Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Prayer

  • The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The thing is, you know, the Pharisee was quite right. His righteousness was beyond reproach. He has been innocent of greed, dishonesty and adultery. He has been more pious than even the law requires. Fasting was only required once a year, on the Day of Atonement, but he fasts twice a week. Tithes were only required to be paid on one’s earnings, but he pays them not only on his earnings, but also on all of his possessions, basically, he paid the tithe on his total net worth. He was probably quite right about his own righteousness, and he may well have been right about the failures of righteousness in the tax collector as well.

    And, in those days, tax collectors were despicable human beings. There was no taxation with representation, so the tax collectors worked for the Romans and were in league with the foreign occupation. They were told what they had to collect, and whatever the collected over and above that was theirs to keep. Now certainly, they were entitled to some income, so a modest markup would have been understandable – that was how they were paid. But mostly the modest markup was far from modest, and often bordered on extortion. The tax collector in our parable today does not deny that he has participated in those activities. He does not even pray about anything he has done except for one thing: he has sinned. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says.

    Both of these men were right in what they said about themselves. From an objective point of view, they have presented themselves honestly before God and everyone. So what’s the problem? Where has the Pharisee gone wrong and how did the tax collector end up justified?

    It’s pretty easy to see what went wrong when we step back and look at the nature of their prayers. The Pharisee uses the word “I” four times. It’s all about him. The tax collector does not use the word “I” at all; he uses the word “me.” What’s the difference? Think back to your grammar lessons: “I” is the subject, “me” is the object. So, for the Pharisee, it was all about what he had done through his own righteousness, and not about what God had done or could do. For the tax collector, it wasn’t about him at all. He acknowledges his sinfulness and asked God to have mercy. And that’s the second difference. The tax collector asks for something, namely mercy, and receives it: he goes home justified. The Pharisee asks for nothing, and that’s just what he gets: nothing.

    So I think today’s Liturgy of the Word is asking us a very important question: have you been aware of your need for a Savior? Because sin is exhausting. Anyone who has struggled with sin, or a pattern of sin, in their lives can tell you that. Those who have been dragged down by any kind of addiction or who have tried to work on a character flaw or striven to expel any kind of vice from their lives often relate how exhausting the sin can be. Sin saps our spiritual energy, weakens our resolve to do good, and causes us to turn away in shame not only from God, but also from family, friends, and all those whose spiritual companionship we need in order to grow as Christians. That’s just the way sin works.

    But today’s Liturgy gives us very good news. Sirach says in today’s first reading that “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right, and the Lord will not delay.” We see that very clearly in the parable in today’s Gospel. The lowly tax collector cannot even bring himself to raise his eyes to heaven. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says. It is the perfect Act of Contrition. He acknowledges his sin, he prays for God’s mercy. And God responds. He can go home justified.

    Just like the Pharisee and the tax collector, we have come to this holy placed to pray today. What is our prayer like? Are there sins that have become a pattern for us? Do we have addictions that need to be worked out? Have we failed in some way in our daily life? What dark corners of our lives desperately need God’s light and God’s mercy? In what ways do we need a Savior? Have we asked for God’s mercy, or have we been like the Pharisee, asking for nothing and receiving exactly that?

    Pray the tax collector’s prayer after me: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

  • The Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-ninth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Prayer is one of the most important elements of the Christian life, of the life of a disciple, and yet it is also, I think, one of the most difficult to master. Still, it’s something that we work at every day of our lives, and the working it out should be one of our greatest joys. In today’s Liturgy of the Word, we have just one element of prayer, and that is the element of persistence in prayer.

    Now I’m going to be real careful here. Lots of people give some lousy advice about prayer: if you just pray hard enough and long enough, everything will eventually work out all right. I’m not going to tell you that, because things often don’t work out perfectly no matter how much we pray, and they almost never work out the way we’d like them to. So why even bother praying? Well, hang in there, we’ll get to that.

    We have a wonderful image of prayer in our first reading. I invite you to raise your arms with me if you’re able, and leave them raised until you can’t any more. This is what Moses had to do to keep the Hebrew army in a winning position against Amelek and his warriors. The minute Moses lowered his hands to rest, things went ill for the Hebrews, but as long as his hands were raised, things went okay.

    Now, again, I proceed cautiously here, because I don’t think things always work out perfectly as long as we pray. But there’s an element of this analogy that is very important, I think. And that element is that sometimes it’s hard to be persistent in prayer. Sometimes you get tired. Maybe your arms are not yet weary, but they might soon get there.

    I can think of a few times in my life when I’ve grown weary of praying. One of them was in my late thirties when I was trying, once again, and once and for all, to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life. I prayed and prayed and prayed, and it didn’t seem like God was answering at all. I finally grew weary of prayer and told God that he should give me a big challenge and whatever it was, I would do it. Then one day, the day of the Easter Vigil that year, I got a letter in the mail from a friend and it made everything crystal clear. Six months later I was in seminary.

    Sometimes in our weariness we have to let go of what we think we would like God to do for us and just let God be God. Because praying isn’t supposed to be comprised of telling God what to do. But how are your arms doing? Are you weary yet? Well if so, you’re in good company. Moses found that to really be persistent in prayer, he needed friends – Aaron and Hur – to hold him up. That’s true for all of us, I think. There comes a point when we need to admit that we need friends to hold us in prayer, to take some of the burden of prayer when persistence has become difficult. If you haven’t already, you can put your arms down now.

    Then what are we to make of the gospel reading? I mean, are we really supposed to think that God is an unjust judge who has no respect for anyone? Obviously not. I think that we’re supposed to see in this little parable that if even an unjust judge – one who neither fears God nor respects any person – if even that judge will eventually give in to the widow pleading for just judgment, well then how much more will our God who is infinitely just and doesn’t just respect us but loves us beyond all imagining, how much more will he pour out his blessings of justice on all of us?

    Which isn’t to say that he will definitely answer our prayers the way we want them answered. Those persistent prayers will be answered in God’s way, in God’s time. He may say “no” or he may even allow something evil like an illness or some other disappointment. We may have to bear the burden of disease or the sadness of the death of a loved one. But in all of that, God will be with us. He may heal us in other ways, that we might come to know God’s love in the midst of our burdens.

    When we persist in prayer, sometimes the change that happens is not the situation, but ourselves. We may grow in grace in some way that we would not otherwise experience or even expect. We may grow in our capacity to love, or in our awareness of the needs of others, or in our ability to be steadfast in the midst of chaos. All of these give honor and glory to God, which after all, brothers and sisters, is our ultimate purpose in life.

    So let’s get back to that question that I asked at the beginning of the homily. Why even bother praying if we’re not going to get what we want? I think we pray for three reasons. First, we pray to grow in our relationship with God who is our friend. As in any relationship, we open ourselves up to conversation, watching for God’s response, accepting God’s will and his desire that we grow in love for him.

    Second, I think we pray because God genuinely cares about us. If we are to grow in love, we have to know that he is open to us and desires that we communicate our needs, our hopes, our fears, our deepest longings to him. It’s not that he doesn’t know these things already, but the process of expressing them in prayer helps us to know those needs in deeper ways and helps us to be aware of God’s action in our lives.

    Third, I think we pray because that’s how we grow in holiness. The more that we bind ourselves to God by receiving his mercy and grace and knowing his love for us in prayer, the more we become new people, new creations.

    At the end of the Gospel today, our Lord asks, “But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” That’s an incredibly important question. So often it seems like the world, or even our lives, have gone horribly wrong. We may be upset about our country’s values, or the candidates for the upcoming election, or the seemingly constant wave of crime, terrorism, or natural disaster. But it’s important that we remember that we can’t stop praying about these things. If we ever want to see things change, we have to be people of faith. We have to persist in our prayer, even if we don’t see things changing as quickly as we would like. The Psalmist reminds us today that “Our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.” Every prayer may not be answered in our time and in the way that we’d like. But by persisting in prayer, we will eventually and always become something better.

  • Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I think it’s a pretty common experience for people to look for a sign from God. So many comedies have that premise somewhere in the story line. Don’t we all look for signs from God to make sure we’re doing the right thing?

    Well, yes, signs are necessary and helpful events in our spiritual journey.  And Jesus was never stingy about giving signs.  After all, he healed the sick, raised the dead, and fed the multitudes.  Who could have possibly missed the signs and wonders he was providing?  The thing was, the people, especially the religious authorities, were cynical and hard of heart, and they soon forgot the wonders he had done.  So they wanted to see Jesus do things they were pretty sure he couldn’t do; in other words, they were asking for a sign not from an attitude of faith, but an attitude of cynicism.

    And Jesus had no intention of playing that game.  These people would get no further sign, at least not until the sign of Jonah.  So what did that mean?  Well, as we remember, Jonah was swallowed up in the belly of a big fish for three days, then disgorged on the shores of Nineveh.  Jesus was foreshadowing that, in the same way, he himself would be swallowed up in the grave for three days, then raised to new life.  These cynical people would just have to wait for that great sign, and even then, they certainly wouldn’t believe.

    And so, yes, we can ask for a sign.  We can ask God to help us to know we have discerned the right path.  But we always must ask from the perspective of our faith, being open to whatever God shows us, being open to silence if that’s what he gives us, ready to follow him, sign or no sign, wherever we are led.  God is always there, even in our most difficult quandaries, ready to give us confidence by his presence.

    And never forget that we have already received the sign of Jonah, and that sign is incredibly good news for all of us!

  • The Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Devising Our Own Accompaniments

    The Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time: Devising Our Own Accompaniments

    Today’s readings

    The past two weekends, we have had the first reading come from the book of the prophet Amos.  I love Amos.  He doesn’t mince words, and you can usually tell what he’s getting at right away.  Today, though, I think it’s a little harder to understand what he means.  The line that jumps out at me is the line, “Improvising to the music of the harp, like David, they devise their own accompaniment.”  It almost sounds like a good thing.  David, of course, was a wonderful musician, so why would it be a bad thing that they are able to devise their own accompaniments, like David did?

    Well, let me tell you a story from my own life that might shed some light on it.  This, too, is a musical analogy.  Back when I was in my early twenties, I was taking voice lessons. I had a really good teacher who taught me all the mechanics of voice as well as some music theory. He also tried to teach me how to play piano, but that never took. But I have to admit, sometimes I took things for granted and let my practicing slide. And that’s exactly what I had been doing that for a couple of weeks at one point.  The lesson right after that went okay, but I have to admit I didn’t really learn anything because I hadn’t put anything into it. At the end of the lesson, we sat down and talked for a while. Mostly my teacher was talking and I was getting an earful. But I thought he was praising me for my abilities and progress – the words he used were very positive and I left feeling really good about myself. But afterward, while I was driving home, I started to feel the kick in the pants that the talk really was. I got the message, loud and clear.

    I think that’s what Amos is doing here.  Listen to that line again: “Improvising to the music of the harp, like David, they devise their own accompaniment.” Again, it almost sounds like a good thing, but it isn’t at all. David could devise his own accompaniment, because he was singing those Psalms with the voice of God. But if everyone in our choir devised their own accompaniment, we’d have a cacophony. So here Amos is making the point that devising their own accompaniment meant that they listened to what they wanted to hear, not what God was telling them.  They did whatever they wanted to do, because it seemed like God was blessing them.  It’s kind of like the expression, “she dances to her own music.” It’s not a compliment at all.

    The rich man in today’s Gospel devised his own accompaniment too. He ignored poor Lazarus every single day of his life. He knew Lazarus’s need, and maybe he even thought he’d get around to helping Lazarus one day. Or maybe he thought, “What good can I do, I’m just one person?” Perhaps he thought, “If I give him something to eat, what good will that do, he’ll just be hungry tomorrow.” He probably came up with all kinds of excuses about why he couldn’t help Lazarus right here and right now. He was devising his own accompaniment.

    And we all know the story about the rich man. Someday becomes never. It’s eventually too late: poor Lazarus dies and goes to be with Father Abraham. But in an ironic twist of fate, the rich man also dies, presumably soon after. But it seems that Lazarus and the rich man end up in different places, doesn’t it? The rich man learns that devising one’s own accompaniment does not help one to sing a hymn of praise to the Lord, and his choice in life becomes his choice in the life to come. If one doesn’t choose to praise God in life, one won’t have that option in the life to come. Devising our own accompaniment comes with drastic consequences.

    Even in death, the rich man is devising his own accompaniment.  Even now, he does not see Lazarus as anything more than a messenger to do his own bidding.  “Father Abraham,” he cries out, “have pity on me.  Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames.”  When he learns that’s not possible, he tries another tack:  “Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house, for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.”  He never sees Lazarus as a brother, and that’s why they’re in different places.  That’s why there is that great chasm that Father Abraham talked about between them – the rich man built it!  Devising our own accompaniment means that we separate ourselves from the community, we literally excommunicate ourselves.

    One of the principles of Catholic social teaching is solidarity with the poor and needy.  This was a topic that the prophets, like Amos, preached about all the time. Solidarity with the poor is the teaching that says we need to be one with our brothers and sisters, and not ignore their presence among us. I became very aware of this as I walked around downtown Chicago one time. I had come with some money to give to the poor. But on the train ride home, I realize that I had just quickly given some of them some money, and never really looked at any of them. They were my brothers and sisters, and I didn’t take the time to look them in the eye. Solidarity calls me – calls all of us – to do just that. We have to step out of that universe that we have set in motion around us and realize that Christ is present in each person God puts in our path. We have to step out of our own cacophony where we have devised our own accompaniments and step into the symphony that God has set in motion. We have to be one with all people.

    God knows about this principle of solidarity. Because God holds it so dear, he sent his only Son to take on flesh – our flesh – so that he could live in solidarity with us – all of us who are poor and needy in our sins. He shared in all of our joys and sorrows, and reaffirmed that human life was good. Life was made good at creation and remains good to this day. But if God could take on flesh in solidarity with us, then we must take on the burdens of our brothers and sisters and live in solidarity with them.  We must abandon our own accompaniments and sing the song of our brothers and sisters in need.

    In our second reading today, St. Paul tells us to “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness. Compete well for the faith. Lay hold of eternal life, to which you were called when you made the noble confession in the presence of many witnesses.” We have to be serious about living our faith and proclaiming the Gospel in everything that we do. In solidarity with all of our brothers and sisters, we must sing to God’s own accompaniment and join in the wonderful symphony that is the heavenly worship.

  • Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love the little line in the gospel reading that says, “Take care, then, how you hear.” It almost seems like a throw-away line, but really, I believe, it’s an essential instruction from Jesus. We disciples are to take care how we hear. Not what we hear, although that’s probably part of it, but how we hear.
    So how do we hear the words of the gospel? Do we hear them as something that seems nice but doesn’t really affect us? Do those words fly over our heads or go in one ear and out the other? Do we hear them at Mass, and then live however it is we want, seeming to ignore what we’ve just heard?
    Or, do we really hear the Word of the Lord? Does the gospel get into our head and our heart and stir things up? Do the words of Jesus get our blood flowing and our imaginations racing? Does hearing the gospel make us long for a better place, a more peaceful kingdom, a just society? We are not just hearing words about Jesus, we are hearing Jesus, we are experiencing the presence of God right here, right now, among us. If we open the door of our ears and our hearts, we might just find God doing something amazing in us and through us.
    Take care, then, how you hear.

  • The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What an odd parable we have in today’s Gospel reading! To our modern ears, this makes no sense; it’s almost as if Jesus is extolling immoral conduct. But, whenever we find a piece of scripture that bothers us, I always find that it means I should pay attention, because the Lord has something important to say. Not only that, but today’s reading comes on the heels of last week’s reading about the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son. In my homily last week, I mentioned that Jesus used all of these “trick question” stories to get the people’s attention. I think this week’s parable is a lot like that. So let’s dive in and figure this out together.

    The steward in the parable seems to be some kind of high-ranking assistant to the rich man. He has enough authority that he is able to rewrite the deals people had made with the man, such that the rich man would have to honor them. But apparently he has not been doing his job, because he learns that the rich man is about to fire him. Much as anyone would do when they learn of that impending crisis, he takes stock of his abilities: he isn’t strong enough for manual labor, and his position has made the prospect of begging too humiliating to bear.

    Given that state of affairs, he knows that he has to start cutting deals with the rich man’s clients so that they will be more likely to help him when he is looking for it after he is fired. So he basically writes off a large chunk of their debts to the rich man. Now how he could do that is anyone’s guess. Some scholars say that he just wrote of the commission he himself would have received for collecting the debt. Others say that he wrote off the usurious interest the master had been charging. Since we don’t know the answer, we have to assume that detail was either understood by Jesus’ hearers or simply unimportant to the story itself.

    Now the next statement is difficult for biblical scholars to unravel: “And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently.” Are those words part of the parable? In other words, did the rich man call the servant dishonest, and if so, was this what was about to get the steward fired? It doesn’t seem like that is the case. The Greek word used for “master” here is kyrios, or Lord, which usually refers to Jesus in the gospels. So it seems like Jesus is the one who is calling the servant dishonest, and that serves to squash the impression that Jesus was commending the steward for his dishonest dealings; clearly that was not the case.

    But having said all that and having waded our way through the strangeness of this parable, the question remains: what is the point? Certainly Jesus isn’t saying that we should deal deceitfully with others, be they poor or rich. I think what Jesus wants us to understand is that, in the vast scheme of things, there is something more important than money. For the steward on the eve of his unemployment, the money owed to his boss was far less important than his ability to live after he was let go. Perhaps all of this is summed up best by the words that come at the end of the gospel reading: “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”

    Here’s the line that I think should really get us thinking: “For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than are the children of light.” So I think our Lord is reminding the people that they are to be children of light, and they’re not doing it very well. This Gospel parable is paired with a very strong proclamation from the prophet Amos, who never minces his words. His central message was that the worship of the people Israel was completely messed up, because they dishonored God in their daily living, in every possible way, at every possible moment. Today’s first reading is evidence enough of what Amos was sent to preach: he details the various ways the rich cheated the poor who came to buy life’s sustenance from them.  And he concludes with the very haunting words: “Never will I forget a thing they have done!”

    So I think the message here is that the world around us knows well enough how to deal with dishonest wealth. We see dishonest dealings go on all the time: deals that use the poor for their labor, while the poor suffer without the basic things that we couldn’t live without. But we are children of light. We should know how to take care of the wealth that we have in an honest way so that we and all those in need can live with dignity. The children of light serve God, not mammon, which is the love of money at the expense of every other good thing.

    So our reflection this week should lead us to taking stock of how we use the money we have been given to steward. Have we been careful to take care of the poor? Have we used the gifts we have for the good of others? Or have we hoarded what we have been given and denied others what is rightfully theirs? God sees all of that, and would that he would see us living as children of light.

  • The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: It’s All About Mercy

    The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time: It’s All About Mercy

    Today’s readings

    Mercy. It’s all about mercy – thank God.

    You may have heard that little voice that tries to tell you how unworthy you are. “You’re a sinner, how can you sit there in church?” “Don’t tell me how to live my life; you’re worse than I am!” “How can you even ask God to forgive you after everything you’ve done?” That little voice might come from someone we know, or maybe it’s just that nagging voice in the back of your head. But we’ve all heard it in some way or another at some time in our lives. In a way, the voice is right. We are sinners. There is no denying that. Saint Paul makes it very clear in today’s second reading: “Christ Jesus came into this world to save sinners,” he says. “Of these I am the foremost.” That’s true of all of us, certainly. But at a very fundamental level, the voice is dead wrong. Because we are never unworthy of mercy, we are never far from God’s love.

    Jesus knows this is hard for us to accept, so he tells us three stories. Each of these stories is intended to shock us into seeing how radical God’s mercy really is. Now, honestly, to all of us who are far removed from the culture and everyday life of people in Jesus’ day, we might not get how shocking they are, until we really think about it.

    In the first story, he asks a ludicrous question: “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?” The answer to that question is approximately zero! Because if he leaves the other ninety-nine behind to go after the lost one, he’ll have ninety-nine new problems when he returns! They’ll all be gone. So better to cut your losses and keep the other ninety-nine together. But God is not like the prudent shepherd. He will relentlessly pursue us when we wander astray and become lost and will not rest until he has us – all of us – back in the fold.

    The second story isn’t quite as crazy, but it’s still a little out there. “What woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?” On this one, it kind of depends. It depends upon the value of the coin. If it’s a small coin, it will probably cost more to buy oil for the lamp than the coin is worth, so better to wait until the sun comes up, and then sweep the house. One coin doesn’t matter so much that it can’t wait until the light of day. But God is not like that. Finding the lost one among us is absolutely urgent, and we are always worth the lamp oil.

    Then we have the wonderful, very familiar parable of the prodigal son, which I prefer to call the parable of the very forgiving Father. Because I think the main character here is the father, and not the son, not either of the sons. Look at how forgiving the father is: First, he grants the younger son’s request to receive his inheritance before his father was even dead – which is so presumptuous that it really feels hurtful. Kind of like saying, “Hey dad, I can’t wait until you’re dead, give me my inheritance now, please.” But the father gives him the inheritance without ill-will. Secondly, the father reaches out to the younger son on his return, running out to meet him, and before he can even finish his little prepared speech, lavishes gifts on him and throws a party.

    There is a tendency, I think, for us to put ourselves into the story, which is not a bad thing to do. But like I mentioned earlier, it’s easy to identify with the hard feelings of the older son sometimes. But let’s look at these two sons. First of all, I’ll just say it, it’s not like one was sinful and the other wasn’t – no – they are both sinful. The younger son’s sin is easy to see. But the older son, with his underlying resentment and refusal to take part in the joy of his Father, is sinful too. It’s worth noting that the Father comes out of the house to see both sons. That’s significant because a good Jewish father in those days wouldn’t come out to meet anyone – they would come to him. But the Father meets them where they are and urgently, lovingly, pleads with them to join the feast.

    So, both sons are sinful. But remember, this is a parable, and so the characters themselves are significant. They all symbolize somebody. We know who the Father symbolizes. But the sons symbolize people – more specifically groups of people – too. The younger son was for Jesus symbolic of the non-believer sinners – all those tax collectors and prostitutes and other gentile sinners Jesus was accused of hanging around with. The older son symbolizes the people who should have known better: the religious leaders – the Pharisees and scribes. In this parable, Jesus is making the point that the sinners are getting in to the banquet of God’s kingdom before the religious leaders, because the sinners are recognizing their sinfulness, and turning back to the Father, who longs to meet them more than half way. The religious leaders think they are perfect and beyond all that repenting stuff, so they are missing out.

    So again, it’s good to put ourselves in the story. Which son are we, really? Have we been like the younger son and messed up so badly that we are unworthy of the love of the Father, and deserve to be treated like a common servant? Or are we like the older son, and do we miss the love and mercy of God in pursuit of trying to look good in everyone else’s eyes? Maybe sometimes we are like one of the sons, and other times we are like the other. But the point is, that we often sin.

    But our response has to be like the younger son’s. We have to be willing to turn back to the Father and be embraced in his mercy and love and forgiveness. We can’t be like the older son and refuse to be forgiven, insisting on our own righteousness. The stakes are too high for us to do that: we would be missing out on the banquet of eternal life to which Jesus Christ came to bring us.

    And where does that bring us if not to the sacrament of Penance? We have heard the voices in our head or the voices of others. We have sinned, we are not worthy of the Father’s love. But he wants to love us anyway. All we have to do is turn back, by going to confession and being forgiven of our sins. We have fallen; we have failed; we have sinned, but the antidote to that poison is the great healing river of God’s mercy.

    I don’t think we can adequately reflect on God’s mercy without recalling the horrible event that happened in our nation fifteen years ago today. On that horrible morning, terror was unleashed on the twin towers of the World Trade Center, on the Pentagon, and in a field in Pennsylvania. Those of us old enough to remember definitely remember how we felt on that horrible day. Fear, anger, sadness, overwhelming grief. How could something like that happen, and what kind of monsters could unleash such evil? It’s really hard to see how mercy can apply to people like that.

    Honestly, I don’t know how you deal with the justice of that situation. There are some questions that we’ll never be able to answer on this side of the life of heaven. But we do know that we have been called to mercy: mercy for ourselves and mercy for others. Anger and fear serve no useful purpose and lead to nothing good.   But while we hold people accountable for the horrible things they have done, we trust God to give mercy to all of us, because dwelling on anger and fear harm us more than others. We pray for those who have been hurt by the horrors of that day. We pray for the conversion of those who live only to inflict evil. And we pray that God’s mercy will change all of us, making the world a place where things like 9-11 never happen again.

    It’s all about mercy. Thank God.

  • Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I’ve heard it said that the only one of the disciples Jesus called that day who was actually fit for his job was Judas Iscariot, and we all know how that worked out. We don’t know what God considers qualification for discipleship, we just know that somehow, for some reason, we have all been called to do whatever it is that we are meant to do in life. We probably don’t have all the skills necessary to accomplish it, but that’s okay. If we were able to accomplish everything on our own then we wouldn’t need God, wouldn’t need a Savior.

    In just the same way, we are all called to be part of God’s kingdom by making his presence known in what we do or say. We may or may not be able to heal diseases. Maybe we can’t cast out demons, at least in the way Jesus did. Feeding the hungry with miraculous actions may well be beyond us. But we’re not called to be Jesus, only to do what he did. And so it may be enough to look in on a sick neighbor, or sit with someone who is troubled, or make a meal for someone who hasn’t had a good one in a long time.

    We tend to think of discipleship as something huge, something way beyond us. But every one of us is called to take it up. As Saint Teresa of Calcutta once wrote, “Very humble work, that is where you and I must be. For there are many people who can do big things. But there are very few people who can do the small things.” Maybe our little work won’t change the world, but it can make things better in our small part of the world, and that may be what we’re called to do.

    Thank God that we both need and have his presence in our lives, and that he has called us all to share in the work of discipleship in some way.

  • Labor Day

    Labor Day

    Today’s readings: Genesis 1:26-2:3; Psalm 90; Matthew 25:14-30

    One of the things that I remember vividly about my childhood is how hard my parents worked. My Dad worked more than one job at a time for several years. And in his main job, he was with the company for well over forty years, finally retiring from the company he worked for since his late teens. My mother, too, worked outside the home, and still does on a part-time basis. They encouraged me to work as well, and the experience of the work I did in my late teens is something that I carried with me throughout my pre-seminary work years, and continue, really, to benefit from to this very day. And that’s how work is supposed to be: participation in God’s creation, enhancing our human dignity, bringing forth our gifts, and helping us to be better people. Work should also help us to sustain our lives and our families, and to provide for their needs, including health care and retirement. The Church has consistently and loudly taught these truths about work ever since Pope Leo XIII’s ground-breaking encyclical Rerum Novarum, published in 1891.

    As we observe Labor Day this year, though, I think we still have work to do on those principles. Far too many people don’t have the resources that work provides. The bishops of our nation publish a yearly Labor Day statement, and this year they write about the disarray in the world of work and the crisis that presents to the family:

    “We behold signs that have become too familiar in the years following the Great Recession: stagnant wages, industry leaving towns and cities behind, and the sharp decline in the rate of private-sector organized labor…  Millions of families still find themselves living in poverty, unable to work their way out.  Poverty rates among children are alarmingly high, with almost 40 percent of American children spending at least one year in poverty before they turn eighteen.  Although this reality is felt nation-wide, this year new research has emerged showing the acute pain of middle and rural America in the wake of the departure of industry.  Once the center of labor and the promise of family-sustaining wages, research shows these communities collapsing today, substance abuse on the rise, and an increase in the number of broken families. ”

    In his address to Congress last year, Pope Francis noted the crisis that is presented to the family in these days: “How essential the family has been to the building of this country! And how worthy it remains of our support and encouragement! . . . In particular, I would like to call attention to those family members who are the most vulnerable, the young. For many of them, a future filled with countless possibilities beckons, yet so many others seem disoriented and aimless, trapped in a hopeless maze of violence, abuse and despair. Their problems are our problems. We cannot avoid them. We need to face them together, to talk about them and to seek effective solutions rather than getting bogged down in discussions. At the risk of oversimplifying, we might say that we live in a culture which pressures young people not to start a family, because they lack possibilities for the future. Yet this same culture presents others with so many options that they too are dissuaded from starting a family.” (Address to Congress, September 24, 2015)

    The bishops’ statement is relatively optimistic, citing efforts of solidarity and care for the most vulnerable of society as the bedrock of stabilizing the economy and strengthening the family. They write:

    “As the fruits of solidarity and our care for one another increase, as we begin to make real impacts toward policies that help individuals begin stable families and live in accord with their dignity, the tired paradigm that fuels our national politics will be challenged.  As Pope Francis has written ‘[e]very economic and political theory or action must set about providing each inhabitant of the planet with the minimum wherewithal to live in dignity and freedom, with the possibility of supporting a family, educating children, praising God and developing one’s own human potential.’ (Pope Francis, Letter to H.E. Mr David Cameron, British Prime Minister, on the Occasion of the G8 Meeting [17-18 June 2013])  With time, we will begin to restore a sense of hope and lasting change that places our economic and political systems at the service of the human person once more.”

    Labor Day is in fact a wonderful time to step back and look at the meaning of work. Labor Day reminds us that we don’t have permission to write off human labor as some kind of necessary evil or a commodity to be bought and sold.   We are reminded that the economy exists for the good of people, not the other way around.  We must truly venerate all labor, that of our own efforts as well as that of others. We must vigorously defend the rights and dignity of workers, particularly of the poor and marginalized. And we must always offer all of this back to our God who created us to be co-creators with him. May we pray with the Psalmist this day and every day, “Lord give success to the work of our hands!”

  • Thursday of the a Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time 

    Thursday of the a Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time 

    Today’s readings

    You may have heard the saying, as I have, that “If you want to hear God laugh, just tell him your plans.” It’s so easy for us in our arrogance to think we have everything all figured out. And then maybe God taps us on the shoulder, or shouts into our ear, and sends us in another direction. We’ve all had that happen so many times in our lives, I am sure. And if we’re open to it, it can be a wonderful experience, but it can also be a wild ride at the least, and traumatic at the greatest. This is the experience Paul is getting at when he says in our first reading, “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in the eyes of God.”

    Simon and his fellow fishermen must have been thinking that Jesus fell into the foolishness category when he hopped into their boat, after they had been working hard all night long (to no avail, mind you!), and said, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” What foolishness! But something about Jesus made them follow his instructions, he tapped on their shoulders, shouted into their ears, and they did what he said.
    And not only were they rewarded with a great catch of fish, but they were also called to catch people for God’s reign. Talk about God laughing at your plans. They had only ever known fishing, and now they were evangelists, apostles and teachers. And we know how wild a ride it was for them. They never expected the danger that surrounded Jesus in his last days. They never expected to be holed up in an upper room trying to figure out what to do next. They never expected to be martyred, but all of that was what God had in mind for them. And all of it was filled with blessing.
    So what foolishness does God have planned for us today? How will he tap us on the shoulder or shout into our ear? Whatever it is, may he find us all ready to leave everything behind and follow him.