Homily on Blasphemy and God's Mercy - 11 September 2021 - The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dear brothers and sisters,

More often than not the best way to uncover the truth is to ask questions. The best way to do this is to ask one question after another after another as you keep drilling down. Not everyone likes this approach, though, because doing so either reminds people of the method of Socrates or of a four-year-old. This was my approach early last week when I read what Saint Paul says of himself today: “I was once a blasphemer…” (I Timothy 1:13).

His words about himself caught me off guard because the day before I read this admonition from Saint Francis of Assisi: “…whoever envies his brother the good that the Lord says or does in him commits a sin of blasphemy, because he envies the Most High Who says and does every good.”[1] Saint Paul did not strike me as being envious of what God was doing through others, so I had to ask myself if I understood all of what blasphemy entails, which caused me to ask what blasphemy means in its etymology, in the origin of the word.

It comes from the Greek word blasphemia, which, to my surprise, carries a great many meanings. Blasphemia encompasses any or all of the following:

• abusive or contemptuous language directed toward God or sacred things;
• disbelief in God’s promises; 
• unbelief which thinks God is powerless; and, 
• infidelity to God’s covenant.[2]

None of these aspects of blasphemy may be a surprise to us, but they demonstrate that a sinful act rarely falls squarely into only one category of sin. For example, abusive language directed towards God may stem from pride; disbelief in God’s promises may stem from jealousy; thinking God is powerless may stem from impurity; and infidelity to God’s covenant may stem from unrighteous anger. Whatever the case, blasphemy may well also involve other sins, just as any other sin may also involve another.

This possibility of the multiplicity of sin is why the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that

 

Blasphemy is directly opposed to the second commandment. It consists in uttering against God - inwardly or outwardly - words of hatred, reproach, or defiance; in speaking ill of God; in failing in respect toward him in one's speech; in misusing God's name. St. James condemns those "who blaspheme that honorable name [of Jesus] by which you are called." The prohibition of blasphemy extends to language against Christ's Church, the saints, and sacred things. It is also blasphemous to make use of God's name to cover up criminal practices, to reduce peoples to servitude, to torture persons or put them to death. The misuse of God's name to commit a crime can provoke others to repudiate religion. 

 

Blasphemy is contrary to the respect due God and his holy name. It is in itself a grave sin.[3]

Blasphemy is one of those “acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances or intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object,” by reason of the acts themselves. Other such gravely illicit acts include “perjury, murder and adultery.” We must remember that we cannot “do evil so that good may result from it.”[4]

Why is it, then, that Saint Paul describes himself as having been a blasphemer and admits to Saint Timothy, his spiritual son, that he blasphemed against God (cf. I Timothy1:2; II Timothy 1:2)?

 

How can he say that, if indeed he had thought he was acting in God’s behalf in rounding up and imprisoning Christians and even approving the stoning of Stephen (Acts 8:1)? In retrospect, and in the light of his conversion, he now sees how mistaken and blind he was. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection of the just but thought it would happen only at the end of the age, whereas Christians were proclaiming that it had already begun in Jesus. The Holy Spirit too, according to Pharisaic expectations, would be given at the end but not now; for now for the law was sufficient. But the disciples of Jesus were claiming that they – all of them – had already received the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, they were actually worshiping Jesus as mara (“Lord”), and to Paul’s monotheism this was blasphemous. They even claimed to be eating his flesh and drinking his blood! So from a human point of view it is understandable that he had persecuted the Church with “zeal” (Philippians 3:6) “beyond measure and tried to destroy it” (Galatians 1:13). But his conversion had turned his understanding of blasphemy on its head – it was blasphemous of him to deny that Jesus is Lord, risen from the dead and giver of the Holy Spirit. Even to persecute the disciples of Jesus was now blasphemy, for that meant persecuting Jesus himself…[5]

Saint Augustine tells us that Saint Paul makes mention of his former blasphemy to tell us that he “had been a sinner of such proportions that no sinners need despair of themselves, precisely because even Paul had found remission.”[6]

Saint Paul asked for the Lord’s mercy (cf. Psalm 51:3). This is why Saint Paul was one of those entrusted with “the message of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:19); he would now invite sinners to draw near and listen to Jesus so that they, too, might be converted (cf. Luke 15:1). When we find that have sinned against the Lord – in whatever way – will we acknowledge what we have done? Will we ask for his mercy? Will we allow him to embrace us with his fatherly love (cf. Luke 15:20)? Or will we keep out distance, not trusting in his merciful love, thereby compounding out sin?

A Christian can never forget that “God alone is the medicine that cures the soul” and those who are sick “must apply the doctor’s services to their health. . . . And so it goes with the soul.”[7] The mercy God wishes to bestow upon us, the medicine he wishes to give us, through sacramental confession “suffices to offset any human sin, whatever its nature, gravity, or frequency. That is why Christ, in his supreme mercy, receives and pardons sinners, not only once or twice, but as often as they prayerfully beg for God’s mercy” in the confessional.[8]

Let each of us, then, never shy away from God’s mercy, question it, nor despair of receiving it; let us instead entrust ourselves to it. If we humble beseech his mercy in sincerity of heart we, with Saint Paul, will faithfully offer “to the king of kings, incorruptible, invisible, the only God, honor and glory forever and ever” (I Timothy 1:17). Amen.

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[1] Saint Francis of Assisi, The Admonitions, 8.3.

[2] John L. McKenzie, Dictionary of the Bible (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Company, 1965), 97.

[3] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2148.

[4] Ibid., 1756.

[5] George T. Montague, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: First and Second Timothy, Titus (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Academic, 2008), 42-43.

[6] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 170.1.

[7] Ibid., Sermon 271.1-2.

[8] Saint Bonaventure, Breviloquium, 6.10.3.

Homily - 4 September 2022 - The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

 The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (C)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Do you ever feel distracted in prayer? Do you ever find yourself not praying as well as you like? If we are honest with ourselves, I am confident that each of us can answer both of these questions affirmatively. We are, after all, not angels, but humans, and fallen humans at that. Without a doubt, we are loved by God – who created us in, by, and for love – but we still suffer the effect of the Original Sin and are prone to sin ourselves.

Unfortunately, some people do not always accept the reality of their fallen humanity. They become strongly discouraged by distractions in prayer, thinking they should never become distracted in prayer. They become disheartened by an imperfect time spent in prayer, thinking it should be otherwise. And the more dismayed they become, the less time they spend in prayer until they spend no time in prayer at all.

Saint Augustine recognized the reality of our human condition in this life, perhaps better than anyone else; he was not afraid of it, but looked at it squarely and accepted it for what it is. Why? Augustine knew that if he was a faithful disciple of the Christ Jesus the Lord would make his face to shine upon him and fill him with joy and gladness (cf. Psalm 119:135; cf. Psalm 90:14).

We can see an example of his outlook when he read in the Psalms the verse that sings, “Praise the Lord, my soul” (Psalm 146:1). This was our heavenly patron’s response to this verse:

Your soul will answer you, I will praise him as best as I can, poorly, feebly, weakly. Why? Because as long as we are united to the body we are in exile, far from the Lord. Why do you praise the Lord in this manner, not giving him a perfect and continuous praise? Ask the Scriptures. It is because “the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns” (Wisdom 9:15).[1]

Saint Augustine recognized that he could not perfectly praise the Lord this side of eternity; he knew he could not be fully united with Christ Jesus until his poor, feeble, and weak body perished. But this reality did not elicit in him a fear of death, nor did it keep him from prayer or from seeking to praise the Lord more perfectly.

Instead, Saint Augustine found hope in the Resurrection of Jesus. He said,

Yes, we should lift up our hearts, but to the Lord. As you know, not lifting up hearts to the Lord is due to pride; lifting up hearts to the Lord is called ‘taking refuge’… He rose again, you see, to give us hope, because what rises again is what dies first. So [Christ’s Resurrection] was to save us from despair at dying and from thinking that our whole life ends with death.[2]

He realized that the reason we are so often distracted in prayer, the reason we infrequently offer perfect praise to God, is because we are too focused on ourselves.

This inordinate focus on the self, this lack of focus on God, is a consequence of our fallen human condition, but if we take up our crosses and follow after the Lord Jesus we can overcome it, with the help and power of his grace. This is why Augustine said,

You will fall if you have lifted yourself up; you remain standing if you have been lifted up by him. So, lift up your hearts, but to the Lord – that is taking refuge. Lifting up your heart, but not to the Lord, that is pride… How, I mean, can we possibly be proud, if we lift up our hearts to him, seeing that he humbled himself for our sakes, so that we should not remain proud?[3]

The simplest way for us to lift our hearts up to the Lord, to be humble and not proud, is to keep before our minds this reality of human life: “You make an end of them in their sleep; the next morning they are like the changing grass, which at dawn springs up anew, but by evening wilts and fades” (Psalm 90:5).

Some will say this remembrance of the reality of death is morbid and unhealthy. To such a claim I would counter that the desperate avoidance of death, the overwhelming fear of death that guides so much of modern life, is itself unhealthy and dishonest; none of us can escape physical death and it is best to see it for what it is.

We live daily under “the shadow of death.” This is evident all around us in these days when pumpkin spice is seemingly ubiquitous and as the daylight lessens, the temperatures decrease, and the cloud cover thickens. But even as we live in the shadow of death, we must remember that “above all shadows rides the sun.”[4] We know that, as Pope Saint John Paul I said, “we are the objects of undying love on the part of God.”[5]

An undying love: it never sinks beneath the horizon of our lives; it shines upon us and illumines even our darkest nights. When we gaze upon the Crucified Lord, we are called to the heights of that love, to be purified of our distorted ideas of God and of our self-absorption, and to love God and others, in Church and society, including those who do not see things as we do, to love even our enemies.

To love even at the cost of sacrifice, silence, misunderstanding, solitude, resistance and persecution.[6]

This undying love for us shines through the darkness of the shadow of death and strengthens our hope; it takes our focus away from ourselves and keeps it on God. “That is why Christ, that is the why the consolation of immortality has been promised us and in the flesh of the Lord has already been given us.”[7]

If we wish to pray well in this life, if we wish to praise the Lord more perfectly while still in our poor, feeble, and weak bodies in order to praise him perfectly in the life to come, we must remember that “Christ is the center of the Christian life” and that “the bond with him takes precedence over all bonds, familial or social.”[8] Let us not be overcome by the shadow of death, but place our hope in his wondrous love, so that with our focus on Christ and can take up our crosses and be his disciples, placing him above all else in this life (cf. Luke 14:26-27). If we live in this way, may we close our eyes in this life and open them again to look upon the light of the Face of Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Expositions of the Psalms, 145.6.

[2] Ibid., Sermon 261.1.

[3] Ibid.

[4] J.R.R. Tolkien, Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994), 888.

[5] Pope Saint John Paul I, Angelus Address, 10 September 1978.

[6] Pope Francis, Homily, 4 September 2022.

[7] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 359.9.

[8] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1618.

Homily for the Solemnity of Saint Augustine of Hippo

The Solemnity of Saint Augustine of Hippo, Bishop and Doctor

Dear brothers and sisters,

It is a curious thing that on this day on which we celebrate our heavenly patron and guide for the Christian life that Mother Church has us hear these words of the Lord Jesus: “Do not be called ‘Rabbi.’ You have but one teacher, and you are all brothers” (Matthew 23:8). Centuries ago, Saint Augustine of Hippo was given the title of Doctor of the Church, “doctor” being the Latin word for “teacher.” If we have but one teacher, Christ Jesus, how are we to make sense of this?

There are some today who take Jesus’ words in this passage to great extremes. They go so far as to say that when Jesus says, “Call no one earth your father,” they insist that priests should not be called father, but then they have no problem referring to their male parent as dad or papa, both of which simply mean father. They hyper-focus on that one line in this passage, but have no difficulty referring to the person who overseas their medical care as doctor, which, again, simply means teacher.

To take Jesus’ words to such an extreme is to ignore much of the rest of the New Testament, which, of course, is the inspired word of God. Saint Paul, for example, calls himself “a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth” (I Timothy 2:7)” and says he “was appointed a preacher and teacher” (II Timothy1:11). Saint Paul also makes it clear that he is not the only teacher of the faith when he says “God has appointed in the Church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers” (I Corinthians 12:28) and that “his gifts were that some should apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Ephesians 4:11). When Jesus says, “Do not be called ‘Rabbi’ [teacher],” he is not speaking literally but hyperbolically.

The same is true when Jesus says, “Call no one on earth your father,” as we clearly see in the writings of Saint Paul. The Apostle calls Saint Timothy “my beloved and faithful child in the Lord” (I Corinthians 4:17). Writing to the Church in Corinth, Saint Paul says to them, “I became your Father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel” (I Corinthians 4:15). Saint Paul and Saint John both speak in similar ways of the people to whom they write.

Jesus does not mean we should literally call no person on earth teacher or father or master; what he means is to place no person on earth higher than God. The Church, then, honors Saint Augustine with the title “Doctor of the Church” because through his teaching of the Christian faith and through the witness of his holy life he strove “to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12-13). In the Litany of Saint Augustine, we call him “our father” because he passes the faith on to give us and gives us life through this faith.

These sixteen centuries later, Saint Augustine’s voluminous words, so rooted in the Sacred Scriptures and the experience of life, remain a sure path by which we can steadily and surely approach “the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering” (Hebrews 12:23). If Saint Augustine, assisted by God’s grace, could at last make his way to the great wedding banquet of the Lamb then you and I can do the same. What do I mean?

To grasp the full import of what it means that Augustine is now counted among the greatest of the saints, we have to recall something of his life.

Augustine’s mother, St. Monica, reared him in the Catholic faith, but he did not follow her example. A lively, witty and exuberant teenager, Augustine undertook the study of rhetoric, giving brilliant performance and showing enormous promise. He loved life and its pleasures, displayed a profound gift for friendship, experienced passionate love, adored the theater, sought fun and entertainment. In Carthage, where he went to study, he fell in love with a girl. Since she was of a lower social class, he took her as his concubine, but did not marry. They had a son, Adeodatus (whose name means “God-given”). Augustine, a father at 19, remained faithful to his common-law wife and took responsibility for the “family” ménage. On reading Cicero's Hortensius, Augustine’s whole way of seeing the world experienced a change. Happiness, Cicero taught him, consists of things that do not perish: wisdom, truth, virtue. Augustine decided to dedicate his whole life to their pursuit.

 

Having been reared in a Christian house, Augustine turned first to the Bible. He was not prepared to receive the wisdom of Sacred Scripture, however, and found holy writ gross and illogical. He then joined the sect of the Manichees (a group dedicated to a basically dualistic form of eclectic esoterism). Returning to Thagaste, he opened a school of “grammar” and rhetoric with the help of a benefactor, but the life he led did not please him, so he returned to   Carthage with hope for a better future there. He continued to be dissatisfied. His thirst for truth was not slaked by the Manichaean doctrine. The young and promising rhetor went in search of new shores, and in 382, he moved to Rome with his companion and son, without informing his mother, who had reached Carthage in the meantime. In the Imperial city, however, Augustine maintained his contacts with the Manichaeans, from whom he received financial support and encouragement… His career began to advance full-sail, and in 384 he earned the chair of rhetoric in Milan. Nevertheless, his inner turmoil continued to torment him.

 

Augustine’s ambition is satiated at Milan, but his heart continued restless. To refine his ars oratoria, he listened to the sermons of Bishop Ambrose. He wanted to overwhelm Ambrose’s dialectics, and instead the words of the Bishop touched him to the quick. Meanwhile, his mother Monica came to join him in Milan, and she accompanied him with her prayers. Augustine grew ever closer to the Catholic Church, and entered the catechumenate. Desiring a Christian wife, he sent his concubine to Africa. Still troubled, Augustine devoured philosophical texts and plunged into Sacred Scripture. Tempted by the experience of Greek thinkers, and attracted to the lifestyle of Christian ascetics, he cannot make up his mind. One day in August, 386,  disoriented and confused, weeping in a garden, he seemed to hear a voice: Tolle! Lege! (which means, “Pick it up and read”). He considered the voice an invitation to turn to Paul’s letters, a copy of which was on a nearby table, and opened them at random. “"Let's trade honestly, as in the daytime, not in the midst of orgies and drunkenness, not among lusts and impurities, not in litigation and jealousy. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ instead of letting go of the fleshly desires (Rm 13, 13-14).” The lines were decisive for him. He decided to change his life and to devote himself to God. He was baptized by Ambrose in the night between April 24 and 25, 387, and wishing to return to Africa, travels to Rome to embark from the port city, Ostia, where his mother, Monica, died before taking ship.

 

Augustine founded his first community in his hometown, Thagaste. Between the end of 390 and the beginning of 391, he found himself perchance in Hippo, in the basilica where Bishop Valerius was talking to his faithful about the need for a priest in his diocese. Alerted to his presence among them, the congregation pushes Augustine to the fore, and insists that Valerius ordain him. Though he had been convinced of his calling to live in a vowed religious state, Augustine, studying and meditating on the Scriptures, came to understand that God had else in store for him. He eventually became Bishop of Hippo, succeeding Valerius, and left countless writings behind, in which he carried forward his lifelong project of truth-seeking through faith and reason.[1]

Augustine’s life is a fascinating and there are many ways by which one approach him.

Pope Francis reminds us that Saint Augustine’s life has much to say to us today. In particular, the Bishop of Rome says:

I would like to tell those who feel indifferent to God, to faith, and those who are far from God or who have distanced themselves from him, that we too, with our “distancing” and our “abandonment” of God, that may seem insignificant but are so numerous in our daily life: look into the depths of your heart, look into your own inner depths and ask yourself: do you have a heart that desires something great, or a heart that has been lulled to sleep by things? Has your heart preserved the restlessness of seeking or have you let it be suffocated by things that end by hardening it? God awaits you, he seeks you; how do you respond to him? Are you aware of the situation of your soul? Or have you nodded off? Do you believe God is waiting for you…?[2]

Let us not nod off or ignore or be afraid of the deepest longings of hearts, of the restlessness of our hearts. Let us instead, with Saint Augustine as our teacher and father, wrestle with them until we, with Saint Augustine, at last are made perfect by, in, and through the love of God which inflames our hearts (cf. Hebrews 12:23). Amen.

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[1] Vatican News, “St. Augustine, Bishop of Hyppo and Doctor of the Church,” 28 August 2022. Accessed 28 August 2022. Available at https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/08/28/st---augustine--bishop-of-hyppo-and-doctor-of-the-church.html?fbclid=IwAR1sSCTkdg-7Ds3fzOEu0-8UYGfaALWpbWskg3MWqC42p9czEjmtpFsl4po.

[2] Pope Francis, Homily, 28 August 2013. Accessed 28 August 2022. Available at https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2013/documents/papa-francesco_20130828_capitolo-sant-agostino.html.

Homily for the Funeral Mass for James Verkuilen

Funeral Mass for Jim Verkuilen

Dear brothers and sisters,

There is something fitting about our gathering at the altar of the Lord today to entrust Jim into the merciful hand of the Lord. Today, the twenty-seventh of August is the memorial of Saint Monica, the mother of our heavenly patron Saint Augustine.

In his marvelous book, Confessions, which everyone should read, Saint Augustine recounts for us a moving moment from Saint Monica’s deathbed in the Roman port city of Ostia:

One day during her illness she lapsed into unconsciousness and for a short time was unaware of her surroundings. We all came running, but she quickly returned to her senses, and, gazing at me and my brother as we stood there, she asked in puzzlement, “Where was I?” We were bewildered with grief, but she looked keenly at us and said, “You are to bury your mother here.” I was silent, holding back my tears but my brother said something about his hope that she would not die far from home, but in her own country, for that would be a happier way. On hearing this she looked anxious and her eyes rebuked him for thinking so; then she turned her gaze from him to me and said, “What silly talk!” Not long afterward, addressing us both, she said, “Lay this body anywhere, and take no trouble over it. One thing only do I ask of you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” Having made her meaning clear to us with such words as she could muster, she fell silent, and travailed as the disease grew worse.[1]

We will bury Jim’s mortal remains in Pleasant Plains, where he devoted so much of his energy for the benefit of his fellow citizens, but we will remember him at the altar of the Lord here in Ashland and wherever we participate in the Holy Mass.

Why did Saint Monica make this request of her sons? She did so because she knew something that most of us have forgotten, namely, that while the Eucharist does indeed point back to the moment of the Last Supper it also points forward to the future to the wedding banquet of the Lamb (cf. Revelation 19:7).

So, just as the Mass stretches back through the centuries to Christ it also extends forward through the ages to the kingdom of heaven, where Christ will gather all his saints to himself in this meal. One might say that every Eucharist defies time. It unites the distant past with the future far, though we are more accustomed to thinking of the Mass as carrying us back in time rather than forward.[2]

With these sentiments in heart we have gathered at the Lord’s altar to participate in the foreshadowing of the eternal wedding feast, asking the Lord to look with mercy upon Jim, to forgive all his sins, and welcome him into his kingdom.

What does it mean to remember our loved ones who have gone before us? We can be sure that Saint Monica did not mean to remember particular things about her, as we will surely remember Jim’s smile and his joking and quipping. Doing so is not bad – in fact, it is good – but is not what Monica meant. What does it mean to remember our loved ones, then, if not to hold them in prayer, to remember them to the Lord, imploring that they might see God (cf. Job 19:26)?

We have come here today to the altar of God because, as Saint Augustine tells us, “The renewal of humankind, begun in the sacred bath of baptism, proceeds gradually and is accomplished more quickly in some individuals and more slowly in others.”[3] When he was baptized, Jim was clothed with the baptismal garment and told to bring it unstained on the day when the Lord comes. He was also entrusted with the light of Christ and told to keep it burning brightly. Let us, then, remember Jim to God at his altar, asking that any stains on that garment be removed and that the light of Christ may dispel every darkness, that having been enlightened by Christ he may pass from death to everlasting life to share in the joy of the angels and saints. May Saint Monica take him by the hand and present him to the Lord Jesus. Amen.

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[1] Saint Augustine of Hippo, Confessions, 9.11.

[2] Terrence Klein, “St. Monica’s gift to her son, St. Augustine: A love for the Eucharist,” America Magazine, 1 November 2018. Accessed 23 August 2022. Available at https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/11/01/st-monicas-gift-her-son-st-augustine-love-eucharist.

[3] Saint Augustine of Hippo, The Way of Life of the Catholic Church, 1.35.80.