Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Think back. When you were growing up, in your faith formation, did you get the idea that somehow you had to behave yourself in order to win God’s love and grace? I think that’s a common thing that people come to after a life of somewhat inadequate faith formation. We got the idea that, if we wanted God to love us, then we had to behave in the right ways and follow all the rules. And some of that comes from our human experience. Many people often consume their lives with trying to win the approval of others, and so God is just an extension of that. But we have it all backwards: God is not like that, and that’s what today’s Liturgy of the Word is trying to tell us. The Scriptures show us a God who loves us first, and then calls on us to respond to God’s love by living the right way. Our entire lives should be all about responding in love to the love God has for all of us.

    The first reading today recalls how God led the people Israel through the desert for forty years, bringing them safely to the land he promised on oath to their ancestors. Many of the Church fathers see this rescue as our own rescue from the tyranny and slavery of sin, through the wilderness of the world, into the safe haven of God’s promise. So whether we want to read this first reading literally today, or whether we want to see it as our delivery from sin, in either case, we see the Lord’s providence and kindness poured out on his people, delivering them from danger and bringing them safely into a land that had always been promised to them.

    For our second reading these coming weeks, we will be reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, arguably one of the masterpieces of his, or anyone else’s, theological writing. Today’s reading is somewhat the crux of his presentation in Romans: God in his mercy chose to save us even though we were not worthy of it—we were still sinners. We had been enemies of God through the power sin and death had over us, but God in his goodness chose to redeem us anyway. Having been reconciled, he now chooses in his kindness to save us from the power of death and bring us in to the grace and peace of his kingdom for all eternity. This is all done through the grace and kindness of our God, who chooses to save us even though we are not remotely worthy of it on our own.

    The Gospel reading, though, presents us with the greatest personification of God’s kindness. Throughout chapter nine of Matthew’s Gospel, we see the crowds hanging on Jesus’ words and deeds. In this chapter, Jesus heals a paralytic, he calls Matthew – a tax collector and a sinner – to follow him, he raises the daughter of a local government official from the dead, he heals two blind men, and expels a demon. The crowds were understandably entranced by his words and deeds, and Jesus can see that they are entranced because they had so long gone without any kind of adequate pastoral care. The religious officials who should have been bringing them the good news of God’s kindness had instead been about the business of attending to the minutiae of the Law and filling their own coffers. They had left the people abandoned of God, like sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus’ heart ached for them. So in his kindness, he sends out the Twelve to continue his work and to call more and more people to come to know that the kingdom was at hand, and repentance would give them a place in that kingdom.

    So these readings have been a great rehearsal of the kindness of God as the Scriptures present it. God created us in love, redeemed us from the grasp of sin and death, and gives us a place in his heavenly kingdom – all of this without our being worthy of any of it. And that’s nice, but the Scriptures would be remiss if they stopped there. Instead, they go on to prescribe the proper response to God’s love and kindness, and each of today’s readings give us a way to do that. These readings call us to keep the covenant, to boast of God, and to freely give.

    In the first reading, God makes the first move in favor of establishing a covenant. He didn’t have to – clearly. He had made us in love, but we had turned away from him, and not just once. Yet, he was the one who sent Moses to lead the people out of the slavery of Egypt so that they could inherit the land he promised on oath to their ancestors. If God has reached out that far to us, we can do no less than keep the covenant. We have to live the life of grace: keep the commandments, love God and neighbor, show God’s love in everything we do. We have to reach out to the marginalized and needy, just as God reached out to us in our own need. “If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,” God says to the Israelites and to us, “you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.”

    But, in the course of time, we did not, in fact, hearken to his voice nor keep the covenant. In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes what the first reading says. God has made the first move. He reconciled with us while we were still sinners. He gave us the way to the kingdom. We didn’t deserve it, but our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy. So if God has been so merciful, we need to boast about it. And we’re not to boast about it as if it was something we earned or accomplished on our own; we are to “boast of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

    And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus gives us the key to our response to God’s love, mercy and kindness: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.” The gifts of grace are freely given to us, but they are never given to us just for ourselves. They are given to us to share. Now that we have been redeemed and blessed, we must turn and bless others, leading them to the redemption God longs to pour out on them. We are to freely give of the rich store of grace that has been freely given to us.

    Our God is not a God who manipulates us for his pleasure. He does not demand that we behave perfectly in order to receive his kindness, grace, and love. Instead, he is the one who washes our feet, heals our brokenness, forgives our sins, and stretches out his arms on the Cross. Our God sends his only Son to die, that we may live. In the face of such great and perfect love, we can do no less than love in return.

    So that’s the examination of conscience today. First: are we aware of how much God loves us? Because I think we are still caught up in thinking we are unlovable because we have sinned. But that, friends, is a lie that the devil tells us so that we might despair of God’s mercy. God loves us first, best, and always, and we have to get that into our heads and hearts. Second: are we living as men and women who are loved passionately by our God who would rather die than live without us? If not, we have some praying and reflection to do today. Because we cannot, dare not, turn our backs on a love so freely given at such a great cost.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    As we come up to the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation, the bishops of our nation yesterday, on the Eve of this Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, consecrated our nation to that Most Sacred Heart. They were going to do it today, but yesterday they were meeting in Florida for their spring convocation and wanted to do that consecration together. Today, we will join in that consecration after the Universal Prayers.

    We’ve all heard the teaching that God is love.  And that’s a good thing to remember: I tell school students they should always remember that, and if they do, they’ll know quite a bit about our God.  God is love in its purest form, so pure in fact that it burns away all our imperfections and makes us new people, washed clean in the Blood of Christ.  True love wills the good of the other for the sake of the other, and God models that best by having sent His only Son to live our life and die our death and raise us to new life with him forever.

    Today, the word “love” is tossed about in all sorts of ways.  Love can be construed as lust, or even affection, and real love isn’t any of that.  Real love isn’t bound by agendas, selfishness, or pride, and it is hard, no impossible, for us to avoid those things given our fallen human nature.  But, if we let Him, if we get out of his way, God will fill us with his grace, and give us love emanating from the Sacred Heart of Jesus that will fill our lives with love beyond measure.

    And let’s be clear: God loved us first and loves us best.  He loved us into existence and sustains us in his love.  Because God is love, he cannot not love.  But our agendas, selfishness, and pride can certainly get in the way, and now is the time to root all of that out because our world, our communities, our families, our churches, and certainly our nation need our love.  Everyone needs to see the Sacred Heart burning in us, because this world, left to its own crime, sin, death, and blasphemy, is way too sad without it.

    We are all broken and hurting and in pain, spiritually. We might ignore it, or offer it up, or worst of all, might try to mask it with alcohol or other addictions. But none of that really heals us. The only thing that really heals is the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.  The same is true for our broken world.

    We don’t trust God as much as we should; we don’t let God love us as much as we should. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, that’s such an American attitude: we want to take care of ourselves all by ourselves. Pope Francis said that God never gets tired of showing us mercy, it’s we who get tired of asking. And that’s so sad. We weren’t made for that. We were made to be cared for and to be loved so that we can take care of others and love them in the name of Christ.

    God’s love is awesome. It doesn’t just cover our sins, it wipes them out, obliterates them so that they aren’t who we are any more. In the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, we find a love that is so pure and so powerful that it cannot be overshadowed by any kind of darkness, nor be snuffed out even by the grave.

    But we absolutely have to let him love us, or we will miss it every time.

    Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

  • Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think we have to admit that the Old Testament, at times, can be pretty brutal. And today’s first reading is an example of that. Mind you, I love this story because it contains touches of humor and has a wonderful message about our faith, but it’s still brutal.

    The humor comes from Elijah’s cajoling of the prophets of Baal. Obviously, we know they weren’t getting an answer from Baal because there is no Baal. Elijah says to them:

    “Call louder, for he is a god and may be meditating,
    or may have retired, or may be on a journey.
    Perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

    Some scholars claim that “meditating” should really be translated “using the bathroom,” so it shows you just how much Elijah thinks of these so-called prophets and their so-called god.

    But, brutality and humor aside, the spiritual meaning of the reading is important. God had told the Israelites that, when they came into the land he was giving them, they were to slaughter everyone in the land: men, women, children, livestock—all of it. The idea is that anyone or anything left alive would ultimately tempt them to false worship of the Baals, which is exactly what happened.

    But God isn’t really about a blood bath—that wouldn’t be a God we would care to worship, I would guess. What he is telling them, and us, here is that everything that stands in the way of true worship and real relationship with the only God who longs to save our souls has to be blotted out and not left standing.

    So the reflection today is this: what is it that we have allowed to stay alive when we really ought to put it to death? What habits, or desires, or relationships, or whatever—what is in the way of a deeper relationship with the God who loves us more than anything. We need to identify those obstacles and obliterate them from the face of the earth. Anything else is unworthy of our relationship with God.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    If you’ve ever traveled abroad, to a country where English is not the spoken language, maybe you’ve had this experience. I traveled to Mexico when I was in seminary to learn Spanish. The first day I was there, we went to Mass at the local Cathedral. Even though at that point my Spanish was rather rudimentary, especially on that first day, still I recognized the Mass. That’s because we celebrate it in the same way, with the same words – albeit in a different language – everywhere on earth. In the Eucharist, we are one. “Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” That’s what St. Paul tells the Corinthians today, and we are meant to hear it as well. We are called to unity with one another as we gather around the Altar to partake of the one Body of Christ.

    We flounder, sometimes, in showing our unity. We want so much to say that we are one that we think we have to invent ways to do it. And sure, we do some things together. We all sing the same songs. We all stand or sit together. We might join hands at the Lord’s Prayer. And those are all okay things, but they are not what unites us. They put us on a somewhat equal footing, but that can happen in all kinds of gatherings. The one thing that unites us at this gathering, the experience we have here that we don’t have in any other situation, is the Eucharist. The Eucharist unites us in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where all division must necessarily cease.

    Having said that, there are obvious ways in which we can notice that we are not, in fact, one. The Eucharist, which is the celebration of our unity, can often remind us in a very stark and disheartening way, of the ways that we remain divided with our brothers and sisters in Christ. The most obvious of these ways is the way that we Catholics remain divided with our Protestant brothers and sisters, and in fact, they with each other as well. The proliferation of Christian denominations is something we can soft-pedal as “different strokes for different folks,” but is in fact a rather sad reminder that the Church that Jesus founded and intended to be one is in fact fragmented in ways that it seems can only be overcome by a miracle. In our Creed we profess a Church that is “one, holy, catholic, and apostolic.” By “catholic” here, we may indeed mean “universal” but that does not, of course, mean that we are in fact one.

    Another thing that divides all of us from one another is sin. Mortal sin separates us not only from God, not only from those we have wronged, but also from the Church and all of our brothers and sisters in Christ. When we have sinned greatly, we are not permitted in good conscience to receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, because we cannot dare to pretend to be one with those from whom we have separated ourselves, through mortal sin.

    I think this point is very notable at this point in our human history. There is so much going on that is caused by personal and societal sin, and that sin does indeed separate us. There is the sin of racism. There is the sin of disrespect for human life, including abortion, violence in our cities, disrespect for religion, properly formed conscience, and family. There is the sin of fomenting and thriving on disagreement, especially in politics. Jesus prayed on the last day of his life on earth that we would all be one, and yet, throughout history, and even to this very day, we continue to find occasions to separate ourselves from one another, to proliferate division in thought, word and deed. We who receive the Eucharist, the sacrament of unity, need to be the catalysts for that very unity, to root out every vestige of racism in our own hearts, and stand with our brothers and sisters. We can’t just stand by and say, well, I’ve never said anything racist or I never had an abortion, so I’m just fine. That’s not how sin works. We have to be the ones who say it’s not okay, and seek reconciliation with every single person. If we don’t, we’re mocking the Eucharist, and I think we all know that’s not okay.

    “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him,” Jesus says to us today. When we remain in him, we also remain united to one another through Christ. This is what God wants for his Church, so today we must recommit ourselves to unity, real unity. So if you have not been to Confession in a while, make it a priority to do that in the next week or so that you can be one with us at the Table of the Lord. And at Communion today, we must all make it our prayer that the many things that divide us might soon melt away so that we can all become one in the real way the Jesus meant for us.

    We must make it our priority to recommit ourselves to the unity that is brought about by the Holy Eucharist, and live that unity so that all will come to know the source of our oneness, in Jesus Christ. On this feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, we pray that every person may one day come to share in the flesh of our Savior, given for the life of the world, and we pray that his great desire might come to pass: that we may be one.

    Because the loaf of bread is one,
    we, though many, are one body,
    for we all partake of the one loaf.

    May the Body and Blood of Christ keep us all safe for eternal life. Amen.

  • Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings speak to us about the virtue of persistence. St. Paul was one who modeled persistence in his life and ministry. He quite often ran up against not only opposition, but also danger and imprisonment designed to thwart his preaching. But Paul was filled with the Spirit and would not let anything deter him from doing the Lord’s work. And so he could easily encourage, well, even command Timothy to “be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient; convince, reprimand, encourage through all patience and teaching.”

    And we need to hear this encouragement too. Because it’s easy enough for us to preach the word in our thoughts, words and deeds when it’s convenient. But the moment it becomes a little embarrassing, or when we’re in a situation in which we don’t want to stir up trouble, or if we think that others might think less of us, well it’s far too easy to let our witness slip away. It’s easy to be fervent believers at Mass, but miss the opportunity to do the Lord’s work the rest of the day. That’s simply human nature, and it affects all of us.

    But maybe we should take note of the witness of the Widow in today’s Gospel reading. Her witness didn’t have to be all about making a big scene or calling attention to herself. Indeed the only one who even noticed, probably, was Jesus, the One who sees everything. But that doesn’t mean that her witness didn’t cost her anything. Indeed, it probably cost her almost everything she had in the world. But nothing would stop her from witnessing.

    And so we must ask ourselves today and every day: when we “go in peace” what will our witness look like? Will we be able to say with St. Paul at the end of the day, “I have competed well; I have finished the race; I have kept the faith?” If we can, we too can await that crown of righteousness. Please God, let us all be able to be crowned with it one day.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Today’s readings

    I am sure if you have been a long time Glen Ellyn resident, you remember the Christian Science church at the corner of Main Street and Hawthorne. Their sign used to list their upcoming sermon topic, followed by the line “All are welcome.” Imagine my surprise when one day, the topic was going to be eternal punishment. So the sign read: “Eternal Punishment. All are welcome.” I had to drive around the block to make sure I read that right!

    Usually though, the topics weren’t very specific. So one time the topic was going to be “God.” I thought that will either be the world’s longest sermon, or it won’t really come all that close to talking about God. The problem with God as a topic is that you’re painting with a pretty wide brush: anything you say can be right, but it also might not even really finish the job, and either way it can lead you into heresy!

    So it’s a challenge to preach about God the Father, Son, and Holy spirit today. It takes a lot longer than I’m able to talk to really get that topic covered, and still we probably won’t understand it very well. Our limited vocabulary just gets in the way. But let’s see how far we can get.

    There was a time when I got invited to speak to a religious education class about God. I had the teacher ask them the week before to write down their questions about God so that I could help them with the things they really wondered about. One of the questions, at first glance, seemed like kind of a halfhearted effort to get an assignment done, until I really thought about it. That question was, “What is God like?” and I think that young person was really onto something, whether they knew it or not.

    In the end, we can say a whole lot of things about what God is like, but again our vocabulary gets in the way. We can say God is like goodness, and that would be right. But not in the way we think of things or even people as good. Because our view of goodness has to do with how useful it is, and God’s goodness goes way beyond that. We can say that God is like beauty, and that too would be right. But not in the way that the world views beauty, which is limited and selfish and sometimes objectifying. God’s beauty goes far beyond what we could ever imagine.

    But there is something we can say about what God is like that gets us a little closer to understanding the Most Holy Trinity, at least insofar as we can understand that holy mystery. When I preach to school children, I often tell them there is one thing that they have to know about God, and if they know it, they know a lot about what God is like. And that one thing is that God loves you. I tell them that’s so important that if they’re ever stumped on a religion test, they can write “God loves me” and it will be worth at least half credit. The teachers just love it when I say that!

    But even that is hard to understand, because God is love itself, and his love goes beyond anything we can conceive of. His love looks like what happened on that cross. His love embraces us even in our ugliest moments. His love is powerful enough to burn away all of our flaws and make us new creations in his image. His love really, truly keeps the world in motion.

    And our readings today tell us that love is a lot of what God is like. The greeting I gave you at the beginning of Mass comes to us from the end of today’s second reading: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” In that greeting, Saint Paul mentions every member of the Holy Trinity, “God” referring to God the Father. And he describes that Trinity as a loving communion that fills us with grace. That’s echoed in our Gospel reading, in which the very famous line from John 3:16 tells us what God is about, and what the Gospel teaches about God: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.” God’s love wants us all to come to eternal life, and so he sent his only begotten Son to come and take the punishment for our sins, and in the process breaking the power of sin and death to control our eternity. Memorize that line, friends.

    Love is an apt description of the Holy Trinity, even for Saint Thomas Aquinas who famously described the Trinity in that way. He taught that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit is that love between the Father and the Son. For Aquinas, the Trinity is a loving relationship, and I think that’s helpful to us who exist in relationships.

    Sometimes, we need God to be Father: correcting us, wanting the best for us, calling us to be who he meant us to be. If we let him, the Father’s love burns away all the parts of us that are not praiseworthy and sets us ablaze to become new in his image. Sometimes, though, we need God to be Son: a brother who picks us up when we have fallen far down, one who walks with us in the darkness of whatever is going on with us, one who leads us to the place where God’s love can encompass us. And sometimes we need the Holy Spirit, whose love literally inspires us to be who we were meant to be, to live as new creations, and to desire nothing outside of God’s love. We need God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit in different ways at different times. God doesn’t change: he’s always Father, Son and Holy Spirit. But we change, needing him in different ways in different seasons of our life.

    So to answer that student’s question, “What is God like?” is a challenge, and a good one! Because God looks different to us at different times in our lives. It’s only after this life has brought us to the kingdom when we’ll really know what God is like, as we see him face to face. So I think I’ll leave you with that question, brothers and sisters. What is God like? I imagine it depends on what’s going on in your life right now, what your prayer has been like, and what your hopes and dreams are. But it’s a question we should often pause to consider. So pray about it this week. What is God like?

    Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit:
    As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
    World without end.
    Amen.

  • Saturday of the Seventh Week in Easter

    Saturday of the Seventh Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    One of the greatest obstacles to the Christian life is comparing ourselves to others. The Fathers of the Church all warn against that practice, and urge us to keep our eyes on our own relationship with God.  The essence of discipleship is doing what we were put here to do, we ourselves.  We discern that vocation by reflecting on our own gifts and talents, given to us by God, by prayerfully meditating on God’s will for us, and then engaging in conversation with the Church to see how best to use those talents and gifts.  That’s the process of discernment, which is always aided by the working of the Holy Spirit, and a worthy exercise on this eve of Pentecost.

    What causes us to get off track, though, is looking at other people and what they are doing, or the gifts they have, or the opportunities they have received.  We might be envious of their gifts or the opportunities they have to use them.  We may see what they are doing and think we can do it better.  We might be frustrated that they don’t do what we would do if we were in their place.  And all of that is nonsense.  It’s pride, and it’s destructive.  It will ruin the Christian life and leave us bitter people.

    That’s the correction Jesus made to Peter.  Poor Peter was getting it all wrong once again.  He thought Jesus was revealing secrets to John that he wanted to know also.  But whatever it was that Jesus said to John as they reclined at table that night was none of Peter’s business, nor was it ours.  Peter had a specific job to do, just as John did, and so do we.  If we are serious about our discipleship, then we would do well to take our eyes off what others are doing or saying or experiencing, and instead focus on the wonderful gifts and opportunities we have right in front of us.  As for what other people are up to, as Jesus said, “what concern is that of yours?”

    And so we pray this morning for the grace of discernment, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, and the gift of being able to mind our own business, spiritually speaking.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    A lack of unity will destroy us all. Jesus knew this, and so did St. Paul. In fact, St. Paul used a lack of unity among the Jews to save his own life. He knew that the Pharisees, of which he was one, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and angels and spirits. He knew that the Sadducees did not (which, as one of my seminary professors used to say, is why they are sad, you see…). When Paul appealed to the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead, he got them on their side, and the skirmish that ensued caused the commander to whisk Paul to safety. He was not to die this day; the Lord had other plans for him.

    As Jesus gets ready for his own death in the gospel reading today, he prays for the unity of the first disciples. He knew that they would be challenged greatly by the world, because they were no longer of the world. They belonged to God now, and that would be the source of their unity. That unity would keep them together and ensure that a reasoned, unified message would be proclaimed throughout the world and throughout the ages. That was the only way the gospel could be proclaimed to every creature on earth.

    In our day, unity is just as critical as it ever was. We still believe in ONE holy, catholic and apostolic church. We believe that Jesus came to found just ONE church, and that the fragmentations that exist among us are the result of sinfulness and broken humanity. We need to be people who witness to the joy of our faith so that we can bind up all that disunity and become once again one people, healed of all divisions. We are called to be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one, so that we can witness to all the world the saving power of our one, almighty God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

    A lack of unity will destroy us all. Jesus knew this, and so did St. Paul. In fact, St. Paul used a lack of unity among the Jews to save his own life. He knew that the Pharisees, of which he was one, believed in the resurrection of the dead, and angels and spirits. He knew that the Sadducees did not (which, as one of my seminary professors used to say, is why they are sad, you see…). When Paul appealed to the Pharisees’ belief in the resurrection of the dead, he got them on their side, and the skirmish that ensued caused the commander to whisk Paul to safety. He was not to die this day; the Lord had other plans for him.

    As Jesus gets ready for his own death in the gospel reading today, he prays for the unity of the first disciples. He knew that they would be challenged greatly by the world, because they were no longer of the world. They belonged to God now, and that would be the source of their unity. That unity would keep them together and ensure that a reasoned, unified message would be proclaimed throughout the world and throughout the ages. That was the only way the gospel could be proclaimed to every creature on earth.

    In our day, unity is just as critical as it ever was. We still believe in ONE holy, catholic and apostolic church. We believe that Jesus came to found just ONE church, and that the fragmentations that exist among us are the result of sinfulness and broken humanity. We need to be people who witness to the joy of our faith so that we can bind up all that disunity and become once again one people, healed of all divisions. We are called to be one, just as Jesus and the Father are one, so that we can witness to all the world the saving power of our one, almighty God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    The Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    When I was on my pastoral internship in seminary, my supervisor and I talked about the fact that our Liturgy is very wordy. Think about it: all of the prayers and readings and songs – it’s a lot of words to take in in an hour or less, but we do it all the time. So once in a while, I like to reflect on what are the important words in the Mass. We have the words of institution of the Eucharist – those are extremely important. The proclamation of the Scriptures, especially the Gospel, well we can’t discount those either. And let’s not forget the Creed, the words of which were the cause of many arguments and literally fights over the centuries – those words were very carefully chosen.

    But there is one word that I think is the most important, and I bet it’s going to surprise you. This one word, I think, is the rallying cry for all Catholic Christians. And that word is “GO.” Go: we have to wait all the way to the end of Mass to hear the deacon or priest say it. “Go in peace.” “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” And because it’s way at the end of Mass, I wonder if some people ever get to hear it (ahem). But whether we hear it or not, it’s almost a kind of a throw-away, or it seems so. But it really shouldn’t be. It’s not just a word of dismissal kind of like “you don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here” or “go on, get out of here, you’re annoying me!” It’s not even just a word to get us out of the church and on to the next thing in life.

    “Go” is a word of mission, and we hear it in our Gospel today. Jesus tells the disciples: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” That was what the disciples were to do. They weren’t supposed to just stand there staring up into the sky: they were supposed to GO and do the work of salvation until Jesus returned in glory. Catholic Christians are always a people on the move: on the move to conquer the whole world for Christ, on the move to get to heaven, and on the move to bring everyone we can with us.

    So the command that was given to those first disciples is one that we are supposed to get as well. We are supposed to GO and preach the gospel in what we say and what we do. We are supposed to GO and baptize people by leading them to the faith in our witness. We are supposed to GO in peace, glorifying the Lord by our lives. We are supposed to GO and announce the gospel of the Lord. We do that by volunteering at the parish, looking in on a sick or elderly neighbor, living lives of integrity in the workplace. We do that by striving to be Christ-like to every person we meet. The mission looks different for every one of us, depending on our life’s vocation and our station in life. But let’s be clear about this: we all have a mission, we all are expected to respond to our Lord’s command to GO.

    So I hope that you’ll hear that word “GO” at the end of Mass differently now than perhaps you have before. I hope that you’ll hear it as a calling, as a challenge, and as a sacred duty. I hope you’ll all take up the call to GO and make disciples of everyone you meet. I hope you’ll take up the call to GO and make the world into the Kingdom of God among us.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

    GO! (Okay, but not yet!)

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  • The Sixth Sunday in Easter

    The Sixth Sunday in Easter

    Today’s readings

    A topic in the spiritual life that I think we don’t understand the way we should, and which doesn’t get a lot of discussion, is hope. Saint Peter in today’s second reading urges us to “Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…”  And that’s a bigger challenge, I think, than we realize sometimes.

    First of all, as I mentioned, I think we don’t really understand what hope is.  In common usage, I think hope means something like a wish.  We often say, “I hope that …” or “I hope so,” as if to say, “It probably won’t ever happen, but it would be really nice.”  That’s not what hope means, and that’s not the kind of hope that Saint Peter is asking us to be ready to explain.  Even the definition of hope leaves this discussion wanting.  Merriam Webster defines hope as “to cherish a desire with anticipation; to want something to be happen or be true.”  Anticipation implies more than a mere wish, certainly.  But wanting something to happen or be true entertains the possibility that it will not.  That’s not the kind of hope we’re talking about either.

    But Merriam Webster also provides what it calls an “archaic” usage, which defines hope in one word: trust.  And now I think we’re closer to where we need to be.  The hope that we have in Jesus is something in which we can certainly trust, because he promises its truth, and God always keeps his promises.  All we have to do is attach ourselves to that hope so that we can be caught up in it in all the right moments. So what is it that we hope for?  In what do we place our hope, our trust?  Maybe it would be better to ask in whom we hope: Jesus is our hope, and through his death and resurrection, he has set us free from the bonds of sin and death, and opened up the way for us to enter eternal life in communion with the Father.

    Our world needs this hope.  Just tune in to the news to see that lack of hope: wars, skirmishes and unrest in many parts of the world; bizarre weather and killer tornadoes in many places of our country; cataclysmic natural disasters over the past few years that have left communities or even whole countries reeling.  Closer to home, we could cite high unemployment, rising prices on everything from gas to food, violence in our cities, and so much more.  It doesn’t take much looking around to feel like there’s no hope of hope anywhere.

    So the problem, I think, is in what or where that we place our hope.  Often we place our hope in ourselves or our own efforts, only to find ourselves at some point over our heads.  Or maybe we place our hope in other people in our lives, only at some point to be disappointed.  We sometimes place our hope in self-proclaimed gurus like Oprah or Doctor Phil, only to find out that their pep-talks at some point ring hollow and their philosophies are shallow.  You can’t find much hope in sources like these, or if you do, you might find that hope to be short-lived.  And so, as I said, if we want real hope something in which we can truly trust, the only place we need to look, the only one we should look to, is God.

    Now, I say this, knowing full well that some of you have prayed over and over and over for something to change, only to be disappointed after you say “Amen.”  And there’s no way I’m going to tell you that all you have to do is pray and everything will work out all right.  God doesn’t promise us perfect happiness in this life, and so often we are going to go through periods of sorrow and disappointment.  That’s the unfortunate news of life in this passing world.  The sorrow and disappointment are not God’s will for us, they are by-products of sin – our own sin or the sin of others – and those things grieve God very much.

    But even in those times of grief, God still gives us hope, if we turn to him.  The hope that he offers is the knowledge that no matter how bad things get, we don’t go through them alone, that God is there for us, walking with us through the sorrow and pain and never giving up on us.

    Today’s readings give us a foundation for this hope.  In the second reading, Peter awakens our hope of forgiveness.  He says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.”  Even the hopelessness of our sin is no match for God’s mercy.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection, we have hope of eternal life in God’s kingdom.  Because God loved us so much, he gave his only Son for our salvation, and now we have hope of forgiveness, hope for God’s presence in our lives.

    In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that we can hope in him because we will always have his presence.  Even though he ascended to the right hand of the Father, as we’ll celebrate next week, he is with us always.  “And I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…”  We receive that Holy Spirit sacramentally in Baptism and Confirmation, and we live in his Spirit every day.  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives gives us the hope that we are never alone, even in our darkest hours; that the Spirit intercedes for us and guides us through life.

    We disciples have to be convinced of that hope; we have to take comfort in the hope that never passes from us, in the abiding presence of God who wants nothing more than to be with us.  We have to reflect that hope into our sometimes hopeless world.  As Saint Peter said, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” The reason for our hope is Christ.  We find our hope in the cross and resurrection.  We experience our hope in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.  We spread that hope in our hopeless world by being Christ to others, living as disciples of Jesus when the whole world would rather drag us down.  Even when life is difficult, we can live with a sense of joy, because above all, we are disciples of hope.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!