Sharers in His Kingship (Christ the King.B.2021)

 

When I was young, a boy might read a Hardy Boys novel and decide to be a detective, and a girl might read the Nancy Drew series and get the same idea.

Although I did read the Hardy Boys—and the occasional Nancy Drew off my sister’s shelf if I was desperate—I never wanted to be a detective. My childhood career choice came from reading Mark Twain’s novel The Prince and the Pauper. I figured I would make a rather good English prince. (I didn’t think there was much future in becoming a pauper.)

Looking back, I didn’t make a good start on the virtue of humility!

St. Paul wanted to keep his converts humble. He asked the Corinthians “What do you have that you did not receive?”

That’s a good question for any of us to answer. Whatever we have—talents, titles, even faith itself, is a gift from God, not any accomplishment of ours.

But on this glorious parish feast day, the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, I would like to ask a very different question. What does Christ have that you did not receive? What does the King of the Universe possess that he did not share with us?

There’s an easy answer: Christ was God, and he certainly didn’t share that with us. But the answer is wrong. What does the priest say at every Mass, as he prepares the chalice? It’s said quietly, so you might not know this prayer: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.”

So that takes care of divinity. Jesus shares his divinity with us. If this were my main point today, I could name a dozen Fathers of the Church who have taught this truth.

But let’s go back to the question. What did Jesus have that he didn’t share with us? Radically, we know he shared his body and his blood. We know he shared his inheritance since St. Paul says we are “heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.” The Apostle also tells us that if we share in his sufferings we may also share in his glory (Romans 8:17).

And there’s something else. Something we often talk about in the parish: Christ’s mission. We know that Jesus shared his mission and ministry with the Church and with all the baptized.

So what’s left for us to share?

Today’s feast points us to one more thing. Even as we acclaim Christ as our King and Redeemer, we rejoice that Jesus even shared his Kingship with us. We have a share in his sovereignty.

Let’s look at today’s Scriptures. The first reading and the Gospel are all about Christ, who “was given dominion and glory and kingship,” and who came into the world “to testify to the truth.” But the second reading says something about us: Christ has made us “a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father.”

We’re not just priests, however. We are royal priests, sharing in the kingship of Christ. St. Peter states that clearly in his First Letter. Here’s what he says: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation…” (2:9a).

And let’s be careful not to think we’re talking about priests like me and Fr. Lucio. At baptism, the priest or deacon says, “As Christ was anointed Priest, Prophet, and King, so may you live always as a member of his body, sharing everlasting life.” Every Christian shares in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission of Christ according to his or her state in life.

Many of us share the Lord’s rule in our relationships with others. Priests who are terrified of exercising any pastoral authority are failing to share in the Shepherd-King’s office shared with them in baptism and ordination. Parents who avoid using God-given authority to guide their families, “lovingly, patiently and sacrificially” are missing a key aspect of the call received in baptism and in marriage.

All of us are rulers, if not of others, then at least of ourselves. We’re given the power to rule over our impulses and passions, for one thing.

Perhaps most importantly, our share in the kingship of Christ leads directly to a deeper understanding of human dignity. The deepest roots of our dignity aren’t found in what we do, but in who we are. Whatever you think of hereditary monarchy, it’s not mainly about what the royals do; it’s about who they’re related to.

So too with us. Knowing we’re all members of Christ’s royal family helps us respect ourselves as we must, avoiding all that defiles our conscience and erodes our self-respect.

On top of that, a lively awareness of the share in his kingship that Christ has given us reminds us to respect the dignity of others. We honour Jesus, the ruler of the kings of the earth, whenever we honour one another, even in what Mother Teresa called “the distressing disguise of the poor."

Knowing that the Lord “made us to be a kingdom” should give us a confidence to do what we can to make the world better, despite the fact it has turned away from his sovereign rule. Christians are largely ignored in the public square these days, but that does not mean we do not belong there.

As one author put it recently, “The laity’s kingly office is exercised by their leadership in temporal affairs, acting as Christ would. Jesus, the king of heaven, gave his life to conquer sin and death, to bring resurrection and new life. By bringing Christ’s leadership and governance in our own spheres, we offer renewal and new life where it is most needed.”

The laity help to rule society according to God’s plan for creation in whatever sphere they have influence, including the stewardship of creation. As Pope Francis says in his encyclical Laudato Si’,  “our ‘dominion’ over the universe should be understood more properly in the sense of responsible stewardship” (94).

The Catechism of the Catholic Church sums up everything I’ve said today in two sentences: “Jesus Christ is the one whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit and established as priest, prophet, and king. The whole People of God participates in these three offices of Christ and bears the responsibilities for mission and service that flow from them.” (CCC 783)

The way my life has unfolded, I never did get offered a job as a prince, although I’ve never been a pauper, either. But today, together with each one of you, I celebrate something greater still: our royal share in the mission of the King of Kings, to whom “be glory and dominion, forever and ever.”

The Widow's MIGHT (32.B)

The Gospel we just heard is known throughout the English-speaking world as the story of the widow’s mite. That’s how the King James Bible translates the word Jesus used.

A mite was a medieval Dutch or Flemish coin worth very little. The coin the woman donated to the Temple was a lepton, a word meaning small or thin. It was so tiny there was trouble stamping the face of it.

Our translation just says that the woman put in two small copper coins, worth about half a modern cent each. That’s all we need to know. By almost any measure, her gift was insignificant.

This famous story can teach us important lessons about almsgiving, about generosity, and about Christian stewardship. But not today.

Today, I think, the message is about faith and trust.

 In the words of one commentary, this story is not about “big money and small coins.”  [Days of the Lord, vol. 5, p. 294]

We can’t miss that if we look at the Gospel alongside our first reading. Of course, the widow who helps Elijah is generous. But it can’t just be generosity and hospitality that leads her to risk her life to feed the prophet. And generosity can’t explain the second widow giving all she had to live on to the Temple treasury.

What’s more, the two widows aren’t the only ones in today’s readings showing great faith and trust. Look at Elijah: the backstory here is that the prophet is in deep trouble. He’s made an enemy of the evil queen Jezebel; he’s the one who prophesied the drought of which he’s now a victim. And Jezebel is busily slaughtering all the prophets she can lay her hands on.

So what does the Lord do? He sends Elijah to Zarephath, in a region governed by Jezebel’s father, who hates him as much as she does. And God tells him to seek help from a widow, surely the poorest person in town.

What does Elijah do? Exactly what the Lord tells him. So this story begins and ends in faith and trust in God.

The widow of Zarephath shows even more faith than the prophet does. “Elijah, of course, believed in the Lord,” who had spoken to him and given proof of divine power. “But this woman was a pagan.” [Days of the Lord, vol. 5, p. 290]

Yet she puts her faith in a stranger, and in the God of Israel.

Again, I don’t want to minimize the widow’s generosity. But what is that compared to her belief in the word of hope that Elijah speaks to her?

The same is true of the widow in the Gospel. She entrusts herself completely to the Lord’s care, doing something that makes no sense humanly speaking.

I wonder what I would do if a parishioner wanted to donate every last dollar they had to the parish. Actually, I don’t wonder. I would call a social worker and tear up the cheque.

But that’s back to human thinking, when the Gospel is really asking us to think like Christ, as St. Paul urges the Philippians (2:5).

How can we have the kind of faith and trust in God that these two poor widows showed? We’ve had an answer at Mass for the last five weeks, as we read from the Letter to the Hebrews every Sunday.

At the start of October, Hebrews reminded us that the suffering Lord calls us his brothers and sisters. A week later we heard the magnificent passage that states that the word of God—the very Scriptures we hear at Mass—is living and active. It has power to shape our hearts.

On October 17, we were called to boldness, “so that we may receive mercy and grace to help in time of need.” Those two widows did not place their trust in God without his help.

The readings for the next two weeks emphasized Christ’s self-offering, his priestly office in which we are called to share.

Today, the Letter to the Hebrews proclaims that Christ will come again, bringing salvation. This is the hope that God placed in the hearts of two poor widows who did not even know the Lord directly.

One was a pagan, the other a Jew, yet they had faith that “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:31)

How much more are we Christians called to trust God in every circumstance, to be mindful that our earthly concerns—financial, medical, educational—are secondary to our relationship of trust with the Lord who today’s psalm tells us “keeps faith forever, who executes justice for the oppressed, who gives food to the hungry.”

I just got back last night from a retreat at Mount Angel Abbey, where the bulletin board announced the title of today’s homily in the monastery. It was "the widow’s might." M-I-G-H-T. That wasn't a spelling mistake, but a reminder of where those brave women found their strength: only in God.

As we approach our parish feast day, the Solemnity of Christ the King, we might well ask God for that same strength in our lives, the gift of greater faith in the Lord, who “will reign forever.”

A Mission for the Church: Drying Tears (World Mission Sunday 2021)

After I was ordained, my first assignment was to St. Patrick’s Parish in Vancouver. I wasn’t there a week before I heard stories about a former pastor, Msgr. Louis Forget—even though he’d retired more than 25 years before I arrived.

One of the stories told how he would regularly cry in the pulpit. Imagine, I thought: a Monsignor crying during his homily!

We all know where that story goes…

There’s weeping in both our first reading and psalm, which got me thinking about the place of tears on the Christian journey. Tears were already on my mind, because last week I watched a short ESPN documentary that showed Canucks defenseman Travis Hamonic crying on camera.

The documentary, filmed five years ago when Hamonic was playing for the New York Islanders, tells of his father’s sudden death when the hockey player was only ten years old. It was clear that the loss was the defining moment in his life.

As an adult Catholic, Hamonic has written “My faith means everything to me, and God comes first in all aspects of my life.”

He said “I believe that my Dad is in Heaven right now. And thanks to my faith in Jesus, and Him dying on the cross for my sins, I’ll get to join my Dad someday.”

Yet this man of faith still sheds tears. Didn’t God promise to wipe away our tears?

How do we make sense of the sorrow and sadness that even the holiest of Christians must face? The only answer is a one-word answer: Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t stop our tears; he cries with us.

The closeness of Jesus is something we can rely on, because Jesus understands everything about us.

All this we learn from the second reading today. The Letter to the Hebrews states clearly that Jesus is the Son of God, interceding for us before the throne of the Father. That alone should inspire confidence.

But at the same time, it tells us he is fully human—one of us, who has been tempted like us, though without sin.

While the Gospels are the best place to look for a portrait of Jesus, Hebrews gives us some beautiful insights by comparing him to other high priests, who must be gentle with others because they know their own weakness.

Jesus does not share the weakness of other high priests, but as a man chosen among men, he understands our weakness—and responds gently to it.

Early in Travis Hamonic’s NHL career, he started to invite a child who had lost a parent to attend every home game—and to meet with him afterward. Because he had shared their experience, he understood it, and was able to connect, sometimes very powerfully.

And before each meeting, he prayed that God would help him to inspire the child.

The Letter to the Hebrews says that because Jesus understands us perfectly, we can be confident in approaching him for all the help we need in every circumstance. Someone who gets our suffering wants to dry our tears.

In a book titled The Tears of God: Persevering in the Face of Great Sorrow or Catastrophe, the late Father Benedict Groeschel reminds us that our Christian faith invites us to share our tears with one who himself endured great pain and sorrow, the son of God.

What a positive message for weary, wounded, and wondering folks!

Today is World Mission Sunday. It’s a day we might well ask ourselves how we understand that mission. Is it to build churches, and hospitals, and schools in foreign lands?

Well, yes. But more important, the Church’s mission is to dry tears, to help those in sorrow find a lasting peace amidst the unavoidable pains and losses of life on earth. Today is a day both to support that universal mission, and to personally rededicate ourselves to it.

The Church’s mission, and ours, is to share the good news of the Resurrection and eternal life, beautifully expressed in Psalm 30 “At night there are tears, but joy comes with dawn.” 

A footnote: Last week it was reported that Travis Hamonic was on unpaid leave from the Canucks while he deals with "personal matters." What these are has not been disclosed, but there's speculation that it has to do with his vaccination status. Whatever he is dealing with, a prayer for Travis would be in order...

All God's People as Prophets! (26.B)

Poor Joshua. He’s just doing his job as chief lieutenant to Moses by reporting that he’s seen two men prophesying without a permit.

But instead of thanking Joshua for the information, Moses exclaims “Would that all the Lord’s people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!”

In today’s Gospel, St. John has “a bad case of Joshua-itis.” He’s “offended and shocked that a renegade exorcist is casting out demons” in the name of Jesus.

But “like Moses, Jesus is not upset that the Lord’s Spirit has landed on an outsider.” (Robert P. Waznak, Lift Up Your Hearts: Homilies and Reflections for the "B" Cycle, p. 280).

What Moses and Jesus said to Joshua and John is an urgent call to action for every single person in church today.

Let’s start with the first reading. “Would that all the Lord’s people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” Moses tells his worried assistant.

In plain language, “we need all the help we can get.”

“Would that all the Lord’s people were Prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!” That’s as good a prayer for the New Evangelization as any.

It’s an Old Testament version of what Pope Francis has said: “The new evangelization calls for personal involvement on the part of each of the baptized. Every Christian is challenged, here and now, to be actively engaged in evangelization.”

The Holy Father adds “anyone who has truly experienced God’s saving love does not need much time or lengthy training to go out and proclaim that love.” (Evangelii Gaudium, n. 120).

As Archbishop Miller told those gathered for Upper Room last Saturday, “The mission is not a ministry reserved to a few. Each and every believer, in his or her own way, is called to bear witness to Jesus Christ and the rich and full life that is given in him.”

Moses and Jesus are teaching us something vital. On the surface, they seem to be saying “calm down!” But what they’re really saying is “get excited.”

Get excited because the mission is a lot bigger than our small ideas. A lot bigger than our traditional structures and institutions.

In his Upper Room talk, Archbishop Miller warns against outmoded strategies “devised for a religious culture that is no longer present.”

“This way of seeing the Church’s mission, makes us ineffective in evangelizing the current culture.”

What he’s saying is that we can’t preach the Gospel in our new cultural and social environment the same way we did in very different times—and expect it to work.

Because it doesn’t.

Look around you. You know who is not beside you in the pews. Brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, even parents.

Who will bring them back?

In the past, missionaries had to learn the language and culture of those they sought to evangelize. When they didn’t, their efforts often failed.

We know this was true right here in Canada. The apology issued to the Indigenous Peoples yesterday by the assembly of Canadian bishops says that the Residential School system failed “to respect the rich history, traditions and wisdom of Indigenous Peoples.”

Missionaries trying to evangelize from outside the culture run into a wall.

But you are called from within the culture, even in ways that priests are not. It’s you who “have the relationships, the influence, the keys to the doors of those who do not yet know Christ,” as Archbishop Miller says.

So, who will gather our lost? You are their missionaries. As Pope Francis says, “Every Christian is a missionary to the extent that he or she has encountered the love of God in Christ Jesus.”

Maybe I could even use a simple slogan: If it is to be, it is up to me.

But how? How do we confront the modern crisis, adapt to modern conditions, and proclaim the Gospel with power?

First, we shift our rusty Catholic gears and accept that evangelization is our personal responsibility, not something for priests and Sisters, not even just for lay missionaries with CCO.

And then we figure out the best approach, depending on where we are and with whom we are speaking.

There is terrific help available to anyone ready to tackle this challenge. Hundreds of people in our Archdiocese have found the Proclaim Movement helped awaken their call to be missionary disciples and given them practical training.

Proclaim can help you prepare yourself for a new way of looking at your faith and teach you practical ways to share it, right at your computer. It’s all laid out on a splendid website: weareproclaim.com.  Take a look.

And, of course, Alpha. Ed Zadeiks spoke about Alpha at all Masses last weekend. He got more passionate each time. His message was simple: there are people in your life who will never know the joy of the Gospel if you don’t share it with them. Brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, even parents.

And despite his passion, Ed did not make our job seem scary. Just invite. As my boss told me when I first worked in sales, “Ask. All they can say is ‘no.’”

Alpha launches here at CTR on Tuesday evening. There’s also a morning Alpha on Tuesday geared to parents dropping off their kids to St. Anthony’s School. All the details are in the Weekly Update on our website, there’s a signup sheet at the back, or you can phone the office on Monday.

I don’t like it when people put guilt trips on me, so I try not to put them on you. If you came to Alpha and didn’t like it, no problem.  But if you’ve never come, you’re missing a simple and reliable way to share the Gospel with those you love or care about. Or maybe your own heart might need Alpha’s message.

If Alpha didn’t click for you, or if taking part right now is just not practical, how about something else? Our parish’s Weekly Update looks a bit like the menu at Earl’s—there’s something for everyone starting in the next few weeks.

But we’re like Earl’s in another way—the pandemic’s caused a shortage of servers and cooks! And since Alpha is mostly virtual, I don’t mean that literally. We need more help as parish life resumes: ministers at Mass—to read, to welcome, and to distribute Holy Communion—not to mention Alpha volunteers…

Please call or email the office, or speak to me, if you would like to consider a new responsibility, big or small. We do things in teams, so you won’t get stuck on your own, whatever you’re called to do.

Finally, the parish phase of our annual campaign, Project Advance, is now underway. Maybe your situation at work or home really does prevent you from taking part in Alpha or volunteering at church. But everyone can be a part of everything we do by supporting Project Advance with a sacrificial gift.

As we look ahead to happier times, the parish council has chosen a powerful theme for Project Advance: Gather Together. We’ll tell you more about the campaign projects in the coming week, but you can already see one of them underway: we’re getting the meeting rooms ready for our return to normal. When that times comes, comfortable and bright spaces for conversation, community, and faith studies will be waiting.

All these things—inviting others to Alpha, volunteering in the parish, and your financial generosity—are ways to “seize the adventure of working with the Holy Spirit to live and share the saving message given to us by Jesus Christ,” to borrow the Archbishop’s words from the Upper Room.

I already said “finally,” but I want to close with something that’s close to many of our hearts, the restoration of relationships with the Indigenous peoples wounded by the Residential Schools. This Thursday is the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and I will offer a special Mass at 8:15 a.m. During that Mass we will pray for this intention and read together the Canadian bishops’ statement of apology.

There’s much to do. So, let’s remind ourselves: If it is to be, it is up to me. And let’s pray hard that all the Lord’s people become Prophets and evangelizers, and that the Lord sends his Spirit upon them.

Stepping Out of the Upper Room (25.B)

 

Preaching at the end of the Upper Room conference was a bit like following a combination of the Sermon on the Mount and the Gettysburg Address.  Archbishop Miller’s address was particularly profound and groundbreaking.

I figured, therefore, that for the sake of the folks who’d watched the conference all day I should lighten up my homily with joke. But that wasn’t easy—it’s been a year and a half since I tried a joke in church. During the livestream months it was pretty risk to try to get a laugh from a congregation of four!

I decided to try a few “good news/bad news jokes,” since many of them come from parish life.

They fell flat except for this one:

Good News: Church attendance rose dramatically the last three weeks. Bad News: You were on vacation.

So, let’s get a bit serious. As you know, the word gospel comes from old English words meaning good news. And evangelize comes from a Greek word meaning the same.

In his exhortation “The Joy of the Gospel,” Pope Francis says that the Gospel “will always remain good news until it has been proclaimed to all people, until it has healed and strengthened every aspect of humanity, until it has brought all men and women together at table in God’s kingdom.”

The Pope reminds us that our faith is not just a bunch of rules and doctrines but a life-giving proclamation full of hope and promise. Someone calculated that in that document, Pope Francis uses the word “love” 154 times, “joy” 109 times, and “peace” 58 times.

But how are we to handle the bad news about the Good News? Because today’s readings, at first glance, don’t sound like good news.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus foretells his suffering and his death. Another discouraging note appears when ambition rears its ugly head among his disciples.

And our reading from the Letter of James makes it clear that ambition was just one of the vices that messed up life in the earliest Christian community.

The first reading, from the Book of Wisdom, is a graphic prophecy of the death of Jesus. And it casts a shadow on every Christian, since the hatred of the godless for the righteous did not end with the Crucifixion but remains a fact of life today.

Can we doubt that, when every day 13 Christians worldwide are killed because of their faith, 12 churches or Christian buildings are attacked. And when every day, 12 Christians are unjustly arrested or imprisoned, and another 5 are abducted.

That’s the 2021 report from the World Watch List of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted for following Jesus. The watch list, compiled by Open Doors, a respected charitable organization, found 309 million Christians living in places with very high or extreme levels of persecution, up from 260 million in last year’s list.

Bad news for sure.  Or not?  David Curry, the president of Open Doors has said “You might think the [list] is all about oppression. … But the [list] is really all about resilience.

“The numbers of God’s people who are suffering should mean the Church is dying—that Christians are keeping quiet, losing their faith, and turning away from one another,” he stated. “But that’s not what’s happening. Instead, in living color, we see the words of God recorded in the prophet Isaiah: ‘I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert’.”

One of the greatest challenges a disciple faces is understanding that bad news can never overpower or contradict the good news of Jesus Christ, who overcame sin and death and all that oppresses us.

Yet Pope Francis writes “The Gospel, radiant with the glory of Christ’s cross, constantly invites us to rejoice.” [n. 5]

The cross is a radiant symbol of glory. And it’s not only about Christ’s glory but ours. As St. Paul writes in words I quote so often, “we know that all things work together for good for those who love God,” or, in another translation, “God makes all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28). 

All things—even suffering.

Calling our archdiocesan evangelization conference “Upper Room” was brilliant—because the upper room or Cenacle in Jerusalem is the traditional location of the Last Supper, the place where the apostles huddled in fear after the Crucifixion, the place where the risen Lord appeared to them, where the gathered in prayer with Mary awaiting the Holy Spirit, and where that Spirit was given.

What a tapestry of bad news and good news: dejection and fear, redeemed by joy and empowering.

The joy of the Gospel is meant to overcome not only our big fears but even the smaller ones. Pope Francis writes that “many lay people fear that they may be asked to undertake some apostolic work and they seek to avoid any responsibility that may take away from their free time.”

He even gives an example we experience right here at CTR: “it has become very difficult today to find trained parish catechists willing to persevere in this work.”

And he doesn’t spare the clergy, saying that “Something similar is also happening with priests who are obsessed with protecting their free time.”

Whether it’s priests or laity, the Pope says, “people feel an overbearing need to guard their personal freedom, as though the task of evangelization was a dangerous poison rather than a joyful response to God’s love which summons us to mission and makes us fulfilled and productive.”

What’s the “bad news” of  losing some free time against the “good news” of sharing the Gospel with others?

Dear friends, the first gathering in the Upper Room was the first Eucharist. The last of which we are aware was the sending forth of the first missionaries empowered by the Holy Spirit.

As we gather today for the Eucharist, let’s make the connection between our worship and our work: between our coming to church, and our going out to the world.

The good news is that everyone of us has been called and commissioned to share the joy of the Gospel with others. The bad news is… Well, there really isn’t any bad news.

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*Lasky, Mike Jordan:“Pope Francis’ Evangelii Gaudium: Work for justice at the heart of discipleship.” Millennial Journal. See Wikipedia, “The Joy of the Gospel.”

Deacons and All the Baptized Called to Suffering

 

Yesterday was a big day for three of our parishioners. It was a big day for Steve Whan and Marty Cayer, who received diplomas in pastoral ministry from St. Mark’s College, having completed their academic studies for the permanent diaconate.

It was a big day for our longtime parishioner Angus Reid, who was presented with an honorary doctorate in sacred letters at St. Mark’s convocation, where he was acknowledged for his many contributions to Catholic education and the wider community.

And it was a big day for me as well. Seven other men preparing for ordination as deacons next month were also awarded their diplomas at the graduation ceremony and one his master's degree; as director of the archdiocese’s permanent diaconate program, I have been involved with all nine since they began their formation.

Not to mention the fact that I taught them all their favourite subject canon law!

I was like a proud father during the convocation, although I was on the edge of my seat until they announced Steve’s name.  The program had misspelled his name, and I was wondering if what would happen if they called Steve Wham to the stage.

Happily, they got it right.

This morning Angus Reid is already in Toronto, but all nine of the diaconate candidates are in church with us, and I welcome them warmly on behalf of all of us at Christ the Redeemer. We need to keep them in our prayers as they prepare spiritually for the Sacrament of Holy Orders on October 7.

And, of course, our deacons and future deacons owe a prayer or two to this parish community, which has supported the permanent diaconate program in many ways since Archbishop Miller asked me to start it ten years ago.

With less than a month to go before their ordination, I thought I would preach a happy, lighthearted homily today that would encourage the ordinands and help the congregation look forward to the ministry of deacons soon to be a part of parish life.

But today’s readings didn’t give me the chance. There’s simply nothing lighthearted about them. Whether from the perspective of ordained ministry or the vocation of all the baptized, the messages of Sacred Scripture this morning are entirely serious.

Jason Costa, whom many parishioners remember from his time in the parish office, now runs the Permanent Diaconate Office with me, in a most efficient fashion. On Thursday he came to me with a powerful article on the diaconate and suggested we might give the Archbishop a copy to help him with his ordination homily next month.

I took one look at the title and told Jason to forget it—the last thing the candidates would want to hear about at the ordination Mass was a reflection on “The Diaconal Call to Spiritual Martyrdom: Suffering as the Foundation of the Servant Mysteries.” (Deacon Robert T. Yerhot, Josephinum Diaconal Review Spring 2021 51-57)

But what have we just heard in today’s Gospel? “Whoever wants to become my follower, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

And notice something very important. The first part of today’s Gospel is a conversation with the inner circle of disciples. But Jesus calls the crowd to him before he delivers the key message. It’s not “whoever wants to be my apostle, or my deacon, or my priest” but “whoever wants to become my follower.”

As Mary Healy writes, “the conditions that Jesus is about to outline apply not only to some of his followers but to all without exception.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to be in any doubt about the cost of discipleship. As Dr. Healy says, “to be a Christian is not something that happens by default or cultural heritage: it is a personal decision that must be made with the utmost sincerity and resolve—and with at least a partial grasp of the implications.” (The Gospel of Mark, 168)

Inviting others to that personal decision, or making it ourselves, is Christ’s imperative call. And it’s not easy.

We try to make it as easy as possible, by providing parishioners with a straightforward way to invite people by bringing them to Alpha. The Upper Room conference taking place here at CTR next Saturday helps us become proclaimers of the Gospel in as effective and non-threatening ways as possible.

But nothing we do can eliminate the suffering that disciples will always face.

In some ways, you might think that our permanent deacons have it easier. Since they’ll be known as ordained ministers—professionals, if you will—their coworkers and family members and fellow parishioners won’t be annoyed by their efforts to share the Gospel; they won’t be written off as quickly.

Or are we sure about that? St. John Paul said that deacons “are called to participate in the mystery of the cross, to share in the Church’s sufferings, to endure the hostility she encounters in union with Christ the Redeemer.”

He goes even further: “It is this painful aspect of the deacon’s service that makes it most fruitful.”

The article on the diaconate that Jason handed to me says that “the central question for the deacon is always ‘Will I embrace this suffering to which I am called by the Father as martyr, as witness? Will I, in obedience, be sent in his name, as his envoy, to herald that Gospel that is entrusted to me, or will I avoid it by withdrawing and with using distracting activity?’” (Yerhot, p. 54)

In light of this morning’s Gospel, can we not say that this is the central question for every follower of Jesus? Isn’t it just another way of asking whether we are willing to take up our cross? Whether we are willing to put this life in second place for the sake of the Good News and all it promises?

Dear future deacons, and dear diaconal wives and family members, the Church is entering into a new era of suffering. Through ordination, the deacon enters in a special way not only the suffering of the Church, but of that of Jesus himself.

It’s enough to make you think twice about showing up at the Cathedral on October 7.

The fact is, while the deacon’s call has a special intensity and special challenges, the Sacrament he receives in Holy Orders provides him with special strength and graces.

And that’s not all. In the final analysis, it’s not just ordination that demands suffering: it’s baptism. All the baptized are called to a redemptive suffering. 

Pope Emeritus Benedict has said that “the task of proclamation and the call to suffering for Christ are inseparably together.”

Dear deacons-to-be, we’ve worked hard to prepare you for the task of effective proclamation. Dear parishioners, a key focus at Christ the Redeemer has been preparing each of you for effective sharing of the faith.

Only Christ can prepare you for suffering for the sake of the Gospel. Let us ask him now for that grace, and for the grace to think not as humans do, but as God does.

Bring a Bad Week to Mass (19.B)

What had started as a pretty good week took a turn for the worse on Thursday, when the father of one of my closest friends passed away. Then on Friday, I learned that the lovely daughter of another close friend was having a very hard time with chemotherapy.

And yesterday, one of my younger cousins died suddenly.

I don’t want to be dramatic—when you have a large family and many friends, sad events pile up sometimes. I’m not feeling hopeless like the prophet Elijah in our first reading. But, still, where do we go when life seems to pile on?

Some of us find the answer in the kitchen, with so-called comfort food. With a favourite meal or junk food, we can distract ourselves with the pleasures of eating.

The problem is that a couple of hours later you’re hungry again, and if you keep it up you’ve added unhealthy pounds.

The Word of God this morning offers another answer: the Bread of Life. A heavenly bread that comforts, consoles, and, most importantly, strengthens us to carry on.

There are many ways of coping when misfortune or even tragedy strikes us, from spending time with a friend who listens, to seeing a counselor or other professional. But we should start by bringing our problems and losses with us to Mass.

Every Mass begins with a penitential rite, in which we acknowledge our sins before God and one another. During the Offertory procession, we bring up bread and wine, symbols of God’s earthly gifts to us that will be transformed into heavenly food. But I think that we also need to be intentional about bringing our sorrows and sadness to the altar.

There are many moments for this. If we can arrive a bit early, we have some time to take stock and be touched by an angel, so to speak, as Elijah was. We can hear the divine invitation to receive food for the journey, at least for the week ahead.

The same is true, of course, during the general intercessions or prayers of the faithful. We pray at that time for many needs, but there is enough to time add our own—not just as intentions, but as something we are uniting to our participation in the Mass.

The Eucharistic Prayer itself has many moments when we can ask for strength. The first Eucharistic Prayer, which we don’t do that often, says we offer the sacrifice of praise for ourselves and all who are dear to us; the second, which we use this morning, uses words from today’s Gospel, offering to the Lord “the bread of life” as our sacrifice of praise and petition.

And each of the Eucharistic Prayers remembers those who have died.

When the priest says the words of consecration, and bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ, our sufferings are united to Christ’s sufferings.

So far, I haven’t mentioned receiving Holy Communion, when we actually eat the Bread of Life. I want to take a short but deep detour first. In the first volume of his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Emeritus Benedict reminds us that Christ’s words about his flesh are not only about receiving the Eucharist.

He says, “Above all [his words] point to what underlies the Eucharist: the sacrifice of Jesus” who “pours himself out, and gives himself to us.”

On the one hand, Pope Benedict writes, in the Eucharist God gives us “the manna that humanity is waiting for, the true ‘bread of heaven’—the nourishment we can most deeply live upon as human beings.”

At the same time, the Eucharist is an unceasing encounter with God… “for us this food must become an opening out of our existence, a passing through the Cross, and an anticipation of the new life in God and with God.”

For many months, we live streamed Mass. Some, especially those who can’t get out of their homes, were very disappointed when we stopped. But in fact, Mass is still being live streamed. This saving sacrifice is not contained by the walls of our parish church.

As the Pope Emeritus writes, the flesh of Jesus is not only life for our souls but life for the whole world. Our love for Jesus in the Eucharist, in receiving Holy Communion, in adoration, must be connected to his Cross and the transformation it brings about.

This Mass can reach the hearts and homes of our suffering loved ones, and make present to them, right where they are, the love of Christ and his promise of life forever.

As we ourselves receive Jesus, the Bread of Life, let’s pray that the Father who sent him draws all the world, and especially those for whom we pray, into his divine embrace.