First of all, if we don’t strive to keep the commandments, we will probably end up committing a mortal sin and losing sanctifying grace.  And, as I indicated earlier, if we die without sanctifying grace in our soul, there’s only one direction we can go—and it’s not “up”!

(Of course, the good news is that while we’re here on this earth we can always get sanctifying grace back by going to confession.)

And, secondly, even though we can’t merit the initial grace of salvation, we can grow in sanctifying grace by our acts of faith and charity (see CCC, 2010), and thus have a higher place in heaven when our earthly life is over.

Not surprisingly, we also see this truth beautifully portrayed in Les Miserables, once again by Jean Valjean.  No, he couldn’t merit the initial grace of salvation that came to him through the bishop, but for the rest of his life—by his acts of love and mercy and sacrifice—he did GROW in that grace!  So much so, that, at the very end of Valjean’s life, his son-in-law Marius could say to Cosette, Valjean’s daughter, “Cosette, your father is a saint!”

From criminal to saint—by the power of God’s grace! 

That’s what Les Miserables is all about.  And that’s why every Catholic should see this movie!

Listen again, now, to these words from our second reading, which I will use to conclude my homily this morning.  Almost everything that I’ve just said to you is summarized in these short verses from St. Paul’s letter to Titus:

“For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to deliver us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people as his own, eager to do what is good. But when the kindness and generous love of God our Savior appeared, not because of any righteous deeds we had done but because of his mercy, he saved us through the bath of rebirth and renewal by the holy Spirit, whom he richly poured out on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that we might be justified by his grace and become heirs in hope of eternal life.”  (Titus 2: 11-14; 3: 4-7)

To which Jean Valjean would say a very big, “Amen!”

Hopefully, so do we.