Category: Ordinary Time

Today’s readings

Today’s Gospel reminds me of a sound bite for the evening news. Taken out of context, Jesus is denying his family. And not only that, but Jesus now has “brothers,” so what happened to the doctrine of the perpetual virginity of Mary? Sound bites cause nothing but trouble because you don’t have the context to know what’s really being said. These sound bites take a whole lot of explanation, and the ones we have in today’s Gospel are certainly no exception.

First of all, let’s tackle the idea of Jesus having brothers. Many ideas surround that issue and have developed over time, as I am sure you can appreciate. One idea says that St. Joseph was an older man, and had sons by a previous wife, now dead. These would be Jesus’ half-brothers. Another idea comes from the fact that the Greek word translated “brothers” here is general enough that it might also refer to cousins or some other close kindred. So the brothers here would be close family members, not necessarily brothers. In either case, the Church affirms the perpetual virginity of Mary and this Gospel is making a different point.

The second sound bite is that Jesus seems to turn away from his mother and his relatives and claims that his family is those who hear the word of God and act on it. Well, Jesus certainly wasn’t turning away from his beloved mother or any of his close relatives. We know for a fact that Mary was the first of the disciples. Jesus seems to be more widening his family relationships than restricting them to just those related by blood. Which is good news for all of us who are now included in that family. Giving ourselves to the word of God, hearing it and living it, we are mother and brother and sister to Christ.

Today’s readings

The little instruction of St. Paul to Timothy about bishops, women and deacons seems quaint. And it’s sure a relief to me because he doesn’t mention priests! Actually, he doesn’t mention priests because they were of course a later development. You can even see how the office of bishop has changed over time, with his reference to being married only once and managing his household well. But the real point here is that St. Paul is outlining the characteristics of the Christian disciple, for which all of us are responsible.

We Christian disciples are the public face of Christianity. What we portray to the world is how others will come to see our way of life as a whole. We must be people without reproach, not conceited and well-regarded by outsiders. We must be not deceitful, not addicted to anything, and not in love with sordid gain. Really, what he is telling us is almost impossible, isn’t it? We all fall short of these standards in some way.

Which is why we can be revived by Jesus Christ like the widow’s son on the way to Nain. Only Jesus Christ can help us in our weakness and fill in our lack. We might be tempted to weep over our sinfulness and unworthiness, but Jesus tells us not to weep and raises us up. Only with Jesus’ help can we do as the psalmist says: walk with a blameless heart.

Today’s readings

Do you ever wonder what St. Paul means when he says that he is making up in his own flesh whatever is lacking in the sufferings of Christ? I always thought that was kind of arrogant. After all, didn’t Christ’s suffering pay the price, once and for all, and fulfill all the justice of God tempered with God’s great mercy? So what could be lacking in the perfect sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ?

Well, of course, the one thing that is lacking in Christ’s sufferings is our participation in it. Don’t forget that we are all the Body of Christ. That doesn’t just refer to the Sacrament we receive, nor is it a cute Church-jargon way of referring to the Church itself. Christ gave his body and blood for us, and so we too have become parts of his body. And as parts of his body, we must share in the bodily suffering that he endured for our sake.

So we may have to suffer persecution for doing good, as Jesus did in today’s Gospel reading. And we may have to suffer the pains of illness. And we may have to suffer the loss of loved ones. We may have to endure sadness and pain on many levels. When we do, we can do so with the attitude of joining our sufferings to those of Christ and thus making up whatever may have been lacking in Christ’s own suffering.

When we join our sufferings to Christ, we know that he is there with us. And though the suffering may remain, there can be a peace that comes from knowing that we are in God’s hands. The Psalmist says it best for us this morning:

Only in God be at rest, my soul,
for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.

Today’s readings

Today’s homily is lectio brevis because the youth of the parish were speaking today.

Today’s Gospel is incredibly challenging, to say the least. Maybe I should say it’s incredibly unsettling. But we certainly know that Jesus who loved his mother and father very much, did not mean that we were to alienate ourselves from our families. But today’s teaching does remind us that following the Gospel on our own terms is not possible. The call to discipleship is one that calls us to step out of our comfort zone, leave behind whatever ties us to the world and separates us from God, and follow our Savior wherever he leads us. So if our only sacrifice for the sake of the Kingdom of God is maybe getting out of bed and coming to Church on Sunday, then Jesus is telling us today that’s not enough. In our offering of gifts today, perhaps we can all offer our God the opportunity to guide us to take the steps he wants us to follow.

Today’s readings

There are two distinct experiences of God expressed in today’s readings. On the one had, there is that experience of God that is totally fearful: that God is too awesome to behold and no one can look upon him and live. That was generally the experience of God that the ancient Israelites had. If we think about it, many of us have or have had this same kind of experience as well. We may have grown up with this image of God as a policeman or dictator who watches over our every move and punishes us for all of our iniquities.

The author of the letter to the Hebrews, though, says that there is another experience of God. This experience is of God who is glorious and loving, and calls us to worship him in festive assembly. This is the experience of God brought about by the new creation: Jesus having fulfilled the Paschal Mystery now makes it possible for us to approach our God without so much fear and trembling, but rather with joy that comes from our salvation.

Now just as an aside, I would want to mention that these two experiences of God are not necessarily mutually exclusive, unless we ourselves make them that way. Because we have to be very careful to remember that God is still awesome and incomprehensible, and the experience of gazing on his face may still be quite frightening. But because of the salvation we have in Christ, that fear can be overcome and we can rejoice in our awesome God.

But now let’s look at that experience of God of which our second reading speaks. Listen again to what is proclaimed to the Hebrews:

You have approached Mount Zion
and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and countless angels in festal gathering,
and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven,
and God the judge of all,
and the spirits of the just made perfect,
and Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant,
and the sprinkled blood that speaks more eloquently than that of Abel.

What we have here is a vision of the heavenly worship. We are all gathered in the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. And gathered there are the angels, the saints, the purified souls of the faithful departed, God who is the judge of all and Jesus who makes possible our salvation. But it’s not just who is there, it’s the way they are there. The angels are in festal gathering, the firstborn are enrolled in heaven, the just are made perfect. This is the story of the Communion of Saints, brothers and sisters, and it is our hope.

Because if this is the image of the heavenly worship, and if that worship centers around Jesus whose sprinkled blood speaks more eloquently than that of Abel, then we who receive his precious body and blood in the Eucharist can hope to join that heavenly worship in the life to come. There all of our defects will be made clean and all of our brokenness will become whole. Our imperfect worship here on earth will be purified and made glorious with all God’s holy ones.

As we come to the Eucharist today, that table of the Lord to which has been invited all the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind, we must remember with great humility that our God is awesome and beyond us and fearsome, but also gentle, and with us and our salvation. May we receive his precious body and sprinkled blood which gives us life forever, knowing that our worship is practice for that great day when we can finally join the heavenly worship with all the angels and saints, all the firstborn enrolled in heaven, and all the just made perfect. Because the heavenly worship space is the home that, as our Psalmist says today, God in his goodness has made for all of us who are poor.

Today’s readings

I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but the last few days in the Gospel readings, there’s been a lot of wailing and grinding of teeth. This section of Matthew’s Gospel spells out the urgency of the call to discipleship and the nearness of the Kingdom of God. Today’s reading is no exception.

When some people have been encouraged to take on a new ministry or share their gifts in some way, very often they will say, “Oh, I could never do that.” Today Jesus says that kind of thinking isn’t kingdom thinking. What today’s reading tells us is that there is no such thing as a “little gift.” We are all called and gifted in some unique way, and we must praise God with that gift no matter what the gift is and no matter how insignificant it may seem.

So whether we have a gift that looks like ten talents, or five, or even one, the call is still the same. No matter how awesome the giver may be, fear of failure can never be an excuse to bury our talent in a hole in the ground. Every single talent must be reinvested in the kingdom, so that we can come together and bring forth a harvest of justice and peace and life and beauty. Because, who needs wailing and grinding of teeth?

Today’s readings

When I was little, I often remember my grandmother saying “thank God for small favors!” Now that’s a holy and pious thought, and I’ll have you know my grandmother was certainly holy and pious. But when she said it, it was usually because someone had just done the least they could possibly do, or something they should have done long ago. So the sense of the saying was more like, “could you spare it?” or “well, finally!” Still, I love that phrase, “thank God for small favors” because it reminds us that everything, no matter how big or small, is God’s gift to us, and we should be grateful for it.

One of the most important marks of the Christian disciple is thankfulness. St. Paul was a man of thanksgiving, and we see that theme often in his letters. He may berate his communities when they were missing the point, but he would always also praise them for their goodness, and see that as an opportunity to thank God for giving the community grace. Today, it’s the Thessalonians he is grateful for. He praises them for their great faith and then says, “What thanksgiving, then, can we render to God for you, for all the joy we feel on your account before our God?” Because it’s always God at work in the believer and never the believer all on his or her own. It’s grace, and we are thankful for grace.

God continues to work his grace in our community as well. We are a community of faith, and we see that faith in action in the many ministries of the parish. But even more than that, we see that faith in action in our workplaces, communities, schools and homes. There is never a time when we are not disciples. We are grateful for God’s grace working in and through us in every situation. The word “Eucharist” means thanksgiving, and so the heart of even the most basic and solemn parts of our worship is thanksgiving. We are thankful for all favors, big and small!

Today’s Readings

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate,
for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter
but will not be strong enough.”

Those are kind of chilling words, in a way. We’ve been so conditioned to think that the spiritual life has to be easy. We are a society that has no patience for anything that requires a lot of work or effort. We have this sense of entitlement that eschews anything that makes demands of us. It’s no wonder that our society in general can often be so spiritually shallow, no wonder that we are caught up in consumerism, no wonder that people have little respect for one another. Because if the spiritual life is going to require work, then many people say they’re just not going to do it. That’s why so many people have left the Church. They might say there are other reasons, and for some people there genuinely are other reasons, but for many people, it’s just not worth the effort to get up on Sunday and come to Church.

To all of us who are tainted by spiritual laziness once in a while, or even very often, Jesus says today, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.” It’s going to take some work, maybe even a lot of work, but if we have decided that eternal life with God our creator is worth it, then we will do what it takes. And it’s not enough to just say, “I’m okay because I believe in Jesus.” Some Churches teach that’s all it takes. But that’s not Biblical, and today’s Gospel is all the evidence for that that we need.

I was thinking about this yesterday when I was at the Cathedral in Joliet for Deacon Tom Marciani’s Ordination. As part of that rite, the bishop hands the newly-ordained deacon the Book of the Gospels and says, “Receive the Gospel of Christ, whose herald you now are. Believe what you read, teach what you believe, and practice what you teach.” I remember that very well from my own Ordination as Deacon a couple of years ago, and I was thinking that part of that instruction really applies to all of us. Because we are all called upon to believe what we read, teach what we believe, and practice what we teach.

We are called to believe what we read because the Word of God is Truth. We might all be interested in what’s on the news, or what Oprah and Dr. Phil are saying, but none of that is Truth with a capital “T”. No, the only real Truth, the only Truth that matters is the Truth that comes from God who is Truth itself. That Truth is revealed in the person of Jesus Christ and in the writings of Holy Scripture. Other information we get on a daily basis might be more or less true, but the Word of God is Truth. We are called upon to believe it and live it.

We are then called to teach what we believe because if there is just one source of Truth with a capital “T” then we need to make sure everyone knows about it. What good is Truth if everyone is believing something else? And before you object that you’re not a teacher, forget it. Every one of us is a teacher in some way. We might be called to teach in a classroom, but not everyone can do that. We might instead be called to teach in our workplaces by being people of integrity. We might be called to teach our children by living lives of faith and passing that faith on to them in word and action. We might be called to teach the world by participating in acts of justice and charity. We must all teach the Truth, because the Truth is worthy of so much more than being hidden by believers.

Finally, we have to practice what we teach. Because it’s not enough just to believe and teach. Authenticity in believing and teaching comes in our living. If we are people of faith, then we have to live that faith by reaching out to those in need. If we are people of Truth, then we have to stand up for that Truth by our integrity of life and our passion for justice.

All of this requires commitment and effort and real work from all of us. We have to strive to enter through that narrow gate, because we don’t want to ever hear those bone-chilling words from today’s Gospel, “I do not know where you are from. Depart from me, you evildoers!” God forbid.