Link to today's readings
Isaiah 52:13-53:12 | Psalm 31:2, 6, 12-13, 15-16, 17, 25 | Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9 | John 18:1-19:42
This homily has no recording
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
by Deacon Paul Lewis
Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now he is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.
These words of Pope Francis perhaps never resonate more than on this day.
These 27 words are at the heart of the Good News.
Too many times we focus on the bloody details of the brutality that Jesus endured.
Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is sometimes referred to as a reflection
on what we gather this evening to remember.
If our focus is on the suffering, why in the world would we call this day GOOD Friday?
What do we see when we see Jesus on the cross?
A scourged body, marred by Roman brutality…
Wounds created by spikes driven through wrists and feet…
a man who has been abandoned by those who were closest to him…
a mother whose heart is pierced by a sword of sorrow…
But these things can put a veil over our eyes
and distort the real message of this day.
The goodness of Good Friday
does not eliminate the reality of sin, grief, suffering, and death.
It means those are not the final or ultimate reality of this day, or any day for that matter.
Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now his is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.
These words of Pope Francis remind us that
for Jesus the focus is not on suffering and death.
It is on love.
That’s why Jesus can give himself to the cross.
He doesn’t look at the cross,
he sees through it.
Death is not the end.
Jesus trusts the Father’s love more than his own death.
Peter, however, can neither look at the cross nor the one who is dying.
“I do not know him.
I do not know him.
I do not know him.”
Peter fears death is the end.
For Jesus and for himself.
In a sense he’s right.
You see fear, anxiety, confusion, anger, resentment, prejudice…
all of these things and more,
block out love.
Without love death is the end.
Without love the entire earth becomes a tomb.
And we are not much different than Peter.
We cannot help but look at the many crosses
of our lives and world and see sin and brokenness,
suffering, sorrow, tears, loss, and death.
Sometimes we experience it.
Sometimes we do it to others.
Sometimes we do it to ourselves.
There is more to see on this GOOD Friday.
That’s what makes it good.
Jesus’ death tears down the veil of the brokenness and suffering of our lives.
Jesus’ crucified love is stronger and more real than death.
He lives at our side and joins us in our sufferings and dyings…
He enlightens, strengthens, and frees us
and carries us through our trials and tribulations.
The love of Jesus defeats sin and death…
EVERY TIME…
if we will just invite him into our lives.
Each day we must decide…
Will I trust death or will I trust love?
That decision in many ways will determine our world view.
It will decide how we will approach the circumstances of our lives.
It will guide our relationships.
And it will determine whether we will choose to encounter Jesus in our own life.
Love transforms…
Jesus Christ loves you;
he gave his life to save you;
and now he is living at your side every day
to enlighten, strengthen, and free you.
Link to today's readings
Exodus 12: 1-8, 11-14; 1 Corinthians 11: 23-26; John 13: 1-15
This homily has no audio recording
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
Jesus loves his disciples till the very end. After spending several years with them, he knows them very well. He knows their faults and quirks and failings, and he knows their good qualities as well. Jesus’ heart overflows in gratitude to the Father for the gift of his disciples who have been with him through thick and thin, from the Sea of Galilee to the Temple in Jerusalem, from wedding feasts to simple meals under the stars. He reaches out to touch them one final time with tenderness and love. By washing their feet, Jesus reminds them there is no part of them which he is not willing to cleanse by his saving love.
He wants them to remember him by this loving act of humble, self-giving service. He wants them to do the same for each other and for others in memory of him.
Jesus loves the ones His Father loves. He loves the ones the Father has given to him as companions on a great adventure of scattering the seed of the Kingdom of God. As he washes the feet of each one of them, he gives thanks to the Father for them. Gratitude energizes his service, not only at this meal in the Upper Room, but at all times. Jesus knows his life is not his own—his life is a gift from the Father. His life is given to him to be given away in love of others, by washing feet, even touching those whom other shy away from.
His life of humble service culminates on the cross, where he gives away completely the gift given to him, gives his life back to the Father in a total act of thanksgiving.
As we come to this table to share in this sacred meal with Christ Jesus, we come overflowing with gratitude. We come to be joined more fully to the Crucified and Risen Lord, to give thanks to the Father with him for all the people who have washed our feet. There are those people in our lives who have generously served us: who have loved us in good times and bad, stuck by our side through the storms of life, who have both accepted us and challenged us to grow. People who have washed our feet, who have known and even touched with tenderness our warts, our weakness, and by doing so have called out the best in us.They have washed our feet over and over again.
Their love remains present to us, even if these special people in our lives are no longer physically by our side. As we think of them, as we remember the many ways they gave of themselves in love to us and for us, gratitude wells up in us. Through the lens of the Eucharist, we see their lives as revelations to us of God’s humble, life-giving love in Christ Jesus.
With Christ Jesus we give thanks to the Father for the gift of these ones who have loved us with the sacrificial love of Christ, who made us feel like our lives have value, who honored our God-given dignity.
All those who have washed our feet in our lives point us to Christ and his cross, reveal to us something of his humble, self-giving love. So gratitude grows in us not only for them, but even more so for Him, for Christ the Lord, and the great gift He is to us and to the world. Through him, in him, with him—all these loving servants found their energy to serve.
We receive the Lord here as a gift in order to better receive him in our daily life. We receive the Lord in this sacred meal so He might crack open our hearts to welcome Him coming to us in our daily lives. Receiving his broken body and his life poured out as blood, we are meant to be more receptive to Him as he comes to us in his broken body laid out on the altar of the world.
The Lenten practice of the Rice Bowl helps us to receive Christ coming to us in the humblest of people. Through Catholic Relief Services weekly Rice Bowl meditations, the poor throughout the world have been revealed to us as persons just like us, with hopes and dreams like our own. As we have received them into our lives, our world has expanded to include the Christ coming to us through them, to realize we are all connected in Christ. As we have sacrificed a little of our own comfort and financial resources, we have received the Son of God who became poor that we might become rich in God’s mercy.
Pope Francis constantly challenges us to be a “Church of the poor, for the poor.” He does so because those who are poor teach us how to love in a generous way. Not that we will be the ones saving the poor, but they will be saving us from the death sentence of self-centeredness. We rise up to new life in loving them and serving the Christ living in them.
By following Christ’s command to love others as he has loved us, we see beyond the color of skin and the differences in culture. He strengthen us by the gift of his own life that we might lay down our lives in love of others, even those who speak a different language or who see the world differently than we do. In doing so, we receive the Lord as he comes to us shining in thousands of different faces and places.
Joined to Christ Jesus and to his saving passion and death in the Eucharist, we slowly grasp the truth that our life is not our own—it is a gift. Our existence is pure grace, totally dependent on the Father’s love. Joined to the Son, the humble servant of the Father, we learn that humility, as C.S. Lewis points out, “is not thinking less of ourselves, but thinking of ourselves less.” Which means we think of others more, we take on the mind and heart of Christ.
Joined intimately to the one who washes feet, and whose own feet are marked by the life-giving wounds of self-giving love, we go out into the world energized to lay down our lives in love of others.
So we strip ourselves of pride and fear and selfishness, and take up the towel of service. The living water of divine life in us then surges forth to refresh and renew others. We have much good work to do, for the feet of the world await us…..
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
Link to today's readings
Isaiah 50:4—7 + Philippians 2:6—11 + Mark 14:1—15:47
Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
The cry of Jesus from the cross, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachtani” (“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”) sounds like the cry of someone cut off from God. But Jesus’ cry from the cross is the first verse of Psalm 22, the beginning of a prayer where God’s faithful one expresses the “feeling” of being abandoned because of great suffering. However, the psalm concludes with a great act of trust in God’s saving presence.
Jesus, knowing he is the beloved Son of the Father even on the cross, is ripped away reveals God’s presence where God appears to be absent. God is present with those who suffer, with those who are abandoned, with those who are stripped of their dignity, with those who have been betrayed by their closest friends.
The hope that sustains Jesus is not that his situation will change and that God will appear with legions of angels and rescue him from a terrible death. The hope sustaining Jesus—his Father remains with him in the darkest day of his life, even in the most horrific hours of Jesus’ existence. The hope sustaining Jesus is that he is still loved by God, despite all evidence to the contrary. It is a hope not depending on changing the present situation or demanding a different outcome.
It is a hope whereby terrible events and immense suffering are placed within a larger context—the loving presence of God, a God whose love sustains those who trust in him.
We still do not understand where to look for God, which is why the Church gifts us with Holy Week year and year after year. We look for God’s presence only in times of glory, times which are few and far between in our lives.
The truth which Jesus reveals from the cross—God is present in sacrificial love,
in those times where we experience suffering because of our love for God or our love for others.
We look for God in strength, in power and might, but the cross reveals God present in times of weakness.
We look for God’s presence in times when we are successful or honored by others, but Christ on the cross teaches us God is powerful present with us,
strengthening us when we are “dishonored” by others or “shamed” by them.
We therefore are sustained by the rock-solid conviction that “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:39)
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
Link to today's readings
Jeremiah 31:31-34 + Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 14-15 + Hebrews 5:7-9 + John 12:20-33
Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, Oklahoma
by Deacon Paul Lewis
This past Monday my wife and I were at the home of some friends. There was something different about this visit. It was the first time we had been there in daylight. Before the time change, we always arrived at their house after the sun had set. More times than not, I missed the turn for their driveway. But this time, I saw the driveway. And as I sat in their kitchen I noticed something different. Again, it was sunlight coming in through the windows. It cast, quite literally, a different light on this home, a home that I had become familiar with in the dark.
“Sir, we want to see Jesus.”
It seems like such a simple request. When Philip and Andrew approached Jesus,
I suspect that his response is not what they expected. You see, seeing Jesus challenges us. It’s not easy, at least the kind of “easy” as the world would define. All of a sudden, the conversation becomes about death and life. But not just life...eternal life! What does it mean to “see” Jesus? Did those Greeks understand what they were asking? Did Philip and Andrew understand? Do we?
Seeing Jesus and death are intimately connected. One needs to go no further than the Crucifix to understand that.
To truly “see” Jesus, one must form one’s mind around that of Jesus. St Paul tells us in his Letter to the Philippians… Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.
To have the mind of Jesus means to have no regard for ourselves. That which keeps us from love, love for God and love for others, must be rooted out of our lives. To see Jesus, we must not merely think he is a nice guy. To encounter Jesus, sitting back and listening to his words, and accepting the message on an intellectual level is not enough. To see Jesus, to have the “mind” of Jesus, means to have an encounter of the hearts… our hearts and the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
This kind of encounter calls us to be participants in the life of Christ, not spectators. If we want to see Jesus, if we want to know light, the light that changes everything, we must put aside those things in our lives that get in the way. We must die to ourselves. We must become that grain of wheat, fall to the ground and die so that we too might become fruit. It is only in dying that we can rise. Seeing Jesus means dying to all the parts of our life that blind us: fear; the need to be right or to be in control anger and resentment; the guilt and disappointments of our past; attachment to power, wealth, and reputation; attachment to “stuff”; the ways in which we separate ourselves from one another and from God; our obsessions, compulsions, and emotional agendas; the ways in which we hurt one another and damage relationships.
Ultimately, it means dying to our own self-sufficiency. It means rising to trust in Jesus. We let go of our life to receive God’s life. This business of letting go, of dying to our old self, is tough stuff. Jesus knows that it is. That’s why we have the scriptures, prayer, and the Eucharist.
Jesus longs for each of us to have a personal encounter with him. In that encounter, we come to know the Lord more intimately in our lives. As Matthew Kelly says, this encounter will make us a better version of ourselves. How do scriptures and prayer work in this encounter with Jesus? Come to the parish mission Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings, 7:00-8:30. Dr Carole Brown will have much to say about that.
The Eucharist is the source and summit of our Christian life. All that we do points to this reality. We don’t gather each week to hear the scriptures, or to hear the homily, or to hear the music, or to see those children take up the collection for the new church. All of those things are good, but if they don’t have their inspiration (source) in the Eucharist, if they don’t point us to our need for the Eucharist, if these actions don’t lead us (summit) to see Jesus in the Eucharist, then we have missed the point.
You’ll notice a few weeks ago, Father Jacobi began saying the prayer after communion directly after communion, before the children’s collection or announcements. That prayer is intended to close the part of the mass that is called the “Communion Rite.” Holy Communion is not completed until that prayer is prayed. Subtle as is may be, it is a reminder that seeing, and receiving, Jesus in the Eucharist is the most sacred action we participate in… bar none! The Eucharist is not simply a meal. It is a sacrifice. We reverence the altar to remind us that it is there that we see Jesus in that Upper Room. What we do is not a re-enactment. Time and space is transcended. We participate in that Last Supper each time we celebrate the Eucharist.
The Eucharist reminds us that we must die to ourselves. When we do, everything changes. We see Jesus as he truly is, and we see Jesus as we truly are… I know from experience, that even though I think I see things clearly,
sometimes I see things from the perspective of darkness, or perhaps cloudiness is more accurate. Perhaps you have the same experience. Just as my perspective of that friend’s house changed with the presence of light, when we encounter the light of Jesus, everything changes When we see things in the light of Jesus, our perspective changes. Our needs, our wants, are no longer important.
Trusting in the words of Jesus, we can have the courage to die to those things in our life that keep us from that which we all long for… to be see and be with Jesus and to live a Spirit-filled life with the Father.
Deacon Paul Lewis
Link to today's readings
Exodus 20: 1-17+ Ps. 19: 8-11 + 1 Cor. 1: 22-25 + John 2: 13-25
Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang Oklahoma
Today’s responsorial psalm, Psalm 19, is a love song.On the Sundays of Lent we have been singing this psalm during the Preparation of the Altar and the Gifts,
expressing our deep and abiding love for the God who gives us words which are in themselves life everlasting.These words of the Lord God are more precious than gold, stronger than death.
The psalmist, and all who pray this psalm, express great gratitude for the gift of the Law, the words of everlasting life flowing from the heart of God.
Moses receives the Law of the Lord on Mt. Sinai during the wandering of the Hebrew people in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. The Law is actually a collection of many laws which reveal to God’s people how to live on this earth in freedom and love. The book of Exodus, from 20: 22 – 23:33, as well as the book of Leviticus, present literally hundreds of laws guiding the life of the people.
When you and I think of the Law given on Mt. Sinai through Moses to the people, our minds immediately turn to the 10 Commandments,which are the foundation of God’s Law and from which all the other laws flow.
It is vitally important to remember when and where the 10 Commandments are given in order to understand the best way to put them into practice. The Exodus story is the context of the 10 Commandments, a story of God’s saving love for a ragtag bunch of slaves. The preface to the Commandments, the verse right before the 1st Commandment sets the scene: “I, the Lord, am your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery.”
The God who gives the 10 Commandments is the same God who has set the people freefrom the slavery of Egypt by mighty deeds done through his servant, Moses: Ten plagues which forced Pharoah to let the people go, the parting of the Red Sea to save the people when Pharoah changed his mind and with murderous rage pursued these runaway slaves, the sending of manna from heaven as food in the desert, and the calling forth of water from the rock in order to quench the thirst of the people. The Ten Commandments are given by a God who has shown great love for the people, who has not only freed them from slavery in Egypt but who also provides for their daily needs for food and drink in the desert.
On Mt. Sinai, this God whose love saves and sustains these runaway slaves, establishes a covenant with this people He has made his own, promising to be faithful to them, and giving them a way to remain faithful to him and each other through the gift of the Commandments.
Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church claims that the Commandments “properly so called come in the second place: they express the implications of belonging to God through the establishment of the covenant. Moral existence is a response to the Lord’s loving initiative.” (No. 2062)
By the gift of the Ten Commandments, the Lord God gives these runaway slaves a blueprint for a new civilization based on fidelity to God and fidelity to each other. They are based upon loving God (see the 1st three) and loving neighbor (see the last 7).
The Commandments, therefore, are only the beginning of a life in a response to the call to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbor. They are not the be all and end all of a life of faith, but the foundation upon which a life in God and with God and with others can be built.
Since these ten are given by the God who has freed them from slavery, they are meant to set the people free to love. The Third Commandment reveals this desire of God to show His people how to live in freedom, and thus be free to love and be loved. The Third Commandment — “Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day” commands the people to rest on the Sabbath. For six days they are to labor, but the seventh day shall always be holy, set apart.
This commandment is a powerful reminder of the saving love of God for His people, because when they were slaves in Egypt they had to work every day — that’s what slaves do. But now they have been saved by God from slavery and work can no longer be their life, by resting one day each week, they remember God’s saving deeds in Egypt and are able to rest more fully in the love of God who keeps on saving and sustaining their lives.
Remembering and resting are what we Christians do on the Sabbath day.
We come on this Sabbath day to recall the mighty deeds of God and to rest in His saving love. We remember the saving deed of God, the death of His Son on the cross. For every time we eat this bread and drink this cup we proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes in glory.
We remember the Word of God became flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. We recall his words spoken to us…. When asked what the greatest commandment in the Law is, Jesus responds: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
For it is tempting to think that the Christian life is only about keeping the Ten Commandments and thus do the very least to simply get by,without ever growing in our relationship to God and to others.We could live a very safe and timid life and fulfill almost all the commandments by “not” breaking the Law, but we are invited to something much, much more. In our praying, we are called to daily make the Lord God the center of our lives.In our almsgiving, we are invited to see the Crucified Christ present in the least of our sisters and brothers suffering all around us.In our fasting, we are challenged to give up the grudges and resentments which paralyze our hearts.
We, who have been made temples of God, by the saving gift of the Spirit of God, come to the Lord Jesus this day, aware that the temples of our lives need cleansing.
Our minds and hearts need to be purified of simply going through the motions, doing the least we can do, when it comes to our relationship with the Lord.
We are called into a living, breathing, vibrant relationship with the Word made flesh, with the Son of God, who shows us by his words and deeds what fulfilling the Law of Love looks like.The Lord Jesus comes to us in this saving Sacrament of the Eucharist to cleanse us of the usual way of doing business, to purify our lives so that can make the giver of the Law the center of our lives of faith, not the Law.
The invitation from God in Christ is into a life-changing, life-giving relationship, to rise up with Him to new life now. Into a relationship stronger than death….
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
Wisdom 4: 7-15 + Romans 8: 31b-35, 37-39 + Mark 9: 2-10
Delivered at St. Eugene Catholic Church in Oklahoma City on March 4, 2015
Two giants of the Oklahoma priesthood have died within the past 3 ½ months,
with the death of Fr. John Vrana death this past November and Fr. Bill Ross’ death this past week. These two were good friends for many years.
The author of the Book of Wisdom could have been referring to either one of these wise priests by saying, “he reached the fullness of a long career for his soul was pleasing to the Lord.”
Fr. Vrana and Fr. Ross were both passionate about peace and justice, about learning from the poor and being their voice. Both had a depth of understanding about life and matters of faith which produced wisdom.
One of my brother priests shared how when he was a seminarian that Fr. Vrana had shared with him the following words of wise advice: “The whole of life lies in the verb of seeing.” Of course, Fr. Vrana was not speaking about physical eyesight, but the ability to see beneath the surface of ordinary things to the shining presence of the divine hidden there.
Although he never said it in exactly these words, Fr. Bill Ross’ insight, which inspired his life and ministry could be expressed in this way: “The whole of life lies in the verb of listening.” For Bill listened to others not only with his ears, but with his eyes and his heart. The Bill Ross way of loving others, the way he most naturally and daily gave himself away to others was by giving them his full and undivided attention. He spent the whole of his life listening to others with compassion and care. But he could only do so in such a generous way because he had first spent time listening to Christ Jesus, because he daily gave his attention to the Lord Jesus on the mountaintop of prayer.
God became flesh in Jesus of Nazareth in order to listen to what being human is all about from the inside out. In the greatest act of love the world has ever seen and will ever know, the 2nd person of the Holy Trinity emptied himself of all divine privilege in order to become one with us. The Incarnation bespeaks the nature of love, because love demands you be where your beloved is, that you understand what they experience. The challenge for the first disciples and for us lies in listening to the teaching of Jesus and listening carefully to the Word of Love resounding forth from his life and death and resurrection.
Peter and James and John are commanded by the Heavenly Father on the Mt. of the Transfiguration to listen to his beloved son, because they have failed to listen to what Jesus is teaching them. Before going up the mountain, Peter professed his faith in Jesus as the Messiah. But when he hears that Jesus will be a “suffering Messiah,” Peter stops up his ears and instead demands that Jesus listen to him— suffering and dying are not part of the Messiah’s job description. Peter receives a strong rebuke from Jesus, and then Jesus uses this as a teaching moment, instructing Peter and the rest that if they want to come after him, they must deny self, take up their cross, and follow.
To all who will listen, the cross is the key to understanding the mission of Jesus and his followers. The cross, which is sheer folly to unbelievers, becomes the wisdom of God for believers. In order to give oneself away in love (“to take up one’s cross”), one has to deny those self-centered parts of one’s very self which are obstacles to loving others.
To follow the Crucified and Risen Lord, one has to take up the cross of self-giving love like he did, and live for others like he did, make one’s life an offering to the Father. Bill Ross gave his life away in love of others by listening with love to their suffering and pain, sadness and sorrow. He gave the gift of himself by listening carefully to the Crucified Lord speaking to him through his broken body, and thus Bill brought healing to the suffering body of Christ.
Bill listened with compassion to Christ speaking to him through those who were
“poor in spirit,” and he gave himself in love to the Christ living and suffering in them. People came to him carrying so much pain, and Bill’s caring attention lifted their load and lightened their burden. He listened carefully to married couples whose hearts were broken and helped them to find a way forward to a new and deeper way of loving each other. Bill listened compassionately to priests who had been humbled in a very painful way, by choosing to leave the priesthood voluntarily or by being commanded to do so. He ministered to these men who were often forgotten by the wider body of priests, but who were never far from his mind and heart.
Bill sat at the bedside of many who were close to death, and through his gentle guidance, empowered them to tell the story of life and find meaning there, find Christ there. Then they were able to surrender their lives freely and joyfully into the hands of God. During his almost 61 years as a priest, Fr. Bill Ross listened with care to thousands of Confessions in the Sacrament of Reconciliation, welcoming these “poor in spirit” who came to him with their aching need for God’s saving mercy. Penitents found as they spoke to Bill in the Sacrament, as he listened without condemnation, that Christ was taking the weight of their sins away. Members of his own family would bend Bill’s ear during times of crisis and come away knowing better what it meant to be a “Ross.”
Parish Staff members would come to him with the challenges of ministry and find strength to keep on doing their important work with love. By skills Bill had painstakingly learned and practiced, he had his own particular stethoscope which he used to listen beneath the spoken word to the hidden language of the heart. In doing so, Fr. Bill Ross brought healing to many individuals, and I was one them.
Early in my priesthood, I went to Bill for several counseling sessions to work through a sorrow that had lingered in my life over the death of a loved one. He kindly and gently helped me to express pain buried deep within me, which I did not know I carried, to touch that part of me with Christ’s healing love. There are thousands of others who experienced the healing touch of Christ through Bill Ross when they came to seek his wise counsel, and that healing came in how he listened with all his being to what was being said, in how he listened with love.
Not only did Bill Ross listen with love to the “poor in spirit,” but he also did so to those who were materially poor. As he did so, he listened to and loved Christ present in the least of his brothers and sisters. Before Pope Francis would rise to the papacy and challenge Catholics to go out from the comforts of their church buildings into the world to the poor, to those who live on the margins of society, and find Christ there, Bill Ross was already doing this.
Pope Francis says we should go beyond “doing” something for the materially poor by taking time to know them and learn from them what it means to depend daily on God’s providence. Bill did this for many years in his ministry to the inmates at the prison in Lexington, and even continued to ministry to them in some way after leaving his pastorate in Purcell. “When I was in prison you visited me…” and Bill did, reaching out to touch Christ crucified in those who had everything stripped away from them, even their freedom and their dignity. He listened to their stories and gave them back their dignity as a gift.
Bill listened to the homeless by living with them, for a short period of time. He wanted to know what it was like to be homeless, and to hear their stories. So a few years ago Bill spent 3 days downtown at the Jesus House, eating and sleeping with those who had no home. He did this “undercover” — no one knew he was a priest except for the staff, which gave him a chance to listen to the homeless tell him their stories and give them back their life as a gift.
By his ministry with and for the poor, Fr. Bill Ross helped prepare the Church and the world to welcome a Pope who would take the name of a saint who had espoused himself to “Lady Poverty.” Who challenges us, as Bill did, to listen to the poor with compassion and be their voice.
For all who were paying attention, the last six weeks of Bill Ross’ life on this earth were a time when he taught us in his weakness how to listen to the eternal song of love, which is at the center of the universe. In his overwhelming experience of God’s love coming to him through the love of others during these past six weeks, and by listening carefully to these expressions of heartfelt love, Bill Ross came to a deeper understanding of the primacy of love. He heard loudly and clearly during his last days on this earth that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Nothing. Not even dying or death itself. He listened carefully to the saving truth that God is for us, not against us. That God is for us all!
By doing so, he challenged us to be there for each other, to be there for others.
He reminded us that we have the power within us, this gift of the divine Spirit of love, to reach out and touch others in love and bring them the deepest healing of all. That they might know they are never alone — that God walks with them,
even through the valley of death.
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
Link to today's readings
Gen. 22: 1-2, 9a, 10-13; 15-18 + Psalm 116 +
Romans 8: 31b-34 + Mark 9: 2-10
Click here to listen to this homily
Delivered at Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Mustang, OK
Abraham has had a long relationship with God. Abraham’s trust in God has been tested numerous times, and with every test his trust grows in God’s goodness and generosity. As Abraham looks back on his life, he can clearly see in every time of testing, God provided him what he needed.
There is the first test---obedience to the call to leave everything he knew behind. He obeyed God’s summons to leave his home in Haran and strike out on an adventure where God promised him land and many descendants.
Along the way, there is the dust-up with the Pharoah in Egypt, where he almost lost his wife, Sarah, to the most powerful man in the land.
Even in the big mess-up with Hagar, when Abraham, still childless, decides to take things into his own hands and produce a son through Sarah’s maidservant, God provides a way forward.
Read chapters 12-22 of Genesis and notice the other tests Abraham endures, like the one with Lot, so that Abraham’s faith, forged in the flames of testing and trial, might be more precious than fire-tried gold. Finally, at an age way beyond the ability to generate a child, God grants Abraham a son, Isaac, the child of promise. God provides a miracle in flesh and bone from the sterile womb of elderly Sarah.
But now comes the ultimate test of Abraham’s faith, the ultimate test of Abraham’s trust that God will provide. God asks him to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, the child in whom all the promises of God reside, Abraham’s only son, the apple of his eye, his beloved.
Now we wonder, what kind of God is this who commands a father to sacrifice his only son? What kind of God would make such a horrific request? In order to understand the power of this sacred story, we need to walk around in the world in which Abraham lives.
Abraham lives in a world where child sacrifice is common. Parents would sacrifice their children to the gods in order to appease them, in order to ensure a good harvest, in order to remain in the favor of the gods. Because this was thousands of years before the age of science, the ancient people did not understand the causes of drought and disease—they saw these happenings as punishment from the gods for something they, the people had done, to make the gods angry. In order to be on the good side of the gods, the very best gift was required—the gift of their very own flesh, their very own child.
Now we “enlightened” ones who live in the 21st century quickly condemn such barbaric behavior, but in the time of Abraham, it was the norm. It was the way people tried to find some measure of control in a world largely out of their control. For they lived in a state of constant dread and anxiety.
Even when the harvest was bountiful because of plentiful rain and sunshine, they thought they owed the gods something for this bounty, and the ultimate sacrifice, one of their children, would be a proper expression of gratitude. So, either out of sense of having done something terribly wrong to offend the gods and thus cause a shortage of foodstuff, or out of a sense of gratitude for a good harvest, the ancient people were constantly trying to placate the gods of sun and rain, the earth and the sky. They were always anxious and fearful, believing in gods who took from them, who were angry and against them, who always had to be pleased, or else their wrath would fall upon the people.
Abraham thinks he, too, needs to pay the ultimate price to the God who has called him to be a “Father of a Great Nation”, who has vowed to give him the “Promised Land.” But in this sacred story, which has captured the imagination of Jews, Christians, and Muslims (since Abraham is the father of these 3 great religions), we discover an important truth about the God of Abraham—He is not against Abe, he is for Abe; he is not a God who takes life, but a God who gives life; he is not a vengeful, bloodthirsty god but a God of mercy. But before the God of Abraham proves how he is different from the others gods, Isaac’s life hangs in the balance.
The editors of our lectionary have omitted verses 3-8 in Chapter 22, which are an important part of this sacred story. On the 3rd day of their journey, Abraham spots Mt. Moriah. Then Abraham and Isaac leave the servants and begin to walk up the mountain, with Isaac carrying the wood for the holocaust and Abraham the knife and the fire.
As they make their way to the mountain top, Isaac throws out a zinger of a question. “Father, here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?” Abraham’s reply reveals his deep, abiding trust in the God, even while dread weighs him down: “God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.” So God does, sending an angel to stay the knife, and providing a ram for the offering in place of Isaac. God provides.
Verse 14 is also left out of today’s account, where Abraham names the site, “Yahweh-yireh” a Hebrew expression meaning “the Lord will see,” or better yet, in reference to Abe’s reply to Isaac about where the animal for sacrifice will come from, “God himself will see to it.”
What kind of God would ask a father to sacrifice his son? Not the God of Abraham, not the God of Jesus Christ.
Moreover, God blesses Abraham, and assures Abraham of something even more—that Abraham’s descendants will be a blessing for generations to come. That includes you and me, since we are descendants of Abraham, for he is our Father in faith.
Such is the extravagant love of God for humankind, a love we see evident in his Son, Jesus Christ. Our Heavenly Father did not spare his only Son, but handed him over for us all. This God of ours gives us, out of love, the very best he has to give, his only Son.
Our Heavenly Father sees the people to whom he has given life and provided every good thing on the earth are lost and cannot find their way back home to him, the Provider of Life and giver of all good things.
It is this God and Father who out of love hands over his Son, entrusting that which is most precious to Him to us, in order that we might know how much we are loved and might find our way, through the Son, back home to our Heavenly Father.
Therefore, it is not we who are called to sacrifice what is most dear to us, but God who sacrifices what is most dear to God. This is our God---a God who is for us, never against us. Even when we feel like God has turned against us during times of suffering or tragedy, the truth of the matter is that God is with us in His Son, who freely chooses to embrace all the suffering and tragedy of humanity.
God-in-Christ does not shake his fist at us in anger, but as we look to the cross, opens his hands in self-giving love to all those who suffer, opens his arms from the cross on the Mount of Calvary to embrace all of humanity. This is the great Good News that Jesus, the beloved son of the Father, announces to the world both in word and deed, by his life and death and resurrection:
God is always for us. God is always on our side. God will provide everything we need. The Son of God dies on a cross, the sinless one in place of us sinners, sacrificing his life that we might live as beloved sons and daughters of the Father.
Along with Peter, James, and John, we need to listen to him, listen to Jesus and learn from him about God’s providential love. For Jesus daily depends on the Father providing Jesus what he needs, so that when death comes the Beloved Son trusts that the Father will make a way forward for him into the glory of resurrected life. In Jesus, God stretches out his hand to feed our hunger for divine life and love.
From the glory of the mountaintop of the holy Eucharist, God provides all we need. The Risen Lord comes to us as food for the journey, as the saving drink of salvation, revealing to us the Triune God: God the Father who is for us, Christ Jesus the Son who is with us, and the Holy Spirit who lives within us.
The Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Spirit—blesses us with abundant life. So we might become the open hand of God to others, providing what they need. Generously, joyfully, and lovingly.
Fr. Joseph A. Jacobi
