September 2024 - Father Greg

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.

Checklist

A homily for the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Earlier this week, we commemorated 9/11. That brought to mind a letter I had received from a woman I knew, Charlotte, who worked in one of the twin Towers. She’d gotten to work that day and thought, I’ve never had coffee with my niece or my nephew who work in the other tower. So she called them and said, you know, we’ve never had coffee. Let’s meet for coffee. They said, great idea. So they all met in the plaza between the two towers, just as the first plane hit. And they ran. And in the letter, she is talking about, like, survivor’s guilt. Why did she survive? Her niece and nephew survived when so many died. So I thought a while and wrote, you know, we, none of us survive forever.

Life is not about living immortality here. We have purpose. We have agenda. God has agenda for us. And I think when we don’t have that done, God extends or God takes care of us. There were a lot of people who surprisingly didn’t die that day for varieties of reasons, weren’t in the office that day.

And I kind of think maybe we do have purpose. And so that’s what I wrote back and said, you had purpose. You will die one day, but not that day, because you have still a mission to complete. In today’s gospel, Jesus is talking about mission. He asks the disciples, who do they say that I am? And Peter says, well, you are the Christ.

That’s his mission. And then he says, Peter, you are rock. But then Peter says, no, no, no, no, no. But I don’t want that to be your mission. I don’t want you to die. And so he says the famous line, get behind me, Satan. It’s not Satan, the devil. It’s a word that just means adversary or opponent in this case.

Get behind me, opponent. You don’t see the bigger picture. So I think that’s the call of today’s gospel to see the bigger picture, to see what does God want you? What does God want me? What does God want us to do? And that’s our mission. Now I have your homework for you. Google this. Cardinal Newman, wrote a prayer, great prayer called “Mission of My Life”.

Look that prayer up. it’ll say a lot.

Open for Filling

In the baptismal right after the baby or the adult is baptized, then their ear is touched, their lips are touched, and the priest or the deacon says, Ephphatha, be opened. And what does that do? Why is that part of the baptismal right? This be opened? In today’s gospel, the deaf man is given this same right, the same word by Jesus, Ephphatha, be opened.

What does it do? And in the gospel his ears would be opened. His tongue would be opened. So he could talk. But I think in the baptismal right, it’s that our heart is open, our mind is open, our soul is open so that we can receive grace, we can receive love. We can receive the Holy Spirit. We can receive of God’s plenitude that the heart is open.

But what closes the heart? I think what closes the heart is me, my ego. You know, my stubbornness or my selfishness or my self-righteousness, all this stuff. But this is the way it’s supposed to be here. This is the way it should be, or this is the way I wanted. These are the things that occlude the heart. Close off the heart, block the heart.

And so I think this Ephphatha is for a lifetime of opening the heart more and more to receive everything from God. So that’s why in the baptismal right as water is poured, as oil is poured. This word is said, Ephphatha, to receive grace and goodness, just like water being poured over you, like oil being poured over you.

Saint Teresa of Avila says, let us never cease to believe that even in this life, God gives the hundred fold. It’s true. God gives the 100 fold. But we’re closing it off. We’re the ones blocking it. So I think the idea is, Ephphatha, be open so that as God gives the 100 fold, we can receive 100 fold. Ephphatha, be open.

God Save Us

A Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Gregory dies and he finds himself in the presence of the devil. Oops. And the devil says, do you want a tour? So Mary says, sure. They go up to a room and there’s screaming and torturing sounds and hollering. Gregory says, what did they do? And the devil says, well, these are Baptists who drink beer. They go to the next room for torturing sounds.

And what did they do? Oh, these are Jews who ate bacon. And they go to the next room. What did they do? And he says these are Catholics who ate meat on Friday. And then they go to the next room. What did they do? And the devil says, oh, these are Episcopalians who ate their main course with their salad fork.

I don’t mean to offend anybody with this joke, but it’s a kind of this is what’s going on in today’s gospel. The pointlessness of these rules. Unless these rules go somewhere. Mark gives us these, all these cleanliness rules about beds and cups and utensils and and Jesus says, but that’s not where cleanliness comes from, because these things have to go somewhere.

If they just stay, rules, but they stay the endpoint. If they stay what we focus on, that’s just empty piety. Saint Teresa of Avila says, God save us from empty piety because these things have to change our interior. These rules. Otherwise they’re just a joke. This comes from the Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tzu, the founder of Daoism.

He says, what are your thoughts? For your thoughts become your words. What are your words for your words become your actions. What your actions for your actions become your habits. What your habits or your habits become your character. What your character for your character becomes your destiny. I think that’s what she’s saying. What Mark is saying in today’s gospel, it would.

Teresa of Avila is saying when she says, God save us from empty piety.