Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Catholic Issues

  • Third Sunday of Ordinary Time – Respect Life

    Third Sunday of Ordinary Time – Respect Life

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word is kind of a homily about the Liturgy of the Word.  We hear in the readings about how powerful the Word of God is, and what an important part of our lives hearing those words is for those who believe.  Our first reading and our gospel reading both show moments where the word is proclaimed.

    In the first reading, the people are returning from a disastrous exile in Babylon.  Because they had not previously acted on God’s word, the Babylonians overtook them, and the cream of their population was carted off to exile.  The religious and political leaders, the learned teachers, the strong soldiers, all of these were taken from their midst.  So today’s reading finds them on the other side of that event: they are returning and beginning to think about the daunting task of rebuilding their society and its infrastructure.  They pause at the beginning of that to remind themselves of the words of Scripture that had been so important to them.

    The gospel reading finds the Israelites at a much later time, obviously, a time where the Temple had been destroyed.  In order to preserve their religion, the practice of meeting in synagogues had come about.  There, the words of Scripture would be read, and someone would give an interpretation of those words.  This time the proclaimer and interpreter is Jesus himself.

    What is common in these two readings is that each of them shows us three Scriptural moments. In the first moment, the Word is proclaimed. Second, that Word has an effect on its hearers. Finally, the Word is fulfilled. So first, the Word is proclaimed. In the first reading, Ezra the priest reads from the scroll from daybreak to midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand. It was quite the proclamation, and also included a kind of homily, apparently, since the reading tells us that Ezra provided an interpretation. This went on most of the day, I might add, so don’t complain if my homily is more than nine minutes!  The second time we see this is in the Gospel reading. Jesus takes the scroll of the law, and finds a particular passage from the prophet Isaiah and proclaims it. He too provides an interpretation, in the form of his very life.

    The second Scriptural moment is the Word’s effect on its hearers. For Ezra, the Word produced a very emotional response. The people bowed down in the presence of the Word, and began to weep. The weeping is presumably because, hearing the Word, they realized how far they were from keeping its commandments, and remembered that not following those commandments is what cast them into exile. Ezra then instructs them not to weep, but instead to rejoice and celebrate, because the proclamation of the Word on this holy day was an occasion for great joy. We don’t get any idea of how the rest of the congregation at the synagogue reacted to Jesus’ proclamation of Isaiah, but one would think that it would have been a pretty tame reaction until he announced that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy. Then we can imagine they had a lot to say and a perhaps indignant reaction.

    Finally, the Word is fulfilled. Jesus’ instruction in the Gospel that the words of Isaiah have been fulfilled in the synagogue-goers hearing tells us that Word is never intended to be a static thing. The words of Scripture than made the Israelite’s weep in Nehemiah and Ezra’s day are fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ and continue to be fulfilled in our own day.  We do not just passively sit through the proclamation of the Word, nod our heads, and move on to the Eucharist. The Word is a living thing and it is intended to have an effect on its hearers. Indeed, the Word is always intended to be fulfilled, and that fulfillment began with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his person, all of the promises of the Old Testament are brought into being, and the real hope of the world begins.

    The Word of God, we are told, is a living and active thing.  The Word leads us to a certain way of life, a belief that God is among us, and that he gifts us overwhelmingly every single day of our lives.  This time each year, we pause to be reminded particularly of the gift of life.  Perhaps we might find ourselves of the same mind as the Israelites who wept when they considered how far they had been from keeping God’s law.  The same could be said of our own society, which seems to value life less and less all the time.  Against this, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “Human life is sacred because from its beginning it involves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the right directly to destroy an innocent human being.” (CCC, 2258)

    This past Friday was the 37th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision that in effect legalized abortion in the United States.  The Church teaches us that abortion is a violation of the fifth commandment, which states: “Thou shall not kill.”  Participation in an abortion – which includes having one, paying for one, encouraging one, performing one, and helping in the performance of one – is a mortal sin.  Because we oppose abortion, we as a Church are committed to making alternatives to abortion more available, including adoption, financial assistance to parents and especially mothers in need, and education about the sanctity of life.

    Since 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided, our society has tumbled down the slippery slope of devaluing life and we are seeing the rotten fruits of it all over. War, violence, hatred, lack of concern for the poor and needy, lack of respect for the elderly and terminally ill, all of these things are symptoms of the culture of death that surrounds us. Far from liberating women and giving them choice over the use of their bodies, the legalization of abortion has driven many women to have an abortion simply because they thought that was their only option or because it was more convenient for family or the father.

    But respecting life goes beyond merely opposing abortion.  Our Church teaches us that we cannot claim to be Pro Life if we are in fact only anti-abortion. Our claim to righteousness has to be based on more than never having had the disastrous occasion of having to choose to participate in an abortion, or it’s not really righteousness at all. If we pray to end abortion and then do not attend to our obligation to the poor, or if we choose to support the death penalty, or if we engage in racial bigotry, then we are not in fact Pro Life. Every life, every life, every life is sacred, no matter what we may think of it.  It’s sacred because God created that life after his very own image and likeness.

    And I say all this not because I don’t think that abortion is anything short of a disaster: it most certainly is.  Abortion ends the life of a child, it ruins the lives of everyone involved, it damages society in ways we may never fully know.  I say this because it’s way too easy for us to oppose abortion and then call ourselves Pro Life and then go out and violate life in some other circumstance. We must be very careful of doing that, because not being completely Pro Life weakens our witness to the sanctity of life.  The world is watching us closely.  And we absolutely cannot be at all weak in our witness for life: our society needs our strength and passion for life so that there can be conversion and change and unity and peace.

    The Word of God continues to be proclaimed, to have an effect on us who hear it, and to be fulfilled in our hearing.  Our witness for life is an important way that the Word is fulfilled in our own day.  The Scriptures tell us that the culture of death doesn’t get the last word – God does, life does.  And for that, as Ezra exhorted the Israelites, we should rejoice.

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    I know a lot of people who get depressed this time of year.  Probably you do too.  Many people are missing loved ones who are far away from home, or who have passed away.  Some of my friends have a touch of seasonal affective disorder, and so they are depressed when we don’t see the sun as much on cloudy days like today, or when it gets dark so early as it does during this time.  Some people also look back on another year almost finished, and they lament what could have been, or what actually has been.  If there is any reason for being a little depressed at this time of year, it often seems like the joy that other people are experiencing during the Christmas season makes the pain even worse.

    So for whatever reason, many of us experience darkness during this season, when so many seem to be rejoicing in light.  In essence, that’s what Advent is all about.  The season of Advent recognizes the darkness of the world – the physical darkness, sure, but more than that the darkness of a world steeped in sin, a world marred by war and terrorism, an economy decimated by greed, peacefulness wounded by hatred, crime and dangers of all sorts.  This season of Advent also recognizes the darkness of our own lives – sin that has not been confessed, relationships broken by self-interest, personal growth tabled by laziness and fear.

    Advent says that God meets all that darkness head-on.  We don’t cower in the darkness; neither do we try to cover over the light.  Instead we put the lamp on a lampstand and shine the light into every dark corner of our lives and our world.  Isaiah prophesies about this Advent of light: “The light of the moon will be like that of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater [like the light of seven days].”  This is a light that changes everything.  It doesn’t just expose what’s imperfect and cause shame, instead it burns the light of God’s salvation into everything and everyone it illumines, making all things new.

    Our Church makes the light present in many ways – indeed, it is the whole purpose of the Church to shine a bright beacon of hope into a dark and lonely world.  We do that in symbolic ways: the progressive lighting of the Advent wreath symbolizes the world becoming lighter and lighter as we approach the birthday of our Savior.  But the Church doesn’t leave it simply in the realm of symbol or theory.  We are here tonight to take on that darkness and shine the light of Christ into every murky corner of our lives.  The Sacrament of Penance reconciles us with those we have wronged, reconciles us with the Church, and reconciles us most importantly with our God.  The darkness of broken relationships is completely banished with the Church’s words of absolution.  Just like the Advent calendars we’ve all had reveal more and more with every door we open, so the Sacrament of Penance brings Christ to fuller view within us whenever we let the light of that sacrament illumine our darkness.

    And so that’s why we’re here tonight.  We receive the light by being open to it and accepting it, tonight in a sacramental way.  Tonight, as we did at our baptism, we reject the darkness of sin and we “look east” as the hymn says, to accept the light of Christ which would dawn in our hearts.  Tonight we lay before our God everything that is broken in us, we hold up all of our darkness to be illumined by the light of God’s healing mercy.

    Each of the days of Advent, we have been praying the “O Antiphons” which the Church gives us in Evening prayer each day.  Yesterday’s “O Antiphon” spoke of the light we celebrate tonight: “O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”

    Tonight, our sacrament disperses the gloomy clouds of our sin and disperses the dark shadows of death that lurk within us.  The darkness in and around us is no match for the light of Christ.  As we approach Christmas, that light is ever nearer.  Jesus is, as the Gospel of John tells us, “the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

  • The Second Sunday of Advent [Cycle C]

    The Second Sunday of Advent [Cycle C]

    Today’s readings

    The other day, I was trying to get out of the driveway of the rectory, but traffic was pretty backed up on Duane Street, so I was having a hard time.  It didn’t take very long to realize that the culprit was that Prospect Avenue was closed at the railroad tracks.  So everyone was trying to figure out how to get across the tracks and traffic was sure snarled because of it.  This was just another example of the inconvenience of road construction and maintenance that is necessary, but irritating.

    My dad used to say that there are tearer-uppers and fixer-uppers when it comes to road construction, and apparently there are ten times as many tearer-uppers as there are fixer-uppers.  Now, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but when you’re sitting in a traffic jam, it starts to make real sense!

    We live in this area where there are just two seasons: winter and road construction, and so when we hear the prophet Baruch say “God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground, that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God,” well, we may just cringe a little bit.  But I think we can sure relate to the experience.

    At the time of the Babylonian empire, whenever the monarch traveled workers would precede him leveling the ground and filling in ditches to make the way smooth for his chariots.  So that explains Baruch’s prophecy, and also the prophecy of Isaiah that St. Luke quotes in today’s gospel:  “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths.  Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low.  The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.”  And it’s easy for us to extrapolate that in order to prepare the way for our monarch, Jesus Christ our king, we would want the way to be smooth and pristine too.

    But for us, the roadwork isn’t so much the topography of the countryside as it is the topography of our spiritual lives.  We all have rough spots, crooked ways and assorted obstacles on our spiritual paths. Our intentions to be friends with God may be good, but often we have lost our way or been stuck in a kind of spiritual traffic-jam. Our goal is communion with our friend, Jesus Christ. Our best intentions are to get there. Our frustration is that often we are derailed and never seem to reach the goal. But the promise is that God will indeed bring that good work to fulfillment, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, and we will then rejoice in our salvation with all God’s holy ones.

    But all of that presupposes that we are clear about the fact that we need a Savior. Wherever we are on the journey to Christ, whatever the obstacles we face, God promises to make it right through Jesus Christ – if we will let him. We may be facing the valley of hurts or resentments. God will fill in that valley. Perhaps we are up against a mountain of sinful behavior or shame. God will level that mountain. We may be lost on the winding roads of procrastination or apathy. God will straighten out that way. We may be riding along on the rough and bumpy ways of poor choices, sinful relationships and patterns of sin. God will make all those ways smooth. And all flesh – every one of us, brothers and sisters – we will all see the salvation of God. That’s a promise. God will forgive us all of our sins.  But we have to be open to the experience.

    And so, in the spirit of encouraging that openness, I want to make a very personal invitation.  If you find that you have quite a bit of unfinished road construction to do in your spiritual life, I invite you to take care of it this Advent.  The Sacrament of Penance is where we Catholics level those mountains, straighten those winding roads, and fill in the potholes that have derailed us along the way.  And we have plenty of opportunities to do that.  We have two more Saturdays when we hear confessions before the 5:00 Mass.  On Saturday the 19th, we will also hear confessions after Mass.  We also have a communal penance service on Tuesday the 22nd, where there will be ten priests available to hear confessions.  You have many opportunities to be open to the “baptism of repentance” that John the Baptist was preaching, and to make the way straight once again for the coming of the Lord in your own life.

    Now, having said that, I fully understand that there are many of you here who have not been to confession in many years.  I get it.  I myself was away from the sacrament for years before God worked on me and brought me back.  So here is Father Pat’s “Consumer’s Guide to the Sacrament of Penance:” If you have been away a long time, it will be hard to go back, but take that leap of faith anyway.  Be honest with the priest and tell him that it’s been years.  Even tell him if you’re not sure how to make a confession.  If he doesn’t welcome you back warmly and help you to make a good confession, you have my permission to get up and leave and find a priest who will.  Because it’s my job to help you make a good confession.  And it’s a privilege and a responsibility that I take very seriously.  I know that Father Jim and Father John do too.  Nothing must stand in the way of you receiving God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness, because it is a gift too precious to miss.

    That’s what Advent is about. The coming of Christ in our world isn’t just something that happened two thousand years ago. Advent means that Christ is coming into our world today, and every day, if we would just open our hearts and smooth out a place for him. God becomes incarnate in our world every time someone turns back to him and repents of their sin. God’s love comes to birth every time we accept the gift of forgiveness and the unfathomable grace of the Eucharist. Advent means that Chris is Emmanuel, God-with-us NOW. Advent means that the salvation and forgiveness that God promises us is available to us NOW.

    The truth is, brothers and sisters in Christ, we come to this holy place to this sacred Liturgy, each of us at different places in the spiritual road. Our goal – all of us – is to advance on that road, tackling the obstacles that face us, and defeating our sin by the power of God’s forgiveness and mercy. There may only be one unforgivable sin: the sin of thinking that we don’t need a Savior. When we rationalize that we’re basically good people and we’re okay and that there is nothing wrong with our lives or our relationships, then we’re lost. It’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive us this sin, it’s more that we refuse to have it forgiven. If Advent teaches us anything, it’s got to be that we all need that baptism of repentance that John the Baptist preached, that we all need to prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts, making straight the paths for his return to us.

    The Psalmist sings today that “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.”  I pray that you all find that out in the Sacrament of Penance this Advent season.

  • Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s gospel reading is a rather heartbreaking story, to be honest.  The rich young man is obviously a follower of the law and a religious man, because he is able to talk to Jesus about his observance.  But when Jesus tells him to let go of what he has in order to gain eternal life, he walks away dejected because he has so much.  We don’t know what ultimately happens to the rich young man.  Maybe he did go and begin the hard work of letting go, selling his possessions and giving to the poor.  And maybe he just couldn’t do it.  But at least he knows what he has to do.

    I think that far more heartbreaking than this story of the rich young man is the story of modern men and women, rich and not-so-rich, young and old alike.  I am more heartbroken for these because as much as the rich young man in the gospel story asked what he had to do to gain eternal life, too many of today’s men and women have lost the desire even to ask the question.

    We too are rich men and women, young and old.  Maybe we don’t think we have much, but we have way more than most people in most parts of the world.  We live in one of the richest counties of the richest nation on earth, and what we have is considerable.  If we too were told to go, sell what we have, and give to the poor so that we could have eternal life, most of us wouldn’t even know where to start.  But to be honest, so many people are not even there yet.  So many don’t even bother to ask what it takes to gain eternal life.  Many more don’t bother to live the requirements of religion, and even more don’t even know what those requirements are.

    We may be rich in the things of earth, but, as the story tells us, we are so very poor in the things of eternity.  “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”

    I hope your heart is breaking too.  These are not words of joy and blessing that Jesus is speaking to us today.  They are words of challenge.  He wants to light a fire under us and smack us full force out of our complacency.  “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”  So many people are not with us here at Mass today.  Whether it’s soccer or football or work or sloth, they are missing, and our gathering is the poorer for it.  Many of them will feel guilty about missing, perhaps some of them will even confess it.  But far too many of them don’t care or don’t even know that they should care.  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    People today, even maybe some of us gathered here today, are so greatly focused on getting ahead, becoming rich in the things of earth, skyrocketing our careers, being well thought of – we are so embarrassingly rich in all these ways.  But none of those things are going to get us into heaven, into the kingdom of God.  We are all being told today to go, sell those paltry, fading glory things and give to those who are poorer, so that we can all enter the kingdom of God together.  Will we too walk away, like the rich young man in the gospel, dejected and depressed because we have too much to let go of it all?  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    In this respect life month, we might find we are too rich in other ways as well.  We may cling to the way that we’re thought of and so encourage or at least look the other way when a mother ends a pregnancy.  Or we’re so concerned about the value of our homes and the safety of our riches that we tolerate the death penalty.  Or the care of a loved one takes us away from our work so we don’t care for those loved ones the way we should.  But we are a people who are gifted with life from conception to natural death, and we are called to reverence that life and celebrate that gift.  We have to let go of anything that gets in the way of that.  How hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!

    Taking hold of the kingdom of God necessarily means we have to let go of something.  That is the clear message of today’s gospel reading.  What we have to let go of is different for all of us, but clearly there is a rich young man or woman in all of us, and we have to be ready to give up whatever gets in our way, or what we will end up letting go of is the kingdom of God.  And that would be truly, horribly, unforgivably heartbreaking.

    “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”

    And so what do we do?  Do we give up, throw up our hands, and walk away dejected because we know it’s all too much – that what we have to let go of is beyond our capacity to do it?  No.  For us, truly, it may be impossible.  But nothing is impossible for God.  God hears that desire for eternal life in us and opens up the way to salvation.  He gave his Son to live our life and die our death and rise to new life that lasts forever.  That same glory is intended for all of us too.  All we have to do is let go – as frightening as that may well be for us – let go, and let God worry about the implications of it all.

    And Jesus points out that this will not be easy.  Those who give up their riches to follow him will receive blessing, but also challenge: they will receive “receive a hundred times more now in this present age: houses and brothers and sisters
    and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and eternal life in the age to come.”  There will be persecution in this life.  Not everyone will get why we are letting go.  And that makes the letting go so much more difficult.  But the rewards of a hundredfold here and a googol-fold in the kingdom are worth it.

    And so yes, I come here heartbroken today.  “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!”  But I know that God can make it possible in every person’s life.  All they and we have to do is let go of those things that are of fleeting and fading glory.  Because we’re going to need empty hands if we are ever to be able to hold on to the hundred-fold blessing that God wants us to have.

  • Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It would probably come as no surprise to you that today’s first reading and a part of the Gospel were read at the wedding I celebrated yesterday.  Obviously we left out the part about divorce, but these readings are quite popular for weddings.  The reason, of course, is that the story is about how man and woman were created for each other.  The totality of the readings we have today, though, are challenging.  We do have that piece about divorce there, and it does present a challenge in these days when somewhere around fifty percent of marriages fail.

    Apparently, the people of Israel were unable to accept the fullness of the teaching of marriage – not unlike today, obviously – Moses gave the men permission to divorce when necessary.  In that society, a woman’s reproductive rights belonged first to her father, and later to her husband.  So adultery could only be committed against the husband whose rights had been violated.  Our modern sensibilities see this as completely wrong, and Jesus seems to agree.  Jesus says that the man who remarries is committing adultery against his first wife, because she has rights in the marriage too.  Jesus levels the playing field here by giving both spouses rights in the relationship, but also the responsibility of not committing adultery against one another.

    In our society, we have to contend with this painful reality still.  Each spouse has rights and also responsibilities, and while we are all ready to accept our rights in just about any circumstance, we are hardly ever ready to accept our responsibilities.  That has led us not only to the problems we have with divorce, but in so many areas as well.  We are a people very unaccustomed to the demands of faithfulness, not just in marriage but also in our work and our communities, just to name a couple.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word rejects this lack of faithfulness.  Christian disciples are to be marked by their faithfulness to each other, to God, and to their communities.  Faithfulness is hard and very often inconvenient.  But for us, brothers and sisters in Christ, faithfulness is not optional.

    In wedding liturgies I always tell the bride and groom that faithfulness will make demands of them.  They will have to make a decision every day to be faithful to the promises they make at their wedding.  They will have to make a decision every day to love one another.  And sometimes this is easy, but sometimes it is hard to do, but either way, it’s still their calling.

    The same is true for me as a priest.  I have to renew my ordination promises every day.  I have to make a decision every day to be faithful to my God, be faithful to my ministry, be faithful to my promises, be faithful to my own spouse which is the Church, and my own family which is the people I serve.  Sometimes that’s a joy and the easiest thing in the world.  But then there are the days when we have a rough staff meeting, or I’ve celebrated the fourth funeral in the last ten days, or any number of challenging and frustrating things have happened.  Those are rough days, but I’m still called to be faithful.

    We are all of us called to be faithful citizens.  That is easy when our candidate wins the election or legislation we’ve been hoping for passes.  It’s not such a joy when he or she loses the election, or we don’t get to host the Olympics, or our interests aren’t being met, or the economy is plunging.  But we still are called to be faithful, doing our best to make things right, standing up for the poor, needy, and must vulnerable members of society, building the kingdom of God on earth whenever and however we can.

    One of the biggest challenges of our time is something of which we are mindful in a special way this month, and by that of course, I mean the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death.  It’s easy to remain faithful to that call when we don’t have to make the decision, but harder to remain faithful when someone we know is having a difficult pregnancy, or has been raped.  It’s hard to defend life to natural death when a loved one is suffering, clinging rather tenaciously to life even when they’re unable to live it.  It’s hard to defend life when someone in our community has been murdered and the death penalty is on the table.  But we disciples don’t get to pick and choose the occasions during which we will be faithful.  If our witness to life is to mean anything to the watching world, we’re going to have to be faithful always, even when it’s hard, even when it stretches us.

    The little vignette at the end of the Gospel reading today almost seems out of place.  I use this story at every baptism I do, and it’s easy to see why.  But I also think it relates to our call to faithfulness today.  Jesus promises the Kingdom of God to those who are like children.  Obviously he isn’t extolling the virtues of being childish here.  He is getting at, as he often does, something much deeper.  He notes that children are dependent on their parents or guardians for everything.  They don’t yet have rights in the society, they are unable to provide for themselves.  So they depend on the adults who care for them for all of their needs for safety and care.

    This is the kind of faithfulness Jesus would ask of us.  We need to approach our relationship with God with childlike faith.  We need to depend on God for our safety and provision.  We need to be faithful to God in good times and in bad, even when we cannot see the big picture.

    Faithfulness makes demands on us.  The disciple is the one who is ready to accept those demands.  The disciple makes a decision to love God and the people in his life every day.  The disciple makes a decision to be faithful to his or her vocation, whatever that vocation is, every day.  The disciple makes a decision to be faithful to God and the teachings of God’s Church every day.  Some days those decisions are easy, and some days they are more than challenging.  But the faithful disciple, the one who accepts the Kingdom of God like a child, has the promise of entering into it.

  • Memorial of 9-11-01

    Memorial of 9-11-01

    Today’s readings

    I think many of us will never forget where we were eight years ago today.  People say that about the day that President Kennedy died, or the day when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  But in a particular way, I think we will never forget September 11, 2001, because it was a day that changed our world in some very unpleasant ways and shattered whatever remained of our innocence.  Traveling and doing business has changed so much in these years.  So many of us have known people who have died in the twin towers, or in the war that has raged since.

    I remember the weekend following that horrible day.  I came home from seminary to visit with my parents, and we came here to church to pray.  The church was packed, on a Friday night.  And I know that in every church in America, pews were full every day and every weekend for quite a while.  Look around now, though.  Where is everyone?  Now that the world isn’t going to end as fast as we thought, do we no longer need God?  Or have we grown weary of the war that has been fought since and the changes in our world and just given up on God?

    I think that as the war continues, and the lack of peace seems to continue, and the somewhat subdued, now, but ever-present sense of terror continues, it might just be time for us to do some examination and to discern what has led to that sense of unrest.  Today’s Gospel gives us the examination of conscience that will help us to do that.  What precisely is the plank of wood in our own eyes that needs to be removed before we can concentrate on the splinter in the eye of another?  What is it that is un-peaceful in us that contributes, in some small but nonetheless very real measure to the lack of peace in the world?

    We all have to do that on an individual basis to start with. St. Paul does it in our first reading today when he admits to his friend Timothy, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man…”  And he acknowledges with deep gratitude and profound humility how God changed his life, had mercy on him, forgave him his sins, and gave him charge over one of the most significant evangelical and missionary ministries in the history of the world.  We, too, are blasphemers, persecutors and arrogant men and women, and it is time for us to humbly acknowledge that and urgently beg from God the grace to turn it around, that all the world might be turned around with us.

    But we also have to do this on a communal basis as well.  We don’t go to salvation alone; that’s why we Catholics don’t get overly excited about having a personal relationship with Jesus.  For us, a personal relationship with Christ, is like that first baby step; once we’re there, we know that we cannot rest and admire our work.  A personal relationship with Christ is certainly a good start for us, but we know that we have to be faithful in community or nothing truly great can ever happen.  So it’s up to all of us together to work for true peace, figuring out what in our society has led to unrest and mercilessly casting it out, opening ourselves to the peacemaking power of God that can transform the whole world.  Together, as the Mass for the Feast of Christ the King will tell us, we must work with Christ to present to God “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

    I get a little worked up when I think about this kind of thing, because I’ve come to realize this is the only way it’s all going to get wrapped up rightly.  Only when all the world has come to know the saving power of our God will we experience the return to grace that we lost in the Garden of Eden.  And that will never happen until all peoples have learned to love and respect one another, and have come to be open to the true peace that only God can give us.

    It didn’t all go wrong on 9-11; if we are honest, that horrifying day was a long time coming.  But that day should have been a loud, blaring wake-up call to all of us that things have to change if we are ever going to experience the peace of Christ’s kingdom.  We are not going to get there without any one person or even any group of people; we need for all of us to repent if any of us will ever see that great day.  Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, absolutely must be a time when we all hear that wakeup call yet anew, and respond to it from the depths of our hearts, both as individuals, and as a society.

    Truly we will never forget where we were on that horrible day of 9-11.  But wouldn’t it be great if we could all one day look back with fondness, remembering with great joy the day when we finally partnered with our God and turned it all around?

  • Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings
    What Every Catholic Should Know about the Anointing of the Sick

    Jesus’ ministry on earth was all about healing.  In today’s gospel, he heals a man who has been deaf and mute with the word of command: “Ephphatha!” – “Be opened!”  And this word – no surprise – is not just about the deaf and mute man.  The reason Mark brings it up is because Ephphatha is what Jesus is about.  He is about healing, and opening up a way for those who have been at odds with God to be back in relationship with him.  So whether the obstacle has been a physical illness or a spiritual one, he commands ephphatha, that the way be opened and the obstacle obliterated, and the illness of the broken one bound up and the way made straight for the person to be in communion with God.

    St. James today invites us to take a look at the issue from another angle.  Have we pre-judged people who are not like us when they come to the Church, or to us in any way?  Do we look down on those who don’t dress like us, or don’t speak like us, or don’t act like us?  Do these people have illness that needs to be healed?  Or is it we that have the illness, being unable to see them as Christ does, as brothers and sisters and children of God?  So whatever the illness is today, whether it is ours or someone else’s, Jesus commands it to be ephphatha that nothing may be an obstacle to the love of God and the healing of Jesus Christ.

    Since the readings lead us to a place of healing, I want to take this opportunity to speak of one of the sacraments of healing, namely the Anointing of the Sick.  I want to look at it from two angles, first from a personal witness, then from a more catechetical perspective.  And I do this because the Anointing of the Sick is incredibly misunderstood, even by faithful Catholics.  There are those who do not benefit from the sacrament, because they think it is only for the dying, and there are even those who go without the sacrament because they wait too long and the person dies without benefit of the sacraments.  This is not what the Church intends, of course, and it is an extremely serious error.

    So this first part is personal witness, and you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I get a little emotional.  When I was in my second year of seminary my mother and father were both diagnosed with cancer within about a month of each other.  As you can well imagine, this was a very difficult time for our family, but thank God we had the Church to walk with us through their illness.  Both of them received the Anointing of the Sick from their pastor before they had surgery.  I remember that we gathered in the church, just after Sunday Mass, and he beautifully led them through the rite.  It was wonderful for them, of course, but also helpful for us who were grieving their illness with them.  The sacraments are never just for one person; they always involve and even benefit the whole community.

    After I was ordained a priest for not quite a year, dad’s illness became more serious.  One Friday, just after the school mass, one of our parish staff members came to me and told me I had to call mom because dad needed to go to the hospital.  He had become rather weak, and unable really to get around without help.  We took him to the emergency room, and in the course of the day’s tests, I anointed him.  I actually also anointed my Uncle Bob, who had come for tests related to his own heart condition, and had stopped in to check on dad before he went to his appointment.  So we all celebrated the sacrament, again, together.

    Dad never left the hospital that weekend.  By Saturday night, his condition was deteriorating.  On Sunday, just after I was done with Mass, I headed to the hospital.  On the way, my sister Peggy called to let me know they were moving dad and that I should call when I was closer to the hospital so that I’d know where they were.  When I did that, she told me she would just meet me at the door.  At that point, I was sure that dad was dying or perhaps had even died, so I brought my sick call kit with me.  Both of my sisters met me there and told me he was dying.

    So we went to his room, where pretty much all of my family had gathered.  Mom, my sisters and brother-in-law, the kids, dad’s brothers and sister, the in-laws, everyone.  At that time, I gave dad the Last Rites, which we still do have in the Church.  I had given those Last Rites to many people by then, but as you can imagine, this was the hardest time ever.  Dad died early the next morning, totally prepared for the journey, ready to meet the Lord.  We had all prayed with him and were ready to wish him farewell.  It was a difficult, but beautifully prayerful day.

    I bring this up because it illustrates three times when a person should be anointed.  First, just before serious surgery related to an illness, as both my parents were before their cancer surgery.  Second, when health seriously deteriorates, even during the same illness, as when we brought dad to the emergency room.  And third, just before death.

    The letter of St. James tells us: “Is anyone among you sick?  He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.”  (James 5:14-15)

    The Anointing of the Sick is the official name for what many people think of, erroneously, as the “Last Rites” or may have traditionally called Extreme unction.  The term “Extreme unction” is the Latin for “Last anointing.”  And in the days between the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century and Vatican II, that was the nature of the sacrament: a last anointing to prepare a person for death.

    But Vatican II changed that.  Vatican II actually reverted to the more ancient practice of anointing the sick – not just the terminally ill or dying person – which may restore a person to health, aid in their healing and recuperation, or calm their mind and spirit if they are indeed preparing for death.  So the sacrament today is broader than just a last anointing.

    But the Last Rites do still exist, and it is important for one to receive them if possible.  Dad did just before he died.  The Last Rites prepare a person for death, when death is immanent.  These rites include sacramental penance, the anointing of the sick, and Viaticum.

    Viaticum is one’s last Communion.  In Latin, Viaticum literally means “bread for the journey.”  All Catholics are strongly encouraged to receive Communion when death is immanent, and this is the Church’s way of allowing the dying to be intimately united with the Lord in their last moments.  Just before death, sometimes people are not able to take solid food.  In that case, they receive spiritual communion and retain the graces of the sacrament.  Taken together, the three sacraments prepare us for our eternal life, and help us to be ready to meet our God.

    It is important, as you saw in my own personal witness, that the rites for the sick, when possible, be received with the community present.  Most often this includes the loved ones of the sick person, but might also include parishioners, neighbors, or even health care workers.  The sacraments are always meant to be celebrated in community where possible, and this is a help to both the sick person and to the loved ones.

    Indeed, the entire Christian community is involved in the Pastoral Care of the Sick.  We are call called to participate in the healing ministry of Christ. Priests are called upon to celebrate the sacraments with the sick with special care so that they may give the sick hope. Lay people are called upon to visit the sick as a corporal work of mercy, and to encourage the sick to receive the sacraments when the time comes.  Finally, the sick are called upon to receive the anointing of the sick during their illness, and to faithfully join their sufferings to the passion and death of the Lord, for the well-being of the Church.

    This next part is very important, so everyone look at me and hear this, please.  It is important that someone from the family notify the Church in the event of illness of a loved one.  Current laws in the U.S. do not allow hospitals to easily share such information, as they did in the past, so your phone call may be the only way the priests know your loved one is ill.  And if we don’t know they are ill, we can’t care for them or pray for them.  The family really has to do this, because due to privacy concerns, we cannot take action (like praying for them at Mass or putting their name on the sick list in the bulletin) based on information from any other person.

    Finally, I want to say that we here at St. Petronille are fortunate to have many people ready to bring Communion to the homebound.  However, we don’t know of too many people in that kind of need, so many of them have no one to visit at this time.  But, during the short time I’ve been here, we have had a number of elderly, home-bound people die, so I know that many more are out there.  If you know of a homebound person, please let us know so that we may care for them.

    The people who saw what Jesus was doing by healing the sick said, “He has done all things well.  He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  That ministry is now entrusted to us.  Let us, too, do it well, so that those who are ill in any way may hear the Lord’s command of Ephphatha! and may come at last into the healing presence of our God.

  • Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    Today we have set before us two tables.  One is the incredibly rich banquet of wisdom, and the other is, I don’t know, the fast food of foolishness, I guess.  The question is, at which table have we been eating?

    We see in today’s first reading the personification of wisdom.  Wisdom is seen as a female character who has made preparations for a luxurious meal.  Meat has been prepared, and that was a luxury in biblical times.  Wine has been mixed, probably with spices to improve its flavor and make it a bit more potent.  But the invitation has gone out not to the rich and powerful, but the simple and those who lack understanding.  These are the ones who are called to the banquet of wisdom to partake of this incredible meal.  They will feast on the rich meat of understanding and be carried away by the potency of the wine of enlightenment.  But coming to that table requires turning away from foolishness, and it is only by doing so and eating at this table that one can live.

    The second reading, too, speaks of this choice, but with a tone of warning: be sure to live not as foolish persons but as wise – watch carefully, St. Paul warns, how you live.  He acknowledges that the days in which the Ephesians were living were evil ones, something to which, I think, every generation can relate – no generation ever fails to experience evil in some way at some time.  And so, to combat evil, they – and we – are warned to aspire to right conduct.  Try to understand the will of God, which is the project of all our lives.  Don’t live in drunkenness, whether caused by wine or just by immersing oneself into the foolishness of the world around you.  Instead, we are called to be people of prayer, following God’s will, singing God’s praise, “giving thanks always and for everything.”  The word thanks here is, in Greek, eucharisteo, of course, meaning we are to live as Eucharistic people, aware of God’s blessings, and thankful for the grace we have received.

    All of this serves as a fitting prelude to the choice Jesus’ audience is facing in today’s Gospel.  They have been mesmerized by the feeding of the multitudes that we heard about a few weeks ago.  And they have been hanging in there as Jesus has unpacked the meaning of that event in the time that has followed.  But now, they have to come to terms with all of it.  Many are repulsed, understandably, I think, at the notion of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of another person.  And so now they have to decide if this is something they can live with.  Next week, in the Gospel, we will see how that shakes out.  But ironically, as we now know, this is something they cannot live without.

    As we come to worship today, we have been dining at one of the other of the tables ourselves.  Have we been dining at the table of foolishness?  Have we tried living by mere human wisdom; put our security and trust in material things; relied on temporary and superficial appearances and even put off feeding our spirits to another time?  Have we surfed the web to find wisdom, and gotten bogged down in the nonsense that lurks there?  Have we glued ourselves to television and hung on the words of Oprah and Dr. Phil, or been lost in the banal world of reality TV?  Those of us who are well educated may have thought book learning would give us answers to life’s imponderables.  Perhaps the results have left us still hungry; like trying to fill our stomachs eating lettuce soup. We may feel some initial satisfaction, but it soon passes and all we can think of is where we can find food.  We have been dining at the wrong table.

    And so wisdom calls out to us simple ones to pull up a chair to the right banquet.  Feasting on the richness of wisdom leads us inevitably to the banquet of the Lord.  Will we be repulsed at the idea of eating the flesh and blood of our Lord, or will we set aside the so-called wisdom of the world and embrace the real wisdom of God, which is so far beyond our understanding?  Jesus says to us today that we can become part of God, indeed that is the whole point.  We were created to become part of God’s life, to be caught up in him, and to be part of him.  But the problem is, our dining on the fast food of foolishness, the so-called “wisdom” of this world, has left us sinful and sorrowful, with an emptiness that cannot be filled up in that way.

    And so God did the only thing he could do.  If we could not be part of him because of our foolishness, he decided to become part of us.  He sent his son Jesus into our world to walk among us, to live our life, to walk on the earth as we do.  Jesus ultimately gave himself for us, offering his body and blood for our salvation, giving us this great nourishment so that he could become part of us in a similar way to the way all food becomes part of us.  As we dine at the table of the Lord, our God who wanted us to become part of him becomes part of us, and so we are caught up again into his life as we were always supposed to have been.

    Jesus fed several thousand people with five loaves and two fish a few weeks ago.  But that was nothing.  It was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what he wants to do now.  Now he wants to give himself so that we can be one with him:

    For my flesh is true food,
    and my blood is true drink.
    Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
    remains in me and I in him.

    People who content themselves in eating the food of this world – even if it’s manna from heaven – will still die.  But those – and only those – who eat the bread that is Jesus will live forever.  That’s what Jesus tells us today.  Because it is only by Jesus becoming part of us that we can become part of God, which is the fulfillment of our destiny as creatures of our God.  This is a hard teaching, and we may struggle with it in the same way the crowds struggled with it when Jesus said it.  But this is Truth; this is the wisdom of God; this is the way we get filled up so that we never hunger again.

    And so which table will we choose now?  Please God let us follow the Psalmist’s advice: Taste and see the goodness of the Lord!

  • Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Today’s readings

    The Bread of Life Discourse: an outline

    Bishop Kaffer used to say that every celebration of the Eucharist was a greater creative act than the creation of the universe.  Now I think greater theological minds than mine would likely debate that, but what Bishop Kaffer gets at is worth considering.  The Eucharist is an incredible miracle, and we are privileged to be part of it every time we gather to celebrate Mass.  Beginning this Sunday, for five weeks, we will take a bit of an excursus from reading Mark’s Gospel as we do during this Church year.  We will instead read from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which is commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.”

    The Bread of Life Discourse is one of the most important themes of John’s Gospel.  For John, this is the account of the institution of the Eucharist.  For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the institution takes place at the Last Supper with the famous words, “take and eat” and “take a drink.”  But John’s Last Supper doesn’t have that story.  There John focuses on the washing of the feet, teaching his disciples to care for one another as he has cared for them.

    The feeding of the multitudes is a story that has the unique distinction of being in all four of the Gospels.  But, because this is John’s account of the institution of the Eucharist, he covers it a bit differently.  Still, that the story is found in all of the Gospel accounts that we have indicates how important the incident was for the early Church.  For John, though, it is clearly Jesus who is in charge here.  First of all, it is Jesus who notices that the crowds are hungry; they have expressed no such need.  Jesus doesn’t need anyone to tell him what the people need or how to minister to them; he has the ability to figure that out for himself.

    Second, like a good salesman, he doesn’t ask any questions to which he doesn’t already know the answer.  When he asks Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” he already knows the answer.  But certainly it stumps Philip, who, not recognizing it as a rhetorical question, notes that not even 200 days wages would provide food for each of these people to have a little.  The key here, though, is that Jesus asked the question knowing full well what he was going to do.

    And third, when the loaves and fishes had been gathered and blessed, it is Jesus, not the Twelve, who distribute the food to the people.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus gives the food to the Apostles to give to the people.  But in John’s account, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks, and gives it to the people himself.  The word “thanks” here, in Greek, is eucharisteo, which makes obvious the fact that this is Jesus, fully in charge, giving the Eucharist to the people and to us.

    At the heart of John’s story of the feeding of the multitudes is the important teaching that Jesus is enough.  Here the boy brought two fish and five loaves of bread, and they were barley loaves, the bread of the poor.  It was probably his lunch for the day, and certainly not meant to feed so many people.  And there were a lot of people.  The gender-biased story says there were five thousand men there.  We can assume there were also women and children, after all it was the boy who sacrificed his lunch for the crowd.  So the actual number of people fed was huge.  But look again at how many pieces of food there were: five loaves, two fish, together that equals seven, which is a very Biblical number, usually symbolizing completeness.  Jesus takes the little lunch, and in his hands it is enough, and more than enough, to feed the crowd.

    And everyone who needed to be fed was not at the picnic.  The disciples gathered up twelve baskets of leftovers, reminiscent of the Twelve apostles, and the twelve tribes of Israel.  All these leftovers are meant to feed others, including you and me.  And that can happen because Jesus is enough, and more than enough, to fill our hungry stomachs, and hearts, and souls.  This little picnic is the Eucharistic banquet par excellence, the first giving of the sacrament that is the source and summit of our lives as Christians.

    Now I want to make a note about an explanation of this miracle that you may sometimes hear.  The explanation goes that when Jesus started passing around the loaves and fish, other people noticed what he did and they too decided to share their lunches with the crowd.  So someone took out a sandwich and shared it, another shared some of their fish, or some bread, or whatever it was they had.  And so on and so on until lo and behold, everyone has had enough and there are leftovers.  This is often known as the “miracle of sharing” and it’s very heartwarming to be sure.  It’s the kind of thing Oprah and Dr. Phil would be all over.  How great it is that we can help each other out and do great things.

    But that explanation is wrong, dead wrong.  Absolutely wrong, without a doubt.  Don’t let anyone insist to you that it’s right.  And here’s the rule of thumb: whenever an explanation makes the Gospel story more about us than it is about Christ, it’s always wrong.  Always.  Without exception.  The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus came to bring, and the story is always about him.  The miracle here is not that so many people were touched to their heart and decided to share.  The miracle is that a boy sacrificed his five loaves and two fish, and in Jesus’ hands they become enough, and more than enough, to fill the stomachs of every person on that grassy hillside, and twelve baskets besides.  Period.

    What is important here is that we need to know that this kind of thing goes on all the time, even in our own day. Jesus always notices the needs and hungers of his people. Perhaps you have seen a need in the community, maybe a family who is in need, or an issue that needs to be addressed. You noticed that because the Spirit of Jesus is working in you. It’s very easy to go through life noticing nothing and no one, but that doesn’t happen in disciples. Disciples are the ears and eyes of Jesus, and he notices the needs of his people through us every day. Now, having noticed a need, we may very well feel inadequate to fill it. What good is our few hours of time or few dollars going to do for such a huge need? How can our imperfect talents make up for such a need? Here we have to trust that Jesus will do with our imperfect offerings as he did with the five loaves and two fish. Jesus makes up for our lack, and we can take comfort in that. If we are faithful to respond to the need with what we have, we can be sure that Jesus will use what we have, and it will be enough, and more than enough, to feed our hungry world.

    We can do that because Jesus feeds us all the time. Every time we come to the Table of the Lord, we are given a little bit of bread and a sip of wine that has become the Body and Blood of Christ our Savior. At every Eucharist, we are fed more wonderfully and superabundantly than even the crowd in today’s Gospel. We are fed with food that will never pass away or perish, we are fed with the Bread of Eternal life. Since we disciples have that gift at our disposal, we would do well to bring ourselves to it as often as we can, and as well-disposed for it as we can. We must make it our constant care to attend Mass all the time, and to use the Sacrament of Penance to prepare ourselves to receive the grace of the Eucharist. Disciples who regularly and faithfully feed themselves with the Bread of Life will find it natural to offer their meager gifts to feed great hungers in our world, hungers that our God longs to fill.

    And so we gratefully come to the Eucharist today, to take part in a meal even more wonderful than the feeding of the multitudes, and partake of a bread far more nourishing than barley loaves. We come to the Eucharist today to have all of our hungers fed, and to take baskets of leftovers to feed those who hunger in and around us this week. We pray for the grace to notice the needs of others and the grace to offer what we have to serve the poor, trusting in God to make up for what we lack. We pray the words of the psalmist with trust and gratitude: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate with great joy one of the most wonderful feasts on our Church calendar, the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. Through this greatest of all gifts, we have been made one with our God who loves his people beyond all imagining. We experience this love in perhaps one of the most basic ways of our human existence, which is to say by being fed. Learning to satisfy our hunger is one of the first things we learn; we learn who we can depend on and develop close relationships with those people. Today’s feast brings it to a higher level, of course. The hunger we’re talking about is not mere physical hunger, but instead a deep inner yearning, a hunger for wholeness, for relatedness, for intimate union with our Creator and Redeemer.

    What we see in our God is one who has always desired deep union with his people. We have just recently finished the Lent and Easter seasons, in which the history of God’s work in salvation history has been beautifully recalled. Salvation began with the creation of the whole world, the saving of Noah and those on the ark, the covenant made with Abraham, the ministry of the prophets, and ultimately culminated in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, the acceptable sacrifice which brings salvation to the whole world. God never lost interest in his creation; he didn’t set the world in motion and then back off to leave everything to its own devices. God has time and again intervened in human history, offering us an olive branch, seeking renewal of our relationship with him, and bringing us back no matter how far we have fallen.

    God has repeatedly sought to covenant with us. Eucharistic Prayer IV beautifully summarizes God’s desire: “You formed man in your own likeness and set him over the whole world to serve you, his creator, and to rule over all creatures. Even when he disobeyed you and lost your friendship you did not abandon him to the power of death, but helped all men to seek and find you. Again and again you offered a covenant to man, and through the prophets taught him to hope for salvation.”

    And unlike human covenants, which have to be ratified by both parties, and are useless unless both parties agree, the covenant offered by God is effective on its face. God initiates the covenant, unilaterally, out of love for us. Our hardness of heart, our sinfulness, our constant turning away from the covenant do not nullify that covenant. God’s grace transcends our weakness, God’s jealous love for us and constant pursuit of us is limitless.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us the history of the covenant. The first reading recalls the covenant God made with the Israelites through the ministry of Moses. The people agree to do everything the Lord commanded, and Moses seals the covenant by sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice and saying, “This is the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words of his.” The writer of the Letter to the Hebrews makes the point that if the blood of sacrificed animals can bring people back in relationship with God, how much more could the blood of Christ draw back all those who have strayed. Christ is the mediator of the new covenant, as he himself said in the Gospel: “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.”

    And so we, the many, benefit from Christ’s blood of the covenant. The preface for the Eucharist Prayer today says, “As we eat his body which he gave for us, we grow in strength. As we drink his blood which he poured out for us, we are washed clean.” God’s desire for covenant with us cannot be stopped by sin or death or the grave.

    We disciples are called then to respond to the covenant. Having been recipients of the great grace of God’s love, we are called to live the covenant in our relationships with others. Which isn’t always the easiest thing to do. Sometimes people test our desire to covenant with them; sometimes they don’t even want to be in covenant with us. But the model for our relationships with others is the relationship God has with us. And so sometimes we have to unilaterally extend the covenant, even if the other isn’t willing, or doesn’t know, that we care for them. God wants to offer the covenant to everyone on earth, and he may well be using us to extend the covenant to those he puts in our path. As the alternate opening prayer for today says, “May we offer to our brothers and sisters a life poured out in loving service of that kingdom where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit…”

    We do this in so many ways. Here at St. Raphael, one of the important ways we do that is through our support of Hesed House and Loaves and Fishes. The Loaves and Fishes Community Pantry began in a closet here at St. Raphael in 1984. That year, eight families were helped. This year, as the year began, 1,800 families were helped, and that number has grown by about a hundred families a month due to this economy. Most recently, the pantry helped 2,800 families. I was privileged to offer the invocation at their 24 Hours Without Hunger event two weeks ago. The executive director expressed the organization’s deep regard for St. Raphael, noting that although so many Naperville churches currently support them, St. Raphael’s continues to be by far their largest congregational supporter.

    We absolutely should feel good about the ways we show our love for our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we cannot rest on our laurels, as that number of families served continues to grow, we who are able must be strong in our support of them. One of the particular needs they have in the summer months is to provide extra food for children who, during the school year, receive a free lunch at school. They want to provide additional juice boxes and healthy snacks for kids this summer. Maybe we can all buy another box of snacks or juice boxes the next time we shop. Or even add slightly to our envelope for Loaves and Fishes on the second Sunday of the month. This is a great option because every dollar we give them can buy $10 worth of food through their sources. A small effort can be a great blessing to those in need this summer.

    God’s covenant with us is renewed every day, and celebrated every time we come to receive Holy Communion. When we receive the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are renewed in the covenant, strengthened in grace and holiness, and brought nearer to our God who longs for us. We who are so richly graced can do no less than extend the covenant to others, helping them too to know God’s love for them, feeding them physically and spiritually.

    The Psalmist asks today, “How shall I make a return to the LORD for all the good he has done for me?” And the answer is given: by taking up the chalice of salvation, drinking of God’s grace, renewing the covenant, and passing it on to others. May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to everlasting life!