Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night

    The Nativity of the Lord – Mass During the Night

    Tonight’s readings

    It’s all about the zeal of the Lord of Hosts!

    Because when you think about it, God doesn’t have to care about our welfare or our salvation.  He’s God, he’s not in need of anyone or anything, because he is all-sufficient.  He doesn’t need our love, he doesn’t need our praise, he doesn’t need our contrition … honestly, he doesn’t need us period.

    But because God is who he is, because he is Goodness in all its perfection, because he is Love beyond all telling, because he is Truth in its purest form, because he is Beauty beyond anything we’ve ever seen, because he is our God, he couldn’t, wouldn’t decide not to create us. He cannot not care about us.  He cannot not want us to come to salvation.  And so he pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    He created us in love, and no matter how far we may stray, he still loves us, and can’t do anything but that.  Throughout time, we’ve disappointed him, and when he forgave us – which he didn’t have to do – we disappointed him again.  That’s been the story of us as a people, and also our own personal stories, if we’re honest.  How many times have we all sinned, and after being forgiven, go back and sin again?  Honestly, if we were God, we’d throw up our hands and walk away.  But, thank God, we’re not God, and our God isn’t like that.  As often as we turn away and come back, he reaches out to us with the love of the father for his prodigal children.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    When our need for a Savior was great, when ages beyond number had run their course from the creation of the world, when century upon century had passed since the Almighty set his bow in the clouds after the Great Flood, after Abraham, Moses, David and Daniel had made God’s desire for reconciliation known, our Lord Jesus Christ, eternal God and Son of the eternal Father, desired to consecrate the world by his most loving presence.  Being conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, he was born in Bethlehem of Judah and was made man.  As a man, he walked among the people of his time and lived as one of us, in all things but sin.  At the appointed hour, he took on our sins and was nailed to a cross.  He died to pay the price for all of us, in order to redeem us and bring us back to friendship with the Father.  Because of this, the power of death and sin to keep us from God has been canceled out, and we have the possibility of eternal life.  Our God pursues us, and pursues us with great zeal.

    We gather this holy night to revel in the zeal that our God has for our souls.  We who are so much less than him, and so unworthy of his love, nonetheless have his love and are intimately known to him, better than we even know ourselves.  In God’s zeal for us, he reaches out to us when we fall, walks with us when we suffer, and brings us back to him when we wander away.  There is nowhere we can go, no place we can run, no depth to which we can fall, that is beyond the reach of God’s zealous love for us.  And that’s why this night, when we celebrate the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, is such an amazing and holy night for us.  If not for this night, the night of our salvation on Easter would never come to pass.  This night we celebrate not just the birth of a baby, but the birth of God’s intimate presence in the world from the moment of his birth until time is no more.

    It’s no wonder the angels sang that night: they knew what the world had yet to behold.  They knew that God’s zeal had obliterated the chasm between the world and its maker.  They knew that the sadness of death was coming to an end.  They knew that the power of sin had been smashed to oblivion.  They new the light of God’s Radiant Dawn had burst forth upon the earth.  They knew that in this moment, the sad melody of sin had given way to a chorus of God’s glory.  They knew that the dirge of death had dwindled to the peace that God pours forth on those whom he favors. 

    That moment, all those years ago, changed everything.  Nothing would be the same.  The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will do – has done – this!

    May Christ our God, born in the flesh on that holy night, find a dwelling place, a manger, in our hearts, and may his presence in our lives bring us joy this day and every day of our lives.  Blessings to you and your families this Christmas Day and every day.

  • The Nativity of the Lord – Vigil/Special Needs Mass

    The Nativity of the Lord – Vigil/Special Needs Mass

    In a town called Nazareth in Galilee, a long time ago, Mary lived with her parents, Joachim and Ann. Mary was only a young girl, maybe 14 years old.  She came from a quiet little area of the world, and just looking at them, you’d have to say nothing about her family was very special.  She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, because that was when people got married in those days, but she wasn’t married or living with him yet.

    She was busy doing her chores one day, when she was surprised by the appearance of an angel named Gabriel.  As you can imagine, the appearing of an angel can be a little frightening, but Gabriel reassured her and told her that the Lord was with her.  He told her not to be afraid, because God wanted her to be the mother of his Son Jesus.  Jesus would become great and would rule over the kingdom of Israel forever.  Mary was confused how she could have a baby, because she was not married, but the angel reassured her that all things are possible with God.  She was amazed, but she had faith, and said to the angel, “Let it happen as you have said.”

    Mary sang a hymn proclaiming how great God was, and went in haste to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was also going to have a baby, even though she was very old.  When she got there, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leapt for joy, and Elizabeth said, “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you!” Mary helped Elizabeth for three months and returned home.

    When Joseph heard that Mary was pregnant, he was confused and upset.  He was going to break off the engagement, but he had a visit from the angel too.  He came to be with her and took her into the city of David for the census (a time that the king wanted to count everyone in his kingdom).  

    They had a terrible time finding a place to stay during the journey, since so many people were traveling to take part in the census.  Eventually, it became urgent: on the way, Mary gave birth to her baby, and had Jesus in a manger where the animals stayed.  Many people came to visit Mary and Joseph and Jesus, and gave the baby gifts and said wonderful things about him, things Mary would never forget.  She kept all of this very close to her in her heart.

    Mary and Joseph raised Jesus and watched him become a strong, healthy, and smart young man.  One time, when the family went to Jerusalem for a visit to the holy temple, Mary and Joseph lost track of Jesus.  They were on the way home when they discovered Jesus wasn’t with them or any of their friends or family.  They were so upset and frightened!  Returning to Jerusalem, Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, talking about their faith, with all of the rabbis and teachers.  He was only twelve years old!

    Eventually Joseph died, and Mary stayed near Jesus.  She watched him start his ministry, the whole reason God had sent him to earth in the first place.  He called his disciples and taught all the people.  He cured the sick and fed many hungry people.  He worked many miracles and always talked about how good God was, and how much God loved people, and how they should all turn back to God and turn away from the bad things they had been doing.  Mary watched as he did all these wonderful things, and she saw how faithful he was to God’s work.

    But Mary also began to see that Jesus wasn’t making everybody happy.  She saw that when he cured people on the Sabbath day, the day of rest, the leaders of the temple became angry.  She saw that when Jesus told them to take care of the poor and the hungry and the homeless instead of worrying about what day it was, the religious leaders wanted to kill him.  Mary watched as eventually they did take hold of Jesus, carried him off for a trial before Pilate the governor, and nailed him to the cross.

    At the foot of the cross, Mary stood sorrowful, knowing what a wonderful gift she and the whole world had been given in Jesus.  But Jesus took care of Mary even then, and entrusted her to the care of his friend John.  After Jesus died on the cross, Mary along with some of the other women in the group were the first ones to see that Jesus rose from the dead!  Mary stayed with the other disciples and prayed with them that the whole world would come to know the message of Jesus.  Her sorrow turned to joy as she watched the community grow and live the things Jesus had taught them.

    Those disciples were the ones who passed the faith on to us.  Because of the courage of the disciples and especially of Mary, we today can believe in Jesus and receive the gift of everlasting life from him.  Because of the faith of Mary, we can live forever with God and never have to be afraid of death or be mastered by sin.  All of this happened because Mary said, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word.”

    It is good for us to hear Mary’s story, because she lived her life following Jesus.  We’re supposed to do that too.  Mary got to see Jesus face-to-face, even hold him in her arms.  We might not be able to do that, but Jesus is close to all of us as long as we let him in.  Just like they made a place for Jesus to be born in a manger, we need to make a manger for Jesus in our own hearts so that he can be born in us and always be with us. 

    It’s very important that we all hear that just as God sent an angel to Mary, he sends angels to us all the time.  Those angels tell us, too, that we should not be afraid because God loves us and cares for us and wants to do great things with us, just like he did with Mary.  All he needs for us to do is to say, “Let it be done to me according to your word.”

  • The Fourth Sunday of Advent

    The Fourth Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    This time of year, we naturally think of gifts. Every gift is a little different: some are big, some are small, some make a lasting impact, some are used up and soon forgotten.  The best gifts, I think, are those that create a memory of good times; perhaps the best gifts are those that can be shared.

    God gives us gifts too.  And some are big, and some are small, but all of them are important to us and to others.  In this season of giving, I’d like to take a moment to talk about God’s gifts, and how they are to be enjoyed.  There are four points I want to make.

    First, God’s gifts are given to be used.  They’re not supposed to be like an action figure that is to be kept in its package and preserved so it can be sold in ten years for a lot of money on eBay!  They aren’t like the “good china” some of us have and almost never use.  They’re supposed to be used for our happiness and God’s glory.  So if it’s a talent for sports, we ought to play.  If it’s intelligence, we ought to study and research and invent.  If it’s creativity, we ought to paint or act or sing.  Keeping it in a box and denying it is an insult to the Giver.

    Second, God’s gifts are never just for us.  God gifts us in ways that we can build up our community and our world and help people to come to know God’s love for them.  Always.  Mary never could have kept Jesus to herself, and we’re not supposed to keep our gifts to ourselves either.

    Third, we will never know how wonderful our gifts are until we share them with others.  Our gifts are supposed to create memories and bring people together and help people to know God.  When that happens, the full wonder of those gifts will be revealed to us and in us, and we will enjoy them in ways we never could have before we shared them.

    Finally, we don’t lose our gifts when we share them.  They don’t get used up when we give them away.  Just as Mary didn’t lose her Son when she gave him to the world, so we won’t lose what God has given us when we share it with others.  That’s just how God’s gifts are.

    In today’s Gospel, Mary received a gift.  I don’t know how any of us would feel about that kind of gift, but Mary received it in faith, because Mary was full of grace.  She received the gift of a Savior before anyone else did; her fiat meant that she received salvation before it was ever played out on earth.  It was the best gift ever, and she got to watch it all unfold before her.  Some of it was difficult and painful, but so much of had to be amazing.

    Because of Mary’s faith, God was able to send the best gift possible to be shared with all of us: the gift of his only-begotten Son.  Jesus took on our flesh as a little baby, and grew to become a man like us in all things but sin.  He walked among the people of his time and helped them to know of God’s kingdom.  Though he was without sin, he eventually took on our sins and went to the cross for all of us, dying to pay the price for our sins, and canceling out the power that sin and death had to keep us from God.  Because of Mary’s faith, we received the gift of salvation, if we are open to accept it.

    And just like all our other gifts from God, those same four principles apply: we have to use, or live our salvation; we have to share the gift of salvation with others; salvation becomes more wonderful every time someone else is saved, and salvation is not something that ever gets used up – it’s meant for everyone. Come, Lord Jesus, and grant us your salvation. Be our God-with-us, our Emmanuel, be the One who brings us peace. Help us to open our hearts and receive your gifts, and share them with every person you put with us on life’s journey.  Come Lord Jesus, come quickly, and do not delay!

  • The Third Sunday of Advent

    The Third Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    Today is Gaudete Sunday.  Gaudete is Latin for “rejoice,” reflecting the first word of the entrance antiphon for today which says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed, the Lord is near.”  On this Sunday, we take a break from the somber tones of purple and put on the more festive color rose to symbolize that in the bleak winter days of Advent, we have reason for joy, and that joy is the hope of our coming Savior.  The Lord is near!  Rejoice!

    We can see that rejoicing in our readings today. The prophet Isaiah starts the rejoicing in today’s first reading.  He rejoices that the Lord, having anointed him for service, is using him to work out salvation and justice.  To a people as long oppressed as Isaiah’s hearers were, this message would indeed be welcome and cause for great rejoicing. In the second reading, Saint Paul gives the Thessalonians very specific instructions about how they are to conduct themselves.  And the first instruction is that they should rejoice.  Rejoicing is the natural way for Christians to behave because they have in their presence the cause of all joy, Jesus Christ our Lord. In our Gospel this morning, Saint John the Baptist clearly points out the source of his joy: “I baptize with water; but there is one among you whom you do not recognize, the one who is coming after me, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to untie.” 

    Truly, there is no greater occasion for joy than being in the presence of our Lord, and having him present in our lives. We should indeed rejoice and always be glad because our God, who created us and gave us a  place in his glorious universe, has chosen to come to earth as a tiny child, to be one of us, in the most intimate and vulnerable way possible. That’s why we bless the Bambini from our mangers today: we recognize the source of all our joy.

    Another great cause for our joy, indeed the cause for our joy, is that our God, who has seen us walk away from him and pursue things that are not him, will not allow us to be abandoned in our sinfulness. Seeing the sadness of sin and death, our God does not want them to be the end of our story.  And so that’s why he came to us, to live for us, to die for us, and to open for us the way to salvation.  That way of salvation includes the sacraments which lead us back to God when we have gone astray.  Today we have available the last opportunity for confessions here after the 12:15 Mass.  We have thirteen confessors scheduled to celebrate the sacrament with you in English, Spanish, and Polish. If you have not yet been able to go to confession before Christmas, this afternoon is the time, and I hope to see you there. Please be there at 1:30 so we don’t miss you.

    Finally, we have to be the joy that our world needs right now.  There is so much sadness in our world today.  So we have to be witnesses to God’s love and presence all around us.  We have to show that our God is great and mighty and faithful and loving and glorious and forgiving and healing and more awesome than anything we can possibly imagine – and we have to do that by the way that we live our lives, by the words we say, by the things we do.  If we want the world to find the joy that Christ is in our lives, then we have to live that joy – choose to live that joy – right here and right now.

    Brothers and sisters, we are witnesses to joy.  “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.  Indeed, the Lord is near.”

  • The Second Sunday of Advent

    The Second Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    When I was little, time seemed to go by so slowly.  But all of that has changed as I have gotten older.  This year, particularly, seems like a blur. This is the sense that we get in today’s readings. Saint Peter says in our second reading today that, “with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.” And he makes the point that if time slips away so quickly, we need to be people who live the Gospel all the time.

    In the Gospel reading, the people are longing for newness, and they respond to Saint John the Baptist’s invitation to repent and be baptized. He preaches with urgency, and they responded in faith. We are offered that same invitation by Jesus who longs for us to be reconciled and to come into full relationship with him.

    So we then have to acknowledge our sins – personal sins and those in which we participate as a society.  And then we have to accept the process of repentance.  We can’t keep sinning; we have to repent, literally be sorry for our sins and turn away from them, as we turn back to God.  That’s an important Advent message for every time and place.

    It genuinely strikes me that, if we’re ever going to get past the bad stuff going on in our nation and our world, if we’re ever going to finally put an end to whatever sadness this world brings us, we have to begin that by putting an end to the wrong that we have done.  That’s why reconciliation is so important.  What each of us does – right or wrong – affects the rest of us.  The grace we put forward when we follow God’s will blesses others.  But the sin we set in motion when we turn away from God saddens the whole Body of Christ.  We are one in the Body of Christ, and if we are going to keep the body healthy, then each of us has to attend to ourselves.

    So today, I am going to ask you to go to confession before Christmas.  I don’t do that because I think you’re all horrible people or anything like that.  I do that because I know that we all – including me – have failed to be a blessing of faith, hope and love to ourselves and others at some point, and I know that so many people struggle with persistent sins, nasty thorns in the flesh, day in and day out.  And God never meant it to be that way.  He wants you to experience his love and mercy and forgiveness and healing, and you get that most perfectly in the Sacrament of Penance.

    Speaking of confession, here’s one of mine. You may have heard it before, but I think it’s important enough to share again. There was a time in my life that I didn’t go to confession for a long time.  I had been raised at a time in the Church when that sacrament was downplayed.  It came about from what I came to realize was a really flawed idea of the sacrament and the human person.  But the Church has always taught that in the struggle to live for God and be a good person, we will encounter pitfalls along the way.  We’ll fail in many ways, and we will need forgiveness and the grace to get back up and move forward.  That’s what the Sacrament of Penance is for!

    One day, I finally realized that I needed that grace and I returned to the sacrament.  The priest welcomed me back, did not pass judgment, and helped me to make a good confession.  It was an extremely healing experience for me, and now I make it my business to go to the sacrament as frequently as I can, because I need that healing and mercy and grace.  And you do too.  So please don’t leave those wonderful gifts unwrapped under the tree.  Go to Confession and find out just how much God loves you.

    When you do find that out, you’ll be better able to help the rest of the Body of Christ to be the best it can be.  When your relationship is right with God, you will help the people around you know God’s love for them too.  That kind of grace bursts forth to others all the time.

    This year, we have a very short Advent, and that makes it more important than ever to get to the sacrament as soon as you can. Next weekend is the last one before Christmas to go to confession here: there will not be confessions on December 24th or even on the 31st.   But next weekend, there are two opportunities.  On Saturday the 16th, we have our regular confessions at 2:30. Be sure to come at 2:30 so we don’t miss you.  Then the next day, Sunday the 17th, we have our regular “confessionpalooza” where there will be thirteen priests available to hear confessions in English, Spanish, and Polish. That begins shortly after the 12:15 Mass.

    If you have been away from the sacrament for a very long time, I want you to come this Advent.  Tell the priest you have been away for a while, and expect that he will help you to make a good confession.  That’s our job.  All you have to do is to acknowledge your sins and then leave them behind, so that Christmas can be that much more beautiful for you and everyone around you.  Don’t miss that gift this year: be reconciled.

  • The First Sunday of Advent

    The First Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    Happy New Year!  Today is, as you probably know, the new year of the Church, that new year we always begin on the First Sunday of Advent.  As we light the advent candles, we imbue the year ahead with the light of Christ.  And so, we stand here on the precipice of something new: a new Church year, a new season of grace.  We eagerly await God’s new creation, lifting up souls full of hope and expectation.  We come to this place and time of worship to take refuge from the disparaging enemies that pursue us into our corner of the world.  And we wait for God on this first day of the year, keenly aware that our waiting will not be unrewarded.  This is Advent, the season whose very name means “coming” and stands before us as a metaphor of hope for a darkened world, and a people darkened by sin.

    When we’re praying through Advent, perhaps we feel a sense of longing.  We do long for that newness.  This time of year, we long for warmer days.  In the news, we long for peace in the world and even in cities and communities.  Perhaps we long for peace in our families, and ourselves.  As a community of faith, we long for the One who alone can bring the real, lasting peace that makes a difference in our lives and in our world.  We long for the promised Savior who will bind up what is broken in us and lead us back to the God who made us for himself.

    I sure think Isaiah had it right in today’s first reading, didn’t he?  “Why do you let us wander, O Lord, from your ways,” he cries, “and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?”  What a wonderful question for all of us – it’s a question that anyone who has struggled with a pattern of sin has inevitably asked the Lord at one time or another.  He goes on to pray “Would that you might meet us doing right, and that we were mindful of you in our ways!”  We so much want to break free of the chains of sin and sadness, and turn back to our God, but so often, we encounter so many obstacles along the way.

    Whether it’s our own personal sin, which is certainly cause enough for sadness, or the sin in which we participate as a society, there’s a lot of darkness out there.  Wars raging all over the world, abortions happening every day of the year, the poor going unfed and dying of starvation here and abroad.  Why does God let all of this happen?  A quick look at the news leads us to ask ourselves, what kind of people have we become?  Why does God let us wander so far from his ways?  Why doesn’t he just rend the heavens and come down and put a stop to all this nonsense?

    There is only one answer to this quandary, and that’s what we celebrate in this season of anticipation.  There has only ever been one answer.  And that answer wasn’t just a band-aid God came up with on the fly because things had gone so far wrong.  Salvation never was an afterthought.  Jesus Christ’s coming into the world was always the plan.

    As we prepare to remember the first coming of our Savior into our world at Christmas, we now look forward with hope and eagerness for his second coming.  You’ll be able to hear that expressed in the Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer today.  That second coming, for which we live in breathless anticipation, will finally break the captive fetters and put an end to sin and death forever.  That is our only hope, our only salvation, really the only hope and salvation that we could ever possibly need.

    All of this requires vigilance; we must be watchful, be alert, as Jesus instructs us in today’s Gospel.  We want our God to meet us doing right.  And so our task now is to wait, and to watch, and to yearn for his coming.  Waiting requires patience: patience to enjoy the little God-moments that become incarnate to us in our everyday lives.  Patience to accept this sinful world as it is and not as we would have it, patience to know that, as Isaiah says, we are clay and God is the potter, and he’s not done creating, or re-creating the world just yet.  And so we watch for signs of God’s goodness, alert to opportunities to grow in grace, with faith lived by people who are the work of God’s hands.

    We wait and we watch knowing – convinced, really – absolutely positive – that God will rend the heavens and come down to us again one day; that Christ will return in all his glory and gather us back to himself, perfecting us and allowing hope to sing its triumph so loud that all the universe can hear it, dispelling the night and putting sadness to flight once and for all.  Brothers and sisters, be alert for that day.

    Come, Lord Jesus, and bring us hope.  Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.” I always like to joke that that’s how I ended up being the pastor of the biggest church in the state, so maybe it’s not such a good idea! But then, I love this parish and wouldn’t rather be anyplace else, so there’s a lot of truth to the joy of faithfulness.

    This Gospel passage is a very interesting reading that sometimes gets explained as a plea for us to use our time, talent, and treasure for the good of the kingdom.  And that’s a very nice message, except that it isn’t what the Church is going for on this, the second to last Sunday of the Church year.  We have to remember that, at the end of the Church year, the Church points us to the end of time, when Jesus will return and all will be put into proper order, and the Kingdom of God here on earth will forever be the Kingdom of God in heaven.  So what’s really going on with today’s Gospel reading?  Well, bookmark that for a bit, because it is truly the million dollar question of the day.

    I’ve often heard stories of those who grew up in the great depression.  Many years later, they still had deeply engrained in them the scrupulous care for everything they have that was etched into their very being during that horrible time in our history.  They spent a lifetime wasting nothing, even hoarding things.  They would eat leftovers well past their freshness dates.  It was just their response to having nothing, completely understandable.

    And that’s the lens through which I think we need to see this week’s Gospel parable.  Here Jesus presents the often-quoted story of a rich man entrusting his slaves with a great deal of wealth before he sets off on a long journey.  The word “talents” here does not mean what we mean when we use that word: here we are not talking about gifts or abilities, but rather money, and a large sum of money at that.  Scholars suggest that a talent was equal to something like one thousand days’ wages, or what a poor person could have lived on for fifteen or twenty years.  So think about it, even the servant who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    So who is it, then, that is receiving such a magnanimous gift?  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    And we know how this plays out.  Two of them take what they have and very successfully invest it and when the master returns, are able to hand over the original sum with one hundred per cent interest.  Very impressive!  But the slave who received just a “little” (even though it was certainly still a lot of money), out of fear buries it in the ground and gives it back to the master untouched, with nothing to show for it.  It’s much like a person having gone through something like the great depression placing money under a mattress rather than trust the banks, which they saw fail miserably in their lifetimes.

    Now, we’ve established that the gift they are receiving – even the slave who received little – is worth an incredible amount of money, especially to a slave who would never have the opportunity to see such wealth if not for the trust the master has placed in them.  So let’s be clear that this parable is not about us using our gifts properly; it’s about us, the slaves receiving something very great, some inestimable wealth.  What could that possibly be?  Well, of course, it’s God’s love, grace, and favor, which is undeservedly ours and given to us without merit.

    Just for background, this is yet another indictment of the Pharisees and religious establishment of the time.  They were the ones who, because Christ was not yet present in the world, received just one talent.  But it was still a huge sum of grace!  Yet, their practice was to protect it so scrupulously by attending to the minutiae of the 613 laws of the Torah, that they missed the opportunity to really invest God’s love in the world and grow the faith to full stature.

    But we can’t be like that.  We can’t have the faith taken away from us and be tossed out to wail and grind our teeth.  We have to take the faith we’ve been given, the grace we have received in baptism, and invest it mightily in the world, without fear, so that everyone will come to know the Lord and we would all go on to be put in charge of greater things, in the kingdom of heaven.  That is our vocation in the world, brothers and sisters in Christ.  We have to get that right.  We can’t cower in fear, or think our faith is too little, or we don’t know enough.  That was the cardinal sin for Matthew in his Gospel.  We have to be bold disciples and make sure that Christ is known everywhere we go, everywhere life takes us.  That is the only acceptable response to God’s love.

    Next week, we will celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, and then look forward to a new year as we begin the season of Advent.  And so it is important that we take today’s Gospel parable seriously.  We need to spend some time reflecting on how well we have invested God’s grace and love in the world around us.  Have we been good examples to our family and others?  Have we been people of integrity in our workplaces, schools and community?  Have we served those who are in need out of love for Christ?  Have we been zealous to grow in our spiritual lives?  Have we taken time to root sin out of our life, and to receive the grace of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance?  Have we been unafraid to witness to our faith in every situation?

    If we can’t answer all these questions affirmatively, we have some new-Church-year’s resolutions to make.  Because, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, brothers and sisters, the alternative is wailing and grinding of teeth.  And forever is a long time to be doing that!  No; God forbid.  Our desire is to hear those wonderful words from our Lord one day: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.”

  • The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The readings in these last days of the church year can be confusing, and sometimes even scary.  But they have an important job to do in terms of our spiritual lives.  They very often challenge our notions of what the faith really teaches and to what we are called in the preaching of the Gospel.  We want to believe in Jesus according to our own likeness, instead of allowing ourselves to be recreated according to his likeness.  And that’s where we run off the rails and drift away from a vibrant and active faith.

    As of today we have just two weeks left in the Church year, and it’s time for us to take stock of our lives and get things in order.  And we have one of those occasions when there seems to be a pretty odd parable in the Gospel reading.  It’s a story that challenges our notion of who Jesus is and what he was about – it almost seems in this story that he’s being “un-Jesus-like” in the story.  But hang on to that idea that for a second, because I think it will become clear what’s really going on as we unravel the story.  I always maintain that when a Scripture gets us riled up, then God is trying to tell us something important, and I definitely think that’s what’s going on here.

    So, first, we have to understand the details of the parable.  This probably doesn’t sound like any wedding to which you have ever been.  Wedding customs in the first century Middle East were a little different than those we know today.  The wedding was a rather drawn-out affair, beginning with the betrothal.  After that, the couple was basically married, but would not live together until the sometimes-complex negotiations regarding the dowry were complete.  When that was done, the bridegroom would journey to the bride’s house and bring her to his own house.  Then there would be a splendid feast that would go on for several days, complete with feasting and abundant wine and all kinds of festivity.

    So the parable we have in today’s Gospel puts us in the moment of time just as the negotiations are complete and they are expecting the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house.   The virgins are there ready to begin the great feast, but the bridegroom is delayed a bit, and they all fall asleep.  However, that is not the problem.  The problem is that half of them were unprepared.

    And here I think is the point that gets us riled up a bit.  I think we bristle at the whole notion of the wise virgins’ refusal to share their oil with the foolish.  Jesus was always for sharing and charity, so what’s the deal here?  Well, since we know Jesus regularly encourages kindness to others, I think we can safely conclude that is not the point of the parable and move on.  The point of the parable then, may well be the oil itself.  What kind of oil is he really talking about?  Of what is this oil symbolic?

    The Church Fathers help us a bit there.  They talk about the oil as the oil of salvation.  This would be an oil that can only be had in relationship with Jesus.  It’s an oil that can’t be begged, borrowed, stolen or bought at an all-night Walgreens.  We fill the flasks of our lives with that oil through daily prayer, devotion, the sacraments, and a life-long relationship with Jesus Christ, our Savior.  So the foolish virgins were looking for oil too late — too late not just because it is midnight, but too late because they should have been filling their flasks with this oil all along.  It’s not the wise virgins’ fault they did not share: indeed this is an oil that cannot be shared, any more than one could live another’s life for that person.

    What astounds me is that five of these virgins showed up unprepared.  We may not be familiar with first-century Middle Eastern wedding customs, but they certainly were.  So they would have known the wedding would go on for some days.  How is it, then, that they forgot to bring extra oil?  Even if the bridegroom had not been delayed, they certainly would have needed it!  What was so important to them that they forgot to attend to the most basic part of their job in preparation for the wedding banquet?  It would be like the maid of honor in a wedding today forgetting to plan a wedding shower – unthinkable!

    Just so, we certainly have nothing more important to do than to show up at the wedding feast of heaven with our flasks filled with the oil of salvation.  No other concern should distract us for our most basic job on earth, which is preparing for our life in heaven.  We must not be deterred from prayer, devotion, good works of charity, fasting, and zealous reception of the sacraments lest we hear those awful words the bridegroom spoke to the foolish virgins: “Amen, I say to you, I do not know you.”

    When we get to the feast, if our flasks are not full, it is already too late.  The last Sunday of the Church year is two weeks from today.  So this is a very good time to take a look back and see how well we have filled our flasks in the last year.  Have we been zealous to attend to our spiritual lives?  Have we been careful to be sure we have received the Sacrament of Penance on a regular basis?  Do we attend Mass every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, regardless of what else is going on in our lives, regardless if we are tired and need a rest, regardless of anything that might distract us?  Beyond the sacraments, do we take time to reflect on our relationship with God and try our best to live our lives as we have been called?  Have we even thought about what is the purpose of our lives right now?  Are we, at this point in life’s journey, walking with our Lord through good times and bad?  Or have we veered off the path, not even concerned about having the oil of salvation?  Have we been content with oil that does not burn brightly and which runs out just when we need it?

    If that’s where we have found ourselves this year, then we have some work to do in the coming weeks.  As we wind up this year and begin the next, we need to steadfastly resolve to fill our flasks to overflowing with the oil of salvation in the year ahead.  The only way we can do that is by zealously seeking our God, praying the prayer of the Psalmist:

    O God, you are my God whom I seek;
    for you my flesh pines and my soul thirsts
    like the earth, parched, lifeless and without water.

  • The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Mike was one of my favorite people in the world.  He owned the service station where my family had, and still has, our cars repaired and maintained ever since we first moved out to the suburbs, almost forty years ago now.  Dad used to joke that with all the cars we brought in there over the years, we probably had ownership in at least the driveway by now.  Mike was the kind of guy who, if you brought your car in for a tune-up, would call you and say, “your car doesn’t really need a tune-up yet, so I’ll just change the oil and a couple of the spark plugs and you’ll be fine.”  He was honest and did great work, and it seemed like everyone knew him. 

    Mike was a regular at the 7am Mass on Sunday, and after his retirement was a pretty regular daily Mass-goer.  The church would sometimes ask him to help a person in need with car repairs.  This he did gladly; he was always ready to serve.  Several years ago, when Mike died, I took Mom to his wake.  It took us an hour and a half to get in to see him and his family, and it was like that all night long.  His funeral packed the parish church, and eight of us priests concelebrated the Mass.  Mike left his mark on our community in incredible ways, and nobody ever forgot it.  Mike truly understood the kind of love that Jesus calls us to have in today’s Gospel.

    Today’s Gospel reading speaks to us about what is arguably the hallmark of Christian life: love of God and love of neighbor.  This two-pronged approach to loving is what life is all about for us. It is, in fact, the way we are all called to live the Gospel.  The scholar of the law is testing Jesus to see if he can come up with a way to discredit him.  But Jesus’ answer is one that the scholar can’t take issue with.  He boils all of the law and the prophets down to just two basic commandments: love the Lord your God with everything that you are, and then also love your neighbor as yourself.  There were over six hundred major and minor precepts in the Jewish law, and the scholars argued about them all the time.  But even given all that, they can’t take issue with what Jesus said.  In fact, the first of the laws that Jesus quoted, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind and soul…” was once that so many students of the law had memorized from the time they were little children.  In fact, most Jews did (and still do) post that particular quote of the law on their doorposts and reverence those words when they enter the home, so this was not new ground for them.  What was new here, was Jesus putting the love of neighbor parallel to that law.  And when you think about it, this is so common-sense.  If we love God and neighbor, there won’t be any room for sin or crime or anything like that.  It’s so simple.  And yet so hard to do.

    But it shouldn’t be that way: it shouldn’t have been hard for the Pharisees and it shouldn’t be hard for us either.  The Pharisees made up the strongest part of the religious establishment of the time.  They were so concerned about getting the law right, that they often missed the whole point of the law in the first place.  Jesus was always taking them to task for that.  The law came from none other than God himself, and he gave it for the good of the people, but the Pharisees used it to keep people under their thumb, which was what they were trying to do to Jesus here.

    And, to be clear, God is all about justice.  So if that’s how he wanted it, the law would indeed be very rigid.  But as we see from the small sample of the law we have in our first reading, God wanted justice to be tempered with mercy.  Sure, go ahead and take your neighbor’s cloak as collateral on a loan.  But you better give it back to him before sundown, because that’s all he has to keep him warm in the night.  Justice, in the eyes of God, is completely useless without the application of compassion.

    This shouldn’t be a surprise to those of us who have learned, as early as we can remember, that God is love.  God is love itself, and God cannot not love.  That’s what God does and who God is: he loves us into existence, loves us in repentance, loves us with mercy, and loves us to eternity.  God is love in the purest of all senses: that love which wills the good of the other as other.

    So when Jesus boils the whole Judaic law down to two commandments, it’s not like he’s made it easy.  As I said; it is simple, but simple doesn’t always mean easy.  It means giving the person who just cut you off in traffic a break, because you don’t know what’s really going on in their life.  It means showing kindness to your family after a long day, even when they’re testing your patience.  It means finding ways to be charitable and help those less fortunate.  And it means cutting yourself some slack when you mess up, even when you’ve just committed the sin you’ve been trying to stamp out of your life forever.  You have to love yourself if you are going to do what Jesus said: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  That’s one that people miss all the time.

    The whole law and the prophets depends on love.  The way we live our lives needs to show that we depend on love too.

    So let’s pray with that right now.  Closing your eyes for a moment, take some quiet time to think about someone who has wronged you in some way.  Or, if it’s closer to your heart, think about a sin or cycle of sin that you’ve been struggling with, or perhaps a mistake you have made that you just can’t forgive in yourself. (…)  Take a moment now to place that person, or yourself, in Jesus’ presence.  Give Jesus the offense the person has committed against you, or give him the sin you’ve been struggling with personally. (…)  How are you feeling about this right now?  Give Jesus those feelings. (…)  Let Jesus tell you how much he loves you right now.  That might be hard, especially if the person you need to forgive is yourself, but listen anyway. (…)  Tell Jesus how much you love him. (…)  Ask for his help to love the other person, or yourself, in the same way that he loves you. (…)

    Thank you, Jesus, for loving us.  Thank you for giving us the example of your love on the cross.  Thank you for laying down your own life out of love for us.  Thank you for never not loving me, no matter where I have gone or what I have done.  Help me to love as you love.  Help me to love you, love others, and love myself in the same way that you love me.  I love you, Lord, my strength.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Responsorial Psalm, Psalm 1; has always been one of my very favorite psalms. One interpretation of this Psalm is to look at it as a blueprint for blessedness. In Biblical terms, of course, blessedness equals happiness. So the person who doesn’t follow the counsel of the wicked or walk with sinners but instead meditates on the law of the LORD is happy, or blessed. This person is productive and vibrant, and all of his activities are prosperous. This person is contrasted to the wicked person who is anything but enduring. These are unhappy people who are driven away by the first storm that comes along.

    On the other hand, the Church has also looked at the blessed one in this psalm as referring to Christ himself. None of us is able to steer clear of evil all the time, nor meditate on God’s law day and night. But Jesus is the One who is like us in all things but sin and who is the fulfilled promise of God’s law. Jesus definitely is the tree planted near running water, which takes root strongly and shades us from the burning heat of evil under his never-fading leaves. Jesus is the one who can prosper any work that we do, if we just ask him to do so. If we want to know the person who really embodies the spirit of Psalm 1; then all we have to do is look to our Savior.

    But that doesn’t absolve us of our responsibility to become holy enough to take up the spirit of this Psalm within ourselves. We certainly don’t want to be the chaff which is driven away by the wind. Joining ourselves to our Savior, meditating on him day and night, as best we can, we can be refreshed by those running waters and become the sturdy trees that shelter the Church in good times and in bad. Blessed indeed are all of us who hope in the Lord.