Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Blog

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    i    n whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    That is the proper entrance antiphon, also known as the introit, for this Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper.  It is taken from Paul’s letter to the Galatians in which he says “May I never boast about anything other than the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which I have been crucified to the world and the world to me.”  As you know, the Church considers these three days – the Sacred Triduum – as just one day, one liturgy.  When we gather for Mass tonight, and reconvene tomorrow for the Liturgy of the Lord’s Passion, and finally gather for the great Easter Vigil in the Holy Night on Saturday, it’s just one day for the church, one great Liturgy in three parts.  And the only part that has an entrance antiphon is tonight’s Mass, so the Church has chosen this text to set the tone for our celebrations for these three nights, and to draw all of them together with the cross as the focal point.

    I think what the cross teaches us in these days, and what this evening’s part of the Liturgy says in particular is summed up in the Latin word, caritas.  Caritas is most often translated into English as either “charity” or “love.”  And, as in the case of most translations, both are inadequate.  When we think about the word “charity,” we usually think of something we do to the poor: we give to the poor, we have pity on the poor, that kind of thing.  And “love” can have a whole host of different meanings, depending on the context, and the emotion involved.  And that’s not what caritas means at all.  I think caritas is best imagined as a love that shows itself in the action of setting oneself aside, pouring oneself out, for the good of others.  It’s a love that remembers that everything is not about me, that God gives us opportunities all the time to give of ourselves on behalf of others, that we were put on this earth to love one another into heaven.

    And I bring this up not just as a lesson in Latin or semantics.  I bring it up because caritas is our vocation; we were made to love deeply and to care about something outside ourselves.  We are meant to go beyond what seems expedient and comfortable and easy and to extend ourselves.

    Two parts of this evening’s Liturgy show us what caritas means.  The first is what we call the mandatum: the washing of the feet.  Here, Jesus gets up from the meal, puts on a towel and begins to wash the feet of his disciples.  Washing the feet of guests was a common practice in Jesus’ time.  In those days, people often had to travel quite a distance to accept an invitation to a feast or celebration.  And they would travel that distance, not by car or train or even by beast of burden, but most often on foot.  The travelers’ feet would then become not only dirty from the dusty roads, but also hot and tired from the long journey.  It was a gesture of hospitality to wash the guests’ feet, but it was a gesture that was usually supplied not by the host of the gathering, but instead by someone much lower in stature, usually a servant or slave.  But at the Last Supper, it is Jesus himself who wraps a towel around himself, picks up the bowl and pitcher, and washes the feet of his friends.

    We will reenact that Gospel vignette in a few minutes.  But I have to admit, I’m not a big fan of this particular ritual.  Not because I don’t like washing feet or don’t care to have mine washed.  It’s just that I think this particular ritual should be reenacted outside of church.  Every day, in every place where Christians are.

    For example, maybe you make an effort to get home from work a little sooner to help your spouse get dinner ready or help your children with their homework.  Maybe at work you try to get in early so that you can make the first pot of coffee so that people can smell it when they come in to the office.  Or maybe after lunch you take a minute or two to wipe out the microwave so it’s not gross the next day.  If you’re a young person, perhaps you can try on occasion to do a chore without being asked, or at least not asked a second time, or even wash the dishes when it’s not your turn to do it.  Or if one of your classmates has a lot of stuff to bring to school one day, you can offer to carry some of his or her books to lighten the load.

    This kind of thing costs us.  It’s not our job.  We’re entitled to be treated well too.  It’s inconvenient.  I’ve had a hard day at work – or at school.  I want to see this show on television.  I’m in the middle of reading the paper.  But caritas requires something of us – something over and above what we may be prepared to do.  But, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, he’s given us an example: as he has done, so we must do.  And not just here in church washing each other’s feet, but out there in our world, washing the feet of all those in our lives who need to be loved into heaven.

    The second part of our Liturgy that illustrates caritas is one with which we are so familiar, we may most of the time let it pass us by without giving it a thought, sadly.  And that, of course, is the Eucharist.  This evening we commemorate that night when Jesus, for the very first time, shared bread and wine with his closest friends and offered the meal as his very own body and blood, poured out on behalf of the world, given that we might remember, as often as we do it, what caritas means.  This is the meal that we share here tonight, not just as a memory of something that happened in the far distant past, but instead experienced with Jesus and his disciples, and all the church of every time and place, on earth and in heaven, gathered around the same Table of the Lord, nourished by the same body, blood, soul and divinity of our Savior who poured himself out for us in the ultimate act of caritas.

    We who eat this meal have to be willing to be changed by it.  Because we too must pour ourselves out for others.  We must feed them with our presence and our love and our understanding even when we would rather not.  We must help them to know Christ’s presence in their lives by the way that we serve them, in humility, giving of ourselves and asking nothing in return.  That is our vocation.

    And sometimes that vocation is not an easy one.  Sometimes it feels like our efforts are unappreciated or even thwarted by others.  Sometimes we give of ourselves only to receive pain in return; or we extend ourselves only to find ourselves out on a limb with what seems like no support.  And then we question our vocation, wondering if it is all worth it, wondering if somehow we got it wrong.

    Many of you know that I’ve been there, recently; you had probably felt it when you saw me or talked to me.  It was a difficult summer and fall, and I did ask God if I could leave my vocation behind.  I asked him because I knew, however difficult it was, my vocation really belongs to him (that’s true for all of us, by the way).  Right about the time I asked that question, a very good friend of mine lent me this wood carving, which sits on the shelf in my office.  It’s Jesus carrying the Cross – you know, the one we should glory in.  And when I looked at him and asked whether I could leave my vocation, he said no.  And the second time I asked him, he said no, and stop asking.  So I had my answer.  Caritas isn’t something from which one turns away.  We embrace our little crosses and journey on, knowing that Jesus carried the big Cross for our salvation.

    The ultimate act of caritas will unfold tomorrow and Saturday night as we look to the cross and keep vigil for the resurrection.  Tonight it will suffice for us to hear the command to go and do likewise, pouring ourselves out for others, laying down our life for them, washing their feet and becoming Eucharist for them.  It may seem difficult to glory in the cross – it may even seem strange to say it.  But the Church makes it clear tonight: the cross is our salvation, it is caritas poured out for us, it is caritas poured out on others through us, every time we extend ourselves, lay down our lives, abandon our sense of entitlement and do what the Gospel demands of us.

    We should glory in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

  • Monday of Holy Week

    Monday of Holy Week

    Today’s readings

    There are two things going on in today’s Scripture readings.  First, we have the Jews, and now Judas among them, who are very jealous of Jesus and are seeking to arrest and kill him.  And not just him, but anyone who encourages people to believe in him, like Lazarus in today’s Gospel.  In these holy days, it’s not safe to be around Jesus.

    Second, we have Mary, who pours out the most expensive thing she has for love of the Lord.  She gives no thought to the expense, to what seems like waste, but instead gives it all out of love for her Lord.

    For Jesus’ enemies, it was all about them, and not at all about the God they supposedly believed in and served.  But for Mary, it’s about Jesus, and she understands in some way where this is all headed.

    So we have the jealousy of the Jews and Judas against the love and generosity of Mary.  In these Holy days, we are called to be Mary, to pour ourselves out in love and generosity, even when the jealousy of the world around us would try to prevent that.

  • Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    There are two things going on in today’s Scripture readings.  First, we have the Jews, and now Judas among them, who are very jealous of Jesus and are seeking to arrest and kill him.  And not just him, but anyone who encourages people to believe in him, like Lazarus in today’s Gospel.  In these holy days, it’s not safe to be around Jesus.

    Second, we have Mary, who pours out the most expensive thing she has for love of the Lord.  She gives no thought to the expense, to what seems like waste, but instead gives it all out of love for her Lord.

    For Jesus’ enemies, it was all about them, and not at all about the God they supposedly believed in and served.  But for Mary, it’s about Jesus, and she understands in some way where this is all headed.

    So we have the jealousy of the Jews and Judas against the love and generosity of Mary.  In these Holy days, we are called to be Mary, to pour ourselves out in love and generosity, even when the jealousy of the world around us would try to prevent that.

  • Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    Palm Sunday of the Passion of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    This is it.  Today’s liturgy brings us to the place we’ve been journeying toward all during Lent.  These past forty days have seen Jesus tangle with the established religion, all the while healing the sick and preaching repentance.  We have participated in that by participating in the Anointing of the Sick Mass, in receiving absolution in Confession, and by our fasting and works of charity.  And so it seems quite fitting that our Mass today begins on a high note: with Jesus entering triumphantly into the city of Jerusalem.  But just three chapters later in Mark’s Gospel, all of his good work becomes his undoing as he is arrested, tried and put to death.  It doesn’t seem fair, does it?

    We know that’s how life is.  We offer our works of charity and fasting and prayer and we hope for a better life, but sometimes that’s not how it works out.  Sometimes we too end up denounced, the victims of gossip and calumny, and we have to take up that rough, heavy cross and travel to our own personal Golgothas.  And so perhaps today we find ourselves in all-too-familiar territory, and find it difficult to hear.

    The trouble is that the Cross is an in-your-face reminder that pain is part and parcel of our life of salvation.  Jesus did not come to take away our pain, he came to redeem it.  Not only that, he came to take it on himself.  Far from being embarrassed by our sin and pain, Jesus took it to the cross, redeeming our brokenness, and leaving us an everlasting promise that there is no pain too great for our God to bear and there is no way we can ever fall so far that our God can’t reach us.  Jesus took our every hurt, our every pain, our every sin, our every shame, our every resentment, our every emptiness, and left them all there at the foot of the Cross.  So if we find the Cross and Golgotha a difficult place to be, maybe it’s no wonder.

    I know there are many among us now who are carrying pain with them each day.  I hear it all the time, whether it’s the patient in the hospital who’s been away from the Church and estranged from their family and is facing death, or the young parent who wants to live a spiritual life but the demands of family and perhaps a job are all that he or she can accomplish in a day.  For some it’s very serious stuff: the diagnosis of an illness that is frightening, the loss of a loved one, the ending of a job or career, or even a marriage.  Broken relationships, upheaval in our lives, uncertainty in our future are crosses that are so very familiar to so many of us.

    But as horrible as those things are to deal with, and as dejected and frustrated and fearful as they may make us feel, the one thing we should never entertain is a feeling of loneliness.  Because for all of us who are hurting in any way, all we have to do is look at the Cross and realize that there is nothing our God won’t do for us.  No, it’s not pretty, and God may not take away our pain right away, but he will never ever leave us alone in it.  In fact, he helps us bear it, and ultimately, he will raise us up out of it.  As we enter this Holy Week, we are reminded gently that the cross, while significant, is not the end of the story.  Yes, we have to suffer our own Good Fridays; but we confidently remember that we also get an Easter Sunday.  And that is what gives us all the confidence to take up our cross and journey on.

    These are not ordinary days – they are absolutely not for business as usual.  I beg you all to enter into these Holy Days with passion, with prayerfulness and in faith.  Gather with us on Holy Thursday at 7:00pm to celebrate the giving of the Eucharist and the Priesthood, and the call to service that comes from our baptism.  On Good Friday at 3:00 in the afternoon, we will have the opportunity once again to reflect on the Passion, to venerate the cross that won our salvation, and to receive the Eucharist, which is our strength.  Finally, at 8:00 on Holy Saturday night, we will gather outside on the piazza to keep vigil for the resurrection we have been promised.  We will hear stories of our salvation, we will celebrate our baptism and welcome five people into our family, rejoicing in the victory of Christ over sin and death.  No Catholic should ever miss the celebrations of these Holy Days, for these days truly sustain our daily living, give us the grace to take up our little crosses day by day, and gift us with strength to continue the journey.

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Have you ever had to deal with people working against you?  Most of us have.  Most of us have experienced people spreading lies about us, trying to get others to work against us.  And today we find ourselves in good company.  Today’s readings find the prophet Jeremiah, king David and Jesus all in that same boat.

    A prophet’s job is never easy; nobody wants to hear what they don’t want to hear.  So for Jeremiah, things are getting dangerous: people want him dead.  The same is true for Jesus, who is rapidly approaching the cross.  David finds that his enemies are pursuing him to the point of death, like the waters of the deep overwhelming a drowning man.

    But all of them find their refuge in God.  Jeremiah writes, “For he has rescued the life of the poor from the power of the wicked!”  David takes consolation in the fact that “From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.”  And for Jesus, well, his time had not yet come.

    When we are provoked like they were, how do we respond?  Is our first thought to take refuge in God, or do we try – usually in vain – to solve the problem on our own?  If we don’t turn to God, we will sooner or later find those waves overwhelming us, because there is always a limit to our own power.  But if we turn to God, even if things don’t improve on our own timetable, we will always find refuge and safety in our God: there will be strength to get through, and we will never be alone.

  • The Annunciation of the Lord

    The Annunciation of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Fear keeps us from doing all sorts of things the Lord wants for us. If we would truly let go of our fear and cling to our God, just imagine what he could do in us and through us. Ahaz was King of Israel, a mighty commander, but yet was so afraid of God and what God might do that he refused to ask for a sign. He would prefer to cut himself off from God rather than give himself over to the amazing power of God’s presence in his life. Because of that perhaps, he never lived to see the greatness of God’s glory.

    But his weakness did not disrupt the promise. In the fullness of time, God’s messenger came to a young woman named Mary and proposed to accomplish in her life the sign that Ahaz was too afraid to ask for. She too was initially afraid, pondering what sort of greeting this was. She was also confused, not knowing how what the angel proclaimed could possibly take place in her life.  Our reaction to God’s will for us is quite often the same, isn’t it?

    The difference, though, was that Mary heeded the initial words of the angel that have resounded through Salvation history ever since: “Do not be afraid.” And, thanks be to God, Mary abandoned her fear and instead sang her fiat, her great “yes” to God’s plan for her, and for all of us. “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” These words are reminiscent of what the Psalmist sings today: “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.”

    And we know what happened from there. Mary certainly wasn’t confident that any of that could be accomplished through her own efforts, but she absolutely knew that God could do whatever he undertook. Nothing would be impossible for God, and she trusted in that, and because of that, we have the great hope of our salvation. We owe everything to Mary’s cooperation with God’s plan for our salvation.

    And so the promise comes to us. We have the great sign that Ahaz was afraid of but Mary rejoiced in. We too are told that God can accomplish much in our own lives, if we would abandon our fears and cling to the hope of God’s presence in our lives. Can we too be the handmaids of the Lord? Are we bold enough to say, “Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will?” All we have to do is to remember the first thing the angel said to Mary: “Do not be afraid.”

  • The Word from Father Pat

    The Word from Father Pat

    May this water receive by the Holy Spirit
    the grace of your Only Begotten Son,
    so that human nature, created in your image,
    and washed clean through the sacrament of Baptism
    from all the squalor of the life of old
    may be found worthy to rise to the life of newborn children
    through water and the Holy Spirit.
    Blessing of Baptismal Water, Easter Vigil Mass

    Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

    One of the wonderful things about Lent and Easter is that these holy seasons help us to understand just what it is that we believe about the necessity of Baptism.  Because if Baptism is just a nice little ritual that precedes a family party, it’s hardly of any consequence, indeed it’s not necessary at all.  And if that’s true, Lent and Easter aren’t really necessary either.  But if we truly believe that Baptism is the integral washing away of our sinfulness so that we may be made worthy of the life of heaven, then there’s nothing that should get in the way of it, and these holy days are of utmost importance.

    Over the last few weeks, I’ve begun taking a look at the texts for the celebration of Holy Week.  As you know, the new Roman Missal re-translated everything, including all of the texts for those holy days.  What is disconcerting, but also in some ways refreshing, about the new translation is that it doesn’t beat around the bush about our need for Baptism.

    Looking at the text above, from the Blessing of Baptismal Water on the Easter Vigil, the text speaks about the new life the Baptized receive.  Nothing too shocking about that.  But notice how it refers to the life before Baptism: “from all the squalor of the life of old.”  Well, that seems a little harsh, doesn’t it?  Really, squalor?

    It’s not so different from the language of the Exsultet, the Easter Proclamation: “This is the night that even now, throughout the world, sets Christian believers apart from worldly vices and from the gloom of sin, leading them to grace and joining them to his holy ones.”  Worldly vice and the gloom of sin are hardly things we want to think about, but we all know they’re there, and the only chance we have of being delivered from them is by being united to Christ through Baptism.

    So yes, squalor is part of the human condition.  If humanity weren’t in such disarray, Christ would never have had to die on the Cross.  But thank God he did, or we’d be mired in that squalor for all eternity.  God forbid.

    People are often taken aback by the language of Ash Wednesday, that leads us into this holy season: “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return.”  Dust?  Yes, that and squalor!  “Repent and believe in the Gospel.”  Repent?  Yes, we all need to repent from the gloom of sin and worldly vices.

    Catholic theology is based on the premise that we pray what we believe.  So the words of Lent and Easter might come across as a little harsh on the human condition, but that’s only because the human condition is actually pretty harsh, left to itself.  Thanks be to God it isn’t ever left to itself: Baptism into the death and resurrection of Christ makes possible deliverance from all that dust and gloom and squalor and vice.

    I’ve found myself bristling a bit at some of the new language.  Thank God!  I need to bristle and come to new awareness of the awesome deliverance that we celebrate during the holy days and the real gift that is our Baptism.  All that bristling will make the “Alleluias” of the Easter season that much more poignant!

    Yours in Christ and His Blessed Mother,

    Father Pat Mulcahy

  • Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of Mary, foster father of Jesus Christ

    Solemnity of Saint Joseph, husband of Mary, foster father of Jesus Christ

    Today’s readings

    On today’s feast, we celebrate the faithfulness of Saint Joseph. When he became betrothed to Mary, he got more than he could ever have bargained for. It certainly would have been easy to divorce her quietly when the news of her pregnancy became known, and it certainly would have been difficult to continue the relationship under those circumstances. Yet, he heeded the word of the angel in his dream, and was faithful to God’s will for him. His faithfulness preserved the heritage of Jesus, so that he would be born of David’s line.

    And so we owe much to Joseph and his willingness to act on his faith in God’s word.  We know that he was part of the ancestral line that extended from the beginning to the birth of Jesus, but Joseph probably didn’t.  We know that he was the strong family leader who made possible the growth of his foster son and the protection of his holy family, but Joseph probably didn’t.  There was a lot of the big picture that Joseph didn’t get to see; he acted in faith on the little messages he received in dreams.  I wonder if any of us would be so willing to make that leap of faith.

    Joseph was the faithful father who protected Mary and Joseph, taught him the faith as a good father would, and taught him his craft.  He is the patron of fathers, of workers, and of the universal Church, among others.

    When we find faithfulness difficult, we can look to Joseph for help. Through his intercession, may our work and our lives be blessed, and may we too be found faithful to the word of the Lord.

  • The Word from Father Pat

    The Word from Father Pat

    How could we sing the song of the LORD
    in a foreign land?
    Psalm 137

    Dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

    This quote from Psalm 137 may seem like a quaint reminiscence from history, but I think it is actually a foundational aspiration of the spiritual life, and as such, a worthy aspiration for Lent.

    One of the important principles of this life is that we are not home yet; we are wayfarers in this world.  Our life is a journey back to our God who made us for himself, and, as Saint Augustine says so well, “our hearts are restless until they rest in thee (God).”  And so it is with a great sense of longing, and perhaps a little frustration, that the psalmist cries out, “How could we sing the song of the LORD in a foreign land?”

    For the Jews, the place for true worship was the Temple in Jerusalem.  And so, when they were exiled to Babylon, not only did they lose their homes and their land, but also, in a sense, their relationship with God.  They could not have true worship in a foreign land, so no matter how much they were urged to do so by their captors, they couldn’t sing the Lord’s song.

    For us, the experience is different of course, but in some ways also similar.  We too are not where we should be, and please God, not where we will be.  We are on this journey we call life, and we long to bring that journey along side the road our God lays out for us to lead us back to him.  That way has us travel, particularly during Lent, along the Way of the Cross.  We know that there is so much that we have to scourge out of us, nail to the cross and die to.  But it’s easier not to journey along that road.

    And so we follow other paths.  These lead us far away from where we were made to be.  They put us in that foreign land that is so far from the kingdom God promised us.  This land is so filled with distractions that we rarely have time to think of God, let alone worship him in spirit and truth.  And so it would be well for our souls to cry out, “How could we sing the song of the LORD in a foreign land?”

    Lent is an opportunity for the journey back.  There is nowhere we can go that is beyond the reach of our God.  All we have to do is take his hand and be pulled up out of the waters that engulf us, be pulled back to the right path and take up the journey once again.  It won’t be an easy journey; it never is for people of faith.  Jesus had to experience his Good Friday before he came to Easter Sunday, and so will we in this life.  But we never have to travel this road alone.

    If you’ve found that Lent hasn’t been what you hoped it would be, it’s not too late to take our Lord’s hand and head the right way.  There is still time for fasting, almsgiving and prayer, and no matter how late it may be, these will still be food for our journey.  This week we have our parish mission, with opportunity for confession after the mission on Monday and Tuesday.  It is my prayer that you will find this week a helpful one if you need to turn your Lent around.

    And may we all one day together sing the Lord’s song in the Land he has made for us!

    Yours in Christ and His Blessed Mother,
    Father Pat Mulcahy

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    This week, the Scriptures have been warning us not to avoid the truth.  Today is no exception.  Today we see that the way we tend to avoid truth is often through obfuscation, trying to confuse the facts.  It’s a case of “the best defense is a good offense,” where we attack the truth wherever we see it addressing our lives and our mistakes.

    The prophet Jeremiah takes the nation of Israel to task for this in today’s first reading.  These are a people who have heard the truth over and over.   God has not stopped sending prophets to preach the word.  But the Israelites would not listen.  They preferred to live in the world, and to attach themselves to the nations and their worship of idols and pagan gods.  They had been warned constantly that this was going to be the source of their demise, but they tuned it out.  They “stiffened their necks,” Jeremiah says, and now faithfulness has disappeared and there is no word of truth in anything they say: a scathing indictment of the people God chose as his own.

    Some of the Jews are giving Jesus the same treatment in today’s Gospel.  Seeing him drive out a demon, they are filled with jealousy and an enormous sense of inadequacy.  These are religious leaders; they had the special care of driving away demons from the people.  But they couldn’t:  maybe their lukewarm faith made them ineffective in this ministry.  So on seeing Jesus competent at what was their special care, they cast a hand-grenade of rhetoric at him and reason that only a demon could cast out demons like he did.

    We will likely hear the word of truth today.  Maybe it will come from these Scriptures, or maybe later in our prayerful moments.  Perhaps it will be spoken by a child or a coworker or a relative or a friend.  However the truth is given to us, it is up to us to take it in and take it to heart.  Or will we too be like the Jews and the Israelites and stiffen our necks?  No, the Psalmist tells us, we can’t be that way.  “If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”