Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: Preaching, Homiletics & Scripture

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    Just as the saraph serpent was lifted up on a pole in the desert for the people to see, and thus live, so the Son of Man, Jesus Christ, was lifted up on the cross for the salvation of the world. This fifth week of Lent is the beginning of what we call “Passiontide.” In these late Lenten days, the Church is looking to the Cross, looking toward Jerusalem, knowing that the hour of the Lord, in which he would pay the dear price of our salvation, is near at hand.

    With hearts filled with gratitude, we come to this Eucharist, with our eyes fixed on our Lord lifted up for us, who pours himself out for us again and still. When we see him lifted up, we remember that he is “I AM,” our crucified and risen Lord, and whenever we look to him, we are saved from all that ails us, from our sins and brokenness, and we ourselves are lifted up to eternal life.

    Our challenge in these late Lenten days is to be that icon of the Cross, like the saraph serpent, to whom people can look and find healing and salvation. We have to be the image of Christ crucified so that the world can become whole. Just as many came to believe because Jesus spoke of himself in this way, so may many come to believe because we live it.

    We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you:
    Because by your holy Cross, you have redeemed the world.

  • The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle C

    The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle C

    Today’s readings

    Back in the sixth century before the birth of Christ, the Israelites were in a bad way. They had been separated from their God by sin: against God’s commands, they had betrayed their covenant with the Lord and made foreign alliances, which he had forbidden them to do. He forbade this because he knew that as they made these alliances, they would give in to the temptation to worship the so-called gods of the people they with whom they allied themselves. As punishment, God separated them from their homeland: the cream of the crop of their society were taken into exile in Babylon, and those left behind had no one to lead them and protect them. Because they moved away from God, God seemed to move away from them. But he hadn’t: it was really they who had exiled themselves from God. In today’s first reading, God shows them that he still loves them and cares for them, and promises to make them a new people. I love the line: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?” God would indeed bring them back and create their community anew.

    The Israelites were in exile, but exile can take so many forms. And Saint Paul had a good sense of that. For him, the exile was anything that was not Christ; a sentiment we should embrace. Saint Paul knows that he has not yet taken possession of the glory that is promised him by Christ, and so he wants to leave behind the exile of the world and strains forward to all that lies ahead, the goal and prize of God’s calling in Christ.

    Which brings us to the woman caught in adultery. We certainly feel sorry for her, caught in the act, dragged in front of Jesus and publicly humiliated. But the truth is, just like the Israelites in the sixth century before Christ, she had actually sinned. And that sin threatened to put her into exile from the community; well, it even threatened her life. The in-your-face reversal in the story, though, is that Jesus doesn’t consider her the only sinner – or even the greatest sinner – in the whole incident. We should probably wonder about the man with whom she was committing adultery; that sin does, after all, take two. And as serious a sin as adultery certainly is, Jesus makes it clear that there are plenty of serious sins out there, and they all exile us from God. As he sits there, writing in the sand, they walk away one by one. What was he writing? Was it a kind of examination of conscience? A kind of list of the sins of the Pharisees? We don’t know. But in Jesus’ words and actions, those Pharisees too were convicted of their sins, and went away – into exile – because of them.

    Sin does that to us. It makes exiles out of all of us. The more we sin, the further away from God we become. And it doesn’t have to be that way.

    Jimmy and Suzy went to visit their grandparents for a week during the summer. They had a great time, but one day Jimmy was bouncing a ball in the house, which he knew he shouldn’t be doing. It didn’t take long for the ball to hit grandma’s favorite vase, knocking it off the table and breaking it. He picked up the pieces and went out back and hid them in the woodshed. Looking around, the only person who was around was his sister Suzy. She didn’t say anything, but later that day, when grandma asked her to help with the dishes, Suzy said “I think Jimmy wanted to help you,” giving him a rather knowing look. So he did. The next day, grandpa asked Jimmy if he wanted to go out fishing. Suzy jumped right in: “He’d like to, but he promised grandma he would weed the garden.” So Jimmy weeded the garden. As he was doing that, he felt pretty guilty and decided to confess the whole thing to grandma. When he told her what had happened, grandma said, “I know. I was looking out the back window when you were hiding the pieces in the woodshed. I was wondering how long you were going to let Suzy make a slave of you.”

    That’s how it is with sin: it makes a slave of us, and keeps us from doing what we really want to do. It puts us deep in exile, just as surely as the ancient Israelites. And it doesn’t have to be that way. You see, it’s easier than we think to end up in exile. All we have to do is a good examination of conscience and then think about the way those sins have affected us. Have they made us feel distant from God, family and friends? Have they caused us to drift in our life and not feel God’s presence in times of hardship?

    Exile is heartbreaking. And to the exile of sin, God has three things to say today:

    First, “Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.” That sounds like something that’s easy to say but hard to do. But God never commands us to do something that is impossible for us, or maybe better, he never commands us to do something that is impossible for him to do in us. God’s grace is there if we but turn to him.

    Second, God says: “Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.” Once sin is confessed and grace is accepted, the sin is forgotten. God is not a resentful tyrant who keeps a list of our offenses and holds them against us forever. If we confess our sins and accept the grace that is present through the saving sacrifice of Jesus, the sins are forgotten.

    Third, God says: “See, I am doing something new. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” We are the ones who get stuck in the past, always fearing to move forward because of past sins, hurts, and resentments. We are called today to be open to the new thing God is doing in our lives. The way to open up is to confess our sins and get rid of the past.

    For a long time in my young life, I didn’t go to confession. I didn’t think I needed to. I grew up in that whole time of the church when it was all about how you felt about yourself. Garbage. I knew something was wrong when I was in my young adulthood and felt lost. I took a chance and went to confession at a penance service, and the priest welcomed me back. In that moment, I knew exactly the new thing God was doing in me, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me. In fact, I was released from the exile of all my past sins and hurts.

    I never forgot that, and whenever anyone comes to me in confession and says it’s been a long time since they went, I am quick to welcome them back. Because that’s what God wants, and it’s a great privilege for me to be part of that. He wants to lift that weight off of you, to end your exile. All it takes is for you to see that new thing he is doing in you, and to strain forward to what lies ahead.

    So we have just a few times left to receive that grace before Holy Week and Easter. We have what we lovingly call “Confessionpalooza” today at 1:30 in the afternoon. We will have thirteen confessors available to hear confessions in English, Spanish, and Polish. If you can come to that festival of mercy, I think you would find it beneficial. If that doesn’t work, our last chances are this coming Friday at 6pm and Saturday at 2pm. Please note that there are no available times for confessions during Holy Week, so please make plans to come this week. Would that we would all take this opportunity to forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead. God is doing a new thing in all of us these Lenten days. May we all be open to it.

  • The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle A/Scrutiny III

    The Fifth Sunday in Lent, Cycle A/Scrutiny III

    Today’s readings

    Think about it: if you died and were brought back to life, would your life be different? I tend to think we’d all say yes, very different. But how? I often wonder about Lazarus and how his life looked after he was raised from the dead by Jesus. We don’t get that part of the story, but I imagine he took care to proclaim the Good News that he heard from Jesus, and saw as he sprang from the grave.

    You know, living is subjective. What we might think of as “really living” and what the world may tell us is living the life we should all have is probably going to be quite different than the real life we hear proclaimed in these readings today. So if we want to know the meaning of life, I think we should spend some time reflecting on today’s Liturgy of the Word. And then pray to know whether that corresponds to what we think life is all about, or not. We might find ourselves, like Lazarus, rethinking life and finding new purpose.

    Our first reading today tells us that life without spirit is really death. Ezekiel prophesies that God sees his people dead, but will open their graves and have them rise. But the new life he intends to give involves receiving the spirit:

    I will put my spirit in you that you may live,
    and I will settle you upon your land;
    thus you shall know that I am the LORD.
    I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD.

    In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes Ezekiel’s words and tells the Roman Church, and us too, that we who are in Christ have the Spirit who raises us from the dead:

    If the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
    the one who raised Christ from the dead
    will give life to your mortal bodies also,
    through his Spirit dwelling in you.

    Then we have Martha, Mary and Lazarus in our Gospel reading. In his Gospel, John is very clear about death. When Jesus hears about Lazarus’s illness he says to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep,” and they are encouraged by that, thinking that sleep is a good cure for illness and trusting that Lazarus will be well. So Jesus has to say it clearly:

    “Lazarus has died.
    And I am glad for you that I was not there,
    that you may believe.
    Let us go to him.”

    And, to underscore that Lazarus was really, really dead, when Jesus orders the bystanders to roll the stone away from the tomb, Martha points out the practical matter:

    “Lord, by now there will be a stench;
    he has been dead for four days.”

    That was significant, because the Jews believed that, if a person stayed dead for three days, he or she was definitely dead. So on day four, Lazarus was really, really dead, and there would be no waking him up.

    Except for the Spirit of Jesus. That Spirit, the One who would raise Jesus from the dead, gives life to the mortal body of Lazarus, for the honor and glory of God. So good for Lazarus, but what does it mean for the rest of us, standing there in awe of the miracle we have just witnessed?

    During Lent, we have been journeying with our catechumens, who are now called the Elect, as they prepare to be baptized, confirmed, and receive first Holy Communion at the Easter Vigil. Much like them, there are three groups of catechumens in today’s Gospel. The first group is Mary and Martha, those friends of Jesus that are part of John’s Gospel a few times. Here, the rubber meets the road in their faith. Here, like so many of us, they have something tragic happen in their lives, and now they have to grapple with whether their faith helps them with that or not. Mary is so troubled that she doesn’t even go out to meet the Lord until her sister tells her a white lie that Jesus was asking for her. Both she and Martha, when they first see Jesus, complain that he should have come sooner so that he could have saved Lazarus. But Martha has a little faith. She says very importantly that “Even now, I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” That’s the beginning profession of faith. She knows that Jesus has power over life and death. So then they have a little catechetical dialogue about life and death and eternity, and at the end of it, Martha professes that Jesus is the Son of God who was coming into the world. The sisters move from their grief, to faith in Jesus, even before he accomplishes the miracle.

    The second group of catechumens is the Apostles. God bless them, they’re still trying to make sense of Jesus. We can’t be too hard on them, because they’re a lot like many of us who are trying to be men and women of faith, but don’t really have all the facts right now. “Let us also go to die with him,” Thomas says. And they will, of course: they have to go through the cross before they see and understand Jesus fully. We too will have to take up our own crosses before we can fully understand the salvation that Christ has won for us.

    The third group of catechumens is the Jews. A bunch of them are weeping with Mary, and they go with her to see Jesus. Along the way, they complain that if he could heal the man born blind like he did in last week’s Gospel, why couldn’t he have healed Lazarus? But seeing the miracle, they come to believe, in the very last verse of this long reading. They are a lot like those of us who are skeptical for a long time, but see something wonderful materialize in the life of another and finally decide there’s something to this Jesus that’s worth believing in.

    Key to all of these catechumens is that, in order to move to belief, they had to have some kind of stench in their lives washed away. For Martha and Mary, they had to see past their grief. For the Apostles, they had to get over themselves and realize that Jesus was in charge. For the Jews, they had to get past their skepticism and let him perform miracles among them. For all of us, on the journey of faith, some kind of stench has to be washed away, in order to come to full faith in Jesus. And that stench, of course, is sin. The way it gets washed away is in baptism.

    So if you take away anything from today’s Liturgy, let it be this: this reading is really all about baptism. Is it a foreshadowing of Jesus’ death and resurrection? Sure. But it is more about baptism. Because baptism is a kind of death. As Saint Paul says in our second reading today, baptism is the kind of death that gives life to our mortal bodies. It’s hard for us to imagine that kind of thing when the baptisms we’ve seen are just a mere pouring of water over a baby’s head. But baptism in the early church was full submerging in water while the formula was pronounced, after which they came up out of the water gasping for air. Believe me, they got the connection of baptism with death and resurrection!

    Baptism is what washes away the stench in our lives. It does that with original sin, and if we live our baptism by participating in the sacraments, it does that with the sins of our daily life. The sacrament of Penance is an extension in a way of the sacrament of Baptism, in which the sins of our lives are completely washed away, leaving us made new and alive in ways we couldn’t imagine.

    So today, Jesus sees us dead in the flesh, stinking of our sins. But he calls us forth in baptism, rolling away the stone of sin that keeps us from relationship with him, releasing us from the burial-bands that bind us, and calling us to new life.

    So maybe in these closing days of Lent, we still have to respond to our Lord’s call to live. Maybe you haven’t yet been to confession before Easter. We have confessions tomorrow at 1:30pm, with thirteen priests to hear your confession. We invite you to come and have the stone rolled away and to be untied from your burial cloths. Wherever you find yourself at this point of Lent, I urge you, don’t let Easter pass with you all bound up and sealed in the grave. Don’t spend these last days of Lent in the grave. Come out, be untied, and be let go.

  • Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Friday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings


    Saying, “We know where he is from” is from is a Scriptural way of labeling that person, and in a sense, writing him or her off. I think maybe we too have ways of “knowing where people are from” and we label them according to race, or parentage, or upbringing, or privilege, or whatever. We are especially quick to label and write off those who would challenge us, just like the just one was “beset” in today’s first reading, or the Jews who would write Jesus off because they know where he is from, in our Gospel reading. But we need to take care not to write people off – regardless if they are different from us, or are troublesome, or are challenging to us, because in doing so we write off Jesus himself, and turn our back once again on the words he would speak to us.

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    Water is so important to us, and we see a lot of water in these readings. Water refreshes us, sustains us, cleans us. I find I always need to remind myself to drink more water. These readings talk so much about water, and when that happens, we are being led to a reflection on baptism. We ourselves are the sick and lame man who needed Jesus’ help to get into the waters of Bethesda. The name “Bethesda” means “house of mercy” in Hebrew, and that, of course, is a symbol of the Church. We see the Church also in the temple in the first reading, from which waters flow which refresh and nourish the surrounding countryside. These, of course, again are the waters of baptism.

    Lent, really, is all about baptism. This is the time when the Elect in our OCIA program are preparing intensely to receive that sacrament of initiation. But it’s not just about them; lent call us to renew ourselves in our own baptisms. We are called to renew ourselves in those waters that heal our bodies and our souls. We are called to drink deep of the grace of God so that we can go forth and refresh the world.

    But what really stands out in this Gospel is the mercy of Jesus. I think it’s summed up in one statement that maybe we might not catch as merciful at first: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” Now, I’m sure being ill for thirty-eight years is really bad. It’s hard to imagine anything being worse. But I’m also pretty sure missing out on the kingdom of God would be that one, much worse, thing. There is mercy in being called to repentance, which renews us in our baptismal commitments and makes us fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

    Back in the 80s and 90s, parishes would often remove the holy water from church during Lent in a kind of fasting. But here is why you shouldn’t: Lent is all about baptism, all about God’s mercy, all about being renewed and refreshed and healed in God’s grace. So I encourage you all to not take holy water for granted. Think about that the next time you put your hand into the font and stir up those waters of mercy. Be healed and made new; go, and from now on, do not sin any more.

  • Sunday of the Fourth Week in Lent (Cycle A / Scrutiny II)

    Sunday of the Fourth Week in Lent (Cycle A / Scrutiny II)

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Liturgy is all about vision and sight and light and darkness. All of these, dear friends, are things that many of us certainly take for granted. Think about it: we don’t appreciate the gift of light until that dark and stormy night when the electricity goes out and we’re fumbling around in the darkness trying to remember where it is we put that new package of batteries for the flashlight. We likewise take for granted our own ability to see. I think of my Aunt Mia, who several years before she passed away lost her sight and had to learn how to see things and how to function in a whole new way.

    When I hear today’s first reading, it always makes me think of my dad. He was the kind of Irishman who never knew a stranger. We couldn’t go anywhere without running into at least one person he knew. But he didn’t just know them, he knew their story. And so if someone were to complain about someone he knew, he would always be able to tell them something good about that person, because Dad saw the best in them. That’s the kind of vision we are all called to have for one another: we need to see the best in them, we need to see Jesus in them.

    So what about this miracle story in the Gospel today. Here’s a question I always like to throw out there: who cares? I mean, it’s nice for that man born blind who can now see, but I mean, he lived two thousand years ago, so what business is it of ours if he can see or not? Why take up so much time with this reading? Well I’ll tell you why we should care: we should care because the man born blind is us, friends. We all have affected vision: none of us sees others or even sees ourselves as God does. So we have to decide today if we are the man born blind who is easily and quickly healed, or if we want to be the Pharisees who, at the end of the day, never regain their sight because, well, they just don’t want to.

    So maybe you’re asking the same question those Pharisees asked, “surely we are not also blind, are we?” Well, of course we are. We are, first of all, born blind. We don’t have a way of seeing the Truth that is in front of us; we can’t acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ and the King of our lives. It takes holy Baptism to cure that born blindness in us. Secondly, we have a kind of blindness that affects us all through our lives. We often lose our vision and wander off the path to life. We are affected by temptation, by cyclical sin and by the darkness of our world. That’s why we have Lent: to realize our brokenness and to accept the healing power of Christ. Lent calls us to remember that we are dust, that we are broken people fallen into sin, but it also proclaims that none of that is any match for the power of Christ risen from the dead, if we just let him put a little mud on our eyes.

    Today’s Gospel then is a kind of journey to clearer vision. We are all born blind, in a sense, and it takes the presence of Jesus to clear our vision. Just as the man born blind was sent to the pool of Siloam, we too are sent to a pool: the waters of baptism, which clears our eyes and helps us to really see. Our Elect, who are here with us today, will experience that in a very literal way this coming Easter Vigil. In baptism, our inherited sin and evil is washed away; the darkness of life is transformed by the presence of Christ, the Light of the World.

    We see that light shine brighter and brighter in today’s Gospel. During the course of all the questionings that follow, the man’s vision becomes clearer and clearer. At first he doesn’t know who Jesus is or where to find him. Later on he testifies that Jesus is a prophet and finally, with the help of Jesus’ instruction, after he has been unceremoniously thrown out of the synagogue, he meets Jesus again and testifies that Jesus is the Son of Man and worthy of worship. As he sees more clearly, his faith becomes bolder.

    We make this same journey ourselves. From the waters of baptism, we need to continue the conversation and return to Christ again and again to grow in our faith. We grow in the way that we see Jesus through our lives. Think about it: our faith when we were young is not the same faith that works for us later in life. At one point Jesus is a friend walking with us on life’s path; later on he might be an anchor that helps us in a particularly stormy time of life. Still later, he might be the one calling us to become something new, something better than we think we can attain. Jesus is always the same, but we are different, and Jesus is with us at every point of life’s journey, if we open our eyes to see him.

    Traditionally, today is Laetare Sunday – laetare being Latin for “rejoice.” That’s why we’re wearing these rose-colored vestments today. We are now pretty much half way through Lent, and with eyes recreated by our own trips to the pool of Siloam – the waters of baptism – we can begin to catch a glimpse of Easter joy. It kind of reminds me of the last section of the Exsultet that we will hear proclaimed on the Holy Night of the Easter Vigil. That last section tells us:

    May this flame be found still burning
    by the Morning Star:
    the one Morning Star who never sets,
    Christ your Son,
    who, coming back from death’s domain,
    has shed his peaceful light on humanity,
    and lives and reigns for ever and ever.

    Christ’s peaceful light changes everything. It clears up the darkness of sin and evil, and allows all of us blind ones to see the glory of God’s presence. All of us have, indeed been born spiritually blind. But you know what? We’re not supposed to stay that way, and we don’t have to. Jesus is yearning to enlighten us all that we might go out and be light for others too.

    In these final days of Lent, may we hear the Lord calling to us:

     “Awake, O sleeper,
        and arise from the dead,
        and Christ will give you light.”

  • The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C Readings

    The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C Readings

    Today’s readings

    Today we have in our Gospel reading one of my very favorite parables; maybe it’s your favorite too. It’s one that we have heard so often, and I think it’s one that we can see with the eyes of our imaginations. Three main characters: a forgiving father, a prodigal son, and a loyal, but perhaps cranky, son. It’s the kind of family situation I think we can all wrap our minds around; maybe it sits a little uncomfortably close to home.

    So it says right at the beginning that “a man had two sons.” And I think we need to keep that in mind, and I’ll say more about that in a bit. But the one son is dissatisfied with his life so much so that he feels the need to change it: he asks for his share of the inheritance right now, before his father is even dead. And that is a request is so presumptuous that it feels hurtful. Kind of like saying, “Hey dad, I wish you were dead, give me my inheritance now, please – I just can’t wait.” But the Father gives him the inheritance immediately and without ill-will. And you better believe that would have ruffled the feathers of Jesus’ hearers: there were strict rules of propriety in families and this absolutely flies in the face of that.

    But the other son is almost as guilty of that as the younger son. When the story runs its course, and the younger son returns to the father with his little memorized speech, the father, who has been waiting for his return, is moved with compassion and runs out to meet him. They throw a big party, but apparently they didn’t send someone out to invite the older son. On his return from the fields, he is indignant, partially, I think because he was overlooked, but also and importantly because He feels the injustice of the younger son being rewarded after tearing apart the family. His refusal to come in to join the feast and his making the father come out to him could also be seen as sinful.

    What amazes me is that the Father comes out of the house to meet 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. Probably on their hands and knees, begging for forgiveness. But the Father meets them where they are and desperately, lovingly, pleads with them to join the feast. It’s an image of our loving, forgiving Father God who won’t let anything – not past hurts, not resentments, not social propriety, not even our darkest sins – get in the way of his mercy, and love, and forgiveness, and grace. That’s the God we worship; that’s the Father we have.

    I love to call this the parable of the Forgiving Father, because I don’t think the point of this is to look at the son. I think the point of this is to look at the father, whose mercy and forgiveness are prodigious and even a little outlandish! The point of this is that, if we prodigal ones would just return, God will meet us more than half way. That’s a great message for Lent, and it gives us the action item of admitting our sins and returning to the Father.

    But there’s another way to look at this parable too. Again, the emphasis is going to be on the father, but this time the father is us. Bear with me on this. Amy Jill Levine, a Jewish scripture scholar, reads the parables with the eyes of one who has grown up with the Old Testament, much as Jesus and his hearers did. And so she sheds a little light on this parable that made me look at this anew this week and say, “Hmm…”

    So the father is us. A man had two sons, but he forgot to count. Let’s face it, the older son does get the rotten end of the stick here – I’ve always felt that when I read the parable growing up. But it was selfish of me because I saw myself as the loyal, hard working son, which, seen at age sixty, I can see is far from true. But that son does get the rotten end of the stick. Look at what happens: the younger son is rewarded for his initial disrespect in asking for the inheritance, and then when he comes back poorer and broken, he is rewarded with a feast. And not only that, apparently they had time to call the caterer, and time to shop for a ring and sandals, but they didn’t have time to tell the older son, who is out working hard for his father in the fields? What kind of craziness is that? Any one of us would be indignant.

    A man had two sons, but he forgot to count. That father, who is us, is all about taking care of the child who is most needy, to the detriment of the other son. Professor Levine says that it reminds her of her students: it’s easy to cater to the A-students and reward their accomplishments; it’s even easy to journey with the students who are having difficulty, offering them tutoring or answering questions. But the ones who are the B+ students, who can’t seem to cross the line to the A, do they count too? Think about that in our lives. The people who are good to us and doing good things are easy to walk with, they even support us. And we have the ones who are challenging, and we do everything we can to help them, out of love. But are there people in our lives that we forget to count? Who do we need to notice more, to think of more, to love more, this week? Perhaps that’s our action item this week.

    So whether our action item is admitting our sins and returning to the Father, or remembering to count and love the ones in our lives who we tend to forget, we have work to do. We have to return to God for forgiveness and mercy, and we have to love everyone in our lives as if they were the only ones there. The stakes of letting this parable fly past us and not engaging it are too high: we would be missing out on the banquet of eternal life to which Jesus Christ came to bring us. Taste and see that the Lord is good!

  • Friday of the Third Week in Lent

    Friday of the Third Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    “You are not far from the Kingdom of God!”

    I had a teacher in seminary who used to say that to people whenever they had a really insightful comment or answer in class. And it is this insight that we are all being called to in today’s readings. In the reading from Hosea, God tells the people that they need to understand that he is their salvation. Salvation for them is not going to come through alliances with Assyria or any other fickle foreign power, nor will that salvation come through the worship of pagan idols. Who then will help them? “I will heal their defection, says the LORD, I will love them freely.”

    The value here is that God alone is all we need to provide us with all we need. Our response to that has to be complete, loving devotion to God. The scribe figured this out in today’s Gospel reading. Listen to him again: “God is One and there is no other than he. And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.”

    Perhaps during these Lenten days, we too can come to an understanding that loving God and neighbor is what should consume our every thought. When we get there, we can hear the same words of encouragement as did the scribe: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God!”

  • The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

    The Solemnity of the Annunciation of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.
    May it be done to me according to your word.”

    Today, we celebrate one of the most important feasts on the Church calendar. This is when we remember the time when the Angel Gabriel came to visit Mary, and to let her know God’s plan for the world, that would involve her in a very special way. She was to have a baby, whose name would be Jesus, and he would save the world from sin and bring forth the Kingdom of God. Mary’s cooperation was necessary to bring mercy in the way God wanted it to come to us.

    Without this feast of the Annunciation, there would never have been a Christmas. Without the Annunciation, there never would have been a Good Friday or an Easter. So this feast is so very important. Mary’s cooperation meant that Jesus could be born in her, and through her, come to save us. The faithfulness of Mary, especially as a very young girl, has to be an inspiration for all of us. Mary had no roadmap or big-picture view of how this would come about, yet she is full of grace and so she is very firm in her fiat, her “yes” – her decision to exercise her faith: She says, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” Mary says yes to God’s plan for her, and because of that, God is able to say yes to us, to invite us into the Kingdom.

    We too are called to have the kind of faith that Mary had. And that’s because surely the glory of God is aching to be born in all of us; God wants to do important things for the world through all of us. We are called to bring Christ’s presence to every corner of our world, every place where we are. Sometimes, that can be scary, because we too don’t know what God’s work will call us to do or experience. We may be called upon to feed the hungry, or clothe the naked, or visit the sick, or shelter the homeless, or any of the works of mercy. But do we have the strength and ability to do that? Maybe not, but we are called to be Christ in those situations anyway. We might respond as Mary did at first: “How can this be?” But ultimately, we are called to respond that we are the Lord’s handmaids and accept the call with great faith.

    Mary is our patron whenever we feel overwhelmed by what we are called to do. May we rely on her intercession to guide us through the dark pathways of the unknown. May we look to her for an example of faith. May we follow her great example and let the Lord be born in us too, so that our Incarnate Lord can be made manifest in our world yet again. May we, like Mary, cry out in faith, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

    Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
    that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

  • The Third Sunday in Lent, Cycle C Readings

    The Third Sunday in Lent, Cycle C Readings

    Today’s readings

    God is extremely patient when it comes to extending mercy. That’s what Jesus is talking about in this rather odd parable. I have to admit that I’m no gardener: I’m just not patient enough for that! So I needed to do a little digging (no pun intended) to get a real sense of where this parable is going. I discovered that there are a couple of things we should all know before we get into this little story. First of all, fig trees actually did take three years to bear fruit. During those three years, of course, they would need to be nourished and watered and pruned and tended. It was a lot of work, so when those three years of hard work were up, you better believe the farmer certainly wanted fig newtons on his table! And the second piece of background is that, since the days of the prophet Micah, the fig tree has been a symbol for the nation of Israel, and Jesus’ hearers would have known that. So when they hear of a fruitless fig tree, it was a little bit of an accusation. Maybe more than a little bit.

    Conventional wisdom is that if the tree doesn’t bear fruit after three years of labor and throwing resources at it, you cut it down and plant a new one; why exhaust the nutrients of the soil? And if you’re an impatient gardener like me, why exhaust the gardener?! But this gardener is a patient one; he plans to give it another year and some extra TLC in hopes that it will bear fruit.

    So here’s the important take-away: God is not like Father Pat; he’s the patient gardener! And we, the heirs to the promise to Israel, if we are found unfruitful, our Lord gives us extra time and TLC in order that we might have time to repent, take up the Gospel, and bear fruit for the kingdom of God. That’s kind of what Lent is all about.

    But we have to remember: we don’t get forever; if we still don’t bear fruit when the end comes, then we will have lost the opportunity to be friends of God, and once cut down in death, we don’t have time to get serious about it. The time for repentance is now. As Saint Paul told the Corinthians, and us, on Ash Wednesday: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” The time for us to receive and share God’s grace is now. The time for us to live justly and work for the kingdom is now. The time for us to stop bickering and be kind to one another is now. The time to work on our prayer life is now. Because we don’t know that there will be tomorrow; we can never be presumptuous of God’s mercy and grace.

    The consolation, though is this: we don’t have to do it alone. The Psalmist today sings that our God is kind and merciful: We get the TLC that our Gardener offers; the grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We can trust in the Lord God, our great “I AM,” to come to us and lead us out of captivity to sin just as he was preparing to do for the Israelites in the first reading today. We can put our trust in God’s mercy. We are always offered the grace of exodus, all we have to do is get started on the journey and begin once again to bear the fruit of our relationship with Christ.