That Ain’t Fair! Homily for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Tim

   

Mt 20:1-16

 

Today’s gospel from Matthew was just proclaimed a few weeks ago on August 19^th,

the 20^th Wednesday of Ordinary time.   A rerun of the gospel within a few weeks  complicates life when Father is preaching to the same congregation. 

 

It would be easy enough to pull out the homily from a few weeks ago and rerun it,

hoping that no one would notice.  Changing the order of ideas or sentences might work

but would veer perilously close to sloth, one of the seven deadly sins defined as:

habitual disinclination to exercise or laziness, or in this case spiritual sloth, a disinclination to think about and pray with the gospel. 

 

On a weekday a reasonable option would be not to give a homily as a homily is not required on weekdays.  But, a homily is required on Sundays. 

 

The final option is to reread and reconsider the narrative asking what else there is in the reading.  What else could form the nucleus of a homily?  Besides the question of fair and unfair,  today’s gospel has in the backgroundthe sins of envy and perhaps jealousy.

Many consider envy and jealousy as interchangeable or synonyms.  They are not.  Envy and jealousy are related but they are not identical concepts.  One may lead to the other, generally from envy to jealousy, and the two can coexist. No matter, they are not the same thing. 

 

I was unaware of the distinction until a conference during psychiatry residency.  The attending asked the difference between envy and jealousy. A few brave souls suggested that they were the same thing.  The attending said they were not. He explained: “Envy is wanting what another has.  Jealousy is fear that another is going to take what you have.”  Envy may be beneficial if it encourages us to work harder to get what we envy.  If a student envies a friend’s grades that envy may push him or her to put down the computer games and study harder so as to get the same grades.  But, envy may be destructive if it drives the individual to sabotage the efforts of a friend or neighbor.  Or if it leads one into debt while trying to keep up with the Jones’s.  Jealousy, the fear that another will take what I have, results in conflict, anger, and harm.  Shakespeare described jealousy as ‘the green eyed monster” in Othello,

 

Jealousy leads to rage and murder. It triggers war.  Jealousy includes elements of

suspicion, fear, anxiety, and hostility. As opposed to mere sabotage, which has the goal of hindering the success of the one we envy, jealousy drives revenge with the goal of grievously harming the other. At times it leads to murder.

 

Like all of Jesus’ parables there is no definite conclusion in today’s narrative.  The parables never end with the equivalent of “and they lived happily ever after.”

Jesus parables always end on a question mark.  This makes us ask “and then what?

 

What happened after the workers had been paid?  We know the first hired resented that the Johnny-come-latelies were paid the same as they were. Some of the late-starters only worked for one hour.  That ain’t fair.

 

Was there some pushing and shoving during the walk home?  Were cross words exchanged?  Maybe a few swear words?  What did the first hired have to say about the land owner?   What were the last ones hired saying about him?  Did someone contact the union rep?

 

The first reading describes God as generous and forgiving.  The landowner asked the disgruntled workers if they were envious because he was generous. The answer was obvious. 

 

Some time today, ask yourself  “How would I respond to the same situation?”

 

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Photos below were taken several years ago in the autumn while visiting Horseneck Beach which is located in MA very near the border with RI.   Autumn is my favorite time at the beach.  I try to avoid beaches in the summer when there are people around and the smell of sun block is heavy in the air.  

 

 

 Fr. Jack, SJ, MD

 

 

 

On Forgiveness: Homily for the 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time

  

Sir 27:30-28:7

Mt 18:21-35

 

Peter asked, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how many times must I forgive him?  As many as seven times?”  Forgiving someone seven times seems reasonable.  Indeed forgiving someone seven times seems positively magnanimous, even saint-like if you will.  Jesus’ reply must have startled Peter.  Not seven times but seven times seventy-seven times. 

 

Jesus was not giving Peter a specific number or setting limits on forgiveness.  Rather, by using hyperbole he was indicating that forgiveness must be infinite. Jesus' reply is analogous to something most of us heard when we were kids andswore we would never say upon becoming parents or uncles. But we do. “If I told you once I told you a thousand times.”  Sometimes a thousand underestimated the real number but mostly it was hyperbole for effect. The gospel parable is chilling on two levels:  The first is the servant’s callous behavior toward a fellow servant where he showed himself as a man who couldn't or wouldn't forgiveas he was forgiven. The second chilling element is the punishment meted out to him when the master learned of his actions.  One could ask why the master was not forgiving toward the wicked servant.  It is a good question. 

 

Perhaps there are actions that are unforgivable. 

 

The message Jesus gave to Peter is to forgive as God forgives. Perfectly and without limit.  That is an ideal humans can’t attain save for exceptional circumstances.  An instance of those exceptional circumstances went on international display twenty years ago.

 

Charles Roberts, IV entered the Amish one-room school house in Nickel Mines, PA on October 2, 2006. After sending all of the boys out Roberts murdered five girls between the ages of nine and thirteen.  He critically injured five others, one of whom was severely brain-damaged. He killed himself when the police arrived. 

 

His actions horrified the world.  The actions of the Amish community horrified much of the world even more.  Roberts horrified the world by the brutality of his act.  The Amish horrified the world by their forgiveness. 

 

On the day of the shooting the grandfather of one of the murdered girls told young relatives, "We must not think evil of this man.”  Another Amish man noted, "He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he's standing before a just God."  Still another Amish man held the shooter’s sobbing father in his arms for an hour in an attempt comfort him. Thirty members of the Amish community attended Roberts' funeral. 

 

The Amish may or may not know the Book of Sirach. Sirach is considered canonical by the Catholic and Orthodox Churches but apocryphal in the Protestant churches.  It does not appear in the Jewish Bible.  We just heard, "The vengeful will suffer the LORD’s vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail. Forgive your neighbor’s injustice; then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven."  This explains the behavior that most of the world found incomprehensible. 

 

Most of us are willing to forgive.  Sometimes.  Under certain circumstances.  For a limited number of times.  For some things.  Jesus instructs us that seven times is not enough.  Through the use of hyperbole Jesus is telling us we must always forgive. 

 

It is not an easy instruction to understand. 

It is not an easy instruction to accept. 

It is definitely not an easy instruction to follow.

 

And yet, that is what God gives us.  God offers us forgiveness even more heroic

than the forgiveness the Amish extended to the man  who killed their daughters

and traumatized the entire community.

 

The psalm assured us.

"The Lord is kind and merciful,

slow to anger, and rich in compassion.

 

He pardons all your iniquities,
heals all your ills.
He redeems your life from destruction,
crowns you with kindness and compassion."

 

God offers us forgiveness every time we receive the sacrament of confession.  We need only begin, “I confess that I have sinned.”

 

And ask for pardon and forgiveness.  

 _____________________________________

 

My two alma maters met on the football field today.  Penn State and Temple.  No, there were no divided loyalties.  The medical school was many blocks away from the main campus north on Broad Street.  One friend observed about my feelings about Penn State, "You didn't go to college, you joined a cult."  So true.

 Fr. Jack SJ, MD

9/11 and Christian Heroism

  

Friday night’s football game at Boston College is the annual “Red Bandana Game.”  The team will wear uniforms with a red bandana incorporated into the jerseys.  The first 10,000 spectators will be given red bandanas.  Others will bring their own.

 

The game is in honor of a BC Alumnus who died 25 years ago today in the terrorist action against the World Trade Center.  None of the undergrads at the game were born when the terrorists directed the hijacked planes into the towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  But they will become more aware of the story of the Christian heroism of an alumnus who placed the lives of others before his own, a man who sacrificed his life so that others might live. 

 

Welles Crowther, an equities trader in the World Trade Center, graduated from BC two years before his death. He had been a volunteer firefighter, as was his dad,  from the age of 16.  Why the bandana?  His dad gave Welles a red bandana when he was six years old.  It became a trademark that he carried  with him at all times up to his death.

 

Rather than fleeing his offices on the 104^th floor when the towers were attacked,  he used his ever-present bandana to cover his nose and mouth as protection from smoke inhalation. The man in the red bandana, as he was called by those he saved, rescued at least eighteen people, sometimes guiding them and other times carrying them down the steps.  His demeanor remained calm throughout.  His name was not known until his sister saw the reports of the man in the red bandana given by those he had saved.

 

Welles’ body was not found until six months after the attack. It was discovered with the bodies of other dead firefighters from the NY fire department in what was a makeshift control center for rescue efforts in the lobby of the south tower that collapsed.  

 

In two interesting side notes, a filled out application to the New York Fire Department was found among his papers.  Welles was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom which President Trump presented to his mother and sister on Tuesday of this week.  

 

Evil can be defined as ‘that which causes harm to us as humans, as persons, as members of society.”  The events of 9/11 encapsulate and summarize the problem of evil with which humanity has grappled since the very beginning and with which it will grapple for all time.   As we pray today, we ask ourselves if there is any reason for hope after those dreadful events of a quarter-of-a-century ago.

 

Any hope that emerges from the intentional actions of a group of terrorists will not be found in official pronouncements or in treading lightly around the evil they perpetrated.  Hope will be found in the Christian heroism of individuals such as Welles Crowther or Father Mychal Judge.

 

 

Father Judge was the Franciscan chaplain to the New York Fire Department who died in the collapse of the South Tower as he was administering last rites to a dying firefighter.  Any hope we might find as we grapple with the eternal problem of evil and suffering will only be found in the selfless action of individuals and groups who act for the sake of others.  Like many of the saints Welles Crowther, Mychal Judge, and the over 300 firefighters who died that day, ignored their own needs and instincts for self-preservation so as to save the lives of others. Theirs was a Christianity of response and action.

 

I don’t know if the story is apocryphal.  I’ve heard several versions of it but it is said that a young religious was carefully dressing an ugly, smelly, and festering leg wound.  Someone who observed her said, “Sister, I wouldn’t do that for a million dollars.”  She replied, “Neither would I.”  

 

We are called to love and care for others as Jesus did and because He did. 

 

Welles Crowther, Fr. Judge, and a host of NY Firefighters knew that when they acted to save others.  And so, we pray .  . .

 

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine,

et lux perpétua lúceat eis.

Requiéscant in pace.

 

Amen.

 

_____________________________________

The body of Fr. Mychal Judge, OFM being taken from the South Tower by firefighters.

Welles Crowther, BC class of '99

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

 

 

Give Me The Car Keys, You’re Drunk: Homily 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

  

Ez 33:7-9

Ps 95

Rom 13:8-10

Mt 16:15-20

 

I grew up, lived, and worked in Eastern and Central Pennsylvania until I was in my mid-forties. Much of that time was spent on the edge of Amish enclaves located along Rt. 45 between Lewisburg and State College.  Regular travelers on 45 learned to be alert for the black buggies traveling on the shoulder. 

 

An outsider does not enter into or become close to an Amish community.  Their communities are closed to those whom they call 'The English.'  Their lifestyle is simple, non-technology dependent, and led according to church teaching.  One of the misunderstood features of Amish life is the practice of 'shunning' a church member who repeatedly sins by violating church ordinances. This particular part of Matthew's gospel is used as justification for the practice that is meant to maintain  the good of the community.

 

The errant individual is confronted in the step-by-step manner outlined in the gospel.  Only after repeated attempts at correction at higher levelswill the individual be shunned, cut off from social interaction with the community, from worship with the community, or even being able to do business.  However, the individual is not completely abandoned. Even when shunned the community will help if needed.  If the individual confesses and repents he or she or she will be welcomed back.  Only the completely unrepentant who refuse to confess will be excommunicated.  While many feel shunning to be harsh and inhumane, sometimes the only way to prevent the sinner from worse is through the remedy suggested in Matthew.

 

We see a corollary is the first reading from Ezekiel in which the prophet is warned that he will be held equally guilty if he does not correct the sinner, whereas if he offers correction but the sinner persists, the sinner will be lost but the prophet will be blameless. 

 

Were the topic of shunning to be introduced into cocktail party conversation  many would roll their eyes  and allude to cruelty, perhaps with an "oh myyy gawwwwwd.'  Oftentimes they would add, "I never judge others,"  a sanctimonious lie that is among the biggest virtue signaling lies possible . . . but that is another homily.

 

We have the same responsibilities to confront sinners as outlined in Ezekiel and Matthew.  Are we culpable--legally and/or morally--for another's sin?  Most of the time we are not.  But there are times when action on our part could have made a difference, saved a marriage, or saved a life.  Consider drunk driving.

 

Driving under the influence of alcohol, marijuana, or prescription drugs is a serious and lethal problem in the United States.  Texting while driving is not much better.  Bars, bartenders, friends who over-serve, and that special class of idiot parents who purchase alcohol for teenagers' parties, are being included in the legal blame and prosecuted for deaths and injuries stemming from their action or inaction. 

 

Confronting a drunk driver is critical. Refusing to allow the individual to drive involves an act of judgment of his or her behavior. The penalty may involve confiscating the car keys, offering a place to stay over night, or calling Uber and even footing the bill. Too frequently this kind of action doesn't go well.  Sometimes it goes very badly. Friendships have been ruptured and family bonds strained.  But action is necessary to prevent death or injury to the driver or others. 

 

Paul elaborated on four of the ten commandments in his letter:  adultery, killing, stealing, and coveting. Among the four, adultery is the most fascinating. 

 

Adultery is the family gift that keeps on giving, though what it frequently gives is nothing anyone wants:  pain, separation, divorce, mistrust, loneliness, and for any involved children, a lot more difficulty than society is willing to admit.

 

About thirty-five years ago I was attending a medical meeting a few hundred miles from home.  I was not prepared to run into a colleague, who was not attending the meeting, walking down the street hand-in-hand with a woman most definitely not his wife.  There was a fascinating moment of guilty discomfort on his part--she had no idea who I was or why he suddenly let go of her hand--or why he became obviously anxious.  His marriage ended not long after our accidental encounter. The kids became alienated from their father, and the financial costs were huge.  It also ended any further socialization between us except for a nod when passing in the hallways of the hospital. 

 

It is never easy or pleasant to correct another, who is publicly sinning be it drunk driving or adultery be it the formalized shunning practiced by the Amish or saying, "Give me your keys, you are in no condition to drive." The confrontation frequently involves pain. It may result in screaming accusations along the lines of:  Who are you to judge me?"  But sometimes it is necessary so as to prevent greater pain, greater sin, and greater hurt.  

 

____________________________________

Have been watching the Penn  State-Marshall game for the past while.  Penn State winning 45-0.  No contest obviously.  But still wish I were there.  In 2014 I arranged my travel home from Chad so as to be able to attend the Penn State - UCF game in Dublin's Kroke Park.  It was wonderful.  A period of exhaustion intereferred with my taking as many photos as I would have liked but I got some.  

 

I was blown away by the lines of the Samuel Beckett Bridge so much . . . 

 . . . once my roommate Paul returned to U.S. I spent several hours exploring and shooting.

The pub at which we ate. 

Poster advertising the game and welcoming us.  There were at least three times as many PSU fans in Kroke Park as UCF.  We won on a field goal that went through the uprights with no time on the clock.  Didn't realize I could still jump that high.  

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

 

 

Late Have I Loved Thee: Homily for 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

  

Jeremiah 20:7-9

Ps 63

Rom 12:1-2

Mt 16:21-27

 

Among the most useful bits of advice given in theology school was that when preparing to preach, write a paper, or even for personal devotion, it is important to read more than one translation of the readings. This is particularly true in English in which there are multiple translations that vary tremendously in style, grammar, wording, and sometimes with the agenda of the translator.  There are revisions of revisions, new versions of old versions, new versions of revised versions, and so on.  Some are written in lofty and elegant language while others approach slang.  At times one version of a reading may resonate more with a reader than an alternative.  

 

At times it helps to pay attention to subtle shades of meaning of a particular word or phrase.  Depending on the translation they can have a significant impact on our understanding of the reading.  Sometimes a reading from a different source works better than the one found in the lectionary.  Such is the case today. 

 

We just heard, “You duped me O Lord and I let myself be duped.”  Duped is not in common use today.  I suspect it is unfamiliar to those  who are not native English speakers, and possibly unfamiliar to a lot of native speakers as well.  Duped means tricked or fooled. The King James Version and the Catholic RSV use: “O Lord, you have deceived me and I was deceived.”  A version in common English is accusatory when it writes, “You tricked me Lord and I was really fooled.”  However, The Jerusalem Bible gets it right:

 

“You have seduced me Yahweh, and I let myself be seduced.”

 

Deceived. Duped.  Tricked.  Seduced. There is conceptual overlap to be sure but each has distinct nuances of meaning.  Deceived has entirely negative connotations of being lied to. Duped also suggests a dishonest approach that takes advantage of another. Calling someone a dupe is never a compliment.  Tricked is well, tricked, pulled the wool over the eyes, fooled,  the old switcherooni.

 

Seduced is the only one of these that truly works when applied to God.  Seduced has multiple meanings, among which one finds: to win over, to attract powerfully and insistently.  “You attracted me powerfully and I allowed myself to be attracted.”  “You won me over . . . “ There is no hint that God lied, was dishonest,engaged in subterfuge, or used trickery. 

 

You attracted me strongly and I allowed myself to be attracted. 

You called to me in a powerful voice and I followed. 

You waited until I came to my senses.

 

So much better than hinting that God pulled a fast one, tricked, or deceived.  God calls. God beckons. God invites.  He wins over. He does not trick, deceive, or dupe. 

 

Saint Augustine got it right. In one of his most eloquent and resonant  passages, that was the second reading in the breviary on his August 28 memorial. He wrote:

 

“Late have I loved you,

O beauty ever ancient ever new . . .

You were within me but I was outside. . .

You were with me, but I was not with you . . .

You called, you shouted and you broke through my deafness . . .

You breathed your fragrance on me . . .

You dispelled my blindness . . .

You touched me and I burned for your peace . . . “

 

There certainly is nothing suggesting trickery, chicanery, or duping in Jesus’ words to the apostles. “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” 

 

Jesus is not promising an easy life, a life free of pain, suffering, or trial.  He is telling it like it is, like it was, and like it will always be for those who choose to follow him, for those who allow themselves to be seduced. 

 

“God forbid that this should be so . . . .”

 

Peter’s denial of Jesus’ statement of reality earned him a harsh rebuke.  We are not to think as Peter did.  Rather we are to accept the reality that it ain’t easy and it ain‘t gonna be easy.  But we know that. We have known that from the beginning. No deception or chicanery involved.

 

Paul gives sage advice against taking the easy way, the soft way, the way of those who deceive and dupe when he advises, “Do not conform yourselves to this age.”  Especially this age in the U S of A, an age in which “sin” “immoral” and “wrong” have been stripped of all meaning.  Indeed, in the cases of abortion, killing the sick elderly, and puberty blockade for confused children, sin and immoral have been elevated to the level of virtue for some.    

 

“You have seduced me and I allowed myself to be seduced.” 

 

When we can say that we can also sing with the psalmist:

 

“I will bless  you while I live;

lifting up my hands,

I will call upon your name.

As with the riches of a banquet

shall my soul be satisfied,

and with exultant lips

my mouth shall praise you.”

 

______________________________________________

There were no homilies the past two weeks as I was at the monastery in VT and had no public Masses.  Things settling to normal again.  

 

Photos were taken in Australia in 2011 during tertianship.  After two days in Sydney we were taken to Seven Mile Beach in Gerroa, NSW.  None of us was Australian. To describe our reaction to the place as happy shock captures it.  Glorious place.  

 

Sunset the first or second night.  The camera never left my side for the ten days of our stay

This silhouette captures childhood in black and white

The view from the property on which we stayed.

Fr. Jack SJ, MD

Walkin’ on the Water: 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

   

1 Kgs 19:9a, 11-13a

Ps 85

Rom 9:1-5

Mt 14:22-33

 

"Lord let us see your kindness and grant us your salvation."

 

Psalm 85 brings the two readings and the Gospel together.  Each reading is about faith fraying along the edges or faith that seemed to be lost.  Each of the speakers:  Elijah, Paul, and Peter could have easily uttered the psalm response from his position of desperation, discouragement, or fear.  We can identify with those feelings and add a few of our own. 

 

Things can't be worse for Elijah.  He fled to escape the wrath of the evil Jezebel

who wanted him dead.  While in hiding an angel instructed him to eat and prepare for a journey.  All Elijah wanted was to die.  He was despondent and had lost hope.  His faith was shaky.  He ate only because the angel demanded that he do so.  Then, he began a journey of forty days. 

 

The Jewish Study Bible notes that when unencumbered and alone a man could walk between 15 and 25 miles per day Multiplied by 40 days, Elijah walked between 600 and 1000 miles.  To put the distances into perspective, it is about 500 miles south from Boston to Washington, DC and 1000 miles west to Chicago. 

 

What went through his mind during that arduous trek? What goes through our minds during the 40-day journeys we are forced to take during life, the journeys of chemotherapy, chronic pain, or the seemingly endless journey of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's?

 

Elijah's encounter with God in a whisper rather than an earth-shaking event is one of the remarkable images in the Old Testament.  Elijah had to be open and willing to hear that whisper.  He had to be attuned to and ready for it.  Similarly, we have to be prepared and willing to hear the voice of God in a whisper, in the brief moment of quiet that interrupts the background noise that complicates our lives. 

 

Paul’s discouragement that his people rejected Jesus is palpable.  His distress was such that he would have been willing to have himself cut off from Christ if they would accept the great gift of salvation. We all know Paul’s frustration. We know the pain when no one will listen to us.  We know the frustration of being met with opposition by everyone in our lives: family, friends, co-workers and so on.  We know that feeling of radical loneliness  when we plead: "Lord let me see you kindness and grant me your salvation."  Today’s Gospel take place immediately after Jesus fed the multitude with a few loaves and fishes.  The crowd had dispersed.  He dismissed his disciples and went up the mountain alone to pray.  Something important happens here, something we fail to notice much of the time. Pope Benedict XVI wrote that we know from the Gospels that Jesus frequently spent nights alone in prayer and  conversation with His Father.  He suggests that Jesus’ speech, preaching and ministry grew out of that silence and matured within the accompanying solitude.

 

While Jesus was praying the apostles were crossing the 4 1/2 mile wide Sea of Galilee.  They were a few miles off-shore and in no position to swim if the boat capsized.  It was very late.  The fourth watch of the night was between 3:00 and 6:00 AM.  Thus they had been struggling to cross--and Jesus had been in prayer--for hours. 

 

We can identify with their terror when they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. And then, as we heard,  Peter acted. when he ”got out of the boat and began to walk on the water toward Jesus.”  But his faith wavered when he saw how strong the wind was.” Fear replaced faith. This brings up the difficult question, “What is faith.”

 

Australian Trappist Fr. Michael Casey makes an important point:  “Faith has to grapple constantly with the doubts we may experience when we hear the words of the poet Robert Browning  God is in his heaven—all’s right with the world.'  So often it doesn’t seem that way.”  Many times in our lives it doesn’t seem, or didn’t seem, that God is in his heaven or that anything is right with the world. 

 

Casey goes on to define faith:  “Faith means letting go of our ambition to control, understand, or even cope with what happens. Faith means releasing our anxieties into God’s hands and seeing all that happens as coming from the hand of God. The fact that I cannot comprehend the logic of events means simply that my intellect is limited.  Our relationship with God is often undermined by fears about impending disaster”

 

It is terrifying to be wheeled into an operating room.  It is panic-inducing to hear a diagnosis of cancer. No one can describe the emotions upon the death of one’s child.  Our faith wavers and, like Peter, we begin to sink.  Our faith may waver when we realize the seriousness of our situation.  We may suddenly doubt as the river rises above flood stage in our lives. 

 

Faith does not mean that life will go smoothly.  Faith is not a shield against trauma. Faith does not protect us from pain nor is it a Berlin wall against the anguish of grief. Faith is an umbrella over us during these crises. Peter’s faith was strong when he jumped out of the boat because he wasn't thinking about it too much. When he began to intellectualize and pay attention to the storm he tried to take control.  For the moment his faith vanished.  And then he prayed; “Lord.  Save me!”  We also try walk on the waters of a stormy lake at night. In those moments

we can only plead as did the psalmist:

 

"Lord let us see you kindness and grant us your salvation."

 

 _____________________________________________-

Photos are from tertianship in Australia in 2011.  We were there for 8 months, half of the time in Sydney and the rest scattered all over the country.  These are from all over the country but not Sydney.  That is a separate topic. 

 

 

Rainbow after a violent storm arcing over Out Lady of the Angels, the church at which I spent five weeks during the second 'experiment.'

Oil rig visible from the porch of the church rectory. 

The beach at Warrnambool was magnificent and only a short walk from the church at which I was giving retreats in daily life for three weeks. 

Sunset at Sevenhill, South Australia where we made the long retreat. 

Walking after Mass at Sevenhill.  The camera was part of my anatomy during the entire thirty days there either hanging from my shoulder of under the chair. 

Sunrise at Gerroa, NSW.  Beautiful place at which we spent the first ten days of the retreat getting to know each other.  

 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homily for the Feast of the Transfiguration

  

6 August 2026

Dn 7:9-10, 13-14

Ps 97:1-2, 5-6,99

2 Pt 1:16-19

Mt 17:1-9

 

The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord, draws us into a mystery that is well beyond our understanding or comprehension.  The Transfiguration represents the fulfillment of the prophecy we just heard in the reading from Deuteronomy that  also tried to describe something beyond the ability of words and images. "The Son of Man received dominion, glory, and kingship; all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.  His dominion is everlasting; his kingship shall not be destroyed."

 

"His dominion is everlasting; his kingship shall not be destroyed."

 

On this Feast we recall Jesus appearing in brilliant glory; speaking with Moses and Elijah, the Law and the Prophets in front of three of His disciples.

 

Imagine the scene: Dazzling light.  Moses, Elijah, and Jesus conversing. What were they saying? How did their voices sound?  Place yourself with the apostles. Stand on the mountain with them.  The tension is increasing, it is almost unbearable.  And then you hear God's voice: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased."  The Father confirms that Jesus is the Christ, the Beloved Son of God, the one whom Peter confessed him to be in the previous chapter of Mark's Gospel.

 

And then the Father gives you a mission: "Listen to him." 

 

Like the apostles, you are stunned into silence and overcome with awe.  Jesus--the Nazorean and teacher, Son of Mary and Wonder Worker, Jesus, the carpenter, healer, and prophet who was given no honor in his native place, was revealed in his Divinity. 

 

But, there is another transfiguration, there is another revelation, we must recall today. That event was also marked by blinding light, overshadowed by a cloud, and a deafening sound led to a stunned silence. 

 

On August 6 the Church recalls that Jesus was revealed in his Divinity on a mountain.  On August 6, 1945 the human race revealed its depravity at Hiroshima.  The world would never be the same.  Hiroshima captured in one event the sum total of human sin from the fall of Adam and Eve. 

 

The event of Hiroshima, and three days later, Nagasaki, condensed the cumulative horrors of all the wars of the past centuries, into a single and singular event.  This time God did not give mankind a mission from the cloud.  There was a terrible silence. There was a void. 

 

Or was there?

           

The voice of God was obscured by the explosion.  It was not silenced. 

 

Almost 2000 years since Jesus' incarnation, birth, passion, death, resurrection and ascension, and eighty-one years since Hiroshima, God's mandate to the apostles, and thus His mandate to us: “listen to him” is more compelling and urgent  than it was for the shaken apostles.  Hiroshima and Nagasaki demonstrated man's capability for destruction on an unimaginable scale, a scale that is unique to our present time and technology.

 

"This is my Son; listen to him.”     

 

As we listen to Jesus, as we take his teaching to heart and allow that teaching to transform us, we move a bit closer to the eschatological glory of  the transfigured Jesus. At the same time we move that much farther from the apocalyptic destruction of the nuclear bomb, the human destruction of  past genocides in Armenia, Rwanda and Burundi, the unbearable memories of WWII and many others throughout the world up to and including Ukraine and the Middle East.

 

And, as we heed God's mandate to listen to his beloved Son, we begin to move further from the systematized attacks on morality and vulnerable human life being waged in the U.S. today, abortion, the planned killing of the elderly, and the castration of prepubertal children for the sake of a perverted agenda.

 

"The mountains melt like wax before the LORD,
before the LORD of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his justice,
and all peoples see his glory."

 

"The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth."

 

"This is my beloved Son,

listen to Him."

 

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I won't try to elaborate why the Feast of the Transfiguration is so deeply meaningful for me, even before I began working with the monks at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration in Vermont. I'm not certain I can put the reasons into words anyway.

The photos are from the Charterhouse over the past years

 

 

 

A depiction of the Transfiguration on the staircase leading to the Church.  It is about five feet high and proportionately wide.  Note the quote at the bottom.  

The miracle of Transubstantiation

Taken from the choir stall to which I was assigned on my first visit ten years ago.  It never changed.  The books are in Latin, Gregorian Chant, and are huge.  

 

Have a Blessed Feast

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD