Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings are challenging ones for us.  Certainly we hear a challenge to be welcoming: God’s house is a house of prayer for all peoples, Isaiah tells us.  But I don’t think these readings are just a spot check of our desire to be a welcoming community.  Instead, I think the readings go a little deeper.  And I refer especially to the Gospel.  In that story, it wasn’t really all about whether or not Jesus was welcoming; it was about the Canaanite woman’s faith.  This is what I think Jesus wants us to reflect on in today’s Liturgy of the Word.

    As we have been reading from Matthew’s Gospel this year, we have seen various levels of faith: “lacking faith” as seen in the Jewish community, most particularly in the Pharisees and Sadducees, “little faith” as seen in the disciples, and particularly in the Twelve, and “great faith” as seen in surprising places, like in the Canaanite woman today. We’re all on different places in our faith life, and I think today’s Scriptures give us time for a quick summer check-up to see where we are in that spectrum.

    Throughout our Gospel readings this past year, Jesus has run up against the religious leaders and even some of the Jewish people, those he was sent to save first, and found them seriously lacking in faith.  They have heard him preach and seen his mighty deeds just like everyone else, but could not square it with what they believed, so they refused to believe in him.  They thought he words were scandalous and his wondrous deeds were black magic.  It’s almost as if they wouldn’t recognize a miracle if one came up and bit them in the … behind.

    We have also seen Peter’s faith on display.  He is kind of the spokesman for the rest of the disciples, often putting into words what they may have been too chicken to express.  In last weekend’s Gospel, Peter was able to walk on the water when he had his eyes fixed on Jesus, but began to sink when he looked at the storm-tossed waves. Jesus pulled him out of the waves, saying “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  The disciples are those men of little faith, who were with him all the time, but often missing the point.  And Jesus often seems to be frustrated with their little faith and slow understanding.

    In today’s Gospel, though, we have “great faith” and from a surprising source.  The woman is a Canaanite, a member of the race of people who lived in the Promised Land until God gave it over to the Jews.  She is an outsider, who risked her life to cross into enemy territory.  She knows enough to give her daughter’s situation to Jesus.  And she is persistent enough to keep asking even though she is initially rebuffed.  The disciples find her so irritating, they want Jesus to send her away.  But he recognizes in her what he has been thirsting to find all along: great faith.  And with that great faith, she was able to return to her daughter, freed from the demon, healed from the inside out.

    So we have been able to see in Matthew’s Gospel over these past months, the range of faith.  From the lack of faith of the Jews and religious leaders of the time, to the little, almost fledgling faith of the disciples, to the surprisingly great faith of the Canaanite woman.  This begs the question in us, I think, of where we are in the journey of faith.  Have we yet to begin, or worse, have we chosen not to begin?  Do we hope our mere physical presence at Mass will be good enough?  Do we hear the word of God but refuse to let it sink in, to travel from our brain into our hearts?  Have we heard the Gospel but been very lax about living it?  Do we come to Mass only to leave this holy place and become a very different person in the parking lot, or in our homes, businesses and schools in the week ahead?  Do we find ourselves as lacking in faith as the Pharisees and Sadducees?

    Or are we tentative in our faith?  Are we among those who want to believe, but are afraid to take a leap of faith, afraid to walk on that choppy water?  Are we discouraged by what seems to be a lack of response to our prayers?  Are we angry with God because of something that happened – or didn’t happen – in the past?  Do we think it’s okay to miss Mass because we have other things to do?  Have we not gone to confession in a long time because we think our sins are too big, or because we think we don’t really sin that much?  Are we hesitant to pray about something because we think it’s too big for God to handle, or too little to bother him about?  Have we been looking for excuses to avoid something we know is God’s call in our life?  Have we been of “little faith?”

    Maybe we have found ourselves in one or the other of those places in the faith journey at different points in our lives.  I know I have.  But maybe too – I hope – we have found ourselves on more solid faithful ground.  Maybe we have taken a leap of faith and found ourselves blessed beyond our wildest imaginings.  Maybe we have answered God’s call and found grace to do the things we never thought we could.  Maybe we have given a problem or situation over to God and found out that in God’s time, healing came in unexpected ways.  Maybe we have been surprised by our faith from time to time and heard God say, “Great is your faith!”

    Like I said, I think many of us are in all of these places at different times of our lives.  And that’s okay as long as we make a little progress all the time, as long as we eventually find our faith taking us places we never thought we would go.  The life of faith is full of surprises, most of them good, some of them challenging or possibly even disheartening.  But when we approach it all in faith, all of it will work out for good in God’s own time.  When we give our lives to God, when we take the leap we know God is calling us to take, when we get out of our boat, we might just find ourselves walking on water, or feeding thousands, blessing others and sometimes saying just the thing someone else needs to hear.  All of this is God working through us, of course, all of it is because we have trusted God in some significant way.  In those moments, may we hear what Jesus said to the Canaanite woman: “Great is your faith!”

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Todays’ readings

    I think that today’s readings are readings that call us to hope.  The hope that we have is the presence of our God, even when things are falling apart – even when the wind and the rain and the earthquakes and fire threaten us, God is there.  I thought of that a lot this week.  A former parishioner’s house burned down after it was struck by lightening in one of the freakish storms we’ve been having.  A parishioner’s brother died saving a young man from drowning.  I visited one of my own relatives in the hospital today, and she was so agitated, so afraid she might die.  Even the most faithful among us has to ask, where is God in all this?

    I think Elijah can relate to us when we’re feeling this way.  The back story on our first reading is that Elijah has just come from soundly defeating all of the pagan “prophets” of Baal, which was very embarrassing to King Ahab and especially to Queen Jezebel, who vowed to take Elijah’s life in retaliation.  So he has been hiding out in a cave, not for protection from inclement weather, but for protection from those who sought his life.  In the midst of this, God asks Elijah why he is here.  Elijah explains that the people of Israel have been unfaithful and have turned away from God, not listening to Elijah’s preaching, and they have put all the other legitimate prophets to death.  Elijah alone is left.

    So God says that he will be “passing by” which in biblical language means that God will be doing a “God thing.”  God will be revealing his presence.  And so we have the story: there is a mighty wind, an earthquake and even fire.  But Elijah only recognizes the Lord’s presence in the tiny whispering sound.  The text says that the Lord was not in the wind, the earthquake or the fire.  I’m not sure I agree with that.  I do think that God is with us even in calamity, but wherever we experience his presence is where he is for us.  For Elijah, he needed the peace of the tiny whisper.  But we might need reassurance in the earthquake or the fire.

    Our gospel reading today I think proves that God is where we need him.  Jesus has just fed the multitudes, as you may remember from last week’s gospel.  After that, he takes some time alone to pray, and is so filled with the Spirit that he actually walks on water.  Again, here is Jesus “passing by” the disciples on the boat.  He reassures them that it is him, and Peter, the impetuous one, immediately asks if he can come out and walk on the water too.  Jesus says, “come.”

    For a while, he does okay. He’s making progress, walking toward Jesus. But then he stops looking at Jesus and starts looking at the storm: “But when he saw how strong the wind was he became frightened; and, beginning to sink, he cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” Do you see that? While he’s looking at Jesus, he is able to walk toward him, but as soon as he takes his eyes off Jesus in favor of looking at the storm, he sinks. “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” Jesus asks him, pulling Peter out of the water.

    So we might be tempted to criticize Peter for his lack of faith.  But we should remember that he, at least, had enough faith to get out of the boat.  The other eleven did not.  He got out of the boat because that’s where Jesus was – out there on the water.  Was Jesus present for him when the wind and the waves threatened to take his life?  Absolutely.  God is present for us when we are in the middle of the storm.

    Let’s try a little prayer experiment.  I’m going to ask you to close your eyes, but you have to promise not to fall asleep!  I want you to think about a crisis you’ve been in recently, or even one that’s still going on.  It might be little or big, but bring that to mind.  That crisis is the waves in the story.  Now you get to be Peter.  You’re on the boat, that safe refuge that is leading you to the place that Jesus has in mind for you.  Only on the voyage, your crisis begins a storm that tosses you around so badly that you can’t even see your destination anymore, and you fear for your life.  But you see Jesus on the water.

    You call out to him and he calls back for you to come to him.  You think about it for a minute, but you realize you have to give it a shot.  So you get out of the boat, that safe refuge that gives you some comfort even in the storm, and you start to walk toward Jesus across the stormy sea.  And you do okay for a while, but then you wonder if your prayers will ever be answered, or if there is any hope for your situation at all.  You feel the wind pushing at you and notice that the waves of your crisis are a lot uglier than you thought they were.  And you begin to sink into them, despairing that there is no hope for your situation.  And Jesus reaches out his hand to you, pulling you up out of the stormy sea.  The storm is still raging, but with Jesus’ help, you get back into the boat, and the waves calm down, and you continue the journey to the place where Jesus wants you to be, having made just a little bit of progress, confident that he is with you even in the storm.

    Whether we are experiencing wind, waves, earthquakes or fire, we can be confident that our Lord is with us.  We might still have to experience all those things, but we can go through them with hope that comes from the presence of our God, who is with us in our darkest times, whispering to us, or calling out to us from the water.

  • Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [A]

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

     

  • Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

     

  • Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

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

     

  • Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Monday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

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

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

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