Staying Awake

"Therefore, stay awake, for you neither the day nor the hour."  (Matthew 25:13)

December 2, 1985.  It was quite possibly the greatest football game the Miami Dolphins ever played.  The undefeated Chicago Bears were coming into town to play on a Monday night and to steal our hallowed undefeated record from our franchise, but our golden boy quarterback and the best game plan Coach Shula ever devised crushed the Bears and sent them home with their only loss of the year.  It was one our franchise's finest hours...and I couldn't see it!  I felt the electricity as we travelled near the old Orange Bowl just hours before kickoff.  I was as pumped up for this game as a 10 year old could get.  But when my bedtime came around, my father pointed to my bedroom and sent me straight to bed.  I don't know how I slept that night, but I did and didn't find out who won until the next morning.  I still give my father a hard time about it to this day.

There are so many things that we miss in life because we fall asleep at the wheel, and we aren't alert enough to notice them especially in our spiritual lives.  If we go through the motions in life, it is almost impossible to see God's mighty hand at work in our life.  This morning when I preached to the children, I leaned in close to them and asked them if any of them had ever fallen asleep at Mass.  They were hesitant at first but eventually admitted that they had dozed off at Mass before.  Then came the money question:  I asked if their parents had ever fallen asleep during Mass. The kids jubilantly shouted "YES!" as their parents tried to hide.  We get distracted, we get bored, and we lose focus on what's important.  As we approach the end of the liturgical year, Jesus is warning us to stay awake, stay alert, and be ready, for we never know when he might come knocking at our door.  Obviously, Christ here is referring to his second coming, but there are so many other times where he tries to do great things in our lives but finds us sleeping or unprepared like the foolish virgins in today's gospel.  

Here's the problem:  we get lazy with our spiritual life far too often.  We don't nurture our soul.  We don't tend to our prayer life.  We get distracted by the external and don't make time for a God who always has time for us.  We are constantly moving on to the "next thing" without enjoying the present.  Just one day after Halloween, they started bombarding our airwaves with Christmas commercials even though it's still a month and a half away.  All of us are a week or two from complaining about being totally overwhelmed by the upcoming holidays.  We're putting the cart before the horse and the horse isn't even out of the barn yet.  We spend so much time planning for the superficial and the material that we do not concentrate on what we need in the present.  There will be plenty of time to prepare for Christmas.  We call it Advent.  Today, we have to focus on the here and now because Christ is present in the here and now.  Like the wise and prudent virgins, we must be sufficiently prepared spiritually for what lies immediately before us, and not be unprepared and get distracted like the foolish ones.  At this Mass, we should be thinking about how we can grow in our love for Christ, and not thinking about the week that lies ahead or what we're going to do after Mass.  We should come spiritually prepared to celebrate the mystery of God's love, and not look past this sacred hour, for around this altar is where our Lord does some of his finest work.  So stay awake my friends for the Lord is ready to do something wonderful in your life, and you definitely don't want to be asleep when it happens.

Being Called Father

“The greatest among you must be your servant.”  (Matthew 23:11)

I still remember the first time I was called “Father.”  I wasn’t even a priest yet.  My ordination was still nine days away.  I was visiting St. Agnes for the very first time and was being given a tour of my first assignment by the school bookkeeper and she kept calling me Father and introducing me to everyone as “Father Manny.”  I tried in vain to tell her that I wasn’t a priest yet that she could call me Manny, but she insisted because I was going to be a priest very soon and she wanted me to get used to it.  It was a little jarring at first being called “Father.”  It is for every newly ordained priest.  And even as I approach ten years of priestly service, when I stop and think about this, it is truly humbling and underserved.

In today’s gospel, Jesus tells the disciples, “Call no one on earth your father.”  He does not mean this literally, for he is simply warning the disciples about the feeling of superiority that the Pharisees had gotten over all the titles they enjoyed being called.  For me, the title “father” has never made me feel superior, but rather been a challenge and a reminder of the incredible responsibility that the Good Lord has given to me in calling me to be his priest.  It is a challenge to be humble, selfless, and a servant above all else.  “The greatest among you must be your servant.”  Jesus reminds of us this in today’s gospel, but as a priest I was reminded of this on my ordination day when I lay prostrate on the cathedral floor.  Above all else, I must be your servant.

Last summer, I read great book by the biblical scholar Scott Hahn on the biblical origins of the priesthood titled, “Many Are Called:  Rediscovering the Glory of the Priesthood.”  I read it, providentially, on my first trip to Rome.  Dr. Hahn echoes the words of Jesus in today’s gospel that we have one Father in heaven, but what this great scholar said next really moved me:  “[God the Father’s] perfect fatherhood is a spiritual act.  Celibate priests are living and life-giving images of God the Father, as they beget new children for the kingdom through baptism (p.129).”  This week in his reflection on today’s readings, Dr. Hahn would finish that thought by saying:  “The fatherhood of…the Church’s priests and bishops, is a spiritual paternity given to raise us as God’s children.  Our fathers give us new life in baptism, and feed us the spiritual milk of the gospel and the Eucharist.”  Very challenging indeed when I stop to think about my call to mirror the spiritual paternity of God our Father.  It is a title that I do not take lightly, and I challenge all of you not to take lightly either because it reminds my brother priests and I of the humble service that we have been called to and all the spiritual children that have been entrusted to our care.

I have been thinking about this theme of spiritual paternity all week, and yesterday I texted several of my former parishioners from my first parish, young and old, and simply asked them:  “Why do you call me Father?”  I got some great responses from very humorous to very deep and moving:

-Because our children look up to you like a Father…because we respect the call your have answered to be a “Father”…Because your arms are always open like the “loving father.”

-Because you have gray hair and can be a pain like a father!

-Because it separates you from other people.

-Because you are a role model

-Because I can go to you to celebrate…look for advice, and cry on your shoulder for compassion.

-Because He chose you to be His reflection to all of us…you are called to model “Our Father” on earth.

-Because that’s what the church calls the priest therefore you are Father Manny

-Because you give me guidance, provide me with nourishment, chide me when I misbehave, and love me unconditionally.  Isn’t that what fathers do?

When I was reading these responses last night, I couldn’t help but tear up a bit.  I am a flawed human being who has been called by God to this extraordinary vocation of being a priest.  I know I have a lot to go when it comes to being a reflection of our Father in heaven.  There are days where priesthood is a joyful struggle as we try to make the Word of God come alive for a people distracted by the world.  It is difficult, but there is not greater life, for it is your prayers that sustain us.  We tend to forget that at Mass when the priest says, “This is my body which will be given up for you,” he is not simply repeating the words of Christ or dramatically re-enacting them.  He is acting the person of Christ and offering up his own life, as Christ did, for the people he is about to feed.  He is offering his own body and blood for the salvation of us all. 

I will end with a note that I got from one of you, my wonderful new parishioners, just yesterday morning.  This past week our pastor and other associate were on retreat so I was left behind to hold down the fort and offer up all the Masses during the week among other duties.  As you can imagine, I was exhausted at the end of the week, but then I picked up the note that simply read:  “Thank you for all the gifts of your priesthood this past week.  Because of you, we were able to receive Jesus every day.”

On this Priesthood Sunday, when so many of you thank us for being a priest, it is I who must thank all of you for allowing me to serve you at this altar and beyond as a priest of our Lord Jesus Christ.  You remind me every day, even on the difficult ones, of how richly blessed I am and how much I still need to go to be the perfect reflection of Our Father in heaven.  That is why on this day, and every day, I ask you:  never cease to pray for your priests.  And pray for vocation as well because you never know:  there may be a young man sitting in our midst that we will one day call “Father.”

Know Thy Neighbor

"Which commandment in the law is the greatest?" (Matthew 22:36)

This is more than just a trick question that the Pharisees offer up to Jesus. We hear this question and immediately think that Jesus has to choose from among the 10 commandments given to Moses.  But the Pharisees really want to put Jesus to the test because their question goes much deeper.  You see, the Jews observed 613 commandments that are present in the first five books of the Bible and now Jesus had to choose the greatest of them.  Jesus simplifies things and doesn't make up any new commandment. Rather, he quotes two that are already present in the Scriptures.  When telling us to love God with all our strength, heart, and mind, he is quoting Deuteronomy 6:5.   When he tells us that we must love our neighbor like ourselves, he quotes Leviticus 19:18.  So Jesus is not reinventing the wheel here, he is merely summarizing the whole law in one word:  love.  

There is a two fold dimension to this love:  love of God and love of neighbor.  One cannot exist without the other.  St. John speaks of this in his first letter when he says that we cannot love God, whom we can't see, if we don't love our neighbor who we do see (see 1 John 4:19).  So this begs the question:  do we love our neighbor?  I have another:  do we know our neighbor?  There are so many people around us that walk in and out of our lives like strangers.  We don't engage them.  We don't talk to them.  They are our coworkers, classmates, members of our family, and even the very people that we worship with every single Sunday who are currently sitting right next to you.  These are our neighbors that we are called to love.  Do we know them?

This morning as I was preaching to the children, I asked them who is their neighbor and why does Jesus tell us to love them.  One of them answered:  "because Jesus is present in everyone of us."  It's amazing how children can comprehend the mysteries of God's love even more than we can.  Yes, Jesus is present in the poor, the downtrodden, the alien, the imprisoned, and every single person that we find it difficult to see Jesus' face in.  Yet, we are called to love them nonetheless.  All it takes is a smile, an embrace, an act of love.  In fact, you might want to start with the person sitting next to you. 

Ever the Dreamer (10-20-08)

I did not preach today due to the Ministry Weekend we held in the parish, so here is an excerpt of my homily from these readings three years ago.

"[Give] to God what belongs to God."  (Matthew 22:21)

What belongs to God?"  Do our hearts belong to him?  Our thoughts?  Our actions?  Our words?  Notice that part of the word "belongs" is the word "long".  There should be a longing in our hearts to offer up all that we have and all that we are to the glory of God's name.  Every blessing that we have in our lives comes from the Almighty and that is why we owe him everything.  If we truly want to give to God what belongs to God, then we must spend our lives working for his Kingdom  Yes, we can build up his kingdom in our jobs, schools, and homes.  Separation of church and state doesn't mean we check our beliefs, our religion, our convictions, and our morals at the door when we leave this church today.  That really doesn't make us very good Christians, it makes us, yep, Jesus calls us out in the gospel, just as hypocritical as the Pharisees.  If we truly belong to God, the world will know.  Unfortunately, we spend most of our time worrying about what the world thinks of us than worrying if we are indeed doing God's will.  If we all gave to God what belongs to God, by totally serving Him and our neighbor, maybe the dire picture of our society that [we see on TV] would become a little more hopeful.  I don't know.  Maybe I'm a dreamer, as John Lennon says in "Imagine."  Maybe I'm overly optimistic about the possibilities we have within us, about what Christians could actually accomplish if we were, well, really Christians.   Well, so what if I'm a dreamer?  I've been called worse.  

Jesus Likes a Good Party

“Behold, I have prepared my banquet…”  (Matthew 22:4)

 

I have a very dear friend who throws parties that are the stuff of legend.  She plans every detail.  Invites all her family and friends.  And you know you have been to one of her parties when the party ends and you think to yourself, “Wow, I partied too much.”  We all look forward to a good party. We enjoy the eating, the drinking (in moderation, of course), the dancing and the joy that comes in sharing that occasion with friends.  Now, weddings are parties on steroids.  So much planning goes into every single detail.  I sometimes lament that couples spend too much time preparing for the wedding day and party instead of for the actual sacrament of marriage.  Brides spend hours on their wedding day preparing for their big day. So many things are happening behind the scenes to make the wedding feast unique and memorable.  But today’s readings challenge us with a simple question:  Do we prepare properly and in the same manner for the feast that we celebrate here every Sunday?  You see, Jesus likes a good party.  Throughout the gospel we read how he was at parties and ministered to the people there.  In fact, he performed his first miracle at a wedding feast in Cana.  So as Christians, we take our cue from our Master and realize that being festive and enjoying parties is part of the joy that we share as sons and daughters of God.  But do we give secular parties and this ultimate celebration of the Mass the same importance?

 

In today’s gospel we read how God has prepared this big feast for us, but like some of the people in the gospel, we sometimes reject or ignore this invitation.  Or if we do show up for the feast, we aren’t adequately dressed or prepared.  Think about it.  There is no wedding, party, holiday event that you’ve been to that is bigger than what we are doing right now in the Mass.  Yesterday, a deacon came to give our men a morning of reflection here at the parish and he put forth this example:  if we knew that Jesus was going to present in the Mass (which he is but we’ll get back to that in a second), but if we knew that Jesus and not the priest was going to be the main celebrant at the Mass, wouldn’t we go out of our way to be here and to be properly prepared?  I mentioned to my friend last night that I was going lead off my homily with the analogy on her parties, and she immediately picked up on where I was going with it.  She texted me this reply:  “ONLY THE BEST!!!!  If you knew Jesus was coming to your party…NO DETAIL WOULD BE SPARED!!!!!  N in my case He’s always first on the list!!!!!” 

 

But the thing is, and I told you that I would return to this, is that Jesus IS really here, and this challenges our faith in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Because if we believe that Christ is really and truly here in body, soul, and divinity, then we would prepare for this celebration like we would for one of our weddings or parties.  We go out of our way to plan everything for our parties, and we dress to the nines and build up so much excitement so that we can have an unforgettable time.  So much work goes into these great events.  Why can't we put that much effort and excitement into the wedding feast of the Lamb?

Thorns in the Vineyard

“O Lord, God of hosts, restore us; if your face shine upon us, then we shall be saved.  (Psalm 80:20)”

God creates everything so beautifully.  We are vines in his beautiful vineyard where Christ is the true vine.  Unfortunately this vineyard sometimes has thorns scattered throughout that prohibit the vine from growing and producing fruit.

The Church, the new house of Israel, is that vineyard.  I see the beauty of the Church every day.   I see a Church that is strong, vibrant, and able to transform the world.  Yet, we ourselves sometimes try to tear down the vineyard as in today’s Gospel or we let others come into God’s vineyard to trample it by imposing the world’s will on us instead of us staying firmly rooted in Christ, the true vine.  The readings today are a cautionary tale of how a vineyard can be overrun both from within and from the outside.  As Catholics, we are besieged from all sides when it comes to our faith and morals, and there are times when we join the crowds and are lured by the voices of the world because it is easier to fold and compromise our values than to cause conflict.  This causes us to be cut off from the vineyard and at the same time cause harm to it.

Let’s not mince words.  As Catholics, we can sometimes be wimps.  We don’t stand up for our faith and values as we should.  This Respect Life Sunday should serve as a wake up call for us because the Gospel of Life is being assaulted on all sides.  Yes, I always preach on how little we are doing, outside of the good people in the Respect Life offices, to stop the genocide of abortion in this country.  But how many of us are standing up to the plague of executions occurring across our nation?  How many of us are standing firmly for the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman?  Do you know that some of our children in our Catholic school think that marriage should be between whomever?  Why do they think this? Because it’s become acceptable in television and pop culture.  They can’t tell the difference.  Did you also know that our government is drafting language that would basically label those who defend traditional marriage as racists and bigots?  The Archbishop just told his priests as we met this week that we must be prepared to confront this challenge.  He alluded to a priest in Canada who was arrested for denouncing same sex marriagesand abortion from the pulpit.  In other words, what I am doing right now.  If that’s the direction that we’re going in then lock me up now and throw away the key because this priest will never cease to preach the TRUTH that has been passed on to us from Christ for 2000 years.

As Catholics, we cannot compromise our values, Christ’s values, to accommodate the world.  We cannot fold when faced with a raging stream of immorality that seeks to drown our voices.  No, our voices must louder than ever.  The world does not see the beauty that we see within our Church community.   The beauty that we see in every human life.  We cannot allow an ever more secular world to obscure the beauty of what we stand for as Catholics.  The vineyard of the Lord is great and vast, and we have to extend its message of peace, mercy, and respect for all human life and respect for the sacredness of marriage.  These are challenging times we are living in which is why we must rise with one voice and uphold all we hold sacred.  This priest has your back.  I just pray you have mine.

Did Jesus Make You Angry?

 "...complete my joy by being of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing." (Phil 2:2)

This morning I spent the first three Masses standing outside the Church doors greeting the people as they came in for Mass and as they exited.  Since there was a blood drive being held in the parish today, there were two volunteers inviting parishioners as they left if they would give blood.  The volunteers were shocked by the cold reaction of our people as they were leaving Mass.  Some people wouldn’t even acknowledge them or simply gave them a mean face for even bothering them.  Now mind you, some of these parishioners were walking out of Mass during communion which prompted me to wonder and almost ask one of them like a little child would:  “Did Jesus make you angry or something?”  I’ll return to this group of people in a bit.

This week’s readings pick up where last week’s readings left off.  We continue to see God favoring those who truly repent for past bad decisions over those who seemingly live virtuous lives but have gotten lazy and stop producing fruit for God’s kingdom.

We have two group of people referenced in today’s gospels:  the religious leaders of Israel and then the tax collectors and prostitutes.  The religious leaders represent the son who said yes to his father but did not go into the vineyard to work.  The tax collectors and prostitutes represent the son who initially tells his father that he would not got out to work in the vineyard but eventually does.  The son who goes into the vineyard will produce fruit from his labor.  The son that does not go into the vineyard is paying lip service to his father and produces no fruit.  What side do we fall under?

Last week, I made an aside remark during my homily that I never wrote down.  I made the analogy that these two groups of people reminds me of Catholics who come to Mass only on Easter and Christmas versus those of us who are here every week.  Those that come only a couple of times a year have a place at this table no matter how much they frustrate us for taking our parking spaces and seats because they may be moved to join us more frequently at this table where they belong.  Those of us who come weekly run the danger of falling into routine, of becoming stale, and not producing any fruit except for clocking in and clocking out at Mass for an hour a week.  I said it a few weeks ago:  we have to be careful not to fall into this routine.  Every time we come to Mass should be an experience all its own.  We must be open to the promptings of the Spirit that lead us to change our lives.  Yes, we say the same prayers and sing the same songs, but the readings are different and we should experience Jesus in a totally different way that challenges us to do more for the building up of his kingdom.  We must approach the Eucharist with a sense of wonder like someone who is approaching this sacrament for the first time or maybe even a couple of times a year. We should walk out with joy in our hearts because we have just experienced something heavenly.  The sinners of Jesus’ time understood that they had experienced the divine.  The religious establishment did not. 

I wonder if some of us fall under the title of “religious establishment.”  Most of us come to Mass every Sunday, but we want to do it on our own terms.  We want to arrive at a certain time, leave at a certain time, sit in the same pew, and not be bothered by anything going on around us.  We start to get very good at paying lip service to God, priests included, and have nothing to show for after Mass except that we were sitting in a pew for an hour once a week.   We don’t want to be bothered by the people around us who are trying to draw us in to the life of the Church yet we profess to be part of the Body of Christ.  St. Paul tells us in the second reading that we must be of the same mind and the same love, but some of us come to Mass as if we were the only people in the church.

We are in danger of becoming the Pharisees of our time if we continue to simply pay lip service to God and not produce fruit for his vineyard.  Every Sunday I stand outside and see so many people dash out of the church as if it was on fire with a sour look on their face.  It causes anyone to wonder if they truly experienced the living God during the celebration they supposedly took part in.  We cannot and should not approach the Mass as an obligation or something we simply do out of habit or routine because we close ourselves off from being awed by the living God that makes himself present in the Breaking of the Bread. That is why Jesus favored those who despite being sinners embraced his message because it’s never too late in God’s eyes to set things right, and the sinners rejoiced that were even acknowledged by God let alone forgiven. That is why we must empty ourselves as Christ did and become humble when we come to this table so that we may be open to whatever He has in store for us.  We must come to Mass with a total sense of wonder much like a child would. 

Who knows?  Maybe one day I may be standing outside the church with a child, and trust me they pick up on everything, and that child may actually be bold enough to ask those grumpy people coming out of Mass:  “Did Jesus make you angry?”

A God Who Constantly Surprises Us

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways.”  (Isaiah 55:8)

Sometimes we have to step back to see God tapping us on the shoulder and reminding us that he’s there:

-A little girl who I barely know is walking in a perfectly straight line with her Kindergarten class while I walk in the other direction.  She suddenly breaks the line to give me a hug.

-A woman approaches a brother priest in a New York subway last week on the way to Ground Zero to tell him how she ran out of the Twin Towers on 9/11, sought refuge in a church, saw the firefighters lay their fallen chaplain by the altar, and rediscovered her faith.  (Read more of Father Luis' moving story here: http://www.miamiarch.org/ip.asp?op=Blog_11910124712281)

-A man approaches me after a weekday Mass to simply tell me: “Thank you for being a priest.”

-A random email or text message is received from a friend, a family member, an old parishioner, or student to remind me that I am loved and somehow made a difference in somebody’s life.

-A young man who pulls me aside out of the blue and tells me:  “Father, I think I want to be a priest.”

-A routine phone call from my sister becomes not so routine and flat out reduces me to tears when she tells me she is going to pass on my name to her unborn son.

Just when you think you have God figured out, he starts to surprise you in ways that you couldn’t possibly imagine.  Try as we might to do things “our way,” we still seem surprised when His way turns out infinitely better.  Our ways are definitely not his ways.  He is a God who will favor those who are last, yet we still scratch and claw to strive to be first.  When are we going to learn to let God be God and to just get out of his way?  It’s amazing how easy life gets and how joyful we become when we just surrender to His will.  And even then, He continues to amaze us, surprise us, and overwhelm us with the depths of his love.  Because just when you think God cannot possibly demonstrate the depths of his love for you any more than he already has…he goes even deeper!

This week, let yourself be surprised by your God.

Redefining Heroism

“None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.”  (Roman 14:7)

To be human is to be selfless.  It is to love others more than self.  True heroism involves putting the common good over one’s self, and laying your life down for another.  This is what our Lord did.  This is what we see on the cross.  Ten years ago, our definition of what it means to be a hero changed.  Men and women we see every day, and pretty much take for granted most of the time, were all of the sudden seen in a new light. Firefighters, police officers, and first responders were seen throwing themselves into harm’s way, as they do pretty much every day in this country, and were rightfully and finally given their due for running into two burning towers.  I always tearfully recall their heroism and that of our military whenever I hear the third verse of “America the Beautiful”:  “O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife.  Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life!”

Today we honor all those men and women who lay their lives down for us whether on our street corners, in firehouses, or in the deserts and mountains of Iraq or Afghanistan.  So many who teach us on a daily basis that selflessness is what makes our nation great.  And that selflessness unites us.  Today we have with us members of our local fire department.  You always have a special place in my prayer life because my brother is a firefighter and civil servant as well.  He became a firefighter just a couple of weeks after the terrorist attacks, but five years ago today I was honored to give the invocation when he joined the City of Miami Fire Department.  That evening I wrote:

“[As for my brother], I often take what he does for a living his vocation for granted.  Many people celebrate my vocation to the priesthood, and they call my life "heroic."  But today as I saw my brother become a firefighter for the City of Miami under the backdrop of the burning twin towers, I wondered, "who truly is the hero?"  Right after the ceremony we proceeded outside to the training center for a demonstration of their skills.  Some were ordinarily impressive and some were jaw dropping.  Then we looked up to the top of this ten story building and saw my brother waving at my parents and at his son, then, with the crowd in awe, with two of his classmates, he proceeded to scale down the building…HEAD FIRST!  And so I wondered, as I often do when I see pictures of the World Trade Center on 9/11, "Would my brother run into those burning towers?"  After watching him scale that wall, after hearing him take the firefighter's oath which forsakes self for the good of others, the only answer I could come up with was an unequivocal "yes."  Makes you want to rethink your definition of a hero.”

These men and women remind us that loving others, loving country, more than self is the greatest attribute of an American.  They unite us through their heroic example of courage.   Ten years ago, our nation was firmly united in one of our darkest hours.  If any good came out of that horror, it’s that we were reminded that we were one and that a nation united is far stronger than any terror attack.  Our churches were filled as people looked for answers, for as Christians we knew that only with Christ could we make sense of the senseless.  May this solemn occasion serve to remind us once again that true heroism lies in selflessness, and that our strength as Americans lies in knowing that we are the United States of America:  one people, one country, one nation under God!

I'm Listening

"If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts."  (Psalm 95:8)

I have a penchant for getting into trouble with my sister when we talk on the phone because she always claims that I don't listen to her.  I do listen even though she asks me every couple of minutes:  “Are you listening to me?”  I do admit there has been a time or two when my mind has drifted or I have been working on something else (multi-tasking) and she asks if I’m listening.  This happened last week when she called and was telling my about my nephew’s first days of Pre-K 3.  After a few minutes, she said, “You’re not listening to me.”  I told her I was.  She paused for a second and said, “you’re watching a baseball game, aren’t you?”  “I’m not!”   I tried to defend myself, but I kind of actually was watching a game.  Now ever since I was a kid, my mother and my sister know when I am lying because my lip starts to curl.  So my sister exasperated said, “I can hear your lip curling over the phone!”  I never did admit it to her. (I guess I’ll be getting a pretty angry phone call once she reads this.)  The reason I bring up this story is because today’s readings are all about listening particularly to the voice of God.  In the late 90’s during the sitcom “Frasier”, the titular character who played a psychiatrist with a radio show would welcome his callers on the air by declaring, “I’m listening.”  This is what God is telling us constantly in the Scriptures particular in the gospel when Jesus tells us that our communal prayer will be answered by our Father in heaven.  He is always listening, but the question that we are challenged with today is:  do we listen to Him?

There are many obstacles that prevent us from hearing the voice of God, and it is very hard to hear His voice if we’re not listening which is an essential, yet often neglected, component of prayer.  If we don’t listen to God, we become disconnected from his will which in turn hardens our hearts and allows us to be easily led into sin.  In today’s gospel, Jesus talks about fraternal correction and about pointing out the sins of our brothers and sisters.  The reason that Jesus does this is because sometimes a brother or a sister may be the last person to know that they are in trouble or in sin.  Think of an alcoholic who needs an intervention in order to realize that they have a serious problem.  What we sometimes fail to realize is that sin has a social dimension.  It may be a “private sin”, but it not only affects our relationship with God, it affects our relationship with the Church because it causes us to distance ourselves from God and prevents us from being effective members of Christ’s body.  That is why during the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass, we say “I confess to Almighty God, and to you, my brothers and sisters…”  For this reason, Jesus asks us to intercede for our brothers and sisters who have gone wayward because they may need to be rescued from the clutches of sin.  Sin drives such a wedge between us and God and our community.  Sin destroys us.  It blinds us.  It sucks us into a vortex of despair.  It tricks us into doing something we think will make us happy when all it does is drive us further away from our God and make us numb to its horrendous effects.  Sin does not allow us to love as St. Paul calls us to love in the second reading, but ultimately, sin makes us forget what the voice of God sounds like.

It is in the despair of sin that we start to blame God for our own self-inflicted problems and start to complain that He isn’t listening to us.  This is a complaint I hear often:  “God doesn’t listen to me.”  It’s not that God isn’t listening to us.  It’s that we’re not listening to Him.  Even when trapped by sin, God always listens to our pleas and sends good friends to rescue us and bring us back home where we begin to remember what God’s voice sounds like.  It is a voice of peace.  A voice of comfort.  A voice of serenity.  A voice that makes us feel that we are home.  So again, the problem isn’t that God isn’t listening to us, the question we must ask ourselves today is:  do we listen to Him?  May we remove all stains of sin that may harden our hearts so that we can freely approach God’s presence and say, “Speak, Lord.  I’m listening.”