Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/110605.htm

    I should begin with at least an acknowledgement that this reflection is late. That had something to do with getting ordained to the diaconate on Friday, preaching on Saturday, and baptizing my niece on Sunday. More on all of that later. But when I preached on Saturday, I preached on this very text. So without further ado…

    The kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins
    who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom.
    Five of them were foolish and five were wise.
    The foolish ones, when taking their lamps,
    brought no oil with them,
    but the wise brought flasks of oil with their lamps.

    First, we have to understand the parable. Wedding customs in first century Palestine were a little different than those we know today. The wedding was a drawn out affair, beginning with the betrothal. After that, the couple was married but would not live together until the complex negotiations regarding the dowry were complete. When that was done, the bridegroom would go to the bride’s house and bring her to his own house. Then there would be a splendid feast that would go on for several days.

    So the parable happens just as the negotiations are complete and they are expecting the bridegroom to go to the bride’s house. He is delayed a bit, and they all fall asleep. But that is not the problem. The problem is that half of them were unprepared.

    I think we bristle a bit at the wise virgins’ refusal to share their oil with the foolish. Jesus was always for sharing and charity, so what’s the deal here? Well, since we know Jesus regularly encourages such sharing, I think we can safely conclude that is not the point of the parable and move on. The point of the parable then, may well be the oil itself. Of what is this oil symbolic?

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

    What gets me is that five of these virgins showed up unprepared. We may not be familiar with first-century Palestinian wedding customs, but they certainly were. So they would have known the wedding would go on for some days. How is it, then, that they forgot extra oil? Even if the bridegroom had not been delayed, they certainly would have needed it! What was so important to them that they forgot to attend to the most basic part of their job in preparation for the wedding banquet?

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

    When we get to the feast, if our flasks are not full, it is already too late. As we approach the immanent end of this Church year (there’s just less than three weeks left), let us look back and see how well we have filled our flasks in the last year. And let us steadfastly resolve to fill those flasks to overflowing in the year ahead. The only way we can do that is by zealously seeking our God, praying the prayer of the Psalmist:

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

  • Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/103005.htm

    The greatest among you must be your servant.
    Whoever exalts himself will be humbled;
    but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

    The idea of servant leadership is a hot topic for me these days. As I and my friends prepare to be ordained as transitional deacons, the whole meaning of the word is encompassed in today’s Gospel reading. The Greek word, diakonos, means service. In Christ’s Kingdom, those who are to lead, are to serve, as He did.

    The model for our service, and our leadership, is Christ on the Cross. Love who and what He loved … all the way to death. It’s a hard act to follow, but then, we’re not expected to do it alone. All of us are called to this kind of service, but especially those of us who are called to lead. There is no leadership in the Kingdom that is not service — none.

    So we don’t get to widen our phylacteries (I’ve always wanted to use that word in my blog!) and we can forget about lengthening our tassels: the concept of Christian leadership isn’t just for show. And if our leadership is really authentic, then it won’t take wide phylacteries or long tassels to see it. This doesn’t mean we don’t wear clerical garb or anything like that; it simply means that the garb is the afterthought — service comes first.

    If we have learned anything in these past few years about leadership, it ought to be that we can’t just get by on our looks. That gets us into trouble every time. Forget what it looks like, serve the Lord, serve His people, serve His Church, serve the Kingdom. If that’s where our focus is, everyone will see that, and people will be moved.

    St. Paul says it well in today’s second reading from his first letter to the Church at Thessalonica:

    You recall, brothers and sisters, our toil and drudgery.
    Working night and day in order not to burden any of you,
    we proclaimed to you the gospel of God.
    And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly,
    that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us,
    you received not a human word but, as it truly is, the word of God,
    which is now at work in you who believe.

    Servant leaders do not ask people to bow and scrape to them. Instead, they roll up their sleeves, and work for the sake of the Kingdom of God. It is then that the Gospel gets preached not just in words, but in our very living. St. Francis said well that we are to preach the Gospel at all times, using words “when necessary.”

    Our living is our preaching, and our preaching is our living.

  • Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/102305.htm

    “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”
    He said to him,
    “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.
    The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

    First of all, I’m sorry this reflection is late. I know some of you check this blog out frequently for lectionary reflections, and I appreciate that … you’ve been keeping me honest! So with that in mind, and my sincere apologies, let’s look at last Sunday’s scriptures.

    Jesus quotes with all of the ease of being a good Jew the greatest commandments. He has been taught them from his youth, as all Jewish children would have been. (We’ll just let go for now the special knowledge he may have of these based on his divinity…) But the important part is his last sentence: The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments. With all the skill of a good rabbi, Jesus sums up the scriptures in one call to action: love of God and love of neighbor.

    It’s simple. As we dedicate ourselves to God and one another, we fulfill everything the law and prophets always tried to do. The Gospel, though, gives us the mechanism to really do it: freedom. God always meant for us to be truly free, and that freedom does not equal “license” or lawlessness. It does not equal doing whatever we want or expressing any thought that crosses our minds: our freedom cannot trample the rights and freedoms of others, or we have lost sight of the goal of the greatest commandments.

    True freedom is ridding ourselves of the attachments that keep us from loving God and neighbor fully. Everything that holds us back and drags us down must be cut away mercilessly or we cannot love God and neighbor freely. And ironically, when we do not love God and neighbor freely, we are never really free.

    The hard part is cutting away the attachments: the relationships that are not healthy; the entertainments that do not edify; the concern for self that does not let us reach out to others; the desire for success that manifests itself in greed. The list can get long, and it can be hard to identify those attachments in our lives. But the Psalmist today gives us the criteria:

    I love you, O LORD, my strength,
    O LORD, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer.

    Whatever takes our eyes off this truth, this praise, this love of God who is our Savior, that must be cut away. Mercilessly.

    This is painful, yes. But the payoff is great: true freedom.

  • 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    29th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/101605.htm

    At that he said to them,
    “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
    and to God what belongs to God.”

    Whose image is this?

    I think this statement begs the question, “What doesn’t belong to God?” I think I’ve often missed this irony on Jesus’ part.

    After all, Jesus certainly wasn’t preaching that we should compartmentalize our lives: every part of our lives belongs to God, and we owe it all back to Him. Every moment of our time, every earthly treasure we may own, all of our talents and gifts, our health and well-being, our very breath … all of this belongs to God. And all of it has been given to us as a great trust.

    We are stewards of all that we are and all that we have. We need to get it right, and to live every moment as though we were borrowing these great treasures from our generous and giving God.

    The thought occurs to me that these words may seem empty to those who have comparatively little. Those who don’t have great health, or great wealth. The unemployed and those with financial troubles. The aged and lonely. So many have what seems to be great poverty. Yet many of those who might be considered very poor can teach the rest of us how to get it right. So many who have comparatively little give what little they have, knowing it belongs to God.

    Because with God it doesn’t matter whether we’re wealthy or not, healthy or sick: what matters is that we use what we have for God’s purposes and that we sing with the Psalmist:

    Give to the LORD, you families of nations,
    give to the LORD glory and praise;
    give to the LORD the glory due his name!

  • 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    28th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/100905.htm

    Wedding Garment

    “But when the king came in to meet the guests,
    he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.
    The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it
    that you came in here without a wedding garment?’
    But he was reduced to silence.
    Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet,
    and cast him into the darkness outside,
    where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’”

    Deacon Bob at my home parish today spoke of this parable as a case of someone wanting the Kingdom of heaven, but on his own terms. That really struck a chord with me. I had been thinking about the whole idea of the wedding garment as I lived with this Scripture this week. It’s a colorful detail that’s really hard to overlook in this parable, and I think it has to be explained homiletically.

    It probably stands out because it can be seen as an example of Jesus being unfair. If the man was poor, as we can perhaps surmise from the fact that he was brought in off the street, how could Jesus have expected him to be in a proper garment? But we’re told by scholars that at the time, when someone threw a wedding feast, they provided the regal garments for their guests to wear. So Jesus wasn’t expecting the man to do anything difficult: he was invited, he presumably knew the custom, he was provided with a proper and beautiful garment, but he refused to put it on. He wanted to be at the feast, but on his terms, not those of the host.

    The feast foreshadows the great wedding feast in the Kingdom of heaven to which we are all invited. Jesus goes so far as to have his servants call people in off the streets, from the highways and biways; he has his servants bring people in from wherever they are. And that’s the wonderful thing about the heavenly banquet: all are welcome, indeed, all are brought in, no matter what kind of garment they are currently wearing, because our God longs to meet us where we are.

    And we are provided with a beautiful garment: in baptism we can clothe our souls in a garment that is regal and perfect. Our task is to put on that garment, to preserve the beauty of that garment and bring it unstained to the heavenly banquet. That’s the part that calls for our response: we have to accept the invitation, put on the garment, and preserve its beauty until the day that we are called to the banquet.

    But there are so many problems that enter in. We are tempted in so many ways to accept ways of life that stain that garment, or even cause us to take it off completely. We may think we’ll have time to put it on and clean it up later, whenever later may be. We still want to be at the banquet, but we want to get there on our own terms. And it doesn’t work that way.

    God forbid that we would arrive without the proper garment. God forbid that we would arrive with that garment in horrible condition. We have been given so much: the free invitation, the free garment, and all it takes is our own response. We have to accept it all on God’s terms, whose ways are not our ways, and whose thoughts are not our thoughts. So may we all accept the Kingdom on God’s terms that we might exclaim with the Psalmist:

    You spread the table before me
    in the sight of my foes;
    you anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
    Only goodness and kindness follow me
    all the days of my life;
    and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD
    for years to come.

  • Guardian Angels, Watch Over Us

    Guardian Angels, Watch Over Us

    Guardian AngelsIf this hadn’t been Sunday (not that Sunday is bad mind you … the Resurrection is the summit of all our feasts), this would have been the feast of the Guardian Angels. I remember being very young (four or five, maybe) and mom teaching me the prayer:

    Dear angel of God, my guardian dear,
    to whom God’s love commits me here,
    ever this day be at my side,
    to watch and guard,
    to rule and guide.

    This prayer got me through things even in my adult life when I didn’t know what else to pray. I remember being not so young (thirty maybe) and getting ready to have my tonsils removed, of all things. That prayer got me through the pre-op procedures that had me just a little scared.

    Who doesn’t need a guardian angel these days?

  • 27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    27th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/100205.htm

    Finally, brothers and sisters,
    whatever is true, whatever is honorable,
    whatever is just, whatever is pure,
    whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious,
    if there is any excellence
    and if there is anything worthy of praise,
    think about these things.
    – Philippians 4:8-9

    One of my favorite passages of Scripture today. It always makes me think twice about what I’m thinking about. A lot of the stuff we let ourselves see, well, we weren’t created to see. God wants nothing for the best for us, and He provides that. But we have to open our eyes to it and close our eyes to the false, the dishonorable, the unjust, the impure, the ugly, the ingracious, the mediocre and everything not praiseworthy. That’s a decision we have to make every day … every moment of every day. Those decisions get us a little closer to the Kingdom all the time.

  • Blessed are your eyes

    Blessed are your eyes

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/100105.htm

    Turning to the disciples in private he said,
    “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.
    For I say to you,
    many prophets and kings desired to see what you see,
    but did not see it,
    and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.”

    During my CPE experience, this was a quotation of Scripture that greatly consoled many of us. We saw a lot of nasty stuff in those days, but we also saw some things that were really holy. People who died after a wonderful old life, ready to go to the kingdom; families who rallied around a sick or injured member; spiritual growth in our fellow chaplain interns. It was a blessed time, and I think we always knew that, even in the crazy times.

    How true that is in everyday life. We see a lot of things that we would rather not see, but if we are looking and attentive, we see a lot of God’s grace at work as well. And blessed are we to see it.

    The question for me right now — as difficult as it is to be at seminary now with the grief of our tragedies and the craziness of the Apostolic Visitation — is what is it that I am seeing that blesses my eyes; what is it that I am hearing that blesses my ears? That will be the focus of my prayer in these days.

    Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, pray for us.

  • 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    26th Sunday of Ordinary Time

    http://www.usccb.org/nab/092505.htm

    Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:

    It’s easy, I think, to distance ourselves from the point of the Gospel. We often think, well, I’m not one of the chief priests and elders, I’m a Christian, so I’m saved and I’m above reproach. But to do that does violence to the Gospel itself, and ignores the call to repentance that comes with Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God.

    The point is that this call to repentance is for us. We are the chief priests and elders, and it’s our turn to hear the Gospel and react to its message. The point is that in Christ, God shows us sinners the way, as the psalmist proclaims:

    Good and upright is the LORD;
    thus he shows sinners the way.
    He guides the humble to justice,
    and teaches the humble his way.

    We, then, must follow the way to justice, lest we remain in our sin as the chief priests and elders:

    When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
    you did not believe him;
    but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
    Yet even when you saw that,
    you did not later change your minds and believe him.

    So may we too change our minds and believe, and follow in his way, that we may sing with the Apostle:

    Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father!

  • Say More About That

    Say More About That

    The paradox of transformation is the paradox of death/resurrection, a time of dying to what was, as we move into what will be. It's a strange mix of color and darkness, of both knowing and not knowing. This somewhat abstract image reflects on the leap we take into the mystery of our own tansformative journeys. Here we face the changes and sometimes the death of our hopes, our dreams, our bodies and our relationships. As we stand in these times of change, we simply ask to be faithful and to trust in a loving God who can truly make all things new. Painting by Doris Klein, CSA.
    In CPE, we had a little “inside joke,” if you will, about the statement, “say more about that.” That’s one of those phrases often used in counselling, spiritual direction, and CPE. It’s a good, open-ended question, better than something that would call for a “yes” or “no” answer. But it gets thrown around so much, that our group laughed about it a lot, unless we really meant to use it.

    I know if my group were with me right now, they’d be asking me to say more about how things felt with all of the tragedy that’s happened on our campus these last days. And there has been a lot. The two deaths alone would have been enough (kind of a reverse “dayenu” prayer), but another one of our brothers contracted West Nile Virus and is not well, and the mother of one of our professors died in Georgia. So we’ve had enough, and then some.

    So how does that make me feel? Well, I guess I’ll say more about that…

    First of all, it pisses me off that the availabilty of counseling has not been trumpeted from the rooftops. If this had been a public elementary school, counselors would have been available the next day. Despite news reports to the contrary, that has not yet happened here. Sure, there are spiritual directors and faculty to talk to, but nothing organized, nothing systematic to make sure nobody slips through the cracks. I know that people are slipping through the cracks and will continue to do so, and we should know better than that.

    So I guess I’m in the anger stage of my grief right now. That feels pretty lousy, but I know I have to go through it. I do intend to find someone to talk to about it. Friends have been good, but it’s time for an objective point of view, I think.

    Cardinal George was on campus the other night to talk to us about the tragedy. I know that what he said was true: we have to learn from this event, use it in our formation; we have to care for one another; we have to model our lives on the saints as we embrace the grief and pain and move through it. But he said nothing about how to take care of ourselves. Nobody has. And that’s what pisses me off most. It’s easy enough to say “you’re here to become priests, so buck up and stay the course.” But it’s quite another thing to have to do that, and quite frankly His Eminence’s words, while well-intentioned and probably the best he could do when it comes to pastoral care, just ring hollow.

    So I still miss Matty and Jared. Matty especially, since I knew him best of the two. I miss his music, his laughter, his outreaching friendship for everybody. Grief just stinks.

    From the holy card from Matty’s funeral, the Memorare:

    Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary,
    that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection,
    implored your help or sought your intercession was left unaided.

    Inspired with with confidence,
    I fly to you, O virgin of virgins, my Mother.
    To you I come,
    before you I stand,
    sinful and sorrowful.

    O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
    despise not my petitions,
    but in your mercy, hear and answer me.
    Amen.