Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Month: September 2021

  • The Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!

    When we think about prophets and prophecy, I think our minds always take us to ancient days.  All the prophets we tend to think about lived many centuries ago: Moses, Elijah, Jeremiah, Amos and all the rest, right up to John the Baptist who was the last of the prophets of old and the beginning of the prophecy of the new.  All of it culminating in the person of Jesus Christ, whose prophecy was the voice of God himself.  But I think our readings today call us to look at prophecy in a new light, and to be open to the fact that there are many more prophets than we can think of right away, prophets that are a bit more contemporary than Moses and Elijah and all the others.

    For Moses, prophecy was a huge task.  He bore the responsibility of bringing God’s message of salvation to a people who had become used to living without it.  He was to inaugurate the covenant between God and a people who had largely forgotten about God, or certainly thought God had forgotten about them.  His prophetic burden was great, but God offered to take some of his prophetic spirit and bestow it on the seventy elders.  So seventy were chosen, a list was drawn up, and a ceremony was prepared.

    Two of their number – Eldad and Medad – were missing from the group during the ceremony, but the spirit was given to them anyway.  But this had Joshua all bent out of shape.  How could they be prophesying when they had not taken part in the ritual?  So he complains about it to Moses, who clearly does not share his concern.  He accuses Joshua of jealousy and says to him, “Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!”

    Moses’ vision for the ministry was bigger than himself, bigger than Joshua, bigger than even the chosen seventy.  And he makes a good point here.  What if every one of God’s people knew God well enough to prophesy in God’s name?  What if all of us who claim to follow God could speak out for God’s concern for the needy, the marginalized and the dispossessed?  What if every single one of us, when facing a decision, would immediately consider what God wants in that moment?  The world would certainly be a much different place.  Joshua’s concern was that the rules be followed.  Moses’ concern was that God’s work be done.

    And so there’s a rather obvious parallel in the first part of today’s Gospel.  This time it’s John who is all bent out of shape.  Someone was casting out demons in Jesus’ name, and even worse, whoever it was was apparently successful!  Jesus, of course, does not share John’s concern.  Jesus’ vision of salvation was bigger than John’s.  If demons are being cast out in Jesus’ name, what does it matter who is doing it?  If people are being healed from the grasp of the evil one and brought back to the family of God, well then, praise God!

    I think the point here that we need to get is that true prophecy, and really all ministry, doesn’t always fit into a neat little box.  During the rite of baptism, the person who has just been baptized is anointed with the sacred Chrism oil – the oil that anoints us in the image of Jesus as priest, prophet and king.  It is part of our baptismal calling for all of the people of the Lord to be prophets.  And so we really ought to be hearing the word of the Lord all the time, from every person in our lives.  Not only that, but we should be speaking the word of the Lord in everything we say and do!

    What I got to thinking about as I re-read these scriptures in preparation for preaching today was, what if everyone was a prophet?  What would that look like?  What would it be like if we were all true to our baptismal call to be a prophet in today’s world?  First of all, if we were all used to the fact that even ordinary people carry the prophetic message, we might not be so offended by it.  Just as the prophets of old were ignored, or worse, beaten or killed for their message, that same thing happens all the time today.  In some areas of the world, those who prophesy are considered so much of a threat that they are put to death for their beliefs.  And even here, where we have those freedoms, people are so offended by true prophecy that they consider it a personal attack and decide that people who bear witness to the truth are considered hateful.  Wouldn’t it be nice if that whole situation didn’t exist, because people were used to looking for the prophetic message?

    Then, of course, having heard the prophetic message, all of us prophets would be eager to carry it out.  The poor would be taken care of, people would live and do business with integrity, governments would be truly taking care of the common good rather than special interests, human dignity and respect for all life would be accepted as common practice, real peace would be not just a possibility, but a reality.

    Friends, we have to stop being afraid of the prophetic message, because prophets might be everywhere.  God gives us all people who are prophetic witnesses to us: people who say and live what they believe.  They might be our parents or our children, the colleague at work, the person who sits next to us in math class, or even the neighbor who seems to always want to talk our ear off.  At the basic level, one of the most important questions that arises in today’s Liturgy of the Word is, who are the prophets among us?  Who is it in our lives that has been so gifted with the spirit that they challenge us to be better people and live better lives?

    Prophecy is a huge responsibility, and we are all tasked with it.  Being open to that prophecy is a challenge to humility.  We might be the prophets, or we might be the ones hearing the prophets, but in either case we have work to do.  Prophets need to be faithful to God’s spirit, and hearers need to be open to the word and ready to act on it.  Prophecy nearly always calls us to a radical change.  May God help us to recognize the prophets among us, and make us ready to hear the word of the Lord and carry it out.

    Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets! Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!

  • Saint Pius of Pietreclina (Padre Pio)

    Saint Pius of Pietreclina (Padre Pio)

    Today’s readings

    At the age of 15, Francesco Forgione joined the Capuchins and took the name of Pio. He was ordained in 1910 and was drafted during World War I. After he was discovered to have tuberculosis, he was discharged. In 1917 he was assigned to the friary in San Giovanni Rotondo.

    On September 20, 1918, as he was making his thanksgiving after Mass, Padre Pio had a vision of Jesus. When the vision ended, he had the stigmata in his hands, feet and side. Padre Pio rarely left the friary after he received the stigmata, but busloads of people soon began coming to see him.  He would hear confessions for as much as ten hours a day; penitents had to take a number so that the situation could be heard. Many of them have said that Padre Pio knew details of their lives that they had never mentioned.

    Padre Pio died on September 23, 1968, and was canonized in 2002.  He left behind a legacy of miracles based on his relationship with Jesus; that relationship helped him to bring so many souls to Jesus.  Our relationship with the Lord may pale in comparison, but still we are called on to let our faith in Jesus bear fruit.  So the question Herod had in our Gospel this morning – although he had that question for all the wrong reasons – is a good one.  Who is Jesus?  Who is he for us?  How does our relationship with him bring others to Jesus?

  • Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

    Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

    Today’s readings

    For those of us who strive to live as disciples, today’s feast is really a joy.  I say that because Matthew was qualified to be a disciple of Jesus in much the same way that we are qualified to be disciples of Jesus – which is to say, not at all, really.  Matthew was a tax collector, working for the Roman occupation government.  His task was to collect the tax from each citizen.  As long as he did that, whatever he collected over and above the tax was his to keep.  Now the Romans wouldn’t condone outright extortion, but let’s just say that they weren’t overly scrupulous about what their tax collectors were collecting, as long as they got paid the proper tax.

    So Matthew’s reception among the Jews was quite like they might receive a swarm of murder hornets!  The Pharisees were quick to lump men like Matthew with sinners, and despised them as completely unworthy of God’s salvation.  But Jesus disagreed.

    “Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
    Go and learn the meaning of the words,
    I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
    I did not come to call the righteous but sinners.”

    Which brings us back to us.  We should be very grateful to celebrate the call of a man who was anything but worthy.  Because he was called, we know that our own calls are authentic, unworthy as we may be.  Because he was offered healing, we know that we can have that, too.  But all that grace isn’t ours any more than it was just Matthew’s: just as he spread the Good News by writing and preaching of the Gospel, so we are called to spread the Good News to everyone we know.  We are called to write the Gospel in our own day, in the pages of our own lives.  Matthew’s call is a day of celebration for all of us sinners, who are nonetheless called to do great things for the Kingdom of God.

  • Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs

    Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs

    Today’s readings

    As we come together this evening to begin the year of faith formation in our Confirmation program, I think today’s readings and saints really speak to us.  The Gospel this evening reminds us that when we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we have the ability, the gift, and the obligation to witness to our faith.  We can’t light a lamp and put it under a bushel basket.  Who would think to do something like that?  No, when we light a lamp we do it for the express intention of giving light to the place we are.  The faith is like that.  When it’s lit by the Spirit, we don’t hide it; no, we put that faith on a lampstand, we witness to the faith in our words and actions, so that we can light up the darkness of the world around us.

    The saints we honor today were like that.  Korea was not a Christian nation, but there were and are Christians who wanted to live and witness to their faith there.  In the 1800s, Andrew Kim became the first native Korean to become a priest when he traveled 1300 miles to seminary in China. He managed to find his way back into the country six years later. When he returned home, he arranged for more men to travel to China for studies. He was arrested, tortured and finally beheaded.

    St. Paul Chong was a lay apostle who was also martyred. During the persecutions of 1839, 1846, 1866 and 1867, 103 members of the Christian community gave their lives for the faith. These included some bishops and priests, but for the most part they were lay people, including men and women, married and unmarried, children, young people and the elderly. They were all canonized by Pope Saint John Paul II during a visit to Korea in 1984.

    These men and women gave witness to their faith at great cost.  We don’t have that same pressure in our society today; probably none of us will die for professing and witnessing to our faith.  But we may have to give up our lives in other ways to do that.  We might have to witness to the faith when people around us, people we want to impress, want no part of the faith.  We might feel very uncomfortable with the things a person or group are doing, and choosing the right path might make us less popular or even get us “canceled.”  But doing the right thing is never the wrong thing to do, and will never give us a moment’s true regret.  Living the faith will always lead us to something greater, even if we don’t see that right now.

    Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gon, Paul Chong Ha-sang, and their 103 companions did this at the cost of their own lives.  Their sacrifice, like the sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross, was a lamp shining in a very dark place.  Let us pray for the grace to live our lives with integrity, the grace to live our faith, so that we can be the lamp shining for others.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    We’ve all heard this gospel parable about the sower and the seeds dozens of times. We know, then, that the seeds are the Word of God: not just some words, but Word with a capital “W,” which is Jesus himself, God’s eternal Word, spoken to bring life to a world dead in sin.  We know that the seeds are that presence of Christ which fall on hearts that are variously rocky, or thorny, or rich and fertile.  We’ve heard the parable, with Jesus’ own explanation, as well as homilies about it, so many times.

    What stood out to me this time as I read it is how very easy it is to not receive that Word and grow in it.  All it takes is losing our focus: paying attention to something that seems (at least at the time we see it) more enticing than the Word of God.  Then we wither up on that wrong path.  Or we might not tend to the Word of God in our hearts and then some temptation or tragedy comes along and we perish on the rocky ground.  Or we may even, through neglect, get choked out by the things of this world.

    Obviously, we need to provide rich soil for the word to grow.  And, this time of the year, it almost doesn’t make sense to talk about it.  The liturgical cycle usually conforms to the calendar, more or less, and so why this parable about sowing seeds now, right on the verge of autumn when the harvest is pretty much over? Nobody in their right mind sows seeds this late in the year, certainly not in our climate!

    But God does.  He sows the Word among us all the time: every day and every moment.  It’s not just once for the season, and if the seeds don’t grow, then try again next year maybe.  He is constantly sowing the seeds in us, urging us to make of our hearts rich, fertile soil for the Kingdom.  And we do that by enriching the soil through reception of the Sacraments, participating at Mass, enlivening our prayer life, being open to the Word.

    The Sower is out sowing the seeds of his Eternal Word all the time.  Let’s give him fertile ground, that we might yield a rich harvest.

  • Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings are a kind of blueprint for the life of the disciple.  We see that those who surrounded Jesus as his core group were but a few selected people.  We have the Twelve, of course, but also some women.  Common to all of them is that nowadays we would probably not see any of them as qualified for the job of being in the Savior’s inner circle.  The Twelve themselves were a ragtag bunch, tradesmen, fishermen, tax collectors – none of them were even particularly distinguished in their chosen careers.

    The women mentioned were similarly unqualified.  The Gospel says that they had all been cured either of evil spirits or infirmities.  But they also provided for the ministry out of their means.  So it’s a humble group that surrounds Jesus, and clearly, that was fine with him.  He came, after all, to save those who needed saving, not those who had no use for a Savior.

    Paul tells Timothy that those who would be disciples must “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.”  They must “compete well for the faith” and thus “lay hold of eternal life.”  Jesus chooses anyone he wants; not merely those who are outstanding in qualifications.  Blessed indeed “are those who are poor in Spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

  • Saint Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

    Saint Cornelius, Pope, and Cyprian, Bishop, Martyrs

    Many of us probably can remember building sand castles in our youth. We learned pretty quickly that there was always a price to pay for laying the foundation of it too near the water. It might go well for a while, but one good wave, and all our hard work would be washed away.  Well, the same is true for our spiritual lives.  Perhaps for a while we are offering our prayers on the run, not really taking time to be with the Lord.  That might work okay for a while, but all it takes is the wave of one good trial or crisis, and everything we think we’ve built up is gone.  We find ourselves lost, scattered by the disarray of our spiritual lives.  Building that firm foundation is extremely important, and it’s something we can never fake.

    St. Cornelius knew that well.  He was elected pope after a 14 month vacancy in the office, because of all the infighting in the Church at the time.  He had to mediate many crises, most especially the heresy of Novationism, which denied that anyone who sinned could be reconciled.  Because of his stand, his detractors elected the first anti-pope, and had Cornelius exiled to Civitavecchia, where he died as a result of his exile.  His friend, St. Cyprian, a bishop, was also involved in the Novation controversy.  He too was exiled in the persecution of Valerian, and martyred on September 14, 258.

    We honor Saints Cornelius and Cyprian today, two men who built their faith on solid foundation.  With that foundation, they were able to work for Church unity, withstand heresies, persecution, exile and martyrdom, and come at last to the heavenly kingdom.  May we, like them, build our spiritual lives on firm foundation so that we may withstand whatever persecutions life may bring our way.

  • The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    Today’s readings

    In a lot of ways, this is a strange feast we are celebrating today. Think about it. This is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which in Jesus’ day would have been as big an oxymoron as one could possibly imagine. No cross would ever have been thought exalted in that day.  That’s why they nailed Jesus to it: they thought by putting an end to him in such a horrible way, no one would ever speak his name again. It’s like us saying that we are going to celebrate the exaltation of a lethal injection chamber. There is nothing exalted about an instrument of execution: it’s tortuous, humiliating, and as dark as one can get.

    So to get from that to where we are now is nothing short of a miracle. A miracle, of course, of the highest order! God used this instrument of punishment to remit the punishment we deserved for our sins. God used the epitome of darkness to bathe the world in unfathomable light.

    And he didn’t have to. The cross is what we deserved for our many sins. Today’s first reading gives us just a glimpse into the problem. The Israelites, fresh from deliverance from slavery in Egypt, are making their way through the desert. Along the way, they pause to complain that God’s food, which he provided in the desert, wasn’t good enough for them. They had chosen slavery over deliverance; food that perishes over food that endures unto eternal life.

    But we’re there too, right? We often choose the wrong kind of food, get off the path, and choose slavery to our vices and sins over new life in Christ. In fact it was because of all that that Jesus came to us in the first place. God noticed our brokenness and would not let us remain dead in sin. So to put an end to that cycle of sin and death, he sent his only Son to us to die on that horrible cross, paying the price for our many sins. But, that death may no longer have power over us, he raised him up, cheating the cross and the evil one of their power, and exalting the Holy Cross to the instrument not of our death, but of our salvation.

    Because of the Cross, all of our sadness has been overcome. Disease, pain, death, and sin – none of these have ultimate power over us. Just as Jesus suffered on that Cross, so we too may have to suffer in the trials that this life brings us. But Jesus rose from the dead and ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us, a place where there will be no more sadness, death or pain, a place where we can live in the radiant light of God for all eternity. Because of the Cross, we have hope, a hope that can never be taken away.

    The Cross is indeed a very strange way to save the world, but the triumph that came into the world through the One who suffered on the cross is immeasurable. As our Gospel reminds us today, all of this happened because God so loved the world.

    We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you, because by your Holy Cross you have redeemed the world.

  • The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think, as a pastor, the issue I wrestle with most is the suffering that is out there.  People come to me in their suffering, and that is a great privilege, a holy space.  The father in me wants to be able to say a quick prayer and take all the suffering away, but of course, that’s now how this works.  And so I have accompanied parishioners, and even my own family members, as they suffer.  Suffering, unfortunately, is part of our life on earth, and we all do it at some time or another in our lives. 

    A lot of us, truth be told, have the same outlook as Saint Peter.  We don’t want to think about suffering as part and parcel of our life here on earth.  Today’s Gospel tells us that, after leading the Apostles in a little discernment about who Jesus was, Jesus then begins to foretell his own suffering and death.  And we know that that suffering and death was absolutely necessary to pay the price for our sins.  But Peter, and probably the others as well, didn’t want to think about that.  They were still under the thinking about what the Messiah was supposed to be according to Jewish scriptures, and that Messiah wasn’t supposed to suffer and die.  So Peter begins to audaciously rebuke our Lord, and our Lord then rebukes Peter.

    I think this year, we’ve seen an awful lot of suffering.  Many of us have lost loved ones to COVID-19, or have had a loved one pass away from something else during that time, but the pandemic prevented us from accompanying them.  Others have lost massive amounts of business during that time or suffered financially from the economic downturn.  Even if none of that touched our lives, the pandemic affected the way we live from day to day.  Grandparents couldn’t hug their grandchildren.  We were not able to travel or visit loved ones near or far.  Many couldn’t come to church, even when things opened up a bit, and had to avoid large gatherings or public places of any kind due to a concern about their immunity.  We had to re-think absolutely everything we did, and frankly we still are.

    This weekend, I think too, about where I was twenty years ago.  We all remember that fateful, horrible, 9-11 day, when it seemed like the world was crashing down around us.  Nobody traveled in those days either.  In those days, we had to re-think the way we did so many things, and we don’t take our safety for granted in the ways we did before that day.  We also continue to remember the loss of so many people in New York, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania – people whose lives ended quickly at the start of a workday, and those who gave their lives to help others.  There was more than enough suffering to go around on that horrible day.

    And all of that is to say nothing about the day-to-day suffering we all experience.  The illness and loss of loved ones; the brokenness of our families; the loss of a job or opportunity; the effects of sin and addiction, whether our own or that of those close to us.  The list goes on and on.  The real truth of life in this world is that there is suffering, and none of us gets a free pass.  Even Mary, full of grace, had to watch her Son suffer and die.  Even Jesus wept at the death of his friend Lazarus and he himself suffered a terrible, painful, humiliating death.  None of us gets out of this life unscathed.  In some crazy sense, we all are united in the fact that we all suffer, some time and for something.

    And so it is in fact audacious and even offensive that Saint Peter rebukes our Lord for talking about suffering.  Peter himself will suffer a similar fate as that of his Lord, being crucified upside-down.  Every one of us, in some way, has to take up the cross and walk with it, because it is only in doing that that we can make our way to the resurrection.

    I remember a time when I was going through a very difficult time in my priesthood.  One of my good friends came to visit me and brought me a wood carving of Jesus carrying the Cross.  She told me that she hoped it would help me pray through that difficult time and would help me to take up my own cross, as Jesus said we must in today’s Gospel.  Her prayers, and those of so many others, buoyed me up during that time, and reflecting on the Cross made me realize that I had to be there right then, and had to trust our Lord to bring me where I needed to go.

    And the truth of this, friends, is that we have it a lot easier than our Lord did.  We just bear our own suffering; he had to take with him the suffering of every person embroiled in sin in all of time.  We have him to help us take up our crosses and to help make those crosses lighter; he had no one except for Simon of Cyrene who helped him begrudgingly.  His death had to blast open the gates of heaven; we will just get to walk through it, if we follow him and live the gospel.

    Jesus never ever promised to make all our suffering go away.  But he did promise never to abandon us, and he did engage in suffering when he chose to come to earth.  That, friends, is our salvation.  So we have to suffer in this world, we have to deny ourselves and take up the crosses that lay before us.  Because that is the way to follow our Lord who beckons us to come to him.

    For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
    but whoever loses his life for my sake
    and that of the gospel will save it.

  • Saint Peter Claver, Missionary Priest

    Saint Peter Claver, Missionary Priest

    Today’s readings

    Saint Peter Claver was ordained in 1615 in what is now Colombia. During that time, the slave trade was vigorous, and the port of Cartagena was a central entry point for African slaves. Ten thousand slaves would pour into Colombia through Cartagena every year under extremely foul conditions. Around a third of them would die in transit.

    Whenever a ship would enter the port, Peter Claver would swing into action. After the slaves were herded out of the ship, Claver plunged in among them with medicine, food, and other supplies. With the help of interpreters he gave basic instructions and assured his brothers and sisters of their human dignity and God’s saving love. During the 40 years of his ministry, Claver instructed and baptized an estimated 300,000 slaves.

    He ministered in the Colombian missions until his death, vowing to be “the slave of the blacks forever.” He died in 1654 and was given a public and pompous funeral by the city magistrates, even though they had previously expressed their displeasure for his ministry to the black outcasts. He was canonized in 1888 and Pope Leo XIII declared him to be the worldwide patron of missionaries to the black peoples.

    In our Gospel reading, Jesus commands us to love by extending ourselves to people we don’t know or perhaps even wouldn’t associate with.  Saint Peter Claver did that by taking care of the basic needs and spiritual welfare of people who arrived in deplorable conditions just to be bought and sold.  Through his care, they at least knew that someone cared about them and that God loved them.  How will we let other people know that today?