A Little News

          Here at Immaculate Conception, when we’re asked to be seated following the Prayer After Communion, we know all too well that the announcements are going to be long. I’ll try my best to be brief, but after 11 years, you know that’s not my strong suit.

         I’m here to share with you the news that effective September 18^th I will transfer to Saint Catherine of Siena Church in Pittstown.

Now, before rumors start, I want to be very clear that there’s absolutely nothing wrong with my ministry here at Immaculate Conception.

·      There are no feuds or disagreements theologically, philosophically, or otherwise. There have been no sleights or crossed eyes. I’m not being run out of town, and I’m not running away from any problem;

·      I’m not leaving because the Sacristy is too small for my vast diaconal wardrobe (though our deacons will probably appreciate a little more room in the closet); and

·      I’m not leaving because we now have a parochial vicar who’s cuter than I am (though that's been a little hard to take).

The simple fact is that I believe that the Holy Spirit is calling me to ministry at Saint Catherine’s. When I first heard of the need for a deacon at Saint Catherine’s, I dismissed it, but it kept coming back to me in thought and prayer. For me, the Holy Spirit is a bit of a nag, and nag she did until I relented. Though coincidental, my wife and I also have been working on relocating to that area of the county.

While I’m at peace with my decision and excited about the new opportunity, I’m very sad to leave you, my family here at Immaculate Conception. I’ve been blessed to collaborate with wonderful pastors and parochial vicars, and I thank them all for the patience and kindness they’ve shown me over the years, most recently Fr. Jay and Fr. Ariel. It’s also been an honor to serve alongside our amazing deacons who are much better servants than I will ever be.

I’m especially blessed to have had the opportunity to serve you, my friends, who have formed me from a baby-deacon into the hot mess of a deacon I am today. I thank God for all of you—for your forbearance, your kindness, and the love you’ve shown me over the years. I will keep you always in my prayers and carry you in my heart forever. Thank you!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions - Homily for the Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

             Decision, decisions, decisions—life is full of them. Pancakes or waffles? Coke or Pepsi? Boxers or briefs? In a country that’s blessed with many choices, scientists say that we make some 35,000 decisions a day. Occasionally, they’re monumental, some are important, but most are trivial. Our faith life is full of decisions, too, but every one of them has eternal consequences. Our readings this evening make that clear.

          In our first reading, Joshua’s pretty blunt when he calls for a take-it-or-leave-it commitment from the Israelites. “Choose either the God who brought you through the desert or the attractive gods around you.”[1] As the Israelites wandered through the desert and entered the Promised Land, they interacted and sometimes even assimilated with the cultures they encountered. As a result, their commitment to the God of Abraham waned over time, and Joshua would have none of it. He “demanded that they pledge absolute commitment to the God of the Exodus,”[2] and the Israelites faced a difficult decision.  Likewise, in our Gospel, the disciples face a difficult decision. Jesus just told them that they must eat his flesh and drink his blood to have life within them, and they rightfully point out that “this saying is hard; who can accept it?” Many decide to leave him, but the Twelve choose wisely, acknowledging that only Jesus has the words of eternal life.

The Christian message challenges human existence on every level. It demands “an act of surrender to Christ, an acceptance of him as the final authority; and it demands a moral standard of the highest level.”[3] That’s a lot to ask, and Jesus knows it, but he also knows that the rewards are out of this world. It’s up to us, then, to discern what the demands of Christianity mean for us, especially the difficult parts, and make a decision.

Our second reading from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians is a great example of a difficult teaching, at least for half of us, which is probably why it’s the most avoided passage in the Lectionary. “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands.” Many preachers choose the shorter option from the Lectionary to avoid this language, but not your fearless preacher. It’s part of Scripture, so I don’t think we should avoid it. So at the risk of being run out of town on a rail, I’d like for us to consider the passage together.

          Controversial Bible passages challenge us to make difficult decisions. Will we accept them as containing revelatory truth or dismiss them as patently wrong or anachronistic? Will we take them at face value even if it produces an absurd result or delve deeper to find the true meaning behind the text? Saint Paul’s statement about women being subordinate is controversial for good reason—it’s been manipulated for millennia to subject women to patriarchal structures, domination, and abuse. These injustices are particularly poignant today as we watch the Taliban take control of Afghanistan, threatening women’s rights and lives in their wake.

So how do we interpret a difficult passage like this? First, we have to understand the text in its context. This passage reflects the patriarchal structure of first-century society, norms that are no longer acceptable in many societies today. Rather than getting all huffy with the text, we have to appreciate that Paul’s using words that his culture would understand. Scripture speaks to all times, though, so these first-century cultural influences aren’t essential to finding the truth of God’s Revelation in the passage. We need to look beyond them to find the meaning behind the text. We also have to remember that it’s believed that Saint Paul wasn’t married, so he didn’t have a wife to help him choose his words more carefully.

Second, we have to appreciate what this passage can’t mean. We, as Catholics, accept the Bible as true,[4] but not always as literally true. For example, through scientific discovery we know that the universe wasn’t created in seven days, as we hear in Genesis, a fact that’s in no way inconsistent with the revealed truth that God created everything in God’s time. Biblical passages must be understood, then, in the light of faith and reason, “the two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth.”[5] On the faith side, scriptural interpretations have to be consistent with Scripture as a whole. As a result, any interpretation that contravenes the revealed truth that God created each of us equally, regardless of gender, race, creed, and color, or that denies the dignity that God bestowed on every human being can’t be true. On the reason side, scriptural interpretations can’t produce absurd results, so manipulating a passage to abuse or control another person can’t be true either. The Christian message, and, therefore, this passage, isn’t about control and abuse; it’s about love, so every Bible passage and every Church teaching must be interpreted in the light of love.

Bearing in mind the cultural influences, faith, and reason, we have to delve deeper into what the text really means. This passage is part of Saint Paul’s Household Code, teachings intended to promote family harmony with Jesus Christ as our model. You’ll note that the passage opens by saying, “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” That language sets the standard for the whole passage. It’s calling each of us, female and male, to be subordinate to each other, as Christ subordinated himself throughout his life, passion, and death. Although the vocabulary differs, wives and husbands are held to the same standard in our text—the standard of Jesus’ perfect example, the standard of humble, self-sacrificing love that never imposes its will on another. Read in the light of love, then, our passage reveals that women should offer humble, self-sacrificing love to their husbands, and husbands should offer humble, self-sacrificing love to their wives. I don’t know about you, but as the father of two young women, the meaning behind the text makes my decision to accept it as the revealed Word of God much easier.

        The Christian life is full of decisions. Today’s readings alone challenge us to decide which God we’re going to follow, how we react to difficult texts and teachings, and whether we’re going to follow Jesus or leave him. Jesus asks us today and every day of our lives the same question he posed to the Apostles: “Do you also want to leave?” Nothing less than eternal life with God hinges on our response. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

 Readings: Joshua 24:1-2a, 15-17,18b; Psalm 34; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

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[1] Mary McGlone, “Scandalously Ordinary,” National Catholic Reporter 57, 22 (August 6, 2021), 19.

[2] Ibid.

[3] William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 1, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville, Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 264.

[4] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 107.

[5] John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Fides et ratio (14 September 1998) 1, https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_14091998_fides-et-ratio.html.

Think Sacramentally! - Homily for the Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

          I’m a proud product of a Jesuit education, and one thing I can say without any hesitation is that all of the Jesuits who taught me were really smart. Father James Schall, SJ – political science, Fr. John Witek, SJ – Asian history, Father James Walsh, SJ – theology, and Fr. Robert Drinan –constitutional law, each stands out in my mind as a formidable thinker who encouraged and challenged me in my formative years. What amazed the most about these men, though, was their tremendous faith. As Catholic priests, they devoted their lives to “the Greater Glory of God,” notwithstanding the trend, then and now, for academics to dismiss faith in favor of scientific proof for everything, to separate the notion of God from the material world. These men found God in everything because they knew how to think sacramentally, which is exactly what our readings challenge us to do.

          Our first reading and our Gospel carry a common theme, which makes life much easier for your humble homilist. They tell us that the spiritual law of abundance always trumps the physical law of scarcity. What seems like a pittance to us, can become a surplus in the hands of God. In both Second Kings and John, a lone person offers a meager sum of food, and multitudes eat. Now, of course, we could invent a rational explanation for what happened in both accounts: for example, receiving a small amount of food inspired the crowd to share other food they had squirreled away in a more selfish moment. But, that would be a miracle too, wouldn’t it? It all depends on how we look at the situation. It all depends on whether we think sacramentally.

          No aspect of Catholicism is more significantly Catholic than sacramentality. Sacramentality basically means that the visible, material, and historical world can reveal the invisible, immaterial, and eternal presence of God. Sacramentality acknowledges God’s presence in the goodness of creation, in our work, and in our worship. From a sacramental perspective, then, God is really present in a toucan and a tortoise, in the waters of the baptismal font, and in the most Blessed Sacrament, and even in a Republican and a Democrat. So, “sacramentality is a world view, it is a way of looking at life, it is a way of thinking and acting in the world.”[1]

          To understand sacramentality, we have to know the difference between signs and symbols. Signs point to something outside of themselves. A caution sign on the road, for example, isn’t itself worthy of warning. You’ve never been attacked by a caution sign, have you? A caution sign tells us that something along the route poses a potential danger. It points to something else. A symbol, on the other hand, is an effective or “efficacious” sign. It both points to the thing it indicates and makes it present. That’s why we call the sacraments “efficacious signs (i.e., symbols) of invisible grace.” The sacraments both point to God’s grace and make it present. So symbols are places of encounter, and in the Christian context, they’re places of encounter with God in Jesus Christ. Through creation and the Incarnation, then, the world and human history become symbols of Christ’s real, sacramental presence among us, and the world and everything and everyone in it have the potential to reveal God’s presence among us, if we think sacramentally.

          The importance of sacramental thinking to our faith lives is evident, again, in our readings. In our first reading, Elisha confidently tells his servant to give the small food offering to the people, but his servant objects out of fear that such little food will enrage the hungry crowd. Elisha is thinking sacramentally; his servant isn’t. Elisha sees God’s superabundant grace in the offering; the servant doesn’t. Likewise, in our Gospel, “there is a contrast between Andrew and Philip. Philip was the man who said: ‘The situation is hopeless; nothing can be done.’ Andrew is the man who said, ‘I’ll see what I can do; and I’ll trust Jesus to do the rest.’”[2] Andrew is thinking sacramentally; Philip isn’t.

          We need to think sacramentally. When we think sacramentally, we see the world through Jesus’ eyes. When we think sacramentally, we understand that what we have to offer may not be much, but “a little is always much in the hands of Christ.”[3] When we think sacramentally, the Holy Spirit enters our souls, fills them to capacity, and completely satisfies our innate hunger for spiritual nourishment.[4] Sacramental thinking gives us strength, meaning, and hope, even in the most dire circumstances, because it helps us see that Jesus is with us always until the end of the age. And when we realize that Jesus is always with us, we change for the better, and miracles happen.

        Like those Jesuits and the elders and grandparents we honor today who revealed God’s presence to us in their words and deeds, everyone who thinks sacramentally has a power that extends beyond themselves. God calls each of us to offer the “paltry stuff of our lives” with the faith-filled certainty that God will do more with us than we could ask or imagine.[5] “The world is denied miracle after miracle and triumph after triumph [whenever] we [fail to] bring to Jesus what we have and what we are.”[6] But when we think sacramentally, our neighbors find food at our local food pantries, like the Open Cupboard here in Clinton. When we think sacramentally, women who face unexpected pregnancies find hope, love, and support at life-affirming pregnancy centers, like Life Choices out in Phillipsburg. And when we think sacramentally, people who feel lonely, marginalized, or unloved will find welcome, refuge, and a loving community right here at Immaculate Conception Church. We need more miracles like these. We need to think sacramentally.

 Readings: 2 Kings 4:42-22; Psalm 145; Ephesians 4:1-6; John 6:1-15

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[1] Kevin W. Irwin, Context and Text: A Method for Liturgical Theology, rev. ed. (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2018), 125.

 [2] William Barclay, The Gospel of John, vol. 1, The New Daily Study Bible (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 238.

[3] Ibid., 239.

[4] John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: Eating with the Bridegroom, Year B (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005), 190.

[5] Ibid., 194.

[6] Barclay, 239.

Fearless Faith - A Homily for the Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

 

            A few weeks ago, a video swept the internet about a little boy in Patrocinio, Brazil named João Miguel. In the video, João Miguel, without fear or hesitation and armed only with his simple, child-like faith, approaches Fr. Artur Oliveira as he’s giving his homily. He interrupts the priest and asks him to pray for his Uncle Flavio, who was hospitalized on a respirator with a new strain of the COVID-19 virus. João Miguel sounds a lot like Jairus and the hemorrhaging women we meet in our Gospel, who both showed the same fearless faith that led João Miguel to the steps of the altar. The kind of faith we need more of today.

          If our readings today tell us anything it’s that faith in God saves. Our first reading from the Book of Wisdom assures us that “God did not make death the final dissolution of human beings.” [1] Creation has a positive goal. Our Psalmist agrees, singing praise to God with the faith-filled conviction that “no matter what kind of suffering or hardship we experience here on earth, a glorious resurrection of our bodies awaits us if we are faithful.”[2] And our Gospel proves it.

Today’s Gospel serves us a Markan Sandwich—a story within a story that’s typical of the Gospel of Mark. In the first story, Jairus, a synagogue official, risks the scorn of his community to beg Jesus to heal his dying daughter. In the second story, the hemorrhaging woman violates the law to seek Jesus’ healing power— the law that prohibited the ritually unclean from approaching anyone. In both stories, our petitioners set life-draining illnesses at Jesus’ feet, hoping for God’s help; in both stories, their prayers are answered; and in both stories, fearless faith in God through Jesus Christ heals and restores the victims to the fullness of life.

          So what kind of faith are we talking about here? Well, you’ll notice that both healing stories involve touch. The woman touches Jesus’ cloak, and she’s healed; Jesus takes the little girl’s hand, and she rises. In both cases, “the inner conviction that physical contact accompanied by faith in Jesus’ saving power . . . was rewarded.”[3] So the faith that Jesus acknowledges in the woman and Jairus, the faith we’re called to imitate, requires an intimate encounter with Jesus. “The way to experience Jesus’ saving power is to reject fear and yield to faith, a deeply personal faith that comes into living contact with him.”[4] You’ll recall that the disciples were incredulous when Jesus asked who touched him. Everyone was touching him, but only one was healed, the one who set her fears aside and touched him with a hand of faith.

          The meticulously literal among us may ask, “How do we touch Jesus when he’s not physically here to touch?” I offer two easy suggestions. First, we pray. “While some might approach prayer as if ordering from a menu, the purpose of prayer—be it petition, praise, or penitence—is to bring us into an encounter with the God of life who desires the encounter more than we do.”[5] In prayer, we spend time with Jesus, we talk with him, we lay our problems at his feet, and we listen for his guidance and inspiration through the movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In prayer, we get in touch with Jesus.

Second, we come to Church and receive Jesus in the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, and the sacraments are the privileged place of encounter with the divine in Jesus Christ. Why? Because the sacraments are the visible sign of an invisible reality. So in the Eucharist, the visible signs of bread and wine convey the invisible reality of Jesus’ real presence—body, blood, soul, and divinity—among us. We can’t get much closer to Jesus than when we receive him faithfully in the Eucharist and carry him out into the world to do his will. In the Eucharist, we touch Jesus, and Jesus touches us.

Now, I’ll be the first to acknowledge that faith has gotten a bad rap—it’s considered irrational or naïve by modern standards, especially considering the seemingly endless pain, suffering, and death that accompany our human experience. It’s become downright unpopular to be a person of faith these days, and many are afraid to express their beliefs for fear of ridicule at best, and persecution at worst. Even Jesus was laughed at by the crowd in today’s Gospel when he suggested that faith would heal the little girl. But Jesus and Jairus and the hemorrhaging woman had faith in God anyway. The girl lived, and the woman was healed. That same faith carried Jesus up Calvary on Good Friday and proved three days later that fearless faith can even conquer death for good.

Through a “so-close-you-can-touch-him” encounter with Christ, our lives are no longer defined by the pain, suffering, and death we inevitably experience. United in faith with Jesus, we become the fearless daughters and sons of God we were meant to be from the beginning. Fearless faith, then, gives new meaning to our lives, even in suffering, “a meaning that is profound and ultimate, and stable no matter what may happen. . . . Men and women of this kind of faith face catastrophe or confusion, affluence or sorrow unperturbed, [they] face opportunity with conviction and drive, and [they] face others with self-forgetting charity.”[6] It’s no surprise that countless psychological studies confirm that people of faith are happier and healthier and that they rebound more quickly and permanently from illness and personal tragedy.

If you don’t believe me, ask João Miguel. A later video confirms that João Miguel’s prayers were answered. His Uncle Flavio came off the respirator within a week of João Miguel’s request for prayers and left the hospital not long after. When asked by Fr. Oliveira why his uncle got better, João Miguel proudly replies, “Because we prayed a lot, and God helped us!” Of course, not every prayer is answered the way we might wish, but fearless faith gives us the comfort of knowing that God will grant everything we request with faith and trust if it’s what’s best for us. “If God does not grant our request, it is because he has greater blessings in store for our benefit.”[7] João Miguel, Jairus, and the hemorrhaging woman are wonderful examples of the kind of fearless faith we all need to face life’s challenges, the kind of faith that heals us, saves us, and restores us to the fullness of life as daughters and sons of God.

 Readings: Wisdom 1:13-15, 2:23-24; Psalm 30; 2 Corinthians 8:7, 9, 13-15; Mark 5:21-43

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[1] Daniel Durken, ed., The New Collegeville Bible Commentary: Old Testament (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2015), 1154.

[2] Jeffrey Cole, ed., The Didache Bible (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), 632n.

[3] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, New American Bible, rev. ed. (Washington, DC: United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, 2015), 1663n.

[4] Mary Healy, The Gospel of Mark (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2008), 110.

[5] Mary M. McGlone, “The Inside Story,” National Catholic Reporter 57, 8 (June 11-24, 2021), 19.

[6] Charles Hefling, Why Doctrines, 2^nd ed. (Chestnut Hill: The Lonergan Institute, 2000), 20.

[7] Cole, 1323n.

 

No Other Way

            A faithful servant of God died this week. I was honored to preach his funeral Mass.

 

        We come together today to celebrate a remarkable man—a man who respected the God-given dignity in everyone; a man who lived a purpose-filled life in selfless service to others; a man who bore his cross with unfailing faith in a God who saves; a man who taught us that the meaning of life is love. The man we celebrate today, of course, is Jesus Christ, and Tom Eisenhart would have it no other way.

          You see, Tom knew that in the face of death, the Church confidently proclaims that God created each person for eternal life. Tom knew that God sent his only Son, Jesus Christ, to reconcile all of humanity with God, to open the gates of heaven to all so we can enjoy a life of perfect love, happiness, and peace united with God forever. And Tom knew that we celebrate the Paschal mystery, Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection, at every Mass, including a funeral Mass, to offer our praise and thanksgiving for God’s great mercy, for Jesus’ selfless sacrifice, and for the gift of eternal life.

Tom also knew that Jesus didn’t just open the gates of heaven and leave us to our own devices to figure out how to get there. In his teachings and his own example, Jesus showed us the way—a way of living that can be summarized in one word: love. Jesus makes clear in our Gospel that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our hearts, all our souls, and all our minds. And though he was only asked for the greatest, Jesus throws in the second greatest as well because they’re so closely linked—the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves. Again, Jesus didn’t just talk the talk, he showed us by living in perfect, loving fidelity to God and in selfless, loving charity to all of humanity.

          Our job, then, the very meaning of our lives, is to love, and Tom knew that. Now, I’ll be the first to admit, and I’m sure Tom would agree, that it isn’t always easy to love God and our neighbor. Life has no shortage of hardships, illness, and suffering, and the death of someone so dear to us makes it hard to believe that God really loves us, and it challenges our ability to love him back. Add to that the fact that sometimes we just don’t feel very loving, and sometimes the people around us aren’t very lovable, and this whole love God, love our neighbor thing seems downright impossible. Yet, it’s in these times that we’re called to love even more, to run the race as if to win it—one step at a time. That’s why Saint Paul, in our second reading, challenges us to keep preaching the Good News of Jesus Christ in our words and our actions with patience, courage, constancy, and endurance. As one biblical scholar aptly put it, “The Christian must count every time as an opportunity to speak for Christ,” and the best way to speak for Christ is to love. Tom Eisenhart knew that.

          How do I know? I know because Tom Eisenhart loved. While Tom was famous, perhaps notorious, for loving loud and proud at sporting events and graduations, most of the time Tom was the quiet guy in the background loving God and neighbor through simple acts of selfless service. That’s the Tom I encountered the most. In fact, if you were to draw a circle around me with a 20-foot radius, you’d mark the place where I encountered Tom the most. Right here, every Sunday in the Church he loved, I’d find Tom carrying the bags, setting up or taking down chairs, watering the piano (yes, you heard that right), bickering with Diane over the placement of the microphones, making sure the communion tray had a cup for the choir, making sure I knew if it didn’t, and quietly doing whatever needed to get done so we could celebrate Jesus with all due honor and respect.

And that’s just what Tom did in this 20-foot radius circle. He also served our Church as a catechist for 30 years, as a Eucharistic minister at Mass and for the homebound, and in countless ministries. Tom served the country he loved as well, seeing active duty in Vietnam, where, not surprisingly, he was awarded the Bronze Star for Meritorious Service. And if a wife, six children, fifteen grandchildren, one great-grandchild, parents, siblings, nieces, nephews and in-laws weren’t enough to serve and love, and he loved you all with every ounce of his being, Tom still found time to love countless friends, friends of friends, and complete strangers, offering his help and support to anyone who needed it. He even found it in his “Iron Heart” to love this poor deacon. Whether he was just saying hello, asking me a question, challenging something I said in a homily, telling me I did a good job, or telling me what I did wrong or what I failed to do, Tom always treated me with the loving respect that every child of God deserves.

Diane said it perfectly, “Tom was truly a servant of all and yes, sometimes maddeningly so.” Tom was a servant of all not for any earthly glory, but because he knew that this life wasn’t about him; it’s about Him—Jesus Christ. It’s about living the way Jesus taught us to live so that we can share in the great gift of eternal life that Jesus purchased for us with His life. Tom knew that life is meant to be lived loving God through selfless service to others and that there’s no other way. So if you want to honor Tom, believe. Believe that because He lives, Tom lives. Believe that through a life lived in loving, selfless service to others, we, too, can win the crown of righteousness that awaits us. If you want to honor Tom, don’t imitate Tom. Imitate the man Tom modeled his life after, the man we celebrate today—Jesus Christ. Tom would have it no other way.

Readings: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; 2 Timothy 4:1-8; Matthew 22:34-40

Changed for the Better, Changed for Good - A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year B

           There’s a lovely song near the end of the hit musical Wicked where Elphaba and Glinda share how their friendship over the years has changed them. The song speaks beautifully of the positive impact that one person can have on the life of another, ending with the poignant line, “I do believe that I have been changed for the better, and because I knew you, I have been changed for good.” Today’s readings leave no doubt that the Christian life is all about being changed for the better and being changed for good.

          Jesus came to invite us to be better than we are—much better. In fact, a key teaching of the Church is that “the Son of God became Man so that we might become God.”[1] It sounds almost blasphemous, but I just quoted that from the Catechism of the Catholic Church. And this teaching comes straight from Scripture. As we hear in today’s second reading from the First Letter of John: we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2). This teaching is so important that theologians have given it a name—actually, three names: we call it divinization, deification, or theosis, if you prefer Greek.

          But how can this be? How can mere mortals become gods? Well, when God became human in Jesus Christ, humanity became divine in Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God returns us to the image and likeness of God that we received at creation but sullied with sin. The goal of the Christian life, then, is to return to that god-like condition and to “live out the implications of our dignity as deified children of the Father.”[2] Now don’t get me wrong, divinization doesn’t mean that we become objects of worship—"only God is Divine by nature; we are divinized by adoption.”[3] It’s only in Jesus that we can attain the true, divinized state that God intends for us. That’s why we turn to Jesus to show us how.

          Jesus came to teach us, through his example, how to live as God intended us to live—how to live like gods. We’re called to imitate him, which, in the simplest terms, means that we’re called to be good. Now, being good doesn’t sound so hard, and it shouldn’t, because we were created to be good. It’s our nature to be good. But let’s make sure we understand what we mean by good. The word Jesus uses for “good in today’s Gospel, kalos in the original Greek, is more nuanced than its English translation. Kalos implies a goodness that’s also charming, lovely, and noble. So the Good Shepherd that Jesus is, which we’re called to imitate, isn’t a clean your room, pay your taxes, and eat your broccoli kind of good shepherd. It’s much more than that. It’s a charming, lovely, noble shepherd, like Jesus. We’re called to be god-like shepherds, shepherds who give ourselves unconditionally for the well-being of others, shepherds who are willing to lay down our lives for our flock.

          Jesus’ definition of good certainly ups the ante, but it’s not out of our reach. We witness and experience the unconditional love of charming, lovely, noble good shepherds all the time—just think of the countless healthcare workers, first responders, and military personnel who put their lives at risk every day to protect ours. I bet that each one of us can think of people in our lives whose charming, lovely, noble goodness has changed us for the better, and changed us for good. These people leave their hand prints on our hearts. I’d also bet that each of us can think of people in our lives whom we love unconditionally, for whom we’d freely lay down our lives. Sure, there are wicked people in the world—Jesus warns us about them in today’s Gospel—but human nature is fundamentally good and destined for so much more. With Jesus’ help, divinization isn’t as hard as it may seem. We naturally imitate the good characteristics of those we love, and in sharing that love with others unconditionally, we not only honor and imitate the people who’ve loved us unconditionally, we honor and imitate Jesus and become like God in the process.

          The challenge for us, then, is to expand our flock. We can all think of a few people whom we love unconditionally, but Jesus, the Good Shepherd, loves every human being unconditionally. Admittedly, that’s not as easy. Some people are hard to love at all, let alone unconditionally, but these are the people who need our love the most. We learn how to be good and how to love, when we experience the goodness and love of God through the goodness and love others. The sad fact is that people who turn to evil ways probably haven’t experienced, or haven’t allowed themselves to experience, the goodness and love of others. Think about it, a common characteristic of the poor souls who commit the most heinous crimes is that they’re loners and outcasts who felt rejected by their communities. So if we want to be good shepherds, if we want to be like God, we need to find the sheep “that do not belong to this fold,” and welcome them into our flock with unconditional love, just like Jesus does.

          Elphaba is one of those poor souls. After a series of well-intended mishaps, Elphaba is cast out of Oz and dubbed the Wicked Witch of the West. That beautiful song I mentioned earlier comes at a very sad point in the musical, the moment when Glinda and Elphaba realize that they can no longer be friends (at least publicly) because Glinda chooses to be good, while Elphaba embraces wickedness. I won’t spoil the end of the musical for you but suffice it to say that good always triumphs over evil, and that we should never discount the positive impact a good shepherd can have on another. Like everything in Christianity, following the path of divinization, is our choice. With the help of Jesus, we can all be charming, lovely, noble good shepherds who leave our hand print on the hearts of all we love. And in doing so, they and we, will be changed for the better, and changed for good.

Readings: Acts 4: 8-12; Psalm 1181 John 3:1-2; John 10:11-18

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 460.

[2] Godfrey Diekmann, quoted in Robert Barron, “You’re Holier Than You Know,” Our Faith, US Catholic (July 24, 2008), https://uscatholic.org/articles/200807/youre-holier-than-you-know/.

[3] Joe Heschmeyer, “What Eye Has Not Seen: Divinization and the Saints,” Word on Fire (May 3, 2017, https://www.wordonfire.org/resources/blog/what-eye-has-not-seen-divinization-and-the-saints/18611/.