Faith like a Mustard Seed

June 13, 2021

Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time and the Groundbreaking of a new Rectory at St. Bernard of Clairvaux parish.

“Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.” – Mt 5:20

Righteousness means right relationships – good rapport with your wife, your neighbor, your parents, your children, and God… Right relationships take work, daily efforts of honesty and patience, forgiveness and perseverance – doing little things with love from morning until night.

“The Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.” – Mark 4:31 These words of Jesus remind us that right relationships like solid marriages and healthy parishes, and friendship with Jesus are built on what seems to the world too small to matter, unimportant and unworthy of notice. Not true.

In particular, right relationships require attentiveness to the truth. I recall receiving this advice for handling complaints, “Lie a little but not too much.” It sounds clever and funny; but not so. “Say yes when you mean yes and say no when you mean no. Anything else is from the evil one.” “Little lies” can quickly lead to dishonesty, to “not being true in good times and in bad.” We can forget the need we all have of saying even in small things, “I was wrong, I am sorry. Please forgive me.” Virtue and integrity are not built through big battles but through thousands of little efforts to be true to one another, whether noticed or not. Jesus says, “This is how it is with the Kingdom of God; it is as if a man were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, he knows not how.” -Mk 4:30 The mustard seed is the smallest of all seeds – we can barely see it. And right relationships, including with God, are like that. Servant of God Dorothy Day wrote, “Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night. But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels.”

Today, St. Bernard’s Parish breaks ground to build a rectory – not something as important as building a church, but still a day for which we have waited a long time. It is not built to impress but to serve Jesus and His Kingdom, to provide a home where the priests can be nearer to those Jesus calls them to serve. It is built, after the church and the offices and parish hall, and built for the sake of facilitating the priests in their mission to give a Shepherd’s care to the faithful, day after day. The building of a rectory can remind us all to keep building right relationships in the ordinary events of life. The Lord tells us how (1 Cor 13:4f): “Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, not pompous. It is not inflated. It is not rude. It does not seek its own interests…” That is what love looks like. That is how right relationships are built.

In today’s Second Reading (2 Cor 5:6-10), the Lord speaks of two other things that are pivotal for building right relationships: faith and courage. St. Paul writes, “…we walk by faith, not by sight. Yet we are courageous.”

Here on earth, we have no lasting home; we are on pilgrimage to the Father’s House, trusting in God at all times and keeping our hearts set on our destiny: “leaving the body and going home to the Lord.” (2 Cor 6:8) Any earthly home or rectory is temporary. Our real home is with the Lord. So, build up treasures in heaven. Do not live “by sight”, that is, not by appearances. Live by faith in the Lord.

“Yet we are courageous,” St. Paul insists. It takes courage to keep doing little things with patience anc love. Jessica Powers wrote, “The door to God, the door to any grace, is very little, very ordinary… all truth, all love are by humiliation guarded…”  So, where does our courage come from? It comes from the Lord, who told the disciples at the Last Supper (Jn 16:33), “In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.” He conquers our fears when we put them in His hands.

The Book of Revelation says (Rev 12:11f), “They conquered [the accuser] by the Blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; love for life did not deter them from death.”   Our courage comes not from ourselves but from the Spirit and the Blood of the Lamb; that is, especially through the Sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist. With the help of the Holy Spirit, and the virtues of faith and courage, our relationships can be upright, even if it feels like our faith is weak. For Jesus says to us (Mt 17:20), “…if your faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

May 22, 2021

Following is the prepared text from Bishop Olmsted’s homily for the Order of Malta World Day of the Sick Healing Mass.

“They placed all those who were sick at the feet of Jesus, and He cured them” (Cf. Mt 15:30).

St. Damien of Molokai believed these words about Jesus; whoever is sick, Jesus can cure. Therefore, he volunteered to serve as a priest for the lepers of Hawaii 148 years ago this month, May 10, 1873. When he arrived in Molokai, he found chaos, filth and despair. There was no cure for leprosy; there were unburied corpses, inadequate housing, no running water, no system of public order or safety… only widespread alcoholism, quarreling and despair.

In addition, there were only a handful of Catholics. So, where did he begin? With the Eucharist.

After spending the first night sleeping under a tree, the only clean spot he could find, he invited the lepers to assist him in repairing the dilapidated church, its broken pews and kneelers, the shattered windows, the crippled altar and empty tabernacle. They repaired and cleaned the sacred vessels, collected soiled altar linens and cleaned them—preparing for the celebration of Mass, so that Jesus could be present on Molokai. What the lepers needed most was the presence of their Lord. Even if they did not yet believe in the Eucharist, Jesus would still be there, truly present with them, body and blood, soul and divinity.

Father Damien was guided by the two great commandments: first, love the Lord your God with all your mind and heart and strength; and second, love your neighbor as yourself. By loving God first, he brought the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist to Molokai; each day, at Mass, he found his own spiritual sustenance and the strength to bring Jesus to the lepers and care for them – body, mind, and soul.

Thirteen years after his arrival, shortly before he himself died of leprosy, Father Damien wrote the following to his brother in Belgium, on August 26, 1886:

“Without the constant presence of Our Divine Master upon the altar in my poor chapels, I never could have persevered in casting my lot with the lepers of Molokai, the predictable consequences of which now begin to appear on my skin and are felt throughout my body. Holy Communion being the daily bread of a priest, I feel myself happy, well pleased, and resigned in the rather exceptional circumstance in which it has pleased Divine Providence to place me.”

Whoever goes to Lourdes on pilgrimage witnesses the words of the Gospel fulfilled: “They placed all those who were sick at the feet of Jesus, and He cured them” (Cf. Mt 15:30). At Lourdes, all are invited to bathe in the miraculous spring water. Far more importantly, they are welcomed to be freed of sin by Jesus in Confession, to receive Him really present in the Eucharist, and to join in prayer with His Blessed Mother.

The Lord Jesus brings healing to mind, body and soul – whichever healing best renews our hope and trust in Him. The source of healing at Lourdes and through the anointing of the sick is the presence of Jesus. Asking God’s healing for the sick fulfills a key part of the Church’s mission of bearing witness to Jesus and His merciful love. Through the holy anointing with the Oil of the Sick, Jesus offers the same healing and miraculous love that He offered to the paralytic carried to Him by four strong men in Capernaum, and it is instructive to remember that, prior to healing the man’s paralysis, Jesus brought him a more profound healing by forgiving his sins. Jesus loves us so much that He will always give us what we most need, because He cares for us entirely – body, mind, and soul.

Today, as we pray in Jesus’ Name for all the sick or elderly who have come here to be anointed or are one with us via television and other means, let us put all our trust in Jesus’ promise: “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.” He will answer our prayers. If the Lord does not give us the physical healing we seek, He shall give us something even greater. Father Damien provides us a good example: he prayed constantly for a cure to leprosy for those whom he served and then for a cure for himself after he contracted the disease. Still, he wrote his brother back in Belgium,

“I resign myself, however, to Divine Providence, and find my consolation in my only companion who never leaves me, – our Divine Savior in the Holy Eucharist. It is at the foot of the altar that… I seek comfort in my interior suffering. It is before Him, as well as before the statue of Our Holy Mother that I sometimes complain, while asking them for the restoration of my health.”

Jesus loves us; He hears our prayers, even when we complain. Wherever He is present, there is mercy, there is peace. He gives us whatever we need to come to full maturity in His Name. So, let us keep in mind the words of the Hymn:

“Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side… Leave to thy God to order and provide.”

By the time that Father Damien died, he had reached great heights of holiness; many of the lepers had been baptized and become faithful followers of Christ; a second church had been constructed on Molokai, as well as two beautiful cemeteries. Mother Marianne Cope, now a canonized saint, had come with her Franciscan Sisters to begin a hospital on Molokai, and not one of her Sisters got leprosy. The cure for the dreaded disease was near at hand. The Lord hears and answers our prayers, for He is Love.