Sunday Homilies

from Father Kevin Laughery, Troy St. Jerome and St. Jacob St. James Parishes, Diocese of Springfield in Illinois. Note: Comments from this page do not reach me; instead, email: [email protected]

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 21, 2024 09/26/2024

Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 21, 2024 You may have been aware that the priests of the diocese were taking part in our annual convocation this past week. In addition, I attended a meeting of the Diocesan Pastoral Council in Springfield yesterday. And some months ago, there was a group of priests set up to study what you might call the use of priest energy in the 28 counties of our diocese. They gave us some interesting figures. First of all, that our weekend Mass schedule is such that we are ready for 112,000 people every weekend. The fact is, however, that we have only about 36,000 people at weekend Mass in our 129 parishes. So one recommendation which they are making is that across the board, across all parishes of the diocese, we consider dropping a Mass on our weekend schedule. So I have some ideas about this, and I'm not going to talk about them until I have conferred with neighboring pastors. I want to give you some reasons for this. They also gave us a statistic that a church feels full to the people assembled when we are at about 65% of seating capacity. And we think that this is a desirable goal. The reason for that is if you are in an assembly, if you are in a church that feels full, there is a sense of energy, we feel more alive, and those who are here will be more motivated to enter more deeply into the life of the local parish. So we are, as we say, studying this, and we are not going to be making any changes for a number of months. But when we hear this, we say, "Oh yeah, okay, well, we need to reduce the number of Masses, but don't mess up my schedule." In the Gospel today, the Twelve cannot fathom this thing that Jesus is telling them that He has to be killed, and He will be raised up after three days. They don't want to go anywhere near this thing that Jesus is telling them. Now, dropping a Mass is not the same, but we find ourselves very likely doing exactly what the Twelve are doing. They change the subject. They get into an argument about which one of them is the greatest. Do we recognize ourselves? I think we can recognize our reluctance to look at things which may be difficult, which may require extra sacrifice on our part. This goes along with the Old Testament passage. This is from a very late Old Testament book, the Book of Wisdom, and we hear the resentment that is residing in the hearts of the people who feel threatened by one who acts justly. The passage from James is also of great interest. It talks about being enslaved by our passions, and that's an important thing to look at. These days it seems that we use the term "passionate" quite a bit, and we're sort of congratulating ourselves as we say we're passionate about one thing or another. Well, we keep in mind that very word "passion" comes from a root meaning "to suffer." A passion is something that we undergo, either more or less willingly. When I hear someone say I'm passionate about something, I find myself, at least, saying to myself, "Oh, that's good." To say that we're passionate is pretty much the same as saying we have a pulse or we have a blood pressure, or we have feelings. Yes, these are all things that remind us of our humanity, including our limits. But we need to remember that we can praise ourselves for being passionate, let's say about the religious formation of our children, or we're passionate about hunting, or passionate about a particular recipe we like. Well, these have various degrees of importance, and we need to keep that clear in our minds. Now, Jesus, when he confronts the Twelve with their changing the subject, when he does this, he calls a child to him, and he says to the Twelve, "If you want to be great, you remember that your mission is to receive even this child." It is a call to us that says, "We all have been children." How have we turned out? What is our wish? What is our prayer for this child? What gifts do you want this child to accept? Maybe there are gifts that we were slow to accept, which took us a long time to come around to recognize as valuable. We pray for every one of us that we might accept what is truly valuable. /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/33211537

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time 09/17/2024

Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time As I think of a word by which to sum up all of the scriptures today, I believe that word is denial. Denial is a very common aspect of our consciousness. We decide that there are many, many things in life we would prefer to avoid. And so we exercise denial over them. One example is in the letter of James. We have here the image of a brother or sister, and we need to remember those words, "brother" and "sister" who does not have enough to eat or to wear. Denial puts distance between ourselves and this person whom we could help. Somehow we manage to say to ourselves, "It does not concern me. I cannot do anything." And I suppose that this denial is rooted in an unexamined fear, really an irrational fear, that says, "Well, if I start giving, I won't have anything." That's how our minds can work. We also find denial as Peter has this exchange with Jesus. Mark does not tell us exactly what Peter said, but we can look at other Gospels and see that Peter says, "God forbid that any such thing should happen to you." And we know that Jesus then turns to Peter to say, "Get behind me, Satan." He's using the term "satan" to mean "adversary." The adversary is trying to get in the way of Jesus' mission to lay down his life for the sake of all of us. We have from the prophet Isaiah the third of the four suffering servant songs. We hear this every year on Palm Sunday that the servant of God has set his face like flint, knowing that he will not be put to shame. And that is another irrational fear that many of us have, that suffering is shameful. But when we know the purpose of our suffering, it is anything but shameful. Anyone of us can embrace suffering out of love, as Jesus did. So how do we emerge from a state of denial? We can start by realizing how common denial is. We tend to associate denial with addictions of various kinds. If alcohol is one's thing, for instance, there is a lot of rationalization going on, "Oh, I'm not drinking that much," or, "Oh, I'm only drinking beer," things like that. But once you get started, it does become completely absurd, the things that we tell ourselves. So we have to be aware of the denial we are submitting to. And then take a look at what human life is about. It is not about self-absorption, which is common to all kinds of addiction. We know that we are here to be present to one another, to love and serve one another, to affirm our dignity as human beings. It is a dignity which we may not have recognized ourselves, but we give thanks that the Son of God has affirmed our dignity. /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/33092947

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time 09/10/2024

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time Well, here we are, gathered together in one place. Someone once said that the church could be described as "Here comes everybody." Because we understand this assembly is for everyone. We think in territorial terms, and we say that the people in a particular territory who are Catholic Christians come to this particular assembly or church, because they are members of this particular parish. And we know that we are to find out who we really are when we come together for this assembly, for the Sunday Eucharist, on which we give thanks for the resurrection of Jesus on a Sunday. But there are many questions that could be raised about our coming together here. And we hear some questions in the letter of James. And it's good for us to remember that in the very early years of Christianity, people came together for the Eucharist, for the breaking of the bread, for the most part, in private homes. So we need to imagine this. And James suggests that you might pay a lot of attention to someone with gold rings and fine clothes, and give this person some kind of privilege. Whereas there might be someone that you judge to be less important. And you say, "Well, there's room to stand over here, or you can sit at my feet." And James is pointing out that this is how we carry out discrimination among people, when we are to understand that we enjoy a radical equality, because we are the children of God, we are the ones redeemed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We are equals. And we realize that as we come to this Eucharist, there is no one among us who has life figured out. And the one great riddle for all of us is our mortality, the fact that we are subject to death. And we come here because the Son of God has addressed this riddle of death, and he has done so definitively by laying down his life and then rising from the dead and bringing all of us with him into resurrection. Now we have to help one another. We think of the various liturgical ministers who volunteer to take on various roles in our celebration. We think of lecturers and servers and Eucharistic ministers. It is important for us to know that the people you see carrying out these functions are on a very short rotation. And we can easily have many, many more people assume these roles. And if we are not inclined to volunteer in this way, it is important for us to ask ourselves, "What are we afraid of?" Being seen? Well, you find out when you let yourself be seen, you can relax. Again, we are not here to impress one another or engage in some sort of one upmanship. We are all pilgrims on this great journey, and we learn to be at ease and at peace with one another. In the Gospel, we have related social concerns. We take note of the fact that Jesus, in carrying out this healing of this man, takes him away from the crowd, gives him some privacy. And when you think about the various things that Jesus does, which seem very, very crude to us, putting his fingers into the man's ears, spitting, touching his tongue, and groaning. I think if we were receiving this service, we'd just as soon not have anyone see us. And we take special note of the groaning, because sometimes when it comes to prayer, yes, we have words for prayer. But there are times when all we can do is groan. And St. Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit himself groans along with us. It's strange, of course, that although Jesus told the people to keep this quiet, they announce it to the world. Jesus' point is that he only does healings when there is an expression of faith. And people have faith in Jesus to do this. And when we have received some benefit, some great healing, it's not the first thing we do to tell everybody, we have to reflect on the meaning of this healing. And among other things, we realize that if we're given the power to speak, we don't have to speak all the time. We also must take time for listening and listening to our Lord and what he wants us to do with our various powers. So keep all this in mind as we give thanks for our various gifts. And remember that those gifts are for the sake of service. /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/32999232

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time 09/01/2024

Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time Have you ever had the experience of someone telling you a joke and you had to think about it for a little while before you got it? I'm thinking about something which I would say is not strictly a joke; it was an exchange between me and a student at a school I ran. This was about 30 years ago. And I asked a student, "What is a defibrillator?" And the student replied, "Is it a lie detector?" I thought that student was pretty sharp. There are things, and we hear this from Jesus today, that you try to say something and make something sink in. It might take a while. And that's what Jesus is saying here. And he uses some language here in Mark's Gospel. We've returned to Mark after hearing from John. Jesus is saying, "Hear me, all of you, and understand." I think I've seen some translations that say, "And try to understand." In other words, give it your attention so that a new idea might kick in. Now, we could think that these scribes and Pharisees had something important to point out. You and I have been through a global pandemic, and we all know the importance of cleanliness when it comes to our food. So, in these laws that they observed, they might have been developing this according to an insight by which they equated lack of hygiene with disease. But Jesus is not going in this direction. We have to follow his argument here. And what he says you have to try to understand is, that food goes in, waste passes out. It really does not have anything to do with you. What does have to do with you is whatever comes from within your heart. And that's the point he is trying to get across. And he gives us this list of the things that may be residing in our hearts, which are sinful and are really ruinous to relationships with one another and with our God. So, Jesus is also saying that there are laws that are much more important than other laws. We know when we think about the great, real multiplicity of laws that we find in every aspect of our lives, we know that some laws are more important than others. And all laws can be summed up by the two great commandments. Love God with your whole being, and love your neighbor as yourself. And Moses in speaking about law, is saying in this passage from the book of Deuteronomy, that laws are based upon wisdom. And if we understand and carry out the laws, we are conforming ourselves to wisdom, provided again that we know what the really important things are and how various laws connect to the great commandments. We begin to read today, and we will do so for a total of five Sundays, from the letter of James, which has been a source of controversy among Christians for at least 500 years. You've heard of the controversy over faith and works. James seems to be very much focused on the works we do, the good things we do. And some have said you have to focus on the fact that God loves us and frees us from our sins. Well, it's not an either-or situation. It's not faith or works. If you do things that you see are good in order to make God love you, that's the wrong direction. It's the wrong emphasis. On the other hand, if you say God loves me and forgives me and that doesn't lead to a change in how you conduct your life, well, that's useless as well. It's not faith or works. It is faith. Yes, that incredible awareness we have of God's love for us. It is that faith which gives us the energy to make our lives a work of thanksgiving. So it is faith leading to works. And we need to keep that in mind as we hear from a portion of the New Testament which is distinct, which has its own set of issues to address. We are here allowing ourselves to be enveloped in the love that God has for us, a love that's been shown to us through various people in our lives. We welcome this opportunity to celebrate that love and then to allow our gratitude to form our works. /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/32855107

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 25, 2024 08/25/2024

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 25, 2024 I hope that everyone has read the cover story of the latest issue of our diocesan magazine Catholic Times. It has to do with a person who was addicted to pornography, and this person is very, very forthright in describing the things which go on in the minds and in the feelings of all of us. And we realize that this is one example of the way in which people chase after various objects which we think will provide us with contentment and turn out to be anything but. We have read from the Book of Joshua near the end of that book. Joshua was the immediate successor of Moses. Now the people are in the long promised land of their own. And Joshua questions the people about their intentions. He asks whether they will continue to serve the one true God, the Lord. They say, "We will." We know, however, that many, many people did forget about the Lord, and we can understand why. The Israelites were surrounded by neighboring peoples who had various gods and these gods had images, and there were people who were convinced that their various gods took care of things like the weather and fertility and the growth of crops. And they said, "You should pray to this god." And many people did so. It is hard for the Israelites and for us to remain fixed on the one true God who cannot be captured in any image. And so we struggle, and at times we find ourselves caught up in worship, you could say, of objects which are far from God. We think about our primary commitments, our marriages, and we have heard a teaching of St. Paul in Ephesians about how marriage is intended to be a reflection of the love that Jesus has for his bride, the Church. There is a lot of context to be aware of as we come to understand the meaning of these words. And I would say statistically, when it comes to matters of abuse in marriages, statistically it's more often the men abusing the women rather than the other way around. But it is possible to apply it both ways. There are multitudes of men who do not know anything from the Bible except "Wives, be subordinate to your husband." And that's where they stop, and that's what they think the wife should respond to in the sense of, yes, you have to be totally my servant. Well, it is not correct. The context is very clear. Husbands are to love their wives as Jesus has loved the church, sacrificing himself completely. So we need to be clear about that because if a spouse is merely an object, you are not treating the spouse or yourself with dignity. And finally, we come to the end of our five Sundays of reading from John chapter six about the bread of life. And it is disappointing to hear of all the people who abandon Jesus. It is encouraging, however, to hear the faith-filled words of Peter: "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life." He is expressing a faith which remains fixed on the God who cannot be seen. Now, God the Son did become human. That's who Jesus is. The full mystery of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit remains hidden from us. So we struggle as the Israelites did in the time of Joshua. We have God's Word. We have the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist by which we remain united with the mystery. So we continue as people being fed by Word and sacrament, encouraging one another not to fall for the various objects we find in life, even if they happen to be good. We can reach a point where we say, yes, there are many good things in our life and I can enjoy them. I don't have to possess them. In fact, if I just keep my heart on the gift of God himself, other things will become much less important. And that makes for a life of great simplicity. /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/32730872

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 18, 2024 08/18/2024

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, August 18, 2024 I believe many of you know, because I've spoken about this at times, that I have been helped greatly by the sciences of psychology and psychiatry. And we recognize that these disciplines are addressing the human person in our complexity. And we are the most complex creatures of God. And I bring this up because our readings today mention wisdom. And I am thinking about one school of thought in psychology and it's okay to have many, many different schools of thought. Again, it's because of our complexity. There are so many ways that we can approach the human person. And I'm thinking about stages of normal human development. And I'm going to the end. I'm going to the last couple of stages. There are maybe eight or nine, or it looks like some people have added more. But anyway, according to my references, the second to the last stage of personality development is called generativity. And we hear that and we think, "Oh, yes, having children." That is obviously one way to be generative. But for those of us who do not have children, we can also exercise generativity by being creative, for instance, in the arts in one way or another. And generativity leads to what is considered the final stage. And that's called wisdom. And it is interesting that our Scriptures today in the first and second readings mention wisdom. You may also have noted in the fourth verse of our opening hymn ["Here at This Table"] that there is a reference to wisdom. It's not as if through the course of our life we were totally without wisdom. But the final stage of our earthly life is for the sake of summing up, recognizing the wisdom we have acquired. It might have been at many different turning points during the course of our life. And it may have been through mistakes we'd made. In any event, wisdom is saying to us, "Yes, you can look upon your life as worthy." You can recognize that you have lived on behalf of very, very important values. And so we have in Proverbs the invitation to the banquet offered by wisdom. There's also a banquet offered by folly, by foolishness. And we didn't read that, but you can read it on your own. Just go to the ninth chapter of the book of Proverbs. And then St. Paul in Ephesians goes on to address wisdom as well. And he specifically indicates the problem of getting drunk on wine, as he says. Apparently such behavior did upset many of the earliest Christian communities. So we take all this into account and then we return to Jesus' instruction on himself as the bread of life. And he is very, very earthy in this particular passage. He is saying, "You must eat my flesh and drink my blood." And people just don't know what to do with this. They say that's impossible. At the same time, they're probably thinking it's disgusting as well to say that. And all the more they're saying, "Drink my blood, that's impossible." The dietary regulations totally forbid the ingestion of blood. It may seem as if there is no wisdom to be gained here. You and I are thankful that we have been introduced and exposed to this incredible gift of the Son of God who became one of us. He has loved us completely, all the way to death, followed by resurrection. And we are united with his love in a most intimate way, the most intimate way that we can imagine through our partaking of the body and blood of Christ in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. So we give thanks for the gift of wisdom. And we know that next weekend, the last of our five weekends in which we have detoured from Mark into the Gospel of John, we look forward to hearing the profession of faith of Saint Peter, when people go away, but Peter says, "Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of everlasting life." /episode/index/show/exsult1/id/32628597