Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Ordinary Time

  • Saturday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think the readings from St. Paul’s letter to Timothy the last couple of days have been so wonderfully challenging.  Today, in our first reading, he admits his sinfulness, relying on God to save him: he says, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.  Of these I am the foremost.”  This, as anyone who has struggled with addiction will tell you, is a very important first step.  Until we admit to what is dogging us, we will never be able to recover from it.

    And sin does dog us, it is an addiction that will drag us down from our relationship with God and convince us that we are unworthy of salvation.  But, thank God, we couldn’t be more wrong.  We, like St. Paul, merely have to admit that we cannot break free of it all on our own, and trust in God’s mercy.  St. Paul says he is the foremost of sinners.  Well, so am I.  And I hope you’re ready to say that you are too.  Because there is not other way to be saved.

    If we refuse to admit that we are sinners, how can we ever find salvation?  Well this is the question of our time, I think.  So many of us feel uncomfortable admitting sin or confronting it.  But if we are not sinners, then we don’t need a Savior.  That might explain the empty places in our church pews, but are we really ready to take that risk?  Are we really ready to think that our eternal life is something we can take care of on our own?  I know I’m not ready to go there.  The consequences for being wrong about that are just too horrifying.

    Now I’m not saying we are all mass murderers or something horrible like that.  But we all have those times when we’ve turned away from God in little or small ways, times when we have rejected his Lordship or even his love.  And when we’ve done that, we have sinned.  There is no other word for it.  But the good news, as St. Paul says to us today, is that Christ came to save sinners.

    There’s a wonderful little prayer that is deeply rooted in the Eastern churches that helps combat this attitude that sin does not affect us.  It’s called the Jesus Prayer, and it’s meant to be prayed contemplatively, almost as a mantra.  I find it great for calming me down in anxious moments, and focusing myself when I am scattered.  It takes about two minutes to learn it and you’ll remember it the rest of your life. So here it is, the Church’s ancient prayer for sinners, the Jesus Prayer:  “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  Amen.”

  • Memorial of 9-11-01

    Memorial of 9-11-01

    Today’s readings

    I think many of us will never forget where we were eight years ago today.  People say that about the day that President Kennedy died, or the day when the space shuttle Challenger exploded.  But in a particular way, I think we will never forget September 11, 2001, because it was a day that changed our world in some very unpleasant ways and shattered whatever remained of our innocence.  Traveling and doing business has changed so much in these years.  So many of us have known people who have died in the twin towers, or in the war that has raged since.

    I remember the weekend following that horrible day.  I came home from seminary to visit with my parents, and we came here to church to pray.  The church was packed, on a Friday night.  And I know that in every church in America, pews were full every day and every weekend for quite a while.  Look around now, though.  Where is everyone?  Now that the world isn’t going to end as fast as we thought, do we no longer need God?  Or have we grown weary of the war that has been fought since and the changes in our world and just given up on God?

    I think that as the war continues, and the lack of peace seems to continue, and the somewhat subdued, now, but ever-present sense of terror continues, it might just be time for us to do some examination and to discern what has led to that sense of unrest.  Today’s Gospel gives us the examination of conscience that will help us to do that.  What precisely is the plank of wood in our own eyes that needs to be removed before we can concentrate on the splinter in the eye of another?  What is it that is un-peaceful in us that contributes, in some small but nonetheless very real measure to the lack of peace in the world?

    We all have to do that on an individual basis to start with. St. Paul does it in our first reading today when he admits to his friend Timothy, “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and an arrogant man…”  And he acknowledges with deep gratitude and profound humility how God changed his life, had mercy on him, forgave him his sins, and gave him charge over one of the most significant evangelical and missionary ministries in the history of the world.  We, too, are blasphemers, persecutors and arrogant men and women, and it is time for us to humbly acknowledge that and urgently beg from God the grace to turn it around, that all the world might be turned around with us.

    But we also have to do this on a communal basis as well.  We don’t go to salvation alone; that’s why we Catholics don’t get overly excited about having a personal relationship with Jesus.  For us, a personal relationship with Christ, is like that first baby step; once we’re there, we know that we cannot rest and admire our work.  A personal relationship with Christ is certainly a good start for us, but we know that we have to be faithful in community or nothing truly great can ever happen.  So it’s up to all of us together to work for true peace, figuring out what in our society has led to unrest and mercilessly casting it out, opening ourselves to the peacemaking power of God that can transform the whole world.  Together, as the Mass for the Feast of Christ the King will tell us, we must work with Christ to present to God “a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

    I get a little worked up when I think about this kind of thing, because I’ve come to realize this is the only way it’s all going to get wrapped up rightly.  Only when all the world has come to know the saving power of our God will we experience the return to grace that we lost in the Garden of Eden.  And that will never happen until all peoples have learned to love and respect one another, and have come to be open to the true peace that only God can give us.

    It didn’t all go wrong on 9-11; if we are honest, that horrifying day was a long time coming.  But that day should have been a loud, blaring wake-up call to all of us that things have to change if we are ever going to experience the peace of Christ’s kingdom.  We are not going to get there without any one person or even any group of people; we need for all of us to repent if any of us will ever see that great day.  Today, brothers and sisters in Christ, absolutely must be a time when we all hear that wakeup call yet anew, and respond to it from the depths of our hearts, both as individuals, and as a society.

    Truly we will never forget where we were on that horrible day of 9-11.  But wouldn’t it be great if we could all one day look back with fondness, remembering with great joy the day when we finally partnered with our God and turned it all around?

  • Thursday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Christian disciples are called to go the extra mile.  Sure, it’s easy enough to love those who love you, and to do good to those who do good to you, and to give expecting reward.  How many of us have people over for dinner because we know those same people will return the favor to us?  How many of us have Christmas card lists that are basically reciprocation for those who send greetings to us?  We have no problem loving and giving our best to those who do the same for us, but more is expected of us.

    For us disciples, we are expected to do the impossible: love our enemies, lend without expecting to be repaid, stop judging, stop condemning others, and to give with wild abandon.  Paul’s letter to the Colossians underscores the measure that will be used to measure us:

    Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
    as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
    singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
    with gratitude in your hearts to God.

    And so our reflection today calls for us to reach out and go beyond ourselves.  We have to step outside our comfort zone, reach higher, and give in the same way that God has given to us.  That is how we will find true joy, as St. Paul also says, that is how we will reach our potential as true disciples.

  • Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Luke’s version of the beatitudes speaks very clearly about freedom from addiction.  When we are addicted to what is not Christ, we are so filled up that there is no room for God.  So the ones who are poor and hungry and weeping and excluded are blessed, they are happy, while the ones who are rich, filled up, laughing and exalted are doomed to woe.  When we are in want, we are in a state of being dependent on God and his love for us.  When we feel like we’ve taken care of all our needs on our own, we don’t need God, or so we think.  But the ones who are really blessed, the ones who can rejoice and be glad, are the ones who are in want, because in their want, they can be filled up with their God.  Blessed are those who are not addicted to the world’s goods, but instead are totally dependent on their God.

  • Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Twenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings
    What Every Catholic Should Know about the Anointing of the Sick

    Jesus’ ministry on earth was all about healing.  In today’s gospel, he heals a man who has been deaf and mute with the word of command: “Ephphatha!” – “Be opened!”  And this word – no surprise – is not just about the deaf and mute man.  The reason Mark brings it up is because Ephphatha is what Jesus is about.  He is about healing, and opening up a way for those who have been at odds with God to be back in relationship with him.  So whether the obstacle has been a physical illness or a spiritual one, he commands ephphatha, that the way be opened and the obstacle obliterated, and the illness of the broken one bound up and the way made straight for the person to be in communion with God.

    St. James today invites us to take a look at the issue from another angle.  Have we pre-judged people who are not like us when they come to the Church, or to us in any way?  Do we look down on those who don’t dress like us, or don’t speak like us, or don’t act like us?  Do these people have illness that needs to be healed?  Or is it we that have the illness, being unable to see them as Christ does, as brothers and sisters and children of God?  So whatever the illness is today, whether it is ours or someone else’s, Jesus commands it to be ephphatha that nothing may be an obstacle to the love of God and the healing of Jesus Christ.

    Since the readings lead us to a place of healing, I want to take this opportunity to speak of one of the sacraments of healing, namely the Anointing of the Sick.  I want to look at it from two angles, first from a personal witness, then from a more catechetical perspective.  And I do this because the Anointing of the Sick is incredibly misunderstood, even by faithful Catholics.  There are those who do not benefit from the sacrament, because they think it is only for the dying, and there are even those who go without the sacrament because they wait too long and the person dies without benefit of the sacraments.  This is not what the Church intends, of course, and it is an extremely serious error.

    So this first part is personal witness, and you’ll forgive me, I hope, if I get a little emotional.  When I was in my second year of seminary my mother and father were both diagnosed with cancer within about a month of each other.  As you can well imagine, this was a very difficult time for our family, but thank God we had the Church to walk with us through their illness.  Both of them received the Anointing of the Sick from their pastor before they had surgery.  I remember that we gathered in the church, just after Sunday Mass, and he beautifully led them through the rite.  It was wonderful for them, of course, but also helpful for us who were grieving their illness with them.  The sacraments are never just for one person; they always involve and even benefit the whole community.

    After I was ordained a priest for not quite a year, dad’s illness became more serious.  One Friday, just after the school mass, one of our parish staff members came to me and told me I had to call mom because dad needed to go to the hospital.  He had become rather weak, and unable really to get around without help.  We took him to the emergency room, and in the course of the day’s tests, I anointed him.  I actually also anointed my Uncle Bob, who had come for tests related to his own heart condition, and had stopped in to check on dad before he went to his appointment.  So we all celebrated the sacrament, again, together.

    Dad never left the hospital that weekend.  By Saturday night, his condition was deteriorating.  On Sunday, just after I was done with Mass, I headed to the hospital.  On the way, my sister Peggy called to let me know they were moving dad and that I should call when I was closer to the hospital so that I’d know where they were.  When I did that, she told me she would just meet me at the door.  At that point, I was sure that dad was dying or perhaps had even died, so I brought my sick call kit with me.  Both of my sisters met me there and told me he was dying.

    So we went to his room, where pretty much all of my family had gathered.  Mom, my sisters and brother-in-law, the kids, dad’s brothers and sister, the in-laws, everyone.  At that time, I gave dad the Last Rites, which we still do have in the Church.  I had given those Last Rites to many people by then, but as you can imagine, this was the hardest time ever.  Dad died early the next morning, totally prepared for the journey, ready to meet the Lord.  We had all prayed with him and were ready to wish him farewell.  It was a difficult, but beautifully prayerful day.

    I bring this up because it illustrates three times when a person should be anointed.  First, just before serious surgery related to an illness, as both my parents were before their cancer surgery.  Second, when health seriously deteriorates, even during the same illness, as when we brought dad to the emergency room.  And third, just before death.

    The letter of St. James tells us: “Is anyone among you sick?  He should summon the presbyters of the church, and they should pray over him and anoint (him) with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up. If he has committed any sins, he will be forgiven.”  (James 5:14-15)

    The Anointing of the Sick is the official name for what many people think of, erroneously, as the “Last Rites” or may have traditionally called Extreme unction.  The term “Extreme unction” is the Latin for “Last anointing.”  And in the days between the Council of Trent in the sixteenth century and Vatican II, that was the nature of the sacrament: a last anointing to prepare a person for death.

    But Vatican II changed that.  Vatican II actually reverted to the more ancient practice of anointing the sick – not just the terminally ill or dying person – which may restore a person to health, aid in their healing and recuperation, or calm their mind and spirit if they are indeed preparing for death.  So the sacrament today is broader than just a last anointing.

    But the Last Rites do still exist, and it is important for one to receive them if possible.  Dad did just before he died.  The Last Rites prepare a person for death, when death is immanent.  These rites include sacramental penance, the anointing of the sick, and Viaticum.

    Viaticum is one’s last Communion.  In Latin, Viaticum literally means “bread for the journey.”  All Catholics are strongly encouraged to receive Communion when death is immanent, and this is the Church’s way of allowing the dying to be intimately united with the Lord in their last moments.  Just before death, sometimes people are not able to take solid food.  In that case, they receive spiritual communion and retain the graces of the sacrament.  Taken together, the three sacraments prepare us for our eternal life, and help us to be ready to meet our God.

    It is important, as you saw in my own personal witness, that the rites for the sick, when possible, be received with the community present.  Most often this includes the loved ones of the sick person, but might also include parishioners, neighbors, or even health care workers.  The sacraments are always meant to be celebrated in community where possible, and this is a help to both the sick person and to the loved ones.

    Indeed, the entire Christian community is involved in the Pastoral Care of the Sick.  We are call called to participate in the healing ministry of Christ. Priests are called upon to celebrate the sacraments with the sick with special care so that they may give the sick hope. Lay people are called upon to visit the sick as a corporal work of mercy, and to encourage the sick to receive the sacraments when the time comes.  Finally, the sick are called upon to receive the anointing of the sick during their illness, and to faithfully join their sufferings to the passion and death of the Lord, for the well-being of the Church.

    This next part is very important, so everyone look at me and hear this, please.  It is important that someone from the family notify the Church in the event of illness of a loved one.  Current laws in the U.S. do not allow hospitals to easily share such information, as they did in the past, so your phone call may be the only way the priests know your loved one is ill.  And if we don’t know they are ill, we can’t care for them or pray for them.  The family really has to do this, because due to privacy concerns, we cannot take action (like praying for them at Mass or putting their name on the sick list in the bulletin) based on information from any other person.

    Finally, I want to say that we here at St. Petronille are fortunate to have many people ready to bring Communion to the homebound.  However, we don’t know of too many people in that kind of need, so many of them have no one to visit at this time.  But, during the short time I’ve been here, we have had a number of elderly, home-bound people die, so I know that many more are out there.  If you know of a homebound person, please let us know so that we may care for them.

    The people who saw what Jesus was doing by healing the sick said, “He has done all things well.  He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”  That ministry is now entrusted to us.  Let us, too, do it well, so that those who are ill in any way may hear the Lord’s command of Ephphatha! and may come at last into the healing presence of our God.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    So what was at stake here?  Was it the Sabbath?  Not really.

    For Jesus, there wasn’t such a thing as a Sabbath breath from healing, and teaching, and bringing people to salvation.  So as he walked along with his disciples, it didn’t bother him that they were “working” by picking heads of grain to eat.  They were hungry.  And Jesus was all about feeding peoples’ hunger, no matter what kind of hunger it was, and no matter what day it was – Sabbath or not.

    He would be widely criticized for teaching on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for news of salvation.  He would be called blasphemous for calling God his Father on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for relationship with their God.  He would receive death threats for healing on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for wholeness.

    Jesus’ point here is that the Sabbath is never important just for itself.  The Sabbath was an opportunity for people to rest in God, and it was God, not the Law, that could decide how that happened.  The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.

  • Friday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Our first reading tells us an important truth about our faith, and  that is that in Jesus Christ, all things hold together.  I often wonder how those who don’t have faith get through life.  Because life brings us sadness rather often: the death of a loved one, difficult illness, loss of a job, and a whole host of problems.  But we who believe can at least hang on to our faith, knowing that God will make all things right, if not in this life, then certainly in the life to come.  In Christ, all things hold together, and that gives us something to hope for, something to make the horrible things that sometimes happen to us less burdensome.  That is why the disciples couldn’t fast in today’s Gospel – the Lord was with them, and so there was joy.  We too can celebrate the joy of Jesus’ presence in our lives, knowing that even though things might not be perfect today, Christ promises that one day they certainly will be.

  • Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Healing is a wonderful thing, and it is perhaps the greatest consolation we receive as believers in Christ.  But healing isn’t just for us.  Just as Simon’s mother-in-law got up from her fever, having been healed by the Lord, and began waiting on people, so we too are called to get up and go on.  When we have been healed, whether it is physically or spiritually, we are called to move on and continue to give witness to the Gospel.  We don’t get to rest in the moment, because the moment was never just for us.  Particularly with spiritual healing, those who have been forgiven through the Sacrament of Penance must then get on with their work as disciples.  The evil one would try to convince us that we are not worthy of the mission, but the only one whose opinion counts is Christ, and his intent is that having been forgiven and healed, we need to get back up and begin again in our work as disciples, whatever that work may be.

  • Monday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today Jesus tussles not with the scribes and Pharisees as he often does, but instead with the people of his own home town.  They are amazed at his words and speak highly of him, right up until the time when he begins to challenge them.  Then they have no more use for them.  The question for us disciples today is who are the prophets among us and what message are they bringing us?  God may well be using someone in our workplaces or homes or schools or wherever we find ourselves this day to speak a message to us.  The question is, will we be open to hear it?

  • Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    What is it that you have brought with you to Mass today?  That, I think, is the real question our readings are asking us.  What’s at issue is what it takes to be a follower of God, a true disciple.

    For the Israelites to whom Moses was speaking in our first reading, it was scrupulous observance of all of the 613 laws in the written and oral tradition of their religion.  But as Moses was exhorting them, this rather daunting observance wasn’t seen as particularly burdensome so much as it was a response to God’s love and care for them.  They had been led lovingly through the desert and were about to take possession of the Promised Land, the land promised by God to their ancestors.  And so as they obey the law and take possession of the promise, they give witness to the nations to the greatness of their God and the wisdom of the people.

    But as time went on, the observance of these laws got a bit messed up.  People had given up true observance of the law and the love of God, and got caught up in the appearances that came from rigid observance of the rules of the law.  They missed the spirit of the law, and even used the law as justification to do whatever it was they wanted to do.  Our readings give us to responses to that issue today.

    The first response is the response Jesus gives to it in today’s Gospel. Here he has yet another altercation with the scribes and Pharisees. They begin to quiz him about his disciple’s habit of not washing their hands before they eat. Now before all you parents start siding with the Pharisees, they weren’t talking about cleaning dirt off their hands before a meal. They were talking about a ritual custom of washing, not only hands, but also jugs and other things. These rituals probably began as something the priests did before offering sacrifice. Much like the hand washing that is done in the Eucharistic Liturgy before the Eucharistic Prayer. But in the case of the Jews, this practice seems to have become something that ended up obliging everyone, and the Pharisees were keen to see that it was done faithfully by everyone, along with the other 612 laws they were required to practice!

    So what Jesus was criticizing here was empty, meaningless ritual. Non-observance of these meaningless things, he says, do not make a person impure. Those demanding that people obey these human laws are themselves disobeying the law of God, Jesus says. So he illustrates the problem by making the point that real impurity comes from a much more fickle source: the human heart. It is not missing mere ritual cleansings that presents the problem. The real problem is not purifying the heart. Because from an impure heart comes all sorts of foul things: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly. All these evils,” Jesus says, “come from within and they defile.”

    The second response comes in our second reading from the letter of St. James.  St. James attacks the rigid observance of the law at the expense of the poor.  Those who dwell on the mere observance of the law are missing its point: and that is that we are to love as God loves.  So if one wishes to be pure in one’s observance of religion, one should be a doer of the world and not just a hearer.  Pure religion involves caring for widows and orphans and all those who have been marginalized, and to keep from being corrupted by the world and its influences.

    I think James underscores Jesus’ point that missing a spurious point of the law does not make a person unclean or irreligious.  Instead, missing the whole point of the law and becoming corrupted by the world is what does that to a person.  We do have to be honest, I think, and acknowledge that this kind of issue was not limited just to the people of Israel, but instead to admit that it can be our issue too.  We too have to admit that we are guilty that horrifying list of sins that Jesus spells out for us today.  And the way we’ve gotten there is by putting ourselves in harm’s way.

    The Catechism tells us, “The sixth beatitude proclaims, ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.’ ‘Pure in heart’ refers to those who have attuned their intellects and wills to the demands of God’s holiness … There is a connection between purity of heart, of body, and of faith.” (CCC, 2518)  This, I think, is what Jesus was getting at. If we would be really clean, and not just ritually so, then we would do well to purify our selves from the inside out, and not the other way around. Pure hearts would avoid all the evils Jesus lists, and then some.

    The task before us is that of purifying our hearts, so that we may rid ourselves of the source of all these evil and vile things that can so easily come forth from us. What does that mean? Well, it’s probably different for every person. Maybe some of us need to stop watching so much television. Or spending too much time on the internet. Perhaps some relationships we have are not healthy and need to be ended. Maybe we’ve been paying attention to the wrong advice.  This is what the Church fathers and mothers have called “chastity of the eyes”: being on guard as to what goes into us, knowing that, as the Act of Contrition says, we need to avoid whatever leads us to sin.  So, whatever it is that needs to be rooted out, it needs to go.

    Then too, we have to put more of the positive stuff into our lives. Perhaps we need to pray more. Or to read the Scriptures or other spiritual books more. Maybe it would be good to spend more time with our families, to pray together, or watch a good movie together, even to have more meals together. I know those things can be hard to do, but they’re never a waste of time or effort.

    The point is that we need to do whatever it takes to purify our hearts, and the task is most urgent. We need to root out the sources of evil thoughts and replace them with beautiful thoughts. Unchastity and adultery need to be replaced with faithfulness. Theft and murder with respect for property and above all, life. We need to do away with greed, malice, envy and deceit and replace them with honesty and justice. Root out everything that leads to licentiousness, arrogance and folly and replace them with encouragement and right relationships with others. And above all let there be no more blasphemy, that we may make way for true faith. Every source of vice has to be eliminated in our lives so that we can practice virtue.  There is only so much room in us, and if it’s all full of vice, there’s no room for virtue.  That’s a little simplistic, but there is truth to it.  We must cleanse ourselves from the inside out, and become a people marked by purity of heart. This exercise is one that is tied to a promise for us: those who purify their hearts, the beatitude tells us, will truly see God. The Church teaches us that the goal of all of our lives is to become saints, and this, brothers and sisters in Christ, is how we do it.

    What Jesus is saying to us is quite simple: we have to clear away the obstructions in our lives so that we can live as authentic disciples.  Today’s Liturgy of the Word shows us how to do that. The Christian disciple strives always to live with a pure heart.  I started the homily today with a question: “what is it you have brought with you to Mass today?”  Praise God if it is something virtuous, pray to God for help casting it out if is not.