Father Greg

A homily for the Baptism of the Lord

When I do baptisms for parents of babies to be baptized, they say, I’m going to ask four questions. And so I say, question number one. What is baptism? After all, you’re requesting it. And if they’ve been to R.E. or to Catholic school, one of them will say it’s washing away sin, washing away original sin. So very good.

We get that from Paul’s letter to the Romans. And he Paul says, you know, when you wash up in the morning, you’re washing away dirt. So he looks at that and says, you know, baptism is probably like that is washing away dirt. So it’s going to be a washing away sin. Second question what is baptism? I say, don’t give me the same answer.

And it’s more. And so I give him the hint. What was the first time anyone saw you? Like naked and all wet. In his day they baptized naked. And so the. Well, that was when I was born. Exactly. Paul looks at baptism, says, you know, it must be like a rebirth, a second birth. The first time was into human family.

Second time into God’s family. Very good answer. Then third question. What is baptism? And then they’re looking at me. Now I say, in church we always have these little holy water fonts by the door, because in the ancient world you always had to wash up a bit before you entered. And so it’s the entrance into a building, because you always had a wash in the ancient world.

So Paul looks at that, says, you know, it must be like entering a building. It’s entering the church. And so this is the fourth question. What is baptism? This one really gets some. But again, it’s Paul to the Romans. And he he looked at that and said, you to when they’re plunged into the water and in his day they baptized by submersion, it’s like being put into the grave, and the water represents the dirt going over your head.

But then you come back out. It’s like resurrection. And so he said, baptism is death and resurrection. So what is it? Is it washing away sin? Is it being born into God’s family? Is it entering a building? Entering the church? Is it death and resurrection? It’s all of them. And probably a lot more. And so when we’re celebrating the baptism of Jesus, or, you know, even in his day, they’re saying, why is he being baptized?

Because it is so rich and so wonderful and so deep and so profound. I think our call is to live all this. We enter the church to make the church, you know, our home. We are dead to sin, alive for Christ. We are washed. Sin is washed away. Let’s try to stay sinless. And, it is a new birth.

We’re born again. Every day is a new day. So I think that’s what we celebrate when we celebrate baptism. And when we celebrate the baptism of Jesus.

Make Your Own Holy Door

Pope Francis opened the Holy Year by opening the ‘Holy Door’ at Saint Peter’s. And you can open your own ‘Holy Door.’

You’ve probably seen on the news how Pope Francis has opened the Holy Year by opening the Holy Door. Those are the center doors at Saint Peter’s in Rome. And I’m thinking that we can do the same. We can designate – and that’s my suggestion to you – that each of us designates some door: an office door or your house door or a classroom door; some door you go through. And each time you go through it, bring holiness with you – through that door. Make that door a holy door. And one way to remind yourself is to mark it. Write “HD” on the door; maybe on an index card or a piece of paper, and tape it to the door, to remind you that every time you go through that door you going to bring holiness with you. Put it on your office, or your classroom, or your house, or any door. “HD” also stands for High Definition. And so I think if we do this: we make a holy door and are intent that every time we go through it we bring holiness with us, we will become more and more High Definition Christians. So, yes, “HD” can stand for ‘Holy Door’ but it can also stand for ‘High Definition.’ Let’s makel this year a holy year and make it a High Definition year. This could be a great New Year’s resolution.

Positive Leadership

A homily for Christ the King Sunday

When I was newly ordained, I was assigned to a parish in New Jersey. I thought I’d be assigned to a high school. So I was really surprised. But everyone said, oh, you’re going to be with Father Peter. Father Peter is excellent. They oftentimes say your first pastor, when you’re newly ordained, will teach you more about how to do the work of a priest than anything in the seminary.

And so everyone said, you are with the best. Well, I turned out, I was with the best. Father Peter was an excellent mentor, an excellent coach, an excellent example, an excellent teacher, and just an all around great guy. Perfect guy to have as your first pastor as this great teacher. Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King.

What does that mean? We’re Americans, and kings are less and less in the world anyway. I interpret it as Christ the leader. That’s what it really means. Christ the great leader. And I use this example of great leader, Father Peter. Years ago, I took a course in the business school on management, leadership, management, and they were talking about positive leadership models and there are four that they were talking about authentic, charismatic servant and transformational and a good leader does all of those.

And that’s what I think Father Peter was. He was he did all of those. He was authentic, true to himself. Boy, he knew himself charismatic. He. He just inspired people to do the work of a parish servant. He was the servant of the people and transformational. I think he really transformed the parish to be a spectacular, cutting edge parish.

That’s what I think we see in today’s gospel. Jesus is on trial before Pilate. They’ve dragged him before Pilate, but he he starts to engage Pilate in this great discourse. And you could see he’s being authentic. And he knows who Pilate is, too. He’s being charismatic. Know pilot is reacting to him positively. He’s being the servant servant of the people, and he’s being transformational.

He’s trying to inspire Pontius Pilate. So this is what I think is the key to understanding this feast of Christ the King. It’s not Jesus lording it over us. It’s Jesus transforming us and inspiring us and serving us and telling us to be authentic. And on this feast day, maybe we are called to be leaders ourselves. I think that’s what Jesus does to the apostles, does to everyone in the gospel.

He beats. He inspires them to be leaders, not followers. Saint Teresa of Avila says, for all who follow Christ, if they do not want to get lost, must walk along the path he trod. He trod the paths of leadership, of being servant, authentic, charismatic transformational. That’s the call of this feast for us to be those same, that same, those same, that same kind of leader.

That’s the call of today’s feast.

Storm Warning

A homily for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the deanery I belonged to a young priest was being assigned to a new parish, so I said I’d help him move, and by the time I got there all his boxes were packed. So we drove it to the new place. I’m helping them unpack and as im opening a box filled with black shirts, next box black shirt, next box, black shirts, next box black shirts, black pants on and on.

And finally I said, “wheres your like day off clothes?”. And he says, well I never take a day off? The parishioners loved him because all he did was work. He was there for them. They called in the middle of the night or hospital middle of the night, or anointing in the middle. He was there, always there. They just thought he was the greatest priest ever.

And they were shocked when he had a nervous breakdown. And how could the best priest ever have a nervous breakdown? In my own analysis, he was hiding behind priesthood. You know, he wasn’t. He wasn’t revealing himself. He was just living the role. He wasn’t true. He was safe. In today’s gospel, Jesus talks about when the Son of Man comes, the sun will be darker, the moon will be darkened.

Stars will fall. I think that’s all a metaphor for the inside that is in turmoil. That the Son of Man doesn’t come to cause turmoil. He’s causing it. He wants to soothe turmoil, to make us like deep, rich, living, abundant human beings. But that takes a lot of change. And I think that young priest was hiding because people want more than just to be admired.

They want friends. They want relationships. We want intimacy. We just do. But that takes risk. And it’s easier just to hide. Hide behind a role or hide behind a bottle or hide behind anything. And the Son of Man is going to push us forward. Teresa of Avila likens spirituality, which I think spiritually is our spirit coming fully alive.

She says in her great magnum opus, The Interior of Castle, “we consider our soul to be like a castle made entirely out of diamond, a Paradise where the Lord finds his delight”. But we have to examine the castle, move into that castle, study that castle, move deeper and deeper into the castle to find the Lord and to find ourselves.

That castle is me. The castle is you. That’s the call. Is to. To know yourself. To learn ourselves. Because the Son of Man comes not to cause turmoil, but to bring life and life in abundance. That young priest came out of his nervous breakdown, taking a day off. All of a sudden having friends instead of just admirers. I think being a much deeper, richer person.

That’s the call of today’s gospel. Not for storms. But storms that lead to calm richness, fullness, abundance.

With Greatness Done

A homily for the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time with the Gospel passage about the Widow’s Mite – Mark 12:38-44

Of all the cards I received at my ordination, I’ve kept a card given to me by my nephew Michael who was six years old at the time. Not because it was the fanciest card of the hundreds of cards received; rather, it was the most loving.

LuciChristopher

A homily for the 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I was helping out in a parish, and the sacristant, a guy named Lou, was always grumpy, and every time he’d come in there, he’d be grumping at this or grumping at that one time early in the morning at morning mass. I came in, took my coat off, put it on the counter, and he grabbed it and said, “were you born in a barn? Don’t you know how to hang up a coat?” And I looked at him because I did not have my coffee yet and said, Lou, what is a short for Lucifer? And I thought, oh, I’m going to get it now. And he started to laugh, and he said, no one’s ever called him Lucifer before. And he thought it was funny.

So he said, we’re going out for breakfast. He had a very interesting history. How he got that name was he was left at the doorstep of a convent as a newborn, and he was crying. The garbageman heard him, woke up the nuns. They brought him in. It was the feast of Saint Lucy in December. So the nuns gave him the name, Lou.

That’s how he got it. Kind of interesting. And from then on, he always was friendly with me. And, But my. That’s my thinking is Lucifer. Lucifer means to carry light. And Lucifer is the chief of the archangels. He was brilliant and light, and he carried light. But what light did he carry? His own light. And that’s, that’s the problem.

He wanted to promote himself and promote, He would be the chief. He would be the center. He would be the Lucifer. And that’s not what we’re Christians to be. We’re not to be Lucifer. We’re to be like Christopher. Christopher means to carry Christ. Lucifer means to carry light or the feminine. Christine or Christopher is the call here.

in today’s gospel, James and John come to Jesus and say we want to be first and second. We want to sit on your first. So that’s putting themselves forward, making their light. They want their light to shine forth. And I think that’s always a problem we end up being when we promote our own light, we end up being Lucifer. We need to promote Christ’s light to be Christ in the world today.

Saint John of the cross, his best known poem is called The Dark Night and it begins with these words. “One dark night, fired by love’s urgent longings. Ah the sheer grace I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.” What he’s getting at there is. His house is stilled. It’s that promoting one’s self, promoting one’s light.

Promoting is still now. And he can go out to promote Christ, to do the work of Christ, to be Christ in the world today. That’s where I think James and John went awry. Why Jesus wouldn’t give them that position. Their job is not to be Johniffer or Jamesiffer or Lucifer. It’s to be Christopher or the feminine Christine to promote Christ.

It’s our job. Thanks, Christopher.

Coffee vs. Great Coffee

A homily for the 28th Sunday in Ordinary time

One the weekend, we had a mission appeal speaker, a priest from Colombia was going to speak at all the masses, raise money for his mission in Colombia, spoke good English. He gets up on Saturday morning, comes in the kitchen. I just made coffee and he grabs a mug, grabs the pot, pours a cup of coffee, takes one sip, walks over to the kitchen sink and throws it in and looks at me and says, You Americans never roast your coffee enough.

So what he did is he took the kitchen out of the cupboard. A can of, Maxwell House and I like the coffee. And he put it like in a frying pan. Just poured it right in a frying pan, put it on the stove using a spatula. Turned it over quickly to finish roasting it. The whole kitchen smelled like coffee.

And then while still hot he put it in the basket and brewed another pot of coffee.

Handed me a cup.

Boy, was it good. Excellent coffee. Same coffee I’ve been drinking, but it had been transformed to an extraordinary cup of coffee. In today’s gospel, the rich young man comes to Jesus and says, what must I do? And Jesus says, everything you’re doing is great and looks at him with love.

But says one thing more. Sell everything you have, give to the poor, and come follow me. And the guy leaves dejected. It’s like Jesus said everything you’re doing, it’s a great cup of coffee, but we can really make this really good coffee by just doing this one more thing. That’s what he’s offering. He’s not saying, well, this is the key to heaven, or this is the key to my heart.

It says, no, you’re living a rich life now, but you could even be richer. It can be darker, it can be, wholesome. It can be blacker, like black coffee. Really good. It’s what he’s offering and offers us. Saint Teresa of Avila, a great saint says, “how can we share our gifts lavishly if we do not understand that we are rich?”

She understands we’re rich. But she’ll add the great line right after that. But all we understand is ready cash. That’s what Jesus is saying. Look deeply. Live deeply. Live more richly. Live this life in its fullness. And all it takes is open heart, open generosity, open lives. Do what he asks. And this life, this life will be lavish and rich.

That’s what today’s gospel is all about. Let’s enjoy a cup of coffee.

What Poisons Everything?

A homily for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

A few years ago, I was teaching at one of our high schools, and at the end of the academic year, they had an appreciation cocktail party for the big donors to the school. And because I was on the faculty and I was a priest, I was invited. During the cocktail party, I noticed that all the men there, all of them were over the age of 70, except for me and all the women there were under the age of 35.

And I’m thinking something is wrong. And when these men would introduce their wives, they would say things like, oh, let me introduce my beautiful wife. Does she have a name? If this is what happened to your first wives, I’m sure they didn’t all marry only first time late in life. I think what they were doing is divorcing their wives as they get older.

Less attractive, less alluring. To get a trophy wife. This is exactly what Jesus is decrying in today’s gospel when he has these prohibitions, prescriptions on divorce. It’s not prescriptions on divorce. It’s treating people like trophies instead of love. Love should be the motivator, not a trophy. And it works the other way around too. I’m sure women, if they have the wherewithal, will discard their less than attractive, aging husband for a hunky new model.

But this is not love. This is egoism, run amuck. And that’s what Jesus is decrying. Egoism run amok. Ego is shallow. It’s about me. What’s mine? Look at me. I want my way. I want everything like I want it. Egoism. Not love. The world. Oftentimes, especially younger people. I’ve heard this time and time again. Religion poisons everything. I’d say contrary.

Contrary. Religion heals what’s gone wrong? Egoism. Egoism poisons everything. That’s what this gospel’s about. Egoism run amuck and just divorcing for a trophy. You know, disrupting lives. Egoism. Religion means to realign or reconnect religion. What religion is trying to do is correct what egoism has poisoned. Saint Teresa of Avila says, “if there is no progress in humility, everything is going to be doomed.”

What she means by humility is just the opposite of egoism. Oh, to take in mind the other. What are they feeling? How are they acting? Humility. True humility is not a doormat. True humility is love. And I think that’s what Jesus is asking of all his disciples. Not egoism, that shouldn’t be running your life. Love should be running your life.

That’s the call of today’s gospel.

Weight-Loss Program

A homily for the 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

I’ve always been a jogger, and a few years ago, quite a few years ago, I decided, let me see if I can do a marathon, get in shape for a marathon. Well, if you’re going to condition yourself for a marathon, that means, like, lose a lot of weight. I had to lose a lot of weight because I, the more weight you carry, the harder it is.

And so I had to shed quite a few pounds to get in shape. That’s my interpretation of today’s gospel, where Jesus says, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off, or if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It’s not because sin is the, sinlessness is the goal. No, it’s marathon is the goal. It’s to be conditioned to do this marathon of love.

You know, love God with all your heart, soul, mind and body and love your neighbor as yourself. This is what were to be conditioned for. Life is not about remaining sinless and whammo! The door opens to heaven. No, life is about love. And whammo, love opens the door to heaven. Not sinlessness, but it gets worse because I was now watching what I was eating and I was being careful about what I ate.

I became fastidious and people, my sisters especially said, you know, Greg, you’ve become like a self-righteous diet nazi who is watching what people are eating. Because I had a watch. And that’s kind of what this is about. This is, you know, pull off that nazi stuff we do to each other criticizing or nitpicking or judging or avoiding. You know, this is the stuff we’re to be plucking out of our lives so that we can run this marathon of love.

Saint Teresa of Avila, great saint, says; “all who follow Christ, if they don’t want to get lost, must walk along the path he trod’. He was on the marathon path, and he asks us to be on the marathon path. To just love and love and love again. And fired with love within. To love and love again. That line also comes from Saint Teresa of Avila.

More Awarenesses

A homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Back when I was in the seminary, the seminary had a big renovation and everything was put in storage. Pictures, paintings, statues, furniture. Lamps. Everything. When it was done, the prior asked me if I could put all that stuff back. So I’m walking around, oh the cross would look good here at the painting would look good here, the statue would look good here, the lamp would look good there.

And I was kind of happy with my work. A bunch of Franciscans came to see the newly renovated building. Some the prior asked me to take them around. And I’m showing them all the work I had done. I put the crucifix here. I put the statue there. I put this painting here. I put this lamp there.

And the prior of that community interrupted to say. Did anybody work on this project but you? It’s sounded that bed. It was all about me and giving attention to me and all of every. That’s what ego does. Ego is about me, mine. I look at me, all eyes on me. Give me the attention. But it really is.

You don’t see much when you’re controlled by ego. Because all you’re looking at is yourself. And I think that’s my interpretation of today’s gospel when Jesus says, if you will put yourself first, which is ego, edo, ego, me, mine, mine. You’re not going to see much. You’re going to be the last because you miss so much, because your eyes are only on you.

If you put yourself last, which means put your ego down, step aside. You’ll see more. You’ll connect more you’ll relate more. You’ll have a broader awareness, broader perspective. When you put yourself last, you become more of the first. Teresa of Avila says, May the Lord be praised, who freed me from myself? I think what she’s saying is the same thing.

Freed from myself means freed from me. I, my, freed from my ego. Or at least it’s not as much controlling so that I can connect to you, to God, to nature, to life, to others. To be more aware. To be more connected. That’s what today’s gospel and Teresa of Avila are about.