Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Preaching, Homiletics & Scripture

  • Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr

    Saint Irenaeus, Bishop and Martyr

    Saint Irenaeus was a student who had great patience in investigating truth and falsehood, and was tremendously protective of apostolic teaching But his purpose was not to prove people wrong, but instead to win over his opponents and foster their faith. Irenaeus did major work in responding to the Gnostic heresy. The Gnostics claimed access to secret knowledge imparted by Jesus to only a few disciples, and their teaching was attracting and confusing many Christians. After thoroughly investigating the various Gnostic sects and their so-called “secret,” Irenaeus showed to what logical conclusions their tenets led. These he contrasted with the teaching of the apostles and the text of Holy Scripture, giving us, in five books, a system of theology of great importance to subsequent times. Moreover, his work, widely used and translated into Latin and Armenian in his day, gradually ended the influence of the Gnostics.

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

  • Thursday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior? I’m sure you’ve heard this question, perhaps someone even asked you that question. They teach that all you have to do is make that one-time decision and you’re saved. Not so fast.

    If salvation were something magical that came about as the result of just saying a simple prayer, once and for all, then why wouldn’t everyone do that? The fact is, salvation is hard work. It was purchased at an incredible price by Jesus on the cross. And for us to make it relevant in our lives, to live it in our lives, we have work to do too. Not the kind of work that earns salvation, because salvation is not earned, but the kind of work that appropriates it into our lives and makes it meaningful.

    People who are saved behave in a specific way. They are people who take the Gospel seriously and live it every day. They are people of integrity that stand up for what’s right in every situation, no matter what it personally costs. They are people of justice who will not tolerate the sexist or racist joke, let alone tolerate a lack of concern for the poor and the oppressed. They are people of deep prayer, whose lives are wrapped up in the Eucharist and the sacraments, people who confront their own sinfulness by examination of conscience and sacramental Penance. They are people who live lightly in this world, not getting caught up in its excess and distraction, knowing they are citizens of a heaven where such things have no permanence. Saved people live in a way that is often hard, but always joyful.

    Not everyone who claims Jesus as a personal Savior, not everyone who cries out “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven. That’s what Jesus tells us today. We have to build our spiritual houses on the solid rock of Jesus Christ, living as he lived, following his commandments, and clinging to him in prayer and sacrament as if our very life depended on it. Because it does. It does.

  • The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What on earth do you do when everything comes crashing down around you?

    That’s a question that, quite frankly, all of us have to deal with at some time or another in our lives. Some people get more than their share of sadness, but really all of us have a heap of frustration delivered to our doorstep at some point. And it does seem to pour when it rains. Bad circumstances pile up and are mixed with frustration, anger, sadness, humiliation, and a whole host of other emotions that only make bad circumstances worse.

    So what on earth do you do when everything comes crashing down around you?

    Job had quite the storm on his hands. He was a just man and his righteousness had earned him the favor of God and the esteem of all those who knew him. He had a large and powerful family and a thriving business, and it seemed that things couldn’t be going better. Except when everything came crashing down around him. The devil didn’t like how just and upright Job was, and how much God took pride in him. And so, as the devil will do, he made plans to upset the apple cart. God allowed it, as he allows the things that befall us, because not to do so would violate our free will, which he gave us out of love.

    Job does okay for a while, but when everything piled on, Job couldn’t take it any more. His friends are no help, and they even blame him for the things that have happened. His wife tells him to “curse God and die” (2:9). Twenty-nine chapters of this has him blaming God, only to be rebuked by his friends. And in the passage we have today, God sets things right, and points out to Job that he can’t know all that God has in mind and he has no idea how the balance of good and evil in the world work. But in all of this, God has not forgotten Job, so when Job repents a few chapters later, God restores Job’s fortunes many more times greater than he had in the past.

    But what are you going to do when everything comes crashing down around you?

    The disciples of Jesus in the Gospel reading today certainly thought that moment had come. They had been following Jesus now, and while they were drawn to him, he clearly was not the kind of Messiah they had been expecting. Far from being a heroic military leader destined to return Israel to its place of prominence in the world at that time, Jesus was asleep on a cushion in the stern of a boat, while a violent squall threatened to dump them into the sea. Didn’t he get it? Doesn’t he know this is the kind of thing a Messiah takes care of? Couldn’t he be expected to lead them through the storm?

    Well, he does, of course. With just a few words, he rebukes the wind and the sea and tells them to be still, and the wind and the sea obey. They are astounded. And Jesus expects them to expect the astounding: “Why are you terrified? Do you not yet have faith?”

    And here we come to what is, I think, the crux of today’s Liturgy of the Word. And that is faith. You know, we have talked about this before: it’s easy to have faith when things are going well, as they were for Job in the early part of that book. But when everything crashes down around you, when everyone you know is killed, and all of your fortune destroyed, when the wind and the waves threaten to dump you into the sea, well, it’s hard to have faith then, isn’t it?

    But in those moments, those moments when everything is crashing down around you, when the world seems to be coming to a horrible end, those, friends, are the times when we need our faith the most. “Do you not yet have faith?” Jesus asks the disciples in the boat that question, but he could well enough ask us too, right? He could well ask us disciples that same question:

    • when you’re at the bedside of a loved one who went home way too soon.
• when your job comes to an end and you have no idea what is coming next.
• when your children can’t see what’s best for them and want to go their own way.
• when your spouse doesn’t seem interested in your relationship any more.
• when you’ve just received a difficult diagnosis, and you’re not sure you can withstand the medical treatment.
• when you have no one to go home to, and the loneliness seems like a never-ending abyss.
• when you’re listening to the news and you feel powerless to withstand the evil in the world, let alone to confront it.

    When everything is crashing down around us, do we have our faith in those moments? Because if we don’t, we’ll never be able to see Jesus in the stern of the boat, we will never be able to withstand the violent squall. There have been days where, absent my faith, I wouldn’t still be functional. But thanks be to God, I have God in my life and my faith sustains me through my hardest days.

    But that doesn’t mean it just happens. There isn’t a way to press a button and be in “faith mode” when everything comes crashing down around you. There has to be a pre-existing faith to engage. We get through tough times not by waving a magic wand, but instead by placing the storm at the foot of the Cross that we have learned to adore, and by accepting the will of Our Lord who we have learned to follow in love. The trust that we have in the Lord in whom we have put our faith is the salvation from the wind and the storm and the sea and everything crashing around us. If even the wind and the sea obey Jesus, then we have to also. And we have to do it before the storm catches us unprepared.

    “What are you going to do when everything comes crashing down around you?” isn’t really the most important question. The real question is, how are you going to build the faith that you need for when that happens?

  • Thursday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    When you stop to think about it, we are so richly blessed to have as our guide for prayer, and a prayer that we can say, the words of our Lord himself. It’s such a beautiful thing that this is usually one of the first prayers that we learn. It’s a powerful tool for our spiritual life, and can get us through good times and bad. In fact, I was celebrating the Last Rites for someone the other day, and she was in and out as often happens in one’s last moments. But when we got to the Lord’s prayer, she moved her lips in prayer along with us. I was really struck by the beauty of that moment.

    This wonderful prayer teaches us how to approach our God in prayer. First, it teaches us to pray in communion with our brothers and sisters in Christ. This week, in our Office of Readings, we priests and deacons and religious have been reading from a treatise on the Lord’s Prayer by Saint Cyprian. On Monday, that treatise told us: “Above all, he who preaches peace and unity did not want us to pray by ourselves in private or for ourselves alone. We do not say ‘My Father, who art in heaven,’ nor ‘Give me this day my daily bread.’ It is not for himself alone that each person asks to be forgiven, not to be led into temptation, or to be delivered from evil. Rather we pray in public as a community, and not for one individual but for all. For the people of God are all one.”

    Second, it acknowledges that God knows best how to provide for our needs. We might want all the time to tell him what we want, or how to take care of us, but deep down we know that the only way our lives can work is when we surrender to God and let God do what he needs to do in us. And so the Lord’s Prayer teaches us to pray “thy kingdom come, thy will be done.” The whole point of creation is that the whole world will be happiest and at peace only when everything is returned to the One who made it all in the first place. Until we surrender our lives too, we can never be happy or at peace.

    Third, this wonderful prayer acknowledges that the real need in all of us is forgiveness. Yes, we are all sinners and depend on God alone for forgiveness, because we can never make up for the disobedience of our lives. But we also must forgive others as well, or we can never really receive forgiveness in our lives. “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” might just be the boldest prayer we can utter on any given day. Because if we have been negligent in our forgiving, is that really how we want God to forgive us? When we take the Lord’s Prayer seriously, we can really transform our little corner of the world by giving those around us the grace we have been freely given.

    So as we pray the Lord’s Prayer later in Mass, and even during our Rosaries and private prayer, let us take some time to reflect on these beautiful words and to give thanks that the One who wants us to be in relationship with us gave us a prayer that helps us to be in that relationship.

  • The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love this image of seeds growing for a couple of reasons. First of all, it’s summer, and we are seeing things grow all around us. We hope the corn will be knee high by the Fourth of July, and that the flowers we’ve planted adorn our homes with beautiful color. Summer finds us looking for natural growth in our world and in our own yards. Second, though, as we find ourselves in Summer Ordinary Time, I believe the Church gives us tools for living the life of discipleship to which we are all called. Today we hear about how that life grows and comes to fruition.

    Now, I really don’t have a green thumb, but for a while when I was young, I was very interested in growing things. My grandmother on my dad’s side had quite the green thumb: anything she planted grew to be quite prolific. I have whatever the opposite of that is! But still, I have always been fascinated by things growing from tiny little seeds to become large plants; no matter if they become beautiful flowers to decorate the landscape, or delicious vegetables to bring to the table.

    It’s really a miracle when you think about it. A little seed, a tiny little dried-up thing, looks for all the world to be useless and dead. But when it gets planted in the earth, and watered by the rains, new life springs forth from it, and a tiny sprout appears, which grows day by day to become a fully mature plant by the summertime. Sure, we or the farmers might do a little work to nurture it and water it and keep the weeds and rabbits away, but we don’t make the plant grow: day by day, almost imperceptibly, growth happens. One day, for all the grace given it, it becomes a mature plant that gives nourishment and delight and shade for the birds of the air.

    And this is the image that Jesus uses today to describe the Kingdom of God. These parables are a lens through which we are to see life: the life of God, and our life, and how they all come together. And it’s an encouraging message that we hear today. Today, our Lord assures us that the Kingdom of God doesn’t come about all at once, in great power and glory, or in some kind of dramatic explosion. The Kingdom is like those crops that grow to be fully mature plants and yield a harvest, but it happens little by little, almost imperceptibly, always growing, but we know not how. And the Kingdom is miraculous like a mustard seed which one day is the tiniest of all seeds and eventually becomes a large plant that gives shelter to the birds of the air.

    Here’s why I think these parables are so encouraging: We all want to be part of the Kingdom of God. We all want to grow in our faith. We all want that faith to sustain us in good times and bad, and eventually lead us to heaven. That’s why we’re here today. But the truth is, if you’re like me, you get frustrated sometimes because it doesn’t seem like there’s any real growth going on. We commit the same sins despite our firmest resolve. Our plans to revive our prayer life fizzle out before they can get a firm foothold in our lives. We take one step forward and two steps back. But still, like the seed scattered on the land, being here for Mass today isn’t nothing. Our prayers, however lacking they may seem to be, are still a manifestation of our desire to be in relationship with God. And God takes those tiny seeds of faith and waters them with grace and the sacraments and the life of the Church, until one day, please God, our faith makes a difference in our lives and the lives of those around us. And even if whatever we start with in the life of faith is as tiny as a mustard seed, in God’s hands, it can become that shrub that is a shelter for those who are flying around in life from one thing to the next, without any real hope except for Christ in us.

    And that’s an important thing for us to get. Our faith life gets nourished and we grow in it from day to day. That’s a gift to us, for sure: every step gets us closer to the life of heaven. But it’s not for us only, friends. We are called as we mature to become the shrub that gives shelter to the birds of the air. We are meant to help others along the way of faith too. Because we don’t go alone to heaven; we’re supposed to take as many fellow seekers along with us as we possibly can.

    We may not be perfect yet, friends, but we’re graced. And that grace will perfect whatever we sow and make our tiny little beginnings into great things, all for the Kingdom of God.

  • Friday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary time

    Friday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary time

    Today’s readings

    This morning we have to wrestle with the question: is there something in my life that distracts me from living my life as God intended that I need to cut out?  It’s a ruthless image that we find in our Gospel reading: gouge out an eye, cut off a hand – all of that is better than taking the road to hell.  And it really does need to be that ruthless.  Because hell is real and it’s not going to be pleasant.  So we really need to attach ourselves to Jesus who is the way, the truth, and the life.  And whatever gets in the way of that needs to be brutally ejected from our lives.

    Yes, that might hurt sometimes.  But, as the cliché goes, whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  Elijah the prophet knew that very well. He had just embarrassed the prophets of Baal, and Jezebel was pursuing him to take his life. In our first reading this morning, he takes refuge in a cave, and only upon hearing the tiny whispering sound of God’s presence is he able to continue the journey and complete his mission.

    Elijah had put to death the many prophets of Baal who were leading the people astray. Just so, we too need to be willing to put to death in us anything that does not lead us to Christ.  The pain of it can be joined to the sufferings of Christ for God’s glory and honor.  It is something that we can offer to our God, as we pray with the Psalmist, “I long to see your face, O Lord.”

  • Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    Saint Anthony of Padua, Priest and Doctor of the Church

    I’m not sure if it’s that I’m getting older or that I have too many things to keep track of, but I find myself losing things, or losing my train of thought more often than I used to. I’m often grateful to Saint Anthony on those occasions! Saint Anthony is probably one of the best-known Catholic saints. As the patron for finding lost objects, I’m sure so many of us have prayed, “Tony, Tony, look around, something’s lost and can’t be found.” We all lose track of things from time to time, and it’s nice to have someone to help us find them.

    But the real story of Saint Anthony centers around finding the way to Christ. The gospel call to leave everything and follow Christ was the rule of Anthony’s life. Over and over again God called him to something new in his plan. Every time Anthony responded with renewed zeal and self-sacrifice to serve his Lord Jesus more completely. His journey as the servant of God began as a very young man when he decided to join the Augustinians, giving up a future of wealth and power to follow God’s plan for his life. But later, when the bodies of the first Franciscan martyrs went through the Portuguese city where he was stationed, he was again filled with an intense longing to be one of those closest to Jesus himself: those who die for the Good News.

    So Anthony entered the Franciscan Order and set out to preach to the Moors – a pretty dangerous thing to do. But an illness prevented him from achieving that goal. He went to Italy and was stationed in a small hermitage where he spent most of his time praying, reading the Scriptures and doing menial tasks.

    But that was not the end for Anthony’s dream of following God’s call. Recognized as a great man of prayer and a great Scripture scholar and theologian, Anthony became the first friar to teach theology to the other friars. Soon he was called from that post to preach to heretics, to use his profound knowledge of Scripture and theology to convert and reassure those who had been misled.

    So yes, Saint Anthony is the patron of finding lost objects, but what I really think he wants to help us find, is our way to Christ. As a teacher, a scholar and a man of faith, he was devoted to his relationship with God. And so his intercession for us might go a little deeper than where we left our keys. Maybe we find ourselves today having lost track of our relationship with God in some way. Maybe our prayer isn’t as fervent as it once was. Or maybe we have found ourselves wrapped up in our own problems and unable to see God at work in us. Maybe our life is in disarray and we’re not sure how God is leading us. If we find ourselves in those kinds of situations today, we might do well to call on the intercession of Saint Anthony.

    Saint Anthony, pray for us.

  • Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Saint Barnabas, Apostle

    Today’s readings

    Saint Barnabas, a Jew of Cyprus, was not one of the original Twelve apostles, but is honored as an apostle because of his work of evangelization in the early Church. He was closely associated with Saint Paul, with whom, as we heard in our first reading today, he was sent out on mission. In this mission, Saint Barnabas served as a kind of mediator between Paul, formerly known as Saul, a persecutor of Christians, and the Jewish Christians, who were still, understandably, suspicious of this man who used to persecute Christians throughout Jerusalem.

    When a Christian community developed at Antioch, Barnabas was sent as the official representative of the Church of Jerusalem to incorporate them into the fold. He and Paul taught in Antioch for a year, after which they took relief contributions to Jerusalem.

    We see in today’s first reading that Saints Paul and Barnabas had become accepted in the community as charismatic leaders who led many to convert to Christianity. The Holy Spirit set them apart for Apostolic work and blessed their efforts with great success.

    Above all, these men desired to be salt for the earth and light for the world, as Jesus called us to be in today’s Gospel reading. Just as they led many people then to that kind of life through their words and actions, so their witness calls us to follow that same kind of life today.

    As we celebrate the Eucharist today, we might follow their call witness by examining our lives and our own lived discipleship. How willing are we to extend ourselves and reach out to others and not be bound by mere human precepts? In other words, how willing are we to give of ourselves no matter how other people might interpret that? How willing are we to do the unpopular thing and stand up for others? How do we live our call as believers? Do we actively seek to be salt and light in the world? Blessed are we who follow the example of St. Barnabas and blessed are we who benefit from his intercession.

    Saint Barnabas, pray for us.

  • The Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Tenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Where are you?

    This is the question God asked Adam and Eve early on in our first reading today. And for them, the answer to the question was that they were not in an especially good place. We know the story: God had given them everything they needed to live in the Garden of Eden, instructing them that the only thing they could not do was eat from the fruit of the tree in the center of the garden. The fall was already at work in them even then, because they found that the one thing they were not permitted to do was the one thing they wanted to do more than anything, and so they give into the seductive suggestions of the serpent and eat the fruit anyway.

    They soon find that they cannot hide from their sin: they are naked in the garden, and the sin is apparent, and so they do what fallen human beings have done ever since: they try to hide from God. Which would certainly be easy to do if God did not create man and woman out of love for them, and did not ultimately care about them. But he did care, and continued to seek relationship with them, and so he asks the question, the answer to which he certainly knows: “Where are you?”

    Explaining that they had found their nakedness, the weight of their sin is apparent. They desired something more than they desired God. That’s what sin is. And what ensues is the first recorded instance of “passing the buck:” the man blames the woman, and also blames God for putting the woman in the garden with him in the first place; the woman blames the serpent. So it has gone ever since: we desire something more than God, that sinful desire drags us down, we try to hide from God, and when we can’t, we blame someone else. Sin has entered the world and now darkens it in ways that are heartbreaking.

    Where are you?

    If you’re not seeing the face of God in your life; if you find yourself desiring something more than you desire God and the blessings God is giving you, it’s likely you’re not in a very good place right now. Maybe you have just lost track of where you are, who you are and where you should be going. Maybe you just plod along, very busy, very scattered by the rush and routine. Or maybe, like Adam, you are hiding out, afraid to face or deal with something that needs addressing.

    But that’s no way for us to live our lives, friends. God made us out of love, made us for love, made us to love, and he pursues us no matter how far we have wandered or to what depth we have fallen. If we come clean with God, name our sin and refuse to blame someone else, we can have forgiveness, we can have mercy. We can have God.

    That “unforgivable sin” of which our Gospel seeks is exactly the kind of thing that got us into trouble in the first place. It’s not something we’ve said or done to someone else, or even to God, but instead hiding from God and not wanting his mercy. It’s like having a world-class chef offer you a sumptuous meal, but refusing to eat it because you don’t want to sit down with him and eat, so you go away hungry. If you refuse God’s mercy because you don’t want his grace to change your life, you go away unforgiven. You sin against the Holy Spirit. It’s not that God won’t forgive, it’s that you don’t want to let God change your nakedness.

    Where are you?

    In these summer months, sometimes our routine changes. Maybe there isn’t that constant daily hustle of getting the kids to school and then practices and activities and all the other things that make life crazy. This is the time to see our lives for what they are, and come humbly to our God if we have been hiding.

    Sin is not who we are, sin is not part of human nature. Sin has certainly entered our world and we have to deal it in our daily lives, but it cannot ever define us unless we let it. Jesus was the most perfect example of human nature, completely free from sin. We can approach that glory when we stop hiding ourselves from God, when we let God into our lives, and when we let his grace change us into what we were created for. We are better than our sins.

    At our Eucharist today, maybe we can invite our merciful and loving God into our lives to:
         • help us deal with issues at home
         • tie up the evil and negative influences that afflict us and distract our children
         • help us break the habits we haven’t been able to break on our own
         • release our instincts to do good despite our fears
         • put aside anxieties that drain us of full life

    God doesn’t ever stop pursuing us in love. All we have to do is answer his call and say, “I’m right here, God. Standing before you in need of your mercy. Pleading for your grace. Wanting you and what you want for me more than anything. I’m right here.” Maybe we can make that our prayer today. I know it’s going to be mine.

    Where are you?

  • The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    There was a commercial many years ago that showed little vignettes of people having near miss accidents, who are saved from those accidents by other people. So a woman on the way out of a restaurant moves a coffee cup on the table of a man whose elbow might knock it over at any minute. A man stops to yell to alert a truck parking that it’s about to run into a motorcycle. There’s a whole bunch of them showing people doing little things to help other people. The announcer says something like “when it’s people doing these things, we call it responsibility.”

    It was a nice commercial, but I quibble a bit with that final line. Because I think that when it’s people doing things like that, we ought to call it love. Sure, it’s not the same kind of love that you might have for a spouse or family member or even a friend, but it’s the kind of love that helps us go outside ourselves and work for the good of others.

    Jesus’ love for us knows know bounds. In today’s Gospel, we see that not even death could limit his love for us. As he hung dying upon the cross, his love for us never wavered. And even after his death, the soldier’s lance helped blood and water to pour from his side. The blood that poured forth from Jesus’ side is the same blood we will be able to partake in this morning in the Eucharist. A blood that nourishes and strengthens us and cleanses us from our sins. The water is the same water you dipped your hand into on the way in today: the waters of baptism. That water washes our sins away and brings us into the body of the Church.

    One more way that the love of Jesus is made present in the Church is through you and me. We have to, as Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, love what Jesus loved as he hung on the cross. And that means that we are called to love each person we come in contact with, whether it’s our own friends or family members, or even a complete stranger. When we love each person in little or small ways, then some measure of the love that Jesus had on the cross for that person, the love which poured forth from his Sacred Heart, is poured forth upon our world yet again. The love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus isn’t meant just for us to hoard: we are meant to share it, so that that love may grow and abound and spread through all the world.

    May the love of the Sacred Heart of Jesus draw us in today and be in our hearts and in all that we do.

    Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.