Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • Monday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday in the Twentieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A friend of mine told me that a wise old nun once taught him, “Work like everything depends on you, but pray like everything depends on God.”  It’s good advice, because everything, of course, does depend on God, but God expects us to work in cooperation with him, so that his will be done.  But it’s certainly a hard line to walk.  Once we get to working, we almost always get full of ourselves and think everything will fall apart if we don’t take care of it.  I know I find it hard to pack up and go on vacation or take time off unless I know I’ve got everything in order, and then I still worry about what comes up in the meantime.

    Today’s readings remind us of the danger of crossing that line and forgetting that God is in charge.  The rich young man in today’s gospel reading discovers that following the rules is only just a good start; to really gain heaven you must be willing to let go of the fading riches of this world.  The people Israel in today’s first reading have grasped on to the uncertain security of alliances with this world’s powers and have let go of their belief in God, and Ezekiel prophecies that would come back to haunt them.  Holding on to the things of this world will never get us anywhere; worrying about what God is doing is unproductive; we will never find ultimate security in alliances with the powers of this world.  To truly gain heaven, we have to let go and hold on to our God, whose riches never fade and whose power is never outmatched.

    The Psalmist gives us good advice today.  Do not forget the God who gave you birth.  He is in control; we are not.  God is God, and we are not.

  • Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Return and live!”

    This is very prophetic advice from Ezekiel this morning. We have been reading from him in the first reading throughout this week. He was preaching to a nation that was steeped in sin, and whose sinfulness was passed on from previous generations. But unlike the punishments of old, where God punished those who sinned for many generations, Ezekiel proclaimed that God was going to do something new. He was going to punish only those who did wrong, and bless those who did right. If the son sinned, it was not the father’s fault, and if the mother sinned, it was not the daughter who would pay the price.

    We might call that “personal responsibility,” a notion that doesn’t get as much adherence these days as it ought to. Now if the son sins, the parents sue the person who punished the son for it. Nothing is anyone’s fault; no one has to step up and take responsibility for what they’ve done. Or at least it sure seems that way. Ezekiel would take us all to task for that philosophy.

    Jesus says that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to children. We talked about that earlier this week, too. Children are fit for heaven because they are completely dependent on those who care for them. We have to depend on God in that same way, if we wish to get to heaven. That is the truth of the Gospel.

    Our God is Truth, and we should live that truth every day of our lives. So if we’ve wandered from that, Ezekiel has the remedy today: “Return and live!”, Jesus would add, become like children and live forever in heaven.

  • Friday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    God never forgets how much he loves us. If this weren’t so, I don’t think any of us would be in existence. God loves us into life and loves us through our life and one day, if we let him, will love us into eternal life. The people of Israel had to know this better than anyone. Ezekiel today reminds them that God loved them enough that he would remember the covenant he had made with them, the covenant that they had broken many times, and that he would pardon them for all they had done. Because he loved them.

    The question the Pharisees asked Jesus in the Gospel today had nothing to do with love, which is odd because it was a question about marriage. Or, actually, the converse of marriage: divorce. They were asking not because they wanted to know about how to love better in their relationships, but rather because they were trying to trick Jesus into some Moses-bashing. But Jesus has none of that, reminding them of the indissolubility of love.

    Many things can be forgotten. God forgets things all the time – namely, our sins. But love can never be forgotten. God never forgets how much he loves us, and we dare not forget how much we love him, and because we love him, how much we love one another. That love may require all kinds of forgetting: forgetting past hurts, forgetting resentments, forgetting what we think we deserve.

    May we all forget what we have to forget, so that love is the only thing we can remember, and may we all go together, one day, to eternal life.

  • The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Well, here we are.

    It’s been a whirlwind these last two months! First we emptied everything out of the church, and the pew refinishing company took apart the pews and shipped them to Nebraska so that they could be refinished. Then the painters moved in a couple of massive lifts that looked like some kind of alien spider that took them all the way up into the cupola so that they could paint. Our artist moved in and began painting the reredos, and later a sign company came in to install the Agnus Dei above the reredos, and the titles of Mary from the Litany of Loreto along the back wall of church. The staff cleaned and scrubbed and put all the furniture back. Perhaps the most herculean task was that of taking our massive Tabernacle off its altar and then putting it back on. I believe it weighs elevendy gazillion pounds. Renovating our church décor was certainly a labor of love, and we hope that you will love it!

    In renovating the church, we didn’t just want to slap a coat of paint on the walls and ceiling. When the church was built, that’s what had to be done because there wasn’t money to do much else. So in painting the church this time, we wanted to take the opportunity to do what art in the Church has always been used to do, and that is to catechize and evangelize. In the early days of the Church, most people could not read and write, so in order to teach the faith, people were taught to read the churches. So the artwork and the decoration of the church was meant to preach the Gospel and call people to repentance and salvation. We wanted to do the same here at Saint Mary’s.

    So we had two main themes that we wanted to convey. First and foremost, we wanted to express the truth that this is the holiest place on our campus, the place where heaven meets earth, the place where Jesus Christ dwells with us until the end of the age. During this Eucharistic Revival in our Church, no message could be more important. So the dome was painted as a night sky, complete with stars; the cupola was painted a light blue to allow natural light to reflect and illuminate the sanctuary; the Tabernacle was raised on a step, and placed on an altar with a stone top; and the reredos was painted with a stunning mural depicting the light of God coming down from heaven and enveloping us all as he calls us into his presence. And to make it very clear what we behold, the text on the upper border of the reredos reads, Agnus Dei Qui Tolis Pecatta Mundi; that is, Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.

    The second theme we wanted to convey was that this particular parish church is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Immaculate Conception. So the deep blue which support the architectural features of the sanctuary, and the earthy green on the wings of the church proclaim that Mary is Queen of Heaven and Earth. The golden rim around the “sky” above the sanctuary evokes her crown, and the gold rays in the ceiling of the nave symbolize her merciful love reaching out to the world.

    Along the back of the church, we have installed four “medallions” of the Blessed Virgin Mary, including one of the Miraculous Medal, which ask for her intercession for our parish, our families, and our community. The text along the back “ribbon” above the doors are selections from the Litany of Loreto: Mother of Mercy, Mother of the Church, Seat of Wisdom, Help of Christians, Queen of Peace, Cause of our Joy, Holy Mother of God, and Queen of Families. These have been presented in English, Spanish, Polish, and Tagalog, some of the languages spoken by our parish family. Finally, above the doors in the center aisle, the resurrected Jesus has been cleaned by our artist (who knew he was brass?), and the blue from the sky has been painted as a background. This evokes the Ascension of Our Lord, giving us a command as we leave the church: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)

    It was our intention that the renovation of this church would help feed our spirits, which Jesus longs to do for all of us. In today’s Liturgy of the Word, we are invited to receive “bread for the Journey,” in Latin, “Viaticum.” Viaticum is usually one’s last Holy Communion, given when we are dying. But in today’s liturgy, we are shown that we always need bread for the journey so that we will have strength to complete the journey and do what God calls us to do.

    In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much. 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 look it up! 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. 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,” chapter six of his Gospel, which we are reading in this section of the Lectionary. 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 he couldn’t have descended from heaven. 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, or whether we’re just feeling 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. 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. 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.

    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!” Only then can we go and proclaim the Gospel of the Lord.

  • The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, sometimes our hunger gets us into trouble. And I don’t just mean with your doctor when you eat too much, although I can relate to that. We can hunger for all sorts of things: some of them good, some not so much. For instance, we can be hungry for attention, affection, connection with others: those are good, mostly, depending on how we pursue them. Or we can be hungry for power, prestige, money, and things: those aren’t so good, for the most part, again, depending on how and even why we pursue them.

    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 us? 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. Which brings us back to the observation I made at the beginning of my homily. Our hunger can get us into trouble, by desiring the wrong things, or trying to pursue our hunger in ways that are not healthy. But the hungers are there, and we need to address them.

    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 may very well be 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.

    So here’s a way to pray with this in the coming week. First, think about the hungers you have been experiencing lately. This will take a lot of self-honesty. Second, think about how you have been trying to fill those hungers. Has this been healthy or not? Has it worked? Finally, give those hungers to Jesus. Ask him to teach you how to fill up your hungry heart and soul with him. Ask him to show you how he is enough, and more than enough, to feed your spirit.

  • Friday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    If we think simply obeying God’s call will make life much easier for us, today’s readings give us a, shall we say, different perspective. Sure not complicating our lives with sin and being certain to do what God asks of us is a good thing, and it does make life easier to an extent, but it does not guarantee a life without struggle or conflict.

    Certainly both Jeremiah and Jesus can attest to that. Jeremiah had the dangerous job of being a prophet to a people who wanted to do what they wanted to do. Evil was a way of life for them, and they certainly didn’t want to hear about their way of life coming to an end, and so our first reading ends with the people of Israel ominously surrounding Jeremiah in the house of the Lord. Jesus gets similar treatment from the people of his own native town. They took offense at one of them, the son of a laborer no less, working miracles and preaching with wisdom. And sadly, their lack of acceptance and lack of faith led to him not working many mighty deeds there.

    Maybe we have had a similar experience. Maybe we have tried to give witness to the Gospel, to what is right, to people very close to us. Many times that kind of thing is very unwelcome with those people. Maybe they are in our families, or at our job, or in our community. But like the prophet, and like Jesus, we must give witness anyway, and ask God to help them accept it. Preaching the truth in love can be dangerous, or at least ignored, at times, but it’s what we are called to do.

  • The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today, as we listen to the proclamation of the Feeding of the Multitudes, we begin a five-week reflection on the Eucharist that is known as the “Bread of Life Discourse,” from chapter 6 of Saint John’s Gospel. We get this marvelous reflection every third year, during Cycle B of the Lectionary, a little break from our consideration of Saint Mark’s Gospel.

    Now, you may have heard some teacher or preacher or Bible Study leader talk about this miracle story as something less than a miracle. They may have framed it like this: “Jesus was preaching and the people were hanging on his words and it was getting late. So someone remembered the fish sandwich they brought with them and shared it with the people around them. Then other people saw that and got out the picnic they had brought, and before you knew it, everyone was eating. And much like an Italian family dinner, everyone was stuffed and there were twelve baskets of food left over.

    Now, I think you probably already know how I feel about this explanation just by the way I said it. You all know me pretty well by now! But in case you don’t, I’ll be plain: it’s garbage. First of all, there is absolutely no evidence that such a thing happened. With over five thousand people there, someone would have talked about how inspired they were by Jesus’ words that they just felt they had to share their picnic. But no such story has ever been found. Secondly, if it had been that simple, people wouldn’t have continued to clamor after Jesus looking for another miracle. No, they knew a miracle had taken place, and they wanted more of it, thank you very much. There are lots of other arguments against this explanation, but let’s just be clear: it was an argument that someone dreamed up much, much later, during the nineteenth century by people who were rationalistic and had no relationship with Jesus. So yes, this explanation is pure theological trash.

    The whole point of this wonderful story being told by all four Evangelists, by the way, is that it makes clear the absolutely incredible miracle that God wants nothing more than to feed us in the most wonderful way possible. He does that with a huge group of people who are not just hungry for food, but more importantly and urgently for God’s Saving Word, and he provides it working with just about nothing – five loaves and two fish – and turns that into enough, and more than enough, to feed that whole hungry crowd. Finally, he provides twelve baskets of leftovers – twelve symbolizing the twelve tribes of Israel, or the whole world as they knew it – to feed even those who were not there to see that amazing miracle.

    In John’s Gospel, this story is the story of the Institution of the Eucharist, because John doesn’t have a Last Supper story like the other three Gospels. And so by feeding this whole crowd, Jesus makes it clear that God’s intention is to feed us all, always and forever, with the Bread of Life and the Cup of Eternal Salvation. The Eucharist will always and forever be God’s presence in the world and in our life. Thanks be to God!

    I was not able to be there but just last week, many thousands of Catholics gathered in Indianapolis for the Eucharistic Congress. Over two hundred thousand hosts were consecrated to be the Body and Blood of Christ during those days, showing that those twelve baskets of leftovers just keep on giving! That Congress was evidence of the joy that the Eucharist continues to bring us, that our God doesn’t give up on us when times look bleak, that young people still long for the presence of Jesus in their lives, and that God is still working miracles every single moment of every single day.

    The Eucharistic Revival doesn’t come to a conclusion now that the Congress is over. This coming year, the focus is on mission. A Eucharistic people need to take up those baskets of leftovers and continue to feed a world hungry for newness and revival and light in a dark and sad world. It is our mission now that our hunger is fed at this celebration of the Eucharist to follow the direction we get at the end of every Holy Mass: “Go!” Go and glorify the Lord by your life. Go and proclaim the Gospel. Go and be the hands and feet of Jesus in a world that desperately needs his presence. Go and feed others with the grace with which you have been fed. Go, and give them something to eat.

    So as we pray today, let’s focus on a couple of things. First: in what way do you find yourself hungry right now? What is missing in your life, especially in your spiritual life? Whatever you find that to be, give it to Jesus and let him feed you. And then second, for the mission: in what way can you take the grace of Jesus and fill up the emptiness of others? How can you enliven even just one person by your presence? What small act of love can you take from those baskets of leftovers and feed someone who is starving for salvation?

    Pray all that, and listen to the Psalmist sing: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

  • The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I really think one of the greatest obstacles to progress in our spiritual lives is the thought that we have to do everything ourselves. That we have to be trained and recognized and that whatever it is that has to be done has to be done by us. After all, we are good enough, aren’t we? So why should we ask for help?

    I think you can see where I’m going to go with this. But this leads to one or both of two things. First, if whatever it is does work out, it’s all about me. Aren’t I wonderful? Aren’t I great? Did you see what I did? But second, if it does not work out, it can make us think we aren’t good enough, we are a failure, and send us into frustration and depression and all sorts of bad behavior.

    Very often, this kind of thinking it’s all on us and all about us makes us shy away from doing something we are called to do. How can I do something like that? I’m not good enough to accomplish that. Someone, anyone else is more qualified to do that than I am.

    Look at the apostles. What a rag tag bunch they were. Who would ever have thought they were good enough to come together and do anything, let alone foster a fledgling Church and proclaim a new Gospel that a lot of people couldn’t bear to hear? Yet, Jesus knew them best, of course, and he saw the men he created for that very moment to do that very important task. And then, because they didn’t know everything and weren’t qualified to accomplish the task ahead of them, he gave them what they needed in pouring out the Holy Spirit on them.

    It’s so clear in today’s Gospel reading: “He instructed them to take nothing for the journey but a walking stick—no food, no sack, no money in their belts.” Because if they have everything they need, then they don’t need Jesus, they don’t need the Holy Spirit. So by going without, they have more than they could hope for. By being unqualified, they accomplish great things. Jesus makes it very clear today that that is the life of the disciple.

    And that includes you and me, friends. We aren’t qualified to do all the things we are asked to do, and we don’t have everything we need. I remember when Bishop Conlon called me to tell me he wanted me to come here to Saint Mary’s. I was very aware that I didn’t have what I needed to be the pastor of such a large parish. But as I prayed about it, God reminded me that it wasn’t about me at all, and that he would give me what I need.

    And he has been so faithful to that! Every single day, I am almost overwhelmed by how much of a blessing it was for me to come here. I look around at our marvelous volunteers, and I know I don’t deserve how wonderful they are to me. I meet you all as you come out of Mass, and I think how blessed I am that you took time out of your day to come pray and worship with me. I have what I need to be the pastor of this place because God knows what I need far better than I do, and he is faithful to giving me all that and more.

    So I offer that to you today. Wherever you need to go in your life, whatever you are being called to do, put it in the hands of Jesus and follow that path. Trust that he will give you more than just some food, a sack, and money in your belts. Trust that he will give you everything you need and more, and trust that then you will be truly happy. Who knows what amazing deeds God has planned to do in us and through us, if we just trust in his faithfulness!

  • The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I often wonder how people get through the hard times of their lives if they don’t have faith. We can all probably think of a time (or several) in our lives when we were sorely tested, when our lives were turned upside-down, and, looking back, we can’t figure out how we lived through it except for the grace of our faith and the abiding presence of God. During the course of my priesthood, I have been present to a lot of people who were going through times like that: whether it be illness or death of a loved one, relationship struggles, job issues, or financial struggles, or a host of other maladies. Some of them had faith, and some of them didn’t. It was always inspirational to see how people with faith lived through their hard times, and very sad to see how many who didn’t have faith just broken when their lives stopped going well.

    That’s the experience that today’s Liturgy of the Word puts before us, I think. Let’s look at the context. In last week’s Gospel, Jesus has cured two people miraculously. He actually raised Jairus’s twelve-year-old daughter from the dead, and he cured the hemorrhagic woman, who had been suffering for twelve years. So both stories had occurrences of the number twelve, reminiscent of the twelve tribes of Abraham, and later the Twelve Apostles, both of which signify the outreach of God’s presence into the whole world. So those two miraculous healings last week reminded us that Jesus was healing the whole world.

    But this week, we see the exception. This week, Jesus is in his hometown, where he is unable to do much in the way of miracles except for a few minor healings. Why? Because the people lacked faith. And this is in stark contrast to last week’s healings where Jairus handed his daughter over to Jesus in faith, and the hemorrhagic woman had faith that just grasping on to the garments of Jesus would give her healing. Faith can be very healing, and a lack of it can be stifling, leading eventually to the destruction of life.

    We see that clearly in the first two readings today. First Ezekiel is told that the people he would be ministering to would not change, because they were obstinate. But at least they’d know a prophet had been among them. Contrast that with Saint Paul’s unyielding faith in the second reading to the Corinthian Church. Even though he begged the Lord three times to relieve him of whatever it was that was his thorn in the flesh, he would not stop believing in God’s goodness. Much has been said about what Saint Paul could possibly mean by this “thorn.” Was it an illness or infirmity? Was it a pattern of sin or at least a temptation that would not leave him alone? We don’t know for sure, but this “thorn” makes Saint Paul’s story all the more compelling for us who have to deal with our own “thorns” in our own lives. Saint Paul’s faith led him to be content with whatever weakness or hardship befell him, and he came to know that in his weakness, God could do more and thus make him stronger than he could be on his own. That assurance gives us hope of the same grace in our own struggles.

    We people of faith will be tested sometimes; that’s when the rubber hits the road for our faith. Knowing of God’s providence, we can be sure that he will lead us to whatever is best. And our faith can help us to make sense of the struggles and know God’s presence in the dark places of our lives. People of faith are tested by the storms and tempests of the world, but are never abandoned by our God. Never abandoned.

    Let’s pray with this notion today. Take a moment to quiet yourself, close your eyes if that works for you…

    Take a moment now to think of whatever thorn is in your side. Maybe it’s illness or infirmity, or a temptation that won’t go away, an uneasiness about something going on in your life, worry about yourself or a family member. Whatever that is, bring that to mind and tell Jesus about it. Yes, he knows your needs, but he wants to hear you say it and put it in his merciful hands…

    Now picture putting that need, that thorn, in Jesus’ hands. Give it up and stop holding on to it. Let go of whatever hold that thorn has on you…

    Take a moment now to pray to Jesus in your heart, using your own words. Tell him that you trust him to make of this thorn whatever he wants it to be. Tell him that you trust in his healing, and that you will stop holding on to the way you want it to work out. Ask him to take the burden from you and promise not to take it back…

    Repeat this after me: Jesus, I trust in you. Jesus, I give you my burdens. Jesus, I will accept healing in the way you want it for me. Jesus, I trust in you.

  • Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You probably remember, maybe not fondly, the readings we had from the Books of Kings the last couple of weeks. The names were hard to pronounce, and their deeds were hard to hear. Each and every one of the kings was worse than the one who had preceded him. How often did we hear the ancient historian write “and he did evil in the sight of the Lord?” What makes it doubly hard to hear, I think, is that Israel’s sordid history is in some ways our own. How often do we too turn away from the Lord and his mercy and his plan for our lives? Our deeds, hopefully, are not as murderous as those of the ancient kings, but they are still lacking, of course, in the sight of God.

    And so the Lord has sent Amos to call those Israelites – and us, too – to conversion. Amos is tough sometimes, because he calls a situation the way it is. He doesn’t beat around the bush or soft-pedal his prophecy. You know exactly what’s on his mind. And poor Amos can’t do anything less. He tells us in today’s first reading:

    The lion roars—
    who will not be afraid!
    The Lord GOD speaks—
    who will not prophesy!

    For Amos, not to say what God is calling him to say is as fearful as facing the roaring lion. And so, we are called to hear, and to reform our lives, and to follow the Lord once again.

    As Amos expresses the Lord’s displeasure, it is the Psalmist who expresses the Lord’s mercy:

    But I, because of your abundant mercy,
    will enter your house…

    We cannot make up for our sinfulness all on our own. We need our Savior, the one who calms the storms, despite our lack of faith. When we have messed up our lives so that we cannot see past the storm, we know that we can depend on our God who loves us back into relationship with him. Even the violent winds and stormy seas of our own lives obey the one who gave his life for us.