Tag: creation

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Fifth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Blessed are those who fear the Lord,” the Psalmist tells us today. And today as our example of those who fear the Lord, we have two women. And we begin with the creation of the first woman. God has created all the creatures of the earth: land, water and air, yet none of these are found to be a suitable partner for him. And so it takes a new creative act of God, putting the man to sleep – putting things on pause for a moment. The only suitable partner for the man had to be someone who was made of his same flesh, and so one of his ribs is taken to form the basis of the woman. How significant it is that his partner is made from a bone right next to his heart! And only with this astounding new creation is all of creation complete. In the present, the work of creation goes on all the time, of course, largely because man and woman were created to participate in that creation together with their Creator.

    The second woman we meet today is the Syrophoenician woman. She is a woman of great faith – persistent faith, even! Not only does she want Jesus to drive the demon out of her daughter, but she is convinced that he is the only one that can make it happen. Her faith and her persistence give us a model for our spiritual lives. For us disciples, a strong faith in Christ means never questioning his ability to act for our good, and never letting anything – not even the technicalities of a perceived mission – get in the way of acting on that faith. We too are called to steadfast faith, and persistent prayer.

    The Nuptial Blessing from the Rite of Marriage prays for the bride: “May she always follow the example of the holy women whose praises are sung in the scriptures.” There are many such wonderful examples, of course, and today’s are just two of them. They give all of us a shining example of what our faith should be like. May all of us – women and men! – follow their example.

  • Labor Day

    Labor Day

    Readings: Genesis 1:26-2:3 | Psalm 90 | 1 Thessalonians 4:1b-2, 9-12 | Matthew 6:31-34

    One of the things that I remember vividly about my childhood is how hard my parents worked. My Dad worked more than one job at a time for several years. And in his main job, he was with the company for well over forty years, finally retiring from the company he worked for since his late teens. My mother, too, worked outside the home, and did on a part-time basis until the pandemic started. They encouraged me to work as well, and the experience of the work I did in my late teens is something that I carried with me throughout my pre-seminary work years, and continue, really, to benefit from to this very day. And that’s how work is supposed to be: participation in God’s creation, enhancing our human dignity, bringing forth our gifts, and helping us to be better people. Work should also help us to sustain our lives and our families, and to provide for their needs, including health care and retirement. The Church has consistently and loudly taught these truths about work ever since Pope Leo XIII’s ground-breaking encyclical Rerum Novarum, published in 1891.

    Today, we’ve gathered to celebrate and bless human labor.  Human labor is a cornerstone of our society and our world, dating all the way back to the creation of the world, as today’s first reading shows us.  Indeed, our labor is a participation in the ongoing creation of the world, and is one of the strongest ways that we can be in communion with our Creator God.  We know that, at the completion of the creation of the world and everything in it, God sanctified the whole of it through rest.  That’s an important point that I think we maybe don’t get the way we should.

    Today is an opportunity to take a step back and look at our working and our resting.  We know that we don’t get enough rest.  We are sleep deprived, we take working vacations, we very often don’t take all the vacation we’re allotted, and some don’t take a vacation at all.  Even our children are so over-scheduled that they are sleep deprived as they go from one activity to the next, day after day.  And so our lives are out of balance and I think, very often, we don’t do our best work when we’re working.
    Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel that this kind of thing is just crazy.  Worrying about work isn’t going to add a single moment to our lifespan.  In fact, it will more likely reduce them.  We are told very clearly: “Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself.  Sufficient for a day is its own evil.”  By “evil” here, Jesus doesn’t mean something sinister and dark, but just the daily worries and misfortunes that we deal with all the time.

    We are certainly required to work hard and always give the best that we have to our employers or employees and coworkers.  That’s a matter of justice.  We are also required to provide for our families and maintain a home for our loved ones.  That’s a matter or charity.  Work is sacred and always has been, because, as the Genesis reading today shows us, work was instituted by God who told us to fill the earth and subdue it, having dominion over every living thing.  We work because it is a sharing in what we were created for, the very imitation of God. But there is also that matter of balance.  And we do have to step back and realize that God did indeed sanctify the whole of creation by blessing it with that seventh day, with that day of rest.  And so we do our spiritual lives no favors when we ignore the commandment to observe the Sabbath through rest and worship.  So much of our lives is consumed in labor; may we never fail to sanctify that labor by observing rest and worship.
    I saw a social media post that said something to the effect that while you’re all playing and having barbecues on Labor Day, remember it’s not about that. It’s about the people that fought to create safer workplaces, fair wages, health care and other benefits. I mean, it’s a point well-taken, but I don’t think we have to be the party pooper and insist that parties and gatherings today are inappropriate. Actually, for those who are overworked and over-scheduled, we might need this day more than ever.

    Labor Day is in fact a wonderful time to step back and look at the meaning of work. Labor Day reminds us that we don’t have permission to write off human labor as some kind of necessary evil or a commodity to be bought and sold. We are reminded that the economy exists for the good of people, not the other way around. We must truly venerate all labor, that of our own efforts as well as that of others. We must vigorously defend the rights and dignity of workers, particularly of the poor and marginalized. We must always offer all of this back to our God who created us to be co-creators with him. And we must rest. May we pray with the Psalmist this day and every day, “Lord give success to the work of our hands!”

  • Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Fall is a season where we really see a lot of change, especially in our region.  Leaves are changing, the air is getting cooler, the hours of sunlight are rapidly diminishing.  It makes us grateful for the bits of life that we still see, because we know that the winter is coming and we will be groaning in eager anticipation of spring.

    So maybe we can resonate with what Saint Paul is saying in today’s first reading.  His basic message is that nothing is perfect yet; we are not where we should be – perfection is still in the future for all of us.  We see that our own lack of perfection has repercussions that touch all of creation.  There will come a time when God fully reveals everything and we will see ourselves and the entire world through God’s eyes.  That is the reward of the Kingdom that we all eagerly hope for. But we are not there yet.  We, along with all of creation, groan in anticipation of what will be revealed in those days.

    In Masses for the dead, the Third Eucharistic Prayer says, “There we hope to enjoy for ever the fullness of your glory, when you will wipe away every tear from our eyes.  For seeing you, our God, as you are, we shall be like you for all the ages and praise you without end, through Christ our Lord, through whom you bestow on the world all that is good.”  That’s the promise.  It will be like the mustard seed, come to full growth, that becomes a large enough bush to provide shelter for the birds of the sky.  It will be like yeast mixed through three measures of flour until it leavens the whole batch of dough.  Then, as the preface for the feast of Christ the King says, Jesus will present to the Father “an eternal and universal kingdom: a kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love and peace.”

    Put very simply, the best is yet to come for all of us, and for all of creation. In these waning days of the Church year, we continue to long – no, groan – for the day when everything will come to fruition and the Kingdom of God will be revealed in all its resplendent glory.  We have this as our hope – we don’t see it yet – but as Saint Paul says, who hopes for what one sees?  We have hope that one day we will enter into the glory of the Kingdom because we will have become holy by being caught up in the One who is holiness itself.

  • Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Like many of you, when I take a vacation somewhere with natural beauty, I am always amazed at it.  For several years, my family used to vacation up in Wisconsin, on the shore of Lake Michigan.  I was always in awe to see the sun rise over the lake, or after a rain, to see the sometimes double rainbows that appear.  Whenever I am in awe like that, I think about our wonderful creator God who put all that in place.  I am always doubly convinced that nothing like that could ever have come about as the result of chance or coincidence or random serendipity.  I am reminded that God is beauty itself, and that this is a dim reflection of Eden, or perhaps just a glimpse of the beauty of the Kingdom.

    So how is it that some people miss that?  It’s too bad that they do, because today’s first reading seems to suggest that we will all be held accountable for God’s revelation in nature.  Even if someone is not churched, they must still be able to see God in nature, and would thus be held accountable for knowing and acknowledging the creator God.  The Church recognizes this revelation and prays that it would be a first step in bringing a person to the Gospel.

    For those of us in the Church, we are responsible for acknowledging and loving the beauty of God all around us.  We should see God in every created thing and in every created person.  We do not then, as St. Paul warns the Romans, worship the created thing.  Instead we worship and glorify our Creator who made beauty known among us and let that beauty be part of the revelation of his love for us.

  • Labor Day

    Labor Day

    Today’s readings: Genesis 1:26-2:3 | Psalm 90 | 1 Thessalonians 4:1b-2, 9-12 | Matthew 6:31-34

    One of the things that I remember vividly about my childhood is how hard my parents worked. My Dad worked more than one job at a time for several years. And in his main job, he was with the company for well over forty years, finally retiring from the company he worked for since his late teens. My mother, too, worked outside the home, and still does on a part-time basis. They encouraged me to work as well, and the experience of the work I did in my late teens is something that I carried with me throughout my pre-seminary work years, and continue, really, to benefit from to this very day. And that’s how work is supposed to be: participation in God’s creation, enhancing our human dignity, bringing forth our gifts, and helping us to be better people. Work should also help us to sustain our lives and our families, and to provide for their needs, including health care and retirement. The Church has consistently and loudly taught these truths about work ever since Pope Leo XIII’s ground-breaking encyclical Rerum Novarum, published in 1891.

    As we observe Labor Day this year, though, I think we still have work to do on those principles. Far too many people don’t have the resources that work provides. The bishops of our nation publish a yearly Labor Day statement, and this year they write about the fact that so often labor is viewed as a commodity, a thing to be bought and sold, rather than as a participation in the ongoing creative work of God and an expression of the dignity of the human person, which is rightly work’s purpose.  They note that, in the sadness of COVID-19, the national human trafficking hotline handled a 40% increase in calls in the month following stay-at-home orders, especially as seen in communities of color.

    COVID also spiked job loss, and I think just about anyone could think of someone they know or know of who has lost work during the pandemic.  The bishops write: “Adults in lower-income households were more likely to experience employment income loss than those from higher income households. And women accounted for more than half of the job losses during the first seven months of recession, even though they make up less than half of the workforce.”

    They also write about the loss of more than 600,000 people to COVID-19 and the impact that has had on families: “It is especially heartbreaking that up to 43,000 minor children in the U.S. have lost a parent as a result of the pandemic. The families who lost a breadwinner are now more financially vulnerable, with a projected 42 million people in the United States experiencing food insecurity this year, including 13 million children.”

    In response to all this, they call on Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, in which he calls on people of good will to reject “the reality that women are not yet recognized as having the same dignity as men, that racism shamefully continues, and that those who are poor, disabled, unborn, or elderly are often considered dispensable.”  Instead, he invites us to work for an economy that “has at its heart a concern that all of humanity have access to land, lodging, and labor,” which are common aspects of Catholic Social Teaching.

    Finally, the bishops note that “the pandemic has presented us with many shared experiences.”  We’ve been through a lot, together, and they call on us to go forward together in ways that build up every person.  As Pope Francis has said, “Once the present health crisis has passed, the worst reaction would be to fall even more deeply into feverish consumerism and forms of selfish self-protection…”

    And so on this Labor Day it is especially appropriate that we reflect on the Genesis story of the creation of the world, showing the work of our Creator God and the blessedness of the sabbath rest on the seventh day.  We are reminded that all of our work is meant to be an ongoing act of participation of the creation and re-creation of the world by our Creator God.  Our Gospel reading today calls us to get this right, because when we do we can let go of worry and trust that seeking God’s kingdom first, everything will be given to us besides.

    Labor Day is in fact a wonderful time to step back and look at the meaning of work.  Labor Day reminds us that we don’t have permission to write off human labor as some kind of necessary evil or a commodity to be bought and sold.   We are reminded that the economy exists for the good of people, not the other way around.   We must truly venerate all labor, that of our own efforts as well as that of others.  We must vigorously defend the rights and dignity of workers, particularly of the poor and marginalized.  And we must always offer all of this back to our God who created us to be co-creators with him.  May we pray with the Psalmist this day and every day, “Lord give success to the work of our hands!”

  • 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?

  • Saint Joseph the Worker

    Saint Joseph the Worker

    Today’s readings

    Today we celebrate one of my very favorite saints, Saint Joseph.  You might be thinking, didn’t we already celebrate his feast day this year?  And the answer to that would be yes, absolutely!  The feast – or rather the solemnity – of Saint Joseph (it’s a solemnity because he’s a very special and important saint), is on March 19th.  But today we celebrate the memorial of the very same Saint Joseph, this time because he is the patron saint of workers – people who work!

    And that, quite frankly, is all of us.  We all have work to do, don’t we?  We have our schoolwork and our chores.  We may have to work on a sport or a musical instrument or develop one of our talents in some way.  And then there are our parents.  They may go to work, so that they can earn money for the family, and so that people who depend on them can thrive.  They also work in our homes, taking care of you, and making the home a place that’s comfortable for the family.  They cook and clean and all those things that are part of a parent’s life.

    So all of us work.  And sometimes work is great.  Maybe it’s exciting, maybe it helps us learn new things, maybe it allows us to use our talents in a special way.  But sometimes work isn’t so exciting: sometimes work is, well, work and it makes us wish we can do something else with our time – anything else!  For some people, work can also be oppressive: maybe it’s not work they like to do and maybe it doesn’t help them care for their families enough.  There’s all sorts of work out there.

    But Catholic teaching on work is that it is always supposed to be part of the creative work of God.  Our first reading paves the way, doesn’t it?  This reading is from the end of the story of the creation of the world in the book of Genesis.  Here, God has just finished creating everything there is, and as his last, most splendid creation, creates human beings: male and female, famously, Adam and Eve.  Everything he has created is good, and now God gives that goodness to the man and woman and charges them to keep on creating with him: “Be fertile and multiply,” he says to them, “fill the earth and subdue it.  Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.”

    Our work, all of it is a sharing in the creative activity of God.  Our Gospel today shows us that even Jesus himself was a worker: he was the carpenter’s son (that carpenter would be Saint Joseph!), and Jesus was not ashamed to be known that way.  The people of the time took offense at this, because they thought the Messiah wouldn’t have to be someone who was a laborer.  But they had it all wrong, because work was something that God did in the beginning, and continues to do all the time.  When we work with faithfulness, we are part of God’s creating power!

    So for all of this, we have the intercession and patronage of Saint Joseph, who was a worker, a carpenter, and knew all the blessings and drudgeries of labor.  We should always look to him when work is hard or when we don’t have work, so that he might intercede for us.  And when work is great, we should join with him in giving praise to God who gives us the blessing of work.  And so let us pray:

    Almighty God,
    maker of heaven and earth,
    we praise you for your glory
    and the splendor of all your creation.

    Bless us as we continue to do our work,
    and bless all that we do for you.
    Help us to carry out all our activities
    for your honor and glory
    and for the salvation of your people.

    Through the intercession of Saint Joseph the Worker,
    guide us in all we do,
    and help us build your kingdom
    and one day, come together to eternal life.
    Through Christ our Lord.

    Amen.

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings speak to us about the wonderful, spiritual quality of goodness.  We have the creation story, or at least the beginning of it, in which God is not only creating the world and everything in it, but also creating it in goodness.  And I think that we can relate to that in some way, because we find created things good all the time.  Think about a vacation or road trip you’ve taken and found some beautiful countryside.  Maybe you’ve seen mountains, or the vast ocean, or hiked some incredible trails through rich forested countryside.  When you’ve been there, looking at all that wonderful creation, perhaps stood there as the sun was setting or rising, maybe you’ve even said a prayer of thanks to God for creating such wonders and allowing you to see them.  You too see that it is very good.

    But there’s even more than that in it for us.  When we behold such wonders, such things that are very good, we can also see in them the One who is Goodness itself.  We see God in his creative genius, imparting some of his own Goodness into our world so that we might find goodness too.  In the mountains, we see God’s strength and might; in the forests, his embrace; in the waters, his refreshing mercy.  Our Good God has painted the world with his Goodness, so that we might desire the Good and come at last to Him.

    Goodness is all around us, because God created the world to be good.  Today, we can look around to see the good we might otherwise miss: good in people and good in creation – all of it bringing us back to our God who is Goodness itself.  The psalmist leads us today in the prayer that we are moved to pray when we are in the presence of such Good:

    How manifold are your works, O LORD!
    In wisdom you have wrought them all—
    the earth is full of your creatures;
    Bless the LORD, O my soul! Alleluia.

  • Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Fourteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I love the words of the Psalmist today: “The Lord is gracious and merciful.”

    These are words that are easy for us to pray when things are going well, but maybe not so much when we’re going through rough times.  It seems like the psalmist is going through some very good times, but we have no way of knowing that.  The only key to the great hymn of praise the psalmist is singing is that he is reflecting on the wonder of creation and the mighty deeds God does in the world.  The psalmist sees wonders not just in his own place but everywhere.  He says, “The LORD is good to all and compassionate toward all his works.”  Every part of creation has been blessed by God’s goodness.  Because of this, God is to be praised not just now, but “forever and ever” and by “generation after generation.”

    This fits in very nicely with Hosea’s prophecy in our first reading today.  Preaching to the Israelites in exile, he proclaims that God will change the relationship between Israel and the Lord.  That new relationship would be a spousal relationship between God and his people, in which the spouses are partners in the ongoing work of creation.  God will give Israel the ability to be faithful to God, and for His part, God will remember His faithfulness forever.  God’s great mercy and compassion are seen with abundance in the Gospel reading.  Jesus rewards the faithfulness of Jairus and the woman with the hemorrhage with miraculous healings.  Key to all of these wonderful events, in all three readings, is that God who has created us is committed to re-creating us in His love and faithfulness.

    So as we approach the Eucharist today and reflect on all the mighty and wonderful things God does in our midst, may we too sing the Psalmist’s song.  May we all praise God’s name forever and ever, and proclaim his might to generation after generation.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Over the past two days, we have heard, once again, the wonderful story of the creation of the world.  It’s not meant to be a science textbook or a timetable of events, of course, but instead delivers the message that all of creation was set in motion by our God, and that all of creation was created good, and created for good.  That’s something we tend to forget, at times, and when we do, it causes things like pollution, environmental disasters, and so much more.  We were given the earth to use and to care for, and we have to be diligent in caring for it.

    Pope Francis has been outspoken in his teaching on caring for God’s creation, which has long been a pillar of Catholic social teaching, and is based on the very reading we’ve heard the last two days.  He even called care for creation a work of mercy, expanding on the themes of his first encyclical, Laudato Si’.  “We must not be indifferent or resigned to the loss of biodiversity and the destruction of ecosystems, often caused by our irresponsible and selfish behavior,” he said. “Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence. … We have no such right.”

    When we abuse creation, we also cause problems for other people, most often the poor.  Francis has gone on to say, “When we mistreat nature, we also mistreat human beings. At the same time, each creature has its own intrinsic value that must be respected.”

    But none of this is to say that creation isn’t for our use.  In today’s first reading, God is very clear: “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it.  Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.”  But our use of God’s creation must reflect the gift that it is for us: we must also be able to hand that gift on to forthcoming generations.

    Just because we are unable to individually solve every environmental problem doesn’t mean that we aren’t important in the effort.  Every little thing we can do to protect creation means something.  As Pope Francis also said, “We should not think that our efforts – even our small gestures – don’t matter.  Virtue, including ecological virtue, can be infectious.”  And so every time we are in the presence of the beauty of creation, we should send up a prayer of thanks, along with the Psalmist today, who prayed: “When I behold your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you set in place—What is man that you should be mindful of him, or the son of man that you should care for him?  O Lord, our God, how wonderful your name in all the earth!”