Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Lent

  • 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 personal 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 simply 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 a good start and are key activities 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 – the Hebrew word meaning right relationship and right order – can be restored in the world.

     

    Every single command we receive from Moses and Jesus today turns 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.

     

  • Friday after Ash Wednesday

    Friday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    A lot of people say they aren’t giving up something for Lent, they’re just going to try to do something positive.  When it’s that vague, I often think that means they’re doing nothing at all for Lent, which is sad for them.  But, I usually tell people it doesn’t just have to be one or the other.  Indeed, today’s Liturgy of the Word tells us that it should actually be both.

     

    Fasting is important because it helps us to see how blessed we are.  It is important because it helps us to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide.  Fasting teaches us, once again, that God is God and we are not.  This is important for all of us independent-minded modern-day Americans.  We like to be in charge, in control, and the fact is that whatever control we do have is an illusion.  God is in control of all things, even when it seems like we are in chaos.  Fasting teaches us that we can do without the things we’ve given up, and that God can provide for us in much richer ways.  Fasting is absolutely essential to having an inspiring, life-changing Lent, and I absolutely think that people should give things up for Lent.

     

    But giving something up for Lent does not excuse us from the obligation to love our neighbor.  This falls under the general heading of almsgiving, and along with fasting and prayer, it is one of the traditional ways of preparing our hearts for Easter during Lent.  We might be more mindful of the poor, contributing to our food pantry or a homeless shelter or relief organization.  We might reach out by actually serving in some capacity, like at a soup kitchen, or spending an hour at PADS.  We also might give the people closest to us in our lives a larger portion of the love that has been God’s gift to us.

     

    Today’s first reading reminds us that fasting to put on a big show is a sham.  Fasting to bring ourselves closer to God includes the obligation of almsgiving and prayer.  Together, these three facets of discipleship make us stronger Christians and give us a greater share of the grace that is promised to the sons and daughters of God.

     

  • The Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings get us to the heart of a very sticky matter.  What is it that is most important in terms of our salvation?  Is it faith in Jesus Christ?  Or is it doing good works?  This question has been the lightning rod of the faith for a long time now.  Disagreement over the answer contributed to the protestant reformation in the sixteenth century, and it is only recently that Catholics and Lutherans have come to some sort of agreement on it.  So let’s see if we can come up with the answer in five minutes!

     

    Ironically, today’s readings present both sides of the issue.  On the one hand, there is the teaching found in the first reading from the book of Deuteronomy.  Here, Moses tells the people that they have a choice.  Live the way they want and turn away from God, or remember all that God has done for them and follow the Law.  In the second reading, Saint Paul writes a contradictory opinion to the Romans: a person is justified by faith apart from works of the Law.  So hearing that, what are we supposed to do?  Do we just have to believe and have faith and let that be our salvation, or do we follow the Law?

     

    So here’s the rule of thumb: in Catholic theology it’s never either one or the other, it’s pretty much always both/and.  Jesus, of course, gives the answer in today’s Gospel reading: “Everyone who listens to these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.”  Yes, we have to believe and have faith, but we also have to act on that faith.  Saint James tells us in his letter in the New Testament that faith without works is dead.  The essence of it is that if we really believe, then our faith will move us into action.

     

    That’s what the Gospel is all about really.  We believe in Christ and have faith because of his great love for us, because of the saving sacrifice of his life on the cross.  That’s what brings us to salvation.  But if we really do believe in that, then we also have to do what Jesus did.  Maybe not in such a radical fashion, but we do have to lay down our lives.  We have to forgive when forgiving is hard to do.  We have to reach out to the poor and marginalized when we would rather not.  We have to live as people of integrity when it would be easier to do what everyone else seems to be doing.  That’s living the Gospel.  That’s what people of faith do.

     

    We gather here on the precipice of Lent.  As we enter that holy season on Wednesday, we are called to take that time to become more authentic people of faith.  The Church gives us the traditional ways to do that: fasting, almsgiving and prayer.  What do we need to let go of so that we can be closer to God?  We should fast from that.  How can we give of our time, talent or treasure so that others can live better lives?  That’s our almsgiving.  And what do we need to do in our prayer and worship life to reconnect with God in ways that we have been lax on during the past year?

     

    A lot of people say that you don’t have to give something up for Lent – that’s so old fashioned; you should just do something good.  Well, again, it’s not either/or.  You can do both things, and you should.  We all need to give something up for Lent: unhealthy relationships, addiction to drink or drugs or food, time-wasting habits – all of those things keep us from God and don’t really make us happy anyway.  Give them up at least for Lent!

     

    And who knows, giving them up may just give us energy to do something really good for Lent too.  Maybe giving up our Starbuck’s addiction will help us to give those dollars to the poor.  Maybe cutting down on our television intake will give us the time to spend with our families in important ways or have more time for prayer or reflection on Scripture.  Maybe getting up a little early to attend daily Mass will make our work day more peaceful.

     

    The message for us on the precipice of Lent is that we all need to do something.  None of us is in the right place with Jesus right now; we can always grow in faith and get closer to God.  This Lent is the gift of time to do just that.  So let’s go into it with a plan, and it doesn’t have to be grandiose.  Let’s have an idea of fasting, almsgiving and prayer that works for us and helps us to make even one small step forward in our faith.

     

    So Jesus tells us that our faith has to be grounded on belief in him and has to yield good things.  We have to take that rock solid foundation of Christ and build a life of faith that reaches out to others in their need and witnesses to others how much our God means to us.  We never want to hear those words, “I never knew you.  Depart from me, you evildoers.”  And one great way to get there is to make the most of these upcoming forty days.

     

  • Wednesday of Holy Week

    Wednesday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    “The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him…” The gospels tell us in many places that Jesus willingly laid down his life. This was the mission the Father gave him, and this was the mission he had taken up on this earth. In these final days of Holy Week, Jesus lives up to the mission he has freely taken up. Isaiah says of him: “And I have not rebelled, have not turned back. I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” There would have been precious little grace had it happened any other way. “For your sake I bear insult,” the Psalmist says, “and shame covers my face.” In what way are we being called to willingly take up our cross today?

  • Lent Penance Service

    Lent Penance Service

    Today’s Gospel: John 3:14-21

    The only thing God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Period.  That’s what our Gospel reading tells us very plainly today: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.”  And so, 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.

    The problem, as our Gospel tells us this evening, is that the world prefers the darkness of sin and ignorance and death over the glorious light of God’s grace and forgiveness, and mercy.  It’s insanity, but that’s the sad truth of our world.

    So, quite frankly, if we are ever going to learn the habit of repentance, we are going to have to look elsewhere than the evening news. 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 where are we going to get the inspiration to live as a repentant people? These Lenten days, 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.

    Brothers and sisters, sin enslaves us and makes exiles out of us. Sin takes us out of the community and puts us off on our own, in a very empty place. That exile might look something like this:

    • We ignore the needs of the poor and exile ourselves from the full community;
    • We judge others and thus draw a dividing line between ourselves and those we judge;
    • We lie and are no longer trusted by others;
    • We refuse to forgive, and are trapped in the past, not willing to respond to the present;
    • We cheat, steal and abuse the rights of others and thus offend the right order of the community;
    • We act violently in words and actions and thus perpetuate forces that splinter and violate the human community;
    • We withdraw from their church and diminish the community’s ability to witness to God and serve others.

    The exile of sin is heartbreaking, but it doesn’t have to be that way for us. The Liturgy of the Word throughout the Lenten season has been showing us the way back. We have the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit to inspire us with desire for communion with our God. We have the grace and mercy poured out on us through the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And we have the grace to do that one thing that’s missing; to develop that habit that makes us one with our God – that habit of repentance that brings us back no matter how far we have wandered or how many times we have turned away. Our God can still reach us in exile and he can still bring us back to the community, if we will but let him. The only thing our God wants to do is to forgive sinners.  Not just once, not twice, but as many times as we fall and as often  as we turn away – so long as we repent and turn back to him.

    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.

  • Tuesday of Holy Week

    Tuesday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading contains four of the most chilling words in all of holy Scripture: “And it was night.”  Those narrative words come just after Judas takes the morsel and leaves the gathering.  But the Beloved Disciple didn’t include those words to tell us the time of day.  In John’s Gospel, there is an overriding theme of light and darkness.  The light and darkness, of course, refer to the evil of the world as opposed to the light of Christ.

    That John tells us it was night meant that this was the hour of darkness, the hour when evil would come to an apparent climax.  This is the time when all of the sins of the world have converged upon Jesus Christ and he will take them to the Cross.  The darkness of all of the sins of the world have made it a very dark night indeed.

    But we know the end of the story.  This hour of darkness will certainly see Jesus die for our sins.  But the climax of evil will be nothing compared to the outpouring of grace.  The darkness of evil is always overcome by the light of Christ.  Always.  But for now, it is night.

    In these Holy days, we see the darkness that our Savior had to endure for our salvation. May we find courage in the way he triumphed over this fearful night.

  • Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion

    Today’s readings

    Today, and throughout this Holy Week, we have in our Liturgy a stark reminder that the hope that we have in the Resurrection was purchased at a great price. Our world today would prefer to ignore the cross. And with good reason. Because the cross is embarrassing. Until Christianity, no religion worth its salt would base itself on a God who suffered an ignoble death that was reserved for the most obstinate of criminals. And even now, you know, we’d rather not dwell on that kind of pain, would we? We live in an age where there is a pill for every minor affliction and a treatment for every discomfort. In and of itself, this is not a bad thing, but then we can often take it farther and find ways to mask any pain, physical or psychological, that comes our way, and this is not healthy.

    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. We may think our pain and our sin is embarrassing, but Jesus left none of that behind on the way to the cross. He 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.

    And so today’s Liturgy brings us to the place to which we have been journeying this Lent, namely the cross. I think the Psalmist today captures the feeling of our hearts as we arrive here: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

    And haven’t we all asked that question at least once in our lives? As we sing those words, they can quite frankly bring back painful memories, whether they be memories of past hurts, or reflections of current ones. Maybe it’s the time when you were sexually abused and felt abandoned because you were convinced no one would believe you. Maybe it’s the time you received a frightening diagnosis and you felt abandoned because you couldn’t enter into daily life with the same carefree attitude you previously had. Maybe it’s the occasion of the death of a loved one and you felt abandoned because everyone on the planet seemed joyful, except you. Maybe it’s the time you were laid off from your job and you felt abandoned because it seemed that no one valued your skills and talents.

    We’d rather not be here at the cross, would we?  But this week reminds us that without the cross, there is no resurrection. Not for Jesus, and so also, not for us. Jesus certainly had his moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when the knowledge of his impending death filled him with dread; and so it will be for us, countless times when we are called on to take up the cross. But 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 7:30pm 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 here in a darkened church to keep vigil for the resurrection we have been promised. We will hear stories of our salvation, we will celebrate our baptism as we welcome new members to our family, seeing them fully initiated into the life of the Church, rejoicing with them 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.

  • Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Saturday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Caiaphas had no idea how prophetic his words were.  Actually, as far as the intent of his words went, they were nothing but selfish.  The Jews didn’t want to lose their standing with the Romans.  As it was, they had an uneasy peace.  The Romans pretty much let them practice their religion as long as there wasn’t any trouble.  But they knew that if everyone started following Jesus, the Romans would give preference to the new way, in order to keep the peace.  The religious leaders couldn’t let that happen, so they began plotting in earnest to kill Jesus, planning to find him when he came to celebrate the upcoming feast day, which they were certain he would attend.

    It’s a time of high intrigue, and for Jesus, his hour – the hour of his Passion – is fast approaching.  We see that in our Gospel readings these days as much as we do in our own celebration of Lent.  In just a few hours we will begin our celebration of Holy Week, waving palms to welcome our king, and praying through his passion and death.  It is an emotional time for us as we know our God has given his life for us, and as we know our sins have nailed him to the cross.  The sadness of our sinfulness comes to a peak this time of year.

    But, this is where the significance of Caiaphas’s words brings us joy.  Yes, it is better for one person to die than the whole nation.  God knew that well when he sent his only Son to be our salvation.  He took our place, nailing our sins and brokenness to the cross, dying to pay the price those sins required, and rising to bring the salvation we could never attain on our own.  Caiaphas was right.  It was better for one person to die than for the whole nation to die.  That was God’s plan all along.

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Have you ever had to deal with people working against you?  Most of us have.  Most of us have experienced people spreading lies about us, trying to get others to work against us.  And today we find ourselves in good company.  Today’s readings find the prophet Jeremiah, king David and Jesus all in that same boat.

    A prophet’s job is never easy; nobody wants to hear what they don’t want to hear.  So for Jeremiah, things are getting dangerous: people want him dead.  The same is true for Jesus, who is rapidly approaching the cross.  David finds that his enemies are pursuing him to the point of death, like the waters of the deep overwhelming a drowning man.

    But all of them find their refuge in God.  Jeremiah writes, “For he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”  David takes consolation in the fact that “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”  And for Jesus, well, his time had not yet come.

    When we are provoked like they were, how do we respond?  Is our first thought to take refuge in God, or do we try to solve the problem on our own?  If we don’t turn to God, we might find those waves overwhelming us; if we turn to God, things may or may not improve, but whatever the case, we will always find refuge and safety in our God.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Just as the saraph serpent was lifted up on a pole in the desert for the people to live, so the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, was lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world.  In these late Lenten days, as we look upon the cross, either here in church or in our homes, our hearts surely must be stirred to remember the painful price our Lord paid for our salvation.  With hearts filled with gratitude, we come to this Eucharist, with our eyes fixed on our Lord lifted up for us, who pours himself out for us again and still.  When we see him lifted up, we remember that he is “I AM,” our crucified and risen Lord, and whenever we look to him, we are saved.