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  • The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    The Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings

    assumptionThe tradition of the Assumption of Mary dates back to the very earliest days of the Church, all the way back to the days of the apostles. It was known that Mary had “fallen asleep” and that there is a “Tomb of Mary” close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived. The Council of Chalcedon in 451 tells us that, after Mary’s death, the apostles opened the tomb, finding it empty, and concluded that she had been taken bodily into heaven. The tradition was spoken about by the various fathers of the Church, and in the eighth century, St. John Damascene wrote, “Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay . . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth.” The current celebration of Mary’s Assumption has taken place since 1950, when Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his encyclical, Munificentissimus Deus, saying: “The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven.”[1]

    And so we have gathered here this morning to celebrate the life of Mary, Mother of God, the first of the disciples of Jesus her son.  And there is plenty to celebrate in her life.  We who would be Jesus’ disciples too, can learn much from the way she lived her discipleship.  We can see in her life, I think, at least three qualities of discipleship.  The first is joy.  She is one who not only allowed something incredibly unbelievable to be done in her, but allowed it with great joy. That she did this with joy tells us something very important about who she was. Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Those who live with joy, true joy, do so because God is at work in them and God is at work through them. Mary knew this from the moment the angel came to her.

    The second quality we see in Mary’s prayer is humility. She knew this wasn’t about her; this was about what God was doing in her and through her. It wasn’t she that did great things, no, “the Almighty has done great things for me,” she tells us, “and holy is his Name!”  The third quality is faith: Mary’s simple faith allowed her to say “yes” to God’s will and made possible the salvation of the world.  Because of that faith, she had a bond with our Savior beyond anything we could ever hope for.  Indeed without Mary’s fiat, her great leap of faith, the salvation of humanity may have gone quite poorly.

    What is important for us to see in this feast, though, is that it proclaims with all the joy the Church can muster that what happened to Mary can and will happen for us who believe. We too have the promise of eternal life in heaven, where death and sin and pain will no longer have power over us. Because Christ caught his Blessed Mother back up into his life in heaven, we know that we too can be caught up with his life in heaven. On that great day, death, the last enemy, will be completely destroyed, as St. Paul tells us today.

    Mary’s life wasn’t always easy, but Mary’s life was redeemed. That is good news for us who have difficult lives or fine it hard to live our faith. Because there are those among us too who have unplanned pregnancies. There are those among us whose children go in directions that put them in danger. There are those among us who have to watch a child die. But because Mary suffered these sorrows too, and yet was exalted, we can hope for the day when that which she was given and which we have been promised will surely be ours.

    Mary’s life was a prophecy for us.  Like Mary, we are called to a specific vocation to do God’s work in the world.  We too are called to make sacrifices so that God’s work can be accomplished in us and through us.  We too can be joyful because God is at work in us.  We too are called to humility that let’s God’s love for others shine through our lives.  We too are called to lives of faith that translate into action on behalf of others, a faith that leads God’s people to salvation.  And we too, one day, will share in the glory that Mary has already received in the kingdom of God.

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

    [1] http://www.ewtn.com/library/ANSWERS/AOFMARY.HTM

  • St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr

    St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe, priest and martyr

    Today’s readings

    Maximilian Kolbe became a Franciscan novice at the age of 16. Earlier in life he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin offering him two crowns, a white one of purity, and a red one of martyrdom. Maximilian said, “I choose both.” The Blessed Virgin smiled and departed from him. Maximilian devoted his life to purity through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. He founded the Mission of the Immaculata to combat religious indifference, which he saw as the greatest problem in society. By the time the Nazis overran Poland, the mission numbered as many as a million people.

    Maximilian was twice arrested by the Nazis and the second time taken to Auschwitz. One day a fellow prisoner escaped, and the commandant decided to put ten men to death, whom he chose by arbitrarily pointing men out as he walked among their ranks. Just after the tenth man was chosen, Maximilian stepped out of the ranks and asked to take the place of one man, who had a wife and children. The commandant asked “what about you?” to which Maximilian replied, “I am a priest.” Because the regime at the time was striving to eliminate all the leaders of the people, Maximilian’s request was granted, and he died in the starvation chamber some three months later.

    Our Psalmist today urges us, “His mercy endures forever.” St. Maximilian Kolbe is one who kept the works of the Lord in front of him day and night, and sought to bring God’s mercy to people even in the midst of a harsh and oppressive regime. He was devoted to Mary and through her, to the love of God. That love translated into action, literally giving his life for others. His martyrdom joins his life to that of Christ with an inseparable bond.

  • Wednesday of the Ninteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Ninteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Living the Christian life never means that we just calmly except anything another person does.  But we do need to follow a certain procedure in dealing with those sins against us.  It’s not right, for example, when we are wronged, or when we perceive we are wronged, to immediately email everyone we know and slander them.  Nor is it okay for us disciples to talk about a brother or sister in the Lord behind their back.  When someone wrongs us, we owe it to them to give them the opportunity to make amends.  We bring the matter to their attention in charity, and open up a pathway to forgiveness.  If they choose not to take it, we can escalate the issue as our Lord describes in today’s Gospel, but we never have the right to ruin a person’s good name without cause.  Christ has given the keys to forgiveness to the Church as a gift.  But that means that we who are the Church have a responsibility to forgive, just as we have been forgiven.

  • Saint Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr

    Saint Lawrence, Deacon & Martyr

    Today’s readingslawrencefull1

    St. Lawrence was a deacon of the early Church, who was charged with the care of the goods of the Church.  Legend has it that he was called in by the Prefect of Rome, who had just killed Pope Sixtus, whose feast day we celebrated last week.  The Prefect told Lawrence that he wanted the treasures of the Church, since Christ didn’t bring any money into the world with him, and hence must not be important.  So Lawrence told him to give him a few days to inventory the goods of the Church.  Three days later, Lawrence assembled a large group of the widows, orphans, blind, lame and leprous.  He presented them to the Prefect saying, “Behold, these are the treasures of the Church.”  The Prefect was so angry, he ordered him to be killed, but, in his words “by inches,” meaning a slow and tortuous death.  Lawrence was bound to a gridiron and was roasted over coals.  At one point in the torture, Lawrence is said to have called out cheerfully, “I am done on this side, I think; you can turn me over now.”

    Whether or not that was the real story, the point is that Lawrence’s martyrdom illustrates a beautiful acceptance of Jesus’ call in the Gospel today: “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.”  We who would be followers of Christ are called to know what the real treasures of life are, and to be willing to sacrifice to protect them.

  • Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Liturgy of the Word asks us to ponder the question, “what do we have to do to remain in covenant with God?”  And the question, I think, is an important one.  We would want to respond to God’s gracious act of covenanting with us first.  We see in today’s readings that he chose us first, and calls us out of love for us.  Moses recites the mighty acts of God in which he remembered the promises made to the people’s ancestors and kept them, even though the people certainly didn’t deserve it.  Even though they often sought to break the covenant, God kept it anyway, loving the people even when they were unlovable.

    But what should our response be?  For Moses and the people Israel, the response was to keep the law.  The law itself was a wonderful document, given to the people out of love, to help them walk the straight and narrow, and to remain in relationship with God and others.  Moses contends that no other nation had gods that were loving and wise enough to provide something like that for their people.

    Jesus, of course, takes it several steps further.  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  Following the law was the first step, but it was pretty basic.  Even if the people obeyed it – which they often did not – it was still a matter of will mostly, and not heart.  Jesus calls us to make the same sacrifice he did: lay down our lives for one another out of love.

    “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”  And isn’t that the truth, really?  When we get so caught up in ourselves and our own pettiness, how quickly life slips away and we wonder what it all meant.  But when we lose our lives following Christ and loving God and neighbor with reckless abandon, well, then we have really found something.

    God loved us first and best, and always seeks covenant with us.  The law is still a good guide, but the cross is the best measure of the heart.  How willing are we this day to lose our lives relentlessly spending the love we have received from our God with others?

  • Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    We have an interesting dichotomy in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  First, we have the people Israel, who, as you know if you’ve been following the story these last couple of weeks, have been saved miraculously from abject slavery in Egypt, led through the desert and through the Red Sea to safety, fed with bread from heaven, and hydrated with water from the rock.  They have continually been in God’s presence and have been led by a column of cloud by day and fire by night.  But they have time and again rejected God and refused to have faith that he would deliver on his promises.  Today, at the precipice of the Promised Land, they reject him yet again.  And then we have the Canaanite woman in today’s Gospel, who has absolutely no claim on God’s mercy.  The Canaanites are the pagan people thrown out of the Promised Land to make room for God’s chosen people.  That she would even believe in God is a miracle, and yet her faith today is relentless.  Today’s readings embody the question of faith for all of us.  Will we give up on grace when we are faced with tough times, or will we choose to believe, against all odds, that God will hear our prayers and say, “Let it be done for you as you wish”?

  • Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What I think the folks in our first reading need to learn – all of them – is that the spiritual life is always about the big picture.  The Israelites, as I mentioned in my homily yesterday, have completely rejected the God of their salvation.  God had taken them from abject slavery in Egypt, in which they were oppressed beyond anything we could possibly imagine, and led them through the desert, through the Red Sea (covering the pursuing Egyptians in the process), and into safety.  He is going to give them the Promised Land, but they, thank you very much, would prefer to return to Egypt so that they no longer have to sustain themselves on the bread that they have from the hand of God himself.  They would rather have meat and garlic and onions, and whatever, than freedom and blessing from God.  What a horrible, selfish people they have become.

    And Moses is no better.  He alone has been allowed to go up the mountain to be in the very presence of God.  No one else could get so close to God and live to tell the story.  God has given him the power to do miraculous deeds in order to lead the people.  And yet, when things get tough, he too would prefer death than to be in the presence of God.

    And aren’t we just like them sometimes?  It’s easy to have faith when things are going well, and we are healthy, and our family is prospering.  But the minute things come along to test us, whether it is illness, or death of a loved one, or job troubles, or whatever, it’s hard to keep faith.  “Where is God when I need him?” we might ask.  We just don’t often have the spiritual attention spans to see the big picture.  We forget the many blessings God has given us, and ask “Well what has he done for me lately?”

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus feeds the crowds until they are satisfied and have baskets of leftovers besides.  God’s blessings to us are manifold, and it is good to meditate on them when times are good, and remember them when times are bad.  God never wills the trials we go through, and he never forgets or abandons us when we are in the midst of those trials.  God feeds us constantly with finest wheat.  That’s the big picture, and we must never lose sight of it.

  • Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [ Cycle B]

    Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [ Cycle B]

    Today’s readings

    When I was growing up, sometimes we would ask Mom what was for dinner, and she would often reply, “I don’t know; it’s not three o’clock yet!”  We were blessed, though.  We could count on the fact that there would always be something for dinner and that it would be good.  We just had to be a little bit patient and wait to find out what it was.

    It seems like the Israelites might have benefitted from that lesson.  They are out wandering in the desert and of course, they are hungry.  I think we can understand that.  But what is hard to understand is the content of their grumbling about it.  They say that they would rather be back in Egypt, eating bread and the meat of the “fleshpots.”  Why on earth did God have to drag them out into the desert only to kill them by hunger and let them die there?  They would rather be in slavery in Egypt than be in the situation in which they find themselves.  This is a complete rejection of God.

    And it’s a shocking rejection, to be quite frank.  The slavery they were subject to was not some kind of minor inconvenience.  It’s not just that they were a little underpaid for their labor.  No, they were beaten if they didn’t meet outrageous quotas, any kind of discontent would have cost them their lives.  They lived in fear all the time, not knowing what new cruel joke their oppressors would subject them to.  And so they cried out to God, who heard them, and delivered them.

    And the deliverance wasn’t some tiny little act of mercy.  God basically made a laughing stock of the pharaoh, who had made a laughing stock of the people Israel.  He gave pharaoh a dose of what he had given the people.  God made the plight of the Egyptians so bad that they were glad to be rid of the Israelites and basically helped them pack for the journey, giving them all of their gold and silver valuables to take with them.  When the Israelites could not figure out the way they should go, God provided a column of cloud by day and fire by night so that they could see the right path.  When the Egyptians pursued them and gained on them, God opened up the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through, and then closed it back up over the Egyptians, swallowing up their armies, their horses and their chariots.

    But now they’re a little hungry, so they’d like to return the gift, thank you.  And when you think about it, this is really illogical.  Is God, who was powerful enough to overthrow the Egyptians, and to deliver his people through the Red Sea, not powerful enough to feed them besides?  Of course he is, and God will certainly feed his people when it’s time, and will not let them die of hunger and thirst in the desert.

    Today’s Gospel provides a similar situation.  The people have enjoyed the food that Jesus provided in last week’s Gospel, and they are looking for more of the same.  He has retreated with his disciples, fearing they will try to make him a king, and they pursue him.  When they catch up with him, Jesus engages them in dialogue.  This dialogue is important for us to hear, because it unpacks the meaning of last week’s miracle.  Jesus, of course, recognizes that they have pursued him not for any religious or spiritual reason, but because he fed them and they are looking for more of the same.  But the real feeding he intends is not just barley loaves, but instead something a little more enduring.

    They ask him how they can accomplish the works of God, which is a fair enough question.  That’s really the purpose of our lives too.  But they probably mean that they want to know how they can live the law, which is not nearly as deep as Jesus wishes to go.  He tells them that the best way they can do God’s will is to believe in him – the one God sent.  So they have the audacity to ask him what kind of sign he can do so that they can believe in him.  Can you believe that ?  He just finished feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fish, and they want to see a sign?  I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to think they wouldn’t recognize a sign from God if it came up and bit them in the nose!

    Jesus, instead, would redefine hunger.  Like I said, he wanted to go much deeper.  Barley loaves and manna are nice, but they are nothing compared to what Jesus really longs to give them – and us, by the way.  He makes a very bold claim at the end of today’s Gospel that tells us just exactly what he has in mind: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  They may have to toil very hard for physical bread, bread that will perish, bread that doesn’t last more than a day or so.  But Jesus would have them work for bread that lasts for eternity, the bread of life.  And all they have to do to work for it is to believe.

    The question is not whether Jesus will feed them, the question is whether they can accept it.  And in the next few weeks, we will explore that more closely.  But what I think we see in today’s Liturgy of the Word is that we have to be clear about what it is we hunger for.  And that question is very pressing on all of us today.  Every one of us comes here hungering for something.  Our hungers may be very physical: some here may be unemployed or underemployed, or perhaps our hunger is for physical healing of some kind.  But perhaps our hungers are a bit deeper too: a relationship that is going badly, or a sense that we aren’t doing what we should be or want to be doing with our lives.  Our hunger very well may be very spiritual as well: perhaps our relationship with God is not very developed or our prayer life has become stale.  Whatever the hunger is, we need to be honest and name it right now, in the stillness of our hearts.

    Naming that hunger, we then have to do what Jesus encouraged the crowds to do: believe.  That is the work of God that we are called upon to do.  Believe that God can feed our deepest hungers, heal our deepest wounds, bind up our brokenness and calm our restless hearts.  Believe that Jesus is, in fact, the Bread of Life, the bread that will never go stale or perish, the bread that will never run out, or disappear like manna in the heat of the day.  Jesus is the Bread that can feed more than our stomachs but also our hearts and souls.  The Psalmist sings, “The Lord gave them bread from heaven.”  And we know that bread is the most wonderful food of all, because it is the Body of Christ.  Amen!

  • Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The Israelites wandering in the desert would seem to have had the spiritual life easy. How could they possibly miss God’s presence? There was a cloud to lead them to the Lord by day, and fire by night. But just like the stuff that ended up in the net in today’s Gospel, some people got it and some people didn’t.

    The same is true for us. How hard can it be for us to see the Lord’s presence in our own lives?  Even now, some people get it and some people don’t.  And more than that, even the faithful among us sometimes get it and sometimes don’t.  I often think it would be good to have something as hard to miss as a column of cloud or fire to keep me on the straight and narrow.  Well, in a way – a much better way, actually –  we do: we have the Church, the Sacraments, and the Word of God, prayer that beckons us by day and by night. But even that doesn’t always light the way for us.  There are so many distractions.

    The issue is urgent.  The Kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells us today, will be like the fishmongers sorting out the fish from the seaborne refuse.  We don’t want to get thrown out with all that vile stuff.  So, may God lead us all to be among those who get it, those who follow the way marked out for us. After all, we have something way better than clouds by day and fire by night, don’t we?

  • St. Martha

    St. Martha

    Today’s readings

    St. MarthaYou know, I think St. Martha gets kind of a bad rap in general.  She is maybe best known for the fact that she complained about having to do all the cooking and serving while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet the whole time.  But I think that reputation is undeserved.  I think today’s Gospel reading gives us a better look at why Martha is indeed a saint.  This reading gives us Martha’s profession of faith.  Jesus asks her if she believes that he indeed is the resurrection and the life, and she responds with great faith, “Yes, Lord.  I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into the world.”

    There was a division among the Jews at the time, between those who believed in life after death and those who did not.  It was the Sadducees that did not believe in an afterlife.  Martha clearly isn’t one of these.  Not only does she believe in a resurrection of the dead, but she believes that Jesus is the one who has come to make it all possible.  And she couldn’t be more right.

    Martha’s profession of faith comes at a particularly low point in her life: her brother Lazarus has died.  So I think Martha is the patron saint of all of us who choose to witness to our faith even when times are hard.  Those who live faithfully when they are sick or dying, or when they are grieving, or when they are looking for work, or when they are suffering from addiction, or whatever it may be, can look to St. Martha as their patron.  Because when our faith is tested and we choose to live it anyway, that is when we are most like the saints.  And St. Martha is the one to lead us in proclaiming, “Yes, Lord: my faith may be tested right now, but I believe anyway.  You are the Christ.  You are the resurrection and the life.  You are the one who is coming into the world!”