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Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion

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Grieving through the holidays

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Grieving at the holidays MEMORIES ARE mysterious things. Moments of remembering that flash across our minds at the sound of a word or the aroma of perfume or the phrase of a song. Sometimes our memories are welcomed treasures, giving birth to smiles and warm affection. Other times, as when we are grieving the loss of someone we love, memories wash over us as waves of pain and we become immobilized by grief. During the holidays memories of special times shared with a loved one are stirred up by the unique sights and sounds and symbols associated with the season. Preparing the Thanksgiving meal, hanging a special ornament on the tree, shopping for gifts, or even the simple change of seasons can bring us to periods of melancholy. Most noticeably, with the death of a loved one, holiday rituals are not the same. Something, and someone, is missing, and we realize that from now on things will be different. Our experience of grief at this time is no doubt similar to that of the apostles after Jesus died because so much of their lives together was centered around Jewish ritual and holidays. Certainly their grief was as profound on that first Passover without their Lord as ours may be this holiday season without our loved one. How different it must have been for them without his charismatic presence at the table, his words, spoken during their last meal together ringing in their ears: "Do this in memory of me." With those words Jesus instituted the sacrament of Eucharist, the source and summit of our faith, the nourishment of our soul and a balm for our grief. Rituals of remembering are important aids on our journey of grief. They enable us to craft appropriate ways to honor our loved one's memory without allowing it to encompass our lives in an unhealthy way. Jesus was wise in the ways of grief, as we see in the unfolding of the Emmaus story. Following his resurrection, Jesus comes upon two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus, most likely good friends who, as disciples, are deeply grieving the loss of their beloved teacher. Jesus does not try to comfort them but rather simply listens as they tell him the story of how they have come to be burdened with such a loss. Jesus was wise in the ways of grief, as we see in the unfolding of the Emmaus story. Following his resurrection, Jesus comes upon two disciples walking along the road to Emmaus, most likely good friends who, as disciples, are deeply grieving the loss of their beloved teacher. Jesus does not try to comfort them but rather simply listens as they tell him the story of how they have come to be burdened with such a loss. As every good grief counselor knows, telling the story is an imperative for the bereaved, and listening is the essential role of those who walk with them on the journey. The Emmaus story teaches us that Jesus enters our lives, sometimes unknown to us, during times of our most profound pain and grief. We walk, as did the disciples, with eyes closed to our Lord because our grief overwhelms us. But in the story, as in life, Jesus does not turn away from the disciples because they don't recognize him. Instead he sits down to eat a meal with them and, in the breaking of the bread, they see him as their lost Lord, resurrected through the will of God and the power of the Holy Spirit. As one Christian author has written, "The two Emmaus pilgrims come to be known and embraced in their grief by the Christ who listens, places the reality of death in the larger picture of God's passion for the whole world, and resolves the pain by a nursing, caring love." When Jesus leaves them, he leaves them with something more powerful than memories. He leaves them with faith in God, hope in the Resurrection, and love for him that will spill forth and make new the world in which they live. One of the mysteries of life is that love, which brings us so much joy, is also the reason for immeasurable pain, for if we didn't love, we wouldn't grieve. The pain often forces us to lose sight of the blessing that our love has been to us, to our families and, subsequently, to the world. It is this love, with all its power and beauty, that we must remember during the holidays. It is this love that we cherish, that we craft into stories to be shared so that our loved ones are never forgotten but rather give meaning to our lives as our Risen Lord brought meaning and purpose to the lives of the disciples once again. Nearly 100 years ago, perhaps during a holiday season just like this one, Jesuit Father Alban Goodier wrote these beautiful words: Love "is the key to this life, the content of the next, the abiding link between both, the mortal's possession that can never die, the fire of life that leaps across the chasm made by death." Grief may be ours for a time, especially during this time meant for celebrations, but the love of God is ours forever.

Authors Mary Morrell

Special occasion Grieving at the holidays

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The light of the world

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Readings: 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Ephesians 5:8-14; John 9:1-41 WE DO NOT SEE as God sees. We see the appearance, but God looks into the heart. That message came home to the prophet Samuel, as he looked down the row of Jesse's fine and handsome sons. He was on a quest for the next leader of Israel. Israel's first king, Saul, was large and powerful, charismatic and courageous in battle. But in fact Saul had made a dreadful ruler, vain and unwise. So Samuel was taking his time in reviewing Jesse's able sons. God told him this was the right house, but Samuel feared these were the wrong sons. Being a seer, he knew which question to ask: "Are these all the sons you have?" Samuel knew there was nothing wrong with what he was seeing. It was what he was not seeing that was the key to his mission. And so he met David and anointed the rightful king over Israel. That is our first lesson in discernment, which could be defined as learning to see as God sees. Beyond the surface of things lies the essence of reality that we often call the heart of the matter. At the core of people and circumstances is a truth much more powerful than what we observe with our eyes. But because it takes time and wisdom to navigate to the core, mostly we dismiss it in favor of what delights us at first glance. On the surface of things the man born blind was a luckless individual. Either he was a terrible sinner or a product of sin. At least that was the popular theory of the day. God had deprived him of his sight for a reason. Jesus did not disagree with that assessment. And he suggested that the reason was not what people thought. The blind man wasn't a signpost of the effects of sin; he was a receptacle for God's imminent glory. Jesus took the apparent situation and turned it on its head. Which is what Jesus often did with accepted reality. Think about the popular assumptions Jesus overthrew: Suffering wasn't payback for sin but an opportunity for grace. Death was not the trapdoor of the underworld but the gateway to eternal life. The poor had the kingdom given to them. The meek would inherit what the powerful had to surrender. The last, incredibly, would be first. Think about the popular assumptions Jesus overthrew: Suffering wasn't payback for sin but an opportunity for grace. Death was not the trapdoor of the underworld but the gateway to eternal life. Because Jesus saw to the heart of the matter, he knew the man born blind could see far better than the religious leaders around him The comedy that emerges from the cure demonstrates that. All of a sudden the man's neighbors aren't sure this is the fellow they've seen on his stoop all their lives. Isn't this man supposed to be blind? The Pharisees study this act of God and absurdly conclude that its roots are in sin. They drag in the parents to testify on behalf of a grown man, which is lunacy of course; but that's how little the personhood of this man is respected. Finally they put the man formerly known as blind back on the witness stand and insist he disavow the "sinner" who cured him. Naturally, this he cannot do. With utter simplicity, he declares: "If this man is a sinner, I do not know. But one thing I do know: I was blind and now I see." Clarity of vision in the face of the miraculous is one thing the authorities cannot take away, not with all their arguments and certitudes. The fellow now more properly known as "the man who sees" encounters Jesus a second time. Jesus asks him if he believes in the apocalyptic figure of the Son of Man. The man who sees knows instinctively which question to ask. He doesn't engage in theological queries about the meaning of this figure. He asks only, "Who is he?" Like the prophet Samuel he waits only to be pointed in the right direction. And Jesus points to himself: "The one speaking with you is he." We recognize these words from the encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well. The one people are seeking is always the one whose words they are already hearing. We, too, stand in the presence of Jesus. We wait for truth like a compass to point us to the way of life. We hear the word of God proclaimed in our midst and recognize that the one who speaks is the one our hearts have been yearning for. To our hearts Jesus is true north. If we follow the sound of his voice, we can never be lost. Jesus, we believe and profess, is the light of the world who opens the eyes of the blind so they might see. Elect and baptized, we want to see as God sees, with the clear vision of discernment. We seek to know the heart of the matter as we make choices in our relationships, in our labor, in the things dearest to each of us. We know the cure for our blindness: "Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

Authors Alice Camille

Special occasion Lent Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens 1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a Ephesians 5:8-14 John 9:1-41

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A time to be transformed

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Thanksgiving Day ONE OF THE FUNNIEST movies of the 2002 season was My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This warm and loving story of a family’s efforts to maintain their Greek heritage is punctuated throughout with the family patriarch’s insistence that every single word in the English language can be traced back to a Greek word or expression. He even manages at one point, with some hilarious mental gymnastics, to give the “Greek root” of the word “kimono.” He would probably have been hard-pressed to find the Greek origins for the word “Thanksgiving,” although he certainly would have given the Greeks, not the pilgrims and Native Americans, credit for the feast! But there is an ancient Greek word that meant “thanksgiving.” That word is eucharist. In the first few centuries of the church, this was the name we used for the Mass, because it was understood to be a meal of thanksgiving. The Second Vatican Council tried to restore the word to our liturgical vocabulary because it is still the best way to describe what we gather here to do. The word reminds us of the power of giving thanks, for it is in eucharist, in thanksgiving, that the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of Jesus. This is the tremendous potency of giving thanks: It transforms everything for which we give thanks. Consider this. You wake up to a gray, dismal, rainy morning. It is a steady downpour, the kind destined to last all day. Even the sheets feel damp as you roll out of bed. Your attitude toward the weather is about to set the tone of your day. You may think about the golf game or tennis match that are cancelled, the rush-hour traffic that will be so much worse with the addition of wet streets and fog, the extra clothing the kids are going to need for school or the ride they will need to the bus stop, the mud that will come home with everyone. Each of those thoughts is capable of souring the whole day. Or your first thought might be of the drought the area has been having and the wonderful gift this rainfall will be. The grasses are going to get green again, the reservoirs are filling even as you wake, the water restrictions may be called off, and the farmers may be able to save their crops after all. Outwardly, nothing has changed. The outdoor activities still need to be cancelled. The traffic will still be a mess. There will be more wet clothes, more mud, more work. But something has changed—your attitude. The overwhelming emotion with which you greet the day is gratitude, and gratitude transforms everything. You have decided that this is a good day; the rain, but especially your gratitude for the rain, has made it so. Gratitude not only transforms all that for which we give thanks, it transforms the one who does the thanking. When we give thanks, we acknowledge the gift in everything. We see ourselves, not as entitled to what has happened, but as the recipient of a gift, a grace. When we teach our children to say “Thank you,” it is not just because it is the polite thing to do. We want them to recognize the gift is not their prerogative, they have no claim on it. Gracious people are those who expect nothing and so receive everything with gratitude. Gratitude not only transforms all that for which we give thanks, it transforms the one who does the thanking. We are transformed by our thanksgiving from being powerful and in control to humble and in need. And so our thanksgiving becomes eucharist, a giving thanks that transforms. A MOTHER WALKED in on her two-and-a-half- year-old daughter “celebrating Mass.” The little girl had a red scarf around her neck and a small brass candlestick and white plastic plate on the tiny table before her. Her mother waited quietly as she lifted the plate and said, “This is my body.” When she was all finished, her mother asked if she had hoped to change the plate into Jesus. “Oh, no,” the child answered quickly. “Change me into Jesus.” Her mother was about to correct her when she realized just how right her little one was. What difference would it make whether we changed the bread and the wine if the people who celebrated with the bread and the wine were not transformed? And so we come to give thanks, so that we might be transformed. We celebrate a feast of Thanksgiving to remind us of the importance of approaching every day with gratitude, of receiving everything as gift.

Authors Kathleen Chesto

Special occasion thanksgiving day

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It all begins with a call

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Vocations THE NOTION OF “CALL” is not peripheral to scripture but fundamental to the Bible’s understanding of human existence before God. Who can forget in the opening chapters of Mark and Matthew’s gospels those encounters by the Sea of Galilee? Fishermen Simon and Andrew casting their nets in the sea; James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother, sitting in their boat mending their nets—they have no inkling of what is about to happen to them, something that will change their lives forever. Jesus, walking by the sea, calls to them, “Come, follow me and I will make you fish for people” (Mark 1:16-20). They drop their nets and leave their father and his workers behind in the boat where they’d been sitting. The Bible offers many other stories, like the story of Peter’s call renewed, which appears at the end of John’s gospel. It is perhaps the most exquisite story of all the New Testament. Deflated disciples fish listlessly. On the shore of the Sea of Galilee, a figure appears with a charcoal fire burning—it is someone unknown but hauntingly familiar. He issues directions on where to fish and the fishermen haul in an abundant catch, which prompts a heart-pounding recognition. Peter, knowing who awaits him, plunges into the sea and swims ashore. Sharing a breakfast of bread and fish by the sea, the strain of joy and shame is about to burst within Peter. And then comes the moment of reconciliation: “Simon Peter, do you love me more than these?” Peter undergoes the threefold question in order to heal the breach of his threefold betrayal. Then Jesus invites him, “Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” Peter’s discipleship is restored; his call renewed. In these and many other biblical stories where Jesus calls disciples we find certain fundamental qualities: They make abundantly clear that the life of discipleship begins not with a choice but with a call. Jesus’ authority and his alone is the source of that call. It comes unexpectedly and without warning. Most of the stories also make clear that the call is first and foremost a call to follow after Jesus. The focal point is the person of Christ. The disciples follow after Jesus, surely not ahead of him and not even alongside him. Jesus is out in front of his community; the disciples follow behind, often in confusion and fear. But there is something more in the content of the call. Jesus says, “I will make you fish for people.” The disciples who are called to follow Jesus will be plunged into the work of transforming Israel, of renewing the covenant community, of establishing the kingdom, of healing and exorcism and teaching just as Jesus was. And their destiny would be to encounter the withering power of alienation and death in Jerusalem just as he would. Most of all, the stories make clear, the disciples’ lives would never be the same. They leave their boats and their families and new allegiances would be required. The notion of vocation in its most fundamental meaning is not defined by any specific role or function but is something far greater, something written on a vast canvas. It is pure gift, with God as its author and life as its subject. This call is not first and foremost to a particular role in life but more fundamentally is a call to seek the face of God, a call to holiness and the fullness of life itself. This is the endpoint of the biblical quest: to see the face of God and live. It is for this that we are called, all of us as part of the human family, and surely all of us as part of the church. The notion of vocation in its most fundamental meaning is not defined by any specific role or function but is something far greater, something written on a vast canvas. The biblical call stories remind us that responding to God’s vocation requires conversion and lifelong personal transformation. It is not by accident that the most pervasive biblical symbol for describing the life of faith is that of the journey. All of Israel’s history is cast as a long and often tortuous journey of faith: from the first stirrings of Abraham’s trek into the pastures of Canaan through the exodus from Egypt and the journey to the promised land and from the wrenching experience of exile to a muted and hope-filled return to the land of Judah. And so, too, is the life and mission of Jesus cast as a long journey, beginning in the bursting energy of his ministry in Galilee, and then the ominous and purposeful journey to Jerusalem where he would meet his destiny in death and resurrection. Response to God’s call is not an instantaneous or static reality but one that unfolds over time and one that must endure the rigors of the march to Jerusalem, a journey that often involves challenge, fatigue, and failure. Each one of us has received a call. Our biblical heritage gives us the means to understand that call and to respond in faith.

Authors Father Donald Senior C.P.

Special occasion vocations national vocation awareness week call World Day of Prayer for Vocations
A more perfect union

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Labor Day Readings: Genesis 1:26-2:3 or 2:4b-9, 15; 1 Thessalonians 4:1b-2, 9-12 or 2 Thessalonians 3:-12, 16; Matthew 6:31-34 or 25:14-30 MY FAMILY AND I strolled down beautiful Michigan Avenue in Chicago a few years ago. Approaching the Congress Plaza Hotel, we saw about a dozen people marching around in front of the hotel, chanting, “We don’t eat, you don’t sleep!” Their picket signs indicated they were hotel workers on strike. The hotel has been paying its workers far below what other workers in Chicago hotels were getting and now wants to cut their pay. A cab pulled up and several tourists got out with luggage. The looks on the tourists’ faces said, “What’s going on here?” That’s a good question. What is going on here? “The spirit of the Lord is upon me, therefore he has anointed me,” Jesus says, reading from the prophet Isaiah. “He has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind, and release to prisoners, to announce a year of favor from the Lord.” Because you and I are the Body of Christ, his hands and his feet in this world of ours, it falls to us to be the bearer of glad tidings to the poor, the captives, the blind, the prisoners. One way we as the church have brought glad tidings to the poor is by standing with working people as they organized labor unions. One way we as the church have brought glad tidings to the poor is by standing with working people as they organized labor unions. In the 1880s, when union unrest started to make headlines, the pope was leaning toward forbidding Catholics to join unions at all. But in America, the vast majority of Catholics were working people, many of them poor immigrants working 18-hour days in terrible conditions. Church leaders here knew that to stand with their people meant supporting unions. They persuaded the pope (not without an argument), and our church has supported unions ever since. BECAUSE OF UNIONS, a young Irish immigrant named John Lydon was able to feed his family of six children by driving a streetcar with the Chicago Surface Lines. He kept his job all during the Depression, and his wife never had to work because he made what we now call a “living wage.” John’s daughter Cecelia married a fellow named Dave O’Connell, who also had a union job covering pipes with insulation. Dave made enough money to put his four kids through Catholic schools and colleges. Now that he’s gone, his wife still gets a check from his pension every month and some health insurance. Because of the glad tidings of unions, people like John Lydon and Dave O’Connell had the opportunity to work hard and make a decent living. Some say that unions are dying, outmoded. After all, don’t companies today realize that they need to take good care of their workers? Let’s check a few recent headlines: • Employees are suing Wal-Mart, now the world’s largest retailer, for making them work unpaid hours of overtime each week. Hourly workers, who make on average only $17,680 for full-time work, report being locked into stores and forced to work after their shifts are over. And what do we as a church say? We say that the people doing the work are more important than any company’s profit margins. “Falling prices” do not outweigh working people. And we say, believe it or not, that every full-time worker ought to earn enough to support a family. • Company after company abandons U.S. factories to manufacture overseas, where workers get substandard wages and there are no unions to fight for benefits. What do we as a church say? That human beings are not commodities to be used and then thrown away, with no regard for their human dignity. Our church insists that the work exists for the person; the person does not exist for the work. YOU MAY NOT BE in a union yourself. And you may never pull up in front of a hotel in another city, see strikers, and wonder what to do. But if you ever do, don’t miss your chance to bring glad tidings. Shake the hands of those striking workers, put your kids and your luggage back into the cab, and find another hotel. That’s what we as the Body of Christ call ourselves to. Catholic teaching on labor is too often a well-kept secret. This Labor Day, why don’t we let the cat out of the bag?

Authors Catherine O’Connell-Cahill

Special occasion Labor Day Genesis 1:26-2:3 Genesis 2:4b-9, 15 1 Thessalonians 4:1b-2, 9-12 2 Thessalonians 3:-12, 16 Matthew 6:31-34 Matthew 25:14-30

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A legacy of love

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Martin Luther King Jr. Day SHE WAS A DAY LABORER, working 10 hours at a factory and spending another two on the bus to and from work. All she wanted was to read and write well enough to fill out a job application so she could get a full-time job with a company that offered benefits. It was a simple goal, made difficult by the fact that she was 55, her eyesight was failing, and her mind and memory weren’t as sharp as they used to be. But she persevered. Working with a tutor every Tuesday and Thursday, she struggled to memorize the alphabet and sound out words. School had not been a priority when she was growing up in Mississippi during the 1940s. Her parents were sharecroppers, and they needed every able body to work the fields. After her mother was struck by lightning—an apparent hazard of the job—she and a sister made their way to Chicago to find work. “I was lucky to make it out of Mississippi alive. Those were terrible times.” Of course, Chicago wasn’t much better during the turbulent ’60s. Race riots scarred her new neighborhood, and poverty sucked the life out of the community. “Even during the worst of times, I never failed to vote,” she said. ”People much braver than I am risked their lives so I could have this privilege.” She progressed in her studies and was soon keeping a journal and writing essays about her life. After a year, she mustered the courage to apply for a full-time job at the factory. Her hand shook as she read all the questions on the application and wrote out her answers. She received word a day later that she got the job. She called her tutor and said, “I did it. I accomplished my dream!” At the next session, her tutor gave her a slim volume of the words of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Tears welled in the woman’s eyes as she turned to King’s “I have a dream” speech and realized she was able to read every word. TODAY THE UNITED STATES HONORS the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose grand dreams of peace and equality, though not fully realized, continue to take root in the simple dreams of everyday people and plant the seeds of reform and renewal. Like today’s gospel, King’s legacy is about seeing the world in a different way and reshaping our perceptions and actions. New wine needs new wineskins, Jesus said and King heard. Thus, King imagined a world not just free of racial discord, but free from war, poverty, and injustice of any kind. And true to his Christian roots, he believed that the fight for these freedoms had to be nonviolent. “I’ve seen too much hate to want to hate, myself,” King announced to his enemies. “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.” King imagined a world not just free of racial discord, but free from war, poverty, and injustice of any kind. These are words we ignore at our own peril. If we choose violence over conciliation, hate over love, we will be rewarded with feelings of paranoia and alienation. Every misunderstanding becomes reason for mistrust and resentment; every slight becomes reason for war. A heart filled with hate knows no joy. Like new cloth sewn into an old cloak, the heart of hate can’t bear the fullness of joy. It pulls and tears till it feels nothing. SO JESUS AND KING in his footsteps urge us to love our enemies, no matter how deep the divide, no matter how bitter the struggle. We all have enemies. Who are yours? Take a moment to picture and name them—it could be our national enemies whom we send troops to fight, or a coworker who wishes you ill; perhaps it’s a family member or friend who betrayed or abused you, or a neighbor whose political or religious views are abhorrent to you; maybe it’s some thug who robbed you, or a loathsome bully who threatened someone you care for. Can you love these people now or continue to love them even as their detestable acts and hatred toward you grows? Yes, answered Jesus; yes, answered Gandhi; yes, answered King. What will your answer be? “Love,” King said, “is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend.” Begin to win new friends today by looking at your enemies as people who need your love, even as you work to understand them or change their unjust and immoral behavior. Remember, braver ones than you or I died that we might live in love.

Authors Patrice J. Tuohy

Special occasion Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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A labor of love

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Stewardship WE USE THE WORD so easily, so flippantly, so casually: love. A word, like the word God, that has had its prickly wild edges rubbed off from such common and daily use over the long millennia that human beings have prowled the planet. Yet love, like God, is a thing of unimaginable complexity, a subject to spend a lifetime wondering at openmouthed; and God’s love, the extraordinary and mysterious force that drives all that is, demands far more response from us than the mere gratitude we offer on days when things are going well for us. For real love, deep love, holy love, invites and intimates responsibility. It means care. It means stewardship. It means a fervent fomenting of growth. It means allowing that which you love to freely find its best self. It means no constraints and no expectations. It means flowering and joy. It means attention and attentiveness. It means, in short, all those aspects of love that God sings insistently to us, and that we are charged with reflecting, with all our verve and might, as long as we live. For real love, deep love, holy love, invites and intimates responsibility. It means care. It means stewardship. That is, very simply, what we are about as Catholic Christians. Deluged and suffused with the love of God, a love so thorough and selfless and unyielding that God would offer God’s Son to bear and salve our sins, we become agents and messengers of that astonishing love, and our task is both simple and arduous: to love the Christ in every man and woman and child, to see and savor the throb of God’s love in everything that lives, to find and focus our own unique and extraordinary tools and talents on hunger and despair, poverty and illness, injustice and apathy. An easy task? Hardly. Nothing harder could be asked of us, really, than to love he who has injured us, to love she who has insulted us, to love that which grinds us to exhaustion, to love that vast creation that so often seems cold-hearted and cold-eyed, to rise again in the gray, cold, muddy morning and gird for battle with tragedy and violence and hopelessness. But to grapple relentlessly—that is love. To keep walking the suffering road—that is love. To refuse to surrender—that is love. To attend with respect to the smallest things, to do your work with care and energy, to let go of that which cannot be borne—that is love, too. GOD’S OUTLANDISH LOVE calls us to be stewards of that which God has made and makes still and will make until the end of time. All the birds of the air and all the wild animals, says Genesis, and accept the kingdom of God like a child, says Mark the Evangelist, and to serve, says Mark again, and that is what we do when we love cleanly and selflessly, we serve; and it is Mark again who tells us that to be great we must be the most relentless servants we can possibly be. Indeed it is by never resting that we will find rest in the light of the Lord. To be Catholic is very often truly to be countercultural—to stand against the tide of popular culture and shout powerfully Life! Life! Life! And lest we be narrow-minded and shallow-souled, our shouting means far more than keening the millions of unborn children murdered annually in the sweet salty seas of their mothers: It means we must shout that war is an evil because it broods death, and we must shout that economies that dismiss the poor as powerless are evils because they stunt and starve helpless children and the God-given dignity of their parents, and it means we must sing everything that lives, as the devout poet William Blake wrote: hawks and wrens, berries and beetles, policemen and postmistresses, swallows and sturgeon, children and colonels, teak and tigers—God made them all, and we do not have dominion over them, we are their brothers and cousins and sisters, we are blood of their blood and flesh of their flesh, we are seeds sown from the same hand and we return our husks there when our span is done. But along that way we must love with all our soul and all our might—hard work, yes, but joyous work, holy work, the only work.

Authors Brian Doyle

Special occasion stewardship

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Charity and justice

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Stewardship CHRISTIAN PASTOR and theologian Walter Rauschenbusch (1861-1918) experienced the poverty and hopelessness of people living in the Hell’s Kitchen area of New York. He is one of the “saints” Robert Ellsberg writes about in his book All Saints: Daily Reflections on Saints, Prophets, and Witnesses for Our Time (Crossroad, 1997). Ellsberg says: “Under these circumstances [of poverty and disease and hopelessness], it did not seem adequate to preach about personal salvation, conversion, or simply trusting in Jesus. Increasingly [Rauschenbusch] expanded his ministry to take up social concerns and to try to awaken the conscience of the church to its responsibilities in the world. But here again Rauschenbusch felt that more was necessary than traditional forms of organized charity. He believed that the gospel today required the transformation of a social system that was responsible for so much poverty and injustice.” Whenever we gather to celebrate Eucharist, we do so as a response to what God has done in our lives. We believe that God is our Creator and that all life and holiness come from God; we believe that God is our Savior and Redeemer, bringing us salvation through the forgiveness of sin; we believe that God is our Sanctifier, drawing us ever more deeply into the life of grace. At Mass we praise our God and offer thanks. But something else is going on as well. We hear God’s Word, a word that calls us to love and justice; we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, the gift that empowers us to live full gospel lives. Whenever we gather to celebrate Eucharist, we do so as a response to what God has done in our lives. We believe that God is our Creator and that all life and holiness come from God. In the exciting and challenging document The Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes), the Second Vatican Council made a strong connection between our Christian religion and its relationship with culture. We are a church in the world, and thus, as the people of God, we have a serious responsibility to share our resources to promote social justice and peace. To compartmentalize our faith, leaving it to Sunday morning worship and personal prayer, is to fail in discipleship. Our faith has an impact on the social, economic, political, and cultural aspects of our lives. Authentic Christian living demands this connection. How we vote regarding capital punishment or prison reform, how we spend our money on things necessary and unnecessary, how we relate to immigrants and people of different races, how we fund the entertainment world are issues that hopefully reflect gospel values. If, through Baptism and Confirmation, we put on the mind and heart of Jesus, then we will make decisions that respect human dignity and promote the common good. By so doing, we further the kingdom of God. POPE JOHN XXIII, in speaking of the kingdom of God, maintains that it has four components: truth, freedom, charity, and justice. As disciples of Jesus we are called to be agents and instruments of these four values. Through education, religious and secular, we are to proclaim the truth; through social, political, and spiritual means we are to promote freedom and counter all oppression and addiction; through a spirit of gratitude and generosity, we are to live lives of charity and love; and, through promoting and protecting rights, we do the work of justice. Charitable giving is an important means of furthering the works of justice. The Catholic Campaign for Human Development is one means by which we attempt to bring about social change, allowing people to live with dignity. So many of our brothers and sisters live in poverty. So many of God’s children are not given opportunities for education and proper housing. So many of our fellow pilgrims live without hope. We, through generous giving, can change a segment of the world. We can, through God’s grace, make a difference. When we gather around the book and the altar, we are given a vision of what God wants the world to be, and we are given the grace of the Eucharist to implement that vision. Jesus is clear: Feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, instruct the ignorant—the list goes on. It is through our generosity that Catholic social agencies and community groups can fulfill their mission of service. We must strive to implement a double ministry: hands-on service to the poor and developing ways to bring about systematic change. Rauschenbusch put it this way: “The individualistic gospel has taught us to see the sinfulness of every human heart. . . . But it has not given us an adequate understanding of the sinfulness of the social order.” In the words of the prophet Micah: “You have been told . . . what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: Only to do the right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Mic. 6:8). By acting justly, by loving tenderly, by walking in faith, we will be good stewards of God’s many gifts.

Authors Bishop Robert F. Morneau

Special occasion stewardship

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Go with God's word

Funeral, Sacrament-based, Holy Day, Holiday, Special Occasion - Sample homilies to be adapted for your use

Occasion: Rite of Sending WHAT CAN BE MORE POWERFUL than the Word of God? My friends, what other force on this earth or beyond it has the ability to create and transform the world like the initiating, sustaining divine Word? God spoke—and worlds came into being. When God speaks, the Bible tells us, mountains move, valleys are filled, and highways appear in the desert. Once God calls a thing into being, it exists, it happens. And when God chose to speak a word-made-flesh into human history, Jesus became one with us in the same way he is one with God. God’s Word is alive, scripture says, and it penetrates our hearts (Hebrews 4:12). This living Word can renew our hearts when they have grown tired of love’s betrayals, and this Word can transform our hearts when they become full of the darkness of our own poor choices. This Word is so powerful, in fact, that according to today’s gospel, even the devil wants to use it! Did you listen to the story of how Jesus faces off with the tempter in the desert? The first two times the devil speaks, Jesus answers him with a quote from scripture. So the third time the devil speaks, he quotes the Bible twice! But the words are misused in the mouth of one who does not have faith. That’s what Saint Paul tells us: “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” We have to do both: Say it and believe it! We can profess all the creeds we want, call ourselves Christians, use all the right formulas, but without taking God’s Word into our hearts and letting it transform our lives from within, we’re no better than the tempter. This is the real definition of “using God’s name in vain”—not cussing with it, but rather speaking about God and performing the rituals of religion and not intending to change our lives at all. So let’s not make this mistake! We have an opportunity given to us in every single moment to get serious about our faith, to say it and believe it and let it go to work in our lives. God’s Word was powerful enough to create worlds, remember: Surely there’s enough oomph in it to change your heart and mine. We have an opportunity given to us in every single moment to get serious about our faith, to say it and believe it and let it go to work in our lives. IN OUR COMPANY TODAY are some special folks who have been praying and studying God’s Word with us for months in preparation for adult baptism into the life of faith [as well as those Christians who have been preparing to be received into full communion with our Catholic Church]. These catechumens [and candidates] will be presenting themselves before the bishop this afternoon at the cathedral and celebrating what is known as the Rite of Election. When we hear that word, election, we presume that votes are to be cast. And in a real sense, votes have been cast in favor of these women and men. Our RCIA team with its catechists and supporters has voted on behalf of the readiness of these friends in our midst. And their godparents [and sponsors] will stand with them today and cast their vote of approval as well. And we, the people of [N.] parish, are participating in the election of these hopeful new members by our presence in this assembly. As we send them off to the cathedral today, they go with God’s blessings and our prayers and support. The Word of God has reached into these women and men, enlivening them with the desire to join our community and share the adventure of faith with us. We who have been “church” for a while now also have a responsibility to admit this active Word into our lives if we haven’t already done so; or to embrace it more deeply and deliberately if we have. “The Word is near you,” Saint Paul reminds us. It’s all around us this morning: in the readings from scripture, in Jesus our word offered to us in the sacrament, in the words-made-flesh of every person here in this gathering of the church. God’s Word is alive in our midst, and it won’t disappoint. If we invite this transforming force into our lives, every dream God ever had for us will come true. SO LET’S LEAVE IT to the forces of darkness to spout pious words and not to live them; or to speak God’s name in vain and not put faith in divine goodness. As we begin this Lenten season together, we confirm that we cannot live on bread alone—or on any of the empty promises of worldly goals. Every word that comes from the mouth of God brings life. If you were offered even one more day of living, wouldn’t you take it?

Authors Alice Camille

Special occasion Lent First Sunday of Lent, Cycle A Rite of sending scrutinies rcia rite of christian initiation of adults catechumens

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