Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Susanna’s story is one of the most eloquent in the Old Testament Scriptures, in it we see the wisdom of the prophet Daniel, as well as the mercy and justice of God.  I think when we hear it, we can’t but help think of yesterday’s Gospel reading about the acquittal of the woman caught in adultery, although Susanna was actually innocent.  In that Gospel reading, we are treated to the wisdom of Jesus, brought about as it is with the mercy and justice of God.  But sadly, we see in both stories also the fickleness of the human heart and the evil and treachery that makes up some of our darker moments.

    To those who seek to pervert justice and to collude with others against some other person, these readings expose those evil thoughts and flood the darkness with the piercing light of God’s justice.  No one has a right to judge others when their own intentions are not pure.  Only God can give real justice, just as only God brings ultimate mercy.

    To those who are the victims of oppression, these readings give hope that God in his mercy will always hear the cry of the poor and give to the downtrodden the salvation which they seek.  God is ultimately very interested in the kind of justice that is characterized by right relationships with one another and with Him.  It is the desire of God’s heart that this kind of justice would be tempered with mercy and would go out and lighten all the dark places of the earth.

    Today we are called upon to right wrongs, to be completely honest and forthright in our dealings with others, to seek to purify our hearts of any wicked intent, and most of all to seek to restore right relationships with any person who has something against us, or against whom we have something.  Our prayer this day is that God’s mercy and justice would reign, and that God’s kingdom would come about in all its fullness.

  • The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Back in the sixth century before the birth of Christ, the Israelites were in a bad way.  They had been separated from their God by sin: against God’s commands, they had betrayed their covenant with the Lord and made foreign alliances, which he had forbidden them to do.  He forbade this because he knew that as they made these alliances, they would give in to the temptation to worship the so-called gods of the people they with whom they allied themselves.  As punishment, God separated them from their homeland: the cream of the crop of their society was taken into exile in Babylon, and those left behind had no one to lead them and protect them.  Because they moved away from God, God seemed to move away from them.  But he hadn’t: I think it was really they who had exiled themselves from God.  In today’s first reading, God shows them that he still loves them and cares for them, and promises to make them a new people . I love the line: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?”  God would indeed bring them back and create their community anew.

    The Israelites were in exile, but exile can take so many forms.  And Saint Paul had a good sense of that.  For him, the exile was anything that was not Christ; a sentiment we should embrace.  Saint Paul knows that he has not yet taken possession of the glory that is promised him by Christ, and so he wants to leave behind the exile of the world and strains forward to all that lies ahead, the goal and prize of God’s calling in Christ.

    Which brings us back to the woman caught in adultery.  We certainly feel sorry for her, caught in the act, dragged in front of Jesus and publicly humiliated.  But the truth is, just like the Israelites in the sixth century before Christ, she had actually sinned.  And that sin threatened to put her into exile from the community; well, it even threatened her life.  The in-your-face reversal in the story, though, is that Jesus doesn’t consider her the only sinner – or even the greatest sinner – in the whole incident.  We should probably wonder about the man with whom she was committing adultery; that sin does, after all, take two.  And as serious a sin as adultery certainly is, Jesus makes it clear that there are plenty of serious sins out there, and they all exile us from God.  As he sits there, writing in the sand, they walk away one by one.  What was he writing?  Was it a kind of examination of conscience?  A kind of list of the sins of the Pharisees?  We don’t know.  But in Jesus’ words and actions, those Pharisees too were convicted of their sins, and went away – into exile – because of them.

    Sin does that to us.  It makes exiles out of all of us.  The more we sin, the further away from God we become.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.

    Jimmy and Suzy went to visit their grandparents for a week during the summer.  They had a great time, but one day Jimmy was bouncing a ball in the house, which he knew he shouldn’t be doing.  It didn’t take long for the ball to hit grandma’s favorite vase, knocking it off the table and breaking it.  He picked up the pieces and went out back and hid them in the woodshed.  Looking around, the only person who was around was his sister Suzy.  She didn’t say anything, but later that day, when grandma asked her to help with the dishes, Suzy said “I think Jimmy wanted to help you,” giving him a rather knowing look.  So he did.  The next day, grandpa asked Jimmy if he wanted to go out fishing.  Suzy jumped right in: “He’d like to, but he promised grandma he would weed the garden.”  So Jimmy weeded the garden.  As he was doing that, he felt pretty guilty and decided to confess the whole thing to grandma.  When he told her what had happened, grandma said, “I know.  I was looking out the back window when you were hiding the pieces in the woodshed.  I was wondering how long you were going to let Suzy make a slave of you.”

    That’s how it is with sin: it makes a slave of us, and keeps us from doing what we really want to do.  It puts us deep in exile, just as surely as the ancient Israelites.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.  You see, it’s easier than we think to end up in exile.  All we have to do is a good examination of conscience and then think about the way those sins have affected us.  Have they made us feel distant from God, family and friends?  Have they caused us to drift in our life and not feel God’s presence in times of hardship?

    Exile is heartbreaking.  And to the exile of sin, God has three things to say today:

    First, “Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.”  That sounds like something that’s easy to say but hard to do.  But the fact is, once we have accepted God’s grace and forgiveness, that grace will actually help us to be free from sin.  Of course, that’s impossible to do all on our own.  But God never commands us to do something that is impossible for us, or maybe better, he never commands us to do something that is impossible for him to do in us.  God’s grace is there if we but turn to him.

    Second, God says: “Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.”  Once sin is confessed and grace is accepted, the sin is forgotten.  God is not a resentful tyrant who keeps a list of our offenses and holds them against us forever.  If we confess our sins and accept the grace that is present through the saving sacrifice of Jesus, the sins are forgotten.  But it is up to us to accept that grace.  We truly have to confess so that we can forget what lies behind and be ready for the graces ahead.

    Third, God says: “See, I am doing something new.  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”  We are the ones who get stuck in the past, always fearing to move forward because of past sins, hurts, and resentments.  We are called today to be open to the new thing God is doing in our lives.  The way to open up is to confess our sins and get rid of the past.

    For a long time in my young life, I didn’t go to confession.  I didn’t think I needed to.  I grew up in that whole time of the church when it was all about how you felt about yourself.  Garbage.  I knew something was wrong when I was in my young adulthood and felt lost.  I took a chance and went to confession at a penance service, and the priest welcomed me back.  In that moment, I knew exactly the new thing God was doing in me, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me.  In fact, I was released from the exile of all my past sins and hurts.

    I never forgot that, and whenever anyone comes to me in confession and says it’s been a long time since they went, I am quick to welcome them back.  Because that’s what God wants, and it’s a great privilege for me to be part of that.  He wants to lift that weight off of you, to end your exile.  All it takes is for you to see that new thing he is doing in you, and to strain forward to what lies ahead.

    So we have just a few times left to receive that grace before Holy Week and Easter.  On Monday evening at 6:30, we will hear confessions until all are heard.  Saturday, as usual, we will hear confessions from 4:00 to 4:45pm before Mass.  And next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we will hear confessions after the 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30 Masses until all are heard.  Would that we would all take this opportunity to forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead.  God is doing a new thing in all of us these Lenten days.  Let us all be open to it.

  • Holy Hour for Families

    Holy Hour for Families

    Readings: Joshua 24:14-18; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26; Matthew 12:46-50

    I always say that I don’t know how my mother would react if I pretended not to know her when she came to visit.  But that’s not actually true.  I am pretty sure that I do know how she would react, and I don’t think it would be pretty!  But I honestly don’t think Jesus was trying to distance himself from his Blessed Mother.  I think Jesus knew well that Mary inherited a great deal of grace from her Immaculate Conception that made her well aware of Jesus’ priorities and willing to assist in his ministry.

    I think we should take two things from today’s readings.  First, families are called to be holy.  Sure, you say, how do we even try to get to that point?  It might almost seem like the lack of holiness is a human condition, and so we cannot even expect to yearn for that great virtue.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  Sin is not a human attribute, in fact it’s about the least human thing there is.  Sin is us trying to be something we weren’t meant to be, to follow in a path we weren’t meant to trod.

    What is truly human is virtue.  We know this because Jesus was perfectly divine and perfectly human, and he never sinned.  So sin is something we were not meant to do.

    The source of holiness is the family unit.  As we grow in our families we learn.  Hopefully we learn holiness and virtue.  That’s what Joshua was trying to elicit in tonight’s first reading.  As the people Israel prepared to take the promised land, they would be tempted by all sorts of things.  They would be tempted to “fit in” with the rest of the people of the land and worship their so-called gods.  Joshua says they have to decide now whom they will serve.  Will it be those so-called gods, or will they, like his family, serve the LORD?

    It’s not just a quaint question for us, or a curiosity from ancient times.  It’s a question we all have to struggle with, to decide if we and our families will serve the Lord or serve someone or something else.  Will we instead serve the gods who demand that we play sports to the extent that we can’t get to Sunday Mass?  Will we instead serve the gods who demand that we sacrifice our time so much that we miss the growth of our children and distance ourselves from our families?  These questions are real ones, and we have to struggle with worshipping rightly just as much in our day as the people Israel did in Joshua’s day.

    The second thing we should take from these readings is that the call to discipleship is learned in the family.  That’s why the vignette with Mary is so important in our Gospel reading today.  Mary was clearly one of Jesus’ disciples, we know that from our Church history.  So when he said “whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” we know that he certainly included Mary,  but also meant to include us too.  Brothers and sisters of the Lord are his disciples; together we carry out the ministry he wants to accomplish in the world.  We are meant to proclaim his word to all people in our actions.

    As families, we learn that as we pray and work together.  Making a family habit of prayer helps children – and adults too! – to work for the kingdom and not just for our own comfort.  Prayer helps us to be concerned for the welfare of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and is the activity that gives us the grace to reach out in service.

    What we should hear in this holy hour then, is how Jesus wants us to serve him.  We see Jesus clearly here on the altar.  But we also have to see Jesus in the poor, in the sick, in every person God puts in our path.  Each one of them is our brother and sister, and if we would be brothers and sisters of the Lord, then we must reach out to them and show them God’s love.

    As we pray this evening then, I think we should all ask God to help us to be better disciples.  We should ask him how to serve him by serving our brothers and sisters in need.  Ask him to help us see the people around us who most need us right now, who most need to know how much God loves them.  Then we can take the grace and love of this Holy Hour to them.

    May God bless all of our families with holiness and grace, now and for ever.

  • Untitled post 2920

    Today’s readings

    What an incredible privilege to gather today to pray for our new Holy Father, Pope Francis!  These have been historic days, and I am sure we have all felt the movement of the Holy Spirit on all those involved, from Pope Emeritus Benedict, humbly retiring so that the Church could be led with new vigor, to the cardinals gathered in conclave surrounded with prayer, to the announcement of our new Pope, just two days into the deliberations.

    First impressions say a lot, we all know that.  And I think Pope Francis made a wonderful one.  He began by leading us in prayer for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, by showing some humor in his remarks about being chosen from the ends of the earth, to the absolutely incredible favor that he asked of all of us, our prayer and blessing, before he gave the Apostolic Blessing itself.  I must say that I was rather moved by his humility, because I see in that humility a reflection of God himself.

    Today’s readings give us that blueprint.  Jesus himself brushed aside human praise, and humbly deferred to the Father.  He holds up Moses as the quintessential leader.  We see that in the first reading, when Moses courageously comes to the aid of his people rather than accepting the fact that God was going to destroy them.  We see in these readings that a leader needs to be courageous and humble, and I think we will be seeing that in Pope Francis as well.

    Today we continue our prayer for him.  His job is a big one – it always has been and today’s issues are as daunting as those of previous centuries.  He has chosen the patronage of Francis of Assisi, which points to his embrace of poverty, but also embraces Saint Francis’s call to rebuild the Church.

    These are historic days, and how blessed we are to see them!  May our prayers and the leadership of Pope Francis guide and sustain the Church!

  • Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    At the heart of our practice of prayer has to be trust in God. We don’t – or shouldn’t – need signs to convince us of God’s love and care for us.  But don’t we do that all the time?  Aren’t we just like those Galileans looking for a sign?  We might be hesitant to take a leap of faith that we know God is calling us to make, but are looking for some kind of miracle to get us off our behinds.  We might know that healing in a certain situation will take some time, but we want God to descend, wave a magic wand, and make it all go away.

    But just as the royal official trusted that Jesus could cure his son, so we too need to trust that God in his goodness will work the best for us, in his time, in his way. Isaiah tells us today that God is about to create a new heavens and a new earth, where there will always be rejoicing and gladness. But how hard is it for us to wait for that new creative act, isn’t it?  We just really want to see that big picture now, please, we want to know what’s on God’s mind and where he’s taking us.  But that’s not how God works is it?

    It can be hard for us when we look around for blessing and don’t see it happening on our timetable.  We forget, sometimes, that a big part of the grace comes in the journey, even when things are really painful.  The Psalmist says, “O LORD, you brought me up from the nether world; you preserved me from among those going down into the pit.”  Notice how he does not say that God shielded him from going to the nether world.  But the nether world was not the end of the Psalmist’s story.

    We don’t know where God is taking us today – or any day, for that matter.  We have to trust in our God who longs for our good, just like that royal official.  And we have to believe in the power of God to raise us up, just as he raised his Son from the dead.  We all long to celebrate our Easter Sundays, but our faith tells us that we have to get through our Good Fridays first.

  • Fourth Sunday of Lent/Second Scrutiny [Cycle A Readings]

    Fourth Sunday of Lent/Second Scrutiny [Cycle A Readings]

    Today’s readings

    The theme for this week’s liturgy is vision and light.  The gospel gets at that pretty quickly, healing the man born blind in the first couple of minutes of what is admittedly a pretty long reading.  And that’s a good thing because, honestly, who cares about the man born blind?  I know that sounds terrible, but he lived a couple thousand years ago, and he was healed, so you know, good for him, but how does that affect us?  I’ll tell you how it affects us: the man born blind is us.  We all have affected vision: that’s why the first reading is such a slap in our faces.  So we have to decide today if we are the man born blind who is easily and quickly healed, or if we want to be the Pharisees who, at the end of the day, never regain their sight because they just don’t want to.

    So maybe you’re asking the same question those Pharisees asked, “surely we are not also blind, are we?”  Of course we are.  That’s why we have Lent: to realize our brokenness and to accept the healing power of Christ.  Lent calls us to remember that we are dust, that we are broken people fallen into sin, but that none of that is any match for the power of Christ risen from the dead, if we just let him put a little clay on our eyes.

    Today’s Gospel then is a kind of journey to clearer vision.  We are all born blind, in a sense, and it takes the presence of Jesus to clear our vision.  Just as the man born blind was sent to the pool of Siloam, we too are sent to the waters of baptism, which clears our eyes and helps us to really see.  Our Elect, Korrin, will experience that in a very literal way this coming Easter Vigil.  In baptism, the darkness of life is transformed by the presence of Christ, the Light of the World.  We see that light shine brighter and brighter in today’s Gospel.  During the course of all the questionings that follow, the man’s vision becomes clearer and clearer.  At first he doesn’t know who Jesus is or where to find him.  Later on he testifies that Jesus is a prophet and finally, with the help of Jesus’ instruction, that Jesus is the Son of Man and worthy of worship.  We make this same journey ourselves.  From the waters of baptism, we need to continue the conversation and return to Christ again and again to grow in our faith.  We grow in the way that we see Jesus through our lives.  Our faith when we were young is not the same faith that works for us later in life.  At one point Jesus is a friend walking with us on life’s path; later on he might be a rock that helps us in a particularly stormy time of life.  Still later, he might be the one calling us to become something new, something better than we think we can attain.  Jesus is always the same, but we are different, and Jesus is with us at every point of life’s journey, if we open our eyes to see him.

    Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being Latin for “rejoice.”  That’s why we’re wearing these rose-colored vestments today.  We are now pretty much half way through Lent, and with eyes recreated by our own trips to the pool of Siloam – the waters of baptism – we can begin to catch a glimpse of Easter joy.  Laetare Sunday reminds us that even in the penance of Lent, that it’s not penance for penance’s own sake: there is reason for rejoicing.  We have, indeed been born blind.  But we don’t have to stay that way.

  • Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

    Saturday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

    These are perhaps the most important words of the spiritual life, uttered today by the repentant tax collector in the temple area.  These words are so important, actually, that they form the basis of one of the most ancient acts of contrition that we have, called the Jesus Prayer.  The Jesus Prayer comes out of the eastern and orthodox Church traditions, and the full version is “Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  Everyone should memorize this prayer.

    The Jesus Prayer, and our readings today, give us one of the great tools of Lent: humility.  Humility is that great virtue that recognizes that I need a Savior.  That because of my sins, I have no access to God, except for the fact that he loves me beyond anything I have a right to hope for.  Humility recognizes that God loves us all so much that he gave everything for us, poured himself out for love of us, and desires to heal all of our sins and brokenness.

    All it takes is a little repentance: realizing my sinfulness, turning back to Christ, letting him love me, and accepting his forgiveness.  The prayer that manifests that kind of attitude is not the prayer of the Pharisee in the Gospel reading today: his attitude is the antithesis of what prayer needs to be.  The prayer that manifests the attitude we must have is that of the tax collector: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

    O, that God would grant us the great gift of humility this Lenten day.

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s Scriptures address another one of the ways that we fallen human beings tend to avoid the truth. Sometimes, when we are confronted with the truth, we attack its source. If we cast doubt on the one bringing us the truth, then we don’t have to follow his or her words, right?

    The prophet Jeremiah takes the nation of Israel to task for this in today’s first reading. These are a people who have heard the truth over and over. God has not stopped sending prophets to preach the word. But the Israelites would not listen: in fact, most often, they murdered the prophets. They preferred to live in the world, and to attach themselves to the nations and their worship of idols and pagan gods. They had been warned constantly that this was going to be the source of their demise, but they tuned it out. They “stiffened their necks,” Jeremiah says, and now faithfulness has disappeared and there is no word of truth in anything they say.

    Some of the Jews are giving Jesus the same treatment in today’s Gospel. Seeing him drive out a demon, they are filled with jealousy and an enormous sense of inadequacy. These are the men who were religious leaders and they had the special care of driving away demons from the people. But they chose not to do so, or maybe their lukewarm faith made them ineffective in this ministry. So on seeing Jesus competent at what was their duty, they cast a hand-grenade of rhetoric at him and reason that only a demon could cast out demons like he did.

    We will likely hear the word of truth today. Maybe it will come in these Scriptures, or maybe later in our prayerful moments. Maybe it will be spoken by a child or a coworker or a relative or friend. However the truth is given to us, it is up to us to take it in and take it to heart. Or will we too be like the Jews and the Israelites and stiffen our necks? No, the Psalmist tells us, we can’t be that way. “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

  • Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Monday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Why is the human heart so much opposed to hearing the truth and acting on it? I remember as a child I used to hate it when my parents would tell me something and turn out to be right. If the truth be told, I probably still struggle with that a little today. Who wants to hear the hard truth and then find out that it’s absolutely right? The pride of our hearts so often prevents the prophet from performing his or her ministry.

    The message of Lent, though, is that the prophets – all of them – whether they be Scriptural prophets, or those who spoke the truth to us because they want the best for us – all of these prophets are right. And our task during Lent has to be to give up whatever pride in us refuses to hear the voice of the prophet or refuses to accept the prophetic message, and instead turn to the Lord and rejoice in the truth.

    The prophets of our native land – those prophets who are closest to us – are the ones we least want to hear. Because they know the right buttons to push, they know our sinfulness, our weakness, and our brokenness. And we desperately want to avoid being confronted with all that failure. Yet if we would hear them, then maybe just like Naaman, we would come out of the river clean and ready to profess our faith in the only God once again.

    Athirst is my soul for the living God – that is what the Psalmist prays today. And that is the true prayer of all of our hearts. All we have to do is get past the obstacles of pride and let those prophets show us the way to him. Then we would never thirst again.

  • The Third Sunday of Lent

    The Third Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Our memories of the tragic shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut are not old ones.  We still may remember where we were when we heard of the tragedy, we may even recall with great clarity the knot in our stomach, the rage in our head, the overwhelming sadness.  Tragedy is like that: it shakes our world and turns everything on its head, crying out for an explanation – why would God let something like that happen?

    This seems to be the situation that is giving rise to the conversation in today’s Gospel reading.  Jesus is told about some people who were killed by Pilate while they were offering sacrifices in the Temple.  Can you imagine: people killed while at prayer!  Certainly those who heard about the slaughter were shocked by it.  News of another tragedy also seems to have been common knowledge, so Jesus includes it to illustrate what he intends to say.  It seems that at Siloam a tower collapsed killing 18 people.  These tragic events were on everyone’s lips – the news of the day.  Times are different, but the events seem like they could have happened yesterday: a tyrant kills the citizens of his own country; faulty building construction causes a wall to collapse killing passersby on the street below.

    Commonly in that time, people would have attributed such a tragedy to sin – God was punishing the people for something they, or their loved ones, had done.  But Jesus isn’t having any of that in the Gospel: their sins were no greater than anyone else’s sins, no greater than our own sins.  We all have sinned, and we all need to repent, that’s the message here.  We don’t know if we will have tomorrow to do that; we don’t know if we will fall victim to tragedy or illness or disease; we just don’t have a guarantee of another day.  So the acceptable time for repentance is now.

    To illustrate that, Jesus tells the parable of the fig tree.  It seems an odd parable, so there are a couple of things we should all know before we roll up our sleeves and dig in.  First of all, fig trees actually did take three years to bear fruit.  During those three years, of course, they would need to be nourished and watered and tended.  But when those three years of hard work were up, the farmer certainly wanted his fig newtons!  And the second piece of background is that, since the days of the prophet Micah, the fig tree has been a symbol for the nation of Israel, and Jesus’ hearers would have known that.  So when they hear of a fruitless fig tree, it was a little bit of an accusation.

    Conventional wisdom is that if the tree doesn’t bear fruit after three years of labor and throwing resources at it, you cut it down and plant a new one; why exhaust the nutrients of the soil?  But this gardener is a patient one; he plans to give it another year and some extra TLC in hopes that it will bear fruit.  So it is for us, the heirs to the promise to Israel.  If we are found unfruitful, our Lord gives us extra time and TLC in order that we might have time to repent, take up the Gospel, and bear fruit for the kingdom of God.  Our gardener is a patient one too.

    To a point, though.  We don’t get forever; if we still don’t bear fruit when the end comes, then we will have lost the opportunity to be friends of God, and once cut down in death, we don’t have time to get serious about it.  The time for repentance is now.  The time for us to receive and share God’s grace is now.  The time for us to live justly and work for the kingdom is now.  Because we don’t know that there will be tomorrow; we can never be presumptuous of God’s grace.

    The consolation, though is this: we don’t have to do it alone.  The Psalmist today sings that our God is kind and merciful:  We get the TLC that our Gardener offers; the grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The Lord God, our great “I AM,” comes to us and leads us out of captivity to sin just as he was preparing to do for the Israelites in the first reading today.  We are always offered the grace of exodus, all we have to do is get started on the journey and begin once again to bear the fruit of our relationship with Christ.