Fr. Ray’s Top Ten Reasons to Repent

David Letterman

(Second Sunday of Advent (A): This homily was given on December 8, 2019 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 11:1-10; Psalm 72:1-17; Romans 15:4-9; Matthew 3:1-12.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Second Sunday of Advent 2019]

Comedian David Letterman was well-known for his “Top Ten Lists.”  He shared them periodically on his late night television program.  Well, today I will offer you my variation on this theme, by sharing with you my Top Ten Reasons to Repent.

I don’t think Letterman ever did that during his career.

Of course, there is one big difference between his top ten lists and mine: his were meant to move people to laughter (and they usually did!); mine is designed to move people to seek God’s forgiveness for their sins, especially in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

So here they are—Fr Ray’s Top Ten Reasons to Repent: 

Reason #10: Because John the Baptist told us to in today’s gospel reading from Matthew 3, and John was—in the words of Jesus Christ—“the greatest man ever born of woman.”  I think it’s a sign of wisdom to follow the advice of a person that Jesus thought so highly of!

Reason #9 why it’s good to repent: Because repentance is necessary to receive the Holy Spirit, whose fruits are things like joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control”—all of which we should want in our lives.  When the crowds heard Peter preach on Pentecost Sunday they were deeply moved and they said to him, “What must we do?”  Peter said, “You must repent”—those were his very first words—“You must repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins; THEN you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”  (Acts 2: 38)  Repentance is always a precondition for receiving the Spirit and the many good things the Spirit brings into our lives.

Reason #8 why it’s good to repent: Because repentance makes room in our heart for God.  As Bishop Sheen used to put it, “If you fill a box with salt, you cannot fill it with pepper.”  In other words, to the extent that our heart is filled with sin, to that extent it cannot be filled with God’s grace and love.

Reason #7 why it’s good to repent: Because repentance improves our relationships with other people—by the very fact that it improves us!  Do you enjoy being around people who never admit that they’ve done anything wrong?  I don’t know about you, but those are the people I try to stay away from!  People who will admit when they’re wrong and say they’re sorry—those are the people I enjoy spending time with.

Reason #6 why repentance is good: Because it brings us inner peace—and helps to bring about peace between us and others.  I think every priest can tell you stories of men and women who have made good confessions and then breathed a big, audible sigh of relief after they’ve been absolved.  They’ve repented in a deep and genuine way, and they experience a burst of peace in their hearts.

“Ahh!”  

And, of course, if you have a situation where two people hurt one another deeply and then both repent individually, there’s a very good chance that they will eventually be reconciled to one another.  The chance of reconciliation is much less if only one repents—or if neither does.

Reason #5 why repentance is good: Repentance brings with it self-knowledge.  The person who recognizes his faults and admits them knows his true self.  The prideful person who never repents doesn’t know his true self (or perhaps he just doesn’t want to know his true self).

Reason #4 to repent: Since we’re all sinners, repentance is the only path to holiness!   If we weren’t sinners, it would be a different story—but we are.  Therefore it’s only by seeking forgiveness for our sins that we can move spiritually from where we are right now to where God wants us to be.

Reason #3 why repentance is good: It doesn’t cost anything (except a little humility and honesty)—which should be very good news in these challenging economic times!

Reason #2 to repent: Because Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Savior of the world, told us to!  In fact, it was the very first command he gave us in his public ministry: “Repent, and believe in the gospel.”  (Mark 1: 15)

And, finally, the #1 reason to have true, genuine repentance in your heart: Because without it, you can’t possibly get into heaven!  No repentance—no forgiveness—no eternal life!

This, believe it or not, is where I will end my homily today.  By my standards, I think you’ll agree, it was rather short.  Ah, but the real question is: Was it successful?

I wish I could tell you the answer to that question, but, unfortunately, I can’t.

Only you can.

Remember what I said earlier: David Letterman’s top ten lists were meant to move people to laughter; my list here is designed to move people to seek God’s forgiveness for their sins, especially in the sacrament of Reconciliation.

Will that happen?

                                             

Only you can decide.

So my personal prayer today is that you will make this homily—that I worked so hard to prepare!—successful by your repentance and by your resolution to make a good confession sometime in the very near future.

How to Ruin Things

One way to ruin a house

(First Sunday of Advent (A): This homily was given on December 1, 2019 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Isaiah 2:1-5; Psalm 122:1-9; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24:37-44.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: First Sunday of Advent 2019]

Today’s lesson is on how to ruin things.

Now that might sound like a rather negative topic for a Sunday homily, but I can assure you that at the end of it all, the message will be a very positive one.

How to ruin things . . .

If you own a car, and want to ruin it, the good news is you have a number of options.  For example:

• You can drain the oil out of the crankcase and then attempt to go on driving the vehicle (you probably won’t get very far);
• You can slash the tires, smash the windows and put dirt in the gas tank (that will certainly do the trick);
• Or you can just “let things go,” so to speak.  In other words, you can neglect the oil changes, the tune-ups, and the many other items of routine maintenance called for in the owner’s manual.  It will take a little longer, of course, to ruin your car in that way—through neglect—but eventually it will happen.

If you own a house, and want to ruin it, you also have a lot of options:

• You can have your teenagers play contact sports in the living room, and allow your three-year-old to do artwork on the walls with his finger paint;
• You can smash the furniture, rip the curtains and break all the dishes and glasses in the kitchen;
• You can turn on the water in the upstairs bathtub and then let it overflow—for 3 or 4 hours;
• Or, once again, you can just let things go.  You can avoid painting the house, fixing the roof, cleaning the floors and doing all the routine maintenance that’s required to keep a home in good shape.

If you want to ruin a friendship, you can do a number of things:

 

• You can call your friend and tell him off;
• You can spread false rumors about him;
• You can cause division in his family and break up his marriage;
• Or you can simply ignore him and pretend he doesn’t exist!  Every friendship needs to be nourished by personal contact on some level.  Without that contact, a friendship can very easily weaken and die with passage of time.

I give these examples today because on this First Sunday of Advent the focus of our gospel reading is on the second coming of Jesus Christ.  This, as most of us know, is one of the foundational beliefs of our faith.  As we say in the Creed every Sunday, “[We believe that Jesus, our Lord and Savior,] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead.”  That same belief is expressed in the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer when we say (or sing), "We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection UNTIL YOU COME AGAIN.”

We believe that the physical world as we know it will eventually come to an end.  As the Letter to the Hebrews puts it, “We do not have here a lasting city.”  At some unknown time in the future, Jesus will come again as our judge, and put a definitive end to human history.

But even if we don’t live to see that day, we will all experience the Lord’s second coming: we’ll experience it at the moment we die!  And because that moment can literally come at any time, Jesus urges us in this gospel to always be ready!

Here’s an interesting thought: In today’s second reading from Romans 13 it says, “It is now the hour for you to wake from sleep.  For our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed.”

Our salvation is also nearer now—at this moment—than it was when I began my homily!  Did you realize that?  And it will be nearer at the end of my homily than it is right now!

Every second that passes, brings each of us one second closer to the end—to our end.

That end, of course, is also supposed to be a beginning: the glorious beginning of a new life with Jesus Christ in his eternal kingdom.  But getting into that kingdom is NOT automatic, as Jesus makes clear in this text!  Which is precisely why I entitled this homily, “How to ruin things”!  Just as it’s possible to ruin a car, and a house, and a friendship, so it’s also possible to ruin our eternal salvation!

And we can ruin our salvation in the very same ways that we can ruin those other things I mentioned.  For example, I said that you can ruin a car by DOING certain things to it: by taking out the oil, by slashing the tires, by smashing the windows, etc.  But then I said that you could also ruin a car by simply neglecting it: by neglecting to change the oil and perform the normal maintenance specified in the owner’s manual.

I also said you could ruin a house or a close friendship in either of those two ways: by actions or by neglect.

I said all those things for a reason: to make an important parallel with our spiritual lives!

Think about it: How does a person ruin his or her salvation?

Well the obvious answer is: by doing something really bad!  We lose salvation—we lose sanctifying grace after Baptism—by committing a mortal sin and never repenting of it.

But that’s only half the story!  We can also ruin our salvation through neglect.  And I base that assertion on the words of Jesus in this gospel.  Jesus starts off here by comparing people who are not ready for his second coming with the people at the time of Noah who were unprepared for the Great Flood.  Now I would have expected Jesus to say that these unprepared people back in Noah’s day were lying, cheating, stealing, killing one another and committing adultery—and this is why they weren’t ready.

But notice something: THAT’S NOT WHAT HE SAYS!  Listen again to his words: “In those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day that Noah entered the ark.  They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.  So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.”

Now I ask you, what was so bad about eating—and drinking (we all need water, don’t we?)?  What was so bad about marrying and giving someone away in marriage?

The answer is: Nothing!  Those things were—and are—all GOOD!  That was not the problem!  The problem was NEGLECT!  What Jesus was saying is that these unprepared men and women were guilty of NEGLECT!  They lost their lives simply because they were going about their daily business while at the same time neglecting to take care of their souls! 

So how do you ruin your salvation?

By committing a mortal sin, yes; but also by neglecting your spiritual life!  Because when you neglect your spiritual life, you can easily fall into mortal sin.

Think now of all the things that most people do NOT neglect during the season of Advent:

·         They do not neglect shopping (although they might wait until the last minute!); 

·         They do not neglect cooking and baking (they’ve just got to make those special Christmas cookies for everybody in the family!);

·         They do not neglect socializing;

·         They do not neglect decorating (even if they don’t like to do it);

·         And they certainly don’t neglect eating—and eating—and eating!

But a lot of people neglect their souls, don’t they?  They neglect spending extra time in prayer.  When December 8 is a holy day of obligation they neglect coming to Mass; they may even neglect attending a Sunday Mass if they’ve got a lot of shopping or baking to do.  They also neglect the extra opportunities they have to make a good examination of conscience and go to Confession. 

They make extra time for everything and for everybody during this holy season of the year—except Jesus (who just happens to be the reason for the season!)!

Today, as many of you know, is “New Year’s Day” in the Church: it’s the first day of the Church’s new liturgical year.  That means it’s a good day for all of us to make a joint resolution.  Let’s resolve at this Mass NOT to neglect our spiritual lives during the next 4 weeks of Advent.

And by the grace of God may that resolution then carry over to the other 48 weeks of the year.

Do You Want To Know The Truth, Or Do You Simply Want To Win Arguments?

(Thirty-second Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on November 10, 2019 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Ray Suriani. Read 2 Maccabees 7:1-14; Psalm 17:1-15; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-35; Luke 20:27-38.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirty-second Sunday 2019]

Were they trying to discover the truth, or were they simply trying to win an argument?

That question emerges when you know the background of today’s Gospel story from Luke 20.

So here’s the background:

At the time of Jesus, the Pharisees and the Sadducees (two groups or sects within Judaism) disagreed about a number of important issues: how many books there were in the Bible, the immortality of the soul, the existence of angels, and the resurrection of the dead, to name but a few. 

Regarding the resurrection, the Pharisees said Yea while the Sadducees said Nay.  The Pharisees accepted the idea that people would rise in some manner after they physically died—they considered it to be a fundamental teaching of the Jewish faith—while the Sadducees rejected the notion completely.

And so one day a group of Sadducees decided to approach Jesus to see where he stood on the matter.  They began by quoting something Moses had said in the Book of Deuteronomy (a book that both they and the Pharisees accepted as part of Scripture): “If someone’s brother dies leaving a wife but no child, his brother must take the wife and raise up descendants for his brother.”

Then they set up a very interesting case-study.  It concerned a woman who married a man and his six brothers without ever having any children.  They obviously thought this extreme example would discredit the Pharisees by making it clear that the resurrection was a ridiculous teaching.

When they were finished, they said to Jesus, “At the resurrection whose wife will [this] woman be, since all seven brothers married her?”

Jesus responded by making it clear that life after death is qualitatively different than life on this side of the grave.  On this side of the grave marriage is necessary to propagate the species (this, by the way, is one reason why marriage can only be between a man and a woman: “Adam and Eve” not “Adam and Steve”).  But after the resurrection people will not die anymore, hence marriage won’t be necessary any longer.  

Jesus ended by quoting Moses again (knowing how much the Sadducees loved and respected Moses).  He noted that in the Book of Exodus, Moses referred to God as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” the implication being that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still alive somewhere.  But all three of those men had lived and died hundreds of years before Moses!  Hence, Jesus was saying that Moses must have believed in the resurrection also, if he believed that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were still among the living.

That’s where the story ends.  The next line of the text says that some of the scribes commended Jesus for his response (one of the few times they actually agreed with our Lord!); and then it says “they [i.e., the Sadducees] no longer dared to ask [Jesus] anything.”

This means that, in all likelihood, they were not convinced by what Jesus had said!  They did not change their minds on the matter; they continued to live in error.   Which leads me to wonder: When they came to Jesus that day, were they trying to discover the truth, or were they simply trying to win an argument?  Did they really want to understand the truth about the resurrection, or were they simply trying to score a victory against their arch-rivals, the Pharisees?

Because of the way the story ends, I think it’s clear that their minds were closed from the start.  That’s why the words of Jesus had little or no effect on them. 

I mention this today because I’m convinced that there are many people in our society right now who are just like the Sadducees in this story.  That is to say, they are much more concerned with winning arguments, than they are with knowing the truth.

And there is no better illustration of this than what we see going on right now in the world of politics and in the world of social media.  It’s horrible.  Almost every night on the evening news, the issue for the pundits is not, “What’s the truth and who’s telling it?”  The issue is, “Who had the most effective tweets today?  Which politician got the better of his or her opponents?  Who won the war of words in the last 24 hours?  President Trump?  Nancy Pelosi?  Adam Schiff?  Someone else?”

And then the battle extends to the rest of America on Facebook and Twitter and the other social media outlets.

Welcome to the U.S.A. in 2019!

Perhaps the problem is that too many contemporary Americans have confused these two realities: winning an argument, and telling the truth.  They presume that if a person is victorious in a debate or wins an argument, it’s a sign that what that person told us is true.

Not necessarily!

In fact, sometimes the person who tells the truth is the very same person who loses the argument decisively!  And there’s no better example of that than Jesus Christ himself!

In a certain sense you could say that Jesus “lost the argument” he had with his enemies during the course of his 3-year earthly ministry.  His enemies, of course, included these Sadducees, and also the Pharisees and scribes.  As we know from reading the Gospels, these men were almost always contradicting the things our Lord said.  And because Jesus lost this 3-year “argument” with the religious leaders of the Jews, public opinion turned against him.  The end result was Good Friday!  The end result was the crucifixion!

But the fact that Jesus was defeated by his enemies and was nailed to a cross did not mean he was a liar!

He still told the truth; in fact, he himself WAS the Truth!

In your life, do you want to know the truth—do you want to accept and embrace the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth—or do you simply want to win arguments?

From today’s Gospel, we know how the Sadducees would have answered that question.

How do you answer it?

Would Jesus Feel Welcome in Your Home?

(Thirty-first Sunday of the Year (C): This homily was given on November 3, 2019 at St. Pius X Church, Westerly, R.I., by Fr. Raymond Suriani.  Read Wisdom 11:22-12:2; Psalm 145:1-14; 2 Thessalonians 1:11-2:2; Luke 19:1-10.)

[For the audio version of this homily, click here: Thirty-first Sunday 2019]

If a particular person invites himself into your home, you will probably either be very happy or very angry.  It all depends on the quality of your relationship with the person.  If you like him, you’ll be happy; if you don’t like him, you’ll be angry and annoyed.

But if Jesus Christ invites himself into your home, you should definitely feel happy, honored and thankful—like Zacchaeus did when Jesus called him down from the sycamore tree in Jericho and said to him, “Zacchaeus, today I must stay at your house.”

Of course, the real question is: Once Jesus entered your home and actually began to interact with you and with your family, how would HE feel?  Would he feel at home?  Would he feel welcome?  Would he feel like he belonged? 

That’s the issue I want to deal with today in my homily, because in point of fact Jesus Christ DOES invite himself into your home and mine each and every day!

I say that because the family is called the “domestic church” in the Catechism (CCC, 2204), and the Church as a whole is called “the Body of Christ” in Scripture.  This means that every Christian family—every “domestic church”—is a place where Jesus wants to dwell, as he dwells in the Church as a whole.

I think it’s safe to say that Jesus did feel welcome in Zacchaeus’ home on the day he visited him—and for a number of reasons.  First of all, he probably felt that way because he knew he was an important person to Zacchaeus.  Generally speaking, people feel welcome in your home when they know they’re important to you, when they know that they’re special in your eyes. 

Which leads to the obvious question: How important is Jesus Christ to you and to your family?  Where is Jesus Christ on your list of priorities?  I know many families, for example, for whom the worship of Jesus at Sunday Mass is very important—unless they’re on vacation, or unless they’re involved in a sporting activity, or unless it’s the week of grandma’s big birthday party.

I know families for whom the worship of Jesus at Sunday Mass is very important—but not on holy days (like the one we had this week, All Saints Day!).  Remember, Mass attendance on holy days is obligatory, not optional!

In all honesty, how important is Jesus to you and to the people you live with?  Is he welcome under your roof because he’s the most important person in each of your lives?

Jesus also felt welcome in the home of Zacchaeus because Zacchaeus talked to him!  Obviously if someone comes into your home and you don’t say a word to him while he’s there, he probably won’t stay very long.  He’ll get the message that you really don’t want him around, and he’ll leave.

How often do you and the members of your family speak to Jesus?  Do you do it at your family meals?  Do you do it at EVERY meal?  Do you pray at other times in your home TOGETHER AS A FAMILY?  I’m happy to say that I know of certain families in this parish who pray together every single night for 5 or 10 minutes.  They offer up personal intentions; they say a decade of the Rosary; they say a few other prayers.  It’s nothing fancy, but you can be absolutely certain that Jesus Christ feels very much at home when that type of activity is going on!

Jesus also felt welcome in Zacchaeus’ home because the man sincerely repented of his sins!  And as a typical Jewish tax collector of first century Palestine, Zacchaeus no doubt had lots and lots of sins to repent of!  Jesus felt welcome in and through Zacchaeus’ repentance because he had come into the world specifically to forgive sins and to save human beings from eternal death!  As he himself said at the very end of the story, “Today salvation has come to this house . . . for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

And notice that Zacchaeus expressed his sorrow by vowing to make amends for the many wrongs he had done.  He said, “Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.”  Zacchaeus knew that he needed to do penance to undo the damage—or at least some of the damage—that his sins had caused.

Jesus feels welcome whenever people sincerely repent—and whenever they make amends.  How often do the members of your family say, “I’m sorry” to one another—and mean it?  How often do they make amends to one another?  And how often do the members of your family say they’re sorry to Jesus directly in the sacrament of Reconciliation?  Parents, how often do you take your children to Confession—and how often do you yourselves go?

Hopefully when Jesus entered Zacchaeus’ house, he didn’t see or hear anything that upset him.  I say that because people feel welcome in a home only if they’re not scandalized or embarrassed by what they see and hear there.  Would Jesus feel welcome in your home if he heard the way the members of your family speak to one another?  Or would the language he heard upset him?  Would he feel at ease watching your favorite television programs with you, or listening to your favorite music with you (all the stuff, for example, that you’ve downloaded from iTunes)?  Speaking of downloading off the internet, would Jesus be happy sitting at your computer and viewing your “history of visited sites” on the web? 

And would he find his image prominently displayed in your home?  (I must tell you, I always feel very welcome in homes when I find my picture on the refrigerator door!  And I do from time to time!  It’s a nice feeling!)

Would Jesus find an image or two of his dear Mother and his dear friends, the saints?  Or would he find other, disturbing images on your walls and on your furniture that would scandalize or anger him?

“Lord Jesus, our homes are not perfect (you know that far better than we do!).  None of us lives in a family in which you find a perfect welcome all the time.  Sometimes we may put other things ahead of you; sometimes we may ignore you by not praying as we should; sometimes we may hurt other family members and not repent and make amends; sometimes we may fail to create a loving, holy atmosphere in our living space.  And so today we simply ask you for the grace to help us improve.  Help us to do whatever ‘remodeling’ is necessary to make our homes, our families—our domestic churches—more welcoming to you.  Because if we can create homes where you feel welcome, Lord Jesus, chances are everyone else who comes through our front door will feel welcome too.  Amen.”