2020/12/27 - What Makes a Family Holy?

Before Mass:

Welcome to St. Isidore, as we celebrate the Feast of the Holy Family.

What IS a Holy Family – obviously, Jesus, Mary and Joseph… but what about our families? What is it that makes our families holy?  Is it a family that prays together?  A family that goes to church together?  A family whose kids grow up to still practice the Faith?

Is it even important for our kids to have Faith?  Does it really make a difference?  Hopefully you can look at your own life to answer that question.  I imagine most of us here would agree that having Faith has been important to our lives, so it would be important to pass that on to our kids.  Well – what if today I gave you the magic bullet … if you pull this one trigger, it dramatically increases the chances that  your kids will have Faith.  Would you pull that trigger?  Hang tight for the answer… you might be surprised.

 

Homily:

“God sets a father in honor over his children;”

In our modern culture, that kind of talk can be offensive… it might sound sexist or anti-woman.  In some ways, that may be a justified reaction, since too often the MOM is the one who really deserves the honor for all the hard, relentless, thankless work she does from the moment she becomes pregnant until she’s in the grave.  Yet the scripture tells us that ‘God sets a father in honor over his children’?  I think there’s something we’re supposed to learn from that…  So without for a second disrespecting Moms and grandmas, let’s dig a little deeper.  See – it’s not that God sets a father in honor over his children because he DESERVES honor… but because there’s something built-in to the way kids’ minds work that makes the father have more impact in certain areas of family life.  Here’s what I mean:

A recent survey showed that if a Father does not go to church, only 30-something percent of their kids will go to church once in a while when they grow up… and only 1 in 50 will go to church regularly...  !ONE IN FIFTY! That’s right – if Dad doesn’t go to church regularly – regardless of whether Mom goes at all… chances are your kids will NOT be in Mass 20 years from now.  May sound depressing, but look at the statistics from a positive perspective:  If a father DOES go to church regularly, between two-thirds and three-quarters of their children WILL become churchgoers.  Did you catch that?  If Dad has Faith, 60-75 percent of their kids will have Faith when they grow up.

Mom’s faith is important, but for some reason, the Father's faith – or lack thereof – can make or break all of the efforts from Mom in the area of Faith.  See – regardless of whether the Father ‘deserves’ honor, somehow children automatically seem to look up to their Father in a way differently than they look up to their mother.  It’s not sexist or bigoted, it’s just apparently something built-in to our psyche … almost like God made us that way.   “God sets a father in honor over his children;”

Is that important?  Well, do you think it’s important for kids to have a faith life?  More than that – do you think it’s important for ADULTS to have a faith life… because your kids are only 10-20 years away from being adults… so if we want them to have Jesus to hold onto, we gotta do what we can now to instill that in them…. And it seems the Father can make it or break it.  That’s the ‘magic bullet’…

Men:  The future of the church is in our hands.  The future of our kids is in our hands.  The future of our families is in our hands.  And if you think about it, the future of our very country is in our hands, because surely the reason our country has declined morally is because more and more kids have walked away from the Faith.  No Faith – No Family – No Future.  

Whether we agree with it or not, the Devil knows this fact: kids look up to their dads, so if He can take US out – he can take out our kids.  If he takes our kids out, he takes out the family.  If he takes out the family, he takes out our society.  Half the battle is realizing that we are in a battle.  The Devil wants to take you out.  Unfortunately, we men are often easy targets – we have a mental make-up that is easily addicted… we all have addictions:  work-a-holic, alcoholic, sex, pornography, video games, hunting, food, sweets, ice cream… we all have one or more things that we “just can’t live without”.  It’s time to break the Devil’s hold on our lives.  We want to be FREE.

You may have noticed the orange signs on your way into church… we’re starting Exodus 90 on Jan 4th and ending on Easter.  It’s a 90 day exercise of Prayer, Asceticism, and Fraternity.  Exodus 90 helps men let go of the things that are holding us from being who God is calling us to be; the man our wives, our families, and Church need us to be. 

I have a lot of respect for our military;  The training, the sacrifices they make – there’s something to that.  Marine recruits go through what’s known as ‘the crucible’ to complete their training and earn the title of ‘Marine’.  It tests every recruit physically, mentally and morally and is the defining experience of recruit training. The Crucible takes place over 54-hours and includes food and sleep deprivation and over 45 miles of marching plus tests designed to push men to their limit… not to break them… but to call out the man inside of them.  By pushing through the challenges, each man finds that his capacity exceeds what he thought he could do.

Exodus is kinda-like a 'crucible for Catholics' – it’s like Lent – but on steroids.  It challenges us in ways specifically geared toward the things that men are easily drawn to, and it gives us the tools to be able to make it.  One thing about the crucible – you can’t do it alone – you need your team – we all need someone to help us over a wall or to give us encouragement when we hit our breaking point… likewise one of the main tools of Exodus is a small group called a Fraternity…in fact, I’ll say the Fraternity is the most important part of Exodus.  The Devil will take us out if we don't have a brother watching our back.

Make a 90-day commitment to change your life – make it as a new year’s resolution – make it as an extended Lenten observance – make the commitment for yourself and your children.  Are you interested?  Talk to me after Mass – or see page 5 of the bulletin.  

Now is the time, Men.  Our children look up to US – the future of our church depends on us – the future of our society depends on us.   You hold the magic bullet to making your family a Holy Family.

Christ came into the world 2000 years ago to set the captives free…. You and I are the captives.  We will be free.  

St. Joseph, Pray for us.

2020/12/06 - Second Sunday of Advent - Cabanatuan

Readings:  IS 40:1-5, 9-11, PS 85:9-10-11-12, 13-14, 2 PT 3:8-14, MK 1:1-8

Before Mass:

“Comfort – give comfort to my people” – that’s the first line of the first reading from the 40th chapter if Isaiah today.  If you know your Bible, you know This is one of the most important turning points in the whole Bible:  the first 39 chapters of Isaiah are known as the book of woes.  He warns them Israel and over and over that bad things are gonna happen – change your ways – bad things are gonna happen – change your ways - … but they didn’t listen… they didn’t think they NEEDED to change.  That’s an important point – Israel was warned many times, but they didn’t think they needed to change.  So, the consequence of their stubbornness was they were sent into exile.  

Then we come to chapter 40 and suddenly Isaiah changes his tune – instead of warnings and gloom and doom, God recognized that His people now need a word of comfort… of hope.  Yes, you’re in exile, but all is NOT lost.  And that’s where we pick up today.

This may not make sense until after the homily – but the theme of today is ‘God wants to comfort us, but He doesn’t want us to get comfortable’.  Ponder that a bit.

Homily: 

Tomorrow marks the 79th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.  In one fell swoop, the American naval fleet was effectively annihilated in the Pacific.  48 hours later, the Japanese attacked the Philippines, where the US had a strong defense force.   Our troops fought as best as they could for four months, but without a Navy to protect their supply-lines, their defeat was only a matter of time.  In early April, they surrendered – the single greatest defeat in our nation’s history.  70,000 prisoners of war were marched 60 miles to POW camps in what has become known as the Bataan death march.  An estimated 15,000 died or were killed along the way.

In over-crowded, deplorable conditions, our POW’s waited and waited and waited.  Nobody came to their rescue.  The US was busy fighting Hitler, and trying to rebuild our Pacific fleet, so for three years, the POW’s waited: dying of malaria, malnutrition, and murder.  They were forgotten.  

I share this history because most of us never heard of Cabanatuan.  It’s a forgotten story about a forgotten people.  Most Americans believe that if we get into trouble, our military will rescue us… but three years of waiting had to make those POWs wonder whether rescue would ever come.

I would imagine that’s how the Israelites felt... God had forgotten them… their temple was destroyed… they had been carried off to Babylon – away from the Promised Land, the very Land that God had given to them…. And this lasted for 70 years…………...  Ain’t nobody comin’ to the rescue.

In late January of 1945, the tide had turned and the Allied forces were making headway in the Philippines, pushing back the Japanese forces.  As the Japanese pulled out, stories were trickling out of atrocities as they killed prisoners rather than allowing them to be freed.  American forces decided to take action, and a daring raid was planned to free prisoners from the POW camp at Cabanatuan.

To accomplish this took the coordinated efforts of United States Army Rangers, Alamo Scouts and Filipino guerrillas, and even some air support and support from the locals.  On Jan 28th, 121 Rangers slipped behind enemy lines and walked like 30 miles to the camp.  The first sign of hope for our POW’s was on Jan 30th when a lone American plane flew over the camp several times to provide a distraction as our men took up their final positions.  Just after nightfall on January 30th, our forces executed a bold attack which ended with over 500 prisoners being led out to safety.

Comfort, give comfort to my people… the Rangers and Filipino guerillas brought hope, freedom, and comfort to the POW’s who had all but lost hope.

Israel had no hope… they had messed up big-time.  Like I said before Mass – they had been warned to change their ways, but they didn’t think they NEEDED to change.  God knew they needed to feel the consequences of their actions in order to get them to change their ways…. But God doesn’t like to see His people suffer either… He recognized that they NOW needed words of comfort, lest they despair.  

Isaiah tells them that God himself will come to rescue you!  God himself will be slipping behind enemy lines to launch a daring raid and free his people… and He did!  You may remember that years later, King Cyrus sent them back to Israel to rebuild their temple.  God kept his promise.

Why all this history lesson?  Because too often, we don’t think the words of scripture actually apply to US:  These words are just meant for those people two or three thousand years ago…  but that’s not true.

I want to stretch your imagination just a bit… first, Imagine for a second that you were one of the Rangers going in to free those POW’s – and when you got in there, they said – no thanks – leave us alone – we’re fine just as we are.  Not a chance… they KNEW they were prisoners.  Like Father said last week – when you’re a prisoner, every moment of every day is consumed with thoughts of escape or rescue… That’s important:  They KNEW this was not home – this is not where they belong. … 

Now imagine this:  How would you react right now if someone stormed through the door of the church right now saying We’re here to rescue you!!!  We’d all be like – ‘rescue from what?!’ – we’re fine – leave us alone.  Well – that’s the message of today’s readings:  God has a detailed plan to RESCUE US!  This covert op started with a scout named John being sent to the desert to prepare the way – then the rescue team – Jesus – slipped behind enemy lines as a baby to avoid detection by the enemy.  (Really, God – THAT’S your plan!?)

2000 years ago Israel didn’t like the message – you’re here to rescue US???  We’re fine, leave us alone… so they killed the rescuer.

Trouble is, that attitude didn’t stop with Israel… it seems to be part of our human condition.  How do you and I respond when we  hear that Jesus is coming to rescue us?  ‘Rescue us from what?!’… ‘no thanks, I’m fine’…. ‘I don’t need to change’. 

God tries to break into our lives constantly… to show us where we need to change:  to fight our addictions, to squash our selfishness, to seek virtue – to seek to be a saint… but too often our response is, “I’m fine – leave me alone – I don’t need to change”.  Let that sink in to each of us personally – I’m speaking to myself here too… Where do I resist change?  What addictions and habits do I let control my life?  What chains are wrapped around my wrists that I don’t even see anymore?  What virtues do I ignore even TRYING to build, because “I’m fine”…I don’t need to change.

Many of us don’t even realize that WE are the POW’s.  In one way or another– we’re all a prisoner to the things that we’re addicted to.  A slave to sin.  As long as we’re in this world, we’re sorta behind enemy lines  - constantly barraged by temptation – dealing with sickness, viruses, physical ailments, and death… this ain’t how it’s supposed to be.

We’ve been tossed into this war between good and evil, and we’ve been in the battle for so long that we think this is our home!  But this is not our home!  We are in exile!  We are still waiting to be rescued.  

So God gives US these words of comfort today, but He also warns us – DON’T GET COMFORTABLE… we’re not home yet.  Jesus is ready to enter behind enemy lines today – to enter into your heart and mine.  So, “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.”

It’s interesting to me in the Cabanatuan raid, the Rangers could NEVER have made the 30 mile trek unless the locals helped…. So use your imagination one more time – imagine if there were 121 Rangers walking through our community right now – right by your farm or neighborhood.  Could they get by unnoticed?  The farmers ‘muzzled their dogs and caged their chickens’ to avoid giving away the Rangers’ presence.  Likewise, Is there anything in OUR lives that could foil Jesus’ rescue attempt?  You and I need to prepare the way of the Lord – to ‘muzzle the dogs’ in ourselves – to take the chains off of our hearts… to remove any obstacle that could prevent Jesus from gaining a beachhead in our hearts.