Wedding Homily for my Daughter

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's Homily for his daughter's wedding...

Today we gather to celebrate Bobby and Annaleah’s marriage. We celebrate it because it is customary to gather with family and friends to witness and rejoice with them as they join in this marriage. But just what is it we are celebrating?

We need first of all to begin to understand just what a marriage is in the eyes of the Church and of God. Most people just see it as a legal contract, or even worse a bondage of one to another. The Church however sees it as a uniting in the mystery of the Triune God.

The Triune God, that is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God, each having a separate purpose in relation to the salvation of the World. However, all the Divine Persons of the Trinity act in perfect unity, that is they work in union with each other, since God is one and has but one will. On God’s level, so to speak, we find a being who is three persons while remaining one Being. Now we probably cannot fully conceive of a being like that, as we cannot conceive the dimension of heaven and in what we can perceive of our dimension we have no such thing. However we can gain some sort of faint notion of it as he has given us clues to it.

We see a slight notion of that joining together of persons when we see a marriage as we do today that is steeped in faith. We see that these two were separate and God will reach into this dimension and join them together in a way that they will be more than two, but they will become just one, somewhat like lines joined together to form a figure. A triangle is a single figure but in it exists 3 separate but conforming lines. In our Christian faith we can see this marriage as a sign of that three person God, such that we can begin to see the glimmer of just what that joining together, that unity of persons is really about.

In this marriage we should see reflections of something larger. You see, this is a Sacrament, that is, a sign - no - more than a sign, a touchstone or intervention into our normal everyday lives of God's presence with and in us. It is where God becomes one with us, and makes a covenant with us, a pledge to us, to promise to be with us in all things.

You see, Christ is a sacrament of God, that is, He makes God the Father more visible, that is, He makes God's love for us visible and touchable. He is the sign of God, the Covenant with God. Marriage then, is a Sacrament of Christ, making Christ more visible, that is Christ's love more visible and touchable.

In “Deus Caritas Est” (God is Love), Pope Benedict says that being Christian is not the result of making an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the result of an encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. Therefore Love itself is not so much a decision as it is an encounter with another. Therefore marriage, the combining of our human love with God’s love to become one becomes an encounter with a person, that person being not only our spouse, but God who draws us and forms us together in him.

What a concept. To share the love that God shares, a gift that only can come from God. That is why this is a sacrament, to receive the Love shared between the Father and Son and Holy Spirit as John's Gospel states, "So that they may be one, as we are one…", that as husband and wife, Bobby and Annaleah can share that very same love. All it takes is belief, hearing and doing the Word of God. Can we believe Jesus? If you can, then what He says must be true, and therefore it is possible to share that love that Jesus talks about. Bobby and Annaleah, you MUST become one in that same love so that you can reflect the Father's glory in His Son. You do that by doing what Paul says in our second reading:

“Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another. And let the peace of Christ control your hearts, the peace into which you were also called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”

So that in this unity, this oneness, this marriage, you can become that Love of Christ. That as husband and wife you can become that light, that beacon of love for the rest of the family. Seeing this light, this Love, the rest of the family will begin to desire that light and love shared between the two of you, shared with Jesus the Son who shares it with the Father in heaven. With this immense and unlimited love abiding in you, Bobby and Annaleah, you should be able to surmount all the difficulties that will surely arise. You should be able to not only have love enough for your family, but should be able to extend that love beyond your family to the world that is so in need of love today.

And the world is definitely in need of all married couples to reflect God's love, example it to them. Today's culture does NOT support a sacramental marriage. Today's culture is a culture about “I” not “we”. Today's culture is about diversity in lifestyle's and getting what's yours and looking out for yourself. Today's culture is not supportive of sacrificial love, of giving oneself for another as our Gospel commands:

"This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. "

Today's culture does not support the idea of spending your life in love for another.
Today's culture looks at marriage as a cost reduction method, as a temporary “deeper” relationship, as a state recognized tax status, as an agreement to pool resources, as a security transaction to prevent loneliness, as a hedge against old age alone.

Oh yes, there will be problems; problems around and in your marriage. I won't give you the idea that marriage is easy. There will be troubles and sickness and pressures and interferences and all kinds of situations that will push you to the very edge and beyond of your ability to cope but never to the edge of your love if you continue to tend to it and grow it.

The nice thing is that in this time before your wedding – I’ve seen the two of you remain true to the commandment to love one another and to also “Put on … heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.” I’ve seen you go through these trials in your life and support each other. I’ve seen you live lives of chastity and charity. I’ve seen you become the beacon of light that this world needs in your life and actions. Continue to do so, continue to act as if Christ is watching every action you do, not because he wants to catch you at something, but because like a good parent, He loves you and wants to see you doing your best to live life fully as He has provided for you.

So you must remember to lean on the covenant that the three of you, yes three... (Bobby, Annaleah and God)… the covenant the three of you will make here today. You will find in your lives that you will often be asked to go a little further, expend a little more of your time and energy when all may seem futile, you will be tempted to give up when it seems that it’s just too tough to go on. Yet it is then that you will need to rely on God's word and His grace, it is then that you need to rely on the covenant that you make here today. It is then that you need to continue to put on heartfelt com[passion, kindness, humility and gentleness. You will be asked to extend yourself, but you need to rely on God to work through your actions.

Marriage in the church is something far different from what the world thinks it is. You will start this marriage today pledging that you will be "true to each other in good times and bad, in sickness and health, to love and honor each other for all the days of your lives." These are things I’ve already seen you doing with each other. These are things you need to continue to do. Remember that marriage is more than consenting to live together and share your lives. You must remember at all times that it is a consenting to be a reflection of God's love.

This wedding is the beginning, the first vows, the public statement of - "not only do I love you, but I will put your needs and good foremost in my life, and I will treat you and see you as Christ has treated you and as Christ sees you." You see, He laid down his life so that you might have eternal life. His sacrificial love for you requires of you to love each other beyond all human capability. This is why the first rule of married couples is to make sure that their spouse gets to heaven. The reason that you will make these vows is far beyond the "I do it because I love you". You will do it because Christ has already done it for you, and He now asks you to do so for one another. In our Gospel He asks that you go and bear fruit, fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in His name he may give you. You must bring the taste of this fruit, His love, back into the world, to preserve the goodness He has placed into this world. He asks you to bear fruit in your marriage so as to prepare a place in your souls for Him as He prepares a place in Heaven for you!

Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's Homily for June 19, 2011 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity


First of all - I want to say Happy Father's day to all the fathers gathered here. It such a great calling to be a father , and today we acknowledge those who have taken on that calling with great joy. Today, besides being Father’s day – which I will get to just a little later, is the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, a Sunday where we recall the most fundamental mystery of the Christian faith – that our one God is a Triune God. There is but One God as Our Lord declared to Moses on Mount Sinai. Yet, in the New Testament we realize the true nature of Our God - He is three persons. For God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are but the same God merely in three different persons. So how do we know that?

The Holy Trinity is first declared in Matthew’s Gospel through the words of Jesus:

"Go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28:18).

Later when Paul talked to the Corinthians – in our second reading from 2nd Corinthians:

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the love of God
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you

While the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God, each has a separate purpose in relation to the salvation of the World. However, all the Divine Persons of the Trinity act in perfect unity, that is they aren’t out doing their own thing, but they work in union with each other, since God is one and has but one will. While all of this is certainly confusing, we can only pray that through the Holy Spirit's inspiration, we can hope to understand the Trinity. In time, through study and discernment, we can understand the Trinity and the nature of Our One God better, but only in Heaven will we truly experience the joy of serving the One God and seeing the mystery of the Holy Trinity face to face
Now, while this is all a mystery we do still have the ability to search into it and understand it better. That is the wonderful part of being Christian – or being Christ-like. We partake of this three personal God and enter into that mystery every time we come to Mass and actually more often than we know. So let’s try to understand this triune nature of God slightly better this time so that we can partake in it even more abundantly.

I intend to use here the explanation of the mystery of the Holy Trinity used by C.S. Lewis in his masterpiece called “Mere Christianity”. Now the name of the book might do it dis-service as it is not indicating that Christianity is simple or as in the dictionary definition of “MERE” as “being nothing more or better than”, but meaning at the basics, at the level of what all Christians believe in, one of the basic denominators of our faith found across all Christian denominations.

Let’s start this study with a simple Geometry lesson. How many here ever studied geometry in school (raise your hands). For those of you who haven’t or have forgotten everything you learned about geometry – this shouldn’t be too hard to follow. Let’s start with the simplest form in geometry - the line, where in one dimension the only figure that can be drawn is a line. Moving up the ladder – so to speak – we come to a place where there are two dimensions and the basic figure that can be drawn is a square or a rectangle, this is where we join two or more lines together to make a figure. Going even further up we come to the 3 dimensional world which we know and experience. Now we can join figures together to form solids – such as 6 squares joined together make a cube, such as we would see in a box or a package. I see that some of you are catching on. In a one dimensional world we can have a line, but many lines in a two dimensional world can make up a figure and many figures in a three dimensional world can make a solid.

In other words, as you advance to more and more complicated dimensions you do not leave the things from the previous dimensions behind, you simply combine them in new ways to make things in the new dimension. You combine them in ways that you could not have thought of if you lived in the simpler dimension.

Now let’s take what we learned from geometry and apply it to our faith. In the Christian account of God, we find a similar principle. The human level, although complicated enough for us to understand is a simple level. One person is one being like one line or one figure, and any two persons are two perhaps similar human beings but definitely different and separate, just as we find that any square in a two dimensional world can exist alongside another square and they remain squares but separate squares.

However, on the Divine level you still find personalities as in the human level and the same as in a three dimensional world you still find squares, but in the Divine level they are combined in new ways that we, who do not live on that level, cannot fathom. In that level, God’s level, so to speak, we find a being who is three persons while remaining one Being, just as the a cube is six squares while remaining a single cube.

Of course this is simply an exercise or example so that we might begin to grasp a piece of the enormity of the mystery of the Triune God. We truly cannot fully conceive of a being like that, as we live in a dimension that has no such thing. However we can gain some sort of faint notion of it as he has given us clues to it.
We see a slight notion of that joining together of persons when we see a marriage that is steeped in faith. We see that the two were separate and God has reached into this dimension and joined them together in a way that they are now more than two, but they are now also just one, somewhat like lines joined together to form a figure. This marriage we see in our Christian faith is a sign of that three person God, such that we can begin to see the glimmer of just what that joining together, that unity of persons is really about.

Remember back at the beginning of this I said that:

While the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each God, each has a separate purpose in relation to the salvation of the World. However, all the Divine Persons of the Trinity act in perfect unity since God is one and has but one will.

Well, one way to experience this is to watch people who kneel down in prayer. Observe them closely and you will see all three persons of God at work here. Those who have knelt down in prayer, do so to get in touch with God. They knelt down in prayer at the bidding of the Spirit who works within us to call us to be in communication with the Father, and then it is the Father to whom this person is praying, either asking for something or giving thanks or being silent before Him as He reveals himself to the one in prayer. But notice whom it is that is standing beside him, helping him talk with the Father. It is Jesus, as He is the bridge to the Father, it is through his sacrifice, it is through his humanity, it is through his relationship with the Father, that we have any access to God the Father at all.

Remember in the scriptures where Jesus, through whom we know these three persons, talks about the Father:

Amen, amen, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. Until now you have not asked anything in my name; ask and you will receive, so that your joy may be complete.

and

“If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

and

Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves.

In our geometry lesson we would say about the previous statement that if you have seen a cube you‘ve also seen the lines that make up the cube.

And of the Holy Spirit, the Advocate he says:

But when he comes, the Spirit of truth, he will guide you to all truth. He will not speak on his own, but he will speak what he hears, and will declare to you the things that are coming. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

And of himself:

I came from the Father and have come into the world. Now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father.

So it is we have a three personal God, one in being, three in persons who loves us and wishes us to know him. Don’t let the mystery of that statement put you off, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t know anything about him, He gives us hints and clues for us to know Him everywhere in life.

Its Father’s day and I would be remiss if I didn’t say anything about fathers here – so let me go on just a little about fatherhood.

Jesus talked a lot about his Father in heaven and he always used the term Father for his “father”. He didn’t use any other term to describe the relationship with the Father. He didn’t call him “brother” or “mother” or “friend”. He called him Father. In this he brought that relationship to a new height. He relayed to us what relationship we needed to have with our Fathers and what relationship we as fathers need to have with our children. It was a very loving relationship.

Jesus said:

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask for whatever you want and it will be done for you. By this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.

And

I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you. This I command you: love one another.

It would help if we could remember this on Father’s day, to remember that as the Father loves his Son, so his Son loves us. And all that He and his Father want is for us to love one another.

Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

Joseph and Christmas

Deacon Bruce Maltzen'sHomily for December 19,2010 4th Sunday in Advent, CYCLE A (readings found here)
Reading I Isaiah 7:10-14
Reading II Romans 1:1-7
Gospel Matthew 1:18-24

When I read this Gospel, I began to wonder about Joseph. Just what did I know about him? What did the scriptures say about him? Other than this paragraph or so in Matthew – we only have the following references to Joseph in the Bible
His lineage traced back to David and to Abraham given in Matthew 1:16 also in Luke Chapter 3 ending in

“Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah”

And in Luke 2 where he takes them to Bethlehem

And Joseph too went up from Galilee from the town of Nazareth to Judea, to the city of David that is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David to be enrolled with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child.

And the story of Joseph’s taking Mary and Jesus into Egypt in Matthew 2:13-14

“ When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him." Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt

You’d think that they’d give us a little more of a picture, but maybe that’s all they needed to say. And actually that’s quite a lot. It starts by saying he was the direct descendant of David – which fulfilled the messianic prophecy that the Messiah would be called the son of David. But its more than that. Look at what else it says:

Joseph was a righteous man, meaning that he followed the laws of Moses and kept the faith alive in his life. He more than likely had already put into effect in his life the law that Jesus would say later in Matthew what is the greatest of the commandments:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Remember also that the penalty for adultery (which Joseph could have exposed Mary to if he had not followed what the Angel had said ) was death by stoning. He rejected that – knowing that doing so would violate the greatest of all commandments, the commandment to reflect God’s love for us by loving each other. Instead he thought he would quietly divorce her, which would free him from this union and would not expose Mary to the penalty of the law.

But God had other plans for Joseph and Mary so He sent his angel to Joseph to tell him just who exactly Mary was carrying in her womb. You can imagine the surprise that Joseph had. Joseph receives a message directly from an Angel who had received it from God himself that Mary was carrying the long awaited Messiah. Joseph could have determined it was all just something he ate before going to bed, but remember that Joseph was a righteous man and feared God. He would not put aside a visit from an Angel so lightly. He believed that God worked among men in mysterious ways.

He knew that the Messiah was awaited, he knew the scriptures about the Messiah, he knew that all of Israel longed for and felt that the coming was upon them, he knew the stories of the angels and how they had many times in Israel’s history intervened in the life of God’s people. Joseph had to weigh all that and make a decision. Remember also on his mind was that by taking Mary into his home he was declaring the child to be his, which would greatly diminish his standing in the eyes of the community as having broken the vows of the betrothal- which was to be chaste before marriage.

My guess is he also didn’t go around telling people that he was visited by an angel. My guess is he did tell Mary because it confirmed what she had probably told him when it became evident that she was pregnant. She undoubtedly told him of what the Angel had told her and of being overcome by the Holy Spirit and, that she would bear a son and his name would be Jesus and he would be the Savior of his people.
Joseph was not without free will. There is no doctrine about his immaculate conception or sinlessness. Yet he responds with obedience, generosity and faith. He listened to this message from God told to him in a dream. He rose above his fear. He rose above his confusion. He did not know how the story was going to end other than knowing now that this child was going to save his people from their sins. The words -- HE DID AS THE ANGEL OF THE LORD COMMANDED HIM should be inspirational to all of us. And there begins the story of Joseph in Christmas – Joseph takes her into his home, which is the last step of the marriage process.

By taking Mary and the to be born child into his home he was adopting Mary’s child and in that adoption gave to him the lineage of David, all falling into God’s will. Both of them listening to God’s messages from the Angels, both of them hearing not only with their ears but also with their hearts and then placing themselves at the will of God and doing what his Holy Spirit led them to do.
Oh that we could gain that ability back again. Oh that we could become so open to God’s word that we could be called RIGHTEOUS. That we would actually stop and think about the ETERNAL ramifications of what we are doing? How many of you men in the congregation could look to your family and your friends and know that if they wrote about you, as they did about Joseph, that they would call you RIGHTEOUS in the best sense of that word; righteous as in thoughtful, faithful, ardent believer.
How many of us would listen to an Angel in our dreams tell us something that made no sense in the everyday world and THEN GO and do it? How many of us would just chalk it up to a bad night’s sleep?

We could you know. We could gain that attitude, that capability to know when God wants us to do something special, but it would take the courage of a Joseph and Mary, the love for God of a Joseph and Mary. Having a heart for good, having a mind focused on God, being steadfast and knowledgeable in our faith.

When will that Joseph time come for you? When will God’s messenger tap you on the shoulder and say, God has called you to a great endeavor, and he asks that you do something out of the ordinary, something that might seem a little different or not quite right for you in your life and to your friends and family, but is absolutely right and magnificently holy in His sight?

What would you do,… NO – I would like to rephrase that:

What WILL you do – as it WILL happen in your life, matter of fact - it may already have.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

On Being of Heroic Character

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's Homily for September 5, 2010 the 23rd SUNDAY in ORDINARY TIME, CYCLE C
(readings found here)
Reading I Wis 9:13-18b
Reading II Phmn 9-10, 12-17
Gospel Lk 14:25-33

(2)If I speak in human and angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a resounding gong or a clashing cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and comprehend all mysteries and all knowledge; if I have all faith so as to move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.

If I give away everything I own, and if I hand my body over so that I may boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.
(3) Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
(4) Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
(5) So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
In speaking of love, Paul is led by spontaneous association to mention faith and hope as well. They are already a well-known triad, three interrelated features of Christian life, more fundamental than any particular charism. The greatest . . . is love: love is operative even within the other members of the triad, so that it has a certain primacy among them. Or, if the perspective is temporal, love will remain, that is "never fails," even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession.
We all have read books that have an heroic character. You know the one that does something spectacular and saves the world, or saves a group of people from tragedy or death. We finish reading the story and we sit back and sigh, what a good book. We really wish that we were like that person, or had that experience.


We, though, seem to be stuck in lives that are never going to be heroic. We are weighed down by the responsibilities of feeding our families, doing our jobs, providing the things expected of us to everyone around us. We have given up the hope of being someone who “means something” in this world. Even if we have ‘made it” in our profession and are respected by others in our profession or by our family and friends we still see ourselves as not having completed or achieved those dreams we had.
This is what the writer of the book of Wisdom was talking about.

"For the deliberations of mortals are timid,
and unsure are our plans.
For the corruptible body burdens the soul
and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.
And scarce do we guess the things on earth,
and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty;
This is also why Christ says,
Which of you wishing to construct a tower
does not first sit down and calculate the cost
to see if there is enough for its completion?
Or what king marching into battle would not first sit down
and decide whether with ten thousand troops
he can successfully oppose another king
advancing upon him with twenty thousand troops?"

But Jesus’ intent her is not to stop us from attempting these things or reaching our dreams or being heroic but to look inward and determine what it is that we will be called on to do.
In other words, You cannot come here Sunday after Sunday and sit in the pew and just listen and then go home and not be changed and still expect to be welcomed at the pearly gates. Understand what Jesus is saying here – you MUST do something to rid yourself of the earthly ways, you must begin to take on the character and way of Jesus. You must put His way first over all others. Thus when he says

“If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sisters,
and even his own life,
he cannot be my disciple.”

He is saying that to single out only a few people to be reserved for your love is too narrow.
Once again, you cannot assume that by coming to Church on Sundays that you’ll gain heaven. In Mark’s Gospel, it says:

"Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at his words.
So Jesus again said to them in reply, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through (the) eye of (a) needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."
They were exceedingly astonished and said among themselves, "Then who can be saved?"
Jesus looked at them and said, "For human beings it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God."
Peter began to say to him, "We have given up everything and followed you." Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you, there is no one who has given up house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and for the sake of the gospel who will not receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come."

Remember that we believe in a God who is active and engaged in our lives. We believe in a God who loves us so much that he will NOT leave us in the position we currently are in.

God EXPECTS us to be heroic characters in HIS story. He expects us to continue to try to follow his son with all we have until we either succeed in doing his will to the fullest or we die in the attempt. He expects each and every one of us to be saints. If you look at your faith or your salvation with less than that, then you are not hearing what’s being said here Sunday after Sunday.

Yes – God is all loving and all merciful but he doesn’t want us to rely on his mercy for our laziness. He is not so loving as to leave us in the hands of the devil and temptation. He loves us so much that he wants each of us to be like His son Jesus.
I suppose the majority of us follow a lifestyle largely dictated by the surrounding culture and our goals are the goals of that culture and, somewhere on the side, we try to fit in some aspects of Christian living into our lives. In our modern society that lifestyle is for the most part competitive, consumerist and materialistic. We would not want our Christianity to get in the way of that. But it is precisely to people like us that Jesus is speaking.

The Gospel teaches us that the essential condition for true discipleship, demanded by Christ, was, and still is, total dedication, total commitment to Him. There can be no such person as a half-Christian. "He that is not with me is against me," He said on another occasion. We cannot be for Christ on Sunday and against Him for the remainder of the week. To be His true disciples, His true followers, we must live our Christian life every day and all day.

Following Christ means making our way to heaven. It is a life-journey. We have a limited time in which to complete this journey. Therefore, we must travel a certain distance each day. This does not mean that we must spend every day only in prayer and meditation. There are other tasks to be done, but we must Christianize these other tasks. Even the members of religious orders who "leave the world," that is, who are set free from family and financial cares of this world by their vows of chastity and poverty, have to busy themselves with other cares like teaching, nursing, tilling the soil perhaps, house-keeping, writing and many such activities. They cannot and do not spend all their day and every day in prayer and meditation. Nor does Christ demand this of them.

Therefore He demands less of this from the ninety-nine percent of His followers who have to take on financial and family cares. It is by fulfilling these worldly duties in a Christian way that we are dedicating ourselves to His service. This is our total commitment to Christ. The married man or woman who is loyal to his or her life-partner and to the family, if there is one, and who provides diligently and honestly for his own and the family's spiritual and temporal welfare, and who always does this with the intention of pleasing God, is following Christ and is moving steadily day by day towards heaven.

Obviously our Lord was just not at all interested in numbers, in keeping the crowds around Him by accommodating His views to theirs. But He is interested, desperately interested, in each human soul before Him, in seeing that person transformed into His genuine disciple, transformed, then, into His likeness by following Him. It was as if our Lord were saying to those there with Him in today’s Gospel,
“You are following me, but you do not know where I am going. Yes, I am on my way to Jerusalem, the Holy City, but not to sit in the seat of power. I go there not to climb the stairs of the palace but the hill of Calvary. I make my way to Jerusalem not to claim anything for myself, but to renounce myself, to renounce myself and give myself to God the Father, to renounce myself so utterly and fully that it can only be accomplished by offering up my life, by pouring out my own life. Do you go with me now? Have you counted the cost?”

In order to express loving someone over another, the Jews generally said they would “love” one and “hate” whoever was second or below. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus said the same truth in a perhaps clearer way, “Whoever loves Father and mother more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:37). Jesus was saying that there could only be one absolute in our life. Only one love could have primacy. Only one thing could have man’s ultimate obedience and affection. That is God.

This teaching of Jesus is therefore very concrete and leads to an examination of conscience. Do we love Jesus more than everyone else? Do we prefer Him to parents, to spouses, to children, to our own lives? Do we love Him with “all our mind, heart, soul, and strength,” or does something else get our mind, heart, soul, and strength? Jesus cannot be merely a part of our life. He cannot be just an important “ingredient” in our life, occupying an important “niche” in our personal portfolio. He must be God.

What Jesus keeps saying in His word is this: He is offering unimaginable riches and glory, a life that surpasses the highest desires of man, a freedom beyond compare, a joy that never ceases and immortality combined with all the perfections of His divinity. If you want to take up His offer, you must understand that everything has a price. A cheap reward is offered for a mediocre effort, but the reward that He offers can only be attained through a life in spent following His word. Those who reject His word will have continual disappointment.

The wise man is prepared to make sacrifices in order to obtain the good things of life; discipline is required in combination with perseverance. The fool is always complaining of his bad fortune but he does not make any efforts to succeed.

The greatest attachment of man is to his own self, his own opinion and his own image. He adorns his life with material possessions, and with all the evils of his self-love. Unless you are prepared to leave everything behind, you may not enter heaven. You see, He has opened the door but you can’t enter easily, you must die first, therefore you won’t be able to carry any material possessions in, as Fr. Carlson said a couple of weeks ago, he had a professor that told him that he had never seen a U-haul behind a hearse, you will have to get rid of all your personal attachments and loves and your love must be centered in God only.

Jesus has given us father and mother, brothers and sisters, and other people to be our friends, those who will love us and those that we will love. He has given us lots of material things to help us in our journey but nothing or no one of this world should receive more love than our creator. Therefore He asks us to be happy and enjoy the things of creation, to enjoy the love of our family and friends but He also asks us to remember His commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul and with all your strength. We are not to adulterate this love by loving ourself, others or things more than Him; He must be our greatest love.

We are not to despise His cross because that was His throne on earth, where together with His crown of sufferings He endured incomparable pains as the price of OUR salvation. He gives everyone a share of suffering, a little splinter of His cross so that we may be purified through suffering of our pride and disobedience.

So now you know the price that must be paid for Heaven, its been told you time after time from up here, and now you know something about the great rewards that await you. Now you must be wise and persevere in the work he gives us, the adventure he lays before us to be that heroic figure in his story. He is showing us the way, we need to just follow him.


Your brother in Christ,Deacon Bruce

Mother's Day 2010 Homily

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's Homily for May 9, 2010 6th SUNDAY in EASTER, CYCLE C

Being Mother’s Day – I need to tell you a story that both exemplifies the Gospel words, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our dwelling with them.” And the story lets us hear of the qualities of motherhood.

This woman was married early in life to a man of some means and influence. The man was not a Christian and though he said he believed in God, his religion was no more than a name. He had a violent temper and was not what we’d call an example of chastity and charity. The woman was a devote Christian and gave generously to the poor and spent generous amounts of time in prayer for her children and her husband. These habits annoyed her husband, but also made him hold her in reverence as he saw something in her that he wished he could be.

By her sweetness and patience she gathered other women around her who suffered as she did and taught them how to follow Christ more closely.

She had 3 children, a boy and two girls. Her husband refused to have the children baptized. The boy grew up to lead a lazy, wayward life. The woman continued to pray for all her children and her husband, but especially for her son. Eventually, her husband, seeing his wife’s peace and steadfastness in faith, became a Christian. Her son traveled away for his studies and fell into group where he began to commit grievous sins.

Later he joined a group who went so far as to present heresy as the true faith. When he came home from his studies abroad, he continued to profess these heresies at home. She made him leave the home, as she would not accept that at her table. Later, in prayer, she felt that she was supposed to call him back to her. After seventeen years of adulthood in continual resistance to her requests and prayers, the son finally yielded and was baptized. Her steadfastness in faith and prayer led him to write a book about his life, faith and conversion which is revered in the church today. She is St. Monica and her son is St. Augustine. The book he wrote is “Confessions”

She is a true example of being a Christian mother on this day when we extol all mothers.

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Now back to our gospel. An important concept in Christianity is the fact this world is not our home. Yes, we were born here, and we live out our natural lives here in this world, and we pay property taxes here—usually a sure sign that this is home. But the real us, our minds and souls and spirits rather than our physical flesh and bones, will not rest until we are with our Almighty Creator in Heaven for all eternity.

We are just passing through this world, strangers in a strange land. So Christians who understand this concept accept the fact we will never be able to experience perfect peace and serenity as long as we are in this fallen world. There is simply too much pain and suffering and despair and death.

Now, in the Gospel reading, Jesus tells the disciples and us

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

By this he states that the peace He gives us is radically different than our concepts of peace. What we consider peace and what God considers peace are two different things. For us, peace means not to have conflict, to not be at war, or to not have conflict or arguments with neighbors or family. But Christ called us into conflict with the world. He told us that He came to divide. He sends us into conflict. Still, God gives us peace. A different peace, this is a peace within each of us, a peace that only comes through union with Him. That peace would be a lack of fear about the future, a quietness of heart that is based upon a deep relationship with God.

We are not to be troubled. We are not to be afraid. How many times did Pope John Paul say that to us, “Do not be afraid”. Rather we are called to embrace the Lord and His Way. Then the Father and Son will love us, come to us and make their dwelling with us.

But we are afraid. We are afraid that if we abandon our pre-conceived notions of happiness we will be left with nothing. So we work like dogs not merely to provide for our families, but to purchase happiness. Isn’t that the message of our materialistic society? Happiness can be bought. Or can it? It takes a huge step to trust God to bring us happiness.

Life here on earth certainly is not pure torture, with every waking moment filled with despair and pain. It’s just that we all long for perfect peace and serenity, a feeling that everything, both in our personal lives and in our community, is safe and in harmony. A situation where there is no strife, no stress, and no worries—and never will be again. That is PERFECT peace. Deep down we all want it, and deep down we all know that whatever peace we do experience in this world will be either very fleeting or artificially induced. (Why do you think alcohol manufacturers are so wealthy and drug dealing is so lucrative? People crave comfort and serenity, even if it’s extremely temporary.)

The fact is we CAN experience peace and serenity in this world. Mind you, it won’t be the perfect and everlasting peace that awaits us in Heaven. Instead it will be a sample, a small taste of the wonderful peace and comfort and joy that we will experience forever. And the peace we can have in this world is a lot more real than the artificially induced type—plus you won’t have a hangover the next morning.

The important point is that this peace comes only from Jesus. He calls it “my peace,” and says “I leave (it) with you.” If we don’t look to Him for this peace, we’re not going to find it. And it makes sense if you think about it. Our hearts crave that perfect peace found only in Heaven. It only stands to reason that the One who came from Heaven is the only One who can give us a foretaste of that type of peace here on earth.

Finally, we must note that Jesus clearly says that His peace is “not as the world gives.” And before we continue, let’s be clear about the definition of “the world.” When speaking of “world” or “worldly,” Jesus means the secular value system that is focused on short-term physical pleasure, power, and prestige. It is a view that ignores the eternal truths of Heaven and mankind’s spiritual dimension—our need for a relationship with our Creator. In short, the values of the “world” are selfish and shallow and unfulfilling and therefore – even if we get to experience the world’s peace, we will never see it as such.

The world offers many enticements, all of which promise to provide peace and comfort and happiness. But it’s all a lie. These promises couldn’t be more false if they came via unsolicited email from a supposedly former high-ranking finance minister in the Nigerian government who wants to transfer several million dollars into your account to hold, if you’d only send him your account number and social security number. Just think of some of the worldly things people chase after today:

We look for comfort in food. Instead we get obesity and poor health.

We look for fulfillment in casual sex. Instead we get disease, shattered emotions, destroyed families, and oftentimes death.

We look for security in money. Instead we get worry, exhaustion, and the all-too-common paranoia that comes with trying to hold on to the wealth we have.
We look for prestige in being beautiful. Instead we become obsessed with appearances and depressed that the aging process cannot be stopped.

The peace that Jesus gives can be ours—IF we realize it is based on His view of reality, not the false view promoted by “the world.” And it’s not a complicated formula. We simply need to stop focusing on ourselves for a change and, instead, focus on Christ and bask in the love He offers us, we will have peace.

A great Christian paradox is that we will never be happy if we are focused on happiness; we will never be at peace if all we think about is finding peace. You see, happiness and peace are by-products of being in a proper relationship with the Lord.

We must deny ourselves—stop being so self-centered all the time and stop comparing ourselves to others so often. If we look upward to Jesus, rather than inward to ourselves, and focus on Him, we will have peace and serenity. It won’t be the overwhelming PERFECT peace and serenity that await us in Heaven, but it will be a whole lot better than the false promises of this world.

Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

God's Mercy

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for March 21, 2010
[5th SUNDAY in Lent, Cycle C]

(readings found here)
Reading I Is 43:16-21
Reading II Phil 3:8-14
Gospel Jn 8:1-11

While I was writing this homily I was reminded of the deacon who’s son was watching him prepare a homily. The son asked him, “Dad, how do you know what to write?” “Well,” said the deacon, “I listen to the Holy Spirit, and He tells me what to write.” The son then asked “Dad, then why do you cross out so much?”

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Whenever I read this Gospel, I always have 2 questions. First - What did Jesus scribble in the sand? My guess - nothing he was truly “scribbling” – he was waiting for them to take in what they were going to do, to let the anger and hatred calm a little, let the fires of religiosity and self righteousness burn out and release and then let his words of truth work on them…

2nd why didn’t Jesus condemn the woman caught in adultery? Why didn’t tell her she hadn’t lived up to the law? Was it because he knew she was repentant? She had been humiliated, probably harassed, called every name in the book and some not in the book on the way and was expecting to die from stoning. Then they bring her to this great prophet Jesus. Wouldn’t he accuse her also? But he didn’t – he let her go with the simple admonition – go and sin no more!

Maybe we need to look at a pattern here?

2 weeks ago for our 3rd Sunday of Lent Gospel – We find that a fig tree was not bearing fruit and the Master said to cut it down. The gardener on the other hand said, No, let it go and I will fertilize it for another year. Then if it’s not bearing fruit – I’ll cut it down.

Last week for our 4th Sunday of Lent Gospel – the Prodigal son (prodigal family as Fr Zehren called them) the ones who go astray, the ones who have sinned, if they so desire to come back should be welcomed back.

This week in our Gospel it’s the woman who was caught in adultery who is going to be stoned, but after they meet Jesus there is no one left to condemn her. Seems to be a parallel here. A story about repentance and mercy. Hmmmm… Lent – repentance, Reconciliation – mercy?

How much different are the Scribes and the Pharisees from the Older Brother of the prodigal son or the master seeing the fig tree? How different is the woman from the fig tree or the younger brother?
How does this story of Jesus life and the parables reflect the chosen people, the Jews? Aren’t they the prodigal son, aren’t they the fig tree, aren’t they the woman? How about us, are we the woman, the Pharisees, the scribes, the fig tree, the prodigal son, the older son?

How does Jesus treat all of them in this Gospel and in the parables?

The Scribes and Pharisees and the older brother come off as arrogant, and domineering. Yet, in the parable last week, the father talks to the older brother kindly reminding him that everything he has is his; that he should also welcome back the prodigal son/brother. Here, in our Gospel today, Jesus does not reprimand the Scribes or the Pharisees, he just indicates that they, who also sin and represent the chosen of God, the Jews, have sinned in the past, yet God forgave them. That perhaps, given the time to cool down and come off their high horses, they might have compassion and mercy also.

But, before we ourselves sit in judgment on them, we might sincerely ask how many of us would have acted differently than they did in this particular case? How would many of us react if we discovered a spouse, a son or daughter, not to mention a stranger or public figure, in an adulterous relationship?
The woman in this story is not just an isolated sinner. She represents all of us. She represents every person who has sinned. She represents you and me. And the Scribes and Pharisees, who were sinners too, they also represent you and me. We sin in both ways: when we hurt others by indulging our desires at their expense and when we hurt others by setting ourselves up as superior to others. If we had been there that day, what would we have done? Would we have condemned the guilty woman too? Even during the past week, how many people have we condemned in our hearts or in our thoughts and our words? Are we regular readers of newspapers or watchers of TV which delight in trashing people and destroying their lives? How many people have we ourselves passed judgment on? On the other hand, to how many have we extended a hand of love and compassion?

Notice Jesus does not deny that she sinned. Nor does she deny it. The realization exists between them that she has sinned and that she is deeply sorry for that sin. But let’s not forget that the original intent of the Pharisees and Scribes was not to judge this woman and to stone her, but to test Jesus! And what happened in the Gospel from 1st week in Lent? That’s when Satan himself tempted Jesus while he was in the desert. And what happened then?

From the Gospel of the 1st week in Lent -
Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days, to be tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and when they were over he was hungry.

From today’s Gospel -
“Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of committing adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” They said this to test him, so that they could have some charge to bring against him.

The scribes and Pharisees hope to condemn Jesus in his own words. You see, if he agrees with Moses, he belies his own teaching and his way always of being with sinners; but, if he rejects the Law of Moses, he can be denounced as not a man of God.

Again from the Gospel of the 1st week in Lent -
And Jesus said to him in reply, “It also says, “You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test.” And testing him they are, but Jesus replies, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

To the scribes and Pharisee’s credit, not one of them took up the challenge. One by one, beginning from the most senior, they slipped quietly out of his sight. This is the first teaching of today's Gospel: only one without sin can sit in judgment on another person. And Jesus is the only one there without sin. Doesn’t the saying go: “people who live in glass houses should not throw stones.” Yet, don’t we do this all the time?

Unlike the Pharisees and Scribes, upholders of the Law, Jesus refuses to condemn her. Rather he gives her an opportunity to repent, to convert and to change her ways. Jesus came not to condemn but to save, to rehabilitate, to give new and enduring life. Jesus always leaves a door open. Our instinct is to punish and even destroy wrongdoers. Every day we see the media condemning and even claiming to be "shocked" by the misdemeanors of the famous and the not so famous. How do we think Jesus would deal with such people? If God acted like the Pharisees, how many times would we have been condemned or stoned? But, no matter how many times we sin, no matter how seriously we sin, even if the whole of society condemns us and expresses horror and revulsion at our behavior, God calls us to start over again, to change our ways of seeing life and other people. How often does he do this? Once or twice? No, but seventy times seven times he told Peter! In other words, indefinitely.

" Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not; see, I am doing something new!" says Isaiah in today's First Reading.

This was also the experience of Paul, also once a zealous Pharisee. Paul knew that God had forgiven his sin, the sin of persecuting the disciples of Jesus (in the name of God and religion, it may be noted). He realizes now that it is not a question of becoming a morally perfect person by his own efforts. For him to have a close relationship with Jesus is the most precious thing in life as he so eloquently states in his letter to the Phillipians (our second reading)

“For his sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God”

Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

Our Domestic Church

Deacon Bruce's
Homily for Sunday December 27, 2009
[Holy Family Sunday Cycle C]
Sirach 3:2-6, Col 3:12-21, Luke 2:41-52

Today is Holy Family Sunday – the one Sunday of the year where we look at the family that Jesus grew up in. So who is this Holy Family that we are celebrating today? I guess that most everyone can answer that question. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, or JMJ as some might remember writing on the upper right hand corner of their school papers.
And what was this Holy Family doing in the Gospel? They were fulfilling their duty as faithful parents. Presentation of children was an essential practice to devout Jews. Mary and Joseph were just that, devout, holy, God fearing; brought up to respect their God and follow the time honored traditions of their faith.

The Holy Family shared in the love of Christ for the Church. They had been brought up in their faith which professed a profound love of God for the people of God and God expected them to return that love by loving others. That was especially true within the family. As it says in our second reading:

Put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another.

Is this what the Gospel is asking of us; to be devout, faithful followers of Christ? Of course, that is what the Gospel is about. The Church also calls us to this on this Sunday, to review ourselves in light of our response to our faith; to view our family in light of the Holy Family.

But wasn't it a lot easier to be faithful back then? Wasn't it a lot easier to be family back then?

Back then, their culture was deeply steeped around the family. Family grew up and stayed in the same small area. People didn't pull up their roots and transplant themselves hundreds of miles away. They weren't transferred across the continent to another job. They didn't have the constant barrage of materialistic ads and constantly morally degrading influence of most of the media we get today.
There were no iPods that silently infiltrated suggestive stanzas and no movies that tickled the eyes with blatant sexuality. Elders were held in esteem for the wisdom they had gained through the experience of a lifetime, within the family.
The family molded and shaped the children's lives, and family meant extended family, aunts, uncles, grandparents, grandchildren, cousins, nephews and nieces. All these people knew each other and knew where they came from. There was no hiding of anything from them.

The family back then in the time of Mary and Joseph kicked in when troubles came, closing the circle of love around the family in need. Children played games that were about life experiences not mystical characters in mystical lands. The history of the family was passed down from generation to generation, from grandparent to grandchild.

You knew where you fit into the family, not worried about what you looked like or how they would view you. And the family was always available to help.

So what have we today?

Families spread across many states that don't know each other, but inwardly want to. Families who don't even know when a member is in trouble, and children who no longer esteem the elders because they are "too old" and "they don't understand " the way life is now.

It is no longer enough to bring your children up to be famous athlete’s (as we see in Tiger Woods), nor is it enough to bring them up to be powerful Lawyers (as we have seen in Eliot Spitzer), nor is it enough to bring them up to be financial wizards (as we saw in Bernie Madoff), but it is important to bring them up as faithful, spiritually strong citizens of God’s kingdom We now more than ever need heroes like John Paul II, Mother Theresa.

So, isn’t it so hard to be a Holy Family that only Jesus, Mary and Joseph could be one? What do we do then, give up? That’s what parent’s seem to do, they give up by trying to run around keeping up with the culture by investing more time taking their kids TO things than in talking with them, by buying more things for them than in investing in their eternal life, by finding more and more "social events" and having no really meaningful relationships. We have had our holy family culture torn from us in less than a century.

We should be looking for support for our family and our faith (what the family used to do) by finding others around us who can share our faith, and building on those relationships. By joining with them and trying to become family again. By trying to bring together again our own families.

We should be spending time talking about our faith and traditions with our children (and children should be asking about those things from their parents). We should be about re-instituting old family traditions or making new ones, by celebrating special AND ordinary events with each other.

How many parents really know their children today. If left alone could you trust your children not to get into trouble? How many parents spend time finding out their children’s wants but more so their needs both physically and spiritually? How many parents share their faith with their children on a regular basis? How many parents actually pray with their children – on a regular basis?

Blessed Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Blessed Maria Corsini were a married couple with 4 children who were beatified in 2001. The Beltrame children recall that their parents led a simple life, like that of many married couples, but always characterized by a sense of the supernatural. Cardinal Martins, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, said that they "made a true domestic church of their family, which was open to life, to prayer, to the social apostolate, to solidarity with the poor and to friendship".

The catechism states that it is the task of the parents to prepare their children in the faith. How many of us actually take the time to do that. Do you know your faith enough to do that? The catechism states that family members actually carry out the Church’s mission by fostering mutual love in the home, and through that love, by building up the community of the Church and through that society itself. How many of us make that our first priority?

The Catechism says that the family is the domestic church:

“The Christian family forms an environment within which faith is professed and witnessed. When family members pray together, engage in lifelong learning, forgive one another, serve each other, welcome others, affirm and celebrate life, and bring justice and mercy to the community, they help each other live the faith and grow in faith. Some families may not understand themselves as themselves as a domestic church. Perhaps they consider their family too broken to be used for the Lord’s purposes. (But this is the important part to hear) They need to remember that A FAMILY IS HOLY NOT BECAUSE IT IS PERFECT, BUT BECAUSE GOD’S GRACE IS AT WORK IN IT.”

By being a holy family – by being a family steeped in its faith, relying on God’s Grace and by partaking in the sacraments as a family, we can become an example of THE Holy Family. We can become an example to the rest of our extended families, our communities and all of society. And by being an example, we can begin to ensure that our family will survive in its faith, and that the Church (our true home and family) will grow and become more like the Holy Family in every way.

It may sound trite or old-fashioned, but what we need most is to BECOME family again - Holy Family - so that we can allow Jesus to be born anew in us, just as he was in history. Maybe then our lives will flourish within the safety of family, maybe then vocations (vocations to the priesthood and diaconate, vocations to religious life – yes, but even vocations to saintly chaste marriage) will return and flourish, maybe then God will bless us as we present ourselves in His temple, as we attempt to become members of his Holy Family.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

Be Opened!

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for September 6, 2009
[23 SUNDAY in ORDINARY TIME, CYCLE B]
Is 35:4-7a; Jas 2:1-5; Mark 7:31-37

With today’s Gospel reading we enter into a central part of Mark’s Gospel. The section begins with the healing of a deaf man and ends with the healing of a blind man. These are not just miracle stories about Jesus’ power but have a teaching purpose. Here in today’s gospel, a man is brought for Jesus to heal. He was deaf and he had an impediment in his speech.

The healing process that Jesus uses is almost like a ritual and, in fact, it was. Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ear and puts spittle (saliva) on his tongue. In Mark 8:23 he puts spittle on a blind man’s eyes and he is healed.

You know, as a side note, saliva actually contains a chemical that aids in the healing of wounds. It is called histatin. And even though the mouth is full of bacteria, wounds in the mouth heal much more quickly than those in other locations, such as the skin and bones. Saliva has also been discovered to contain many proteins with antibodies that work against infection. A protein called lysozyme can actually break down bacteria and neutralize it. I guess moms must know this instinctively, because how many of us have been mortified as a child, when our moms spit-cleaned a smudge or a cut on us, because there was no water available? Notice how God seems to have made everything good?

So, Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ear and puts spittle on his tongue. At the same time He looked heavenward – to his Father – and said, in Aramaic, "Ephphatha!, Be opened!".
Immediately the man was healed: he could hear and speak perfectly. The people around him were astounded. They cried out almost in chorus: "He has done all things well; he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak." They were echoing the lovely words from Isaiah in our First Reading: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy." This is to indicate that the future promised by the prophet Isaiah has now arrived in Jesus.

The WAY that Jesus heals the man is a model to us of the Sacrament of Baptism. Through the gift of faith which precedes adult Baptism, our ears are opened to hear the Word of God and our tongues are loosened to speak about Christ to others. It is part of the baptism ceremony for the priest or deacon to touch the ears and the mouth of the person being baptized. This is during the prayer called the Ephphatha prayer which goes:
“The Lord made the deaf to hear and the dumb to speak. May He soon touch your ears to receive his word and your mouth to proclaim his faith, to the praise and glory of God the Father”

Baptism is a sign of our incorporation into the Body of Christ, his Church. It involves a total commitment on our part to the way of life that Jesus calls us to follow. A central part of that commitment is a growing openness to hear what Jesus says to us and a growing ability to be able to share our faith with others. Unlike the man in the Gospel story we don’t normally find ourselves immediately endowed with these gifts.

If we are honest, many of us are not very good at either listening or speaking, where God is concerned. Some have even stopped hearing. In catechism class they heard all about the 7 sacraments, the 10 commandments of God, the 7 deadly sins and they now feel there is nothing more to learn.

They may not realize it but they have become deaf! And, being deaf, they cannot speak either. They have nothing of worth to say, nothing to share. And it is not infrequent to meet Catholics who are highly qualified in their secular profession but are basically illiterate in their faith. What really is distressing is that, in their ignorance, they are often not slow to pontificate on what Catholicism is about.

Others, though, are good at listening. They want to know more about the meaning of Jesus and his Gospel in the changing circumstances of their lives. But they, too, though good at hearing may do very little speaking, very little sharing. Yet, to hear the Word of God and not to proclaim it is, in the mind of the Gospel writer, a contradiction. As Jesus pointed out in Matthew 5:14-16

You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.

In the Gospel, to really hear the Word of God is to carry it out. "Hearing" implies: listening, understanding, making the message one’s own and living it out in word and action.
Although Jesus tried to stop the man in today’s Gospel from telling others, the cured man and all those around proclaimed what had happened everywhere they went. Really they just had to do it. After all, he was now hearing and he was now able to share with others what he had heard and experienced. If we were really excited about the Good News of Jesus Christ, if we were as excited as the deaf man after he was cured, if we were really excited about the experience of having the Catholic vision of life, we would have to do exactly the same.

If we were like the disciples after Pentecost, if our being Christian was truly a deep and impacting experience and not just a set of doctrines to be conformed to, we too could not keep ourselves from letting other people know.

The problem is that for a long time we have been told that our religion is something personal between ourselves and God: being morally good, keeping in the state of grace, going to Church at fixed times and receiving the Sacraments. But our faith is more than that.

Have we heard Jesus talking to us, giving us the message yet? Have we, for instance, heard today’s Second Reading? How do we treat different kinds of people in our society? If we are honest, we know that there have been times when we have treated people in exactly the way James describes: excessively eager to our well-off friends or people we think are important and off-hand and even rude to strangers, especially those who are obviously at the lower rung of society.

What are our attitudes to wealth and poverty?
Which people do we regard as really rich and enriching?
What kind of wealth are we in pursuit of?

Our answers to these questions will tell us how much we have really heard the Word of God. They will also tell us how we communicate to others by our words and our actions and attitudes.
Yes, we are often deaf and we are often dumb. We have lost the capacity both to hear and to speak. We have lost the ability to recognize the voice of God calling to us in the many changing situations of life, both good and bad.

Jesus took him away from the crowd. He touched his ears and his mouth and said, "Be open". And the man left singing the praises of God to the world.

There is a great deal of noise in our lives, but not just in the sense of sound. There is noise in the sense of disturbance--like static on the phone line. The radio, the TV, the phone, the kids, the neighbors, those driving down the street with their radios on overkill, are all audio noises, but there is also noise or disturbance, created by the continual worrying about tomorrow, the hanging on to the issues of the past. Noise.

Noise in our lives: "Did you see what she was wearing to Church? Guess who just broke up? Noise, all of it Noise. Mom, Dad, can I have.....? can I go......? would you buy me......?” Arguments over who played what role in a movie, or who did what on a sports team, or what to have for dinner or where to go. The phone rings, "You have a tremendous opportunity to save money now by having your driveway resurfaced this week." Or “We have a special offer, we can let you have one year of three magazines for price of just one.” While the TV rumbles in the background offering a cream to make you look 10 years younger, a device that will save you time when you plant your garden, a work from home opportunity that will have you making thousands of dollars a week within 1 month. NOISE, ALL NOISE.

And Jesus took the man away from the crowd, away from the noise. He took him to have a personal encounter with the Messiah. He calls us away from the crowd, away from the noise to his quiet.

Quiet before the Lord is so important.
--Just a few moments before Mass,
--out of respect for the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament,
--out of respect for the needs of others to get away from the noise,
--out of respect for our own need to listen to the Lord in the quiet.

Quiet in our homes.
--Fifteen minutes of quiet, before the morning gets going,
--or after the kids are in bed,
--or together as a family,
--just a little time to get away from the noise.
-- A little time with the Lord so he can touch us
-- A little time to read the scriptures
-- A little time to listen to his voice
-- A little time to enjoy his presence
-- A little time to enjoy his creation in a sunrise or a lightning storm or in a clear night’s sky

He touched the man's ears and he said, "Be opened."
He calls us to hear.
Hear the still small voice Elijah heard,.
Hear the whisper of Christ on the cross, telling us that even in the darkest moments of our lives that He will be there to help us get through it.
Hear the voice of Mary, reassuring the concerned wine steward at the wedding feast of Cana, and reassuring us, saying, "Do whatever he tells you."
Hear the voice of our conscience within, calling us to the new life of the Lord's love, calling us to holiness.
Hear the Word of God alive in the scriptures proclaimed in the Church
He touched the man's mouth and said, "Be opened".
He tells us not to be afraid to stand up for our beliefs and our lifestyle, even if we are told that we are not in concert with modern society.
He says that he needs our voices. He needs us to proclaim that he is indeed alive and with us.
He opens our mouths to proclaim his praise to the world.

He drew the man away from the crowd. He touched his ears and his mouth and he said, "Be opened." And the man left proclaiming the love of God.
He touched him.
He wants to touch us.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

A Great Place to Find Peace

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for March 8, 2009
2nd SUNDAY in Lent, CYCLE B

In the past several months we’ve all encountered in our lives things that have added most likely immense stress. Perhaps you’ve either seen people laid off from their jobs at your work, or worse, you’ve been laid off. If you’re saving for retirement you may have seen your 401K nosedive about 50%. If you have credit cards, you may have seen the interest rate on them double and even triple even though you’ve been making your payments on time. You probably have noticed things becoming tighter and tighter in your budget as the costs begin to creep up. With all this stress, you may have noticed that people are more easily angered, quick to retort or even “looking for a fight”. Life seems to have sped up, with the weeks seeming to fly by without a chance to catch up on the important things – like quiet time and peaceful moments.

Do you feel that you need a place to go and just be quiet, a place where no one will try to ask you questions or tell you about the miseries of daily life? Where no one will try to tell you what to do?

That place exists. It’s in the chapel behind you, the place we call the Adoration Chapel. In it we take the time to just be quiet, to just relax in God’s hands, to allow you a moment of peace in this world. There you can let Him take care of you for that moment, let him soothe you with His loving embrace, let Him calm you with His peace. It is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week (except during Mass) and it is there that He waits for you.

I know, I know, some of you are saying to yourself, “When in my day do I have time for that?” OR “That’s that prayer thing again, it’s just not for me”, OR “I can do that at home, why should I come here?”

Well, in answer to those, 1) you have time for anything you make a priority and shouldn’t peace and calm in your life be a priority? Or do you like having that background anger and stress roll about you all day? 2) Yes it is that prayer thing, but isn’t that what we are about? Isn’t that why you’re here today? Yes – prayer is for you, it is talking to God, and if you can’t talk to God about your life, who do you know that can help you and that you CAN talk to? And 3) yes you can do this at home, but it won’t be in that wonderful, amazing, beautiful presence of the most awesome person, the one who died for us when we didn’t deserve it. Here you can be face to face with God, something you can’t do anywhere else. Here you can talk directly to him in his physical presence, and He will listen.
We are fortunate here at Epiphany to have perpetual Adoration. Here we have Jesus available for that peaceful moment every day, every hour. But the only reason we have it is because a lot of people have signed up to take one hour a week, 1 hour out of 168 hours in that week, that comes out to 6 tenths of 1 percent of the week to spend it here in the Adoration Chapel on a regular basis so that others may also enjoy that peace, that tranquility, that moment of calm in their week.
What we are asking you to do, is try this out. Sign up to spend an hour in Jesus’ presence in either prayer or silence or reading. This hour that you spend with Jesus can be spent in any way you want –with your own favorite prayer book, reading the Scriptures, praying the Rosary, speaking to Jesus heart to heart as one does with a friend, or you may be so tired, troubled or worn out that you may just want to sit and relax and enjoy the peace that comes from simply being in his presence.
You may find that you want to spend your hour there in the night time, as that may be the only time you have available. This time spent there at night is especially peaceful and strengthening. You may find it more restful than some of the fitful sleeping you get at night.

Remember that sacrifice is the language of love. Christ sacrificed his life so that we might gain eternal life with Him. Here we can take a moment of that time and perhaps sacrifice an hour of our sleep to be with him.

Jesus wants nothing more than a chance to be with you, to listen to you and to talk to you. The least you can do is give him that chance. Give it a try, see what benefits your life will receive, if only 1 hour of peace and quiet.

I want to thank you for the wonderful response that you make today and leave you with one thought. We all hope one day to see God the Father face to face. On that day He will welcome his children with open arms and embrace them and spend eternity loving and caring for His children. What a chance to now to begin that relationship.


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

The Intention of Marriage

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for December 28, 2008
Holy Family Sunday
(readings found here)

It’s Holy Family Sunday and Archbishop Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis has asked all of us to preach on the sacredness and purpose of marriage. Actually, what he said was:
“I am grateful to our priests and deacons for their willingness to preach about the sacred purpose of marriage and family life on Sunday, Dec. 28. This law “written in our hearts” is what we refer to as the natural law. It is “natural” because, being perceived by human reason, it is our participation in the eternal law of God. While independent of revelation, it can be further illuminated by it.

There are different expressions of the moral law: eternal law, natural law, revealed law, ecclesiastical law and civil law. These last two, ecclesiastical and civil laws, are established by human reason and participate, to one extent or another, in the will of God for human happiness and fulfillment.

When addressing his epistle to the Romans, St. Paul acknowledged that while non-Jews do not have the benefit of the Mosaic (revealed) law, nevertheless, they do have a law “written in their hearts” (Romans 2:15). This law of our hearts guides the consciences of men and women in knowing right from wrong so that their actions, too, can be judged by God at the end of time.

Our understanding of marriage as a union between one man and one woman, ordered to the good of the spouses and the procreation and education of children, is known to us by the natural law. The complementarity of the sexes was determined by God in the beginning as an essential element of his wise, creative order. As the Second Vatican Council teaches, “The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by Him with its own proper laws . . . . God himself is the author of marriage” (“Gaudium et Spes,” 48.1).Thus, marriage is not merely a human institution, subject to changing mores. The civil laws that society in its collective wisdom has established regarding marriage between one man and one woman are intended to protect and safeguard the cultural context for the growth, education and well-being of the children who are born from the marital union. Governments, in their duty to ensure the common good, ought to know that society has much at stake in fostering family life according to the natural order. Any government should be leery of altering such civil laws, especially on the basis of a misguided notion of inclusiveness. Marriage, as intended by God from the beginning, is the proven way of establishing society’s welfare. “

We in the Catholic Church understand that Marriage is a Sacrament. To understand that, we must first understand what is meant by "Sacrament". The Catechism states: Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification

According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the sacraments are not mere signs; they do not merely signify Divine grace, but in virtue of their Divine institution, they cause that grace in the souls of men. -- a sign producing grace, is a good, succinct definition of a sacrament of the New Law. Sacrament, in its broadest acceptance, may be defined as an external sign of something sacred.

Back to the Sacrament of Marriage… In this Sacrament we should see reflections of something larger than ourselves. This is a Sacrament, that is a sign or touchstone or intervention into our normal everyday lives of God's presence with and in us. It is where God becomes one with us, and makes a covenant with us, a pledge to us, to promise to be with us in all things.
You see, Christ is a sacrament of God, that is He makes God the Father more visible , that is, He makes God's love for us visible and touchable. He is the sign of God, the Covenant with God. Marriage, then is a Sacrament of Christ, making Christ more visible, that is Christ's love more visible and touchable .

What a concept. To share the love that God shares. A gift that only can come from God. That is why this is a sacrament, to receive the Love shared between the Father and Son as John's Gospel states, " So that they may be one, as we are one…". That husband and wife can share that very same love. All it takes is belief, hearing and doing the Word of God. Can we believe Jesus? If you can, then what He says must be true, and therefore it is possible to share that love that Jesus talks about. We MUST become one in that same love so that we can reflect the Father's glory in His Son. So that in this unity, this oneness, we can become a beacon for the rest of the world. That husband and wife can become that light, that beacon of love for the rest of the family. Seeing this light, this Love, the rest of the family desires that light and love shared between husband and wife, shared with Jesus the Son who shares it with the Father in heaven. With this immense and unlimited love abiding in the couple, they should be able to surmount all the difficulties that may arise. They should be able to not only have love enough for their family, but should be able to extend that love beyond their family to the world that is so in need of love today.

And the world is definitely in need of all married couples to reflect God's love, example it to them. Today's culture does NOT support a sacramental marriage. Today's culture says "Live together and if it gets bad, just call it quits". Today's culture is about multiple lifestyle's and getting what's yours and looking out for myself. Today's culture is not supportive of sacrificial love, of giving oneself for another. Today's culture does not support the idea of spending your life in love for another.

Today's culture looks at marriage as a state recognized tax status, as an agreement to pool resources, as a security transaction to prevent loneliness, as a hedge against old age alone.
Marriage in the church is something far different from what the world thinks it is. You start marriage pledging that you will be "true to each other in good times and bad, in sickness and health, to love and honor each other for all the days of your lives." Marriage is more than consenting to live together and share your lives. It is a consenting to be a reflection of God's love. It is a consenting to be a beacon of God's light to a world which seems steeped in darkness.
In this Sacrament of love, a love shared between three (bride, groom and God) we proclaim God's love for us and God enters into this Covenant in the form of His Son. It is only in this way that this bringing together of two people can have life, life through and in Christ. Without him in this covenant, it is no longer a covenant but just an agreement, a license. But with him, Oh what love can be shared by two.

It is important to understand the marriage vows as the Church does
· Sacred
· Permanent
· Indissoluable (that cannot be dissolved, broken up, lasting, durable)

Love is not so much a decision as it is an encounter with another. In my life, I found that to be true. I did not have so much love that I knew or chose to give it to Pat, my wife of 31 years. When I encountered Pat, it sprang from somewhere within. It grew from a model of an encounter that had occurred in the past and was on-going. It grew from an encounter with an all-loving God.

In "Deus Caritas Est (God is Love)", Pope Benedict says that being Christian is not the result of making an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the result of an encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction. As Pope Benedict says in the encyclical, “there is a relationship between love and the Divine; love promises infinity, eternity – a reality far greater and totally other than our everyday existence.”


Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce

Render Unto Caesar...

Deacon Bruce Maltzen's
Homily for October 19, 2008
29th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle A
readings here

In our Gospel for today, as he does so often in the Scriptures, our Lord speaks to those who were in his time, and to every age, to those who become ensnared in competing loyalties and forget that power and authority belong to God whose is omnipotent. Those in power rule at God's good pleasure, as indicated in our first reading

I have called you by your name,giving you a title, though you knew me not.I am the LORD and there is no other,there is no God besides me. It is I who arm you, though you know me not,so that toward the rising and the setting of the sun people may know that there is none besides me.I am the LORD, there is no
other.

And John in his Gospel chapter 19 verse 11 lays it out even clearer, when he quotes Jesus as saying, "You would have no power...unless it had been given you from above." Jesus Christ is the universal king; we are blessed to share in that authority.We may then ask, “What obligation do we have to the state and what obligation do we have to God?” For the first part, Christ tells us, "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar." We have a civic duty to support our government. We have a civic duty to the country in which we live.

For example, it's O.K. and right to pay taxes. Of course it is, Jesus did not say – don’t pay Caesar anything. One of the things tax money does is builds roads. The street in front of your home and Hanson Boulevard right out front of our church was paid for by taxes. So was Highway 10 and I-94. It also pays for a lot more, such as Medicare and Social Security, Police and Fire, Health services, and our physical security.

It's also O.K. and right to serve in the military. When our government calls us for the armed forces, it is our civic duty to serve. While today no country is strong enough to directly attack the United States, some countries around the world greatly dislike our country. We’ve lived through the terrorist attacks of 9-11. Our Armed Forces are engaged in combat. We have a right to defend ourselves and those who cannot defend themselves, and the military does that, it defends us.

It's O.K. and right to be responsible citizens. When chosen for jury duty, we disrupt our daily routine and hear the evidence and render a verdict on the guilt or innocence of a person charged with a crime. Some seek public office, serving on the city council or the board of education or even higher offices. Taking time from our personal lives to answer a public need is OK. Everyone needs to exercise their rights as citizens by voting on Election Day. It is part of our responsibility as citizens.As Christians, we have an obligation to shape our city, our state and our country into something pleasing to God. To applaud and support the good our government does and to criticize the bad in our government.

We have in our own day an abundance of conflicts between the Church and the state. The question often is, “Is the issue a matter of political importance or a religious issue?” If it's deemed political, many believe, the Church should have nothing to say. Attempts to squelch the word of God go back to the beginning of salvation history. The prophets were put to death for speaking God's truth long before the Pharisees and Herodians of today’s Gospel tried to entrap and silence Christ.

As October is Respect Life Month, I would like to take the respect life issue as the current issue of social justice which is in the debate between the Church and the state. As Catholics, we value all human life from the moment of conception to natural death because we are all created in God's image, redeemed by Christ, and called to everlasting life. Therefore every human being, no matter what our condition in life, whether handicapped, advanced in age, unborn, unable to take care of themselves, abused or neglected, EVERY HUMAN BEING is sacred and precious in God's sight because we were molded with His image.

In a culture that legalizes taking the life of an unborn child, we see our obligation to God, to form human prayer chains on the streets, to stand across from abortion clinics and pray for the unborn, to assist those who cannot take care of themselves, to defend those who by themselves are defenseless, to care for those who receive no care. In the midst of a society that debates assisted suicide, we proclaim that all life is precious and we seek laws to defend all life.

I would like to say that I am preaching to the choir, but I have received multiple letters from Catholics that say abortion is an issue that the Church should stay out of, or at least not talk about during an election cycle. They say that the Church should stop trying to convince voters to vote one way or another. It is said by them that the Church should be silent on this issue.
The Church however says that respect for human life, in fact, is a moral issue, and when the laws of the country are immoral, and they attack the laws of God and the sacredness of human life, then Godly people should shout from every rooftop, priests and deacons should preach from every pulpit, and every believing man and woman should speak out and protest. "Render...to God the things that are God's."

All human life is sacred, from the hands of the creator. Psalm 139 says, "For you formed my inward parts, you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for you are fearful and wonderful, wonderful are your works O Lord!" When Caesar's laws are an abomination before God, then it is Caesar who must change.

The Catholic Church strives to be a prophetic voice, speaking out to protest injustices and indignities against the human person. Catholics will continue in this work, whether our words are popular or unpopular.

From the “Declaration on Procured Abortion”,by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1974), paragraphs 11-12.

"The first right of the human person is his life . . . It does not belong to society, nor does it belong to public authority in any form to recognize this right for some and not for others; all discrimination is evil. . . Any discrimination based on the various stages of life is no more justified than any other discrimination. . . . In reality, respect for human life is called for from the time that the process of generation begins. From the time that the ovum is fertilized, a life is begun which is neither that of the father nor of the mother; it is rather the life of a new human being with his own growth."

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

“Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, … abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law” (from Paragraph No. 2271).

Whether opposing the culture of death, the Catholic must give first allegiance to the laws of God. According to our faith, the Catholic citizen is obliged by their conscience not to follow the directives of civil authorities when those directives are contrary to the demands of the moral order, contrary to the fundamental rights of persons or contrary to the teachings of the Gospel.

We find justification for this in the distinction between serving God and serving the political community. Jesus says 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' (Mt 22:21) Peter says 'We must obey God rather than men.' (Acts 5:29)

When we approach this altar at communion and say Amen to the raised Host and Cup, we proclaim that it is Christ who is before us in his flesh and his blood. We are saying “Amen” not only to that, but to the understanding that He died on the cross for us when we were not worthy of it, and that he established the Catholic Church here on earth with Peter as its first pope and declared that it would never waver or be deluded.

Therefore when we hear the Church state as it has in the past that all human life is sacred, when bishop’s such as Bishop Quinn of Kansas City Missouri along with Archbishop Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas write:

“Our country is at the edge of the precipice concerning the protection of the life and dignity of the human person. A significant new attack on innocent human life will likely send us into a moral freefall that would rival any financial decline. The price for such a “walk over the cliff” is millions of human lives lost for many more years to come.

A(ny) candidate who asks us to add our weight to such a destructive momentum in our society, asks us to be participants in their own gravely immoral act. This is something which, in good conscience, we can never justify. Despite hardship, beyond partisanship, for the sake of our eternal salvation: This we should never do.”

we need to listen and to heed the Church’s words.

As we, in the United States, prepare to vote in national elections, it might be good for us to sit down and draw up two lists--one, with all we owe to God, and one with all we owe to our country and its leaders. What we place in those columns will be determined by the depth of our faith and its moral and spiritual values, by our understanding of justice, by thorough and intelligent forming of a right conscience, and by our courage in voting according to that conscience.

Jesus says 'Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.' Let us hope and pray that what Caesar asks us to render is not 30 pieces of silver, the cost of a soul.

Your brother in Christ,
Deacon Bruce