Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • First Sunday of Lent

    First Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Perhaps the greatest sin of modern times, maybe of all time, is that we sometimes forget who we are.  Politicians forget that they are elected officials, given the trust of the people they serve, and so they become embroiled in a scandal or sell themselves to special interest groups.  Church leaders forget that they are ordained by God for holiness and so they give in to keeping up appearances, and bring scandal to the Church.  But it’s not just these people; all of us fall to this temptation at one time or another – maybe several times – in our lives.  Young people forget that they have been raised in good Christian, loving homes, and in their quest to define themselves, turn away from the values they have been taught.  Adults forget that they are vocationally called to love their spouse and their children and so get caught up in their careers to the detriment of their family.  Think of any problem we have or any scandal that has been endured and deep at the core of it, I think it stems from forgetting who we are.

    Forgetting who we are changes everything for the worse.  It makes solving problems or ending scandal seem insurmountable, because we have to constantly cook up new solutions to new problems, because we’ve gone in a new direction on a road that never should have been traveled.  That was the scandal of Eden, and the scandal of the Tower of Babel, among others.  Once we’ve forgotten who we are and acted impetuously, it’s hard to un-ring the bell.

    One of the consequences of forgetting who we are is that we forget who God is too.  We no longer look to God to be our Savior, because we instead would like to solve things on our own.  Perhaps we are embarrassed to come to God because we are deep in a problem of our own making.  We see this all the time in our lives: who of us wants to go to a parent or boss or authority figure – or anyone, really – and tell them that we thought we had all the answers but now we’ve messed up and we can’t fix it and we desperately need their help?  If that’s true then we’re all the more reluctant to go to God, aren’t we?

    This forgetting who we are, and forgetting who God is, is the spiritual problem that our readings are trying to address today.  Moses meets the people on the occasion of the harvest sacrifice, and challenges them not to make the sacrifice an empty, rote repetition of a familiar ritual.  They are to remember that their ancestors were wandering people who ended up in slavery in Egypt, only to be delivered by God and brought to a land flowing with milk and honey.  And it is for that reason that they are to joyfully offer the sacrifice.

    St. Paul exhorts the Romans to remember who Jesus was and to remember his saving sacrifice and glorious resurrection.  They are to remember that this faith in Christ gives them hope of eternity and that, calling on the Lord, they can find salvation.

    But it is the familiar story of Christ being tempted in the desert that speaks to us most clearly of the temptation to forget who we are and who God is.  The devil would like nothing more than for Jesus to forget who he was and why he was here. He would have Jesus forget that real hunger is not satisfied by mere bread, but must be satisfied by God’s word. He would have Jesus forget that there is only one God and that real glory comes from obedience to God’s command and from living according to God’s call. He would have Jesus forget that life itself is God’s gift and that we must cherish it as much as God does.

    But Jesus won’t forget. He refuses to turn stones into bread, remembering that God will take care of all his real hunger. He refuses to worship Satan and gain every kingdom of the world, remembering that he belongs to God’s kingdom. He refuses to throw away his life in a pathetic attempt to test God, remembering that God is trustworthy and that he doesn’t need to prove it.

    The way that we remember who we are as a Church is through Liturgy. In the Liturgy of the Word, we hear the stories of faith handed down from generation to generation. These are the stories of our ancestors, whether from the Old Testament or the New. In the Liturgy of the Eucharist, we re-present the story of Christ’s Passion and death, and as we do that, it becomes new for us once again. There’s a part of every Eucharistic Prayer that recalls Jesus’ suffering and death, resurrection and ascension into heaven. This is called the anamnesis, which is translated as recollection, or remembering, but is perhaps best rendered as a re-presentation. Because our remembering as a Church isn’t just some kind of fond reminiscence, it’s not just a recalling of some events that happened hundreds of years ago, no … our anamnesis is a re-presentation of Christ’s passion and death and resurrection, the whole Paschal event that saved us and made us the people that we are.  In this anamnesis we remember that our God is madly in love with us, and that through his Son Jesus, gives himself to us completely, refusing to live in eternity without us, loving us into salvation, and making us a people of grace.  When we as a Church gather to remember, we are there, right in and among that saving sacrifice that made us God’s own people once again.

    And so we come to this holy place on this holy day to remember that we are a holy people, made holy by our God.  We remember who we are and who God is.  We rely on the Spirit’s help to reject the temptations of Satan that would call us to forget who we are and instead become a people of our own making.  We have come again to another Lent.  Lent is a time of conversion.  For the people in our Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults – RCIA – it is a time of conversion from one way of life to another.  For the rest of us, Lent is a time of continued re-conversion.  Our Church teaches us that conversion is a life-long process.  In conversion, we see who our God is more clearly and we see ourselves in a new, and truer light – indeed we see who we really are before God.

    That is life in God as it was always meant to be.  Remembering our God, remembering who we are, we have promise of being set on high, as the Psalmist proclaims today.  This Lent can lead us to new heights in our relationship with God.  Praise God for the joy of remembering, praise God for the joy of Lent.

  • Friday after Ash Wednesday

    Friday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    A lot of people say they aren’t giving up something for Lent, they’re just going to try to do something nice for people.  When it’s that vague, I often think that means they’re doing nothing at all for Lent, which is sad.  But, I usually tell people it doesn’t just have to be one or the other.  Indeed, today’s Liturgy of the Word tells us that it should actually be both.

    Fasting is important because it helps us to see how blessed we are.  It is important because it helps us to realize that there is nothing that we hunger for that God can’t provide.  Fasting teaches us, once again, that God is God and we are not.  This is important for all of us independent-minded modern-day Americans.  We like to be in charge, in control, and the fact is that whatever control we do have is an illusion.  God is in control of all things, even when it seems like we are in chaos.  Fasting teaches us that we can do without the things we’ve given up, and that God can provide for us in much richer ways.  Fasting is absolutely essential to having an inspiring, life-changing Lent, and I absolutely think that people should give things up for Lent.

    But giving something up for Lent does not excuse us from the obligation to love our neighbor.  This falls under the general heading of almsgiving, and along with fasting and prayer, it is one of the traditional ways of preparing our hearts for Easter during Lent.  We might be more mindful of the poor, contributing to food pantries or homeless shelters or relief organizations.  We might reach out by actually serving in some capacity, like Feed My Starving Children, or spending an hour at PADS.  We also might give the people closest to us in our lives a larger portion of the love that has been God’s gift to us.

    Today’s first reading reminds us that fasting to put on a big show is a sham.  Fasting to bring ourselves closer to God includes the obligation of almsgiving and prayer.  Together, these three facets of discipleship make us stronger Christians and give us a greater share of the grace that is promised to the sons and daughters of God.

  • Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time: Mardi Gras

    Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time: Mardi Gras

    Today’s readings

    “Every good giving and every good gift is from above.”  This word that we have from St. James today is so encouraging on this Mardi Gras day.  As we get ready for the spiritual rigors of Lent, we might be tempted to see our fasting, almsgiving and prayer as onerous and undesirable.  But when we realize that everything that we have is a gift from God, and that God gives us everything that we need, we might find it a bit easier to give up something, to reach out to the poor, and to enliven our prayer lives.  Every good gift is from above, and taking forty days out to remember that is a joyous thing indeed.

  • Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    St. James today encourages us to consider it all joy when we experience trial.  I don’t know about you, but that’s not the emotion I usually find in frustrating or fearful circumstances.  And considering that the people to whom James was writing were probably being persecuted, they probably weren’t overjoyed at their trials either.  But the spiritual principle is that when one’s faith is tested, ones learns perseverance, and learns to trust in God.  It’s easy to be faithful when there are no trials, but faith in times of trial produces the perseverance and lively faith that gets us through life.  And we definitely should consider that all joy.

  • Saturday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    So Jeroboam set up idols, and led the people into sin.  That’s just about the most rotten thing one person can do to another.  My seminary professor used to say that leading another person into sin was worse than murdering them in cold blood, because murdering them could only end their life on earth, but leading them into sin could end their life in heaven.  This is why the catechism teaches us that leading someone into sin is a violation of the fifth commandment.

    I think that sometimes, reading the books of Kings, you almost feel like you need to take a shower.  Beginning with the adulterous murder committed by David, every king was worse than the one before him.  And Jeroboam picks it up in today’s extremely ugly episode, which, when we think about it, echoes the sin of Aaron in the desert, when he gave in to the people’s desire for a calf of gold.

    Jeroboam’s sin didn’t stop at just a couple of idols though.  He created priests who would carry out the religion he invented.  He created a whole system of worship that absolved him of responsibility to the God who created him, the God who led the people to safety in the promised land, the God who exalted him to the position of king.  But, as we well know, there is no way to run from God.  Unfortunately, that wasn’t such good news for Jeroboam and his house.

    So I think the lessons here are strong enough.  First, worship God and worship God alone.  Put nothing and no one ahead of him.  And second, love others enough not to lead them into sin or cause them scandal.  When it comes down to it, it comes down to the basic of all moral rules: love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.  As Jesus would say in the Gospel: that is the law and the prophets.

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak.”

    This is good news for us, even if we can hear perfectly and speak without impediment.  It is good news because we might just have to admit that we hear selectively and speak impetuously on occasion, right?  To those who turn a deaf ear to their family, or to the cry of the poor, Jesus says, “Ephphatha!”  To those who sometimes gossip, or who have stuck their foot in their mouth in a social setting, or who have spoken ill of others, Jesus says “Ephphatha!”  What is the word we need to hear today?  What is God saying to us?  What words do we need to speak today?  When should we be silent?  Today we all pray that Jesus’ word of healing – “Ephphatha!” – would help us deaf ones hear and mute ones speak.

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Have you ever felt like you were dwelling in a dark cloud?  I think most of us get there at some point or another in our lives.  The dark cloud might be confusion: where is God taking me?  What am I supposed to do with my life?  Or it might be frustration: why is this happening to me?  Why can’t I ever have a moment’s happiness or peace?  The dark cloud could be fear: what is happening to me?  Will this illness be curable or have I come to the end of my life?  The dark cloud is sometimes sadness, or loneliness, or despair.  Whatever the dark cloud looks like, we all get to pass through it at some time or another in our lives.

    The good news that we have from today’s Liturgy of the Word is that God is in the dark cloud too.  St. John of the Cross often wrote of what he called the “dark night of the soul” and once said that darkness “signifies the obscurity of faith with which the divinity is clothed while communicating itself to the soul.”  God comes to us even in the dark cloud, with a message of some kind.  What we learn in that period of darkness could be anything, but it invariably brings us closer to the light.

    Today, if you’re in the dark cloud, know that God is there with you.  Thrashing around wildly in the cloud trying to find him isn’t real productive.  But being still within it, listening for God’s voice, waiting for his presence in stillness, he will come to you.  For those outside the cloud this morning, our prayer is with our brothers and sisters who are in it, that they may know that God is there with them, in the dark cloud, helping them to learn what is beneficial to the soul, waiting for them to come to the true light.

  • Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Today’s readings

    The encounter between Jesus and Simon Peter in today’s Gospel reading is a nice story, but I think it goes deeper than that.  In this encounter, we see five very important principles of the life of a disciple.  So I would like to address these reflections to our catechumens and candidates for full communion with the Church this morning.  I do that because, as you continue your journey to become one with us, you may very well see some of these things happening in your own lives, and I want you to know that these things are okay, that they are good, and that they are part of God’s plan for your life.  Now, having said that, the rest of you aren’t off the hook here.  These things really apply to all of us, because we are constantly growing in our discipleship, and conversion is an ongoing thing for all of us.  That’s why all of our RCIA rituals take place here at Mass and not in private.  We all have to learn from them the way to conversion.

    And so, let’s dive into these five principles.  The first principle of the disciple’s life is that we don’t choose God; God chooses us.  Simon Peter didn’t put out an invitation to Jesus to join him in the boat.  He probably didn’t even want the company, to be honest.  He was washing his nets and cleaning up the boat after a very long, and very unproductive night of fishing.  They’d been up all night, they were frustrated, and they probably just wanted to be left alone.  But Jesus gets into Simon’s boat without even asking if he can come aboard, sits down, and tells him to put out a short distance from shore so he can teach the people from that boat-pulpit.  If we think we are all here today because we chose to be here, chose to be God’s people, then we’ve gotten it all wrong.  God chose us to be here, and we might not even know why, but God does, and he will reveal it in his own time.

    The second principle of the disciple’s life is that it’s not about what we can do.  As I’ve pointed out, Simon and his co-workers had a very unproductive night.  And that’s horrible for them because this is their livelihood.  They weren’t out for a relaxing night of fishing, they were out for fish to sell at market to feed their families, and they’ve caught nothing.  It wasn’t just that they caught very little; we are told that they’ve caught nothing – zero fish, or at least nothing they could sell or eat.  And that’s not unusual.  Whenever you see Peter and the others fishing in the Gospel, they are always catching nothing when they are on their own.  Try it – go through the Gospel and look for those stores, you’ll see.  So it might seem strange that Jesus would call fishermen to be his Apostles, but it almost seems like fiduciary misconduct to pick fishermen who were complete failures at their craft.  In fact we are told that the only really qualified guy he chose was Judas Iscariot, and we all know what became of him, don’t we?  It’s not about what we can do, how successful we are, what personal gifts we have.  God has something special in mind for us, and he can call anyone he wants.  And he does.

    The third principle follows from the second, and that is that it is always God who does the really great things that we seem to accomplish.  For Peter and the others, we see it very simply … Jesus tells them to put out into the deep water, and despite their utter exhaustion and their better judgment, they do so, they lower the nets, and they can hardly bring the huge catch of fish in to land.  They are extremely successful, but only because they have relied on God’s grace for their success.  If we are serious about our success, either in our business or in our discipleship, then we too have to be ready to give it over to God’s grace.  It’s hard because that involves letting go, giving God control, taking the good with the bad, constantly seeking God’s will.  But that is our call, fellow disciples, that’s what we do.

    The fourth principle is extremely important for us to get, because this is so insidious.  This principle tells us that we are completely unworthy of such grace in the face of how awesome God is.  And it’s true, none of us is worthy of the calling we have received.  I’m not worthy to be a priest, you may not be worthy to be a parent, perhaps you’re not worthy of the work you’ve been called to do.  But God has called us to do all of this anyway.  Yes, we’re sinful, and perhaps like Peter we’d like to say “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” or woman.  Perhaps like Isaiah in our first reading, we find that we are men or women of unclean lips living among people of unclean lips.  Who are we to proclaim the Gospel?  Who are we to lead others?  And Satan especially would love for us to give in to this.  Because if we are caught up in our unworthiness, we can never be used to accomplish God’s will.  But, unworthy as we are, it’s not about us, it’s about God and what God can do in us, so we have to seek forgiveness, pursue conversion, and then do what God asks of us.  We must remember that forgiveness and conversion, like every other gift, is never meant just for us, it’s meant for us to share, and the way that we share that is to do God’s work in whatever way He’s called us to do it.

    And the fifth principle is that God always sees better stuff in us than we see in ourselves.  Jesus saw past Peter’s inadequacies as a fisherman and saw that he would be really great as an Apostle to bring people to the kingdom.  He saw past Isaiah’s vulgarity to know that he would be just the person to speak his word.  God knows that our sins do not define who we are; having created us, he alone knows of what we are capable, and he gives us a commission that goes beyond what we think we can do.  He asks just one thing of us: “Do not be afraid.”  This past summer, I saw the movie, “Julie and Julia.”  Being a foodie, I loved it, but I also loved that Julia Child had learned the lesson Jesus always wants his disciples to hear … she always said “Don’t be afraid.”  For her that meant she could cook anything.  For us it means we can do anything God calls us to do.  Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.

    Lent is coming.  For our catechumens and candidates, that means formation will kick up to a fever pitch.  God will be doing amazing things in you.  Satan will be working hard to put a stop to it.  But don’t be afraid, God knows of what you are capable and he will give you the grace to accomplish it.  For the rest of us, this coming Lent will be a call to conversion, re-conversion, and growth in discipleship.  We would do well to remind ourselves yet again this Lent that it is God who chooses us, that it’s not about what we can do, that it’s always God who gives us the grace to do truly great things, that our unworthiness does not define us in the eyes of God, and that God knows of what we are capable and sees great things in us.  Maybe Lent can find us putting aside whatever fears keep us from answering God’s call and instead allow ourselves to be truly changed, truly used by God to do great things.  Do not be afraid.

  • Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Today’s readings

    You know, since I’m currently serving in this, my home parish, I’m going to pass on the opportunity to comment on today’s Gospel: I’ve already reflected long and hard on how a prophet is not accepted in his own native place!  I’d like to talk instead about our second reading today.  Paul’s explanation to the Corinthians about the nature of love is one that we’ve heard a million times, especially if we’ve been to any number of weddings.  We may have heard this reading so often that on hearing the opening words of it, we tune out and just let the words flow past us.  But I think Paul’s ruminations about the nature of love are important, so I’d like us to take a little pause in our lives to consider them.

    The other day, I was finishing up at the office after having met with a nice couple who were planning to get married here next year.  The night was crisp, well cold actually, but very clear, and I could see the almost-full moon bright and large in the sky.  Again, this is something that we see enough that maybe we might just be tempted to walk past it and get to someplace warm.  But I didn’t.  It struck me that during the winter, we don’t often get to see such a beautiful sky; too often the beauty around us is masked by gray clouds.  And so that beauty caused me to stop where I was – even though it was cold – and look up at the sights for a minute or so.

    I realized that that beauty brought me joy, even in the dark of winter, and I remembered that joy is, as Teilhard de Chardin wrote, the most infallible sign of the presence of God.  And I got a little choked up, as I stood there, thinking about how God loved me enough to give me a glimpse of beauty that was really nothing compared to what lies in store for us.  As Saint Paul says today, we currently see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face-to-face.  And what beauty, what joy there will be on that great day!

    That beauty that we shall see one day is what theologians call the beatific vision.  That is the joy that we hope for in the life to come, and nothing on earth can compare to it.  But sometimes, once in a while, probably more often than we take time to realize, God gives us a little glimpse at that beauty, that joy here on earth.  The Catechism teaches us about this too.  It says, “Faith makes us taste in advance the light of the beatific vision, the goal of our journey here below.  Then we shall see God ‘face to face,’ ‘as he is.’  So faith is already the beginning of eternal life.  When we contemplate the blessings of faith even now, as if gazing at a reflection in a mirror, it is as if we already possessed the wonderful things which our faith assures us we shall one day enjoy.” (CCC, 163)

    One of those little glimpses of the beatific vision, is love.  We know that God is love, that God cannot not love, that anything that is not loving is not God.  I often say that the way that I know that God loves me is by just thinking about the good people God has put in my life.  My family, my friends, my parish family, my brother priests, all of these good people love me in ways that can only come from God.  And experiencing the love that they have for me, and the love I have for them, I get a little glimpse of God’s love for me.  And so it is no wonder that Saint Paul today takes such a good, long look at the nature of love.  He tells us what love is, and also what love is not; he defines love in at least sixteen different ways.

    Perhaps the most important thing to take away from this reading though, is that love is the most important thing of all.  That makes sense if we keep in mind that God is love, doesn’t it?  But we often get bogged down in looking for other things.  And Paul knows this too.  He says that even if we spend all our time working on developing our spiritual gifts – which is not a bad thing to do, of course – but don’t work on loving, then those spiritual gifts are meaningless.  It could never happen, given our imperfect natures, but even if we could speak and understand every human and angelic language, even if we could prophesy perfectly, even if we came to know every possible thing that could be known, even if we could move mountains with our faith, if we don’t also love, then we are nothing at all.  If we don’t get love, we don’t get God, we don’t get anything.  All that other stuff is nice, but love is the still more excellent way.

    For all of us busy twenty-first century people, I think the challenge is making time for love.  We get caught up in our work, our serving, our sports, our kids’ activities, and so on and so on.  But if we don’t take time to love, all that stuff is nothing.  We had a hard week last week, dealing with the tragic death of one of the teacher’s aides in our school.  The day that we told the teachers, I was just drained by the end of the day.  But I went to my mom’s house to celebrate the second birthday of my youngest niece, and she gave me the biggest hug I’d had in a long time.  Katie was God’s love for me in that moment, and I didn’t miss the significance of that at all.

    Love is a lot of things – it’s so complex and yet so simple.  The love that we experience here on earth is just a little glimpse of the love that is our God – but it is absolutely a glimpse of the love that is our God.  Who cares what else we accomplish, what else we can do – if we can’t love, we can’t be part of God’s life, because God is love itself.  That’s why Paul tells us that everything else will pass away – all our spiritual gifts, all our accomplishments on earth, all of our prestige and importance and everything else on earth will pass away one day.  And on that day, it will be just fine to be without all that stuff, because the three things we are left with – faith, hope and love – will never pass away and will lead us to eternal life and a sharing in the life of God.

    And the greatest of these is love.

  • Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Personal integrity is the thing that can bring down the best of us.  The easiest thing for us to do is to live one life, and that life would be the life that God gives us.  God’s grace is buried when we try to live another life entirely.  David’s momentary lust gave way to a double life that included adultery and murder, which forever sullied the greatness that God wanted for him.  Sin complicates things in unbelievable ways.  Grace gives us the opportunity to live simply and to live fully.