Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Author: Father Pat Mulcahy

  • The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

    The Fourth Sunday of Lent (Laetare Sunday)

    Today’s readings

    Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being the Latin word for “rejoice.” On this Sunday, we wear rose-colored vestments, rather than the Lenten violet.  Laetare Sunday reminds us that even in the “heaviness” of Lent, there is reason for rejoicing.  And today’s readings do deal with some heavy topics, but clearly and always through the lens of rejoicing in God’s mercy.  So that’s how I would like to look at today’s Liturgy: what in the world gives us cause to rejoice today, here and now, in our own lives?

    Because, the last year that we have all endured together saw so many terrible things, most especially the pandemic that has affected, one way or another, almost everything in our lives, and still does.  Add to that racial injustice, social unrest, political rancor, and the proliferation of crime and terror and an assault on the sanctity of life.  Injustice and oppression still exist in our own nation and abroad.  The poor still hunger and thirst for the basic necessities of life.  And then we could look at the darkness that seems to reign in our own lives.  Sin that has not been confessed.  Bad habits that have not been broken.  Love and mercy that have been withheld.  All of these darken our own lives in ways that we don’t fully appreciate at the time, but later see with sad clarity.  Our world and our lives can be such dark places in these days. 

    This darkness is exactly the darkness in which the people of Israel found themselves in today’s first reading.  Notice what that reading says about the people – it’s not flattering at all!  It says “in those days, all the princes of Judah, the priests, and the people added infidelity to infidelity, practicing all the abominations of the nations and polluting the LORD’s temple which he had consecrated in Jerusalem.”  Note particularly the use of the word “all” in that first sentence: had just some of the people been unfaithful?  No: all of them had.  Did they practice just some of the abominations of the other nations?  No: they practiced all of them.  But God in his mercy sent them messengers and prophets to warn them away from their sinfulness.  Did they listen to them? No – and not only did they just not listen to them, but they ridiculed and derided those messengers of God, “despised his warnings and scoffed at his prophets.”  Certainly God would have been justified in letting his chosen people go to hell in a hand basket.  But he didn’t.  Though he punished them with exile for a time, he brought them back to their own land to worship their God once again.  God gave them light in their darkness.

    Today’s Gospel reading shows us the source of that light: Jesus Christ who is lifted up just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert.  This line refers to a passage from the book of Numbers [Num 21:8-9] in which the people were complaining about the way God was feeding them in the desert.  So he sent seraph serpents among them, and people were being bitten and falling ill and dying from their venom.  As a remedy, God told Moses to mount one of the serpents on a pole, and anyone who had been bitten would get better if they looked at the serpent lifted up on the pole.  John compares this to the remedy that we receive for our many sins when we look upon our Savior, lifted up on the pole of the Cross.  But even better, the lifting up of the Son of Man is the Resurrection: God the Father raising Jesus up from the dead, to destroy the power of sin and death in our world.  Either way you look at it, the joy is irresistible: the darkness of our sin and the finality of our death are destroyed when we look upon Jesus our Savior lifted up for us.

    Which brings us to the heart of today’s Gospel reading, maybe even to the heart of the whole Gospel.  That would be the line: “for 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.”  Many times, when you see a sporting event, in person or on television, you will see the reference to that line: posters that read “John 3:16.”  And clearly, that is the heart of the Gospel for all of us: that God
    so loved the world – not just the good part of the world, the pristine part, the beautiful part – but every part of the world.  He loves the parts of the world that are polluted, or embattled by crime, or rife with injustice and oppression, or debilitated by sickness and disease, or destroyed by war, or mourning death, or lamenting sin.  He loves the world mired in a pandemic.  That is not to say that he loves the pandemic, the pollution, crime, injustice, or any of that.  But he loves the world – the whole world – despite all that darkness.  He loves the world for what he created it to be, he loves us as the people he made his own.  And to that world, that people he loves, he sends his only Son, his beloved, so that we might not perish in our darkness or disease or injustice or sin and death, but might have eternal life – the life he longs for each of us to share with him.

    Lent is certainly a time for us to be mindful of the ways in which we have fallen short of God’s call.  Last week’s look at the ten commandments provided each of us, I think, with plenty of reflection on how we can better live God’s call.  But this week’s Gospel puts all of that in perspective for us: we don’t dwell on our sins and shortcomings just to remind ourselves how miserable we are; we reflect on our sins and shortcomings because we know that God can transform them.  We don’t strive to become better people in order to be worthy of God’s love for us; we strive to become better people because God loves us and that love calls us to a much better way of living.  Today’s Liturgy says to us that yes, we have sinned; yes, we have fallen short; yes, we have been hard-hearted; yes, we have failed to respond to God’s love; yes, in particular we have failed to show that love to others.  And yes, we are deserving of punishment for our sins.  But, our God, who is rich in mercy, forgets the punishment and remembers compassion for the people he created.  He sent his only Son to redeem us and bring us back from our darkness into everlasting light.  Our God even uses the darkness and transforms it to be a source of Resurrection for his people.

    Today, we also celebrate with joy, the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  Just as it is our God’s desire that we be healed from the brokenness of our sins, so he gives us a sacrament of healing which is meant to accompany those of us who are sick on our journey of illness.  Those who are sick with any type of disease of body or mind or spirit are invited to be anointed today, as well as those who are preparing for surgery.  Even those who have been anointed in the past can be anointed today if they continue to struggle with or are still recovering from their illness.  This sacrament gives the sick the peace of God’s abiding presence in their lives, as well as healing in whatever way God judges to be best for them.  Today we celebrate the joy that God reaches out to those who are suffering from illness and offers them comfort.

    On this Laetare Sunday, we remember that even in the darkness of our world as it is, even as we still struggle with recovering from a pandemic, we can remember the joy of the Light that is to come.  We reflect on God’s everlasting mercy, which is stronger than sin and death.  We respond to the compassion that God has shown for us, his chosen people.  We live that mercy and love in our own lives, sharing it with others.  Then as our own darkness is transformed to light, maybe our little corner of the world can know compassion amidst sorrow, comfort amidst mourning, mercy against intolerance, love against hatred, and the peace that passes all of our understanding in every place we walk.  May we, who are loved by God beyond anything we can ever deserve, carry the flame of God’s love into our world to brighten every darkness and bring joy to every sorrow.

  • The Third Sunday of Lent

    The Third Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Most of us have probably experienced at least one time in our lives when it seemed like our whole world was turned upside-down.  If not, we certainly will.  It might be the loss of a job, or the illness or death of a loved one, or any of a host of other issues.  It always feels like the rug is pulled out from under us and that everything we believed in is toppled over.  Kind of like like the story we just heard in the Gospel.

    You may have heard the interpretation of this rather shocking Gospel story that says that this is proof that Jesus got angry just like we all do, so we shouldn’t feel bad when we do.  That sounds nice, but I am, of course, going to tell you this interpretation is ridiculous in its inaccuracy.  First of all, there is a big difference between the kind of righteous indignation that Jesus felt over the devastation of sin and death that plagues our world, and the frustration and anger that we all experience over comparatively completely insignificant issues from time to time.  Sure, it might make us feel better to think that Jesus acted out in the same way that we sometimes do, that he felt the same way we do about these things, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

    So feeling better for being angry isn’t the theme of this reading, or the intent of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Let’s just get that straight right now.  And I do think we have to take all of the readings of the Liturgy of the Word as a whole in order to discern what we are being invited to experience.  Our first reading is extremely familiar to us all.   The ten commandments – we’ve heard them so often, violated them on occasion or maybe constantly; perhaps we don’t even think they’re relevant any more: a quaint reminder of a bygone morality.  But the mere fact that they are read at today’s Mass tells us that the Church says they are relevant and we need to live them.  And while every one of them is certainly important, one of them stands out as having top billing.  And that one is the very first commandment: “I, the LORD, am your God … you shall not have other gods besides me.”

    That one commandment comprises the whole first paragraph of the reading, a total of thirteen lines of text.  I think that means we are to pay attention to it!  Even a quick reading gives us the impression that this commandment is the most foundational.  We have to get our relationship with God right and put him first.  But this commandment is also rather easy to violate, and I think we do it all the time.  We all know that there are things we put way ahead of God: our work, our leisure, sports and entertainment, and so many things that are even be darker than that.  Don’t we often forget to bring God into our thoughts and plans?  Yet if we would do it on a regular basis, God promises to bless us “down to the thousandth generation!”

    Saint Paul is urging the Corinthians to put God first, too.  He complains that the Jews want signs and the Greeks want some kind of wisdom, but he and the others preach Christ crucified!  We are a people who want signs.  We almost refuse to take a leap of faith unless we have some overt sign of God’s decision.  And we are all about seeking wisdom, mostly in ourselves.  If it makes sense to us and it feels right to us, it must be okay to do.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  We get tripped up in our own wisdom and sign-seeking all the time, then we wander down the wrong path only to end up several years down the road, wondering where it all went wrong.

    And then we have the really challenging vignette at the end of the Gospel reading.    Jesus knows how long it took to build the temple.  But he wasn’t talking about the temple building.  He was talking about  the Temple that is his body.  His body is the new Temple, and that was the Temple that would be torn down and in three days raised back up.  Because Jesus is the new Temple, none of the money changing and animal selling was necessary.  It was all perfectly legitimate commerce for the old temple worship.  But worshipping the new Temple – Jesus Christ – would require none of that, and so he turns it all upside-down.

    It’s not easy to put God first.  It’s not easy to glory in Christ crucified.  What a horribly difficult and unpopular message to have to live!  But that’s what we are all called to do if we are to be disciples of Jesus, if we are to yearn for life in that kingdom that knows no end.  Glorying in Christ crucified, putting God first, that’s going to require that some time or another, we are going to have to take up our own cross too, and let our entire lives be turned upside-down.  God only knows where that will lead us: maybe to a new career, maybe to a fuller sense of our vocation, maybe to joy, maybe to pain.  But always to grace, because God never leaves the side of those who are willing to have their lives turned upside-down for his glory.

    There’s no easy road to glory.  You don’t get an Easter without a Good Friday.  Jesus didn’t, and we won’t either.  Our lives will be turned upside-down and everything we think we know will be scattered like the coins on the money-changers’ tables.  But God is always and absolutely present to those who pray those words the disciples recalled:

    Zeal for your house will consume me.

  • The Third Sunday of Lent (Scrutiny I)

    The Third Sunday of Lent (Scrutiny I)

    Today’s readings
    Note: At this Mass, we were celebrating the First Scrutiny with the Elect preparing for baptism at the Easter Vigil, so readings from Cycle A were used, as per the Rite.

    We have with us today, three young people who are seeking to receive the Easter Sacraments of Baptism, Confirmation, and First Eucharist, at the Easter Vigil this year.  Because they are old enough to be of what we call “catechetical age,” they do not receive infant baptism, but instead prepare for the sacraments in a similar way to adults in our RCIA program.  These children have been preparing for the last two years, and we have accepted them back at the beginning of that as catechumens, an order of people preparing for the sacraments.  Two weeks ago, they were sent to the Cathedral in Joliet to be chosen by Bishop Hicks to receive these sacraments, and now we call them the Elect.  Today they are with us to undergo a special ritual called the scrutiny, in which they are called to repent of sin and its hold on them, and receive a blessing which is a minor exorcism, giving them grace to open their hearts to receive these Easter Sacraments.  Today we continue to support them with our prayers, and through our own ongoing conversion of heart.

    Because of the scrutiny today, we have special readings, which are different from those we would ordinarily hear on this particular Sunday of the Church year.  Today’s readings focus on the theme of water, which sets our hearts on baptism.  Whenever we hear about water in the readings as we do today, we think of baptism.  And so, appropriately enough, on this day of our first scrutiny, we think of the waters of baptism that will flow over the Elect and wash them of their sins, bringing them into the family of God’s chosen people.  What a glorious thing that is to think about!

    Our readings today tell us just how important water is to us.  In the first reading, God has led the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, and now they are making their way through the desert into the promised land.  This is kind of how our spiritual lives are like: God never wanted us to linger in darkness and sin, so he made a way for us out of all of that.  Traveling through the desert of our lives, God provides for us so that we can make our way to the promised land of heaven.  And see how he does provide for the people!  When they complain that they are thirsty, God gives them water in the desert, which is impossible.  But nothing is too hard for God, and he gives them water so that they won’t faint from thirst in the desert.  Water sustains us and gives us life.

    In our Gospel reading, Jesus asks the woman of Samaria for a drink of water.  Now Jesus was being really bold here, because men in those days did not speak to women who were not accompanied by another person, and Jews never, ever spoke to Samarians, and certainly never used something that they used, like a bucket or a cup to drink from.  But Jesus says to her anyway, “Give me a drink.”  But here’s the amazing thing.  Jesus wasn’t so much thirsty for water as he was for her faith.  He wanted to provide water for this woman, who has been bogged down by where life has taken her.  He wants to get her through the desert of her life, to the promised land.  “Whoever drinks the water I shall give will never thirst,” Jesus says to the woman, and this stirs up her faith.  She responds with eagerness: “Sir give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty…”  And then she goes into town, leaving her water bucket behind, turning away from her past life, and tells everyone about Jesus, and they come to believe in him.  Jesus was thirsty for their faith.

    Water is a powerful thing on earth.  It can be dangerous: we’ve all heard sad stories about people drowning in Lake Michigan or on raging rivers, or even in backyard pools.  But water most often is wonderful: it cleans us, refreshes us, sustains us.  Our bodies are about sixty percent water, more or less, so we need water to keep us living.  Today we see that water can be powerful in our spiritual lives.  Water can wash away our sins, and we call that baptism.  We look forward to that wonderful day with our Elect on the evening of Holy Saturday.

    What we need to see in water is that it is a symbol of the fact that God gives us what we need, when we need it.  He gave the Israelites water in the desert, which is amazing.  He used water to awaken the Samaritan woman’s faith.  He provides refreshment for us on our spiritual journey, and he washes us clean with the waters of baptism.  We are all thirsty for something: the Israelites were thirsty for God’s help in the desert, Jesus was thirsty for the Samaritan woman’s faith.  We are thirst people too, and we can only quench that thirst by being washed clean in the waters of baptism, and growing each day in our faith.

    Even those of us who already have been baptized need to hear in these readings that we have to open ourselves to being quenched in our thirsts by God.  We can’t be going back to Egypt when things get rough: that only leads to the slavery of sin.  We have to be resolute and make our way through the desert of our lives, depending on the providence of God to build up our faith, so that we can make our way to the promised land of heaven. That promised land is where we are all expected.  Life is our journey of getting there.  The only way to make it is to drink deep of the Living Water that is Jesus, and allowing him to lead us to heaven.

  • Friday of the Second Week of Lent (School Mass)

    Friday of the Second Week of Lent (School Mass)

    Today’s readings

    Today’s two readings remind us of what Lent is all about.  During Lent, we remember that our Lord, who came down from heaven to earth to save us from our sins and re-connect us with the love of God, our Lord paid the price for our many sins by laying down his own life. 

    Probably some of our students remember the story from the first reading because, just two years ago, we staged a production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.  We know that Joseph’s jealous brothers ended up selling him into slavery in Egypt, but that in Egypt he became a powerful and talented government official who ended up saving many people, including his own brothers, from starvation during a famine. 

    The parallels here between Joseph and Jesus are many.  Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt; Jesus came to take away our slavery to sin.  Joseph’s own brothers plotted to kill him; Jesus was killed by us, his brothers and sisters.  Joseph fed the known world at that time by storing up grain for the day of famine; Jesus fed the multitudes, and us, with the bread that comes down from heaven.  Joseph was sold for twenty pieces of silver; Judas was given thirty pieces of silver to hand Jesus over to death.  Joseph, in many ways, was a foreshadowing of Jesus.

    In our Gospel today, Jesus tells a parable which is a foreshadowing of what will soon happen to him.  The vineyard owner, God the Father, is looking for the fruit of the harvest, which is our faith.  Instead, the people of old beat and murdered the prophets who came to give God’s word, just as the messengers of the vineyard owner were beaten and murdered.  And finally, when God, the vineyard owner, sends his own Son, he was killed too. 

    The people of Jesus’ day missed the foreshadowing, they missed the parallels, they didn’t get that God was continually reaching out to them to gather them in faith.  But we know the story, all of it, and we can’t be like them.  We have to be ready to hear the truth and act on it, to see Jesus in other people and respond to him, to live the Word he speaks to us and live that Word in faith each day.

    God loved us so much that he gave us his only begotten Son; we have to treasure that gift and let it make us new people.  That’s what Lent is all about, friends.  Lent means “springtime,” and it has to see new growth in us, so that we can be a vineyard of faith to give joy to the world.

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    I’m going to say something that is probably going to make you think I’ve lost my mind. And that is that the great sin of the rich man was not the sin of neglecting poor Lazarus. Sure, that was certainly bad, but his greatest sin, I think, was that he trusted in himself instead of in God. That’s the deadly sin of pride, and the Fathers of the Church often tell us of the devastating effects of it. So the rich man, well he had everything he thought he needed in life, and he trusted in himself and in his own means to get it. But he never had a relationship with God; he didn’t see that as something he needed. Would that he had heeded the prophecy of Jeremiah from today’s first reading.  You don’t see him praying in the story or even giving thanks to God for his riches. All you see is him doing is enjoying what he has amassed, to the neglect of the poor.

    So later on in the story, in death, he wants the good things God will provide for those who trust in him, people like Lazarus for example.   Lazarus has suffered much, and as the Old Testament Prophets proclaim, God is especially close to the poor and needy, so now he is exalted. But the rich man isn’t. He has already made his choice, and unfortunately now, trusting in himself doesn’t really help him at all.

    So the loud warning this morning is that we are all too often the rich man and not so often Lazarus. We have a lot of stuff, we are blessed on earth more than most of the people in the world today. But sadly that often puts us at odds with the things of heaven. We can’t reach out for those when we’re holding on to the passing things of this world. We can’t take the hand of Jesus when we’re grasping tightly the stuff life in this culture gives us. That’s why fasting is so important during Lent, as well as almsgiving: both bid us let go of passing things so that we can have, like Lazarus, things eternal. Both bid us trust in God, not in ourselves and other human beings. Jeremiah says it plainly today: “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.” But, conversely, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.”

    So the question is, in whom do we trust? In ourselves? In other people? Or in God? “Blessed are they,” the Psalmist says today, “who hope in the Lord.”

  • The Second Sunday of Lent

    The Second Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    What would you give up for love?

    That’s the question I want us to focus on today because I think it is, perhaps, the question of the spiritual life.  What is it that we are willing to give up for love?  And I’ll be honest: this set of readings gets me every time, and this is one of those homilies that has given me a few tears of repentance as I wrote it, and probably will as I preach it.  When I see what Abraham, Jesus, and ultimately God the Father would give up for love, it makes me repentant of the shoddy things I tend to hang on to.  But let’s bookmark that for a bit and get into the readings we have today.

    Today’s first reading puts poor Abraham in an awful position.  Remember, he and Sarah were childless well into their old age.  And it is only upon entering into relationship with God that that changes.  God gives them a son, along with a promise, that he would be the father of many nations.  That was unthinkable.  Think of anyone you know who has had to struggle with the pain of being childless.  And here God puts an end to that just when they have come to terms with the fact it was never going to happen.  Everything changes for them, an old and childless couple.

    And so put yourself in Abraham’s place.  After rejoicing in the son he never thought he’d have, God tells him: “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.  There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.”  It’s not a suggestion, it’s not an invitation, it’s an order.  Now, Abraham knows that it’s only because of the gift of God that he has Isaac to sacrifice in the first place.  But for those of you who are parents: think about it, what would you do?  How would you feel in that moment?  That boy is the answer to your life-long prayers, and now God wants him back.  Wow.

    The reading omits a chunk in the middle that is perhaps the most poignant part.  Abraham packs up and takes his son on a journey, travels with some servants, and at the end of it, he and Isaac haul the wood and the torch up the mountain.  Isaac asks him: “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the burnt offering?”  Can you even begin to imagine the anguish in poor Abraham’s heart?  And yet he responds in faith: “My son, God will provide the sheep for the burnt offering.”  Which, of course is true.  God had provided Isaac, who was intended to be the sheep.  God had, indeed, provided Isaac.  But Abraham couldn’t have known that God would intervene.

    Now, we could get caught up in the injustice here and call God to task for asking such a horrible thing in the first place.  Why would God test poor Abraham so?  Why would he give him a son in his old age, only to take him away?   What purpose did that have?  Who wants to worship a God who would do something like that.  But we have to know that the purpose of the story is to illustrate that God has salvation in mind; he always intends the good for us.  Yes, God would provide the lamb.  It was never going to be Isaac; it’s not even the sheep caught up in the thicket – not really.  We know that the sheep for the burnt offering is none other than God’s own Son, his only one, whom he loves.  The story is ultimately about Jesus, and his death and resurrection are what’s really going on in today’s Liturgy of the Word.

    Let’s let that sink in for a minute.  No, we don’t want to worship a God who would be evil enough to give a couple the gift of a child in their old age and then demand that he be sacrificed.  But we certainly worship this God who, in his great love for us, sacrifices his Son, his only one, whom he loves.  That, friends, is our God.  That’s what all of this is all about.

    Now let’s get back to the thought I asked you to bookmark at the beginning of my homily today: Abraham trusted God and was willing to give up the thing he’d probably die for – his own son.  God asked, and he, anguished as he must have been, made the preparations and was ready to do it.  That’s what love of God meant to him.  So what are we willing to give so that we can demonstrate – to ourselves if no one else – our trust in God’s ability to love us beyond all telling?  For Lent, we’ve given up chocolate, or sweets, or even negative thinking or swearing.  Maybe we’ve not done well with them, or maybe we have even given up on the things we gave up!  But we need to see in Abraham’s willingness that our sacrifices are important; they mean something.  So maybe now, still early in Lent, it’s time to take a second look at our Lenten sacrifices.  Can we go deeper?  What are we willing to give up to experience God’s love more fully?

    Jesus goes up a mountain in today’s readings too – and he too sees that he is to become the sheep for the sacrifice – sooner rather than later.  That was the meaning of the Law and the prophets of old, symbolized by Moses and Elijah on the mountain.  But knowing that, and knowing what’s at stake, he does not hesitate for a moment to go down the mountain and soldier on to that great sacrifice.  He willingly gives his own life to be the sheep for the sacrifice, because leaving us in our sins was a price he was not willing to pay.  His life was the thing he was willing to give up for love; for love of us.

    There are a lot of things out there for us that seem good.  But the only supreme good is the life of heaven, and eternity with our God.  Think of the thing that means everything to you: are you willing to sacrifice that to gain heaven?  Are you willing to give everything for love of God?

    Because, for you, for me, God did.

    God did that for us.

  • Thursday of the First Week of Lent

    Thursday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    If we take one thought out of Lent, it should be this: we need a Savior.

    Even before Jesus’ time, Esther knew this.  Esther’s adoptive father Mordecai was a deeply religious man.  His devotion incurred the wrath of Haman the Agagite, who was a court official of King Ahasuerus of Persia.  Mordecai refused to pay homage to Haman in the way prescribed by law, because it was idolatry. Because of this, Haman developed a deep hatred for Mordecai, and by extension, all of the Israelite people.  He convinced King Ahasuerus to decree that all Israelites be put to death, and they cast lots to determine the date for this despicable event.

    Meanwhile, Esther, Mordecai’s adopted daughter, is chosen to fill a spot in the King’s harem, replacing Queen Vashti.  Esther, however, never had revealed her own Israelite heritage to the King.  She would, of course, be part of the extermination order.  Mordecai came to Esther to inform her of the decree that Haman had proposed, and asked her to intercede on behalf of her own people to the King.  She was terrified to do this because court rules forbade her to come to the king without an invitation.  She asked Mordecai to have all of her people fast and pray, and she did the same.  The prayer that she offered is beautifully rendered in today’s first reading.

    Esther knew that there was no one that could help her, and that it was totally on her shoulders to intercede for her people.  Doing this was a risk to her own life, and the only one that she could rely on was God himself.  Her prayer was heard, her people were spared, and Haman himself was hung from the same noose that had been prepared for Mordecai and all his fellow Israelites.  This evening, in fact, begins the Jewish feast of Purim, which is a festive observance of this very biblical story.

    God hears our own persistent prayers.  We must constantly pray, and trust all of our needs to the one who knows them before we do.  We must ask, seek and knock of the one who made us and cares for us deeply.  But most of all, we must always be aware that, like Esther, we all need a Savior.

  • Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

    That’s advice I wish I’d taken sometimes when I’ve been coming down with something and think, “oh, it’ll pass.”  The sick need a physician!  How often have we had what we thought was a little cold or seasonal illness end up being much worse because we let it go, we didn’t want to go to the doctor?  This past year, that’s been so true with COVID-19.  The symptoms start out as something like a common seasonal illness, and sometimes they stay that way, but plenty have had something much worse develop.

    Anyone who has battled an addiction will tell you how true this is.  Many have thought, “Oh, I can stop any time I want.”  But they really need that intervention, that twelve step meeting or that time with a counsellor to really do what’s needed.  You cannot make any progress in wellness in any aspect of life if you don’t admit you’re sick and accept help.  We all have difficulty doing that sometimes, I think, and much to our demise.

    It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life.  If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, congratulations, you can skip Lent.  In fact you don’t even need a Savior!  I say that in jest, but really it’s true.  Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us.  It’s been said that the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners.  And thank God that’s true, because all of us, me and you, all of us, need the medicine of grace in our spiritual lives time and time again.  And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that.  Be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

    So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and let him heal us.

  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    Someone reminded me that last year, I proclaimed that Lent to be the “Lentiest Lent that ever Lented!”  Certainly we have just been through a very Lenty year, with the specter of a pandemic, the sadness of racial injustice and social unrest, the frustration of political rancor, and all the rest.  The arrival of Lent again, already, well, it almost seems unfair, doesn’t it?

    And this Lent seems more unfair with the directive that we cannot trace an ashen cross on people’s foreheads due to the pandemic.  Instead, today, we will sprinkle them on your heads as you bow in penitence.  But it seems like it’s just another thing they’ve taken away from us, that the virus has stolen from us.  Unless we, people of faith that we are, change our outlook.  If we look at this as an opportunity to receive ashes the way most non-English speaking countries in the world have for ages, then we can see this as an opportunity for Church unity.  If we seek to still witness to our faith even though we can’t point to our ashes, then we can see this as an opportunity to strengthen our Christian witness every day.  I get it: it’s still another thing we’ve lost this year, but if we activate our faith and let God give us new opportunities, then maybe this can be the moment that we get out of the funk we’ve seemingly been in for the last year and become a Church and a people who truly live for Christ so much that the people around us who don’t know Christ get curious about who he is.

    In every day and age, times are tough.  Sometimes it seems times are tougher than others, and if this isn’t one of them, I don’t know what is.  But the only way we can get through that, honestly, is by being people of faith who entrust their times to the providence and love of God, who is most merciful.  Lent, friends, gives us the opportunity to do that, as it always does, through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.

    Fasting can take on a whole lot of forms.  It’s not the same thing as going on a diet for Lent.  We should certainly give something up, something that will be uncomfortable, something we will miss.  It should, ideally, be something we have given greater place in our lives than we have to God.  In fasting, friends, we learn that there is nothing we hunger for that God can’t provide, and provide much better, if we let him.  Fasting makes us remember that God is trustworthy, that his love for us helps us in ways we can’t even imagine.  So perhaps we will give up a favorite food or a television show, or a video game or social media.  Maybe we will give up the necessity to always be right, to always get our way, to always get the final word.  Maybe we will give up deep-seated resentments, or unjust attitudes toward others.  Maybe we will give up just living for ourselves and taking care of “number one.”

    Almsgiving, too, can look different in every person’s life.  We are told that giving alms covers a multitude of sins, because giving alms shows love that is unencumbered by our ability to control things.  When we make a donation, when we give to a person in need, we let God decide exactly how that gets used.  It’s a way of freely giving of ourselves.  So maybe we will make a donation to the parish or to another charity; but almsgiving for us might look like giving of our time: helping to teach a religious education class or read to students, or looking in on an elderly neighbor or bringing them a lovingly-prepared meal.  Maybe giving alms for us looks like foregoing the daily Dunkin’ run or Starbucks stop and using that money to give to someone in need.  When we give of ourselves, we see God using us in ways we never even considered.

    And finally, prayer.  We’re supposed to be praying every day, of course, and I think most of us do.  But there’s always the need, I think, to grow in our prayer lives.  That’s certainly true for me.  Maybe our prayer has become rote, or stale.  If that’s true, Lent is a great time to shake things up and do a reset.  I always tell people who say that their prayer life isn’t going anywhere to try something new.  Maybe the Rosary, or Divine Mercy, or if you’ve been doing those, maybe some centering prayer or prayerfully reflecting on a book of Scripture during Lent.  It could be coming to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, even if we’re doing it drive-up style for now.  It could even be as simple as zealously digging out a five minute break in the day to sit and be silent, looking at a religious picture, or listening to some inspirational music.  Whatever it is that we haven’t tried, it might be worth trying and see if we find it helpful.  Whatever leads us closer to God is always a grace, and God uses different experiences to speak to us all the time.  Try trying something new!

    Lent isn’t all about the ashes.  There’s a lot to it: fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.  But in another sense, it is all about the ashes: how will we quiet ourselves, humble ourselves, do penance, and come closer to Jesus?  I hope your experience of ashes, and of Lent, this year enlivens your life with Christ in ways you never imagined.  I pray that this forty day retreat moves heaven and earth in our parish, in our community, and in our homes.

  • Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What strikes me about these readings is that they speak of the fact that we, with our limited human minds and imaginations, often don’t get God. Even those of us who are people of strong faith often miss what God is trying to do in us and among us. Which puts us in company with the Apostles. They lived with Jesus every day, and still, very often, they didn’t understand what he was trying to say to them or teach them. Jesus was trying to warn them not to get caught up in all the things the Pharisees get caught up in, and they thought he was disappointed they didn’t have enough food. Talk about getting your wires crossed.

    Then look at the first reading. We’re only in the sixth chapter of the first book of the Bible, just a few pages from the creation of the heavens, the earth, everything in them, and all of humanity. And it seems like God is already thinking this was a failed experiment. Or are we getting our wires crossed again? Maybe the purification of the earth was always part of God’s plan for our salvation. Maybe the new life that came forth after the flood was a foretaste and promise of the new life that would come from the Resurrection of the Lord.  Maybe the flood itself is a foretaste of Holy Baptism, which washes away everything in us that is impure.

    What we might take away from the Scriptures today is that often things of faith aren’t as easy to figure out as they may seem at first. We might often be missing what God is doing in us and among us. But a second, long look at things with the grace of the Holy Spirit can help us to see the salvation in the midst of everything that’s messed up. In the midst of all our calamities, God is absolutely working to bring us back to himself. But we have to pray for the grace to see that.

    As we get ready to launch into Lent tomorrow, maybe that could be one of our Lenten practices.  To really reflect on what God is doing in us and among us.  What has he been trying to teach us in the midst of this pandemic?  How does receiving ashes by sprinkling on the head as opposed to the cross on the forehead give us opportunities to connect to the biblical practice of sprinkling ashes for penance?  In order to grow in our faith, which must be the goal of all our lives, we need to be open to seeing things as God sees them.  We need to uncross our wires, and let Jesus teach us the Way to the Father.