November  5th - 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time  (English) (Guest Speaker)

November  12th - 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time  (English)

November  19th - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time  (English)

November  26th - Christ the King  (English)
 
 
 

5 November 2000 
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

  Why do Christians refer to themselves as priests according to their Baptism?  Why do ministers refer to themselves as priests according to their Ordination?  And why do we refer to the Mass as a sacrifice?  At first glance, it might appear that the author of the letter to the Hebrews neither affords Christians the opportunity to name as priests anyone outside the one true high priest, Jesus Christ, nor calls any event a sacrifice outside the one true sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary.  After all, the author asserts that “Jesus, because He remains forever, has a priesthood that does not pass away”; furthermore, he claims that “unlike the other high priests, Jesus has no need to offer sacrifice day after day.”

 But let us never forget that we are one body in Christ.  The members of Christ’s body have the boldness to call themselves priests--either by Baptism or Ordination--because their Head, Christ, is the High Priest; the members of Christ’s body offer their lives to the Father because Jesus the Victim offered His life once-and-for-all on the Cross.  By participation we minister as priests; by adoption we offer our lives as sons to the Father.  The divine Person, Jesus, took on our flesh to redeem it by His bloody sacrifice on the Cross of Calvary.  His Body on earth completes this sacrifice till the end of time as each member takes up his cross and follows Christ, enduring suffering and dying in Christ so as to reign on high with Him in heaven.  Jesus Christ, who is seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, does not suffer and die each day on the bloodless altar of sacrifice.  Rather He is truly made present on the altar in His Body and Blood, His Soul and Divinity to be received by His members, who still bleed, who still suffer, who still die.

 We, who are still subject to time, race to the finish line with the hope of being crowned with the glory of Heaven.  And as members we make up one body moving toward Heaven, racing to the end of time with confidence of faith, the determination of hope, and the coordination of charity.  We must--as I used to tell my cross-country runners--work together, for we are only as strong as our weakest link, for we will stand in victory only if we race in unity.  And what unites a team of runners, what unites those at the head of the pack with those at the end?  Effort unites them, for the fastest as well as the slowest must give 100%.  A common goal unites them, for each strives to place as high as he can for both individual glory and team victory.  And team spirit unites them, for each stays committed to the race and to each other from start to finish only by maintaining the spirit of victory.  Like these runners, each member of Christ’s body, united in the power of the Holy Spirit, must give his all--must indeed sacrifice his very life--to achieve the crown of Heaven.

 Yes, our High Priest has run the race before us, has given His all for us, has provided His Spirit for us, and now continues to intercede for us--as He and all the angels and saints cheer us on to victory.  As we gather today, the heavenly assembly gathers with us.  They exhort us to reign as champions.  Do you carry excess weight, the burden of sin?  Then be made lean by the confession of your sins.  Are you too weak to race for victory in Christ?  Then receive His Body to be a member of His Body; receive His Blood to have it course through your veins.  He Who has already achieved the victory and reigns on high, becomes the food of champions, becomes the way to the victory--to eternal rest after this arduous race.
 Yes, at the altar we can receive the way to victory, which requires that we “love the Lord [our] God with all [our] heart, with all [our] soul, with all [our] mind, and with all [our] strength.”  Let us strengthen our bodies with the Body of Christ, and invigorate our souls with the Blood of Christ.  And after this Communion, let us live in communion--as one body united in the love of Christ, who has paid the price of the victory in which we participate.  By uniting ourselves to the victorious High Priest and Victim in Heaven, we on earth may offer ourselves as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to the Father.
       Fr. Jack Durkin
 

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

 There is an exercise that I have often done with my high school students.  I would ask them to list the ten most valuable things they own.  Once they have tried to come up with those items I would ask them to rank them in the order of greatest importance to lesser importance.  Once they had the list I would ask how difficult it would be to give away the number 10 item on the list.  Most of them would not want to do it, but could agree that if they had to let go of any of their possessions the least valuable would not be so hard.  Then I would tell them that number 10 is gone, so scratch it off the list.  Then I would ask them how easy they could give up number 9.  Now it’s a little more difficult.  I would do this exercise a couple of times until I asked, what would it take to give up number one.
 Most of the students would have listed their stereo or car or best clothes as number one.  Some put down their boyfriend or girlfriend or parents.  Some put down their health or their eyesight or athletic ability.  What if you had to let go of that number one item?  Could you do it?
 Everybody should ask that question of themselves.  The widows we hear of today gave up their number one possession.  The widow of Zarephath had only a tiny bit of flour and oil.  It was just enough for one last meal before she died.  Yet, the prophet had the gall to ask that of her.  How could she part with this one last item?  Yet she did it.  The widow in the Gospel had only a couple of coins to live on.  Yet, she gave them to God in the temple treasury.
 What would motivate someone to give everything they had?  What would it take for you to give that number one item?  For the widows it might have been fear.  Maybe the widow of Zarephath feared the prophet and thought that he would do her harm if she didn’t help him.  Maybe the widow in the Gospel feared that God would punish her if she didn’t give the coins. That’s possible.
 I would like to think that it wasn’t fear that motivated either of them.  Instead it was the same motivation that Jesus had in giving of himself to the Father completely in the sacrifice on the cross.  It was trust and hope.  The widow trusted Elijah when he told her that God would not allow her to starve.  The widow of the Gospel knew that God had a special concern for the poor, for widows and orphans.  She trusted that God would fulfill His promise to her.  That is faith.  It is an act of hope too.  It says that even though I don’t know how it will all work out or even when, I trust that God will do it.
 We know that Jesus did the will of the Father perfectly.  He was attuned to God with His whole being.  In being obedient to the Father Jesus went to the cross.  He did so trusting completely in God.  He trusted that God would vindicate him.  In Jesus’ humanity it probably wasn’t clear how God would do that.  I am sure that Jesus wondered if God would remain faithful.  Nonetheless, Jesus trusted in the Father completely believing that God would fulfill His promise.  Jesus made a complete act of trust in God.
 You and I will probably not be asked to give up all of our possessions.  Our sacrifices will be small in comparison to the widows or to the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus.  Yet, the question to us remains the same.  Can we with complete faith trust that God will be with us in times of distress and trial?  Can we have perfect confidence that there is nothing that we face which is beyond the scope or concern of God?  No pain or trial is too insignificant to God.  No cross is too much for God to care about.  God knows it entirely and loves us through it.  He might not remove the pain or stop the trial from occurring.  But he will guide us through whatever darkness comes.  That is the promise of God.
 

33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 

 Once upon a time a man died and went to heaven.  When he got there St. Peter was showing him around.  He showed him one room where everyone was praying silently.  St. Peter said that this was where the Quakers are.  Then in another room there were people praising and singing loudly.  Peter said, “These are the Pentecostals.”  Then as he was going down the hall a little farther he motioned for the man to be quiet.  The man asked why he must be quiet.  He said, “That room has the Catholics in it.  They think they are the only ones here.”
 You probably have heard that joke before.  The reason that it is funny is that we know how true it is.  I believe that virtually every group has at one time or another felt that they were the chosen ones.  God and all the prophets have told the Jews that they were the chosen people.  God had a unique relationship with Israel throughout the ages.
 Jesus came to us from the Jewish people.  He was a faithful Jew teaching his own people of the love of God and of God’s desire for unity with His people.  Those who became followers of Jesus were known as Christians.  It didn’t take long for a split to occur between Jews and Christians.  Jews believed that Christians had abandoned the faith by inviting Gentiles to become believers.  Christians believed the Jewish people who rejected Jesus had gotten it wrong.
 Several hundred years later Islam would be a major religion.  It declared that both Jews and Christians had gone astray.  Although the common root in Abraham was still present, it was only through the complete devotion of the people of Mohammed that Allah could be truly given proper worship and honor.
 Then in the sixteenth century when the Christian church was broken and fragmented both Catholics and Protestants claimed that they had the true faith and the other had gotten it wrong.  Each side said that due to the other’s obstinacy they were surely destined for hell while the adherents of the true religion were going to heaven.
 Strangely, even though the Bible has many allusions to the end of time, it doesn’t give a criteria based on religious denomination as the criteria for salvation.  The end times will eventually come.  Some try to predict that it will be in this time or that.  Others try to say exactly how that final time will look.  Some even believe that this is the final age and Christ will surely return soon.
 Christ tried to eliminate some of that speculation by simply telling his believers that the time is not known.  What is known is that whatever time God has given us is to be used for a purpose.  That purpose is to bring forward the reign of God.  Over the next couple of weeks we will hear of doom and gloom and of tremendous signs in the heavens and on earth.  Those stories sound kind of scary.  Yet, we don’t have to look at the scriptures to see that the world can be a scary place.  If you live in Africa there are pretty good chances you will not live to adulthood.  If you live in the inner city of any metropolis you are probably poor and are tempted daily to take up drugs, do violence, and prey on society.  Even if those are not the circumstances of our lives we know that economic problems can lead us to despair.  We know that sickness can enter our lives at any time.  We know that we could be the victim of crime or of an accident that leaves us paralyzed or dead.  The world has always been a scary place.
 The message of the scriptures is that we are not alone in this world.  God watches out for His people.  We believe that the chosen ones of God are those who place their trust in Him no matter how crazy or mixed up the world gets.  That is faith.  That is what motivates us to live in this world.
 We have this guarantee from the Lord.  He will send his angels and saints to guide us and protect us.  It is not that we will necessarily be kept free from physical harm or distress.  But having the Lord by our side we will know that no amount of pain the world can give will ever cause us to falter.  The Lord has chosen our spirits.  So, again, what is needed is faith, not fear.  Amen.
 

Christ the King 2000 

 Our presidential election results still haven’t been ironed out.  We don’t know who the next president will be.  It is said that because of that uncertainty the stock market has had problems.  Our news media love this indecision because it causes us to watch the various programs.  But beyond that does it matter to your every day lives?
 There was a lot of interest in the recent election.  Probably many more people voted than had done so in more recent elections.  That is good for our society.  Most people who follow politics had strong feelings about which candidate they would like to see as our next president.  Yet, because we don’t have a president-elect do you have trouble sleeping at night?  Do you find that this indecision causes you difficulty in deciding whether to put up Christmas decorations or not?  Have you put off visiting family this Thanksgiving or Christmas because we don’t have the results of this election?  In every case I would imagine that you would say no.  We want to know and begin the transition to the next president, but it doesn’t affect our day-to-day living.
 In fact, most elected officials don’t affect us until we have some problem.  You probably didn’t even remember who the secretary of state of Florida was until two weeks ago.  I know that if I was asked that question on a quiz show I couldn’t have answered it.  When we are faced with some problem that only a government agency can handle, then we remember whom we elected.  We want them to do their job to make our lives a little better or to help solve our crisis.  Throughout history that has always been the case.  Kings and rulers would govern without most people having any concern about who was on the throne unless a crisis arose.  Then it mattered.
 Today we celebrate Christ as our King.  We recognize Christ as king in two different ways.  From the passages in Daniel and Revelation we see Jesus as king over the universe and the Church.  He is the Son of Man who comes on the clouds in victory at the end of time.  We await Christ’s glorious return to establish peace on the earth.  We are confident of this ultimate victory because Christ is king over sin and death by his crucifixion.  Our king has come to power by submitting himself to the will of the Father and into the hands of sinful humanity.
 When Pontius Pilate had Jesus before him he was very curious about the charges brought against him.  He had heard that Jesus was proclaimed a king.  He wanted to know whether this would be a threat to his power.  When Jesus declared that his kingship would not be through the power of armies, but the power of truth Pilate didn’t know what to say.
 Jesus kingdom would be found not in any particular land, but in every land.  Anyone who would turn his or her will over to the Father as Jesus had done would experience this kingdom.  Each person would experience the power that God had in store when they allowed Him to set the agenda.  How could Pilate comprehend a kingdom more powerful than the Roman Empire?  Yet, Jesus was offering him a chance to see the world in an entirely new way.  Today, with hindsight we can see where truth lies.  The coliseum that lies in ruins in the city of Rome is all that remains of the mighty Roman Empire.
 Is the victory of Christ complete?  The answer to that question is both yes and no.  Yes, in that Christ’s death and resurrection is the proof that we need that God is victor over sin and death.  We believe and await Christ’s return in glory.  But until that day comes the reign of sin seems to have sway over people’s lives.  The victory of Christ isn’t always apparent.  That day will only arrive when every heart is turned to the Lord.  That day will come when God’s will comes before our own.  That victory comes each and every day that we say yes to doing justice over injustice, mercy over revenge, peace over violence.  That victory should affect every bit of our daily lives.  If it doesn’t then Christ is not our king.  He is no different than some distant ruler that has no bearing on life.  If Christ is to be our king he wants our total being.
 You and I are to be servants of this kingdom and priests of our God.  Our baptism was the first claim that we wanted Christ over the powers of sin and Satan.  Now is the time to extend the victory to bring forth the Kingdom in its entirety