Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Liturgy

  • The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    There’s a hymn that we sing often called “All are Welcome.” It’s been around for a while and is somewhat of a “moldy oldy.” That’s because I think we like to say we are welcoming, but sometimes it’s really hard to really welcome “all.”

    But that song came to mind this week as I was reflecting on the readings for today.  There is a strong theme of welcoming, of hospitality, in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  But it’s not just a matter of saying to someone who’s new, “Hey, how are you?  Welcome here!”  The hospitality that we’re being called to in the readings today is a welcome of the Word of God.  And that sounds much easier than it actually is, so hang on to that, because we will come back to it.

    In our first reading from the second book of Kings, Elisha the prophet is extended hospitality by the Shunemite woman.  Beginning by giving him food, eventually she builds a little room on the roof of her house so that Elisha could stay there whenever he was travelling through town.  We don’t know if she was a believer or not, but she recognizes that Elisha is a holy man and uses her influence and means to see that his prophetic ministry could flourish.

    In the Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of those who would welcome the apostles as they went about their preaching mission.  “Whoever receives you receives me,” he tells them.  When someone accepts the messenger – and, importantly, the message that he or she brings – one receives the giver of the message.  This is the basis of our Catholic teaching that Christ is present in the word of God proclaimed in church.

    The true prophet, of which Elisha was one, always brings the Word of God.  The Shunemite woman reacted to the Word of God by making it welcome, in the person of Elisha.  She is a model for us of the hospitality and welcome of the Word that we are asked to consider this day.  So we too have to feed the Word and make a home for the Word.  We can feed the Word by exposing ourselves to the Scriptures in prayer and reflection.  I had a professor in seminary who used to beg us to read the Bible every day – even just a few verses.  He would say, “Then, brothers, when you close your eyes in death, you will open them in heaven and recognize where you are!”  When we feed the Word, we are able to grow in our faith and the Word will bring life to our souls.

    From feeding the Word, we then have to build a little room for it, on the roof of our spiritual houses.  It’s instructive that Elisha’s room was built on the roof, because then the Word of God was over everything in the Shunemite woman’s life.  The Word of God was the head of her house and the guiding principle of her family life.  When we build that room, figuratively in our own lives, it must take top precedence for us too.  Jesus makes that a commandment in today’s Gospel.

    And so we feed the Word and give it a home in our lives, and then it becomes the guiding principle of our own lives, as it should be.  But here’s the thing about that, and maybe this is why so many people don’t want to do this.  Because there is a cost to welcoming the Word of God.  Remember that the prophets were not always as welcome as Elisha was in the Shunemite woman’s house.  The prophets were often berated, ridiculed, even imprisoned, beaten and murdered, because the Word of God isn’t always welcome.  Jesus says in the Gospel reading today, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”  We have to be clear about the fact that we fully expect that reward to be in heaven, because it’s tough to be a prophet in the world, in any age or place.

    And that’s because the Word of God calls us to live a certain way.  The Word of God wants us to be open to change, the Word of God actually demands that we change.  The Word of God wants us to be Christ to others, because Christ is the Word of God.  And so we must be forgiving of those who harm us, loving to those who test us, reaching out to those who need us (even when it’s inconvenient, or they’re not the people we want to be around), welcoming of those who are different than us.  Welcoming the Word of God means that we have to take up our cross and follow our Lord, meaning that there will be death involved and we might have to give up a whole lot.

    In today’s world, the Word of God calls us to be Christ in a world that is increasingly intolerant of anyone who isn’t us.  We all want what we want when we want it, and we don’t tolerate delay or inconvenience in any form.  We hate the idea of compromise so much that political discussion isn’t discussion at all, and no one’s life is worth as much as our own, no matter the stage or circumstance of that life.  Add to that the scourge of racism, war, and attacks on family life and other values, and we live in a very unwelcoming world indeed.  But into that world, we are called to be Christ to others, to love without counting the cost, and to be a living witness to the Gospel.

    Doing that means we may have to die to what we think is important, die to our own self-interests and desires, die to what makes us feel comfortable.  That’s what giving up one’s family meant in Jesus’ day: being cast out of the family was a form of death.  So not loving mother and father and son or daughter more than Christ meant dying to life in this world.  And dying to life in this world is exactly what welcoming the Word of God will cost us.  That’s the message of the Gospel today.

    But giving up our lives will not be without its reward.  The Shunemite woman was rewarded with a child, even though her husband was advanced in years.  Jesus says the same.  Giving the Word of God even just a cup of water to nourish it and let it grow will be rewarded in ways we cannot even imagine.

    So welcoming the Word of God will definitely cost us something, but it will also change everything.  Are you willing to embrace the cost and build a home in your life for the Word of God?

  • Saturday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Growing up, did you ever laugh when someone else got in trouble, or when things were tense, and then get caught? “Who me? No, I didn’t laugh…” That kind of sounds like the conversation between the Lord and Sarah today. Yesterday, it was Abraham who laughed, and for the same reason. They simply could not believe that God’s generosity and blessing could overcome the limitations of their advanced age. But God had plans for Abraham and his family, and so age and even laughter could not prevent the beginnings of the covenant.

    Contrast their incredulity and lack of faith with the faith of the centurion in today’s Gospel. Jesus didn’t even have to go to his house to cure his servant. The centurion’s faith was so great that even distance provided no obstacle to blessing. As I mentioned yesterday, we can’t be too hard on Abraham and Sarah. They didn’t yet have the experience of the Lord that we have, or even that the centurion had. That centurion had seen Jesus’ mighty deeds and probably had come to believe because of that.

    This raises a rather uncomfortable pastoral question, I think. How many good, faithful people, have prayed their hearts out, totally trusting in God’s power to heal and save, and yet their loved one remains ill, or perhaps was not saved from death. That’s a hurt that a lot of people carry with them for a long time, it may even be that they have felt they had done something wrong or perhaps didn’t have quite enough faith. The answer of course, is that none of those are true. God’s answers to prayer can take a lot of different forms, and sometimes he doesn’t answer the way that we would have picked. That doesn’t mean that God is not merciful, just, or good, and it doesn’t mean that we are not faithful. It just means that whatever the blessing is, it’s different that we expected, and perhaps we can’t even see it just yet.

    The responsorial psalm today is actually Mary’s Magnificat, her song of praise and faith. What a wonderful model this is for all of us who struggle with faith and who struggle with the way God answers prayer sometimes. Mary’s life was not without its struggles and pain, but still she was able to sing, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” That is the prayer for all of us who struggle but still have faith.

  • The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I have good news for you, and I want you to drill it into your very soul.  I want you to take it with you all through the coming week and beyond.  I want you to share it with every person who is important to you, no, even to every person God puts in your path.  That news is this: God is in charge.

    And thank God for that!  Look at the mess our governments, Church, and communities are in.  Scandals, mismanagement, all of those can cause us to lose confidence that anything is the way it’s supposed to be.  But, thankfully, God is in charge, and nothing can go so wrong that God can’t fix it.  We see that in the readings today.  In our first reading, the prophet Jeremiah finds himself being vexed by those who would rather not hear his message.  They seek to tempt and denounce him, hoping that will cause him to fall and do something they can use against him.  But it doesn’t work.  He turns to the Lord, the Lord hears his cry and delivers him from their hands.  And this causes him to sing God’s praise:

    Sing to the LORD,
    praise the LORD,
    for he has rescued the life of the poor
    from the power of the wicked!

    In the second reading, Paul recounts the fall of humanity through the sin of Adam.  Through that sin, death entered the world and sin and death reigned, until Jesus smashed their power through his own death and resurrection.  Saint Paul emphasizes that the Paschal mystery has turned everything upside-down, in a good way:

    For if by the transgression of the one the many died,
    how much more did the grace of God
    and the gracious gift of the one man Jesus Christ
    overflow for the many.

    Finally, in our Gospel reading, Jesus himself speaks directly to our hearts.  Even though we may be going through hell, even when it seems like everyone is working against us, we are to “Fear no one.”  Why?  Because God knows us completely: he has gone so far as to number the hairs on our head, so nothing of value in us can ultimately be destroyed.  And so we should not be afraid of “those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.”

    So I want you to take three things with you into the week ahead.  The first is do not be afraid.  Jesus says this three times in the Gospel reading today, so with that much repetition, we really ought to take notice.  Sin and death are ultimately powerless over us, so we should not be afraid.  Instead, we ought to go forth and follow our calling, live our vocation, and seek to maintain a holy way of life.  That will ensure that we remain on the path to the reward in store for us.

    Second, remember that God is in charge.  Not anyone else, not us, not our friends or enemies, not sin or death, not any passing thing or human entity.  Ultimately, it is only God who is in charge, and because of that, we have to know that everything will eventually work for our good and the good of all.  Evil can’t have the day because it’s already been defeated by the death and resurrection of Our Lord.  God is always in charge.

    Finally, perhaps most importantly, remember that you are loved.  God is love and because of that, God cannot not love.  He loves you more than you can possibly imagine.  He loves you despite your failings, calling you to a better life.  He loves you even when everyone else seems to be turning away.  He loves you on your good days and on your bad days.  His love is the constant in all of our lives, and the one thing that, even if everything else fails, should get us out of bed in the morning. 

    So do not be afraid.  You are worth more than many sparrows.  God loves you more than anything, and he is absolutely in charge of everything.

  • Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It amazes me when I think about all that the early Church had to go through and put up with. Saint Paul writes that he put up with persecution from all sides: from his own people as well as the Gentiles. He was beaten often, endured hazardous journeys and perilous weather, as well as every kind of deprivation. His experience was definitely extreme, but others who lived the faith in those days were also subject to persecution, torture and death. Our experience isn’t quite like that, is it? I mean, here we sit in this comfortable and safe church. We came here freely to Mass this morning and it is unlikely that anyone will openly persecute us or torture us or put us to death for worshipping our God, although of course, it does happen occasionally in some parts of the world.

    But there is a subtle kind of persecution that we often must endure. We know that even if our society is not openly hostile to living the Gospel, it might be just one step short of that. Life is not respected in our society: babies are aborted, the elderly are not respected or given adequate care, children are not raised in nurturing families, people are hated because of their race, color or creed. Faith is ridiculed as the crutch of the weak. Hope is crushed by those who abuse power. Love is diminished by the world’s shabby standards of loving. Living the Gospel is costly to anyone who would want to be taken seriously in our culture.

    To all of us who come to this holy place to worship this morning and who hope to work out our salvation by living the Gospel, Saint Paul speaks eloquently. We know that he, as well as all of the communion of saints, is there to intercede for us and show us the way. He says to us today, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led to sin, and I am not indignant?” He points us to our Lord Jesus who paid the ultimate price for the Gospel, and reminds us of what our Gospel proclaims to us today: that in living that Gospel, regardless of its cost, we store up for ourselves incredible treasures in heaven, because it is in heaven that our heart resides.

  • Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel is one that’s certainly very familiar to us.  But if we’re honest, every time we hear it, it must give us a little bit of uneasiness, right?  Because, yes, it is very easy to love those who love us, to do good to those who do good to us, to greet those who greet us.  But when it comes right down to it, Jesus is right.  There is nothing special about loving those we know well, and we certainly look forward to greeting our friends and close family.

    However that’s not what the Christian life is about.  We know that, but when we get a challenge like today’s Gospel, it hits a little close to home.  Because we all know people we’d rather not show kindness to, don’t we?  We all have that mental list of people who are annoying or who have wronged us or caused us pain.  And to have to greet them, do good to them, even love them – well that all seems too much some days.

    And yet that is what disciples do.  We’re held to a higher standard than those proverbial tax collectors and pagans that Jesus refers to.  We are people of the new covenant, people redeemed by the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  And so we have to live as if we have been freed from our pettiness, because, in fact, we have.  We are told to be perfect, as our heavenly Father is perfect.  It’s a tall order, but a simple act of kindness to one person we’d rather not be kind to is all it takes to make a step closer.

  • The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

    In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes what the first reading says.  God has made the first move.  He reconciled us while we were still sinners.  He gave us the way to the kingdom.  We didn’t deserve it, but our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy.  So if God has been so merciful, we need to boast about it.  And we’re not to boast about it as if it was something we earned or accomplished on our own; we are to “boast of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

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

    God does not manipulate us for his pleasure.  He does not demand that we behave perfectly in order to receive his kindness, grace, and love.  Instead, he is the one who washes our feet, who stretches out his arms on the Cross, who dies that we may live.  In the face of such great and perfect love, we can do no less than love in return.

  • Thursday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s always scary when Jesus starts out saying “you have heard it said that…” because he always follows up with “but what I say to you is this…” What he is doing here, though, is freeing us from the strictness of the law and opening our eyes to its spirit. So in Christ, it’s not enough just not to murder, we must also respect life in every way. We can’t just be content with not murdering or aborting, although that’s certainly a good start, but we must also be sure to tear down any kind of racism, hatred, or stereotyping; even refusal to forgive someone. We must care for the elderly and sick and never let them be forgotten. We must never be so angry that we write people off and hold grudges. Murdering takes many forms, brothers and sisters, and we must be careful to avoid them all or be held liable for breaking the fifth commandment in spirit.

    We should shine the light of God’s spirit on all of our laws and commandments and be certain that we are following them as God intended. As St. Paul said in today’s first reading, “For God who said, Let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of Jesus Christ.” May we all be free to follow the spirit of God’s law and be transformed from glory into glory.

  • Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

    Today we hear the end of the story we have been reflecting on all week.  Tobit and Tobiah’s family fortune has been restored; Sarah’s sadness from her seven previous husbands dying on their wedding night has been turned into joy when she was given in marriage to Tobit.  And finally, in yesterday’s first reading, Tobit helps heal his father’s blindness, and Tobiah sings in praise to God.  It’s an almost uncharacteristically happy ending for a book of the Old Testament!

    But happiness, real happiness, eternal happiness, that is the purpose of the Scriptures.  That happiness comes finally from the resurrection of Our Lord which opens to us the way to salvation.  Just as Tobiah and Sarah were saved from their ailments, so we are saved from the ailments of sin and death by the death and resurrection of Christ.  The happy ending of the book of Tobit foreshadows the happy ending of the life of grace which we receive by following our Risen Lord.

    But, as the archangel Raphael makes clear twice in today’s first reading, this happiness is not to be a well-guarded secret.  Some things are best kept secret, sure, but not salvation, not the works of God.  So we have to be disciples who live as saved people and tell everyone the reason for our happiness.  Others need to see our joy so they can experience it too.

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

  • Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    This whole story about Tobit contracting cataracts because of bird droppings falling in his eyes while he was napping, which we heard about on Tuesday, and then being cured by fish gall in today’s first reading is objectively gross and medically suspect.  But this story isn’t from a medical textbook, it’s from Holy Scripture, so what’s important here is the deeper healing that happens in Tobit’s heart, and his family’s life.

    Angels are messengers that God sends sometimes to let us know his plans for us, or to guard and guide us, or even to help us to see what’s really important.  And it’s that last thing that the archangel Raphael does in today’s first reading.  If we remember the story as we heard it on Tuesday, after Tobit was made blind by cataracts, he scolded his wife for accepting a goat as a bonus on her labor, because he did not believe her story.  In that part of the story, it seems that Tobit had to learn that charity – for which he himself was quite well known – begins at home.  His period of blindness gave him that very insight, I think, and in today’s story he rejoices in his cleared vision.

    Through the intercession of Saint Raphael the archangel, Tobit regained his sight and was able to see his son safely returned from a long and dangerous journey.  He saw also the return of his family fortune.  And he saw the union of his son Tobit with his new wife Sarah.  There was great cause for rejoicing in all that he was able to see and Tobit didn’t miss a beat in placing the credit where it belonged.  He said,

    Blessed be God,
    and praised be his great name,
    and blessed be all his holy angels.
    May his holy name be praised
    throughout all the ages.
    Because it was he who scourged me,
    and it is he who has had mercy on me.

    And so we praise God today for angels who help us to see what’s really important.  We praise God for angels who clear up our clouded vision and help us to see past the obstacles we’ve put in God’s way.  We praise God for angels who help us to overcome our pride and self-righteousness so that God’s way can become clear to us.  May we rejoice along with Tobit and Anna and all the rest that God has truly sent his angels to us often to bring us back to him.

  • Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Love is very definitely the theme of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  This week we have been hearing readings from the book of Tobit, in which we have the only Scriptural appearance of Saint Raphael the archangel.  And today we hear about him entering the story, in the guise of the person of Azariah.  Tobit and Tobiah and all the rest don’t know he’s an angel yet, but that will become clear enough when the blessing of love wipes the cataracts away from Tobit’s eyes, and everything becomes clear to him.

    And we know that it is love that can do all these things.  Love can clear up old Tobit’s vision.  Love can and will let Tobiah survive his wedding night when he marries Sarah.  Love can heal Tobit’s and Sarah’s broken hearts.  And love can reveal that the power of God works in all of our lives, in all of our hearts.

    Sometimes we need an angel, or a messenger, to come to know that.  During our lives, we can go through periods that are just awful and seem devoid of any joy.  But love won’t let that be the final answer for any of us.  Just as the angel Raphael took the form of Azaraiah and was a blessing to Tobiah and Sarah, so too there may be angels or messengers in our own lives, in the form of people of faith, that end the cycle of sadness in the same way that God’s blessing ended the cycle of death for Sarah’s husbands.

    Tobiah and Sarah sang a song of praise to God and said “Amen, amen” before going to bed for the night.  They woke up the next morning to rejoice in God’s love in the same way that we can, if we will but realize that there is no commandment greater than the commandment to love God and one another.  Death cannot and will not ever win the battle over love.