Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Jesus Christ

  • The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    Today’s readings

    In a lot of ways, this is a strange feast we are celebrating today. Think about it. This is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which in Jesus’ day would have been as big an oxymoron as one could possibly imagine. It’s like us saying that we are going to celebrate the exaltation of a lethal injection chamber. There is nothing exalted about an instrument of execution: it’s tortuous, humiliating, and as dark as one can get.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Transfiguration of the Lord 

    The Transfiguration of the Lord 

    Sometimes I think that, because of the limitedness of our minds, we accept a rather small view of Jesus. We think of him as a friend and brother, which is okay, but he is also our Lord and God. The disciples had this problem too, although they had a good excuse: they didn’t have two thousand years of Church history to guide them! So they were definitely familiar with the human side of Jesus: Over the time they had spent with him thus far, they had become close to him and saw him as a friend, a companion on the journey, and a great teacher. But they were always having trouble with his divinity. 

    Today’s feast changes all of that for them, and for us as well. If there was any doubt about who Jesus was, it’s gone now. That voice from the cloud is absolutely specific: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Jesus is the Son of God and his divinity must be embraced and proclaimed. While it can be comfortable for us to have a picture of Jesus that is absolutely human, we must always keep in mind the Transfigured Christ, dazzling white, radiating glory, the lamp shining in a dark place. He is the Son of Man of whom Daniel speaks, and to him belongs dominion, glory, and kingship. If Jesus were only human, we would have no Savior, we would have no chance of touching divinity ourselves, that divinity for which we were created. 

    On the way to the mountain, the disciples came to know Jesus in his humanity, and on the way down, they came to know Jesus in his divinity. That trip down from the mountain took him to Calvary, and ultimately to the Resurrection, the glory of all glories. Christ is both human and divine, without any kind of division or separation. We must be ready to see both natures of our Jesus, so that we ourselves can transfigure our world with justice, compassion and mercy, in the divine image of our beautiful Savior. No matter what challenges may confront us or what obstacles may appear along the way, we must be encouraged to press on with the words of the Psalmist: “The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.” 

  • The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    Yesterday I had a bad flare-up of plantar’s fasciitis, and had to go to the doctor. I was in pain a lot of the day, and it just got exhausting. In the evening, I was to have dinner with one of my priest friends, and when he found out how I was feeling, he had dinner for me at his rectory so we could relax and not have to walk around a lot. It was nice to be taken care of. I think that is true whenever we’re not feeling well: when someone takes care of us, it seems to heal us deep inside.

    And that’s what today’s feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is all about. We are all broken and hurting and in pain, spiritually. We might ignore it, or offer it up, or worst of all, might try to mask it with alcohol or other addictions. But none of that really heals us. The only thing that really heals is the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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

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

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

  • The Presentation of the Lord

    The Presentation of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Back in the time that Jesus lived, it was a law that every first-born male in a family was presented to God, given to God to do God’s will. They would come on the fortieth day of the child’s life and present the child, along with a sacrificial offering and they would receive a blessing from one of the priests. It hardly seems possible, but it’s already been forty days since Christmas, since the day Jesus was born! How time flies!

    Of course, you have to love the irony in the story here because, in the case of Jesus, his parents were presenting their child, who was God, to God. They were giving back to God the child that God only gave them to take care of for a while. Just as every first-born son was presented to God in order to do something special with his life, this first, and only born Son of God and son of Mary and Joseph had the most special thing ever to do with his life, and that was to lay his life down for all of us.

    On this feast day every year, we bless candles to light the Church and light people’s homes. We do that because we remember that on this day, Jesus, who is the Light of the World, was presented to the wise old Simeon, who recognized that Jesus was the Light that was to come into the world. God’s Spirit had promised that he would never die until he saw that Light, and now he knew that he could die in peace.

    Simeon was at peace because he knew that God was lighting the world and taking care of his people who used to dwell in darkness. The same is true for all of us. Sometimes the world can be a dark place because of war or violence or hatred, or many other evils. It can be hard to see where our world is going in times like that, and oftentimes we ourselves fall into temptation or into sin. We need light to show us the way out of all that darkness.

    And, of course, we have that light. Jesus is the one who came into the world and lit up the world and lights up our lives. He lit up the lives of Mary, and Joseph, and Simeon and now he lights up our lives and shows us the way out of the darkness. Even if we do fall here and there, Jesus’ light helps us to get back up and get going on the path once again.

    The Lord is our light and our salvation. Whom should we fear?

  • The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    The Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Sadly, today is the last day of the Christmas Season. The rest of society may have tossed out the Christmas trees, and taken down the festive decorations, but not us. What a wonderful gift we have as Catholics to celebrate the birth of our Lord for an extended period of time! Last Sunday was the Epiphany of the Lord, a time to celebrate Christ manifested in the flesh, the greatest gift of God to his creation. On the occasion of the Epiphany, we have three traditional readings. The first is the reading about the magi visiting the Christ Child. The second is the wedding feast at Cana, where Christ turned water into wine, the first of his miracles. And the third is the Gospel we have today, of Christ being baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan.

    As we heard last week, Epiphany means “manifestation.” In each of these Gospels, Christ is manifest in our world in a different way. The magi celebrated that this baby was truly the manifestation of God in our world, because no other birth would have been occasioned by such great astrological signs. The wedding feast at Cana celebrates that Jesus is no ordinary man, that he had come to change the world by the shedding of his blood, just as he changed the water into wine. And today his baptism celebrates that Christ is manifest in the weakness of human flesh to identify himself with sinners through baptism.

    Obviously, Jesus did not need Saint John the Baptist’s baptism, because it was a baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and Christ had no sins. So he chose to be baptized so that he could identify himself with us sinners through baptism. That being the case, then we who have been baptized must also identify ourselves with him. We must manifest him in the world through living the Gospel and following in his ways. Today we hear in the first reading from the prophet Isaiah that God sent his Word into the world to make things happen: “My word shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.”

    So today we need to reflect on the end, the goal of all that we have celebrated in these Christmas days. What was God’s purpose in sending his Son to take on our sinful flesh and live among us? Well, we know the whole story, don’t we? God sent his only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ, into our world as a human being, born to a poor family as a tiny child. He did that because he created us good, and even though we acquired sinfulness along the way, our humanity was good enough to be redeemed. He would not have us die in our sins, so he sent his Son to take flesh and lead us to heaven, our true home. That’s worth celebrating for many days, and that’s why our Christmas season extends beyond the point where the stores haul on the Valentine’s day candy!

    Christ is baptized today so that our own baptism can be the source of eternal life for all of us. His baptism sanctifies the waters of baptism forever, and to make the waters of baptism, with which we too were baptized, consecrated in holiness. Then we who have been sanctified in baptism must now go out and do what Jesus himself did: doing good and healing the broken and all who are possessed by evil spirits. It is easy to see how we can go about doing good. There are thousands of opportunities to do that in our lives. Every day there is an opportunity to do good in ordinary and extraordinary ways. All we have to do is decide to live our baptismal call and do it. Healing those oppressed by evil spirits might seem harder to do. But there are lots of ways to cast out demons. Teaching something to another person is a way to cast out the demons of ignorance. Reaching out to an elderly neighbor is a way to cast out the demons of loneliness. Educating ourselves on the evils of racism is a way to cast out the demons of hatred. We have opportunities to heal those oppressed by the devil all the time. All we have to do is decide to do it.

    On this Epiphany Day, on this Christmas day, Christ, born among us, enters the waters of baptism to sanctify them through his body. Our own baptism is a share in this great baptism and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We who have been baptized then are literally INSPIRED – given the Holy Spirit – in order to continue to make Christ manifest in our world. All we have to do is decide to do it.

  • The Epiphany of the Lord

    The Epiphany of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?” This was the question those magi asked after their long and harrowing journey. They had observed the star at its rising and were proceeding to pay tribute to the newborn king. They brought with them gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. We know the story well enough; we’ve heard it so many times. But maybe this time, we can make a resolution not to lose sight of this wonderful event in the year to come.

    We celebrate Epiphany today, and Epiphany is a revelation, a manifestation of God here among us earthly creatures. Epiphany is God doing a God-thing so that we will sit up and take notice. But it takes some awareness to perceive such an Epiphany, such a wonderful event. We, like the magi, have to ask the question, “Where is the newborn king of the Jews?”

    To answer that question, we well might look toward our manger scenes, or assume we’ll only find him in church or in our prayer books, or in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. And, of course, we will find the Lord there – those are wonderful places to start. But the event of the Epiphany of the Lord reminds us that God wants to do a God thing in us in all sorts of circumstances. So now we have to find God at work, at school, in our homes, in our community.

    Can we see the Lord in the demanding customer, the needy co-worker, the sulky teenager, the hovering parent, the snippy public servant? We have to. We dare not ever miss the opportunity to seek out the newborn King in every situation! How could we ever turn up our nose at an opportunity for grace? Why would we ever knowingly miss a situation that could help us grow in holiness?

    Finding the Lord is a journey that we all must make, at every stage of our lives. God wants to do God-things in us all the time, leading us this way and that, helping us to know him in more profound ways and more relevant ways at all the stops and starts of our life-long journey of faith. When we find the Lord in our daily lives, the words of the prophet Isaiah from today’s first reading come to pass in us: “Then you shall be radiant at what you see.” Finding the Lord, we are changed, we become sources of his light to shine in the darkness of our world.

    Where is the newborn king for us? Are we ready to make the journey?

  • The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Vigil – Childrens Mass

    The Solemnity of the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ: Christmas Vigil – Childrens Mass

    In a town called Nazareth in Galilee, a long time ago, Mary lived with her parents, Joachim and Ann. Mary was only a young girl, maybe 14 years old. She came from a quiet little area of the world, and just looking at them, you’d have to say nothing about her family was very special. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, because that was when people got married in those days, but she wasn’t married yet.

    She was busy doing her chores one day, when she was surprised by the appearance of an angel named Gabriel. As you can imagine, the appearing of an angel can be a little frightening, but Gabriel reassured her and told her that the Lord was with her. He told her not to be afraid, because God wanted her to be the mother of his Son Jesus. Jesus would become great and would rule over the kingdom of Israel forever. Mary was confused how she could have a baby, because she was not married, but the angel reassured her that all things are possible with God. She was amazed, but she had faith, and said to the angel, “Let it happen as you have said.”

    Mary sang a hymn proclaiming how great God was, and went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also going to have a baby, even though she was very old. When she got there, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy, and Elizabeth said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” Mary helped Elizabeth for three months and returned home.

    Mary was engaged to a man named Joseph, and when he heard that Mary was pregnant, he was upset. He was going to break off the engagement, but he heard from the angel too. He came to be with her and took her into the city of David for the census, so that they could be counted. On the way, Mary gave birth to her baby, and had Jesus in a manger where the animals stayed. Many people came to visit Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and gave the baby gifts and said wonderful things about him, things Mary would never forget. She kept all of this very close to her in her heart.

    Mary and Joseph raised Jesus and watched him become a strong, healthy, and smart young man. One time, when the family went to Jerusalem for a visit to the holy temple, Mary and Joseph lost track of Jesus. They were on the way home when they discovered Jesus wasn’t with them or any of their friends or family. Returning to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, talking about their faith, with all of the rabbis and teachers. He was only twelve years old!

    Eventually Joseph died, and Mary stayed near Jesus. She watched him start his ministry, the whole reason God had sent him to earth in the first place. He called his disciples and taught all the people. He cured the sick and fed many hungry people. He worked many miracles and always talked about how good God was, and how much God loved people, and how they should all turn back to God and turn away from the bad things they had been doing. Mary watched as he did all these wonderful things, and she saw how faithful he was to God’s work.

    But Mary also began to see that Jesus wasn’t making everybody happy. She saw that when he cured people on the Sabbath day, the day of rest, the leaders of the temple became angry. She saw that when Jesus told them to take care of the poor and the hungry and the homeless instead of worrying about what day it was, the religious leaders wanted to kill him. Mary watched as eventually they did take hold of Jesus, carried him off for a trial before Pilate the governor, and nailed him to the cross.

    At the foot of the cross, Mary stood sorrowful, knowing what a wonderful gift she and the whole world had been given in Jesus. But Jesus took care of Mary even then, and entrusted her to the care of his friend John. After Jesus died on the cross, Mary along with some of the other women in the group were the first ones to see that Jesus rose from the dead! Mary stayed with the other disciples and prayed with them that the whole world would come to know the message of Jesus. Her sorrow turned to joy as she watched the community grow and live the things Jesus had taught them.

    Those disciples were the ones who passed the faith on to us. Because of the courage of the disciples and especially of Mary, we today can believe in Jesus and receive the gift of everlasting life from him. Because of the faith of Mary, we can live forever with God and never have to be afraid of death or be mastered by sin. All of this happened because Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”

    It is good for us to hear Mary’s story, because she lived her life following Jesus. We’re supposed to do that too. Mary got to see Jesus face-to-face, even hold him in her arms. We might not be able to do that, but Jesus is close to all of us as long as we let him in. Just like they made a place for Jesus to be born in a manger, we need to make a manger for Jesus in our own hearts so that he can be born in us and always be with us.

    It’s very important that we all hear that just as God sent an angel to Mary, he sends angels to us all the time. Those angels tell us, too, that we should not be afraid because God loves us and cares for us and wants to do great things with us, just like he did with Mary. All he needs for us to do is to say, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”

  • Our Lord Jesus Christ the King of the Universe

    Our Lord Jesus Christ the King of the Universe

    Today’s readings

    I think this Gospel reading is wonderful because of the rather vivid picture that it paints. When I hear it, I can’t help but picture the king separating the sheep from the goats, making known their good works, or lack thereof, and ushering them into their version of eternity. It would seem that the moral of the story is very clear: we are all put here to do some very important things for the Kingdom of God; we are called to use our time and talent to serve those in need. These are the corporal works of mercy, and we should all certainly know them and do them. They aren’t mere suggestions, they are, apparently, the way that we get into heaven.

    And that would be a very good message, but I think Jesus is going for something else because that message would be a good one any time of the year. So, the question we have to ask ourselves is why this message at this point of the Church year? And perhaps just as poignantly, why this message so close to the end of Jesus’ life? This reading comes from the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, which is just twenty-eight chapters long. Indeed, in the very next chapter, Judas begins to conspire against Jesus. So here at the end of Jesus’ life, and on the very last Sunday of the Church year, why this particular parable?

    Well, we don’t have to look very far for the answer. The very setting itself tells us what Jesus was getting at: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory…” So this is clearly a prediction of the end of time, particularly the day of judgment. And I think this setting makes that vivid picture even more vivid. Here our Lord has all of his creatures before him, and he begins to separate them out. There are two places that one might go: the kingdom or eternal fire.

    I think we all know what line we’re supposed to get into. But just in case there was any doubt, the Gospel makes it very clear. The kingdom, he says, was “prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” For you. The eternal fire, on the other hand, was “prepared for the devil and his angels.” So not for you. And this echoes a truth that has been preached all along the way of this Church year. We were made for heaven, heaven is our true home, and we are just passing through this place.

    But just because the kingdom was prepared for us doesn’t mean we can’t make the wrong choice. The devil and his angels have already made their choice, and they’re hoping to take as many of us with them as they can. They do that by convincing us that we can live our lives any way we choose. They try to convince us that morality isn’t really objective, that anything is okay as long as it works for me. What they want us to say is that we are in charge, that there isn’t any God. They want us to choose life outside the Kingdom of God – you know, that kingdom that was prepared for us from the foundation of the world.

    And we can choose that if we want to, but it will be a lonely place, with more than our share of sadness. To get to the real Kingdom, all we have to do is to accept the wonderful sheep and shepherd imagery that we have in today’s readings. In our first reading, Ezekiel portrays our God as a shepherd who goes out of his way to seek out and save the ones who are lost. This is a shepherd who wants to heal our brokenness and make us fit for the Kingdom of God. In just the same way, the sheep who are destined for the Kingdom might recognize the Son of Man throughout the Church year and throughout the Gospel and respond to his call to live for the Kingdom and not just for today, to care about others and love as we have been loved, and let that Love take us to our rightful place.

    Today, on the last Sunday of the Church year, we celebrate Our Lord Jesus Christ the King of the Universe. We proclaim boldly that our Jesus is King of kings and Lord of Lords and there is absolutely no other. We profess that one way of life isn’t just as good as another, that there is only One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is King of the Universe and King of our hearts and our lives. When we make the right choice to follow our King and do what he has commanded, we can follow him to that Kingdom that was prepared for us from the foundation of the world.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, I think Herod was asking the right question.  Sure, he was asking it for all the wrong reasons, but still, it is the right question.  And that question is, “Who is Jesus?”

    What Herod was hearing about Jesus is pretty much what the disciples told Jesus when Jesus asked, “Who do people say that I am?”  Elijah, or one of the prophets, or maybe even John the Baptist.  But Herod was the one who killed John so he knew that couldn’t be it, so who is he really?  Herod kept trying to see him, and of course, he’d have more than ample opportunity soon enough, after Jesus is arrested.

    So we have the question too.  Oh, we know well enough – intellectually – who Jesus is, but we still have to answer that question in our hearts.  Who is Jesus for us?  We know he is not just some prophet; that he is not like anyone who lived before or after him.  But have we stopped being intrigued by the question, have we lost our fascination with Jesus?  Herod kept trying to see Jesus, and it’s the right instinct, or at least it is for us.  We have to keep trying to see him too, whether that takes us to a rereading of the Gospels or to adoration of the Blessed Sacrament or to contemplative prayer.  Whatever the case, fascination with Jesus is the right way to go, and we have to let ourselves be intrigued by the question again.  Who is Jesus for us?

  • The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    The Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    Today’s readings

    In a lot of ways, this is a strange feast we are celebrating today. Think about it. This is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, which in Jesus’ day would have been as big an oxymoron as one could possibly imagine. It’s like us saying that we are going to celebrate the exaltation of a lethal injection chamber. There is nothing exalted about an instrument of execution: it’s tortuous, humiliating, and as dark as one can get.

    And really, that was the whole point. Jesus claimed to be God – and of course we know he was right. But the Jewish people of his time didn’t see it that way. Their leaders in particular became weary of his teachings and his challenges to their way of life. Certainly they felt inadequate about their work when he had a different approach, which was, for all the world to see, more effective. So they wanted to do away with him in the most public, most humiliating way possible: they nailed him to a cross and left him to die in agony. Then they could go back to the way things were, the ways they were comfortable with.

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

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

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

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

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

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