Advent IV: Charity at Christmas

I’m sorry, but you missed the homily—at least the best part of it.

As the old saying goes, “a picture is worth a thousand words,” and the rows of bags and boxes that filled every inch of available space in our hallways preached a sermon about Christian care for our brothers and sisters this Christmas.

I’ve never seen such an outpouring of generosity in any parish, although I’m told our Christmas miracle is repeated in many churches, Catholic and otherwise. And of course your generosity didn’t just donate groceries: there was a lot of hard work involved in sorting and delivering them. Members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society spent more time at church this week than I did!

The sight of the Christmas hampers made me grateful for the Christian commitment and charity of our parishioners, particularly the tireless workers from our parish St. Vincent de Paul Society. But at the same time, they reminded me that the Church does something important when it invites other members of the local community to join us in reaching out to those who need support at Christmas. 

It’s likely that the folks at Whole Foods who donated enormous amounts of food and those at Safeway, who provided fifty bags of groceries, include people of different faiths or none. Yet they responded to the spirit of the season in partnership with us, and surely will themselves be blessed for sharing this initiative with us.* The Church’s mission is not only to help those in need but to help people know that they need to help.

No finer example of this exists than Mary’s visit to her pregnant cousin. Pregnant herself, Mary knows what it must mean to the much-older Elizabeth.

While this first meeting between the coming Lord and his future herald has rich meaning for us, today I’ll just emphasize the fact that charity was at the heart of the encounter between Mary and Elizabeth.

Moved by the same Holy Spirit who prompted Mary to make such an arduous trip, we share the call to do good in response to the gift that Christ is to each of us at Christmas

But let’s never forget that ‘man does not live on bread alone.’ We must offer the world more than food for the body: every hamper that went out was a message of God’s love for the recipient.

Even more specifically, we want to share with everyone around us the hope that Elizabeth shared with Mary: blessed are those who believe that God’s promises will be fulfilled.

The current Catholics Come Home campaign is a most effective way of sharing that message. Let’s not wait for the so-called “poinsettia and lily” Catholics to show up on Christmas—let’s invite them and make them welcome.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you whom to call today with an invitation to Mass on Tuesday. 

On a practical note, I can tell you who you should probably invite first: the family members who have no particular gripe against the Church, but who just got out of the habit of coming to Mass. I was fascinated by a magazine article that explained how Barack Obama was reelected president despite very low approval ratings and much opposition. The campaign, it would seem, didn’t try to change anybody’s mind about him or his policies. Instead, the strategy was to get the people who weren’t against the president to get out and vote.

So don’t start with your Uncle Henry who hasn’t been able to stand Catholics since a priest’s dog bit him at 12. But pray for him, too, and listen for the Spirit's prompting.

_________________

* Here's the full story:

The St. Vincent de Paul volunteers prepared in total 151 hampers.  We received groceries from our own parishioners and students from St Anthony's, St Pius X and Holy Trinity schools.  Safeway Supermarkets donated 50 bags of groceries whileWhole Foods donated a significant amount of foodstuffs (over 1200 pieces alone).  In total there was close to 7,000 kilos of groceries donated in total.

Hampers were distributed to 9 individuals, whose names we received through the office; and through various parishes (on the North Shore: St Paul's, 20 hampers; St Stephen's, 20 Hampers; Vancouver: Sts Peter & Paul, 20 hampers; St Pat's, 32 hampers; Directions Youth Centre, 5 hampers; Sancta Maria House, 9 hampers.  Forty hampers, with Iraqi-specific food items, were prepared and given to Our Lady of Good Counsel parish in Surrey for the Iraqi refugee community there.  Some of the monies donated were used to purchase bulk foods for the Iraqi refugees (rice, sugar, lentils, chick peas).  In addition to the 40 hampers we also brought out a further 200 lbs of chick peas, 40 kilos rice, 48 litres olive oil, 48 kilos flour and some gently used children's winter coats). The SSVP there along with the Iraqis will be able to distribute this as needed. $500 in gift coupons were given to Sacred Heart parish downtown and another $100 to a CTR parishioner.

We had well over 50 volunteers helping to prepare and a further dozen to deliver the hampers. 

A Voice in the Wilderness! (Advent 2.C)

On Tuesday I mentioned to a very active member of our parish that the Christmas dinner planned for tonight had been cancelled due to poor ticket sales. “Oh,” he said with a look of surprise, “Were we going to have a parish Christmas dinner?”

Twice he’d walked past a table with flashing lights and volunteers in Santa caps. Twice he’d almost have knocked over another volunteer standing at the door wearing flashing lights! And he’d taken home a bulletin featuring a full-colour Christmas tree decorated with knives, forks and spoons—not to mention hearing announcements from the pulpit.

You have to agree that communication in the digital age is sure not easy! I almost wonder whether anyone would notice if the hills really were made low and the valleys filled up.

However, the last time I looked both our local mountains were still standing, and Lynn Valley didn’t fill up overnight. So how will the prophetic voice be heard in the modern wilderness? How is the path to be made smooth for the countless men and women who need the salvation that John the Baptist proclaimed at the top of his voice?

Let me start to answer the question by reminding you that fifty years ago television was called a “vast wasteland” in a famous speech.  What could be more fitting, therefore, than to proclaim Christ and his promise of salvation on television—which is even more of a wilderness today than it was fifty years ago?

Starting this week, commercials inviting Catholics to come home to the Church will air on all the local stations—except, of course, the CBC. (It’s frightened by religious messages, even when they’re paid for.)

These advertisements aren’t like the ones you see for soap. If people like an ad for Tide, they’ll just head off and buy it. The Catholics Come Home ads are more like those for cars—they plant a seed, but in most cases it will take a real person—a salesperson—to sell the car.

Catholics Come Home gives each of us a relatively easy way to invite friends and family back to church. You can ask them if they saw one of the commercials on TV and start a conversation that ends with an invitation. You can send a link to one of the ads by e-mail—they’re all on the web—or put it on Facebook if you’re young enough.

But most of all you can pray. You know the words of the Psalm—unless God builds the house, the builders labour in vain. We’re not selling soap, or cars, but the salvation promised by God. The commercials are a spark which we must fan, but the fire that will warm hearts comes from the Holy Spirit.

In our second reading today, we heard St. Paul tell the Christians at Philippi of his confidence “that the one who began a good work among you will bring it to completion.” God’s good work in your sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, neighbours and friends, began at their baptism. If they have stopped participating in the life of the Church, how will it reach completion unless we call them home?

Every great enterprise begins with a first step.  The first step is to make a list of those near and dear to you who have left the Church.  Then begin to pray for them daily as you ask God to show you the next step. It might be an e-mail; it might be one of the attractive “We Miss You” brochures that offer a personal invitation.

I’ve heard too many stories from sad parents whose children join them in church only at Christmas. Let’s stop feeling helpless in the face of the secular society that has led so many away from the Church—many of them with no beef against the Church, just distraction, confusion or busyness.

With God’s help, it can change. But God will look to us, as he looked to John the Baptist, to be prophetic voices crying out even in the spiritual desert that surrounds us.

Sharing His Mission (Christ the King.B)

I have a good friend—we’ll call him Father James—who comes from an old aristocratic family in Britain. So he wasn’t nervous when one of his parishioners invited him to dinner with the Queen.

But perhaps he should have paid a bit more attention to royal protocol, which prescribes that no-one leaves a party before the Queen does. Once Father James had finished his dessert, he politely explained to Her Majesty that he had the early Mass, and said good night.

A few centuries ago, that kind of mistake might have cost a priest his head, or at least given him some time to think it over in a royal dungeon. Nowadays, I am sure Her Majesty takes it in her stride.

Most of us don’t have to worry about meeting the Queen, but all of us must meet the King of the Universe whom we celebrate today.  We will, of course, be face to face with Jesus Christ when He comes in judgment—on this feast day last year we heard the parable of the Shepherd-King separating people on his right and on his left.

But we are also called to meet the Lord here and now. In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells us in that those who love him will keep his word, and that the Father and he will make a home with them (Jn 14:23), and in the Book of Revelation he promises “if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me” (Rv 3:20).

Each one of us, therefore, has a personal invitation to a royal audience. Although the King is a judge and surrenders nothing of his might and majesty, he calls us to an intimate encounter with him. That’s more than enough reason to rejoice today; but our King is not satisfied just to dine and dwell with us. He offers to make us royalty.

Here’s what he says, right after promising to live with us:  “To anyone who is victorious I will grant a place beside me on my throne” (Rv 3:21). Think about that: if we persevere in the battle against sin, we will be rewarded with a share in the Kingship of Christ—we will share his throne with him.

I’ve scarcely started my homily, and I want to stop. We could well spend the next ten minutes thinking about the nobility and dignity that Jesus grants to his faithful disciples. But we can’t stop here, because our second reading today contains an equally astonishing offer: we are called not only to share Christ’s throne, but also to share his priesthood.

We are, St. John tells us in the second reading, not only a kingdom but a kingdom of priests. We share not only in Christ’s kingship but also in his priesthood. As St. Peter writes, Christians are “a royal priesthood” called “to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”

It all sounds very impressive—but what does this mean to us? What does it mean particularly to lay people, who don’t normally think of themselves as rulers and priests in the Church?

There’s a whole bookful of answers right in my hand. It’s Blessed John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation The Lay Members of Christ’s Faithful People, often known by its Latin title Christifideles Laici. Yesterday we were blessed with a visit to the parish by Abbot John Braganza of Westminster Abbey in Mission, who spent the whole day unpacking this remarkable document for an eager audience.

Father Abbot described the book—written by the Pope after the 1987 synod on the laity—as a real hidden treasure that needs to be much more widely known. (When he mentioned that no-one ever hears about it in church, his listeners nodded in agreement until I pointed out that I had spoken about it three times in the past year! That might help to explain why I am doing so again, but my real reason is that I agree completely with the Abbot: Christifideles Laici deserves more attention than it has received, here or elsewhere.)

If you asked me to describe the subject of this book in one sentence, I’d reply “What baptism calls us to be and to do.”

Blessed John Paul actually began his ministry as Pope by reminding us of the same central truth I’ve just been talking about. In his first homily, he spoke of the fact that everyone, the whole people of God, shares in the threefold mission of Christ—Priest, Prophet-Teacher, and King.

His apostolic exhortation, subtitled “On the Vocation and Mission of the Lay Faithful in the Church and in the World,” is basically an attempt to spell out concretely what it means to share in this threefold mission.

Here’s an excellent example. What does it mean to share in the kingly mission of Christ? First of all, Blessed John Paul tells us, it means to spread Christ’s kingdom in history. As we begin “Catholics Come Home,” the Archdiocese’s bold effort at evangelization, we stand bravely beside our King as he advances into hostile territory with his message of peace and salvation.

Even more importantly, we exercise our kingship as Christians in the spiritual combat by which we seek to overcome in ourselves the kingdom of sin so that we are worthy to serve such a great Sovereign and our brothers and sisters in whom he is present.

Abbot John had more than four hours to present an outline of the lay calling yesterday. I have to be somewhat briefer this morning. So let me end by speaking of just one of the responsibilities that belong to you by virtue of your baptism and the share it gave you in Christ’s own mission.

Here it is in a nutshell: “The lay faithful are sharers in the priestly mission for which Jesus offered himself on the cross and continues to be offered in the celebration of the Eucharist for the glory of God and the salvation of humanity.”

The exhortation adds a quotation from Vatican II about the connection between the Eucharist and daily work, prayer, service, ordinary married and family life, and even sorrows and hardships.  The council taught that “During the celebration of the Eucharist these sacrifices are most lovingly offered to the Father along with the Lord’s body. Thus as worshippers whose every deed is holy, the lay faithful consecrate the world itself to God.”

Is this how we approach our Sunday Mass? As an opportunity to unite our weekly joys and sorrows to the perfect sacrifice of Christ? For that’s what the Church teaches—that’s what it means for the lay faithful to have a share in the priestly mission of Christ.

Sometimes practice and theory seem very far apart.  We come to Mass in a rush, we are distracted by our kids, and it all seems a long way from the Kingdom. Yet we must keep trying, week by week, to participate in the liturgy in a way that reflects our dignity as baptized persons given a royal, priestly and prophetic mission.

Here’s what Pope John Paul wrote about the parish: “It is necessary that in light of the faith all rediscover the true meaning of the parish, that is, the place where the very ‘mystery’ of the Church is present and at work”—even if at times it seems crowded or chaotic.

“The parish,” he taught, “is not principally a structure, a territory, or a building, but rather ‘the family of God, a fellowship afire with a unifying spirit,’ ‘a welcoming home,’ ‘the community of the faithful.”

He explains why all this theology we’re speaking about today matters so much: “Plainly and simply, the parish is founded on a theological reality because it is a Eucharistic community.”

The meeting room was beautifully decorated yesterday so that we could celebrate our parish feast day together after Mass today.  You could explain that in sociological terms: generous volunteers dedicated to a community of friends. You could distinguish very sharply between what’s going on here inside the church and what will take place afterwards. But you’d be wrong. It’s all about the Eucharist. The Eucharist is what our parish is for, and all the other good things we do flow directly from that.

On our parish feast day, we do well to reflect on the words of Pope Paul VI, who said that the parish has an indispensable mission of great importance: to create the basic community of Christian people; to initiate and gather them for the liturgy; to conserve and renew their faith; to serve as the school for teaching the saving message of Christ, and to put into practice humble charity for our brothers and sisters.

Not one of these good works is carried on at Christ the Redeemer by the priests alone, and many are carried on entirely by the lay members of the parish. But none of them will endure or be truly fruitful if we don’t continue to call each person to “that full, conscious, and active participation” at Mass “which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy.” (Vatican II, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 14)

I hope that I’ve shown, through the Scriptures and papal teaching, that “full, conscious, and active participation” is something deeply spiritual, rooted in the understanding of who we are and what we’re called to as baptized Christians. But that doesn’t mean we can ignore the more obvious signs of participation: singing, our responses at Mass, and our posture in church.

Christ the Redeemer parish welcomed the new Mass translations, and I think we have done a good job of learning the new texts. Soon those cards in the pews will disappear—they’re getting pretty shabby—and we will try to rely more on memory. At the same time, we have a long way to go with singing. Perhaps because of a shortage of hymnals, or for other reasons, only about one in three parishioners seem to open their mouths during the hymns.

(I thought of our own parish when I read an article that described the assembly at the closing Mass of the International Eucharistic Congress in Dublin as sitting quietly, “like anglers waiting for a fish to stir”!)

Our response to the sung parts of the Mass is certainly stronger than our hymn-singing, so we will try to emphasize that in the coming year, with the help of new music sheets.

There has also been a great response to the Church’s invitation for a reverent bow before receiving Holy Communion; it’s a simple gesture, but it can prevent us from going to Communion in an absent-minded way. Our parish is far better than most when it comes to people standing during Mass instead of taking a pew, but the ministers of welcome will begin working a bit harder to remind people that we are a family, and like most families we sit together when we celebrate.

The number one reason why we must enter fully and deeply into the mystery of the Mass is very clear: it’s our call, our duty and our privilege as members of Christ’s royal priesthood. But let’s not forget an important reason for active outward participation: Catholics Come Home.

Here is a scary thought: how you celebrate Mass will soon be as important a means of evangelization in this parish as how I celebrate Mass.  If someone “comes home” to Christ the Redeemer will he or she find people to the left and right who are singing and responding with joy and conviction? Will he or she admire the reverence of those in the pew ahead, and the seriousness of the servers and readers?

Next Sunday begins a new liturgical year.  It’s a perfect time to take stock of how we participate in the liturgy, and to resolve to enter more deeply into the mysteries we celebrate as we worship Christ, our Lord and King.

Christ and His Church Are All About Salvation

My homily this week amounts to little more than a plea to the congregation to take the time to read Cardinal Timothy Dolan's column in this week's edition of his archdiocesan paper, Catholic New York. The ebullient archbishop has hit the ball right out of Yankee Stadium. A very prominent lay evangelist e-mailed me that he could hear the "voice of the Apostles" in this remarkable reflection on the Church and salvation. So rather than share my own thoughts with you, I'm offering you the Cardinal's below. It's a bracing reminder of some very basic truths.

by Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan

We spent a lot of time at the Synod on the New Evangelization in Rome talking about salvation.

On the one hand, I guess this should not shock us, since Jesus came as our Savior, offering us the “good news” of eternal salvation.

However, on the other hand, this is a surprise, because, as some Synod participants have chillingly observed, the Church rarely, if ever, speaks of salvation these days, since most of us today presume it, or don’t think we even need it!

hink about that…why do we need this New Evangelization at all? I suppose because our own faith has grown listless; or because we lost it all together! Why has it grown lax, or been lost? Because we don’t think we need it! We don’t need Jesus or His Church because we don’t need what He has come to give: life everlasting or salvation. “I came that they may have life, and life to the fullest.”

Jesus and his Church are all about salvation, the salvation of souls.

Why in the world would anybody not want the eternal life offered by Jesus and His Church?

Either because we think we can get it on our own—in other words, that we can save ourselves (which is the ancient heresy of “Pelagianism”)—or because it’s so cheap that we think we’re already assured of it, and hardly need any help from Jesus or His Church.

I bring all this up not only because it was a hot topic on the floor of the Synod, but because the month of November invites us to think about eternal salvation.

God wants us all to be saved, so passionately that He sent His only begotten Son to be our savior, sharing with us eternal life, earning our salvation by His death and resurrection.

However, when Jesus was asked if only a few would be saved, he didn’t reassure us that, don’t worry, almost everyone would make it, but rather: “Try your hardest to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.” (Lk. 13:23-24)

On another occasion he made it clear: “Enter by the narrow gate, since the road that leads to destruction is wide and spacious, and many take it; but it is a narrow gate and a hard road that leads to life and only a few find it.” (Mt. 7:13-14)

We know Jesus wasn’t happy about this situation. We knew he wept when he considered the destiny of those who persisted on the wide road. (Lk. 19:41)

He is so eager to show us mercy, but first we need to recognize our need for mercy, and humble ourselves to receive it, asking forgiveness, and dedicating ourselves to following Him in His Church.

So, we need to recover this somber reality, because we act today like everyone automatically and immediately goes right to heaven.

No, we don’t. God our Father forces His salvation on nobody. We can turn Him down. I’m afraid a lot of us do.

To accept His invitation to salvation means…guess what? Accepting Jesus in and through His Church.
Yes, it’s true that Vatican II teaches that it’s possible, under certain conditions, to be saved without hearing the gospel, but it also clearly teaches (Lumen Gentium, 16) that these conditions are not often met, and that “very often” human beings close their hearts to the grace of God, influenced by the culture, its lies, and our own sin.

A couple of months ago, when I was consulting people about this whole concept of the New Evangelization, a shrewd and successful marketing specialist commented, “You got to decide what your product is! You in the Church are supposed to be salesmen! Well, just what are you selling? If people need your ‘product,’ they’ll come!”

The Church’s “product”—pardon the marketing vocabulary!—is a Person, Jesus, who is our Savior, who offers us eternal life!


The evangelical churches sure know this! The growing, vibrant parts of the Catholic Church in Africa and Asia certainly realize this! That’s why their churches are jammed.

But we here don’t! We shrug, no thanks! Who needs a savior? I don’t. I can save myself, thank you! Nor do I need the Church, the sacraments, or the mercy of Jesus, since I’m automatically assured of heaven. So, leave me alone…

November reminds us of the faithful departed: all the Saints in heaven (November 1); the souls in purgatory awaiting God’s final act of mercy (November 2); and those of us here on earth preparing for eternity.
And eternity is not a “sure thing”! It is a “sure thing” if we admit we need Jesus as our Savior, and live faithfully in His family, the Church.

We ignore the clear, cogent teaching of Jesus and His Church at our everlasting peril: at the moment of our death, we will stand before our eternal Judge, and heaven is not assured. This awesome experience will happen again when He comes again in glory at the end of time, the last judgment.

That’s the message of the Gospel, like it or not. As St. Francis observed, “Sometimes the Gospel makes me smile, but other times it makes me shiver.” That’s driven home this month of November, as we pray for the faithful departed and contemplate our own mortality.

All I know is this: I want to live forever! I want eternal life! I want to be saved! I want to get to heaven! I can’t do it by myself! I need a Savior! God the Father sent me one: his name is Jesus!

How do I meet Jesus? How do I share in His gift of eternal life? In and through the Church!

That’s the message of the Gospel; that’s the New Evangelization; that’s the invitation of November.

Solemnity of All Saints

Msgr. Jack Stewart and I worked together, off and on, for some twenty years. In all that time I never saw him commit a venial sin. Never a sign of impatience, an unkind word, a hint of self-indulgence.

For many of those years, despite his position as the vicar general of the archdiocese, he lived in a simple room at the back of a rather dilapidated rectory, cooking his meals in a well-used crock-pot. He was observably faithful to his prayers, diligent in his priestly duties, and a model of humble service in every way.

But he wasn't most people's idea of a saint--he could be long-winded and his personality was not dynamic, and much of his virtue was concealed from view. Nevertheless, he was holy to the core and in many ways heroic in both everyday life and in facing the challenges of cancer which claimed him at 75.

Remembering Msgr. Stewart on this great feast of All Saints, makes me think of four things. The first is the universal call to holiness--the important fact that every one of us, whether priest or lay, married or single, young or old, is called to live forever in heaven.

The second is that we can reach this goal just by living out the demands that life places before us. "Doing the daily" is an expression used to describe meeting our basic commitments to ourselves, others, and God. No-one needs special challenges to live their baptismal calling: daily duties, performed with charity and effort, form us as saints.

If holiness was a rare achievement, we wouldn't need a feast of All Saints!  We could fit them all on the Church calendar.

The third thing this day reminds us is that the saints weren't perfect. Sometimes their lives give the impression of that, but there's nowhere in our Catholic tradition that says saints never sinned. All I said about Msgr. Stewart was that I never saw him sin--I didn't say he never sinned, and I certainly saw his slow style tempt others to commit a sin or two! If you think that holiness equals perfection, you'll quickly become discouraged and abandon any plans of becoming a saint yourself.

Finally, today we celebrate the friendship of the saints. While we try to be friends of the canonized men and women whom we most admire, very rarely have we met them (although I had the privilege of meeting two recent Blesseds, Pope John Paul and Mother Teresa).  But we've all met the unsung saints on our journey through life, and we can truly feel their closeness and experience our communion with them.

Both the example and the intercession of all the saints are great sources of Christian hope and joy, and we're blessed to have this annual reminder of the place they have in our lives. In the wonderful words of the great English writer Msgr. Ronald Knox, "When you look out on a November evening, and see the sky all studded with stars, think of those innumerable saints in heaven, all ready to help you."