What Recompense can I give to the Lord?
Ordination to the Diaconate
Monday, May 31, 2010
The Feast of the Holy Trinity
Given at St. Patrick's in Wareham
By Rev. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL
There is something perfect about a three day weekend….
Somehow the fact that Saturday is three days from Tuesday, when we have to go back to work, and Sunday is not the end but the middle of the weekend, and the fact that we are relaxing on Monday rather than working makes a three days so much more restful than two. Even Monday, the end of a long weekend, seems more peaceful… because it’s a little gift, we are truly thankful for it, and so we enjoy it all the more. Three day weekends give us permission to enjoy the weekend to be truly renewed and rested, in a way that sadly we fail to enjoy and rest most weekends.
Today as we celebrate this memorial weekend, the Church appropriately recalls the perfection of three as it celebrates the Feast of the Most Blessed Trinity. You know (SIGN OF THE CROSS) that name which as Catholics we begin and end all things.
Like three days, for some reason, makes a weekend perfect the mystery of the Trinity is the revelation of the perfection of God.
We believe in one God, and yet God reveals, as we heard today in the Gospel, that one and three are not mutually exclusive.
Our God is one God, one being, Eternal, all powerful, and all knowing. There is no division in God, because you can’t have part of perfection and still be perfect, and yet because of, (not inspite of,) God’s perfection the one God is FATHER, SON, and HOLY SPIRIT.
All three persons God, all three the same, of the same nature, except the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father nor is the Son or the Father the Spirit. There is no difference or division between what these three persons are, and yet one in being they are none-the-less three persons, three real relationships that define the three persons not by what, where, or how they are but by who they are in relationship to each other.When we think about our faith, and especially the mystery of God, the mystery of the Trinity, it is so important to remember that God is not like us! He is completely different that all created things and so while He might reveal a glimps of who and what He is we can never fully understand it.
Even in Heaven when we see God face to face and we, in a sense, know God, we will only know God as boundless mystery. Each day in Heaven is an exploration into the depths of God’s love, which has no limit.
In our experience three persons are always three distinct beings. Humans were not meant to be more than one person! Most likely because it is hard enough for an imperfect being to be one person well, because personhood is about relationship and relationship is about love, and it is hard for us to love, sinful as we are!
Even when God became man, He became man as only one person of the Trinity, the Son, because while God by nature is perfect love, which must manifest itself always as relationship, as Trinity, man by nature is an imperfect lover that must work to love, even himself.
This difference between the perfect lover God and us makes it so hard to understand the Trinity and so it was only with great difficulty that the Church reflected on the many passages that refer to the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit and yet always, as the first commandment reminds us, one God.
And it’s not possible to just ignore the revelation of the Trinity, because it’s hard, as some suggest; we believe that ALL that God has revealed is necessary for our Salvation, and so out of a desire to be faithful to the revealed Word of God the Church struggled to come to grips with the reality of the Blessed Trinity. A reality, that we still don’t understand today 1600 years after
the Church put in into words in the 4th century Creed of Nicea and Constantinople, which we profess each Sunday.
The question we must ask ourselves on this Trinity Sunday, and indeed, every time we involke the Trinity, is what does it matter?
Why did God reveal the mystery of the Trinity, a truth that has caused so much division in the world? Not surprisingly the answer to this question, as with all life’s important questions is found here at the Mass!
At the Mass our Sign of the Cross is explained and expanded so that all might understand what God is doing in creation.
From all eternity, we believe that the Trinity loved—the Father loved the Son, the son was beloved of the Father, and His reponse to the Fathers love, the love of the Father and the Son for each other, was the Spirit of God. This is and was perfect love and it is all that God needs for perfection and happiness, and still out of a surplus of love but out of no need or necessity, God created the world, and man in His image and likeness.
If you think about the Trinity as a pouring out of love, the Father who pours Himself, out on the Son, and the Son ho response by pouring Himself out to the Father, and the Spirit who pours out on both the Father and Son, the creation is an additional pouring out, which demands a response in love.
God pours out His love on the world and on us so that we can respond as the Son does, and so enter into His Trinitarian love. Perfect love proved too hard for man, and so we needed a savior to restore us to this destiny.
This is what Jesus does for us as He approaches the Altar. Jesus went up to the Altar of the Cross to show man how to be thankful to God. How to respond to God’s gift. God gives man everything, so what can and must we give God? Everything, just like the Father gives the Son everything and the Son responds by doing the same.
At the Altar Jesus shows us what true Trinitarian Love demands, and challenges us to bind up our sacrifice of praise, our entire life, with the offering of His body and blood, which through the power of the Spirit is offered up to the Father.
All creation comes from God, the Father, and at the Mass, in Christ, and through the Spirit all creation returns to the Father to give Him thanks and praise. The Trinity is so important not only because it tells us about God and His Love, but also because it shows us the way through Christ and by the power of the Holy Spirit to be one with God, as the Father is one with the Son in the Spirit. Like His Son, God the Father loves us, if we are to enter into paradise, into His Trinitarian life we must love God with our whole heart, mind, and soul as Jesus taught us on the Cross, and this Love must bind us together with the Father, but also with each other in the Church through the Spirit.
The Trinity is not just who and what God is it’s who and what God wants us to be part of.
Lets make it our prayer today that we might be one, unified by our Love of God God and all mankind in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen,
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Pentecost: Truth, the Church, and Salvation
A Homily for the Feast of Pentecost
In the old days of the Baltimore Catechism, some of you might remember, Catholics were taught that God made us to know Him, love Him, and serve Him.
In the old days the Catholic Church focused a lot on short concise definitions, statements about our faith. The Nicene Creed, which we recite together each Sunday is one of the first of these statements. These statements of Faith are what we mean when we talk about doctrine and dogma. It’s important to remember where these definitions come from and what they lead us to, in order to realize how very important they are to the salvation of our soul.
Doctrine and Dogma, come from reality, from history, more precisely, from the history of God’s actions in the created world as recorded in Sacred Scriptures and Tradition. The most important and most difficult doctrines and dogmas come from the reality of the life of Jesus—recorded by the Church in the New Testament. When we talk about:
the Dogma of the Incarnation the belief that God became true man in the person of Jesus Christ without becoming less God
or
the Dogma of the Blessed Trinity, the belief that there is one God who is none-the-less three persons
or
the Immaculate Conception, the belief that Mary by a singular gift was preserved from the damage of original sin so that she could be a fitting mother of our Lord
we are expressing the realities that we read about in Sacred Scriptures, realities that although God doesn’t reveal explicitly, giving us a textbook or an in depth lecture on, He reveal in the richest way possible—through human experience. These experiences and the Spirit of God prompts people to record them, prompts the Church, the people of God, to recognize them as Revelation, as God’s dialogue with humanity, and prompts the Church to reflect on them until at last still guided by the spirit the Church formulates them into a definition, a doctrine.
The Church does this to protect the truth, the gift of truth we receive when the Word of God became man. Christ came as the Truth into the world to help the blind see, and the blindness that He came to heal was not the physical blindness that affects a few but the spiritual blindness that affects everyone here.
WE ARE ALL BLIND TO THE REALITY OF GOD BECAUSE OF SIN! BECAUSE OF OUR SINS AND THE SINS OF HUMANITY
Christ is the Truth about man and God that came into the world so that we might have life and have it more abundantly! The Truth of Jesus Christ is the only way for us to approach the Father, to enter Heaven and be welcomed there as a child of God. And so protect the integrity of the Truth is of supreme importance. That is why Christ says that it is better that I go, so that I might send the Spirit, Because the Spirit of God does three things in the world and in the Church that are essential to our eternal life and happiness.
First it is given to the Church to protect the deposit of Faith to protect the Church from ever loosing the key to heaven, the truth of Jesus Christ. As Catholics we believe that because Christ created the Church and gave the Church His Spirit, no matter how often we Christians fail, the Church cannot fail.
Second, the Spirit teaches us. As Jesus says “the Spirit will teach you all things and reminds us of what I [Christ] taught.” It’s not enough just to know God or to know Christ, in a superficial way. The Spirit helps us to truly love God. When we love someone we want to know more about them, The Spirit assists the Church to reflect on the FACTS of history that reveal God working in creation so that we can know more about him through his actions, just as we learned about our parents love for us each time they held us, fed us, comforted us in sorrow or sickness and rejoice in our successes.
Finally, loving God means wanting to know God, but also to serve God, and so the Spirit gives us the power of God, the power of Faith, Hope and Love, so that we might Love God by serving Him, primarilyby loving and serving His other Children. The Church is Holy not because of its members but primarily because it is filled with the Holy Spirit, and with so many holy men and women who filled with the Holy Spirit of God have taken the doctrines of the Church and put them into practice.
Our Faith is DEAD is it is only a notional thing, if its only an idea and a series of meaningless ceremonies. Friends REMEMBER the devil and all his fallen angels believe in God, they know the truth at least as well as the Church does, and yet they have chosen to ignore the truth. Hopefully at the end our lives none of us will be in that situation. Each of us received the Spirit in Baptism and the Spirit gives life to our souls, if only we will open our heart up to God.
If you are here, sitting in the back row of the Church ready to make a bolt for the door once you’ve received communion, or sitting in the front row, ready to wait until the end of closing hymn but still essentially take God for granted for the rest of the week until next week you come back to fulfill your obligation, I ask you to think about whether you really have the Love of God in my heart? It’s a question I ask myself every day. A question that we all need to consider.
Are we doing what we were created for, and what God promises will make us happy: knowing, loving, and serving God each day with the help of the Holy Spirit?
The Spirit makes it possible for us to encounter God today and to begin to know Him, and to serve Him. That’s what the gifts of the Spirit: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Courage, Knowledge, Piety, and Wonder and Awe, are all about. These gifts that were given to the young people of the Parish this past Thursday at Confirmation aren’t just for them, but for all of us, that we might have Life. Lets make the prayer to the Holy Spirit our own today:
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Crew on the Ship of Peter
Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter
My friends in Christ. We are all in this together, in this Church, which has often been called the ship of Peter.
Jesus gave us the Church to help bring us through the waters of death—the waters of Baptism, and the storms of this life, to the shores of paradise. And He gave the Church Peter, the first pope, and the Apostles, and all the bishops, priests, and deacons, to keep us on course. Jesus gave us the Church to keep us working together. You see the ship of Peter, the Church, Isn’t a ferry or a powerboat, it’s an old fashioned sail ship powered by the Spirit of God, the wind that fills our sails, but also by the efforts of the members of the Church, who aren’t just passengers but also deck hands.
The Church works best, when like a sail boat, all hands work as one, working together to harness the wind, and maximize its effect. That’s why today Jesus prays for the Church That it might be one. This unity is so important to our common salvation because each of us like members of a team are responsible for helping each other reach our common goal. If you have ever seen a tall ship under sail or a racing boat mid-race you know how majestic this ultimate act of teamwork are. When the Church works like a well oiled machine, or better yet, like a living breathing organism it is so impressive to behold that it draws people to it.
That’s why I was saddened this week, on the Feast of the Ascension, to see how few of you, how few of my teammates in the game of life, took this responsibility seriously.
Just like not eating meat on Fridays of Lent and making some sacrifice on every Friday, coming together on these days is essential to the unity of our team. It’s not that there is any intrinsic wrong about eating meat on Friday’s of lent or not coming to a church on Sunday’s. In fact, you might know that Jews keep the Sabbath on Saturday. As a team as, a Church, we have decided that these are the best ways to honor and practice the sacrifice that Christ made and the commandment to keep holy the Sabbath, and it is sinful to dishonor that commitment.
Like Sundays, Holy days of obligation are days when the Church calls her members together to celebrate the mysteries of Christ’s life. Christ is the Way, and so like a football team,
We come together on these special days to study the game plan, and to play together practicing the plays. Most importantly, we come together to help each other, out of love, so that we might be one, as Jesus prays today. To choose not to come, on a Sunday or on a Holy Day, is to choose by your actions not to Love. You fail to love God by placing other priorities ahead of the team, the ship, that is your one sure path to eternal life with Him, and you choose not love your teammates, the members of the Church, who you simply can’t make time for.
To choose not to gather together at the Church is like choosing to skip practice it’s a serious sin against the team and against our coach, God. What’s more to choose not to come is to miss out on the joy of playing with your teammates, your brothers and sisters in Christ, the only game that you were made for.
Thankfully our coach is a merciful coach who instead of kicking us off the team, asks us simply to sit out a game, by not receiving communion with grave sin on our heart. God asks us to ask forgiveness of our team and our God for our mistake in confession, as He does whenever we make a serious mistake. Finally He asks us to do better in the future, because the unity of our team is not about power, it’s not about mean priests and bishops enforcing archaic rules on the laity. Our unity, a unity that can only be achieved in truth, is about helping each of us follow God’s plan to be all that we were made to be. It’s about making us heroic lovers like our model, our game plan, Jesus Christ.
Jesus went to the cross to show us what true love means as members of the team whose only play is the Cross imitating the love of Jesus Christ we must choose to love each other by helping each other, ihis is what it means to be one.
Choose to make this team, this ship’s crew, your family. Help one another always to grow in holiness, in the Church, so that one day we can together share in the victory of Heaven.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Ite Missa Est—Words to Live By
If you have ever been to Mass in Latin you may know that these Latin words are the mysterious conclusion of the Latin liturgy. I have always thought that our English translation of these words was unfortunate; not capturing the intended (I think) vagueness of this phrase. “Ite missa est,” essentially means “go, it is sent.” What is sent, you ask? Therein lays the beauty of the phrase, which requires you to contemplate what just happened at Mass: what you did, what you received, and what has been released into the world as a result. So important was this dismissal to our understanding of what happens at Mass, that the term Mass itself, our uniquely “Roman” term of the Divine Liturgy (as it is known in other non-Latin Catholic Churches), comes from the “missa” of “Ite missa est.”
A few weeks ago I had the privilege to travel with the youth group from St. Patrick’s to the city of brotherly love on a mission trip. We were sent forth from St. Patrick’s after Sunday Mass. Travelling far from home, twelve teens and four adults gave up a week-long vacation to spend two days travelling and four days working to help the poorest of the poor, the most vulnerable people of Philadelphia. During the week the young people did so much. It was really amazing the amount of work they did in four short days. They cleaned up glass and needles that littered a school play ground, tutored kids in the inner city, served meals to the homeless, moved a truck load of donated office supplies, scrubbed the halls of an inner city school, assisted a poor parish to prepare its church for first communions, and helped recent immigrant children prepare for the SATs. At times the work they did was fun and quite rewarding, other times their camaraderie made tough work bearable, however what was most impressive to see was how they persevered through dirty jobs and those difficult situations when they didn’t feel the gratitude of those they were trying to help. I remember one of the young people voicing frustration at one of our nightly de-briefings, when we had a chance to think and share about our day, because a teacher seemed utterly ungrateful, perhaps even resentful, of our presence. True love, I responded, is doing what is good for another especially when they don’t appreciate it, this is what Christ shows us on the Cross. By the end of the week I think the young people understood that possibly more important than all the work we had accomplished was the example of love that we had given.
One of the great blessings of the trip was the ability for the group to celebrate Mass each morning. In God’s providence all week long we heard readings from the 6th chapter of John’s Gospel in which Jesus tells us about the His mission to give up His life, His Body and Blood so that we might have eternal life. Each day after hearing this gospel they were sent, Ite Missa Est. They were sent to ponder what had happened at Mass and to live it by loving strangers in need as Jesus loved us on the cross—they were sent to become what they had received! Working with the children and families who were so joyful and thankful for their presence, they saw humanity as God sees us all, as His little children. However, they also learned just how hard Jesus’ sacrifice was, how hard it is to love when those you love don’t appreciate your love, when they were rejected. In the end, I asked them, “what did you see here, that you can’t find back home in Massachusetts?” The answer, “nothing,” and so I challenged them to risk loving their neighbors back home, the way they loved strangers in Philly. Love is what Jesus gives us in communion, and love is what is sent, if only we would be the love of Christ in the World. I was so impressed by the young people of my parish that week, and I hope that they saw the spiritual greatness that is in each of them, and the power to change the world that Christ sends each time they receive Him in the Eucharist.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Play Hard!
A Homily Given at St. Patrick's Church
for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
By: Rev. Fr. Ronnie P. Floyd, STL
The famous theologian Romano Guardini once noted that the Mass, and in fact our entire life as Christians, is a type of serious play. Think about it for a moment: What do children play at? Maybe they play house, or cops and robbers, maybe they play shop, opening up a lemonade stand sure they play sports and video games, but when they are alone, just them and their imagination, what they play at is life—imagining how life will be when they are all grown up. I know this was true for me: at 5 years old between playing cops and robbers and army I would play Mass, an experience that many other priests share I’m told.
Play is a way that we humans imagine who we are and want to be. Even contrived play, like sports or video games, which use much less imagination, helps us to develop the attitudes and pre-dispositions that will guide us in later life
At the Mass, Guardini notes, we are playing at being in Heaven, hopefully preparing ourselves for that day when we actually get there and are welcomed in. In fact the entire Christian life ought to be informed by the play Going on at the Mass, and transformed into one big play.
As Christians we believe that:
1) God created us good
2) Man fell from grace
3) As a result we all sin against each other,
and suffer because of it
4) But that we are still made to be with God
And God still wants us to be with Him
5) So He makes the sufferings of this life
A way to purify ourselves for a new life
6) Jesus, the Son of God, made man, who died on the cross
is the ultimate fulfillment of that promise.
7) Jesus forgives us our sins and shows us how to live
8) And now we wait until Jesus’ Easter becomes our Easter.
In a sermon on Easter St. Augustine talks about this reality saying there are two seasons one before and one after Easter. Lent symbolizes our life now on Earth. A time to struggle and prepare ourselves for the future life we hope for with God in Heaven Like children, we can get impatient, wanting that future now, but good things come to those who wait in patient hope. Easter, the season that we celebrate now, is the symbol of the life to come. A life that will be characterized by praise of God. However although these are two distinct realities, these two seasons and times are bridged and brought together here and now by the Cross of Jesus Christ.
Unlike children, we Christians play at something that we are already part of! It’s as if we get to play doctor in a real hospital with real patients! We are not yet in heaven, but our play, our act of worshiping God at the Mass opens the gates of heaven and lets us worship in the presence of the living God. Sunday Mass is so important for our soul because it is a dress rehersal for the main event the eternal wedding feast of heaven.
Heaven is open to ALL—God wants all to be saved but as we hear over and over again in the scriptures there is a try-out, an audition for Heaven—the Judgement!
If our heart isn’t 100% invested into praising God forever He is not going to force us.
Today like St. John we are invited to see the city of God as we play Heaven here at the Holy Mass. Today we see the city that has no Church because God is their temple, dwelling not in one building, but everywhere in every heart that is open to Him. And we are invited in, to enjoy the presence of the living God. Our task is to make the play of the Mass, the play of our every day life.
Play is simply work that we want to do with our whole heart and soul. Each of us must work to make getting to heaven our primary Goal. When we desire to praise God at the very core of our being following the commandments, grown in virtue, forgiving and loving like Jesus loved us, will no longer be work, it will be play because we will already have the temple of God in our heart.
Our thoughts in this present life should turn on the praise of God, because it is in praising God that we shall rejoice for ever in the life to come; and no one can be ready for the next life unless he trains himself for it now. So we praise God during our earthly life, and at the same time we make our petitions to him. Our praise is expressed with joy, our petitions with yearning. We have been promised something we do not yet possess, and because the promise was made by one who keeps his word, we trust him and are glad; but insofar as possession is delayed, we can only long and yearn for it. It is good for us to persevere in longing until we receive what was promised, and yearning is over; then praise alone will remain.
Because there are these two periods of time – the one that now is, beset with the trials and troubles of this life, and the other yet to come, a life of everlasting serenity and joy – we are given two liturgical seasons, one before Easter and the other after. The season before Easter signifies the troubles in which we live here and now, while the time after Easter which we are celebrating at present signifies the happiness that will be ours in the future. What we commemorate before Easter is what we experience in this life; what we celebrate after Easter points to something we do not yet possess. This is why we keep the first season with fasting and prayer; but now the fast is over and we devote the present season to praise. Such is the meaning of theAlleluia we sing.
Both these periods are represented and demonstrated for us in Christ our head. The Lord’s passion depicts for us our present life of trial – shows how we must suffer and be afflicted and finally die. The Lord’s resurrection and glorification show us the life that will be given to us in the future.
Now therefore, brethren, we urge you to praise God. That is what we are all telling each other when we say Alleluia. You say to your neighbour, “Praise the Lord!” and he says the same to you. We are all urging one another to praise the Lord, and all thereby doing what each of us urges the other to do. But see that your praise comes from your whole being; in other words, see that you praise God not with your lips and voices alone, but with your minds, your lives and all your actions.
We are praising God now, assembled as we are here in church; but when we go on our various ways again, it seems as if we cease to praise God. But provided we do not cease to live a good life, we shall always be praising God. You cease to praise God only when you swerve from justice and from what is pleasing to God. If you never turn aside from the good life, your tongue may be silent but your actions will cry aloud, and God will perceive your intentions; for as our ears hear each other’s voices, so do God’s ears hear our thoughts.
Monday, May 10, 2010
Viaticum: Food for the Journey
Did you know that you are on a journey?
In the scriptures we are told that we are a pilgrim people St. Paul calls us strangers and soujourners, two words that basically mean we are foreigners, visitors in a strange land.
So where are we going? We get a clue in the Gospel today. Who does Phillip say He wants to see?
The Father! And where is the Father?
You see God created all things and everything that exists has a little bit of God's goodness in it; for us humans, who are made in God's image and likeness, there is a whole lot of God's goodness in us already. But can you ever have too much goodness?
Who here likes ice cream? In my family we always said there is always room for ice cream! But God is even better than ice cream! and even if one day we get tired of our favorite food, our favorite toy, our favorite sport, or activity we will never get tired with God, because God is a mystery, the closer we get to Him the more we realize there is to know and love!
All of us long in their heart to return to their creator, just like we all love to be near our parents, because God is the ultimate parent, the ultimate Father, who Phillip wants to see.
We too want to see God! And while we can see him in His creation, just like we might see a person in a photo or in something they did or made, ultimate we want to see God the way we see our parents face to face. We all want to give God a great big hug and get one back from Him. We want to hear Him say you are my beloved son, my beloved daughter, with whom I am well pleased.
And so we are all on a journey. Where? To heaven, of course!!!
We started this journey the day we were baptized, the day we were set free from this world and our sins so that we could search for God. And we continue it today.
Today our God who loves us, and realizes that it's hard: to keep our eyes set on Him to avoid all the distractions along the long road of life; to have the strength and courage to be holy; to be the saint He made us to be--our God gives us a little help.
What does He give us? He give us His son, the body of Christ, God became man so that he could remind us of our destination, show us the way, and strengthen us for the journey! When we see Jesus see the Father, as we heard today in the Gospel and we desire to get closer to God.
When we see the Father in Jesus we follow Jesus who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Jesus is the only way to the Father and so seeing God in Jesus we follow Him. Finally Jesus' way leads to the cross, where Jesus dies to give us His Body and Blood the strength we need to follow Him, and to mimic His example.
God made us to love Him and serve Him, and by doing so to come through this life to the eternal happiness of Heaven.
