St. Francis of Assisi Parish

Homily for June 26th, 20117/7/2011 9:08 am

Fr. Eric Andersen

St. Francis of Assisi in Roy

June 26th, 2011

Corpus Christi Sunday

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Today’s feast is a celebration of Adoration.  As Catholics, the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith.  Each of us owes to God the adoration and worship that is due to Him.  In the presence of God Almighty, we would instinctually fall to our knees.  But, we live in a time of doubt.  As people, we are skeptical.  The Jews murmured among themselves. . . “How can he say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?”  We know this man.  We know his parents.  We have watched him grow up?  Now he says, ‘I have come down from heaven.’  Is he saying that he is God?  

If we did not already know Jesus Christ, how would we picture God? Would we picture Him as He is present to us in the Eucharist?  How would we picture Him?  Well, first of all, we would need to have a clear concept of what God is.  St. Anselm is famous for his ontological argument which states that God is “that which nothing greater can be conceived.”  If that is the case, then how could one ever picture God unless God revealed to us what He looked like.  Now, remember that the Jews believed that one could not have any images of God for fear that they would end up worshipping an idol; another god.  So if God is that which nothing greater can be conceived, then what would God look like?  

We know better what a chair looks like.  A chair is defined as something that one sits upon and it must have legs that hold it up and a seat.  If it has any more than that fine.  But if it has any less than that, is it still a chair? Once we know what it means to be a chair, then we can get creative and make all sorts of different types of chairs.  They can vary according to size, shape, color, weight, material such as wood or cast aluminum.  They can be covered with fabric or leather or they can remain uncovered.  And all of these variations do not change the fact that it is a chair.  The idea of the chair itself is known without the chair actually existing.  The idea of the chair could be called the essence of chair-ness.  The fact that chairs actually exist mean that there is a universal quality of chairness that we would call substantial.  It exists, therefore it is substantial, a substance.  

The many variations that occur in existing chairs are changeable.  It is not essential that a chair be red or green or leather or tall or any other quality.  Those can change.  They do not affect the substance of chairness.  We call these changeable qualities accidental qualities.  

Now, we have a concept of the essence of God: that which nothing greater can be conceived.  When God goes from concept to existence, however, we acknowledge the substance of God.  God is substantial.  How so?  Well, God could manifest Himself in any number of ways.  In a burning bush, in the still small voice of the wind, in chariots of fire,  under the guise of an angel, in a Baby who grows into a full sized Man, in the living bread which comes down from heaven.  The essence of God in concept is the same.  The substance of God in actuality is the same.  But the changeable, accidental qualities are not the same.  

What happens when we take a chair made of wood and it catches on fire?  It changes from wood to carbon.  It is no longer wood, but it might still retain the appearance of a chair, although one now made of carbon and not of wood.  The carbon is no longer wood, but the form of the wood does not disappear entirely.   Before the wood was burned, the carbon did not exist.  If one were to burn wood and hope to obtain ceramic, it would not happen. If one were looking to obtain carbon and tried to burn clay, one would obtain ceramic, and not carbon.  We call this a substantial change.  The carbon is no longer wood, but the form of the wood does not disappear entirely.  This is more clearly seen in petrified wood.  Petrified wood is mineral rock.  Chemically speaking it is no longer wood, but it looks like wood.  So the original form and appearance of wood are still visible, but substantially, the wood has changed into stone.  This is a substantial change.  

Now, what happens when the bread and wine are brought forward at Mass? What if we spoke words over them and tried to change them into an automobile?  Well, just as clay cannot be turned into wood by burning it, so bread and wine cannot be turned into an automobile by the words of consecration.  Clay turns into ceramic by burning it.  Bread and wine turn into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.  

It is God.  It is the Lord.  He is here.  When we know that He is here, not as a symbol, but as our real, living, glorified, resurrected and beloved Lord, hidden in the Eucharist, how do we act?  Today is a feast of adoration.  Do we adore?  How do we adore Him as we come forward to receive Him in Holy Communion?  As Catholics, we get used to being around sacred things and we can become forgetful.  We must adore Him. And, we must be mindful that every particle of the Holy Eucharist is the entire Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  If we received in the hand, we need to be mindful that there are particles in our hand.  We need to consume those too, or else they fall to the ground and get trampled on, or vacuumed up, and thrown in the trash.  Souls are being lost.  One particle is enough to save the entire world throughout all time and eternity.  Let us not be careless with the Holy Eucharist.  Let us adore even the smallest particle of the Eucharist.  It is the Lord! He is here!  He is truly here.    

Homily for June 19th, 20117/7/2011 9:03 am

Fr. Eric Andersen

St. Francis of Assisi in Roy

June 19th, 2011

Dominica I Post Pentecosten

Sanctissimae Trinitatis

     What do we mean when we say that God is One?  We mean that He is undivided, and indivisible.  In other words, the One God cannot be added to or subtracted from.  Whatever is undivided in itself, is one.  When something is incapable of being divided, it is called simple.  Other things are referred to as composites.  God is undivided and indivisible and therefore, God is simple.  But what is a composite?  A composite has no being so long as its parts are not united into one, and a composite receives its unity at the moment when composition sets in.  So for instance, water is a composite of hydrogen and oxygen (H2O). It is not water until that composition is made.  The water has no being before and it cannot be divided and still be water.  But this is different from the unity of the One God.  God is not a composite like water.  God is simple unity.  But do we not say that God is a Trinity?  Doesn’t that mean three parts?  Would that not make a composite?  How do we say that God is simple when we can identify three parts?  

First of all, we do not identify three parts because “part” signifies “an incomplete being, requiring it to be complemented by another” (Pohle-Preuss. God: His Knowability. . .  201). God is not incomplete.  There is no potentiality in God.  He is not becoming, not expanding, not growing; He is complete.  He is perfection Himself in His fullness before time, in time and outside of time.  So God is simple.  This was taught in the 2nd century by the earliest of Church fathers, Origen and Irenaeus, and later, it was formally defined by the 4th Lateran Council in 1215.        

By saying that God is One, we also mean that God is unique in His being.  In other words, there is no other.  This is what we profess in the Creed:  We believe in One God.  In this we are monotheistic.  God Himself has told us through the prophet Isaiah: “I am the first and the last, and therefore there is no God besides me” (Is 44:6).  God, being One, is then defined as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  These three persons in the One God are indivisible, because they are not parts.  If God had parts, He would be a composite.  No, God remains simple, not a composition, even in His three persons.

Various heresies emerged during the first centuries of Christianity as theologians struggled to figure out this quandary.  The heresy of Arianism contended that God the Father was indeed uncreated but that the Son and the Holy Spirit were created by the Father and inferior to Him.  The Church countered by defining that the Son is consubstantial to the Father. This will be the word we use in the new translation of the Roman Missal.  Consubstantial means that the Son is of the same substance as the Father.  This is what we profess.  The Son is begotten of the Father, but begotten from all eternity; not made, not created, not a creature.  He was begotten and the Only-Begotten.  Likewise the Holy Spirit was not made, not created, but the Holy Spirit is not like the Son in that the Holy Spirit was not begotten.  Jesus is the Only-Begotten.  The Holy Spirit instead proceeds. . . or spirates.  He proceeds from the Father and the Son.  

These three are perfectly co-equal and co-eternal.  Each of the individual persons of God possesses the entire divine nature.  St. Augustine wrote that each one of the divine persons has as much perfection as all three together have: “So great is the Father alone or so great is the Son alone, or so great is the Holy Spirit alone as is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit together.”  

The mystery of the Holy Trinity cannot be understood or demonstrated by reason alone.  The Church teaches this.  It must be known by Divine Revelation.  It must be known by reason elevated by faith.  When we are in a state of sanctifying grace by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, we can come to be certain of such mysteries of the faith.  But even in a state of grace, God still allows us to struggle for a greater purpose.  Trinitarian theology is fascinating and reasonable, but impossible to communicate in a mere 10 minute homily.  I encourage you to study the sacred sciences and come to know God in His profundity and beauty.  When we come to know God personally, as a beloved Friend, a Father, as Our Lord, or even as Spouse, the divine mysteries become more and more clarified to our limited human minds. 

Now, you might be thinking, “Father, why do we need to know anything about philosophy?”  We need it because the United States is a very educated and literate culture.  You may not realize how influenced you are by philosophy.  Your children come home from high school and college and they have been formed by philosophies that are incompatible with belief in Christianity.  They may not realize that they have been formed by this.  But as soon as a child comes home from college and has lost the faith–all faith–then we realize how important it is that we can explain the mysteries of our faith by use of reason.  The Catholic faith is reasonable.  Theology is built upon a solid foundation of Christian philosophy.  We all have family members who have fallen away from the Church, or perhaps have fallen away or walked away from faith altogether.  We have three generations of Catholics since Vatican II who have not learned their faith.  These generations are tossed this way and that by every philosophy that comes and goes in our popular culture.  Blogs, Radio, Television, Movies, Magazines – you name it – are full of philosophy that contradicts and undermines the faith.  We can either be formed in a false culture, by a false philosophy, or we can decide to live up to our promises and obligations that we took on when we received the Sacrament of Confirmation.  We are obliged to know our faith.  Ignorance does not excuse, and in fact, ignorance can even make us more culpable because we are not excused for not knowing the faith.  Let us be generous to God in giving our time, our intellect, our hearts and minds over to the study of His ways, His being, His divine revelation.      

Bulletin Letter for June 12th, 20116/12/2011 2:55 pm

The Solemnity of Pentecost

Beloved in Christ, 

The feast of Pentecost is so named because it falls on the fiftieth day.  Originally, Pentecost was a Jewish feast commemorating the promulgation of the Law (the Ten Commandments) by God through His prophet Moses.  On the fiftieth day after the first passover, Moses received the Law from God in a high place (on a mountain) amidst fire and thunder.  This sacred event prefigured the definitive Christian Pentecost, fifty days after the Christian Pasch, when the disciples of Jesus ascended to a high place (the cenacle) to receive the new Law into their hearts by the Holy Spirit.  This new Pentecost was also accompanied by fire, in the form of tongues, and the thunderous sound of a violent wind from heaven (cf. Acts 2).  

Historically, Pentecost has always signaled the end of the Easter season.  As such, “it is not an independent feast; it is rather the seal or finale to Easter” (Parsch. The Year of Grace. Vol. III. p. 205).  Yet it also inaugurates the Tempus per Annum, variously called Ordinary Time or the Time after Pentecost. Today’s feast inaugurates the time period that follows because, in this celebration, Christians observe the manifestation of the Church and her resulting mission to be sent out to convert and baptize all nations.  

The Church is said to have been born from the pierced side of Christ when blood and water flowed out.  Such a birth is signified in the Sacrament of Baptism.  Pentecost is the culmination and fulfillment of that birth when we receive the fullness of the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit.  These seven gifts include Fear of the Lord, Fortitude, Piety, Counsel, Understanding, Knowledge, and Wisdom.  By the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit received in the Sacrament of Confirmation, one is sent out into the world.  At the end of each Mass, the priest dismisses the congregation, saying: Ite missa est!  Ite is a command meaning “Go!”  Although in English the priest currently says, “The Mass is ended, go in peace”; what he is really saying literally, from the Latin, is “Go! You are sent!”  This is the mission of the Church and the meaning behind the word ‘Mass,’ taken from the Latin, missa, the root of the word ‘mission.‘       

From the Acts of the Apostles (2:15), we know that the coming of the Holy Spirit occurred at the ‘third hour,’ which translates to nine o’clock in the morning, the third hour from the dawn.  From this, the Church has celebrated a solemn form of the Divine Office at the third hour of the day (the Office of Terce or Tertiam).  Terce is also known in English as Mid-morning Prayer and is normally observed with the singing of a hymn to the Holy Spirit.  On this Solemnity however, Terce is historically observed with the singing of the Veni Creator Spiritus and followed immediately by the most solemn celebration of the Mass for the day.     

By our participation at this Mass of Pentecost, we prepare ourselves for the time of pilgrimage that follows this closing of the Easter season.  Christians of the Middle-ages viewed the season which follows as one of pilgrimage (cf. Voragine. The Golden Legend 299).  Let us follow their example and set out on this pilgrimage into Ordinary Time which will lead us through the rest of the Liturgical Year until we enter once again into Advent.  

God bless you.  

Sincerely in Christ, 

Fr. Eric Andersen, parochial vicar. 

Homily for June 12th, 20116/12/2011 2:53 pm

Fr. Eric  Andersen

St. Francis of Assisi in Roy

June 11, 2011

Dominica Pentecostes

In the beginning, God was Trinitarian.  But He did not reveal Himself in His fullness right away.  First, God revealed Himself as the Lord, as He who is.  He who is was the covenant name of God to His chosen people in the Old Testament.  Then God became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of the Son, Jesus Christ.  But Father and Son are not the fullness of God.  The Holy Spirit was finally sent on the day of Pentecost to complete and reveal the fullness of God.  The Holy Spirit was there in the beginning.  He hovered over the waters at creation.  He led the people out of Egypt as a pillar of fire.  In the Creed we profess that He has spoken to the prophets.  He is the divine author of every word of Holy Scripture; all 72 books of the Bible.   He spoke to Elijah in the still small voice of the wind.  He overshadowed the Blessed Virgin Mary at the Annunciation.  He descended as a dove upon Jesus, anointing Him at His baptism.   Now He descends upon the disciples and Mary in the Cenacle.  This happened at the third hour of the day, which is 9 am on the day of Pentecost.  

Pentecost was a feast in the Jewish Calendar before Jesus Christ.  It went back to the time of Moses.  In the Old Testament, Pentecost was observed fifty days after Passover.  In the book of Exodus, Passover was initiated by Moses and the Israelites the night before they departed from Egypt.  Fifty days later, Moses was given the divine law on Mount Zion in the form of the Ten Commandments.  That fiftieth day was celebrated by the Israelites every year after that and they called it Pentecost which means the fiftieth day.  

Fast forward to the eve of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles, Mary and the disciples are gathered in the cenacle, the upper room of a house that stands on Mount Zion.  Jerusalem is filled with pilgrims from all over the Gentile world.  They spoke their own languages among themselves and there was something reminiscent of Babel as all of these pilgrims came to the Holy City speaking their many languages.  Babel was an obstacle that spread confusion.  Confusion was the result of sinful pride on the part of those building the tower of Babel.  “How then, is the word to become the instrument of the world’s conquest” by the Kingdom of Heaven?  How is the word to “make one family out of all these nations that cannot understand one another?”  (cf. Gueranger. The Liturgical Year Vol. 9, p. 281).  The Holy Spirit is the answer.  He brings clarity out of confusion.  Peace where there is anxiety.  Concord where there is division.  He has annulled the separation of Babel, uniting all mankind by the unity of language.  St. Augustine wrote: “The whole body of Christ, the Church, now speaks in all tongues” (qtd in Gueranger, 282).  So these many Gentiles who had come from all nations now get baptized and are born again from water and the Spirit.  The Church over two millennia has spoken to all the world in all languages and also in a unifying language.  In the East this language is Greek.  In the West, this language is Latin.  Greek and Latin continue to preserve accurately the true faith and it is through these languages that we maintain a unity that transcends nationality, culture and language.  It is through these sacred languages that the Church expresses its Catholicity.  But it is primarily through the working of the Holy Spirit dwelling not only in our souls, but also guiding the Church of Christ infallibly throughout time.  

We encounter the Holy Spirit through the Church; primarily through the 7 sacraments.  It is through the sacraments that grace is communicated.  What is Grace?  Grace is defined as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit within our souls.  That is sanctifying Grace.  The Holy Spirit which descended upon the apostles at Pentecost also fills us when we are baptized and every time we receive a sacrament.  Pentecost is meant to be not just one occasion, but a way of life.  We can be on fire with the Holy Spirit by cultivating a true friendship with God.  Intimacy with God, with Jesus Christ, through the sacraments and a life of prayer, is truly an adventure.  To be on fire with the Holy Spirit is not safe in a worldly way, but it is our greatest insurance against misery and damnation.  We are given the free gift of the Holy Spirit, but we can forfeit it.  We can lose that indwelling grace, especially when we choose sinful lifestyles.  If we are living a sinful lifestyle, we must be willing to change.  We must be willing to let God change us.  We must be willing to let the Holy Spirit guide our lives and show us how to be saints.  

We are being called to be saints in a dark world. Let this Pentecost be the inauguration of a new life in Jesus Christ.  A life lived with a healthy Fear of the Lord, Fortitude, Piety, Counsel, Understanding, Knowledge, and Wisdom.  Let these gifts of the Holy Spirit then bear fruit in our lives.  Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and enkindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit and they shall be created and you shall renew the face of the earth.     

Bulletin Letter for June 5th, 20116/10/2011 10:55 pm

Beloved in Christ, 

Today, we celebrate the feast of the Ascension of Our Lord into heaven.  This marks a time in the liturgical year when we long and pray for the coming of the Holy Spirit.  It is a dogma of the faith that “Jesus Christ, having fully accomplished the work of Redemption, ascended as man, body and soul, into heaven; for as God He never forsook heaven, filling as He does all places with His Divinity” (Roman Catechism, art VI).  

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, guides us through the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas:

It was fitting for Christ to ascend into heaven because after the resurrection Christ’s body was incorruptible, and heaven is a place of incorruption.  Moreover, this was a better way of manifesting Christ’s victory over death.  Finally, it befitted Christ to ascend, since this increased our faith, which is of things unseen; it advanced us in hope, because thus Christ, our head, gave us hope of reaching heaven, for He said: “I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2). This mystery also increases love in us, for St. Paul says: “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1).  (ST IIIa. q. 57., a. 1) 

We also believe that “Christ ascended into heaven as man, but by the power of the divine nature” (ibid. a. 2).  This was “His own power, first of all by His divine power, and secondly by the power of His glorified soul moving His body at will, ‘inasmuch as His glorified body was endowed with the gift of agility’ (ibid. Supplement., q. 84, a. I). Although Christ did ascend into heaven by His own power, yet ‘He was raised up and taken up into heaven by the Father, since the Father’s power is the same as the Son’s’” (Cf. IIIa, q. 57, a. 3, ad I).  The Roman Catechism tells us that “as God He never forsook heaven, filling as He does all places with His Divinity.”  

The following is a translation of the hymn sung in the Divine Office for this mini-season of the Ascension:

Eternal King, God most high 

and Redeemer of the faithful,

the destruction of death 

gained You a most glorious triumph.

You ascend to the starry heavens 

whither the dominion over all things 

that God, not man, bestowed on You, 

was summoning You 

so that the three parts of creation, 

heaven, earth and hell, 

may now in subjection 

bend the knee before You.  

The angels tremble as they see 

the change in man’s destiny.  

Flesh had sinned, Flesh washes away that sin 

and God made flesh reigns as God.  

Ruler of all creation and giver of a joy 

that is infinitely beyond all earthly ones, 

be to us our joy 

and our abiding reward in heaven.  

We, Your suppliants on earth, beg this favor: 

pardon all our sins and with grace from heaven 

lift up our hearts to you so that, 

when You appear without warning as our judge, 

resplendent on the clouds of heaven, 

You will remit the punishment we deserve 

and give us back our lost crowns.  

Sincerely in Christ, 

Fr. Eric Andersen, parochial vicar

Older messages >>