Homily – Dec. 25, 2021 / Christmas __ Title: Christmas.Priest.Prophet.King
__ Click Here for Audio of Homily __
[__00_] On
the day of your baptism, the priest said to you, what kind of a person are you
going to be? Those words – precisely - are not in the baptism or ritual. I made
that up!
But
there is a sense in which a similar idea is expressed. The priest or did not
say -- what kind of person are you going to be – but the deacon/priest approached
you and put anointing oil on your forehead and said, You are anointed priest,
prophet and king. You were anointed priest, prophet, and King, because Jesus
comes as a priest as a prophet and a king.
So
what kind of person are you going to be? I like the king part, the best I
think, that has the most promise.
[__01_] It
has been pointed out (e.g., Boston College Professor Peter Kreeft, (Video:
7 Reasons Why Everyone Should Be Catholic, Apr 18, 2017) points out in many superhero movies, perhaps
every superhero movie, there is trio of
major figures each personifying
a a priest, a prophet, and a king. Kreeft
gave these examples:
·
JAWS [shark
is not 1 of the 3]– police chief (king), scientist/oceanographer
(prophet), blue-collar shark hunter (priest),
·
Star Trek, Captain James Kirk (king), Mr. Spock (prophet), Dr. “Bones” McCoy, the simple country physician/doctor
(priest)
·
Star Wars,
Darth Vader (king – sometimes the king is evil… just
like Old Testament!) Yoda (prophet),
Luke Skywalker / Han Solo (priests)
[__02_] A common thread here is the priests – as disciples
– do work.
Priests are supposed to
work. isciples are supposed to work. The
problem sometimes is that I sometimes worry I spend more time worrying about
why I am not king, or why I have not some come up with the perfect prophetic
wisdom in some situation.
Am I
really carrying out the work of a priest? And I learned about being a priest
first, not before when I went to the seminary I learned about being a priest
from my parents. I learned about honesty, forthrightness, sacrifice devotion to
family to work.
Recently,
we were talking about something about our first house where we grew up in my
hometown, and my father said to my sister-in-law, he said, it took me eight
minutes, I could get to the train station walking in 8 minutes. I was amazed at
how exact he was in his recollection, I got there in 8 minutes. It was an
example to me of how devoted he was to his work. And maybe he cut it close a
few times. Missed his train? But he but he knew what it was to work. My mother
and father did not rule the house as king and queen. They did not rule the
house as royalty.
They
ruled the house like priests, they were self-sacrificing for the family and the
priests in the heart the home.
Your
home is meant to be a little church that's in the Catholic atechism that your
home is meant to be the Domus ekklesia,
a little church, a domestic church.
[__03_] And even if your kids don't listen to you,
okay, you're afraid, oh, my kids, don't listen to me. Because you thought I
should have managed or led them better or something or I should have had more
scientific or prophetic wisdom for them.
And that's why they don't listen to me. But
you sacrificed for them. You did priestly things for them, and you still do, I
am sure. That means a lot.
Sometimes
I'd rather be a king. We'd all rather be kings and queens we'd rather be
royalty. But in the theology of the church and the Bible, we are priestly
people, you are a priestly person. By your baptism, you're called to do this by
sacrifice each day.
And
in order to do so in accord with your station, your vocation.
[__04_] I was reminded of this recently that we're
called to make sacrifices in accord with who we are.
St. Josemaria Escrivá (Spain)
wrote that we should make
sacrifices in accord with our station in life not sacrifices their call
attention to ourselves.
Sometimes
we think, Oh, I'm going to go on a 14 day fast, or I'm only going to drink
water. Well, that's kind of like extreme and maybe we can't really enter into
that.
But
can we do something smaller on a smaller basis on a smaller self¡sacrificial
basis, he writes, for example, that every time we sit down at the table, every
time we sit down to eat is an opportunity to make a little mortification or a
little sacrifice, maybe something that no one will notice.
But
you'll notice God notices. So for example, don't put sugar in your coffee. And
then you're like, I don't like sugar in my coffee anyway, so that's okay. Well
then, or make have a half a cup of coffee instead of a full cup of coffee, or
don't put butter on your bread. These are little sacrifices. And guess what,
nobody notices that you're doing them. But that comes right out of Matthew
chapter 6, the gospel of Ash Wednesday, anoint your head and wash your face so
that you will not appear to others to be fasting. So don't call attention to
your fasts. Or another example that I heard recently was, let's say you're a
student, you could fast from looking at your phone or your computer for 55
minutes straight, let's say just 55 minutes straight.
Just
read your books, read your notes, don't look at the computer or turn off the
internet. Or better yet, don't even have the internet on in your room. Just
study for 55 minutes straight reading. That's a sacrifice.
And
guess what you're going to notice that you're doing it. If I were to do that, I
noticed when I'm doing this, when I turn off my phone for even short periods, I
noticed that the phone is off, sometimes even forget it's off, and I forget to
turn it back on. That's a blessed moment when I forget to turn the phone back
on.
So
we're called to give ourselves up to give ourselves back to God each day.
[__05_] The
shepherds are examples of this, the shepherds in the Gospel. If we say what
kind of person are you? What kind of person you're going to be? Or what kind of
person is the shepherd going to be.
Is shepherd
going to be a king, the shepherd is not a king. The shepherds of the Jesus's
day were not kings. They were not prophets. They were probably not highly
educated.
They
were like priests. They were self sacrificing. They were going to adore our the
newborn savior. And they were doing the simple work that we were called to do.
They were the essential workers of their day, and who are the essential workers
the shepherds of our day.
They
are delivery truck drivers, driving for UPS, FedEx, Amazon and other
organizations. They are workers in 24-hour convenience stores. They are those
who sanitize and scrub the hospital floor or the doctor's office. They are
people who guide and attend to us in stores. They are shepherds.
And
I have to ask myself am I living as an essential worker? Am I living with my
faith being essential to my life? Am I a priest? Am I a prophet? Or am I a
king?
We're
all called to a certain royal / kingliness and wise / prophecy in all of us.
The “king”
aspect calls all of us to be merciful. The prophecy calls all of us to study
our faith to know our faith. And then the priesthood calls us to sacrifice.
[__06_] This past Tuesday I entered the church. As a
priest, why always enter the churches as a priest but perhaps I became more
aware of this. I entered the church in the vestibule and it is not unusual for
a delivery to arrive in the church.
Given that our church address this building is
1 Eagle Rock Avenue and the rectory next door is also 1 Eagle Rock Avenue so sometimes
deliveries from Staples or FedEx or Amazon come to the church and then we have
to carry them next door.
Do
you also find boxes at the wrong address? Wrong place? Side door instead of
front? Garage? Yard? Maybe they were
delivered to your Delivery truck drivers have a difficult job they have a lot
of destinations to get to.
There
was a unusual package in church. But it was not from AMZN.
Right there in the vestibule
was a cage cage with a bunny rabbit inside it to completely domesticated pet
rabbit.
I am not joking with you. Somebody
told me that rabbit knew there was a manger here. Not because the rabbit
thought it was Easter so maybe that rabbit is pretty smart. So in my initial
reaction, I felt sorry for myself because I now I had to solve this little
problem.
I
wanted to be king or I wanted to be a prophet with some instantly Mr. Spock answer.
Or, I wanted to demand that someone “beam me up…” to solve this problem.
But
I wasn't going to be a king, I wasn't gonna be a prophet, I was going to be a
priest. And so eventually the next morning, I got up, and I came over and I
took some photos of the rabbit not to put on Shutterfly, but took some photos
of the rabbit, email the photos out to several parish staff, devoted parish
volunteers, some people who look worked for the township of West Orange, and I
was surprised how swift this was resolved.
SPOILER ALERT: you will be glad to know the bunny rabbit was
adopted by a capable and enthusiastic young person who works as a technician at
a local veterinary / vet / animal hospital.
It
was a reminder to me that I do not carry out the work of this parish alone,
that I rely on many essential workers, many staff who help us to carry out the
work of the gospel here even to rescue those in need. But also it was a
reminder to me not to feel too sorry for myself, but also to pray for the
person who left behind an animal that might have been very precious to them. Why?
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