Homily - 20 July 2025 - The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

What is it that Jesus says will not be taken away from Mary (cf. Luke 10:42)? What is this “better part” of which he speaks? The answer is really quite simple, and even obvious: the better part that will not be taken away is Jesus himself.

When the Lord came to the home of Abraham and Sarah, he came as a stranger and received hospitality; when the Lord came to the home of the two sisters, he came as a friend and received hospitality. The hospitality of Abraham and Sarah was rewarded with the promise of a son (cf. Genesis 10:10); the hospitality of Martha and Mary was rewarded with God himself, for what does the Word Incarnate speak if not himself (cf. Luke10:39)?

Martha extends hospitality to Jesus by welcoming him with her service, by becoming “burdened” with

something that no one has asked her to do and for which there is no urgency (cf. Luke10:40). When the Lord enters a person’s life, the order of priorities changes, and the first thing everyone needs is to know Him and meet Him, everything else comes after that.[1]

Mary understood this in a way Martha did not. It is not that Martha’s form of hospitality was unimportant, but it was misdirected.

Georg Friedrich Stettner, Christ at the Home of Martha and Mary

We see this in that Martha is burdened, which is to say her attention and energy was divided. Martha’s frustration with her Mary’s lack of help arose because

It is not Martha who decides what to do, but the things that need to be done decide for her. And this is exactly the opposite of the verb used for Mary, who instead “chooses” (“Mary has chosen the better part” - Lk 10:42), that is, she is free to remain in what she thinks is good.[2]

And Mary is not wrong, as the Lord himself says, but how often do you and I let things decide for us what needs to be done, rather than you and I choosing the better part with Mary, to first listen to Jesus?

The hospitality Mary gave Jesus is different from that given by Martha. Martha attended to Jesus’ physical needs while Mary gave Jesus her ear. “It would be incorrect, however, to see these two attitudes as mutually exclusive, or to compare the merits of the two women. Service and listening are, in fact, twin dimensions of hospitality.”[3]

The example of these two sisters provides us with a model of how to be disciples of the Lord Jesus. Mary shows us the necessity of listening to the Jesus, of letting him speak to us before we do anything else. Martha offers us a warning of what can happen when we do not first listen to Jesus. “Martha complains about being left alone, and she feels that no one, not even the Lord, really cares about her” (cf. Luke 10:40).[4] Martha’s example cautions us that “if you lose the essentials, you lose communion; the other person, even if it is your own brother, is perceived as an enemy who is taking something away from you.”[5]

These two sisters show us the way forward. Whatever we do must begin with listening to Jesus, learning from him what must be done. Then, having listened to him, we must set out to love both God and neighbor so that, at the end of our lives, the better part will not be taken from us. Amen.

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[1] Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, Meditation for the Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 20 July 2025.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Pope Leo XIV, Homily, 20 July 2025.

[4] Pizzaballa, Ibid.

[5] Pizzaballa, Ibid.

Homily - 13 July 2025 - The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

What is the point of the law given to Moses? This is, in some sense, the question behind what the “scholar of the law who stood up to test him” asked of Jesus (Luke 10:25). Moses gave the law to the people so they might “return to the Lord, your God, with all your heart and all your soul” (Deuteronomy 30:10). The purpose of the law, then, is to keep us in right relationship with God by keeping us in right relationship with our neighbor. The two-fold command of the love of God and the love of neighbor are intimately connect and cannot separated; the parable of the Good Samaritan makes clear that I cannot love God if I do not love my neighbor in whose image he is made.

Here, of course, we have to ask that troubling question: “And who is my neighbor” (Luke 10:19)? The scholar of the law asked it “to justify himself” (Luke 10:29). He did not yet understand the necessity of loving my neighbor as a means of loving God. Do we not also ask this question – at least implicitly – whenever we look for a reason not to lend a hand?

Gustav Dore, The Arrival of the Good Samaritan at the Inn

If we look closely through the Gospels, we will see Jesus rarely directly answers a question posed to him. He usually answers with another question, but sometimes – such as today – he answers with a story. Jesus’ response to the question of who my neighbor is does not exactly answer the question, but his answer is certainly to be inferred.

Until that time, the concept of “neighbor” was understood as referring essentially to one's countrymen and to foreigners who had settled in the land of Israel; in other words, to the closely-knit community of a single country or people. This limit is now abolished. Anyone who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor. The concept of “neighbor” is now universalized, yet it remains concrete. Despite being extended to all mankind, it is not reduced to a generic, abstract and undemanding expression of love, but calls for my own practical commitment here and now. …we should especially mention the great parable of the Last Judgement (cf. Mt 25:31-46), in which love becomes the criterion for the definitive decision about a human life's worth or lack thereof. Jesus identifies himself with those in need, with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick and those in prison. “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Mt 25:40). Love of God and love of neighbor have become one: in the least of the brethren we find Jesus himself, and in Jesus we find God.[1]

Now it remains for you and me to love God in my neighbor; it remains for us to live pono by living in right relationship with both God and neighbor.

This parable is not one we often like to consider too closely, because it reveals to us some of the ways in which we are not very neighborly.

If Christ shows us the face of a compassionate God, then to believe in him and to be his disciples means allowing ourselves to be changed and to take on his same feelings. It means learning to have a heart that is moved, eyes that see and do not look away, hands that help others and soothe their wounds, shoulders that bear the burden of those in need.[2]

This is a parable we must allow to challenge our hearts, and to make them at least a little uncomfortable; most of us are not loving our neighbor as fully as Father Damien, Mother Marianne, and Joseph Dutton did.

At the conclusion of today’s Mass, after having consumed the Body and Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, we will pray that “its saving effects upon us may grow.”[3] What these effects are is made known in the prayer we will pray in a few moments, when we ask that the gifts of bread and wine – which will be changed into the Body and Blood of Christ - “may bring ever greater holiness.”[4]

This growth in holiness is largely a passive experience; it is something Jesus does for us and in us, rather than something we accomplish by the force of our own will. Consider a surfer bobbing on his board as he waits to catch the next wave. What he does is largely passive. He waits for the wave to come and carry him along. It is largely passive, yes, but it is also active; the surfer must do more than be picked up. After paddling out from shore, the surfer sits. He waits. He stands. He rides. But he does all of this after having waited to be carried by the wave. It is passive, yes, but also active. Over the course of time he becomes a better surfer, perhaps without even noticing as his skill improves. So it is with holiness; it is largely passive, but it is also active.

With time and practice, the surfer learns to read the waters and to respond to them accordingly. This is what must happen with our hearts when we see our neighbors.

Looking without walking by, halting the frantic pace of our lives, allowing the lives of others, whoever they may be, with their needs and troubles, to touch our heart. That is what makes us neighbors to one another, what generates true fraternity and breaks down walls and barriers. In the end, love prevails, and proves more powerful than evil and death.

You and I must become embodiments of that Good Samaritan so Jesus’ love may triumph over hatred and indifference.

Over the course of time, the reception of Holy Communion has the power to make us ever more like Jesus. It has the power to open our eyes and our hearts, and to extend the reach of our hands. This is something the Eucharist does to us, but we must still cooperate with the grace given us. Jesus will never force us to become holy. Rather, he invites us along the adventure of holiness and asks us to wait for the wave and catch it when it comes. Amen.

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[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, 15.

[2] Pope Leo XIV, Homily, 13 July 2025.

[3] Prayer after Communion for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

[4] Prayer over the Offerings for the Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Homily - 31 May/1 June 2025 - The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

Dear brothers and sisters,

It seems a strange question to ask of the Apostles: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky” (Acts1:11)? They had just seen Jesus “lifted up” and taken from their sight” (Acts1:9). The one to whom they devoted three years of their lives “blessed them [and] parted from them and was taken up to heaven” (Luke 24:31). They had never seen this happen with anyone else. What else were they supposed to do except stare up in wonder and awe? What would you have done?

MS M.648 fol. 123v

There is an important lesson for us in Jesus’ Ascension into heavenly glory, one we too often overlook; it is the importance of the human body. If the creation of the human body by God was not enough for us to recognize the dignity of the human body; if the breath of God being breathed into the human body to enliven it was not enough for us to recognize the dignity of the human body; if the only Son of God taking on human flesh in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary was not enough for us to recognize the dignity of the human body; then surely the fact that the Son of God and Son of Mary took his human flesh with him into heaven should be enough to make us understand the dignity of the human body. It is so important that Jesus did not leave it behind or discard it; he took it with him because, being human, he could not do otherwise.

Today’s Solemnity, aside from highlighting an important moment in the life of the Lord, focuses our attention on what it means to be human: “The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once corporeal and spiritual.”[1] To put it perhaps more simply, to be human is to be a union of body and soul. This is why the Second Vatican Council said,

Man, though made of body and soul, is a unity. Through his very bodily condition he sums up in himself the elements of the material world. Through him they are thus brought to their highest perfection and can raise their voice in praise freely given to the Creator. For this reason man may not despise his bodily life. Rather he is obliged to regard his body as good and hold it in honor since God has created it and will raise it up on the last day.[2]

This is why the sin of abortion is so unspeakably horrendous and why turning someone’s earthly remains into jewelry is so dreadful; both deny the God-given dignity of the human body. This is also why the sin of physician-assisted suicide or so-called euthanasia – literally, “good death” – is so unspeakably horrendous.

This past Thursday, the Illinois House of Representatives debated SB1950, a piece of legislation titled, “Sanitary Food Preparation.” Despite being described as “AN ACT concerning health,” much of the bill concerns the enshrinement in law of a medical doctor’s legal ability to violate the Hippocratic Oath he or she took to do no harm; instead, the legislation seeks, at the patient’s request, to allow physicians to do great harm by prescribing medication to actively kill his or her patient.

What does a food sanitation bill have to do with suicide, you might ask. Nothing, except by way of a legislative amendment; namely House Amendment 2, which is nearly eleven times as long as the original bill. SB1950 cleared the House of Representatives on a purely partisan vote; it now moves to the Illinois Senate for approval by that body before going to the Governor’s desk.

Before I say more, let me first say a word to those who have contemplated or attempted suicide: “May the eyes of your hearts be enlightened, that you may know what is the hope that belongs to his call” (Ephesians 1:18). You are loved by God. You have been made in love, by love, and for love. Loved suffered for you. Love died for you. Love rose from the dead for you. Love ascended into heaven for you. Love did all this so you might know how very much you are loved.

At his inaugural Mass, Pope Leo XIV proclaimed, “Brothers and sisters, this is the hour for love!”[3] This is truly the hour for us to love each other, especially those who live without hope. This is the hour for us to open ourselves to receive love from one another and from God. This is also the hour for us to share love with those who feel far away from love.

Even as the government rightly puts resources behind suicide prevention – and has even recently created a mental health hotline to prevent suicides – the General Assembly wants to legalize one form of suicide. What sense does this make? How can any suicide be justified and encouraged?

The State of New York is also considering legalizing euthanasia, which led Timothy Cardinal Dolan to point out this legal double-standard:

I can’t help but shake my head in disbelief at the disparity in official responses. Our government will marshal all its resources to save the life of one hopeless and despondent man. Yet it may conclude that some lives aren’t worth living — perhaps due to a serious illness or disability — and we will hand those despondent women and men a proverbial loaded gun and tell them to have at it.[4]

 

The Archbishop of New York urged lawmakers to prevent - and not to assist - suicide.

Here in Illinois, Blase Cardinal Cupich, the Archbishop of Chicago, also called out the double standard in healthcare, saying:

I have to ask why, in a time when growing understanding of the deteriorating mental health of the U.S. population – and particularly among our youth – caused the country to create the 988 mental health crisis line, we would want to take this step to normalize suicide as a solution to life’s challenges. While the bill sets parameters for assisted suicide, the data from places where assisted suicide is available are clear. Rates of all suicide went up after the passage of such legislation. These rates are already unacceptably high, and proposed cutbacks in medical care funding will add to the burden faced by those contemplating suicide.[5]

It makes no sense at all to encourage people away from suicide by means of a weapon or a bridge and at the same time to tell them they may commit suicide through a physician.

House Amendment 2 purports to deal with “the full range of end-of-life care options;” what it actually amounts to, however, is purposeful and sanctioned medical killing.[6] No sane person who understands the human person as a union of body and soul could ever refer to killing someone as “end-of-life care.” Even the government does not do this, which is why the mental health hotline exists.

Wherever such legislation has been passed, both within and without the United States of America, physically and mentally ill patients have been pressured to commit suicide with the help of a doctor to save money or to no longer be a burden on others. Let us remember: no human being is ever to be looked upon as a burden, but as someone to be loved, someone made in the image and likeness of God with an inherent value, dignity, and worth that cannot be taken away. This must be stressed in every moment of life, especially when life seems unbearable.

If we consider today’s Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord, we can learn another important lesson in addition to the sacredness of the human body: the importance of being with the Father, for Jesus took his human body to the right hand of the Father (cf. Ephesians 1:20).

…there is no doubt at all of what mattered most to Christ – his Father. The first word we hear from him is, “Didn’t you know I must be in my Father’s house?” The last word before he died on the Cross was, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” The first message he sent to the Apostles after his Resurrection was, “I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.” A good hundred times we find him talking of or to his Father. He makes him the object of his life: “I do the will of him that sent me”; he makes him the object of ours: “No one comes to the Father but by me.” At death our welcome will be, “Enter into the joy of my Father.”[7]

But such a welcome cannot be ours if we have not died in friendship, in communion, with our Father, with his Son, and with their Holy Spirit.

The Father clearly commands, “You shall not kill” (Exodus 20:13; Deuteronomy 5:17). Jesus takes this command a bit further yet. In no uncertain terms, Jesus says, “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). So it is that Jesus also commands us not to kill (cf. Matthew 5:21-22). Because Jesus is “the way and the truth and the life,” anything directly contrary to his commands and teachings must be opposed (John 14:6). Jesus says to us, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). If we wish to die in friendship with God and be welcomed into the Father’s house, we must die in friendship with Christ; we must keep his command against killing.

The Church strongly opposes physician-assisted suicide because each of us, body and soul united, “is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”[8] It remains for us never to forget this, and to help others know it. Amen.

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 362.

[2] Gaudium et Spes, 14 § 1; in Catechism of the Catholic Church, 364.

[3] Pope Leo XIV, Homily, 18 May 2025.

[4] Timothy Cardinal Dolan. In Tyler Arnold, “Cardinal Dolan Urges New York lawmakers: ‘Prevent, don’t assist, suicide,” Catholic News Agency, 30 May 2025. Accessed 30 May 2025. Available at https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/264451/cardinal-timothy-dolan-urges-new-york-lawmakers-prevent-dont-assist-suicide-in-op-ed?fbclid=IwY2xjawKn2XBleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFGOFVvZGF2Zm9sNDc2M3NaAR6v0_KMMvOi__FohiD5wFGRk3mzzlw-oVevyh8MP9k3Yl1w2wTc4zXDU6sUtg_aem_jiQP_QeXyLzoTr1fENAxZw

[5] Blase Cardinal Cupich, “Statement of Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, on SB 1950 Assisted Suicide Bill.” Accessed 30 May 2025. Available at https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AsuXutzGY/

[6] House Amendment 2, Section 5(a)(2). Accessed 30 May 2025. Available at https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/fulltext.asp?DocName=10400SB1950ham002&GA=104&SessionId=114&DocTypeId=SB&LegID=161335&DocNum=1950&GAID=18&SpecSess=&Session=

[7] Frank J. Sheed, Christ in Eclipse: A Clinical Study of the Good Christian (San Francisco: Ignatius Press), 25.

[8] Pope Benedict XVI, Homily, 24 April 2025.

Homily - The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time - 23 February 2025

The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Even to those who were raised in the Christian faith nearly since the day of their birth, some of Jesus’ teachings still strike them as extreme, out of touch, and maybe even unreasonable. We hear one of these teachings today: “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27).

Because words mean something and because we cannot love our enemies without knowing who they are, I began digging into the etymology of the word enemy. Our English word comes from the Latin inimicus, which literally means “unfriend.” This would seem to mean that an enemy is someone who is not my friend, but this seems rather extreme; could everyone who is not my friend really be my enemy?

Digging a little deeper, I learned the Greek word for enemy is polemioi, which is distinct from another Greek word, ekthroi. Here I thought I was on to something and pulled out my Greek New Testament to discover which of the two words Jesus used. He used ekthroi, meaning one who is hated or who is hostile, one intent on inflicting harm. In Greek, though, the prefix of this word – ek – means “out of,” but I could not discover the meaning of throi. What are my ekthroi, my enemies, out of?

One source pointed me to the probable Proto Indo-European origins from ek, still meaning out of, and ros, but the only meaning for ros I could discover suggested the suffix made the previous part of the word in the past, as in “outed,” but still outed from what? Out of the house, the family, the city? I was getting nowhere; sometimes searching the scriptures can be frustrating (cf. John 5:39).

The Greek word for friends is philoi, so it did not seem possible that the ekthroi are the ones who are cast out of my friends because the words are not the same, yet that seems to be precisely the meaning of the word. The Greeks seemed to use this word in the same sense we use “my ex” for a former lover or spouse. In this sense, then, Jesus commands us to love those who betray us, or even those whom we betray, as well as who wish us – or those to whom we wish - harm.

Setting aside God’s revelation as the Trinity, as a tripartite communion of love, the most unexpected aspect of the teachings of Jesus Christ is his command to love not only those who love us, but to also love those who hate us, who persecute us, and who wish us dead.

Love of one's enemy constitutes the nucleus of the "Christian revolution," a revolution not based on strategies of economic, political or media power: the revolution of love, a love that does not rely ultimately on human resources but is a gift of God which is obtained by trusting solely and unreservedly in his merciful goodness. Here is the newness of the Gospel which silently changes the world! Here is the heroism of the "lowly" who believe in God's love and spread it, even at the cost of their lives.[1]

In this revolution of love, we see without question that authentic love is more than a matter of emotions. Indeed, love is something far greater than feelings that come and go.

To help us understand what love is, Jesus gives “a whole series of words that express a declension of love: bless, offer, do not reject, give, do good, lend, be merciful, do not judge, forgive. To love means all these things.”[2]

        To put it perhaps more directly, more bluntly, it is as if Jesus says to us:

You must love, yes, but also those who do not love you… You must bless, yes, but also those who curse you… You must give, yes, but without expecting anything in return… You also have to forgive those who have hurt you and will probably continue to do so.

And this applies to everything, to every area of life, to every area of our daily relationships.

So it’s not just about learning to love, but accepting that those who love are always on the losing end.

It is not possible to love in the hope of getting something out of it: That is an illusion.

Loving means accepting that you have accounts that are in the red, accounts that do not open, accounts that are open.[3]

To love as Jesus commands means to always be, as it were, on the losing end of love; it means rarely – if ever – having our love reciprocated. How can we do so? Is it not too much for us?

To love in this way may indeed seem too much to ask of us, to require of us, too much for us frail and mortal humans. However, as J.R.R. Tolkien says, “we do not know our own limits of natural strength (+grace), and if we do not aim at the highest we shall certainly fall short of utmost that we could achieve.”[4] We trust too much in ourselves and too little in the grace of God.

The command to love even my enemies is an unquestionably tall order, but we must remember that

…Christ's proposal is realistic because it takes into account that in the world there is too much violence, too much injustice, and therefore that this situation cannot be overcome except by countering it with more love, with more goodness. This "more" comes from God: it is his mercy which was made flesh in Jesus and which alone can "tip the balance" of the world from evil to good, starting with that small and decisive "world" which is the human heart.

…It does not consist in succumbing to evil, as a false interpretation of "turning the other cheek" (cf. Luke 6:29) claims, but in responding to evil with good (cf. Romans 12:17-21) and thereby breaking the chain of injustice.[5]

We can only tip the balance and break the chain by keeping the two-fold command of love of God and love of neighbor, by loving as Jesus loves, by loving to the end, by loving to the Cross. The lives of so many of the Saints show us that loving is possible, and they show us how to live out the love of Christ Jesus in our daily lives. One need only think of Saint Josephine Bakhita or the Venerable Servant of God Augustine Tolton for proof of this.

Detail, Crucifixion, Morgan Library, M. 300, fol. 3r.

It is on the Cross that we see most clearly that Jesus “does not limit himself merely to affirming his love, but makes it visible and tangible. Love, after all, can never be just an abstraction.”[6] Our love, too, must be more than an affirmation or an abstraction; our love, too, must be visible and tangible; our love must look like his.

Love can never be a question of a tit-for-tat. We cannot keep a tally of who has repaid our love, or to what degree our love has been repaid. This is not the way of love, for to love is always to be vulnerable. We see this by looking at the Cross. If our love is to look like that of Jesus, if it is to be tangible and not an abstraction, we must follow Jesus declension of love: bless, we must offer, not reject, give, do good, lend, be merciful, not judge, and forgive.

Jesus did not weigh the full depths of his love for us over and against our too-often shallow love for him. He simply loved to the end and gave himself fully for us. When we grow discouraged because our love is not returned, let us not focus on ourselves and what we think we deserve. Rather, let us implore the Lord to draw us deeper into his heart, wounded in love for us, until our love becomes like to his own. Amen.

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[1] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 18 February 2007.

[2] Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, O.F.M., Meditation for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, 23 February 2025.

[3] Pierbattista Cardinal Pizzaballa, O.F.M., Meditation for the Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time, 23 February 2025.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, Letter 246, To Mrs. Eileen Elgar (draft), September 1963.

[5] Pope Benedict XVI, Angelus Address, 18 February 2007.

[6] Pope Francis, Misericordiae vultus, 9.