The Feast of Mary’s Assumption: A Time to REFOCUS

 

(Assumption 2024: This homily was given on August 15, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Luke 1:39-46.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Assumption 2024]

Refocus.

That’s not a word that we normally associate with Mary’s Assumption into heaven.

But I think we should!

We celebrate this feast on the 15^th of August—which means that summer, sad to say, is now more than half over.

For most people summer is an enjoyable time, given the fact that the weather is usually a lot more pleasant than it is in January and February.  For many people it’s also a restful time, a time for them to get their physical and emotional “batteries recharged,” so to speak; although for some others it can be a season of great stress—especially on those days when they have more than one social event scheduled.

But for almost everybody living in our fast-paced society right now the summer can also be a very DISTRACTING TIME!

All those enjoyable, restful—and stressful—things can, unfortunately, get in the way of our relationship with the Lord.

And so the Church gives us this feast in the middle of August: a feast that can help us to REFOCUS our attention on God and on those things that are most important in life.

Let me give you a few examples.

The feast of the Assumption, first of all, reminds us of our mortality.  It reminds us that we’re not here forever; that, as the Letter to the Hebrews tells us, we do not have on this earth “a lasting city.” 

We can sometimes forget that—even in the winter.

The Assumption marked the terminal point of our Blessed Mother’s earthly life; although the Church leaves open the question of whether Mary physically died or simply “fell asleep” before she was taken, body and soul, into heaven.  In the official teaching of the Church, given to us by Pope Pius XII in 1950, it says, “when the course of her earthly life was finished [notice there’s no specific mention of death there], [Mary] was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory.”

So the Assumption focuses us on the fact that our lives on this planet will have a terminal point and that we should live them accordingly.

It reminds me of a saying I once heard: Live every day as if it were your last—and one day you’ll be right.

This brings us to the second truth that the Feast of the Assumption focuses us on (or rather refocuses us on), namely, that the goal of this life is heaven!  The goal of this life is not to get rich, or to accumulate more “stuff” than everyone else, or to win an Olympic gold medal or to become the president of a company—or the President of the United States for that matter.  The goal of this earthly existence is eternal life with God in his Kingdom.

Mary has already reached the goal.  We celebrate that fact at this Mass.  As she now is, so all those men and women who die in the state of grace will someday be.  For us, however, the sequence of events will be a little different.

That’s important to mention.  Our Blessed Mother already has her glorified body in the kingdom of her divine Son.  Those of us who die in the state of grace and whose souls go to heaven (either immediately after death or after being purified in purgatory) will have to wait until the end of time to receive our risen bodies.

That’s one big difference between Mary and us.

But the goal for everybody—Mary and us—is (or at least is supposed to be) the same. 

Another truth this feast refocuses us on is that our physical bodies are holy.  They’re holy because they’ve been redeemed by Jesus Christ, and are made to live forever in heaven in their glorified state.

This, incidentally, is why sins of impurity and violence are so wrong: we’re using something which was made for heaven (our body) to put us on the road to hell!

Thankfully the sacrament of Confession is always available to put us back on the right road.

Finally, this feast refocuses us on the fact that we need Jesus Christ in our lives, and that we need to make every effort to stay connected to him (regardless of what season of the year it is!).

Mary did not save herself; she was saved by her divine Son.  (Many of our Protestant brothers and sisters don’t think we believe that, but we do!)

In her Magnificat (which we heard in our gospel reading a few moments ago) Mary says, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my Spirit rejoices in God, MY SAVIOR.”  The Lord saved our Blessed Mother by preserving her from original sin in that event we call “the Immaculate Conception”.

He saves us in a different way: by delivering us from original sin, as well as from our personal sins.

But then Mary went on to nurture her relationship with the Lord by living a sinless life of perfect love and perfect virtue: a life which was rooted in prayer.  In other words, she always maintained a close and intimate connection with her God.

This means our Blessed Mother never, ever got “distracted” spiritually in the summer—or winter—or spring—or fall for that matter!

What about us?

How has your prayer life been lately?  How has your Mass attendance been this summer?  Have you taken a “vacation from God” (even a little one)?  Have you been to Confession if you’ve needed to go?  Have you been to Eucharistic Adoration recently?  Has the Bible been on your summer reading list?  Have you maintained your connection with Jesus since the warm weather set in?

Today is a day for all of us to make the personal commitment to “refocus” to the extent that we need to: the commitment to refocus our attention on the things that really matter in this life.

Mary, of course, had no need to refocus, simply because she was always focused—PERFECTLY focused!

May her prayers from heaven help us all to be more like her, not only during the summer months but throughout the entire year.

 

Recognizing the Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist

 

(Eighteenth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on August 4, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Exodus 16:2-16; Psalm 78: 3-4, 23-25, 54; Ephesians 4:17-24; John 6:24-35.

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Eighteenth Sunday 2024]                                                              

When I was first ordained back in 1985, I remember a man coming up to me one day after a Sunday Mass, carrying his two children.  He had one in each arm.  The oldest was four years old; the other was two.  The man said to me, “You know, Fr. Ray, when I came up to you to receive Communion today my four-year-old son wanted to know if he could say ‘Hi’ to Jesus.  I told him, ‘No!’”  “Wow,” I said to him, “You mean that your son already understands that what I give out at Communion time is really the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ?”  I was impressed.  But the father replied, “Oh no, Fr. Ray, you don’t understand.  My son said that because he thinks that YOU look like Jesus!”

So much for my brilliant deductions.

Naturally it is extremely difficult for any child of four to recognize the Lord’s presence in the Blessed Sacrament.  But of course it’s also just as difficult for the rest of us.  Sadly, age does not necessarily increase the quality of our spiritual awareness and vision.  And spiritual vision is what we need in order to be aware of the fact that the Eucharist is not a symbol, but is truly the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of the Savior of the world.

In a sense you could say that we need to put on “spiritual glasses” if we want to be able to see Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.  But those glasses are not easily acquired. 

Maybe part of the difficulty we have in recognizing the Lord’s presence in this sacrament is that we don’t expect the Almighty, omniscient, eternal God to be present in such a small “package.”  As Mother Teresa once put it: “How much smaller could he have made himself than a little piece of bread—the Bread of Life?  How much more weak and helpless?”

The idea that God would give himself to human beings in this way can be difficult to grasp and understand.  But we’re not the only ones in history who have had this problem.  The crowd that Jesus faced in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel (where today’s gospel reading is taken from) also faced this difficulty.

I find it interesting that the crowd back then had no trouble whatsoever accepting the miracle of the loaves.  That didn’t challenge their faith at all.  As we heard in last weekend’s gospel reading, after they ate the meal Jesus gave them they were so happy that were ready to carry our Lord off and make him their king!

It was only when Jesus began to instruct them on heavenly food (i.e., the Holy Eucharist) that the trouble began.  We see the conflict between our Lord and the crowd beginning to develop in this week’s reading.  But it gets even worse in the later verses of John 6.

Our Lord first of all said to the crowd, “I know why you want to see me again.  It’s because I fed you with earthly food.  It’s because I gave you all a good meal of bread and fish.  But now I want to tell you about another kind of food—another kind of bread—a ‘heavenly’ kind of bread.”

Of course, as happened so often in our Lord’s ministry, the crowd misunderstood him completely.  They thought he was going to give them a new kind of manna, akin to what the Hebrews got in the desert at the time of Moses (we heard about that in our first reading today)—except that this manna (this new manna) would never spoil.  Well, they thought that sounded like a great idea, so they said to our Lord, “Sir, give us this bread always!”

Jesus responded by setting them straight.  He said, in effect, “I’m not talking about manna like the kind Moses gave you; I’m talking about myself.  I am the Bread of Life!”

That’s when the trouble began.  This was a truth that this particular crowd could not accept.  That’s clear from what we’re told in the rest of John 6.  Finally it came to the point where some of them said, “This sort of talk is hard to endure!  How can anyone take it seriously?”  And many walked away from Jesus at that point—even some who had previously been his loyal followers.

There’s an old hymn that has the line in it: “Look beyond the bread you eat; see your Savior and your Lord.”  That’s the challenge of faith that faces each and every one of us.  It’s the challenge to recognize the presence of Jesus Christ—Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity—in the Holy Eucharist.

And it is possible to do.  Whenever I brought my grandmother Communion in the latter years of her life, she would always say to me before I left, “Thank you, Raymond, for bringing God to me.”  Not “Thank you, Raymond, for bringing ‘the bread’ to me”; not “Thank you, Raymond, for bringing ‘the host’ to me”; rather “Thank you, Raymond, for bringing GOD to me.” 

My grandmother was a woman who had a simple—but a very deep—faith. My grandmother was a woman whose spiritual vision was 20/20, especially when it came to the Holy Eucharist.

Let us pray today at this Mass, that our spiritual vision will be the same.

 

In The Midst Of All That You Don’t Understand, Focus Your Attention On What You DO Understand: What You Know, By Faith, To Be True

 

My grandfather, Nick Suriani, smiling (as he so often did) at Christmas, and in his big, green recliner

(Fifteenth Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on July 14, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Amos 7:12-15; Psalm 85:9-14; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:7-13.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Fifteenth Sunday 2024]

I call it, “the shrug”.

It happened more than 30 years ago, although in some respects it seems like yesterday.  I was visiting my grandfather—my father’s father—at his home in Barrington (which happened to be located directly in back of Holy Angels Church, my home parish when I was growing up).  Gramps was reclining in his big, green recliner in the center of the living room—sort of like the king in the middle of his kingdom; I was sitting on the couch to his left.  He was in his early-90s at the time, but, by the grace of God, he was still in relatively good health.  Even at that point, he had thick, strong forearms that were the result of many years of hard labor as a bricklayer. 

He lived until he was 98, and my grandmother lived almost as long.  God blessed them both with many years.

Unfortunately, however, three of their four children (including my dad) died before the age of 55—all of cancer.  And it was that sad series of events that we began to talk about that day when I was visiting.  And I’ll never forget it—at one point in the conversation my grandfather stopped talking.  He turned his head, looked right into my eyes, lifted his big arms, and with a sad look on his face did this.  (Shrug)

The shrug.

And then he sighed.

It was one of those simple, profound actions that spoke volumes.  It was as if he had verbally said to me, “Raym (Italians usually cut off the ends of words, and that’s the way it was with my grandfather.  He never called me Raymond—or even Raimondo—it was always ‘Raym’.)  Raym, I don’t understand it.  Here we are—your grandmother and I—over 90-years-old.  God has allowed us to live so long, and that’s great.  But at the same time he allowed three of our four children to die at such young ages.  That doesn’t make sense to me.  I can’t figure it out.”

I responded to his gesture by simply saying, “Yeah, gramps, I know.  I don’t fully understand it either.”

At that point, as I recall, I went over and gave him a hug.

And yet, my brothers and sisters, my grandfather was not an angry or bitter person.  Neither was my grandmother.  In fact, if you asked me what I remember most about my grandfather, I would tell you it was his smile—and his pleasant disposition.

And neither blamed God for the tragic events of the past.  They didn’t understand why God allowed certain things to happen as they did, but they never blamed him.  Both were people of deep faith.

Fr. Giudice would certainly attest to that if he were still with us.  As I said a few moments ago, my grandparents’ house was located directly in back of Holy Angels Church, and my grandfather would often walk over during the day and make visits to the Blessed Sacrament.  Well one afternoon Fr. Giudice happened to meet my grandfather as he was making one of his many visits, and he asked him, “Nick, what do you do when you come here to church during the day?”

My grandfather said, “I sit here and look at God, and God looks back at me.”

Many of the great spiritual masters would say that that’s a perfect description of contemplative prayer!

So obviously my grandfather found peace and strength by turning to the Lord and praying to him.  But I think there was something else at work here as well.

There were many things about his own life—and about life in general—that my grandfather did not understand.  That was clear from his “shrug”—and his sigh.

But there were also many other things that he DID understand!—things that he knew, by faith, to be true: for example, that God loved him, and that God was with him (even when he wasn’t “looking at the Lord” in church).  He also knew that Jesus died for him—and for his three deceased children—so that he and they could live forever someday in his kingdom.

And it was truths like these that my grandfather must have called to mind frequently (both when he was in church and when he wasn’t)—which gave him that great smile that he had on his face so often. 

I mention this today because I believe this is exactly what St. Paul did in his own life, which was also filled with trials and difficulties that he didn’t fully understand—like the “thorn in the flesh” he mentions in 2 Corinthians 12 (that God refused to take away).

In today’s second reading we have a passage from Ephesians 1 in which Paul lists some of the truths that he understood; things that he knew, by faith, to be true.  He lists them in the form of a hymn—perhaps a hymn that he and the early Christians sang when they gathered together for Mass. 

Listen to some of these verses again (this is from a translation that I think is a little better than the one we use in our Lectionary):

Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has bestowed on us in Christ every spiritual blessing in the heavens!  God chose us in him before the world began, to be holy and blameless in his sight, to be full of love; he likewise predestined us through Christ Jesus to be his adopted sons—such was his will and pleasure—that all might praise the glorious favor he has bestowed on us in his beloved.  It is in Christ and through his blood that we have been redeemed and our sins forgiven, so immeasurably generous is God’s favor to us.  God has given us the wisdom to understand fully the mystery, the plan he was pleased to decree in Christ, to be carried out in the fullness of time: namely to bring all things in the heavens and on earth into one under Christ’s headship.

There were many things that St. Paul didn’t understand, but he did understand what was most important in life: the mystery of salvation in Christ Jesus.  This hymn, which I’m sure he knew by heart and recited often—even outside of Mass—talks about so many things: that this life has a purpose; that we are God’s adopted children through the sacrifice of Jesus; that we’re called to be holy; that God has a plan for us and for the world; that we have an eternal destiny that’s rooted in what Jesus Christ has done for us.

As was the case for St. Paul, we all have situations and circumstances in our lives that are difficult to make sense of; things that we do not fully understand—and never will (on this side of the grave, at least).

So the message of my homily today is very simple: In the midst of all that you do not understand, focus your attention on what you do understand: what you know, by faith, to be true.

Like St. Paul did.

Like my grandfather did.

 

The Importance of Reflecting on What God has Done for us in the Past

(Twelfth Sunday of the Year (B):  This homily was given on June 23, 2024 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Job 38:1-11; 2 Corinthians 5:14-17; Mark 4:35-41.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Twelfth Sunday 2024]

Here’s an important fact about today’s gospel story: Jesus was there.  In the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee, Jesus was there.  Now why is that one fact so significant?  Simple: because the mere presence of Jesus in the boat was not enough to keep the apostles from losing control.  Even though they knew that the Lord was with them, they still were consumed by fear.

For us, this means that merely believing in God is not enough to deal with the difficulties of life; just believing that God is there is not sufficient.

So what was the missing element for Peter, James, John and the other disciples?  Well, Jesus identifies that element himself, immediately after he calms the wind and the waves: the missing element was faith—a deep, living faith!  And notice the tone of our Lord’s words here: I would say it’s rather harsh.  Jesus says, “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”  It’s as if he were saying, “You men should know better.  There’s no reason for you to be acting this way.” 

Was Jesus being a bit too demanding?  Was he expecting too much from these twelve ordinary, weak human beings?

For the answers to those questions we need to take note of where this story occurs in the Gospel of Mark: it comes at the very end of the fourth chapter.  That means that these disciples had known Jesus for a while.  They had been in his company for quite some time.  And here are some of the things they had seen Jesus do with their own eyes during the days that they had been with him (all these events I’m about to mention are found in the first three chapters of Mark): they had seen Jesus cast a demon out of a man in a synagogue; they had seen Jesus heal Simon Peter’s mother-in-law; they had seen him heal a man with a withered hand; they had seen him heal a leper, a paralyzed man and countless other people; they had seen him perform many exorcisms; and they had seen him convert the hearts of many sinners—like Levi the tax collector (better known to us as Matthew).

So when Jesus took them to task on the Sea of Galilee after he calmed the storm, I think his message was, “My friends, after all the great things you’ve seen with your own eyes, you still don’t trust me?  You still don’t think I’ll be there for you to give you what you need?  You should know better!”

The apostles lacked a deep faith in the present moment because they were out of touch with what God had done in the past.

The very same thing, believe it or not, can happen to us.  This is why we need to reflect quite often on how the Lord has helped us deal with difficulties in our past.  That type of reflection can lead to a deeper faith in the present moment.  And so I ask you this morning: do you ever sit down and meditate on God’s activity in your life thus far?  God has brought many of us through some very difficult times.  He’s helped some of us to deal with sickness, abuse, tragedy, and the death of loved ones.  By his grace (and by his grace alone) we’ve survived.  And so our attitude should be, “Well, Lord, since you’ve helped me so often in the past, I believe you’ll do the very same thing for me now, in the midst of my present problems.”  That should have been the attitude of the disciples in the midst of the storm on the Sea of Galilee.  If it had been their perspective, they would have been peaceful and not fearful; they would have remembered how Jesus had helped the leper and the paralyzed man and all the rest, and they would have thought to themselves, “Jesus gave those people what they needed, so he will certainly give us what we need right now.  He will help us.”

“I remember the deeds of the Lord, I remember your wonders of old.  I meditate on all your works and ponder your mighty deeds.”  That’s what the writer of Psalm 77 did when he found himself in the midst of a difficult situation.  May God give us the wisdom and resolve to do the very same thing, so that we will have a strong and deep faith in the midst of the storms that we face in our lives.