Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Ordinary Time

  • Friday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s been interesting to me this week about how the letter of James has served to underscore Jesus’ teachings from the Gospel of Mark.  On weekends, the first reading and Gospel are selected to go together, but during the week that’s not always the case.  But this week, James and Mark have been boldly proclaiming some needed virtues in the Christian disciple.  Today’s virtue seems to be one of integrity.

    I say integrity because both passages are strongly cautioning all of us to make the right decision and then live accordingly, persevering with our conscience.  James tells us to stop complaining about one another so as to avoid judgment, and then to persevere as the ancient prophets did.  Finally, we are to avoid swearing under oath, instead letting our “yes” or “no” mean exactly what they sound like, and not to say one thing and do another.

    Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees in the Gospel reading, and it’s important to understand that he was not giving them marriage counseling, because that’s not what they asked for.  They seemed to be asking a question about divorce and whether or not it should be allowed, but what they were really trying to do was to get him to say something against Moses and thus prove himself to be a charlatan.  But he doesn’t play their game, and instead reminded them of Moses’ own words regarding the permanence of the marriage bond.  They wanted to use a loophole in Moses’ teaching to get him tripped up, but instead he trips them up by reminding them of what Moses really taught. 

    The Christian disciple doesn’t need loopholes: she or he lives the Gospel in integrity. Let your “Yes” mean “Yes” and your “No” mean “No.”

  • Thursday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Scriptures extol the virtue of poverty of spirit, which is perhaps one of the more difficult virtues to embrace and nurture.  Saint James illustrates how things of this world, specifically the pursuit of riches, can be not only a powerful distraction from the spiritual life, but can also leave one complicit in serious sin.  In the Gospel, Jesus exhorts us not to let anything – not even the members of our own body – to get in the way.  We are called to be salt in the world; to flavor our interactions with others such that they see the attraction of life in Christ.

    But if we’re ever going to accomplish it, we have to be poor in spirit.  We have to get over ourselves and shed whatever takes us off the right path.  If our hands or feet or eyes lead us down the wrong path, we have to humble ourselves and get rid of that obstacle so that we can salt the world.

    Possessing the kingdom of heaven is our goal; in fact it’s why we were created.  That’s the ultimate destination on the spiritual journey.  To get there, we can’t be content with the things that get in the way.  We have to pluck out the errant eye, to lop off the wayward limb.  We have to give up worldly riches, especially those garnered at the expense of the poor, and go all in for the kingdom of God.

  • Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “All good giving and every good gift is from above.”  This word that we have from St. James today is so encouraging on this Mardi Gras day.  As we get ready for the spiritual rigors of Lent, we might be tempted to see our fasting, almsgiving and prayer as onerous and undesirable.  But when we realize that everything that we have is a gift from God, and that God gives us everything that we need, we might find it a bit easier to give up something, to reach out to the poor, and to enliven our prayer lives.  Every good gift is from above, and taking forty days out to remember that is a joyous thing indeed.

    I’ve often said that Ash Wednesday is my least favorite day on the Church calendar.  I say that because it’s a long and tiring day, and those who don’t come to Mass regularly don’t get that they have to do that to receive ashes; they can’t get them when they want to – we have a schedule, and a generous one at that. So the day often leaves me frustrated and tired and not at all in the right frame of mind for Lent.

    The last week or so, God has been pounding on my door and pushing back against my hardness of heart.  He’s challenged me to see the blessing: people coming for something only the Church can give, an opportunity to evangelize and connect people to the love of God, a chance to use the penance of the day to grow in my own spiritual life. God blesses us all the time, sometimes we just need to change our minds to see it.

    Every good gift is from above, and that is certainly a great joy!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I don’t think most of us need to think real hard about what it means to suffer.  We have all had, and will have, more than our share of it.  Whether it’s the illness and even death of loved ones, or our own illnesses, or unemployment, underemployment, and difficulties at our job, or strife in our families, or any one of many other issues, we have all encountered suffering at some level, at some point in our lives.  When we are going through it, it can be hard to find meaning in that suffering.  Why would God let us suffer, or let our loved ones suffer, as they do, and not intervene? What purpose does our pain and sadness serve?

    The reality of suffering is something of a mystery for us.  Today we hear it in our first reading: Job, the innocent man, has been the victim of Satan’s testing: he has lost his family and riches, and has been afflicted physically.  His friends have gathered around and given him all the stock answers as to why he is suffering: that he, or his ancestors, must have sinned and offended God, and so God allowed him to suffer in this way.  But Job rejects that thinking, as we all should: it is offensive.  Even if we accept that our sins have been great, this reduces God to a capricious child who throws away his toys when he tires of them.

    That’s not Job’s God and it’s not our God either.  And we still have that notion of suffering among us, I’m afraid.  Many people think they are being punished by God because of their sins when they are suffering.  And there is some logic to it: our sins do bring on sadness in this life.  Sin does have consequences, and while these consequences are not God’s will for us, they are a result of our poor choices.  But God does not penalize us in this way by willing our suffering.

    In fact, God has such a distaste for our suffering, that he sent his only Son to come and redeem us.  Jesus was one who suffered too, remember: being nailed to the cross, dying for our sins – but even before that, weeping with those who wept for loved ones, lamenting the hardness of heart of the children of Israel, being tempted by the devil in the desert, even understanding the hungry crowd and miraculously providing a meal for them out of five loaves and a couple of fish.  Jesus felt our affliction and suffering personally, and never abandoned anyone engaged in it.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus is found healing.  First Peter’s mother-in-law, and then those who came to him at sundown.  In this reading, Jesus is a sign of God’s desire to deal with suffering.  We do not deny the presence of suffering and the tragic in our lives, in fact, we do what we can to overcome it.  But while Jesus deals with suffering and cures illnesses in these stories, he doesn’t eliminate all pain from the world.  In the same way, somehow, we deal with the suffering that presents itself to us, and its causes as we can, and are left with the awesome mystery of what remains.

    But the key here is that our God is with us in our suffering, and so we are called to be there for others who are suffering.  Indeed, we are partners with them in their suffering.  That’s how this always works. When we pray, we open the door for our God to walk with us through suffering.  If it’s his will that we be cured or the situation would change, that will happen, but whatever happens, we are not alone in it.  And when others suffer, we are the hands and feet and voice of Jesus as he walks with them in their pain.

    This weekend we kick off our annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal which funds the various ministries of the diocese of Joliet.  We at Saint Mary’s depend on these ministries to help us: educating seminarians like Andrew, our new intern, and our weekend seminarian Matthew; and supporting the efforts of our school and religious education program.  In addition, through the efforts of Catholic Charities, housing is provided for those who are in need, and meals are served to the hungry.  We are blessed that we can come together as a diocese to provide these services, all for the Glory of God.

    We can’t make all of the suffering in the whole world go away.  But we can do the little things that make others’ suffering a little less, helping them to know the healing presence of Christ, together.

  • Friday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The saga between Saul and David continues. The Lord has rejected Saul, and given gifts and charisms to David, who God intends to anoint as king in Saul’s stead. This is obvious to Saul, and has driven him to madness. He is so enraged at this point that he mounts a large military campaign – three thousand of Israel’s best men – just to hunt down David. Insecure people do crazy things.

    But, although he certainly could, and even though God said “Do with him as you see fit,” David will do no such thing. He recognizes that even though the king might be flawed – crazy, even – he is still the king, and action against the king is action against God as well.

    This, friends, is the essence of the fourth of the Ten Commandments: respecting authority. People of integrity do not take advantage of others, or mount campaigns against them. Instead, they continue to do their work and live their calling as God has required of them. Remember that the Fourth Commandment is the only one that comes with a promise: “that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12)

    God is faithful. It is up to disciples to be people of integrity and be faithful as well.

  • The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What are you looking for?

    That’s the question Jesus asks us today, and it’s a good one.  For the disciples who were checking him out, I think it took them aback somewhat.  They weren’t expecting that and they honestly didn’t have a great answer.  So instead they do what Jesus usually does and they answer the question with another question!  “Rabbi, where are you staying?”  And very cryptically, Jesus answers by saying, “Come and you will see.”  That’s a wonderful line, so bookmark it for just a second.

    Here we are, essentially just beginning the regular part of the new year of the Church.  We’ve been through Advent and the Christmas season, we’ve celebrated Epiphany, Jesus has been baptized in the River Jordan by his cousin Saint John the Baptist, and now it’s time to get on with the ministry he came to do.  So as he moves on, he begins to attract disciples, particularly those who had been followers of Saint John the Baptist.  Most likely, they were there when Jesus was baptized and they experienced the wonders of that moment: when the Father spoke from the heavens and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove.  That had to be amazing!  My guess is they would have wanted to get to know Jesus a little better.

    And so that’s what brings them to the place we are today.  Where are you staying?  Come and you will see.  And see they do.  They recruit Simon Peter, and he joins the group.  Together they will see the sick healed, the paralyzed get up and walk, the leprous cleaned, the possessed set free.  They will see thousands fed by a few loaves and fish.  They will see Jesus’ transfiguration.  But they won’t just see glory, will they?  They will see suffering and death, and will then see resurrection.  After that, they will see what Jesus saw in them – their ability to become the Church and spread the Gospel.

    But at that moment, they had no idea what they would see when they chose to follow Jesus.  Just like they had no idea how to answer Jesus’ question, they had no idea what to expect from their relationship with him.  To find out where they were going to be led, they really did have to make a leap of faith and take him up on his invitation to “Come and see.”

    Which is where we are today, on this first, “ordinary” Sunday of the Church year.  And I’m going to ask you all to pray over this in the week ahead: “What are you looking for?” 

    For me, I’m looking forward to seeing our parishioner Christian Sinclair ordained a transitional deacon. I’m looking forward to working with our seminarians Matthew, and especially Andrew as he experiences his full time internship here at Saint Mary’s.  I’m looking forward to seeing how some of our ministries develop, the fruits of doing some things in our school and religious education programs, and the renewing of our parish pastoral council.  I’m looking forward to receiving some new people into the Church at Easter and throughout the year.  I’m looking forward to celebrating several marriages this year, along with First Communions and Confirmations.  I’m looking forward to seeing how God will continue to work in my life and develop my ministry.  But I know it won’t all be glory: I’ll have to celebrate funerals and say goodbye to some wonderful people.  I’ll have to make hard decisions about our budget and prioritize ministries.  Just like all of your families, there are tough decisions to be made in the running of a parish.

    But I wouldn’t change it for the world.  And I look forward to the journey.  Sometimes things might not happen fast enough for my liking, or maybe they won’t happen in the way I would choose, but I know that along the way, I’ll see more of God’s grace, and that’s worth the ride all in itself.

    So I’ll put this back in your court again.  Let’s pray about this together. Close your eyes and imagine yourself sitting with Jesus and hear him asking, “What are you looking for?” Spend some time now thinking about how you will answer him: What do you hope to see in this new year?  What are your dreams for your spiritual life?  How would you want God to work in your life right now? 

    Take time to tell Jesus what it is you are looking for right now.

    Listen now, as Jesus answers you: “Come, and you will see.” Receive his reassurance that you will see much this coming year, but he will walk with you through it all.  Then we can all pray with the Psalmist: “Here am I Lord; I come to do your will.”

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.” I always like to joke that that’s how I ended up being the pastor of the biggest church in the state, so maybe it’s not such a good idea! But then, I love this parish and wouldn’t rather be anyplace else, so there’s a lot of truth to the joy of faithfulness.

    This Gospel passage is a very interesting reading that sometimes gets explained as a plea for us to use our time, talent, and treasure for the good of the kingdom.  And that’s a very nice message, except that it isn’t what the Church is going for on this, the second to last Sunday of the Church year.  We have to remember that, at the end of the Church year, the Church points us to the end of time, when Jesus will return and all will be put into proper order, and the Kingdom of God here on earth will forever be the Kingdom of God in heaven.  So what’s really going on with today’s Gospel reading?  Well, bookmark that for a bit, because it is truly the million dollar question of the day.

    I’ve often heard stories of those who grew up in the great depression.  Many years later, they still had deeply engrained in them the scrupulous care for everything they have that was etched into their very being during that horrible time in our history.  They spent a lifetime wasting nothing, even hoarding things.  They would eat leftovers well past their freshness dates.  It was just their response to having nothing, completely understandable.

    And that’s the lens through which I think we need to see this week’s Gospel parable.  Here Jesus presents the often-quoted story of a rich man entrusting his slaves with a great deal of wealth before he sets off on a long journey.  The word “talents” here does not mean what we mean when we use that word: here we are not talking about gifts or abilities, but rather money, and a large sum of money at that.  Scholars suggest that a talent was equal to something like one thousand days’ wages, or what a poor person could have lived on for fifteen or twenty years.  So think about it, even the servant who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    So who is it, then, that is receiving such a magnanimous gift?  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    And we know how this plays out.  Two of them take what they have and very successfully invest it and when the master returns, are able to hand over the original sum with one hundred per cent interest.  Very impressive!  But the slave who received just a “little” (even though it was certainly still a lot of money), out of fear buries it in the ground and gives it back to the master untouched, with nothing to show for it.  It’s much like a person having gone through something like the great depression placing money under a mattress rather than trust the banks, which they saw fail miserably in their lifetimes.

    Now, we’ve established that the gift they are receiving – even the slave who received little – is worth an incredible amount of money, especially to a slave who would never have the opportunity to see such wealth if not for the trust the master has placed in them.  So let’s be clear that this parable is not about us using our gifts properly; it’s about us, the slaves receiving something very great, some inestimable wealth.  What could that possibly be?  Well, of course, it’s God’s love, grace, and favor, which is undeservedly ours and given to us without merit.

    Just for background, this is yet another indictment of the Pharisees and religious establishment of the time.  They were the ones who, because Christ was not yet present in the world, received just one talent.  But it was still a huge sum of grace!  Yet, their practice was to protect it so scrupulously by attending to the minutiae of the 613 laws of the Torah, that they missed the opportunity to really invest God’s love in the world and grow the faith to full stature.

    But we can’t be like that.  We can’t have the faith taken away from us and be tossed out to wail and grind our teeth.  We have to take the faith we’ve been given, the grace we have received in baptism, and invest it mightily in the world, without fear, so that everyone will come to know the Lord and we would all go on to be put in charge of greater things, in the kingdom of heaven.  That is our vocation in the world, brothers and sisters in Christ.  We have to get that right.  We can’t cower in fear, or think our faith is too little, or we don’t know enough.  That was the cardinal sin for Matthew in his Gospel.  We have to be bold disciples and make sure that Christ is known everywhere we go, everywhere life takes us.  That is the only acceptable response to God’s love.

    Next week, we will celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, and then look forward to a new year as we begin the season of Advent.  And so it is important that we take today’s Gospel parable seriously.  We need to spend some time reflecting on how well we have invested God’s grace and love in the world around us.  Have we been good examples to our family and others?  Have we been people of integrity in our workplaces, schools and community?  Have we served those who are in need out of love for Christ?  Have we been zealous to grow in our spiritual lives?  Have we taken time to root sin out of our life, and to receive the grace of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance?  Have we been unafraid to witness to our faith in every situation?

    If we can’t answer all these questions affirmatively, we have some new-Church-year’s resolutions to make.  Because, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, brothers and sisters, the alternative is wailing and grinding of teeth.  And forever is a long time to be doing that!  No; God forbid.  Our desire is to hear those wonderful words from our Lord one day: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.”

  • The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The readings in these last days of the church year can be confusing, and sometimes even scary.  But they have an important job to do in terms of our spiritual lives.  They very often challenge our notions of what the faith really teaches and to what we are called in the preaching of the Gospel.  We want to believe in Jesus according to our own likeness, instead of allowing ourselves to be recreated according to his likeness.  And that’s where we run off the rails and drift away from a vibrant and active faith.

    As of today we have just two weeks left in the Church year, and it’s time for us to take stock of our lives and get things in order.  And we have one of those occasions when there seems to be a pretty odd parable in the Gospel reading.  It’s a story that challenges our notion of who Jesus is and what he was about – it almost seems in this story that he’s being “un-Jesus-like” in the story.  But hang on to that idea that for a second, because I think it will become clear what’s really going on as we unravel the story.  I always maintain that when a Scripture gets us riled up, then God is trying to tell us something important, and I definitely think that’s what’s going on here.

    So, first, we have to understand the details of the parable.  This probably doesn’t sound like any wedding to which you have ever been.  Wedding customs in the first century Middle East were a little different than those we know today.  The wedding was a rather drawn-out affair, beginning with the betrothal.  After that, the couple was basically married, but would not live together until the sometimes-complex negotiations regarding the dowry were complete.  When that was done, the bridegroom would journey to the bride’s house and bring her to his own house.  Then there would be a splendid feast that would go on for several days, complete with feasting and abundant wine and all kinds of festivity.

    So the parable we have in today’s Gospel puts us in the moment of time just as the negotiations are complete and they are expecting the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house.   The virgins are there ready to begin the great feast, but the bridegroom is delayed a bit, and they all fall asleep.  However, that is not the problem.  The problem is that half of them were unprepared.

    And here I think is the point that gets us riled up a bit.  I think we bristle at the whole notion of the wise virgins’ refusal to share their oil with the foolish.  Jesus was always for sharing and charity, so what’s the deal here?  Well, since we know Jesus regularly encourages kindness to others, I think we can safely conclude that is not the point of the parable and move on.  The point of the parable then, may well be the oil itself.  What kind of oil is he really talking about?  Of what is this oil symbolic?

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

    What astounds me is that five of these virgins showed up unprepared.  We may not be familiar with first-century Middle Eastern wedding customs, but they certainly were.  So they would have known the wedding would go on for some days.  How is it, then, that they forgot to bring extra oil?  Even if the bridegroom had not been delayed, they certainly would have needed it!  What was so important to them that they forgot to attend to the most basic part of their job in preparation for the wedding banquet?  It would be like the maid of honor in a wedding today forgetting to plan a wedding shower – unthinkable!

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

    When we get to the feast, if our flasks are not full, it is already too late.  The last Sunday of the Church year is two weeks from today.  So this is a very good time to take a look back and see how well we have filled our flasks in the last year.  Have we been zealous to attend to our spiritual lives?  Have we been careful to be sure we have received the Sacrament of Penance on a regular basis?  Do we attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, regardless of what else is going on in our lives, regardless if we are tired and need a rest, regardless of anything that might distract us?  Beyond the sacraments, do we take time to reflect on our relationship with God and try our best to live our lives as we have been called?  Have we even thought about what is the purpose of our lives right now?  Are we, at this point in life’s journey, walking with our Lord through good times and bad?  Or have we veered off the path, not even concerned about having the oil of salvation?  Have we been content with oil that does not burn brightly and which runs out just when we need it?

    If that’s where we have found ourselves this year, then we have some work to do in the coming weeks.  As we wind up this year and begin the next, we need to steadfastly resolve to fill our flasks to overflowing with the oil of salvation in the year ahead.  The only way we can do that is by zealously seeking our God, praying the prayer of the Psalmist:

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

  • The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Mike was one of my favorite people in the world.  He owned the service station where my family had, and still has, our cars repaired and maintained ever since we first moved out to the suburbs, almost forty years ago now.  Dad used to joke that with all the cars we brought in there over the years, we probably had ownership in at least the driveway by now.  Mike was the kind of guy who, if you brought your car in for a tune-up, would call you and say, “your car doesn’t really need a tune-up yet, so I’ll just change the oil and a couple of the spark plugs and you’ll be fine.”  He was honest and did great work, and it seemed like everyone knew him. 

    Mike was a regular at the 7am Mass on Sunday, and after his retirement was a pretty regular daily Mass-goer.  The church would sometimes ask him to help a person in need with car repairs.  This he did gladly; he was always ready to serve.  Several years ago, when Mike died, I took Mom to his wake.  It took us an hour and a half to get in to see him and his family, and it was like that all night long.  His funeral packed the parish church, and eight of us priests concelebrated the Mass.  Mike left his mark on our community in incredible ways, and nobody ever forgot it.  Mike truly understood the kind of love that Jesus calls us to have in today’s Gospel.

    Today’s Gospel reading speaks to us about what is arguably the hallmark of Christian life: love of God and love of neighbor.  This two-pronged approach to loving is what life is all about for us. It is, in fact, the way we are all called to live the Gospel.  The scholar of the law is testing Jesus to see if he can come up with a way to discredit him.  But Jesus’ answer is one that the scholar can’t take issue with.  He boils all of the law and the prophets down to just two basic commandments: love the Lord your God with everything that you are, and then also love your neighbor as yourself.  There were over six hundred major and minor precepts in the Jewish law, and the scholars argued about them all the time.  But even given all that, they can’t take issue with what Jesus said.  In fact, the first of the laws that Jesus quoted, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul…” was once that so many students of the law had memorized from the time they were little children.  In fact, most Jews did (and still do) post that particular quote of the law on their doorposts and reverence those words when they enter the home, so this was not new ground for them.  What was new here, was Jesus putting the love of neighbor parallel to that law.  And when you think about it, this is so common-sense.  If we love God and neighbor, there won’t be any room for sin or crime or anything like that.  It’s so simple.  And yet so hard to do.

    But it shouldn’t be that way: it shouldn’t have been hard for the Pharisees and it shouldn’t be hard for us either.  The Pharisees made up the strongest part of the religious establishment of the time.  They were so concerned about getting the law right, that they often missed the whole point of the law in the first place.  Jesus was always taking them to task for that.  The law came from none other than God himself, and he gave it for the good of the people, but the Pharisees used it to keep people under their thumb, which was what they were trying to do to Jesus here.

    And, to be clear, God is all about justice.  So if that’s how he wanted it, the law would indeed be very rigid.  But as we see from the small sample of the law we have in our first reading, God wanted justice to be tempered with mercy.  Sure, go ahead and take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral on a loan.  But you better give it back to him before sundown, because that’s all he has to keep him warm in the night.  Justice, in the eyes of God, is completely useless without the application of compassion.

    This shouldn’t be a surprise to those of us who have learned, as early as we can remember, that God is love.  God is love itself, and God cannot not love.  That’s what God does and who God is: he loves us into existence, loves us in repentance, loves us with mercy, and loves us to eternity.  God is love in the purest of all senses: that love which wills the good of the other as other.

    So when Jesus boils the whole Judaic law down to two commandments, it’s not like he’s made it easy.  As I said; it is simple, but simple doesn’t always mean easy.  It means giving the person who just cut you off in traffic a break, because you don’t know what’s really going on in their life.  It means showing kindness to your family after a long day, even when they’re testing your patience.  It means finding ways to be charitable and help those less fortunate.  And it means cutting yourself some slack when you mess up, even when you’ve just committed the sin you’ve been trying to stamp out of your life forever.  You have to love yourself if you are going to do what Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s one that people miss all the time.

    The whole law and the prophets depends on love.  The way we live our lives needs to show that we depend on love too.

    So let’s pray with that right now.  Closing your eyes for a moment, take some quiet time to think about someone who has wronged you in some way.  Or, if it’s closer to your heart, think about a sin or cycle of sin that you’ve been struggling with, or perhaps a mistake you have made that you just can’t forgive in yourself. (…)  Take a moment now to place that person, or yourself, in Jesus’ presence.  Give Jesus the offense the person has committed against you, or give him the sin you’ve been struggling with personally. (…)  How are you feeling about this right now?  Give Jesus those feelings. (…)  Let Jesus tell you how much he loves you right now.  That might be hard, especially if the person you need to forgive is yourself, but listen anyway. (…)  Tell Jesus how much you love him. (…)  Ask for his help to love the other person, or yourself, in the same way that he loves you. (…)

    Thank you, Jesus, for loving us.  Thank you for giving us the example of your love on the cross.  Thank you for laying down your own life out of love for us.  Thank you for never not loving me, no matter where I have gone or what I have done.  Help me to love as you love.  Help me to love you, love others, and love myself in the same way that you love me.  I love you, Lord, my strength.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 1; has always been one of my very favorite psalms. One interpretation of this Psalm is to look at it as a blueprint for blessedness. In Biblical terms, of course, blessedness equals happiness. So the person who doesn’t follow the counsel of the wicked or walk with sinners but instead meditates on the law of the LORD is happy, or blessed. This person is productive and vibrant, and all of his activities are prosperous. This person is contrasted to the wicked person who is anything but enduring. These are unhappy people who are driven away by the first storm that comes along.

    On the other hand, the Church has also looked at the blessed one in this psalm as referring to Christ himself. None of us is able to steer clear of evil all the time, nor meditate on God’s law day and night. But Jesus is the One who is like us in all things but sin and who is the fulfilled promise of God’s law. Jesus definitely is the tree planted near running water, which takes root strongly and shades us from the burning heat of evil under his never-fading leaves. Jesus is the one who can prosper any work that we do, if we just ask him to do so. If we want to know the person who really embodies the spirit of Psalm 1; then all we have to do is look to our Savior.

    But that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to become holy enough to take up the spirit of this Psalm within ourselves. We certainly don’t want to be the chaff which is driven away by the wind. Joining ourselves to our Savior, meditating on him day and night, as best we can, we can be refreshed by those running waters and become the sturdy trees that shelter the Church in good times and in bad. Blessed indeed are all of us who hope in the Lord.