Easter Sunday Homily by Fr. Matthias Neuman

Readings: Acts 10:34-43; Col 3:1-4; Jn 20:1-9

Many things have changed in the Catholic Church over the last fifty years. Most of them were initiated by the Second Vatican Council, whose fiftieth anniversary of opening will be celebrated later this year. One of those changed items concerns the feast of Easter. When I was growing up, Easter Sunday was primarily known as the end of Lent and the time when we could begin to eat candy again. It was also the occasion for Easter egg hunts and the chance to wear one’s new spring clothes. If pressed to provide a religious meaning for Easter Sunday, we would likely retreat to the Baltimore Catechism explanation (provided we remembered it) and say that Easter proved definitively that Jesus was God. If you hadn’t come to that conclusion already by the many miracles in his life, then the Resurrection was certainly the clincher. Jesus most surely had to be God.

However, in the 1950s and 60s the forces were already underway that would effect an extensive broadening and deepening of the understanding of Easter. For almost a century before Catholic scholars had been recovering aspects and dimensions of early Christian belief and practice that had been forgotten in intervening centuries. No book was more significant than Fr. F.X. Durrwell’s The Resurrection, published in 1960. Fr. Durrwell showed very clearly from scriptural and patristic evidence that the Resurrection of Jesus was part of a complex of acts—passion, death and resurrection—that together were called the Paschal Mystery. And that Paschal Mystery constitutes the very heart of our redemption and salvation. That understanding swirled in the air when the Second Vatican Council opened in 1962. The Council Fathers would eventually write that meaning into the "Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy." That document clearly affirms that the Paschal Mystery forms the very center of the Christian faith. The Paschal Mystery is what is celebrated in every Eucharist. The most solemn celebration of the Paschal Mystery occurs in the feast of Easter, which is the highest of all feasts and the center of the Liturgical Year.

The Paschal Mystery is the origin, core and exemplar of what it means to be a Christian. What makes us "Christians" is that ultimately we believe that God raised Jesus from death to life and in that action began a new religious vision. The Resurrection of Jesus is believed to be a new act of God; this raising of Jesus means that he now lives in an entirely new mode of existence. This is a passing into (passover) a new and glorified existence, an existence beyond our world at the very right hand of God. This act of God has resulted in the beginning of a new spiritual age. For those who believe in Jesus will also be transformed by the same power that changed Jesus, by God the Father. The feast of Easter celebrates the very heart of our Catholic Christian faith.

In the 50 years since Vatican II the Catholic Church has been re-learning the great significance of Easter and the Resurrection. We can see this in a variety of ways. One of the most powerful has been the reception of the RCIA participants into full communion in the Church at the Easter Vigil. Another has been the development of new devotions like the Via Lucis, which is dedicated to the Resurrection appearances of Jesus and which now appears in all Vatican prayer books. Similarly, Pope John Paul II made the Sunday after Easter into Divine Mercy Sunday. This was to show the tremendous implications of the Resurrection for our lives; the Resurrection changed Jesus and all of us. Our Catholic Christian faith is a faith of God’s love and mercy. Let’s celebrate that today and always!

Passion Sunday Homily by Fr. Matthias Neuman

Readings: Is 50:4-7; Phil 2:6-11; Mk 14:1-15:47

Holy Week plays out symbolically the last week of Jesus’ life. Each day in Holy Week is connected to some event that prepared for Jesus’ passion, death and burial. As the week moves along we will want to focus on those events as part of our common liturgical lectio. That’s what Holy Week is for a monastic community—a common liturgical lectio. We together are reading not a book, but a series of liturgical actions—the washing of the feet, the sharing of a supper, the reading of the Passion account. With each event we reflect on that event for its significance for our own spiritual lives. This is the story of our faith, indeed of our salvation, acted out. In addition to the events the various people in the story have a role in our lectio. Part of our lectio should be our imaginatively identifying with the people in the Holy Week stories. In what way are we like them? What do they have to teach us?

For example, consider ourselves as one of the crowd walking along with Jesus as he enters into the city of Jerusalem. Are we there because we are entertaining wild, enthusiastic hopes about the coming of the Messiah? How often do we give ourselves over to wild, unrealistic hopes? Or maybe we are there because we just go with the crowd? How often do we do that?

Or, consider the woman with the alabaster jar who anoints Jesus’ head. We really don’t know anything of her motives. But anointing Jesus, the guest, is a good thing to do and so she does it. She probably has a pretty good idea of the kinds of criticism she will receive; she knows the people sitting around Jesus. But that doesn’t bother her; she does what needs to be done. How often do we let "fear of others’ criticism" hinder or stop us altogether from doing something that is good? That’s surely a Lenten Lectio.

Let’s turn the last scene around and become one of the criticizers. How often do we see someone doing an action (which in itself may be quite good and worthwhile), but it doesn’t fit in with our views and our preferred ways of doing things. So we criticize that individual....sometimes harshly. We completely forget that it is a good action that’s being done.

This is the kind of liturgical lectio which is our fare for the week. Let’s make good use of it in the days ahead.

Jesus' April Message

Dear apostles, I urge you to spend time with Me. The companionship you choose affects you and affects your outlook and behavior. Perhaps you believe that you can spend time with worldly pursuits and with worldly companionship and still maintain your interior life. Perhaps this is true. And perhaps it is not true. Please look at your life honestly and determine whether or not you are spending enough time with Me. If you are spending time resting in concepts that are eternal, your mind and heart will be in harmony. You will become less influenced by events and you will become less distracted. You will trust more and understand that heaven is advancing its interests through many means. You will, if you are spending time with Me, develop a keen interest in the Spirit that is moving the Church forward into a new time of fidelity and purity. Yes, renewal will become a reality in your heart and you will watch all change with hope and confidence. Dearest apostles, I am your reality. I am your King. If you will give Me time and attention, I will transform your life into a source of light for others. This is My plan for you. Be assured that whatever your suffering, whatever your condition today, I can renew you. I want to give you courage and strength. I want you to understand the Spirit moving through the Church and into the world. I want this very much. Allow Me, please, to have a companion in you and you will become one who rejoices in God every day, even if you are suffering. I am with you, dear apostles. I am watching closely as you move through your life. Be close to Me and all will be well.

Spring

Favorite shots from my Spring Break! God bless you as Holy Week soon begins.

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Lent by Fr. Matthias Neuman

Readings: Jer 31:31-34; Jeb 5:7-9; Jn 12:20-33

The first reading from the prophet Jeremiah is one of the most famous passages of the Old Testament. It possesses elements of transcendent beauty in its image of God writing directly on the hearts of the members of the People of God. A scriptural highpoint, to be sure. But to grasp the complexity of the passage we need to know a little more about Jeremiah himself and his background.

Jeremiah came from a priestly family in the town of Anathoth, a few miles north of Jerusalem. His home area belonged to the old northern kingdom of Israel, which had been destroyed by the Assyrians. So Jeremiah knew well the difficulties of both lands, of Israel and Judea. He had a long career as a prophet (ca. 627-582 BC, 45 years) and witnessed many terrible events, like the destruction of the Temple and the city of Jerusalem. A major part of the difficulty in understanding Jeremiah lies in the difficulty in establishing an exact chronology for the individual literary units that make up the Prophecy of Jeremiah. One cannot always determine who he is writing to.

In some ways that doesn’t make any difference. The clarity and power of his message speaks to everyone. The passage that we heard today comes from a section of the Prophecy that scholars call the "Book of Consolation." (Chaps. 30-33) It is written for people (whoever they are) who have a desperate need to hear a positive word from God. And this section is about as positive as you are going to find in the Bible. All the People of God, of both the northern and southern kingdoms, were in exile; they were punished because they had failed to live up to the obligations of the Sinai covenant. However, Jeremiah encourages them to have heart because the Lord God has established another covenant with them, a new covenant. They have been given a second chance.

The tremendous event that Jeremiah prophesies is that God has established a new covenant with them, different from the Sinai covenant. (By the way, this is the only passage that specifically mentions a "new" covenant in the entire Old Testament.) The covenant that Jeremiah prophesies possesses some very different characteristics from the Sinai covenant. The first of these is that this new covenant is unconditional. The people of Israel have no obligations as they did with the Sinai covenant. It is based simply on God’s everlasting love for His people. The second unique charateristic is that God effects this covenant by writing his Law on the hearts of each and every individual of the People of God. So, if you look hard enough, God can be found in your own heart.

What does this practically mean for us? It means that God is actively searching for us, for each and every one of us, no matter what kind of failings we may have in our backgrounds. God still pursues us and asks only acknowledgment and love from us. Realizing this caused St. Augustine to write his famous lines: "Too late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient and ever new! Too late have I loved you." (Confessions 10:27) He wrote that when he was 44 years old. Likewise the poet, Francis Thompson, captured the sense of God’s pursuit of us in his classic poem: "The Hound of Heaven." "I fled Him, down the nights and down the days; I fled Him, down the arches of the year; I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind; and in the midst of tears I hid from Him....From those strong feet that followed, followed after." (Vv. 1-3) The message of Jeremiah is simple: God is pursuing each one of us.....right now and through all our lives. The response is ours!

Fr. Matthias Neuman's Homily for the 4th Sunday of Lent

Readings: 2 Chron 36:14-23; Eph 2:4-10; Jn 3:14-21

One theme that seems common to all three of the readings we just heard is that this world is pretty much a mess. The passage from 2nd Chronicles details the devastation of the land of Judea by foreign invaders and the subsequent deportation of the people to Babylon. The Letter to the Ephesians sees all of us as "dead in our transgressions." And the gospel teaching of Jesus to Nicodemus begins with all the world on the verge of perishing eternally. Very different ways of expressing it, but all three have the same message: this world is pretty much a mess.

But that’s not the only common theme in these readings. In each case the negative description of the world’s condition is countered and even bested by a positive view. After the exile to Babylon comes the Restoration to the land of Judah. In the midst of our transgressions unto death it is the merciful God who sends Jesus to save us from them. In the gospel Jesus is that source of eternal life who overcomes eternal damnation by his cross and resurrection. If we put those two themes together (the positive and the negative) the result is: this world is grace in the middle of a mess.

When you think about it, that’s not a bad definition of the Catholic faith itself: grace in the middle of a mess. The mess would be the assertion that the world has always stood in need of redemption. You can find that stated in religious texts that go back as far as the discovery of human writing. The cave men and women probably sat around and moaned, "Times are bad." There’s probably not much difference between them and individuals today who see the world as going to hell in a handbag. The contemporary causes for complaint are many: international war, environmental disaster, worldwide famine, biological diseases, nuclear catastrophes. The reasons go on and on. They all agree that the world is pretty much a mess.

In the Christian theological tradition one of the ways to explain this negative human situation, this "mess," was the doctrine of original sin. Original Sin has gotten a lot of bad press in the last few decades—mainly due to people being upset with St. Augustine’s explanations of original sin. You can argue a lot about different points of the doctrine (by the way, not all of Augustine’s explanations are part of Catholic teaching; they are his theological opinions), but it’s pretty hard to deny the basic insight. As far back as you can look at humanity, it’s always needed a lot of help. However, instead of talking about this in generalities, the season of Lent does offer us a time when we can focus more clearly on the ways that our own lives are affected (perhaps I should say ‘infected’) by the history of sin we find ourselves in. St. Paul called his particular failing the "thorn in his flesh." (2 Cor 12:7) Evidently it was embarrassing enough to him that he didn’t mention exactly what that failing consisted of. But it always made him remember his need for God’s grace. One of the places that Original Sin shows up in each of our lives is in our own particular "thorn of the flesh." Lent is a time for us to face it more directly—not to wallow in discouragement from having failed so many times; nor to simply give in and give up confronting our thorn; rather we are to face our thorn in the flesh and to realize our continuing need for God’s grace in everything. Recognizing the mess, recognizing our thorn, leads us back to a merciful God.

So, the world is pretty much a mess. And our Catholic faith is grace in the middle of a mess. Let’s pray that we all take the needed steps along the way to find our merciful God.

Fr. Matthias Neuman's Homily for the 3rd Sunday in Lent

Readings: Ex 20:1-17; 1 Cor 1:22-25; Jn 2:13-25

When I went to visit the shrine of Lourdes in 1973, I approached it not knowing what to expect. My initial impression was not a good one. Approaching the entrance to the grounds required walking past what seemed like miles of religious goods stands selling every kind of trinket imaginable. As I walked along, various sellers would come right up to me with all sorts of plastic containers to use in collecting the miraculous water. But then, finally, the main entrance to the shrine opened onto an expanse of buildings and green park which just glowed with a sense of serenity, prayer and peacefulness. The faith of the people gathered there radiated all over. The sense of prayer was almost palpable. One’s heart could not help but be deeply touched. Mine certainly was. But, no matter how long one stayed, there were still all those trinket shops to be passed again on the way out and the sellers to be negotiated.

Religion, economics and politics don’t mix easily. I suspect if those trinket shops were on the grounds of the Lourdes shrine itself, my feelings would have been much more conflicted. I imagine that’s what happened in the Jerusalem Temple to set off Jesus’ angry outburst and lead him to drive the money-changers out altogether. Unfortunately things haven’t changed a great deal these days along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. When we go to visit a holy place, we don’t want it sullied with all sorts of cheap economics and trinkets. That does create anger and a feeling of disgust. Anger and disgust usually result in fuzzy and rash thinking. And we always need to be wary of that.

Sadly, we are seeing way too much indiscriminate religious/political mixing in the current presidential campaign. There isn’t much likelihood that things are going to improve in coming months. Religion, economics and politics are getting mixed together so much so that it is hard to tell which is which. We aren’t even sure who to drive out of the Temple. I certainly don’t intend to give you any tips about the upcoming elections. But I would like to offer a couple of observations that flow from today’s gospel passage....while keeping in mind the current political climate.

The first is the powerful (though painful) realization that it’s almost impossible to completely separate religion, economics and politics. Most of us would surely like to have our religion pure and unsullied, unmixed with all kinds of worldly doings. But in the Christian perspective where the divine and the human intermingle in everything, that won’t happen. We need to accept that, even though it’s very hard to do. The trinket sellers are always going to be there right aside of the holy places. Our challenge is to accept that, be moderate about it, and sift through things to appreciate the "holy" in the "murky." The "holy" is there in the murky, but it needs to be actively sought.

A second observation is one that I have found hard to teach myself: stop and question if people can really deliver what they promise? In this political environment you hear candidates promising great things: if I am President, we will have $2 a gallon gasoline. Well, how are you going to do that? Even if you are president, you have no control over the actual factors that determine gas prices. The same is true in religion: can people deliver what they promise? There are lots of TV shows that promise Christian faith and huge economic prosperity. I don’t see any of that in the New Testament. The early Christian kerygma promised the cross and a hope of Resurrection. It’s like St. Paul wrote in the passage of 1 Cor. we just heard: "We preach Christ Crucified"....and a hope of resurrection. We need to remind ourselves: that’s still the Christian message today.