martyrdom – Tony Lusvardi, S.J.

How much does heaven cost?

Homily for Monday of the 34th week of Ordinary Time (Year 1, 2019 – original Italian).

Church of the Holy Spirit, Žehra, Slovakia

How much does it cost to enter the Kingdom of Heaven?

Perhaps a lot. In the Gospels, the rich never seem to have enough. If we arrive at the gates of paradise with suitcases full of banknotes, it seems that won’t be enough. In eternity, they probably won’t accept credit cards, either.

Perhaps it costs very little. The widow offers just two cents. But if we have listened to the readings from the Old Testament in recent days—the sufferings of the Israelites under pagan rulers and in exile—we know that the price of fidelity can be very high. Martyrs pay with their blood.

Perhaps it is free. God does not need money. He created the world. What would he buy? Still, Jesus praises the widow for making an offering.

So, how much does it cost to enter the Kingdom of Heaven? The answer is everything. No more and no less.

Offering everything to the Lord means that no aspect of our lives is outside the Lord’s presence. Not just certain moments of worship–but also our financial, family, social, political, and professional decisions must be made with God at the center. The young Jews in the first reading from the book of Daniel put fidelity to divine law at the center of their lives, even in the service of the king of Babylon. We owe God nothing less than everything.

But nothing more, either. That is, God does not expect from us something we do not have, something we are not. If we are not the richest, God does not care. If we are not the strongest, God does not care. If we are not the most intelligent or the most beautiful or the most famous, God absolutely does not care. God does not want these things from us. He wants what we have–or, rather, he wants what we are. He wants an offering of ourselves.

This is, in fact, the offering that God makes to us in the sacrament we are about to celebrate. Physically, the Eucharist is not very big. But it is certainly not little. It is God’s gift of himself.

And that is everything.

(Original: Italian)

Readings: Daniel 1:1-6, 8-20; Lk 21:1-4

Church of the Gesù, Rome

November 2019

I was happy to be invited back to the pages of First Things last week to discuss celebrities, scandal, and the sacrament of confirmation. Check out the article: Sacraments of Initiation or Affirmation?

Do we still desire holiness? Homily for the Feast of All Saints and Blesseds of the Society of Jesus

November 5 is a special feast day on the Jesuit liturgical calendar–the Feast of All Saints and Blesseds of the Society of Jesus, a kind of All Saints Day for Jesuits. Five years ago, in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, I celebrated Mass in our formation community in Rome on that day. The homily, translated into English, is below.

We need saints.

Today more than ever, I feel this need. In these days of isolation, loneliness, anxiety, and disillusionment, we need companions. We need to know that we are not alone—even in the dark nights when we cannot sleep. And when we are confused, afraid, full of doubts, we need companions who have experienced confusion, opposition, doubt, sin and penance, and yet have come to peace.

Today we celebrate the great consolation that we have such companions. As Jesuits, we celebrate the fact that among all the saints recognized by the Church, there are many who made the same choice we have made, who prayed as we pray–who have, we might say, eaten with us in the refectory. As Moses says of the word of God, these companions are not across the sea but are near to us. In the long winter we are experiencing, we need only open our mouths in prayer, and these companions will be present at our side.

Today we remember not only the great names—Robert Bellarmine, who cheers us on in our studies, and Francis Xavier, who reminds us that our studies are only a means to spread the Gospel. Among these heavenly friends, there are many less famous ones, perhaps even some companions we have known in this life who are now in the Father’s house.

Every year when we reach the second half of Ordinary Time and volume four of the breviary, I find the holy card of Bob Araujo, a Jesuit who taught me in Chicago and greatly encouraged me in my studies and advised me during some doubtful moments of my formation. Bob suffered quite a bit in his life, first, from opposition in his career and, then, from a slow and painful cancer. He died in October 2015. When he died, the words of St. Paul came to mind: “I have fought the good fight; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith.” When he died, another companion said to me, “He’ll get right in.” Now I talk to Bob from time to time, and I ask him, “What do you think? How am I doing? Do you have any advice for me?” I imagine you also have such companions.

But when we talk about saints and Jesuit saints, I must admit that there is also something that disturbs me, just as there is something that disturbs us in the Gospel passage chosen for this feast: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”

Christ made visible in his martyrs: Homily for the 7th Sunday of Easter

I’m pleased and honored that the Homiletic and Pastoral Review asked me to provide homilies for the Sundays of June this year. You can find the full text of all the month’s homilies here. (Regular readers might note that the homilies may not be as fleshed out as usual since they are meant to be adapted.) Be sure to visit the HPR site and check out the other articles, reviews, and fine catechetical materials they provide. Below, to give you a taste, is a homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (for those places where the Ascension is celebrated on its proper Thursday).

Homily for the Seventh Sunday of Easter (C).

Chapel of St. Stephen, Certosa di San Lorenzo, Padula, Italy

Nowhere is Jesus Christ more visible than in his martyrs. In the Gospel of John, Jesus, who makes the Father visible to the world, prays that his disciples may be in him and he in them. In today’s first reading, we see God become dramatically visible in the life of one of those disciples, the deacon Stephen.

First, however, Stephen gazes on God. He sees Jesus standing at the right hand of his Father in the heavens. This vision is made possible by the action of the Holy Spirit, already present in Stephen’s life. In the first part of the chapter from which today’s reading is taken, Stephen delivers a sermon which is both learned and fiery, retelling the story of Israel from a Christian point of view and leveling a hard judgement against the men of Jerusalem who crucified Jesus.

The Church of Sant’Agnese in Agone

This week’s liturgical calendar includes two prominent–and very different– Roman martyrs. The first, St. Sebastian, a third century soldier originally from Milan, was sentenced to death after converting to Christianity. Tied to a column, he was shot through with arrows but miraculously survived and was nursed back to health by a Roman matron named Irene. He went right back to preaching and, after warning the Emperor Diocletian to repent–a gutsy move if there ever was one–was beaten to death and thrown into Rome’s sewers.

No less courageous, St. Agnes sought to dedicate her life entirely to God while very young. This meant refusing the advances of several powerful suitors, who were enraged by the rejection. Agnes’s pagan father sided with the suitors. She was humiliated, even dragged naked through the streets of Rome, burnt at the stake and when that failed–as with the first attempt to kill St. Sebastian–eventually beheaded.

The courage of such martyrs–one a solider, the other a mere girl, barely a teenager–is fundamental, I think, to appreciating the full significance of Christian faith in eternal life. At least some of the ennui that one can perceive in the Church over the past several decades perhaps comes from deemphasizing the witness of the martyrs just when we need it most.

Saint Emilianus of Trevi

St. Emilianus of Trevi is perhaps destined to be overshadowed by St. Thomas Aquinas with whom he shares a feast day, January 28. He was one of the many bishops martyred during Roman persecution who provided inspiration and strength to their local communities but today are little know, the details of their biographies mingled with legend.

From the Martyrdom of St. Emilianus of Trevi, 12th century, Spoleto

I came across a striking set of 12th century carvings depicting the martyrdom of the saint in Spoleto last year and was taken by their vividness. St. Emilianus hailed originally from Armenia and came to Italy in the third century, where he was made the first bishop of Trevi. He was martyred during the persecution under Emperor Diocletian in 304, and his relics are preserved in Spoleto Cathedral.

He was condemned to die by a Roman proconsul for his refusal to sacrifice to the gods, but–as the panels from Spoleto recount–the first attempts to put him to death failed. The wild beasts sent to kill him instead bowed before him, and when he was tied up to be burnt the torches of his would be executioners fizzled out as they approached him. Finally, he was beheaded. The last panel of the work depicts Christ enthroned in heaven welcoming the martyr.