Sermon 212 October 26, 2025: Is 7:13-17; Heb 9:1-11; Mt 1: 20b-23 "True self"

 As preached by Brother Luke

Holy Wisdom Church

Glory be to Jesus Christ!

 

       I can remember seeing, years ago, a group of nuns in full habit climb up our back stairs and proceed into our cloister! Surprise! "Who are you?" I asked, plus some other questions like, "what are you doing here?" "Visitors, just looking around," they said! Well, I escorted them out of the cloister.

       I would guess we can all remember occasions when we bumped into people in unexpected places and asked the question, "Who are you?" What would we say if someone asked us that question? Of course, our answer would depend, in part, on the circumstances. No surprise then, that at the Annunciation the Virgin Mary in seeing the angel would wonder: "who are you?" And then after hearing his message, would ponder: "Who am I?"

       The feast we celebrate today gives us a wonderful example of how icons can symbolize visually what would require many paragraphs of text to accomplish. Just a glance at the icon, not to mention a time of meditation, clearly shows what lies in the center of Mary's life: Jesus.

       "Who are you?" is the question we wrestle with throughout our lives. Most often people answer this question by identifying the work they do, or the activities they enjoy, or the groups they belong to, or the place they come from, or the family tree they inhabit, but seldom do they consider deep down who are they when they take off all these wrappings and look to the core reality of their person.

       What did Joseph hear from the angel in his dream? "Don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife. What is in her is of the Holy Spirit." [Mt 1:20] What is in us is of the Holy Spirit! What is in us is nothing less than God.

       What did we hear in the Letter to the Hebrews? "Christ has already come as the High Priest of the good things that are already here." [Heb 9:11] "The good things that are already here!" And these good things are to be found within us, but we have to strip away what is overing them up. We have to shed that false image of ourselves. Christ's language is that we have to die to ourselves in order to live in Christ. Thomas Merton would say we have to let go of our false self in order to find our True Self.

       Richard Rohr captured the essence of this idea when he said "What really has to die is our false self, created by our own mind, ego, and culture. It is a pretense, ... that gets in the way of who we are and always were--in God." [Yes and ... ,p. 254] Or as St. Paul says in the Letter to the Colossians, [3:3-4]  "you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ."  The false self, we create, the true self, God creates. Since God creates all things, God is in all things, including us. Finding our true self, created and inhabited by God, is true freedom, a freedom that is joyful, as the celebrated Romanian monk, Nicolae Steinhardt proclaims in his Journal of Joy [p. 532].

       All of this brings us back to the image we are celebrating today. When we are finally able to rest calmly in the reality that Christ is at the center of our lives, this recognition makes us free, because anxieties evaporate since we do not have to prove anything to anyone, especially ourselves. Then the expression we use in greeting each other in the Divine Liturgy carries even more meaning.

       Christ is in our midst!

 

October 19, 2025 - Lk 5:17-28

 As preached by Brother Christopher

Holy Wisdom Church

“And they were all astounded and praised God and were filled with awe, saying, “We have seen strange things today.” (Lk 5:26)

 

In this morning’s gospel, there is an interesting dynamic at play that’s worth reflecting on. It is the tension between “law” and “spirit”. Jesus is teaching to a packed house when suddenly a paralyzed man is let down on a bed from a hole in the roof and placed at Jesus’ feet. It’s a bold and astonishing thing to imagine, and the expression of faith by the friends that let the man down moves Jesus deeply. But what he does next is surprising, even shocking to the scribes and Pharisees in the crowd. Instead of focusing on the physical disability, Jesus addresses the deeper paralysis that afflicts the man: paralysis of the Spirit that no doubt had left him feeling alienated from God. Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven.” Now this freaks out the scribes and Pharisees, whose unspoken thoughts were pretty clear to Jesus: “Blasphemy! Who does he think he is? Only God can forgive sins. He’s broken the law.” However, while ostensibly standing up for religious orthodoxy, their protests include another less noble aspect: that sins can be forgiven only after visiting the religious authorities and completing a rite of purification, which also involved paying a fee. Jesus’ pronouncement is thus a threat to the authority and livelihood of the religious elite. Jesus manifests a different authority – one of the spirit – one with no connection to power or financial gain: the authority of God whose forgiveness cures the paralysis of the soul.

              But the story gets even better: Jesus sees right through the duplicity of the scribes, calling out their toxic, hidden thoughts. He then demonstrates his authority to speak for God by ordering the paralytic to pick up his bed and walk... and so the man does – leaving everyone astonished. Who has ever seen anything like this? But what is even more astonishing is that after having seen such a miracle, no one in the crowd decides to become a disciple, at least as Luke reports it. They seem to be frozen in their astonishment, not realizing the implications of what they’ve seen. All they can say is, “We have seen strange things today.”  Interestingly, at the end of the passage, it is only Levi the tax collector – who wasn’t even at the miracle – who falls under the gaze and the word of Jesus. He is the one who shows us what is of real importance: following Jesus. He hears Jesus’ call and in one definitive moment, leaves behind his addiction to money. Perhaps it’s another healing of paralysis of a different sort.

              All of this is happening early on in Luke’s gospel and it sets the stage for the gradual unfolding of Jesus’ destiny. His mighty works attract significant attention but they are accompanied by a radical call to change, one that rattles the authorities. And even here in this morning’s passage we get a subtle premonition of what is in store for Jesus. While the charge of blasphemy by the scribes foreshadows Jesus’ death, the raising of the paralytic foreshadows his resurrection. Which leaves each of us with a question: do we stay on the level of the crowd’s astonishment, almost entertained by the tales of Jesus’ mighty works, or do we embrace the more challenging commitment of being a disciple, one who is open to fresh movement of the spirit? That can only be answered by each of us repeatedly in the depths of our heart.

             

Homily for the Feast of St Francis 2025

 

Preached by Brother Christopher
Holy Wisdom Church

 

I suppose it is not surprising that of all the saints one could think of in Christian history – including St Paul – none has enjoyed the popularity and affection as much as Francis of Assisi. And it is not confined solely to Roman Catholics. Indeed, more than any other saint post schism and Reformation, Francis is able to transcend religious divisions and elicit a respect and appreciation that inspires people of all faiths. It is believed that more books and essays have been written about him than any other saint, and while our culture seems to tilt more and more towards secularism, Francis is one saint that is still somehow taken seriously. Why is that?

              It might be tempting to single out Francis’ commitment to Lady Poverty, whose praises Francis sung throughout his life as being chiefly responsible for this. As a genuinely poor man, Francis made himself equal to the least in his culture, and so won their love and devotion. Or could it have been his unapologetic love for nature, for recognizing in the grandeur of the environment God’s presence and glory? Certainly in our own day when the fate of the earth is at risk through our reckless and profligate exploitation of its resources and our deafness to the ecological consequences of global warming, it’s not hard to see how today many would see his example as a desperately needed voice in the wilderness, calling us to sanity. Then again, perhaps it was due to his awesome sharing in the sufferings of Christ, as evidenced by the stigmata that he received on Mount La Verna two years before his death. It would have been hard for his contemporaries to ignore what such a miracle represented.

              Each of these aspects of his life and spirituality are important and no doubt have a role in Francis’ enduring importance. But with respect, I believe what undergirds them all and what gives his spiritual legacy perennial wings is simply his radical adherence to the Gospel. It is said that when Francis crafted his initial rule for his followers he began by stating that “The Rule and the Life of the Friars Minor is to simply live the Gospel.” And in the ensuing rule he penned it was primarily a collection of New Testament passages strung together into a coherent whole. When Francis sent it off to Rome for approval it is said that Pope Innocent said, “This is no rule; this is just the Gospel.” And I can imagine Francis saying, “Exactly, that’s precisely the point!” Francis’ total simplicity and transparency captivated an entire generation, helping it to believe that the Gospel could be lived in a radical way. Francis showed them it was possible.

              Francis could never have imagined how his order and influence grew over the centuries and how that very growth and expansion forced the Friars to face adjustments to Francis’ radical vision. There’s the paradox that faces Christianity more broadly, and religious life and monasticism more specifically: in order to be truly faithful to the Gospel and the specific way the Spirit calls us to follow, we have the courage to continue to listen to what a radical following of the Gospel looks like in our own day, realizing that it cannot be a literal imitation of Francis. But what is possible is to take the passion, the desire, the creativity that characterized Francis’ life and use it as inspiration for charting our own way forward. What does such love look like today? And in this, I believe, we follow Christ.