The Connection Between Julian the Apostate and the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries
Feast of the Presentation of the Lord
For anyone who doesn’t know, one of the perks of serving as Rector of the Basilica is that my roommate is the Archbishop of Baltimore, which makes life . . . interesting. Another fact for you to know, just in case you don’t, is that Archbishop Lori loves to write homilies. He works on them with great passion and most Fridays you will find him at his desk putting together 3 or 4 different homilies for the various liturgies on his upcoming schedule. Finally, Archbishop Lori also loves to talk about homilies. Many mornings our kitchen becomes a place to workshop ideas and talk over different interpretations of the readings or theological insights that we find interesting.
The other day, I stopped by the Archbishop’s home office to give him a book I wanted him to read and on my way out he asked me, with much excitement: “Well, have you put any thought into your homily for the Presentation of the Lord?” I knew immediately that the answer I wanted to give him was: “Well, no, because you made the choice to ruin the Presentation of the Lord with the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries this weekend.” But you aren’t supposed to talk that way to your roommates, so instead I told the Archbishop that I had yet to look at the readings.
We are going to talk about the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries but first I want to say a few words about the Presentation of the Lord.
I want to talk about God-relationship-verbs. I would say that the God-relationship-verb that people want to talk about the most with me is feeling. “I do not feel the presence of God in my life,” is something people say a lot today and the absence of feeling God in life seems to cause many people to struggle with faith. Many people have asked me over the years about Mother Theresa going years without feeling the presence of God and wondering if that is how most of us are supposed to feel most of the time.
The second most common God-relationship-verb that people discuss with me is hearing. Many people pray fervently or spend hours in the adoration chapel, talking to God, giving God every opportunity to respond, but never hear a response. “Why is God silent?” is a question many people have asked me over the years, and these conversations are almost always interesting. Much like not feeling the presence of God, to never hear the voice of God in prayer also causes many people to struggle with faith.
To never feel the presence of God or hear the voice of God means that we have work to do in the spiritual life. But the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord is about a different God-relationship-verb and to me the verb that is perhaps most vital to the Christian life: seeing. The Presentation of the Lord is a literal showing, a holding up, of the incarnate God to the world: for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.
To see God in the world matters a great deal. The world is a tough place and there is lots of sin in it, violence and poverty and addiction and all kinds of disorder. Many people—believers and non-believers alike—look out at the world and see only its ugliness and conclude that God is absent or has abandoned the world or does not exist.
I hope you get a sense of what I am saying: seeing God at work in the world matters a great deal. To not feel God or hear God is a personal problem for our personal spiritual lives but to not see God in the world is a cosmological problem impacting the life of every person who exists. How is faith even possible in a world where you do not see God doing anything for anyone?
For the last two-thousand or so years, two of the best places to see God at work in the world are in the works of charity or in the life of worship. To see the work of love in the world, genuine self-sacrifice for the good of another person, is to see God. To worship with great reverence, to behold the splendor of beauty in an ugly world, is to see God. The work of charity and the life of worship are witnesses to the presence of God in the world, the building up of the kingdom right now, in real time.
I am working my way through a book on the history of the church right now. I read the other day about the short rule of a former Roman emperor known as Julian the Apostate. After 25 years of Christianity, Julian wanted to return the Roman Empire to pagan worship. To help return the Empire to paganism, Julian looked at the startling success of the early Christian church and made an important decision: if pagans wanted to defeat the Christian church, then pagans needed to get better at charity and worship because the life of charity and worship was the flame catching fire across the Empire. Pagans did not worship well, and real charity did not exist in the world until God became incarnate and taught us to love one another as he has loved us.
The work of charity and the life of worship: here is where we see God in the world.
Now I can return to talking about the Annual Appeal for Catholic Ministries. We are blessed at the Basilica that 100% of donations made to the Annual Appeal remain with our parish; the Annual Appeal for us is our single largest parish fundraiser of the year, and for our parish it matters a great deal. What I want to tell you today is that 100% of the gifts we receive this year will go directly toward helping people see God alive and at work in the world: half of these funds will support our sacred music program, and the other half will support our outreach to the homeless and the elderly in our community. Your gift to the Appeal this year stays with our parish to support the work of charity and the life of worship in Baltimore City.
I am asking each family or individual to make a one-time gift to the Annual Appeal. Last year, parish participation in the appeal fell to about 40 persons or families. I know that as a parish community we can do better. To me, making a gift matters more than making a significant gift. I want the people who work across the street at the Catholic Center and pastors across the Archdiocese to see that the Basilica of the Assumption is a parish where everyone is invested in our mission. Even a single $25 donation makes a difference, and I ask you to prayerfully consider making a gift.
Here is what we are going to do now. The Annual Appeal envelopes are in your pews, and I ask that these get passed around. Filling out the envelopes is self-explanatory, and there is a QR Code you can scan to make things even easier. I brought my history book with me, and I am going to go down to my chair now and read for a few minutes to give you the time you need to get things filled out. I also wanted to give Deacon Bob something to read, so I brought him the single most boring book I could find on my shelf: Canon Law of the Sacraments for Parish Ministry, 2nd Revised Edition. You’re welcome, Deacon Bob.
We’re going to read for a few minutes, and then we will stand to profess the creed. If you have an envelope, you can turn it in with the collection today. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you for your support of the parish. Together, we continue to make the Basilica into a living witness to the presence of God in the world.
Homily preached on Sunday, February 2nd at the National Shrine of the Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary