Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Liturgy

  • Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time: The Meaning of Suffering

    Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time: The Meaning of Suffering

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/020506.shtml

    My homily today was shortened a bit from the original. We had a letter to read from the bishop. So this is the homily as I actually preached it:

    Today’s Gospel once again shows Jesus curing people and casting out demons. People were naturally amazed at his ability to alleviate suffering and flocked to him. He even had to get up real early in the morning just to have some time to himself. When the disciples find him, they say, “Everyone is looking for you.” And everyone probably was looking for him; how could they get enough of his miraculous healings?

    Sometimes when I hear Gospel passages like that, I think, well, why doesn’t Jesus just heal everyone? Have you ever thought about that? This, I think gets to the heart of the matter for all of us: why is there suffering in the world? Why, especially, do good people, the innocent, and children have to suffer? It’s a question we all ask at one time or another.

    This issue has been especially poignant for me this week. I talked to a friend from the parish where I did my pastoral internship two years ago. In catching up with the news from the place, she told me that one of the nuns that worked there, and the mother of another staff member had both been diagnosed with cancer in the last few weeks. This week in talking to my parents, I found out that one of our young friends, who himself has a large family, has serious cancer in a number of areas in his body. Another friend is undergoing some worrisome tests. And the father of one of my friends at the seminary had a serious stroke on Friday, and my friend had to sign a DNR order for him.

    Why do people have to suffer?

    Maybe it’s a question you’ve been asking recently. Maybe you have a friend or family member, or even more than one, on your mind right now. Maybe your heart is heavy as you sit here, listening to Jesus healing all the people in town. This can be a real hard Gospel for us to hear when we’re in that place.

    In fact, I think if Job heard this Gospel, he might have lost his mind. If you’ve ever read the whole book of Job, you know that Job was a good and righteous man. He had a solid relationship with God, and was rewarded with a big family and many possessions. But Satan the accuser wanted to test him, so God allowed it. In an instant, Job’s possessions were all gone, all of his children killed in an accident, and he himself was afflicted with sores from the top of his head to the soles of his feet.

    In the theology of the time, those who suffered were thought to be suffering because of something they or their ancestors had done. Suffering was simply a punishment for evil. But for Job it wasn’t that simple: he had done nothing wrong as far as he or anyone else could tell, so there didn’t seem to be a reason for the calamities that had befallen him. Today’s first reading from the book of Job, then, is the beginning of a Job’s prayer of complaint. He feels like there will be no end to his misery, and says: “I have been assigned months of misery, and troubled nights have been allotted to me … Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again.” Who hasn’t felt like Job at one time or another?

    I think today’s Liturgy of the Word as a whole teaches us that we must have faith, even in the midst of suffering. Satan’s desire in afflicting Job with those misfortunes is that Job would “curse God and die.” In fact, those were the very words Satan put in the mouth of Job’s wife at one point in the story. But Job, even though he complained and lamented, still retained his faith in God’s mercy. And in today’s Gospel, Simon and Andrew have faith that Jesus will heal Simon’s mother-in-law, which he does. The people of the town have faith enough to gather and bring to Jesus all who were sick or possessed by demons. And Jesus responds to their faith. Even today’s responsorial psalm reflects that faith by extolling the mercies of God. It says of God, “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.”

    We are called to that same faith when we suffer. Jesus tells us in another Gospel passage “In this world you will have troubles.” Suffering is inevitable in our life. But we have to remember that our God longs to see us through it, and that God will respond to our faith. The healing might not come all at once, right this minute, or even in the way we’d like to see it happen. But God sticks by us and will deliver us from evil, in his way, in his time. Suffering never makes sense, but I think it’s worse if we don’t have confidence in God’s mercy that comes from a faithful relationship with him.

    Prayer can’t be our last resort, or the answers don’t make sense. So we have to be people of faith even in our suffering and pain. As we turn now to the Eucharist, let us offer the prayers of all those in our lives who are suffering in any way. As we come to receive the body of our Lord, let us receive his grace to strengthen us and heal us and bind up all our wounds. And even as we walk through the messiness of our pain, let us praise the Lord, who heals the brokenhearted.

  • Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Quiet! Come Out of Him!

    Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Quiet! Come Out of Him!

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/012906.shtml

    This is my homily for this Sunday. In paragraph three, the regular reader might notice a similar thought from a homily two weeks ago. But I was preaching to a different congregation that week, so I’m not doing reruns just yet. This week what really gets me is the whole idea of demons coming into Church with us. Has that ever happened to you?

    If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.

    One of the earliest Scripture texts that I can recall knowing is the antiphon to today’s psalm: “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.” I kept thinking this week as I was praying over the readings that maybe if I had listened to that a little better, I might have been ordained a lot earlier in my life. But then again, if I hadn’t listened to that verse, maybe I wouldn’t be standing here now.

    I think that’s the point, though, of today’s readings: we need to listen to the voice of the Lord, and when we hear it, do what he asks, hardening not our hearts. But will we hear the voice of the Lord today? The question is not whether the Lord will speak to us, but more whether we will hear his voice. I’ve heard God’s word compared to radio waves: they’re always there, but you have to turn on the radio to hear them. And God’s presence is that way too: God is always with us, but we have to tune in to realize it.

    And that can be hard to do in today’s noisy world, right? There are so many distractions that keep us from tuning in to the voice of the Lord. We have radio, television, cell phones, iPods, email, text messages, and so much more. Sometimes we can barely concentrate on driving our cars, let alone listening to God. And even if we find time to sit down and concentrate on even just one of them, they will ultimately fail to meet our needs. Dr. Phil, Oprah and Martha Stewart may all be interesting, but they can’t give us the unconditional love that only comes from God, nor can they bring us to salvation and the union with God for which we were created.

    We are a people who need to hear the truth. Whether or not we’re conscious of it, I think we yearn for that truth. If that weren’t the case, we wouldn’t spend so much time tuning in to the people I just mentioned. If it weren’t the case, most of the books at Barnes and Noble wouldn’t be selling right now. If that weren’t the case, there wouldn’t be the hunger for spirituality that we see in the New Age movement and even various fundamentalist religions. We are a people who have always wanted to know what it’s all about, why we are here, and, by the way, what’s the meaning of life?

    The people of Israel had that same hunger in today’s first reading. As they prepared to enter the Promised Land, it was clear that Moses wouldn’t be going with them. Moses had been the voice of God for them, especially since they were literally scared to death to hear that voice or look on the face of God all by themselves. If they were going to enter the land of milk and honey, they would need someone to walk with them so that they would know the will of God. The good news for them is that God promises to provide such a voice: “I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their kin, and will put my words into his mouth; he hall tell them all that I command him.” The people are commanded to listen to the prophet’s words, and are promised that those words would always be spoken to them.

    The people were still looking for that word when Jesus walked into the synagogue at Capernaum. The tradition of the time was that the male members of the synagogue would take their turn teaching at the service, and it was Jesus’ turn this particular day. The people recognized a difference in Jesus’ preaching and that of the scribes. The scribes dutifully quoted predecessors and based their teaching on what was spoken before them. But Jesus spoke on his own authority, and that for them was astonishing.

    It was so astonishing, in fact, that it even caught the attention of demons possessing one of the men in the synagogue. While the people were still wondering who this Jesus was and what his source of authority could be, the demons possessing the man addressed him by name: Jesus of Nazareth, the Holy one of God! They knew who Jesus was and why he came, and based on Jesus’ authority, and on the one command Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel reading, “Quiet! Come out of him!” the demons leave the man, and everyone in the synagogue continue to wonder at Jesus’ authority.

    This is an incredible Gospel passage for us, I think. We don’t very often get to hear demons interrupting the celebration of Mass, and still less often see the presider rebuke the demon and cast it out. But I think that demons come into Church with us all the time. If we’re honest, each of us has a demon or two that from time to time distract us from the worship of God and our own prayer. That demon can be some kind of addiction of substance abuse or unhealthy behavior. The demon can be a pattern of sin that has us in a grip that we just can’t escape. The demon can be indifference or hard-heartedness that has its origin in real hurts or abuse. There are probably demons among us now, and probably some of us feel guilty about that – maybe we have all felt guilty about that from time to time.

    And that’s where I think today’s Gospel is very good news for all of us. We see that Jesus wasn’t put off by the demon or angry at the man who was possessed. So we can be sure that he has certainly seen our own demons before, and still loves us despite their grip on us. Even more than that, we can see that he longs to silence those demons and cast them out of us, so that we can worship God in spirit and truth. Today’s Gospel reading shows us what may be the most important message in all of Jesus’ ministry: that God loves his people and deeply desires that they be freed from the evil, sin and death that have so long kept us from unity with Him.

    Listening to these demons all the time can certainly harden our hearts. That’s why they are so hard to get rid of. Demons don’t respond to our limited authority. But we don’t have to drive them out on our own. Because we know that the demons certainly respond to the authority of Jesus, the ultimate prophet. And Jesus will cast them out for us, if only we would tune in, if only we would listen and hear his voice.

    “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

  • Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Repent and Belive in the Gospel

    Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Repent and Belive in the Gospel

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/012206.shtml

    Here’s my homily for this evening and tomorrow. This is my first weekend at the parish I’ve been assigned to as a deacon: St. John the Baptist in Winfield. I’m excited about beginning there, and I hope I have a word or two here that will speak to their hearts.

    The call to repentance runs all through today’s readings. When we think about what repentance means, we usually think about turning away from sin. Well that’s about half right. In today’s Gospel, Jesus says “Repent and believe in the Gospel.” Jesus’ call to repentance means a turning away from sin, or at least from a way of life that is not ultimately satisfying, and toward the way of life that God wants us to live.

    Jonah’s repentance was all about turning away from his idea of who could receive salvation and toward God’s call that he be the messenger of repentance to the Ninevites. You might know that we don’t have all of Jonah’s story in today’s first reading. Based on today’s first reading, we might think Jonah heard God’s call and went forth and did it, and all worked out well. But that’s not quite true; Jonah’s first response to God’s call that he go preach to the Ninevites was that he didn’t want to do it and there was no way God could make him. You see, the Ninevites were an extremely evil people who were incredibly cruel to the Israelites, so Jonah quite rightly feared for his life. And Jonah felt justified in letting God destroy the city and rid that evil people from the face of the earth. To get away from God’s call, Jonah boarded a ship headed to Tarshish, but that wasn’t far enough to get away from God – when we try to flee from God we’re never going to be successful. The story goes that God whipped up a storm that threatened the ship and everyone on it. Jonah knew the reason for the storm, so he convinced the crew to throw him overboard. And maybe you know the story here: when he hit the water, he was swallowed up by a big fish and lived in the belly of the fish for three days before he was coughed up on land. Today’s first reading, then, is Jonah’s second response to God’s call, and it was all about him turning away from his fears, away from his prejudices, and toward the mission that God called him to do.

    The Ninevites, then, had some repentance of their own to do. Jonah’s mission to them was incredibly successful. He was only about a third of the way through this massive city, when they heard his announcement and determined to reform their lives. They put on sackcloth and proclaimed a fast, and we get the idea that they truly reformed their lives because God did not, in fact, destroy their city.

    St. Paul’s message in today’s second reading is another call to repentance. Paul thought that the return of Christ would happen in his lifetime, so he did not want people to get too attached to life in this world. Even though he was wrong about Christ’s return, he was still quite right, I think, about not being too attached to this world. Because we have been created for life with God, and ultimately that means life in heaven. But if we’re too attached to the limited life that this world allows us, we’ll never get there. We need to turn away from getting too attached to life in this world, and instead to turn our attention toward life with God in heaven.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus calls Peter, Andrew, James and John to turn away from fishing and to turn instead toward a life following him. Fishing was the only way of life these men had ever known. Their families had probably been fishermen for generations, and James and John even left their father on the boat, along with the nets and the hired hands. They gave it all up at once to become fishers of men, something they had no idea how to do.

    This is Respect Life weekend, and respecting life involves repentance for all of us. It’s easy enough, I think, for us to be proud of our efforts to respect life when we haven’t murdered anyone and don’t support abortion. But the Church teaches that respecting life involves far more than that. Respecting life also means that we must have a preference against capital punishment, against war and terrorism, against euthanasia and assisted suicide, against racism and prejudice in all of its forms, against gossip and scandal – in short, against anything that de-values human life. The principle of respecting life is grounded in the fact that we are all made in the image and likeness of God, and that each person needs to be for us a reflection of God in our world. Therefore, we are called to treat each person accordingly. Today, I think, it would be good for all of us to reflect on the ways in which we need to repent of our life-destroying attitudes and behaviors, and turn instead toward God, the giver of all life.

    We are still more or less at the beginning of Ordinary Time today, and I think the Church begins Ordinary Time with a call to repentance because Christ began his ministry that way. For us who would be followers of Christ, repentance needs to be a way of life. It’s not something that happens once and for all, and then we’re done with it. Every day, we are confronted by attitudes that are not life-giving, and tempted toward behaviors that turn us away from the God who made us. If we would believe that we are called in the same way Peter, Andrew, James and John were called, then we must remember that we are also called in the same way the Ninevites and the Corinthians were. We have to give up our sinful attitudes and behaviors, and our attachments to the world which is passing away, and turn instead toward God’s will and our true calling in Christ.

    Again, this is a decision that we must make every day. And maybe a good way to do that is to begin every day with the prayer of today’s responsorial psalm: “Teach me your ways, O God.”

  • Second Sunday of Ordinary Time: Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

    Second Sunday of Ordinary Time: Speak Lord, Your Servant is Listening

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/011506.shtml

    1/21/06: Once again, it’s been tooooo long since I’ve posted, so I’m posting this one a bit late, and it’s the homily I preached on Saturday and Sunday, Jan. 14-15. It reflects on the readings for the Second Sunday of Ordinary Time, but also reflects on vocations since it was the end of National Vocations Week. Warning: Reading this blog entry does expose you to my vocation story. Remember… you’ve been warned.

    I haven’t made any New Years resolutions yet, at least not formally. But after living with these readings for the last week, I think I know what mine will be. I’d like to start every day with Samuel’s prayer in today’s first reading: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.” Then of course, I’ll have to listen; and I don’t know how it is for you, but I know that, for me, more listening in my prayer might be a good thing.

    Because it’s easy, isn’t it, to say all kinds of things to God in prayer. We have no problem telling him our needs, praising him, even giving thanks. And all those things are good, of course, but we’re supposed to listen too. And that can be the hard part in today’s noisy world. Our world has lots of ways to speak to us: television, radio, cell phones, text messaging, email and the list goes on. We’re a culture that likes to say a lot of stuff and make a lot of noise. But for prayer to really work, there has to be silence, we have to listen. So we might do well to pray the way Samuel did: “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    To say that in our prayer shows a strong openness to God’s will. The implication of saying “Speak Lord, your servant is listening” is that, as God’s servants, we will do what he asks of us. Samuel did that, we know, because the end of the reading tells us that he grew up and the LORD was with him. Andrew, Peter, and the other disciple had that kind of openness in the Gospel reading, since they were willing to drop everything and respond to Jesus’ invitation: “Come, and you will see.”

    Jesus says that same thing to us today, and every day: “Come, and you will see.” Do we want to see what Jesus is doing in the world today? Do we want a world of justice and peace? Do we long for a prayer life that guides us through life and sees us through good times and bad? If so, “come, and you will see.” Having that openness to God’s will is a way of life that Jesus offers to all of us.

    This is Vocations Awareness Week, and today’s readings really speak to us about our vocation to follow Christ. As baptized People of God, we all have a vocation to follow Christ in whatever way God has led us. Some of us live our vocation in marriage and as parents, others live it as single people serving Christ in the world, and others live it as priests, deacons, and religious men and women. God has something specific for each of us to do, and we will see what it is if we open the door and say “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    Five years ago on the occasion of Vocation Awareness Week, I was co-directing the contemporary choir at St. Petronille. At the homily time, I sat in a pew next to my mother, who happened to come to that Mass. During the homily, one of our parishioners who was a seminarian gave his talk about Vocations. And my mother, in her not-so-subtle fashion, elbowed me in the side and said “you should listen to this.” Well, I said something like “not gonna happen” … I had long since put the idea of a religious vocation aside, having looked at the possibility not once, but twice, and both times feeling that I was not in fact being called to a priestly or religious vocation.

    In fact, in college, I had received a degree in religious studies with a minor in philosophy, and the diocese was ready to send me to seminary as soon as I graduated. But at the time, I felt that I needed to do some work, and so I did that, working as a youth minister at St. Petronille. After that, I worked in the business world for about ten years. At one point, I spent some time with the Benedictines at St. Procopius Abbey, and eventually found I wasn’t being called to that either.

    So when I heard the seminarian’s talk that year, I was very happy with my life. I had a good job, and worked mostly with people that I liked. I had good friends and a wonderful family. I had some ministries in the Church, including the choir, that came out of my spiritual life. My prayer life was good. I felt like I was doing what I was supposed to be doing and I was happy about that.

    But sometime later, my prayer life became stale, as prayer lives will do on occasion. So I prayed about that, and realized that God was trying to move me in a new direction. Of course, I had no idea what that direction was, so just before Lent, I prayed that God would give me a big challenge. And I remember saying to God, “I don’t care what it is, just help me to know what it is and I’ll do it.” In some ways, this was my way of saying “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    And here’s a little spiritual hint. If you pray a prayer like that, God will answer it, so make sure you’re prepared. I wasn’t, but don’t let that happen to you!

    I continued to pray about it during Lent, and eventually started to consider going back to school. That’s an idea I had toyed with a lot over the previous few years, but could never decide if I should go and get a computer-related degree, which interested me, or a church-related degree. As I looked into it, I became aware that God was calling me to go to seminary. I remember protesting in prayer that going to seminary wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I also remember God saying “you said you’d do anything.” And so, several months later, I was at Mundelein Seminary for the first of five years of priestly formation there.

    During my time at Mundelein, I have grown in my vocation, and God has continued to encourage me to “Come and you will see.” In addition to receiving a wonderful education, I have also had the opportunity to minister in a nursing home, at a parish for a six month internship, as a hospital chaplain and as a fire chaplain. I’ve discovered that God calls me to do all sorts of things that I never thought I could do or would want to do, and those experiences have been great.

    That’s my story, and every one of us has a story about how God is calling us to live our vocation. You may not know what it is yet. Some people know what they are called to do right away. Others, like me, take some time to figure that out. There is no one, right, way to follow Christ. But it always starts out with “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

    If you feel like you have been called to a priestly or religious vocation, I’d be glad to talk with you about that. Our diocese has a good number of seminarians, but not enough to serve our Church well in the future. This year, in fact, I will be the only one ordained to the priesthood, and there’s a need for many more than one new priest in a diocese that is growing every day.

    I would like to ask all of you to do three things. First, if you know someone who you think would make a good priest or religious man or woman, tell them. I know that’s a risk and it’s hard to do, but they aren’t going to be offended by it. And I pray that all parents would encourage their children to consider priestly or religious vocations and support them if that’s what they choose to do. When we encourage people to consider that kind of vocation, they may or may not respond right away, but even if they don’t, you’ve planted a seed that God can water and care for.

    Second, open yourself up to live your own vocation – whatever it is – well. When we all live our vocations well, following Christ with open hearts, we create a community where jobs are not just jobs, and relationships are not just give and take, but where all of life is an opportunity to live fully and freely as followers of Christ. That kind of community will generate the people we need to serve the Church as priests and religious.

    And finally, pray for vocations. Pray for all vocations. Pray that married people would be models of Christian love for everyone. Pray that parents may have the strength they need to raise their children in a challenging world. Pray that men would be open to priestly vocations. Pray that men and women would follow Christ in the religious life. Pray that priests would be strong disciples that lead people to Christ. Pray that we would all be a community open to God’s will and to following Christ in the way we have been called. Pray because prayer is effective and transforming and prayer works.

    This new year, let us all resolve to begin every day and all of our prayer with the words of Samuel, “Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

  • Third Sunday of Advent

    Third Sunday of Advent

    Yes, it’s been a while since I’ve blogged. End of the quarter, and a whole bunch of things got in the way. But here we are, in a new liturgical year, on the Third Sunday of Advent. Instead of just some reflections, I’m posting the text of the homily I preached today.

    There’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, because the days are rapidly getting shorter, and will continue to do so until the winter solstice. The darkness and cold of the night seem so much more prevalent than the joyful light of day.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, when we look at the darkness of our world. It is a world still wrapped in sin and scandal and death. It is a world affected by sickness and disease. It is a world where tragedies and wars still hang heavy on our horizons. It is a world where the sadness of poverty and injustice and inequality and racism still mar the brightness of our days.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    It might not seem like there’s more light, when we look inward at the darkness of our own souls, grown cold in the scandal of sin in the world and grown bitter at the triumph of injustice and death. In our own lives, there is sin, sin that maybe has been defended by our own self-righteousness, or ignored in our jadedness. In our own lives, maybe we have prayed less than we should, or treated others with something quite less than love, or have been greedy, or have damaged our relationships by giving in to lust, or have taken possession of what does not belong to us. In our own lives, maybe our sin has gone unconfessed because of fear or indifference.

    But still, there’s a little more light today.

    John the Baptist came into the world to point to that light. He readily admitted that he himself was not the light, but drew the attention of the Pharisees and others who were questioning him to the one who was already in their midst – one they did not recognize. And that one was Jesus Christ, the true light of the world.

    Because of John the Baptist, we can see that there’s a little more light today.

    The Church tells us there is more light as we continue to light the candles on our Advent wreath. With each additional candle, there is more light shining on our celebration and drawing us into the great light of Christmas. We light the rose candle today, the color of which reminds us that this is “Gaudete Sunday.” Gaudete is Latin for “joy,” and reminds us that even in the darkness of winter, even in the darkness of our world and even in the darkness of our own lives and sin, that there is one among us – one that maybe we don’t recognize as often as we should. And that one light is Jesus Christ, the true light of the world.

    Because of the Church, we can see that there’s a little more light today.

    In today’s second reading, St. Paul tells the community at Thessolonica to do three things: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in every circumstance. These three actions are the heart of the Christian life, and keep us united to Christ. To do anything less would be to quench the Holy Spirit, and St. Paul insisted that living a life filled with rejoicing, prayer and thanksgiving was the way to become perfectly holy, which is the goal of all of our lives.

    Because of St. Paul, there’s a little more light today.

    All of this comes as a result of God’s gracious gift in our world and in our lives. By Christ coming into the world as a tiny child, and growing up to take our sins to the cross and rise triumphant over them, the darkness of sin and death are no longer the powers that rule the day. Instead, the great light of God’s love, against which nothing can prevail, becomes the great power of the day.

    Because of Jesus Christ, there’s a lot more light today.

    So it comes to us. Now we are called to be the light that brightens our darkened world. The spirit of the Lord God is upon us, and we have been anointed to bring good news to the poor and to heal the brokenhearted. We must be the light that releases those imprisoned in darkness and proclaims the vindication of God.

    And I would like to suggest that we can use St. Paul’s model to do that in three very specific ways. First, we can rejoice always. In this season, maybe we can all send a Christmas card to someone who wouldn’t otherwise receive one; to someone who probably won’t send one back to us. Maybe that’s to a relative who has grown distant, or a homebound neighbor. Even if you don’t send any other cards this Christmas, send that one card. Second, we can pray without ceasing. And in Advent, maybe that means going to Confession. The Sacrament of Penance can make the world very bright for you and for the community by letting go of the darkness of sin. There’s a penance service on December 21st, and many other opportunities for the sacrament before Christmas. Be not afraid, there is a lot of joy and much light that comes from celebrating the sacrament of our forgiveness. And third, give thanks in all circumstances. This Advent, maybe we can all take the time to thank one person for what he or she has done in our lives this year. God gives us the blessing of so many relationships, but how often do we thank God for them, or even thank them for being God’s presence in our lives? Or maybe we can make a list of people and blessings for which we are thankful, and pray through them as we sit by the light of our Christmas trees this season. Let us give thanks in all circumstances.

    Because, if we do even these small things, we will see that in us, there’s a little more light today.

  • Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/110605.htm

    I should begin with at least an acknowledgement that this reflection is late. That had something to do with getting ordained to the diaconate on Friday, preaching on Saturday, and baptizing my niece on Sunday. More on all of that later. But when I preached on Saturday, I preached on this very text. So without further ado…

    The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
    who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
    Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
    The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
    brought no oil with them,
    but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.

    First, we have to understand the parable. Wedding customs in first century Palestine were a little different than those we know today. The wedding was a drawn out affair, beginning with the betrothal. After that, the couple was married but would not live together until the complex negotiations regarding the dowry were complete. When that was done, the bridegroom would go to the bride’s house and bring her to his own house. Then there would be a splendid feast that would go on for several days.

    So the parable happens just as the negotiations are complete and they are expecting the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house. He is delayed a bit, and they all fall asleep. But that is not the problem. The problem is that half of them were unprepared.

    I think we bristle a bit at the wise virgins’ refusal to share their oil with the foolish. Jesus was always for sharing and charity, so what’s the deal here? Well, since we know Jesus regularly encourages such sharing, I think we can safely conclude that is not the point of the parable and move on. The point of the parable then, may well be the oil itself. Of what is this oil symbolic?

    The Church Fathers help us a bit there. They talk about the oil as the oil of salvation. This would be an oil that can only be had in relationship with Jesus. It’s an oil that can’t be begged, borrowed, stolen or bought at an all-night Walgreens. We fill the flasks of our lives with that oil through daily prayer, devotion, the sacraments, and a life-long relationship with Jesus Christ, our Savior. So the foolish virgins were looking for oil too late — too late not just because it is midnight, but too late because they should have been filling their flasks with this oil all along. It’s not the wise virgins’ fault they did not share: indeed this is an oil that cannot be shared, any more than one could live another’s life for that person.

    What gets me is that five of these virgins showed up unprepared. We may not be familiar with first-century Palestinian wedding customs, but they certainly were. So they would have known the wedding would go on for some days. How is it, then, that they forgot extra oil? Even if the bridegroom had not been delayed, they certainly would have needed it! What was so important to them that they forgot to attend to the most basic part of their job in preparation for the wedding banquet?

    Just so, we certainly have nothing more important to do than to show up at the wedding feast of heaven with our flasks filled with the oil of salvation. No other concern should distract us for our most basic job on earth, which is preparing for our life in heaven. We must not be deterred from prayer, devotion, good works of charity, fasting, and zealous reception of the sacraments lest we hear those awful words the bridegroom spoke to the foolish virgins: “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”

    When we get to the feast, if our flasks are not full, it is already too late. As we approach the immanent end of this Church year (there’s just less than three weeks left), let us look back and see how well we have filled our flasks in the last year. And let us steadfastly resolve to fill those flasks to overflowing in the year ahead. The only way we can do that is by zealously seeking our God, praying the prayer of the Psalmist:

    O God, you are my God whom I seek;
    for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts
    like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.

  • Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/103005.htm

    The greatest among you must be your servant.
    Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
    but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

    The idea of servant leadership is a hot topic for me these days. As I and my friends prepare to be ordained as transitional deacons, the whole meaning of the word is encompassed in today’s Gospel reading. The Greek word, diakonos, means service. In Christ’s Kingdom, those who are to lead, are to serve, as He did.

    The model for our service, and our leadership, is Christ on the Cross. Love who and what He loved … all the way to death. It’s a hard act to follow, but then, we’re not expected to do it alone. All of us are called to this kind of service, but especially those of us who are called to lead. There is no leadership in the Kingdom that is not service — none.

    So we don’t get to widen our phylacteries (I’ve always wanted to use that word in my blog!) and we can forget about lengthening our tassels: the concept of Christian leadership isn’t just for show. And if our leadership is really authentic, then it won’t take wide phylacteries or long tassels to see it. This doesn’t mean we don’t wear clerical garb or anything like that; it simply means that the garb is the afterthought — service comes first.

    If we have learned anything in these past few years about leadership, it ought to be that we can’t just get by on our looks. That gets us into trouble every time. Forget what it looks like, serve the Lord, serve His people, serve His Church, serve the Kingdom. If that’s where our focus is, everyone will see that, and people will be moved.

    St. Paul says it well in today’s second reading from his first letter to the Church at Thessalonica:

    You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.
    Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,
    we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
    And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly,
    that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us,
    you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God,
    which is now at work in you who believe.

    Servant leaders do not ask people to bow and scrape to them. Instead, they roll up their sleeves, and work for the sake of the Kingdom of God. It is then that the Gospel gets preached not just in words, but in our very living. St. Francis said well that we are to preach the Gospel at all times, using words “when necessary.”

    Our living is our preaching, and our preaching is our living.

  • Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/102305.htm

    “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
    He said to him,
    “You shall love the Lord, your God,
    with all your heart,
    with all your soul,
    and with all your mind.
    This is the greatest and the first commandment.
    The second is like it:
    You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
    The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

    First of all, I’m sorry this reflection is late. I know some of you check this blog out frequently for lectionary reflections, and I appreciate that … you’ve been keeping me honest! So with that in mind, and my sincere apologies, let’s look at last Sunday’s scriptures.

    Jesus quotes with all of the ease of being a good Jew the greatest commandments. He has been taught them from his youth, as all Jewish children would have been. (We’ll just let go for now the special knowledge he may have of these based on his divinity…) But the important part is his last sentence: The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. With all the skill of a good rabbi, Jesus sums up the scriptures in one call to action: love of God and love of neighbor.

    It’s simple. As we dedicate ourselves to God and one another, we fulfill everything the law and prophets always tried to do. The Gospel, though, gives us the mechanism to really do it: freedom. God always meant for us to be truly free, and that freedom does not equal “license” or lawlessness. It does not equal doing whatever we want or expressing any thought that crosses our minds: our freedom cannot trample the rights and freedoms of others, or we have lost sight of the goal of the greatest commandments.

    True freedom is ridding ourselves of the attachments that keep us from loving God and neighbor fully. Everything that holds us back and drags us down must be cut away mercilessly or we cannot love God and neighbor freely. And ironically, when we do not love God and neighbor freely, we are never really free.

    The hard part is cutting away the attachments: the relationships that are not healthy; the entertainments that do not edify; the concern for self that does not let us reach out to others; the desire for success that manifests itself in greed. The list can get long, and it can be hard to identify those attachments in our lives. But the Psalmist today gives us the criteria:

    I love you, O LORD, my strength,
    O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.

    Whatever takes our eyes off this truth, this praise, this love of God who is our Savior, that must be cut away. Mercilessly.

    This is painful, yes. But the payoff is great: true freedom.

  • 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/101605.htm

    At that he said to them,
    “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
    and to God what belongs to God.”

    Whose image is this?

    I think this statement begs the question, “What doesn’t belong to God?” I think I’ve often missed this irony on Jesus’ part.

    After all, Jesus certainly wasn’t preaching that we should compartmentalize our lives: every part of our lives belongs to God, and we owe it all back to Him. Every moment of our time, every earthly treasure we may own, all of our talents and gifts, our health and well-being, our very breath … all of this belongs to God. And all of it has been given to us as a great trust.

    We are stewards of all that we are and all that we have. We need to get it right, and to live every moment as though we were borrowing these great treasures from our generous and giving God.

    The thought occurs to me that these words may seem empty to those who have comparatively little. Those who don’t have great health, or great wealth. The unemployed and those with financial troubles. The aged and lonely. So many have what seems to be great poverty. Yet many of those who might be considered very poor can teach the rest of us how to get it right. So many who have comparatively little give what little they have, knowing it belongs to God.

    Because with God it doesn’t matter whether we’re wealthy or not, healthy or sick: what matters is that we use what we have for God’s purposes and that we sing with the Psalmist:

    Give to the LORD, you families of nations,
    give to the LORD glory and praise;
    give to the LORD the glory due his name!

  • 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/100905.htm

    Wedding Garment

    “But when the king came in to meet the guests,
    he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
    The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
    that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
    But he was reduced to silence.
    Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
    and cast him into the darkness outside,
    where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’”

    Deacon Bob at my home parish today spoke of this parable as a case of someone wanting the Kingdom of heaven, but on his own terms. That really struck a chord with me. I had been thinking about the whole idea of the wedding garment as I lived with this Scripture this week. It’s a colorful detail that’s really hard to overlook in this parable, and I think it has to be explained homiletically.

    It probably stands out because it can be seen as an example of Jesus being unfair. If the man was poor, as we can perhaps surmise from the fact that he was brought in off the street, how could Jesus have expected him to be in a proper garment? But we’re told by scholars that at the time, when someone threw a wedding feast, they provided the regal garments for their guests to wear. So Jesus wasn’t expecting the man to do anything difficult: he was invited, he presumably knew the custom, he was provided with a proper and beautiful garment, but he refused to put it on. He wanted to be at the feast, but on his terms, not those of the host.

    The feast foreshadows the great wedding feast in the Kingdom of heaven to which we are all invited. Jesus goes so far as to have his servants call people in off the streets, from the highways and biways; he has his servants bring people in from wherever they are. And that’s the wonderful thing about the heavenly banquet: all are welcome, indeed, all are brought in, no matter what kind of garment they are currently wearing, because our God longs to meet us where we are.

    And we are provided with a beautiful garment: in baptism we can clothe our souls in a garment that is regal and perfect. Our task is to put on that garment, to preserve the beauty of that garment and bring it unstained to the heavenly banquet. That’s the part that calls for our response: we have to accept the invitation, put on the garment, and preserve its beauty until the day that we are called to the banquet.

    But there are so many problems that enter in. We are tempted in so many ways to accept ways of life that stain that garment, or even cause us to take it off completely. We may think we’ll have time to put it on and clean it up later, whenever later may be. We still want to be at the banquet, but we want to get there on our own terms. And it doesn’t work that way.

    God forbid that we would arrive without the proper garment. God forbid that we would arrive with that garment in horrible condition. We have been given so much: the free invitation, the free garment, and all it takes is our own response. We have to accept it all on God’s terms, whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts. So may we all accept the Kingdom on God’s terms that we might exclaim with the Psalmist:

    You spread the table before me
    in the sight of my foes;
    you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
    Only goodness and kindness follow me
    all the days of my life;
    and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
    for years to come.