Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • Tuesday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    When I hear that the road that leads to life is narrow and constricted, that makes me a bit uneasy.  The reason for that is I am a lousy packer.  I pretty much always over-pack, not being able to shake the worry of not having something I might need.  What if the weather is cold?  I’ll need some warm clothes.  If it’s hot, I sure won’t want those warm clothes then, so I’ll need something light.  Better take along some Tylenol in case I get a headache, and well, the list goes on.  I just hate packing to go on a trip, because I always imagine what I pack will take up less space than it does.

    I think that can be true of us on our spiritual journeys as well.  We want to fill up every silence we have.  Better take our iPods, a book in case we’re bored, the laptop so we’ll be able to get our email, our cell phones, and who knows what else.  Heaven forbid we should let the silence be silent so that our God can speak to us.  I’m every bit as guilty of over-packing in that way too.

    But God doesn’t want our iPods or laptops or cell phones.  God just wants us.  He wants us to give him ourselves completely.  Sure, there’s an easier way to go, unfortunately that particular way leads to destruction.  But if we give up what holds us back, then travelling that narrow road to life won’t be so hard.

    What do we need to unpack from our lives today?

  • Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Who we are is something many of us spend a lifetime trying to figure out.  Our identity is important to us: it tells us how we fit into the social structure as well as what makes us unique from others.  Until we really know who we are, we are very unlikely to accomplish anything of importance or even be comfortable in our own skin.  And so when Jesus asks the disciples “Who do the crowds say that I am?” it is a question with which we all resonate on some level, some time in our lives.

    Now, I’m not suggesting Jesus was having an identity crisis.  Clearly, his asking that question wasn’t so much for his own information or even to see where he was in the social structure of Israel, but more for the disciples to begin thinking about what Jesus meant to them and to the world.  Jesus knows who he is and why he is here, but it’s for us and for those first disciples to begin to see Jesus in deeper ways.

    The answers the disciples give to that question are interesting.  John the Baptist risen from the dead, Elijah returned from the whirlwind, or that one of the ancient prophets had arisen.  Clearly he had no parallel on earth at the time; all their answers involved the return of someone from the dead or the beyond.  The reason this is significant is because, at the time, the possibility of there being anything beyond death or any kind of resurrection was in great dispute.  The Pharisees believed in a life after death, the Sadducees did not; that is the reason many of the Gospel stories show those two groups in opposition to each other.

    But the real significant part of their answers lies in what is going on in the disciples’ minds as they answer Jesus.  You can almost hear the excitement in their voices.  They had been seeing Jesus healing diseases and casting out demons.  Not only that, they had just returned from their own missionary journey in which Jesus gave them authority to do those same things.  Clearly they were in the presence of a superstar, and his charisma was rubbing off on them.  They were ready for the glory.

    But now Jesus wants to dig a little deeper.  “But who do you say that I am?” he asks them.  Peter speaks for the disciples and gets the answer right the first time: “The Christ of God.”  I think he answers that with deep reverence and awe, but unfortunately, he didn’t know the half of it.

    Jesus affirms his correct answer, but then goes on to reveal what that means for him.  Yes, he is the Christ of God, but the Christ isn’t what they were expecting.  This was not going to be simply some glory trip.  The Christ would have to suffer, be rejected, be killed, and then … then be raised from the dead.  And that whole being killed part is the sticking point, but it’s absolutely necessary, he can’t be raised from the dead if he isn’t killed; that’s not a step one can skip.

    When you think about it, the disciples’ early answers as to who the crowds said Jesus was had some merit.  They all spoke of someone who came back from the dead, which Jesus the Christ would indeed do.  But not just yet.

    This all had to be pretty hard for them to digest.  But it’s nothing compared to what Jesus reveals next.  Those disciples who thought they were on the glory train could also expect to suffer:

    “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
    and take up his cross daily and follow me.
    For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it,
    but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.”

    We don’t get to skip a step either.  We too will be called to the cross.  If we want eternal life, we have to be willing to give up this life.  There is no resurrection without a cross; there is no Easter Sunday without a Good Friday.  Not for Jesus and not for his disciples, not even for you and me.

    We know that suffering is part of life.  We have experienced illness, injury, pain, loss of a job, death of a loved one, physical or psychological abuse – the list is long.  So often all this suffering seems pointless.  We might even be tempted to quarrel with God: if God is loving, why to innocent people have to suffer, why do we have to suffer?  Why can’t it be the guy who cuts us off in traffic while he’s drinking coffee with one hand and talking on a cell phone in the other?

    The truth is, the justice of suffering is beyond us.  Who knows why bad things happen to good people?  Suffering can often seem so capricious, so random, so devoid of meaning.  And it is, if we let it be.  You see, sometimes we just get it wrong.  We sometimes think that Jesus came to take away suffering and we get mad when that’s not what happens.  But if Jesus came to take away suffering, he certainly wouldn’t have had to go through it himself.  He didn’t come to take away suffering, but to give meaning to it, to redeem it.

    We can see in the cross that the path to glory and the path to life leads through suffering to redemption.  There’s no way around it.  The cross Jesus took up will be ours to take up daily if we wish to follow Jesus to eternal life.  Our own identity as disciples and followers of Christ is bound up in the ugliness of suffering and the agony of the cross.

    That flies in the face of our culture that wants us to take a pill for every pain and medicate every burden.  Jesus says today that that kind of thinking is simply losing our lives trying to save them.  The rest of life passes us by while we are self-medicated beyond our pain.  But, if we lose our life for the sake of Jesus, if we take up our crosses and follow him, if we bear our burdens and our sorrows and our pain and our brokenness, if we join our sufferings to the suffering of Christ on the cross, then we too can experience what he did: the glory of eternal life.  That was the only hope of those first disciples, and it is our only hope too, fellow disciples of the Lord.

  • Saturday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I worry about a lot of things.  It’s always been like that for me.  I don’t know if worrying is hereditary, but my parents have done their fair share of worrying, so I suspect it is.  But maybe it’s not so much genetic as it is pandemic.  I’d ask for a show of hands to see who here are worriers also, but that might be a little rough on everyone so I’ll skip it.

    I think worrying is one of those things we do in our culture.  To one extent or another, most of us are control freaks.   We have to know what is happening and when it is going to take place and most importantly, how it will affect us.  And I think that’s one of the big disconnects in our spiritual lives, because God is God and we are not, and God doesn’t owe us an accounting of what he has planned and when it will take place.

    Our culture teaches us to worry and plan and prepare.  But our faith calls us to trust and let God be God.  I don’t mean to suggest that God wants us to fly by the seat of our pants or that God thinks prudent planning for the future is unnecessary.  But when he says in our Gospel this morning, “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself” he is calling us to a faithful trust that transcends our earthly needs.

    There is the story about a man who fell off a cliff.  On the way down, he caught hold of a piece of rock sticking out of the cliff.  He was hanging there precariously and called out for the help of anyone who might be above.  “Help,” he cried, “I’ve fallen off the cliff and I can’t hold on much longer!”  A reply came in the form of a voice from above; he couldn’t see who was answering him.  The voice said, “I’ll help you.  Just let go.”  He yelled back, “yeah, right, that’s no help, I’ll fall to my death!”  The voice said, “I am the Lord, let go and I will help you.”  He called back, “Is there anyone else up there?”

    I think a lot of times we want the anyone else up there.  But the point is that’s not God.  God calls us sometimes to let go, to stop worrying, so that he can take care of us.  He’ll do it in his way, not ours, and chances are it will be better than anything we can come up with.  So, let the pagans worry.  But we disciples, we can seek first the Kingdom of God, confident that what we need will be ours besides.

  • Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    When our goal is discipleship and living for Christ, we cannot let anything get in our way.  The Israelites had put up with Athaliah and the priest of Baal and their temple long enough.  They had to wipe these enemies out and anoint a king of the Lord’s choosing, a king in the line of David, so that they could be in relationship with their God.  Athaliah and her ilk were the darkness in the eye of Israel.  What is the darkness in us?  Whatever it is, we must wipe it out ruthlessly so that we can be in relationship with our God.  God is our treasure, and there alone we find our hearts.

  • Wednesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Fasting, almsgiving and prayer are all staples of the Christian disciple’s life.  They are praiseworthy things, to be sure.  But Jesus reminds us in today’s Gospel reading that they are not things to be done for praise.  No one should even know that we have done these things, because in receiving praise for them, we have received our only reward.  Far better to make fasting, almsgiving and prayer so much part of our lives that no one even notices.  Except, of course our Father who is hidden.  And our Father, who sees what is hidden, will repay us.

  • Monday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    My grandmother on my dad’s side was a holy woman and loved to read the Scriptures.  Except for the Old Testament.  She used to say that the Old Testament was bloody and murderous and not very edifying.  It’s easy to understand what she meant when you read the readings we’ve had in the first reading for the last week or so.  The readings tell about some pretty evil things going on.  When you’re done with the reading, you almost feel like you need a shower.

    But these readings are here for a purpose, and the Church wants us to read them for a reason.  The story we have been getting is one of salvation rejected by the ones who need to be saved.  We have to back up just a little bit.  The whole deliverance from slavery in Egypt, which we read about in Lent, symbolized the deliverance from the power of sin.  Wandering through the desert for forty years symbolized the purification that we go through on the way to salvation.  Crossing the River Jordan symbolizes baptism, which wipes away our sins, and entering into the Promised Land symbolizes the salvation from sin, which we all seek.

    But this is where it all goes wrong.  When the chosen people crossed into the Promised Land, they were instructed to wipe out all the people who inhabited the land – and not just the people, but the livestock and the cities and everything in them.  They were supposed to do that because God knew that if they lived among these people, the chosen people would be tempted to follow false gods and to turn away from him and do every kind of evil.  Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened: they did not wipe out the people; instead they lived among them.  And they turned away from God and followed the false gods of the people of the land and they did every kind of evil.

    Those tempting people are represented in today’s first reading by Jezebel.  Even her name has become a symbol of all that is wrong with humanity.  Literature often calls evil women “Jezebels” because of her.  Naboth the Jezreelite was a just man; he earnestly sought the one true God and honored the covenant.  He was not interested in giving up his vineyard, his ancestral heritage which had been given to him and his family by the one true God.  Giving that up to Ahab would have meant doing exactly what God did not want the people to do: turn away from him toward every kind of evil.

    Unfortunately, Naboth’s vindication does not come in this life; he loses his life to the evil Jezebel and her scheming.  His own fellow citizens conspire with her and are complicit in her sin – they had turned away from God and would do it again in a heartbeat.  But Ahab and Jezebel’s sin is not rewarded either; we’ll hear about that tomorrow in the first reading.

    The question for us today is this: what is the Jezebel in our lives?  What tempts us to give up the salvation of our heritage and turn away from our God?  Whatever it is, we absolutely must put it to death – wipe it out – so that we can live in the promised land of our salvation.

  • Wednesday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Giving the right example is incredibly important for the disciple.  We don’t want to lead anyone astray either through carelessness or through bad intent.  That’s why Elijah decided to have it out with the prophets of Baal once and for all.  He proved conclusively – through the power of God – that there is no god but our God.  And woe to those prophets of Baal who were later put to death for their actions.  In the same way, Jesus laments those who lead his little ones astray.  Today we examine all of our actions and purify our example that God alone may be glorified.

  • Monday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes God’s blessings can be challenging.  For example, we might not think that those who are meek and those who mourn are blessed.  And we certainly wouldn’t celebrate the blessings of those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, would we?  It’s even more challenging when we remember that the word “blessed” in Scripture could also be translated as “happy.”  Would we think of those people as happy?  Probably not, but God does.

    Elijah the Tishbite knew this blessing of God too.  The prophet’s job is always a demanding one.  It’s one of great blessing, because the prophet is called by God and formed from his mother’s womb.  But it’s also a great challenge: people don’t usually want to hear what a prophet says – after all, if they were open to the message, a prophet probably wouldn’t be necessary – and quite often the prophets were chased out of town, beaten, and even murdered.  Elijah’s job was going to be challenging, but it would also be blessed: God provided for his needs at Wadi Cherith and at the end of his life, whisked him off to heaven in a chariot of fire.

    So it’s important for us to remember, I think, that while God never promises to make our lives free and easy, he does promise to bless us.  He will bless us with whatever gifts we need to do the work he has called us to do, the work for which he formed us in our mother’s womb.  The happiness of the blessing might not come in this life, but we who do God’s will can  look forward to our reward, which Jesus promises will be great, in heaven.

  • The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    During World War II, the officers of the Third Reich’s secret service forcefully recruited many 12- and 13-year-old boys into the Junior Gestapo. The harshly treated boys were given only inhumane jobs that they were to perform without rest or complaint.

    After the war ended, most had lost contact with their families and wandered aimlessly, without food or shelter. As part of an aid program to rebuild postwar Germany, many of these youths were housed in tent cities. There, doctors and nurses worked with them in an attempt to restore their physical, mental and emotional health.

    Many of the boys would awaken several times during the night screaming in terror. But one doctor had an idea for handling their fears. After serving the boys a hearty meal, he’d tuck them into bed with a piece of bread in their hands that they were told to save until morning. The boys began to sleep soundly after that because, after so many years of hunger and uncertainty as to their next meal, they finally had the assurance of food for the next day.

    On the last day of my dad’s life a little over three years ago, I gave him Holy Communion for what would be the last time. He was able to pray with us, and was so grateful to receive the Sacrament of Jesus’ own body and blood. We call that last Communion Viaticum which, in Latin, means “bread for the journey.” Like the former Junior Gestapo boys who slept soundly because they knew they had food for the next day, my dad was able to rest in Christ knowing that he would be able to eat at the heavenly banquet table.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray “give us this day our daily bread,” we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God’s care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to “dismiss the crowds” so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – hardly a meal for the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    But Jesus isn’t having any of that. Fear is no match for God’s mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples’ meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It’s no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that their Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. “You give them something to eat,” Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace to love and serve the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.

    You might do that by participating in a small faith community or a bible study, sharing the Scriptures and our own living faith with your brothers and sisters. Maybe you would do that by becoming an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, and dedicating yourselves to the ministry of distributing the precious gift of the Lord’s own Body and Blood each Sunday, or even volunteering to bring Holy Communion to the sick and homebound. But you could also do that by volunteering bringing food to the Glen Ellyn Food Pantry, or by volunteering to package meals at Feed My Starving Children. Sharing our abundance of spiritual blessing doesn’t have to be very elaborate. You might just bring a meal to a friend going through a hard time or visit a neighbor who is a shut-in. Jesus is the font of every blessing, and it is up to us to share that blessing with everyone in every way we can. We too must hear and answer those challenging words of Jesus: “You give them something to eat.”

    What we celebrate today is that our God is dependable and that we can rely on him for our needs. Just as he was dependable to feed the vast crowd in that horrible, out-of the-way place, so he too can reach out to us, no matter where we are on the journey, and feed us beyond our wildest imaginings. Just as the Junior Gestapo boys were able to rest easy as they clutched that bread for the next day, so we too can rest easy, depending on our God to give us all that we need to meet the challenges of tomorrow and beyond. The challenge to give others something to eat need not be frightening because we know that the source of the food is not our own limited offerings, but the great abundance of God himself. We need not fear any kind of hunger – our own or that of others – because it’s ultimately not about us or what we can offer, but what God can do in and through us.

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

    May the Body and Blood of Christ bring us all to everlasting life.

  • Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love the Scriptures.  They speak to us of the very essence of God.  The Scriptures aren’t words dictated by God, but rather, the Holy Spirit inspired the authors of the Scriptures with the truth that comes from God himself.  All Scripture, as Saint Paul reminds us today, is “useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

    What is wonderful about the Scriptures is that, even though they were written over many centuries, they all resonate in harmony with each other.  Even the New Testament does not clash with the Old Testament.  In many ways, the Church Fathers have taught us that the Old Testament is the precursor to the Gospel, the prophecy and history that prefaces the coming of Christ.  All of the Scriptures were always part of God’s plan for us, and they are the textbook for living the Christian life.

    Over the years, Catholics have been accused of being unfamiliar with the Scriptures, which was true in the past.  But that has changed recently, and many Catholics have become friends of Scripture, and have studied and prayed with these words as was their intent.  I had a seminary professor who used to tell us to be sure that we let the Scriptures wash over our lives each and every day, even reading just a few verses before bed if we hadn’t had time to read them all day long.

    So today we are grateful to God for the revelation he has given us in holy Scripture.  May we all immerse ourselves in them, constantly striving to come closer to God through the study of his word.