Gospel, Homily and Coffee

What is the goal of marriage? Kind of an odd question, but still relevant to married couples, to all people, and to this gospel.  The goal of marriage is, well it is the goal to everything.  The goal of marriage, to priesthood and religious life, to life for everyone, is holiness. In Church language, we call this the Universal call to Holiness. Every human person has this call, this capacity to be holy. It is the human Vocation to be holy.   Now, holiness is not being a super pious, do gooder, necessarily. Holiness means to be and live the person God created us to be. God created us as good, and holiness means expressing that goodness, within the context of our own lives. Let’s do some simple school physics. Think of some kind of wind-up toy. We crank it up and a spring inside gets tighter and tighter. This tightness in the spring is its potential energy. It stays potential as long as the spring is locked. When the spring gets unlocked, or triggered open, tha...

The Dark Night: Stanzas of the Soul One dark night, fired with love’s urgent longings — ah, the sheer grace! — I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled. In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, — ah, the sheer grace! — in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled. On that glad night, in secret, for no one saw me, nor did I look at anything, with no other light or guide than the one that burned in my heart. This guided me more surely than the light of noon to where he was awaiting me — him I knew so well — there in a place where no one appeared. O guiding night! O night more lovely than the dawn! O night that has united the Lover with his beloved, transforming the beloved in her Lover. Upon my flowering breast which I kept wholly for him alone, there he lay sleeping, and I caressing him there in a breeze from the fanning cedars. When the breeze blew from the turret, as I parted his hair, it wounded my neck with its gentle hand, suspending all my ...

How do the Disciples go from hiding in fear to Disciples devoted to a communal life, breaking bread together and praying; living with and doing great wonders and signs that amazed everyone? Love conquers all fear. The resurrection signifies, makes real, God’s infinite love for us, for all. Those disciples, despite hearing from Mary Magdalene that the Lord had risen, still were scared. They knew the Jewish leaders used the Romans to kill their leader, their friend; and feared they were next. Leaders had to get rid of this threat to their way of life, their way of understanding God, their way of power; this threat to the social order. So their fear kept them locked away. They would not go out and do great things. And I wonder too, if they also were not a little fearful of Jesus? He is Risen, but they had fled him and Peter had denied him. He is Risen..but was he risen to accuse them? To Punish them? To take his Vengeance for their actions? They don’t know. I bet all of us, if we pa...

The Gospel today ends in an apparent victory. Victory for those who use violence, those whose ego is more important; victory for those who lie, betray, and deny. Victory for those who are selfish. Victory of death and sin. How easy for us to give in, to assume death and sin win as well in our world. We see the absolute horror of Russians killing innocents and torturing Ukrainians. We once again in our own country face the evil of children being slaughtered with weapons of destruction. 39 people were killed along the border in a horrible fire. People killed in tornados in the south, flooding in California; people dying of cold and exposure here in our city; the young mother murdered in the north valleys.   Family members ill with and dying of cancers. People we care for descending into dementia. Hearts still being broken, disappointments, betrayals. We could think that there is no cause of joy or hope. We could let it win. We could stop trying, stop caring. But we know...