October 2024 - Father Greg

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.