Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • Saturday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The Gospel readings these past few days have warned of rather dire consequences for those who don’t live the Gospel message.  This section of Matthew’s Gospel spells out the urgency of the call to discipleship and the nearness of the Kingdom of God.  Yesterday, the foolish virgins were left out of the kingdom, with their Lord telling them he did not know them.  Today, those who would bury the talent get cast out of the kingdom, to wail and grind their teeth.  These consequences aren’t imaginary inconveniences.  Think of the pain and anguish that would cause one to wail and grind their teeth; imagine the heartbreak of our Lord telling us that he does not know us.

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

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

  • Monday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s gospel has Jesus taking the Scribes and Pharisees to task for forgetting what is really holy and treating things as sacred while ignoring God who is holiness itself.  Apparently, they thought that swearing an oath by the gold of the temple was more binding than an oath simply sworn on the temple itself: but, Jesus asks, isn’t the temple what makes the gold holy?  And they confused swearing an oath by the altar and by the gift on the altar.  They had forgotten that the altar is what makes the gift holy.  But even more than that, they had been so caught up in details, that they forgot that God is holy, and makes holy whatever can be called holy.

    Now, Jesus isn’t saying that people should disobey the first and third commandments, using God’s name as an assurance of an oath.  Swearing by the name of God isn’t to be taken lightly.  But what he is saying is that the Scribes and Pharisees needed to straighten out their flawed notion of holiness.  God is holy; and he alone makes holiness.

    So today might be a call for us to take a moral inventory of our own notion of holiness.  What have we been putting before God?  What do we hold sacred?  Do we have idolatry in our life?  Do we sometimes forget that, as we say in the Gloria: “you alone are the holy one, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the most high…”?

  • Monday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    So the question today is, what is it that holds us back?  The rich young man seemed to have it all together: he acknowledged Jesus as the good teacher, so he must have been familiar with what Jesus said and did.  He says he kept all the commandments, so he certainly had a religious upbringing and was zealous to follow the law.  But, with all that, he still knew that something was lacking.  “What do I still lack?” he asks.  When Jesus reveals that the next step in following the Gospel involves letting go of his worldly possessions, he finds that to be somewhere he can’t go.  He had many possessions, and he wasn’t yet ready to give them up.

    So back to my first question.  What holds us back?  Is it many possessions?  Or is it our work, or power, or what the neighbors might think.  It could be that we don’t want to get out of our comfort zone and follow Christ according to the way he is calling us.  Whatever it is, it involves letting go – giving up what is not God and clinging to him alone.  It’s not that Jesus didn’t want the rich young man to have money.  He wanted him to have eternal life.  And whenever we cling to what is not God, we are in grave danger of giving up eternal life.

    We have to be ready to let go of whatever holds us back from accepting the life that God wants for us.  What he has is so much better than whatever it is we’re holding on to.  So the question is, will we give up what is holding us back, or will we give up eternal life?  We’re going to have to live with the answer to that question for a very, very long time.

  • Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”  My family has had a plaque with that very verse on it for as long as I can remember.  This has always been one of my favorite quotes from Scripture.  But it certainly is a hard thing to say, and Joshua makes that very clear in today’s first reading.  Serving the Lord makes demands of us.  We are called to live the Gospel and serve the poor and love everyone as we love God and forgive, and so much more.  We are also told that we have to turn away from the worship of other gods, whatever those might be for us.  Are they the gods of wealth, success, prestige, or self-interest?  We must turn away from them.  Are they gods that hold us back, bound to our own comfort, reluctance, or apathy?  We must cast all of that out.  Serving the Lord requires nothing less than total self-giving, because the Lord has first given everything to us.

    The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus reminds us today, belongs to those who are like children before him.  We must become childlike in our trust and obedience to the one who gives us life, love and salvation.  We are called to decide today whom we will serve.  Will it be the Lord, or someone or something else?  For those of us who step forward to receive the Eucharist today, the answer must always and only be, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.”

  • Monday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The fathers of the Church teach us to “love what Jesus loved when he was on the cross, and despise what Jesus despised when he was on the cross.”  We get that same kind of message from Moses today in the first reading.  He tells the Israelites that their God loves the widow, the orphan, and the alien, and because of that, they too must love the widow, the orphan, and the alien.  That is actually becomes a common theme of all of the prophets.

    In our day, loving what Jesus loved when he was on the cross might mean reaching out to those in need: the poor, the hungry, the homeless, those oppressed in any way.  It might mean binding up wounds: old hurts, casual slights, or pervasive anger.  It means forgiving as we have been forgiven, freely and perhaps unilaterally.  We are called upon to extend ourselves and to go beyond our own pettiness to love sacrificially.  We might not be nailed to a cross, but we may well have to die to our own interests and needs in order to love as Jesus calls us.

    What do we have that is not God’s gift to us?  The Psalmist says today: “He has granted peace in your borders; with the best of wheat he fills you.”  We benefit eternally from the great sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.  As we remember the grace we have been given in celebrating the Eucharist today, let it be our prayer that we would come to love as he has loved, no matter what the cost.

  • Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What I think the folks in our first reading need to learn – and maybe us too – is that the spiritual life is always about the big picture.  The Israelites in today’s reading have completely rejected the God of their salvation.  God had taken them from abject slavery in Egypt, in which they were oppressed beyond anything we could possibly imagine – let alone endure – and led them through the desert, through the Red Sea (covering the pursuing Egyptians in the process), and into safety.  He is going to give them the Promised Land, but they, thank you very much, would prefer to return to Egypt so that they no longer have to sustain themselves on the bread that they have from the very hand of God himself.  They would rather have meat and garlic and onions, and whatever, than freedom and blessing from God.  What a horrible, selfish people they have become.

    And Moses is no better.  He alone has been allowed to go up the mountain to be in the very presence of God.  No one else could get so close to God and live to tell the story.  God has given him the power to do miraculous deeds in order to lead the people.  And yet, when things get tough, he too would prefer death than to be in the presence of God.

    And aren’t we just like them sometimes?  It’s easy to have faith when things are going well, and we are healthy, and our family is prospering.  But the minute things come along to test us, whether it is illness, or death of a loved one, or job troubles, or whatever, it’s hard to keep faith.  “Where is God when I need him?” we might ask.  We just don’t often have the spiritual attention spans to see the big picture.  We forget the many blessings God has given us, and ask “Well what has he done for me lately?”

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the crowds until they are satisfied and have baskets of leftovers besides.  God’s blessings to us are manifold, and it is good to meditate on them when times are good, and remember them when times are bad.  God never wills the trials we go through, and he never forgets or abandons us when we are in the midst of those trials.  God feeds us constantly with finest wheat.  That’s the big picture, and we must never lose sight of it.

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Today’s readings

    This has been a rather busy pastoral week for me.  I’ve had a couple of funerals this week, and seem to have been called to the hospital a little more frequently than what I’d consider usual.  I’ve ministered to a couple whose baby was stillborn; I anointed a child and a woman in her 80s.  It all reminded me that, no matter what stage of life we’re at, we’re fragile.  Our human flesh is a frail thing.

    And so, when I hear these readings on a week like this, it sends a little chill of recognition into my heart.  We here live in a very affluent society.  We are in one of the most well-to-do counties in the most prosperous nation on earth.  Sure, lots of us don’t have as much as others, but most of us have more than most people on the planet.  And yet we’re still frail, we could be called for judgment any time.  This night, perhaps, our very life will be demanded of us.  And all that we have, to whom will it belong?

    Listen to the last line of the Gospel one more time: “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”  So right away the parable is turned around and directed at all of us.  And it wouldn’t be so hard to put that parable in modern terms, would it?  Think of winning the lottery, only to know that the day you receive the check is the day you go home to the Lord.  Or think of spending your days and nights in the office, building wealth and prestige, only to be part of massive layoffs when the company is sold.  Or, even worse, spending your days and nights at the office, only to miss the growing of your family.  So, Jesus asks us, what treasures have we built up?  With what have we filled our barns?

    Today’s first reading is from the book of Ecclesiastes, which in Hebrew is Qoheleth, who is the teacher in the book.  Among the Wisdom books in the Scriptures, Ecclesiastes can be the harshest to read because it is almost prophetic in content.  Qoheleth is considered wise among his contemporaries, much like many of the popular wisdom teachers of his day.  While we don’t know who Qoheleth was, the book is attributed to Solomon, the wise king.  Solomon often wrote of the prizes that lay in store for those who were successful.  But this book is a little different.  Here he questions if it is all worth it, and challenges the complacence and dishonesty that run rampant in that society.  If we didn’t know any better, he could well have been writing his words today, couldn’t he?  In the end, though, Qoheleth’s message is basically encouraging, and brings us back to the God who made us.  At the end of his book, which is not part of today’s reading, he says: “The last word, when all is heard: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is man’s all; because God will bring to judgment every work, with all its hidden qualities, whether good or bad.” (Ecc. 12:13-14)  Which is exactly what Jesus is telling us in today’s Gospel.

    St. Paul has a little bit of Qoheleth in him too, today.  In the letter to the Colossians, which we have been hearing these past few weeks, he is trying to get that community to lay aside earthly things and seek God.  “If you were raised with Christ,” he tells them, “seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.”  In other words, stop filling your barns with the stuff that you accumulate on this earth, and be rich in what matters to God.  Qoheleth, St. Paul, and Jesus are in complete concert today, and we must be careful to hear their message.

    So, let’s get back to Jesus’ instruction at the end of today’s Gospel parable: “Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”  We have to ask ourselves, then, the very important question: “what is it that matters to God?”  I think we know what doesn’t qualify – St. Paul made that very clear to the Colossians and to us today.  I think the things that matter to God are those things we might count among our blessings: namely our family and friends.  Those things that matter to God might also be the things that make us disciples who are pure, compassionate and truthful.  So we might seek to be rich in prayer, rich in reaching out to the poor and needy, rich in standing up for truth and justice.

    Today God is urging us to let go…  Let go of the stuff we think we can’t live without and instead grab hold of what matters most, what matters to God, what will bring us to life eternal.  So what are we stockpiling in our barns?  Maybe we need a look at our checkbooks, our calendars, and our to-do lists to see where our money, time and resources have gone.  Can we take any of that with us if we are called home to God tonight?  If those things are all we have, we could find ourselves in real poverty when we arrive at the pearly gates.  This week’s to-do list might find us letting go of some of what we thought was important, so that we can be rich in what matters to God.  These, brothers and sisters in Christ, are the riches that will not spoil and can never be taken away from us.

  • Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In today’s readings, God proves himself trustworthy.  He appears to Jacob in a dream and promises that he will be with him wherever he goes, protecting him, and bringing him back to the land, which he would also give to Jacob’s descendants.  In his joy, Jacob reacts by consecrating the land to the Lord.

    In the Gospel, Jesus heals not one, but two people: he stops the hemorrhage of a women who had suffered from the malady for twelve years, and then he resuscitates the daughter of one of the local officials.  In their joy, news of Jesus’ mighty deeds spread all throughout the land.

    The Psalmist prays today, “In you, my God, I place my trust.”  It’s a call for us to do the same today.  We certainly don’t know how God will answer our prayers or even when he will do so.  He might bring healing, but maybe in a way we don’t expect.  But his promise to Jacob is one in which we can trust as well: he will be with us wherever we go, and he will protect us.

  • The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    One of the parts of the Liturgy that I love most in these summer months is the development of the theme of discipleship that unfolds in the Gospel readings.  We all know that, by our baptism, we are called to be disciples of Christ, those who follow him and live the Gospel and minister and witness in his Name.  But that’s easy to say.  Just how do you do that?  Well, that’s what these readings address.

    Today’s Gospel reading has Jesus sending the seventy-two out, in pairs, on mission to preach the Gospel and heal the sick.  It’s the third Luminous Mystery of the Rosary: the preaching of the Kingdom with its call to repentance.  Jesus sent them out to villages he himself intended to visit, more or less preparing the way.  It’s a moving story about how Jesus was able to accomplish much through the ministry of the seventy-two, even without being physically present with them.  But it’s not just a moving story, right?  You know as well as I do that the reason we all got to hear that story today is because we’re being sent out on mission too.  When the time comes for us to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by [our lives],” we have to be like the seventy-two, preparing hearts and lives for Jesus, preaching the Gospel, healing the sick.

    Before they head out, Jesus provides instruction for them.  They learn it won’t be an easy task, but that they will be able to rely on God for their strength.  In this pre-mission instruction, he gives his disciples, which includes all of us, some tools for use in witness and ministry.  We can’t let them escape our attention, because we will need them if we are to be successful.

    So the first tool he gives us is the wisdom not to rely on ourselves. Listen to the instructions Jesus gives the seventy-two before they leave: “Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals…” Now that all seems pretty impractical to those of us who have to travel in the twenty-first century, doesn’t it?  We need a wallet or money bag to carry what we’d need to pay tolls and buy fuel and pay for what we need on the journey, and certainly we’d need a sack to carry identification as well as just basic things we’d need along the way.  Here’s the point, though: If we were able to foresee every possibility and pack for every possible need, we would certainly not need Jesus, would we?  Jesus is telling the seventy-two, and us as well, to stop worrying and start following.  Rely on Jesus because he is trustworthy.  Experience the joy of letting Jesus worry about the small stuff while he is doing big things in and through us.

    The second discipleship tool is to “greet no one along the way.”  That sounds pretty unfriendly, doesn’t it?  We would think he’d want us to greet everyone we can, but that’s not what’s at stake here.  The point is, along the way, we can easily be derailed from the mission.  Other things can seem to be important, other people can try to get us off track, Satan can make so many other things seem important along the way.  The point here is that there is urgency to the mission.  People have to hear that Jesus is Lord and that God loves them now, not later, when it may be too late.  We have to get the show on the road, and the time is now.

    The third tool is to go in peace.  Jesus says to the seventy-two: “Into whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this household.’  If a peaceful person lives there, your peace will rest on him; but if not, it will return to you.”  Those disciples were sent out with the peace of Christ, and were told to expect to be received in peace.  The source of the peace they were sent out in was, of course, Jesus himself.  The peace he is offering is not just the absence of conflict.  In fact, their journeys may indeed involve quite a bit of conflict: conflict with demons, conflict with illness, conflict with those who may not receive them or want to hear the Gospel.  Instead, the peace he sends the seventy-two out with is a peace that they receive from knowing they are doing God’s will and that souls are coming back to God.  It is a peace that says that everyone and everything is in right relationship, the way things are supposed to be.  The disciples are told to enter a place and say “Peace to this household.”  So we too must also offer this greeting of peace to those we come to work with.  There are a lot of ways to make this greeting, though.  We could say it in those words, or perhaps through our actions: in not returning violence with violence; doing our best to diffuse anger and hatred; treating all people equally; respecting the rights of both the well-established and the newcomer; working to make neighborhoods and communities less violent; protecting the abused and the ridiculed.  This peace is a peace that is authentic and that really works.

    The fourth tool pertains to sustenance and it is “eat and drink what is set before you.”  This is again a trust issue.  The seventy-two are to trust that since the laborer deserves his payment, the Lord will provide for what they need.  But there’s a bit more to it, I think.  Eating and drinking what is set before them also meant that if they were to be given ministry that is difficult, they needed to stay with it, because that’s what was set before them.  If they have been received in peace, then they need to know that they are in the right place.  That doesn’t mean that the mission would be easy, though, and they need to take what’s given to them.  We too have to know that our mission may not be easy, but if we have been given it in peace, we have to accept the mission we have.  We are called to accept people and situations as they are and trust God to perfect our efforts.

    The final tool is this: do not move from one house to another.  It’s not that Jesus doesn’t want us to spread the Good News.  The discipline Jesus is teaching here is that we have to be focused in our ministry.  Once we have been given the mission, we have to stay with it, and not be blown about like the wind.  We are called to stay with a person or a situation until what God wants to happen happens.  When it’s time to move on, God will let us know, and we will come to know that time through prayer and discernment.

    So we’ve received an awful lot as we come here for worship today.  We will be fed on the most excellent Body and Blood of our Lord which will give us strength to tend to the piece of the Kingdom that God has entrusted to us.  We have been instructed with some basic tools for doing the work of God.  If we use these tools and are faithful to the mission, I think we’ll be as overjoyed as were those disciples.  And then, we can rejoice with them that our names are written in heaven.

  • Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s first reading has always intrigued me, ever since I can remember hearing it as a child. God intends to destroy the city of Sodom because of its pervasive wickedness. Abraham, newly in relationship with God, stands up for the innocent of the city, largely because that was where his nephew, Lot, had taken up residence. In what seems to be a case of cosmic “Let’s Make a Deal,” Abraham pleads with God to spare the city if just fifty innocent people could be found there. God agrees and Abraham persists. Eventually God agrees to spare the city if just ten righteous people could be found in the city of Sodom.

    It is important, I think, to know that Abraham’s prayer does not really change his unchangeable God. Instead, God always intended to spare the city if there were just people in it.  What I love about this reading is Abraham’s line, “See how I am presuming to speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes!”  It seems Abraham is testing the relationship, seeing how far it will go.  What happens is that he learns something great about our unchanging God: he learns that, as the psalmist sings today, “The LORD is kind and merciful.”

    All of this leads us to an important issue at stake for the praying disciple: that is, prayer must come out of a relationship with God.  Abraham may have been somewhat presumptuous to speak to God the way that he did.  But if he didn’t know God, if he didn’t have a relationship with God, well, then his conversation would have been completely offensive, wouldn’t it?  But he did know God, and was getting to know him better, so his pleas for the just people of Sodom were completely appropriate.

    We too are called to relationship with God, a relationship that finds its source in our prayer.  We can persistently plead for loved ones, but we also have to spend time in adoration and praise and thanksgiving, and even quiet contemplation so that this most important of our relationships can grow.  The LORD is kind and merciful, and he longs to reveal his mercy as we come to him in prayer.