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Petersboat
The Knicks and The Priesthood | The Monday After
00:20:49
I mentioned Game 4 of the NBA Finals, when, after the Knicks had gone up by one point (after being down by 29) the Spurs inbounded the ball with 1.9 seconds left on the clock. The prayer at that point was, “Just don’t foul them.” And I feel like there’s something similar happening in our Christianity: Christ has won the victory for us, conquering the Evil One on the cross, and His parting prayer for us is, “Just don’t foul one another; Love one another as I have loved you.”
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So this past Sunday, we spoke of how we were all taking thought of the Knicks last week as they were competing for the championship. We all had something to celebrate too, because they won. Even people like me who rarely watch a basketball game during the regular season tuned in to watch. We were all Knicks fans last week. Congratulations were in order, and I started my homily with that. At every Mass, I was met with applause. It was really fun to have something to celebrate together. I love when we have a cause for joy on a Sunday. And it struck me, and this is what I was preaching about, that we've always got something to celebrate on Sundays. Christ's death on the cross was a victory. Because he was the Son of God. He's the second person of the Holy Trinity, becomes flesh, becomes a human being, and offers himself to God for us as a perfect sacrifice to heal our offense against a perfect God. He reconciles us to God and to one another. This is the victory. Great theologians have racked their minds over how Christ's death on the cross saves us, but they all agree that it does. As far as living at peace with one another. This is why I mentioned Game 4 of the NBA Finals when, after the Knicks had gone up by one point, after being down by 29, the spurs inbounded the ball with 1.9 seconds left on the clock. And the prayer of everyone watching then, at least Knicks fans, was just don't foul them. Don't foul the Spurs. That would send them to the line and give them one or two shots. They could either tie it up or win the game. Just don't foul them. The victory is there, just don't forfeit it. And I feel like there's something similar happening in our Christianity. Christ has won the victory for us, accomplished it for us. It is accomplished, as he says on the cross, conquering the evil one and sin and death. And his parting prayer for us is just don't foul one another. Love one another as I have loved you. He's inviting us to share in the victory that he accomplished for us. Things like emotions, for example, cause us to forfeit the victory. So St. Peter wrote to the early church, if you are angry, let it be without sin. Do not give the devil a chance to work on you. It was his way of saying, the victory's been accomplished for you. Don't let the devil back into the game. You know, if the. If the Knicks fouled their opponent with two seconds left, like we said, they would have sent the spurs to the foul line. They would have tied it up, maybe gone ahead to win the game. And what a shame it would have been letting them back in that way. It'd be like giving the game away. So all eyes were on this guy, Josh Hart, who many of you know, the Knicks player who was guarding the inbounded ball, his hands were raised up high. Can imagine him praying, I'm going to defend this guy, but, Lord, don't let me foul him. And we all watched and rejoiced as his prayer was answered. And with that, the Knicks were heading to Game five. Somehow, Josh Hart resisted the temptation to do damage to the victory that had been won at the other end of the court. Josh Hart. Until Game four, I only thought of him as one of the Villanova guys on the Knicks. But now I think of him as the guy to be credited with preserving the Knicks victory. Not that he accomplished it alone, but that he restrained his emotions and overcame the temptation to let the opponent back into the game. We said this, too, and it's got me thinking. At the beginning of every Mass, when we gather to share in Christ's victory on the Cross, which is what the Mass is right, we call to mind our sins, ask God for forgiveness, because none of us lives. Every day as Josh Hart lived those last two seconds of Game four, we fail very often to overcome our passions, appetites, emotions, thoughts, fears, anxieties. We let the devil back into the game by fouling one another. What we say, what we think, what we do or fail to do through our fault, our fault, our most grievous fault. The miracle of the Mass is really God's divine mercies being offered to us every day, that we can still, even now, share in Christ's victory on the cross. And that's what the cross is. It's God's mercy offered to a fallen world, to a people who can't help but foul one another over and over again. People who can still even offend a God who died for us. But I mentioned Josh Hart by name for another reason. Meditation on what he accomplished with the team. It came to me on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which was celebrated last Friday. I was sitting in the chapel as I was thinking that I was a terrible Christian because I was being distracted by remembering what he did. His name came to me, and I thought, perhaps this is why God allowed me to get lost in this meditation on Josh Hart. His last name, Heart, obviously, on the Feast of the Sacred Heart, but then even his first name, Josh, Joshua, which is Yeshua, which is Jesus. Jesus Heart, that heart is poured into us as Christians. In his victory along with it. It's like the Christian has the double privilege of being a unique and unrepeatable person, like Josh Hart, but who also shares the name with the man whose sacred heart saved the world from sin. Like the seven children that we baptized this weekend at the masses, each has been given a name by their parents, as we were. But then those parents ask that the child be given a share in Christ's victory. That's what it is to ask for your child to be baptized. The priest, then, with great joy, on behalf of the church, makes the sign of the cross on the child's forehead, the sign of the cross on the forehead, on the mind, and invites the parents and godparents to do the same. It's a kind of remember the victory of the cross, child. And with that, the child is given the name of Christian always to accompany and redeem the name given to him by his parents. So if you're listening to me now as a Christian, that name of Christ is always right there alongside of your own to redeem you. Of course, the child will only be able to remember the victory won for him by Christ if he lives in communion with the church. This is true of us, too. As often as possible, we make our way to the church with one another, to encourage one another, pray for one another, to give thanks to God, and to hear Christ say to us through the priest, do this in memory of me. The work of remembering what Christ has accomplished, this is what frees us from the fears and the anxieties that cause us to live as if we were abandoned or orphaned, and to take our our lives into our own hands again, giving the devil a chance to work on us, letting him back into the game. So without a heroic devotion to remembering what Christ has accomplished for us, that's easy to forget, especially in this age in which we live, so full of distractions. But when we remember what he has accomplished for us on the cross, we feel a kind of security in that great love. Maybe you feel it now as I speak to you. I hope you do. And with that comes a freedom from feeling that we have to let the devil back in to the game, you know, because what is sin, really, right? It's what we think or say or do or fail to do. And we forget the victory that Christ has accomplished for us. We sin only when we take our lives back into our own hands. We're trying to accomplish our own salvation, save ourselves from the fear of life, to save ourselves from the anxieties of life to save ourselves from some pain or suffering. What we sang with the psalm this past Sunday. We are his people, the sheep of his flock. That was a way of remembering that we belong to him, that he's leading us, that he's caring for us, protecting us from the evil one. Easy to forget, though. The first sight of wolves, we lose our trust in the shepherd. He knows that about us, and he forgives us. There's a weakness in us because of original sin. It's hard for us to understand how a shepherd could defeat the wolf by becoming a lamb himself. But nevertheless, in some mysterious way, it's by his blood that is shed for us. And he even says to us as he sends us out into the world, I send you out as lambs among wolves, but take courage, he says, I have overcome the world. This is why the church gave us the first reading this weekend from the book of Exodus, as God says to Moses. Old Testament as the people making their way through the desert are beginning to forget what God did for them in Egypt, remind the people of what I accomplished for them in Egypt that it is I who freed them from that terrible slavery. Not by their own strength were they saved by their own efforts or performance, but by the blood of the lamb, that mysterious lamb that foreshadowed Christ's own sacrifice on the cross. Remind them that it is I who even now win the victory for them. Moses himself would need to be reminded of this, and I say this as a priest, because he sometimes would use force to provide for his people in the desert, these people entrusted to him by God. Instead of trusting in God, this is when Moses would strike the rock with his staff, for example, to slake the people's thirst. Instead of just bidding the water come forth with a word, just so that you and I would get the message loud and clear that God wants us to allow him to accomplish our salvation and not the priests or any other man, not even Moses. He causes Moses to die just before entering the promised land so that a man named Joshua could lead the people in Yeshua. Jesus, As a priest, I beg God to heed this lesson and to always hold to it. See, God has called me to the priesthood and to shepherd his people. But while I may shepherd you in this life, in Christ's name, with his authority through this desert, this valley of tears, it is Jesus who will lead you into the promised land, not me. It is he who accomplishes your salvation, not me. By the blood of the lamb, you are saved. I have this solemn privilege and what's becoming more and more for me a great joy of helping you to see that. But I don't make it happen. I'm looking at it with you even now as we talk about it. I too am in awe of God and what he's doing. So I mentioned that this past Sunday was also the anniversary of my own ordination to the priesthood. That's why I'm connecting this all to the priesthood. And one way to describe what it feels like to look back on these 18 years is to liken it to a journey from my head to my heart. You know, I would have told you that I knew it wasn't so, but when I was first ordained, I still acted as if Christ were sending me into the world to save the world. So I was performative and overly concerned with my own efforts, and I was sometimes forceful because of it. But with time and God's grace, Our Lady's intercession, the example of the saints, and your support, I've been coming to see that what God's asking me to do is simply to proclaim what he has accomplished and to help you to recognize him at work in your own lives. Even as we heard this past Sunday, Jesus sending the 12 apostles into the world as his heart was moved with pity for the house of Israel, the people who should know what he's doing, he sends them out to say to them that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Which basically means that Jesus is saying, make this proclamation. Tell them I am here. I am with you. Tell them Yeshua is here, the new Joshua. And whenever I hear the names of those 12 apostles, I'm comforted because I know that they were all imperfect men whose weaknesses our Lord used to show his strength at work in them. They were ordinary, worldly, ambitious men. And it was through them that God chose to announce the good news of salvation. So, for example, I said this this weekend when I was being sent into the world as a priest in 2008. It was like Jesus was saying to me, you used to make people sick, but I say to you now, heal the sick. You once made decisions that caused people to feel depressed and lose hope. But I say to you now, raise the dead, or until now, you've avoided people for fear of harming your reputation. But I say to you now, heal the leper. And though you've grown accustomed to permitting demons access to your life by the decisions that you've made, I send you out now in my name to drive out demons you know, seek what is good, beautiful and true. Drive out, demons. But you see, the victory is always his. He's offering us a share in it. And this is what I was trying to say this weekend, that Josh Hart was made worthy to share in the victory of Game 4, not because he scored the winning point. He didn't. But because he didn't let the spurs back into the game. And the Saints are those who've been made worthy to share in the glory of Christ not by scoring the winning points they don't. But by overcoming their waywardness through devotion and devotion to God's mercy, keeping their hearts open even as they might have intended to give up, and conquering their fear by trusting in Jesus, saying as the divine mercy devotion bids us, jesus, I trust in you. Think of the thief on the cross next to Jesus. Jesus, remember me. It's all he said. Jesus, think of me. Jesus, don't forget me. Yeshua, remember me. And he's promised a share in Christ's victory. If I'm not mistaken, the good thief is the only person to whom we hear Christ's promised glory so clearly. Perhaps it was just to make it clear with some of his last words, you know to us that salvation is belonging to him, Entrusting ourselves to him when we ourselves are on the cross. Think about Zacchaeus. Even if we include here Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector, about whom Jesus said today, salvation has come to this house. Even then with those words, it was to teach us that salvation comes not from our own doing, but from Jesus saying to us, I want to eat with you. He even told Zacchaeus to come down from the tree, as if to correct that Icarus like tendency in all of us that would have us think that we need to lift ourselves up to salvation, when in reality salvation comes down from heaven to save us. Remember we said that last week, I am the bread who came down from heaven, Jesus says. In any case, we were all Knicks fans last week, and it wasn't because Knicks fans sat us down to convince us with arguments to take an interest in their team. It was much simpler than that, much more effective. They were celebrating something that was happening and we all very naturally wanted to share in it. And I think Christianity becomes a convincing proposal in the same way, when people can say of us, see how they love one another and how grateful they are for what Christ has accomplished with their prayer of Eucharistia, which is a prayer of thanksgiving, we won't need to rely on convincing arguments, either intellectual or emotional, forcefully employed. We'll simply attract people into the celebration of thanksgiving attract people into a share in the celebration of the victory. Of course, there will always be those who choose not to live in the joy of the victory and who let the devil back in, like those who burned buses and cop cars even after the Knicks won Game five. But not even they can separate us from the love of Christ. So we shouldn't let them hold our joy hostage. There will always be evil men in the world who reject Christ's victory like the criminal on Christ's other side who spent his last breaths mocking Jesus. But even in that Jesus shows us victory, he wastes no breath on that man. Instead, he stands up on his nails to comfort and to console this good thief, this friend of the last hour, likely with a smile, a kind of prelude to the beatific vision that awaited them both. Seeing the Father face to face this day, he says, you will be with me in paradise. Even as he's being mocked, even as he's being rejected. Nothing comes between the good shepherd and his sheep, not even evil men. So this is my prayer for all of us these days that in trying to live whatever vocation God calls each one of us to which are all ways of remaining co heirs of Christ's victory. That we would endure that difficult transition from the head to the heart, from focusing on our own spiritual performance and effort to praying for the grace of receptivity and gratitude. This is why I'm so grateful to the Blessed Mother and her intercession. She teaches us that salvation comes from allowing God to act in our lives. Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word. My soul, she says, at best magnifies the Lord like what he is doing. So whether we're married, consecrated virgins, or ordained priests, we're all like Josh Hart. With 1.9 seconds left on the clock, the victory has been won for us by Christ and His Blessed Mother. And in a sense, all that's left now is for us to love one another as they have loved us.