17th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Link to today's readings

2 Kings 4:42-44 + Psalm 145:10-11, 15-18 + Ephesians 4:1-6 + John 6:1-15

Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

During the next five Sundays we take a break from Mark’s Gospel and plunge into the riches of the 6th Chapter of John’s Gospel. In the 6th Chapter of John, Jesus gives his “Bread of Life” discourse, which is packed with Eucharistic themes.

The Mass, a term which Catholics use for the celebration of the Eucharist, is the “source and summit” of our life of faith. The graces received at Mass nourish our journey of faith. From this summit, we can look back over the past week to see where God was present and look ahead into a future full of hope because God has been with us.

At the mountaintop of the Mass, we encounter the Risen Jesus in a powerful way. He takes the gift of our lives and blesses our lives by filling them with his Risen Life; he breaks open our lives by drawing us into the saving mystery of his dying & rising, and then he gives us our lives back transformed by His Spirit. United to the Risen Jesus through the celebration of the Mass, we discover we have more than enough to sustain our life.

As we explore the rich Eucharistic imagery in the 6th Chapter of John, I will review some essential fundamentals of worship. While reviewing these essential fundamentals, I also will be addressing some practical matters of proper behavior at Mass.

It will be impossible for me to cover in 5 talks over these 5 Sundays everything that is involved in the celebration of the Eucharist. I could give a talk every Sunday for the rest of this year and still not plumb the depths of this wondrous mystery we call the Mass. For these 5 Sundays I simply want to review the essentials of the Mass and give direction and advice on practical matters.
“Why do I have to go to Mass?”  “Why can’t I pray to God in the privacy of my room?” Has your teenager ever asked you these questions? Or maybe when you were a teen, you asked these questions of your parents in an attempt to justify your sleeping in on Sunday morning.

The simple answer to the question why we need to go to Mass is this: God made us to worship God with others.

Essential to our make-up, essential to our being human, is this basic need to worship God with others. Private prayer helps us grow in relationship with the Lord Jesus, but public, communal worship is even more important. One 12th century sage put it this way: “Public worship is seventeen times better than private worship.”

Throughout the history of humankind, the preoccupation with self has turned men and women away from God. Selfishness drives us to make ourselves the center of everything, when the only way to true peace and joy is when God is at the center of our lives. The celebration of the Mass constantly confronts us with the call to sacrifice our preoccupation with self, to die to self-centeredness and to rise up with Christ to an abundant life with Him and in service to others. The communal worship which is the heartbeat of the Mass is threatened like never before in an age where “selfies” and overt attention seeking are the practice of the day.

Communal worship counters the self-serving cultural mantra of “me, my, and mine” with “thee, thy, and thine”—directing our focus outward to God. The living Christ who we encounter in a very definite and real way in the Mass draws us out of the death of our self-centeredness to new life, from “give me, give me, give me” to total self-giving with him and through him. 

Because our worship at Mass is by its very nature corporate, it resists any narrowing of the spiritual life to a private relationship between the solitary soul and God. The Mass places God in the center and us in community. Entering fully into the celebration of the Eucharist reminds us life is about much more than “me”—it’s about “we” who are one in Christ, who together direct our lives toward the Source of Life, God Himself. Here, in the work of communal worship, we redirect our focus, away from deadly self-absorption toward the living Christ present sacramentally and in others.

The boy in today’s Gospel reveals the attitude of generosity which is vitally necessary for our communal worship at Mass. He is not self-centered, thinking only of himself, but focused on how he can be of help to the larger group, thus he brings food to Jesus. The boy could have hoarded his lunch, feasted on some fish sandwiches. Instead, he brings what he has to Jesus, placing the gift of himself in Jesus’ hands. The miracle of life-giving worship happens when we all have this kind of attitude.

What we do at Mass, we do together. We pray together, not some of us faster or some of us slower, but together. Even the personal prayers we offer in silence after everyone has received Holy Communion, we offer together, in silence with others. We open up our hymnals and sing together. Together we stand, together we sit, together we kneel. For those who are physically capable, all these bodily movements are done together. We don’t come here and do whatever we want, standing while everyone else is kneeling or kneeling while everyone else is standing.

When we worship with others at the Mass, we die with Christ to a preoccupation with self, and rise with him to new life as a member of His body, the Church. United by the Spirit of Christ, we are able to give God the Father fitting praise and thanksgiving. Together we experience the wonders of God’s providential love, together we experience how the hand of the Lord feeds us and provides for all our needs.

The introductory rites of the Mass, also called the gathering rites, help us to turn away from our preoccupation with self and to turn toward God and others. We sacrifice our individualism for a short while in order to be part of something much bigger than our own small self. The first of the four parts of the Mass, the Introductory Rites are sometimes referred to as the gathering rites, and there are two types of gathering taking place: The gathering of individuals into a community and the gathering within ourselves, which helps us focus on God and others. This 2nd kind of gathering—the preparing of our heart and mind and soul for worship—requires both remote preparation and proximate preparation.
The remote preparation happens before we enter the church doors. The church requires us to fast from food and drink for one hour before receiving the Body and Blood of the Lord in Holy Communion. This “fast” prepares our body to enter more fully into worship, this kind of sacrifice helps us die a little bit to self. So, we do not bring candy or food into the church, nor chew gum before or during Mass.

Arriving early helps prepare our mind and heart. When we are rushing into church at the very last minute, or when we are late, our thoughts are jumbled and our heart is racing—it’s hard to be focused on the important work of worship we are about to do.

Another good practice for remote preparation for worship is to leave our cell phones in our cars. If we cannot “disconnect” for one hour from our electronic gadgets, then we have a serious addiction which needs healing. In order to give our total focus to worshiping God with our sisters and brothers in Christ, we can’t have our cell phone in our pocket or purse, buzzing or ringing throughout the Mass. To be present to Christ who comes to us at Mass, to connect with Him
who is the Source of Everlasting Life, we have to disconnect from our phones. An exception would be a doctor on call who needs to wear a pager or phone in order to be summoned away in case of an emergency.

Upon entering the church we do several things that help us prepare for worship.
1. Bless ourselves with Holy Water
2. Genuflect to the presence of Christ in the tabernacle
3. Silent prayer in the pew
4. Read over the readings in the missalette
5. Locate the opening song in the hymnal
6. Be hospitable by saying a few words of welcome to someone who comes and     sits by you. But ongoing conversations need to take place outside the church     proper.
7. If someone needs to be seated in your pew, be hospitable and move to             toward the center. Liturgical ministers may need to stay seated at the end of     the pew in order to exit promptly to proclaim the Scriptures or help with             Communion, but others need to be considerate when people come to sit in         the pew  with you.

The following occur during the Introductory Rites (Gathering Rites):
          Opening Song—singing draws us out of ourselves and unites us to others.
          Sign of the Cross & Greeting—life in the Trinity, marked by saving cross.
          Penitential Act—We have an ongoing need to seek forgiveness for our                                         sins, for we are sinners in need of God’s mercy.
          Gloria—We rejoice in God’s saving mercy. The refrain of the Gloria is the                                   song of the angels at Jesus’ birth—God has been born                                       among us, like us in all things but sin, to save us from                                     sin. How can we not sing “Glory to God!”
         Opening Prayer (Collect)

The gathering rites transform us from disparate individuals into a community of faith joined in worship. They prepare us to hear the word of God which will be proclaimed and to worthily celebrate the Eucharist.

The introductory rites, as the first part of the Mass, move us away from self-centeredness toward others and unite us as one body in Christ. These rites pull us out of self-absorption toward the Other, the Living Christ who is the Bread of Life

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Link to today's readings
Jeremiah 23:1-6 + Psalm 23: 1-6 +  Ephesians 2: 13-18 + Mark 6:30 - 34

Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered with Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

It does not seem fair. Jesus and his apostles cross over to the other side of the lake to escape the crowds, but the people’s feet are faster than their oars. Jesus and the apostles seek a little peace and quiet, time to rest and recuperate, but when they disembark a vast crowd awaits them.

Instead of sending all these people away, Jesus, the Good Shepherd, teaches them about the mysteries of the Kingdom of God, and then later he will feed them by the miracle of the multiplication of loaves. Jesus finds energy in compassion, true rest by giving himself to those who hunger for his love.

The English word, “pity,” used in today’s Gospel, does not accurately convey what moves Jesus’ heart when he sees this vast crowd who have raced around the lake to find him. The literary meaning of the original Greek text is better captured by the word, “compassion.”

In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word “racham” is the root word for the English word “compassion,” and brings in an even deeper level of meaning. “Racham” refers to a woman’s womb. A mother has a very unique relationship with the child of her womb of love and care,  that does not end even when that child grows into an adult. The Biblical authors see a correlation here in the way God cares for those whom God has given the breath of life. In Psalm 103, the Psalmist uses this same term, the root of “racham,” to describe God’s love in the person of a child’s father: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord does on those who revere him.”

By raising children and making daily sacrifices of love, a parent know what compassion is, as a parent suffers with their child  through difficult, painful moments, while always remaining their mother or their father, regardless of the child’s age.

Thus, for Jesus to have “compassion” on the crowd gives us a clue as to what energizes him and is meant to energize us. The word “pity” conveys separateness, a looking down upon the other, a feeling sorry for the other—to say to another, “you poor thing.” Compassion is something totally different, for compassion flows from a felt “sameness,” a “oneness” with the other in their suffering and pain.

When we stand over someone with pity, it takes a lot of energy to leave our “world” and enter their world. We cannot find rest in such a relationship, but rather find it to be hard work. Compassion, however, is different. When a parent sees their child suffering, they act immediately with compassion---they find a source of strength and love they did not know was there. Parents who stay by their children in the hospital for days on end do so out of the deep well of compassion, as do parents who give of themselves daily to their children in the normal sacrifices of love.

There are still those times when parents can feel worn out by the demands that loving their children places upon them, but almost all parents would say that when they have a child, they discover a vast reservoir of love within them that was not there before. They are energized to be compassionate toward their child, to endure with their child whatever challenge may come. They do not feel separate from their child, but rather one with them, and this makes all the difference when it comes to loving compassionately.

Jesus comes to reveal his heavenly Father and ours, the Parent of all Creation. Jesus is the concrete manifestation in the flesh of the Heavenly Father’s love for the world. He loves others through the eyes of compassion and the deeds of compassion. Jesus does not separate himself from the suffering of the world, but reaches out to touch the leper and the mute, to embrace those paralyzed physically and those whose hearts are frozen by hurt. He is Compassion enfleshed, and in his flesh he manifests the compassion of God toward every creature that God has created.

The culture in which we live has become less and less compassionate, because it emphasizes “difference” over “sameness.” We are taught from a young age to discover and develop what sets us apart from others, to focus on what makes us special, to differentiate ourselves from the masses out there. We are told this is the way to be noticed, to get the best job, to be successful. But it is not the way of compassion, it is not the way of Jesus, it is not the way to true rest. Now this does not mean that we should not develop our own unique talents and use them for the glory of God, but when we begin to believe we are different from others, better than others, entitled to special treatment, then we have lost our way. And this way eventually drains us of life, because it takes too much energy to be who we are not, instead of resting in our unity with all the human family and living with compassion toward ourselves and others.

Living a life of compassion opens our eyes to see how we are all connected. Bud Welch discovered this truth when he went to visit the father of Timothy McVeigh. Bud’s beloved daughter, Julie, died at the hands of Timothy McVeigh in the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Building, and Bud, like other relatives of victims, wanted McVeigh to suffer and die. But Bud had a divine inspiration to visit the father of this mass murderer, and after doing so, Bud came to the realization that Mr. McVeigh was just like Bud---both of them fathers who loved their children no matter what. In this oneness with another father, Bud suddenly realized that to kill Timothy McVeigh would result in the breaking of another father’s heart. Bud Welch saw clearly how this was not the answer to his own pain and would only create more pain. Thus, Bud Welch chose the way of Compassion by becoming an advocate for life and speaking against the death penalty.

This mission of Jesus, which he confers upon the Apostles, and upon all of us who are filled with His Spirit, is to bring all Creation back into union with the Creator and Father of all. All that Jesus does, and all that we who follow him are meant to do, is to remind others that there is one Source of Life, the Father of all, and when we rest in the Father’s love, we discover the energy to love others as our brothers and sisters. As Martin Luther King puts it, “We must live together as brothers and sisters or perish together as fools.” The Father and Creator of all breathes into each of us the breath of life, and sustains us each day with a Father’s care, providing us with our daily bread. Because we have the same Father, we are sisters and brothers to one another, no matter how different we may look like on the outside. Beneath our skin we all have the same color of blood running through our veins and we are all shaped by the same creative hand. We come from One Source, and we all share a common home. Pope Francis’ encyclical, “Laudato Si”, makes this point clear---everything is connected. We are connected to one another, and we share an unbreakable connection with the Earth which God has given us, not to dominate and to plunder for our pleasure, but to use wisely and well for the benefit of all earth’s creatures. We share a common home, and we must care for it as we care for the home of our own particular families.

Some would say that to love others in such a way, to care for our common home in such a way, is too difficult, too demanding, too challenging. But for we who are empowered by the Spirit of the Risen Christ, who by the power of his resurrection initiated a new Creation, we know that living a life of Compassion is possible.

Here we enter into Communion with one another and with Compassion Himself. Here we are joined to Christ and through his Sacred Heart enter more fully into the embrace of the Father. In this Holy Sacrament, we are filled with divine energy to love as Christ loves. In Him and with Him and through Him we find true rest.

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Link to today's readings
Ezekiel 2:2-5 + Psalm 123:1-4 + 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 + Mark 6:1-6 

Click here to listen to today's homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma

For three successive Sundays we have listened to Gospel accounts concerning faith. For three consecutive Sundays the evangelist Mark has placed before us encounters between Jesus and those who place their faith in him, and those who do not.

Two Sundays ago as the disciples in the swamped boat were drowning in fear, Jesus calmed the raging waters of the sea and the storm of their fear, challenging them: “Do you not yet have faith?” Last Sunday we encountered with Jesus two people of great faith, a woman who knew she would be healed of her bleeding if she could just touch Jesus’ cloak, and Jairus, who begs Jesus to heal his dying daughter. Today we come face to face with those who think they know Jesus best but who do not really know him at all---the people of his hometown in Nazareth. Jesus, amazed by their lack of faith, is unable to perform any mighty deed in Nazareth.

For three Sundays in a row in Mark’s Gospel we have been challenged to ponder the meaning of faith. What is faith? Why do some people lack faith in the Lord and others have great faith?

God gives God’s very self to us in Christ Jesus, and faith is our response to that gift. God gives God’s self to us in baptism as we are filled with the life of the Lord Jesus, claimed by the Father as His beloved son or daughter, and through the gift of the Spirit, become a new creation. God also gives God’s self to us in Holy Communion, as Christ Jesus pours his Risen life into us. Every day Jesus is walking by our side, engaging us in one way or another.

Faith is our response to this ongoing self-gift of the Lord, who is constantly giving himself away to us in love. Thus, faith is all about relationship---a growing relationship with the Lord Jesus, an ongoing response to Jesus’ invitation to come and see where he lives.

The people who lived with Jesus in Nazareth think they know Jesus and thus resent his newfound power and popularity.  “Who does he think he is?” The problem with these hometown folks is they stopped growing in their relationship with Jesus. They knew him as a kid who had grown up in their midst to become a carpenter. But that is when they stopped knowing him. In fact, pride prevented them from acknowledging there was a lot they did not know or understand about Jesus, that he was a constant surprise to them.

These people are not simply faithless, they are arrogant, proud, and very full of themselves. They are obstinate of heart. So sure of their opinion, and so confident that they know everything, the gift they might have been given in Jesus is refused. Consequently, they have no share in the signs that point to God’s presence among them—Jesus performs no mighty deeds in their midst.

Blinded by their certitude they cannot see who stands before them in the synagogue. Deaf to everything but the sound of their own voices, they cannot hear the good news being offered and proclaimed to them. Instead of engaging in conversation with the one who calls for their conversion, they talk to themselves:  “Where did this man get all this?” Notice the people of Nazareth are so sure of themselves and their worldview that they dehumanize Jesus by not even calling him by name.

The way faith flourishes is by openness to the Lord Jesus, especially when his words and his presence are challenging. But the people of Nazareth are not open to anything new, to anyone who goes beyond their narrow-minded, self-protecting expectations. They reject the whole idea that someone can change, grow, and become an instrument

of God’s mercy and love. By doing so, they cannot change---they do not grow—and God can do nothing with them.

As Bernard Lonergan says, “faith is knowledge born of religious love,” or in other words, a knowing that comes through loving. Loved by the Lord Jesus and daily responding to his invitation to come and see where he lives (living a life of faith), we learn there is more to know about him. Like any important relationship in our life, our relationship with the Lord Jesus is ongoing, developing, growing, and it has its ups and downs. What counts is a daily attempt on our part to respond to the love of the Lord. Faith is married to humility, as we admit we do not know the Lord Jesus as well as we ought, that he has much more to reveal to us about his person. What counts in our relationship with the Lord, which shows itself in our relationship to others and the world, is our openness and our desire to grow.

For conversion and growth in faith must be a continual way of life. At no point in our lives may we entertain the idea that we know everything, and a refusal to listen and explore ideas contrary to our own is a sure sign that pride is at work, and that is a deadly sin when left unchallenged. Worse than the tragedy of indifference is the haughty and smug attitude of a closed heart and made up mind which judges others and their ideas with presumptions and assumptions coming from within rather than from without.

Faith flourishes where there is an open heart and open mind. People who stop learning and cease to wonder and study about faith and revelation will not be able to see God’s mighty deeds, even if they are happening all around them. The Gospel and the faith it nourishes must be fed by wonder and awe, curiosity and a desire for life, which always means growth and change.

Cardinal Avery Dulles describes faith as “the radical conviction that we are surrounded and sustained by God’s love.” Since this is the foundational truth of our lives, that at every moment, with every breath, God’s love surrounds and sustains us, we have nothing to fear.

Not the storms of nature nor of life. Not chronic illness nor the death of a loved one. Not even the challenge of change itself.

Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi