Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • Saturday of the Fifth Week in Easter

    Saturday of the Fifth Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    Just in case we thought living the Christian life of discipleship was going to be a rosy celebration of joy every single day, our Lord gives us a dose of reality today. He points out that if we find ourselves hated by the world, we have to remember that the world hated him first. If the world hates our Lord, then those of us who purport to follow after him have to expect that the world will hate us too.

    In fact, one might say that being hated by the world was a kind of litmus test of discipleship. If we are not actually hated by the world, one might wonder if we are truly living the Gospel, witnessing to the Truth and worshipping rightly. Because all of those hallmarks of discipleship necessarily cost something, and if we’re not paying the price, we’re not doing it right.

    So for us, being hated by the world might look like being passed over for a promotion or some other honor because we value time with our family over endless hours at work. It might look like being the object of unkind gossip because we value Sunday as a day of worship and family rest instead of having our children involved in all kinds of sports or artistic endeavors on the Lord’s day. It might look like skipping the latest gadget or the glitzier car so that we can be kind to the poor. The world will hate us because our commitment to Jesus will challenge their commitment to selfishness.

    We Christians live in the world, but we do not belong to the world. Our witness, our living, has to be at a different level. If we find ourselves fitting in nicely, it might just be that we’re doing it wrong.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    The Fifth Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Catholics by nature are not supposed to be stagnant people. Being Catholic means being on the move. Many of the ancient churches were built in a shape that evoked a ship, which hearkened back to Noah’s ark, which was a foreshadowing of the Church. Just as that ark was the means of salvation for a few people and a refuge against the storm, so the Church is the means of salvation for the world, and a refuge against everything that the world has raging around us. We are always and forever a people on the move; we are not at home in this world, wherever we may be, no matter how nice our place in the world may be. Our true home is in heaven and we are on our journey there. Every moment of our lives has to be a choice to move closer to our heavenly homeland.

    And that’s what today’s Gospel is all about. Jesus, foreseeing his death and resurrection, is preparing his disciples for the day when he returns to heaven to prepare a place for us. He promises that we can get there one day by following him: he who is the way, the truth and the life. And we need him to be that way for us, because our sinfulness had cut us off from God, and it was only the death and resurrection of Christ that could ever restore us to the inheritance that God always wanted for us. So today’s Scriptures, I think, give us the goal, and the way to get to the goal.

    We know, then, what our goal is. The goal is that mansion that Jesus speaks of – the Father’s house in which there are many dwelling places. It’s a mansion in which there is room for everyone, just as long as they find the way to get there. This reminds us that as nice as our home may be here on earth, there is something better awaiting us. It also serves as a reminder to those whose earthly home is difficult, or even non-existent, there is a place where they truly belong. Whatever our current living situation, however entrenched we are in our earthly life, we are reminded today that we are not home yet, that ultimately there is a place where we can live that will make us feel truly at home for all eternity.

    The way to get to that goal is made pretty clear in the Gospel too. Jesus is very direct about saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” So if we want to get to our promised inheritance, there is just one way to get there, and that is through Jesus Christ whose sole mission was to pave the way for us to get back home. Notice very carefully that Jesus does not say, “There are several ways, and I am just one of them; there are many possible truths, and you can hear one of them in me; you can live your life all sorts of ways, and my life is a nice one.” No – he says “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” This is a statement that has all sorts of implications for the work of evangelization, because if we believe this, seriously believe it – and we should! – then we have to make sure that everyone comes to know the Lord.

    Does this mean that those who do not ever come to know the Lord will never receive the heavenly inheritance? Put another way, more directly perhaps, does this mean that non-Christians don’t go to heaven? That’s a tough one. Vatican II addressed that concern by stating that while the fullness of the means of redemption were present in the Catholic Church, still there are elements of redemption present outside the Church. It says, “… some and even very many of the significant elements and endowments which together go to build up and give life to the Church itself, can exist outside the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church: the written word of God; the life of grace; faith, hope and charity, with the other interior gifts of the Holy Spirit, and visible elements too. All of these, which come from Christ and lead back to Christ, belong by right to the one Church of Christ.” (Unitatis Redintegratio, 3) Basically, we don’t have a monopoly on how Christ reveals himself to people, and we cannot know the depths of God’s mercy. Still, helping people to come to know the Lord needs to be at the top of our to-do lists.

    So the goal is heaven, and the way is Christ. Some people say that Jesus never came to establish a Church, but today’s readings tell us that is patently false. He certainly came to establish a Church, because after his death and resurrection, it was the actions of the Church that continued his saving work. It was the Church that continued the healing, reaching out to the needy, preaching the Word, and all the rest. And the Church continues this saving work in our own day. We are empowered to do wonderful works: to preach, to heal, to serve and love in the name of Jesus Christ. None of this happens on our own, or as a result of our own ambition. It only happens by joining ourselves to the One who is the way, the truth and the life.

    There’s a lot at stake in our Liturgy today. There is a world that needs to know Jesus so that they too can know the Father and experience the joy of a real home. There is a world that needs to know the touch of Jesus so that they can be healed and strengthened for life’s journey. There is a world that needs to hear the Word of Jesus so that they can come to the way, the truth and the life. It’s on us now, none of us can be passive observers or consumers only. As St. Peter says today, we “are ‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that [we] may announce the praises’ of him who called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light.” We are not home yet, but we can get there through Jesus: our way, our truth, and our life, and we have to gather everyone we can, and take them with us!

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Athanasius, Bishop, Doctor of the Church

    The divinity of Jesus is an essential truth of our faith.  The words of the Liturgy proclaim that divinity very boldly, especially in the Creed. The Gospels show us time and time again that Jesus came to proclaim his divinity, his oneness with the Father, so as to be the means of salvation.  Almost all of his hearers rejected this message, except for all but one of his disciples, and the centurion who noticed that he was the Son of God as he hung dead on the Cross.

    The Arians, led by the priest Arius in the third century, also rejected that message – they did not believe in Jesus’ divinity.  They believed there was a time before Jesus existed, that he was not consubstantial with the Father, but rather was created by the Father.  This position denies the divinity of Christ, which is an unacceptable position for our faith.  If Christ is not divine, he has no power to save us, and we are still dead in our sins.  God forbid! – And he does forbid it!

    St. Athanasius was a great champion of the faith against the harmful teachings of Arius.  But it was a hard battle.  He was exiled not once but actually five times during the fight against Arius’s teachings.  His writings are almost all a great defense of the faith and are so sound that Athanasius was named a Doctor of the Church.

    We have St. Athanasius to thank for the wonderful words of our Creed.  We often say them, I think, without a whole lot of thought.  But we need to remember when we pray the Creed that each of those words was the result of dedicated work, intensive prayer, and hard fought defense against heresy.  Because of people like St. Athanasius, we may indeed come to share in the divinity of Christ.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Saint Joseph the Worker

    Saint Joseph the Worker

    Today’s readings

    Today we have the option to celebrate the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker. And I personally think that, whenever we have the option to celebrate Saint Joseph, we should! I think this particular memorial resonates with so many of us who work for a living; Saint Joseph is our patron. The Christian idea of work is that through the toil of work, the Christian joins her or himself to the cross of Christ, and through the effects of work, the Christian participates in the creative activity of our Creator God. This memorial puts that in the spotlight.

    In today’s first reading, Saint Paul urges all disciples to do whatever they do, as if they were doing it for the Lord. This is a great spiritual principal that reminds us that our lives are not all about us, that we receive our abilities and talents from the Lord, and that we are accountable to God for all that we do, in thought, word, and deed. He reminds us, too, that our working should be cause for thanksgiving: thanksgiving that we have our abilities, and that we can use them for God’s purpose and for the support of ourselves and for the family entrusted to us.

    Sometimes, it is true, work is not much of a blessing; often work seems less than redemptive. To that, Saint John Paul said in his encylcical Laborerm Exercens, “Sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves in the present condition of the human race, present the Christian and everyone who is called to follow Christ with the possibility of sharing lovingly in the work that Christ came to do. This work of salvation came about through suffering and death on a Cross. By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, humankind in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. They show themselves true disciples of Christ by carrying the cross in their turn every day in the activity that they are called upon to perform.” (27)

    And so we all forge ahead in our daily work, whether that be as a carpenter, a businessman or woman, a homemaker, a mother or father, a laborer, a white collar worker, a consecrated religious or ordained person, or whatever it may be. We forge ahead with the joy of bringing all the world to redemption through creation, through the cross and Resurrection of Christ, and through our daily work.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Thursday of the Fourth Week in Easter

    Thursday of the Fourth Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    We see a few messengers in today’s readings. In the first reading, Saint Paul is a messenger bringing news of the real meaning of the ancient Scriptures in light of the death and resurrection of Jesus. And he speaks of another messenger, John the Baptist, who paved the way for the coming of Jesus by preaching a baptism of repentance. In the Gospel, Jesus points out that a messenger is never greater than the one who sent him, and that those messengers sent by Christ should be accepted as Christ, since Jesus himself was sent by the Father. Accepting the messenger is accepting Jesus is accepting God the Father.

    he Greek word for messenger is “angeloi” from which we get our English word, “angel.” Angels are messengers sent by God to communicate something specific to humankind. The messenger is truly on a mission from the one who sent him. When you think of it, all of us disciples are messengers on a mission. We all have been charged with the mission of proclaiming the Gospel and witnessing to Christ. We do that in our own ways; sometimes, as Saint Francis would say, we use words. But often we do not. Most often our witness depends on how well we live our mission, the message that we send comes in the things we do and the way we live. As my father used to say, “actions speak louder than words.”

    And so we come to this place to be nourished for our mission. We hear the words of Scripture that gives us the message to preach and receive the Eucharist that gives us strength for the journey. People will come to know Christ as they come to know us. We pray that our message might be a good one, a message that compels everyone we meet to turn to God. Because the mission, the message that we have is better than anything on earth.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Catherine of Siena, Virgin, Doctor of the Church

    Saint Catherine was born at Siena, in the region of Tuscany in Italy. When she was six years old, Jesus appeared to Catherine and blessed her. As many parents do for their children, her mother and father wanted her to be happily married, preferably to a rich man. But Catherine wanted to be a nun. So, to make herself as unattractive as possible to the men her parents wanted her to meet, she cut off her long, beautiful hair. Her parents were very upset and became very critical of her. But Catherine did not change her mind: her goal was to become a nun and give herself entirely to Jesus. Finally, her parents allowed it, and her father even set aside a room in the house where she could stay and pray.

    When Catherine was eighteen years old, she entered the Dominican Third Order and spent the next three years in seclusion, prayer and works of penance. Gradually a group of followers gathered around her—men and women, priests and religious. They all saw that Catherine was a holy woman and they flocked to her for spiritual advice. During this time she wrote many letters, most of which gave spiritual instruction and encouragement to her followers.

    Because of her great influence, she was able to help the Church navigate a rocky period of two and eventually three anti-popes. She even went to beg rulers to make peace with the pope and to avoid wars. At one point, Saint Catherine convinced the real pope to leave Avignon, France, where he had been staying in exile, and return to Rome to rule the Church, because she knew that this was God’s will. He took her advice, and this eventually led to peace in the Church.

    Catherine had a mystical love of God, and his goodness and beauty was revealed to her more and more each day. She wrote of God, “You are a mystery as deep as the sea; the more I search, the more I find, and the more I find the more I search for you. But I can never be satisfied; what I receive will ever leave me desiring more. When you fill my soul I have an even greater hunger, and I grow more famished for your light. I desire above all to see you, the true light, as you really are.”

    Saint Catherine is one of just four female Doctors of the Church, being named so by Pope Paul VI in 1970. Saint Catherine is also the co-patron saint, with Saint Francis, of Italy.

    I think the story of Saint Catherine is amazing for many reasons. Very importantly, Saint Catherine’s story shows the significant contribution of women to the Church. Over time, countless women have contributed so much to what the Church knows about God and the spiritual life. Without the witness of the women who came to the tomb after Jesus was buried, we would not have known the Good News that he rose from the dead. Without the contribution of Saint Catherine, our understanding of God’s fierce love for people would be much poorer.

    So we have much for which to be grateful on this feast of Saint Catherine. Through her intercession may we all have a deep appreciation and love for the depths of the mysteries of God.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • The Fourth Sunday in Easter

    The Fourth Sunday in Easter

    Today’s readings

    What would you give for just five minutes of peace and quiet? We are all probably sadly familiar with the many loud distractions our world puts before us. And we’ve become quite conditioned to accepting it, even needing it on some primitive level, I think. How often do we get out of bed and flip on the radio or television right away, or check our text messages or email before our feet even hit the floor? Can we even get through a car ride without having the radio going? Is the television always the background noise in our homes? I know I’m guilty of those myself. There’s a whole lot of noise out there and it’s become so that we are very uncomfortable with any kind of quiet.

    And the noise doesn’t lead us anywhere good. The Psalmist talks about walking through death’s dark valley. I think some of the noise out there resembles that dark valley pretty closely. There are voices out there tempting us to all sorts of evil places: addictions, selfishness; pursuit of wealth, prestige, or power. Those same voices call us to turn away from the needy, from family, God and the Church. Those same voices tell us that we are doing just fine on our own, that we don’t need anyone else to make us whole, that we are good enough to accomplish anything worthwhile all by ourselves. And those voices are wrong, dead wrong.

    Those are the voices of those Jesus mentions in the Gospel who circumvent the gate and come to “steal and slaughter and destroy.” The frightening thing is, we have become so used to these distracting voices that many of us have turned away from God, turned away from the Savior we so desperately need, and have been led astray. That’s the heart of why our pews aren’t filled, why people call themselves “spiritual but not religious”, why the likes of Oprah and Doctor Phil and Joel Osteen have become so popular in this day and age.

    So maybe we have to become a little more like sheep. Now I want to be careful about saying that, because being like sheep has a pretty negative connotation. To be clear: I don’t mean that in the sense of cultivating blind obedience. Because, as it turns out, sheep aren’t as dumb as we often think they are.

    Here’s the backstory on today’s Gospel image of the sheep, the shepherd, and the sheepfold: In Jesus’ day, the shepherds would gather several flocks in the same fenced-enclosure. The sheepfold might be constructed in a pasture using brush and sticks; or, it would adjoin a wall of a house and have makeshift walls for the other sides. Owners of small flocks of sheep would have combined them in the secure enclosure at night. Someone – the gatekeeper – would then guard the flocks. The “gate” would have been a simple entrance, but the gatekeeper might even stretch out across the opening and literally be the “gate.” The shepherds would arrive early in the morning and be admitted by the gatekeeper. They would call out to their sheep and the members of the flock would recognize the voice of their own shepherd, and that shepherd would “lead them out.” The shepherd then walks in front of the flock and they follow. (cf. Jude Sicilliano, OP)

    We, like the sheep, have to cultivate the silence and the ability to hear our shepherd’s voice and follow him, being led to green pastures, and not be distracted by all the noise out there. We are a people in great need of a Savior, of the Good Shepherd. When we deny that, we’ve already lost any hope of the glory of heaven. We desperately need the guidance of the one who is the Way, the Truth and the Life; the one who leads us to eternity, laying down his own life to keep us out of the eternal clutches of sin and death. Jesus came into this world and gave himself so that we might “have life and have it more abundantly.” We just have to stop settling for the noise out there and tune in to our Savior’s voice.

    Here’s a way to pray with this in the coming week. Take five minutes, or even just five seconds if that’s all you can find, and consciously turn off the noise: whether it’s the physical noise of the television or radio, or the internal noise of distractions in your head. And then reflect on what voices are out there distracting you from hearing the voice of your Good Shepherd. Ask the Good Shepherd to help you tune them out so that you can more readily discern his voice and follow the right path. Jesus can do amazing things even with a small space of peace and quiet.

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Friday of the Third Week in Easter

    Friday of the Third Week in Easter

    Today’s readings

    Saul is proof that God’s ways are not our ways.  How is it that God would pick for one of his chief Apostles a man who imprisoned and murdered the followers of the Christian Way?  That had to surprise even, and perhaps especially Saul, whose life was turned completely upside-down.  Poor Ananias had to be quaking in his boots to carry out this command of the Lord.  But thankfully both Paul and Ananias were obedient to the Lord’s command, and we are the ones who have benefited from that.  Not only has the Word of God been passed on through their faithfulness, but we see in their lives that obedience to God’s will, while it may not always make sense, is the way that true disciples live.

    And true discipleship is beginning to be an issue in the Bread of Life Discourse from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel. We’ve been hearing it all week. Jesus has fed the five thousand, and they continue to clamor after him. Only he’s not giving them bread and fish the last few days. Now he’s challenging them to eat his Flesh and drink his Blood – this is Saint John’s version of the giving of the Eucharist. They aren’t getting it and they’re not going to stick around and hear much more of it – at least many of them are getting ready to leave.

    But God’s ways are infinitely richer than our little intelligence and inadequate imagination and faltering faith. God wants so much more for us than we’re ready to ask for – he wants to give us his very self to fill us up and make us whole and bring us to heaven. The question is, will we let him obscure our vision so that we can see clearly (as he did for Saint Paul), or put us in the firing line so that we can really live (as he did for Ananias), or die for us so that we can live with him, as he did for his disciples and for us? Are we ready to have our lives turned upside-down so that we can get back on track?

    Because that’s the only way we’re really going to live.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

  • Thursday in the Third Week of Easter

    Thursday in the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    In the spiritual realm, there aren’t coincidences. God puts us where we need to be, when we need to be there. That’s the work of the Holy Spirit. We see that played out in today’s first reading. Here, an angel directs the Apostle Saint Philip to be on a road at the very same time as the Ethiopian eunuch passed by, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah that referred to Jesus. Seizing the moment, Philip proclaims Jesus to him in a way that was powerful enough and moving enough that, on seeing some water as they continued on the journey, the eunuch begged to be baptized.

    The same is true for those who were fortunate enough to hear Jesus proclaim the Bread of Life discourse that we’ve been reading in our Gospel readings these past days. Having been fed by a few loaves and fishes when they were physically hungry, they now come to find Jesus who longs to fill them up not just physically but also, and more importantly, spiritually. Their hunger put them in the right place at the right time.

    What I think is important for us to get today is that we are always in the right place at the right time, spiritually speaking. Wherever we find ourselves is the place that we are directed by the Holy Spirit to find God. Wherever we are right now is the place where the Holy Spirit wants us to find God and to proclaim God. That might be in the midst of peace, or chaos, or any situation. We never know how God may feed us in those situations. Because we never know when there will be someone like an Ethiopian eunuch there, aching to be filled with Christ’s presence and called to a new life.

    It is no coincidence that we are where we are, when we are. The Spirit always calls on us to find our God and proclaim him as Lord in every moment and every situation.

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

  • Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter

    Wednesday in the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    As Catholics, we believe that opposite things don’t necessarily cancel each other out. Two things can be true at the same time. For instance, we believe, as our first reading today illustrates, that we can have joy in the midst of sorrow. This is an especially poignant tenet of Catholic thinking. It helps us in our grieving to know that there is light and grace ahead, even in our darkest moments.

    The early Christian Community found themselves severely persecuted. Saul, for whom God had future plans, was currently doing his best to destroy the Christian Way, and he was not alone. Many suffered and died as St. Stephen did in yesterday’s reading, and others were exiled from their homes and hauled off to prison. But even in the midst of that, St. Philip was doing Christ’s work quite successfully in Samaria. There was great joy in that city.

    They were all urged on by the teaching of our Lord who, in today’s Gospel reading, promises that he will not lose anything of what God has given him. Those, like Saint Stephen, who give up their lives in the practice and defense of the faith will be raised on the last day, and given the great reward of eternal life.

    To some, this doesn’t make any sense. But for us, we who have followed the Way of the Cross and experienced the Resurrection, we know that this is how life is. There is sadness, and there is joy, and all of it is a gift in some way. Even today, some of us may have sadness, and others joy. May we experience it with peace as the early Community did.

    Because Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!

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