What happened in the Transfiguration Event is that we get a glimpse into one of Jesus’ mystical experiences when he encountered the world of heaven where Moses and Elijah talk to him about his “upcoming exodus in Jerusalem.”  This all happened while he was in prayer, his regular conversations with God the Father.  What makes this prayer/mystical encounter of his different is that he lets several of the disciples also enter into his mystical experience where they can actually see Moses and Elijah, and hear God’s voice announce, “This is my Son.  Listen to him.”

If we put ourselves in the place of the disciples, there are two lessons we can derive from the miracle of the Transfiguration.  One is that we have to make a conscious decision in our faith journey if we really believe that Jesus is God’s Son, as God himself said in the revelation.  This is especially a challenging question for our Elect who are in their final weeks of preparing for full initiation into the life of Christ at the Easter Vigil.

Now it may seem obvious to ‘say’ that Jesus is God’s Son since we claim to be Christians.  But if we really believed it, what is keeping us from fully listening to and practicing all that Jesus taught us?  It seems that many Christians, not unlike Muslims or Jews, accept Jesus only as a ‘wise teacher’ or ‘prophet’ who had some ‘good advice’ about life that we can pick and choose to follow or not.  But if we say that Jesus really IS God’s Son, then we have no option but to fully integrate all of his teachings… and make His way of life our own!  No matter how old we are or how long we have claimed to be Christian, the Transfiguration Event challenges us to really ask our self if we truly believe in Jesus as God’s Son…and are willing to renew our commitment to more fully integrate our life into the Way of Jesus Christ!

So, first lesson of the Transfiguration is an invitation to truly accept that Jesus IS the Son of God and that may mean listening to the Gospel message in a new way.  Secondly, since the Transfiguration happened while Jesus was in prayer, we learn from him that in the form of prayer we call ‘contemplation,’ we can actually enter into the realm or ‘plane’ of heaven and experience an intimacy with God that takes us beyond this world.  While we may not be ‘mystics’ in the formal sense of the word, Jesus shows a kind of prayer in which our ‘realm of life’ becomes one with God’s ‘realm.’

Now, we may be thinking that there is no way we could ever attain such holiness and depth of prayer.  But when we think that those three simple disciples who were uneducated fisherman were able to do it, it gives us encouragement that Jesus wants us, ordinary people, to know the kind of intimacy with God that he has.  By him inviting the disciples INTO his prayer experience of union with God, he is inviting all of us to think of prayer as a way to enter into the ‘world of God’ in order to better know God’s Will for our life.

Since for many people this is a whole new way of thinking about prayer – to experience a real ‘oneness’ with God – I will be offering a very short introduction to this kind of ‘contemplative prayer’ on the next four Monday nights, one-half hour before the 6 PM Mass.  I will give the details of that in my announcements later on. 

In one sense, Jesus was transfigured every time he was in prayer.  He kept allowing the Holy Spirit to ‘transfigure him’ into what it fully means to be the Son of God.  This kind of contemplative prayer, beyond the kind of ‘talking to God prayer’ we are used to, takes a real vulnerability on our part since it means we are willing to be ‘transfigured’ into whatever God wants of us.  This kind of vulnerability is required every time we come forward for the Eucharist – a willingness to be ‘transfigured’ more and more into the very life of Christ.  Therefore, before we come to Communion, we have to ask our self…”Am I ready to be changed and transfigured into Christ?”

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February 14, 2010

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Jim Deiters

This past week I was away at my annual week of continuing education that this year focused on how a priest, while working on his own holiness, helps bring greater ‘holiness’ into the lives of the people with whom he ministers. It started off on a very funny experience when I arrived without my collar on and checked into the hotel where the conference was being held. The woman behind the counter, with a big smile very politely greeted me and said, “Welcome Mr. Deiters! Are you here for our exciting, romantic “Valentine’s Get-Away Sexy Spa Package” with your spouse?” While the question caught me off guard, I was quickly tempted to create some sad story about how my wife just left me and I was here for a divorce support group session. But…I restrained myself…and simply said, “No thanks.”

It was one of those startling moments when someone or something calls you out of your own little world to remember that there is a lot more going on around you than you may be aware of. So, I was trying to imagine how Jesus might have felt quite startled when he came down from his mountain top retreat alone with God, to see the vast crowd of people waiting for him to take care of their many needs. He had just been in quiet prayer with his Father, remembering another ‘world’ he belonged to, and then Jesus comes down the hill to be ‘re-awakened’ to the reality that he is also part of our human world...in great need of his healing power. The author Luke paints a spiritual contrast between Jesus’ time in prayer on the mountain and coming down to be with the people on what Luke calls “level ground.”

It is a simple but important point Luke gives us when he describes Jesus coming ‘down the mountain’ to be with his people on their ‘level.’ THIS is our God – one who does not keep a lofty distance from our suffering; one who meets us at our ‘level’ of emptiness, doubts, and fears. But what probably shocked everyone who heard him preach that day is how he talked about people’s struggles and pain as ‘blessings’ or beatitudes. At first it does indeed sound strange to hear Jesus say “Blessed are you who are poor or hungry or weeping or feeling excluded.” It is not that Jesus is encouraging people to find themselves in poor or sad situations in order to feel blessed.

Rather, what Jesus is saying is that those who are going through difficult times are more apt to place their trust in God than those who think they have their life all together. This is exactly what Jeremiah was prophesying about in our first reading when he said, “Blessed are those who trust in the Lord.” Then Jeremiah gives us this beautiful image that we also heard in the Psalm today: “the one who trusts in God is like a tree planted near water whose leaves stay green even during seasons of distress…” Jesus picks up on this theme of trust and reminds his followers that when hard times come upon us… to turn it into an opportunity to trust in the Lord even more than we had before!

Jesus is telling us disciples who are going through a difficult time to try and be more aware of God's "blessing" of being near us. Not that God has put the misfortunes on us, but that in them we will know God's abiding presence and strength. Any trial or difficulty is a form of ‘poverty’ and thus Jesus wants us to use our ‘emptiness’ and hunger as a way to place more trust in God! The way that a ‘blessing’ comes out of the difficulty is that we start to see signs of how much God is caring for us…even when it may feel like the world is crumbling around us.

What makes us feel poor, suffering, or sad, can be experiences used to open our hearts more to the love and mercy that God offers us. When we are converted from the idea that we can provide for ourselves…we then learn to rely more on God and the coming Kingdom. Coming to know and trust God, when all else fails, can give us a deep and lasting inner happiness. The ‘surface things’ of life might make us feel ‘external bliss’ for awhile…but inner happiness, truly being ‘blessed’ as Jesus is using the term, comes from an inner trust in God! It's hard to explain how that can happen but we can either remember a time in the past when God helped us through a difficult moment…or we may know of someone who was an example of deep faith at a difficult moment. I have seen amazing examples of this when someone who has gone through a very hard time, nevertheless, exhibits a deep calm and joy. How do they do that? They don't. God does it within them, because they trusted God at the lowest points of their lives, they are "Blessed."

It truly is difficult to see ‘blessings’ when we are in the midst of some great trial in our life. But at the same time, some tribulation is exactly what has us praying more often and talking to God more honestly about our needs. This is what we call ‘spiritual growth’ – because we change from trying to do things on our own…and trust more and more in God to guide our way.

At this Altar we admit to ourselves and to one another…how much we need God’s help! We bring all our needs to the Lord…trusting in God’s Mercy…and we discover again how very ‘blessed’ we are.

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January 10, 2010

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Baptism of the Lord
Fr. Jim Deiters

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January 3, 2010

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Epiphany
Fr. Jim Deiters

When I was in the classroom and I had the children coloring a picture of the manger scene with the Magi at the crib, I asked one of the boys why he colored one of the wise men so different from the other two. He looked at me and said, “Because this one is ME!” It was one of those teacher moments when I thought, “Wow, I wish I had thought about putting that in my lesson plan!” This is a feast about us following the example of the Magi and coming to see Jesus in a whole new way. The Holy Spirit is constantly nudging ALL of us to grow in our faith and prayer life, but many of us don’t take the time to LISTEN to the Spirit or find the time to respond to the Spirit by further Adult Education, faith sharing groups, retreats, or bible study. It is so easy to get ‘stuck’ on one level of prayer and faith since our life is so full of other things. Many of us forget that a relationship with God is a life-long process!

The feast of Epiphany is a very rich feast with lots of symbolism that goes way beyond the song about three kings and little statues dressed up as royalty. The Magi were more like poor astrologers who were trying to find life’s meaning through magic or signs in the sky. Much like our own generation, they wanted science and math to prove EVERYTHING for us to help us make sense of life’s mysteries. The gospel writer Matthew places the Magi in the story of Jesus’ birth to represent how God has come to save even those who were not part of the original chosen Israelites. Out of all the symbolism that is packed into this great story, I want to focus on the JOURNEY or pilgrimage that the magi made… as a powerful symbol of our own life-long pilgrimage to know Jesus.

The Epiphany story focuses on the magi who are on a ‘pilgrimage’, that is, in a movement of SEARCHING, which has its destination in Christ. At the same time, the story reveals that God has ‘searched out’ humanity and came to live among us as a human being!

The Magi’s journey to see Jesus represents our own search for God…and our desire to know Jesus in a more profound way. Therefore this is a very challenging feast for us if we are not being very active in our search for God and a closer relationship with God. Many Christians take sort of a ‘minimalist’ approach to their faith life and learn about Jesus as a child… and get the ‘required’ sacraments, but do not do much for their spiritual life as an adult. When we reach high school or college age, our mind is filled with doubts and questions about life…and we so want all the ‘answers to life’ to be in the books we read. At this stage of life we are not even sure who to go to with our questions and thus young people often turn away from the Church and their faith life is unplugged…and often times it remains at an eighth-grade level. The Magi teach us that once we hear ABOUT Jesus as a child, we must begin a life-long ‘ADULT’ journey of seeking out the full meaning of WHO Jesus really IS – to have a more personal FRIENDSHIP with Christ! As children we memorize things ABOUT Jesus; only as adults can we begin to understand WHO Jesus IS as our Savior and friend.

I am always inspired then, when college students and older adults get back on the ‘path’ of seeking out the Light of Christ, joining a bible study group, or go on a retreat weekend. To me it is a sign that the Star pointing us to Christ is still glimmering and still beckoning people to get closer to God.

Our Holy Father, Pope Benedict wrote this about the Epiphany: “Remember to continue your search for Christ without tiring and without ever despairing of the truth.” The Pope went on to say, “Happy are those who, while possessing the truth, search more earnestly for it in order to renew it, deepen it and transmit it to others.” Since Christ is light… to seek out Christ through a regular study of Scripture, Church teachings, and prayer can only bring greater meaning to our life! Ongoing education in the Christian faith actually ILLUMINATES and makes clearer for us God’s great love and mercy!

The mystery of the Epiphany contains a demanding message for Christians who have put their faith life ‘on hold.’ This feast shakes us from our slumber and calls us to get back on the path of truly seeking out and understanding more and more about who is this person Jesus, who is also our God! Today’s feast is appropriately at the beginning of a New Year for us to think about a new start of making a more conscience effort in this New Year to proactively come to KNOW Jesus in a deeper way through Catholic adult education and spiritual formation. We make all kinds of time planning out our education, our career, and our retirement…, but what about time to get to know GOD and my Catholic faith – something eternal?

As we are about to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, the Epiphany gift that we can bring to Jesus is a renewed commitment to see our life as pilgrimage of truly searching for a fuller understanding of our faith. Jesus Christ still has a bright light shining as an invitation to each one of us to come closer. How much richer are the lives of those who respond!

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December 27, 2009

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Holy Family Feast
Fr. Jim Deiters

About a month ago I was at a funeral luncheon of a friend’s aunt and the meal was in one of the family member’s home. After the usual introductions people were milling around visiting and I noticed a framed print on the kitchen wall that read, “In this house, Mom runs the place, the kids work for her, and dad shows up once in a while.” I thought it was pretty funny (and very true in some households) since it sort of pokes fun at each person who lives there. For this feast of the Holy Family, it would be an interesting exercise, and maybe a fun family game, if we sat down with the people we live and we each write out in 15 words or less, our own description of the way our home is run. I am sure the parents would find it quite interesting to hear how the children describe the role their parents play in the home. This is one of my personal joys of being around children since they have no hesitation sharing with me what happens in their home!

Our feast today is both an honoring of the first ‘Holy Family,’ Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, as well as praying about ways that we can bring a renewed sense of ‘holiness’ into our own families. Since we all have different interpretations of what the word ‘family’ means – from single parents, to adopted children, to mixed families, to a more traditional one - I think it is best for us to focus on the word ‘holy’ and what we can do to create a greater sense of holiness into whatever ‘version’ of a family we may have.

Many of you are familiar with the humorous Garrison Keillor and his famous show called “Prairie Home Companion,” heard locally on NPR on Sunday afternoons. At the end of each week’s episode on the happenings of the fictional town of Lake Wobegon, he describes the town as "where all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average." In a sense he is poking fun at how we all like to think of ourselves as being pretty good people – strong, good-looking, and above average. And yet in each weekly story about the family life in Lake Wobegon, he humorously reveals just enough of the character’s flaws to remind us that we are all redeemed sinners.

I think that the struggle we all face in creating a ‘holy family’ is finding that balance between our desire for greatness and the reality that we each have our imperfections that we bring into the mix of our family life. But often times we focus our attention on the flaws of others, because they are usually what frustrate us so much, and it becomes difficult to be aware of the other person’s inner goodness. The other difficulty is that we focus most of our attention on other people’s need to change without a willingness to change our SELF.

St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians we just heard is probably one of the best outlines in the whole bible for living together in holiness. It would serve us well to keep a copy of this, Col. 3:12-14, on our refrigerator and at our bedside for daily reading. He starts off by saying you ARE “holy and beloved.” This is the first step to creating a sense of holiness in our homes, by recognizing the holiness within ourselves and others. Even though we or someone else may not look very holy by how they are acting, our Catholic theology believes that every single person has an inner core of goodness and holiness since he or she was created by God.

Since we all know that we cannot change someone else, but can only change our self, we can then listen to the rest of what Paul says as to how we are LIVE as holy people and set these virtues as our personal goals. Imagine this list hanging on our bathroom mirror as a set of attributes to strive for each day: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love. Now the mind will want to immediately start thinking about how the OTHER people in our family needs to start practicing these…and that may very well be true. (You can send them a copy of this homily later!) But for today and for a New Year’s goal, let us focus on how we personally can grow in each of these virtues. Maybe take one word a day or even work on and pray about it for a whole week. For example, imagine making the virtue of humility the goal of our whole week! We could even keep this list on our kitchen table and read it as part of our meal prayer when we eat together.

In Luke’s Gospel, he honors Jesus, Mary, and Joseph for the inspiring obedience they practiced in doing God’s Will in their life. We can think about practicing this list of virtues as a form of ‘obedience.’ Obedience is another way of practicing self-discipline. If we could model one thing for our children, it would be to show them how to have self-discipline and obedience…toward our SELF, others, and to God! It will take great discipline to make these virtues a daily practice. But what Jesus, Mary, and Joseph teach us is that by practicing these with our self and others, we will do OUR PART in helping creating a greater sense of holiness in our family. Let’s listen to those virtues again to let them sink into our heart and mind: Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and love.

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December 25, 2009

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Christmas
Fr. Jim Deiters

(Readings selected from various Christmas Masses: Isaiah 9:1-6; Titus 2:11-14; John 1:1-18)

Maybe you have seen the amazing photographs of the universe passed around on the Internet over the past year. Or maybe you have seen them in a magazine. As our telescopes keep getting bigger and better, more and more we can look deep into the history of our cosmos as we discover the incredible beauty of what God created way beyond our tiny planet earth. We are blessed here at St. Clare parish to be surrounded by memories of creations beauty right here in our stained glass windows that represent the beginnings of the Universe. Our artist took St. Francis’ ‘Canticle of Creation’ and put into hand-blown glass her interpretation of Francis’ prayer praising the magnificence of God creating the fiery sun and its heat and the moon, the stars, wind, and water. I like to imagine that St. Clare, his dear friend and colleague, helped him write that beautiful poem and shared in his love of creation.

It may sound strange to start off a Christmas homily about the beginnings of creation, but it is important to realize that this Gospel reading from St. John is his version of Jesus’ birth! He does not give us the idyllic scenes of a manger and shepherds that we read about in Luke; rather, John takes us back to the beginnings of time when the only thing that existed was God and His Word. He wants us to first think about Jesus’ birth from a cosmic perspective to remind us that Jesus existed as God’s ‘Word’ billions of years before God chose to have his Word, Jesus, come and live as a human. John has us step back billions of years from the manger in Bethlehem so that we see the bigger picture of how significant a miracle this IS that God, the One who existed before the cosmos was formed, became a human person! The author wants us to get some sense of how shocking this idea is that, after billions of years, on a particular planet, on a specific date in history, God chose to come and dwell among us as a human being just like us. He could have chosen to reveal himself in some grand way like a giant, a super hero, or at least the president of a country. But instead chose to experience the fullness of how a simple human lives, starting with the pains of entering the world through a woman’s birth canal.

I do not want to sound like a scrooge here, but Christmas is not about a Western Hemisphere cultural celebration of lit-up trees, wrapped boxes, and Santa Claus. For Christians, this is a major feast about God… and God’s relationship with the cosmos and humanity. I realize I am stretching our Christmas minds for a moment and we might prefer to hear a cute story about a shepherd, but this is what these Scriptures are trying to tell us – to think really big about what we are celebrating here on this day called Christmas.

John’s version of Jesus’ birth reminds us first of all that Jesus, the Word of God, as the second person of the Trinity, never really had a ‘beginning.’ The Word was there with God the Father at the creation of the world billions of years ago and assisted God in forming the universe. The brilliance of God’s mind, the creative force of God’s Being, the Love of God’s Heart, were all put into human flesh through the womb of a simple, holy woman, Mary of Nazareth. For over 2000 years we humans have been trying to understand what this all means – that Jesus is God’s mind, God’s Word, his creativity, and love!

How does all of this ‘theology’ of the Incarnation fit into our Christmas? I think one of the key phrases in this rich story that emphasizes John’s point is when he writes, “the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The Greek word for dwelling is also used for ‘tent’ or ‘tabernacle.’ Therefore, God did not plan on showing up for a few years and then leaving us. No, by becoming a human being God has ‘pitched his tent,’ if you will, and planned that his new ‘tabernacle of presence’ would be IN and AMONG the human race! Here we are, a diversity of people from every nation under the sun, and God came and made his ‘dwelling’ among us – forever! Through Jesus, God got INTO the mix of humanity and changed us forever!

While we think of humanity in terms of divisions – divided by color, culture, creed, and economic status - God sees NO divisions and entered ALL of humanity in order to help us see ourselves as being united. On a more personal level, this also means that we each need to allow God to enter our OWN humanity, as muddled and imperfect as we are. When we invite Christ Jesus to ‘dwell’ within our own hearts, it then motivates us to do all we can to make sure that no member of Christ’s Body is segregated or not cared for.

The Early Church Father named Irenaeus described it this way: “Jesus became what we are, that we might become what God is!” Since Jesus IS God’s mind and heart of love, unity, and forgiveness, and Jesus brought those divine attributes INTO humanity…, we each have the potential to BE for others the same love, forgiveness and unity that God is for the universe. In reality, we are such a very small part of the great cosmos God designed billions of years ago. And yet when the timeless Word of God became united to the time-limited human race in Jesus, now each of us can be as holy as God! Let us use these two weeks of the Christmas season to pray over this Christmas miracle that that through Jesus, God is now a part of my own humanity.

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December 20, 2009

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Fourth Sunday of Advent
Fr. Jim Deiters

There is a running joke in our family that, besides my four strong-willed, house-ruling sisters, who are wives and mothers, my three brothers also married women who ‘run the show’ in their own homes. Of course who am I to talk since I committed my life to the Church, which IS in reality run by valiant women in the pews and on staffs! I suppose that we are not the only family that is run by strong-minded women. God certainly saved up a lot of his favorite attributes when He decided to create the female side of humanity…and we men have been trying to figure out how to live with and appreciate women since the beginning of creation. While any one of us can acknowledge a long list of differences between men and women, we each still keep trying to get the ‘other side’ to think more like we do! And it never works. Women simply have different gifts than men and God uses each of us to complement the other, even though at times we drive each other crazy!

Maybe that is why I’ve always had a special liking to this Gospel story of the visit between Mary and Elizabeth since it one of those few times in the bible that almost all of the focus is on women… and what women of faith have to teach us. The only men in the story are silently in the womb. While the Gospel writer Luke gives us only a short section of the dialogue between Mary and Elizabeth, we can be sure that, as women, they had many long-night conversations about what it felt like to be pregnant, how surprised they were at the news, and how their male-minded husbands reacted!

Elizabeth greets Mary with a double blessing. First she honors Mary as being blest among women because of “the fruit of her womb.” Then Elizabeth also blesses her because of her faith. Elizabeth praises Mary's motherhood but above all, she praises her faith – “Blessed are you who BELIEVED that was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” Their conversation is all about recognizing the presence and greatness of God. Elisabeth’s proclamation that Mary is "the mother of my Lord" became the basis for our 5^th Century doctrine of Mary as the Mother of God. Of course centuries later this becomes greatly misunderstood when certain Protestant faiths reject the title ‘Mother of God’ for Mary. It is Elizabeth who reminds us that women, besides having this innate ability to run an entire household, also have this gift of spiritual introspection…as she is able to recognize Mary’s significant role in God’s plan for salvation.

Here is the connection to the first reading today from Micah – this is all taking place in insignificant Israel and with two vulnerable women---Micah's prophecy is fulfilled. Something that will change the world is happening in a ‘no-name’ place, with lowly women, and only those with faith would believe that the Messiah could come from Bethlehem! Meanwhile, the rest of the world is distracted---then and now---by the noise and pomp of false power, greed, and selfishness…as our culture keeps thinking that great things can only come from people in power.

In the midst of the world’s messiness, the Gospel gives us the Good News of two incredibly faith-filled women who become the mothers and first teachers of the great John the Baptist and Jesus our Messiah! From these women, the prophet John and the savior Jesus will learn to trust God even when the ‘mighty ones’ of the world turn on them. These women will be the first to teach their children the Torah and God’s Promise of salvation. These two women will instill in their ‘soon to be famous’ children a COURAGE to stand up against sin and injustice. These two women, open to God’s Will in their own life, become critical instruments of the world’s salvation!

Since we are on the brink of the Christmas, with Scripture readings about God becoming human as a male, our Gospel for the end of Advent invites us to simply reflect on the role that women have played in the course of salvation history. As we gather with our own families during Christmas week, maybe we could each take some time out to reflect on the very women who have influenced our OWN faith life. While we acknowledge JESUS as our true Savior, the significance of Mary and Elizabeth in this Gospel call us to think about the various women in our life who have pointed us TO Jesus and taught us about trusting in God. When we are with our families this week, I invite each of us to talk about and honor the women, living and deceased, who have played a critical role in the faith life of our own family.

Let us follow the example of Mary and Elizabeth and spend some time during the Christmas season truly VISITING with one another, raising our level of conversations to a level beyond the weather and our health problems… talking more about the great things that God has done for us!

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December 13, 2009

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Third Sunday of Advent
Fr. Jim Deiters

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December 9, 2009

Immaculate Conception
Fr. Jim Deiters

Recently my family received the exciting news that my oldest nephew and his wife are pregnant with their second baby. She is in her 13^th week and we got to see the photos of the ultrasound that start to show the miracle of a baby in her womb. It is at 13 weeks that the baby is just a few inches long but already has its own unique finger prints, fingernails, eyelids, and toes! There is no question that this is a beautiful human life in that womb that God is forming in a miraculous way day by day. Our feast today is about a baby’s conception and the new beginning that God gives each human life.

While the Gospel is about the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb, our feast is about Mary’s conception in her own mother’s womb, traditionally known as St. Anne. Having a feast about Mary’s conception reminds us that she was fully human with normal human challenges. This is why she stands as a role model for us… since she teaches us how to be a faithful follower of Jesus even in our regular human daily life. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception teaches that God freed Mary from sin at the beginning of her life, in the womb of her mother, in order that she would be a holy temple for God’s Son, Jesus.

To more fully appreciate this feast of the Immaculate Conception I think we have to focus on the second reading we heard today since Paul’s letter to the Ephesians sums up so wonderfully this gift of salvation that we ALL have received which highlights what we share WITH Mary… while still honoring her uniqueness.

We celebrate the power of God’s Grace that chose Mary to be the first one to receive the gift of salvation that comes from Jesus’ death and resurrection. Every one of us has received salvation from Jesus and thus Paul writes that we have been CHOSEN by God to receive every spiritual blessing in heaven and to be holy and without blemish.

We are not chosen because we are holy and blameless, but we are chosen so that we might become holy and blameless. Salvation is the cause of holiness, not its reward. And Christ is the one through whom all of this is accomplished (Eph 1:3). The Gospel account, though it concentrates on Mary, is really the prelude to the story of God’s saving action through Christ, who frees ALL of us from sin!

This feast shows that, like the rest of us, Mary was chosen not because she was holy, but she was made holy because she was chosen. And as with us, the source of her holiness was the generous love of God acting through the Holy Spirit. All the privileges that Mary enjoyed sprang from her participation in the work of God accomplished through Jesus. We may not be able to claim such extraordinary privileges for ourselves, but we too have been chosen, called to participate in God’s work of salvation; As St. Paul wrote: “we EXIST for the praise of God’s glory!” We need to remind our self of this daily! “we EXIST for the praise and glory of God!”

We must never forget that the extraordinary nature of Mary’s privilege did not exempt her from ordinary, daily life. She did not stand apart in the nature of her life, but rather in the quality of her living. In this, she can be a model for all of us, chosen by God and set apart to be holy while living faithfully within the particular circumstances of life.

As we strive for a more holy and unblemished life, we might ask our self, “Have I opened myself FULLY to the power of God’s Grace in my life to resist the sin to which I keep going back?”

It all comes down to GRACE. The grace of God gives us the potential to actually LIVE a holy life, like Mary. At this altar we recommit our self to God and our call to turn away from sin and be holy.

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December 6, 2009

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Second Sunday of Advent
Fr. Jim Deiters

I was pleased to see that our St. Clare Catholic School was in the newspaper once again last week with a photograph of all the Thanksgiving food baskets made by our students and parents for 35 underprivileged families in the area. Our school has a children’s version of our parish Saint Vincent De Paul Society which helps the students learn about and participate in various works of charity which, of course, is a critical part of discipleship. However, statistics show that the main influence on whether children learn about helping others still depends on how much the parents are involved in works of charity and justice. As we model for our children the need to share our blessings with others, we must also show them how to help correct systems of injustice.

Where do we Christians get our passion for works of charity and justice? It comes straight from the Gospel especially seen in the lives of John the Baptist and Jesus. Many scripture scholars claim that Jesus learned much of his own passionate preaching from John and thus the Church gives a lot of attention to John the Baptist during the Advent season as we prepare to celebrate Jesus’ birth.

Too often we Christians only look at the scriptures as ‘nice stories’ about Jesus’ birth and miracles…and miss its challenging message of calling us to be involved with Jesus in changing any corrupt ways of the world. Luke specifically mentions the names of all the political and religious leaders living at the time of John the Baptist and Jesus to make it clear that the “Word of God” did not come to any of these ‘people in power’, but rather to this simple person named John “the son of Zechariah.” If we listened closely to some of the names Luke mentions, we know that such people as Pontius Pilate, Herod, and Caiaphas are going to show up again later in the story when John and Jesus are put to death for their involvement with acts of charity and justice.

By grouping together both the secular and religious leaders at the beginning of the story, Luke is making a significant point that the Salvation from God, ushered in by John the Baptist, is for ALL people. To emphasize this point of universal salvation, Luke quotes the prophet Isaiah saying that “all flesh shall see the salvation of God.” It was as radical of an idea then as it is today to think of God bringing together and saving people of all beliefs and political persuasions.

Just in case the reader of this text thinks that religion and faith are separate from the political world, Luke is preparing us for the radical idea that Jesus is coming to change and save ALL of it! In these few opening sentences of today’s Gospel, we see that the coming of the (capital R) Reign of God is set in relation to the (small r) reign of human rulers. It is no coincidence that in the previous chapter, Luke has the Virgin Mary singing the Magnificat that proclaimed, “God has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.”

While John the Baptist began his preaching in a small, remote section of the Middle Eastern part of the world, it began a revolutionary idea that God’s salvation is to extend to the whole world. Our human tendency is to think that God’s activity is limited to people who think and act like us. Luke’s version of the Gospel is about how God challenges all social, ethnic, economic, and racial barriers that limit the spread of the Gospel. If we really believe that God came to redeem ‘all flesh,’ all peoples of the world, then we need to be actively concerned about those who are not a part of the Christian community, to figure out what else we could be doing to include them.

Because it is obvious that this dream of God’s salvation for “all flesh” is not yet fulfilled, John the Baptist serves as a model for us as Church. As John came proclaiming a message about God’s forgiveness, and presented a vision of a just society, he challenges us as a Church to reclaim our vocation as a prophetic voice in a secular culture. We Christians cannot just throw our arms up in the air, put down our banner for justice, and cave into the pressure of the culture around us. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and have HOPE! Like it did 2000 years ago to John, God’s Word comes to our own simple lives to inspire us to keep working for a world where “ALL people” will know the great love and mercy of God... and ‘all flesh’ will see the salvation of God!

Now how does any of this fit into the Christmas shopping and parties in which we will be partaking in the next few weeks? EVERY season is a new opportunity to live and proclaim our faith: through wise choices about the gifts we buy, how much we share with the less fortunate, how we forgive those who have hurt us, how we invite the neighbor or person at work to join us at church. Making food baskets and buying gifts for needy families is a great beginning to making our world a better place. I think John the Baptist would stand before us today and challenge us to take the next step in preparing the world for Jesus’ Second Coming and his dream of justice for ‘all flesh.’

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November 29, 2009

LISTEN TO THIS HOMILY: Click here for the audio of this homily.

First Sunday of Advent
Fr. Jim Deiters

Last weekend I traveled with 24 of our teenagers to the National Catholic Youth Convention in Kansas City where we met up with 22,000 other Catholic teens from across the United States. While at first it may sound crazy to gather that many teenagers in one place, it truly was an inspiring four days to be a part of so many young Catholics ‘on fire’ for Jesus Christ and the Catholic faith. Allow me to paint a few scenarios of what happened there in order for all of us to re-think about the value of our youth and the HOPE they have to offer us for our Advent-Christmas Season.

+ Scene One: Picture a huge sports stadium with a large stage in the middle, a crucifix hanging in the center above an altar, surrounded by 22,000 teenagers joining together in thunderous, inspiring songs about the power of the Eucharist. After about 45 minutes of spirited singing, with a couple witness talks about the meaning of the Eucharist and the power of Eucharistic adoration, the local Archbishop processes in with a large gold monstrance containing the consecrated host of Jesus’ Body. It is placed on the Altar…and 22,000 teenagers become silent for fifteen minutes…of adoration. The stadium, usually filled with sports fans, is transformed into a Catholic youth Mecca giving adoration to God. From that amazing experience, the monstrance is processed out and all 22,000 form a prayerful Eucharistic procession through the streets of the city! A Eucharistic chapel was set up on the convention center and throughout the weekend, there were never less than a couple hundred teenagers at a time praying in the chapel of adoration.

+Scene two: The stadium is filled to capacity again and another hour of spirited music has the youth singing and clapping with songs of praise to God. A young married couple, Jason and Crystalina Evert, famous for their Catholic evangelization, come to the stage and gives an incredibly powerful witness talk about chastity. Jason gave a personal witness about the destructive force of pornography and he captured the hearts of all the guys in that stadium to think again about the sacred value of each young woman’s body. Crystalina’s witness paid huge compliments to the young girls there who have chosen to remain virgins and invited those who were not to make a new commitment of respect to their future husbands. By the end, the teens gave a standing ovation in support of their own desire to keep their bodies chaste for God.

+One last scene: picture a large room in the convention center with 65 priests set up in stations around the room for confessions that were needed for six hours a day. I helped with confessions one of the days for four hours. The line was a half-block long for most of that time, even with 65 confessors, with most of the 22,000 teens recommitting their life to God through the powerful sacrament of reconciliation.

I share these images with you as symbols of HOPE that ALL of us can use for our season of Advent. While these Advent weeks are primarily meant to help us prepare for Jesus’ Second Coming, the scriptures remind us of what we are to be doing with our lives while we wait for Jesus’ return… and our final judgment day. I think Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians captures for us a hopeful goal to keep in mind during the busyness of Christmas preparations that can easily distract us from our ultimate goal of meeting face to face with God. Paul wrote, “May you increase in love…to be holy and blameless before God…”

This could be the greatest gift we could give to our loved ones for Christmas – to be more loving, holy, and blameless, (or pure)! And I think our youth from the youth convention show us a model of how to achieve this goal. First, to expand our hearts in love is going to require quiet prayer time, preferably before Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. As those 22,000 youth sat silently before the Eucharist…and truly felt the Presence of God before them, they remind us that in order for us to become more loving…we are going to have to find some quiet time to simply sit and meditate on God’s great love for us. The youth and I challenge each person here to find at least 15 minutes a week to come and sit before the tabernacle or the monstrance on First Friday and allow God’s love to make us more loving toward others.

For the second goal of becoming more holy and blameless, the youth give us another example as they re-evaluated their lives in terms of chastity. Whether we are single or married, each of our bodies is a temple of the Holy Spirit, to be treated with great reverence. The human mind becomes polluted by the pornography all around us – on billboards, as soon as we turn on the television or the computer! It causes direct damage to our relationships as pornography fills our minds with images of people other than the ones we actually love! The thousands of youth that went to the sacrament of reconciliation last week, remind us that the first step to a pure, blameless heart is by making a good confession about any way we have been ‘unchaste’ in our relationships, especially if have used other people as objects for personal pleasure. With our parish reconciliation service just two weeks away, now is a good time to start examining our conscience about the things we want to change in our life that keep us from the holy lives we really want to be living.

Yes, our youth give us great hope! I believe that those three images of their Eucharistic Adoration, their commitment to chastity, and going to confession, inspire the rest of us to make a ‘fresh start’ this Advent. Let us find the time for 1)that15 minutes each week of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament; 2) recommit our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit; 3) prepare for and make a good confession. As we begin a new liturgical year on this first Sunday of Advent, God gives us a ‘new beginning’ to let go of all of our old habits and attitudes of the past…and begin to live again as people of love…holiness…and purity.

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November 15, 2009

LISTEN TO THIS HOMILY: Click here for the audio of this homily.

Thirty Third Sunday of Ordinary Time
Fr. Jim Deiters

A few weeks ago the Economist magazine had several articles on the rising concerns about the country of Iran and their building of nuclear weapons. One writer presented a frightening scenario of a possible ‘nuclear arms race’ between the Middle East Countries. With such a hostile environment with its neighboring countries, particularly Israel , much of the world is watching in fear of what kind of catastrophic things could be in the works. Another article on the situation talked about a similar kind of fear that used to exist between the United States and Russia when people often had bomb shelters in their own yards.

This kind of fear, and the tragic memories of what our nuclear bombs did in Japan in 1945, can invoke an unnecessary fear about the ‘end of the world’ when we hear passages from the Bible like the ones we have today. If we really think about the mass destruction we humans have done to one another through the centuries… and think again about how we humans have created instruments that can actually destroy entire countries of the human race…it can leave an underlying fear in us all. While we know that humankind can create a kind of ‘end of the world’ destruction ourselves, our Scriptures call us to think about the end of the world from a different perspective…, one in which GOD is in charge.

When these sections of the bible were being written, it must have felt like the world was coming to an end as well. For the Jews who were living under great persecution during the time of Daniel’s prophesy, they certainly began to wonder if God had abandoned them and for them it felt like the ‘end times.’ And when the Early Christians first read Mark’s Gospel, they had just experienced the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, which also felt like the world was coming to an end.

As we come to the end of our Church’s liturgical year, we are assigned scripture readings called ‘apocalyptic.’ The word "Apocalypse" comes from the Greek and means "to lift the veil." Apocalyptic literature suggests what we think we see as reality, in fact, may be obscured by a ‘veil.’ Such scriptures remind us that we need ‘the veil’ over our own eyes lifted so we do not deceive ourselves into thinking that we are invincible…or forget that we are accountable to God for our lives! With what we might call an ‘apocalyptic vision,’ we can perceive God’s powerful Presence in the world RIGHT NOW as well as having a peaceful TRUST in God’s future Coming to fulfill complete peace on Earth.

This apocalyptic genre of literature is NOT meant to predict dates and places of future events with ‘secret codes,’ although some have tried to make such predictions. Periodically one reads about a fundamentalist sect whose members have gathered on a mountain or in the desert somewhere, sure from their biblical reading that the world is going to end on a certain date. But, of course, it does not happen as that is NOT what these apocalyptic writings are meant for.

Apocalyptic writings hold a more profound and important truth for us believers. With the resurrection of Jesus, we Christians believe the ‘end times’ have already begun. We do not know when Jesus will return, but perhaps his delay is to the world's benefit. Maybe God is giving us Christians more time to get our act together, not just personally, but also given time… to change structures of injustice…and time to invite more people to fall in love with God and experience God's boundless mercy through Jesus.

Meanwhile, we are to live each day as if it was our last day to prepare for Jesus’ Second Coming. While we wait, instead of living in fear, we are to keep our eyes open to signs of Jesus’ presence already within and around us. The main point of these apocalyptic readings, which is heard in all three of our readings today, is that God’s POWER is greater than any scary signs of destruction that we experience. Hebrews says that Jesus now “waits in heaven until all enemies are under his feet.” And Jesus himself says that even when everything else will disappear, “My words will not pass away.” Therefore we can have HOPE and confidence when we think about the ‘end times’ since we are already on the ‘winning team’ with Christ. While it sometimes looks like the Evil One is taking over the world, these readings remind us that God is watching over and protecting us with a power way beyond anything that tries to destroy us.

Applying this to our personal lives, we can let go of any fear when it feels like our own world is falling apart…as we place our trust that God’s Power is greater than whatever ‘force’ may seem to be consuming us. In our liturgy we celebrate Christ's presence with us in Word and Sacrament and we are reassured that whatever ‘endings’ we face…, the Spirit of God is present to give us a new beginning!

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November 8, 2009

Thirty Second Sunday of Ordinary Time
Stewardship of Tithing Weekend
Fr. Jim Deiters

I remember when I was little how chaotic our house became on Sunday mornings when we were all getting ready for Mass. Part of it was because we were trying to feed the entire family early enough to still have our one hour of fast before Mass. The other main reason was that we had only one bathroom for ten people! One ritual I remember seeing each week that was never talked about… was watching my dad prepare his weekly church envelope. He kept the box of envelopes way up in a kitchen cabinet, next to the ‘good glasses’ mom never let us use. As we would be cleaning up the dishes, waiting for our turn in the bathroom, he would take out an envelope, then open his wallet and put in three dollars. Now I knew that there were not many other dollars in that wallet so I always thought to myself, ‘wow that is pretty good of dad to give three dollars each week as a present to the priest for saying Mass.” We had little envelopes as children that we would put in a few coins, but it was never explained to me the ‘WHY’ we give to the church and most of us never grew up with a teaching on ‘stewardship’ and ‘tithing.’

It was only after I was ordained and did further reading about the Bible’s teaching on stewardship and my own spiritual growth that I eventually realized a need to ‘tithe’ my money, NOT just to pay the church, but as part of my relationship with God and as a sign of my gratitude for all that God has given to me.

For those who are visiting our parish for the first time or are somewhat new to our community, you may be shaking your head saying, “It’s my first visit here and they are already talking about money!” On a deeper level, it is a homily on Stewardship and stewardship is about a spiritual decision as to how we use our time, our talent, and our money to thank God for all God has done for us. At St. Clare parish we address the issue of tithing our money just ONCE a year. Since we all know that ‘money’ controls a lot of what happens in our life, at least once a year we Christians need to take a serious look at how we are using the gift of our financial resources that God gave to us…and does the way we are spending our money really go toward what is most important to us?

In the Stewardship mailing that should have arrived at your home this week, we gave an overview not only of our budget for the year, but this year we added some other important numbers about how much your contributions make a difference.

For me, the most important numbers have to do with how many people we are helping form in the Catholic faith. Since bringing others closer to Jesus Christ is our top priority, it is exciting to know that through our RCIA and Confirmation program we initiated 42 people into the Church… as well as 39 infant baptisms; we teach 150 children in our PSR… and help more than 160 families with their Catholic school tuition subsidy. Other good news is that 471 parishioners are involved in our liturgical ministries for the weekend Masses, and we reach out to hundreds of people in need through our outreach ministries. These are just a few examples of how significant your contributions help us offer these ministries to our parishioners.

While I can list hundreds of other ways that your financial support makes a difference, the real message of stewardship is NOT that we donate just to pay the bills, but that we give a portion of our gifts back to God as a sign of our covenant relationship with God. I have asked one couple in our parish to say a few words about their own relationship with God and how it affects their commitment to stewardship.

(Matt & Jennifer lay witness talk)

Our personal decision to tithe is based directly on our relationship with God…how committed we are to God and how much we trust God! We heard about this TRUST in the two examples of widows in our scriptures for today. When the women were down to almost nothing they still gave to God and God’s prophet what they were able to. Our giving is to be based on our love of God and a gratitude for our blessings from God. Setting aside a percentage of my income at the start of each month demonstrates a real TRUST that God will provide for my needs…and the scriptural promise comes true that the more I give away…the more blessings I receive. Let us take a moment to practice the most important element of stewardship…sitting quietly and thinking about all the things for which we are grateful to God!

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November 1, 2009

All Saints
Fr. Jim Deiters

One of my favorite moments as a priest is the honor of doing baptisms. You often share in some of that joy when we celebrate the baptism of an infant during Mass. But there is another very special baptismal moment that every Catholic needs to experience at some point which takes place at the Easter Vigil, the night before Easter Sunday. On that night, Catholic churches around the world baptize all those over the age of seven who are joining the life of Christ for the first time. After they are baptized and change into their new white robe, then the holy oil of Chrism is poured upon their heads for confirmation as they await their First Eucharist. It is truly a spiritual experience to see the group of them standing in front of our Altar with the oil glistening on their foreheads and their white robes gleaming in the Easter light. It is the highlight of our entire Church year and that image of them standing there in their white robes gives us an insight into what our scriptures are describing to us for this feast of All Saints.

When the author of the Book of Revelation had a dream about what he thought heaven and the end of the world might be like, he describes it with all kinds of poetic language, symbolic numbers, and images. In his description of the saints around God’s throne, he sees them dressed in white robes and there were so many of them that he uses the symbolic number of 144,000 to describe the amount as “countless.” I especially love that image of them dressed in ‘white robes’ which he says were made white by the “Blood of the Lamb.” Now, we know that if we took that literally, garments cannot be made white with red blood. But in the author’s poetic genre, the white color represents their holiness and those who are part of Christ’s life are made holy by His Blood of the Cross.

The white robes then become an important symbol for ALL of us Christians who have been cleansed from our sins by the Blood of Christ. In a sense, we never take off the white robe of our Baptism, even though our selfishness and sins often mar its purity. Each of the other sacraments after Baptism are ways to help the ‘white robe of our soul’ to be ‘washed’ again by the Blood of the Lamb. This is precisely why our second grade students wear white outfits for their First Communion, and traditionally, confirmation students also would wear white robes for that sacrament. Imagine how many of our ‘life choices’ might change if we woke up each day and imagined our self as wearing the white robe of our baptism… as we raise our children… and live in the secular world. The white robe we wore at our baptism, either as an infant or at another age, represents that we forever belong to Christ, cleansed from our sins by His Blood.

The image from the Book of Revelation that the saints in heaven are wearing white robes reminds us that we are united with them by our common baptism. Knowing that they are there in heaven with their white robes ‘urging us on,’ give us courage when it feels like the robe I am wearing is not very pure and white right now. Even though we may know of our sins that have stained our robe, God sees our inner goodness and invites us to be washed again in the forgiveness of Christ’s Blood.

This is why Christ gave us the other sacraments of healing and forgiveness, especially the sacraments of Reconciliation, Eucharist, and Anointing of the Sick – to be cleansed of our sins and made pure again in God’s sight. But for some reason, we get kind of ‘used to’ wearing a stained robe and start to think that is all we are worthy of. We wonder if we will ever have a white robe again after all we have done wrong. How fortunate we are that God does not think like we do and offers us forgiveness over and over again…and never gives up on his desire to have us stand before his throne one day with our robe white as ever.

Maybe it seems that it is too much ‘work’ to keep the robe of our soul clean and ‘white’ living in a world of hedonism. But in reality… the burden of guilt and shame that come from carrying around our sins is much greater than the effort it takes to turn our lives over to Christ. Yes, it does take some serious, sacrificial choices to remain faithful to our baptism. This section of Revelation, as well as this feast of All Saints is meant to encourage those of us on earth to remember that there are a “great multitude” of people in heaven who KNOW from experience how difficult it is to live the Christian life. They are now in heaven ‘cheering us on” to stay faithful to what it means to wear a ‘white robe of salvation.’

When we honor the saints, we are actually giving praise to God for how God has used people throughout human history to do great things. We are already a part of the saints of God, not because we have earned it or have gone through life unblemished by sin. Rather, we are included in the saints because of the mercy of God shown to us in the life of Jesus.

Perhaps if we each kept a picture of our own baptism in a place to look at each morning before we started our day, it could help remind us of the ‘saint’ we became…dressed in a white robe at our baptism. Here in the Eucharist we are surrounded by all the saints of heaven…as our robes are made clean once again by the Blood of the Lamb of God. Let us keep our white robes of holiness ON as we go out into the world.

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October 25, 2009

LISTEN TO THIS HOMILY: Click here for the audio of this homily.

Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time
Fr. Jim Deiters

This past week for my day off I went to visit some friends who live way out in the middle of ‘nowhere’ in southern Missouri. After dinner we took a walk around their lake and got to see the miracle of all the stars since there was not a cloud or moon in the sky. After our eyes adjusted to it all, we could even see the amazing Milky Way spray of stars in our galaxy, something we usually cannot see in our over-lit suburban sprawl. We got to talking about the miracle of it all, as we took the time to remember how our tiny planet earth is part of a small solar system, which is part of this amazing galaxy of over 400 billion other stars, which is then part of a group of about 30 galaxies…here in our little part of the universe. THAT is something to think about when it feels like our ‘own personal’ world is caving in on us. There is something very powerful and freeing when one takes the time to ‘step back’ from life for a moment and look at the ‘bigger picture.’ One of our young moms told me this week that she did a similar thing by simply taking a half-hour walk of looking at the colorful trees in the park after she dropped the kids off at school after a hectic morning.

Sometimes the Scriptures help us get the ‘big picture’ of what we believe as Christian Catholics and today’s reading from Hebrews gives us a particular insight into the deeper meaning of the Mass. But the challenge of such a reading as Hebrews is that it uses some words and images that many people today are not familiar with since it was written for people who would have understood some of these rich Jewish traditions the author is talking about. So let’s take a deeper look at “Hebrews” and see how it can enrich our understanding of our celebration of the Eucharist. The letter to the Hebrews is particularly helpful for us to distinguish what is so unique about our Catholic Mass compared to the more ‘generic’ services that are happening in the non-denominational churches down the street.

Basically, the letter to the Hebrews is describing Jesus as the new High Priest, who offers his life as a sacrifice for our sins. The author uses the term ‘high priest’ for us to see the difference between the role of the high priest in a Jewish worship service and Jesus as the new High Priest on the cross. In the first case, for the Jewish feast of Yom Kippur, or ‘Day of Atonement,’ a high priest was assigned once a year to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple and offer sacrifices to God for the forgiveness of the people’s sins. With Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, there was no longer a need for any other sacrifices to be made to God. The sacrifice of his life put an end to all other sacrifices. From Calvary then, there is only ONE High Priest, Jesus Christ.

How this relates to our Mass is that at the Altar, it is Jesus himself who is present here, offering His LIFE to the Father for the forgiveness of our sins. We are not offering a ‘new’ sacrifice at each Mass, but are participating IN the ONE sacrifice of Calvary. We believe that in the Eucharist, we are in a sense, transported back in time back to the original Calvary to thank God for the forgiveness of our sins. Our High Priest Jesus Christ is right here on the Cross… making atonement for our sins. In a sense, our Altar becomes the Cross of Calvary and the empty tomb in one! The sacrifice of the Cross takes place here in the NOW and thus you will notice how we use the word ‘sacrifice’ several times throughout the Mass prayers.

Of course Jesus has risen from the dead, but since with God there is no chronological time, the death and resurrection of Jesus is always happening in the present moment…and we are so privileged to be participating in this holy, timeless experience every time we celebrate the Eucharist! Can you see how this is tremendously different from a Protestant prayer service of spirited music and preaching? And it is up to us adults to make sure that our young people know the difference!

I remember one time when I was giving my vocation story to a large group of teenagers at our Luke 18 retreat and I talked about how special it was for me to celebrate Mass. One of the young men there asked me afterwards how I got so much joy out of having Mass. I told him it was hard to describe, but…in a simpler version of what this letter to the Hebrews is saying, I said that the person of Jesus (our High Priest) takes over the priest’s role at the Altar and I experience being RIGHT THERE at the foot of the Cross…looking directly into the face of Jesus in the Eucharist…and I could not imagine a more meaningful thing to do with my life! (I hope that his look of amazement deepened his appreciation of the Mass.)

What is so powerful is that at this Altar of Sacrifice we are ALL standing at the foot of the Cross…as well as at the empty tomb…and our High Priest, Jesus, is right here forgiving us… and drawing us into the very life of God! Sometimes we may walk into this church out of habit, like walking under the stars and not even noticing them. Let us make a concerted effort to realize in a renewed way that in this Mass our High Priest Jesus Christ is here leading us in prayer, and therefore we are participating in something beyond this world!

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October 18, 2009