Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Ordinary Time

  • Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

    Today we hear the end of the story we have been reflecting on all week.  Tobit and Tobiah’s family fortune has been restored; Sarah’s sadness from her seven previous husbands dying on their wedding night has been turned into joy when she was given in marriage to Tobit.  And finally, in yesterday’s first reading, Tobit helps heal his father’s blindness, and Tobiah sings in praise to God.  It’s an almost uncharacteristically happy ending for a book of the Old Testament!

    But happiness, real happiness, eternal happiness, that is the purpose of the Scriptures.  That happiness comes finally from the resurrection of Our Lord which opens to us the way to salvation.  Just as Tobiah and Sarah were saved from their ailments, so we are saved from the ailments of sin and death by the death and resurrection of Christ.  The happy ending of the book of Tobit foreshadows the happy ending of the life of grace which we receive by following our Risen Lord.

    But, as the archangel Raphael makes clear twice in today’s first reading, this happiness is not to be a well-guarded secret.  Some things are best kept secret, sure, but not salvation, not the works of God.  So we have to be disciples who live as saved people and tell everyone the reason for our happiness.  Others need to see our joy so they can experience it too.

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

  • Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    This whole story about Tobit contracting cataracts because of bird droppings falling in his eyes while he was napping, which we heard about on Tuesday, and then being cured by fish gall in today’s first reading is objectively gross and medically suspect.  But this story isn’t from a medical textbook, it’s from Holy Scripture, so what’s important here is the deeper healing that happens in Tobit’s heart, and his family’s life.

    Angels are messengers that God sends sometimes to let us know his plans for us, or to guard and guide us, or even to help us to see what’s really important.  And it’s that last thing that the archangel Raphael does in today’s first reading.  If we remember the story as we heard it on Tuesday, after Tobit was made blind by cataracts, he scolded his wife for accepting a goat as a bonus on her labor, because he did not believe her story.  In that part of the story, it seems that Tobit had to learn that charity – for which he himself was quite well known – begins at home.  His period of blindness gave him that very insight, I think, and in today’s story he rejoices in his cleared vision.

    Through the intercession of Saint Raphael the archangel, Tobit regained his sight and was able to see his son safely returned from a long and dangerous journey.  He saw also the return of his family fortune.  And he saw the union of his son Tobit with his new wife Sarah.  There was great cause for rejoicing in all that he was able to see and Tobit didn’t miss a beat in placing the credit where it belonged.  He said,

    Blessed be God,
    and praised be his great name,
    and blessed be all his holy angels.
    May his holy name be praised
    throughout all the ages.
    Because it was he who scourged me,
    and it is he who has had mercy on me.

    And so we praise God today for angels who help us to see what’s really important.  We praise God for angels who clear up our clouded vision and help us to see past the obstacles we’ve put in God’s way.  We praise God for angels who help us to overcome our pride and self-righteousness so that God’s way can become clear to us.  May we rejoice along with Tobit and Anna and all the rest that God has truly sent his angels to us often to bring us back to him.

  • Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Love is very definitely the theme of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  This week we have been hearing readings from the book of Tobit, in which we have the only Scriptural appearance of Saint Raphael the archangel.  And today we hear about him entering the story, in the guise of the person of Azariah.  Tobit and Tobiah and all the rest don’t know he’s an angel yet, but that will become clear enough when the blessing of love wipes the cataracts away from Tobit’s eyes, and everything becomes clear to him.

    And we know that it is love that can do all these things.  Love can clear up old Tobit’s vision.  Love can and will let Tobiah survive his wedding night when he marries Sarah.  Love can heal Tobit’s and Sarah’s broken hearts.  And love can reveal that the power of God works in all of our lives, in all of our hearts.

    Sometimes we need an angel, or a messenger, to come to know that.  During our lives, we can go through periods that are just awful and seem devoid of any joy.  But love won’t let that be the final answer for any of us.  Just as the angel Raphael took the form of Azaraiah and was a blessing to Tobiah and Sarah, so too there may be angels or messengers in our own lives, in the form of people of faith, that end the cycle of sadness in the same way that God’s blessing ended the cycle of death for Sarah’s husbands.

    Tobiah and Sarah sang a song of praise to God and said “Amen, amen” before going to bed for the night.  They woke up the next morning to rejoice in God’s love in the same way that we can, if we will but realize that there is no commandment greater than the commandment to love God and one another.  Death cannot and will not ever win the battle over love.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity

    Today’s readings

    There’s a little Christian Science church in the town where I grew up.  They have since moved, but they used to be on Main Street, just north of the downtown area.  Their sign used to list their upcoming sermon topic, followed by the line “All are welcome.”  Imagine my surprise when one day, the topic was going to be eternal punishment.  So the sign read: “Eternal Punishment.  All are welcome.”  I had to drive around the block to make sure I read that right!

    Usually though, the topics weren’t very specific.  So one time the topic was going to be “God.”  I thought that will either be the world’s longest sermon, or it won’t really come all that close to talking about God.  The problem with God as a topic is that you’re painting with a pretty wide brush: anything you say can be right, but it also might not even really finish the job, and either way it can lead you into heresy!

    I feel like today’s topic of the Most Holy Trinity has me faced with that same dilemma.  It takes a lot longer than I’m able to talk to really get that topic covered, and still we probably won’t understand it very well.  Our limited vocabulary just gets in the way.  But let’s see how far we can get.

    There was a time when I got invited to speak to a religious education class about God.  I had the teacher ask them the week before to write down their questions about God so that I could help them with the things they really wondered about.  One of the questions, at first glance, seemed kind of a halfhearted effort to get an assignment done, until I really thought about it.  That question was, “What is God like?” and I think that young person was really onto something.

    In the end, we can say a whole lot of things about what God is like, but again our vocabulary gets in the way.  We can say God is like goodness, and that would be right.  But not in the way we think of things or even people as good.  Because our view of goodness has to do with how useful it is, and God’s goodness goes way beyond that.  We can say that God is like beauty, and that too would be right.  But not in the way that the world views beauty, which is limited and selfish and sometimes objectifying.  God’s beauty goes far beyond what we could ever imagine.

    But there is something we can say about what God is like that gets us a little closer to understanding the Most Holy Trinity, at least insofar as we can understand that holy mystery.  When I preach to the children in our school, I often tell them there is one thing that they have to know about God, and if they know it, they know a lot about what God is like.  And that one thing is that God loves you.  I tell them that’s so important that if they’re ever stumped on a religion test, they can write “God loves me” and it will be worth at least half credit.  The teachers just love it when I say that!

    But even that is hard to understand, because God, who is love itself, his love goes beyond anything we can conceive of.  His love looks like what happened on that cross.  His love embraces us even in our ugliest moments.  His love is powerful enough to burn away all of our flaws and make us new creations in his image.  His love really, truly keeps the world in motion.

    And our readings today tell us that love is a lot of what God is like.  The greeting I gave you at the beginning of Mass comes to us from the end of today’s second reading: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  In that greeting, Saint Paul mentions every member of the Holy Trinity, “God” referring to God the Father.  And he describes that Trinity as a loving communion that fills us with grace.  That’s echoed in our Gospel reading, in which the very famous line from John 3:16 tells us what God is about, and what the Gospel teaches about God: “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.”  God’s love wants us all to come to eternal life, and so he sent his only begotten Son to come and take the punishment for our sins, and in the process breaking the power of sin and death to control our eternity.  Memorize that line, friends.

    Love is an apt description of the Holy Trinity, even for Saint Thomas Aquinas who famously described the Trinity in that way.  He taught that the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Holy Spirit is that love between the Father and the Son.  For Aquinas, the Trinity is a loving relationship, and I think that’s helpful to us who exist in relationships.

    Sometimes, we need God to be Father: correcting us, wanting the best for us, calling us to be who he meant us to be.  If we let him, the Father’s love burns away all the parts of us that are not praiseworthy and sets us ablaze to become new in his image.  Sometimes, though, we need God to be Son: a brother who picks us up when we have fallen far down, one who walks with us in the darkness of whatever is going on with us, one who leads us to the place where God’s love can encompass us.  And sometimes we need the Holy Spirit, whose love literally inspires us to be who we were meant to be, to live as new creations, and to desire nothing outside of God’s love.  We need God to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit in different ways at different times.  God doesn’t change: he’s always Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  But we change, needing him in different ways all through our life.

    So to answer that student’s question, “What is God like?” is a challenge.  Because God looks different to us at different times in our lives.  It’s only after this life has brought us to the kingdom when we’ll really know what God is like, as we see him face to face.  So I think I’ll leave you with that question, brothers and sisters.  What is God like?  I imagine it depends on what’s going on in your life, what your prayer has been like, and what your hopes and dreams are.  But it’s a question we should often pause to consider.  So pray about it this week.  What is God like?

  • Friday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Jesus is always seeking to make things new.  When he came into the world, he didn’t come into the world to keep things the way they were.  He intended to cast out sin and its effects on people, and to call people back to true and authentic worship, and a real relationship with God who made us and loves us.

    So, in today’s Gospel, he comes to the Temple in Jerusalem.  And at the Temple, it was customary to have people there selling animals to be used for the sacrifice which was required of them, and to have money changers there to exchange the Roman coins for coins that could be used to pay the Temple tax.  All of this was legitimate business.  But the problem is, the legitimate business had become more important than really worshipping God.  It had become more important than taking care of those in need.  It became more important than really praying, or really living the faith.

    So Jesus overturns the tables and chases the business people out of the Temple because he saw that the Temple worship didn’t bear fruit any more, kind of like the fig tree in the earlier part of the Gospel story that didn’t bear any fruit.  Yes, it’s true figs weren’t in season.  Yes, it’s true the buying and selling in the temple area was legitimate.  But none of that matters.  The only thing that matters is bearing fruit for the Kingdom of God and becoming a people who really pray and really live their faith.  The time had come for change.

    I think that’s true of us too.  We tend to like the things we’ve become used to, or even if we don’t like them, we are comfortable with them because change makes us nervous.  We may not like it people are gossiping about someone, but we go along with it because we don’t want to make waves.  We may even feel uncomfortable when people say something hurtful or racist about another group of people, or make an inappropriate joke, but we don’t have the courage to stand up for what we believe.  And Jesus wants to turn over those tables in our lives so that we don’t become withered up trees that bear no fruit. 

    Let’s let Jesus turn over the tables in our lives today.

  • Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In this section of the Gospel, Jesus is taking the time to set things right about what it means to be rich and famous. If yesterday had not been the memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, we would have had the Gospel reading about the rich young man. As you might remember about that passage, Jesus looked at the young man and loved him, and then challenged him to give up his possessions and follow him. But the young man went away sad, for he had many possessions. To this, Peter replies in today’s Gospel, “We have given up everything and followed you.” I don’t know if this is boasting, or frustration, or some mix of the two. But Jesus responds to his assertion by telling him that now, in the present age, those who give up everything will receive so much more.

    I don’t think Jesus was trying to put forth a prosperity gospel here, though. I really don’t think he was saying they’d be rich and famous in the present age. What he was saying is that they would be rich in what matters to God, rich in the Holy Spirit, rich in love and mercy. And it’s that last line that brings it all into focus: “many that are first will be last, and the last will be first.” By being the least, giving up everything, they will be first in the Kingdom of God, which was and is here among God’s people.

    So for all of us, rich young men, or overzealous disciples, or just plain folks who want to inherit eternal life, Jesus looks at us and loves us, and calls us to give up everything that’s in the way, so that we can be the last who will be first. What is it that we have to let go of today so that we can be first in the Kingdom of God?

  • Mary, Mother of the Church / Memorial Day

    Mary, Mother of the Church / Memorial Day

    Today’s readings

    This morning’s celebration has us gathering to celebrate two important moments.  The first is the Church’s celebration of The Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, and the second, of course, is our nation’s remembrance of Memorial Day.

    The Church celebrates the memorial of Mary, Mother of the Church, each year on the day after Pentecost.  It’s a relatively new feast for us, because Pope Francis extended this feast to the Universal Church in 2018.  Before that, it had a long history in Poland, and it was Saint John Paul II who commissioned a mosaic of Mary, Mother of the Church, at Saint Peter’s Basilica.

    The image of Mary, Mother of the Church, has its origins in the Gospels, and in Sacred Tradition.  At the foot of the Cross, Jesus commended Saint John to Mary as his mother, and her to Saint John as her son.  The Church has seen this as Mary welcoming all members of the Church in the person of Saint John, and relating to them as mother.  This gives strength to the Tradition that since Mary is the Mother of Jesus, the head of the Body, so she is also the mother of the members of that same Body.

    Mary also prayed with the disciples in the Upper Room for the coming of the Holy Spirit, and as the Spouse of the Holy Spirit, she became the mother of the emerging Church.

    Memorial Day originally began in our country as an occasion to remember and decorate the graves of the soldiers who died in the Civil War.  Later it became a holiday to commemorate all those who had died in war in the service of our country.  So today we remember those men and women who have given their lives for peace, justice, righteousness, and freedom.  These have been people who have given everything, have made the ultimate sacrifice for our nation.  It’s important that we take time to reflect on the freedom we have received from their sacrifice, because I think we often forget it or at least take it for granted.  They lived lives of real freedom, and so must we in our own way.  Real freedom is expressed in service, in our making the world, or at least our corner of it, a better place.  Real freedom is living in such a way that we become the person God created us to be.

    Today we pray for those courageous men and women who have made that ultimate sacrifice to keep the world safe, and free.  These are the ones who have been people of faith and integrity and are true heroes that God has given us. These are the ones who have laid down their lives for what is right.  If we would honor them on this Memorial Day, we should believe as they have believed, we should live as they have lived, and we should rejoice that their memory points us to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our hope of eternal life.

    Today’s Gospel has Jesus showing us the way for all of this.  Giving his own mother to be our mother, the Mother of the Church, he shows that the members of the Church must lay down their lives if the Church is to make an impact in the world.  Those who gave their lives in the service of our country did that in their way, and we are called to do that in our way too.

  • Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    There’s been a lot of arguing in the Gospels these last couple of days.  Yesterday, the disciples were arguing with the scribes when both groups found they were incapable of casting a demon out of a person who was ill.  Today, we have the disciples arguing among themselves because they find they don’t understand Jesus’ message.

    All of this arguing betrays a real lack of growth in faith among those disciples.  They probably felt like, since they were in Jesus’ inner-circle, they should have the answers.  And perhaps they should, but to their defense, they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit yet.  In a real sense, they were still in formation, and they shouldn’t have been so afraid to ask Jesus for clarification.

    Jesus’ lesson to them then comes from him putting a little child in their midst.  Receive a child like this in my name, he tells them, and you receive me.  What’s the point of that?  Well, receiving a child in Jesus’ name is an act of service, because a child can do nothing but receive at that point in their life.  So serving others in Jesus’ name is what brings us to the Father.

    I think the take-away for us is that trying to be smarter than everyone else isn’t what shows that we are faithful people. Instead of arguing our point, we need to ask God to help us get the point. And we have to be ready to act on our faith, instead of arguing about it.

  • Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews sums up for us this notion of faith, which can be so difficult to wrap our minds around.  What I love about the definition of faith that comes to us in this passage is that it seems to be telling us what we at some level already know: faith is a heritage.  The passage speaks of the faith of Abel, Enoch, and Noah, all stories we can readily read in our Old Testament, some of which we have heard during the past days as we have heard from the book of Genesis in our Liturgy of the Word, stories of men who had to really take a leap of faith because what they hoped for was unseen.  Only God could fulfill all their hopes and longings.

    The same, of course, is true for us.  We are living in difficult times.  The post-pandemic era has us still dealing with the disease and its medicines, supply-chain issues that have still not recovered from that time, and rising prices on everything in the grocery store.  There is uncertainty in the world, with wars being fought almost everywhere we can think of.  Our state and nation have political issues to the point that it’s hard to know which politicians are honest and which are not, and we almost hate to turn on the television and what’s happening today.  We also have our own personal family uncertainties, maybe loved ones are sick, or are suffering from depression.  Maybe relationships are strained.

    For all of us who live in these uncertain times, Jesus offers us hope.  We get a glimpse today at what we hope for and cannot now see: Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John.  This is a foretaste of the glory of the Resurrection, a glory that Jesus knew when he rose from the dead, and a glory that we yet hope for.  It’s not pie in the sky: we know that our promise in Christ is greater than any of the difficulties our time can bring us.  We know that faith is our heritage, and that that faith has led all of our forebears through times as difficult or more difficult than this.  Today, we have the promise of things hoped for and evidence of things unseen: Christ is our hope, yesterday, today and for ever.

  • Friday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    About twenty or so years ago now, my home parish put on a production of the musical Godspell, and somehow I found myself part of the cast.  If you’ve ever seen the musical, you know that it is based on the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel that we are reading during this current Church year.  I remember the first song of the musical was kind of strange to me at the time.  It’s called “Tower of Babel” and the lyrics are a hodge-podge of lots of philosophies and philosophers throughout time.  I didn’t get, at the time, the significance of the song, but I do now.  “Tower of Babel” represents the various schools of thought about God, over time.  It shows how philosophy at its worst has been an attempt to figure out God by going over God’s head, by leaving God out of the picture completely.

    Now the composer of the musical is an agnostic Jew, and so he didn’t really have great philosophy in mind when he wrote Godspell, but as often happens, God had the last word.  The “Tower of Babel” song ends abruptly and goes right into the second song of the musical, “Prepare Ye,” of which the major lyric is “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”  The message that we can take from that is that the useless, and in some ways sinful, babbling of the pagan philosophers was once and for all settled by Jesus Christ.  If we want to know the meaning of life, if we want to know who God is, we have only to look to Jesus.  That’s true of most things in life.

    And Jesus didn’t build us a tower to get to God.  Instead, he mounted a cross.  The path to God, the path to heaven, was not some grand tower of our own design, but instead a cross on which our God laid down his life.  The way to get where he was going, the way to get where we need to go, is to take up that cross, lose our lives, and gain the kingdom.  Because what good is it to gain the whole world, to build a tower of our own design, and forfeit the life of heaven?