This is my homily for today. Today's readings are here.
*** NOTE *** Today is one of those infrequent Sundays when a Feast of the Lord supersedes a Sunday in Ordinary Time. September 14th is the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. (It used to be called the Feast of the Triumph of the Cross.) Had this Sunday not landed on September 14th this year, today would have been the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time.
Here is today's homily:
When I was at the parish yesterday morning, I happened to encounter a parishioner I know. Her husband has a serious medical condition, and she is trying to serve as his caregiver. She told me that when she got home in a few minutes, she would try to get him to stand and walk for a bit, because she wasn’t sure he had been out of his chair all morning. It sounds like a simple task, but I could see it wasn’t something she was looking forward to. Caring for her husband, whom I am certain she loves very much, costs her something – it exerts an emotional toll on her. I think it’s fair to say, it’s a cross she is bearing.
Today’s feast, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, invites us to contemplate one of the great mysteries of our faith, the mystery of the Cross of Christ. I say it’s something we could “contemplate”, but perhaps “wrestle with” would be a better term, because the Cross of Christ is not something that naturally attracts us. St. Paul tells us that in his day, for Jews the Cross was an obstacle, and for Gentiles it seemed foolish to venerate it. And it’s a difficulty for us, too, in this place and time. Why would anyone wish to take up a cross?
The cross was not a destiny that anyone would naturally wish for. The cross was both a punishment and an instrument of torture. It was also considered a source of shame and dishonor. And yet, this man Jesus of Nazareth, who was executed on a cross, is precisely whom we are invited to adore, to worship as our Lord and Savior. And I can’t stress this enough: we’re not invited to worship Jesus in spite of the Cross. Quite the contrary: we worship Jesus on the Cross. The Cross is central to our faith.
If you’re wondering why we would worship Jesus hanging on an imperial Roman instrument of punishment and torture and disgrace, I can’t do better than point you to today’s 2nd reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Philippians. Did you happen to catch it when it was read a few minutes ago? I’m not sure whether I’ve ever mentioned this: that passage from St. Paul might be my favorite passage in the entire Bible. Scholars tell us it’s likely that those verses were a hymn – one of the very earliest Christian hymns. And it’s a hymn worth singing, because it celebrates Jesus’ emptying himself. “…he emptied himself, and took the form of a slave, being born in the likeness of men.” And it’s because of this incredible humbling of himself on the Cross that we exalt the name of Jesus. What love he showed us, in dying for us! We might say that, as Jesus emptied himself on the Cross, he filled us with his love and grace. As Jesus empties himself, he fills us.
You may have heard it said, because Jesus himself has taught us, that if we want to follow him, we must take up our own cross, just as he did. Well - that makes it real, doesn’t it? It’s one thing to stand by like the residents of Jerusalem 2,000 years ago, and witness someone else dying on a Cross; it’s quite another for us to face the possibility that we may be the one carrying the cross, and then dying on it. Yet that is part of the package; when we embrace following Jesus, we are embracing our cross.
For quite a few of us here, the cross isn’t future tense; it’s present tense and past tense. We’re already carrying crosses, aren’t we? For sure, the woman whom I encountered earlier today was carrying a cross. Serving others on behalf of Jesus often means lugging a cross.
And let’s face it: we wouldn’t be where we are today, with all the blessings we have, if others haven’t carried crosses alread on our behalf. If you have parents who loved you, then you have absolutely had people who carried a cross on your behalf. If you’ve ever had a spouse who loved you and was committed to your well-being, then you’ve had someone carrying a cross for you. If you’ve ever had a teacher who worked with you individually to learn something, or ever had a hospital nurse respond to a button you pushed from your hospital bed in the middle of the night, or ever had a priest come on short notice to offer the sacrament of anointing to a loved one, then you’ve witnessed people carrying crosses on your behalf.
To help us face up to carrying our own crosses, we have the examples of saints who have shown us how the way of service can be the way of the cross. A saint’s story that has moved me is that of Saint Maximilian Kolbe, for whom taking up the cross meant giving his very life out of love for another. You may know his story: he was a Polish Franciscan priest who resisted the Nazis. He was arrested and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. When a prisoner escaped, the prison authorities designated 10 prisoners to be starved to death, a prolonged and agonizing way to die. One of the chosen 10 begged to be spared because he had a wife and children. Saint Maximilian said, “I want to go instead”. Maximilian stepped in for this other man, a stranger whom he didn’t know. He saved this man’s life and died in his stead. For Saint Maximilian, the Cross, the instrument of torture, shame and death, became a portal to everlasting life.
For Saint Maximilian, for the woman I met earlier today, for all the good people in our lives who have served us in the midst of their own suffering, and most of all for our Lord Jesus who emptied himself that we might have life, let our hearts overflow with gratitude.
And now, may the Eucharist strengthen us to carry our own crosses, and to help others to bear theirs.
Woke up this morning to this. Love it! Please don't tell me if it's AI.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic priest who processed us into the Church had a great way of relating Christ's great sacrifice to our own daily ones.
I have always thought that a Mass for the fallen away would be a better observance than that Coming Home deal. Something that affirms that those of us who have veered from the path still navigate by what we learned there, are making the same sacrifices as the Good Catholics, still trying to love our neighbors and forgive those who trespass against us. Not fit for the sacraments maybe, but surely still children of God.
Plus, always happy to see one of the saints get a plug. Raber has a special devotion to St Maximillian.
Jean, thank you. I can assure you, it's not AI. I've played around with AI, but so far I've resisted the temptation to crib from it. Sometimes, if I find I'm fastening onto some aspects of the reading that are a bit beside the main point, I'll ask AI to write a homily, so I can see what the baseline for preaching that passage is - I figure the AI engine is somehow synthesizing all sorts of preaching texts it was fed when it was trained. But I didn't ask AI to write a homily for yesterday's feast. If I ever stand up in front of everyone and just read something that was composed by ChatGPI, I hope someone in authority decides it's time for me to retire.
DeleteI like your idea of a mass for the fallen-away - especially the affirming approach you describe.
The descriptor “ fallen away “ Catholic is like fingernails scraping on a blackboard for me. ( an expression that the young probably don’t understand these days) It implies lack of thinking, rather than a deliberate, thought out choice to leave the RCC. “Falling” is generally accidental. My husband did not choose to fall off a ladder. I did choose to leave the RCC - it was not an accident. Jean has not fallen away - she has made a choice to not receive communion. She followed her conscience in that decision. I didn’t accidentally forget to go to Catholic mass on Sundays. I made a choice to follow my conscience and seek another denomination for formal religious practice.
DeleteInsulting the intelligence and integrity of Catholics who choose to leave active participation in the institution called the RCC is not a way to encourage them to return. As Jean noted, those who aren’t “ good Catholics “ are very often “ good” Christians. They are “worthy” of sacraments should they choose to participate. It is not God who bars them from participating in sacraments, it is men.
Term doesn't carry same baggage for me. Sorry it set you off.
DeleteIt does set me off. I am trying to come up with a better term - perhaps “ disaffected” Catholics. I have read too many condescending, judgmental articles and homilies (and overheard too much mean gossip about so- and- so’s daughter or son, or maybe so- and- so themselves) in my lifetime about “fallen away” Catholics to be comfortable with the term. Jean, you can choose whatever term you want to describe your relationship with the Catholic Church, but church people like Jim ( and the church ladies of every parish) should tread carefully.
DeleteThe Church wants people who aspire to a certain standard of spiritual purity as laid out in the catechism. I have no beef with anything in that standard, but I think that it is unnecessarily narrow and that that unintentionally encourages many Catholics to revile certain groups of people. I've fallen away from that ideal of purity.
DeleteThere are maybe two general groups of people who are formerly Catholics, or non practicing Catholics. One of them would be the ones who got busy doing other things, or who got bored with church and it's not a priority.
DeleteThe other group are people who have a specific reason or reasons why they are disaffected (which is a good term), and it was a conscious decision.
Please accept my apology for using the term. I should have thought a little harder.
DeleteNot to perpetuate a useless semantics game, but I would not describe myself as a "disaffected" Catholic, bc it implies disagreement. "Disappointed" maybe comes closer to my lived experience in the last 25+ years. Or "distanced," like those relatives you love but have decided you can only take at Christmastime. Certainly "disgusted" by leadership in my parish, but I'm not confusing that with the Church Universal. I more or less think of my exit as having let my membership expire. "Lapsed" in Catholic parlance works, I guess.
DeleteBut I don't really care what Catholics want to call me. Not my circus, not my monkeys.
There are several categories of leavers. But even those who just stop coming because they are bored, or indifferent to the religious messages or lazy are making a choice. So pick whatever terms apply except “ fallen away”.
DeleteGood one, Jim. And nice reflection on St. Maximillian.
ReplyDeleteMy husband was on to preach this Sunday too. He said some of the same things you did. And also talked about St. Helena a little, and her role in this feast day.
I thought about the 5th station , in Stations of the Cross, where Simon of Cyrene was pressed into service to help Jesus carry his cross. I consider him one of my patron saints, even though he isn't an official saint, I suppose because he didn't volunteer for the task. But he did it, he picked up someone else's cross. It happens a lot in life that the cross finds us, whether it was ours to begin with or not. I like to think that the experience changed him. His sons, Alexander and Rufus, are mentioned in Mark 15:21. Which gives the impression that at least some of the family became Christian.
I don't usually listen to pop religious music much. But the song about Simon, by Ray Boltz, Watch the Lamb, is good.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UNT1AThOgME
DeleteKatherine, thanks. I wasn't aware of St. Helena and her advocacy for the True Cross, so thanks for invoking that.
DeleteI really like your thoughts about the 5th station.
I checked out the Ray Boltz song. It was fine. But that style of music just isn't my cup of tea. Probably another clue that today's GOP doesn't have a spot for me!
LOL, Jim, Ray Boltz isn't usually my cup of tea either. Not quite Baroque or Renaissance enough!
DeleteMy youngest son chose Maximilian Kolbe for his confirmation name.
DeleteBTW, Sept. 14 was also Pope Leo's birthday. Kind of cool that his birthday is on the Feast of the Holy Cross.
ReplyDeleteTo celebrate Leo's birthday, our parish had a cut-out image of Leo, seated in a chair - this high-quality photo that is suitable for selfies and other photos. They put it in the narthex at the back of the church. The lines this weekend to have photos taken with "Leo" was long. It was kind of goofy.
DeleteThat does sound goofy, in a good way!
DeleteMatthew 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.
ReplyDeleteI have always been puzzled by Matthew 16:24. We are familiar with this view of the cross and crucifixion, and we perfectly understand saying such things as, "We all have our own crosses to bear." However, it seems to me this has the meaning we give it only because Jesus was crucified.
Crucifixion was a horrific method of execution inflicted by the Romans on the lowest of criminals (slaves, insurrectionists), and it is difficult for me to imagine that during the lifetime of Jesus, the cross was a metaphor for life's burdens. After the crucifixion, however, the metaphorical meaning makes sense, since Jesus not only bore crucifixion as the fate for which he was destined, but triumphed.
So it seems to me that putting the words of Matthew 16:24 in the mouth of the earthly Jesus is odd. However, every source I have checked (including a few AIs) disagrees with me, contending that crucifixion was well known at the time, and the concept of a cross to bear could have had at that time something of the meaning we give it now, although the meaning would be altered and magnified by the crucifixion of Jesus.
The New Jerome Biblical Commentary says, for example, "Self-denial means submission of ones will to God's. take up one's cross: This is not an allusion to Jesus' crucifixion. This horrible death was common in antiquity, and the cross was a proverbial term for suffering, agony."
To convince me, I would need to see other references from before the crucifixion of Jesus that used the concept of taking up a cross to mean taking up a burden.
I think you are right thst the people of Jesus' time who had actually witnessed crucifixions would not have spoken of it as a metaphor for taking up a burden. Maybe it acquired that meaning in a generation removed from the actual happening?
DeleteI see the crucifixion as Jesus knowingly going into, and through, the absolute worst that humans have to offer. And coming out in triumph on the other side. We can never say that he doesn't know what we are going through. He walks with us through our crosses.
Two explanations, imo:
Delete1. The quote is exactly what Jesus said because Jesus knew his fate and was foreshadowing it in a way that would signal the sacrifice needed to follow the faith.
2. Somebody in one of the copies and translations over the centuries mistakenly put quotation marks around a paraphrase. I lean toward this explanation.
Possibly my heretical view, but the Gospels weren't written down until after Jesus died, and I take all these quotes as an honest attempt to remember his exact words, but are probably just the gist of the message.
Every writer and editor tries to clarify spoken words--Jesus never wrote anything down that we know of--by adding context and clarification in brackets. My guess is that the Gospel writers did the same, but without the benefit of punctuation we have.
In addition, none of the authors of the gospels were witnesses to Jesus’s ministry. So it was all “ oral tradition “ - probably inadmissible in a court room as hearsay.
DeleteDavid, you are unusually familiar with scripture. Were you ever a priest or seminarian?
DeleteI have a book by Richard Bauckham (who is an Anglican professor of New Testament studies) titled "Jesus and the Eyewitnesses". He doesn't claim that the gospels were written by eyewitness. But he does make a pretty good case that the people who did write them interviewed the eyewitnesses.
DeleteKatherine, I have that book, too. It's been pretty influential on my views. Among other things, it endeavors to serve as a corrective to what Bauckham views as some of the excesses of the form critics - the sorts of things that the Jesus Seminars often were criticized for.
DeleteDavid, I think you raise an interesting and good point. For Jesus's disciples and the generations immediately following his ministry, the cross was a real, literal possibility.
DeleteI think we can understand his words "take up your cross and follow me" as an instance of one of the themes of his preaching: that if we wish to follow him, we must be all-in. I know that is an area where I fall short.
The writers of the gospels may ( may - not definitively) have interviewed eye witnesses. But at the earliest, it was decades after the events. Memories fade. Some stories are repeated in multiple gospels. They seem most likely to be authentic. Perhaps not word for word, it the general gist. On all the TV shows the testimonies of eyewitnesses are often treated as unreliable. It if multiple witnesses say pretty much the same thing, these testimonies are considered more reliable.
DeleteAll in all I find this homily problematic even though it took a while to put my finger on a specific sentence. Finally it came to me - “Serving others on behalf of Jesus often means lugging a cross”.
ReplyDeleteIt’s obvious that everyone “ carries a cross”, often many at the same time. But while some do this with the idea that it’s to “serve others on behalf of Jesus”, most do it because of love for another human being - there are 6 billion people in the world who aren’t Christian. Yet they too carry crosses out of love - for family, friends, neighbors, and even strangers- but not because of loving Jesus.
I dunno. We love God through loving our neighbor, no? Recalling (again possibly heretical) Unitarian hymn from childhood: "O brother man, hold to they heart they brother/ where pity dwells the peace of God is there. / To worship rightly is to love each other / Each something something, each kindly deed a prayer."
DeleteIsn't that why, if you can't make Mass because you are performing a corporal act of mercy, you get a pass on your obligation?
I like that hymn, Jean. I don't think we have to be Christian to serve God as we know him. The golden rule is pretty much a part of any religion. Apparently some people don't think we need empathy. But having it is how we avoid being a sociopath.
DeleteAtheists also care for their family, friends, neigbors and strangers. My take on the wording is ( again) an implied assumption that people only carry crosses to care for others because they are intentionally serving Jesus. I believe that most people are innately good - and even those who aren’t usually carry crosses for the people they care about. It’s not just Christians who do this. I do t think this has anything to do with mass or being Catholic or being Christian. It’s simply a natural human response to the suffering of people we love - or even the suffering of people we don’t know and don’t love. Love for other human beings in general. Nothing to do with religious belief. I don’t send money every month to humanitarian agencies because I know the beneficiaries. I donyt send it to serve Jesus. I send it simply because this is the only way I can help others that I don’t know just because I think it’s the right thing to do. Not because religion teaches it. I think it’s innate in most people, at least carrying crosses for those they know and love is. Some people, Charlie Kirk was one, don’t have this instinct except for those whom they love personally. He condemned “ empathy”. As does Elon Musk and others in the MAGA movement. Including those who, like Kirk, claim to be Christian. “Compassion is another concept rejected by these people.
Delete" “Serving others on behalf of Jesus often means lugging a cross”"
DeleteAs it happens, an earlier draft of this homily didn't include that phrase, "on behalf of Jesus". I added it because of some of the same thoughts that Anne mentions: you don't have to be a disciple of Jesus to serve others. But I think it's praiseworthy to serve people out of love for (and obedience to) Jesus. And Jesus challenges us to love and serve people whom humans, as a whole, may not be as likely to love and serve. Maximilian Kolbe's story may be an example. So is Mother Theresa's ministry (an earlier version of the homily briefly discussed her ministry, but I struck it because the homily was too long - it was too long even with that passage struck out :-)).
Jesus challenges us to step out of our comfort zone. It is natural to help family and friends, it's harder to do it for people we don't know. Think of the parable of the Good Samaritan.
DeletePretty sure we've all helped that one guy who is an utter pain in the ass because Jesus wants us to and isn't here to do it himself.
DeleteJean, yes. Harder than the person we don't know is the person we do know and don't particularly like.
DeleteDefinitely agree with both of you!
DeleteJean - Pretty sure we've all helped that one guy who is an utter pain in the ass because Jesus wants us to and isn't here to do it himself.
Katherine- Jean, yes. Harder than the person we don't know is the person we do know and don't particularly like.
Latecomer, had a tough day. Good homily by Deacon Jim, thank you. I follow Jesus. I’m lucky to follow Jesus. Doesn’t make me any better than anyone else on the orb. If I start to think like that, that’s pretty much crash and burn for me. Jesus amplifies that energy within me. I often take my metaphors from physics and optics. I think of the inchoate energy in a laser medium, pumped up by an external source. Then you have two parallel mirrors outside the medium that take some small random photon, reflecting it back into the medium where, in a kind of chain reaction, more and more photons of the same energy are released, ping ponging back and forth until this beautiful coherent, monochromatic beam or pulse emerges. I’m the medium, not the optical pump source, not the two mirrors. Richard Rohr talks about two stages of life. In the first stage, you may very well be a winner. But it’s failure at some point that provides the opportunity to grow. I dunno, maybe my brain is just blowing off some extra electricity here. I watched Terrance Malick’s “The Tree of Life” again. To me, there’s a letting go and acceptance in that movie that makes sense to me. I need to find my own way to accomplish that. Of course, sometimes the Ultimate does it for you and to you even more completely and effectively.
ReplyDelete