Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

     

    There are two kinds of communication that are spoken of in today’s Gospel.  The first is rumor, and the second is truth.  The rumor in the Gospel came about as a result of a misinterpretation of the private conversation that Jesus and John were having.  Jesus tells Peter basically that it’s none of his business what Jesus wanted for John; Peter’s business is to follow Jesus.  But then even that got misinterpreted and a rumor started spreading that John would not die before Jesus returned.  What a tangled web rumor can weave, can’t it?

     

    But the second kind of communication is truth.  And while it often might seem that truth is in short supply, John says that there’s more than enough to go around.  If every bit of truth that Jesus said or gave witness to were written down, the world wouldn’t be able to contain the books to hold it.  So we have to be the people to choose truth over rumor.  There’s plenty of truth to tell, plenty of good news to share, plenty of gospel to which to bear witness.  There’s so much truth out there, that even Paul’s prison couldn’t keep him from proclaiming it.

     

    Blessed are those who proclaim the truth.  As the Psalmist says of them, “The just will gaze on your face, O Lord.”

     

  • May Crowning

    May Crowning

    Today's Readings: Acts 1:12-14, John 19:25-27
    [Mass for the school children.]

    There is a prayer, the “Hail Mary” that we say all the time.  How many of you know it, boys and girls?  Since we are crowning Mary today, I thought it might be a good thing to talk about that wonderful prayer and what it means, because just like every familiar prayer, we can sometimes forget what it means when we say it so often.

    “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee…”

    Mary never thought she was great all by herself.  She always knew that it was because the Lord had chosen her and that the Lord had given her his grace, his help, that she could live a holy life and be the mother of Jesus.

    “blessed art thou among women…”

    Because Mary was holy, she is able to help all women to lead a holy life.  When they follow her as mothers or even as women of faith, they have a wonderful role model.  She was the first of all the apostles, the queen of the apostles, and that was because of her faith.  She is an example for all women, and really all people of faith.

    “and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.”

    Mary was the first earthly temple that Jesus was to be in.  Because of God’s grace and her faith, she was the perfect home for Jesus to be born in.  And she said yes to that, even though she wasn’t sure how it would happen or what it would mean.  She was faithful to God by saying “yes.”

    “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”

    It almost seems weird for us to say that Mary could ever be the mother of God.  But Jesus was just as much a human as he was God.  Every human has a mother, and so Mary is the human mother of Jesus who is God and man.

    “pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.”

    This is what makes us celebrate Mary today.  She is not just the mother of Jesus.  She is also the mother of John, the “favorite disciple” in our Gospel reading today.  And she is also the mother of you and me, Jesus’ “favorite disciples” today.  Just like every other good mother, Mary prays for all of her children, including you and me, all the time – now and at the hour of our death.

    Sometimes we forget how important familiar prayers are.  They say a lot, though, about what we believe.  The “Hail Mary” says everything about why we crown Mary as Queen of the Apostles, Queen of the Church, and Queen of Heaven and Earth today.  She was faithful, she said yes to God’s will, she prays for us all the time.  Mary is the mother of all of us, and as we come close to Mother’s Day, it is so appropriate that we give Mary the gift of our love and devotion today. 

  • Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

     

    Sometimes we get an idea and it seems well, a little uncomfortable.  We may well have had a call or even a gentle moving from the Lord, and are afraid to act on it.  Today’s Scriptures speak to those of us who are sometimes hesitant to do what the Lord is calling on us to do.

     

    I think St. Paul must have been exhausted by this point in his life.  As we hear of him in our reading from Acts today, he is saved from one angry mob, only to learn he is to go to another.  Out of the frying pan and into the fire.  He has borne witness to Christ in Jerusalem, but now he has to go and do it all over again in Rome.  And underneath it all, he knows there is a good chance he is going to die.

     

    In the Gospel today, Jesus prays for all of his disciples, and also for all those who “will believe in me through their word.”  And that, of course, includes all of us.  He prays that we would be unified and would be protected from anything or anyone who might seek to divide us from each other, or even from God.  He says that we are a gift to him, and that he wishes us to be where he will be for all eternity.

     

    What we see in our Liturgy today is that God keeps safe the ones he loves.  If he calls us to do something, he will sustain us through it.  Maybe we’ll have to witness to Jesus all over again or we’ll have to defend our faith against people in our community or workplace or school who just don’t understand.  We might well feel hesitant at these times, but we can and must go forward, acting on God’s call.  When we do that, we can make our own prayer in the words of the Psalm today: “Keep me safe, O God; you are my hope.”

     

  • Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

     

    The two readings we have in today’s Liturgy of the Word are a bit of a coincidence.  We have been reading, these Easter days, sequentially from the Acts of the Apostles in the first reading, and for the Gospel from John.  Today we see both central characters wrapping up their life’s work and taking leave of those they have ministered to and with.

     

    In our first reading, St. Paul takes leave of the Church at Ephesus.  He recalls that he has been diligent in preaching the Truth to them, and clearly feels that he has lived his vocation as best he could.  He takes leave of them, knowing he will not see them again, but confident that his preaching and example, if carefully followed, would lead them to the Lord.  He could not be held responsible for any of them finding they had lost the way.

     

    In the Gospel, Jesus prepares to take leave of his apostles and disciples, and is offering a prayer to his Father.  He prays that his death would glorify the Father – which of course it would! – and prays for those he will leave behind.  He too knows that his preaching and example would lead them where he was soon to go.  He in a sense gives them back to the Father, since their lives had been reclaimed by his ministry.

     

    We all have people for whom we are responsible.  They may be children, spouses, students, coworkers, neighbors.  Some people have been put in our lives for the express purpose of their formation in the Gospel.  We are expected to preach the Truth to them, in word and most especially in example.  When we have done that to the best of our ability, we know that when the day comes to take leave of them, they will have all the tools to live a life of faith and find their way to God.

     

    And so today we pray for those for whom we are responsible.  We cannot live their lives for them; all we can do is to teach them as best we can and provide the best example possible.  We pray for them, knowing that God can bring to fruition whatever it is that we have planted.

     

  • Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

    We believe that Christ is present whenever we gather in his name.  He said as much to us in another place: “Wherever two or more are gathered in my name, I am there in their midst.” (Matthew 18:20)  We reverence the presence of Christ in one another and can feel him present among us as we pray.  The song we have sung this year – “You’re the only Jesus” – celebrates that we may well be the person who introduces someone else to Christ, that they will come to know Christ as they come to experience our love and care for them.  Christ is present when we gather.

     

    We believe that Christ is present when we worship.  The Word of God, as it is proclaimed in the Church, is not just a nice story or an interesting precept for life.  We believe that God is present in the very proclaiming of the Word itself.  And so at times we may hear the Scriptures and experience a stirring in our heart that leads us to a new way of thinking or acting.  This is because Christ is present – in a sacramental way – in the proclamation of the Word.  And the Sacraments themselves make Christ present when we celebrate them in worship, and we experience that in a special way when we celebrate the Eucharist and receive the body and blood of our Lord in Communion.  We have celebrated that in a special way this weekend with our children who have received First Eucharist.  But we celebrate that every time we gather for Mass, whether it be our First Eucharist or our 3,492nd Eucharist!  Christ is present to us when we worship.

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

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

     

  • Sixth Sunday of Easter

    Sixth Sunday of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    As we have gathered these last several weeks to continue our celebration of Easter, maybe you noticed that we have always had a reading from the Acts of the Apostles as our first reading.  In these readings, we have been hearing about an almost idyllic community, a community that has shared its resources, taken care of the poor, and even worked through a dispute with a grace that is rarely seen anywhere.  If you’re like me, it’s almost hard to relate to such an exalted community, and maybe you find yourself wondering why we would read these readings, when they only contradict the way Christians really live in the world.

    I had a seminary professor who used to tell us “the Christian life looks like something,” “discipleship looks like something.”  If we don’t have a picture of what discipleship means or know something about how the Christian life looks, then we have nothing at all to strive for.  So, even though the First Community in the book of Acts seems a little out of step with our experience, if we never read about them, well, then we’d have nothing to strive for, no goal to achieve.  Today’s readings, in particular, I think, give us a picture of what the Christian life looks like.  Our Liturgy of the Word has proclaimed to us that the Christian believers’ lives are marked by joy, holiness of life, and love.  Let’s take a look at each of these.

    First of all, the Christian believer’s life is marked by joy.  We saw that pretty clearly in the first reading.  “There was great joy in that city,” the Acts writer tells us, and for pretty good reason.  The particular reason for their joy was that “unclean spirits, crying out in a loud voice, came out of many possessed people, and many paralyzed or crippled people were cured.”  Anyone who experiences such radical, miraculous blessings cannot help but be overcome by joy.  But again, how close is that to our experience?  When was the last time you saw Fr. Ted or me walk into a room and evil spirits came out of people with loud cries?  Sometimes I’m at a meeting where I wish I could do that, but I digress…

    The point is that we believers are all on for exorcising demons and binding up the wounds of the broken and healing those who are paralyzed.  Because people are possessed by all sorts of demons: addictions, sinful behavior, ignorance, just to name a few.  When any of us witnesses to those people, walks with them through their pain, or mentors them, we are exorcising their demons.  And people are paralyzed by all sorts of things.  Failure, grief, and depression paralyze people all the time.  Whenever one of us reaches out to someone in those conditions and helps them to get back on their feet, we are healing them.  And that kind of healing, that kind of exorcism, goes on all the time.  And because of that, there should always be great joy in Naperville.

    Teilhard de Chardin wrote that “joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.”  Those of us who have been healed or forgiven, those of us who have been raised up out of our weakness know that it is through the presence of God that that has happened.  God may may well be working through the hands and lips of one of our brothers or sisters, because that is often the way that he chooses to make known his abiding presence.  Maybe the demons don’t all go away at once, and maybe it takes a little therapy before we can really walk steadily once we’re back on our feet, but God is present in all of that, and for that we should not cease to celebrate with great joy.  We are called to a joy that persists even amid the stormy times of life, a joy that we can find in those who reach out to us, or gratitude for small blessings.  My grandmother used to say, “Thank God for small favors!”  We are a people who are blessed even when our life is a mess, because God is still and always present to us.  The Christian believer’s life is marked by joy.

    Secondly, the Christian believer’s life is marked by holiness of life.  This is a tough one and we would probably all be quick to object that we are not, nor could we ever be, truly holy.  But this is not the time for self-deprecating false humility.  Until we accept the fact that every single one of us, through our baptism, is consecrated, set aside and called to be a saint – yes, a saint – until we realize that and accept it, we have not even begun to live the Christian life.  Listen to what St. Peter says to us in our second reading once again:

    Always be ready to give an explanation
    to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope,
    but do it with gentleness and reverence, keeping your conscience clear,
    so that, when you are maligned,
    those who defame your good conduct in Christ
    may themselves be put to shame.
    For it is better to suffer for doing good,
    if that be the will of God, than for doing evil.

    So he calls us to three specific forms of holiness here: hopefulness rooted in Christ, gentleness and reverence to all people, and clarity of conscience.  We have to have a hope that is rooted in Christ.  Some days, it’s hard for some people to find any reason to go on.  But even when everything seems to be falling apart, there is still Christ.  Even if we think we are worthless, we certainly are not, because God created us in his image, and sent his Son to redeem us.  We have been purchased at a very great cost, and so it is with this confidence in Christ’s love for us that we can be hopeful people who look toward the future with conviction and courage.  But even in doing that, we are called to be gentle and reverent to all.  We have absolutely no business being engaged in racism, hatred, or even moral self-righteousness.  We are made good and redeemed by God, but so is everyone else on the planet.  We have no right to treat anyone with anything less than gentleness and reverence.  And finally, we are to be people of clean conscience.  This means avoiding scandal, not getting caught up in anything remotely immoral, always providing all people with a holy example, so that no one will be led astray.  This means we have to flee all sorts of evils, all kinds of obstacles that would and will drag us down if we let them.  In hope, reverence, gentleness, and clarity of conscience, the Christian believer is marked by holiness of life.

    Finally, the believer’s life is marked by love.  In the last two sentences of the Gospel reading today, Jesus uses the word “love” four distinct times.  Listen again: “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me.  And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  As my father used to say, “actions speak louder than words,” and so the love we are called to is a love that is evident by the way that we live and the way that we treat others, more so than a sentimental, warm fuzzy love where we’re all joining hands and singing “Kumbaya.”  Jesus is very specific here that the love we are called to is a love that begins with God and returns to God, a love that manifests itself in following the commandments.  The commandments of Jesus are also wrapped up in love.  Remember that in Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus is asked which of the commandments is most important, he says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment. 
    The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39)

    So Jesus tells us today that we are called to love by keeping his commandments, and these commandments consist in loving God and neighbor, the commandment that distinguishes the Judaeo-Christian way of life.  In today’s Gospel, it almost seems like it’s a quid-pro-quo kind of love: “whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”  But we know this is not true.  We can love each other and love God because God loved us first, and loves us best.  Even when we are clearly unworthy of it, God’s love still draws us back to him.  We celebrate a season of God’s love right now: we remember that nothing, not even the cross and grave could stand in the way of God’s love for us.  What is happening in today’s Gospel is that Jesus is calling us to love in that same way.  Our love, too, must be unconditional, sacrificial, laying down our lives for one another and for our witness to God in Christ.  The Christian believer’s life is marked by love.

    I’m sure at this point you’re thinking, “thanks Father Pat, none of this makes me feel like living the Christian life is any easier, any closer to something I can do.”  And you’re right.  You can’t.  I can’t.  None of us is ever capable of persistent, abiding joy, of holiness of life, or of unconditional, sacrificial love all on our own.  We just don’t have the capability for that kind of living.  But the good news is that we don’t have to be the ones to do it.  We who often fail to find joy in our living, we who struggle for holiness of life and fall flat on our face on our better days, we who yearn to be able to love as we are loved, we are given the incredible grace of the Holy Spirit to be able to make it happen.  Having converted Samaria to the faith, the early Christian community sent them Peter and John.  When they got there, they prayed for the newly-baptized Samaritans and it was then that they received the Holy Spirit.  In our Gospel today, Jesus says, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth…”  We who are baptized in Christ and anointed with the spirit have the special grace to be surprised by joy seemingly out of nowhere, to find strength to make a difficult choice for holiness of life, and to love those in our lives that are sometimes seemingly unlovable.  We do all of this guided by the strength and grace of the Holy Spirit, who is just as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe.  This gift of the Holy Spirit is why the Psalmist today can sing, “Come and see the works of God, his tremendous deeds among the children of Adam.” And we can reply, “Alleluia!  Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!  Alleluia!”

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

     

    I love it when engaged couples pick this reading for their weddings.  Not just because it’s sentimental, all talking about love and everything.  I like it because of the way it talks about love.  Because it would be easy enough to say that if we just love each other a little more, everything will be fine.

     

    But Jesus reminds us that this is not how love works.  And that sentiment is not at all what he had in mind when he said “Remain in my love.”  The word “remain” here is a translation of the Greek word meno, which is a word that connotes an abiding presence, a rootedness at one’s core.  “Remain” is too passive a word, kind of like sitting around and doing nothing, all covered with the love of God.  I think the better translation would be “live and breathe always in my love.” 

     

    And that’s what Jesus goes on to say.  “If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”  So this remaining in Jesus’ love involves keeping his commandments.  Do you remember what those commandments were?  Well, they revolve around love.  In Matthew’s Gospel, when the scholar of the law asks which of the commandments was the greatest, Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  (Matthew 22:37-39)

     

    Putting God and neighbor first in the same way as Jesus did for us is what this kind of love entails.  And note carefully that the way Jesus put us first was by laying down his life on the cross.  Remaining in Jesus’ love, the command he gives us today, involves loving others in a sacrificial way, putting aside our own interests and ambitions at times, dying to self, so that we can give life to others. 

     

    But this is not to make ourselves martyrs or even grumpy Christians.  This love leads to true joy, because in many ways it takes away the worry of having to think about ourselves.  “I have told you this so that my joy might be in you and your joy might be complete.”  And so it is with great joy that we remain in Christ’s love; loving others as he has loved us – sacrificially and unconditionally.  And with this great love, as the Psalmist says, we “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations.”

     

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    What wonderful words of encouragement and consolation we have in today’s Gospel reading: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”  We can think of all sorts of situations in which these words would be welcome.  We have all experienced health problems in ourselves or in those close to us, job difficulties, family problems, and so many more.  How wonderfully consoling it is to know that in the midst of the many storms we daily face, our Savior is there offering us peace.

    But the peace Jesus offers us in this reading is a bit different from what we might expect.  It’s not the mere absence of conflict, nor is it any kind of placating peace the world might offer us.  This peace is a genuine one, a peace that comes from the inside out, a peace that calms our troubled minds and hearts even if it does not remove the storm.  There is a contemporary song that says, “Sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.” 

    God knows that we walk through storms every day.  He experienced that first-hand in the person of Jesus as he walked our walk in his earthly life.  He knows our joys and our pains, and reaches out to us in every one of them with his abiding presence and his loving embrace.  Just because he does not walk the earth today, does not mean God has left us alone in it.  His presence abides in us through the Church, through the holy people God has put in our lives, through his presence in our moments of prayer and reflection, and in so many ways we could never count them all.  This peace from the inside out is one that our God longs for us to know, whether we are traversing calm waters or braving a vicious storm.

    Our Psalm today responds for us to this gift of peace: “May my mouth speak the praise of the LORD, and may all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever.”  In our quiet moments in today’s liturgy, we should all take some time to realize the gift of God’s peace. 

  • Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    I remember – vaguely – the experience of moving into a new house when I was little.  I was about eight at the time, but events like that stand out because they are so significant in our lives.  Anyway, I remember going out with Mom and Dad and looking at some new houses.  They liked one very much, and that’s the one they bought.  In the weeks that followed, they went out to the new house a few times to get it ready for us to move in.  There were parts of the house that needed a good deep-cleaning, some nail holes to fill up where pictures had once hung, and more than a few coats of paint were needed in the living room to cover a pretty hideous shade of, well, I guess it was green.  Other little tasks were accomplished as well, and finally on Memorial Day weekend of that year, we were able to move in to the house.

    That’s almost the picture I get when we hear Jesus say today, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?”  But it’s not that way, of course.  In the case of God’s dwelling place, we needed our Savior to return there so that the way could be paved for us.  Because we fallen people had no access to God’s house – our sinfulness had cut us off from God, and it was only the death and resurrection of Christ that could ever restore us to the inheritance that God always wanted for us.  So Jesus wasn’t going back to the Father just to put a few more coats of paint on our new dwelling place: he was going back to the Father to ready the way for us.

    So today’s Scriptures, I think, give us the goal, the way to get to the goal, and the effects of achieving that goal.

    The goal is made pretty clear in the Gospel reading today.  The goal is that mansion that Jesus speaks of – the Father’s house in which there are many dwelling places.  It’s a mansion in which there is room for everyone, just as long as they find the way to get there.  This reminds us that as nice as our home may be here on earth, there is something better awaiting us.  It also serves as a reminder to those whose earthly home is difficult, or even non-existent, there is a place where they truly belong.  Whatever our current living situation, however entrenched we are in our earthly life, we are reminded today that we are not home yet, that ultimately there is a place where we can live that will make us feel truly at home for all eternity.

    So our goal is our heavenly home.  The way to get to that goal is made pretty clear in the Gospel too.  Jesus is very direct about saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  So if we want to get to our promised inheritance, there is just one way to get there, and that is through Jesus Christ whose sole mission was to pave the way for us to get back home.  Notice very carefully that Jesus does not say, “There are several ways, and I am just one of them; there are many possible truths, and you can hear one of them in me; you can live your life all sorts of ways, and my life is a nice one.”  No – he says “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  This is a statement that has all sorts of implications for the work of evangelization, because if we believe this, seriously believe it, then we have to make sure that everyone comes to know the Lord.

    Does this mean that those who do not ever come to know the Lord will never receive the heavenly inheritance?  Put another way, more directly perhaps, does this mean that non-Christians don’t go to heaven?  That’s a tough one.  Vatican II addressed that concern by stating that while the fullness of the means of redemption were present in the Catholic Church, still there are elements of redemption present outside the Church.  It says, “… some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.”  (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3)  Basically, we don’t have a monopoly on how Christ reveals himself to people, and we cannot know the depths of God’s mercy.  Still, helping people to come to know the Lord needs to be at the top of our to-do lists.

    So the goal is heaven, and the way is Christ.  The readings today also give us the effects of achieving the goal.  Those effects include a community where relationships can overcome difficulties, a relationship with God the Father, and an ability to do amazing works in the name of Christ.

    In the first reading, we see the early community addressing perhaps the first challenge they have had.  There is an inequity in the distribution of aid to the widows, and presumably, their children.  This is not unlike inequities that exist in parishes everywhere at one time or another.  But, being that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and that they had chosen Christ as their way, truth and life, they were able to resolve the issue in a prayerful way.  They are able to appoint seven members of the community to take care of that, so that the Apostles can continue to preach the word.  There is an attention to the needs of the less fortunate, there is a sharing of authority, and an empowerment of the community.  These are all fruits of trusting Jesus to be our way.

    The second effect of achieving our goal is a relationship with God the Father.  This is very directly what Jesus came to accomplish.  Jesus, the one who was completely united with the Father, came to our world so that we could have that same relationship.  That would not ever have been possible without Christ, because the only way to know the Father is to know him.  Because of their complete unity, when we see Christ, we see the Father.  As Jesus says to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?  The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.”  This also has implications for us believers.  Because people come to see Christ in us, they will come to see the Father in us as well.  This promise makes it all the more important that we make sure that we are not an obstacle to people coming to know the Lord.

    And finally, the third effect of achieving our goal is that we can do great works in the name of Christ.  Some people say that Jesus never came to establish a Church, but today’s readings tell us that is patently false.  He certainly came to establish a Church, because after his death and resurrection, it was the actions of the Church that continued his saving work.  It was the Church that continued the healing, reaching out to the needy, preaching the Word, and all the rest.  And the Church continues this saving work in our own day.  We are empowered to do wonderful works: to preach, to heal, to serve and love in the name of Jesus Christ.  None of this happens on our own, or as a result of our own ambition.  It only happens by joining ourselves to the One who is the way,
    the truth and the life.

    There’s a lot at stake in our Scriptures today.  There is a world that needs to know Jesus so that they too can know the Father and experience the joy of a real home.  There is a world that needs to know the touch of Jesus so that they can be healed and strengthened for life’s journey.  There is a world that needs to hear the Word of Jesus so that they can come to the way, the truth and the life.  It’s on us now, none of us can be passive observers or consumers only.  As St. Peter says today, we “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that [we] may announce the praises’ of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  We are not home yet, but we can get there through our Jesus, our way, our truth, and our life. 

  • Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    Today’s readings are full of messengers.  In the first reading, Paul is a messenger bringing news of the real meaning of the ancient Scriptures in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  And he speaks of another messenger, John the Baptist, who paved the way for the coming of Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance.  In the Gospel, Jesus points out that a messenger is never greater than the one who sent him, and that those messengers sent by Christ should be accepted as Christ, since Jesus himself was sent by the Father.  Accepting the messenger is accepting Jesus is accepting God the Father.

    The word messenger goes back to old French and Latin words for “send” and is closely tied to the word “mission.”  The messenger is truly on a mission from the one who sent him.  When you think of it, all of us disciples are messengers on a mission.  We all have been charged with the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and witnessing to Christ.  We do that in our own ways; sometimes, as St. Francis would say, we use words.  But often we do not.  Most often our witness depends on how well we live our mission, the message that we send comes in the things we do and the way we live.  As my father used to say, “actions speak louder than words.”

    And so we come to this place to be nourished for our mission.  We hear the words of Scripture that gives us the message to preach and receive the Eucharist that gives us strength for the journey.  People will come to know Christ as they come to know us.  We pray that our message might be a good one, a message that compels everyone we meet to turn to our God.  Because the mission, the message that we have is better than anything on earth.  As the Psalmist says, “For ever I will sing the goodness of the Lord.”