A Homily – The Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B), The Solemnity of Christ the King

First Reading – Daniel 7:13-14

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 92(93):1-2,5

Second Reading – Apocalypse 1:5-8

Gospel Acclamation – Mark 11:10

The Gospel According to John 18:33-37

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 The writers of the book of Daniel are more interested in pomp and circumstance, in titles and royal courts than they are in the true work of the living and loving God, the creator of the universe.

 Remember.

 God is not a king, and Jesus was not a prince. God is a servant, as was the Christ. Therefor, do not seek glory, but rather seek to do good by your neighbor, your family, the stranger…even your adversary.

 Do not look for the God at the head of an army; the divine is not a general. Jesus does not come in a war-chariot, or with any of our other engines of war. Rather look for God in the marginalized, the hungry and the poor.

 If you wish to speak of the rule of God, understand that the divine reigns over the world as a gardener over a garden, or as the shepherdess governs her flock.

 If you desire to see the glory of God look into the sky; you will see the divine splendor in the glory of the stars, in the light of a trillon trillon galaxies that reaches us where we are.

 Be mindful.

 God dwells in everyone; look for the divine in humility, in the outcast, in the widow and the orphan. God is in the heart of the alien in our midst.

 When you honor them, you honor your creator, sustainer and savior.

 It is true that no human being has witnessed a power like that which was present at the beginning of time, God’s infinite power established the firmament; a creation of light form light, the immanent from the transcendent, the creature from the creator, the God in our heart from the God on high.

 Listen to the voice of God, it is within you and all around you. See the face of God in your neighbor…whoever they are.

 Know this.

 Jesus is not priest but a prophet; in his life he was a teacher, a healer and a friend to those in need; he took it upon himself to lay down his life so that we might see the way.

 Remember.

 God is not a king, and the Church, following in the way cannot be imagined as the extension of a royal dynasty.

 Now consider the Gospel reading today:

 It was an unfortunate moment in the development of our faith that the gospel writers felt compelled to use the narrative of Jesus’ arrest to present him as a king.

 Jesus did not seek kingship; kingdoms are human constructions. Kings invariably place their people in bondage, treat human beings as assets and spend their lives as if they were worthless things. It is not a different type of kingdom that Jesus wanted to inaugurate, but a world without kings.

 The analogy we ought to look to, if we are to create a new Church that is in keeping with the way, has nothing to do with royalty and power, with dominion and thrones, but with the nurture of life, growing, caring and loving.

 That language we use that presents God, and by extension Jesus as king, has dogged us all-the-way-down through the last twenty centuries and thwarted the mission of Jesus. This language gave rise to empires and principalities, kingdoms and caliphates, that even today use our sacred texts and traditions to prop up feed their greed, to prop of their vanity, and justify their callous disregard for the human beings whom God would rather we serve.

 

First Reading – Daniel 7:13-14

I Saw, Coming on the Clouds of Heaven, One Like a Son of Man

I gazed into the visions of the night.

And I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man.

He came to the one of great age and was led into his presence.

On him was conferred sovereignty, glory and kingship, and men of all peoples, nations and languages became his servants.

His sovereignty is an eternal sovereignty which shall never pass away, nor will his empire ever be destroyed.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 92(93):1-2,5

The Magnificence of the Creator

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

The Lord reigns! He is robed in splendour,

  clothed in glory and wrapped round in might.

He set the earth on its foundations:

  it will not be shaken.

Your throne is secure from the beginning;

  from the beginning of time, Lord, you are.

The rivers have raised, O Lord,

  the rivers have raised their voices.

  The rivers have raised their clamour.

Over the voices of many waters,

  over the powerful swell of the sea,

  you are the Lord, powerful on high.

All your promises are to be trusted:

  and holy is your habitation,

  O Lord, to the end of time.

The Lord is Wonderful on High

Amen.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

 

Second Reading – Apocalypse 1:5-8

Jesus Christ Has Made Us a Line of Kings and Priests

Grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the First-Born from the dead, the Ruler of the kings of the earth. He loves us and has washed away our sins with his blood, and made us a line of kings, priests to serve his God and Father; to him, then, be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen. It is he who is coming on the clouds; everyone will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the races of the earth will mourn over him. This is the truth. Amen. ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega’ says the Lord God, who is, who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Mark 11:10

Alleluia, alleluia!

Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!

Blessings on the coming kingdom of our father David!

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to John 18:33-37

Yes, I Am a King

‘Are you the king of the Jews?’ Pilate asked. Jesus replied, ‘Do you ask this of your own accord, or have others spoken to you about me?’ Pilate answered, ‘Am I a Jew? It is your own people and the chief priests who have handed you over to me: what have you done?’ Jesus replied, ‘Mine is not a kingdom of this world; if my kingdom were of this world, my men would have fought to prevent my being surrendered to the Jews. But my kingdom is not of this kind.’ ‘So you are a king then?’ said Pilate. ‘It is you who say it’ answered Jesus. ‘Yes, I am a king. I was born for this, I came into the world for this: to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’

 

A Homily – The Thirty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

The Solemnity of Christ the King

A Homily – The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Daniel 12:1-3

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 15(16):5,8-11

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:11-14,18

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 24:42, 44

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 21:36

The Gospel According to Mark 13:24-32

 

(NJB) 

Listen!

God, the creator of the universe, God made creation and everyone in it free to make choices of their own.

Nothing is determined.

The entirety of creation exists in God, the whole of time and space are encompassed by the godhead, all our individual choices come into being through the power God has given us to determine our future for ourselves.

This radical state of freedom exists by the will of God, and our faith teaches us that despite the vicissitudes of evil we experience in the flesh, God will bring it all to the good in the end.

As a loving parent God is merciful, caring and forgiving; trust that God is humble in the administration of justice because God knows what we endure.

Be mindful.

All of God’s children share the same destiny and no-one is excluded from the divine family.

If you trust in God; your confidence in that trust will be its own reward.

God is good, and it is true to say that everything good flows from the divine, as all goodness belongs to God and everything is subject to…transformed by it in the end.

Look for the good of God in all creation, in everything that unfolds within the scope of your life.

Know this.

There are no alien gods.

The true God is the divine source of all being, The true God dwells within everyone and everything. We all worship the divine in our own way, even when we are worshipping next to someone at the same altar, according to the same rituals, using the same rites, articulating the same creeds and dogmas; we do this under auspices of our own misconceptions of the true God.

Be mindful.

Any representation of God is a manifestation of idolatry, whether our facsimiles are made of metal or stone, carved from wood, or composed of words, whether they are painted on canvass, or drawn among the stars. Even our best ideas and closest approximations are projections of the human mind, deviating from the supernal by orders of magnitude in each step between conception and application.

Remember.

God calls all of Gods children to God’s self, no one is left out.

 Know this.

 Jesus was not put to death as an offering for sin, this was not God’s purpose. God has nothing to do with the cult of animal sacrifice; the divine does not trade in blood magic or covet the smell of burning fat.

 It should be understood that in the earliest times, the offerings that were made at the temple, or prior to the temple at the altar in the wilderness, the priest’s portion was taken and distributed to the poorest of the poor. Such customs belonged to the social welfare system of the tribes.

 As corruption set in, overtime the priestly class used those offerings to enrich themselves, the poor were not allowed to approach the temple, on the grounds that they were ritually impure, and a priest would not go near them out of fear of contamination. The temple no longer distributed alms, and the people experienced the tithe to the temple as a tax which they could scarcely afford.

 When the church took the place of the temple, the cult of animal sacrifice was supposed to end, and the gifts of the church were meant to be free to any and all who chose to take up the way.

 Know this.

The future history of the world has not been written.

 Any supposition about our future here on earth is at best informed by real data and statistical analysis, and at worst merely a guess. We can know but little about the days and nights to come.

 There are thousands of ways in which the plans we have laid or the hopes which we cherish can come undone: lightning strikes, tornadoes twist, meteors fall, volcano explode.

 A person in the fullness of life may trip and fall, hit their head and die, leaving everything behind them…one stroke and we are dead, dead but not gone.

 We continue.

 God has promised to bring an end to suffering, injustice, hunger, illness. It is the proper content of Christian faith to believe in God’s promise, but the promises are not of this world.

 Having never been there I cannot speak of it. No one living has...anyone who says otherwise is trying to sell you something.

 We have been called to the belief in a loving God, to hope in the words of the prophets, to trust in the Gospel, to act as if the vision we have been promised will actually come to pass.

 We have been called to live our present lives as if the reality of those promises had taken shape in the present.

 This is the way.

 If we are just and loving, if we care for one another, we do not have to wait to enter the garden, it will be present among us. If we trust in the reality of the things we hope for, we are empowered to live our lives as if it were true.

 In so doing, God, who is always with us, becomes present to us like a burning bush or a column of fire, that we may approach without fear.

 Consider the gospel reading for today, it instructs us as to limits of human agency.

 Pay attention to the Gospel, and be mindful of the limits that attend all human agency…it is instructive.

 The authors of the Gospel had come to the end of their ability to narrate the life and mission of Jesus, at which point they allowed their own imagination, their own fears, their own misguided notions of what the mission of Jesus was, to enter the Church, usurping truth and wisdom.

 Jesus becomes transformed, no longer the humble teacher and preacher that he was in life, he becomes a figure like a monarch or a general descending from heaven in power and glory. Jesus would have been the first to tell them that power and glory are no substitute justice with mercy and peace through love.

 The same thing is true for individuals, for nations and all societies; we endure conflict and sue for peace, hope is born from despair, confusion is resolved by understanding. When we are farthest away from the light we are able to see it in greater focus, like the distant star narrowed to a point, it is able to guide us and draw us to itself...allow yourself to be drawn in by the light.

 Remember.

 Jesus did not return, he did not come back in the lifetime of the Gospel writers. They said he would but he didn’t, proving both themselves and their own teachers wrong about a pretty important article of their system of beliefs. As a result they allowed their hopes and fears to co-mingle and take shape as a series of lies which they introduced into the narrative of Jesus’ life, and Christians have been stuck with the task of interpreting these lies ever since…much to its detriment and the denigration of the way.

 

First Reading – Daniel 12:1-3

Some Will Wake to Everlasting Life, Some to Shame and Disgrace

‘At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When that time comes, your own people will be spared, all those whose names are found written in the Book. Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace. The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as stars for all eternity.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 15(16):5,8-11

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

The Lord, my inheritance

Preserve me, Lord,

  I put my hope in you.

I have said to the Lord

  “You are my Lord,

  in you alone is all my good.”

As for the holy and noble men of the land,

  in them is all my delight.

But for those who run to alien gods,

  their sorrows are many.

I will not share in their libations of blood.

  I will not speak their names.

You, Lord, are my inheritance and my cup.

  You control my destiny,

the lot marked out for me is of the best,

  my inheritance is all I could ask for.

I will bless the Lord who gave me understanding;

  even in the night my heart will teach me wisdom.

I will hold the Lord for ever in my sight:

  with him at my side I can never be shaken.

Thus it is that my heart rejoices,

  heart and soul together;

  while my body rests in calm hope.

You will not leave my soul in the underworld.

  You will not let your chosen one see decay.

You will show me the paths of life,

  the fullness of joy before your face,

  and delights at your right hand until the end of time.

Amen.

O Lord, you will show me the fullness of joy in your presence. Alleluia.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

 

Second Reading – Hebrews 10:11-14,18

When All Sins Have Been Forgiven, there Can Be No More Sin-Offerings

All the priests stand at their duties every day, offering over and over again the same sacrifices which are quite incapable of taking sins away. He, on the other hand, has offered one single sacrifice for sins, and then taken his place forever, at the right hand of God, where he is now waiting until his enemies are made into a footstool for him. By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. When all sins have been forgiven, there can be no more sin offerings.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Matthew 24:42, 44

Alleluia, alleluia!

Stay awake and stand ready, because you do not know the hour when the Son of Man is coming.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Luke 21:36

Alleluia, alleluia!

Stay awake, praying at all times for the strength to stand with confidence before the Son of Man.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 13:24-32

The Stars Will Fall from Heaven and the Powers in the Heavens Will Be Shaken

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In those days, after the time of distress, the sun will be darkened, the moon will lose its brightness, the stars will come falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory; then too he will send the angels to gather his chosen from the four winds, from the ends of the world to the ends of heaven.

  ‘Take the fig tree as a parable: as soon as its twigs grow supple and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. So with you when you see these things happening: know that he is near, at the very gates. I tell you solemnly, before this generation has passed away all these things will have taken place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.

  ‘But as for that day or hour, nobody knows it, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son; no one but the Father.’

 

A Homily – The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

Stan Lee – Mythologist, Bard and Hero

 Let’s talk about Stan Lee; I cannot measure the debt I owe this man, or express how sharply I feel its significance, and though I never met him in life, I hope to see him on the misty shores of the blessed isles, beyond the western shore, on the other side of the Rainbow Bridge, or walking in Elysium, a hero among heroes in the emerald heavens beyond.

 Long live The Man! Stan Lee! Huzzah!

 Stan Lee saturated my imagination, imprinting it with cheap-ink on cheap paper, nuance-free, in a three-color-process.

 In those pages he taught that with great power comes great responsibility. He taught that it is always okay to punch a Nazi…he taught us that it is the duty of free people everywhere to fight against tyranny, and that it is the responsibility of America and Americans in particular to stand up against the divisive powers of Hate and Nationalism, of Jingoism and Fascism wherever they fester.

 Stan Lee introduced everyone who read his comics to the classical worlds of Plato, Aristotle and Plotinus, he introduced us to Jung, Einstein and Heisenberg. He showed us that the fight for civil rights includes the rights of all people, and that the good guys are on the side of tolerance, justice and love. He called on us to look out for our friends, to try to understand what they are going through when they are struggling, and to include in our group people who are different from us: including the quiet, the shy and the meek…and all of those who are otherwise marginalized.

 He taught us that there is a power hidden in everyone, waiting to be expressed, and that our powers sour among the alienated but flowers among friends.

 Stan Lee schooled us; he showed us that even mutants should be loved and respected, and protected in a world full of people who hate and fear them, from those who would persecute them without regard for their humanity. He encouraged us to identify with them, to see within ourselves the outcast, the disenfranchised…as an outsider. He insisted that we have an obligation to secure their rights, and that this is the surest way to safe-guard our own.

 We are to do so by any means necessary.

 Stan Lee opened my eyes to the cosmos; through his imagination I took flight.

 I went surfing with the Alien, we journeyed to the heart of a singularity, traversing dimensions of thought beyond time…he taught me to pursue the meaning of life, grasp the nature of reality, and discover its purpose…or assign one to myself.

 In the final analysis Stan Lee taught me the cold truth: there is no solution to the existential dilemma, that the galaxy and the universe itself is a cold place, indifferent to our drives and desires, but that human beings have a choice, and that the courageous choose to serve the good.

 He teaches in the tradition of the great masters, that we do not have to follow our appetites or be consumed by them…he taught us that the greatest thing we can aspire to is to love, and to be loved in turn. He taught us that friendship matters more than power, more than beauty, more than anything.

 Stan Lee, was the bard of our day, overflowing with the gift to inspire; it was his own super-power.

             To him I say:

 Excelsior!

 

Veteran's Day, the Feast of Saint Martin...Armistice Day (Redux)

 Today we commemorate the anniversary of the end of World War I…The Great War…the war to end all wars…so it was said…though regrettably it was not.

 I am a veteran, as is my father and some-few of my friends…just a few, and that includes a couple of my shipmates who I have maintained some connection with since my enlistment ended, thirty years ago.

 From the end of World War I, until 1954, we called this holiday Armistice Day, as a remembrance of that moment in that first great-global-conflict, when the fighting stopped along lines, in the trenches and across all-fronts.

 The end of the war choreographed like a dance, stopping suddenly, all at once.

 The end of the conflict came at the eleventh hour, on the eleventh day of the eleventh month; as if the war had a director who yelled “cut!” As if all the actors on the stage…all the pawns in the field, all the millions of people in their graves could get up from what they were doing and go home, that is not what happened; WWI was not a play.

 Nearly twenty million people were killed, twenty million families broken, with many millions more suffering in the aftermath from broken bodies and broken minds…and broken hearts.

 World War I was perceived by those who endured it as so horrible that it would end war itself, end it for all time…some folks believed…humans are prone to wishful thinking.

 

the gods of war are busy, always

sewing conflicts that are self-seeding,

perennial cycles of violence

hungers that cannot be satisfied

a thirst that cannot be quenched

the gods of war are always busy

Eris and Aries, discord and strife

constant as the wind

that turns mountains into dust

and yet reliant on our failings

 

 The eleventh of November is also the feast of Saint Martin of Tours, the patron saint of warriors, the first Christian soldier, St. Martin of the Sword…it was in recognition of him, and his feast that this date was selected to bring World War I to a close.

 The end might have come sooner for the soldiers in the struggle, but the politicians acting like art-directors, wanted to wait for a properly symbolic moment to bring the curtain down. They might have ended it the day before and some soldiers who perished might have lived to go home.

 At 11:11:11 the fighting stopped and the war ended, soldiers who had just moments before been locked in combat, became liberated and crossed the no-man’s land between their fortified tranches to share their rations with beer and songs...the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month, it was easy to remember, set your clocks and synchronize your watch to.   

 Sulpicius Severus penned Saint Martin’s hagiography. It is by and large a work of fiction as most hagiographies were, either cut from whole cloth, or steeped and dyed from the barest scintilla of truth. Having said that, I will also say that…it is not likely that Martin of Tours ever lived, not the man we read about anyway. He is no more real than Peter Parker, Clark Kent or Bruce Wayne. Even if there was some such person, we are certain that the reports of the many miracles he performed, including raising the dead on more than one occasion, were all make-believe and lies.

Be mindful.

The Church has always had a penchant for relating falsehoods to the believers. 

Martin’s “life” is a fiction and our celebration of it does not represent the Christian Gospels very well. Severus’ mythologization of him is just another terrible series fables penned with terrible purpose, because through it the Church gave permission for Christians to takes up arms...it gave Christian soldiers leave to march to war, a vocation which had theretofore been forbidden to the faithful, and a matter of deep contention in the Church.

The spirits of conflict have a will of their own…and we are seemingly bond to theirs, like the double helix in our cells that determines so much our nature, one from which there is no deviation; it is like a disease with no cure.

 Let me tell the truth now…there is no god of war.

 War is product of human failure, it is governed by human machinations and caried out through human predation, by base pretenders to divine authority, we are beset by them in every generation.

 In 1954, President Eisenhower, who had been Supreme Allied Commander during World War II, he changed the name and thereby the nature of the November 11^th holiday, when he signed the law that turned Armistice Day into Veteran’s Day; a soldier himself, he did so to honor all Veterans whoever they might be, men and women, young and old who had served in any conflict, anywhere in the world.

 Friend or foe, ally or adversary, on this day we celebrate the courage of the average person, the women and men under arms, who were (and are) willing to risk everything for their tribe, their nation or their clan, weather they chose to be in the field, to set sail, to stand on a wall or leap from the sky, weather they chose to be soldiers or sailors, airmen or marines.

 That is what we celebrate today on Veteran’s Day; we do not celebrate the end of war, because it seems that war itself will never end. We do not celebrate the fictional life of a fictional saint, whose usefulness as a tool of propaganda promoted the idea that it was not only possible to serve Jesus with a sword, but laudable. Neither do we celebrate the false-claim that peace could ever be the fruit of war…the fruit of peace springs from a different seed altogether.

 If we are looking to harvest peace then it is incumbent on us to  sew tolerance and mercy, compassion and humility, justice and equity…and justice again.

 What we celebrate today is the character of those men and women who had the courage to enlist, to risk their lives for the sake of their sisters and brothers, whether at home or beside them in the field…we celebrate especially those who have or had been pressed into service against their will, and who served honorably nonetheless.

 We should always celebrate that quality of character, while simultaneously naming the flaws in our collective-character that lead again and again into conflict with one another, we must shun: fear and greed, anger and hatred, along with all of our calamitous attributes.

 The spirits of conflict have a will of their own…they own a piece of us, they reside in each of us….propel us toward whatever end…driving us toward something that presents itself as victory while dancing in a field of ruins.

 We are possessed…collectively; we are collectively…possessed.

 One hundred years after the end of World War I, we are still waging war all around the world. The United States of America is supplying arms to Ukraine funding the war in Europe, supplying weapons to the Israelis funding the ongoing war in the eastern Mediterranean, supplying weapons to Saudi Arabia, who is fighting a war by proxy with Iran in Yemen on the Arabian Peninsula; we are funding and feeding conflicts in every sector of the globe.

 At the core of these conflicts is a denial of these axiomatic principles of a just society:

 The legitimate powers of government may only derived only by the consent of the governed, and that all-people are endowed with inalienable rights, the chief among them being: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

 Such truths do not matter to men who view human beings as assets…or liabilities, who see us as property or chattel…who speak as if their adversaries as if they were not human, and who refuse to conceive of a world in which they might live together in harmony.

 I served in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman, from 1990 – 1994.

 I served during the first Gulf War, though I did not serve in the theatre of combat where the United States armed forces and the coalition we pulled together killed three-hundred-thousand Iraqi people in the space of a few months; that is three-hundred-thousand families broken, with may hundreds of thousands more suffering in the aftermath from broken bodies and broken minds…broken hearts, and broken spirits.

 My father served for twenty-two years; the first four as a Marine, the next eighteen in the Air Force. Our nation went to war only once during my father’s period of service and the beginning of my own; we fought in Southeast Asia; my father served multiple tours of duty, Airbourne Recon, he earned multiple Purple Hearts among other commendations for duty and valor.

 He did not lead us into war, he was led there, and fought there for his sisters and brothers in arms.

 The official records from the Vietnam era states that 58,220 American servicemen and women lost their lives during the conflict (a war which we never called a war), and one in which we killed over three-million Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodians and Hmong.

 Human warfare has resulted in the deaths od many millions more human beings: men, women and children, in many other nations in the decades since the end of Vietnam and the beginning of my own enlistment, leaving millions more crippled and millions upon millions of families broken.

 We are terrible and profligate killers, we are experts at it, we Americans especially.

 Eisenhauer said that every bullet we fire, every missile we launch, that each of them is an admission of our failure as human beings, and especially of diplomacy. To paraphrase: violence does not beget peace, violence begets violence and this will never change.

 Only peace and reconciliation can bring peace and reconciliation; there is no time like the present to begin.

 Know this…peace is not a passive state, we must occupy ourselves with the pursuit it and pursue it constantly. If war is like a pernicious weed, whether it be a perennial, a self-seeder or a rhizomatic spreader, we must tend the garden and weed it…or there will be no garden for anyone.

 Remember…we are called on to love one another. We are called to pay respect to the inherent dignity of every human being, regardless of our disagreements, regardless of the pains we have endured, or caused.

 To free ourselves from the history of violence requires that we forgive one another and seek forgiveness for ourselves; if we do not, then the drumbeat of war will continue and we will be pounded into nothing by its repercussions.

 Love is the way, let it lead you out of conflict.

 If you want to honor our Veteran’s today, then commit yourself to meeting violence with love, while respecting all people (even your adversary), this is the way to hoor a Veteran, today...or any day.

A Homily – The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – 1 Kings 17:10-16

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 145(146):7-10

Second Reading – Hebrews 9:24-28

Gospel Acclamation – Revelation 2:10

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 5:3

The Gospel According to Mark 12:38-44

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 The narrative from the Book of Kings is not a miracle story, it is a metaphor that illustrates the nature of faith, which is to trust in the providence of the divine.

 Share what you have, even when you don’t have enough, even when you are on the brink of ruin and despair…make a feast of what you have and share it with those in need…this is the way.

 Praise God, creator of the universe. Praise God, with words in song. God alone is the author of our salvation, therefore do not trust in princes and kings, in priests and prelates, and princes.

 Know this!

 God is not a king.

 The life of a human being, the life cycle of our planet and that of the sun itself amounts to little more than a flare in the night.; a flash and it is gone…we are born, we breathe and we are gone,

 Remember.

 Happy are those who take up the work of heaven, humbly assisting the divine in works of mercy and the administration of justice:

 Lift up the oppressed,

          Wherever they are

Feed the hungry

Free the prisoner

Teach the ignorant,

          Wherever they are

 Advocate for those who need an advocate, care for those who cannot care for themselves. Find those who are lost in their wickedness, care for them until you bring them home.

 Know this.

 The cult of animal sacrifice is built on a fundamentally flawed understanding of the divine economy, and the relationship between God and humanity.

 God will never ask you to give your life for the way; the world might ask this of you, but God will not. You will not be rewarded with crowns and glories for doing so, the grace that leads to salvation is distributed to everyone, and everyone’s share of the infinite love of God is the same…it is infinite.

 During our sojourn on Earth we navigate countless paradoxes, we come upon them like rapids in the stream, we crash into and are caught in their back current: take joy is the smile of a stranger, the kindness of your beloved, the opening of a flower, the smell of bread in the oven, a drink of cool water, take joy in these things and share them with downtrodden, the disenfranchised and the marginalized…do it, and you will be on the way.

 The Good Pope Francis said he was saddened by the number of priests and prelates who use their offices in the church to enrich themselves; loving money, seemingly more than they love the people who they have been appointed to serve.

 When I think of the priesthood today and the priests strolling around in their long dresses, doing exactly those things that Mark complained about when he criticized the corruption among the scribes; today’s priests are yesterday’s scribes.

 I think of the monies that all the churches spend on their liturgies, their choirs, their incense, their candles; ostensibly to honor the creator, but really I think it is done in the service of vanity, an impiety that seeks to honor only itself, self-congratulatory and prideful of their pageantry.

 The liturgies themselves do little to honor God, or creation, with the creeds and the common prayers serving more to divide one group from another than to bring them together.

 In my church, the Catholic church, even the eucharist (imagined as God’s own self) is used as a weapon against the people by threatening to deprive them of it if they do not toe the line.

 This is contrary to the teaching of Jesus; it dishonors his life and death, to pretend that you can block a person’s access to the divine and obstruct them along the way.

Be mindful.

The real presence of God dwells within all people. The church, if it is to be relevant to more than a few, must empty itself, empty its treasury, and meet God where God is, living in the poor and the sick, alive in the heart of the criminal as well as that of the “good” citizen.

The church must emulate the widow in this Gospel when called to give, it must give all it has.

First Reading – 1 Kings 17:10-16

'Jar of Meal Shall Not be Spent, Jug of Oil Shall Not Be Emptied'

Elijah the Prophet went off to Sidon. And when he reached the city gate, there was a widow gathering sticks; addressing her he said, ‘Please bring me a little water in a vessel for me to drink.’ She was setting off to bring it when he called after her. ‘Please’ he said ‘bring me a scrap of bread in your hand.’ ‘As the Lord your God lives,’ she replied ‘I have no baked bread, but only a handful of meal in a jar and a little oil in a jug; I am just gathering a stick or two to go and prepare this for myself and my son to eat, and then we shall die.’ But Elijah said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, go and do as you have said; but first make a little scone of it for me and bring it to me, and then make some for yourself and for your son. For thus the Lord speaks, the God of Israel:

“Jar of meal shall not be spent, jug of oil shall not be emptied, before the day when the Lord sends rain on the face of the earth.”’

The woman went and did as Elijah told her and they ate the food, she, himself and her son. The jar of meal was not spent nor the jug of oil emptied, just as the Lord had foretold through Elijah.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 145(146):7-10

The Blessedness of Those Who Hope in the Lord

Alleluia. Alleluia. Alleluia.

I will praise my God all my days.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

  I will praise the Lord all my life,

  make music to my God as long as I exist.

Do not trust in princes to save you,

  they are only sons of men.

One day their breath will leave them, they will return to the ground;

  on that day perish all their plans.

Happy the one whose help is the God of Jacob,

  whose hope is in the Lord his God,

who made heaven and earth and all that is in them,

  who keeps faith for ever,

  who gives justice to the oppressed,

  who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord frees prisoners,

  he gives light to the blind,

  he raises the fallen.

The Lord loves the upright, cares for strangers,

  sustains orphans and widows;

  but the wicked he sends astray.

The Lord will reign for all ages,

  your God, O Zion, from generation to generation.

Amen.

Alleluia. Alleluia.

I will praise my God all my days.

 

Second Reading – Hebrews 9:24-28

Christ, Our High Priest, has Done Away with Sin by Sacrificing Himself

It is not as though Christ had entered a man-made sanctuary which was only modelled on the real one; but it was heaven itself, so that he could appear in the actual presence of God on our behalf. And he does not have to offer himself again and again, like the high priest going into the sanctuary year after year with the blood that is not his own, or else he would have had to suffer over and over again since the world began. Instead of that, he has made his appearance once and for all, now at the end of the last age, to do away with sin by sacrificing himself. Since men only die once, and after that comes judgement, so Christ, too, offers himself only once to take the faults of many on himself, and when he appears a second time, it will not be to deal with sin but to reward with salvation those who are waiting for him.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Revelation 2:10

Alleluia, alleluia!

Even if you have to die, says the Lord, keep faithful, and I will give you the crown of life.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 5:3

Alleluia, alleluia!

How happy are the poor in spirit:

theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 12:38-44

This Poor Widow has Put in More Than All

In his teaching Jesus said, ‘Beware of the scribes who like to walk about in long robes, to be greeted obsequiously in the market squares, to take the front seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at banquets; these are the men who swallow the property of widows, while making a show of lengthy prayers. The more severe will be the sentence they receive.’

  He sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the treasury, and many of the rich put in a great deal. A poor widow came and put in two small coins, the equivalent of a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, this poor widow has put more in than all who have contributed to the treasury; for they have all put in money they had over, but she from the little she had has put in everything she possessed, all she had to live on.’

 

A Homily – The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)