Homily Christmas (Night) 2023

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

When we celebrate people's anniversaries or birthdays, we celebrate the person who is with us now more than the person who was born 40, 50, 60 or 80 years ago. We bring good wishes, speeches, some gifts to the celebration and celebrate our connection that we have now in the present with that person or institution. I was touched by the homily of Abbot Primate in Conception during the celebration of the 150. Jubilee of the Abbey, when he started with a quote of Psalm 96:

“Sing a new song to the Lord”

Even that is a verse we sing all the times during prayer times, week be week, year by year. And now already for more than 2500 years since the Psalms were written. We celebrate Christmas: New life, God becomes a baby, becomes new.

“A child has been born to us,” we heard tonight.

We know this in our families: we are happy about children. They bring something new into our lives. Generation after generation pass on the life they received from God in the beginning. In the family, in society, we prepare for this new life a home and protect it. We don't have to do anything for that. It's only natural that we look after the children. And in doing so, we are responsible for the new life. Old and new comes together; parents and children, one generation to the next.

As you remember I was as well very touched by a speech of Pope Paul VI 1970 on the feast day of our Lady of Guadalupe: He said in 1970: “Christians can do no less than to show solidarity in seeking a solution to the situation of those to whom the bread of culture has not yet come nor the opportunity of honorable and justly remunerated work. They cannot remain indifferent while new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations, and while part of humanity continues to be placed at the margins of the advantages of civilization and progress.” “While new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations…” In 1970 the new generations are us! We who are sitting here. And the words are still up to date. New and old come together. And Pope Francis writes about this responsibility in his encyclical Laudato Si, in which he writes about our responsibility to creation:

“First, we have a personal responsibility to respect others and our natural environment, i.e. our personal responsibility cannot be separated from our social responsibility. In other words, our duties towards others are not just up to us, because - in the understanding of Laudato-Si “everything is a gift, that we did not create ourselves nor nature, that we ourselves do not have the final word, that everything is not simply our property that we can use for ourselves alone or according to our wishes alone (LS, 6)”. Corporate social responsibility thus entails a duty to ensure that the corporate strategy and the cooperation with all stakeholders contribute to human and environmental flourishing “in line with God’s original gift of all that is” (LS, 5). As Laudato Si explains, this starts with respecting first and foremost the fundamental dignity of all human persons, and also, as the encyclical emphasizes, very much includes respecting the worth of all other creatures and all of creation as well.”

For more than 2000 years Jewish people and then Christians sang that “new song to the Lord”. Generations after generations sang this song. As a new generation thinking of the next generation of their children, may be standing next to them while singing, who came after them. And those children did in the same way as their parents did. One generation with the same new song, generation after generation.

More than 50 years ago Pope Paul VI said: “They cannot remain indifferent while new generations find no path for the realization of their legitimate aspirations.” This new generation the Pope is talking about is us! We are this new generation 50 years ago! Everyone can count how old he was: May be 5, 10, 15, 20, or 30? Young people, and now we are 60, 70, 80 years old.

Our heart remains the same. Sometimes together with our body our mood is getting older. But we should not lose hope. First of all: Stay spiritually young and positive! You have still that young heart, the same heart you had 50 years ago. As children, we still had the world in front of us. We had plans for our lives. And our parents supported us in some of our ideas to realize those plans.

Now it's up to us to support the plans of the next generation that follows us. This is a mission that is given to us at Christmas. Old and new come together. Old people, young people, old ideas, new ideas. God becomes new, he becomes new again and again. And so, God is a God who creates new life, even in those who think they are old and exhausted

"Sing to the Lord a new song." Again and again this old song, so that life goes on and generations after us have a world where life is worth to live.

Amen.

~Prior, Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB

Homily - November 19th, 2023

focus: God has given unique gifts and abilities, talents, to each one of us.

function: We are called upon and challenged to use them to the full for building up the kingdom of God. 

As I was praying with today’s gospel, a comment came to my mind that our associate pastor in Germany made back when I was a teen.  Father Paul said to my mother: “Basti wants to be challenged!”  Basti was my nickname at this time, derived from my baptismal name Sebastian.  My mom shared this comment with me.

The young priest had made reference to my activities in the parish. There were a lot of youth programs at this time at my home parish of Holy Savior in Noerdlingen; and I was involved as the leader of an altar servers’ group, facilitated sessions in the youth’s bible study, and helped with social outreach to the poorthrough another youth group. However, by nature I was introverted and somewhat shy.  Therefore, I needed encouragement and challenge. I received both from the priest who was in charge of youth ministry.  This helped me to discover my gifts and abilities and to develop them. “Basti wants to be challenged!”

Gifts, “talents,” and their use are also the topic of Jesus’ parable in today’s gospel. There is this man who entrusts his property to his servants while he travels abroad.  He is an enterprising employer who hopes that his own involvement and daring in business matters will be reflected in his servants’ attitude to this challenge.  He doesn’t tell them what to do with the “talents.”  He trusts that they will use their own initiative and imagination in their economic venture.

As in all stories and jokes with three characters, our attention is focused on number three: the third servant is portrayed as the one who refuses to engage with the spirit of the enterprise.  He believes that the safest way to handle his talent is to bury it and to return it intact to his master.

It’s worth noting that the servants receive gifts that differ.  It is not the number of a person’s talents that is important, either. What matters is how he/she uses them. God never expects from us abilities which we really don’t have.  However, we are meant to use to the full in the service of God and of other people those abilities that we do have.

I always empathized with the third servant, perhaps because it was quite a learning process for me  to acknowledge and use my gifts! The third servant was afraid of taking a risk. He didn’t lose his talent; he simply didn’t do anything with it. The master seems to think though that even if he had invested it and lost the money, it would have been better than doing nothing at all. Here is exactly Jesus’ message for us: Using our talents for good can mean going beyond our comfort zone, can involve risk-taking.   Volunteering for a task at the parish, for example, or in the monastery, can be the right thing to do   even if it presents us with a new and unfamiliar challenge!

Today’s second reading is taken from St. Paul’s 1st Letter to the Thessalonians, an early Christian community that the apostle was particularly fond of.  He begins this letter saying: We call to mind “your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ.” The Christians in Thessalonica worked on their faith: they actively stayed in touch with God through prayer, they gathered on the day of the Lord for the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist, they heard the word of Holy Scripture and let it dwell in their hearts richly.  Thus, they were children of the light, ready for and attentive to Christ whenever and wherever he encountered them.  St. Paul saw this and he acknowledged it. He praised them for that.

My sisters and brothers, God has given unique gifts and abilities, talents, to each one of us. We are called upon and challenged to use them to the full for building up the kingdom of God.

Maybe it would be a good idea today or this week to name some of the strengths and gifts that God has given us and to thank God for them. For some of us it may take a little while till something comes up!  Plus, we can ask God to show us whether there are perhaps new and different ways in which we can make use of them.  We are the light of the world, Jesus tells us.  How can we let our light shine more brightly? Which obstacles obstruct that shining?

How can we do what Father Paul did with me, namely help others to discern their gifts and encourage them to use them? Sometimes, it may be good to say to someone, perhaps a young person if this is the way we feel: I notice that you are a man, a woman of prayer and that you really care for other people.  I think, you would make a good priest, monk, Sister, lector, EMHC, …  

Using our God-given talents and strengths with constancy for the service of God and others can be challenging, but, as today’s collect assures us, it is lasting happiness.  Doing so means sharing our Master’s joy, here on this earth and after this life in fullness in heaven.                                      

AMEN.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Homily - Sunday, September 17th, 2023

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ.

What would you do if you got a million dollars? Maybe you play in a lottery and win the jackpot. That amount would be ok. We could still handle a million. A new car, a house, a solar system on the roof. That would be a sum we could still manage.

But when it comes to sums in the billions, it's much more difficult. How many years would someone with average earnings have to work to earn one billion (say gross)? 30,000 years! Our history does not go back that long at all. All people in Schuyler, roughly estimated, work for one year to collectively earn following amount: 7000 (Inhabitants of Schuyler, including children, retired people) x $2500 (average income per month) x 12 (months) = $210,000,000. You see, not even half a billion.

Now, when dealing with various government expenditures (health care, pensions, military, etc.) juggling billions of dollars, it is beyond our imagination. It is also beyond the imagination of the very richest. (The only good thing about it is that this lack of comparability usually prevents envy.) Whether 1 billion, 10 or 100 billion - it is immeasurably much, at the same time incredible much, simply "super rich" (in contrast to us here, at least by these standards) - and just as incomprehensible is how one can "earn" that in one lifetime.

However, talking about envy, if my neighbor gets 10,000 or 30,000 dollars more than I do, or leases a car for 60,000 dollars, or if someone receives 400 dollars in social welfare or housing assistance, this creates envy - why does he/she get what I don't?

COMPARE

The parable Jesus tells here is such a calculation example. The first servant owes 10,000 talents - the number is within the range of the imaginable, the value however not: this sum corresponds to 60 million denarii, i.e. 60 million daily earnings of a day laborer at the time of Jesus, 164,000 annual earnings. Converted to today's conditions, in which we earn relatively more, this would be more than 5 billion dollars. How could this servant have accumulated these unbelievable debts? (Question in the first place: Why did he get this loan?) This is not so much about specific sums as it is about illustration. And the second servant, he owes 100 days' wages, or about $10,000 (by today's standards). Peanuts in comparison, and well imaginable for us to owe someone this sum, for example to buy a used car or a kitchen. It's a lot of money that you wouldn't want to do without if you lent it out. The former sum is quickly forgotten when we hear what the debt of the latter amounts to. So Jesus picks us up with this parable in our everyday dealings with money. At the time of Jesus, many were bitterly dependent on every single denarius, on every single day's earnings.

 

AS GOD IS TO ME, SO AM I TO YOU

 

But what Jesus wants to talk about is not money, but the immeasurable goodness and mercy of God: But God asks you: Even if you are deeply in debt to God and God forgives you everything, without any compensation, why are you, O person, so ungenerous, and hold every fault against your fellow neighbor and do not forgive?

An infinite number of times (that's what this "77 times" stands for) you can forgive others until you have shown – will never happen, actually - the same forgiveness with the faults, offenses and injuries of others that God exercises with you.

“As God does to me, so do I to you”, must be your motto! In describing here how severely God deals with the unforgiving, the harsh, the small-minded, those who will not forgive, the evangelist Matthew makes clear the importance of forgiveness in a community struggling to survive. When in communities (and also in societies) divisions remain, people no longer speak to each other. The divisions that bring unjust distribution of wealth, global inequality.

If we humans do not find ways to each other like here in the parable, if rich people do not give away something of their goods and share life opportunities, it will be difficult for all to survive. Today, laws and international regulations should take care of that. But God gives us an enormous number of new beginnings, again and again we may try to reach out to others and forgive them whatever we ourselves mess up.

Christ tells a much more drastic example, but the question certainly applies to me as well: Shouldn't I be more merciful myself if I expect others to be merciful to me? So how a disciple of Christ behaves in a Christian way is not only a question of the right directives and commandments. It has a great deal to do with my own "basic attitude."

This concerns the big questions in the church: With which basic attitude do we meet people and interpret the directives of the church for them? Here, too, we should not judge too quickly and, above all, judge too harshly!!! And it concerns the very human small things of my everyday life. Often enough we look too much at these small things. The example of Jesus with this unimaginable amount of money shows us that Jesus thinks in incomparable dimensions when he thinks about forgiveness, about mercy! And it opens up our view to solidarity. One alone can’t earn such a huge sum of money. But if we look to our systems of solidarity, health, insurances, even our work in the Mission House, we live on solidarity. One alone can’t build a hospital. But if 10.000 people share the burden, it will be possible. We can take the example of that servant with the biggest loan as an image of the solidarity of Christians.

The basic attitude to which Christ invites us in the Gospel is that of mercy. It allows real forgiveness, a conversion in behavior and a new chance for my life the unimaginable is brought before our eyes today. Unimaginable the mercy of God and unimaginable what God could do with us if we only open ourselves for him.

- Prior, Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB

Homily - Sunday, August 27th, 2023

Homily by Prior, Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB

“I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

When I give someone a key, I give him or her a power of authority. Someone can either unlock the house, the office or a workshop.

But that also means that I trust the person to let someone in where I normally have a protected area.

We notice this especially when someone breaks into our house. It's not so much that people complain that things of value are missing or the amount of money that was taken. It's the feeling that someone has invaded my private sphere, my protected sphere.

Therefore, the area that we can lock and unlock is our area, the private area. And only members of our family, community, work colleagues or friends whom I trust are allowed to unlock here.

Also, in the Bible the image of the key is used to explain the access to heaven, to the kingdom of God.

2 Chronicles 7:13 “If I close heaven so that there is no rain, if I command the locust to devour the land, if I send pestilence among my people.”

What kind of places are these that God has closed and will open?

The Garden of Eden? The kingdom of God? The new Jerusalem?

Jesus felt that access to the Father, to the Kingdom of God, had become too difficult for the people. When he says to the Pharisees:

Mt 23:13 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.

He means that the rules, the laws of the Pharisees had become a burden and from there the entrance to heaven has been closed.

That Jesus keeps another entrance to heaven open for us; he says in the Gospel of John:

John 10:9 “I am the gate. Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.”

This means that through Jesus the door is open and the way to the kingdom of God is accessible again.

And just as we give a good friend permission to unlock our door and enter in together with us, so Jesus gives Peter the keys of the kingdom of God:

He says to his friend and disciple Peter:

"I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven."

And if we look into the tradition: Christ himself is this key: in Advent, a few days before Christmas, we sing the O - Antiphons:

O Antiphon - O Key of David

O Key of David and scepter of the House of Israel; you open and no one can shut; you shut and no one can open: Come and lead the prisoners from the prison house, those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.

(todays 1st reading: Isaiah, 22:19-23) The New Testament is thus “a door opener” for the kingdom of heaven. Heaven is open for us human beings.

We can often find this openness in the New Testament. For example, in

Revelation 21:25 About the coming light: “During the day its gates will never be shut, and there will be no night there.”

When the light is coming, when Christ is present, then there can be only light, then the doors can no longer be closed.

Jesus has opened a door for us and that it goes on through this door. To heaven. Maybe we haven't even discovered the door yet. But Jesus tells us: "I have opened a door for you that no one can slam or shut."


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