Sin: Name it, claim it, and get rid of the blame for it!

(Second Sunday of Advent (C): This homily was given on December 9, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Baruch 5:1-9; Psalm 126:1-6; Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11; Luke 3:1-6.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Second Sunday of Advent 2018]

A church group was in the habit of using a large hotel in a nearby city to hold its annual conferences.  Now in the lobby of this particular hotel there was a large sign.  On the sign was the hotel’s motto.  It read: “There are no problems, there are only opportunities.”

Well it happened that this year, a few moments after the group had checked in, one of its male members came running up to the front desk.  He said to the desk clerk, “Excuse me, but I have a problem—a big problem!”

The clerk responded, “Why sir, you know our motto: There are no problems, there are only opportunities.”

The man said, “Call it whatever you want, but when I just walked into the room you gave me, I found a pretty young woman sleeping in my bed!”

My brothers and sisters, problems are still problems, even if you don’t call them problems.  And you know what?  As hard as this might be for some people to believe, sins are still sins even if you don’t call them sins.

And many in our modern world don’t.  Just think of the euphemisms that are used today to describe behaviors that are clearly sinful.  I’ll give you a few very common examples …

• ·         Hatred is called “justified anger”—especially if you’re dealing with a political opponent.
• ·         Cursing and swearing are called “expressing your feelings.”
• ·         Gossip and slander are called “sharing.”
• ·     Missing a Sunday or holy day Mass without a good reason is called “taking time for myself and my family.”
• ·    Living together before marriage—and even adultery—are talked about in terms of “entering meaningful relationships.”
• ·         Homosexual activity and transgenderism are called “alternative lifestyles”.
• ·         Euthanasia is called “dying with dignity.”
• ·      Greed is called “making a living”—especially if you’re deeply involved in professional sports on some level.  I love golf, for example, but $9 million for 18 holes?  There’s something deeply troubling about that; there’s something morally-deficient about that—even if the opponents in the match happen to be Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods.

There are even euphemisms that are used for sin in general.  I found some of them online the other day:

• ·         Mistake
• ·         Flaw
• ·         Error
• ·         Indiscretion
• ·         Oversight
• ·         Misstep
• ·         Foible
• ·         Blunder
• ·         Shortcoming

And on and on the list goes.  Now please do not misunderstand me here.  I am NOT saying that every mistake, every flaw, every error, every indiscretion, etc. is a sin.  I’m simply saying that sometimes those words are misused in order to deny or excuse certain sins.

This, of course, would not have been acceptable to John the Baptist, whom we heard about in today’s gospel reading from Luke 3.  John came to prepare God’s people for their Messiah, by making clear to them that they needed a Messiah—a Messiah who would bring them forgiveness for their sins.

And so he baptized people in the Jordan River—as they confessed their sins.  (St. Mark tell us that last detail in his gospel.)  They didn’t just get dunked in the water; they also expressed verbally what they needed to be forgiven for. 

Now, can you imagine how John would have responded if the people who came to him for baptism had used our modern-day euphemisms for their sins?

“John, please baptize me—I made a mistake!”

“John, baptize me—I committed an indiscretion the other day.”

“John, baptize me—I have a flaw.”

John would have freaked out!  He would have gone ballistic!  He would have said, “You made what?  A mistake?  Was that when you were balancing your checkbook? You committed what?  An indiscretion?  What does that mean?  You have what?  A flaw?  Well join the club!  Welcome to the human race, tainted as it is by original sin!  We all have flaws!”

Thankfully, that’s not the kind of thing John heard when he was baptizing.  What he heard were things like, “I lied”; “I stole”; “I cheated”; “I killed an innocent man”; “I committed adultery”; “I had hatred in my heart for another person.”

Just sins; no euphemisms!

John the Baptist’s philosophy on all this can be summed up, I think, with these words: Name it, claim it, and get rid of the blame for it.

That’s why John, if he were alive today, would absolutely love the sacrament of Reconciliation!  Because in order to make a good confession, you first of all have to NAME the sin.  You can’t just say, “I’ve done some really bad things, Father.”  If they’re serious sins, that’s not sufficient.  You have to identify the sins by name—like the people at the Jordan River did—and you have to mention how often you committed the sins. 

Then you have to CLAIM the sin—meaning that you have to take personal responsibility for it: “Yes, I did it.  I knew it was wrong, I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I made the choice to do it anyway.  No excuses; no attempts to rationalize or justify my actions.  I was wrong; I admit it—and now I seek God’s mercy.”

That’s the attitude we should have whenever we confess a sin—any sin (mortal, venial, whatever it is)—because that’s an attitude which pleases God immensely and opens us up to his total and complete forgiveness, which we receive when the priest absolves us in the sacrament.

And thus we get rid of the BLAME—the guilt—for the sin (or sins) that we confessed.

One of the most depressing and tragic thoughts I’ve had as a priest is the thought that there have probably been people who have come to confession to me over the years who have purposely not “named” certain sins that they knew deep down inside they needed to acknowledge.  Maybe they were afraid; maybe they were embarrassed; maybe it was for some other reason.  But it’s always tragic when a person takes the blame for a sin out of the confessional with them because they weren’t willing to “name it” and “claim it.”

We’re supposed to get rid of our blame in the confessional, not take it with us when we leave!

Name it, claim it, and get rid of the blame for it.  That was John the Baptist’s approach to sin.

May it be ours as well.

When ‘A World’ Ends

(First Sunday of Advent (C): This homily was given on December 2, 2018, at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Jeremiah 33:14-16; Psalm 25:4-14; 1 Thessalonians 3:12-4:2; Luke 21:25-28, 34-36.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: First Sunday of Advent 2018]

Today’s gospel reading probably sounded familiar.  That’s because it’s very similar to the gospel text from Mark that we heard two short weeks ago.  This is St. Luke’s version of the very same event from the life of our Lord. 

Jesus, in this section from Luke 21, is obviously speaking about the end of the world; however in the verses just prior to this he predicts the destruction of the city of Jerusalem—something which would take place in 70 A.D.—just about 40 years after his death and resurrection.  And he makes a direct connection between these two events, saying, in effect, “If you want to know what it will be like at the end of time, pay very close attention in 40 years when the Romans decimate this city and tear down this beautiful temple.  That’s what it will be like.” 

So here our Lord makes an important comparison: he compares the end of the world to the end of a world.  You see, a world was about to end for the people of Jerusalem: a world in which they were able to worship God freely in his sacred dwelling place.  That world would come to an end—a very abrupt end—when Titus and the Roman army set fire to the temple and tore it down. 

The thought occurred to me earlier this week: We have this same type of experience in our lives all the time, whether we’re conscious of it or not.  Just as the people of Jerusalem experienced the end of a world when their temple was destroyed, so too for us “worlds” come to an end constantly.  Sometimes the end of a world will take the form of a tragedy that comes our way; at other times it will take the form of a great blessing.  For example, those of you who will graduate from high school or college next spring will experience the end of a world on the day you get your diploma—the end of your world in that particular school.  The day someone gets married is the day they experience the end of a world—the end of a life lived as a single person.  (Some, of course, might look back on their wedding day and say it was the end of the world--but that’s another story!)  When you have a child, it’s the end of a world.  Every once in a while I’ll hear a parent say, “You know, once you have a child, everything is different.  Your world immediately changes.” 

Or how about when a person is diagnosed with a serious illness?  That is certainly the end of a world: the end of a world of good health.  I remember my mom saying, “Once you’re diagnosed with cancer, your life changes; your perspective on everything is different!”

I can say the same thing about Parkinson’s Disease.  Many of you can say it about serious ailments that you’re currently dealing with.

And what about the death of a loved one?  Whenever someone we love dies, in a very real sense a world comes to an end—a world that included that particular person.

 

I think it should be clear by now: the end of a world signifies any major change that we experience on this earth; and since we all experience changes constantly, worlds end for us constantly.

So what’s the best way to deal with the end of a world?  What’s the best way, in other words, to prepare for the major changes of life?  Well, believe it or not, the answer is found in today’s gospel text about the end of the world.  Jesus implies here that at the end of time there will be two groups of people: those who will be filled with fear, and those who will hold their heads high—that is to say, those who will be filled with faith.  (I don’t have to tell you which group I’d like to be in.)  Then our Lord adds, “Be on guard lest your spirits become bloated with indulgence and drunkenness and worldly cares.  The great day will suddenly close in on you like a trap.”  So here we see what separates the fearful from the rest.  On Judgment Day, the fearful people will be those who have lived lives of self-indulgence and sin and haven’t repented.  The Day of the Lord will close in on them like a trap.  But those who have taken their faith seriously will be able to hold their heads high.  And so Jesus says, “Be on guard.”  This, by the way, is why the Church encourages us to examine our consciences daily and to receive the sacrament of reconciliation often.  Hopefully we’ll all make the effort to get to confession sometime during the season of Advent.

Basically our Lord is telling us here that the best way to be ready for the end of the world is to live in faith--to make our Catholic Christian faith our number one priority!  But that’s also what we need to do to prepare ourselves for the major changes of life—for the ends of those individual “worlds” that each of us lives in.

I was reminded of this the other day, when I ran into a doctor friend of mine at Luxe Fitness Center up on Granite Street.  He had just finished exercising on the treadmill and was getting ready to leave.  Several years ago, this man was diagnosed with lung cancer, and he’s been going through some heavy-duty treatments ever since.  Simply put, he’s been traveling a long, rough road battling this disease.

But his faith, praise God, is stronger than ever!  That became clear to me in our conversation that afternoon.  He said to me at one point, “You know, Fr. Ray, when I was first diagnosed with cancer I was angry.  The Lord took away everything through this disease—everything I enjoyed doing.  For a while he took away my voice, so I couldn’t teach the gospel like I used to.  He took away my work which I loved; I had to retire.  I couldn’t run marathons anymore like I once did; in fact, I ended up not being able to run at all.”

That was the doctor’s way of saying, “A world ended for me several years ago, on the day that I heard those devastating words, ‘You have cancer.’  It was a world—a world of good health and earthly fulfillment—that I was blessed to have lived in for a significant portion of my life.  That world was gone—forever.”

But, thankfully and amazingly, this doctor never gave up on God.  He never stopped trusting in Jesus.  Instead he faced his anger, dealt with it and moved past it—and in the process he’s come to an even deeper level of faith.  His love for the Lord has grown stronger.  And he thanks God for giving him back his voice (as he said the other day, “It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough!”), and he’s grateful that he’s still able to get some exercise by walking the treadmill there at the gym.

His final words to me as he left that day were, “Fr. Ray, God is good”—which he said with a big smile on his face.

That, I think, is a very good example of how a believer deals with the end of a world—any world.  He deals with it in faith and with God—which is precisely how believers will deal with the end of the world, whenever it comes.

Having a Healthy Self-love

Caravaggio's Narcissus (c. 1597)

(Thirty-first Sunday of the Year (B): This homily was given on November 4, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Deuteronomy 6:4-9; Psalm 18; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28b-34.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirty-first Sunday 2018]

Most people are familiar with Narcissus, the character in Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection.  It happened one day when he caught a glimpse of himself in the waters of a spring.  He was captivated by his own beauty, and that enthrallment ultimately led to his demise.

This, of course, is where the word “narcissism” comes from.  If a person is narcissistic, he is (and here I quote Webster’s Dictionary) “extremely self-centered with an exaggerated sense of self-importance: marked by … excessive admiration of or infatuation with oneself.”

There’s even a clinical disorder called “narcissistic personality disorder,” which, according to the Mayo Clinic web site is a condition in which people “have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, troubled relationships, and a lack of empathy for others.”

This, my brothers and sisters, is not what Jesus is talking about in this gospel text we just heard from Mark 12 when he says to us “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  We need to be clear about that.  Jesus is not advocating narcissism in giving us this commandment, nor is he encouraging sinful pride.  Rather, he’s indicating to us there that we should have a reasonable, healthy love for ourselves. 

And this is extremely important—especially for our neighbors!—because our ability to love them in the way Jesus wants us to love them is directly dependent on our ability to love ourselves in the way that Jesus wants us to!  Notice the wording of the commandment: “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”  If you have a narcissistic love of yourself, you will tend to have “troubled relationships” with others (to use the expression on the Mayo Clinic web site).  The same is true if you love yourself too little, or worse if you hate yourself.  In fact, if your attitude toward yourself is hatred, your neighbors will really be in trouble—because your tendency will be to treat them in the same way!

So, what is Jesus telling us here?  What does it mean to have a healthy, reasonable love of ourselves—a love that we’ll be able to show to our neighbors?

Well, I would say that a healthy self-love is rooted in an appreciation: a deep appreciation of yourself as God’s loved, special and unique creation (even though that creation has been wounded by sin).

The writer of the 8^th psalm, for example, had this kind of appreciation.  He had a deep appreciation of his own dignity as a person created in the image of God, as well as an appreciation of everyone else’s dignity.  He indicated that when he wrote these famous words: 

When I see the heavens, the work of your hands, the moon and the stars which you arranged, what is man that you should keep him in mind, mortal man that you care for him?  Yet you have made him little less than a god; with glory and honor you crowned him, gave him power over the works of your hands, put all things under his feet.

Now if you’re a Christian you will have a second appreciation that will help you to love yourself in a healthy way: you’ll have an appreciation—a very deep and profound appreciation—for what God has done for you in Christ Jesus.  You will realize, in other words, that Almighty God, the Creator of the entire universe in all its splendor, thought that you were worth dying for!  You, personally—even with all your imperfections and weaknesses—are that valuable to the Lord.

How could we not love what Almighty God himself was willing to die for?

 

This is why Jesus said to us, “You are worth more than many sparrows.”  Hopefully we all believe that about ourselves.  Many people, sad to say, do not.  They hate themselves and think they’re worthless—usually because of things they’ve done.

Well, St. Paul also did bad things in his life, but he still loved himself; he still had an appreciation of himself as God’s good creation, as well as an appreciation of what Jesus Christ had done for him by his passion and death.  This comes through in that famous passage from First Timothy where Paul reflects on his conversion.  He writes,

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, that he has made me his servant and judged me faithful.  I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor, a man filled with arrogance; but because I did not know what I was doing in my unbelief, I have been treated mercifully, and the grace of our Lord has been granted me in overflowing measure, along with the faith and love which are in Christ Jesus.  You can depend on this as worthy of full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  Of these I myself am the worst.  But on that very account I was dealt with mercifully, so that in me, as an extreme case, Jesus Christ might display all his patience, and that I might be an example to those who would later have faith in him.

To love someone is to desire the good for them.  Well, the best thing we can possibly desire for another person is that they make it to heaven!  Paul knew that God loved him (even with his sins) because he knew that God desired heaven for him—and that God had sent his only begotten Son to die for him to make sure that this desire would eventually become a reality.

So if God loved Paul that much, how could Paul not love himself—and his neighbor as well?

God desired heaven for Paul, Paul desired heaven for himself (that was at the root of his self-love), and he desired heaven for everyone else—even his enemies.  He knew how much mercy, forgiveness and patience God had shown him in his life (that’s clear from the passage I just read), and he realized that he needed to show that same kind of patient, merciful and forgiving love to others.

He loved his neighbor in the best possible way, because he loved himself in the best possible way.

Which is precisely the way it’s supposed to be for each of us—and for every Christian.

The Communion of Saints: We’re All Connected!

(All Souls’ Day 2018: This homily was given on November 2, 2018 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  It was given at a Mass for those who have lost loved ones during the past year.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: All Souls 2018]

The popularity of social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) is pretty easy to explain: People want to stay connected.  They want to stay in touch with family and friends—with the people they love.

And that’s the big problem with death (at least it’s the big problem with death when you look at it strictly from a human perspective).  Death destroys the connection between us and those we love.  Our ability to communicate with them, and influence them, and interact with them is taken away, sometimes suddenly.

And it hurts.

All of you have known this experience during the past year—and probably many times before that.

But notice what I said.  I said this is the case when we look at death from a strictly human perspective.

However, we’re not supposed to look at anything in this life from a strictly human perspective, and that includes death.

Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin Mary.  He suffered, died and rose again from the dead, and that has changed EVERYTHING!  Everything—including our relationships with those who have gone before us in faith.

As Catholics, we say we believe in the “communion of saints”.  (We say that in the Apostles’ Creed: “I believe in the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.”)  The Catechism tells us that the communion of saints is “the Church”—which means the whole Church, the entire People of God: some of whom are not here on this earth at the present time.  Some of God’s people are already in heaven with the Lord, others are being made ready for heaven by passing through the purifying fires of purgatory, and the rest are here with us. 

So the whole Church exists in 3 different “states” or conditions: there’s what’s called “the Church triumphant” (that refers to those in heaven); there’s “the Church suffering” (that refers to those in purgatory); and there’s “the Church militant” (that’s us).

And we’re all connected!  That’s the good news!  Spiritually speaking, nothing—not even physical death—completely severs the bond between those who are in Christ.  The Catechism puts it this way in paragraph 955: “So it is that the union of the wayfarers [that’s us here on earth] with the brethren who sleep in the peace of Christ is in no way interrupted, but on the contrary, according to the constant faith of the Church, this union is reinforced by an exchange of spiritual goods.”

This is why we ask the saints in heaven to pray for us.  We believe that their prayers before the throne of God can bring us graces here on earth.  And they can!  They can because we’re still connected to them in the spiritual realm. 

We also believe that our prayers and sacrifices can directly benefit the souls in purgatory—helping them to be purified and thus get to heaven more quickly!  This is why we have Masses said for the dead: it’s to help our deceased brothers and sisters who are currently in purgatory!  Remember, those who are in heaven don’t need our prayers because they’re already in the kingdom, and those in hell can’t be helped by our prayers because hell is eternal.

The only ones that we in the Church militant can help are those in the Church suffering—and vice versa.  The souls in purgatory, according to many of the canonized saints, can also pray for us; they just cannot pray for themselves.  They need us to do that for them.

And if we do pray and do penance for the holy souls, they will know it!  They will be aware of the fact that we are helping them—which can also be a great help for us, especially if our relationship with a certain deceased relative or friend was not all that it should have been.

You see, if you’re a Christian it’s never too late to make amends; it’s never too late to demonstrate your love for another person.  You know, every once in a while someone will say something to this effect: “I never told my dad I loved him before he died,” or “I never asked my mom for forgiveness for what I did.”  They say these things as if they’re totally cut off from their deceased loved ones.

But that’s not true!  As I’ve hopefully made clear, if their loved ones are in heaven or purgatory, they are not totally cut off from them.  If their loved ones are already in heaven they’re perfectly happy and have no animosity toward anyone; and if they’re in purgatory they will be blessed through the prayers and penances that are offered up for them, and they will be incredibly grateful to the people who are offering those prayers and making those sacrifices.  And they will no doubt pray for those persons while they’re still in purgatory and later on when they finally get to heaven.

So it’s never too late to touch other members of God’s family and of our individual families, even if they’ve gone home to the Lord.

And in a similar way, as I indicated earlier, they can help to bring God’s blessings to us by their prayers. 

Let me give you an example of this from my own personal experience.  As some of you know, my mom died of cancer in 1990 at the age of 60.  In the years before her death my mom had two great loves: the priesthood and young people.  She served a number of good priests for many years as the secretary at the parish I grew up in in Barrington; she prayed and offered her sufferings for priests; and she did a lot of work with young people, especially on youth retreats at the local CYO center. 

I had been in Westerly a little more than two years when mom died, and those two years were pretty normal.  Nothing really extraordinary happened in my priestly ministry.  But after my mother died some truly incredible things began to occur here.  Youth ministry exploded.  Young people started coming to our youth group from all over the place, and a number of them discerned a call to the priesthood and/or religious life.

Now perhaps that’s all a coincidence.  I’m willing to admit that possibility.

But I’ve never thought so.  I’ve always had the sense that Dolores Suriani has had something to do with all the good things that have happened here, spiritually, in the past quarter century.

I can’t prove it, but I believe it—because I believe in the communion of saints.

So as we pray for our deceased loved ones tonight, we should also ask them to pray for us, that we will be faithful to the Lord during our remaining time on this earth, and someday join them in the Church triumphant, the kingdom of heaven, where all of God’s people will get together—and stay together—forever.