August 1, 2004: He Who Has the Most... Loses

Dear Friends: This weekend, we have a missionary priest from the Philippines preaching at all our Masses at St. Paul's... so I got the day "off" from preaching. Rather than send you nothing, I thought I might be able to get away with recycling my homily from 2001 and sending it again this year. Blessings to you! FJL



The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 1, 2004



This past week, I did something prophetic—or maybe I should say, pathetic. It depends on your point of view.

This week, I cleaned out several cabinets and shelves of my personal stuff. It was taking over! I found that space was getting tight everywhere — on my desk, on my bookshelves, in my closets and drawers. So, I had to make a decision: Do I find a better and bigger storeroom for the stuff? Or do I get into some serious dumping?

In the middle of this, it occurred to me that I wasn’t much different from the guy in the parable who had too much, so he built a bigger silo to hold his bumper crop. I think the Lord wanted me to clean house this week so that I could make a choice of performing a prophetic action — get rid of most of the stuff — or a pathetic action, find a new and bigger place to store it all.

This week’s Mass readings combat the popular theme: the one who has the most wins. Instead, with God, the one who has the most stuff and the least of God’s presence loses.

A few years ago, I visited a retired man who told me that he had let his entire life revolve around making money. He was a hard worker. He was successful. I visited him in his dream house. His living room looked like the display room of an expensive department store. He had anything and everything he could possibly want. You know what he said to me? He said, “Father, I am so empty. I’ve killed myself all my life for what I have, and it isn’t enough. I’ve wasted all my energy on things. Honestly, I would be happy to give all this stuff back if I could relive those times when money was more important to me than God.”

What this man expressed candidly is something that few of us have the courage to admit. Yes, we have to provide for our families, for our children and their future, for the grandchildren, and for our retirement… but we can get so caught up in making money, that money and the things it can buy easily become an end for our life rather than a means to draw us closer to God.

So what do we do? We work too hard. We don’t have enough time for our families. We get ulcers and early heart attacks. But we wind up with more things than the next guy, so we think we have won!

But you know what? We really have lost. Because in the long run, the quality of our lives is inferior to the quality of the lives of those who concentrate on the things that really matter.

“Vanity of Vanities,” says Qoheleth, the preacher from the Book of Ecclesiastes, our first reading today. Vanity of Vanities. We kill ourselves, and for what? For things that are useless compared to the real treasure that God wants us to have.

“Vanity of Vanities,” says Qoheleth. Qoheleth has a message for modern America — the same message the Lord teaches us in today’s parable. The message is this: keep your priorities straight in life. If your treasure is in heaven, if you work for things spiritual instead of material, if you build your life around sacrificial love for God — then you will be able to embrace the Lord’s love in eternity.

But if your treasure consists of just earthly things… if you’ve missed opportunities to demonstrate your love for the Lord by refusing to buy into idea that you’ve got to have more and more, if when you run out of room for more stuff you simply build bigger and bigger silos — then, sadly, one day you’ll have to leave your treasure behind. You’ll have nothing but regrets to take with you into eternity.

Never forget that the goal of life is to be eternally happy, not temporarily happy. The wise man, then, stores up eternal treasure, not temporary treasure. And eternal treasure comes only from the Lord.

Without God all life is meaningless. But with Him, every aspect of our lives proclaims and rejoices in the reason we were created in the first place: to know Him, to love Him, to serve Him. And therein lies our true treasure.

Wouldn’t it be great if we could really live out St. Paul’s advice today? “Put to death,” he says, “the parts of you that are earthly: immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and the greed that is idolatry.” In other words, to give up on our terminal and selfish quest for more money, more stuff, more power, more control, more, more, more!

But of course it’s possible! It takes a little grace, a little self-discipline, a little guts — but it’s very doable. Are you willing to risk heaven for a few earthly trinkets — or do you really hunger for Paradise?

Please don’t answer that just yet. Why not drive out to the cemetery today, walk around a little bit, and make your decision while you’re there.

Beloved of the Lord, God be with you!



Today’s Readings
Ecclesiastes 1, 2 and 2, 21–23
Psalm 90
Colossians 3, 1–5 and 9–11
Luke 12, 13–21

July 25, 2004: Praying with Deep Faith

The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 25, 2004


In the mail each month, I receive a handful of little magazines printed by various communities of nuns and priests. A few of these magazines have sections where they include people’s requests for prayers. Maybe you’ve seen them.

I really make it a point as I scan through the petitions to whisper a little prayer for the people. So many of the situations are heartbreaking: pray for successful cancer surgery… help my son get a job and my grandchildren to come back to the faith… pray for my husband to stop drinking… pray that my two sons will start talking to each other again… help me overcome my arthritis… pray that my son-in-law comes back home… pray for my 2-year-old grandson who has a brain tumor… and on and on goes the list.

Our faith assures us that God hears every one of these prayers. In fact, he knows of our needs and our prayers before we can even think of them, much less express them in our hearts and on our lips.

Our faith also assures us that God answers every one of these prayers. As the prophet Isaiah put it, “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, Here I am” (Isa. 58, 9). Today’s beautiful Gospel makes the same point, telling us how much our Father in heaven loves us and will give us what we ask for.

This makes perfectly good sense. Let’s say that you’re praying for a child who’s fallen away from the Church. You desperately want him to get back. Do you think there’s any conceivable way that God does not want the same thing? Or what if you’re praying for an end to abortion… or world peace… or an end to terrorism… or Susie to go back to her husband… or a grandchild to get off drugs? Is it possible that God doesn’t want these things, too? Of course not.

Yet sometimes—in fact, lots of times—even our good and holy prayers don’t seem to get answered. We pray and we pray and we pray… and nothing seems to change.

Our faith and logic tell us that God answers prayers in his own time, not on our schedule—and, he has all of eternity to work with. But when you’re desperate and hurting, that’s not the answer you want to hear.

So maybe it’s no surprise that once in a while, people get angry at God or frustrated, and they simply say, “Oh, what’s the use?” and give up praying.

I think that we Catholics have to be ridiculous optimists about prayer—a new definition of a “fool for Christ”! We have to believe and hope that maybe just one more prayer will move God to act. Wouldn’t you hate to give up after a million prayers if you thought that a million and one would do the trick? That’s what we have to keep believing.

There was a very interesting poll that Newsweek Magazine published two or three years ago. It showed that 84% of Americans believe in divine miracles… that 67% of us pray for miracles… and that 77% of us Americans believe that even if a doctor gives a person no chance, God or the saints can intervene and bring about a cure. Now that’s the kind of optimism we need!

The Catechism of the Catholic Church has a beautiful section on prayer that’s well worth reading. One statement is especially useful. It says that the prayer of faith consists not only in saying “Lord, Lord” but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father.

In other words, as much as we may desire a particular outcome, the best prayer always adds: “But your will be done.” This means that we recognize that God can see the larger picture, and we should trust his judgment over our own in arranging things for the best—both in terms of what he does, and when he does it.

And of course, the beauty of this approach is found in the dictum that God will not be outdone in his generosity. So truthfully, when we put our hearts into this mode of thinking, we can honestly expect every prayer to be answered beyond our wildest dreams!

So if prayer seems to be coming hard, then pray for a bit more faith. That is the foundation you need. To illustrate this point, let me leave you with a little story.

There was a teenage girl named Melissa undergoing hospital treatment for anorexia and bulimia—two terrible eating disorders. One day, she was having a really hard time. The nurse brought in a glass of milk, but the girl said she just couldn’t drink it. So they called in the doctor. He came in, and sat down on the bed beside her. “Melissa,” he said, “you’re a Christian, correct?”

She answered yes.

So he said, “Do you remember the man blind from birth who Jesus healed near the pool of Siloam? He spit and made mud and rubbed it in the man’s eyes to heal him. But what really healed him?”

Melissa thought for a moment and then answered, “His faith.”

“Good,” said the doctor. “Now drink your mud.”



Today’s Readings
Genesis 18, 20–32
Psalm 138
Colossians 2, 12–14
Luke 11, 1–13

July 18, 2004: Prayer: Our Language of Faith

"Prayer: Our Language of Faith"


The Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 18, 2004


When I was a child, my grandparents used to take overseas trips almost every year. I always enjoyed going along to see them off at the International Departures terminal at Kennedy Airport… or to one of the ship piers on the Hudson River. And it was even more exciting when they got back home, filled with wonderful stories and adventures… and, of course, some terrific souvenirs!

I remember one time, my grandparents told me that they found themselves someplace off the beaten path in Greece. They didn’t speak a word of Greek, and the local people didn’t speak a word of English. My grandfather didn’t have any local money, which he discovered in a little café or taverna where they stopped for coffee. They tried to explain that they would go to the hotel to change some money and come right back—while the proprietor eyed them very suspiciously, thinking they were trying to beat the check. As you can imagine, it was a comedy of errors with everyone gesturing and flapping around trying to make themselves understood—without much luck.

Yes, communicating is a real problem if you don’t speak the same language!

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about it, but it’s exactly the same when it comes to communicating with God. We need a common language—a language of faith, you might say. Oh, God can understand us all right, but the problem comes when we try to figure out what he’s saying to us. It would be as though he were jabbering away in Greek; we would completely miss his meaning.

And as families, we also need this common language to share and transmit our life of faith to one another, and most especially to our children.

To a large extent, prayer is our language of faith. By using it, we discover a rather natural means to converse with God and one another. We find in this special language an amazing way to praise God, to thank him, to ask for forgiveness, to intercede for others, and to ask for our own needs.

If you took high school French or Spanish or German many, many years ago, I don’t have to tell you what happens to your language skills if you don’t keep using them! It’s the same with prayer. If you want to live a life in Christ, then prayer is indispensable.

We all know that, right? But for many of us, our prayer life is embarrassingly deficient—mainly because it’s hard to find the time or method that suits us best. Our lives may resemble Martha’s in the Gospel today: running around, working, taking care of everybody… So how do we manage just to find time to sit at the Lord’s feet like Mary did?

Let me make a few simple suggestions.

A good time for family prayer is at dinnertime. I hope your family manages to take an evening meal together at least some of the time! You can start off with a prayer, and then take a few minutes when you begin to eat to intercede for people you know who are sick or suffering… to thank God for some special blessings that you’ve received… or to talk about some way you saw God at work during your day. Some evenings, your short prayer time may lead to conversation and discussion that could carry you through your whole meal!

Another good time for prayer is before bed. You can gather together all the children and pray as a group—maybe even pray a decade of the Rosary together—or pray with them one by one as they head off to bed. It’s a beautiful way to put the day and God’s love into perspective.

Once you’ve found a good time to pray, the next question is how you should pray. There are many choices. You can pray spontaneously, just making up the words and speaking to God from your heart… or you can use the Bible, or memorized or printed prayers, or some combination. For children, it’s important that they understand what’s going on. What works for children of one age might not work for kids of another age, so stay flexible. Sometimes, a song or hymn is a good way to slide into prayer. Be creative.

What about kids who can’t or won’t get into it? Don’t force them. It’s a positive first step that they’re merely present while prayer is going on—and the prayer may affect them more than you think!

Now, what if you’re one of those super-busy families where you’re constantly on the go: after-school activities, sports practices and games, music lessons, and all the rest? Don’t get discouraged or give up. You can still find times to pray as a family.

Pray in the car on a trip or while running errands or heading to an event. In fact, that gives you a great focus. Pray with a child when he’s sick or struggling. Go to Mass together one weekday if you can.

You see, by praying with your children, reading the Bible to them, and introducing them to the Sacraments and the Church, you fully become parents. Not only have you given your children physical life, but you’re transmitting spiritual life to them, as well!

Summertime offers you a unique opportunity to start to cultivate the habit and discipline of prayer in your family life—so when school rolls around, it will be easy to stick with the practices you’ve started.

As Jesus tells us today, this kind of dedication to prayer is “the better part”—definitely a special grace and blessing. May the Lord inspire you to find this joyful blessing in your own life. Amen!


Today’s Readings:
Genesis 18, 1–10
Psalm 15
Colossians 1, 24–28
Luke 10, 38–42

July 11, 2004: Love

"Love"



The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 11, 2004


Our beautiful Gospel today tells the familiar and beloved story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus told this parable to illustrate his point about what it means to love God with all your heart, and all your being, and all your strength, and all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.

Love.

Now that’s a word we love to use!

I love Mom. I love Chinese food. I love my car! Obviously, there are many different meanings to this complex concept of love. What is it that Christ commands? What does it mean to love?

To begin with, love is more than an emotion. You can’t be commanded to be attracted to someone or even like them—much less love them in that way. No, love has to be something that we can do with the mind and will, regardless of how we feel.

So we might start out by recognizing that love requires us to wish good, rather than evil, towards people. Love means that we hope they will find a blessing rather than a curse in their life. We pray that they will be saved, not damned. We wish them peace, not strife. We reach out and help them in their need, rather than laugh at their misfortune. And even if they are miserable so-and-so’s, love forces us to pray that they be converted rather than cast into the outer darkness!

Is that possible? Absolutely! Look at St. Paul. He rabidly persecuted Christians, and one day, he was converted to become their greatest defender. Don’t you believe for one second that there weren’t many Christians praying for him!

Or in our own day, look at Dr. Bernard Nathanson. This man founded an abortions right league, and one day, he was converted to become one of the strongest pro-life advocates around.

Yes, indeed, love can change things!

So far, our definition of love tells us that we should be caring and decent towards one another—but is that how you love yourself?

I should say not! You love yourself with considerably more fervor… with a lot more pampering, attention and expectation.

If I broke down along the side of a road, I would hope that someone would stop and lend a hand. It would be OK if he had a cell phone and volunteered to call a garage, or the Triple-A. But it would be a lot more loving if he got out, opened the hood, tinkered around and got the car running again—and then insisted that I join him for a hamburger and a beer, on him!

You see, the love that Jesus is proposing to us is incredibly generous. It is self-sacrificing. It makes you forget about yourself and go above and beyond in serving your neighbor… just the way you would dream that someone would help you! That’s why the Good Samaritan story is so classy. The man did everything for the robbery victim short of making him his heir!

There’s an incredible joy in being that giving and loving. It lets you be Santa Claus, Mother Theresa and Jesus Christ all rolled into one. If you’re looking for a way to make yourself feel good and useful, what could top this?

If love can be commanded, that means that it can be learned… and improved… and even perfected. So look for opportunities to practice and strengthen the habit of love. Even the tiniest acts push you powerfully in the right direction.

Do you have caller ID? When the name pops up of someone you absolutely don’t want to speak to—sure, you might let the phone ring and have the answering machine pick up the call. But why not give in to love, and call the person back. “Hey, I saw your name on the caller ID. Sorry I missed you! What’s up?” How would you feel if you were the person being avoided? How would you want to be loved?

Fortunately, Christian love is by no means a rare commodity. Thank God, there are loads of folks who are wonderfully loving and generous. But at the same time, we live in a very selfish age. So many people are cranky, demanding, impatient, angry, intolerant and worse.

My advice is to reach out to them just the way the Lord would. Don’t sink to their level and engage in their distress or insult them—but simply be warm, courteous and kind towards them. Your loving example and prayer will be the forces that might change their hearts.

Don’t be afraid to go the extra mile to help someone. It’s OK to interrupt your schedule and spend some time hugging someone who’s hurting, or listening to someone in need, or running a few extra errands to help a person in distress. These are the things that become the jewels in your heavenly crown.

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, we can make a tremendous difference in our world by loving one another. Start with the people in your own home, your class, your office or shop, your team, your parish. Love the way you’d like to be loved.

Amen.


Today’s Readings
Deuteronomy 30, 10–14
Psalm 69
Colossians 1, 15–20
Luke 10, 25–37

July 5, 2004: Independence Day

Independence Day 2004
July 5, 2004

We gather on this morning to celebrate the 228th anniversary of our nation’s independence. It’s good to pause for a moment to consider the blessings and challenges that independence has gained us.

We are so blessed that I think many, if not most, of us take independence and our abundant personal freedoms for granted. It’s something like the air we breathe. It’s just there… and it’s there in vast and endless supply.

Yet this is not the case in every part of the world. Not by a long shot. If you’ve followed the Middle East war news even casually, you know that our fellow human beings in that part of the globe don’t enjoy the same freedoms that we do. It’s the same in China… Vietnam… Korea… many places in Africa… and other places as well.

America, thanks be to God, has been the land of opportunity, of freedom, of hope. We all come from immigrant stock. Maybe you’ve heard the family stories of your forebears journeying across the ocean… arriving in Ellis Island… and maybe even grasping the idea of true freedom for the very first time.

The promise of freedom goes hand in hand with hope. Imagine! You can do or be anything you want. These seeds of hope and better times are the fuel that have driven folks forward and upward. Those freedom fighters who were our Founding Fathers were imbued with this spirit. Their dreams, their tenacity, and even their blood won for us the gift we call America—the gift that is our home.

But with all these enormous blessings and gifts come dangers—dangers that we Americans face today.

One big danger is complacency. History offers almost endless examples of wonderful and advanced civilizations and cultures that once thrived but then crumbled: ancient Greece, the Aztecs, the Babylonians, the Egyptians, ancient China, the Mayans, the Roman Empire, even the British Empire in more recent times. Our country is still a baby—just 228 years old—but look at the signs of apathy and decadence that abound!

Another danger that threatens us is our selfishness. Just a couple of months ago, in the weeks following Easter, we read in the Acts of the Apostles of the growth of the fledgling church. People came together big time. They sold their property and brought the proceeds to the church so everyone could share. There was love and unity.

But look at us! We hoard our possessions, because I’ve got to have that new SUV or Rolex or DVD burner or large-screen plasma TV. And while we enjoy these wonderful toys, our brothers and sisters can’t afford food or medical care. We teach our kids that some people are more valuable than others, so it’s OK to abort unwanted babies or put old folks out of their misery for the good of everyone else. We teach our kids that truth is relative and we should follow majority rule rather than the will of God which may be unpleasant or too demanding. God sees it as a terrible injustice when we refuse to help our brother or are simply blind to his needs—physical and spiritual.

You see, many of us have forgotten that freedom and liberty necessarily mean that we have responsibility: responsibility first of all to the natural law and to the will of God. In concrete terms, this responsibility means speaking and living the truth, even when it seems to go against our own enjoyment or self interest…loving our enemies and doing good even to those who hate us…giving aid to everyone in need, particularly the least of our brethren.

Those are the ideals on which this great nation was conceived and founded. And because we tried to live them, we have been blessed indeed.

May we all pause today to consider our vast blessings… to thank God for them… and to resolve to turn over a new leaf in living out the responsibilities that our freedom engenders.

Have a wonderful and safe Independence Day. God bless you—and God bless America!

July 4, 2004: Full, Conscious and Active Participation

"Full, Conscious and Active Participation"


The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
July 4, 2004


It’s now been forty years since the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. I’ve heard it said that it usually takes about a hundred years following a Church Council for things to stabilize completely. We’re actually doing very well, but perhaps that explains why the Church continues to revise the liturgy and retranslate the texts that we use in the Mass.

One of the major documents that came out of Vatican II is called Sacrosanctum Concilium. We call it in English The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. It is a beautiful and fairly lengthy document—but well worth reading if you want to know the Church’s mind on the liturgy. You may have heard the famous expression about how we’re supposed to focus ourselves at Mass: with full and active participation. Those words are repeated in a few places. One typical sentence reads: “Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that full, conscious and active participation in liturgical celebrations, which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy” (para. 14).

In the early days after the Council, many liturgists tried to figure out what “full, conscious and active participation” meant. There was a rush to get people to “do” things: carry up the gifts, do the readings, lead song, help distribute holy communion, lift their hands, and more. Some of these practices have stuck; others have fallen into disuse. But there was a tendency to believe that somehow you weren’t participating fully and actively if you weren’t given some liturgical role or ministry.

More recently, as the liturgical pendulum swung back, we realized that “full, conscious and active participation” was more of a spiritual directive than a physical one.

I remember speaking a few years ago with someone who was being very pushy about wanting to take on a liturgical role that was kind of a strange, homemade concoction—basically just to give herself something visible and physical to do during Mass. I gently tried to dissuade this. Finally in frustration, she said, “But we need to participate fully and actively. What am I supposed to do that if you won’t let me do this?” I answered her: “You know that little dialog before the Preface when the priest says ‘Lift up your hearts’?” “Yes.” “Well,” I told her, “lift it up!” We both shared a laugh, but that’s actually the truth. It doesn’t matter whether you’re ushering, reading, serving at the altar, distributing communion or simply sitting in the pews; full, conscious and active participation is a matter of the mind and heart.

So how do we participate the way Church asks us?

For one thing, preparing for Mass is important. If you just walk into Mass cold, plop down and try to take in all the prayers and the readings, you’re going to miss a lot. Now consider an alternate approach. Maybe you’ve noticed that all the Mass readings are printed in the bulletin right under the date in the weekly schedule. Maybe on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, you could pick up your bible and look up those readings. You could read them a time or two… think about them… meditate briefly on what God is trying to communicate—not just to the whole, wide world, but to the people of St. Paul’s parish and to you personally and individually. Did you know that the bible isn’t just an ordinary book? It’s the living word of God! In a mysterious and powerful way, the Lord is speaking to you whenever you pick up the Scriptures—helping you, challenging you, advising you, guiding you. It just takes a bit of time and focus to tune into his message.

Have you ever heard a bunch of kids talking about a movie they’ve seen? A few years ago when that crazy movie came out with Jim Carrey—Dumb and Dumber—the junior high school boys were tickled with it. They watched it again and again, and memorized and recited the dialog for whole sections. It always broke them up!

Now, why did they do that? Well, because they found it important and interesting. You might say that they gave full, conscious and active participation in Dumb and Dumber. If people cared almost as much about their spiritual life, we’d be in great shape in preparing for Mass! Just think how much more you would enjoy the readings and the message contained in the readings, if you were hearing familiar and meaningful words!

Another way to participate actively and fully is by adjusting your schedule slightly so you can arrive 10 or 15 minutes before Mass. Try to shut out the noise or conversation around you, and just kneel down and pray. Talk to God and ask him to open your mind and heart to receive his word and follow his will. This is a time to quiet yourself down, push away the concerns and busy-ness of the outside world, and basically put yourself in God’s presence.

Still another way is to really listen to the sermon. Ask how the priest’s words mesh with your own thoughts and reflections. Maybe he reinforced an idea that you thought of, too. Maybe he corrected something—or explained something that confused you. Perhaps he added another dimension, or led you in an entirely new direction. All of this is spiritual stretching—and great for your soul.

Finally, I recommend that you take just a few short minutes after Mass—maybe two minutes if you’re pressed for time, perhaps even ten minutes if you can—to kneel down again in your pew and thank God for the inspirations and blessings of the Mass. You might think of a “spiritual bouquet”—a few words or a phrase or a little idea that struck you during Mass that you can remember and take with you when you leave Church. Over the next few days, you can go back to that remembrance and enjoy it and apply it—almost like you’d sniff a flower that you picked when visiting a garden. It’s a way to carry the benefit of Jesus’ love and blessings with you as you go through your week.

Participating fully, consciously and actively is truly a way to make the Mass more vibrant, interesting and relevant. Try to apply some of these ideas in your own family’s devotional life—and may the Holy Spirit fill you with his abundant blessings and graces to do so!



Today’s Readings
Isaiah 66, 10–14
Psalm 66
Galatians 6, 14–18
Luke 10, 1–12 and 17–20

June 20, 2004: Father's Day

"Father’s Day"


The Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time
June 20, 2004


Today we are blessed to celebrate Father’s Day—a day to remember and honor our dads, whether they’re still with us or even if they’ve gone home to God. We lift our hearts in prayer and make the words of the opening Mass prayer our own: we rejoice to call you Father.

If you’re a father who’s back visiting today, we welcome you. We pray that this time with your family will be joyous and refreshing.

It’s not always easy to be a father these days. The pressures and worries and responsibilities are enormous. Without a doubt, Jesus had fathers in mind in a special way when he spoke the words we just heard in the gospel: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

This past winter, my friend, Rick’s, young son, Tommy, got sick. His temperature spiked to 102½. Rick and his wife, Krista, got out the Children’s Advil, and 45 minutes later, the fever was down to 100.

Just before bed, Tommy’s temperature was back up. Even with another dose of Advil, his fever hit 103. They gave him water to drink and tried to bring the temperature down by applying cold compresses, but he didn’t respond very much. By 12:30 AM, Tommy’s temperature was 104. Rick and Krista decided to take him to the emergency room.

While Krista started the van, Rick tried to get Tommy ready. He jostled him and woke him up, and Rick explained that they were going to the doctor. Tommy looked at his dad with weary but trusting eyes and said, “Am I going to die, Daddy?”

Rick told me afterwards that three reactions flooded his mind instantly. The common sense answer: “No, you’re not going to die. We just need to get this fever down.” Then the emotional reaction: “I’m scared!” Visions of children with terrible diseases racked his mind. And finally, the spiritual reaction: “Dear Jesus, cover him… heal him… love him.”

Like most fathers would, Rick decided on the common sense answer for little Tommy, since he didn’t want to scare him and he was fairly certain the fever wasn’t life-threatening. But his mind flashed to the many parents in this world who have had to look at their children, knowing that the ultimate answer to that question was “Yes.” It’s almost unimaginable to have to contemplate that circumstance. Of course, that might even have been the heavenly conversation between Jesus and the Father, when the Son asked the question, “Am I going to die, Daddy?” and in his heart, the Father knew the answer was “Yes.”

Yes, indeed… to be a loving father means not just sharing the joy, but also the cross.

I know that like my friend, Rick, you fathers care very much about your children’s well-being. You try to keep them healthy… well fed… provided for in the things they need—and, if you can afford it, also the things they want. That’s beautiful.

But as much as these physical needs are an important part of fatherhood, so are the spiritual needs. As a father, you have been entrusted by God to be God’s stand-in for these precious young ones. Whenever people pray the “Our Father” or refer to God the Father, our natural reaction is immediately to picture our own dad first! He’s the model of God!

So perhaps it’s good to ask yourself today: Am I modeling God the Father for my children?

Am I present to them? Not just physically, but also emotionally? If you’re home but always on the phone, the computer or in front of the ball game on TV you are really absent. And that’s a tragedy.

I’m back here at St. Paul’s after a six-year absence. I look at the kids I knew when I was here before and I see how they’ve grown since 1998. It’s a blink of the eye. Stop and think how quickly your kids are growing up. Don’t squander this precious time by looking past your children to catch a meaningless play in some game… or by hurrying through a bedtime story so you could get back on the computer.

An important way to model God the Father is by praying. Let your children see you pray. Teach them to pray. Show them that human beings don’t have all the answers by any means, and the place to turn when we need superhuman assistance is to God.

Pray mealtime prayers together when you sit down to the table. This reminds your family that our sustenance and all good things come from the hand of God. Bless your children before bed. This reminds them that the angels are watching over them even in the dark. Say a short prayer together for relatives and friends who are sick or dying or in need of God’s powerful intercession. This gives your children great hope to know that miracles are always possible, even in situations that may appear hopeless to our feeble human eyes.

If you’re not used to praying or being a spiritual man, maybe you feel a little self-conscious or uncomfortable. That, too, is a small cross that Christ asks you to take up if you want to follow him. But truthfully, it’s a pretty light cross in the scheme of things. Don’t be embarrassed or shy about embracing our Catholic faith in all its richness. It has guided men, women and children along the path of salvation for 2000 years… and it will guide you, too.

We honor you and bless you, dear Fathers, on your special day. May the Lord continue to shine his abundant light and love upon you always! Amen.



Today’s Readings
Zechariah 12, 10–11 and 13, 1
Psalm 63
Galatians 3, 26–29
Luke 9, 18–24

June 13, 2004: To Nurture the Body of Christ

"To Nurture the Body of Christ"


Feast of Corpus Christi
June 13, 2004


I’m Father Jeff Lawrence, and it’s a special joy for me to be back at St. Paul’s. It’s been 6 years since I was here as an assistant with Fr. Doug and Fr. Tony Lee.

I know how difficult it’s been to see Fr. Doug leave after being here for 13 years. St. Paul’s was in his blood.

I remember my own last days at St. Stephen’s in Streator. With each person I saw at communion, I couldn’t help but think about the special connections we shared: I baptized that child, I married this couple, I counseled her, I buried his mother after a painful bout with cancer… and so on and so on. It’s got to have been even harder for Fr. Doug… and for you, too. I realize that I have very big shoes to fill here—so I beg you to please be patient with me!

As I’m sure you’ve heard, Fr. Doug and I only had literally 3 weeks’ notice before we both had to move to our new assignments. A week and a half ago, Fr. Doug invited me in for a parish tour and to go over a bunch of administrative details. It was kind of mind-boggling to try to take in so much all at once—so many lists and schedules and financial stuff. But as we went through a lot of information and papers, there was one thing that really jumped out at me. It was the St. Paul’s Parish mission statement: To nurture the Body of Christ. I love that! It is so short and succinct and covers it all.

Thanks to Fr. Doug and all of you, the community here is fantastic. It is so impressive and uplifting how you all work so well together in so many different ways to build up and nurture the Body of Christ. Thanks to your generosity with your time, gifts and resources, it is clear that you are truly making a difference among God’s people—especially the least of God’s people. Your kindness and outreach are destined to be exquisite jewels in your heavenly crown.

Of course, the reason for the success of your good works is that they are rooted in faith… rooted in God. Our Lord Jesus, in the famous words of the Second Vatican Council, is “the source and summit” of our Christian life. You nurture the Body of Christ, because Christ enables you to do so. Apart from God, we would merely be doing social work. With God, the blessings and graces among his people are multiplied without limit.

I think it is a beautiful coincidence that today the Church celebrates the Feast of Corpus Christi—the Body and Blood of Christ. This is a poignant reminder that Jesus must always be at the heart and center of everything we do.

Our Lord is present, as I’m sure you know, in many forms and manifestations. His power is contained in the words of Scripture we proclaim. He’s in our congregation gathered in prayer—and for that matter, whenever two or more are gathered in his name. But in the most excellent and sublime way of all, he is really and truly and physically present in the Holy Eucharist—the bread and wine that are totally changed in substance, by the power of God himself, into Jesus’ Body and Blood.

The Eucharist is not just a symbol of Christ. It is not a wafer that simply reminds us of Christ, or even that contains Christ. No; it is Christ—in all the humanity and divinity he possessed 2000 years ago when he walked on this earth. Can we understand this? Heavens, no! It’s perhaps the deepest mystery of our Catholic faith… but our faith tells us that this is more certainly true than the sun coming up tomorrow.

When this Jesus Christ, our Eucharistic Lord, is the center of parish life—when we make him #1—then we are truly poised to nurture the Body of Christ in amazing and supernaturally effective and powerful ways. There is the secret to fulfilling your mission of nurturing the Body of Christ.

My friends, I am honored and humbled that Bishop Jenky has appointed me to be your shepherd now. My prayer and desire is to serve you and nurture you and continue Fr. Doug’s vision of building up our parish community. Let us ask God the Holy Spirit to touch our hearts so we may work together lovingly, peacefully and joyously. Amen.



Today’s Readings
Genesis 14, 18–20
Psalm 110
1 Corinthians 11, 23–26
Luke 9, 11–17