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  • The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Today’s readings: Zechariah 2:14-17; Luke 1:46-55; Matthew 12:46-50

     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     

    I almost don’t like it when we read this particular Gospel reading, because I think it’s out of context enough that we could get the wrong idea about the relationship between Jesus and Mary.  It almost seems as if Jesus doesn’t care about his mother, and his brothers – whoever they were – that’s a can of worms I don’t care to open this morning!  I just know that if I treated my mother and my family like that, well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be too good.

    But our gut – or rather our faith – tells us that Jesus and Mary had a relationship that transcended that kind of thing.  It wasn’t that Jesus didn’t care about Mary, it’s just that he knew he really didn’t have to worry about her.  She could take care of things herself, and when she couldn’t, well he’d commission John to take care of her at the foot of the cross.

    And that relationship in which Jesus instinctively knew that his mother was okay and he needed to attend more to the people he ministered to is the reason we celebrate Mary’s presentation today.   As with Mary’s birth, we don’t really know anything official about Mary’s presentation in the temple. An unhistorical account tells us that Anna and Joachim offered Mary to God in the Temple when she was three years old. This was to carry out a promise made to God when Anna was still childless.

    Though it cannot be proven historically, Mary’s presentation has an important theological purpose. It continues the impact of the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of the birth of Mary. It emphasizes that the holiness conferred on Mary from the beginning of her life on earth continued through her early childhood and beyond.  We celebrate Mary, full of grace from the moment of her conception and all throughout her life.

    We pray the words of Mary in the Responsorial Psalm today: “The Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his Name.”  Mary was always aware of the amazing grace that sustained her throughout her own very difficult life-long mission.  We are graced like that too, and we celebrate that grace with Mary today.

    Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death.  Amen.

  • Thursday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Our worshipping in these last days of the Church year is often difficult, I think.  And you know why, don’t you?  These readings are just hard to hear.  The readings from Revelation this week have been confusing, to say the least, and maybe even a little frightening.  And if we could ignore the fright of the Revelation, well the Gospel is a bit more violent this morning than we’d like to experience at 8:30 in the morning, I think.

    But there is a spiritual principle at work here.  We are being called to mindfulness.  If during this liturgical year we’ve been a little lax, or even have become complacent, these readings are calling us to wake up lest we miss what God is doing.  God is bringing the whole world to its fulfillment, and we are called to be witnesses of it.  We cannot be like those who missed the time of their visitation.  We have been given the wonderful gift of Christ’s presence in our lives all year long, and we are asked to look back at where that wonderful gift has taken us.

    And if we haven’t come as far as we should, then we are called to wake up and realize what’s slipping away from us.  We cannot be left out of the kingdom, all our hopes smashed to the ground, all because we didn’t recognize that our greatest hope was right in front of us all the time.  We know the time is running short.  The days are shorter, and night approaches more quickly than we’d like.  The leaves have gone from the trees.  The nip in the air has turned to cold and even frost; we’ve even had some snowflakes.  These are the physical manifestations of creation groaning to come to its fulfillment.

    If the coming winter leaves us empty and aching for warmth, then these final days of the Church year might find us also aching for the warmth of the kingdom, that kingdom we were created to live in all our days.  Let us not be like Jerusalem; we cannot miss the time of our visitation!

  • Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You have to love this story of Zacchaeus, I think.  I think there are two main components of the story that really stand out for me as hallmarks of the spiritual life.

    The first is Zacchaeus’s openness.  First, he is so eager to see Jesus that he climbs up a tree to get a look at him.  We don’t have to go that far.  All we have to do is spend some time in the Eucharistic Chapel, or even just some quiet moments reflecting on Scripture.  All of those are ways to see Jesus, but like Zacchaeus, we have to overcome obstacles to get a look at him.  For Zacchaeus, that meant climbing up a tree to overcome the fact that he was apparently vertically challenged!  But for you and me, that might mean clearing our schedule, making our time with Jesus a priority.  Zacchaeus’s openness also included inviting Jesus in, despite his sinfulness.  He was willing to make up for his sin and change everything once he found the Lord.  We might ask ourselves today what we need to change, and how willing we are to invite Jesus into our lives, despite our brokenness.

    The second thing that stands out for me is what Jesus says to those who chided him for going into a sinner’s house.  “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”  What wonderful words those are for us to hear.  Because we know how lost we have been at times, and how far we have wandered from our Lord.  But the Lord seeks us out anyway, because we are too valuable for him to lose.

    And all we have to do is to be open to the Lord’s work in our lives, just like Zacchaeus was.  What a joy it will be then to hear those same words Jesus said to him:  “Today salvation has come to this house.”

  • Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The rather obvious and certainly oft-repeated application of today’s Gospel reading lies in the very literal interpretation of the word “talent.”  So we have been given many talents, and it’s up to us to use them wisely for the benefit of the kingdom of God.  Woe to the one who ignores his gifts and buries them out of fear.  And that’s a wonderful message.  I could go there.  But it’s wrong – that’s not what Jesus meant, and I think we have to dig just a little bit deeper.

    The word we have translated “talent” here does not mean what we think it means.  When our English ears hear that word, we think gifts, we think of abilities, of things we can do.  But that’s not what it means in the original Greek.  “Talent” here does not mean gifts, a talent was a unit of money.  It was actually rather a large sum of money, equal to something like one thousand days’ wages.  So think about it, even the man who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    The next thing we have to look at is who it was that was receiving such a large sum of cash.  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    If we think of the master as God, and accept the talents simply as money, I think God comes off sounding rather harsh.  The poor servants differed in their ability; that’s pointed out in the story and certainly the master would have known that.  So why would God be so horribly harsh when a simple slave with limited giftedness does nothing with his gifts?  It makes us bristle, I think, to imagine God treating someone like that so poorly.  And maybe that’s as it should be.  Because I think our bristling tells us that we still have to dig deeper into this very interesting parable.

    So I think this raises a few questions for us.  Who is the master?  What do the talents represent?  Why would the master entrust such a large sum of money to common slaves?  Who are the slaves?  And what on earth was that third slave thinking when he buried such a wonderful gift in the sand?

    Well, first off, I do think the master is God here – God the Father.  Now the talents, they’re not abilities or gifts, and they aren’t simply money.  And I think it’s our first reading that gives us a clue as to what’s really at stake here.  That first reading speaks of the worthy wife whose value is far beyond that of fine pearls.  So this first reading is teaching us to value not someTHING, but someONE.  What, or rather who, could be that valuable?  And I think the answer here is that it’s Christ himself.  Those talents represent Christ, the Gospel he proclaimed, and the Kingdom he came to make manifest.  The Gospel says the Master called in his servants and entrusted his possessions to them.  What we have translated “entrusted” here means, in the original Greek, something more like “handed over.”  In just the same way, God the Father “handed over” his only Son to us, for the salvation of the whole world.  What could possibly be worth more than that?

    Now the slaves of course are the disciples, they’re you and me, people of every time and place who Christ has come to save.  We are slaves to sin, and we need a redeemer.  Some are more open to redemption and to the work of Christ and the call of the Gospel.  They might get five talents or ten, or maybe even a million – the riches of Christ can never be exhausted!  These go forth into the world, pouring out those riches of Christ into a world that desperately needs salvation, healing and hope.  As that message goes forth, proclaimed and lived by disciples ready to embrace it, they are able to earn five more, or ten more, or even a million for the kingdom.

    But some are not as open to Christ’s life and work and Gospel.  There’s too much at stake.  They worry about what might happen if our world totally embraced Jesus’ teaching.  They can’t get past what discipleship might personally cost them.  They are represented, of course, by Judas, the apostle who was so overwhelmed by Jesus that he gave in to despair.  And in Matthew’s Gospel, this is the cardinal sin, because in at least a dozen places, Jesus says “do not be afraid” in one form or another.  That was Jesus’ message in Matthew’s Gospel, and so this third servant, who was afraid of what the Master might be like, buried his treasure out of fear.  And the parable points out that that fear wasn’t even reasonable, since he dealt so wonderfully with the other two servants, rewarding their work by calling them to share in his joy.

    So today’s Gospel is a summary of the whole Gospel of Matthew that we’ve been reading with the Church this year.  We are told that the greatest gift is Christ, that we are called to live the Gospel, that we must take up the task before us without being afraid, that we are called to go out and invest Christ’s presence into a world that always needs to be renewed.  As we come here on this second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, we are brought to a summary of all that in order that we might look back and see how we’ve done that this year.  Have we treasured Christ as the greatest of all that we have been given?  Have we taken on the mission without being afraid, knowing that the gift we have been given in Christ can make up for anything that we ourselves may lack?  Have we accepted that wonderful gift and invested it in the world, proclaiming the Gospel by the way that we live, challenging the corner of the world we live in to take it up also, so that we might bring back another five or ten or a million talents?

    Or have we been afraid, thinking that the Master is demanding beyond reason, afraid to make a mistake, afraid of what living the Gospel would mean for us, afraid of what it might cost us?  Because if we have lived this way, we have failed the mission.  Everything we have will be taken from us.  There will be wailing and grinding of teeth.

    Here at the end of this Church year, we can renew our commitment, make a new year’s resolution, if you will, to live the Gospel and proclaim the kingdom in the year ahead.  It doesn’t have to be huge.  It doesn’t cost us anything, because everything that we need has been given to us.  Maybe proclaiming the Gospel means doing some kind of service for us.  Reaching out at a homeless shelter like Hesed House or at a soup kitchen or Loaves and Fishes.  Maybe it means leading a small Christian Community so others will hear the Gospel.  Maybe we’ll help teach a religious education class, or sing in the choir, or become a lector.  Maybe we’ll make an effort every day to put prayer in the course of our work day, and try to be people of integrity in our business lives.  On this Donor Sabbath Sunday, maybe we’ll register for organ donation so that lives will be saved even after we’ve gone home to our reward.  Maybe we’ll read the Scriptures each day before we go to bed, even just a few verses, so that the Lord can change our lives and hearts.  Throughout this Church year, we have received the greatest gift we’ll ever get – Jesus Christ the Lord himself.  Now it is up to us to bring back the gift with interest, taking a world of watching people with us. The Psalmist sings of our reward today: “For you shall eat the fruit of your handiwork; blessed shall you be, and favored.”  Come, share your Master’s joy!

  • Saturday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    You know, this Gospel reading is filled with all sorts of off-putting comments, isn’t it?  I don’t know about you, but I bristle at the thought of comparing God to a dishonest judge!  But that’s not the point here.  Of course, Jesus means that God is so much greater than the dishonest judge, that if the dishonest judge will finally relent to someone pestering him, how much more will God, who love us beyond anything we can imagine, how much more will he grant the needs of this children who come to him in faith?

    But people have trouble with this very issue all the time.  Because I am sure that almost all of us have been in the situation where we have prayed and prayed and prayed and nothing seems to happen.  But we can never know the reason for God’s delay.  Maybe what we ask isn’t right for us right now.  Maybe something better is going to come our way at some time.  Maybe the right answer will position itself in time, through the grace of God at work in so many situations.  Maybe we just don’t have the big picture.

    But whatever the reason, the last line of the Gospel today is our key: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”  Our faith is what leads us to continue the prayer until it is finally answered.  Maybe the situation will come to a peaceful resolution, or maybe it is we who will be changed.  But if we approach it all in faith, then we know we have to approach it all with the long haul in mind, because our faith tells us that God answers in God’s time and in God’s way.

    A delay could either bring us closer to God as we continue to pray in faith, or it can fracture our relationship with God when we give in to despair.  But let that not be so for us.  When the Son of Man comes, may he find us faithful ones busy in prayer.

  • Friday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings: 2 John 4-9; John 13:34-35

    [This was Mass for the Kindergarten, 1st and 2nd grade school children.]

    Today we celebrate a Mass in honor of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  We celebrate Jesus’ Sacred Heard because we always think of love as coming from the heart, and we know that Jesus, our God, is love.

    Last week, I read our Kindergarteners a story about how God loves us.  The Wemmicks were a little village of wooden people, kind of like puppets.  They used to give each other stickers.  The really talented, beautiful, special people used to get pretty star stickers.  The ones who had trouble doing anything good, or who weren’t so nice to look at, they got gray dot stickers.

    Punchinello used to get lots of gray dots because he was really clumsy, and his paint was chipped and scratched.  He would often say silly things or make mistakes, and so he got lots and lots of gray dots.  He was very sad about that until he met a wooden girl who didn’t have any stickers at all.  She didn’t have stickers because the stickers wouldn’t stick to her.  Punchinello asked her about that, and she said she used to get a lot of stickers until she met the puppet maker.

    Punchinello went to meet the puppet maker too.  He explained to Punchinello that the stickers only stick if you let them.  The puppet maker didn’t care what other people thought about Punchinello because he loved him no matter what he looked like, or what he said, or what he did.  When Punchinello started to understand that, one of his dot stickers fell off.

    The Church teaches us that God loves us very much, just like the puppet maker.  He loves us because he made us.  So when he looks at us, he doesn’t see if we’re beautiful or not.  He doesn’t see how high we can jump, or how nicely we dance, or how beautiful our clothes are or how smart we are.  He sees us for what we are: wonderful people who were made by God, and are special just because God made us.

    That kind of love is really wonderful.  It’s the kind of love that lets us know that we can live our lives in happiness because God loves us.  It lets us know that we can do anything God calls us to do.  It lets us know that no matter what other people think of us, we are wonderful in God’s eyes.

    But love like that can’t be kept.  Just like the wooden girl who told Punchinello about the puppet maker, we have to tell other people how much God loves them.  We have to take God’s love and spread it around.  The really wonderful thing is that no matter how much we share God’s love, we’ll never run out of it.

    So today we’re going to ask all of you children to spread that love around.  After Communion, you are all going to come forward to receive a blessing.  We’ll say “God loves you.”  And you’ll say, “Amen.”  Then we will give you the name of someone in your class.  You then have to find a way to spread God’s love to that person.  Maybe you can help that person if they’re having trouble one day.  Maybe you can sit next to them at lunch.  Maybe you can invite them to play with you and your friends at recess.  Maybe you can just tell them they are wonderful and that you love them just like God loves them.

    I know that you will find a way to spread that love around.  We don’t need to be giving people gray dots or shiny stars.  We don’t need to say bad things about people.  We just need to let them know God loves them.  And we can do that, because God loves us first and best.

  • St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

    St. Frances Xavier Cabrini

    Today’s readings

    St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, who was called “Mother Cabrini” during her life, was a humble woman of great faith and fortitude, who stayed with her mission. She was refused entrance to the religious order that had educated her. So she began working at an orphanage, eventually becoming a sister in the religious order that ran it. She later became their prioress. She went to New York intending to found an orphanage there. The house they were to use turned out not to be available, and the bishop advised her to return to Italy. But she stayed, and eventually founded not only that one orphanage, but 67 institutions dedicated to caring for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick. She died at Columbus hospital in Chicago, which she also founded. She was the first American citizen to be canonized a saint.

    Like St. Paul, Mother Cabrini would never have given up on someone like Onesimus.  She would see his potential and nurture his faith, as St. Paul did for Onesimus.  What a joy it is when a person like that who has been so beautifully nurtured in faith turns out to be a blessing to people.  That kind of thing happens all the time when teachers and catechists and parents nurture children and call forth their giftedness.  How many young people have grown up to bless their corner of the world because some adult in their lives saw something special in them.

    This is the kind of ministry of teaching and healing that was always so special to Mother Cabrini.  She was known to be a tough lady who got things done, obviously so based on all the institutions she birthed into existence.  As the Psalmist reminds us today, the Lord secures justice for the oppressed, lets captives go free, gives sight to the blind, raises up those bent low, and all the rest.  So we are called to echo that action in what we do.  We may not found 67 institutions, but we can certainly affect those entrusted to our care right here in this little corner of the world.

    Mother Cabrini, pray for us.

  • St. Martin of Tours / Veterans’ Day

    St. Martin of Tours / Veterans’ Day

    Today’s readings

    “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.”

    St. Martin of Tours is a fitting saint to intercede for veterans today. He himself was a soldier and served his country faithfully. After a time, he asked for and received release from military service. He had become a catechumen, and said to his superiors, “I have served you as a soldier; now let me serve Christ. Give the bounty to those who are going to fight. But I am a soldier of Christ and it is not lawful for me to fight.” Having received his release, he became a monk and served God faithfully. As a soldier of Christianity now, he fought valiantly against paganism and appealed for mercy to those accused of heresy. He was made a bishop, albeit reluctantly, and served faithfully in that post. He was a man of whom the psalmist says today, “The salvation of the just comes from the Lord.”

    On this Veterans Day, we honor and pray for veterans of our armed forces who have given of themselves in order to protect our country and its freedoms. We pray especially for those who have died in battle, as well as for those who have been injured physically or mentally during their military service. We pray in thanksgiving for all of our freedoms, gained at a price, and pray that those freedoms will always be part of our way of life.

    I received this prayer for Veterans Day. As I pray it, think of someone you know who may be a veteran, or perhaps is currently serving in the armed forces. Maybe that veteran is even you. If you don’t have anyone particular to pray for, ask God to hear this prayer on behalf of a veteran who has no one to pray for them. So let us pray:

    We ask for blessings on all those who have served their country in the armed forces.
    We ask for healing for the veterans who have been wounded, in body and soul, in conflicts around the globe.
    We pray especially for the young men and women, in the thousands,
    Who are coming home from Iraq with injured bodies and traumatized spirits.
    Bring solace to them, O Lord; may we pray for them when they cannot pray.

    Have mercy on all our veterans from World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,
    Bring peace to their hearts and peace to the regions they fought in.
    Bless all the soldiers who served in non-combative posts;
    May their calling to service continue in their lives in many positive ways.

    Give us all the creative vision to see a world which, grown weary with fighting,
    Moves to affirming the life of every human being and so moves beyond war.
    Hear our prayer, O Prince of Peace, hear our prayer.

    We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

    St. Martin of Tours, pray for us.

  • The Dedication of Saint John Lateran

    The Dedication of Saint John Lateran

    Today’s readings

    I’m often amazed by the flurry of activity that goes on around this place.  I’d only been here a couple of months, and I became convinced that if I strolled over to church at three in the morning, I’d see six or seven cars in the parking lot and a meeting going on somewhere.  In a typical day here, there are a handful of meetings, a full day of classes in the school, several people stopping by the parish office to schedule Masses, or pick up baptismal certificates, or coming for appointments with us priests or other staff people.  We have people come in for financial and other assistance, perhaps to plan a funeral for a loved one, or pick up lesson plans and supplies for a religious education class.  People come in for daily Mass, or to decorate the church, or come for ministry training.  And all these things have to be supported by people cleaning the church or watering plants, staff members repairing broken furniture, cleaning bathrooms, or changing light bulbs.  We have around fifty staff members involved in every kind of ministry and function here, as well as countless volunteers who support the work of the church in so many ways.

    Today we celebrate the feast of the dedication of the St. John Lateran basilica in Rome.  That might seem like a strange feast to celebrate, since few of us have probably ever been there.  But St. John Lateran is a very important church for us Catholics.  It is the “mother church” of all Catholics around the world.  It is the Pope’s parish church, the cathedral of Rome. It’s an enormous basilica built over three hundred years ago on the site of a former church built in the fourth century.  Within the building are representations of the popes going all the way back to Peter.  Over time the churches on this site have been subject to fire, earthquakes and war, and have had to be rebuilt several times.  But a church has always been there. It is a visual reminder, inside and out, of our connection to our tradition and the fact that the Church has survived a lot over the centuries–from both within and without. The building attracts many tourists.  They can’t help but admire this grand edifice, much like the Jews of Jesus’ time strolled the Temple precincts and admired its splendor.

    While it is a solid structure, and probably needs constant upkeep, it is a reminder of another edifice, the real Temple Jesus laid the foundation for and Paul and subsequent preachers carefully built upon, and that temple is God’s people.  This structure also requires constant upkeep, that’s what we are about in our celebration today, remembering who we are and “tending to the Temple.”

    This church that is ourselves, this temple of the Holy Spirit that we are, needs constant upkeep and maintenance – just like this building where we worship, and just like old St. John Lateran.  Because we often fall into the disrepair of sin or the neglect that is spiritual laziness.  And often the repairs can seem daunting.  But they are certainly possible because of the love of God and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, that spirit that brings us back to the Church and helps us with the sacraments.

    And that’s the point of today’s celebration.  We remember that we are connected as Catholics throughout the world by our connection to the Pope.  We remember that we ourselves are the temple of God, as St. Paul tells us today, built on the rock-solid foundation of Jesus Christ, built up with the teaching of the apostles, the proclamation of the Holy Scriptures, and the guidance of the Church’s tradition.

    The Scriptures today paint the picture of a Church that is not just a building, but is a living thing that goes forth and makes the whole world new.  Just as Ezekiel’s vision painted the picture of water flowing forth from the temple, cleansing and renewing the earth, so the waters of baptism flow forth from the Church of God, taking with it the many ministries of the parishes and the myriad of giftedness possessed by all the baptized believers in all the churches of the world, and flowing out into the world to make a real difference.  This is how the lost come to find salvation.  This is how the poor are fed.  This is how the unborn and the elderly sick are protected.  This is how the world, dark in sin and lost in the disrepair of apathy is bound up and made new and washed clean and healed.  Saint Paul makes it very clear today: we are the temple of God, and we are filled with the Spirit to make a difference in the world.  The Church that is us, we baptized ones, goes forth into a world aching for renewal and brings it all back to the God who made everything, and makes everything new.

    And that newness is exactly what Jesus meant when he upturned the moneychangers’ tables and scattered the doves.  Because the doves were needed for the sacrifice, and the money which bore the inscription of pagan deities had to be changed for money that could be brought into the temple treasury – they weren’t doing anything wrong.  But Jesus’ message here is completely different than we might think at first – what he means by all of this is that there is a new temple, the temple that is he himself – that temple which will be torn down by disbelievers but restored in the Resurrection.  There is a new temple, and so that old one with all its dove-sellers and moneychangers isn’t really necessary any more, so take it all and go home, or come to worship rightly, in the temple that is Christ, that temple that will never ever fall into disrepair.

    We very much need the church buildings we have among us.  We need St. John Lateran to be a symbol of the Catholic faith that has withstood persecution of every sort and remained standing to give witness to Christ.  We need St. Raphael’s church so that we can come and worship and find our Lord in Word and Sacrament.  But all of that pales in comparison to the importance of the Church that is you and me, and all the baptized ones of every time and place, filled and inspired and breathed forth with the Holy Spirit, gifted beyond imagining, flooding the earth with the torrent of God’s grace, making everything new, and bringing it all back to God who made it all possible.

    The task is daunting, but we cannot be afraid to be Church to one another and Church to the world.  As our Psalmist tells us today, “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our stronghold!”

  • Saturday of the Thirty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Thirty-first Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “The love of money is the root of all evil.”  “Money can’t buy happiness.”  We have all sorts of proverbs that aim to keep us at right relationship not just with our financial resources, but really with all the many gifts that we have.  Today’s Liturgy of the Word gives us some humble pointers too on this important issue.

    St. Paul, in thanking his friends in Philippi for their generous support of his ministry, tells them: “I know indeed how to live in humble circumstances; I know also how to live with abundance.  In every circumstance and in all things I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry, of living in abundance and of being in need.”  His gratitude isn’t so much that their gift to him filled him with plenty, but instead that their gift was a testament to their faith, and their love for the Gospel he preached to them.  He was able to use that gift to further his ministry elsewhere, making Christ known to others who longed to hear of him.

    Jesus today speaks to the Pharisees, who, as the Gospel today tells us, “loved money.”  He tells them that their love of money was not going to lead them to God.  Instead, it leads them to dishonest transactions with dishonest people.  Just as a servant cannot serve two masters, so they could not expect to serve both God and mammon, the so-called god of material wealth and greed.

    We live in times where the love of money has led us to considerable evil.  Greed and the desire for instant gratification has led people to be overspent and overextended.  Major corporations, greedy for more wealth, playing off the misguided desires of so many people, have defaulted, causing the government to have to step in and save them, for fear their downfall would take the entire world economy with it.  In these days, it may be well for us to hear that we cannot serve both God and mammon.  It may be well for us to come to the conclusion that we can live in both abundance and need.  And it’s never a bad time to hear that we need to make God our only God, yet again.