Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-eighth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It was shortly after lunch that I finished this homily, and who could blame me?  With all this talk of “juicy, rich food” and wedding banquets, and even St. Paul saying that he knew what it was like to be well-fed and what it was like to be hungry, whose mind wouldn’t turn to food?  And that’s really okay, because all of us have come here [today / tonight] because we are hungry, but maybe hungry in a different way.

    Many people, when asked why they pick one church over another, say that they do it because it is at that church that they are “spiritually fed.”  And that is certainly one of the tasks of the church, to feed those who hunger with the spiritual food that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ.  And I think that’s the lens through which we have to see this rather curious Gospel parable today.

    When our modern ears hear this parable, there are surely things that seem odd about it, aren’t there?  First of all, as the wedding banquet is finished, the guests have to be summoned to the feast.  But in those days, they probably had received a formal invitation previously, and then had to be let know when the feast was ready.  But then we come to this very curious issue of the invited guests not wishing to attend.  What could possibly be keeping them away.  Even if they weren’t thrilled by the invitation and honored to attend, you’d think they would show up anyway because of who it is that is inviting them.  You would think they would want to keep the king happy.

    And many of us have been in the position of going to some social event because it is expected of us, I am sure.  I myself remember clearly attending events for work in my pre-priesthood days because clients or other VIPs were in the area.  Even in seminary, we were often “invited” to events that really were mandatory, which always used to drive me nuts.  But we can all relate in some way to attending some social event because it is expected of us, and not necessarily because we would choose to be there.

    And that makes what happens next even stranger.  Did they really think they could mistreat and kill the king’s messengers without any kind of consequences?  No king worth his salt would let such a disrespectful challenge to his authority go unpunished.

    But now the banquet is still ready and the guests are well, unavailable shall we say…  So the king sends the messengers out to all the public places in order to invite whomever they find.  And who are they going to find?  Well, probably pretty much what you’d expect: peddlers, butchers, beggars, prostitutes, tax collectors, shop lifters, the physically impaired and sick … in short, not the sort of people you’d expect to find at a king’s wedding banquet.

    So, to me, it’s not all that shocking that one of them is not appropriately dressed for the banquet.  What is shocking is that the rest of them are, right?  Some biblical scholars have suggested that perhaps the king, knowing who was going to show up, may have provided appropriate attire, and that one person refused to put it on.  Certainly if that were true, we could all understand the king throwing that person out.

    Putting the parable in context, the banquet is the kingdom of God.  The distinguished invited guests are the people to whom Jesus addressed the parable: the chief priests and the elders of the people.  These have all rejected the invitation numerous times, and would now make that rejection complete by murdering the messenger, the king’s son, Christ Jesus.  Because of this, God would take the kingdom from them, letting them go on to their destruction, and offer the kingdom to everyone that would come, possibly indicating the Gentiles, but certainly including everyone whose way of life would have been looked down upon by the chief priests and elders: prostitutes, criminals, beggars, the blind and lame.  All of these would be ushered in to the banquet, being given the new beautiful wedding garment which is baptism, of course, and treated to a wonderful banquet, which is the Eucharist.  Those who further reject the king by refusing to don that pristine garment may indeed be cast out, but to everyone who accepts the grace given them, a sumptuous banquet awaits.

    Can you imagine the hunger that those beggars, prostitutes, criminals, blind and lame people had?  Think about how filthy were the garments they had to be wearing.  Yet they are all washed clean in the waters of baptism, fed to satisfaction on the Bread of Life.

    If by now you’re thinking that the beggars, prostitutes, criminals, blind and lame are you and me, well, now you’re beginning to understand what Jesus is getting at.  Our sinfulness leaves us impoverished, and hardly worthy to attend the Banquet of the Lord.  It would only be just for our God to leave us off the invitation list.  But our God will do no such thing.  He washes us in the waters of baptism, clothing us in Christ, bringing us to the Banquet, and feeding us beyond our wildest imaginings.  We come here desiring to be spiritually fed, and our God offers us the very best: his own Son’s body and blood.

    [Today we join with our RCIA candidates for full communion, who are themselves answering the king’s invitation tonight.  They are one with us in baptism already, and in the days to come will complete the formation that will bring them along with us to the table of the Lord.  Their presence here stirs our own hearts, reminding us to keep that wedding garment pristine, and approach the Lord’s table with renewed love and devotion.]

    As we come to the Banquet today, we must certainly be overjoyed that our names are on the list.  We have been summoned and the banquet is prepared.  Now we approach the Banquet of the Lord with gratitude for the invitation, which is certainly undeserved, but just as certainly the cause of all our joy.  We sing this joy with our Psalmist today: “Only goodness and kindness follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for years to come.”

  • Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s homily is a bit of a mystagogy on this familiar experience we have of praying the Lord’s Prayer.  Mystagogy is a kind of reflecting back on the mysteries.  Once we have experienced the mysteries and practices and rituals of our faith, it is important for us to reflect back on them, to see what they mean, and how they have changed us.  We have all prayed the Lord’s Prayer thousands of times, and we continue to do so not because we delight in the multiplicity of words, but instead because we have been changed by our praying, as the disciples were changed when they were given this beautiful prayer for the first time.

    The opening of the prayer – “Our Father” – has in its time moved us into relationship with the One who made us.  We were created for God, and God earnestly desires us to be one with him.  Acknowledging this relationship by proclaiming “Our Father” tells us that we have come from God, will one day return to God, and that we daily exist in God.  It also reminds us that, by using the word “our”, the faith we have is one that is corporate.  We can only come to God together, because we were made to be in community every bit as much as the Holy Trinity is a community.

    The middle of the prayer has helped us to rely on God.  “Give us this day our daily bread.”  We accept what we need – not necessarily what we want – from God who is able and willing to provide for our sustenance day in and day out.  It might be a difficult road and daily we may desire much more than we need, but as we reflect on our past, we may in fact see the hand of God holding us up through bad times, and helping us dance through the good times.

    And finally we come to know the healing power of our God.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.  And lead us not into temptation.”  When we let go of the things that have a hold on us, we can experience the loving embrace of Our Father.  When we release our hold on others, we find ourselves open to the grace of God.

    As we offer this beautiful prayer later in this Liturgy, may we all open our minds and hearts to reflect with joy on the Lord’s Prayer and its effect on our spiritual lives.

  • Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I reflect often these days on how much less I seem to know compared to what I thought I knew as a young adult.  In those late-teen and early-twenties years, I think so many of us think we have life all figured out and we know how things should be run.  Certainly, there is much to be said about the idealism of youth.  But that idealism can quickly turn to cynicism, and it’s amazing how much more clarity we gain with the passing of the years.  Yet the conflicts between idealistic, even cynical young adults and those wizened by the experience of years can reveal a less-than-healthy generation gap.

    So if you identify with that experience, multiply it by millions and you’ll know the gap in the knowledge between God and humanity.  But as certainly as we must know that, we humans tend to approach our relationship with God as if we had all the answers.  That’s what Job is being chastised for in today’s first reading.  Job is understandably upset by all that has befallen him, but God reminds him that God is in control and that God alone has the big picture.

    The Psalmist tells us that God’s knowledge even extends to how much he knows about us:

    O LORD, you have probed me and you know me;
    you know when I sit and when I stand;
    you understand my thoughts from afar.
    My journeys and my rest you scrutinize,
    with all my ways you are familiar.

    And so, when we are frustrated by the way our life is going, and when we are angry that we cannot see the big picture, perhaps the best prayer is again from our psalmist: “Guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.”

  • The Guardian Angels

    The Guardian Angels

    Today’s readings: Exodus 23:20-23; Psalm 91; Matthew 18:1-5, Matthew 18:10

    “For God commands the angels to guard you in all your ways.”  These are incredibly comforting words that the Psalmist sings to us today.  God never allows anything to overshadow us, never misses any event of our lives.  Moreover, he commands the angels, his servants, to watch over and guard us in all our ways.  Today we celebrate that the angels keep us safe and lead us ultimately to God himself.

    I love the feast of the Guardian Angels, because my Guardian Angel was probably the first devotion that I learned. I remember my mother teaching me the prayer. Say it with me if you know it:

    Angel of God,
    my guardian dear,
    To whom God’s love
    commits me here,
    Ever this day,
    be at my side,
    To watch and guard,
    To rule and guide.
    Amen.

    The impetus for today’s feast is summed up in the first line of the first reading. Hear it again:

    See, I am sending an angel before you,
    to guard you on the way
    and bring you to the place I have prepared.

    From the earliest days of the Church, there has always been the notion of an angel whose purpose was to guide people, to intercede for them before God, and to present them to God at death. This notion began to be really enunciated by the monastic tradition, with the help of St. Benedict, St. Bernard of Clairvaux and others. It is during this monastic period that devotion to the angels took its present form.

    Many of us have probably moved over on our seats to make room for our Guardian Angel. As amusing as that may be, the concept of an angel to guard and guide us is essential to our faith. The gift of the Guardian Angels is a manifestation of the love and mercy of God. Devotion to the Guardian Angels, then, is not just for children. We adults should feel free to call on our angels for intercession and guidance. We should continue to rely on that angel right up to death, when our angel will present us to God. We hear that very prayer in the Rite of Christian Burial:

    “May the angels lead you into paradise;
    may the martyrs come to welcome you
    and take you to the holy city,
    the new and eternal Jerusalem.”

    May the Guardian Angels always intercede for us. And, as we hear in today’s Gospel, may our angels always look upon the face of our heavenly Father.

    Blessed be God in His angels and in His saints.

  • St. Jerome

    St. Jerome

    Today’s readings

    It seems like St. Jerome had much in common with the disciples of today’s Gospel reading.  Jerome, rather unfortunately, was known for his quick temper and sometimes mean-spirited pen.  If they had email in those days, he’d be the one to fire off a quick nastygram without even taking time to think about it.  We all have our issues to deal with, unfortunately.

    But we need to be extremely thankful for St. Jerome as we open up the Scriptures today.  Without his tireless efforts, our understanding of Sacred Scripture would be quite limited, I think.  It was St. Jerome who spent so much time translating the Scriptures from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, creating what was know as the Vulgate translation.  This was the standard text of the Scriptures for a long time in the Church, and is still an important basis for today’s vernacular translations.  His commentaries on the Scriptures are important to us to this very day.

    Jerome was a pre-eminent scholar.  He studied the Scriptures all the time and was an expert in Biblical languages including Hebrew, Greek, Chaldaic and of course Latin.  He also spent a good deal of time in the Holy Land, walking the path of Christ, staying in the places where he stayed, even living for a time in the cave believed to have been Jesus’ birthplace.  He wasn’t just a scholar studying the Scriptures from a theoretical viewpoint; he was instead devoted to the Scriptures, pouring through them with love.

    For those of you who are part of our CREEDS Bible Study, today is a Patronal feast day for you.  St. Jerome’s love of Scripture has made it possible for all of us to come to know Christ in a more intimate way through our own study and devotion to the Word of God.  In honor of his feast, I will leave us all with the advice of one of my seminary professors.  Be certain to read some Scripture every day, even if it’s just a few verses before you turn off the lamp at night.  If you do that, on your last day on earth, you’ll close your eyes and be able to open them up in heaven and know exactly where you are.  Scripture gives us that intimate relationship with our God.  St. Jerome, pray for us, and lead us back to the Scriptures with the same love and devotion you had.

  • Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes it’s hard to accept that something is in our best interest when we first hear of it.  I can remember often growing up not wanting to do something like go on a retreat or join the youth group, but my parents giving me that gentle nudge to do it anyway.  And then of course, when I went, I’d always have a really great experience, and then I had to admit to them that I liked it, which was harder still.

    I always think of that when I hear this week’s Gospel reading.  I think it’s a pretty human experience to resist what’s good for us, especially when it means extending ourselves into a new experience, or when it means having to inconvenience ourselves or disrupt our usual schedule.  We don’t want to go out into the field and work today, or go help at the soup kitchen, or go teach religious education, or go on that retreat, or get involved in a ministry at the church, or join a small Christian community, or whatever it may be that’s in front of us.

    I remember specifically an experience I had when I first started in seminary.  I became aware that some of the guys, as their field education experience, were serving as fire chaplains.  That scared the life out of me, and I said to myself that I’d never be able to do that.  Two and a half years later, one of my friends at seminary asked me to join him as a fire chaplain.  Figures, doesn’t it?  I told him I didn’t think I had the ability to do that, but he persuaded me to pray about it.  Well, when I prayed about it, of course the answer was yes, do it.  And so I did, and found it one of the most rewarding spiritual experiences of my time in seminary.

    People involved in ministries here at the Church can probably tell you the same kinds of stories.  Times when they have been persuaded to do something they didn’t want to.  They could probably tell you how much they grew as people, how much they enjoyed the experience.  When we extend ourselves beyond our own comfort level for the glory of God, we are always rewarded beyond what we deserve.  And that’s grace, that’s the work of God in our lives.

    We see in our Gospel today a God who is extremely patient bestowing his gifts of salvation.  He never closes the door on those who have turned away from him, but always makes it possible for us to find him, to go out into the field even though we’ve said no in the first place.  Much like last week’s Gospel story of the day laborers who began their work day at 5pm getting paid the same as those who had worked all day, it doesn’t matter when we respond to God, as long as we do.  Those who respond early clearly have more labor, but they also have more joy, more personal growth, more celebration in the Spirit.  But we all come together to the ultimate celebration in the Kingdom of our God.

    We all know people who have been asked to go into the field and have said no.  Today we hear that the door is still open.  Our prayer today is that ultimately, they will respond to their Father’s invitation.

  • St. Vincent de Paul, priest

    St. Vincent de Paul, priest

    Today’s readings

    St. Vincent became a priest with the expectation of enjoying the easy, affluent sort of life priests had in those days.  That was his goal in some ways until he heard the deathbed confession of a dying servant.  That encounter led him to realize the extremely great needs of the poor in France.

    The servant’s Master had been persuaded by his wife to endow and support a group of missionary priests to serve the poor.  The countess asked Vincent to lead the group, and although he declined at first, he later returned to lead a group now known as the Congregation of the Mission or the Vincentians.  They took vows of poverty, chastity, obedience and stability and devoted themselves to serving the poor in smaller towns and villages.

    What makes St. Vincent particularly interesting to us at this time is that he also founded, along with St. Louise de Marillac,  a parish-based society for the spiritual and physical relief of the poor and sick.  This is known as the St. Vincent de Paul Society, and we are currently forming one here at St. Raphael.  Vincent organized the rich women of Paris to collect funds for his missionary projects, founded several hospitals, collected relief funds for the victims of war and ransomed over 1,200 galley slaves from North Africa.

    I think St. Vincent heard the words of the wisdom writer in today’s first reading: “Rejoice, O young man, while you are young and let your heart be glad in the days of your youth.  Follow the ways of your heart, the vision of your eyes…”  In his youth, Vincent was converted from the cynical and even slothful ambitions of the clergy in those days, and turned instead to follow his true passion, bringing Christ to the needy and the downtrodden.

  • Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Our first reading this past week has been taking us on a kind of tour of the Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament.  Today’s pearl of wisdom, from the book of Ecclesiastes, talks about the seasons of a person’s life.  In some ways, the book of Ecclesiastes can seem to be the most pessimistic of the books of Scripture.  Based on the conjecture that the book may have been written by wise king Solomon, some say this was the book he wrote late in life, looking back on where life has taken him with a tired and cynical heart.  You can get that feeling as you read through the book of Ecclesiastes, but if you stay with it, you often unearth some treasures like today’s selection.

    Today we hear that there is a time for everything.  And you can well imagine Solomon saying this at an old age, looking back on his life.  We all know that life takes us all sorts of places, some good and some bad, some pleasant and some unpleasant, some joy-filled and some laden with sorrow.  We need the one to appreciate the other, I think, and we pray for short times of unhappiness mixed with generous portions of joy.  Life ebbs and flows, and ultimately leads us to the God who made us.  I love the line toward the end of the reading: “He has made everything appropriate to its time, and has put the timeless into their hearts…”

    Jesus too realized that his own life would be mixed with joy and sorrow.  After asking who they said he was, he instructed them carefully that he would suffer, be rejected, would die and then rise.  Here he links the sorrow in his life and in ours with the Cross, and the joy in his life and in ours with the Resurrection.  We can’t have one without the other, and through it all God is glorified.

    The protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr summed it up aptly in his famous serenity prayer.  You’ve heard the beginning, but the ending is truly brilliant:

    God, give us grace to accept with serenity
    the things that cannot be changed,
    Courage to change the things
    which should be changed,
    and the Wisdom to distinguish
    the one from the other.

    Living one day at a time,
    Enjoying one moment at a time,
    Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
    Taking, as Jesus did,
    This sinful world as it is,
    Not as I would have it,
    Trusting that You will make all things right,
    If I surrender to Your will,
    So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
    And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

    Amen.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today we continue our week-long quest for wisdom.  Today’s pearl of wisdom has us thinking about the things that worry us.  Herod was worried about Jesus to the point of morbid curiosity.  He was afraid that Jesus was some kind of reincarnation of St. John the Baptist.  He worried about what people must be thinking, he worried about the possibility of losing the throne, he worried about everything because he was kind of a low-level leader, and he’d be the first to go if there was any kind of trouble.

    But don’t we worry about the same kinds of things?  We worry about what people are saying about us.  We worry about losing whatever control we have of whatever is in our lives, whether it is work, or family, or friends.  We worry about very real things like illness or the economy or the direction our loved ones are taking.  But what Qoheleth would have us understand in our first reading, is that this is all a handful of nothing.  It’s vanity, a chasing after the wind, a waste of the life we’ve been given.

    And that’s hard for me to hear today because I’m a worrier, and come from a long line of worriers.  When I don’t think I have anything to worry about, I worry that I’m forgetting something!  (And I usually am!)  But what we all need to hear – me included! – is that God has all of this in his hands.  And even if everything doesn’t go completely smoothly, or if it doesn’t go the way we’d like to see it happen, it will all work out in God’s time.  Maybe the way won’t be bump-free, but the way will ultimately lead us to God if we stop trying to veer off the path and go our own way.  Because that is truly vanity.

    Our prayer of submission to God’s will is the words of the Psalmist today: “In every age, O Lord, you have been our refuge.”  Amen to that.  There’s never a time when God lets us down or leaves us alone.  Even if the way is difficult, we are not alone on it.  God is always our refuge, in good times and in bad.  Thinking any differently in times of distress is nothing more than a chasing after the wind.