Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Lent

  • The Second Sunday of Lent [B] – Children’s Mass

    The Second Sunday of Lent [B] – Children’s Mass

    Today’s readings

    This weekend’s Gospel is a little strange, I think, maybe a little hard to understand.  We have Peter, James and John go up with Jesus to the top of the mountain, where Jesus is changed in appearance.  He becomes radiant and his clothes become dazzling white, like the garment here on the rock in front of the altar – only more radiant.  Moses and Elijah are suddenly with him, and Peter, James and John are astounded.  They don’t know what to think.  And I think we don’t either!

    For Jesus’ friends this story is a very special, defining moment.  They have seen Jesus do great things: heal the sick and raise the dead; and his words have been very inspiring.  There is a little bit of a movement behind Jesus now: the ministry is just getting started.  But right before this awesome sign on the mountain, he starts talking about how he is going to die.  And the disciples don’t want to hear it.  They’ve given everything to follow him, and now he’s doing this crazy talk about dying.

    But up there on that mountain, they find out that he’s right.  That in order for Jesus to accomplish what he came to do, he’s going to have to die, and rise from the dead.  And the vision on the mountain gives them a sneak-peek at what that’s going to look like.  They get to see Jesus as he is going to look right after he rises from the dead.

    Jesus didn’t just come into the world to say nice things and do mighty deeds.  Those are great, but that wasn’t his whole mission in the world.  He didn’t come to make everyone feel good about themselves and go with the flow.  He came to turn the world upside-down and to make everything new.  There was going to be lots of change that would make people uncomfortable and even mad.  And then they would kill him, and then he would rise from the dead.  That’s how it had to work, that’s how he had to pay the price for our many sins so that we could live forever with God.

    The other great story we have in our readings today comes from the first reading.  Abraham and Sarah have been praying to have a child all their lives.  Now they are very, very old, and God promises to fulfill his plans for Abraham that he would be the father of many nations.  And so, Sarah, in her old age, gives birth to a son, Isaac.  They are of course thrilled at how blessed they are.  But now, with Isaac growing up, God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to prove his faithfulness to God: “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to thelandofMoriah.  There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.”  So now Abraham has to weigh his trust in God’s promises against the loss of his only beloved son.

    Now again, we know the end of the story: God did not allow Abraham to harm Isaac, but instead provided a lamb for the sacrifice himself.  It wasn’t that Abraham had to prove his faithfulness to God; instead God turns it all around and proves his faithfulness to Abraham – and us!

    There is a whole part of this story that was cut out in the reading we have today.  What we miss is the conversation between Abraham and Isaac on the way, which, as you might imagine, is a pretty sad conversation.  At one point, Isaac, who is carrying the wood and the torch for the sacrifice asks his father, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”  Can you imagine how heartbroken Abraham was in that moment?  But he answered out of his faith in God: “Son, God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.”

    And Abraham was absolutely right – God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice – the perfect lamb, Jesus Christ.  This whole reading is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and our salvation.  God provided the Lamb – his only Son – to die for us, to pay the price for our sins, to lead us to everlasting life.

    The world never looked so bright as it did on that Transfiguration day on top of the mountain.  But that’s not the last glimpse of that kind of light.  That light was just a tiny sample of the glory of the Resurrection.  And the Resurrection was just a sample of the Glory of God’s heavenly kingdom, for which we all yearn with eager anticipation as we muddle through the pains and sorrows of this present life.

    This is a chance for us all to see in Christ what Peter, James and John did.  It’s a chance to see what Abraham did up on that mountain.  God did what he asked Abraham to do – he offered his only Son.  To take all our sins away.

  • The Second Sunday of Lent [B]

    The Second Sunday of Lent [B]

    Today’s readings

    You know, that last line of today’s Gospel reading always gets me thinking, “well what did they think ‘rising from the dead’ meant?”  Of course that’s easy for us to say, with the eyes of people who have some idea of how the story ends; but Peter, James and John didn’t have that vision quite yet.  When you think about it, up to this point, they’ve been basking in the glory of Jesus’ fame.  They are caught up in the whirlwind.  They too have been excited to see what Jesus will do next: what miracles he will work, what healings he will affect, what wonderful words he will speak.  They have been caught up in the excitement of the crowds who have been following Jesus, at times not understanding things any better than anybody else.  Until now.

    The Transfiguration is kind of a defining moment for Jesus and his closest disciples. They see Jesus and with him Elijah and Moses … symbols of the Law and the prophets.  This gives them a little light, a glimpse of the real Jesus, an insight into who he was that they didn’t have before.  And, honestly, it’s a pretty unsettling glimpse.  Things had just gotten started and were going well.  They weren’t ready to talk about how it was going to end.  Jesus had just started speaking to them about his passion and death, and they weren’t ready to hear it.  Peter famously stumbles over the idea of Jesus having to die, to which Jesus replies, “Get behind me, Satan.  You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

    And now here they are, on the mountain, and they get to see how things were going to be after Jesus’ death and resurrection, only they weren’t ready to see that just yet.  But just because they’re not ready for Jesus to die doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, sooner rather than later.  The Gospel story is at a turning point now.  God is revealing to Jesus’ closest followers the exact nature of Jesus’ mission in the world.  He hasn’t come just to work miracles, say wonderful things, and make people feel good about themselves.  We still have that misconception today, if we’re honest about it.  No, he hasn’t come to go with the flow and not make waves: he has come to turn the world upside down and make of it the place that it was always supposed to be.

    And the way that would happen is by his passion and death … there is no getting around that.  As difficult as that may be for his closest friends to hear, they have to hear it and come to terms with it.  This experience of the Transfiguration was supposed to give them hope that Jesus’ passion and death wasn’t going to be the end, that God still had wonderful things in store for Jesus, for them, and for the world.

    So this is where that first reading comes in.  Abraham and Sarah, as you might remember, were childless until God intervened in their lives at a very old age.  Finally, they receive Isaac, a real gift from God, a sign that the promise that God made to Abraham – that he would be the father of many nations – would be fulfilled.  And now, God asks him, – no, tells him – “Take your son Isaac, your only one, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah.  There you shall offer him up as a holocaust on a height that I will point out to you.”  So now Abraham has to weigh his trust in God’s promises against the loss of his only beloved son.  And we heard how the story ended, God did not allow Abraham to harm Isaac, but instead provided a lamb for the sacrifice himself.

    There is a whole part of this story that was cut out in the reading we have today.  What we miss is the conversation between Abraham and Isaac on the way, which, as you might imagine, is rather poignant.  At one point, Isaac asks, “Here are the fire and the wood, but where is the sheep for the holocaust?”  I can’t imagine how heartbroken Abraham was in that moment.  His answer might have been misdirection, or maybe it was faith: “Son, God himself will provide the sheep for the holocaust.”

    And Abraham was absolutely right – God himself will provide the lamb for the sacrifice – the perfect lamb, Jesus Christ.  This whole reading is a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and our salvation.  He came to suffer and die for our sins, and that’s significance of today’s Gospel event.  The world never looked so bright as it did on that Transfiguration day on top of the mountain.  But that’s not the last glimpse of that kind of light.  That light was just a tiny sample of the glory of the Resurrection.  And the Resurrection was just a sample of the Glory of God’s heavenly kingdom, for which we all yearn with eager anticipation as we muddle through the pains and sorrows of this present life.

    This is a chance for us all to see in Christ what Peter, James and John did.  It’s a chance to see what Abraham did up on that mountain.  God did what he asked Abraham to do – he offered his only Son.  To take all our sins away.

  • Pastoral Care of the Sick: Anointing of the Sick During Mass

    Pastoral Care of the Sick: Anointing of the Sick During Mass

    Today’s readings: 1 Kings 19:1-8 | Psalm 34 | James 5:13-16 | Mark 2:1-12

    I first met Tom probably a few weeks after I started my first assignment as a priest at St. Raphael’s back in the summer of 2006.  He was a young man, probably around my age, and was suffering the effects of cancer.  His family had called because he wanted to see a priest and I had gone to anoint him at the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital.  They didn’t think he was going to make it through the day, but just at the moment I got there, he had woken up and was talking to the family, the first time he had done that in a couple of days.  I waited a while, then went in to talk to him, and after a while I did what we’re going to do today: I anointed him with oil in the name of the Lord, praying over him, just as St. James tells us we should do in today’s second reading.

    During the conversation with Tom and his family, I learned that one of Tom’s favorite verses of Scripture was Isaiah 53:5: “But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins, Upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we were healed.”  Throughout his illness, Tom, a man of great faith, had prayed the closing words of that verse – “By his stripes we were healed” – every day at 3:00, the Mercy Hour, the traditional time when we believe Jesus gave his life for us, enduring stripes and torture and the agony of the cross to heal our brokenness and give us access to the kingdom of God.  He asked everyone he knew to pray for him in that way, and I promised I would do so.

    I visited with Tom a couple of other times during his illness.  About a month after I first met him, Tom passed from this life to the next, right around 3:00 in the afternoon, just after praying those words that had sustained him during his illness.  In the homily at his funeral, I noted that there are all kinds of healing, and that I truly believed Tom had been healed in the greatest way that God can offer us, by bringing us to the Kingdom.  By His stripes, Tom had indeed been healed.  Tom was the first person I ever anointed and his was the first funeral I ever celebrated.  I’ll never forget what a faithful man he was, even during his most difficult days.

    We gather together today to celebrate the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.  The Church has this sacrament because of those directions from St. James: the sick are to call on the priests of the Church, and they are to anoint the sick person with oil in the name of the Lord.  The prayer of faith, we are told, will heal the sick person, and the Lord will raise that one up.  And if the sick have committed any sins, they will be forgiven.

    The Church has this sacrament also because of who Jesus was and because of what he came to do among us.  And that was to heal people.  Deeply.  Because what we ask for, what we are looking for, is something that can be kind of superficial.  We look for mere physical healing.  But God, in his mercy, knows what we really need; he knows what we would ask for, if we really knew how to ask for what would help us.  What Jesus wants to do is to heal us from the inside out.

    And so we see that in our Gospel reading this morning.  Everyone thought that they knew what the paralytic needed.  The crowd knew the man needed to be un-paralyzed.  They couldn’t have missed the tell-tale signs of the man, immobile on a stretcher, being lowered to down to Jesus from the roof.  The man’s friends probably thought they knew too: they had heard stories, most likely, about this miracle worker, and were anxious to bring their friend, long paralyzed, to the one person that could do something about it.  The scribes thought they knew:  they were watching very closely to see what Jesus would do in this pretty desperate situation: the man can’t even move, how could anyone save him, they thought.  And even the paralytic himself probably thought he knew what he needed: long-standing illness can bring about a kind of short-sightedness that blinds us to what is best for us.

    But the only one who knew – really knew – what this man needed was Jesus.  “Child, your sins are forgiven.”  We can just imagine all those brows furrowing up, can’t we?  What did he say?  His sins are forgiven?  So what about his paralysis?

    What they don’t know is that Jesus did address the man’s paralysis.  There are all sorts of things that paralyze us:  fear, certainly, but the most insidious cause of paralysis is sin.  Sin binds us in ways of which we are not usually fully aware:  sin cancels our freedom and makes us slaves to itself.  Sin is always a step in the wrong direction, but more than that, it often produces shame, which inhibits us from getting back on the right path.  Shame convinces us that we’re not worthy of grace or love so then we sin again, and the cycle continues.  Nothing keeps us from moving forward like sin does.  Nothing paralyzes us so insidiously as does sin.

    Now, please carefully understand that I am not saying that illness is a punishment for sin.  Jesus didn’t say that either.  In fact, so as to dispel the then-common idea that illness was some kind of punishment for something someone did wrong, and to prove that he had power over every kind of healing, Jesus says to the man, “Rise, pick up your mat and go home.”  And he does.  The paralytic had been healed in just the way Jesus knew he needed to be healed – from the inside out.  Clearing away what was binding him by sin, the man was open to receiving the grace of bodily healing as well.

    So today’s readings demonstrate all the tools for healing the Church offers us.  There is the forgiveness of sins, which we have celebrated earlier today in the Sacrament of Penance.  There is the Anointing of the Sick, according to the instructions of Saint James, which we will celebrate in a moment.  And the first reading points us to the most wonderful healing remedy there is: the Body and Blood of Christ.

    Elijah, who has every right at this point in the story to lay down and summon death, hears from God that that is not God’s will.  “Get up and eat, or the journey will be too much for you!”  Indeed, the path to healing and wholeness is very often a long and arduous journey.  We dare not make that journey without food to sustain us.  And nothing sustains us on that journey like the Body and Blood of Christ.  No matter where our journey takes us: be it to spiritual healing, physical healing, or even one day to eternal life, we need that food for the journey, which is the Eucharist, that splendid meal that reminds us that we are never alone no matter where life or its pains may take us.  Our ministers of care could certainly tell us many stories of just how important this food is to those who are sick.

    And so today, we bring all these tools to bear in the work of healing.  Wherever you are right now, it is our prayer – the Church’s prayer – that God would grant you the healing that you truly need.  That healing may be spiritual: reuniting you with God and others at the Altar of praise.  That healing may be physical if that is what God knows is best for you.

    We don’t know if you all will walk out of this holy place healed of all your diseases.  But we can promise that, if you are properly disposed to receive grace, you will be freed from your sins, healed from the inside out, and that your Lord will always walk with you in your suffering.  Just like for Tom, the healing will come at some time in some way, of the Lord’s choosing, for your good, and for the glory of God.  That’s why we are here today.  That’s why we celebrate these beautiful sacraments with you today.  We know that our Lord deeply desires to heal us.  And we know that Tom was absolutely right in his profession of faith in our Lord’s goodness: by his stripes we were healed.

  • Monday of the First Week of Lent

    Monday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

    People often balk at the mere suggestion of being called to personally holiness. Oftentimes, this is wrapped up in a misplaced and false humility, that kind of humility that says that since I’m good for nothing, there is no way I can even come close to being like God. Yet the fact of the matter is that we are made good by our Creator God who designed us to be like himself, perfect in holiness.

    And if that seems too lofty to attain, Moses and Jesus spell out the steps to getting there today. Clearly, personal holiness is not merely a matter of saying the right prayers, fasting at the right times, going to Church every Sunday and reading one’s Bible. Those things are key on the journey to holiness, but using them as a façade betrays a lack of real holiness. Because for both Moses and Jesus, personal holiness, being holy as God is holy, consists of engaging in justice so that hesed – right relationship and right order – can be restored in the world.

    All the commands we receive from Moses and Jesus today turn us outward in our pursuit of holiness. Our neighbor is to be treated justly, and that neighbor is every person in our path. Robbery, false words, grudges, withholding charity, rendering judgment without justice, not granting forgiveness and bearing grudges are all stumbling blocks to personal holiness. All of these keep us from being like God who is holy. And worse yet, all of these things keep us from God, period.

    The law of the Lord is perfect, as the Psalmist says, and the essence of that law consists of love and justice to every person. If we would strive for holiness this Lent, we need to look to the one God puts in our path, and restore right relationship with that person.

  • Men’s Ministry Lenten Breakfast Talk: How Do Men Observe Lent?

    Men’s Ministry Lenten Breakfast Talk: How Do Men Observe Lent?

    Last night, I was in church for the Living Stations.  The junior high kids were leading it and they did an awesome job.  They even got me to shed a few tears along the way.  I’m half Italian: we just do that!  But what was it that got to me and caused those tears:

    1. 1. That the kids took it seriously and were very reverent and prayerful?
    2. 2. Was it the story of salvation, in awe and wonder that God would send his Son to die that horrible death for me?
    3. 3. Or was it that I was hoping and praying those kids are being touched by the meaning of what they were doing?

    And the answer is yes, all of that:  As the father of this big family, my heart is moved in all of those ways and more.  That’s what fathers do.  And so I’ve been reflecting on Lent and what that means for men.  How is it that we men observe Lent?

    Maybe I should ask, how is it that we men should observe Lent?  Because I know that we live busy lives, and we can scarcely give Lent a second thought if we’re not careful.  But that does nobody any good: not us, not our families, not our communities or workplaces.  If we want to be the best we can for all of them, we have to let Lent permeate who we are and what we do.

    And it’s a quandary with which I’m familiar.  When I worked in my pre-seminary days, if I didn’t put prayer on my to-do list – literally – there would be no prayer.  And when there was no prayer, I was not at my best at work, I was not at my best with anyone.  Lent gives us the opportunity to take stock of this and turn it all around.

    Reading: Isaiah 64:4-7

    I probably don’t have to pound home that point from Isaiah: we have become like unclean men.  The opportunities to go wrong abound, don’t they?  We intend to be men of integrity, but business is complicated.  We intend to love our families into heaven, but we’re tired, we’re busy, and we just don’t always have the patience.  Our sins abound, and we don’t intend that – we so wish we could turn back to God once and for all.  Would that he might meet us doing right.  Maybe that can happen this Lent.

    Here’s a question to think about – we will discuss it later, but for now, just think:  have you ever had a really significant Lent: a time when you felt a new springtime in your faith, a time when you grew as a man and really came to know the plans God had for you?  If so, when was that, and what was it that got to you?

    (Pause a minute or two.)

    I think Lent encourages at least five manly traits, and I want to reflect on those a bit.  Then I want to take a look at the three habits that Lent demands of us.  Finally, without stomping too much on Dr. Muir’s presentation coming up, I want to take a brief look at three men of Lent and reflect on what they model for us.

    So first: five manly traits that Lent encourages.

    First, Lent encourages us to be men of prayer.  Yes, men of prayer are men who pray, but not just men who say prayers.  Men of prayer are men who:

    • • pray first and often
    • • look around them and see God’s hand at work
    • • are grateful for their gifts
    • • look for an opportunity to worship
    • • experience the sacraments
    • • teach their families how to pray, how to have a relationship with Jesus
      • o We never go alone to the kingdom … we are supposed to take everyone with us, especially our families!

    Second, Lent encourages us to be men of faith.  Men of faith know that God is with them in good times and bad.  Men of faith have that relationship with Jesus that helps them to relate well with others.  Men of faith are courageous, and tenacious, and confident, but they are never arrogant.  Humility marks men of faith because they know the source of their strength.  This is not a false humility that makes them doormats for everyone who wishes to take them on.

    Third, Lent encourages us to be men of charity.  This might not mean what you think it does.  It’s not primarily about giving money to the poor, or even doing good things for other people.  Yes, these are acts of charity, but what I mean by being men of charity takes us to the Latin root of the word, caritas.  Caritas is a kind of self-giving love, a love that looks for the good of others, a love that sometimes finds its expression in works of charity, but is always characterized by putting the other one first.  Men of charity are men who have a strong, burning love for God that translates into the way they love their families, spouses, children, co-workers, employees, everyone God puts in their path.  Men who exhibit this charity certainly do not overlook another’s faults, but gently and firmly corrects them because he knows that setting the person right is what is best for them.  Charity sometimes means saying no, or not yet; it means saying do this even though you don’t think you want to.  Think how often God does that to us!

    • • Example from my life: my parents urging me to go on a retreat or be part of a group.

    Fourth, Lent encourages us to be men of integrity.  Men of integrity exhibit what we generally refer to as “character.”  These are men who do the right thing even though someone isn’t breathing down their neck or micromanaging them.  Integrity is what we all want to say that we have.  But integrity is definitely difficult to always achieve.  Because integrity means walking away from a lucrative business deal because it doesn’t feel right.  Integrity means setting priorities for yourself and your family that are probably counter-cultural, like saying no to sports or activities that make it impossible to go to Mass or to spend adequate time with our families.  Integrity means we are as good as our word, that we can always be relied on to do the right thing.  God does not want to be a micromanager: he wants to set us on the right path and have us walk it every day.  Men of integrity do that.

    Finally, Lent calls us to be men of grace.  This doesn’t mean we are able to burn up the dance floor, it means rather that we are aware of God’s action in our life, that we live by that action, and that we spread it on to others.  Grace says that everything we have is a gift, no matter how hard we think we’ve worked for it.  Grace says that we are sinners, men who have committed sins and are guilty of every possible offense against God, but even so we are loved and forgiven and called and blessed.  Grace says that God is infinitely greater than our sins, that there is no way that we can fall so far that God can’t reach us, that he longs to pull us up out of the waters of death and give us life that lasts forever.

    The truth of grace is this:  on one day in time, let’s call it December 25, of the year zero… (footnote Fr. Larry Hennessy).

    Men of grace are aware of their sinfulness and bring it to the Sacrament of Penance on a regular basis; they are grateful for the gift of forgiveness and celebrate it at the table of the Eucharist.  Men of grace enthusiastically pass the faith on to their families, keenly aware of their vocational responsibility to help their spouse and their children get to heaven.  Men of grace witness to others by being men of prayer, men of faith, men of charity and men of integrity!

    Another question to think about – of the five manly traits, which do you find most present in your life?  What do you think got you there?  Which do you find least present in your life?  What do you need to do to pursue it?

    So now, three Lenten habits: fasting, almsgiving and prayer.

    Fasting helps us to:

    • • give up what we truly do not need
    • • let go of things that keep us tethered to the world, to our own self-interest
    • • find in our hunger that there is nothing we hunger for that God can’t provide.

    Almsgiving helps us to:

    • • realize that we are not the center of the universe, and also we are not alone
    • • see other people as God sees them and love them as God does.

    Prayer helps us to:

    • • find God in the midst of our business, brokenness, despair
    • • have a relationship with God that sees us through good times and bad
    • o Joke about the guy who was going through a hard time and looked at the Bible randomly for some help
    • • see God’s work in our lives

    A question to think about:  What’s your Lenten plan?  How will you implement fasting, almsgiving and prayer in your life?

    Men of Lent

    Peter: Matthew 14:22-33

    • o A man of fledgling faith
      • ♣ courageous, tenacious
    • o A man of grace
      • ♣ fallen and forgiven

    Paul:  Philippians 1:19-26

    • o A man of converted faith (his past)
    • o A man of grace (knows who is in charge, where he is being led)
    • o A man of charity (is concerned about others, and fruitful labor)

    A question to think about:  Which of these men inspires you most?  Why?  What can you take from his life to create a powerful life-changing Lent?

  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    Behold: now is the acceptable time!
    Behold: now is the day of salvation!

    We have come here today for all sorts of reasons. Lots of us may still have the remnants of old and bad teaching that you have to come to Church on Ash Wednesday or something horrible will happen to you, or maybe you even think that getting ashes on Ash Wednesday is what makes us Catholic.  When you don’t come to Church on a regular basis, you lose contact with God and the community, and yes, that is pretty horrible, but not in a superstitious kind of way.  The real reason we come to Church on this the first day of Lent is for what we celebrate on the day after Lent: the resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday.  Through the Cross and Resurrection, Jesus has won for us salvation, and we are the grateful beneficiaries of that great gift.  All of our Lenten observance, then, is a preparation for the joy of Easter.

    Lent calls us to repent, to break our ties with the sinfulness and the entanglements that are keeping us tethered to the world instead of free to live with our God and receive his gift of salvation.  Our Church offers us three ways to do that: fasting, prayer and almsgiving.  So first, we fast.  We give up snacks, or a favorite food, or eat one less meal perhaps one day a week, or we can give up a favorite television program or activity.  Fasting helps us to be aware of the ways God works to sustain us when we’re hungry.  The whole idea of fasting is that we need to come to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide, and to cut our ties with anything that keeps us from God.  Some people say they don’t have to give something up for Lent because they would rather do something good and focus on the positive.  I’ll tell you right now, it doesn’t have to be one or the other; in Catholic teaching, it’s always both/and.  You can give something up to strengthen your relationship with God, and do something good to strengthen your relationship with others.

    Second, we pray.  We already must pray every day and attend Mass every Sunday; those are obligations that we have as people of God.  But maybe Lent can be the opportunity to intensify our prayer life, to make it better, to make it more, to draw more life from it.  Maybe we are not people who read Scripture every day, and we can work through one of the books of the Bible during Lent.  Maybe we can learn a new prayer or take on a new devotion.  Maybe we can spend time before the Lord in the adoration.  Maybe we can just carve out some quiet time at the end of our busy days to give thanks for our blessings, and to ask pardon for our failings.  Intensifying our prayer life this Lent can help us to be aware of God’s presence at every moment of our day and in every place we are.

    Third, we give alms or do works of charity.  We can donate money for organizations that feed the poor, or perhaps help to provide a meal at a soup kitchen.  Maybe we can devote some time to mentoring a child who needs help with their studies, or volunteer to help in our school or religious education program.  Works of charity might be a family project, perhaps volunteering to help in our food pantry together, or shopping together for items for our 40 Cans for Lent campaign.  When we do works of charity, we can learn to see others as God does, and love them the way God loves them and us.

    And none of this, as the Gospel reminds us today, is to be done begrudgingly or half-heartedly.  None of it is to be done with the express purpose of letting the world see how great we are.  It is always to be done with great humility, but also with great joy.  Our acts of fasting, prayer, and charity should be a celebration of who God is in our lives, and a beautiful effort to strengthen our relationship with him.

    It is my prayer that this Lent can be a forty-day retreat that will bring us all closer to God.  May we all hear the voice of the prophet Joel from today’s first reading: “Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart!”

  • Monday of Holy Week

    Monday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but Holy Week usually finds me a little raw, emotionally.  And looking at today’s Gospel reading, I guess I’m not alone.  All the characters in that reading from John are experiencing a heightened sense of some emotion:  The chief priests, the religious leaders of the Jews, were experiencing bitter jealousy.  They hated that Jesus called them to task and they hated that so many were following him.  They had even come to hate Lazarus because he had convinced many to follow Jesus after Jesus raised him from the dead.

    Judas was beginning to experience fear and despair.  Seeing how much Jesus was hated, I think Judas began to think he had hitched himself to the wrong wagon.  He knew the chief priests were plotting to kill Jesus and so I think he began to greatly fear that he and the others could be next.  He was right about that, but that’s a reading for another day.

    And then we have Mary – this Mary who sat at the feet of Jesus one time while Martha served dinner, this Mary who couldn’t even come out of the house when Jesus came to see Lazarus, this Mary who now perhaps is understanding who Jesus was and why he cam – this Mary anoints Jesus’ feet with costly perfumed oil, a foreshadowing of the Chrism that will be consecrated tonight at the cathedral.  Her emotion is sorrow, knowing that her Lord will soon give up his life.

    Where does Holy Week find us these days?  What emotions do we feel?  What does the Passion of our Lord stir up in us?

     

  • Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Today’s readings

    This is it.  With today’s Liturgy, we enter solemnly into Holy Week, in which unfold the great mysteries of our faith.  Right up front, we see two very dramatic moments in the life of Christ, moments that, quite honestly, seem so very opposed to one another.  As we begin, we travel with Jesus to Jerusalem.  This has been his destiny, and he enters the holy city not unaware of what is to unfold.  So he enters the city with great pomp and ceremony, with people laying their cloaks on the road, riding in on a beast of burden.  The people cry out in “hosannas,” their hope for the messianic fulfillment of the promises of God at fever pitch.

     

    But it doesn’t take long for the story to take an ugly turn.  Just five chapters into Matthew later, the people have had quite enough of Jesus, thank you very much, and can’t yell for him to be crucified loudly enough.  Their messianic hope had indeed come, but they missed its significance.  Their hope had dawned, but it didn’t look the way they thought it would, so they rejected it.  Maybe they felt a little like the Psalmist today, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

     

    What happens next is almost too horrible to see, almost too horrific to call to mind.  Jesus, after being beaten nearly to death and carrying the heavy burden of the cross through the streets of the city, is nailed to that cross and dies there, humiliated and beaten.  And we can’t look at it, can we?  How awful.  How painful.  We live in an age where there is a pill for every minor pain and a treatment for every discomfort.  And so something like the Cross is almost too much.

     

    But the Cross is an in-your-face reminder that pain is part and parcel of our life of salvation.  Jesus did not come to take away our pain, he came to redeem it.  Not only that, he came to take it on himself.  Far from being embarrassed by our sin and pain, Jesus took it to the cross, redeeming our brokenness, and leaving us an everlasting promise that there is no pain too great for our God to bear and there is no way we can ever fall so far that our God can’t reach us.  Jesus took our every hurt, our every pain, our every sin, our every shame, our every resentment, our every emptiness, and left them all there at the foot of the Cross.  No wonder the Cross is so hard for us to look at.

     

    I know there are many among us now who are carrying pain with them each day. Maybe it’s unconfessed sin, or maybe it’s a broken relationship.  Maybe it’s the sadness of the illness or death of a loved one.  Maybe it’s the splintering of a family. Maybe it’s a hurt that goes back to childhood, or a frightening diagnosis about an illness.  Maybe it’s difficulty with a job or career, or trouble in a marriage.  Maybe it’s a loneliness that can’t seem to be shaken.  For all of us who are hurting in any way, all we have to do is look at the Cross and realize that there is nothing our God won’t do for us.  No, it’s not pretty, and God may not take away our pain right away, but he will never ever leave us alone in it.  In fact, he helps us bear it, and ultimately, he will raise us up out of it.  As we enter this Holy Week, we are reminded gently that the cross, while significant, is not the end of the story.  Yes, we have to suffer our own Good Fridays; but we confidently remember that we also get an Easter Sunday.  And that is what gives us all the confidence to take up our cross and journey on.

     

    These are not ordinary days – they are not for business as usual.  I invite you all to enter into these Holy Days with passion, with prayerfulness and in faith.  Gather with us on Holy Thursday at 7:00pm to celebrate the giving of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, and the call to service that comes from our baptism.  On Good Friday at 3:00 in the afternoon, we will have the opportunity once again to reflect on the Passion, to venerate the cross that won our salvation, and to receive the Eucharist, which is our strength.  Finally, at 8:00 on Holy Saturday night, we will gather outside on the piazza to keep vigil for the resurrection we have been promised.  We will hear stories of our salvation, we will celebrate our baptism rejoicing in the victory of Christ over sin and death.  No Catholic should ever miss the celebrations of these Holy Days, for these days truly sustain our daily living and give us the grace to take up our little crosses day by day.

     

  • Lenten Penance Service

    Lenten Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Romans 5:12, 17-19; Matthew 26:20-25

    In Jesus Christ, we have absolutely everything that we need for the forgiveness of sins, except one thing.  In Jesus Christ, we have our God who became man.  We have in Christ the Saving Sacrifice, his life poured out on us to take away the penalty of our sins and nullify the sting of our death.  Not only that, but Jesus Christ strengthens us with the gift of his Holy Spirit, who enlivens in us the desire to be close to our God and to put our sins behind us.  That Holy Spirit gives us the grace not just to know and confess our sins, but also the grace to avoid the sin ahead of us.  In Christ, the way to forgiveness is open.  We have all we need – except one thing.

     

    And that one thing is the thing that must come from within us, namely, repentance.   Because once we repent of our sins, turn away from them, and confess them, we can then accept God’s grace and mercy, and become a new people, marked by faith, hope and love.  But repentance is a choice that’s up to us; it’s a habit we have to develop, because it’s not a habit that we see demonstrated much in our world.  Our world would rather take mistakes and put a positive “spin” on them so everyone saves face.  But that’s not repentance.  Our world would rather find someone else to blame for the problems we encounter, so that we can be righteously indignant and accept our own status as victims.  But that’s not repentance.  Our world would rather encounter an issue by throwing at it money, human resources, military intervention, lawsuits or legislation.  But that’s not repentance.

     

    Our Gospel tonight shows us what happens when we forget repentance and penance and the grace of reconciliation.  Despair over our own sins blinds us to the mercy of God that has been staring us right in the face, walking with us all along the way.  In our own desperate and fumbling attempts to make all that is wrong in us right, we make ourselves miserable, we give up on what is good, and we betray our Lord, again.  But we can’t be like Judas, trying to save face – “Surely it is not I, Lord?”  We have to learn the rich virtue of repentance, we have to become people of repentance.

     

    But where and to whom do we look to become that people?  World leaders are no help at all, and even if the media were to see an example of repentance, I’m not sure they’d give it much play.  So that’s no help.  Perhaps in these Lenten days, the Liturgy of the Word can be our teacher.  We might look at the wayward son’s interaction with the Prodigal Father, or perhaps the woman at the well who left her jug behind to live the new life.  We might look at the woman caught in adultery or even at the “good thief” crucified with Jesus.  All of these got the idea and turned from their sin toward their God and received life in return.  This is the habit of repentance that we have been called to develop in ourselves.

     

    The only thing our God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Not just once, not twice, not even seventy-seven times, but rather as many times as we fall – so long as we repent and turn back to him, the source of grace and the font of salvation.

     

    And that’s why we’re here tonight.  God is aching to pour out on us the grace of his forgiveness and to bring us to his peace beyond all of our understanding, and we have chosen to come and receive it.  We have chosen to be a people marked by faith, hope and love.  We long to develop that habit of repentance which allows us to receive the new life God has always wanted for us.  The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  So let us now as a community of faith examine our conscience and repent of our sins.

     

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Susanna’s story is one of the most eloquent and deeply moving in the Old Testament Scriptures.  In it we see the wisdom of the prophet Daniel, as well as the mercy and justice of God.  But sadly, we also see in this story the fickleness of the human heart and the evil and treachery that makes up some of our darker moments.  Susanna’s story serves well as a backdrop for the woman caught in adultery, whose sin was loosed by Jesus.

     

    This morning’s Liturgy of the Word calls us to right wrongs, to be completely honest and forthright in our dealings with others, to seek to purify our hearts of any wicked intent, and most of all to seek to restore right relationships with any person who has something against us, or against whom we have something.  So basically, these readings are the spirit of Lent.  Our prayer this day is that God’s mercy and justice would reign, and that God’s kingdom would come about in all its fullness, starting first and foremost in our own hearts.