Caritas Christi Urget Nos

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  • Ash Wednesday

    Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    Someone reminded me that last year, I proclaimed that Lent to be the “Lentiest Lent that ever Lented!”  Certainly we have just been through a very Lenty year, with the specter of a pandemic, the sadness of racial injustice and social unrest, the frustration of political rancor, and all the rest.  The arrival of Lent again, already, well, it almost seems unfair, doesn’t it?

    And this Lent seems more unfair with the directive that we cannot trace an ashen cross on people’s foreheads due to the pandemic.  Instead, today, we will sprinkle them on your heads as you bow in penitence.  But it seems like it’s just another thing they’ve taken away from us, that the virus has stolen from us.  Unless we, people of faith that we are, change our outlook.  If we look at this as an opportunity to receive ashes the way most non-English speaking countries in the world have for ages, then we can see this as an opportunity for Church unity.  If we seek to still witness to our faith even though we can’t point to our ashes, then we can see this as an opportunity to strengthen our Christian witness every day.  I get it: it’s still another thing we’ve lost this year, but if we activate our faith and let God give us new opportunities, then maybe this can be the moment that we get out of the funk we’ve seemingly been in for the last year and become a Church and a people who truly live for Christ so much that the people around us who don’t know Christ get curious about who he is.

    In every day and age, times are tough.  Sometimes it seems times are tougher than others, and if this isn’t one of them, I don’t know what is.  But the only way we can get through that, honestly, is by being people of faith who entrust their times to the providence and love of God, who is most merciful.  Lent, friends, gives us the opportunity to do that, as it always does, through fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.

    Fasting can take on a whole lot of forms.  It’s not the same thing as going on a diet for Lent.  We should certainly give something up, something that will be uncomfortable, something we will miss.  It should, ideally, be something we have given greater place in our lives than we have to God.  In fasting, friends, we learn that there is nothing we hunger for that God can’t provide, and provide much better, if we let him.  Fasting makes us remember that God is trustworthy, that his love for us helps us in ways we can’t even imagine.  So perhaps we will give up a favorite food or a television show, or a video game or social media.  Maybe we will give up the necessity to always be right, to always get our way, to always get the final word.  Maybe we will give up deep-seated resentments, or unjust attitudes toward others.  Maybe we will give up just living for ourselves and taking care of “number one.”

    Almsgiving, too, can look different in every person’s life.  We are told that giving alms covers a multitude of sins, because giving alms shows love that is unencumbered by our ability to control things.  When we make a donation, when we give to a person in need, we let God decide exactly how that gets used.  It’s a way of freely giving of ourselves.  So maybe we will make a donation to the parish or to another charity; but almsgiving for us might look like giving of our time: helping to teach a religious education class or read to students, or looking in on an elderly neighbor or bringing them a lovingly-prepared meal.  Maybe giving alms for us looks like foregoing the daily Dunkin’ run or Starbucks stop and using that money to give to someone in need.  When we give of ourselves, we see God using us in ways we never even considered.

    And finally, prayer.  We’re supposed to be praying every day, of course, and I think most of us do.  But there’s always the need, I think, to grow in our prayer lives.  That’s certainly true for me.  Maybe our prayer has become rote, or stale.  If that’s true, Lent is a great time to shake things up and do a reset.  I always tell people who say that their prayer life isn’t going anywhere to try something new.  Maybe the Rosary, or Divine Mercy, or if you’ve been doing those, maybe some centering prayer or prayerfully reflecting on a book of Scripture during Lent.  It could be coming to Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, even if we’re doing it drive-up style for now.  It could even be as simple as zealously digging out a five minute break in the day to sit and be silent, looking at a religious picture, or listening to some inspirational music.  Whatever it is that we haven’t tried, it might be worth trying and see if we find it helpful.  Whatever leads us closer to God is always a grace, and God uses different experiences to speak to us all the time.  Try trying something new!

    Lent isn’t all about the ashes.  There’s a lot to it: fasting, almsgiving, and prayer.  But in another sense, it is all about the ashes: how will we quiet ourselves, humble ourselves, do penance, and come closer to Jesus?  I hope your experience of ashes, and of Lent, this year enlivens your life with Christ in ways you never imagined.  I pray that this forty day retreat moves heaven and earth in our parish, in our community, and in our homes.

  • Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What strikes me about these readings is that they speak of the fact that we, with our limited human minds and imaginations, often don’t get God. Even those of us who are people of strong faith often miss what God is trying to do in us and among us. Which puts us in company with the Apostles. They lived with Jesus every day, and still, very often, they didn’t understand what he was trying to say to them or teach them. Jesus was trying to warn them not to get caught up in all the things the Pharisees get caught up in, and they thought he was disappointed they didn’t have enough food. Talk about getting your wires crossed.

    Then look at the first reading. We’re only in the sixth chapter of the first book of the Bible, just a few pages from the creation of the heavens, the earth, everything in them, and all of humanity. And it seems like God is already thinking this was a failed experiment. Or are we getting our wires crossed again? Maybe the purification of the earth was always part of God’s plan for our salvation. Maybe the new life that came forth after the flood was a foretaste and promise of the new life that would come from the Resurrection of the Lord.  Maybe the flood itself is a foretaste of Holy Baptism, which washes away everything in us that is impure.

    What we might take away from the Scriptures today is that often things of faith aren’t as easy to figure out as they may seem at first. We might often be missing what God is doing in us and among us. But a second, long look at things with the grace of the Holy Spirit can help us to see the salvation in the midst of everything that’s messed up. In the midst of all our calamities, God is absolutely working to bring us back to himself. But we have to pray for the grace to see that.

    As we get ready to launch into Lent tomorrow, maybe that could be one of our Lenten practices.  To really reflect on what God is doing in us and among us.  What has he been trying to teach us in the midst of this pandemic?  How does receiving ashes by sprinkling on the head as opposed to the cross on the forehead give us opportunities to connect to the biblical practice of sprinkling ashes for penance?  In order to grow in our faith, which must be the goal of all our lives, we need to be open to seeing things as God sees them.  We need to uncross our wires, and let Jesus teach us the Way to the Father.

  • The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In ancient days, a diagnosis of leprosy was a death sentence.  And that’s not just because they didn’t know how to treat the disease.  They didn’t – but what was really horrible is the way the lepers were treated.  First of all, they were called lepers – not people – so being labeled as such stripped them of their personhood, and put them on the same level as a virus that needed to be eradicated.  They were cut off from the community, so they would have no community or even family support.  They were forbidden to worship with the community, so they must also have felt cut off from God.  And so it went for those who contracted leprosy: sick and alone, they were left to survive as best they could, or just to die.

    If that doesn’t sound somewhat like the current pandemic, I don’t know what does.  It’s heartbreaking to me to see how people die alone in hospitals because their loved ones are kept from visiting.  I understand what’s behind it, but the emotional cost of that is something we shouldn’t underestimate.

    The worst part about the way the ancients treated leprosy is that most of the time people didn’t actually have leprosy: their lack of scientific knowledge led them to label as leprosy any kind of skin ailment.  The rules for dealing with people with these diseases were based on fear: they didn’t want to contract the disease themselves, so the “clean” ones ostracized those with disease, treating them as if they didn’t exist.

    Jesus, obviously, didn’t agree with that kind of way of “treating” the illness of leprosy.  He didn’t really have any more scientific resources at that time to treat the disease, but it wasn’t the disease he was concerned about.  No, he was concerned about the person, not the illness.  And so he does not take offense when the leper breaks the Levitical law that we heard in our first reading and actually approaches Jesus.  Jesus, too breaks the law by reaching out to touch him and saying, with an authority that comes from God himself, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    The thing is, we don’t treat lepers very well today, either.  I don’t mean people who have the actual disease of leprosy – that is actually pretty rare, very treatable, and even curable, in this day and age.  What I mean is that there are a lot of leprosies out there.  Some people tend to ostracize a loved one when they contract a difficult disease, like cancer.  They can’t bear the thought of death, or they don’t like hospitals, or they feel powerless to help in these situations, so they stay away.  Hospitals and nursing homes are full of people who never receive a visit from family or friends.  Right now, with the pandemic, it’s not possible, but in times when it is, a lot of people don’t get visited.  Our pastoral care ministers could probably tell you many heart-breaking stories with that theme.

    And leprosy doesn’t apply just to sick people.  People who are different in any way are subject to ostracization: people who have different color skin than us, people who are not Catholic or not Christian, people who are homosexual, people who are poor or homeless.  All of these we treat from a distance, keeping them outside the community, outside of means of support, outside of the love of God in just the same way the ancients dealt with lepers.  We have a tendency to label people and then write them off.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m glad God doesn’t treat broken people that way.  Because then I might be cut off because of the brokenness of my many sins.  We all have something in us that is unclean, and it would be woe for us if God just wrote us off.  He doesn’t.  He reaches out to touch us to, exactly where we are at, without fear of contracting the illness of our sin himself, and heals us from the inside out.  “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    Our religion, thankfully, has rituals for the things that infest us.  When we are sick, there is the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  When we are sinful, there is the sacrament of Penance.  We call these the sacraments of healing, because they do just that: give us God’s grace when we are sick or dying, and his forgiveness and mercy when we have sinned.

    Many people misunderstand the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  No longer do we think of that as something to be done at the last possible moment.  It should be done as soon as it is known that a person is gravely ill.  We rely on doctors to tell us that.  It should be done before someone has serious surgery.  It should be done when a person is suffering from mental illness of any kind.  It might be done more than once: when a person is first diagnosed, for example, and then again when they are near death, or when the illness is worse in any way.  It should be done at a hospital or nursing home, or in a person’s home, or even here at church.  Wherever the person is or is most comfortable.  We are also having a Mass with Anointing of the Sick during Lent here in church.  The sacrament provides grace to live through an illness, or mercy on the journey to eternity, sometimes even healing if that is what God knows to be good for the person.  Please don’t wait until a person has just moments left to send for a priest, don’t be afraid to ask us to anoint you before surgery, and don’t assume that if you’re in the hospital, we will know – they can’t really tell us that any more.

    As for the Sacrament of Penance, there are many opportunities to celebrate that sacrament: Saturdays at 2:30 pm, and during Lent, starting this Friday, we will have a confessions on Fridays at 6pm.  The problem can sometimes be that a person feels embarrassed to go to Confession if they’ve been away from the sacrament for a long time.  Don’t be.  It’s our job to help you make a good Confession, and we are absolutely committed to doing that.  Your sins don’t make us think less of you; in fact I always have deep respect for the person who lowers his or her defenses and lets God have mercy on them.

    These are wonderful sacraments of healing.  God gives them to us because he will not be like those living in Levitical times.  Just as he reached out to the leper in today’s Gospel, so Christ longs to reach out and touch all of us in our brokenness, in our uncleanness, and make us whole again.  As the Psalmist sings today, so we can pray: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”   Praise God for Jesus’ words today: “I do will it.  Be made clean!”

  • Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In today’s readings we have two different ways of approaching God, with two different outcomes. 

    In our first reading, we have the story of the fall of humanity from Genesis, the first book in the Bible.  Over the past week, we have heard the stories of creation: how God created the world, the universe, and everything in them.  The most glorious of all his creation was the creation of man and woman, the first humans, the only part of creation that was made in God’s image and likeness, the ones for which God created everything else that he created.  All of his creation was good; it had to be made good so that it would be good enough for the people he created in love, to love.

    And we know the story: the minute God leaves the people to themselves to explore the world in all its wonder, they eat the fruit of the forbidden tree.  They are tempted by the devil who had to absolutely hate the goodness of creation, because the devil never loves anything, let alone anything good.  So he works against the people and against God and convinces the woman, and she the man, that they should have something they weren’t supposed to have.  He made them desire it more than anything, even though God had given them everything they need and then some.

    When we think about it, it almost seems unfair, right?  I mean, what’s the big deal about eating some fruit?  Why was that so bad?  Here’s the problem with it.  The devil made them want something that wasn’t God.  The people had everything: a place in paradise, and a loving relationship with God.  But the devil convinced them to want a piece of fruit more than they wanted that loving relationship with God.  And ever since, we have been doing that.  God still wants us and makes us in love.  But we so often turn away because we want something more than we want that loving relationship with God.

    Now, look at the Gospel.  The people bring Jesus a man that was suffering for a long time.  He had a speech impediment and couldn’t say anything, let alone give praise to God.  But he turned to God instead of turning away, and he received the gift of speech.  And with that healing, with that gift of speech, his relationship with God became more than it ever was.  Even though Jesus asked him not to, his new voice couldn’t stop praising God!

    Friends, for way too long, we have wanted stuff more than we have wanted God.  But if we would get it right and give ourselves to him, he might just heal us and give us a voice that can proclaim love, and peace, and grace, and healing, and justice, and joy – a voice that praises God and brings nothing but grace and healing to our hurting world.  So Lent starts next Wednesday, right?  What better time than Lent to think about what it is that we have been wanting more than we want God.  And then turn from that pain and let Jesus touch our tongue and give us grace to do more than we ever could on our own.

    God made us for paradise, and we have to stop wanting to live broken lives, let Jesus heal us, and go into the world telling everyone what he has done for us.  Jesus has done all things well: he has made the deaf hear and the mute speak.  He wants to give us the voice we need to make our world better than ever.  We just have to let him.

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Recognizing goodness in the world is an art form that brings happiness.  Too often in our day to day life, we run into others, and maybe it’s even ourselves, who seem to live to find fault with just about everything and everyone.  And sometimes it’s understandable: life is hard, and some days the bad seems to pile on so much that we can’t see anything good.  But I think we need to be constantly looking for the good if we ever want to find peace.

    In today’s readings, there is goodness all over the place.  This morning we begin the reading of the creation narrative from Genesis.  Today we have the first four of the days, in which God creates day and night, the sky, sea and earth and everything that grows on it, and the sun, moon, and all the lights of the sky.  God’s reflection on these moments of creation is worth noting: he finds them good.

    Just in case “good” doesn’t sound like much, we have to know that goodness is an attribute of God: God is goodness itself, goodness in its purest form, good beyond which nothing can be.  So when God says that something is good, He’s not just saying, “eh, you know, I guess it’s good,” but more like, “now, that’s good.”

    And we can probably resonate in some way with that reflection.  Haven’t we been on vacation, you know, back when we could do those things without fear of a pandemic, and out on the road trip, we come across scenery that’s new to us: maybe a mountain range, or the shores of the ocean, or a beautiful canyon or forest range.  When we have taken that in, maybe we’ve gasped a breath of air, and thought, “now that’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.”  We’ve noticed the goodness in it.

    Perhaps, too, we can notice the goodness in a person God has created.  One whose love comes across brilliantly, a person who restores our faith in humanity.  Maybe when we’ve met someone like that, we might say to ourselves, “now she’s a good person” or “he’s really good to his loved ones.”  Hopefully, there are people in our lives in whom we have seen goodness.

    People who look for goodness in the world are most likely to find it.  People who are on the lookout for people or places or creation that fills them with a sense of goodness are more likely to be close to God.  Our reflection today needs to take us on the hunt for goodness.  After we’ve left this place of worship, will we be ready to abandon seeing what’s wrong with everything and everyone, and instead look for what’s good?  Will we be ready to see the good things that God is giving us?  Will we be ready to see God?

  • The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It doesn’t take too much of our imagination to think of examples of suffering, having been through the last year of our lives.  All of us can probably think of someone we know who has suffered from COVID-19, or at least the scare of it, and many of us know of those who have died from the disease.  It has affected almost every aspect of our lives from the prospect of hugging our loved ones to eating out at a favorite restaurant.  Many have been affected economically in the last year, businesses closing, many people becoming unemployed.  Add to that the racial injustice, social unrest, political rancor, violence in our cities, and the reality of suffering is very real for all of us.

    Suffering, though, is something of a mystery to us.  Today we hear it in our first reading: Job, the innocent man, has been the victim of Satan’s testing: he has lost his family and riches, and has been afflicted physically.  His friends have gathered around and given him all the popular answers of that time and place as to why he is suffering: namely, that he, or his ancestors, must have sinned and offended God, and so God allowed him to suffer in this way.  But Job rejects that thinking, as we all should: it is offensive.  Our sins have no doubt been huge, but this kind of thinking reduces God to a capricious child who throws away his toys when he tires of them.

    That’s not Job’s God and it’s not our God either.  I’d like to say that we have eliminated that notion of why suffering happens, but sadly it persists.  Many people think they are being punished by God because of their sins when they are suffering.  And there is some logic to it: our sins do bring on sadness in this life.  Sin does have consequences, and while these consequences are not God’s will for us, they are a result of our poor choices.  But let us be clear that God does not penalize us in this way by willing our suffering.

    In fact, God has such a distaste for our suffering, that he sent his only Son to come and redeem us.  Jesus was one who suffered too, remember: being nailed to the cross, dying for our sins – but even before that, weeping with those who wept for loved ones, lamenting the hardness of heart of the children of Israel, being tempted by the devil in the desert, even understanding the hungry crowd and miraculously providing a meal for them out of five loaves and a couple of fish.  Jesus felt our affliction and suffering personally, and never abandoned anyone engaged in it.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus is found healing.  First Peter’s mother-in-law, and then those who came to him at sundown.  In this reading, Jesus is a sign of God’s desire to deal with suffering.  As Christians, we acknowledge the suffering in our midst, we do what we can to alleviate it, and we give it to our God who does not will our suffering, but who walks with us through it when it comes up in our lives.  Jesus doesn’t alleviate all pain from the world; some of that just persists.  But he never abandons those who are suffering: he didn’t in his earthly life and he doesn’t now.  We must do all that we can, in his Name, to alleviate the suffering of others, and then we must trust that our God who loves us beyond our imagining, will take care of the suffering that remains in the unfolding of eternity.

    But the key here is that we care for those who suffer.  Indeed, we are partners with them in their suffering.  This weekend we kick off our annual diocesan Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal which funds the various ministries of the diocese of Joliet.  We at Saint Mary’s depend on these ministries to help us: educating seminarians like Frank, our new intern and Deacon John; and supporting the efforts of our school and religious education program.  In addition, through the efforts of Catholic Charities, housing is provided for those who are in need, and meals are served to the hungry.  Catholic Charities has partnered with us to bring the food trucks to our parish to help serve our hungry neighbors, especially during this pandemic.  We are blessed that we can come together as a diocese to provide these services, to “Shine the Light of Christ” on those who are in need.  You have received a mailing from the diocese about the Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal over the last few weeks.  I ask you to join me in being as generous as you are able to be in this difficult time.

    We can’t make all of the suffering in the whole world go away.  But we can do the little things that make others’ suffering a little less, helping them to know the healing presence of Christ, together.

  • Saints Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs

    Saints Paul Miki and Companions, Martyrs

    We have been hearing from the martyrs a lot recently.  On Wednesday, we remembered Saint Blaise, a bishop and martyr who is the patron saint of those with illnesses, specifically of the throat.  Yesterday, we remembered Saint Agatha, a virgin and martyr who was put to death in the third century.  Today we remember Saint Paul Miki and his 25 companions – religious, lay people, catechists, and even children – who were crucified on a hill in Nagasaki in the late sixteenth century.

    Saint Paul Miki wrote, in his final moments: “The sentence of judgment says these men came to Japan from the Philippines, but I did not come from any other country.  I am a true Japanese.  The only reason for my being killed is that I have taught the doctrine of Christ.  I certainly did teach the doctrine of Christ.  I thank God it is for this reason I die.  I believe that I am telling only the truth before I die.  I know you believe me and I want to say to you all once again: Ask Christ to help you to become happy.  I obey Christ.  After Christ’s example I forgive my persecutors.  I do not hate them.  I ask God to have pity on all, and I hope my blood will fall on my fellow men as a fruitful rain.”

    The courageous deaths of Saint Paul Miki, his companions, and all the other martyrs we have brought to memory in these past days recalls the sacrifice that Christ made for us.  Their deaths point the way to our Lord, especially the deaths of Paul Miki and his companions, who like their Lord, were put to death on crosses.  May their courage and wisdom inspire us to live and die with faith in God’s mercy, and give us the grace to live our lives in witness to God’s love and Truth.

  • The Presentation of the Lord

    The Presentation of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate the traditional end of the Christmas season with this feast of the Presentation of the Lord.  The current liturgical end of the Christmas season was back on January 10th, the feast of the Baptism of the Lord.  But the older tradition reflected what we have seen in the readings for the Sundays ever since, and that is remnants of the Epiphany, or manifestation of who Christ is in our world.  On Epiphany, Jesus was manifested to the Magi as priest, prophet and king.  On the Baptism of the Lord, Jesus was baptized as the eternal Son of the Father, with whom the Father was well-pleased.  Today, Jesus is manifested as a light to the Gentiles and the glory of Israel, as the king of glory.

    Like Epiphany, this feast of the Presentation of the Lord is a feast of light.  On Epiphany the world was illumined by a star that pointed to the true Light of the world.  Today, a world grown dark is illumined by that true Light and the glory of God sheds light on the whole world: Gentiles and Israelites alike.  So today, the Church has always blessed candles, which we did at the beginning of Mass today.  The reason the Church lights candles is always to draw our attention to Christ our Light, in the midst of whatever darkness the world throws at us.  This feast is a foreshadowing of the Easter Vigil, when the deacon proclaims in a darkened church, “Lumen Christi,” “The Light of Christ,” and the Church responds, “Deo Gratias,” “Thanks be to God.”  Today is a foretaste of Easter, when the true Light of the World, Christ our Light, will definitively conquer every darkness.

    In today’s Gospel reading, Simeon and Anna experienced the power of the Light of the World.  They had been waiting and praying and fasting for the day of his appearance, and those prayers were answered.  The Lord came suddenly to the temple, as Malachi prophesied, and they could now be at peace.  But that appearance of the Lord requires a response: one doesn’t just experience the light and remain the same.  Christ our light is that refiner’s fire that purifies the lives of his chosen ones so that they might go out and shed light on our dark world.

    And I don’t mean for this to just be an academic or poetic discussion.  The light of Christ is not a mere metaphor.  Being the light for the world isn’t just a “yeah, maybe I should do that some day” kind of thing.  Every baptized one, according to her or his station in life, is called to actively shed light on the world.  So let’s take a few moments to pray with this.

    • Call to mind a darkness that you have noticed, either in your life, in your community, or in the world: a darkness that affects you or those around you.
    • Take a moment to talk with Jesus about that darkness and let him know your concern.
    • Listen for Jesus as he acknowledges the darkness and accepts your concern.  
    • Ask him for the grace to shed some light, small or big, on that darkness.  Listen for him to tell you what he wants you to do.
  • The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Heaven knows there are a lot of experts out there, or at least people who claim to be experts.  That’s why blogs and comments posted on news stories and Facebook are so popular: everyone claims to know something about everything.  Or at least it sure seems that way.  Certainly, it should give us pause when we think about the quality of information we get from these sources.  We see that time and time again: Whether it’s sports news, political news, or even the weather, half the time what we hear is pure conjecture, and not something resembling the truth at all.  Why we give so much of our time to hearing it should frighten us.

    This being the case, it should give us all the more pause when people give us their religious knowledge.  So often it starts with words like “I think…” or “In my opinion…” and perhaps ends with “I think that’s what’s right,” or “I think that’s what’s right for me,” or even, “that’s my truth.”  As if our opinion on what’s right is the truth.  But when it comes to faith and morals, it doesn’t matter what we think; our opinions are not truth, and the subjectivity of “what seems right for me” is completely useless.  Faith and morals are about the Truth – Truth with a capital “T”, and there is just one source for that knowledge, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

    For Moses, that relationship with the Truth was life-giving.  He was close to the Lord.  He had been up the mountain and seen the Lord face-to-face, which no one was thought to be able to do and live.  So when he told the people what the Lord had said, they trusted him.  In today’s first reading, Moses seems to know that that trust would dwindle after his death, and so he foretells that a prophet would come after him one day, a prophet like Moses himself, who would have the Truth in him.  He was foreshadowing our Lord, of course.

    So Jesus arrives in Capernaum, and you can almost feel the anticipation.  I imagine they had heard about Jesus and the things he said and did, and were probably eager to see what might transpire when he arrived in their town.  In the midst of teaching the people, he encounters a man with an unclean spirit.  And this is what illustrates the conflict.  The scribes were there.  These were the religious leaders of the people.  It was their job to write out and interpret the Scriptures and to be the resource of truth for their community.

    But they didn’t.  For whatever reason, they had long since abandoned their vocation and focused instead on adherence to the rules and making profit on God’s word.  Thus, they were unable to cast out the spirit from the man, and in fact, they would more likely have cast the man himself out so that he wouldn’t be a disruption.  But in order to see what would happen, they didn’t cast him out; they left him for Jesus to deal with.

    And Jesus does deal with him.  Only instead of casting the man out, he does what was more important and cast out the evil spirit.  The man wasn’t the problem; the evil spirit was.  That evil spirit was actually an icon, a photograph, of what was wrong with their religion: they tolerated the evil they could not control, and cared nothing for the people who needed their God.  The people are then astonished that his teaching was able to cleanse them from the evil in their midst.  This was a teaching with authority, and not the so-called teaching of their scribes.

    I think this is what we have to catch.  There’s lots of teaching out there, but precious little of it with authority.  Broken political promises, self-help gurus on television and in books, blogs that claim to know where the world is headed – none of this has authority.  There is only one authority that can cleanse us of the evil amidst us, only one source of Truth and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.  We need to do much more listening to him than to the other noise that’s out there.  We need to catch the Gospel and not the latest gossip, and then put what we hear into practice.

    If we would listen to our Lord’s teaching, it would indeed help us deal to with poverty, crime, violence, drugs, lack of respect for life, racism, healing a world plagued by a pandemic, and all the many other demons that are out there seeking to ruin us.  And so we have to tune in to the right message.  We have to seek the Truth and turn off all the noise.  Perhaps it’s time we made a retreat, or joined a Bible study or a book discussion or a prayer group, all of which we offer here at the parish all the time.  Lent is coming up in two weeks.  Now would be a good time to take advantage of our parish’s Lenten offerings to bring us closer to the One who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

    We have to give way more attention to our prayer lives and put God’s love and God’s will first.  If all we’re hearing is the lies, we’ll never get rid of the demons in our midst.  But if we would listen to the Truth, if we would harden not our hearts, we will indeed find ourselves healed, and then our land blessed, and all the world made right.

  • Saturday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Faith is that moment in our walk with the Lord when we have to put our money where our mouth is.  Faith says that we believe that Jesus is who he says he is, and that who he says he is has a profound impact on our life.  It’s easy to have faith when things are going well, isn’t it?  When there’s not a pandemic, and when we can live our lives the way we want to, and when we can see our loved ones wherever and whenever we want to, and actually hug them, when we’re not worried about disease or illness or social unrest or political bickering or job insecurity or family issues or whatever the crisis is, it’s easy to have faith then, right?

    But when things get crazy, well.  That’s a whole different thing.

    The writer of the letter to the Hebrews is very right when he says that “faith is the realization of what is hoped for and evidence of things not seen.”  Because faith is real when you have to step out of your comfort zone.  Abraham literally took a step in faith when he went to a foreign country and believed that, though Sarah was sterile, God would provide descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. 

    But most of us would probably fare little better than the apostles in the boat in today’s Gospel reading.  The moment a little storm comes along, or even a big one, we forget that God cares about us and we feel as though we are perishing in the middle of the night on the sea. 

    So where are you on the faith journey?  Are you taking that step into the unknown like Abraham?  Or are you freaking out in the storm?  If it’s the second thing, maybe today it would help to name the storm, to recognize what it’s doing to you, doing to your faith life.  Because the unnamed storms can’t be addressed.  When we know what they are, we can bring them to Jesus, who does actually care about us, who does not desire our perishing, and who longs to shout into that storm, “Quiet, be still!”

    If the wind and the sea obey him, so will the storms that are raging in us right now.  They really will.