After reflecting on my eleven and one half year ministry as a priest, I have come to the conclusion that I have lived with a twenty year penance and a fifty pound ministry. I say I live with a twenty year penance because this is often the type of penance I offer the average teenager who struggles with their parents’ discipline during their formative years. When a teen laments about the manner in which their parents allow them to live in the home, I offer the teen a twenty year penance, asking them to remember in twenty years the discussion we had two decades earlier. I ask the teen to think about, when they become a parent, the difficulties in raising a family and the manner in which their children will listen to them. I ask the teen to think about how they feel in the now compared to how they will feel in those twenty years. I then offer a type of penance to the teen that asks for understanding in the present and patience in the future.

I try to apply the practice of “the twenty years” in various forms of my ministry as well. Here at St. Patrick’s, I set a policy that no parish sponsored activity would take place on national holidays or holy days of obligation so that families could spend those particular days together, placing the family first. There are times that individuals resist this type of policy; there are times when individuals give thanks for this policy so that they do not become hindered by the parish in their family activities. I will rest my laurels on the old proverb, “Lost time will never be found again.” If our popes from the last forty years implore our families to spend time together, then I will do what I can to follow the teachings of our spiritual leaders and our Mother Church.

I have also come to the conclusion that I have lived a fifty pound ministry. Over my last eleven years, I am like the Oprah Winfrey of the Catholic priesthood – lose a little, gain a little; lose a little, gain a little. At this point of my priesthood, I am in the gaining stage (fifty pounds worth since my ordination), searching for the nearest Bally’s health club in the Joliet area.

And though my weight seems to fluctuate like the stock market, I have few regrets about the manner in which I am gaining it as of late. Three to four days a week, I am spending my time at breakfast with members of our morning Mass crowd and the faithful of the diocese, solving the problems of the world and of everything that is St. Patrick’s Church. Three to four days a week, I am at lunch with members of my staff at local haunts like Thayer Brothers Restaurant, spending time with Annie Thayer who always greets me when I walk through the door with a hearty “AMEN!” (which has become my catch phrase at any churches in which I have served). Three to four times a week, I’m having dinner at locations with the faith where patrons will stop by the table and thank me for my wonderful ministry at St. Raymond’s Cathedral and St. Mary Nativity Parish in Joliet. It is at those times I remind the faithful that I did not serve at St. Raymond’s or St. Mary Nativity – that was Fr. Joe Siegel, who is much smarter than me as I am much better looking than him.

At this point in my ministry, the fifty pounds have been of great benefit to me because it has brought me closer to the wonderful church-goers of the area who want to share their faith story and spend time with their local clergy, both inside and outside of the worship services they attend.

It is this interaction within the normal scope of life that molds every one of us and makes us realize how bonded we are in this spirit of love. When we spend this time together, when we set our priorities in order and make our God and family first, is how we realize that the life of the family sets the mold for the life of this community, this Church, and our relationship to God.

The two readings on which we focus today during the initial stages of Ordinary Time provide a vivid illustration on the type of life we experience when we put our priorities in order and put our God and our families first. In the daily readings of the past week from the first book of Samuel, we focused on a people who renounced the kingship of their God, preferring to be led by a human king over a divine one. When our God relented and let the people have their way, the people were given a king by the name of Saul, then David, then Solomon. At first, the human kings were able to unite a kingdom and provide hope. But, as is always the case when people put their faith in man instead of God, the kingdom lost their focus and were divided eventually by oncoming Assyrian and Babylonian armies.

The first reading from the Book of Isaiah laments about the results of that lack of direction in a poem which scholars often call one of the “Songs of the Suffering Servant.” When the people progressively put their faith in humanity over their God and lost their faith, God progressively turned away from them and did not support them during these subsequent invasions. This Suffering Servant song describes the grief experienced by a faithful who lost their way with God and their attempt to rekindle a relationship, hoping to find time that was seemingly lost. And though the song begins in despair, it ends by praising this God who recognizes a change of heart in the faithful so that they may return to their original covenant and the holy land on which they had once lived.

Our gospel reading today offers a similar illustration of hope during a similar time of despair. In this text from the beginning of John’s gospel, John the Baptist reintroduces us to the divine king who will deliver those who believe into a sense of hope that humanity had readily lost. Through this new king, those who choose to follow are redeemed eternally and will never be lost again.

The challenge for us during this Season of Ordinary Time is to maintain this relationship so that we never find the need to retrieve this lost time with God. When we spend this time with God and our families, when we spend meals together, pray together, play together and live this love of love in the home and in this Church, we demonstrate to our Lord that this faithfulness has not been lost but is very much present in our lives.

During his pontificate, Pope Paul VI described the type of Christian life that is required of all of us in order to maintain this eternal covenant with God. The Holy Father writes,

The tendency of throwing overboard every restrain and inconvenience from the conduct of life finds the discipline of Christian asceticism burdensome and futile… The Christian way of life as set forth and interpreted by the Church in its prudent legislation, demands a not inconsiderable degree of loyalty, perseverance and self-sacrifice. It constrains us, as it were, to take the “narrow way” recommended by Our Saviour. It will not require less of us modern Christians than in the past; it may very well require more… The only things which can bring these blessings on the Church are the following: the determination to live in accordance with divine grace, faithfulness to the Gospel of Christ, unity in the ranks of the sacred hierarchy and among Christian communities. The follower of Christ is not pliant and cowardly, but loyal and strong.

… La vida cristiana, que la Iglesia va interpretando y codificando en prudentes disposiciones, exigirá siempre fidelidad, empeño, mortificación y sacrificio; estará siempre marcada por el “camino estrecho” del que nos habla nuestro Señor; exigirá de nosotros, cristianos modernos, no menores sino quizá mayores energías morales que a los cristianos de ayer… las que pueden hacerla idónea para recibir el influjo de los dones del Espíritu Santo, pueden darle la autenticidad en el seguir a Cristo nuestro Señor, pueden conferirle el ansia de la caridad hacia los hermanos y la capacidad de comunicar su mensaje de salvación, sino su actitud de vivir según la gracia divina, su fidelidad al Evangelio del Señor, su cohesión jerárquica y comunitaria. El cristiano no es flojo y cobarde, sino fuerte y fiel. (- Pope Paul VI, Ecclesiam Suam (Encyclical Letter on the Ways in which the Church Must Carry Out its Mission in the Contemporary World)]

(For) one cannot be Christian in name alone. It is not enough to say that one possesses the faith in one’s own individual conscience. The faith is both a communal and outgoing thing. Consequently, it carries with it the obligation of involving oneself with it and of spreading it. You yourselves must be apostles of the faith, and grow in love for the Church. You must foster within yourselves a deep missionary spirit, showing interest and zeal not only for the missionary countries but also for all those people you meet in the contacts of daily life. (- Pope Paul VI, Source Not Found)

If it takes me fifty pounds (and fifty pounds more) to maintain this bond of family in my life, so be it. If it takes me a couple hours a day to spend at a health club with these family members to lose this weight, then so be it as well. We have an obligation to maintain this life of faith in our daily trials, during this “ordinary time” of life. Let us make this ordinary time extraordinary by realizing that it is by the grace of God that this life exists in the first place. Let us embrace this life and share it with the people that we meet.

This is our prayer.