Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • The Third Sunday of Lent

    The Third Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    There’s a lot of water in today’s Liturgy of the Word. The Israelites, near the beginning of their forty year journey through the desert, are beginning to miss some of the comforts of home, like water! So when they complain to the Lord, he gives them water in the desert. Which is pretty amazing – they had water in the desert! And in our Gospel today, our Lord stops along his own journey to get a drink of water from the Samaritan woman – and this whole interaction is less about Jesus’ physical thirst than it is about other kinds of thirst in the story – but more on that in a bit.

    We always have to think about why the Church is giving us these particular readings on this particular day. Why is it that we have part of the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert and the rather strange story of the interaction with the woman at the well today? Well, (no pun intended) whenever there’s this much water being mentioned in the readings, we need to think of a particular sacrament, and that sacrament of course is Baptism.

    Now maybe it makes a little sense. At our 9:30 Mass, we will have eight young people with us to experience the First Scrutiny of the Rite of Christian Initiation.  They are preparing to receive baptism at the Easter Vigil. But even that’s not the whole story, because this reading is for all of us. Lent itself is about baptism, and even if we’ve already been baptized, there’s still work to do. We are still being converted to become more like our Lord every day of our life. That’s what Lent is all about – getting back on the path and going a little farther forward. Lent points out for all of us that we’re still thirsty.

    For the Israelites, it’s hard to know what was going to help them. They’re just at the beginning of their journey and already they’re complaining. They get thirsty and the first thing they do is complain – not pray – and tell Moses that they’d rather be back in Egypt in slavery than out wandering around in the desert with nothing to quench their thirst. And it’s not like the slavery they experienced in Egypt was a minor inconvenience – it was pretty horrible and if they missed their quota even by a little bit, they were severely beaten. But sometimes it’s better the devil you know: sometimes we get stuck on what we’ve become used to and have given up yearning for something more.

    For the woman at the well, there’s a lot stacked against her and there is no reason Jesus should have been talking to her. In fact, the disciples, when they return and witness it, aren’t really sure what they should make of it. Because in that culture, nobody talked to Samaritans – it would be like striking up a casual conversation with an Isis member. And for a man to speak to an unaccompanied woman was unthinkable. But Jesus knew she was thirsty – see it wasn’t about his thirst at all, except, as Saint Augustine tells us, Jesus was thirsting for her faith.

    It’s a pretty weird conversation, to be honest. But in talking about her five previous husbands and the Samaritans’ practice of worshipping on the mountain, Jesus was pointing out how her own search for something to quench her thirst was so far pretty futile. She was looking for love in all the wrong places. The five men she was married to represented a history of failed attempts at finding love. And the guy she was shacked up with now represented the fact that she’d pretty much given up. But on some level, the fact that Jesus knew all this without her saying it woke her up a bit. And so then they talk about how the Samaritans worshiped. They were looking for God on the mountain, but the thing is, the God they were looking for is the same one that she had been searching for in her relationships, and he was standing right in front of her now.

    So what is it that is finally going to quench the thirst you have right now?

    Are you going to stay in the slavery of your former way of life, or do you want to journey on to the Promised Land? Are you going to continue to be content with failed or broken relationships, or are you going to refresh them with Living Water? Are you going to continue to leave God up on that mountaintop where he doesn’t get in the way of your daily life, until you need something? Or are you going to look him in the eye and ask him to give you what you really need so you’ll never thirst again?

    We’re all on a journey. All of us together are journeying on to the Promised Land of eternal life. And the only way we’re going to get there is by drinking deeply of the Living Water and allowing the One who gives it to us to lead us. It does mean, however, that we’ll have to leave Egypt, and our buckets, behind.

  • Friday of the Second Week of Lent

    Friday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Jesus tells us today a parable about himself – he is the son whose inheritance the tenants wanted to steal. And that’s how the leaders of Judaism saw it in those days. If Jesus were out of the way, they’d still be able to “corner the market” on religious leadership, unchallenged by his Gospel. They’d have all the blessings of religious leadership all to themselves, without having to be bothered about the authentic prophetic message. No one likes a challenging messenger, the religious leaders no more than the parable tenants, no more than Joseph’s brothers. But for those who stop to hear what they have to say, the blessing is more than we can imagine. Yes, they challenge us, but we never grow if we are not challenged. So the question is, who is the challenging messenger in our own lives, what is their message, and are we ready to hear it?

  • Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    This may shock you, but I don’t think the great sin of the rich man was the sin of neglecting poor Lazarus. Sure, that was certainly bad, but his greatest sin, I think, was that he trusted in himself instead of in God. That’s the deadly sin of pride, and the Fathers of the Church often tell us of the devastating effects of it. So the rich man thought he had everything he needed in life, and he trusted in himself and in his own means to get it. But he never had a relationship with God; he didn’t see that as something he needed. Would that he had heeded the prophecy of Jeremiah from today’s first reading.  You don’t see him praying in the story or even giving thanks to God for his riches. All you see is him doing is enjoying what he has amassed, to the neglect of the poor.

    So later on in the story, in death, he wants the good things God will provide for those who trust in him; people like Lazarus for example.   Lazarus has suffered much, and as the Old Testament Prophets proclaim, God is especially close to the poor and needy, so now he is exalted. But the rich man isn’t. He has already made his choice, and unfortunately now, trusting in himself doesn’t really help him at all.

    So the loud warning this morning is that we are all too often the rich man and not so often Lazarus. We have a lot of stuff, we are blessed on earth more than most of the people in the world today. But sadly that often puts us at odds with the things of heaven. We can’t reach out for those when we’re holding on to the passing things of this world. We can’t take the hand of Jesus when we’re grasping tightly the stuff life in this culture gives us.

    That’s why fasting is so important during Lent, as well as almsgiving: both bid us let go of passing things so that we can have, like Lazarus, things eternal. Both bid us trust in God, not in ourselves and other human beings. Jeremiah says it plainly today: “Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings, who seeks his strength in flesh, whose heart turns away from the LORD.” But, conversely, “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose hope is the LORD.”

    So the question is, in whom do we trust? In ourselves? In other people? Or in God? “Blessed are they,” the Psalmist says today, “who hope in the Lord.”

  • Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Many people who have been away from the Sacrament of Penance for a long time have said that they were afraid to come back to the Church because they felt like their sins defined them.  That they walked around with some kind of scarlet letter on their persons.  I think this is the experience that Isaiah is getting at when he says, “Though your sins be like scarlet, they may become white as snow; Though they be crimson red, they may become white as wool.”

    Our sins do not define us, they are absolutely not who we are, not who we have been called to be.  We are called to be people who embrace repentance, so that we can serve and worship our God in integrity of heart.  So for us, repentance has to include a commitment to justice for those we have marginalized.  As the prophet Isaiah commands us this morning: “redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow.”  Our penance and our righteousness has to be approached in humility, remembering that those who humble themselves will be exalted.  And repentance has its reward, as the Psalmist tells us: “To the upright I will show the saving power of God.”

    How do we need to repent today?  What does that need to look like for us?  Let’s take some quiet time to ask our God to guide us to humbling ourselves and repenting so that we can embrace the full graces of Lent.

  • The Second Sunday of Lent

    The Second Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Perhaps you recall last week’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus, having been baptized, was prompted and led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days and forty nights.  He fasted and prayed and near the end of it, he was tempted by Satan.  It’s a vivid image.  Today’s Gospel has Jesus, on the way to Jerusalem and his death, take Peter, James, and John up a mountain and is transfigured before them.  This is also a very vivid image.  These images are so vivid, in fact, that they are presented on the first and second Sundays of Lent every single year.  So the Church, I think, is giving us a framework for Lent and the spiritual life that we should pay attention to.

    There’s a connection between these two stories, these two images, that I have been reflecting on this week.  Deacon Pat made a point in his homily last week that got me thinking about that connection.  Speaking of what was going on in the temptation of Jesus, he pointed out that Satan waited until the end of the forty days, when the Gospel says Jesus was hungry.  That had to be the understatement of the millennium if Jesus fasted forty days and nights!  Deacon Pat’s point was that Satan waits until we are at a low point, just like Jesus was feeling all the physical and psychological effects of fasting so long.  Then he makes his move to tempt us.  When we are at a low point, we are more easily influenced by temptation.

    And that begins a cycle that I think we can all understand and perhaps relate to.  I’m guessing most of us have experienced it ourselves.  We are at a low point, so temptation comes to us.  Without our strength, we give in to temptation.  The Tempter lies to us, and promises things that he cannot and will not deliver, or tells us things about ourselves that are not true.  Jesus was tempted with bread, immunity from harm, and all the kingdoms of the world.  Satan has no power over any of this.  He has no power, ultimately, over us, because his main weapons, sin and death, have already been overcome by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Satan is a liar, but because we are at a low point, we believe the lies.  Then, when we give in to the lies, Satan convinces us of another whopper of a lie, and that is that we are unworthy of God’s love and mercy.  Which makes us feel even lower, so we get more temptation, and so on and so on and so on.

    But the Transfiguration gives us the foretaste and promise of what God is doing to break this sad cycle.  First, as we see in the figures of Moses and Elijah who appear with Jesus Transfigured, God gives us the guidance of the Law and the Prophets.  In these days, that means the guidance of the Church, who proclaims the Word and provides access to the Sacraments which provide healing and guidance and life. 

    Then God takes our brokenness, our sin and transgression, the sickness of our spirit battered by the Tempter, and he transfigures it.  He re-creates us into the glorified people we were created to be, so that we can be caught up in God’s life forever and live with him for eternity.  Finally, in the Transfiguration, God promises us that we, who are worth far more than the passing things that Satan promises us, have hope of the Resurrection.  Just as Jesus’ Transfiguration was a foreshadowing of the glorified body of his Resurrection, so it is for us a foreshadowing of the life of grace that we will inherit if we follow Jesus up that mountain.

    The cycle of temptation is a dirty, rotten thing.  It eats at us all the time and invites us to lower the bar and accept the lies that Satan offers.  But the Transfiguration proclaims that that kind of life is not what we were created for.  And through the disciplines of Lent, turning back to Christ, letting him interrupt the cycle of sin and shame in our lives, we can be transfigured into glory.  That’s our real promise, and it’s made by the One who never lies. 

    So hang in there on your Lenten promises.  If you haven’t started, it’s not too late.  All of our penance is turning down Satan’s lies in favor of God’s promises.  And God is the One who keeps his promises.

  • Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    The prophet Isaiah and Jesus speak today about the great power of words. Isaiah speaks specifically of the power of God’s word, a word that will not return empty but will go out and accomplish the purpose for which God sent it.  We see the word that the prophet speaks of here, of course as the Word – with a capital “W.”  That Word is Jesus Christ who comes to accomplish the salvation of the world, the purpose of God ever since the world’s creation.

    The prayer that Jesus gives us today, the classic prayer that echoes in our hearts in good times and in bad, is a prayer with a specific purpose in mind.  That prayer, if we pray it rightly, recognizes that God’s holiness will bring about a Kingdom where his will would be done in all of creation.  It begs God’s forgiveness and begs also that we too would become a forgiving and merciful people, just as God is merciful to us.  Finally, it asks for help with temptation and evil, something with which we struggle every day.

    Today’s readings are a plea that God’s will would finally be done.  That his Word would go forth and accomplish God’s purpose.  That his will would be done on earth as in heaven.  As we pray those familiar words, they can often go past us without catching our attention.  But today, maybe we can slow down just a little, and pray them more reflectively, that God’s will would be accomplished in every place, starting in our very own lives.

    Because to God belongs the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.

  • Saturday After Ash Wednesday

    Saturday After Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

    That’s advice I wish I’d taken sometimes when I’ve been coming down with something and think, “oh, it’ll pass.”  The sick need a physician!  How often have we had what we thought was a little cold or seasonal illness end up being much worse because we let it go, we didn’t want to go to the doctor? 

    Anyone who has battled an addiction will tell you how true this is.  Many have thought, “Oh, I can stop any time I want.”  But they really need that intervention, that twelve step meeting or that time with a counsellor to really do what’s needed.  You cannot make any progress in wellness in any aspect of life if you don’t admit you’re sick and accept help.  We all have difficulty doing that sometimes, I think, and much to our demise.

    It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life.  If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, congratulations, you can skip Lent.  In fact you don’t even need a Savior!  I say that in jest, but really it’s true.  Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us.  It’s been said that the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners.  And thank God that’s true, because all of us, me and you, all of us, need the medicine of grace in our spiritual lives time and time again.  And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that.  Let’s be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

    So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and ask him to heal us.

  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    In a sense, you know, we’re doing this wrong. We just heard Jesus give very explicit directions to his disciples that they were not to make a big deal about their fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.  They were to go to their rooms, close the door, and let it all happen before God alone, who sees what is hidden, and will repay them.  This directive is also given to us, who strive to live as Jesus’ disciples.

    But we might have to say that we come here today to get marked with the cross so that others will see it.  If we have ashes on our forehead, then Mom will know we went to church.  Or if we don’t have ashes on our forehead, people at work might say things like, “Hey, I thought you were Catholic…”  So I think we have lost sight of what the ashes mean.

    Why, then, the ashes?  I think the key to understanding the practice comes from the prayers that we say when we get the ashes.  The minister would say one of two prayers during this action.  Either:

    “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

    Or:

    “Repent, and believe in the Gospel.”

    Both of the prayers call on us to metanoia, which is a Greek word meaning “to change one’s mind.”  It’s kind of like the Apple commercials telling us to “think different.”  So Ash Wednesday, and really all of Lent, calls us to change our minds: we need to remember that we are dust, and we need to repent and believe.  

    Remembering that we are dust, and that one day we’re going to return to that dust is sobering.  But it’s the truth.  None of us is getting out of this life alive, at least in the physical sense, and we need to remember that death is there and can come at any time.  That forces the question, then, how should we be living? We want to be living as people who are travelling through this life, on a journey to heaven.  We want to live as people who are destined to live in the Kingdom of God.

    Repenting and believing in the Gospel sounds easy, but it really isn’t.  First of all, it means we have to repent, that is, we have to acknowledge that we aren’t living rightly, and work with all our hearts to change that.  Then we have to believe in the Gospel.  That means we have to live as if the Kingdom of God is at hand, because it is.  So we have to do good to others, we have to pray to God who wants a personal relationship with us.  We have to turn away from the things of the earth because they are so much less fulfilling than are the things of heaven.

    So when we receive ashes today, there’s a lot at stake.  It’s not a badge of honor or a mark of attendance, it’s a sacred promise.  It’s a promise to take up the crosses in our lives and change the parts of our lives that have relied all too heavily on the paltry things of earth.  It’s a promise that we will acknowledge our sins, seek forgiveness and reconciliation, and then live differently in the future.  It’s a promise that we will fast, give alms, and pray so that we can live worthily in the Kingdom.  It’s a promise that we will take on the ashen ugliness of our mortality, because God promises us the glowing radiance of resurrection.

    So the ashes today aren’t just a one-off. It’s not just getting the ashes and then saying “see ya next year.”  The ashes mean a whole lot more for us believers.  And receiving them today means we will take up the cross, not just this Lent, but all of our lives.

    Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

  • Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    There’s been a lot of arguing in the Gospels these last couple of days.  Yesterday, the disciples were arguing with the scribes when both groups found they were incapable of casting a demon out of a person who was ill.  Today, we have the disciples arguing among themselves because they find they don’t understand Jesus’ message.

    All of this arguing betrays a real lack of growth in faith among those disciples.  They probably felt like, since they were in Jesus’ inner-circle, they should have the answers.  And perhaps they should, but to their defense, they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit yet.  In a real sense, they were still in formation, and they shouldn’t have been so afraid to ask Jesus for clarification.

    Jesus’ lesson to them then comes from him putting a little child in their midst.  Receive a child like this in my name, he tells them, and you receive me.  What’s the point of that?  Well, receiving a child in Jesus’ name is an act of service, because a child can do nothing but receive at that point in their life.  So serving others in Jesus’ name is what brings us to the Father.

    I think the take-away for us is that trying to be smarter than everyone else isn’t what shows that we are faithful people. Instead of arguing our point, we need to ask God to help us get the point. And we have to be ready to act on our faith, instead of arguing about it.

  • Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  The writer of the letter to the Hebrews sums up for us this notion of faith, which can be so difficult to wrap our minds around.  What I love about the definition of faith that comes to us in this passage is that it seems to be telling us what we at some level already know: faith is a heritage.  The passage speaks of the faith of Abel, Enoch, and Noah, all stories we can readily read in our Old Testament, some of which we have heard during the past days as we have heard from the book of Genesis in our Liturgy of the Word, stories of men who had to really take a leap of faith because what they hoped for was unseen.  Only God could fulfill all their hopes and longings.

    The same, of course, is true for us.  We are living in difficult times.  The post-pandemic era has us still dealing with the disease and its medicines, supply-chain issues that have still not recovered from that time, and rising prices on everything in the grocery store.  There is uncertainty in the world, with wars being fought almost everywhere we can think of.  Our state and nation have political issues to the point that it’s hard to know which politicians are honest and which are not, and we almost hate to turn on the television and what’s happening today.  We also have our own personal family uncertainties, maybe loved ones are sick, or are suffering from depression.  Maybe relationships are strained.

    For all of us who live in these uncertain times, Jesus offers us hope.  We get a glimpse today at what we hope for and cannot now see: Jesus is transfigured before Peter, James and John.  This is a foretaste of the glory of the Resurrection, a glory that Jesus knew when he rose from the dead, and a glory that we yet hope for.  It’s not pie in the sky: we know that our promise in Christ is greater than any of the difficulties our time can bring us.  We know that faith is our heritage, and that that faith has led all of our forebears through times as difficult or more difficult than this.  Today, we have the promise of things hoped for and evidence of things unseen: Christ is our hope, yesterday, today and for ever.