Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    At first glance, it all seems so simple, doesn’t it? “Go and do likewise.” Easy enough. But when a command like “go and do likewise” comes at the end of one of Jesus’ parables, we really ought to suspect it’s going to stretch us a little bit, and today is no exception.

    So let’s take a step back and look at today’s first reading to get some background for what’s happening in today’s Gospel. Moses is exhorting the people to keep the commandments of God. But which ones? The Ten Commandments? Perhaps. But the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus give the fullness of the Jewish law. There you can read over six hundred laws pertaining to everything from hospitality to the treatment of slaves, and then some. I often think the people had to be overwhelmed when they thought about that many laws. They may even have been fearful that they would have accidentally broken one of those laws in the course of daily life. But Moses is telling them that they don’t have to be reaching to find the laws they need to follow. Those laws aren’t remote or mysterious. They don’t have to cross the sea or search the sky. Because the law they need to follow is very near to them: on their lips and in their heart. They have only to carry it out.

    This is almost exactly the same thing Jesus is saying in the Gospel today. The scholar of the law who approaches Jesus today isn’t really seeking further knowledge. Rather, he is showing off and testing Jesus to see what he would say. He wants to know what it takes to inherit eternal life. Which is the right question, but for the wrong reason. In other words, he really isn’t concerned about his salvation – he probably thinks that a scholar of the law like him has that all wrapped up anyway – instead he is trying to trap Jesus and make him look foolish. 

    As Jesus often does, he answers the question with a question: “What is written in the law?” The scholar feels on good, solid, comfortable ground with that question, and responds correctly for a good Jew in that time and place: Love God with everything that you are, and love your neighbor. Loving God and neighbor, as Jesus tells us elsewhere, is the Law and the Prophets all wrapped up in a quick little elevator speech. So Jesus commends him, and says that if he does this he will live. But the man wants to justify himself a little more, and so he asks, “Who is my neighbor?” And this is the ten-thousand-dollar question of the day.

    There are a few Greek words that translate to “neighbor” for us.  The Greek word for “neighbor” in this particular parable means something a little more than a person living near you.  The word for  “neighbor” here is something a little higher. This word is almost a verb. It’s not just someone nearby, but instead the dynamic of coming near to another, of approaching and drawing close.

    I think we all have an idea in mind when we hear the word “neighbor.” I remember the neighborhood where I grew up, the neighborhood in which my mother continues to live. I had friends who went to school with me, and even to our Church. When we were growing up, we would spend hot summer nights together outside, playing “kick the can” and other kids’ games. Later, we attended our youth group together. Our parents kept an eye not just on their own kids, but on all the kids in the neighborhood. When my sister was little, she used to like to climb trees, and as soon as she did, the neighbor would call to let my mother know so she wouldn’t fall out of the tree and break her neck, which thankfully never happened. When someone had an illness or death in the family, there would be food brought to the house. If there was work to be done, someone would always lend a hand. We were neighbors to each other.

    But again, as nice as this picture of “neighbor” is, Jesus is calling us to go deeper. He is asking us to step outside ourselves, and to see a person in need and respond, no matter where that person is, no matter his or her race, color or creed. This is a real challenge in every time and place.  The person in need is always our neighbor. Listen to that statement again, because it’s crucial to what we’re hearing today and I don’t want you to leave this holy place without coming to understand it: the person in need is always, always, always our neighbor.

    Before we come down too hard on the priest and the Levite in the story, let’s give them a bit of a break. In telling the story, Jesus doesn’t condemn the priest and the Levite.  They were doing what people in their position would probably do, because they had to be concerned about remaining ritually pure so that they could lead worship. But Jesus says to them that they cannot be so concerned about the finer points of the law that they miss responding to the needs of a neighbor among them.

    And we have to hear that too. Because we too can get so caught up in our own laws that we end up as self-righteous as that scholar of the law. We may claim to respect life if we have never been involved in an abortion. And that’s a great start, but respecting life also demands that we care for the poor and needy, that we care for the health of every person, that we honor our elderly brothers and sisters, and that we repent of our racism and refuse to honor stereotypes that are an affront to human dignity. We may claim to honor the sixth commandment if we have never committed adultery. But honoring that commandment also means that we live pure lives and strive always to purify our hearts. It means we don’t take part in off-color jokes and that we refrain from watching television or movies, or visiting internet sites that lead us down the wrong path. We may claim to be thankful for our daily bread when we say grace before meals. But being thankful for our blessings means also that we share them with those who are hungry. Because Jesus is leading us to a deeper reality today, we can no longer get caught up in the self-righteousness that the scholar of the law brings to his encounter with Jesus.

    The person in need is always our neighbor. We don’t need to search far and wide to figure out what to do for that person. We have only to see the generous and self-giving response of the Samaritan in today’s Gospel and, as Jesus commands us, to “go and do likewise.” The Law and the Prophets are as near to us as that.

  • Saturday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think it’s amazing to let your imagination wander to this vision that the prophet Isaiah had in today’s first reading.  Looking upon God in all God’s glory would be awe-inspiring, perhaps even terrifying.  Seeing that, Isaiah is inspired to do a kind of examination of conscience, where he sees how sinful and unclean he is, living among people who are sinful and unclean, and realizing that having seen God’s greatness, he is doomed.

    It’s a useful reflection for us disciples, I think.  Because sometimes I think we are overly familiar with God, and don’t remember his greatness and power and glory.  God is our intimate friend and loving redeemer, but he is also the creator of all the universe who holds all of us and everything in being by his own power.

    So I get why Isaiah felt like he was doomed.  But God will not have that; he has chosen Isaiah for the task of prophecy to the nations.  So he purifies Isaiah’s lips and asks who he should send.  And purified of his wickedness, Isaiah is able to say, “Here I am, send me!”

    We too have been purified by Holy Baptism, and in that ritual the minister touches the lips and ears of the infant, opening them to the praise and glory of God.  Not by a burning ember from the altar, but by the sacrifice of Our Lord, we have been purged of sin and called to holiness and ministry.  Today and every day, we are asked by our awesome God, “Whom shall I send?  Who will go for us?”

  • Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel underlines the failure of the Jewish leaders of the time.  Jesus was casting out demons from many people, which was what they were supposed to do but could not.  They were too busy attending to the the Law instead of seeing to the salvation of souls, which is what the Law was intended to accomplish. So instead of fixing what was lacking in their faith, they accuse Jesus of being in league with the devil. Kind of a “best defense is a good offense” sort of thing.  But Jesus sees the vast number of people who long for spiritual care but are not getting it, and laments the lack of laborers for the harvest.

    The issue is just as pressing now as it was then.  Too many times, we are distracted by whatever issue and miss tending to the people around us who need God’s presence.  The needs aren’t different: people need to know God loves them and is present to them; they need to see and experience God’s infinite mercy; they need healing; they need to be accompanied in their pain; they need to see the value of living for God.  It’s up to all of us disciples to make that life real and attractive, so that everyone can come to know the Lord.  You might be the Jesus that someone needs to see today.  You might be the laborer God is sending into some situation today.  Don’t be afraid to follow the Master of the harvest!

  • The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Blessed be the Name of Jesus

    The Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Blessed be the Name of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”

    I don’t think we really understand and respect the power of the name of Jesus in our day to day lives.  Very often people take the name of the Lord in vain, violating the second commandment of the Decalogue, and even if we bristle about it a bit, how often do we challenge it?  How often do we ourselves take the Holy Name in vain?

    Here is some context.  In Judaism, the second commandment was taken so very literally that the name of God (the one is abbreviated YHWH) was never pronounced.  That very abbreviation was made without vowels, so that when it came up in a text, the reader would not pronounce it.  They would substitute with the word “Adonai,” which we translate as “Lord.”  Interestingly, for some time in the Church, it was commonplace to hear that Y-word in Catholic Liturgy, for which we should be ashamed.  There were even hymns (which have since been revised) that used the word.  The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a directive in 2008 that this practice was forbidden.  So we can see here that names used to refer to the Divine Persons are sacred and not to be thrown around lightly.  Not even in the Sacred Liturgy. 

    We echo this slightly in Catholic worship.  You will often see the Presider of Liturgy bow his head when the names of Jesus, Mary, or the saint of the day, are mentioned.  This is a practice that is given in number 275 of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.  It says, “A bow of the head is made when the three Divine Persons are named together and at the names of Jesus, of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and of the Saint in whose honor Mass is being celebrated.”  The instruction doesn’t say who does that, but clearly the Presider at least should, but even the faithful can do that as well.  In fact, in older times in very Catholic areas, whenever someone heard or used the name of Jesus in conversation, believers would bow their heads.  I once heard a homily in my young days from a priest who recommended that we should consider bowing our heads whenever we heard someone take the name of the Lord in vain, and it’s not a bad idea.

    And for good reason.  “Lord, even the demons are subject to us because of your name.”  Did you catch that?  The name of Our Lord terrifies demons!  So just as Jews don’t pronounce the name of the Lord, we should be very careful how we use it.  When we use the name of the Lord, it has to be with utmost respect and reverence.  Because His Name has power.

    Taking a cue from this very Gospel reading, there is a tradition of deliverance for those who are dealing with some kind of oppression.  It’s just short of an actual exorcism.  In that process, the oppressed persons are encouraged to name the things they are struggling with and to renounce them in the name of Jesus, and, in the name of Jesus, to claim blessing and victory over sin.  And believers are absolutely entitled to do that, yet we hardly ever think to do so.  Jesus sent the seventy-two out to claim victory over sin and illness and everything that oppressed people in his Holy Name.  They were to take nothing “extra” with them, because they could depend on the power of his Name to provide for them.

    We can do that too, but perhaps we need to be reconciled with his Holy Name.  We need to repent of using his name in vain, and repent of not knowing the power that His Name holds.  Even the demons know better.  We can claim victory over everything that oppresses us, whenever we do it in the name of Jesus.

    Say these with me if you know the prayer.  If you don’t know it, google “Divine Praises” and memorize the prayer.  It’s wonderful to have it in your prayer toolbox.

    Blessed be God.
    Blessed be his holy Name.
    Blessed be Jesus Christ, true God and true Man.
    Blessed be the name of Jesus.
    Blessed be his most Sacred Heart.
    Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
    Blessed be Jesus in the most holy Sacrament of the altar.
    Blessed be the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
    Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
    Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
    Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
    Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
    Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
    Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

  • Saint Irenaeus, Bishop, Doctor, and Martyr

    Saint Irenaeus, Bishop, Doctor, and Martyr

    When a person faces opposition from erroneous ideology, there is a difference between refutation or winning an argument and correction. It might even be fair to say that many people are up to the task of winning an argument, but it takes a saint to be content with correction. Certainly that can be seen quite well in society these days.  Most people would rather win an argument than contribute to the education of another person.  This subtle difference is one that Saint Irenaeus knew quite well.

    Irenaeus was a student, well trained, no doubt, with great patience in investigating, tremendously protective of apostolic teaching, but prompted more by a desire to win over his opponents than to prove them in error. Irenaeus did major work in responding to the Gnostic heresy. Gnostics claimed access to secret knowledge imparted by Jesus to only a few disciples, and their teaching was attracting and confusing many Christians. After thoroughly investigating the various Gnostic sects and their so-called “secret,” Irenaeus showed to what logical conclusions their tenets led. These he contrasted with the teaching of the apostles and the text of Holy Scripture, giving us, in five books, a system of theology of great importance to subsequent times. Moreover, his work, widely used and translated into Latin and Armenian in his day, gradually ended the influence of the Gnostics.

    Saint Irenaeus was concerned with protecting the truth. But more than that, he was zealous about teaching the truth so that people would turn away from harmful errors. All of us are expected to stand up for the truth too, in our own way, among those people God has placed us. The simplest way to do that is to live the truth and to be people of integrity and mercy.  Treat others as Christ, forgive as we have been forgiven, teach what we have come to know by the way we live our lives. Our witness goes a long way to teaching the truth and winning people over to the Gospel, which is way more important than simply proving others wrong and making them look foolish. Through the intercession of Saint Irenaeus, may we all gain many souls for the glory of the Kingdom of God.

  • The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

    Today’s readings

    Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of Catholic worship is our celebration of the Eucharist.  We state very strongly that it’s not just a symbol, not just a nice memory.  It is the actual Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord.  We know that we are spiritually in the presence of our Lord whenever we receive Communion or adore the Blessed Sacrament.  But even more, we believe that, in the Eucharist, we become what we receive: we become part of the Mystical Body of Christ, and in that Body we all become one.  We Catholics believe that the Eucharist makes us one, and because of that, it is good for all of us to come together as one to celebrate this feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.

    We may express our unity in many ways in the Mass.  We all sing the same songs.  We all stand or sit together.  We might join hands at the Lord’s Prayer.  And those are all okay things, but they are not what unites us.  They put us on a somewhat equal footing, but that can happen in all kinds of gatherings.  The one thing that unites us at this gathering, the experience we have here that we don’t have in any other situation, is the Eucharist.  The Eucharist unites us in the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, where all division must necessarily cease.  The Eucharist is the definitive celebration of our unity.

    On this feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, we are called to take comfort in the many ways God feeds us. We know that when we pray “give us this day our daily bread,” we will receive all that we need and more, because our God loves us and cares for us. But to really trust in God’s care can sometimes be a bit of a scary moment.

    It was certainly scary for the disciples, who asked Jesus to “dismiss the crowds” so that they could go into the surrounding cities and get something to eat. They were afraid for the crowds because they had come to the desert, where there was nothing to eat or drink. They were afraid for the crowds because it would soon be dark and then it would be dangerous to travel into the surrounding cities to find refuge and sustenance. And, if they were to really admit it, they were afraid of the crowds, because all they had to offer them were five loaves of bread and two fish – not much of a meal for Jesus and the Twelve, let alone five thousand.

    But Jesus isn’t having any of that. Fear is no match for God’s mercy and care and providence, so instead of dismissing the crowds, he tells the disciples to gather the people in groups of about fifty. Then he takes the disciples’ meager offering, with every intent of supplying whatever it lacked. He blesses their offerings, transforming them from an impoverished snack to a rich, nourishing meal. He breaks the bread, enabling all those present to partake of it, and finally he gives that meal to the crowd, filling their hungering bodies and souls with all that they need and then some. Caught in a deserted place with darkness encroaching and practically nothing to offer in the way of food, Jesus overcomes every obstacle and feeds the crowd with abundance. It’s no wonder they followed him to this out of the way place.

    The disciples had to be amazed at this turn of events, and perhaps it was an occasion for them of coming to know Jesus and his ministry in a deeper way. They were fed not just physically by this meal, but they were fed in faith as well. In this miraculous meal, they came to know that Jesus could be depended on to keep them from danger and to transform the bleakest of moments into the most joyous of all festivals. But even as their faith moved to a deeper level, the challenge of that faith was cranked up a notch as well. “Give them some food yourselves,” Jesus said to them. Having been fed physically and spiritually by their Master, they were now charged with feeding others in the very same way.

    Christ has come to supply every need. In Jesus, nothing is lacking and no one suffers want. All the Lord asks of the five thousand is what he also asks of us each Sunday: to gather as a sacred assembly, to unite in offering worship with Jesus who is our High Priest, to receive Holy Communion, and to go forth to share the remaining abundance of our feast with others who have yet to be fed. After the crowd had eaten the meal, that was the time for them to go out into the surrounding villages and farms – not to find something to eat, but to share with everyone they met the abundance that they had been given. So it is for us. After we are fed in the Eucharist, we must then necessarily go forth in peace, glorifying the Lord by sharing our own abundance with every person we meet.  We too must hear and answer those very challenging words of Jesus: “Give them some food yourselves.”

    In our Eucharist today, the quiet time after Communion is our time to gather up the wicker baskets of our abundance, to reflect on what God has given us and done for us and done with us. We who receive the great meal of his own Body and Blood must be resolved to give from those wicker baskets in our day-to-day life, feeding all those people God has given us in our lives. We do all this, gathered as one in the Eucharist, in remembrance of Christ, proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes again.

  • The Solemnity of Pentecost

    The Solemnity of Pentecost

    Today’s readings

    We’ve gathered today on the Solemnity of Pentecost … one of my favorite feasts of the whole year. Today, we have one last opportunity to celebrate the joy of the Easter season. For fifty days, we’ve been celebrating our Lord’s resurrection, his triumph over the grave, and his defeat of sin and death. We’ve been celebrating our salvation, because Christ’s death and resurrection has broken down the barriers that have kept us from God and has made it possible for us to live with God forever. In the last week, we’ve been celebrating our Lord’s Ascension, with His promise that though He is beyond our sight, He is with us always. And today, today we celebrate the wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit, poured out on the Church, who breathes life into nothingness to create the world, who recreates the world with power and might, and who pours out the power of forgiveness on a world hardened by sin.

    The Hebrew word for Spirit is ruah, with is the same word they use for “breath.” So the Spirit who hovered over the waters of the primordial world also breathed life into our first parents, giving them not just spiritual life, but physical life, and life in all its fullness. The psalmist today makes it very clear that this Holy Spirit is the principle of life for all of us: “If you take away their breath, they perish and return to their dust.  When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the earth.” (Ps. 104:34).

    It is this same Spirit that is poured out on our world, which often times doesn’t look very life-giving. This world of darkness of sin, of war and terror, of poverty and injustice, of sickness and death; this world can be recreated daily when the Spirit is poured out on hearts open to receive Him. This Spirit bursts forth from the believer into action: working in various forms of service, works and ministries to proclaim, not just in word, but most importantly in deed, that “Jesus is Lord” (1 Cor 12:3).

    It is this same Spirit that is given to create the Church as Jesus breathes on the apostles on the evening of that first day of the week. In today’s Gospel reading, the Holy Spirit is given for the reconciliation of the sinner. Our Church picks up this theme in the Sacrament of Penance when the words of absolution tell us that “God, the Father of Mercies, through the death and resurrection of His Son, has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins.” Because it is in the forgiveness of rivalries, it is in the healing of broken relationships, it is in the restoration of peace and in the pardoning of sinners that God’s plan for creation is most fully realized.

    That same Holy Spirit who hovered over the waters at the creation of the world now hovers over the Church. The apostles first received that Holy Spirit, but now it is poured out on us as well. Nothing that is truly good can be conceived of, nor realized apart from that Holy Spirit. As the sequence tells us today: “Where you are not, we have naught, nothing good in deed or thought, nothing free from taint of ill.” It is the Spirit who gives life, both physical and spiritual. It is the Spirit who speaks in our prayer, putting those prayers in our hearts in the first place, and uttering all of our inexpressible groanings when we cannot pray ourselves. It is the Spirit who gives gifts to enliven our works and ministries. It is indeed the Spirit who gives us faith to cry out, “Jesus is Lord.”

    Having gathered today in this place on this great Feast, we now pray for not only an outpouring of that Holy Spirit, but also for the openness to receive that Spirit and the grace to let that Spirit work in us for the salvation of the world. We, the Church, need that Holy Spirit to help us to promote a culture of life in a world of death; to live the Gospel in a world of selfishness; to seek inclusion and to celebrate diversity in a world of racism and hate; to effect conversion and reconciliation in a world steeped in sin. Brothers and sisters in Christ, if people in this world are to know that Jesus is Lord, it’s got to happen through each one of us. One life and one heart at a time can be moved to conversion by our witness and our prayer. Let us pray, then, that the Holy Spirit would do all that in us.

    Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth. Amen.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Ascension of the Lord

    The Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    If you feel like your life lately has been a crazy, roller-coaster ride of an existence, you might probably relate to the Apostles and disciples of the early church in today’s readings, and perhaps the fruits of today’s feast will be of comfort to you.  For those early disciples, today’s feast had to be a kind of “now what?” experience for them. Think about all they’ve been through. Their Lord had been betrayed by one of their friends, they watched him face a farce of a trial and saw him put to death in a horrible, ignoble way, they had been hiding in fear thinking they might be next, they had questioned what they were supposed to do without their Lord.  And then they witness the Resurrection: Christ walks among them for a time, appearing to them and making himself known. They had seen redemption of a way of life they almost had abandoned, and now, on this feast of the Ascension, their Lord is leaving them again. In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, you can almost feel the amazement and desperation they are experiencing as they stare up into the heavens, incredulous that their Lord is gone, again.

    So once again, God sends two messengers, two men in white garments, to set them straight. God had sent two men in dazzling garments to the women at the tomb on the day of the Resurrection as well. That time, the men reassured the women that the Lord had not been moved or stolen, but had indeed risen from the dead. This time, the men appear to the Apostles, assuring them that the Lord would return in the same way as he had just departed from their sight. Both times, it was the same kind of messengers, with the same kind of hopeful message. Go forward, don’t worry, God is in control.

    I think we need that same message today.  As the Supreme Court is poised to strike Roe v. Wade, we have seen a plague of vicious hatred, and even some violence against the Church; we have had over two hundred mass shootings so far this year, and really horrific ones the last month; we hear daily of an unjust war against the people of Ukraine; COVID-19 is up again over the last several weeks; inflation is crazy, and supplies of many things are scarce.  It’s a lot all at once.  We can be tempted to all kinds of responses: anger, despair, even apathy.  But today’s feast says none of that is helpful.  Our Lord is in control, he always was and always will be. 

    So what is the appropriate response?  Here I want to say a few important things about the issue of “thoughts and prayers” versus action.  There is a prevailing narrative, even among some of the faithful, that thoughts and prayers are equal to doing nothing.  Obviously, that is not the Catholic view.  Thinking about those who are suffering unites us to them in solidarity.  Praying for change is always the way we should begin our work.  We believe that prayer does change things, and most of all, prayer changes people.  Sometimes, most of the time really, it changes us.  So it’s okay to send thoughts and prayers.  For some, that’s all they can really do.  For everyone, it’s at least a good start.

    But action is important too.  We have to call on our elected leaders to make needed changes, to promote a culture of life instead of boasting of how pro choice they are.  We have to demand that they represent our view instead of aligning themselves with some other person.  We have to insist that instead of taking sides on gun control when tragedies happen, that they work to control weapons of mass destruction AND take care of people’s mental health needs.  The list goes on and on.  Our pro-life stance has to embrace the unborn and the newly born, the child and the adult, those with special needs and the elderly, the sick and the poor: we have to reverence life at every stage and situation, and we need to insist that our elected leaders do the same.  We have to stop taking sides, stop insisting one one course of action against another, and work together for the common good.  That’s the Catholic response.  It always is.

    One of the great themes of Catholic theology is the idea of “already, and not yet.” Basically, that means that we disciples of Christ already have a share in the life of God and the promise of heaven, but we are not yet there. So we who believe in Jesus and live our faith every day have the hope of heaven before us, even if we are not home yet. And this hope isn’t just some “iffy” kind of thing: it’s not “I hope I’ll go to heaven one day.” No, it’s the promise that because of the salvation we have in Christ, we who are faithful will one day live and reign with him. This gives us hope in the midst of the many sorrows that we experience in this world.

    Another great theme of Catholic theology is that our God is transcendent, but also immanent. Transcendent means that our God is higher than the heavens, more lofty than our thoughts and dreams, beyond anything we can imagine. Whatever we say about God, like “God is love” or “God is good” – those things only begin to scratch the surface of who God is, because God is transcendent beyond anything our limited words can describe. But our God is also immanent. God is not some far off entity that has brought the world into existence and set the events of our lives in motion and then drops back to observe things from afar. No, our God is one who walks among us and knows our sorrow and our pain and celebrates our joy. Saint Augustine said that God is nearer to us than we are to ourselves. Our God may indeed be mysterious and beyond us, but he is also the one we can reach out and touch. If that weren’t so, the Eucharist would be pretty meaningless.

    As you can see, Catholic theology is generally speaking not exclusive. We are not either already sharing in the promise or not yet sharing in it, but we are “already and not yet.” Our God is not either transcendent or immanent, but both transcendent and immanent. These two great theological themes come to a kind of crossroads here on this feast of the Ascension.

    Today, as Christ ascends into heaven, our share in the life of God and the promise of heaven is sealed. We have hope of eternal life because our Lord has gone before us to prepare a place for us. If he had not gone, we could never have shared in this life. So, although Jesus has left the apostles yet again, they can rejoice because they know that the promise is coming to fulfillment. We do not possess it yet, because we are not home yet, but we share in it already, because Christ is our promise.

    All of this theology can be heady stuff, but what it boils down to is this: because Jesus died, rose from the dead, and ascended into heaven, we now have the hope of heaven and of sharing in the very life of God. Even though we do not possess heaven yet, we know that it belongs to all who have faith in Christ and live that faith every day. And even though we do not see Jesus walking among us, he is still absolutely present among us and promises to be with us forever. The preface to the Eucharistic prayer which I will sing in a few minutes makes this very clear; it says:

    Mediator between God and man,

    judge of the world and Lord of hosts,

    he ascended not to distance himself from our lowly state

    but that we, his members, might be confident of following

    where he, our Head and Founder, has gone before.

    Jesus, having explained the Scriptures to his Apostles yet again, tells them “You are witnesses of these things.” And so they don’t have the luxury of just standing there, staring up into the sky for hours, dejected and crushed because the One who had been their hope had disappeared. No, as the Gospel tells us today, they “returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and they were continually in the temple praising God.” They are witnesses, “clothed with power from on high,” and they must be filled with the hope and joy of the resurrection and ascension of the Lord.

    We disciples are witnesses of these things too. We must witness to a world filled with violence and oppression and sadness and no regard for the sanctity of human life, that our God promises life without end for all those who believe in him. And we have that hope already, even though not yet. We must witness to a world languishing in the vapidity of relativism and individualism that it is Jesus Christ, the Lord of All, who is one with us in heaven, and present among us on earth, who fulfills our hopes and longings and will never leave us. We must be witnesses to all these things, living with great joy, continually praising God because Christ’s ascension is our exaltation. We too might hear those men in dazzling white garments speak God’s words of hope to us: go forward, don’t worry, God is in control. Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • The Sixth Sunday of Easter

    The Sixth Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Our readings today revolve around the theological virtue of hope.  Hope is the virtue that recognizes our desire for happiness in this life and the next, which is an aspiration placed in our hearts by God himself (CCC 1818).  According to the Catechism, the virtue of hope causes us to “desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength, but on the help of the grace of the Holy Spirit” (CCC 1817).

    Hope is that virtue that gets us through the difficulties of this life with a view toward what is to come.  I like to say that it’s the light at the end of the tunnel, and not the light of an oncoming train!  The theological virtue of hope is an eager longing for that which is absolutely certain: it’s not a wish and a prayer, as most people use the word “hope.”  Hope is so necessary in every moment of history, in every society and in every person’s life.  Hope holds fast to the belief that we are travelers in this world, that we are not home yet, and that the best is yet to come.  In these Easter days particularly, the Resurrection is our hope, testifying that we have the invitation to life eternal, and the abiding presence of our God who made us for himself.

    Our second reading today is, and has been through the season of Easter, from the book of Revelation.  This revelation to John and his community was meant to foster hope among a people who were being persecuted.  Because they believed in Christ, they were being expelled from the synagogues, and then, because they had no other religious affiliation, they were being forced by the Romans to worship their pagan gods or face death.  They definitely needed hope!  To them, John prophesies of the new heavenly Jerusalem, the Holy City, which would need no light from the sun or stars or even lamps, because its light was the light of Christ himself.  Indeed, that very City was Christ, and all of the community could hope for the day when they would be caught up in it and all would be made right.

    Our Gospel today, even though we are in the season of Easter, finds us just before Jesus’ death.  John’s Gospel always portrays Jesus as being fully in charge: he does not have an agony in the garden, but instead willingly lays down his life for us.  So in this reading, fully aware that he is about to give his life, he seeks to give hope to his disciples who will surely grieve his loss and be filled with despair and even fear for their own lives.  In order to prepare them, he offers them peace, and the abiding presence of the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, who will remind them of Jesus’ words and help them to integrate all that he has taught them.  In many ways, absent this hope, we would not have Christianity today.

    Hope was necessary for the first disciples, hope was necessary for the early Christian community, but it is also necessary for us today. Think of the many ways that our society beats us down. We can point to war, terrorism and unrest in so many parts of the world, the war in Ukraine, and violence in our own cities.  We can look at traditional values degraded and open hostility to anything remotely Christian.  We can see the bitter hatred of the pro-choice movement toward any advance of a culture of life, particularly now when it appears the Supreme Court will strike Roe v. Wade.    Add to that inflation like we haven’t seen in decades, supply chain issues making everything scarce, and lingering fears of the pandemic.  We can also find distress in our own families, at our places of work, in our communities, and in our schools.  We may even be dejected by our own sinfulness, and the many ways that the world seems to take us away from God and family and community.  We always need that same abiding hope that the early community found in Christ and in John’s vision.

    And let’s be clear about this, friends: we always have it.  Always.  Every time we gather here for the celebration of Mass, for the proclamation of the Word and the saving sacrifice of the Eucharist, we can see that this world is not all there is.  We can see that God is with us, in good times and in bad. We can see that he is leading us to our true heavenly homeland, where all will be made right, and every sadness put to an end.

    And so we Christians press on as an Easter people, confident in God’s promises and filled with his abiding presence.  We shed light on a world that can be dark at times, and we beckon all the world to receive the peace that can only come from our Risen Lord.  We live those first words of today’s Gospel reading: “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him.”  We have hope in these Easter days, because Christ is our hope and he has overcome the sting of death and sin and all their sadness.  The victory has been won.  We just have to hold on to that.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Today’s scriptures speak to us about the essence of what it means to live a Christian life.  First, as we can see in the reading from the Acts of the Apostles, it means making a clean break with the ways that we have been tethered to the world.  For the newest members of the Church in that day, the rules and traditions had finally been settled.  Some of the members of the Church insisted the new members ought to be circumcised and comply with the many minutiae of the Jewish law.  But the Apostles remained firm that faith in Jesus was superior to the minutiae, and insisted only that the new Church members free themselves from any participation in idolatry and to keep their marriage covenants pure.  This freed them from the idolatrous tethers to the world, and would give them freedom in the Spirit.

    The second essence of living a Christian life comes to us in today’s Gospel reading, and that of course is to love.  But Jesus isn’t asking for just any kind of love: nothing superficial, not mere infatuation, and certainly not lust.  Jesus insists that his disciples love one another in the exactly same way that he loves them.  And he showed them, and us, what he meant by that when he suffered and died on the cross.  The disciple is expected to love sacrificially, unconditionally, just as Jesus has loved him, or her.

    So perhaps these readings can be for us a kind of examination of conscience.  In this Easter season, we need to be moving closer and closer in relationship with our Lord.  So we have to look closely at our lives for any ties to the world, and root them out, once and for all.  We have to look at our relationships, and see if the love that we show our brothers and sisters is sacrificial and unconditional, the same kind of love that we have received abundantly from our God.  We are reminded that we did not choose Christ, he chose us, and gave us gifts we never deserved.  Our thanksgiving for that great grace must be total devotion to him.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!