Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • Thursday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I’m not going to sugar-coat this: the truth is that the story we have in our first reading is a horrible story.  Why  on earth would we worship a God who accept such a vow from Jephthah (or anyone else for that matter), or hold him to it? Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves: first, a bit of context.  The footnotes in the New American Bible remind us that this was a fairly common theme in ancient mythology.  When the topic of sacrificing children comes up in Scripture, it is usually strongly condemned.  Here, the writer simply records the story, probably to explain the tradition that is recorded in the next verse after our reading stops: “It became a custom in Israel for Israelite women to go yearly to mourn the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite for four days of the year.”

    Why this comes up at all in the Sacred Liturgy is another matter.  Bad enough that this story is in the Bible, must we hear it every second year on this day?  Well, all we have to do is wait a minute to hear the Psalmist explain what’s really important:

    Sacrifice or oblation you wished not,
        but ears open to obedience you gave me.
    Burnt offerings or sin-offerings you sought not;
        then said I, “Behold I come.”

    So let’s let the horrible story remind us that the Psalmist directs us how to really pray and really live.  Leave behind the crazy sacrifices and unholy vows, and instead give ourselves completely to the Lord, and obey his commands.

  • Tuesday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading follows picks up where yesterday’s reading left off.  As you remember, the rich young man went away sad, not knowing how he could attain eternal life, because he had many possessions.  Today, Jesus explains to his disciples what was going on.  

    “Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven.”  That was the sadness for the rich young man, right?  He went away sad because of his many possessions.  Now, it’s not going to be hard because God is setting up the obstacle; it will be hard because the rich young man was grieved at letting go of what he had.

    So it is with us sometimes.  Very often, we have placed an obstacle between ourselves and God.  Or we are holding on to so much other stuff that we can’t receive what God wants us to have.  Odds are one hundred percent that what God wants us to have will make us infinitely happier than the stuff currently in our hands.You see,  Jesus isn’t bashing rich people.  And it’s not just rich people who will have trouble going to the kingdom.  It’s going to be hard for anyone who has an obstacle between themselves and Jesus.  So whether that obstacle is riches, or our work, or our lifestyle, or our grudges, or our comfort zone, or whatever, we need to let go of all that.  It’s going to be hard for us to get into heaven with obstacles in our way, with stuff in our hands, “but for God all things are possible.”  If we let go of the garbage we are holding onto, if we make a real sacrifice for the kingdom, then the kingdom is ours.

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse III

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse III

    Today’s readings

    You may have heard of Viaticum, which we generally think of as one’s last Communion. Indeed, the Church encourages us by precept of the Church to receive Holy Communion in our last moments, if at all possible.  The word viaticum is Latin for “bread for the journey.”  So in our last moments, when we set out on our journey to the life that is to come, we are fed with that Food that sustains us.  It’s a commendable practice and I highly encourage it.

    Today we see the Scriptural basis for viaticum, that bread for the journey.  In the first reading, the prophet Elijah had come to the point where he just couldn’t even.  Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure.  Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel.  It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and read it.  I promise, you’ll enjoy the story.  Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory.  Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life.  Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death.  For him it would be better for the Lord to take his life than to die by Jezebel’s henchmen.  The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey.  In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on.  But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree.  Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.”  We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits.  At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.”  So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven.  They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that, because they knew who he was, he couldn’t have descended from heaven.  Sometimes we think we know everything about a person, but really we don’t.  They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was.  They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another.  We all have very difficult journeys to face in our lives.  Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians in the second reading, or whether we’re just feeling confused or superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives.  From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something.  And usually we make a pretty poor choice of how to fill up that hole.  Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives.  Soon we end up sitting under a scraggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now.  If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness.  And that person is Jesus Christ.  This Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives.  We have to let him do that.  But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us.  We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey.  Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever: forever satisfied, forever strengthened.  It is only this bread that will give us strength for the arduous journeys of our lives.

    Because this Food is so important to us, because it is such a great experience of God’s presence in our lives, we should be all the more diligent to receive the Eucharist frequently and faithfully.  Certainly nothing other than sickness or death should ever deter us from gathering on Sunday to celebrate with the community and receive our Lord in Holy Communion.  We should all think long and hard before we decide not to bring our families to Sunday Mass.  Sometimes soccer, football, softball and other sports or activities become more important than weekly worship, as if Mass were just one option among many activities from which we may choose.  Or maybe we decide to work at the office or around the house instead of coming to Church on Sunday, a clear violation of the third commandment.  And most especially in this pandemic time, when we may have become used to watching the livestream of Mass in our pajamas with a cup of coffee, or even skipping it altogether, we need to get back in the glorious habit of coming to Mass in church.  I realize that I may well be preaching to those who already know this, and I realize that it’s hard, especially for families, to get to Church at times, but this is way too important for any of us to miss.  Hard as it may be, the effort will always be worth it, in the long run.  It is Jesus, the Bread of Life, who will lead us to heaven – the goal of all our lives and our most important journey, – and absolutely nothing and no one else will do that.  Jesus is absolutely our only way to heaven, so we have to keep our eye on the ball.

    It all comes down to what we believe.  If we believe that Jesus is the Bread of Life, then why on earth would we ever want to miss Holy Mass?  If he is the only way to heaven, why would we think to separate ourselves from him?  Our Church teaches us that this is not just a wafer of bread that we are receiving; we believe that it is the very real presence of our Lord: his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the appearance of a wafer of bread.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we should never allow anything to take its place.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we must return to this Eucharist every week, every day if we are able, acknowledging the great and holy gift that He is to us. We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord.  As we continue our prayer today, let us remember the advice God gives to Elijah: “Get up and eat, else the journey will be too long for you!”

  • Thursday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In our first reading this morning, we have more of the murmuring of the Israelites as they make their way out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land.  This time, they hold a council against Moses and Aaron because they don’t have water to drink.  Notice clearly, they don’t ask for water, they don’t pray for water, they hold a council against Moses and Aaron because they have no water.  We would certainly recognize that as a completely backward way to address the problem.

    Murmuring is horrible, because it is a cancer in the community.  We see it sometimes in parishes, when people bicker and gossip in the parking lot rather than ask a question or seek clarification.  Then, without clear and correct guidance, misinformation spreads. 

    Murmuring can also affect a leader.  Earlier on in the book of Numbers, the people murmur because they have no meat to eat.  Moses was tired of the grief and said to the Lord: “Why do you treat your servant so badly?  Why are you so displeased with me that you burden me with all this people?  Was it I who conceived all this people? or was it I who gave them birth, that you tell me to carry them at my breast, like a nurse carrying an infant, to the land you have promised under oath to their fathers?  Where can I get meat to give to all this people? For they are crying to me, ‘Give us meat for our food.’  I cannot carry all this people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.  If this is the way you will deal with me, then please do me the favor of killing me at once, so that I need no longer face my distress.”  Yikes.

    And that leads to what happens at the end of the first reading today.  The murmuring has affected Moses and Aaron so much that they cannot serve God with faithfulness to his sanctity, so God puts them out of the Promised Land, to await a Savior.

    Today, let’s be on the lookout for any tendency we might have to murmur, and to savagely put it out of our lives.  Because we want to go to the Promised Land.

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse II

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse II

    Today’s readings

    There’s a lot of hunger in the readings today.  First we have the Israelites, fresh from their escape from slavery in Egypt, finding that they are hungry as they wander through the desert.  I think we can understand their hunger.  But what is hard to understand is the content of their grumbling about it.  They say that they would rather be back in Egypt, eating bread and the meat of the “fleshpots.”  Why on earth did God have to drag them out into the desert only to kill them by hunger and let them die there?  They would rather be in slavery in Egypt than be in the situation in which they find themselves.

    Please understand how serious this grumbling is: it is a complete rejection of God, God who has done everything miraculous to save them from abject slavery.  And that slavery was not some kind of minor inconvenience: the people were told to take care of the most strenuous of all labor, building the cities and even making the bricks for them themselves.  If they slacked off at all, or didn’t meet their captors’ unreasonable quotas, they were severely beaten.  They were subject to racism at its nastiest form, and their baby boys were put to death to keep them from rising up.  And yet, the people say they’d rather be in Egypt so they could have a little food in their stomachs.

    Not so different is the clamoring of the people in today’s Gospel reading.  Today we pick back up our reflection on the “Bread of Life Discourse,” the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.  We began last week, with the famous story of Jesus feeding the multitudes.  Today’s story picks up where last week’s left off: the people were so impressed by Jesus feeding so many with so little that they pursue him across the sea to Capernaum.

    Why do they follow him?  Well, they want more food, of course.  But the real feeding he intends is not just barley loaves, but instead something a little more enduring.  So Jesus tells them that the best way they can do God’s will is to believe in him – Jesus, the one God sent.  So they have the audacity to ask him what kind of sign he can do so that they can believe in him.  Can you believe that?  He just finished feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fish, leaving twelve baskets of leftovers to distribute to the whole world, proving that he was enough, and more than enough, to feed their hungers, and they still want to see a sign? 

    But let’s just pause a second here.  Isn’t that a lot like we ourselves?  Hasn’t God done everything for us?  He created us out of love for us, and in love, he sent his only begotten Son to take on our sins and die in one of the most horrific ways possible, so that we could have the possibility of being freed from the chains of death, and one day go to heaven.  And not only that, but he aids us in our daily troubles, hearing our prayers and helping us in our need.  We are not so different from the Israelites longing for the fleshpots of Egypt and the multitudes clamoring for a little more bread and fish, please.

    So the people ask for a sign, and what Jesus does is to give a spiritual sign, a challenge really.  He tells them to believe in him because “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”

    Jesus wants to get to the root cause of their hunger … and ours too, by the way.  So I think the starting point is that we have to be clear about what it is we hunger for.  And that question is very pressing on all of us today.  Every one of us comes here hungering for something.  Our hungers may be very physical: some here may be unemployed or underemployed, or perhaps our hunger is for physical healing of some kind.  But perhaps our hungers are a bit deeper too: a relationship that is going badly, or a sense that we aren’t doing what we should be or want to be doing with our lives.  Our hunger very well may be very spiritual as well: perhaps our relationship with God is not very developed or our prayer life has become stale.  Whatever the hunger is, we need to be honest and name it right now, in the stillness of our hearts.

    Naming that hunger, we then have to do what Jesus encouraged the crowds to do: believe.  Believe that God can feed our deepest hungers, heal our deepest wounds, bind up our brokenness and calm our restless hearts.  Believe that Jesus is, in fact, the Bread of Life, the bread that will never go stale or perish, the bread that will never run out, or disappear like manna in the heat of the day.  Jesus is the Bread that can feed more than our stomachs but also our hearts and souls.  The Psalmist sings, “The Lord gave them bread from heaven.”  And we know that bread is the most wonderful food of all, because it is the most holy and precious Body of Christ. Amen!

  • The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse I

    The Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Bread of Life Discourse I

    Today’s readings

    I’m Italian on my mother’s side of the family, and in our family, as in families of other ethnicities, I am sure, the prospect of not having enough food for people to eat at a gathering is the stuff of nightmares.  For many of our family gatherings, we have way more food than we need, and we typically send guests home with leftovers, and eat the leftovers ourselves for some time.  So our first reading and our Gospel today really grab my attention.  In both situations, I’d be panicking to feed the hungry crowds.

    In both of these situations, a person comes forward with some food, but the food is laughably inadequate to feed the hungry crowd.  In the first reading it’s twenty loaves to feed a hundred people, and in the Gospel it’s even worse: five loaves and two fish to feed well over five thousand people.  In both cases, the giver is willing to make the sacrifice, to give all that he has to feed whoever he can.  In both cases, God takes care of the lack, making the meager offering enough, and more than enough, to feed the hungry crowd.

    And it is these feeding miracles that begin our summer look at the Eucharist, as we pause our reading of Mark’s Gospel to look at chapter six of the Gospel of John, which is commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.”  We will study this for the next five weeks, with one interruption to celebrate the solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary next month.  Your homework for next week is to read the entire sixth chapter of John’s Gospel so that you can see the overall context, and make up for the chunk of it that we won’t read on Assumption Day.  I promise you will be glad you did.

    So we begin with the story of the feeding of the multitudes, and I want to make a few points about this particular reading.  First of all, this miracle has the distinction of being the only miracle story other than the Resurrection of Jesus that is told in all four gospels.  This testifies, I think, to the importance of the story itself, and tells us that Jesus came to take care of people’s hunger.  Not just their physical hunger, although that is clearly seen here, but more their spiritual hunger, as we can see from the fact that the crowds were hanging on his every word and thronging to see him.

    The second point I want to make is that this is definitely not a miracle of sharing.  Four evangelists would not have taken pains to preserve the event and tell its story if it were about people sharing their lunches with each other.  Here’s the rule of thumb: whenever an explanation of a Gospel story makes that story more about people than it is about Jesus, it’s always wrong.  Always.  Without exception.  The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus came to bring, and the story is always about him.  The miracle here is not that so many people were touched to their heart and decided to share.  The miracle is that a boy sacrificed his five loaves and two fish, and in Jesus’ hands they become enough, and more than enough, to fill the stomachs of every person on that grassy hillside, and twelve baskets besides.  Period.

    The reason this is so important is the third point I want to make, and that is that this story, for John, is the story of the institution of the Eucharist.  John’s Gospel doesn’t have that familiar story of the giving of the bread and wine to be Jesus’ body and blood on the night before he died.  And we can see that because, in John’s story of the feeding of the multitudes, unlike in the other three Gospels, it is clearly Jesus who is in charge.  First of all, it is Jesus who notices that the crowds are hungry; they have expressed no such need, and it wasn’t the apostles bringing it to his attention so they could dismiss the crowds.  Jesus doesn’t need anyone to tell him what the people need or how to minister to them.  Second, like a good salesman, he doesn’t ask any questions to which he doesn’t already know the answer.  When he asks Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” he already knows the answer.  And third, when the loaves and fishes had been gathered and blessed, it is Jesus, not the Twelve, who distribute the food to the people.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke’s version of this story, Jesus gives the food to the Apostles to give to the people.  But in John’s account, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks, and gives it to the people himself.  The word “thanks” here, in Greek, is eucharisteo, which makes obvious the fact that this is Jesus, fully in charge, giving the Eucharist to the people and to us.

    This Eucharistic miracle was meant to feed everybody: clearly everybody on that grassy mountain, but even more than that, the whole world in every time and place.  Notice that there were twelve baskets of leftovers.  Twelve is significant because it represents the twelve Old Testament tribes, or really, the whole world for the Jewish people of the time.  Thus the Eucharist went out to all the world and continues to feed us spiritually in our own time and place.

    What we need to take with us is the fact that Jesus is always enough, and more than enough, to take care of our needs.  We may think our offering isn’t much, like five loaves and two fish in the face of all the hungry people on that mountain.  But when we give all we have as did that boy, and also the man from Baal-shalishah in the first reading, Jesus can take it, bless it, break it, and give it to everyone who has need and then some.  We need to be always ready to give what we have and trust Jesus to make it enough, and more than enough, to accomplish  his holy will.  As the Psalmist sings this day, “The hand of the Lord feeds us, he answers all our needs.”

  • Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It’s a frightening thing, I think, to hear Jesus say in today’s Gospel reading, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace upon the earth. I have come to bring not peace but the sword.”  It’s frightening because of the havoc a statement like that could cause in our spiritual lives.  There’s an old trite saying that says Jesus didn’t come just to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable.  It may be trite, but there is truth in there.  So we launch into today’s Liturgy of the Word with a word of caution.

    And caution is warranted, because the spiritual life is one of precarious balance.  Things can be going along alright, much like the relationship the Jews had with the Egyptian government while Joseph was alive.  But then something can change in our lives: in the words of our first reading today, a new king, who knows nothing of Joseph, can take over.  In the context of that first reading, the new king taking over didn’t know Joseph and thus have all the good feelings toward the Jews that Joseph inspired.  In the context of our spiritual lives, the new king is whatever new distraction may come our way and, knowing nothing of Joseph, that is, knowing nothing of the harmony that is part of our lives when we walk the path of righteousness, that distraction takes over and tears us away from our God.

    In that light, the first reading today is a discussion of the seductive power of sin.  Just as the new king wanted to stop the increase of the Jews, so sin wants to stop our increase in the spiritual life.  Just as the Egyptians oppressed the Jews with hard labor, so sin oppresses us by affecting our work, our relationships, and our life of faith.  But just as the more the Jews were oppressed, the more they multiplied, so the more that we are oppressed by sin, the more we can multiply grace by turning back to God.

    Sin is a dreadful power in our world.  Sin knows nothing of Joseph, knows nothing of the life of grace and its joy.  But we don’t have to let it oppress us.  We can let Jesus bring the sword to afflict the comfort of our sin and help us to multiply and increase in the life of grace and faith.  As our Psalmist says this morning, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth.”

  • The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today I want to reflect on what I consider to be one of the most important principles of the spiritual life.  That principle is completely summed up in one short sentence: “It’s not about me.”

    Over the last couple of weeks, we have been able to take a look at the various people who have been called to ministry throughout history.  Last week, Ezekiel was told that whatever he did, his ministry would be mostly unsuccessful.  Paul, the great teacher of our faith, was afflicted with a “thorn in the flesh” – whatever that was – and no amount of prayer could make it go away.  In today’s first reading, Amos, who is told that he is not welcome to prophesy in Israel, confesses that he is nothing but a simple shepherd and dresser of sycamores – completely ill-qualified for the role of a prophet, but nonetheless called to be one.  In today’s Gospel, the Twelve are sent out on mission to do the works that Christ himself did, and they were only to take with them the knowledge of Jesus’ teachings and their memory of what he had done among them.  They were simple men, called from their simple lives, not one of them qualified for the role they were to play.

    The point is, when we are called by our God, – and we are all called by God – it’s not about who we are or who we know or how slick our presentation is.  It’s not about what we have in our bag of tricks, or how much stuff we have.  It’s not about how developed we may think our faith life is, or how much we’ve studied theology.  Because it’s not about us at all.

    I know many people, who when asked if they would become involved in some ministry or another, would say, “Oh, no, I could never do that.  I’m not qualified to do it.” There are people who always feel that others could do the job better than they can, and so others should do it and they should stay out of it.  But if we are to learn anything from the Scriptures today, we must hear that that kind of thinking is nothing but false humility.  And false humility is absolutely not virtuous!  I’m not saying we have to say “yes” to everything we’re asked to do, but I am saying that we must always prayerfully consider every opportunity, and then do what the Lord wants us to do.

    So in what ways have you been called?  In today’s Gospel, Jesus sends his chosen Twelve out on mission.  They were chosen not for their spectacular abilities or any particular quality, really.  But they were chosen, called and gifted to do the work of God in the world.  So are we all.  Just as the Twelve were sent out to preach repentance, dispel demons, and cure the sick, we too are called to do those very same things.  I know you’re thinking, “really, preach, dispel demons, cure the sick – me?”  Well, hang on: let’s see what that might look like.

    You may not think of yourself as a preacher.  But you are prophetic and a preacher of repentance when you forgive a hurt or wrong, when you confess your sins and make necessary changes in your life, when you become a member of a 12-step group to deal with an addiction, or when you leave a lucrative job with a company whose business practices make you feel uncomfortable.  You are a preacher of repentance when you correct poor behavior in your children rather than place the blame on the teacher or the school.  You are a preacher of repentance when you accept constructive criticism in a spirit of humility and pray for the grace to change your life.  You are a preacher of change when you accept new ways of doing ministry and find ways to call new people into that ministry.  Preaching repentance and the change that God is doing in the world very often does not involve words so much as actions, and we can all do that, even though it very often hurts a little bit – change always does.

    But who are you to drive out demons? How is that even possible?  But I am here to tell you that volunteering as a catechist or a mentor in a school or as a homework helper is a way to drive out the demons of ignorance.  Going to a Protecting God’s Children workshop so that children in our schools and religious educations programs will be safe is a way to drive out the demons of abuse.  When you speak out to protect the environment, you help to drive out the demons of neglect and waste.  Volunteering to be part of a pro-life group helps to drive out the demons of death and promote a culture of life, protecting the unborn and the aged and the infirm.  Working at a soup kitchen or a food pantry drives out the demons of hunger and poverty.  Helping at shelters for battered families drives out the demons of violence and isolation.  Becoming a foster parent or supporting a foster parent drives out the demons of neglect and abandonment and fear.  Friends, the demons at work in our world are legion, and every one of us is called to drive them out, not like “The Exorcist,” but more by our simple time and talent according to our gifts.

    Now, how is it possible for you to cure the sick?  The liturgy of the Pastoral Care of the Sick tells us that every act of care for the sick is part of the Church’s ministry of healing.  So, you heal the sick every time you remember them in prayer, or visit them in the hospital or at home.  You heal the sick when you volunteer as a minister of care.  You heal the sick when you bring a casserole to provide dinner for a family who are so busy with sick relatives that they have little time to prepare a meal.  You heal the sick when you drive an elderly friend or neighbor to a doctor’s appointment or to do the grocery shopping, or pick them up on the way to Mass.  Healing involves so much more than just making a disease or injury go away, and all of us can be a part of healing in so many everyday ways.

    We absolutely must get from today’s Scriptures that God calls everyday people to minister to others in everyday ways.  Especially in these post-pandemic days, we have to accept the call of God to preach, teach, dispel and heal a world that is sorely in need of Christ’s presence and healing touch.  If people are to know about God’s Kingdom, we have to be the ones to proclaim it.  If people are to reform their lives, we have to be the ones to model repentance.  If people are to be released from their demons, we have to be the ones to drive them out.  And if people are to be healed from their infirmities, it is all of us who have to reach out to them with the healing power of Christ.  We who are called to live as disciples do not have the luxury of indulging ourselves in misplaced false humility.  If we and our families and our communities are to grow in faith, hope and love, we have to be the ones to show the way and encourage as many people as possible to walk in that way.

    Saint Paul makes our vocation very clear in today’s second reading:

    In him we were also chosen,
    destined in accord with the purpose of the One
    who accomplishes all things according to the intention of his will,
    so that we might exist for the praise of his glory,
    we who first hoped in Christ.

    It’s not about us.  We who first hoped in Christ exist for the praise of his glory.  Let it be then that we in the everyday-ness of our lives would have the courage to preach repentance, drive out demons and heal the sick.

  • Thursday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings reveal the power of God’s love in the world.  Joseph’s brothers didn’t realize they were, in fact, in the presence of the “dreamer” they had sold into slavery.  But his forgiveness of them shows that God’s love and providence overcome even the most grievous of sins.  Jesus sends his apostles out to preach, but without any of the things that one might think necessary: “Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, or a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick.”  In this way, the apostles learned that, against all odds, the Gospel, the preaching of God’s love in the world, would bear fruit no matter what was lacking. 

    In our work and living and family life today, may we all look for opportunities to let God be God and show his love where he wants to.  Then we may look back one day and remark as the Psalmist did this morning: “Remember the marvels the Lord has done!”

  • Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The spiritual life, almost by definition, isn’t easy.  Today’s readings prove it.  In our first reading, Jacob wrestles with “some man,” who turns out to be God himself.  They tussle all day long and finally declare a draw, but the battle leaves poor Jacob limping from the fight.  In the end though, he receives a blessing.  And that’s the way it is, brothers and sisters, that’s how the spiritual life works.  We often wrestle with God, or with something he’s asking of us, and occasionally the battle marks us or scars us, but we always end up blessed by the experience.  That is, of course, if we are ready to do battle for the long haul.

    The spiritual life is a long battle: a marathon, and not a sprint.  You have to identify what you’re wrestling with: maybe it’s a call to change your life in some way or take on some new thing.  Maybe it’s a prayer life that is a little stale.  Or maybe even an urge to move in a different direction in your vocation or your career, or even in a relationship.  It’s a struggle, and it could well involve considerable wrestling until you know what’s really at stake.  But when you identify it, you have to stay with it, wrestle all day and night, until you receive the blessing.

    Every saint has wrestled in some way at some point in their lives.  That’s how they became saints.  It’s difficult, it’s scary, and it definitely needs to be surrounded with prayer.  Only then can you stay with it, bear its marks, and receive God’s blessings.