August 2024 – Tony Lusvardi, S.J.

Law and communion: homily for the twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

If you could pick eight of the Ten Commandments to follow and drop two, which would they be? What if you could keep six as commandments and downgrade four to recommendations? Perhaps you’re thinking, “I probably only need about five or so, but I know a lot of people who could use a few more, maybe 12 or 15 for them.” The Pharisees in the Gospel seem to have adopted this last strategy, and perhaps because of their bad example sometimes the very idea of law gets a bad rap. Didn’t Jesus teach grace rather than law, mercy instead of rules? Didn’t Jesus say, “All you need is love, love is all you need”?

Actually, that was the Beatles. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law.”

Basilica de Santo Nino, Cebu City, Philippines

Now it is true that, as in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus harshly criticizes a certain way of using the law as self-serving and hypocritical. So to be disciples of Jesus we need to think carefully about the role the law plays in salvation history and in our own lives of faith.

Today’s first reading from Deuteronomy makes clear that the law of Israel is God’s gift. It makes equally clear that no one but God may add to or subtract from what he commands. No matter how much we find the commandments hard to follow, no matter how old they are, no matter if we think we could attract crowds of new people to our Church by loosening the loopholes, only God can modify the law of God.

Sacraments of loyalty, marriage and Eucharist: homily for the twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the 21st Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

Are there any Bears fans here? I have a question for you: if I reached into my wallet, how much money would I have to offer to get you to root for the Vikings? I know what you’re thinking: “You keep your wallet where it is, Father, because there ain’t enough money in the world to make me a Vikings fan.” Fair enough. I am a Notre Dame fan, and you could fill up the collection plate with hundred dollar bills, but you’d never get me to root for USC or Michigan.

Triumph of Faith over Idolatry, Jean-Baptistre Théodon, Church of the Gesù, Rome

In both cases, the reason why is loyalty. Each of today’s readings is about loyalty, though much more important types of loyalty than what we show our sports teams. When the first reading takes place, Joshua and the Israelites have spent their lifetime conquering the Promised Land after the death of Moses; here Joshua is an old man and he is putting a choice to the people. They’ve arrived, the land is theirs, and he tells them: Now you have to decide whom to serve. The God of our fathers Abraham and Moses got us here, and he has given us his law. Other nations have other gods, maybe with laws that aren’t so demanding. You are free to make a choice. You can serve whichever god you wish, Joshua says, but “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

And the people agree to serve the Lord. But if you continuing reading in the book of Joshua, you’ll see that Joshua asks the people a second time. Are you sure? Because if you agree to serve the Lord, then God will hold you to his law. You are free, but your choice is binding.

Choose life, South Dakota: homily for the twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

If there is one theme consistently present throughout the whole Bible, from the first chapter of Genesis to today’s Gospel, it is that God desires to give us life. When he reveals the commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, he tells the people of Israel, “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live” (Dt 30:19). Today the Eucharist too is presented as life-giving: “The bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world” (Jn 6:51).

It is fitting that today’s readings would highlight God’s desire to give us life, because, as I mentioned last week, the bishops of South Dakota have asked us to speak these two Sundays about a particularly urgent social issue: a measure, Amendment G, has been placed on the ballot this November, which would add the right to abortion without significant limits to the South Dakota constitution. As I pointed out last week, Christianity is not a political program, and Catholics can disagree about most political issues while still remaining faithful to the principles of our faith. Amendment G, however, is impossible to reconcile with the fundamental principle that it is always wrong to deliberately kill an innocent human being.

This principle is something that both conservatives and liberals should be able to embrace. Conservatives emphasize the government’s duty to protect and not usurp individual rights, and without the right to life no other rights are possible. Even a libertarian “live and let live” philosophy only works if you let the other live. Take away the right to life and you have neither conservative government nor a free people, but the oppression of the weak.

Taking the gold for Team Humanity: homily for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Homily for the Assumption

Raphael, *Coronation of the Virgin*, Vatican Museums

My brothers and sisters, I’m no angel. Before you respond with too much glee, “Oh, Father, we know,” let me point out—you’re no angels, either.

Now, when people say, “He’s no angel,” usually what they’re saying doesn’t mean what they think it does. Usually, if someone says, “He’s no angel,” they mean, “He’s not so nice.” Maybe there are a few skeletons in his closet.

But not all the angels were good. Lucifer and the demons are angels, and they have so many skeletons there’s no room for clothes in their closets. Today’s great feast is dedicated to a woman who never sinned. But today, the feast of the Assumption, we celebrate the fact that Mary is no angel. She is a human being. A woman. One of us.

You see, because the real reason demons don’t have clothes in their closets is because they don’t have anything to wear them on. Angels don’t have bodies. But we do. That’s the difference between angels and human beings. Otherwise, we’re quite a bit alike. We both have intelligence and free will—which is how the fallen angels sinned. The big difference is the body.

Today we celebrate the fact that at the end of her life on earth, Mary’s body entered immediately into heavenly glory.

And, my friends, this is not some bit of religious trivia, but something very, very important for each one of us. Because it means that to be saved, to enter into heavenly glory, we don’t have to give up being human. We don’t have to become angels. God wants to save us as human beings, which is why his plan for our salvation involved taking the flesh of Mary, a woman, to become a man, so that we, women and men, might be saved in our human bodies.

Every child bears the face of Christ: homily for the nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B).

In today’s first reading a sleepy Elijah does not seem to want to deliver the prophetic message the Lord gives him but requires an angelic wakeup call. It’s no mystery why; his mission requires him to speak the truth to power, and he faces opposition. But he must speak anyway. Meanwhile, the reactions to Jesus’ claim—“I am the bread of life”—in John 6 are among the most contentious in the Gospel.

I too will fess up to the temptation to burrow under my covers this morning to avoid delivering a contentious message. As many of you know, an initiative known as Amendment G has been placed on South Dakota’s ballot this November to insert a “right” to abortion without substantial limits in the state constitution. Our bishop-elect has asked priests to address the issue in their homilies this week and next. To be clear, however, it was the pro-abortion forces who placed this divisive issue on the ballot.

And, to be equally clear, this amendment is not “pro-choice” but pro-abortion. Sadly, abortion is already legal and available in the United States. In Minnesota, there are no restrictions on abortion at all. Amendment G, then, will not make abortion available—because it already is—but it will make it more easily available and common. It would remove even moderate restrictions and safety standards for abortion. We have seen in recent months, corporations and politicians rush to provide free abortions, through insurance or government funding, and it’s important to let what this implies sink in. Having a baby—even giving her up for adoption—is never free. So these moves make abortion not just a choice but in practical terms the preferential choice. They create social structures that systematically favor abortion.

The Last Supper, the French Revolution, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Readers of this blog might be interested in this article America asked me to write on the Last Supper Olympics controversy. A bit of historic context and a bit of tongue-in-cheek… I may have had a warrant issued for my arrest in France.

I think Solzhenitsyn’s critique of the French Revolution is particularly important and something I hope to follow up on in the next book project.

And speaking of books, if you haven’t already ordered your copy of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation, do so quick. They’re selling like hotcakes here in Rapid City…

Bread of life or never-ending breadsticks? Homily for the eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Homily for the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time (B)

If there were an Olympic event for complaining, the ancient Israelites just might take the gold medal. Today, after being liberated from slavery, they ask to go back, forgetting the oppression they suffered in Egypt and remembering the country as an ancient Olive Garden with fleshpots and never-ending bread sticks. Hearing their complaint, God sends them manna and quail to eat, but we know that soon enough they’ll start complaining again—“Manna again? We want leaks and onions, not these leftovers!” And they’ll attack Moses: “Why’d you have to lead us out here? Weren’t there enough graves in Egypt?”

But, if complaining were an Olympic event, the competition would be fierce. I suspect there’s something deep in our human nature—some survival mechanism from caveman days that made our ancestors less likely to be eaten by sabretooth tigers or stomped on by wooly mammoths if they were quicker to see the negative than the positive, more inclined to fear than to gratitude. The problem is if you’re not being stalked by a sabretooth tiger, this instinct for the negative sometimes results in clubbing our friends or retreating into the darkness of our own self-constructed caves.