The Contrast

A Homily for Palm Sunday
given at St. Patrick's Church
By Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL


What a contrast!

Today the world welcomes Jesus into the city of Jerusalem with shouts of Hosanna Filio David, praise of son of David! Days later, as we hear in the Gospel account of the passion, they greet Him with another cry--this time--Crucify him!
At one moment they want to make Him their king at the next they want to make Him a scapegoat. How good is our God for giving us this contrast to show us the difference between His way and our way.

The people had heard great things about Jesus, they had heard how he cured the sick, and healed the lame, created food out of thin air, and gave the blind sight and the deaf their hearing. They probably also heard that He even raise the dead! What's more He spoke with an authority not seen in Israel since the days of David and Solomon. And His message seemed not just counter-cultural but revolutionary--Jesus was preaching change and living in a difficult time in history--we know how much people like the idea of change--even if they don't really know what the change will be! And so they saw Jesus as the Messiah, but not the Messiah Jesus came to be, they saw Jesus as the Messiah that they, that the world, wanted. So they welcome Him as their King, shouting Hosanna son of David and taking palms down from trees to create a royal carpet all the way into the Kings gate of Jerusalem

According to tradition it's not hard to understand why days later He was betrayed. Tradition says they wanted to force Jesus' hand, they were tired of waiting for Jesus to stop pretending to be a holy roller, they wanted Him to take power, by any means necessary, and they were willing to use violence either to help Him or to force His hand.

The Sanhedrin also saw Him as the revolutionary, as a threat to stability and the status quo that guaranteed them their power. And so this Jesus who the people regarded as a prophet and who healed so many people, bringing so many to conversion of life is at the beginning of the week welcomed as a king and by the end of the week dies the death of a criminal.

Palm Sunday is all about this contrast, so often today we do what the crowds did to Jesus so long ago, so often we remake Jesus the way we want to see Him, as the glorious and powerful son of God. We strip the Passion and Death of our Lord from its ignominy and shame. We want a Messiah, a King, a God full of power, and so we twist the crucifixion around to make even this atrocity look quaint. It's not suprising that so many take offense at our Christian faith, claiming the one true God, a God who doesn't love us enough to save us from suffering and sin. The Cross explains this scandal, and shows us what God is doing, and how in reality this is so much better than our way of doing things. But it wasn't quaint, and it's so important to realize this!

No matter how much the world speaks of freedom, I believe what we really want is a tyrant. We want Jesus to be a superman God who fixes the world's problems with fireballs and bolts of lighting, a God who doesn't allow the sick to suffer, or the sorrowful to weep, who defeats death by simply keeping everyone alive, and giving them all spiritual Botox to keep us looking good. Instead Jesus comes into the world not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. Jesus lives by the same rules that He created for us from the beginning of creation, though He never sinned! He submitted to the rule of sin, that requires all of us to suffer and die in this life because of our sin, and the sin of the whole world. Jesus is God, and God is all-powerful, and yet He doesn't use His power to save Himself

What a scandal--this is the fact that continues to scandalize people today and it's because they think that the crucifixion was just play acting. They don't understand the Jesus was truly a man just as much as any of us
and that He really and truly suffered in every way the we suffer, because of sin!

Jesus allows us to suffer, no more than what He himself suffered; and He does this not because He wants us to suffer, but because He wants to show us that the World is Good.

The History of Creation culminates on Mount Calvary: God created the world and declared that it was good! We sinned by trying to choose for ourselves what was good. Our sin lead to suffering and death.

Jesus came to show us that if we can get over ourselves, if we can set aside our pride and willfulness if we can choose to do God's will instead of our own and trust God's plan instead of the World's, which over and over again causes sin, suffering, shame, and ultimately death! If we can go to the cross, with trust and joy in our heart like Jesus did, then God who created the World good will make good things sprout from the seeming evil of suffering.

This is the wisdom of God,
foolishness to the wise, and a stumbling block to the proud
but to those of us who are being saved the Power of God.

God's way is not our way, because we fool ourselves into thing that this material world is all there is, and that heaven, if there is a heaven, is just a continuation of this world.

ITS NOT!

Heaven is about a perfection that none of us can ever image a joy beyond all telling. As Dr. Peter Kreft noted the other day if we made a list of all the things we like most about the world and another of all the things we like least.
If we had everything we liked most in heaven and nothing we didn't like we would still become bored with heaven in the first second of eternity.

God's way is better than ours, it full of the mystery and surprise that cause true joy and happiness. The bloody cross and grotesque passion, which become the source of eternal life is just a taste of God's imagination and His goodness.

Each day the contrast we see today between the way of the World and God's way is set before us as a choice... ?

Until we start to choose to live God's way our Catholic faith will mean nothing, and remain powerless, because our faith separated from God's way of total Love is impotent; a silly moral code based on a sad story of a failed revolutionary.

God sets before us today and every day a choice, The triumph of worldly power or the sorrow of Calvary, which will you choose?

The Cure of Ars on Prayer Fasting and Almsgiving

For the Holy Cure of Ars—Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving were not only Lenten disciplines but an every day way of life. Because while Lent is a time that reminds us of the heroic struggle between our Lord and the Devil in the wilderness the fact of the matter is that this struggle for our souls continues feast or fast throughout our entire lives.

As we read in the First Letter of St. Paul to the Corinthians (9:24-25)
While all the runners in the stadium take part in the race, the award goes to one person. In that case, run so as to win! Athletes deny themselves all sorts of things. They do this to win a crown of leaves that withers, but we a crown that is imperishable.

Thus…I drive my body and train it, for fear that, having preached to others, I myself should be disqualified.

These words of St . Paul capture, it seems, the life that the Holy Cure of Ars lived. A life full of training and self-sacrifice at least equal in intensity to that of an Olympic Athlete!


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St. Michael the Archangel Pray for Us

Suffering and the Purifying Fire of God's Love

Homily for the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time Yr C

given at St. Patrick' Church in Wareham, MA

by Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL

Whenever there is a natural or man made disaster there is always a chorus of people, often Christians, but also Muslims, and Jews, declaring as if inspired that the the evil is a result of the victim's sins.

In the Gospel today Jesus definitively rejects this sentiment, saying, do you think that it was because they were greater sinners that you that they suffered?

Suffering is a result of sin, but my suffering, or prosperity for that matter, is not a direct result of my sins or merits.

As Catholics we believe that suffering, while not good in itself is not pointless, because it can serve to prepare us for eternal life in heaven. All suffering has the ability to teach us to trust in God by gratefully embracing our own crosses.

It teaches us that by forsaking my will, my desires, my dreams and plans, for the objectively better divine plan that promises eternal happiness and life, our sufferings will be like a fire that purifies precious gold. This is why Jesus went to the cross for us, not as a trade: one perfect good deed in exchange for all the bad we have done, but to show us both how much God loves us and wants to forgive us and how we, once forgiven, can truly become God’s sons and daughters.

Jesus shows us on the cross that true love is giving completely of yourself by accepting our life as a gift together with it the sufferings it entails and giving it all back to the Father in gratitude.

It’s like we are playing ball with Our Father who art in Heaven. Except the ball is our life, our very existence. God gives us the ball, and at first like a small child we are cautious, we don't want to throw it back to Him, but when we do, He takes that simple ball and enlivens it with the joy of His love, His continuing presence and interest in our life.

We suffer because we don’t want to give up the gift of our life. This gift is precious to us and we worry that by giving up all or even some of our life, we might lose it forever It hurts to sacrifice because we are afraid to trust God, afraid to lose that little piece of existence that we have. But as we read today in the scriptures God’s love is so gentle and good to us. The more we give, the more we suffer, the more we love the more our good God give us in return.

We believe that suffering is necessary for love and that what we lack in suffering in this life,
must be made up when we die, because just like exercise, suffering is a natural part of getting our supernatural muscles strong!

Many do not understand this Catholic doctrine of suffering and the doctrine of purgatory that logically stems from it, They don’t understand how a loving God, could ask His chosen people,
to undergo suffering and purification. But this is like asking a loving parent how they could take the risk of letting their tender baby to grow up! You do it, you take the risk, not in spite of your concern but because you love them!

I think the origin of the idea of the need for suffering and purgation comes from the very nature of our God, revealed in splendor in the Book of Exodus today. How does God reveal Himself to Moses? A burning bush! At first thought we all think, so what, Moses needs to get out more. But Moses tells us that this bush was unique because while it burned it was not scorched nor destroyed. The burning bush, along with the mysterious name of God, a name which to this day observant Jews will not utter, reveals one of the key mysteries of our Catholic faith.

Who should I tell the Israelites has sent me, Moses asks? Not about to go and tell them a burning bush made me do it.

God replies, I am the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob. But for Moses this is not enough, he didn’t want to know who God was in relationship to his people, Moses wanted to know who God is in Himself!

And so Moses presses the Lord, daring to ask God His Holy Name.

For God to reveal His name to us, was an unthinkable act of love for the Jewish people and yet He does, opening up the mystery of His very being to the heart and mind of man.

The passage in Exodus that we read today is so important because this is one of the very first announcements of the of eternal life which God had planned for us, foreshadowing the Christian faith.

In Exodus today, man, who until now had no access to the mystery of God and knew him only as a mysterious voice is introduced to the unknowable God and invited to contemplate His very being.

I am who am! Tell the people that “I am” sent you, God says to Moses.

This statement, which we don’t understand because in fact it is ultimately an unknowable mystery, shocked the ancient world and tells us that God is not like us.

Why do we exist? Because of …. For a reason… We are caused.

Why does God exist? Because He is pure existence itself.

What is so shocking about this Revelation is how close it comes to the definition of the true God reached by the Greek Philosophers, an yet how different.

Aristotle defined God as the first mover and subsistent being, but posits that unlike the pagan gods of Greece the true perfect God could never be interested in us, imperfect as we are.

The God of the burning bush reveals Himself as perfect being, but also as perfect love, completely interested in His creation and gentle with it! Thus St. Paul says (Heb 12:29); “Our god is a consuming fire.” God consumes the bush with the fire of His Spirit and yet does not harm His creature. The image of the burning bush makes me thing of a strong and roughed Father who is so uncharacteristically gently with his newborn child.

And so we return to the idea of suffering and purgatory.

Friends before the Revelation of the Living God all of us shared the destiny of all created things. As we heard at the beginning of Lent: Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,but by revealing His name to us God changed our destiny and gave us the promise that the ultimate futility of mortal life was not for us the end.

Only perfect being, goodness, truth and love last forever every partial love fails in the moment of trial; all lies eventually fall apart in the light of truth; a partially good thing is also partially evil; and something that exists because of another thing or being also contains within it the seeds of its own destruction, of non-being and annihilation. All creation is subject by nature to decay and corruption. Our existence is on loan and eventually that loan will come due. However, by telling us His name God gave us an eternal project and the promise that like the bush we too will be consumed by the fire of the spirit and yet left unburnt! God wants to purify all that leads to decay in us with fire! That is the task of Lent; really it’s the purpose of our whole life!

The good God allows us to suffer in this world and undergo the purifying flames of purgatory because He wants us to be perfect so that we can enjoy eternity consumed but unharmed by the flames of God’s love. Praying, fasting, and almsgiving are ways of speeding up that refining process because they are freely chosen ways of suffering because of our love for God

We don’t know what heaven will be like, St. John tells us, but we do know that we will be like God, for we will see Him as He is!

Use this time of Lent to strive for perfection by honestly evaluating your life, confessing your sins,and getting back on the road to holiness.

Jesus says in the Gospel: I came to bring fire down on the earth, and how I wish it were now kindled.

We must all be consumed by the fire of God’s love for us, suffering the pain of loosing our false self so that our true glory may shine. The question is will we embrace the fires of purgation in this life or suffer in them in the life to come?

Why do we Fast?

Why do we fast? Why do we mortify our flesh to prepare for the joy of Easter?

If your like me, you grew up in a family where fish Friday’s and Lenten fasting were the norm;

A norm that was never really explained just accepted as a fact of life. It is perfectly logical after all: Catholics fast—I’m a Catholic—I fast

But if this answer doesn't satisfy you then maybe the true answer to why we fast, and perform other penitential practices seems to be at the center of today’s psalm:

A clean heart create for me, O God,
and a steadfast spirit renew within me.
Cast me not out from your presence,
and your Holy Spirit take not from me.

We fast, give, alms, and pray, we endure patiently sufferings and even choose to take on extra sufferings because we realize that we have sinned. That there is something wrong with our heart, and so we pray to God create a clean heart in me. give me back the joy of salvation.

You see Jesus is not just warning about pride in the Gospel rather he is warning us about going through the motions without internalizing the deeper meaning contained in our actions

This is why he says:

when you pray, go to your inner room,
close the door, and pray to your Father in secret.
And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

Not because He doesn’t want us to pray in public, but because He desires that our prayer take effect primarily in the secret inner room of our heart. because it is our heart that needs to be healed! We pray, fast, give alms, and in reality do all that we do as Catholics not to pay God back, buy Him off, or keep Him happy but so as to dispose ourselves to receiving all the healing Grace

He desires to give us. We train our bodies and wills, using the spiritual fitness plan designed by God and perfectly revealed in Jesus. All the things we do, Jesus did, to show us the Way for He is the Way. And when we do what he did, in the way he did it, out of love, slowly our wish comes true. Our father who sees in secret repays us in the secret of our heart by giving us a new heart, and with it an entirely new perspective on life.

So as we enter this time of penance, realize that what you are giving to God in your added prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is really permission for Him to heal you from the inside out

Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation!