June 26, 2005: The Sacrament of Baptism

+THE THIRTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

One of my favorite saints is St. Francis de Sales, who lived in the 1600’s. Francis was ordained a priest and eventually was named the bishop of Geneva, Switzerland, at a time in the Reformation when many Catholics had given up their faith and became Calvinists. St. Francis won many souls back with his gentleness and sweetness. In fact, he is the author of the famous remark that you can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a hundred barrels of vinegar.

There’s a wonderful story that as St. Francis walked through the city, he would often stop to visit with the children and take them to the neighborhood parish church. He would show them around and explain things to them, and invariably, he would stand them around the font where as newborn babies they had been baptized. “See,” he would say, “this is the spot that should be dearer to you than any other, for it was right here that you were made children of God.” Then St. Francis would lead them in the “Glory be to the Father” in thanksgiving for God’s mercy, the children would kneel down and kiss the font, and then they’d go back to their games.

In baptism you were made children of God… Just think about the amazing reality of that statement. To be made somebody’s child means that you were chosen … adopted… rescued. To take in a child this way is a lifetime commitment… an act of love, devotion and dedication. It entails embracing and caring for that child through sickness and health, in success and failure, in good times and bad, when the child is flourishing and also in times of despair, when his faith and love are strong and when they are weak or even non-existent… It is for ever and always… an irreversible choice to make that child part of the family. And not just any family, but God’s own family.

This adoption—baptism—is the doorway into the fullness of our relationship with God. Before baptism, you were “just” a creature… an outsider. Yes, of course God loved you, because He made you… but it’s not quite the same as being family. The neighbor’s youngster may be a wonderful kid, but not the same as your own.

So what is this sacrament called baptism? In a spiritual sense, the water in the font comes from the water that flowed from Christ’s side when He was pierced on the cross. When that water is poured over our head three times—in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit—or when we are fully immersed in it three times, we are baptized into Christ’s redeeming sacrifice. Symbolically, you—along with your sins—drown and your old life is over; then you come out of the water reborn in Christ—totally clean. That’s what St. Paul means when he says in our second reading today, “Are you unaware that we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were indeed buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

At the moment of our baptism, we enter into the Church. All our sins—both original sin and actual sins—are completely forgiven in the Father’s joy as He receives us into Christ’s mystical body. We receive the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit, including the virtues of faith, hope and charity. And just as the priest marks the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead, so does Christ place His indelible imprint, called a “character,” on his soul.

Yes, baptism is a new birth of water and the Spirit, opening up to us all the sacraments of the Church—the gateway to eternal life with God in heaven. It is our first sacramental step into the fullness of life in the Church, of our life of grace. It is the cornerstone of our holiness.

Baptism is altogether so important and necessary, that in case of an emergency, anybody, even a non-Christian, can baptize—even over the objection of a family member! So a Moslem or Buddhist doctor or Ob/Gyn nurse could baptize a newborn baby in imminent danger of death… a police officer or any passerby could baptize a victim of a serious automobile accident at the side of the road… a Catholic wife could baptize her obstinately non-believing husband as he slips into a final coma before death. All the baptizer has to do is pour water on a person while saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Of course, the person doing the baptizing must actually intend to baptize the other person into Christ. And you must use real water; you can’t baptize with Coke or orange juice.

If there’s a question of whether the person is already baptized, you can still baptize conditionally. Simply say, “In case you are not already baptized, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

By the way, if the person baptized in an emergency does survive, you should go at once to a priest or deacon who will supply the rest of the ceremonies, including the anointings and blessings.

So: to be reborn in baptism is a great privilege and joy. The baptized get to share in a unique way in the light and life of Jesus Christ. We get to bask in the favor of God’s grace… we are invited to travel a holy path… and we are blessed to journey to eternal life in light.

At the same time, as we grow in these blessings and graces, we have a special responsibility and mission to share the favor we have received. The baptized must love and welcome each other in Christ. Like St. Francis de Sales, we must be gentle and charitable. We must strive for justice. We must look for ways to bring out the best in each other. We must build up the very kingdom of which we now are heirs.

Let us pray that the divine life that we received in baptism will continue to grow and flourish always. Amen.


Today’s Readings:
2 Kings 4: 8–11 and 14–16
Psalm 89
Romans 6: 3–4 and 8–11
Matthew 10: 37–42

June 19, 2005: Original Sin

+THE TWELFTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

It’s already mid-June, and it won’t be long before some annual visitors move back into most of our kitchens for the summer: nasty, little fruit flies. Mine really like my tomatoes…

Not everybody hates fruit flies. In fact, genetic researchers think they’re pretty cool for a couple of reasons. Not only can these little bugs produce many generations in just a few days, but they’re also relatively easy, as bugs go, to selectively breed genetic traits in to or out of. So if you want to experiment with gene pools, they say using fruit flies is a good way to go.

Now picture this rather frustrating scenario: say that you’re one of those geneticists and there’s a particular characteristic that you’d like to breed out. But no matter what you try, that trait keeps reappearing, generation after generation. Even if you throw everything out and start over with an entirely new breeding pair, the characteristic you want to eliminate keeps coming back. Somehow, it seems to be permanently “hard-wired” into this creature’s fundamental nature.

This is actually a pretty good way to look at a comparable human characteristic that we call Original Sin.

I’m sure you know the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Our first parents disobeyed God’s commandment about not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Their free choice to do this was the first, or original, sin committed by man. And in some very mysterious way, that original sin became an innate human characteristic that is passed along to all human beings, in all generations. It cannot be eliminated, and it cannot be bred out.

In fact, if you remember a little more of your primordial Bible history, you probably recall that sin had gotten so bad and so pervasive, that God sent a flood to cover our planet and to wipe out all human life—except for Noah and his immediate family. But just like those intractable fruit flies, it took no time at all for sin to rear its ugly head once again, in full force. It was truly a permanent human characteristic.

What exactly is original sin? It’s actually a “hole” each of us is born with that should have been filled with God’s gifts. Just the way that dark is not a “thing” but is the absence of light… or cold is the absence of heat… or evil is the absence of good… so original sin is the absence of God’s sanctifying grace. And where that grace is missing, lots of unfortunate consequences become apparent: we are ignorant; we are subject to suffering and death; and we have a strong inclination to sin and evil.

Indeed, every bit of the misery, suffering and death in this world—from the beginning of time until the present day… and even into the future until the end of the world—can be directly traced back to that first disobedient bite of the piece of fruit in the Garden of Eden.

This must be my week for science. I want to tell you about something called the “honey mushroom.” Scientists believe that this is a single species of fungus that is the world’s largest living organism. They came to this conclusion when foresters and researchers investigated why so many trees were dying in a national forest in Oregon. Evidently, a virulent fungus was spreading through the tree root system. The mushroom was drawing off water and carbohydrates from the trees, and at the same time prevented nutrients from being absorbed. The scientists did DNA analysis from trees all over the forest, and they determined that the fungus all came from a single organism. It’s astonishing, but this one gargantuan mushroom covers 2,200 acres and is at least 2,400 years old, and very possibly even older. And it all started from a single spore.

There’s a living illustration of original sin: from a single bite in Eden to all the sin in our world today!

This is the point that St. Paul makes in his letter to the Romans today. Sin and death entered the world through one man, but it grew to affect all of us.

The sad thing about original sin is that it doesn’t take long for it to drive us into evil behavior of our own. Just watch your children and grandchildren. How long does it take for them to transform from innocent babes in your arms to foot-stomping, temper-tantrum-throwing, kicking, biting, no-saying little… darlings. Where did all that come from? Certainly not from Mom and Dad! It’s built-in.

And when we reach the age of reason—long about age 7 or so—we know enough about choosing to do good or bad that we start to become morally responsible for our terrible thoughts and actions. Here’s where original sin bumps us into actual sin.

Not only does our sin impact our relationship with God and with the people we sin against directly, but it also has a much more far-reaching effect. Picture your sin being launched in a pinball machine, ricocheting all over the place. It may be overly simplistic to say, but think of it like this: my lie or bit of cheating in America could conceivably cause a baby to die in Bangladesh.

That sounds pretty depressing, but the story of original sin isn’t hopeless. Far from it. St. Paul goes on to tell us that Christ, the new Adam, came not just to counteract the original sin of the first Adam, but to bring us even better gifts than the ones we originally lost! At the Easter Vigil, the deacon sings the “Exultet” which includes these haunting words: “O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam.”

Through Christ, our baptism washes away the original sin we were born with. The sacrament also fills us with sanctifying grace and gives us the right to heaven. Unlike Adam and Eve, we don’t have to live in an earthly paradise; instead, we may be admitted to God’s very presence. He makes us His adopted children in His very own home.

Yet like Adam and Eve, God expects us to decide. Do we want His gifts? Do we want His offer of heaven? If so, then we must obey Him in this life. He will help us with His wisdom, power and love.

In the Gospel today, the Lord cautions us, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”

It is awesome to realize that we have control over our own eternal destiny. It is even more breathtaking that God Himself wants us to succeed and helps us to succeed if only we let Him.

Please, let’s let Him. Let us pray for one another. God bless you!



Today’s Readings:
Jeremiah 20: 10–13
Psalm 69
Romans 5: 12–15
Matthew 10: 26–33

June 12, 2005: Living in the Grace of God

+THE ELEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

A couple of years ago, while I was pastor at St. Stephen’s in Streator, I finished giving instructions to a man long married to a Catholic—and finally the exciting day came that he was to be baptized. His wife’s family was so thrilled that he was about to turn Catholic. They came out en masse to witness the ceremony, including a number of children. One of the kids present was a 3-year-old niece—the daughter of the man’s wife’s sister and her husband. She had never seen a baptism before, so naturally she was quite intrigued by the font, the candles and all the goings-on—especially the business of pouring water on her uncle’s head.

All through the ceremony, the little girl kept poking her parents and asking questions. “Why is the priest dumping water on him, Daddy? Why, Daddy, why?” Her parents tried to hush her and answer her questions briefly and quietly, but she just wouldn’t be satisfied. So I’m told, the next day, her parents tried to explain things to her in a way a 3-year-old could understand. They talked to her about sin and told her that when Jesus touches people’s hearts and they then decide to live for Him and do good, they want everyone to know. They also explained that water symbolized Jesus’ washing people from sin… and when they come out clean, then they’ll try to be good. The little girl said, “Why didn’t the priest just spank him?”

Actually, I find it pretty amazing that even a small child intuitively understands that sin deserves some kind of punishment! I hope her parents keep teaching her so she can really appreciate what we heard in the second reading today in the Letter to the Romans: that Jesus took the spanking for us. I’m sure she’d see how happy we should be that instead of getting a beating, her uncle just had a little water sprinkled on his head!

There in a nutshell is the story of grace. The famous hymn says it’s amazing—and truly it is. Grace is the life of God that He freely gives us to draw us closer to Himself. We don’t deserve it, and we can’t earn it—but the Lord offers it to us out of pure love.

If you ever put a drop of food coloring or ink or some other dye in a bowl of water, you see how the color will spread through the water and gently tint it. In the same way, God’s grace permeates our spirit—our soul—and adds a tinge of the divine to our life. And the more grace we accept, the more pronounced the evidence of God’s presence within us becomes.

So what does this grace do? Very simply, it permits us to share in God’s perfections. He is all-loving; so the more grace we have, the more loving we become. He is all-wise; so the more grace we have, the wiser we become. He is all-holy and all-good; and so the holier and better we become.

God, of course, holds these perfections in an infinite way. We are creatures and finite—which means that we will never reach God’s level of perfection; but it also means that we can continue to grow more and more in divine life… not just during our earthly life, but also in heaven for all eternity!

The grace we receive—and we get it through the Sacraments, our prayer and devotional life, and our good works—can help us to do incredible things. The grace-filled apostles were sent out in the Gospel today to cure the sick, raise the dead, heal lepers and expel demons. Later on, all but one of them went to their death as martyrs to witness to Christ’s truth. No one can die for God without grace. Likewise, grace makes us powerful and effective instruments and witnesses of God.

Back in November, around Thanksgiving time, we celebrated the feast day of the Vietnamese martyrs. I am always very moved to read the accounts of the ferocious torture and persecution that these pious Christian people underwent. One of the martyrs wrote a line that haunted me; in fact, I went to look it up so I could get his words just right. He said, “In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone—Christ is with me.”

There you have a perfect explanation of grace. No matter what’s going on to you or around you, grace gives you strength, peace and even joy—because to have grace means to have Jesus Christ in you and with you.

God has always protected His people and promised them His grace. We even get a foretaste of it in the story of the Exodus. The Lord tells Moses to remind the people of Israel that he bore them up on eagle wings. Did you ever stop to consider what that means?

A mother eagle has a very special caring and loving instinct. When she realizes that it’s time for one of her young eaglets to learn to fly, here’s what she does: she snatches the baby eagle out of the nest and flies up as high as she can go. Then she drops the fledgling, and he falls fast. The little bird has never flown in his life. The ground is approaching quickly, his heart is ready to burst, and he knows there’s no way he’s going to survive.

But the mother eagle is watching. At the last moment, she swoops down and catches the baby. What relief for the little bird. But, oh no… once again, the mother flies up as high as she can go and drops him again. She continues to do this until the fledgling starts flapping and learns to fly!

The Lord bore the children of Israel on eagle wings. When they didn’t have any water, He swooped down and provided water for them. When they came to the Red Sea, He provided for them. When they didn’t have any food, He swooped down again and gave them manna—so they could learn to fly in His providence and love.

And His grace keeps working like that for us even now. Do we see it? Do we appreciate it? Do we seek it and long for it?

You might reflect back over your own life and see how many times you’ve started to free-fall… and how God swooped in to save you or provide for you. What a great way to count your blessings—literally! The point is, you are safe in God’s protective love—so don’t be afraid to spread your wings.

May our all-loving and all-powerful God continue to watch over you and fill you with His grace.


Today’s Readings:
Exodus 19: 2–6
Psalm 100
Romans 5: 6–11
Matthew 9: 36–10: 8

Homily Archive:
http://sj-cullom.blogspot.com

June 5, 2005: Stealing and Honesty

+THE TENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

A few months ago, the Bishop asked all the priests of the diocese to set aside two days and gather together at Jumer’s Hotel in Peoria for our annual “Assembly Days.” It’s also time for the clergy to have a little R & R, pray together and enjoy each other’s company. One morning, I was up a little early, so I went down to the lobby of the hotel where I staked out an easy chair near the fireplace. A bellman came by with a complimentary copy of USA Today.

USA Today always has interesting news tidbits. That day, I found a poll that the paper had conducted on honesty. The poll concluded that only 56% of Americans teach honesty to their children. I paused for a few minutes to digest what that suggested: that the other 44% of parents—almost half!—evidently turn a blind eye to stealing, lying and cheating.

Those findings swirled around in my brain. Could this be true? When I got back home, I set to work on Google to see what else I might find on this subject.

I discovered that Louis Harris, a well-known pollster, had conducted another survey in which two-thirds of high school students said that they would cheat on an important exam.

And listen to what a respected psychologist had to say: “Lying is an important part of social life, and children who are unable to do it are children who may have developmental problems.” Can you believe it? Not sinning makes you abnormal and slow!

So there you have it. If we can believe these polls, then a majority of our fellow American people think it’s basically OK to steal supplies from work or fudge on your expense report… to overstate your qualifications on your résumé… to call in sick when you’re really not sick… to keep the extra change a cashier hands you… to claim trumped up deductions on your tax return… to plagiarize work or assignments in school… and who knows what else.

Dishonesty may not be the oldest profession, but it’s certainly close. Our Gospel today tells of Matthew, the tax collector. In Jesus’ day, tax collectors were the worst lowlifes and scoundrels. To begin with, they were Jews who worked for the Roman occupiers. Not only did they exact taxes from their countrymen, but the way they got paid was by adding a steep commission on top. No doubt Matthew and his cronies traded war stories on how best to squeeze the most out of their “customers.”

So what turned Matthew around and turned him into an evangelist and a saint? That’s simple. It was Jesus Christ.

Jesus came up to Matthew, looked him in the eye and said, “Follow me.”

Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of irresistible magnetism! Well, actually we do to some extent… as disciples of Christ, we have a share of His divine life within us. It’s what we call “grace.” The more we can connect ourselves to the Lord through the sacraments, our life of devotion and prayer, and our faith-filled works of charity and mercy, the more Christ’s power will resonate in us and through us. That’s the beautiful promise of our psalm today: “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.”

Every Catholic with even a rudimentary understanding of the teachings of Christianity knows that dishonesty is sinful. It’s wrong to steal, to cheat, to lie, to be reckless or negligent with other people’s property, to worm your way out of legitimate debts… Yet if we can believe the polls, a majority of us are willing to ignore the commandments—and not even bother to teach honesty to our kids! Why?

It comes down to faith. People are rational. If they lie or steal or cheat, it’s because they think it’s the best way to get what they want. But think about that! What this says is that I don’t trust God enough to simply be honest and let Him take care of my needs. You see, it’s all a matter of a shaky faith.

Matthew put his faith on the line. Jesus said, “Follow me,” and Matthew followed Him. And lo and behold, the blessings of conversion and a powerful relationship with the Lord followed. Christ offers the same to each of us.

So the place to start is praying for a deeper faith. That is the foundation for every other virtue.

There’s an old story about two brothers who were tried and convicted for stealing sheep. For their punishment, they were each branded on the forehead with the letters ST, which stood for “sheep thief.”

One of the brothers was so ashamed, that he fled to a far-away place to live. But people were always asking him about the strange mark on his forehead, and he couldn’t stand the stigma. He finally committed suicide.

The other brother reasoned to himself, “I can’t escape from the fact that I stole sheep, but I can stick around and try to win back my self-respect and the respect of my neighbors.”

And so, over the years, he turned his life around and earned a reputation for honesty, respect and love.

One day, a stranger saw the old man with the letters branded on his forehead. He asked someone what the letters stood for. The townsman replied, “It all happened a long time ago. I can’t remember the details, but I think the letters are an abbreviation for ‘Saint.’”

As He did with Matthew, Jesus invites us today to turn from our sins of dishonesty—and our sins of neglect in teaching honesty to our children—and start fresh here and now. May the Lord bless you with a deeper faith and fill you with His power and love! Amen.


Today’s Readings:
Hosea 6: 3–6
Psalm 50
Romans 4: 18–25
Matthew 9: 9–13