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