Don't Miss Jeremy's Blog!

At one time or another, most have us have exclaimed "I wish I'd said that!" And those of us who write often see others express our own thoughts better than we did or even could have done.

On the one hand, it's a humbling experience. But in the world of grace, it is a great cause for joy--knowing how freely the Spirit has been poured out for the common good.

I've just had one one of these experiences, and I'm certainly both humbled and joyful that our parish's youth minister has expressed so much more forcefully what I tried to say last Sunday about the importance of the Triduum. And I admire his boldness as much as his eloquence; I think that I (and most priests) do tend to pull our punches in the pulpit.

Please read Jeremy's blog post here. It's more than worth your time.

Walking the Distance in Holy Week

Most of us know what it's like to have a fair-weather friend. "You can always depend on them… to depend on you. They make withdrawals from the friendship account, but never any deposits."

Sometimes our fair-weather friends desert us completely if we lose an important job or because we're no longer a celebrity or a sports hero. It's often said that when times get tough you get to know who your friends are. Many of the newspaper stories about the death of the actress Elizabeth Taylor mentioned that she was one of the very few friends who stood by Michael Jackson as he spiraled from being the most popular entertainer in the world to a figure of ridicule.

Today Jesus is surrounded by friends. His entry into Jerusalem is cause for public celebration; crowds flock to welcome him—you might say they give him a parade. But just five days later, the streets are empty and he is left with very few friends indeed, only his most faithful disciples. The general public has turned away.

Waving our palm branches, we too have joined those welcoming Jesus to the holy city. The practical question we can ask ourselves is this: are we going to walk the rest of the way with him?

Will we "watch one hour" with him on Holy Thursday? Will we stand beside the cross on Good Friday? And will we wait outside the tomb on Holy Saturday? Or will we wait until the drama is over, and rejoin him only when he is again triumphant on Easter morning?

These questions aren't abstract or rhetorical questions. They are practical questions that need an answer from each parishioner. What are your plans for the rest of Holy Week?

Jesus invites us to walk the distance with him this week; the liturgies of the sacred Triduum – the Evening Mass of the Lord's Supper on Holy Thursday, the Celebration of the Lord's Passion on Good Friday, and the great Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night – are opportunities to show that we are not fair-weather friends but disciples, willing to walk the way of the cross before we enter into the joy of the resurrection.

It's no sin if the next time you show up in church is Easter morning. The liturgies I've just mentioned are not holy days of obligation. But friendship is not, of course, about obligation. Friendship is not primarily about duty, but freely and willingly offered.

Let us consider with great care what we are saying to Jesus if we cannot find the time to share his journey – triumph and tragedy, joy and sorrow. Participating in the rich liturgical life of Christ's Church this week is truly one of the great privileges of our friendship with Him.

Msgr. Forget and Me (Lent 5A)

I became assistant pastor of St. Patrick's Parish in 1986, almost seventy years after the arrival of Monsignor Louis Forget, who was its pastor from 1917 to 1960. By the time I came to the parish, Monsignor Forget had been dead for twenty-two years.

So think hard about this amazing fact: during the eight years I spent at St. Pat's, scarcely a week went by without a mention of his name.

If that doesn't surprise you, consider this: at a general meeting of priests this week, held to discuss our new vocations strategy, the first story told was about Monsignor Forget— dead now forty-seven years.

What was so extraordinary about this man? It wasn't that he was Vancouver's greatest preacher—he had a strong French accent, and was famous for comically mispronouncing words.

He was simply a great pastor—a man who loved his people, and who loved the Church.

But more specifically, when folks talked to me about Monsignor Forget they usually mentioned two things: first, the success he had encouraging young men and women to become priests and Sisters. I don't remember the grand total, but in one 25-year period, nearly 100 parishioners went to various novitiates and seminaries. That's a record I'm afraid I have no chance of breaking, unless four of our young people go to the convent or the seminary every year until I am 81!

The second thing everyone mentioned when they talked about Monsignor Forget was his tears. It took very little to make him cry from the pulpit; he wore his heart on his sleeve, and could weep copiously when preaching on certain topics.

And here's where I might be able to rival Monsignor Forget. I find it very difficult to keep my composure when I am emotional, and it's often very hard for me to say things from the heart—at weddings as much as funerals, and on ordinary days as well.

It's quite a handicap for a priest, and if there was something I could do to overcome it, I would. But it must be something in my genes, since just about everyone in my immediate family has the same problem—there were more tears at my niece's wedding than I've seen at most funerals!

Most of you know that my father is gravely ill. So you can imagine how a family like mine is dealing with this worry: at the moment we're shedding a lot of anxious tears.

Which is why one line from today's powerful and hope-filled Gospel means an awful lot to me: "and Jesus began to weep."

Jesus, crying? Jesus who was about to free Lazarus from the grip of death? Jesus who knew that He would rise again and that His friend would live forever? Why would He weep?

I've thought about it all week, and I believe that the answer is important—if we're to understand how our faith and our emotions interact.

When I was young, I wondered why Christians got upset when someone died, since we believed that they were going to live forever. Didn't tears show a lack of faith?

Later in life, when I tackled something that I was sure God wanted me to do—like going to the seminary—I was surprised that I felt afraid. Didn't that mean I lacked trust?

But look at Jesus: he wept for Lazarus, cried at the sight of Jerusalem, and was torn by anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane. Since Jesus had perfect trust in the Father, these emotions can't have been a shortcoming. They were, on the contrary, part of his human nature.

Far from apologizing for our tears, we should try to understand them. The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality notes that tears are complex, since they're both physical and psychological. It says "tears expose the intimate, profound relationship of body, emotion, mind, and spirit…" [p. 957]

Accordingly, a very ancient tradition in the Church sees tears as a gift, which can have their source in the Holy Spirit; St. Ignatius of Loyola encourages those making the Spiritual Exercises to pray for the gift of tears for their sins or for the sufferings of Christ. Even modern psychotherapy recognizes the healing power of tears.

Such tears, the dictionary of spirituality says, "are a gift and a deeply personal expression of the transforming action of God..." [p. 958]

Our emotions are a part of us that can operate independently of even the strongest faith. The tearful Christian is no less a man or woman of faith, because a deep peace can be preserved in our hearts despite distress closer to the surface.

This is an important lesson if we are to receive the peace that Jesus promised us when He said "Peace I leave with you, My own peace I give to you; a peace that the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Let not your hearts be troubled or afraid (Jn. 14:27).

As I lived with the dramatic ups-and-downs of my father's condition this week, I was helped a great deal by a little book called Searching for and Maintaining Peace. It pointed out that peace as the world gives it just means that things are going well, that nothing is disturbing us at the moment. This so-called "peace," the author points out, will be extremely fragile and short-lived.

Not so the peace that Christ gives. It is sturdy and cannot be shaken by life's sorrows or storms. We make a big mistake if we confuse our feelings with spiritual facts.

Looking for a way to explain this better, I remembered a hymn that I've always liked: "How Can I Keep From Singing?" The unknown author well understood the difference between emotions and inner peace when he wrote "No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I'm clinging. Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?"

Each verse of the hymn contrasts what's going on outside us—"earth's lamentation," "tumult and strife," and a roaring tempest—with the inner peace that comes from faith.

My little book on searching for peace says much the same: "Every Christian must be thoroughly convinced that his spiritual life can in no way be viewed as the quiet unfolding of … life without any problems; rather it must be viewed as the scene of a constant and sometimes painful battle…"

How can we square such a battle with peace of heart? The same way we can square tears with faith: we struggle, even painfully, but "with the absolute certainty the battle is already won, because the Lord is resurrected."

Certainly there are times when we will weep, but always with the hope that comes from knowing Jesus as the Resurrection and the Life.

In this life we may shed many tears, but never forgetting the glorious promise of the Book of Revelation: God himself "will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."

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My friend Father Jeremy Driscoll has written a poetic response to that divine promise, which I paraphrase slightly and make my own—The "former" things are still too much present in me, and their passing away is what's breaking my heart. But I am looking toward the future and writing these words as my own hope, as that in which I trust: every tear wiped away, and death no more.

The Man Born Blind (Lent 4.A)

I had a friend in university who was blind. But he had nothing else in common with the man in today's Gospel. Thanks to inventions like Braille, and technological help like tape recorders, Gord was anything but a tragic figure—he got his Ph.D. in psychology, became a university professor, and now gives seminars on a wide variety of topics, including how to coach softball.

That last topic surprised me until I remembered that he always beat me at Ping-Pong!

The man born blind was obviously an intelligent man also, but that was no help to him two thousand years ago. Social attitudes to disabilities were harsh, educational options were nil, and his inability to work condemned him to a life of begging. No wonder Jesus is drawn to show him compassion and to bring him healing.

But even when we look at blindness today in a modern and respectful way, it remains a timeless symbol of our human need for the light of Christ.

Consider the simple fact that no parent can fully protect a blind child from walking into things. Nor can a blind person who wants to be mobile avoid walking into the occasional unseen obstacle. The same risk, with far greater consequences, confronts the spiritually blind. Only by God's grace do we know to dodge the temptations that stand in our way; only with His help can we turn aside from the unexpected and dangerous things that even literally "pop up" on our computers, for instance.

A second hardship for the physically blind is getting lost. It takes hard work to master the routes to familiar places, including the number of steps to climb at every staircase. But getting lost along the way to school or work is nothing compared to losing our way through life because the eyes of our hearts were darkened to God's plan for our lives. We need God's light to know the right path, to choose the right path, and to stay on it through the twists and turns of life.

Another aspect of physical blindness is being unable to perceive all the beauty around us. But when one sense is lost, others develop all the more, and many a blind person has enjoyed fully the glories of nature through the sound the birds and the wind in the trees, and the fresh smells of the forest. Yet blindness of the soul makes us miss much of God's grandeur; darkened hearts can't see the goodness of creation. Such inner blindness keeps them from praising and thanking God for the wonders He has done for us.

Finally, an obvious but important loss suffered by the most visually impaired can be simply the experience of light itself. Light itself, in all its variations, is a rich human experience. The light that accompanies the heat of the sun, the light that reflects off things, is welcome and warm.

Jesus has told us that He is the Light of the world. Do we see by that Light? Do we, in fact, see Jesus? An ancient writer said "If you say, 'show me your God,' I will say to you 'show me what kind of person you are, and I will show you my God. Show me whether the eyes of your mind can see…'"

God, he wrote, is seen by those who have the capacity to see Him, provided that they keep the eyes of their mind open. Everyone has eyes, but some are unable to see the light of the sun. But because the blind cannot see it, it does not follow that the sun does not shine.

Today's Gospel proclaims that Jesus, whom the prophet Malachi called the Sun of Righteousness, is shining on our darkened world. But our eyes need to be opened if we're going to walk by that light, guided and strengthened and grateful.

The healing of the man born blind invites us to be healed spiritually. Our second reading tells us how—by seeking what is pleasing to the Lord, namely by taking a good look at how we're living and comparing it honestly to what we've been taught. In other words, St. Paul says "open your eyes!"

By exposing our sin to the light—by making a good confession of what St. Paul calls the "unfruitful works of darkness"—we regain our spiritual sight, and we start again to walk in the light.

Finally, this fourth Sunday of Lent is a time to pray for fresh insight. You might wonder what the anointing of King David has to do with the other readings. It seems to me that it warns us about our tendency towards human thinking. Jesse never thought to bring the youngest and smallest of his family to Samuel, but that's just who the Lord wanted to lead Israel. For the Lord does not see as human beings do; we look on the outside, but he looks on the inside.

Does it sound difficult or even impossible to see things as God does—to replace our instinctive and often sinful reactions and perspectives with God's way of thinking? St. Paul gives a five-word answer to all who possess the gifts of the Spirit—the gifts our Confirmation class received Friday night at the hands of the Archbishop, the gifts our catechumen and candidates will receive at the great Easter Vigil, the gifts that most of us already have from our Baptism and Confirmation.

Paul's answer, found in his first letter to the Corinthians (2:16b), is this: "we have the mind of Christ."

We have the mind of Christ. We have the spiritual insight we need to make good choices, to persevere in right paths, and to see God's goodness with grateful hearts. Let us open our eyes to the Light of the World!

Drink Deeply (Lent 3A)

Today's homily isn't science fiction, but I'd like you to do some time-travelling with me. Let's imagine attending Mass 1500 hundred years ago, in the year 511, on the Third Sunday of Lent.

Many things about the sixth-century liturgy would be new to us. But at least one thing would be familiar: today's Gospel. For on the Third Sunday of Lent, even 1500 years ago, the Gospel reading was almost certainly the one we've just heard.

Why, do you suppose, given so many modern changes in the Church, are we following such an ancient plan—especially since there's no obvious connection between the Samaritan woman and Lent?

To answer that question we need to take a look at Lent. By 511 the overall structure of Lent—40 days of preparation ending with the rites of Holy Week and the triumphant Easter Vigil—was pretty much as we know it now, after some centuries of development.

The chief focus of Lent, though, was different. The VIPs, the people in the front-row seats during Lent, weren't the Christians in the congregation but the newcomers, those who had received the marvelous grace of a call to conversion.

These converts, called catechumens or "the instructed," had been kept waiting for a long time. For as many as three years they'd been taught and observed, and during all that time they had to leave Mass after the liturgy of the Word, since they were not yet ready to share fully at the table of the Lord.

Finally, though, they were almost ready for baptism. The home stretch was like a long retreat: for forty days they fasted and prayed, and received an intense and rich series of talks on the fullness of the Christian life.

The whole community eventually joined in, taking advantage of this period to look into their own hearts and to consider their own baptismal commitment.

The entire congregation shared in what has been called "the great catechesis" (Adrian Nocent, The Liturgical Year, vol. 2, p. 69). The readings of the first two Sundays of Lent presented the key themes of salvation: the reality of sin, made clear in the temptation of Christ, and the sure hope of victory, prefigured in the Transfiguration. (If you think back, those were the Gospels we heard last Sunday and the week before.)

Once the stage was set by those readings, things got up-close and personal. On the third and following Sundays came three powerful encounters between the convert and the Church. They were called scrutinies—not exams, but a series of special prayers over the catechumens casting out evil to prepare them for baptism.

We celebrated the first of the three scrutinies with our catechumen Maureen this morning. She moves closer each week to the new life of baptism, which she will receive at the Easter Vigil, and we rejoice with her. But we also must ask: are we moving ahead ourselves, or staying put?

The catechumens who'd waited three years for baptism, three years for the gift of the Spirit, and three years for the Body and Blood of the Lord didn't need a homily in 511. They were good and thirsty, and they'd have immediately applied the story of the woman at the well to themselves. They didn't need any encouragement to join in the woman's eager prayer: "Sir, give me this water!" The living water that Jesus promised her was the bubbling stream of grace and the cleansing flood of baptism for which they'd been thirsting for years.

Perhaps we're not so lucky. We've been sipping from the water for a long time, just enough to keep us from thirsting, and we may have forgotten what it feels like to take a good cold drink tastes like. Some of us are like hikers on a hot day who have enough water along to avoid dehydration, but not enough to enjoy.

With luck, though, the hikers will come across a mountain stream, with clear cold water racing over the rocks. They'll plunge their faces into to brook, and gulp the water freely, to slake their thirst, cool their bodies, and just for the sheer delight of it.

That's the experience today's Gospel offers each of us, no less than it did 1500 years ago, no less than Jesus did when he spoke with the Samaritan woman. Not a tepid Christianity that keep us from drying up, but a personal relationship with Christ that washes away past sins and irrigates our hearts with His life-giving Spirit.

Lent is many things: a time of penance, a time to take stock, a time of conversion. Most of all it is an invitation. Jesus asks us: do you want more? A trickle or a flood? He speaks to us no less personally than he spoke to the woman at the well, no less than to those preparing for baptism.

And he waits for an answer: not at Easter, but now. Meet Jesus at the well today. Sit quietly at home for half an hour, and ask for the gift of God. Ask for the living water, and meet your Saviour, the Saviour of the World.

Is Real Change Possible? (Lent 2.A)

I wasn't too pleased by the idea of having a second priest in our parish. I told the Archbishop I thought that an assistant pastor would just cause me extra work—and besides, he'd probably leave his dishes in the sink.

As you already know, I couldn't have been more off-base. It's hard to imagine how we managed before Father Xavier came—and, let me add, he never leaves dishes in the sink!

One of the joys of having another priest in the rectory is talking over the Sunday readings while we're thinking about our homilies. It's very helpful to have someone to share ideas with, and to hear a different view of the readings.

At lunch yesterday, Father Xavier pointed out that God the Father says "This is my Son the beloved… listen to him," but if you take a close look, Jesus has almost nothing to say!

And certainly, His words in today's Gospel are few and not very startling. He seems to be talking to the frightened trio, not to us. So what is Jesus telling us at the Transfiguration?

Father Xavier suggested that our Lord's actions speak louder than words—that we find a message in how Jesus is changed on that high mountain. Because change is something every one of us thinks about, especially at Lent.

Which one of us is completely satisfied with the way we are—with the way things are in our lives? Who wouldn't like things to change for the better? Many of our prayers try to change things.

You can be sure that Peter and James and John were ready for change as they followed Jesus up the mountain. They'd been his disciples for a long time; they were all set for their Messiah to start sorting things out. This journey with Jesus had to be the start of something big.

And it was—but not the way they'd figured. Jesus didn't give them new powers. He didn't make the rain fall on the desert or the sun shine brighter. It was Jesus who changed. And in that moment he invited Peter, and James, and John, and every single one of us to change also.

Radiant on Mount Tabor, Jesus showed us that change comes from God's power, not ours. Jesus showed that conversion is a gift from God. And the words His Father spoke told us how it starts: by hearing the Word of God.

Pope John Paul wrote that "The proclamation of the Word of God has Christian conversion as its aim… Conversion is a gift of God, a work of the Blessed Trinity." (Encyclical Mission of the Redeemer (1990) 46.)

I don't want to run down my own homilies, but I am far from sure that ten or twelve minutes of preaching can convince anyone they need to be radically and totally changed. That's why we've bought a copy of this little booklet for every parishioner. It's called "Is Real Change Possible," and it's by my friend, the Catholic evangelist Peter Herbeck.

Peter's booklet tells the story of a Hollywood screenwriter who turned from cocaine to Christ and experienced a live-saving change. There's likely no-one in Church today whose life was quite so troubled, yet all of us have tried in some way to manage without God. And all of us want life-giving change in our lives—the freedom and transformation that Jesus offers.

I invite you to take this small booklet home, and to read it—and pray it—with an open heart. Ask the Lord what He wants to change in you this Lent. Ask for a share in His radiant purity.

"Holiness," Peter Herbeck writes, "is first God's work, but it demands our full cooperation and consent. It is a work that requires concentration, devotion, energy and trust."

Will you offer those things to the Lord this Lent, and allow him to offer a share in His holiness to you?

Listen and Obey: Hear and Do! (Sunday 9A)

We have a new feature in the bulletin, called "Faith FAQs" that will offer answers to frequently asked questions about the faith.

The first set of questions and answers quoted Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who said that few people hate the Catholic faith but many hate what they mistakenly believe is the Catholic faith. He added that if what they hate really was the Catholic religion, Catholics would hate it too!

One of the great difficulties we face today is that people often do not know what Jesus said or what the Church teaches. In fact, it's worse. They have often the wrong notion of what Jesus said and of what the Church teaches.

No honourable person condemns someone else, unheard—and yet that happens all the time to Jesus and His Church. The simplest example in my experience is the Church's teaching on family planning, as taught by Pope Paul VI in the encyclical letter Humanae Vitae, issued in 1968. I've met many married Catholics who reject the teaching—I'm not saying that they just don't follow it through weakness, but that they reject it as wrong or backwards or whatever. And yet to this day, I have not personally met anyone who rejected the teaching after actually reading the encyclical.

And what's true of encyclicals is true of the Bible as well. So the first step to the Christian life is simply to give Jesus Christ a chance to be heard.

This doesn't mean memorizing rules, but it does mean reflection and study in areas of Christian living that confront or challenge us.

Although the Reverend William Barclay was a Scottish Presbyterian, he could count Archbishop Sheen among his fans. His interpretation of the Bible doesn't always square with ours, but when it comes to getting to the heart of what Jesus is saying, Barclay can't be beat.*

Speaking of today's Gospel passage, he says that Jesus demanded two things.

First, He demanded that we listen. As I've just said, that's clearly the first step. Second, He demanded that we should obey. Knowledge only becomes relevant when it is translated into action. It's perfectly possible for someone to pass an examination in moral theology with the highest marks, and yet not be a Christian. Barclay puts it neatly: "Knowledge must become action; theory must become practice; theology must become life."

Similarly, he says, there's not much point in going to a doctor, unless we're prepared to do the things he tells us. What's the use of going to an expert, unless we're ready to act on his advice? And yet there are thousands of people who listen to the teaching of Jesus Christ every Sunday, and who have a very good knowledge of what Jesus taught, and who yet make little or no deliberate attempt to put it into practice. If we are to be in any sense followers of Jesus we must hear and do.

Today's Gospel could be our Lenten challenge. Do we need to find ways to listen to God's Word—either by reading scripture or by studying a Church teaching we don't understand or find difficult to accept? We want our faith to be founded on rock. If we've built on shifting sands, Lent is the perfect time to shore up our foundations through well-focussed study and prayer.

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*Some of the material in this homily came from notes I made some time ago using Barclay's Daily Study Bible but I didn't accurately distinguish my notes from quotations, so there's probably some plagiarism here! But I can't find the book right now... My Dad remains very ill in hospital following open heart surgery eight says ago, so things are somewhat chaotic.