Homilies of Fr Browne
"Do whatever He tells you"
Throughout history there have been some famous last words that people have spoken. There were some ordinary terms, such as Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who said, “I have a terrible headache.” Washington Irving said, “Well, I must arrange my pillow for another weary night.”
Other final words were a little more theatrical: Zeigfield said, “Lights! I am ready for the finale. The show looks good.” Beethoven said, “Applaud my friends, the comedy is over.” Then, there were those who spoke lastly about their concerns for the next life. Horatio Nelson Algiers said, “Thank God, I have done my duty.” Edgar Poe said, “Lord, help my poor soul.”
Today in our gospel we have our Blessed Mother, the mother of Jesus saying, “Do whatever He tells you.” These are the last words in the New Testament that we have from Mary. “Do whatever he tells you.” These words are very, very important, and to try to understand why they are so important, we must put them into the larger context of Saint John’s gospel. We know that Saint Matthew, Saint Luke and Saint Mark have already written their gospels some 20-30 years prior. We are still in the first century with Saint John, but we are now late in that century; we are in the nineties. Saint John is on the island of Patmos; he is an older man, and he is dictating what he remembers about Jesus. John is the youngest of the apostles; he is also the last one alive. He has seen Jesus crucified, he has seen Jesus rise from the dead, he has seen the beginning of the early Church, he has seen Saint Paul begin to spread the Good News in his letters; but he has also seen the great persecution that came about under Nero, he has also seen the Church begin to try to understand “Who is this Jesus?” That is why Saint John’s gospel is different from all the other gospels. The other three gospels we call the synoptic gospels: the synopsis of Jesus life. Now Saint John wants to make sure that we really know who this Jesus is, so that we will follow Him! This is why he goes to great extremes to remember stories and occurrences with Jesus that truly point out that He is the Messiah, that He is God.
That is why the story of the Wedding Feast at Cana only appears in his gospel. It does not appear in any of the other gospel passages. This is very important because that sign of changing the water into wine (this great abundance of wine; this would be roughly around 150 gallons of wine) is an Old Testament sign—a sign of largesse, reflecting the Messiah. The magnitude of this wine is also a prefigurement of what this Messiah is going to be able to do. We know too, that in Hebrew poetry, wine is called “the blood of the grape.” So this is a prefiguring of what Jesus is going to do at the Last Supper; the wine will be changed into his true blood. So Saint John is trying to set before us this day who this Jesus really is, and this is why the words of Mary here are so very important. “Do whatever He tells you.”
We need to see that Jesus’ response is very interesting when Mary first comes to Him. She tells him they have no wine, and he says “Woman how does your concern affect me?” A bit of the Jewish idiom is lost in this Greek translation. The Jewish idiom actually more closely renders, “Woman, what does this mean to you or me?” In other words, this is not our wedding feast, this is not our party. . . my hour has not yet come. Saint John is very emphatic, “And the mother of Jesus was there.” Why?? When does Jesus’ hour come? On the cross; at the crucifixion! And who is at the crucifixion?? His mother again is there. Saint John very much so points that out. He also want to make it very clear what Mary’s role is. We have her here, she is able to tell Jesus what to do, then she is able to give Jesus to the Father to become the Redeemer, to die on the cross—and then Jesus, from that cross gives Mary to the whole Church to be the mother of the Church. She is the mother of His followers. Thus, her words today, “Do whatever He tells you” are words directed to all the disciples of Jesus Christ. “Do whatever He tells you,” not whatever you want to do, but what He tells you to do. Saint John is clear, that Jesus is going to show us as the Messiah, the one who comes from God, as God the way to everlasting life. We must do whatever He tells us. We must follow His way.
Now, what this means for us today is that when life gets very difficult and we feel that we can’t go on, we can’t follow the way of Jesus Christ (that basically, we are like the wine at Cana.) When our desire to follow Jesus is beginning to run out, is getting low—the only one that can fill us and lift us back up is Jesus Christ. We have to turn to Him and ask Him to do that in our lives. We have to be people that turn and pray every day; people that work at following the way of Jesus Christ, we need to be people that come here and gather around the altar to partake in the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Saint John, in his gospel, will later on point out that you cannot have everlasting life within you unless you share in the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.
Saint John, in his gospel, tries to point out to us, what is absolutely necessary. He is giving us the bottom-line, because he knows he is the last of the apostles. He is the last one who can write and put this message down for us to make it very clear to us what needs to be done. And he also makes it very clear to us today that, yes, when we are in need, when we don’t know where to turn; we also have a mother who will intercede for us. Mary. Mary. This is very, very important. For, even Jesus says “My hour is not yet come,” but yet, he does what Mary asks Him to do.
She continues to do that for us, today.
So let us not just take this message and say, “Oh, yes, I know this gospel passage. It is the Wedding Feast at Cana. I’ve heard it many times before. I know the story.” Do we really know what is happening? Do we really have the fuller meaning of what Saint John is trying to tell us this day? We are being told to turn to Jesus Christ; to turn to Mary and ask her to intercede for us. She is our mother and Jesus is the Messiah. We have no other choice than to live and do whatever He tells us to do, to live as He has called us to live, to turn ourselves over to Him, to pray each day. To come and receive His Body and Blood from the table, from the altar that is His altar. To be strengthened so that then our final words will be, “Thank you Lord Jesus Christ. I have tried to be your good and faithful servant. Please, welcome me home.”
Fr. Ronald T. Browne
Third Sunday Ordinary Time
Cycle C--
Selfless Love
Often at some of the weddings that I witness I tell a little story about the mother who overheard her two young daughters playing wedding in the backyard. She heard the one daughter say to the other, “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say will be used against you, you have the right to an attorney. You may now kiss the bride.”
The old comedian Red Skelton had a recipe for a perfect marriage, as well. He said, “Well, this works in my marriage: two times a week we go to a nice restaurant, have a little beverage, good food, and companionship. She goes on Tuesdays; I go on Fridays.” I mention this about weddings and marriages because many of us have heard our second reading from Scripture today, the letter of Saint Paul to the Corinthians, at a lot of weddings. This is very popular, a very beautiful reading. It talks about love in that love is patient, love is kind, love is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude. It does not seek its own interest. This is very beautiful. Yet, the fact of the matter is that Saint Paul did not write this letter for weddings or marriages; he wrote this letter for everybody.
What was happening at the time that Saint Paul was writing this letter to the Corinthians, is that the concept of love had been around for a long time and many writers had written about love. As a matter of fact, one of the most illustrious was Plato who wrote an entire treatise on love. But this was before Christianity came on the scene, before Christ came on the scene. This love that Plato wrote about, and all the other writers before Christ wrote about was termed eros. This is where we get the words erotic and eroticism from; it is a type of love that is only between two people. This is a very desirous, very sensual type of love that does not admit a third person. But the type of love that Jesus brought to us and that Saint Paul is writing about in his letter to the Corinthians is a whole different type of love. This is why they used a different Greek word to describe this love; the Greek word they used was agape. Agape, translated means, a type of spiritual love, or charity. This is a charitable love that does not seek its own interests, it seeks to go out and be spread through a community. This is very different and it is very important that we realize this. This is a different type of love!
Now there are some classic examples of these different types of love. The classic form of eros is found in Verdi’s opera, La Traviata, when the one actress singing says, “Love me Alfredo; Love me as much as I love you.” The Christian love ‘agape’ is seen in what Jesus Christ said, “Love one another, as I have loved you.” Let your love go out to others. There still is this desirous love. In a married couple, that is how it starts out—there is this desirous love, this eros. But hopefully, it will grow into this Christian love of agape. It will go out from the two of them to share with the family and with the community. And so this love grows and this is very important for us to realize because this is what God is calling us to-- this agape, this type of love. We see that Saint Paul writes also, “Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth!” We really have to focus on this because in our day and age the entertainment world and the advertisement world really try to immerse us in their version of love. They just throw upon us that love is reducible to this eros; this desirous sensual love that is reducible to sex, and that sex is all that is important, and that is the only thing that will bring you happiness and joy.
People will say, “Come on Father Browne, the Church is too bent on sex-- that the Church talks too much about it.” To this I have to say: Hey, let’s take a look at society! Let’s be honest. You know, I like watching sports on TV, but it is very often that a commercial comes on and it is Victoria’s Secret! We’ve got MTV, and many parents think there is nothing wrong with MTV! What about Desperate Housewives?! Think about it! This is terrible what society is putting forth. Society is putting forth that all that matters is sex. No. Agape is what really matters. The love that is true charity; the love that goes out of ourselves to others that truly seeks not its own interest, but rather the interest of others. This love that does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth. We have got a message to take to the rest of the world—to society! We have got to tell society that they have got it wrong, that Jesus Christ has it right.
I know that people will say, “Father Browne, you are being negative again. Just tell us what we are doing right. Don’t tell us what we have to do.” The fact of the matter is that this is precisely what our first reading in the gospel today is talking about when Jeremiah is dialoguing with God. God is calling Jeremiah to be a prophet at a young age. Now, believe me, Jeremiah is not too enthusiastic about this, because he has seen what has happened to the other prophets. Recalling other prophets, he knows their message has been resented, some of them have been killed . . . so Jeremiah, understandably is saying, “Lord, I don’t think this is a good idea.” But God is saying, “No, no, no. I formed you in the womb to be a prophet, and you must go forth to preach the truth. Do not worry. I will be with you. Yes, you are going to be scared, yes, you think you lack qualifications, but I will be with you. Yes, you must preach the truth. Yes, people are not going to be happy with you. But it is the truth!”
We see this happening with Jesus, today. He goes back to Nazareth where he was raised and at first the people are excited. He goes to the synagogue in Nazareth, he takes out the scroll on the Sabbath, and he reads from the book of Isaiah. Jesus reads the prophecy part about the Messiah where it says, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing. I am the Messiah. I am the One. And he speaks with such authority that the people begin to say “Wow!” They are amazed at His words. They speak highly of Him. Then all of a sudden they step back and say, “Whoa, wait a minute! Isn’t this the son of Joseph? Wait a minute. Hey, if you are really the Messiah, do some of those miracles you did at Capernaum. Come on now—we don’t know if you are who you say you are.” They begin to doubt. That is when Jesus says to them, “Ah, it is just like in the old days when the Israelites doubted the prophets and did not listen to the prophets. It is just like in the time of Elijah, when Elijah wasn’t able to perform any miracles because of the doubt that was in Israel. The only one was the gentile, the widow in Zerapath in the land of Sidon. And how about Elisha, when he was the prophet? He cured, but the only one who believed in Him was the leper Namaan from Syria.
That is why the people in Nazareth get mad at Jesus. They say, “What do you mean, we are lacking in faith?” This is an example of what is going to happen to Jesus throughout his ministry and what happens in His message nowadays. At first, there is enthusiasm when we hear the message, but then there is growing resentment. There is resentment because it means there is accountability on our part. That was the resentment of those in Nazareth. Jesus was going to demand that they live a certain way, that they follow this path of the Messiah.
Well, there is a certain way for us too, in our day and age. We have got to look around at our world and see what is happening. Is this agape, this charitable love, really alive in our society?? Do we encourage others to live this love? Or, do we allow the love that society puts forth to be the so-called “love” that dominates? Is eros, eroticism, what is most important? Again, Saint Paul writes: “Love does not rejoice over wrong-doing, but rejoices with the truth.” Truth is what comes from Jesus Christ. This is the truth: the love that we are called to profess and share is agape. We put forth charitable love, and unless we are doing that we are not really being true to Jesus Christ. And when we allow society to dictate something contrary to that of Jesus we need to step back and say that is wrong.
And so today, I cannot preach to the people that are not here, I can only preach to you to encourage you to go forth and spread the love and truth of Jesus Christ . . . the love that is charity. That is why sometimes this scripture passage of Saint Paul is translated “So faith, hope, and charity remain.” That is the love that Jesus Christ brought to us and that Saint Paul writes about today. This is the greatest of all, this agape—the love that is the charity that goes out from us and does not think of ourselves, but thinks of others. Let us this day truly take forth the love of Jesus Christ, this love that is charity.
Fr. Ronald T. Browne
Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C--
Trinity Sunday
Deuteronomy 4:32-34, 39-40
Romans 8:14-17
Matthew 28:16-20
In going over the readings for this Sunday during this past week, a song from the early 1970s came to my mind. The last part of the ballad is very applicable with our readings today. The end of it goes like this:
And the three men I admired most
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
They caught the last train to the coast
The day the music died.
And they were singing
Bye, bye, Miss American Pie
Drove my Chevy to the levy but the levy was dry,
Them good ol boys were drinking whiskey and rye
Singing This will be the day that I die.
--American Pie, by Don McLean
Why did it come to mind for me? Well, first because it mentions the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and we know in our gospel today that Jesus commands us, Go out and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit.This is the Trinity; the Three in One. But then the song says, They caught the last train to the coast.In other words, God left; God moved on. Yet, we know that is not true because we also heard Jesus say today, Know that I will always be with you.God does not leave us! God is always with us. And finally, in the last part of the song we hear that they were singing This will be the day that I die. Well, the reality is that yes, we are all going to suffer a physical death here on earth. What is going to happen when we die? We will stand before God. We will see God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit---the Three in One. We will see that if we ask God, Who are you?, the response will be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.If we ask God, What are you?, the response will be I am Divine: Three persons in one nature.
Now this is a mystery! In fact, we sometimes wonder, Well, can I really understand anything about this?? Should I believe in it if I cannot understand it??The answer is: Yes! We must remember that a mystery of religion is a truth that we can know something about, but not everything. Thus, we can know something about it but even if we do not understand it completely, we can still believe it. We have a great example of this right here in todays gospel where the Eleven went to the mountain that Jesus told them to go to in Galilee, and they saw Jesus, and they worshipped Him, but they doubted. They did not fully understand what was happening, but they still worshipped Him anyway! They worshipped Him because they knew that this was God, and that they might not understand everything, but the little bit they did understand commanded them to worship. The same is true for us. We can know something about the Trinity but even if we do not understand it completely, we can still believe it.
Now, the revelation of who God is occurs gradually in the Bible. He is not fully revealed until the coming of Jesus Christ. We know that in ancient times, people believed in multiple Gods; there was a god of the sun, a god of the moon, a god of water, a god of air. But then biblically, we come to Abraham and Sarah and their relationship with God; we see them suddenly beginning to feel that there is only one God. And in fact, it is very interesting; we already begin to get an insight into this truth that God is three persons in one nature right in the first chapter of Genesis! In the first Chapter of Genesis, if you read very closely, you will see that God says, Let us make man in our own image.He is using the plural pronoun in referring to Himself! Much later, it is Jesus Christ who fully reveals that we are Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Jesus fully reveals this to us so that we can truly get to know God, so that we can grow closer to Him.
We have always heard (just as Pope Benedict XVIs encyclical tells us), that God is Love. Lets think about those words closely for a moment. God Is Love. This means that love is not something that God does, or an attribute that God has; Love is what God is! Therefore, God must be a play between Lover, Beloved, and Love. This is why the philosophers tell us that in order for God to truly be God, he has to be Three in One; He must be a Trinity. If you only have one person in love, then that person is narcissistic (in love with himself.) But being that Gods love is perfect love, it needs to go out of himself and to another, and it must be equal. So you need the second person; this is God the Son. But in order for that love to be pure love, (where there is no jealousy to enter in) you need to have a third person: the Holy Spirit. Perfect love requires Three! God has to be a Trinity.
So now we have to ask ourselves, What does this have to do with me today, living right now? If God is Trinitarian, what does it mean in my life and how I am meant to live?First of all, if God is Love, and we are created in the image and likeness of God, then we are called to Love. We are called to love and it must be a love that goes outside of ourselves to others; to reach out to others and truly love. Remember, God is three persons in one divine nature, and this means that God is relational, He is in relationship, He is in community. We are therefore called to reach out of ourselves to be relational with others. It is also important to notice that even though God is Three Persons in divine nature, they are of always of one mind and one will. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are always of one mind and one will; there is always agreement. They dont contradict each other. Just like Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition never contradict each other, Gods will and Gods mind are one. So that tells us that we should be of one mind and one will. In our community and our relationships we should be of one mind and one will. If we are not, we need to look to the source that brings us together to be of one mind and one will. That is why Jesus Christ left us the Church. He left someone in charge. Someone who, when we begin to wander off, pulls us back to be that image and likeness of God that is of love, and is of one mind and one will. That someone is the Holy Father, the Pope.
We have to ask ourselves, if I am not of one mind and one will with the rest of the community and with the Pope, and then the Bishops with the Pope, then am I really imaging God? And if I am not, then I have to work on that. We have to ask ourselves how we can become more like that image and likeness of God that loves, and is of one mind and one will, with the one mind and one will of our Lord.
How do we do that?? We come here and we worship! Jesus told us today that he would be with us, he would not leave us. He would be with us to the end of the age, to the end of time. And he is here with us in the Eucharist! He gives us his Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity so that we can be people of love and of one mind, one will. Through the Eucharist we are strengthened and aligned with God, so that we can truly image that in which we are created: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have to come and submit ourselves to God, who is love, and who is of one mind and one will so that we can be people of love, and one mind and one will with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.------------------------------------------------
Magisterium of the Church
What we see in our first reading today is that Paul and Barnabas have been going around and spreading the Good News to the Gentile communities and some of the Jewish communities, as well. They are outside the Jerusalem area, the area that would very much be the northeast part of the Mediterranean; areas we know as Syria, present-day Turkey, and Greece. But what has happened is that in some of the areas that they have preaching, there have been some who have come along after them and said, “No, what Paul and Barnabas have told you is not the truth. You have to become Jewish first, and then you can become Christian.” And so, Paul and Barnabas, in order to really clarify the matter, go back to Jerusalem. They go back to the Apostles. In today’s reading we find they are using the word “presbyters.” “Presbyter” is the Greek word that means ‘elder’; it was the term that was used for priests. So they go to the Apostles and the priests in Jerusalem. They go to the authority. They go to what we would know today as Rome, as the Magisterium in order to be certain that what they are teaching is proper. And what do the Apostles tell Paul and Barnabas? They tell them “Yes, what you are teaching is correct . . . but here, take this letter, and we are going to send two of our presbyters, Judas and Silas, with you so that these people will know what you are telling them is the truth.”
Now what this tells us is, that if Paul and Barnabas went to the authority to get clarification---if they felt they had to go to Jerusalem to be clarified in what they were teaching, then when we need clarification about what the church teaches, where should we go??? We should go to the authority! And we know that the authority Jesus Christ left us was the Church. He left Peter in charge, and he left the Apostles in charge, and those are our present-day Pope and the bishops. We go to them for clarification when we have questions of how to live. And that way we know we are following what God has commanded us to do.
We hear Jesus in our Gospel passage today teaching that “You are my friends if you do what I command you. ” . . . “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Well, how do we do that properly? How do we love one and other? We see what the Church teaches! The Church teaches how to love one and other, and when we follow that, we are following the commandments of God, of what Jesus Christ has called us to follow.
So it is not a guessing game on our part---we don’t have to wonder what we are called to do or what not to do. We have those answers. And when we are in doubt, we don’t answer them ourselves. We go to the authority like Paul and Barnabas did. The authority rests in the Pope and the bishops, what we call the Magisterium of the Church. So, when people say, “I don’t like this teaching or I don’t like that teaching” we need to remember that it is not up to us to decide. We are to form our conscience on how we are to live according to the authority that Jesus Christ has given us: the Church, the Magisterium, the Pope and the bishops.