Homily Fourteen Sunday in Ordinary Time July 5th, 2009. Intro at St. Patrick's

In our Holy Gospel today Jesus goes home. Even after all the miracles that he had performed, they still didn’t know him. They thought they knew him but they didn’t really know him. Jesus, who they thought was only the son of an ordinary carpenter was really the Son of the Living God, God incarnate, God become man.
How hard it was for the townsfolk of Jesus to see past what they saw of him during the time He lived in Nazareth. Jesus’ return home was a called to faith to all of those who thought they had Him all figured out. Jesus called them to look deeper in faith, in order to discover that He was in fact their Lord and God. How much of a struggle of faith it was for them to accept this new part of Jesus that they hadn’t known. Jesus for his part was amazed at their lack of faith.
In their struggle if they would have only fell at that feet of Jesus in adoration and ask Him, their Lord and God, to increase their faith, He would have unhesitatingly done so. He would have shed through the darkness of their disbelief with the light of His divine grace and love, the light of His truth. Jesus always, always answers the cry of those who are in the darkness, that is, those who are poor in spirit; let us be always poor in spirit.
Faith in Jesus for us can be just has difficult as well. In our spiritual life, God allows many, difficulties, struggles, and separations, even the separation of a father from his children, His family. He allows even spiritual darkness in which it seems God has all but abandoned us. All of these crosses, these mini deaths, are allowed so that God can bring us to a stronger faith in him and as a result into a deeper love and so a deeper union with Him. In our weakness we are made strong.
We too like the townsfolk of Jesus can think that we have Jesus all figured out, so God allows our faith to be tested, even severely in this life. How difficult it can be to have faith in Jesus, to trust Him when He allows these tests; how difficult it can be to trust in Him in all He allows to happen to us. All is allowed to deepen our faith in Him, along with deepening our hope and trust in Him.
When we look at our life of faith and our parish life we discover that our faith life is not separable from our parish life. God doesn’t just test us individually; He tests us as a parish family as well. So when events happen in our parish, they have a dramatic impact in our life of faith… they can even shake our faith; they can be a great struggle--so integrate is our parish family life and our individual spiritual lives. One is totally dependent on the other. And so, in this time of transition from one pastor to the next how difficult it can be us. To have known a pastor for many years and now have to start to get to know a new one, how difficult it must be for you. It is a test of faith for sure!
We regards to Fr. Peck, and his departure from St. Patrick’s, I can only image how you must feel. For my part, I know that I have some big shoes to fill. I ask for your prayers daily. I want you to know that I have the utmost respect for Fr. Peck. I consider him not only my friend but my brother in Christ. When I was told I was coming here we spoke and discussed his vision for the parish. I share that vision with him because it is the vision of the Church herself. Fr. Peck told me that he was in the process of implementing some changes in the parish, especially in the liturgy; and so in our discussions together we determined that it would be best to do the changes now instead of later. So today, we’ve made some of the changes which Fr Peck has had in the planning stages for a long time. Again, I can assure you that they are all in line with the mind and the teachings of Holy Mother the Church.
I can also assure you I am not here with the attitude that I need to fix this parish or any of you. No I am here with the attitude of a father who with his spiritual children wants to grow in holiness and so in the knowledge and love of God and so grow in our love for one another in order that we enter more deeply into the Family of the Most Blessed Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit along with all of the angels and saints.
Now to try and help you lessen your anxiety about who I am. Please allow me to tell you something about myself. My name again is Fr. Steven Lange; I do however go by my last name only, not by my first. So I would ask that you please call me Fr. Lange.
I am originally from Southwest Wisconsin. I come from a family of four children, three boys and one girl. I am the second youngest. I am what is known has a second career vocation, which means that I have been out in the world working. In my background I have done everything from working on a farm, to working in a grocery store as an assistant manager, to working as a supervisor in a furniture factory, to selling advertising and finally before going into the seminary, the most exciting job of selling mattresses. And for about ten years, I was also a E.M.t. on a volunteer rescue squad. I attended Major seminary in Milwaukee at Sacred Heart School of Theology. I was ordained in 2002. Before my most previous assignment as Pastor at St. Peter’s in Spring Grove, I was assigned as a parochial vicar at St. Thomas the Apostle in Crystal Lake, an assignment in which I also taught religion to juniors at Marian Central High School.
I would love to be able to tell you that I have always been strong in my faith, but unfortunately I haven’t. I was a lot like the people in Jesus’ home town. For many years I let the cares of life, keep me away from the one thing that really matters, faith in and intimate friendship with Jesus Christ. While I was born and raised Catholic, I never took my faith seriously--always one more thing to buy, always more money to be made. I never had enough. Christ though, in his Divine Mercy allowed my world to shaken to its core.
You see, one thing that sets me apart from many priests, and many Catholics for that matter is that I have received all seven sacraments. That’s right, I have been married before. I was married for four years to a wonderful girl, named Kathy. In this marriage I faced some of the worst fear and anxiety that can possibly happen to anyone, when my young wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer at the age of 23. However, it was through this horrible event, this cross, that both she and I found our faith and as a result began more and more to turn to Christ and to His Church.
Nine months after her initial diagnoses Kathy died. But she died a very holy death with the Sacraments of the Church and wearing the brown Scapular of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whom my wife loved. Sometime after she died, I discovered through a priest that she and I had met and who gave her the Sacrament of the anointing, that she had offered to Jesus through Mary, her life for my salvation and that of her family. This priest believed that in the offering of her sufferings and her life she may even have obtained my vocation to the priesthood. In fact, the priest that gave the homily at my first Mass, said that Kathy had to obtained a vocation to the priesthood for me, because she knew no other woman could have put up with me.
In the end, even though my world fell down around me with the lost of my wife, I discovered that Christ had never abandoned us. He was there, as He always is, in the darkness; and, He answered everyone of my prayers for Kathy, even the one to help her beat cancer, which she did, not physically of course, but spiritually. I learned that God is always with us giving us hope and that incredible peace that only he can give, that our greatest crosses can in the end, if we love God, turn into our greatest blessings. And so for my part, after the death of my wife, I determined to follow Jesus and His Catholic Church with all my heart, mind and strength. It is in our weakness we become strong.
I can tell you that while I am fiercely orthodox, I am also very understanding of human weakness. I do not compromise with the truth and with the Church’s teachings, but I do try with all my effort to present the truth and the teachings of the truth with love. I believe with all my being that the truth matters; for without it, not only can we not make it to heaven, we also cannot ever be truly happy in this life either.
One of my greatest loves is for the sacred liturgy of the Church, for by it we can, if we follow the norms of the Church, give proper and due reverence worship and adoration to God. I am currently enrolled in a Masters program in Sacred Liturgy at the Liturgical institute at Mundelein seminary and hope to go on for a Doctorate. The Sacred Liturgy is undergoing a tremendous renewal and I want to be able to help you and others both understand those changes, the reasons for them and to implement them with an openness and excitement. By the way, if you want to understand the bible it is really all about the proper worship of God through the Sacred Liturgy that He established. All of the problems in the bible came about when the creature tried to worship the Creator in the way the creature wanted instead of in the way God demanded due to His Divine Nature.
My primary concern in my life is to please Christ, the great High Priest, and to help you all, all of you get to heaven. Everything I do I try to do with this goal in mind especially with regards to the Sacred Liturgy and the Holy Mass. One of the great errors of our days is that many believe that everyone makes it to heaven. Nothing could be farther from the truth. And so when I stand before Jesus as your pastor He will ask me what I did to help you get to heaven, and I for my part want to be able to tell Him that I told my people the truth even though it wasn’t always easy to do so, and that I gave my people an example of the truth by the witness of my life. I want to be able to tell Him that I was a good spiritual father to you, and that I told you, not necessarily what you always wanted to hear, but what you needed to hear in order to get to heaven.
I want you to know how so very pleased and happy to be with all of you. I look forward to getting to know you and your families. I hope I can become a part of each of your families. Together then let us turn to the Lord and arise to meet him by growing in holiness which means growing in love for Him and union with Him. Let us pray that this parish family will grow in its unity and in its love; that it will become more deeply a family of families helping one another get to heaven.
Let us together ask our Blessed Mother to help us grown in our faith in her divine Son in order to see him through the eyes of faith in the Holy Eucharist and fall before His feet crying out, My Lord and my God, I believe now please help my unbelief. Let us ask Our Heavenly Mother to help us to please God and to be an instrument for the salvation of souls by offering our lives in adoration and thanksgiving at this Holy Mass which makes truly present through the power of the Holy Spirit and the gift of the Sacred priesthood, the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus made out of love for us. .