Good morning everyone. Thanks for coming to Mass today, welcome to all visitors and guests. My name is Fr. Andy Upah, I am the new pastor here, it has been a real joy to be here so far, and it seems like the people like me too, I mean it's my one month anniversary and they are throwing a huge party for me!
I’m just kidding, this Pork Roast has been going on for a long time, and this Polka Mass, this is my first time presiding at a Polka Mass. I grew up with the Polka, my family is Czech, every family wedding we would Polka, it’s a staple in my family. In fact, on Friday I went home for a funeral for my great Aunt and they played a polka as they rolled the casket out of the Church, that was the first time but I could see that becoming a tradition as well.
On my second weekend here, a group of Protestant Seminarians from the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary came to Bellevue on a field trip of sorts. On Sunday morning they went to worship at the Presbyterian church here in town and then they came over here for the 10:45am Mass.
After Mass I spent about an hour with them, answering questions about Bellevue and St. Joseph's. Unfortunately, I wasn't really helpful being so new here, one gentleman asked me what I thought my ministry here would look like in 5 years? And I was like “I don't even know what it will look like in 5 days!”
But realistically, it will probably look about the same. I'll still be here celebrating the Sacraments, celebrating Mass to give you Jesus in the Eucharist, hearing confessions, anointing the sick, baptizing, confirming, celebrating weddings, those are my primary priestly responsibilities, helping you to encounter Jesus in the Sacraments.
Another gentleman in the class followed up with a statement that has been just ruminating in my mind since he said it. He said, “I’ve heard it said that, when it comes to the practice of the Christian Religion, Protestants are really good at steps 1, 2, and 3, and Catholics are really good steps 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, and I don’t really remember what those steps are, but would you care to comment?”
I said, well, I would imagine those steps we are good at are the sacraments and following the rules (like our 1st reading) and the practice of the faith by going out and doing good works (like our 2nd reading), but you’re right, we miss some first steps because we take them for granted.
Like the first step that Protestants tend to be really good at is talking about “having a personal relationship with Jesus.” I recognize that, so I try to bring that up in the homily, or just fact we are beloved sons and daughters of God, that's how I phrase it more often, but same idea, we are loved by God! That has to come first, the knowledge and true belief that we are loved and have a relationship with God.
Second step, which reinforces the first, is a better knowledge of the Bible. Protestants, especially fundamentalists, are really good and often known for memorizing verses of the Bible. Catholics, not so much, however, we really do know a lot about the Bible, we just don’t realize it, since most every word we hear at Mass is from the Bible, we just can’t quote the chapter and the verse.
Third step, I speculated, was community building, especially being very welcoming to new members. I joked last week about wearing name tags, but I've been to several Protestant Churches where they do wear name tags, they have them printed for the members to get on the way in, and if the person is new to the church, they write it, and that signals others to introduce themselves.
That leads to better relationships with each other, better community, allows them to invite them into the community in various ways. In fact, I was over checking out the Pork Roast setup, and two people told me at their church in Arizona, they are snowbirds, they said everyone wears a name tag, and they love it, so if you see Jim and Kathy over there with name tags, they did that for me, but they like it too, it gets everyone connected much faster.
Anyway, I concluded my answer to him by saying, “I do think we have a lot to learn from each other.” But that was all speculation at the moment regarding the “steps.” Before he posed the question I had thought a lot about this, but never had to formulate it, and since then, and the reason it has been playing over and over in my mind, is because I have been thinking about “was I right, and if not, what are the steps we miss?”
As Catholics, what can we do better? How can we be better Christians and help others to know of God’s love, helping everyone to get to Heaven? That’s what our Christian Religion is for, we believe Jesus died for the forgiveness of our sins and opened the doors to Heaven.
And then I got hit with today’s readings, especially the second reading: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”
As I have been praying with that, I feel like these two come as a result of the other steps, these are steps at the end, but as with anything, we have to begin with the end in mind, begin with the goal, and now figure out how we are going to get there. These steps I have been talking about just get us there to help others and keep ourselves pure and holy.
So in order “to care for orphans and widows in their affliction” which is really just to say those people who are often oppressed but in need, first, we have to recognize, that just like us, they are loved by Jesus, they have great dignity as children of God, just like us. We recognize that first in ourselves, then we recognize it in others.
But then we have to know them, right? We have to know who they are so we can take care of them, that’s part of the community step, being welcoming, recognizing those in our midst who need help.
The Church attempts to do that, we use a portion of what we receive to give to the needy, but really, what we do more often is forming that ability to recognize the needy on our own and help them more individually. It is not just the Church’s job when someone asks, it is all of our job when at the end of Mass we are dismissed to go out and work. St. James led with that saying “Be doers of the word and not hearers only, deluding yourselves.”
Caring for the orphans and widows is a short way to say, do the corporal works of mercy: “To feed the hungry; To give drink to the thirsty; To clothe the naked; To shelter the homeless; To visit the sick; To visit the imprisoned; To bury the dead.” (Matthew 25:31-46, Tobit 1:17-19, Catechism of the Catholic Church 2447) This is what Jesus asks, James reinforces it today in a short form.
But then after that James says “and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” I’ll be honest, I could have and would have quoted that first part about the widows and orphans, but I didn’t remember that second part, which is really very important. Think about it in conjunction with the first: the world says make a lot of money and take care of yourself first, then help others with what is left.
But God says, help others first, and trust I will take care of you in the end. We hear lots from the world, the world is always trying to sell us something, namely on the need for power, pleasure, and prestige, that is always coming at us.
Jesus recognizes these things are coming at us, He said in today’s Gospel: “Hear me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that enters one from outside can defile that person; but the things that come out from within are what defile.” And then He goes through that list that He recognizes first comes at us from the outside, but we try to not let them enter into our hearts.
So Jesus is telling us the same thing as St. James, keep ourselves unstained by the world. We don’t enter the world with those thoughts, but we pick them up as we grow. And if you think about the Church, one of our biggest missions, our biggest expense if you will, is to help parents form their children in school and in faith formation, right?
We want to keep these little ones unstained by the world, to help them know they are loved by God, and then help them to build on that for all of the other steps.
And as I think about the Pork Roast and the purpose of that, it is a great community event where people grow in relationships, but also it is a great fundraiser right? It supports the Mission of the Church, to teach people the faith and take care of others.
And also, it goes to beautify the Church. This is a beautiful church, and we are looking to make it more beautiful through renovating the statues and updating the carpet and the sanctuary. Because, when you think about keeping ourselves unstained by the world, we need to keep our focus on things of heaven. Beautiful statues and windows and spaces do that, right?
Have you ever thought that these pillars, although they block visibility like being in the second deck at Wrigley Field, the pillars are meant to look like trees and remind us of being in the Garden of Eden? This is why they are built like this, even painted green, to remind us of God’s love in creation, and to help us look forward to the way things will be again in Heaven.
But right now we are still on earth, and as beautiful as Wrigley Field is, it doesn’t point us to Heaven as much as a beautiful Church does. So thanks for being here, thanks in advance for your generosity today to the Church. A good rule of thumb is we’d like to have three months worth of operating capital on hand, and right now we only have one, so we really need your support today to get us to Christmas and to do some improvements along the way.
Giving away our money to good causes shows God we love Him more than we love the money, it's an exercise in trust. Money is just a tool we need for our Mission, having money isn’t a problem, God blessed us with it after all. The problem is when we don’t use it for God when He calls us to do so. The Church has a big Mission, and lots of important steps, and lots of things we need to do to help everyone get to Heaven.
It’s a big responsibility, but we are the right people for the job because God has created us for this moment, and He is loving us and is going to take care of us through it all when we keep our focus on Him, unstained and undefiled by the world, as we journey together to Heaven.