Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Liturgy

  • St. Bartholomew, Apostle

    St. Bartholomew, Apostle

    Today's readings | St. Bartholomew

    Will the real St. Bartholomew please stand up?  Bartholomew is one of the saints that we know almost nothing about.  He is mentioned in the lists of the apostles, but nowhere else in Scripture.  So, as is true of many of the saints, what we know about him belongs mostly to the realm of the Church’s tradition.  Not that we should look down on tradition, because it comes from the lived experience of the early Church, and is also inspired by the Holy Spirit. 

    What tradition tells us about St. Bartholomew is that he is often identified with Nathanael in the Gospel.  That explains why Nathanael is prominent in the Gospel reading for today.  Nathanael – or Bartholomew, take your pick – is picked out of the crowd by Jesus.  Nathanael is surprised at what Jesus says about him: “Here is a true child of Israel.  There is no duplicity in him.”  We should recall that Jesus considered it his primary mission to seek out the lost children of Israel, so seeing Nathanael as a “true child of Israel” with “no duplicity in him” means that Jesus considered Nathanael a role model for his people.  He was one whose faith reached beyond mere observance of the Law or the Torah, and extended into the realm of living the Gospel.  And because he was able to do that, then we should consider him a role model for all of us as well. 

    It’s very interesting, I think, that we do know so little about the Chosen Twelve.  I mean, aside for characters like Peter, John, Matthew, and, well, Judas, we don’t have a lot of details.  Still, these Twelve were chosen as Apostles to bring the Gospel to all the corners of the world.  And maybe that’s all we need to know about them.  It is because of their efforts that we know about Jesus today and are able to seek after the life of grace.  Their preaching continues today in every land as Jesus intended, and we continue to have as our example these men in whom there is no duplicity; indeed the sole purpose of their life became the preaching of the Gospel.

    That’s where we are all led, I think.  When it comes down to it, there is nothing more important than living the Gospel, and every one of us is called to do it.  If our spiritual life is not our primary concern, then we have nothing to look forward to.  But the good news is that, by the intercession and example and preaching of the Apostles like Bartholomew, we have every hope of eternal life.

  • 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time: The Rich Table of the Lord

    20th Sunday of Ordinary Time: The Rich Table of the Lord

    Today's readings

    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.

    Today we continue the preaching of John's "Bread of Life Discourse" and it may seem like we are beating home a point you already know. Perhaps by now you're more than a little tired of it. But as I said last week, it's important to do this every so often because anything we do over and over again can become routine and can cause us to become lax. We are receiving the great gift of our Savior's own body and blood, and we should always treat that as an unbelievably valuable treasure. So today I thought I'd share with you a little of the reason that preaching on the Eucharist is so important for me personally. I don't like to make my homilies about me, but I'm doing this because maybe you've had a similar experience, or maybe it's something your teenage, college-age, or young adult children are going through right now.

    A few years before I went to seminary, some of my friends would sometimes go to Willow Creek Community Church, the evangelical mega church in South Barrington. They liked the church and were very fired up about it, and eventually talked me into going with them. I enjoyed it and found that the preaching was excellent, and so I went back many times with them. I still went to my home parish on the weekends, but during the week I would worship with my friends at Willow Creek. My friends eventually severed their ties with my home parish and went to Willow Creek exclusively. They were hoping I would do the same, and I considered it very seriously. The preaching was good – better than at my parish – and I think that's because the preaching mostly supported the spiritual life I was already living. I had discussions with my parents about leaving the church, and those went about like you think they would, but I continued to pray about my decision.

    The answer I got from my prayer is that mostly God wanted me to make my own decision, but that when I came to a decision, God wanted me to commit to it and live it fully. And so I began to look at the membership materials from Willow Creek and thought I would probably join them. One Wednesday I went and they were celebrating their once-monthly so-called "communion service." The speaker, an ex-Catholic, talked about the forgiveness of sins and how, growing up in our Church, he had to go to weekly confession and the priest forgave his sins, or at least said he forgave them. It was a strong message against our sacrament. Then they passed the bread and wine, which after prayer, remained only bread and wine, mere symbols of the Eucharist. Listening to all that, I was struck to the core of my being. I knew then and there I could never be a member of Willow Creek or any other church than the Catholic Church, because there was no way I could live a spiritual life without the benefit of the Sacraments. I honored my promise to God to commit to my decision once I made it, and well, here I am today.

    The point, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is that the words we say are not mere words; they are so much more powerful than that. And the sacraments we celebrate are not mere symbols of Christ and his love for us; they are the real body and blood of Christ, the real presence of our Savior; the real experience of grace. Jesus makes it very clear that is flesh is true food and his blood is true drink. That thought repelled a lot of those who heard him say it at the time, as we will hear next week, and maybe it frightens some of those who hear it today. But for we who believe, and for we who are Catholics, there is no better news. The experience of the Eucharist is such an intimate experience and so precious to us because we're not getting second-rate symbols, we're getting the real body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ! And it is His own body and blood that nourishes us and strengthens us and enlivens us so that we can become the presence of Christ in our world, reaching out to those in need in our homes and in our communities. The consequence of not coming to partake of the Eucharist is very dire, as Jesus tells us today:

    Amen, amen, I say to you,
    unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood,
    you do not have life within you.

    That's pretty direct language, and I don't think we can misunderstand its implication for us. Jesus is not talking about just the mere death of our bodies, but the infinitely more serious death of our souls. Nothing can take the place of receiving the body and blood of Christ. Only those who eat his flesh and drink his blood will have eternal life, and will be raised on the last day. It doesn't matter what kind of preaching you're getting somewhere else. If you're not being filled with the body and blood of Christ, nothing on earth can fill up that emptiness.

    Looking at today's Liturgy of the Word as a whole, the implications for the preacher are humbling. Hopefully what we're providing is part of the rich table of Wisdom that we hear about today. It's much like what one of my professors in seminary told us, "If you're going to stand there and take up ten or fifteen minutes of the People of God's time, you better darn well make sure you have something to say." And my homiletics professor once said that at the end of our homilies, we should be able to say "The Word of the Lord." When we preach, it's not about us, it's about what the Lord wants to speak to all of us here. The words we speak must be meaty, rich and spicy, and not bland platitudes that nobody will ever notice.

    And there is much on which to be fed in our Church's teaching. Indeed the rich table of Wisdom that comes to us from the Church is a long and Spirit-filled tradition. We have at our disposal the great words of Sacred Scripture, the teachings of the early Church fathers, the great Tradition of the Church which comes out of a lived history over 2 millennia old, and the Magesterium, the official teaching of the Church. Many churches base their official teachings on the words of Scripture alone, which sounds nice until you look at it more closely. Because everyone has to interpret Scripture, and there has to be some kind of teaching that guides how you do that. We start out knowing that Scripture alone is not enough. Indeed, if there were no Church teaching, there would be no Scriptures, because it's the Church that put the book that we call the Bible together in the first place. Our Scriptures, Tradition and Magisterial teachings all work together to give us guidance and focus our efforts on living the Truth. This is that wonderful Wisdom banquet that our first reading talks about this morning.

    St. Paul tells us that we must not live as foolish persons but as wise, and that we must not continue in ignorance but try to understand what is the will of the Lord. I thought of this line this week as I read about the protesters that were here, at our parish, to demonstrate at the funeral of a young man who gave his life in service to our country. This wasn't some random group, friends, it was a church, or at least a so-called church, whose leader preaches that this kind of abominable behavior is not only okay to do but is actually the will of God. Can you imagine such a thing? Do you see what kind of foolishness we run the risk of falling into when we stray from the truth and fill our ears with only the things we want to hear? This is exactly the kind of thing St. Paul was preaching that we should avoid, and it obviously didn't go away with the Ephesian community. We must constantly be on our guard and always dine at the table of Wisdom, and e
    ven more than that, never to fail to dine at the table of the Lord.

    Because if we dine at the table of Wisdom, we will know the things of God. These are the things we really need to know, not the banal temptations of drunkenness and debauchery which the world dangles before our eyes in so many ways every day. And if we dine at the table of the Lord, we will be caught up in the life of God, we will have eternal life, and we will be raised up on the last day to live with God forever. That's the goal of our spiritual lives, brothers and sisters in Christ, and let nothing distract us from it. I found that I could not live without the Sacraments, and I am guessing you know that too. Let us all celebrate those Sacraments with reverence and joy, and treat them as the indescribable and precious gift that they are to us. Let us always speak of our love for the Eucharist in our conversations with others, so that they too might come to dine at the rich table of God and be caught up in all its fullness. Let us all taste and see the goodness of the Lord.

  • Saturday of the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time: A renewed and contrite spirit

    Saturday of the 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time: A renewed and contrite spirit

    Today’s readings

    This morning, the readings talk about getting it right. They speak of justice and faithfulness and right relationship. All of us who are called to discipleship, which is to say all of us, are called to get this right. In the first reading, the Lord reveals to Ezekiel that each person will be held accountable for his or her own actions, and only his or her own actions. Children need not fear God’s retribution for their parents’ sins, and parents need not fear that their children’s mistakes will be held against them. Instead, each of us is expected to know God’s commandments and keep them, and especially the commandments which call for justice to others and virtuous living.

    In the Gospel, Jesus accepts the little children. This is a nice story, but it’s about much more than Jesus loving children. The real message is that Jesus loves all of those who have the faith of children. Most specifically, Jesus is calling us to have that kind of faith in him that recognizes that we can’t always get it right on our own, no; we need the guidance and encouragement of our God to help us with everything that we do.

    It is perhaps today’s responsorial psalm that knits this all together completely. The psalmist prays for God’s help to become a more humbled and contrite person. Because we of ourselves can’t always expect to root out the sin that keeps us from lives of virtue. If we ever expect to have clean hearts and renewed, steadfast spirits, it is God that is going to have to put them there. And God longs to do that in each of us. At one time or another, we all struggle with sinful patterns or attitudes. We may try to root those out of ourselves, but to no avail. But if we become like the psalmist and make our sacrifice one of contrition, then God will take the opportunity to renew us and draw us back to himself.

    Today, we look to Mary, the model of faith and the forerunner of the sacrificial spirit, and we ask for her intercession that we might become people who offer un-spurnable sacrifice of a heart contrite and humbled.

  • The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings

    mary-assumption

    The tradition of the Assumption of Mary dates back to the very earliest days of the Church, all the way back to the days of the apostles. It was known that Mary had “fallen asleep” and that there is a “Tomb of Mary” close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 tells us that, after Mary’s death, the apostles opened the tomb, finding it empty, and concluded that she had been taken bodily into heaven. The tradition was spoken about by the various fathers of the Church, and in the eighth century, St. John Damascene wrote, “Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth.” The current celebration of Mary’s Assumption has taken place since 1950, when Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his encyclical, Munificentissimus Deus, saying: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven.” [1]

    “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;
    my spirit rejoices in God my Savior
    for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.
    From this day all generations will call me blessed:
    the Almighty has done great things for me
    and holy is his Name.”

    This prayer of Mary from today’s Gospel reading is part of the Church’s daily evening prayer. Two incredible qualities of Mary come through in her prayer. The first is joy. She is one who not only allowed something incredibly unbelievable to be done in her, but allowed it with great joy. That she did this with joy tells us something very important about who she was. Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Those who live with joy, true joy, do so because God is at work in them and God is at work through them. Mary knew this from the moment the angel came to her. The second quality we see in Mary’s prayer is humility. She knew this wasn’t about her; this was about what God was doing in her and through her. It wasn’t she that did great things, no, “the Almighty has done great things for me,” she tells us, “and holy is his Name!”

    Mary had very humble beginnings, as we all know. She wasn’t of a terribly well-to-do family, as far as we know, and she was a very young girl, probably around 14 years old. Yet even in that humble state, she was called to do great things, or, more precisely, to let great things be done in her. In much the same way, many of us may not feel like spiritual masters, or like we have great knowledge of our faith. But, we may very well be called to do things we think are too great for us. And that’s the truth, really. When God calls us to something, it’s almost always too great for us. But nothing is too great for our God, who can accomplish the redemption of the world with the cooperation of a humble 14-year-old girl. The Almighty did great things for Mary, and the Almighty will do great things for us as well.

    Having given birth to our Savior, Mary is also the Mother of the Church. Her life is prophetic in the sense that it shows us what can and will happen to and for us who believe. In her Assumption, we see that God does not intend death to be the last word for any of us. Death no longer has power over us, because of the death and Resurrection of Christ. In Mary’s Assumption, we know that we are not destined for death and corruption, we are destined for life in the world to come, where death and sorrow and pain no longer rule over us. On that great day, death, the last enemy, will be completely destroyed, as St. Paul tells us today. On that great day, the great joy that Mary experienced in the Assumption can be our great joy too, for all of us who believe, and for all of us who allow the Almighty to do great things in them.

    On that great day, we can join the loud voice in heaven and say,

    “Now have salvation and power come,
    and the Kingdom of our God
    and the authority of his Anointed One.”

    [1] http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/AOFMARY.HTM

  • The 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Taste and See How Good the Lord Is!

    The 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time: Taste and See How Good the Lord Is!

    Today we return to our consideration of the Bread of Life Discourse in the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. In today’s Liturgy of the Word, we are presented with instances of people really hungering for something. In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much. Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt a failure. Today’s reading comes after Elijah just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel. It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and look it up! I promise, you’ll enjoy the story. Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory. Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life. Today’s story, then, has him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death. For him it would be better for the Lord to take his life than to die by Jezebel’s henchmen. The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey. Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    In the second reading, it seems like the Ephesians, far from being a close-knit spiritual community, were more like a bunch of grade school children at recess, or the British House of Commons during a debate. He says that their assemblies were marked by bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling one another, and exhorts them to cut it out. Instead, they are to remember that they had been fed and strengthened by God’s forgiveness that was lavishly poured out on them through the suffering and death of Christ. And he tells them they should be strengthened by that glorious grace to imitate God and live in love.

    So Elijah needed strength for the journey, and the Ephesians needed strength for love and compassion. But maybe the greatest spiritual hunger that we see in today’s readings is the hunger of the Jews that were murmuring against Jesus. They were angry with Jesus for simply saying that he came down from heaven. The verb used to describe their reaction is interesting: gogguzo. This is another example of onomatopoeia – it sounds like what it is. Gogguzo means to murmur or complain or grumble. It’s a kind of discontent that comes from a lack of something deep down inside; indeed it comes from a spiritual hunger. They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them in the person of Jesus. Jesus tells them,

    I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
    whoever eats this bread will live forever;
    and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another. Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians, or whether we’re just feeling superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face at one time or another in our lives. From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with one thing or another. Maybe it’s alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives. Soon we end up sitting under a straggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now.

    If that’s ever happened to you, know that there is only one thing that can fill up that emptiness. And that is Jesus Christ. This Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our bread of life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives. But we have to let him do that. And it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us. We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey. Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever, forever satisfied, forever strengthened.

    Because this bread is so important to us, because it is such a great sign of God’s presence in our lives, we should be all the more encouraged to receive the Eucharist frequently and faithfully. Certainly nothing other than sickness or death should deter us from gathering on Sunday to celebrate with the community and receive the Lord in Holy Communion. We should all think long and hard before we decide not to bring our families to Sunday Mass. Sometimes soccer, football, softball and other sports become more important than weekly worship. Or maybe we decide to work at the office or around the house instead of coming to Church on Sunday. I realize that I may well be preaching to those who already know this, and I realize that it’s hard, especially for families, to get to Church at times, but this is way too important for any of us to miss. It is Jesus the Bread of Life who will lead us to heaven, and nothing and no one else.

    We also need to talk a bit about how to receive Holy Communion. Sometimes I think we have a tendency to grow a bit lax, and I know there are young people out there right now who will be receiving First Holy Communion this year. So I wanted to take a few minutes to review the way to come to Communion. So if my volunteers would come forward please…

    The need for us to do this right is clear. What we say and what we do means something, brothers and sisters in Christ, and we have to make sure that we say and do the right things. We truly believe that this is not just a wafer of bread and a sip of wine we are receiving; we believe that it is the very real presence of our Lord, his body and blood, soul and divinity, under the mere appearance of bread and wine. Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we should never allow anything to take its place. Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we must receive with the utmost reverence, acknowledging the great and holy gift that He is to us. We will come forward in a few minutes to share this great gift around the Table of the Lord. As we continue our prayer today, let us remember to always do what the psalmist tells us: “taste and see how good the Lord is!”

  • The Transfiguration of the Lord: Listen to him.

    The Transfiguration of the Lord: Listen to him.

    Today's readings

    transfiguration

    "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him."

    This feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord can be a puzzling one for us to understand. It's an event we've heard about in Gospel readings, but it's not something that we've ever seen. So it's hard, I think, for us to figure out. If that's true of us, we shouldn't feel too bad: it's clear that Peter, James and John, disciples who were clearly in Jesus' "inner circle" didn't get it either. In fact, they were so frightened by it that they hardly knew what to say. God's glory can be frightening like that sometimes. As they walked down the mountain, all they could talk about was what Jesus meant by rising from the dead. Thankfully, though, we have the help of the Church's developed theology which those chosen three did not have at their disposal. So we can delve into the mystery of this Transfiguration, and in it perhaps, be transfigured ourselves.

    The Transfiguration is a sign for us of three things: it's a sign of who Jesus really is, a sign of what would happen in the paschal mystery, and a sign of what is to be for those who believe.

    First, then, it is a sign of who Jesus really is. We get three very beautiful clues to Jesus' true identity here. First, there is the transfiguration, or change, itself. Jesus is transfigured, and his clothes become dazzling white. He literally shines with the Glory of God. This reminded the people of Jesus' time of the way Moses' face was said to shine after he came down from the mountain where he conversed with God. It also reminds us of the way the figure who was "one like a son of man" shone in today's first reading. The transfiguration tells us that Jesus is no ordinary man, that the divinity the had from the beginning but set aside at his Incarnation, that divinity was ready to burst forth from him at any moment. It did in today's Gospel, and Peter, James and John were witnesses of it. The second clue is the appearance of Moses and Elijah with Jesus. This appearance linked Jesus with Israel's past, Moses representing the Law and Elijah the Prophets. His conversation with Moses and Elijah underscore that Jesus' ministry in the world was part of God's plan for our salvation. The third clue is the voice of God. "This is my beloved Son. Listen to him." If there had been any doubt, it had to be gone by now. Rarely does God speak in such a direct manner to his creation, but he did it here. Jesus was his beloved Son, and Peter, James and John – and all of us too – would do well to listen to him.

    Now all of this was important, because in Mark's Gospel, from here on out, the story is all about the cross. Jesus was going to suffer and die a terrible, tortuous and ignoble death. But that kind of suffering wasn't punishment, or a sign of God's disfavor. Indeed, it was a sign that Jesus is God's beloved Son. Though he will suffer for a time, God always intended to raise him up. And so, if we, we who are God's beloved children, if we have to suffer for a time, we too can know of God's favor. We too can know that God always intended our salvation, all the way back to the time of Moses and the prophets. Jesus' true identity is a source of joy for all of us that we are beloved and that those who listen to his beloved Son will inherit the glory that bursts forth from Jesus on the mountain.

    Second, the Transfiguration is a sign of what would happen in the Paschal Mystery. As I've said, from here on out, the message of Mark's Gospel will always refer to the cross of Christ. The incredible event of Jesus' Transfiguration foreshadows the glory of the Resurrection. It's a peek at what Jesus would look like after he rose from the dead. You may remember that the first witnesses of the Resurrection had a hard time recognizing Jesus. That may be because he was transfigured by the Resurrection, and so today's event is perhaps a taste of what that would be like. Yes, Jesus would have to suffer and die, but his Resurrection and Ascension would be glorious, and would open the possibility of glory to all of us as well.

    Third, the Transfiguration is a sign of what waits for us who believe. The glory that we see in Jesus today is the glory that waits for all of us. We have hope of the Resurrection, we have hope of an eternal home in heaven. The transfiguration shows us that this hope is ours, if we but listen to the one who is God's beloved Son. Sure, we come to that as those who don't deserve that kind of glory. We are in need of our own kinds of transfigurations. We are in need of our sins being transfigured into faithfulness, of our failures being transfigured into joys, of our death being transfigured into everlasting life. All of those transfigurations are accomplished in us when we but listen to God's beloved Son.

    It is important that we realize that, just as Peter, James and John had to come down from the mountain in today's Gospel, so we too must come down the mountain of this celebration of our faith, into our daily lives, and transfigure our world into the true image of Jesus Christ. We must transfigure the violence, hatred, and injustice that is so prevalent in our world into true peace, inclusion, love and justice that is the image of God, the glory that longs to burst forth from us and every part of our world.

    Today's feast will forever be linked with a horrible event that stands in sharp contrast to this message. On August 6th in 1945, our country dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing over 100,000 people that day and in the days and years that followed, as they suffered and died from diseases that were the effect of exposure to radiation. This horrible event unfortunately ushered us into the nuclear age, one in which nations with nuclear capability have the power to destroy the world many times over. This sad day commemorates a bright light that was anything but God's glory, a day in which our world was transfigured, but in all the wrong ways.

    Our world has long been saddened by that horrible, devastating event. Ever since, people in every nation have implored their governments to never repeat that day of death. Ever since, popes and bishops have sought to remind us that this kind of destruction is not God's will for us. Our beloved Pope John Paul II, of blessed memory, said in 1981:

    "To remember the past is to commit oneself to the future.
    To remember Hiroshima is to abhor nuclear war.
    To remember Hiroshima is to commit oneself to peace."

    He also reminds us that nuclear devastation is not a foregone conclusion to our world:

    "In the face of the man-made calamity that every war is, one must affirm and reaffirm, again and again, that the waging of war is not inevitable or unchangeable. Humanity is not destined to self-destruction. Clashes of ideologies, aspirations and needs can and must be settled and resolved by means other than war and violence."

    In this day of advanced and horrible weapons, every war has the frightening possibility of transfiguring our world in horrible and irrevocable ways. We must make peace our constant prayer. For those of you whose sons and daughters are off fighting for freedom in other lands, please don't hear this as a condemnation of what they do. Please do hear it as a call to prayer, that our world can be transfigured into a place where they don't have to do that, never again.

    In Hiroshima there is a Peace Memorial with a statue of Sadako, a teenage girl who suffered leukemia as a result of the bomb
    . After she got sick she tried to fold a thousand paper cranes because she believed she would be cured of her disease if she did. She folded more than 800 before she died. Her friends completed the project. About her
    cranes Sadako wrote, "I will write Peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world." Folded cranes have become a symbol and wish for peace and an end to nuclear weapons.

    Sadako's wish is one way to transfigure our broken world for peace. We who are disciples are called to actively seek ways to transfigure our world through faith, hope and love. As we come to the Eucharist today, let us all reflect on those transfigurations that need to happen in us, as well as those transfigurations that need to happen through us, transfigurations that God longs to work in our world, transfigurations that will make this world brightly shine with the image and glory of God.

  • Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings present us with two very interesting images. The first is that of a potter working at the wheel. When the object turned out badly, the potter re-created the object until it was right. Jeremiah tells us that just so is Israel, in the hand of the LORD. Not that God couldn’t get it right the first time. This prophecy simply recognizes that through our own free will we go wrong all the time, and Israel’s wrong turns are legendary throughout the Old Testament. Just as the potter can re-create a bowl or jug that was imperfect, so God can re-create his chosen people when they turn away from him. God can replace their stony hearts with natural ones, and give them new life with a fresh breath of the Holy Spirit.

    The image in the Gospel is a fishing image. The fisher throws a net into the sea, casting it far and wide, and gathers up all sorts of fish. Some of the fish are good, and are kept; the others are cast back into the sea. So will it be at the end of the age. God will cast the nets far and wide, gathering up all of his creatures. Those who have remained true to what God created them to be will be brought into the kingdom; those who have turned away will be cast aside, free to follow their own whims and ideas. Turning away from God has a price however; following one’s own whims and ideas leads to nothing but the fiery furnace, where there is wailing and grinding of teeth.

    The message that comes to us through these images is one of renewal. We who are God’s creatures, his chosen people, can often turn the wrong way. But our God who made us is not willing to have us end up in that fiery furnace; he gives us the chance to come back to him, and willingly re-creates us in his love. Those who become willing subjects on the potter’s wheel will have the joy of the Kingdom. Those who turn away will have what they wish, but find it ultimately unsatisfying, ultimately sorrowful, ultimately without reward.

  • St. Alphonsus Liguori: Patron of Moral Theologians

    St. Alphonsus Liguori: Patron of Moral Theologians

    Today's Gospel: Matthew 5:13-19 | Saint of the Day

    "Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven."

    Teaching the commandments was something that was always near and dear to the heart of St. Alphonsus Liguori. St. Alphonsus has been called the patron saint of moral theologians since 1950. During his lifetime, St. Alphonsus devoted himself to reform of the church and the proper teaching of moral issues. Then, preaching moral issues from the pulpit was often done, but unfortunately with a rigorism that made moral teachings hard for the average person to follow. Today, perhaps, we have the opposite. Preachers often shy away from moral issues in the pulpit, not wanting to rock the boat. Neither of these is acceptable, of course, and Alphonsus would want us to follow more of a happy medium.

    Alphonsus received a doctorate in civil and canon law at the age of 16 and practiced it for a while, but soon gave it up to pursue apostolic activity. He was ordained a priest and concentrated on preaching parish missions, hearing confessions, and forming Christian groups. He was a prolific writer, writing often on moral theology. He also wrote some popular devotional books, including the Glories of Mary, which was extremely popular during his lifetime, and Visits to the Blessed Sacrament. He is also known for starting the congregation of the Redemptorists, which continues to this day.

    His great reforms were enacted mostly in the pulpit and the confessional, where his simple approach to morality, Christian life, and Scripture were well-received over the sometimes pompous oratory of his day. His preaching resulted in much increased devotion, and, at age 66, he was made a bishop, over his own objections to the title.

    St. Alphonsus was one who obeyed and taught the commandments with great simplicity and grace, and was one who was truly salt and light for the world. What we should see in his life and in these scripture readings, brothers and sisters in Christ, is that preaching and teaching is something we all must do. Alphonsus would remind us that our preaching and teaching need not be elaborate, but also must not be onerous or pompous. Indeed, our best teaching of the commandments may well be in our living of them. May St. Alphonsus Liguori lead us all to be great in the kingdom of heaven.

  • Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: God’s abundant care for us.

    Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: God’s abundant care for us.

    We are taking a bit of an excursus or diversion here for the next few Sundays. You may know that throughout this Church year, we have been reading from the Gospel of Mark. Well, for the next several Sundays (with the exception of next Sunday because it is a special feast), we are reading from the Gospel of John. We are reading a very important part of John's Gospel at that: it is the sixth chapter, known as the Bread of Life Discourse. In this chapter, John shows us how Jesus is Eucharist for us. Today we begin with a familiar story: the feeding of the multitudes.

    Someone once explained this miracle to me by saying that it happened because people were moved by Jesus' preaching and works among them, so in response, they took food they had with them and shared them with one another. As the food was passed around and the remnants were gathered up, it turned out they had enough to feed everyone after all – and then some. This wonderful story, they told me, showed the power of sharing in response to the work of God in our lives.

    That's a lovely explanation, isn't it? Too bad it's garbage.

    Yes, garbage. It's garbage for a few reasons. First, if that's the way it happened, why didn't the evangelists record it that way? This miracle has the distinction of being recorded in all four Gospels. One would think that if this had been a miracle about sharing, one of them would have reported it as such. But they didn't. Maybe you're thinking that the Gospel authors wouldn't have reported it that way because it would be embarrassing to Jesus. But that doesn't work either, because they reported embarrassing things about Jesus all the time. Just a few weeks ago, we read how Jesus could not accomplish any miracle in his home town. That was sure embarrassing. So I'm thinking that if the miracle turned out to be a case of wonderful sharing, that's how the story would have been told.

    Another reason this explanation doesn't work is that it misses the point entirely. The sharing explanation seems to take the power out of Jesus' hands and put it in the hands of the crowd. We like that kind of explanation in our culture, because we want it to be about us. We want to feel in control, to feel that we have the power to fix our problems and handle our own lives. But the truth is that we are not in control: all we have are five barley loaves and two fish, and that seems woefully inadequate to address the incredible needs we and our contemporaries have every day. The whole point of this story is that we can't address all our hungers, but Jesus absolutely can do so, and because of that the story of sharing does not make much sense at all.

    The real explanation here is that Jesus took five barley loaves and two fish, and passed them around, and they became enough to feed thousands. We believe in miracles, brothers and sisters in Christ, and a miracle is exactly what we believe happened here. And it wasn't a miracle of human making, it was a miracle of Jesus' power at work in the world which addressed a need that Jesus noticed, made up for human inadequacies, and fed the crowd more wonderfully than they could ever have imagined.

    First of all, Jesus notices a need. He sees that the people are coming to him, clamoring after his healing miracles and the words he has been preaching. They recognize he is someone special, someone they want to hear more of, and they follow him without any thought for their own comfort. And so Jesus notices that they are hungry. Now let's just stop for a minute and acknowledge that there are probably two kinds of hunger going on here: certainly physical hunger, since they have not eaten, but also a spiritual hunger. A hunger for eternal life that will only ever be fulfilled in God himself. Jesus here intends to feed them in both ways.

    Second, Jesus makes up for our inadequacies. Having seen the need, he asks Philip to arrange to feed them. Philip falls for it, hook, line and sinker. "Two hundred days' wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little." Philip says there is no way they could take care of the physical hunger of the crowd, and with his response, betrays that he is also quite unprepared to take care of their spiritual hunger. But Jesus takes them where they are at. Andrew offers the five loaves and two fish that come from one of the boys in the crowd. That's all they can find. We should note that barley loaves are particularly inadequate since they were considered the bread of the poor. But even with that little, poor bread, Jesus feeds the great crowd. So little food is obviously inadequate for the hunger of so many, but Jesus uses it and makes up for the lack, feeding the people and satisfying their every hunger.

    Third, Jesus feeds the crowd more wonderfully than they could have ever imagined. John's Gospel is filled with images of superabundance: huge jugs of water made into incredible wine at Cana, and now five loaves and two fish that feed a large crowd, and provide twelve wicker baskets of leftovers. Jesus takes care of every need with overwhelming power. He does not just provide a little afternoon snack; he provides a glorious meal, feeding crowds of people with bounty and grace. Indeed this is a miracle of Jesus our God taking notice of our needs, filling up our lack, and feeding us with superabundance. This is no simple sharing ritual, but a gracious act of God in our world to make his presence and care for his people known.

    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 your community, maybe a family who is in need, or a whole segment of the population not served in some way. You need to know that you noticed that because of the spirit of Jesus 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 to feed our hungry world with superabundance.

    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 every week, and even during the week if we can, 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."

  • St. Martha

    St. Martha

    Today's readings | Saint of the Day

    Along with her sister Mary, and brother Lazarus, St. Martha was a personal friend of Jesus.  He seems to have come to their house by invitation, not to affect a conversion or anything like that, but just to share some time and a meal.  And you know the rest of that story, right?  Mary sits at Jesus’ feet while Martha makes all the preparations in the kitchen.  Martha quite rightly (in my opinion!) demands that all should lend a hand in the preparation of one’s house for guests.  Jesus’ response there is that “Mary has chosen the better part:” this reminds us that everything isn’t always up to us.  We are called to do our part and rest in God’s loving care for us.

    But today’s Gospel reading is really the great story of Martha’s saintliness.  She says three very faith-filled things in and around this passage.  The first is that she runs out to greet Jesus and proclaims a small part of her faith: “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.  But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.”  Here her faith is not quite perfect.  She is confused that Jesus was detained and her brother died.  But there is that aspect of trusting faith that knows that Jesus has power to do whatever he wills.  The second great thing she says here comes right at the end of the story we hear today.  In this, she proclaims a more perfect faith: “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”  In this great profession of faith, Martha is just as bold and courageous as St. Peter who proclaims the same kind of faith when Jesus asks him “who do you say that I am?” 

    The final great thing that Martha does comes right after the story we read today.  Having professed her faith in Jesus, Martha now returns to her sister and calls her to come to Jesus: “The teacher is here and is asking for you.”  Those who profess their faith in Jesus cannot possibly keep it to themselves.  And Martha does not.  She goes to retrieve her sister, who once sat at the Lord’s feet, but now for some reason chose to remain at home.  Perhaps Mary was hurt that Jesus had not come right away.  Whatever the case, Martha’s faith does not leave her sister in the dark.  Like Martha, we who believe in Jesus must tell everyone who needs to hear it that the Teacher is asking for them.