Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

    Tuesday in the Octave of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Letting go of things is harder than we can sometimes even admit.  I think that’s what was going on with Mary Magdalene.  And we are just like her: we want to hold on to things and people as they are, because what is familiar is so very comfortable to us. 

    I think sometimes that’s true regardless of whether the familiar is positive or negative.  So many times we hold on to whatever we have and refuse to let them go because it’s as if we’re afraid we’ll be giving away some piece of ourselves.  So then what happens is that we hang on to images of ourselves or other people in our life that are outdated, and stifle any room for growth.  We hang on to resentments or past hurts and never give any chance for healing.  We hang on to unhealthy relationships and never give ourselves a chance to break the cycle of pain they bring.  We hang on to bad work situations and miss following our true calling.

    What Mary needed to hear from Jesus in today’s Gospel was that she had to stop hanging on to things as they were, and to allow God’s promise to be fully revealed.  The time for mourning was over, it was now time to rejoice and begin spreading the word that the Gospel was coming to its fruition.  She had to begin that by going and spreading the word to the other disciples.

    We too, have to stop holding on to our past hurts and resentments and outdated notions of the world, ourselves and our relationships so that God’s promise can be fully revealed in us.  The message of Easter joy means that we must begin that by spreading the news that Jesus is doing something new in us and in our world, and make sure that everyone knows about it. We can do that by examining our lives every day and reflecting on what God is doing in us and how we are responding to it.  This is the kind of daily reflection that will help us to let go of what is unhelpful and grasp firmly to that which will lead us to Christ.

    As we continue to live lives of conversion like this, we too can proclaim with Mary Magdalene on this Easter day, and every day, “We have seen the Lord!”

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    Whenever I celebrate a Mass for the parish school, I often tell the children that if there’s just one thing they ought to know about God, one thing they ever learn about God, and that is that God loves them more than anything, that would be enough. It’s the thing that I hope they remember me saying, because that’s the message I feel called to proclaim. God’s love is the most important thing we have in this life, the most precious gift we will ever receive.

    It is true gift, because there’s nothing, not one single thing, that we can do to earn it. Filthy in sin as we are, we certainly don’t do it. And entitled as we can sometimes be, there is no way we can ever say that we have a right to it. But we get it anyway. God freely pours out his love on us sinners, not because we are good, but because he is.

    God loves us first and loves us best, and it’s a love that will totally consume us, totally transform us, if we let it. It’s a love that can break our stony hearts and transform our sadness into real joy. It’s a love that can change us from people of darkness to real live people of light and joy. It’s a love that obliterates the power of sin and death to control our eternity, and opens up to us the glory of heaven.

    And even if we live our lives passing from one thing to the next and barely noticing anything going on around us, we have to pause and appreciate God’s love on this most holy day. This is the day that confounded Mary of Magdala; it’s the day that got Peter and John out of their funk and sent them running. It’s the day that John finally starts to get what Jesus was getting at all this time. He saw and believed.

    He saw that his Lord was not there, that death could not hold him. He saw that the grave was no longer the finality of existence. He saw that Love – real Love – is in charge of our futures. He saw that there is real hope available to us hopeless ones.

    “To him all the prophets bear witness,
    that everyone who believes in him
    will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

    That quote, from Saint Peter’s testimony in the Acts of the Apostles, today’s first reading, is the Easter faith to which we are all called. We have to stop living like this is all there is. We have to stop loving our sins more than we love God. We have to live like a people who have been loved into existence, and loved into redemption.

    That means we have to put aside our disastrous sense of entitlement. We have to learn to receive love so deep that it calls us to change. And we have to love in the same way too, so that others will see that and believe.

    We’ll never find real love by burying ourselves in work or careers. We’ll do nothing but damage our life if we seek to find it in substance abuse. We’ll never find love by clinging to past hurts and resentments. We are only going to find love in one place, or more precisely in one person, namely, Jesus Christ. We must let everything else – everything else – go.

    Today, Jesus Christ broke the prison-bars of death, and rose triumphant from the underworld. What good would life have been to us, if Christ had not come as our Redeemer? Because of this saving event, we can be assured that our own graves will never be our final resting places, that pain and sorrow and death will be temporary, and that we who believe and follow our risen Lord have hope of life that lasts forever. Just as Christ’s own time on the cross and in the grave was brief, so our own pain, death, and burial will be as nothing compared to the ages of new life we have yet to receive. We have hope in these days because Christ is our hope, and he has overcome the obstacles to our living.

    The good news today is that we can find real love today and every day of our lives, by coming to this sacred place. It is here that we hear the Word proclaimed, here that we partake of the very Body and Blood of our Lord. An occasional experience of this mystery simply will not do – we cannot partake of it on Easter Sunday only. No; we must nurture our faith by encountering our Risen Lord every day, certainly every Sunday, of our lives, by hearing that Word, and receiving his Body and Blood. Anything less than that is seeking the living one among the dead.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Good Friday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    That quotation is the entrance antiphon for the Mass of Holy Thursday, last night’s celebration. Throughout the Holy Triduum, this three day celebration of the Lord’s passion and death, has just one entrance antiphon and that’s it. That’s because these holy days, this Sacred Paschal Triduum, are all about the Cross. In these moments, the cross takes center stage: it is, in fact the focal point of the Gospel. At his birth into our world, he was laid in a wooden manger, that wood that is the precursor of the wood of the cross. Throughout his public ministry, he journeyed to the cross which was the reason for his coming. And today, he mounts the altar of the cross as the priest, the altar, and the lamb of sacrifice, given for us.

    There can be no greater demonstration of God’s love for us than we have in these days. We broken ones, the ones who incurred the sentence of death, have that sentence served by God the Word, the One who was with the father in the beginning, the One through whom all things were made. Our God is just and there is a price for sin. But our God is also mercy and there is forgiveness and redemption and salvation.

    Isaiah’s lament in today’s first reading catches us up in the emotion of Good Friday. The suffering servant’s appearance is so marred, stricken and infirm that we cannot bear to look at him. Because if we really looked hard enough, we know, in our heart of hearts, that the marring, the stricken-ness, the infirmity are all ours. All ours! This is a dark hour. It seems like all is lost.

    We too will have dark hours of our own. That’s one of the few guarantees that this fleeting life gives us. We absolutely will have to bear our own cross of suffering: the illness or death of loved ones, the loss of a job, the splintering of a family, or even the shame of addictive sin.

    It is our brokenness that we see in the suffering servant, our sinfulness on the son of man. And this suffering one is embodied by our God, Jesus Christ our Savior, who carries all of that nastiness to the cross, and hangs there before us, bleeding and dying and crying out to the Father. That’s our sin, our death, our punishment – and he bore it all for us. Who could believe what we have seen?

    And just when it seems like there is nothing left to give, when it seems like all hope is lost, when it seems like death has the upper hand, the soldier thrusts his lance into the side of Christ, and our Jesus gives still more and yet again: he pours forth the life blood and water that plants the seeds of the Church into the barren ground of the earth, guaranteeing the presence of the Lord in the world until the end of time. Christ our God gives everything he has for us, takes away all that divides us, and performs the saving sacrifice that makes salvation possible for all people. Our God gives up everything – everything – for love of us.

    We who have grown up in the Church and have celebrated the Church’s liturgy have minds that are aware of salvation history. So we know that the suffering and death of Jesus is not the end of the story. In the day ahead, we will keep vigil for the Resurrection of the Lord which shatters the hold that sin and death have on us. We are a people who eagerly yearn for the Resurrection. We must certainly hope for the great salvation that is ours, and the light and peace of God’s Kingdom. But not today: today we remember that that salvation was bought at a very dear price, the price of the death of our Savior, our great High Priest. Today we look back on all of our sufferings of the past or the present, we even look ahead to those that may yet be. We see all those sufferings in our suffering servant on the cross. And as we sit here in God’s presence we know that we are never ever alone in those dark hours, that Christ has united himself to us in his suffering and death. As we come forward to venerate the Cross, we bring with us our own crosses: past, present, and future, and join them to the sufferings of Christ. In these moments, we unite ourselves to him in our own suffering, and walk confidently through it with him, passing the gates of salvation, and entering one great day into God’s heavenly kingdom.

    We adore you, O Christ and we bless you:
    Because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

  • Holy Thursday: The Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: The Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    That is the proper entrance antiphon, also known as the introit, for this Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, which we sang at the very beginning of our time together this evening. It is taken from Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which he says “May I never boast about anything other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me.” As you may know, the Church considers these three days – the Sacred Triduum – as just one day, one liturgy. When we gather for Mass tonight, and reconvene tomorrow for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, and finally gather for the great Easter Vigil in the Holy Night on Saturday, it’s just one day for the church, one great Liturgy in three parts. And the only part that has an entrance antiphon is tonight’s Mass, so the Church has chosen this text to set the tone for our celebrations for these three nights, and to draw all of them together with the cross as the focal point.

    I think what the cross teaches us in these days, and what this evening’s part of the Liturgy says in particular is summed up in the Latin word, caritas. Caritas is most often translated into English as either “charity” or “love.” And, as in the case of most translations, both are inadequate. When we think about the word “charity,” we usually think of something we do to the poor: we give to the poor, we pray for the poor, that kind of thing. And “love” can have a whole host of different meanings, depending on the context, and the emotion involved. And none of that is what caritas means at all. I think caritas is best imagined as a love that shows itself in the action of setting oneself aside, pouring oneself out, for the good of others. It’s a love that remembers that everything is not about me, that God gives us opportunities all the time to give of ourselves on behalf of others, that we were put on this earth to love one another into heaven.

    And I bring this up not just as a lesson in Latin or semantics. I bring it up because caritas is our vocation; we were made to love deeply and to care about something outside ourselves. We are meant to go beyond what seems expedient and comfortable and easy and to extend ourselves.

    Two parts of this evening’s Liturgy show us what caritas means. The first is what we call the mandatum: the washing of the feet. Here, Jesus gets up from the meal, wraps a towel around his waist and begins to wash the feet of his disciples. Washing the feet of guests was a common practice in Jesus’ time. In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration. And they would travel that distance, not by car or train or even by beast of burden, but most often on foot. The travelers’ feet would then become not only dirty from the dusty roads, but also hot and tired from the long journey. It was a gesture of hospitality to wash the guests’ feet, but it was a gesture that was usually supplied not by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, usually a servant or slave. But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who puts on the towel, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends.

    We are omitting that ritual this evening, but we aren’t off the hook for it. That’s because I think this particular ritual should be reenacted outside of church. Every day, in every place where Christians are.

    For example, maybe you make an effort to get home from work a little sooner to help your spouse get dinner ready or help your children with their homework. Maybe at work you try to get in early so that you can make the first pot of coffee so that people can smell it when they come in to the office. Or maybe after lunch you take a minute or two to wipe out the microwave so it’s not gross the next day. If you’re a young person, perhaps you can try on occasion to do a chore without being asked, or at least not asked a second time, or even wash the dishes when it’s not your turn to do it. Or if one of your classmates has a lot of stuff to bring to school one day, you can offer to carry some of his or her books to lighten the load.

    This kind of thing costs us. It’s not our job to do those things. We’re entitled to be treated well too. It’s inconvenient. I’ve had a hard day at work – or at school. I want to see this show on television. I’m in the middle of reading the paper. But caritas love requires something of us – something over and above what we may be prepared to do. But, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he’s given us an example: as he has done, so we must do. And not just here in church washing each other’s feet, but out there in our world, washing the feet of all those in our lives who need to be loved into heaven.

    The second part of our Liturgy that illustrates caritas is one with which we are so familiar, we may most of the time let it pass us by without giving it a thought, sadly. And that, of course, is the Eucharist. This evening we commemorate that night when Jesus, for the very first time, shared bread and wine with his closest friends and offered the meal as his very own body and blood, poured out on behalf of the world, given that we might remember, as often as we do it, what caritas means. This is the meal that we share here tonight, not just as a memory of something that happened in the far distant past, but instead experienced with Jesus and his disciples, and all the church of every time and place, on earth and in heaven, gathered around the same Table of the Lord, nourished by the same body, blood, soul and divinity of our Savior who poured himself out for us in the ultimate act of caritas.

    We who eat this meal have to be willing to be changed by it. Because we too must pour ourselves out for others. We must feed them with our presence and our love and our understanding even when we would rather not. We must help them to know Christ’s presence in their lives by the way that we serve them, in humility, giving of ourselves and asking nothing in return. That is our vocation.

    And sometimes that vocation is not an easy one. Sometimes it feels like our efforts are unappreciated or even thwarted by others. Sometimes we give of ourselves only to receive pain in return; or we extend ourselves only to find ourselves out on a limb with what seems like no support. And then we question our vocation, wondering if it is all worth it, wondering if somehow we got it wrong. But caritas isn’t something from which one turns away. We embrace our little crosses and journey on, knowing that Jesus carried the big Cross for our salvation.

    The ultimate act of caritas will unfold tomorrow and Saturday night as we look to the cross and keep vigil for the resurrection. Tonight it will suffice for us to hear the command to go and do likewise, pouring ourselves out for others, laying down our life for them, washing their feet and becoming Eucharist for them. It may seem difficult to glory in the cross – it may even seem strange to say it. But the Church makes it clear tonight: the cross is our salvation, it is caritas poured out for us, it is caritas poured out on others through us, every time we extend ourselves, lay down our lives, abandon our sense of entitlement and do what the Gospel demands of us.

    We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

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  • Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Palm Sunday of the Passion of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes, when I take a step back in preparing for Palm Sunday Mass, my head spins a little bit. That’s because this is no ordinary celebration of Mass. We have two Gospel readings: one at the beginning of Mass for the blessing of the palms, and one very long one in the normal spot in the Liturgy of the Word. And those two Gospel readings couldn’t be more different in tone! The first one tells of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, and it seems so triumphant. The crowds welcomed him and paraded with him into the city. But then we get to the Passion reading and everything changes in a heartbeat.

    I think if we had to sum up the Liturgy today with a contemporary quip, it might be, “Well, that escalated quickly!” We go from “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” to “Crucify him! Crucify him! Give us Barabbas!” just five short chapters later! This, friends, really is the hour for which Jesus came. The hour for him to lay down his life.

    It seems like things have escalated quickly, but really we know they didn’t. All through the Gospel, Jesus has been getting under the skin of the religious establishment, calling out their weak and self-serving adherence to the Law, taking care of the real needs of people as they should have been, and showing people a way of life based not on legalism, but on caritas, love poured out in service to others. That he will punctuate that caritas love at the end of the Gospel today is quite instructive. The whole of the Gospel centers around laying down our lives for others.

    And, really, if we take a big picture view of the history of salvation, things haven’t escalated that quickly at all. All through the scriptures, Old and New Testaments alike, people – we – have been missing the point. The cycle of sin that spirals all through the scriptures has seen God send messages, through signs and prophets, of how things had gone wrong and what needed to be done. And all through the scriptures, people have heeded the message only in lip service, or have outright murdered the prophets who brought the message. And yet again, God sent new messages, and yet again, the people sinned. We know that the sacrifice of Christ, God made man, was always God’s plan for salvation. It has been incubating for generations, and now, finally, the hour has come.

    Honestly, though, we know things have continued to escalate. Wars in Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Gaza,Ukraine, Russia, and so many other places on the globe are decimating cities and killing thousands every day. The migrant crisis finds people coming to our nation with nothing, and being pawns in a great political argument, all while seeing people suffering cruelty at the hands of law enforcement. Crime and terrorism abounds, and we see politicians use all these heartbreaking issues to advance their careers, their own agendas, and the coffers of their allies and supporters. All of this almost causes Our Lord to fall a fourth time, crushed under the weight of the cross. We certainly need a Simon of Cyrene to help us shoulder the burden of it all, and a Veronica to wipe the blood and sweat from Christ’s face once again. People walk the Way of the Cross over and over, and the hour of Christ’s Passion seems to always be present.

    Who are we going to blame for this? Whose fault is it that they crucified my Lord? Is it the Jews, as many centuries of anti-Semitism would assert? Was it the Romans, those foreign occupiers who sought only the advancement of their empire? Was it the fickle crowds, content enough to marvel at Jesus when he fed the thousands, but abandoning him once his message was made clear? Was it Peter, who couldn’t even keep his promise of standing by his friend for a few hours? Was it the rest of the apostles, who scattered lest they be tacked up on a cross next to Jesus? Was it Judas, who gave in to despair thinking he had it all wrong? Was it the cowardly Herod and Pilate who were both manipulating the event in order to maintain their pathetic fiefdoms? Who was it who put Jesus on that cross? Even now, who do we blame for the death of our Lord?

    And the answer, as we well know, is that it is, and always was, me. Because it’s my sins that led Jesus to the Way of the Cross. I have been the selfish one. I have been the one who has looked down on people who are different from me, using my privilege at their expense. I have been the one that has withheld love and forgiveness and grace in so many different ways. I have been comfortable with my sins and content to stay the way I am. It’s my sins that betrayed my Jesus; it’s my sins that have kept me from friendship with God.

    But as ugly as I have been, as much as I have nailed him to the cross, even so: he willingly came to this hour and gave his life that I might have life.

    And you. He gave himself for us.

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  • Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Saturday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    Caiaphas had no idea how prophetic his words were. Actually, as far as the intent of his words went, they were nothing but selfish. The Jews didn’t want to lose their standing with the Romans. As it was, they had an uneasy peace. The Romans pretty much let them practice their religion as long as there wasn’t any trouble. But they knew that if everyone started following Jesus, the Romans would give preference to the new way, in order to keep the peace. The religious leaders couldn’t let that happen, so they began plotting in earnest to kill Jesus, planning to find him when he came to celebrate the upcoming feast day, which they were certain he would attend.

    It’s a time of high intrigue, and for Jesus, his hour – the hour of his Passion – is fast approaching. That’s so clear in the Gospel readings in these last days of Lent. In just a few hours we will begin our celebration of Holy Week, waving palms to welcome our king, and praying through his passion and death. It is an emotional time for us as we know our God has given his life for us, the most amazing gift we will ever get. It is also a time of sadness because we know our sins have nailed him to the cross.

    But, this is where the significance of Caiaphas’s words brings us joy. Yes, it is better for one person to die than the whole nation. God knew that well when he sent his only Son to be our salvation. Jesus took our place, nailing our sins and brokenness to the cross, dying to pay the price those sins required, and rising to bring the salvation we could never attain on our own. Caiaphas was right. It was better for one person to die than for the whole nation to die. Amazing as it seems, that was God’s plan all along.

    We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
    Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Thursday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know if you can feel it as the readings are proclaimed in these Passiontide days, but the story is quickly coming to its climax. Jesus’ claims of divinity are really starting to rile the Jews. They have placed their hope in Abraham and the prophets – great men, certainly – but seem to have forgotten about the promise of a Messiah, and so they totally miss the Christ who is standing right in front of them. It’s a sad situation. But it is also quickly becoming dangerous for Jesus. These are the ones who will stir up the trouble at his trial and get them to release Barabbas, putting Jesus on the cross instead.

    And I feel like it’s necessary to make a quick aside here. We have heard and will hear many references to “the Jews” in John’s Gospel, from which we will be reading much over the next week or so. This wording was used for centuries to make anti-Semitic comments and policies seem like they are legitimate, blaming the Jews for killing the Lord, even centuries later. But remember, this is John’s Gospel, and Jesus is in full control. He knows what is in their hearts. The Jews may indeed want to take his life, but Jesus instead willingly lays it down. Jesus has the power. Because that was his mission; that is his mission – to give himself completely for our salvation, and the salvation of the whole world. And honestly, if we want to blame someone for sending Jesus to the cross, we know only too well that we don’t have to look any further than our own sinful hearts.

    What we see in today’s Liturgy of the Word, ultimately, is that God made a promise to Abraham, and, in the person of Jesus Christ, kept that promise. Abraham was made a mighty nation, God’s promises have always been kept, and we have salvation in Christ. That’s our Good News today, and every day really. As we wade through these somber Passiontide days, we have the joy of keeping the end of the story clearly in mind, that Resurrection that Abraham himself so longed to see.

    We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
    Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

  • Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    When people get us riled up, even, and perhaps especially when they’re right, we tend to look for ways to write them off. One way we can do that is to comment on where they are from. We reason that nothing good can come from someone from that neighborhood, that city, that side of the tracks.

    The people of Jerusalem see Jesus walking about openly, and they look down on him. “But we know where he is from.” Kind of like, we know where he was born, so why should we think he is the promised Messiah? Jesus sets them right: he is “from” God the Father, who sent him into the world. That’s his true home, and because that’s his true home, he can offer the Father’s forgiveness, the Father’s mercy, the Father’s love.

    The people’s attempt to write Jesus off because they knew where he was from was their attempt to deal with the change of life he called people to. Yes, he offered the Father’s love and mercy, but he also called them to change their lives, to live the right way, so they could live forever in the kingdom. That’s real love and mercy there: calling people back to the way that leads to heaven. But people don’t like to change, so they scoff at where he’s from.

    In our first reading today, a group of wicked people do the same kind of thing. They say, “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us, he sets himself against our doings, Reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training.” They don’t like that the “just one” professes to be a child of God. But he is. In fact, even though this is the Old Testament and the book of Wisdom didn’t specifically speak of Jesus, it is, in fact, talking about Jesus. Jesus is the just one, the Son of God, who calls us to turn around from what we are doing and turn toward the way that leads to heaven, that leads to life.

    So that’s what our readings are calling us to do today. It’s a great message for Lent, because Lent is about repentance, about “turning around” and walking in the way that leads to eternal life. We all want to end up in heaven. Lent, and today’s readings, show us the way to get there: we just have to follow Jesus, and do what he tells us, even if what he asks us to do isn’t easy.

  • Saturday of the Third Week in Lent

    Saturday of the Third Week in 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.” I want to put that in your prayer toolbox today: 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 God, grant us the great gift of humility this Lenten day.

  • Thursday of the Third Week in Lent

    Thursday of the Third Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    How many times have you told someone in your life how to do something, and they chose another way, and you wanted more than anything to say, “I told you so!”? Maybe you’ve even gone so far as to actually say it. The whole thing about saying “I told you so!” is that it’s kind of a writing off of the other person, sort of washing your hands of the outcome of their decisions.

    But how much more could God say, “I told you so!” to us? How many ways have we been warned about doing the wrong thing, or been shown the path to the right thing, and have gone astray anyway? We have the Scriptures to show us the way – do we immerse ourselves in them? We have the Church to show us the way – do we look for her direction? We have prayer and Sacrament to show us the way – do we live in that? So how much more would God be justified in saying, “I told you so!” Yet, he doesn’t. Instead he keeps offering us mercy, keeps speaking to our hearts, through Scripture, the Church, prayer and Sacrament – he keeps on inviting us back.

    We are going to hear that invitation today, so let’s decide now that when we do, we will listen to it with all our attention, and let it permeate our hearts. May we let it guide the thoughts of our minds, the words of our lips, and the affections of our hearts.

    As the Psalmist invites us today: If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.