30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

St. Clement's Church; Saratoga Springs, NY

Exodus 20: 20 – 66
Psalm 18: 2 – 3, 3 – 4, 47, 51
1 Thessalonians 1: 5c – 10
Matthew 22: 34 – 40

In order for me to give the correct homily today I need to ask the congregation three questions. I have three homilies written and based on your responses will determine which homily I’ll give. (Don’t worry, all three homilies are of equal length!)

The first commandment that Jesus gives today is to love the Lord our God. If you really believe that this is something we should all do, I ask that you raise your hand. Now, the second commandment that Jesus offers us is that we love our neighbors. Again, if you really believe that this is something we should all do, I ask that you raise your hand. Now, the there is a third commandment hidden in today’s Gospel. The third says that we should love ourselves. If you really believe that this is something we should all do, I ask that you raise your hand.

The third is the one that sometimes we don’t all readily agree with, the first two are almost no brainers but the third we have some trouble with. I am not asking that we return to the “ME” generation, or that we act as selfish people concerned only about ourselves or that we turn in on ourselves and let our egos run the roost. The command to love ourselves is to accept ourselves as beloved children of God. The message that Jesus offers is that we are indeed good and worthwhile people. Listen again to the second commandment that Jesus offers: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39) If you do not love yourself than how can you love your neighbor? Love of neighbor comes after we are able to accept and love ourselves.

There is a story of a little eight-year-old girl in a Pennsylvania orphanage who was shy, unattractive, and regarded as a problem. Two other asylums had her transferred, and now this director was seeking some pretext for getting rid of her. One day someone noticed the little girl was writing a letter. An ironclad rule of the institution was that any communication from a child had to be approved before it was mailed. The next day, the director and her assistant watched the child steal out of the dormitory and slip down to the main gate. Just inside the gate was an old tree with roots showing above the ground. They followed and watched as the child hid the letter in one of the crevices of the root. Carefully looking around, the little girl scurried back to the dormitory.The director pounced on the note and tore it open. Then, without speaking, she passed the note to her assistant. It read, "To anybody who finds this: I love you."

This shy, unattractive girl was full of flaws. However, I feel that her ability to freely offer love to another was rooted in the fact that she loved herself. Yes, she had our own problems and flaws but I would like to feel that deep down she saw herself as a daughter of God and she was happy with whom she was. This is what it means to love our self. To recognize that even in the midst of our own flaws we are a wonderful creation of God and that should always be celebrated!

Often in my years of ministry as I’ve talked to people they often struggle with this fact. As people come to receive God’s forgiveness they can readily accept that forgiveness. But when I ask them if they can forgive themselves, often I hear a similar tune . . . “But Father, you don’t know the full story. You don’t know all the things I’ve done. I could never forgive myself.” Then again I ask them if they believe that God’s forgives them. “Oh yes, I believe in the forgiveness of God. “ Well if God who knows everything, can accept us back and forgive us we should be able to do the same.

That is the part of the second commandment that Jesus gives us today . . . the call to love ourself. The commands of love that we hear in today’s Gospel really need to be lived in the reverse order that we hear them. We first need to love ourselves. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39) Once you accept that you are a son and daughter of God and you rejoice in that, then you can move to the next point – love of neighbor. We begin to see that if we are a son and daughter of God then so is the person that is sitting next to us now and the persons we rub elbows with the rest of the week.

One of my favorite Broadway Musicals is “Fiddler on the Roof.” It’s the story of Tevye, a Jewish milkman and his relationship with God and his family. The tradition of his life had been that all marriages are arranged, just as his was. However, his three oldest daughters begin to break with that tradition by choosing their own husbands. This shatters Teyve to the core and it rattles not only his relationship with his daughters but with his God and even with his wife. In the second act he approaches his wife, Goldie, and in song asks her if she loves him. Goldie looks at him as if he is an old fool and replies that for twenty five years she has cooked for him, cleaned his house, sewed his clothes – of course she does. But Tevye wants to hear the words. Three simple words that often are underused. Not that we should toss them around loosely but that we share them freely with those we love. We can often fail into the routine, the rut where we do things for one another and we might forget why we are doing them. We say the other person should know we love them. The command to love one our neighbor means to do so by action but that those closest in our lives should hear the words “I love you” more than we probably already offer them.

So logically the love that Jesus is talking about flows first from love of self, then to love of our neighbor. If these two things happen the greatest commandment of all will naturally follow. How can we love a God we cannot see if we fail to love the brother or sister that we do see. How can we love our brother or sister is we cannot love our very self.

"You shall love the Lord, your God,with all your heart,with all your soul,and with all your mind.This is the greatest and the first commandment.The second is like it:You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22: 37 –39)

AMEN!

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Sunday, October 12, 2008
St. Clement’s Catholic Church; Saratoga Springs, NY

Isaiah 55: 6 – 9
Psalm 145: 2 – 3, 8 – 9, 17 – 18
Philippians 1: 20c – 24, 27a
Matthew 20: 1 – 16a

One busy bride had planned for a wedding in the middle of June, so she mailed her invitations at the beginning of May. By the beginning of June, she was distraught because so few of her responses had arrived. On the day of her wedding, however, even those guests who had responded were no-shows. Her wedding day was supposed to include 150 guests, instead only the couple’s immediate family, five close friends, and the wedding party’s significant others were in attendance. What went wrong? Her printer had mistakenly listed the date of her wedding for the middle of July! In fact, when the depressed bride returned from her two week honeymoon, her post office box was overflowing with invitation responses.

The parable today told by Jesus follows closely with what he heard last week. It speaks of how God thru the years has offered his love to the people of the world. His messengers to come to the feast were the prophets, some who were mistreated, some killed – all because they were the messengers brining the invitation to be part of God’s family. Finally in the course of history, God sends his only Son and for simply extending the invitation of His Father’s love, the people of his time not only rejected the Son but put him to death. The parable still holds true for us today – the invitation is there and while we might not be killing the messenger we may be ignoring the message.

I am sure that many of you who have already been married the bride to be spent many hours going over what their wedding invitation would look like. The wording is to be exact, the design is to be perfect but in the story I just shared there was a mistake in the invitation and many who should have been invited never got a chance to respond. All of us if we host a party and send out the invitations would be heartbroken if we were all set for the party and no one showed up.

Once again today we have all been extended an invitation – the invitation comes from God himself to join him as part of his family. There is no misprint, there is no misunderstanding, and the invitation comes to each one of us loud and clear. Our God is inviting us to join him, not just for a banquet to share his love, his compassion, his forgiveness. It is an invitation that is offered not just to a few but to all who hear his word. Think about how you might feel if you know someone who is hosting a party and you are one of the few who does not receive an invite. With God the invitation is extended to all, there are no favorites, no one’s invitation has gotten lost in the mail. The Good News is that we are all invited! The challenge is that it is up to each one of us to respond.

The response to be part of God’s family demands from us not just a onetime response either. Often when we respond to a wedding we send in our response, we check off whether we want the chicken, the fish or the steak and we forget that how we responded until the actually day of the wedding. Our response to God’s invitation is not like that – it requires a daily response. For those of us who were baptized as infants our parents responded for us. At our confirmation we stepped forward and responded to God’s invitation for ourselves. For those who are married, hopefully when you said I do to your spouse on your wedding day was not the last time you did so. The vows you spoke to your spouse hopefully are words that you speak in one way or another to each other on a daily basis. As a vowed religious and ordained priest I renew my vows each and every morning. It is a daily response to God’s invitation to follow him. Each morning as the sun rises in the east and we turn over to hit the snooze alarm we also wake to receive the Lord’s invitation; an invitation that demands a response from us.

In our first reading we hear more about God’s invitation. “On this mountain the LORD of hosts will provide for all peoples. A feast of rich food and choice wines, juicy, rich food and pure, choice wines.” (Isaiah 25:6) The prophet Isaiah talks about God’s people being invited to a great banquet – a banquet that will include choice food and fine wine. A similar invitation is extended to us this morning to come to the banquet of the Lord here on this mountain, here at this table. At this table the Lord invites us to partake in the best food possible – to share in His Body, He invites us to share the finest wine -- to drink from the cup of His Blood. The celebration is here this morning and we have chosen to say yes to this invitation. But again it has to be stated that this invitation is extended to all and extended to us each and every week.

We come to this feast, to the table of His Body and Blood, not alone but we come to this celebration with our brothers and sisters. We come to the table of plenty with others invited to the family of God. This is a celebration that includes young and old, rich and poor, saint and sinner. The invitation from our God is the Good News that we gather to celebrate today. However, with every Good News that we hear there is a challenge – the challenge is in our hands, the challenge for us is how we respond.

Today, all people are invited to be part of God’s family and share in God’s love. Just as with any invitation the RSVP to God is an important choice that we have to make. Today let us celebrate the love that God offers us. Today let us rejoice in the compassion and forgives we are invited to share. Today let us look around and see our brothers and sisters that we are invited to share the love of God with. We have a wonderful chance to say yes to the Lord’s invitation – that is not just Good News but it is Great News. But an invitation is useless unless there is a response. Today the question for each and every one of us is: what will our response be today. May it be a response of yes to be part of God’s loving family. AMEN!

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Sunday, Ocotber 5, 2008
Holy Martyrs of North America Catholic Church; Falmouth, ME
Sacred Heart Catholic Church; Gray, ME

Isaiah 5: 1 – 7
Psalm 80: 9, 12, 13 – 14, 15 – 16, 19 – 20
Philippians 4: 6 – 9
Matthew 21: 33– 43

[Homily given in preparation for Redemptorist Mission in Cluster 24 of the Diocese of Portland, ME]

Good morning! My name is Fr. Paul Borowski, one of the two Redemptorist Missionaries here this week. I always feel that the role of a Missionary when he preaches at the weekend masses before the Mission is to get you excited and to try to entice you to come to the Mission. I always love going to the movies and I like to get there early. I get my bag of popcorn, a soda and make sure that I’m at the theater in time to watch the previews before the main event. If they do a good job, they show you wonderful movie trailers so that you say to yourself: “I need to go see that film when it comes out.” Hopefully, my reflections with you today will have you nodding your head and saying: “I need to go to the mission this week and hear more.”

As I mentioned, I am a member of the Redemptorist Congregation and I recently spent the last sixteen years working in New York City. I was involved with the formation of our college age seminarians and spent a good part of that time teaching at St. John’s University in Queens. I taught Business Ethics and regret not being there now since I would have tons of material to teach about. Just this past August I was assigned as pastor at St. Clement’s Parish in Saratoga Springs, NY just north of Albany. However, I am not a stranger to Maine and the Portland area. Since 1995 I have been coming up to the area to work with Habitat for Humanity and have brought teens from all along the East coast to work building houses. My trips each summer would range anywhere from one to four different weeks and for the past five summers I slept on the Parish Center floor at Holy Martyrs. I have even said Mass here in this Church for the teens when we arrived on Sunday nights. I was thankful yesterday when I showed up that Fr. Ford had a room for me in the rectory and I wouldn’t have to spend the night in the Parish Center.

Today’s Gospel is rather straight forward – we readily understand what Jesus is talking about. During the history of the world, God sent prophets to call the people to a closer relationship with him, but the prophets were not accepted. Finally in the course of history, God sent his only Son to bring a message of love and compassion to the world. We all know how that ended up … Jesus, God’s only Son, was rejected, mocked, crucified and died on a dusty hill outside of Calvary. The people of his day saw who he was but did not completely grasp their relationship with him. They failed to truly see Jesus for who he was. Unfortunately, many of us today sometimes fail to grasp completely who Jesus is for us. Our relationship with him is one of great importance and hopefully this time of mission will help each of us to deepen our relationship with the Lord.

During these autumn months, Bishop Malone has invited the Redemptorists into the entire diocese of Portland, the entire state of Maine to help all of us renew our relationship with the Lord. You know better than I do about all the recent clustering and changes that are going on within the Church here in Maine. The Redemptorists have been invited in to help all to reflect on what it means to be one family of God. The theme is “Gather Us.” Gather us together as one family. Gather us together as one Body. We may be from different towns such as Falmouth, Gray, Yarmouth or Freeport but by our baptism we are all one. So we will gather us together as one family this week.

A time of mission is to help us focus in on our relationship with the Lord. Already you have a relationship with our God that we are called to deepen each day through prayer. To see and recognize and understand who God is for us, we need to talk to him. If a married couple came to me and said they hadn’t spoken to each other in twenty years, you don’t need to be a marriage counselor to know that something isn’t right in their relationship. In our relationship with the Lord, we need to constantly talk to him and listen to him. That’s what prayer is all about. All our other traditions within Church are there to help us draw closer to the Lord. The very act we are about now of coming together as one family around the table of the Lord is to help us strength our relationship with our God. This upcoming week the time of Mission is once again for us to reconnect, renew, re-energize our relationship with our loving God.

We will come to meet a God who loves us since the day of our baptism. We will be gathered together to reflect on a God who never stops caring for us. Today, I come before you and it is not I, nor Fr. Ford, nor Bishop Malone who invites you to the mission; rather t is God himself! God today calls you by name, the same name he gave you the day water was poured upon you head. The same name you were given that day now listen to hear again as He invites you to spend some time with him this week. St. Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, once wrote something that may at first sound blasphemous. He wrote that God is crazy, that God is insane. Insane with love for you and I. More than we can imagine our God cares for us and loves us. Today he invites you to come and recognize him, to come and spend time with him. Today God himself invites you to this mission as he will gather us all together.

As I mentioned, I use to be a college professor at St. John’s so I enjoy giving homework. Today I want to give all of you a little homework assignment. When you come to the Mission this week do not come alone. Bring someone else. Bring someone who needs to hear again how much God cares for them. Bring someone to the Mission who perhaps has forgotten how much God loves them. The people that truly need to hear this message are not in the church this morning and I won’t be able to get out and meet them today. You know who they are. They are perhaps members of your family or your co-workers. They may be friends or yours, people who live next door to you, people that you know from the supermarket. The message of God’s love is not just for us alone but it is to be shared freely with all men and women. So, my friends – be disciples of Jesus Christ, share your faith and invite someone to come to the mission with you this week.

About five years ago I was given a mission and made this plea to not come alone at the weekend masses. The first night of the mission as I was giving my sermon there were two men in the front row. One of them was singing, talking, occasionally nodding off and snoring during my homily. After a while I could not ignore his disruptions and had to do something. I went over to his friend and say that I’m sorry but could he kindly ask his friend to leave. He responded: “Father, it took me a fifth of gin to get him to church and now you want him to leave?”

You don’t need to bribe anyone and feed them gin to get them to come to the Mission. Just extend an invitation by telling them you want to come and meet someone who loves and cares for them. You want them to come and meet our God of love. If you can’t make the mission I ask that you pray for us. Pray for the people of Falmouth, Gray, Yarmouth and Freeport that this may be a time when God himself gathers us together. Pray that this may be a time where we reflect on the call to be one family of God. Know also that we will be praying for you that this week may be a time of immense blessings for all of you. May it be a time when all of us once again strengthen our relationship with our God. This is a week to rejoice, to celebrate and be glad. God who is mighty has done great things for us, may He continue to work in our midst! AMEN!

Young Adult Group Looking to Form at St. Clement's Church

For those reading this blog in the area of Saratoga Springs, NY . . .

St. Clement’s is looking to begin a Young Adult Group that will offer support as well as minister to and with single and married people in their twenties, and thirties. If you are interested (or know of anyone who might be interested) please stop by for an evening social time of wine and cheese on Sunday, October 12 after the 7:30pm Mass.

For more information contact Fr. Paul Borowski via email at pborowski@stclementschurch.com

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Sunday, September 28, 2008
St. Clement’s Catholic Church; Saratoga Springs, NY

Isaiah 55: 6 – 9
Psalm 145: 2 – 3, 8 – 9, 17 – 18
Philippians 1: 20c – 24, 27a
Matthew 20: 1 – 16a

As we listened to today’s Gospel, I am sure that there were many parents nodding their heads in agreement with the parable that Jesus shares with us. Many parents in here have probably had the experience of asking their children to do some chore around the house only to get one excuse or another. One of the worse days of the week in the seminary was Saturday – Saturday was everyone’s day off. So, by Saturday evening the dishes were piled a mile high by the dishwasher. Occasionally I would ask one of the seminarians to perhaps do the dishes and sometimes I would get a positive response while other times I’d get the excuses. It was hard to argue with a seminarian who said they were on the way to study at the library and even tougher when they said they were going to spend some time in prayer in the chapel.

But Jesus is not talking to us about children doing or not doing their household chores. (Although it is very bad for children to avoid their chores around the house.) :) The message that Jesus offers us today is that our actions have to match up with our words. At the beginning of Mass we ask the Lord for forgiveness as we said: “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.” Did we really think about the words as we said them? Did we truly mean that we were asking the Lord for forgiveness for the times when we harmed our brothers and sisters of failed to love our God? They should not be empty words but words that are lived out in our lives. Later on in this Mass we will receive the Body and Blood of Christ. We come forward and myself or a Eucharistic Minister will say to you: “The Body of Christ.” “The Blood of Christ.” Our response will be: “AMEN.” I believe! Yes, I believe. We believe the lord will enter our heart and our soul but when we say Amen are we just mouthing empty words? How does it affect our lives when we leave this church? Do we say ”AMEN” just because that is what we are taught or because we truly mean it?

The son who says Yes to the Father in the Gospel but fails to go into the vineyard fails to live up to what he promised. The son who at first refuses and then does what his father asks shows us that what is more important in our lives is our actions. We are called to live the commandments of Jesus, live them with our lives every moment we are alive. We are called not to just nod our heads in agreement when asked if we are a follower of Christ but we are called to put into action the faith we say we believe in.

Today in the midst of our 9:30am Mass there will be a group of adults who are beginning the year long process of entering the Catholic Church. These adults are saying “Yes” to the Lord. A Yes that they uttered a long time ago and they are now asking to continue to journey deeper with the relationship of the Lord. They should be inspirational to us to continue to utter our own yes to the Lord. Many of us were baptized as infants when our parents and godparents said they would raise us in the practice of the faith. For those of us who have been confirmed it was a time for all of us to stand up and say that we wanted to be part of the Church. The words at our baptisms were spoken for us by others and the words at our confirmation we spoke for ourselves. Those words are not just one time utterances. The Yes the members who are seeking entrance into the church are not just one time words. The words need to be spoken on a daily basis and not just spoken but are lived out in our actions. It is not a onetime event but it is a lifelong process.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who lived in the 19th century once wrote, "There is no such thing as being a Christian; there is only becoming a Christian." In other words, following Jesus is a process during which we journey toward full conversion. We are not just Christians because we say so in words but we become Christians as we live and act on it each and every day.

This is what our faith is all about. We do not wake up the day after saying yes at our baptism and/or confirmation and wipe our hands saying that we are finished. Our yes to the Lord in those sacraments are simply a beginning, the start of a life long journey where we need to say yes to the Lord each and every day when we awake. A yes that does not solely take the form of the words we speak but in the actions we do. We are not simply a follower of Jesus Christ but our daily actions help us to grow into a follower of the Lord.

For anyone who has played sports one knows that to be a good athlete the action needs to be completed. You do not stop halfway through when you throw a baseball, kick a soccer ball or hit a golf ball. There is something important that needs to be done –- one needs to follow through in the action. The throw, kick or hit needs to be completed. The follow through is one of the most important parts of being good at a certain sport. Just as in sports, Jesus is asking his disciples to follow through with what we say. We say yes to the Lord but the words are not enough. Actions need to back up these words. We need to follow through in what we have said. The son who said yes but never went into the vineyard failed to follow through in what he told his father. While the other son may have said no at least he came through in his actions. Actions speak louder than words and that is true in a journey towards following as a disciple.

We often have heard the saying: “You can talk the talk but can you walk the walk.” Anyone can say they are a follower of Jesus, they are just words. The real test is to see that we follow through in saying we are a disciple. We need to daily live out our yes to the Lord. Follow through; backing up our words with our actions. The Lord is not looking for a group of disciples who give him lip service by saying one thing and doing another. The Lord is looking for people who are not afraid to live their faith. Jesus is inviting us to follow him by living lives of faith. It’s easy to say yes in words to being a disciple of Jesus Christ, it’s tough to live it by our deeds. But that is what makes us a Christian – living lives of faith. Remember to follow through, that’s what makes the action worthwhile. That’s what truly makes us followers of the Lord. AMEN!