Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings ask us to ponder the question, “what do we have to do to remain in covenant with God?”  And the question, I think, is an important one.  We would want to respond to God’s gracious act of making covenant with us first.  We see in today’s readings that he chose us first, and calls us out of love for us.  Moses recites the mighty acts of God in which he remembered the promises made to the people’s ancestors and kept them, even though the people certainly didn’t deserve it.  Even though they often broke the covenant, God still kept it anyway, loving the people even when they were unlovable.

    So for Moses and the people Israel, the response to God’s gracious act was to keep the law.  The law itself was wonderful, given to the people out of love, to help them walk the straight and narrow, and to remain in relationship with God and others.  Moses contends that no other nation had gods that were loving and wise enough to provide something like that for their people.

    Jesus, of course, takes it several steps further.  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Following the law was the first step, but it was pretty basic.  Even if the people obeyed it – which they often did not – it was still a matter of will mostly, and not heart.  The Pharisees especially took pride in keeping the minutiae of the law.  Jesus, however, calls us to make the same sacrifice he did: lay down our lives for one another out of love.

    “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  And isn’t that the truth, really?  When we get so caught up in ourselves and our own pettiness, how quickly life slips away and we wonder what it all meant.  But when we lose our lives following Christ and loving God and neighbor with reckless abandon, well, then we have really found something.

    God loved us first and best, and always seeks covenant with us.  The law is still a good guide, but the cross is the best measure of the heart.  How willing are we this day to lose our lives relentlessly spending the love we have received from our God with others?

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    I love these readings today; they are so filled with rich imagery.  We can imagine the scrumptious banquet described in our first reading; we can just picture the picnic that Jesus provided in the gospel.  These are images that perhaps resonate with us as we spend our summertime attending family reunions, picnics, and neighborhood block parties.  And for those among us who are in need, the image of the heavenly banquet is one that they yearn for in suffering.

    But as I read the gospel reading today, one particular word leapt out at me.  This word, I think, is the reason for the rich banquet we have been promised.  That word is “pity.”  The gospel says that when Jesus saw the vast crowd that was following him to this out-of-the-way place, “his heart was moved with pity for them.”  That pity led him to call on the disciples to give them some food to eat, and when they couldn’t, he helped them do it.

    But that word “pity” has negative connotations for us, I think.  When we hear the word “pity” perhaps it implies condescension that makes people feel despised.  We have certainly heard people say, “don’t pity me” or “I don’t want your pity!”  And they say that because pity, to our ears, implies a feeling that writes the other person off as someone less than able.  “Pity” as we use it doesn’t generally move a person to action.

    But for Jesus, the pity was anything but the experience we have had.  Pity for him moved his heart in such a way that he had to do something about the plight of the people who were following him.  So I did a little digging and found that the Greek word that is translated as “pity” in this reading is splagchnizomai.  Now I’m not a Greek scholar.  When I took Greek in seminary it was an optional class that carried zero credit hours.  So let’s just say that the homework didn’t often float to the top of the stack!  But I did enjoy it enough to get some things out of it and one of them was this word splagchnizomai.

    Splagchnizomai is a Greek example of what we call onomatopoeia, that is, a word that sounds like what it is.  So it is defined as a deep guttural reaction that moves one to compassion.  This is hardly what we think of when we think “pity.”  Parents may relate to this word if they think about a time when, perhaps, they saw their child falling and they had a deep feeling of pain even before the child hit the ground.  The word is famously used in John’s gospel when Jesus learns of the death of his friend Lazarus.  In that instance we are told that Jesus was “deeply perturbed,” he had splagchnizomai for Lazarus, his sisters, and the people who were mourning.  In that instance, his compassion moved him to raise Lazarus from the dead.

    So today, Jesus has splagchnizomai for the crowds.  That deep, guttural reaction was one that he was trying to teach his disciples.  When they approach him to suggest that he dismiss the crowds so they can go find supper, he says “give them some food yourselves.”  He recognizes that they have that feeling of compassion, but he wants them to complete it by acting on it.  But they can’t: they have only five loaves and two fish.  For Jesus, however, it is enough, and he famously prays over what they have and gives it to them to distribute, and it turns out to be even more than enough.  Jesus’ splagchnizomai for the crowds gave them more than they needed, more than they could have hoped for, and he teaches his disciples to have splagchnizomai too.

    And so we disciples now need to respond to that.  We can, like Jesus’ apostles, feel overwhelmed in the face of so great a task.  We have enough on our plate dealing with our own families’ financial woes, job demands, raising of children, caring for the elderly, and so much more.  Then we find ourselves walking with friends, co-workers and classmates who are having problems.  How can we ever expect to then reach out and meet the needs of those in need: the poor, hungry and homeless, migrants, financially ruined families, and so many more?  What good are our meager efforts in the face of so much suffering?

    But we should remember that God most likely has not asked us to solve all the world’s problems, but instead just handle our own little corner of the world.  God can multiply our efforts just as he multiplied the loaves and fishes to really affect the world for good.  It just starts with a little splagchnizomai, a little deep feeling of compassion that moves us on to action, that moves us to be the Body of Christ and feed others as we have been fed.  We just have to be willing to give them some food ourselves.

  • The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    Think about it.  God comes to you in a dream and says that you can have anything you want.  It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.  What would you ask for?  What is the one thing you’d give anything to have?

    I think the reason Solomon was even asked that question was because God already knew the answer.  God already knew that what Solomon wanted was something that would be good for Solomon to have.  Solomon asks for a wise and understanding heart so that he could more readily lead the people God had called him to lead.  And so God grants his servant’s request: he gives him so wise and understanding a heart that there was never anyone like Solomon and no one will ever be as wise and wonderful as he was.

    Solomon’s answer to God’s question told us what was of most importance to Solomon.  In today’s Gospel, we are asked to answer that same question.  Jesus speaks, as he has been for a few Sunday’s now, of what the kingdom of heaven is like.  A couple of weeks ago, the kingdom was like seed that was scattered and sown.  Some fell on rocks, some among weeds, but some on the good soil that yielded more than anyone had a right to hope for.  The kingdom of God is something like that: the more we nurture and cultivate our life with God, the more we benefit ourselves and others.  Last Sunday, the kingdom was again like seed, which was carefully planted, but was interrupted by someone planting weeds too.  The landowner had the harvesters sort it all out at harvest time.  The kingdom of God is something like that: the good and the bad will all be sorted out in due time.

    Today the kingdom is like buried treasure or the pearl of great price.  The treasure is so great that when it is found, the treasure-hunter sells everything he has to buy the field.  The pearl is so wonderful that the merchant gives everything he has to buy it.  Can you imagine their joy?  What they have found is so wonderful that they give up everything to possess it.  Well, Jesus says, the kingdom of heaven is like that.

    But not just like that, right?  Because we know that worldly goods can never hold a candle to the riches of the Kingdom of heaven.  The success in our careers is nice, the nice things we have in our homes give us some pleasure, our accomplishments may even give us some pride.  But all of these will pale in the face of the joy of the Kingdom.

    And so we have the invitation today.  We don’t have to look, because we have found the great treasure, the pearl of great price.  We have come here today to worship and to receive the Lord in the Eucharist.  There is nothing better on the face of the whole earth.  We know where to find that which is ultimately valuable.  But the fact is that we can come and go from this holy place today and still not have what’s truly worthwhile.  Because in order to receive it, we have to give up everything.  We have to sell everything and buy the field or purchase that pearl of great price.

    That might mean walking away from a business deal that is profitable but has consequences for the poor or the environment.  Or perhaps it means giving up a relationship that is destructive.  We may have to give up a leisure pursuit that is enjoyable but separates us from family and friends.  We have to make choices, changes and decisions that amount to selling everything in order to make room for something that is of ultimate importance: that pearl of great price which is the Kingdom of heaven itself.

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word leaves us with some very important questions.  What is the pearl of great price for us?  What is worth giving up everything?  How important is it for us to enter the Kingdom of heaven?  What is it that we must give up to get there?  Our prayer today is that we would be strengthened by the Word of God and nourished by the Eucharist so that we would have the courage to sell everything for the Kingdom of heaven, that pearl of ultimately great price.

  • The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    Many of us have planted gardens, maybe you’ve put in some plants this year.  But I’m always astounded when I’ve planted some seeds.  Here is this tiny, dead-looking thing: how can it ever give life to a large plant?  But that’s just what happens, isn’t it?  We carefully plant the seeds and then care for them – giving them water and keeping out the weeds and feeding them on occasion – and just about always they give life, flowers or vegetables for our table.  It’s a way to experience the miracle of life, that something dead can give life and sustenance to the living.  What a beautiful little model of salvation the seed is!

    But if you’ve carefully planted seeds in rows at any point, you might wonder a bit about the methods used in today’s gospel reading.  Seed is scattered willy-nilly and a lot of it seems to be wasted.  But the original hearers of the parable would have understood what Jesus was saying.  It was the method used at that time: seed would be scattered, and then the soil would be tilled thus planting the seeds.  And so they would have understood that sometimes the seed falls in places the farmer didn’t intend, and those seeds don’t come to life, or if they do, it’s not for long.

    So Jesus explains the parable for his disciples and for us.  The seed is the seed of faith.  God scatters it with wild abandon, pouring it out freely that his chosen ones – that’s you and me, by the way – would come to know him.  Sometimes it works: we receive the seed of faith, it’s watered in the sacrament of baptism, and we are fertile ground letting it come up and grow and give life to the world.  But sometimes it doesn’t work.

    The seed might fall in a place where the faith is not nourished and Christ is not known.  If these places on the earth don’t have the gift of missionaries, the faith might never grow in those people.  Or maybe, a little closer to home, the seed falls on those whose turbulent lives can’t give the seed any roots: they receive the word of God with joy, but the trials and tribulations of daily living upset the apple-cart and the faith never really sinks in.  Or, even closer to home, maybe it falls on us embroiled as we are with the cares of the world.  The “weeds” of our living are improper relationships, too much time playing video games or surfing the wrong places of the internet, watching too much television, especially Oprah or Dr. Phil.  There is so much that can distract us from our faith, and too often, we don’t weed the gardens of our souls the way we should.

    We, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, are called to be rich, fertile ground to give life to the faith planted in our hearts.  That means that we must keep ourselves fresh by renewing the waters of baptism in our hearts.  We must feed that seed of faith by dedicating ourselves to the Eucharist and coming to Mass all the time, whether it’s convenient or not.  We must weed out the distractions of our lives and give that seed of faith room to grow.  We must shine the brilliant sunlight of God’s love on that faith by living the Gospel and reaching out in love to brothers and sisters who are in need.

    We are the ones who have been called to yield “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”  The seed of faith comes in the form of something that might look dead – Christ’s saving action on the cross.  When we water and feed and weed and let the light shine on that faith, we can give life to the world around us and give witness that the world’s death is no match for the salvation we have in Christ.

     

  • Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    I have to say, this is a slightly odd selection of readings that we have today.  Zechariah’s prophecy in the first reading sounds like something from Palm Sunday, which in fact it is.  This is the reading quoted in the Gospel of Matthew that we had at the beginning of the Palm Sunday Mass.  The second reading from Saint Paul to the Romans sounds like something from Lent.  And in fact, it is.  During Lent we hear from this letter and we have hope that we who have been dead in sin can be raised up with Christ at Easter.  Then we have the reading from Matthew’s Gospel, which I’ve already preached on twice this week: once for a funeral, and once for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart on Friday.  So it might seem a little strange to hear these things on a muggy Fourth of July Weekend.

    But what at first glance seems like an odd mix is really part of the toolbox that we get during these summer weekends of the Church year.  We turn back to Ordinary Time Sundays today, for the first time since Lent began back in March.  We’re wearing the familiar green vestments, and we’re getting back to the ordered Sundays of the year.  Now that we can take a breather from the special things we celebrated during the Lent and Easter Seasons, and on the past two Sundays with the Holy Trinity and the Body and Blood of Christ, we get to read in the Scriptures about the ways that we should be living the Christian life.

    These are what I like to call “discipleship Sundays” because they teach us how to be disciples, followers of Christ.  In the readings during the summer we get to put together a toolbox of sorts that helps us to live the Gospel.  So today, in this seemingly odd mix of readings, I think the tool that we get is the tool of humility.

    Now as I say that, I think I can hear some of us thinking, “Well, no thanks, actually.  I may just leave that particular tool in the toolbox.”  Because being a person of humility can be seen as something of a character flaw.  For decades, maybe even longer, our culture has encouraged us to toot our own horn, to look out for number one.  “Believe in yourself” has been the mantra of Oprah and Doctor Phil and all those other so-called gurus.  But we have to remember that we have not been breathed into existence in the image of Oprah or Doctor Phil.  We have been created in the image and likeness of God, and so we need to emulate our God as closely as we can.

    What does our God look like?  Well, Zechariah gives us a pretty clear portrait today:  “See, your king shall come to you; a just savior is he, meek, and riding on an ass, on a colt, the foal of an ass.”  So our Savior was prophesied to be meek and just, and far from coming into the city riding on a mighty horse of a king, he comes in on a donkey, the beast of burden employed by the poor.  And that’s just how Jesus was, wasn’t he?  Since this reading is quoted in the Gospel for Palm Sunday, our minds turn to Palm Sunday and we can picture Jesus entering Jerusalem on a poor donkey.  The crowds want to crown him king, but the only throne he takes is the cross.  Jesus was a model of humility.

    And that’s just what Jesus invites us to in today’s Gospel.  He invites us to take his yoke upon our shoulders.  A yoke back then was an implement that kept the oxen together so they could work the fields.  So a yoke implies a few things.  First, it’s going to be work.  That’s what yokes are for.  So when Jesus says he’s going to give us rest, that doesn’t mean that there won’t be some work involved.  Second, a yoke meant that more than one animal was working; they were working together.  So as we take Jesus’ yoke upon us, we are yoked to him, he calls us to work for the kingdom, but never expects us to go it alone.  That’s why his burden is easy and light: it’s still a burden, but we never ever bear it alone, Christ is always with us.

    Since he is always with us, that circles us back to humility.  If we are not going it alone, that means that we can’t take the credit for the mighty things we do in Jesus’ name.  Yes, we do great things, but we do them because he has transformed us and has taken the yoke with us.  We are no longer men and women in the flesh, as Saint Paul says today, we are people of the Spirit, with the Spirit of Christ in us, and so in Christ we cast aside those deeds of darkness and, taking his yoke, we accomplish the work Jesus has given us.  Saint Augustine once said, “Humility must accompany all our actions, must be with us everywhere; for as soon as we glory in our good works they are of no further value to our advancement in virtue.”

    And that is our goal as disciples: to advance in virtue.  Some days, that’s very hard work.  But we never have to go it alone, if we are truly humble people working in the image of our God.

     

  • 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.

     

  • Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s quite well known that we men hate to stop and ask for directions.  Actually, I am glad I have a GPS in my car, because now I never have to ask for directions any more!  But finding the right way to go is important.  If you don’t have directions, you’ll never make it on vacation, or you’ll never get to that important appointment in time.  It’s so important for us to know where we’re going.

    That’s why today’s interaction between God and Abram had to be tough for him.  God makes him quite a promise, and sends him out to claim the lands he had in store for him and his descendants.  But Abram clearly didn’t know what he’d encounter along the way or even where he was finally going to end up.  Yet, Abram’s faith was sure: he goes right through the land of the dreaded Canaanites, and builds an altar to God there.

    The direction Jesus gives to his disciples – and to us – today is more spiritual in nature.  In order to be close to God, we have to be more like God.  And so we are to stop judging, lest we be judged.  Spending our time judging others leaves that wooden beam in our eyes, which hinders us from seeing where we are going.  If we want to get to heaven one day, we have to pull that wooden beam out of our eyes, and walk with our brothers and sisters in faith.

    Just like Abram, we disciples are being led by God without a clear roadmap.  Those of us who sweat details like that could be a little uncomfortable.  But trusting in God, and walking with our brothers and sisters, we will come to our final destination in the safe and loving hands of our God.

     

  • Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Yesterday, on the Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension, Jesus promised to be with us until the end of time.  In these days after the Ascension, the Liturgy calls us to rely on Jesus’ presence among us and to turn and find our hope in God.  Even though Jesus is unseen, having ascended to the Father, he is still very much with us.  He may be in the heaven of our hopes, but he also walks among us.  Jesus is as near as the person in need, as near as the words of Scripture or the Eucharist we celebrate.  Jesus is as near as our own hearts, when they are stirred up to follow God’s call.  We feel him present to us when we are comforted in trying moments.

    We are sustained by the hope that we will join Jesus one day in the place he is preparing for us.  We don’t need to worry about finding the way to get there; we just have to have faith in Jesus who is the way, the truth and the life.  Putting our trust in him, we can one day find ourselves sharing the kingdom with our saving Lord.

    But the way isn’t always easy.  The world may very well scatter us and give us trouble; Jesus said as much in today’s Gospel.  Satan uses all the circumstances of our world to draw us away from God and get us all caught up in our own worries.  But we believers need not worry; we can take courage in the fact that Jesus has overcome the world and has not abandoned us.

     

  • The Ascension of the Lord

    The Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Can you imagine what was going through the disciples’ minds as they stood there watching the Ascension of the Lord?  Think about all that they’ve been through.  Three years following this Jesus whose words were compelling and whose miracles were amazing and whose way of life was uplifting.  But still, there was something about him that they just never seemed to get.  He said he was the Christ, the Anointed One, and so their strong cultural definition of the Messiah was something they projected onto Jesus, but time after time it just never fit.  Then he gets arrested, tried in a farce of a proceeding, put to death like a common criminal and buried for three days.  After that, he is no longer in the tomb, but has risen from the dead and appeared to them many times.  Now they’re gathered forty days later, and he promises the gift of the Holy Spirit.  They breathlessly ask the question that has always been on their minds, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”  They still don’t get it.

    And so Jesus promises them the Holy Spirit again, and ascends into the sky.  Can you imagine it?  It’s like a roller coaster of emotions for them.  Their heads had to be spinning, they had to be completely lost as to what to do now.  First he was dead and buried, then he came back, and now he’s gone again.  What on earth are they to do now?  Well, the two mysterious men dressed in white garments have all the advice they’re going to get: “Men of Galilee, why are you standing there looking at the sky?  This Jesus who has been taken up from you into heaven will return in the same way as you have seen him going into heaven.”

    Which only leaves a whole lot more questions, and their basic questions still unanswered.  When will he return?  When will he restore the kingdom?  What is it the Holy Spirit is going to do for them?  Well, soon enough they find out, of course, and we’ll talk about that next week.  For now, it’s enough for us to see what this feast of the Ascension means for us.  I think it makes three points that we must be ready to fold into our faith life.

    First, Christ promises us that he will be with us always.  And that’s just what Jesus says to the disciples – and to us! – in the very last words of the very last verse of the very last chapter of Matthew’s Gospel: “And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”  With that, of course, he ascends out of their sight, and so that must have been a confusing promise for the disciples to hear – at least right now.  But this is such an essential point of faith for us to get.  Just as the first disciples continued to know Christ’s presence in their gathering, in their worshipping, and in their serving, so we continue to know Christ’s presence in those same ways.

    We believe that Christ is present whenever we gather in his name.  He said as much to us in another place: “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.” (Matthew 18:20)  We reverence the presence of Christ in one another and can feel him present among us as we pray.  The whole reason we gather is because Christ is present when we gather.

    We believe that Christ is present when we worship.  The Word of God, as it is proclaimed in the Church, is not just a nice story or an interesting precept for life.  We believe that God is present in the very proclaiming of the Word itself.  And so at times we may hear the Scriptures and experience a stirring in our heart that leads us to a new way of thinking or acting.  This is because Christ is present – in a sacramental way – in the proclamation of the Word.  And the Sacraments themselves make Christ present when we celebrate them in worship, and we experience that in a special way when we celebrate the Eucharist and receive the body and blood of our Lord in Communion.  Christ is present to us when we worship.

    We believe that Christ is present when we serve.  Deep down, we know that the really great things we do are never the result of our own efforts alone.  It’s the Holy Spirit who has prompted us to act or serve or move or speak in certain way.  That same Spirit gives us strength and talent and ability and energy we would never know on our own.  When we serve authentically, aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we know that Christ is present.  So it’s not us feeding the hungry, it’s Christ.  It’s not us proclaiming the Word, it’s Christ.  It’s not us teaching a religious education class, it’s Christ.  It’s not us doing any of this, it’s always Christ, whose hands and feet and lips we have become by the virtue of our baptism.  Christ is present when we serve in his name.

    Jesus promised to be with us always, and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit among us, we find him present in our gathering, in our worshipping, and in our serving.  Jesus is with us in our ordinary and extraordinary moments.  Jesus is present in us just as surely as is the breath of life.  And today he promises that that presence will never end, that he will be with us to the end of time.

    The second application of the Ascension to our lives is that Jesus has gone to heaven to prepare a place for us.  Now, clearly he wasn’t returning to heaven to put a fresh coat of paint on the walls or polish the gold-covered streets.  He goes to heaven to pave the way, because we had lost the way, affected as we all are by original sin and by the sins of our life.  Since we did not know the way, he prepares it for us: opening the door, so to speak, and greeting us.  So we believers who have forged a relationship with our Lord can now look to him to see how to get to that heavenly reward.  All we have to do is follow, and we will find ourselves in that place God intended for us from the beginning.

    And the third application of this feast in our lives is that the Christian Mission has been entrusted to our hands.  Christ has ascended into heaven, he has returned to the Father.  So on this feast of the Ascension of the Lord, we can be like the disciples, standing there staring blankly into the heavens, or we can start to live our lives with the expectation of the Lord’s return, as the disciples were told by the two men dressed in white.  Now it’s time for us to take up the Cross, to preach the Word in our words and actions, and to witness to the joy of Christ’s presence among us.  If people are ever going to come to know Christ, if they are ever going to be challenged to grow in their faith, if they are ever going to know that there is something greater than themselves, most likely they’re going to come to know all of that in us.  We have to be transparent in our living so that people won’t be caught up on us, but will come through us to see Jesus, to see the Father, to experience the Spirit.  We are the ones commanded to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit…” As Cardinal George is fond of saying, the Church does not have a mission … the mission has a Church, and we the Church have to take up that mission and run with it.  It is entrusted to us now.

    And so today, in the words of the Psalmist, God mounts his throne to shouts of joy.  We are joyous in living our life as Christians, assured of God’s abiding presence until the end of time, looking forward to our heavenly reward, and living the mission for all to see.  A blare of trumpets for the Lord!

     

  • Sixth Sunday of Easter [A]

    Sixth Sunday of Easter [A]

    Today’s readings

    I have been wanting to preach about hope for a while now.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  First, I don’t think we know what hope is, or at least, I don’t think we think much about what hope is.  The world, our society, gives us an idea of what hope is, and of course, it’s not the right idea, not the complete idea.  And second, I think there is a general lack of hope in the world right now: I think this world could use some hope, and the ironic thing is that it’s there for the taking, if we know what it is and where to look.  So it’s fortunate that our scriptures today give us a look at hope, and tell us where we can find it and what we must do with it.

    So the dictionary defines “hope” as “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.”  And I think that’s a good place to start.  When we commonly refer to “hope,” we usually mean something like: “I hope it will be sunny today” or “I hope I get that promotion I applied for.”  When we say those things, there’s often a certain tone of uncertainty, which implies that the hope isn’t real hope, or that there’s no hope, but we’re just waiting for a lucky break.

    Real hope doesn’t have that sort of uncertainty.  Real hope means that we want something, and we know it can be attained or realized.  It means that we know there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and no, it’s not the headlight of an oncoming train!  Real hope implies a sense of certainty, even amidst seemingly overwhelming odds.

    And so, I think a lot of people might agree that we don’t have much hope in the world today.  Just tune in to the news to see that in action: wars, skirmishes and unrest in many parts of the world; bizarre weather and killer tornadoes in many places of our country this spring; cataclysmic natural disasters over the past few years that have left whole countries reeling.  Closer to home, we could cite high unemployment, rising prices on everything from gas to food, foreclosures on homes and failures of businesses, and so much more.  It doesn’t take much looking around to feel like there’s no hope of hope anywhere.

    So the problem, I think, is in what or where that we place our hope.  Often we place our hope in ourselves or our own efforts, only to find ourselves at some point over our heads.  Or maybe we place our hope in other people in our lives, only at some point to be disappointed.  We sometimes place our hope in Oprah or Doctor Phil or their ilk, only to find out that their pep-talks at some point ring hollow and their philosophies are shallow.  You can’t find much hope in sources like these, or if you do, you might find that hope to be short-lived.

    I think you know where I’m going to say we ought to put our hope.  Obviously, we have to hope in God, because the hope that he brings is an immovable rock that isn’t subject to the failures of human flesh and human reason.  What God teaches us in Christ provides a hope that cannot be overcome by changing fads and a desire for better television ratings.  If we want real hope, the only place we need to look, the only one we should look to, is God.

    Now, I say this, knowing full well that some of you have prayed over and over and over for something to change, only to be disappointed after you say “Amen.”  And there’s no way I’m going to tell you that all you have to do is pray and everything will work out all right.  God doesn’t promise us perfect happiness in this life, and so often we are going to go through periods of sorrow and disappointment.  That’s the unfortunate news of life in this passing world.  The sorrow and disappointment are not God’s will for us, they are by-products of sin – our own sin or the sin of others – and those things grieve God very much.

    But even in those times of grief, God still gives us hope, if we turn to him.  The hope that he offers is the knowledge that no matter how bad things get, we don’t go through them alone, that God is there for us, walking with us through the sorrow and pain and never giving up on us.

    Some of my friends are going through vocational issues or other dark times in their lives right now.  Recently, they told me about the hope that they find in their relationship with God, and that’s a hope that inspires me.  The hope that we Christians have is based on our faith in God and his undying love for us.  This is a hope that can never die, a hope that provides a light in the darkest times of our lives.

    As I mentioned, today’s readings give us a foundation for this hope.  In the second reading, Peter awakens our hope of forgiveness.  He says, “For Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the sake of the unrighteous, that he might lead you to God.  Put to death in the flesh, he was brought to life in the Spirit.”  Even our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy.  Because of Christ’s death and resurrection we have hope of eternal life in God’s kingdom.  Because God loved us so much, he gave his only Son for our salvation, and now we have hope of forgiveness, hope for God’s presence in our lives.

    In the Gospel, Jesus tells us that we can hope in him because we will always have his presence.  Even though he ascended to the right hand of the Father, as we’ll celebrate next week, he is with us always.  “And I will ask the Father,” he says, “and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…”  We receive that Holy Spirit sacramentally in Baptism and Confirmation, and we live in his Spirit every day.  The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives gives us the hope that we are never alone, even in our darkest hours; that the Spirit intercedes for us and guides us through life.

    We disciples have to be convinced of that hope; we have to take comfort in the hope that never passes from us, in the abiding presence of God who wants nothing more than to be with us.  We have to reflect that hope into our sometimes hopeless world.  As our second reading reminds us, “Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.  Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope…” The reason for our hope is Christ.  We find our hope in the cross and resurrection.  We experience our hope in the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit.  We spread that hope in our hopeless world by being Christ to others, living as disciples of Jesus when the whole world would rather drag us down.  Even when life is difficult, we can live with a certain sense of joy, because above all, we are disciples of hope.