Weekly HOMILY for April 29, 2012: 4th Sunday of Easter, Cycle B -- Running with the Herd or Following the Shepherd?

4^th Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

April 29, 2012

Married Retreat, Priest Field Retreat Center, Keareysville, WV

 

Running with the Herd or Following the Shepherd?

 By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

 

Running with the Herd

When I was a child and then as a teenager, I often watched western or cowboy movies and my favorite was Hopalong Cassidy.

I remember sometimes seeing herds of buffalo in those movies.  Today, National geographic specials might show us herds of giraffes in the Serengeti in Africa.

These herds are wandering wild, setting their own direction, foraging for their own food, and protecting themselves.  They are totally on their own. 

Sometimes they go into a stampede.  Almost always, each and every animal does what all the others are doing.

There is no leadership or guidance from outside the herd.  They have no higher or broader perspective to guide them.

 

Following the Shepherd

This “running with herd” is very different from what we hear about in today’s gospel – “following the shepherd.”

Sheep know the shepherd and can tell his voice from other voices.  They follow the shepherd because they trust him.

Sheep instinctively know that the shepherd will lead them to food and protect them from harm.  Each sheep, almost personally chooses to follow the shepherd.

For them, the shepherd is someone outside the flock, with a higher and broader perspective to guide them. 

No question about it, the shepherd has the well-being of the sheep in mind and is very devoted to them.

Today, Jesus calls himself “the shepherd” and he refers to us as “his sheep.”  He wants us to follow him as faithfully as sheep follow their shepherd and not run with the herd as buffalos or giraffes might do.

The Contrasts

Let’s look at some examples of the differences between “running with the herd” and contrast them with “following the shepherd.” After my remarks, I’d invite yours.

When couples are first married running with the herd may mean that they quickly become too focused on themselves as a couple and not being focused on the needs of others or the poor.

Following the shepherd at this stage of marriage could mean becoming active in a parish and volunteering to help others in need hearing always Jesus’ concern for others and his challenging us to be the same.

As couples grow in love for each other and begin raising children, running with the herd may mean giving sports, dance lessons, Scouts, first place and having them become more important that daily supper together. After all it’s what all families do.

Following the shepherd, on the other hand, is regulating and modulating outside activities so they enhance family life and not take from it.

When couples become empty nesters, running with the herd may mean that they can now become self-absorbed in our work, in travel, or shopping.  Following the shepherd means that they respect each other’s differences and look forward to experiences that deepen their lives together, like an annual retreat.

Finally as retirees, running with the herd may mean that they respond to the barrage of advertisements that promise to keep us young forever with Botox, implants, surgery, tightening and tucks and. Beware of the lure beauty that is only skin deep.

Following the shepherd may mean that they stay spiritually centered and grow in age and grace, gratefully accepting our senior years and increasing limitations.

Conclusion

We encounter Jesus the Good Shepherd who is here at Mass for us every Sabbath.

He speaks to us and we hear his voice in the passages from Scripture, especially the gospel.  He nourishes us and we receive him in the food of the Eucharist, his body and blood.

Here our unity with the Good Shepherd reaches is apex. He becomes one with us physically and spiritually.  From that unity he empowers us to follow him and not run with the herd.  

Weekly HOMILY for April 15, 2012: 2nd Sunday of Easter, Cycle B -- 3 Ways of Knowing

2^nd Sunday of Easter, Cycle B

St. Mark Church, Fallston

April 14-15, 2012 / Sat. 4:00pm; Sun. 7:30, 9:00, 11:00 and 5:30pm

3 Ways of Knowing

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

3 Ways of Knowing

This morning, let’s suppose that I put a blindfold on you, then I bring you up here into the sanctuary and ask you: does this pail of water have water in it?

How can you answer the question without removing the blindfold?  If you think about it, there are three ways that you can come to know whether or not the font has water in it.

The first way is obvious: you can reach in and feel with your hands.  In other words, you can experience firsthand if the font is empty or full.

This way of learning is called EXPERIENCE.  We get this knowledge through our senses – for example, by touching, much as Thomas in today’s Gospel wants to learn if this person really is Jesus by touching his wounds.

The second way to learn if the font contains water is to drop something into it – like this rock.  If the rock hits the bottom of the font with a thud, you know that it is empty, but if it makes a splashing sound, you know that there is water in it.

This way of learning is called reasoning.  We get this knowledge by logically concluding to it from certain facts that we know, like concluding that the font has water in it from the splashing sound that we hear.

Finally, the third way to learn if the font contains water is to ask someone you trust.  So if you trust me and I say, “Yes, there is water in the font,” once again you get an answer to the question.  

This way of learning is called believing.  We get this knowledge by trusting someone, much as the disciples ask Thomas to trust them that Jesus is really alive.   

Importance of Believing

So, there are three ways that we can come to know something: by experiencing, by reasoning, and by believing.

The interesting thing is that experts tell us that almost 80% of what we know comes from believing and not from experiencing or reasoning. 

For example, most of us have never visited the Great Wall of China, but we believe what reporters tell us about it.

      

Believing Is Seeing

On these Sundays after Easter, the Scriptures call us to believe in the risen Jesus.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who do not see but still believe.”  So, just as we accept so many things in everyday life by believing and trusting, we are also asked to accept the resurrection of Christ and the promise of our own resurrection in this way.

There is a common expression: Seeing is believing.  But actually, the reverse is true.

If we believe only what we see, we will believe and trust and have faith in very little.  The truth is: Believing really opens up our world of seeing.

Believing opens us to seeing great possibilities: for example, where we have come from, why we are here, and where we are going. 

Jesus today and during this entire Easter Season of seven weeks call us to believe without seeing, to believe so that we can see so much more and much more deeply into things. 

Acting on Believing

A final important insight is that we need to act on what we know by faith.

For example, if your doctor tells you that you have high cholesterol, and you trust him, you will probably use less mayonnaise on your sandwiches and less fatty cuts of meat. 

The point is that we act on what we learn by ordinary, everyday faith, and we also need to act on what we learn from our faith in Jesus’ resurrection.

So, if we believe in the mystery of Jesus’ dying and rising, then we need to live that.  

This means that we die to ourselves in innumerable ways every day:

Ø  Like holding our tongue and counting to ten instead of just returning hurt for hurt

Ø  Or burying the hatchet that has caused years of separation between you and a friend or relative

Ø  Or going out of your way to help a senior whose health is failing

Ø  Just look around…  

And the interesting thing is that if we die to ourselves in ways like this, we will experience a fulfillment or a sense of being alive that nothing else can bring. 

Our dying to self leads us to fuller life in the very doing of it and in turn, confirms that our belief in Jesus’ as risen is 100% true.

Conclusion

Believing opens us wide to what we are able to see and seeing, we are invited to act. Acting, in turn, confirms the truth of our belief!

That’s Easter life. That’s Easter transformation. That’s why we celebrate it for 50 days!

Weekly HOMILY for April 7,2012: Easter Vigil, Cycle B – A Story about Us and Water

Easter Vigil, Cycle B

Sisters of St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill

April 7-8, 2012

 

A Story about Us and Water

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

 

God’s Story

Tonight, we hear God’s story – or perhaps more correctly – God’s story about God and us.

On this holiest night of the year, the Word of God would have us remember some core truths about water and us.

No it’s more than thinking of water as a refreshing drink, or rain that waters our lawns and veggie gardens.

It’s water that is at the heart of all in our life that has deep meaning for us.

Life-Giving Waters of Creation

The Word of God tells us the story about how things were “in the beginning,” before there was no thing, how in the beginning God creates the heavens and the earth. (Swoosh!)

God then separates the waters from the earth (Slice!), then brings forth the light (Ah-aaa!) and the sky (Ooooo!), the sun (My my!) and moon and stars (Wow!), the fish and plants and trees and animals.  And finally, God creates man and woman (Yikes!)

And with all this marvelous creation, God gives us human beings responsibility to care for it. Note too that after creating each, “God sees how good it is.”

APPLICATION: These words – God seeing the goodness in all of creation – are repeated over and over in order to grab our attention and call us to approach all creation with love and respect.

The Liberating Waters of the Exodus

God’s as the storyteller then relates that, unfortunately, we haven’t acted in appropriate ways toward all this goodness and sin enters our world and our relationships. 

The second reading speaks of an example of this sin as the oppression of the Israelites by the Egyptians.

And so God intervenes in this oppression and frees the Israelites in the event we call the Exodus.  God again tames the water, as God did in the act of creation, and the tamed parted waters allow his people to pass through them safely to freedom.

In doing this, God wants us to remember the past – the social injustice in Egypt.  God calls us to remember the slavery in Egypt because this social sin is still with us. It exists in ethnic cleansing, in racism, and in the allowing of poverty and neglect of the poor to continue. 

APPLICATION: So not only does God call us to be responsible for creation, God wants us also to be agents for routing out systemic injustice and violence.

The Forgiving Waters of Ezekiel

 

God the storyteller then goes on to remind us of the personal sin we commit.

The prophet Ezekiel in our third reading tells God’s people that they must not blame others for their sin. They must take responsibility for personally and individually having disregarded God’s ways.

Here comes a third reference to water at work in God’s creation. Ezekiel promises that God will sprinkle clean water upon them to cleanse them of their sinfulness. 

But the water of forgiveness will come only after God’s people accept responsibility for wrongdoing.  For us today it might be neglecting our aging parents or our children or failing to pray and not making God the center of our lives.

APPLICATION: Ezekiel says to repent, ‘fess up, and the waters of forgiveness will flow over us.

The Waters of New Life

(1) The life-giving waters of creation, (2) The liberating waters of the Exodus, (3) The forgiving waters of Ezekiel all find their fulfillment in Jesus!

In Jesus everything is made new: (1) new creation, (2) new liberation, and (3) new level of forgiveness.

This newness is as radical as is life coming out of death, his resurrected life coming out of his suffering and death.

In the Letter to the Romans, Paul assures us that through the waters of baptism we have risen with Christ from death to new life. His rising from the dead assures us of a similar rising.

So the renewal of our baptismal vows in a moment on this most sacred of nights draws us into this new beginning in water.

(1) It isn’t just the life-giving waters of creation that water and nourish the earth. (2) It isn’t just the liberating waters of the Exodus that free us from society’s ills. (3) It isn’t just the forgiving waters Ezekiel promised. This is water that raises the dead to life!

As St. Paul says, “We were indeed buried with him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might live in newness of life.”

Conclusion

The readings clearly are a story about the role of water in our relationship with God. And Jesus’ rising from the dead has given water a wholly new potential for us to live in God in the moment and to live with God forever.

The Lord is risen and you who have been baptized in Christ have risen with him. Alleluia! Happy Easter!

Weekly HOMILY for April 6, 2012: Good Friday, Cycle B -- Sacred Trees

Good Friday, Cycle B

Sisters of St. Joseph Mother House

April 6, 2012

Sacred Trees

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

The Baobab As Tree

In a remote village in Tanzania stands a giant baobab tree.

The old tree has been completely hollowed out by the passing of the centuries.

Its roots reach deep down into the African earth. Its branches – more than 75 feet in length – stretch out to embrace the deep blue equatorial sky.

The hollow trunk is more than 60 feet in diameter.

The old tree is sacred to the village.

Ø  It is their gathering place: each evening, the village shaman recounts the sacred stories of their history.

Ø  It is the place where the community celebrates, with dancing and drums, the milestones of birth and marriage and death

Ø  It is the place where the community offers prayers of thanksgiving for the good fortunes of the harvest.

The sacred baobab is also the community’s “birthing tree.”

Ø  When a pregnant woman comes to term, she enters the hollow sanctuary of the baobab where she gives birth to her child.

Ø  The sacred tree offers mother and child shelter from the heat and rain, the beauty of its large sweet-smelling flowers, and the nourishment of its seeds and fruit.

Ø  Every child in the village first sees the light of day within the shelter of the old tree.

The Cross As Tree

Today, our community gathers at our sacred tree: the cross of Good Friday.

We hear the story again of how a loving God gave himself up for us on this tree; like the ancient African baobab, we are reborn within the embrace of the wood of the cross.

In and through this sacred tree, we experience the light of the resurrection.

This holy tree is

Ø  Hope for our defeated beings

Ø  Grace for our battered souls

Ø  Sustenance for our starving spirits.

In the cross of Christ, we realize the possibilities for

Ø  Healing

Ø  Forgiveness

Ø  Reconciliation

Ø  Transformation

Ø  Re-creation.

Application

The cross repulses us and shames us, confronting us with death and humiliation, with the injustice and betrayal of which we are all capable.

But the cross is also the tree of life through which we are reborn.

The tree of defeat becomes the tree of victory; where life was lost, there life will be restored.

The tree of Good Friday will blossom anew:

Ø  Bringing life, not death

Ø  Bringing light that shatters centuries of darkness

Ø  Bringing Paradise, not destruction.

Conclusion

As Jesus’ cross becomes a means of transforming death into life, we are called on this Good Friday to use the crosses that we shoulder in our lives as vehicles for “resurrection” in the Jerusalems and Golgothas of our own time and place.

May the branches of this tree be a place of welcome and peace for all of us.

May the Holy One who gave his life on this tree be a constant source of life and love for all who come to stand in it shadow.

Weekly HOMILY for April 5, 2012: Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lords Supper, Cycle B -- Memories: Forgetting and Remembering

Holy Thursday: Mass of the Lords Supper, Cycle B

Sisters of St. Joseph, Chestnut Hill, PA

April 5, 2012

Memories: Forgetting and Remembering

By (Rev. Msgr.) Nicholas P. Amato

Losing Memories

A family learned the dreaded diagnosis: they mother was suffering the onset of Alzheimer’s disease. Over the next few months, her memories – already slowly slipping away – would fade to black all together.

Her daughter-in-law reflects on the preciousness of memories that she and her husband, John, began to realize as his mother’s memory began to slip away.

“Life is about moments – the blessed, the tragic, the sidesplitting, the poignant. Our lives are framed by them, and each one of us has the assemblage of memories that could be edited together, set to music, and watched like a movie…memories comfort us. They make us who we are. Without a connection to who we were, we’d feel lost, which must be exactly how [my mother-in-law] feels.

We want her so badly to remember us, and often she does, but we know we won’t always be that lucky…

“John once told me, ‘I want to make memories with you.’ It was a funny thing for a guy to say, but I know what he meant. He wanted me in his life, and he wanted to remember all of it.

“Memories are a privilege – every day we get to choose whether we want to remember something…and when those moments are slipping away, it reminds you how much there is to lose.

Keeping Memories

“We started keeping a memory book, John and I. It’s a cloth book that we keep on our bedside table where we’ll record a note about a fun day we had or a silly moment.

Maybe it’s human not to write the sad stiff. But it’s our way of keeping a record. Now, even if one of us forgets, there will always be those voices, our voices, on the page speaking to us.”

Memories are very precious things. Those of us who have suffered with a loved one afflicted with any form of dementia know all too well how fragile our ability to remember.

Tonight’s Memories

Tonight is about reliving a memory: the memory of Jesus, the Christ, who begins this night, for our sakes, his great Passover from death to life.

At this table, in the cenacle of our own church, the memory of Jesus becomes a living reality.

The rabbi Jesus speaks to us again in the pages of the Gospel book, in the basin, pitcher and towel, in the Eucharistic bread and wine.

The Mandatum

Jesus who revealed the wonders of God in stories about mustard seeds, fishing nets and ungrateful children, on this last night of his life – as we know life – leaves his small band of disciples his most beautiful parable:

Ø  As I have washed your feet like a slave, so you must wash the feet of each other and serve one another.

Ø  As I have loved you without limit or condition, so you must love one another without limit or condition.

Ø  As I am about to suffer and die for you, so you must suffer and, if necessary, die for one another.

Tonight’s parable is so simple, but its lesson is so central to what being a real disciple of Christ is all about.

When inspired by the love of Christ, the smallest act of service done for another takes on extraordinary dimensions.

Conclusion

Whenever we imitate Jesus’ compassion and humility in putting aside our robes, bending down and “washing the feet” of another, the memory of Jesus’ compassion lives again.

Whenever we gather at this table to break and bless the bread and cup and share it, we experience again the selfless compassion of Jesus.

This night then challenges us to make the memory of Jesus’ compassionate healing and humble love for all people live again in our taking on the mandatum of being foot-washers to one another, of becoming the community of the Eucharist Christ has envisioned us to become.

Two truths we don’t forget because they are kept alive within this community of faith.