Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Discipleship

  • Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [C]

    Today’s readings

    The encounter between Jesus and Simon Peter in today’s Gospel reading is a nice story, but I think it goes deeper than that.  In this encounter, we see five very important principles of the life of a disciple.  So I would like to address these reflections to our catechumens and candidates for full communion with the Church this morning.  I do that because, as you continue your journey to become one with us, you may very well see some of these things happening in your own lives, and I want you to know that these things are okay, that they are good, and that they are part of God’s plan for your life.  Now, having said that, the rest of you aren’t off the hook here.  These things really apply to all of us, because we are constantly growing in our discipleship, and conversion is an ongoing thing for all of us.  That’s why all of our RCIA rituals take place here at Mass and not in private.  We all have to learn from them the way to conversion.

    And so, let’s dive into these five principles.  The first principle of the disciple’s life is that we don’t choose God; God chooses us.  Simon Peter didn’t put out an invitation to Jesus to join him in the boat.  He probably didn’t even want the company, to be honest.  He was washing his nets and cleaning up the boat after a very long, and very unproductive night of fishing.  They’d been up all night, they were frustrated, and they probably just wanted to be left alone.  But Jesus gets into Simon’s boat without even asking if he can come aboard, sits down, and tells him to put out a short distance from shore so he can teach the people from that boat-pulpit.  If we think we are all here today because we chose to be here, chose to be God’s people, then we’ve gotten it all wrong.  God chose us to be here, and we might not even know why, but God does, and he will reveal it in his own time.

    The second principle of the disciple’s life is that it’s not about what we can do.  As I’ve pointed out, Simon and his co-workers had a very unproductive night.  And that’s horrible for them because this is their livelihood.  They weren’t out for a relaxing night of fishing, they were out for fish to sell at market to feed their families, and they’ve caught nothing.  It wasn’t just that they caught very little; we are told that they’ve caught nothing – zero fish, or at least nothing they could sell or eat.  And that’s not unusual.  Whenever you see Peter and the others fishing in the Gospel, they are always catching nothing when they are on their own.  Try it – go through the Gospel and look for those stores, you’ll see.  So it might seem strange that Jesus would call fishermen to be his Apostles, but it almost seems like fiduciary misconduct to pick fishermen who were complete failures at their craft.  In fact we are told that the only really qualified guy he chose was Judas Iscariot, and we all know what became of him, don’t we?  It’s not about what we can do, how successful we are, what personal gifts we have.  God has something special in mind for us, and he can call anyone he wants.  And he does.

    The third principle follows from the second, and that is that it is always God who does the really great things that we seem to accomplish.  For Peter and the others, we see it very simply … Jesus tells them to put out into the deep water, and despite their utter exhaustion and their better judgment, they do so, they lower the nets, and they can hardly bring the huge catch of fish in to land.  They are extremely successful, but only because they have relied on God’s grace for their success.  If we are serious about our success, either in our business or in our discipleship, then we too have to be ready to give it over to God’s grace.  It’s hard because that involves letting go, giving God control, taking the good with the bad, constantly seeking God’s will.  But that is our call, fellow disciples, that’s what we do.

    The fourth principle is extremely important for us to get, because this is so insidious.  This principle tells us that we are completely unworthy of such grace in the face of how awesome God is.  And it’s true, none of us is worthy of the calling we have received.  I’m not worthy to be a priest, you may not be worthy to be a parent, perhaps you’re not worthy of the work you’ve been called to do.  But God has called us to do all of this anyway.  Yes, we’re sinful, and perhaps like Peter we’d like to say “Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man” or woman.  Perhaps like Isaiah in our first reading, we find that we are men or women of unclean lips living among people of unclean lips.  Who are we to proclaim the Gospel?  Who are we to lead others?  And Satan especially would love for us to give in to this.  Because if we are caught up in our unworthiness, we can never be used to accomplish God’s will.  But, unworthy as we are, it’s not about us, it’s about God and what God can do in us, so we have to seek forgiveness, pursue conversion, and then do what God asks of us.  We must remember that forgiveness and conversion, like every other gift, is never meant just for us, it’s meant for us to share, and the way that we share that is to do God’s work in whatever way He’s called us to do it.

    And the fifth principle is that God always sees better stuff in us than we see in ourselves.  Jesus saw past Peter’s inadequacies as a fisherman and saw that he would be really great as an Apostle to bring people to the kingdom.  He saw past Isaiah’s vulgarity to know that he would be just the person to speak his word.  God knows that our sins do not define who we are; having created us, he alone knows of what we are capable, and he gives us a commission that goes beyond what we think we can do.  He asks just one thing of us: “Do not be afraid.”  This past summer, I saw the movie, “Julie and Julia.”  Being a foodie, I loved it, but I also loved that Julia Child had learned the lesson Jesus always wants his disciples to hear … she always said “Don’t be afraid.”  For her that meant she could cook anything.  For us it means we can do anything God calls us to do.  Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.

    Lent is coming.  For our catechumens and candidates, that means formation will kick up to a fever pitch.  God will be doing amazing things in you.  Satan will be working hard to put a stop to it.  But don’t be afraid, God knows of what you are capable and he will give you the grace to accomplish it.  For the rest of us, this coming Lent will be a call to conversion, re-conversion, and growth in discipleship.  We would do well to remind ourselves yet again this Lent that it is God who chooses us, that it’s not about what we can do, that it’s always God who gives us the grace to do truly great things, that our unworthiness does not define us in the eyes of God, and that God knows of what we are capable and sees great things in us.  Maybe Lent can find us putting aside whatever fears keep us from answering God’s call and instead allow ourselves to be truly changed, truly used by God to do great things.  Do not be afraid.

  • Wednesday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Whoever has ears ought to hear.”

    Hearing is sometimes a difficult challenge for us.  We have laundry lists of things we would like for God to hear.  We can be real good at praying when it entails telling God what we think needs to happen.  But it’s harder for us to just listen, and even harder for us to really hear.  Most often, hearing means conversion, and that can be messy and even uncomfortable – perhaps even painful.  But real disciples are called to be pray-ers who hear, not just speak.  Whoever has ears ought to hear.

  • Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Have you ever been sure of the Lord’s call in your life and it just terrified you?  I have.  And for those of us who have been in this position, we can perhaps understand Jonah’s reaction in today’s first reading.  He had been called by the Lord to preach to the people in Nineveh.  Now the people of Nineveh were unspeakably evil and had long been persecuting the people of Israel.  And so for Jonah, this call was a bit like being called to preach to the people of Al-Quaida or something like that.  Not only did Jonah fear for his life in going to them, but, quite frankly, he also could not possibly care less if they repented and God had mercy on them.

    But it’s a little hard to run away from God.  He always catches up with you sooner or later.  If that weren’t true, I wouldn’t be standing here today, I can tell you that!  It would certainly be easier for us Jonahs if we would just give in to God’s will at the beginning and not have to do all this running.  But sometimes the human heart just isn’t ready for radical change.

    That was true of the scholar of the law in today’s Gospel reading.  I think he’s more testing Jesus here than really wanting to be converted, but he can’t help but get caught up in Jesus’ teaching.  The question is, is he ready to “go and do likewise?”  The reading ends before he can make that decision, but the implication is that it will be very hard for him to really love his neighbor in the same way that the good Samaritan loved the robbery victim.

    And so those of us who look a lot like Jonah or the scholar of the law today, need to pray for softening of our hardened hearts.  Will it take three days in the belly of a big fish for us to finally give in to God’s will?  Or can we just give in and trust?

  • Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Fear is a bad thing.  Fear destroys discipleship.  In the case of the gospel story today, fear kept the disciples from understanding.  As well we know, Jesus was speaking to them about his passion and death, and they didn’t get it.  They didn’t get it because that was not their idea of what should happen to the messiah.  They were looking for a king who would bring Israel back to political greatness, not someone who was going to suffer and die.  So they didn’t understand it, but worse yet, they were afraid to ask Jesus what he meant.

    Why were they afraid?  Maybe it was because they had invested themselves totally in Jesus, and they couldn’t bear to think of what people might think of them if they had spent all this time following a man who clearly was not the messiah they were looking for.  That would explain why Judas made the deal for thirty pieces of silver, and ultimately why he took his own life.

    Or were they afraid to find out that if Jesus was to accept suffering and death, they would have to do the same?  Certainly that was true for most of them; they had to actually give their lives for what they believed.  Whatever the case, they didn’t want clarification or understanding right now.  They could not deal with the truth.

    It’s hard to blame them for that, because I strongly suspect that all of us avoid the truth at one time or another in our lives.  We think about something that is confronting us, and think: “I don’t want to know…”  But we disciples can’t avoid the truth.  It catches up with us someday, some way.  Fear merely keeps us from confronting that truth with our God, the God who was willing to take the cross for us and is therefore with us in all our sorrows and joys.

    The Christian disciple should never be afraid of the truth.  What we need to fear is what the world would be like if the truth were never spoken.

  • Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings are a kind of blueprint for the life of the disciple.  We see that those who surrounded Jesus as his core group were but a few selected people.  We have the Twelve, of course, but also some women.  Common to all of them is that nowadays we would probably not see any of them as qualified for the job of being in the Savior’s inner circle.  The Twelve themselves were a ragtag bunch, tradesmen, fishermen, tax collectors – none of them were even particularly distinguished in their chosen careers.  It is said that the only one of them who was distinguished and could possibly have been called qualified was Judas Iscariot, and we all know what became of him.

    The women mentioned were similarly unqualified.  The Gospel says that they had all been cured either of evil spirits or infirmities.  But they also provided for the ministry out of their means.  So it’s a humble group that surrounds Jesus, and apparently, that was fine with him.  He came, after all, to save those who needed saving, not those who had no use for a Savior.

    Paul tells Timothy that those who would be disciples must “pursue righteousness, devotion, faith, love, patience, and gentleness.”  They must “Compete well for the faith” and thus “Lay hold of eternal life.”  Jesus chooses anyone he wants; not merely those who are outstanding in qualifications.  Blessed indeed are those who are poor in Spirit, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

  • Thursday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Christian disciples are called to go the extra mile.  Sure, it’s easy enough to love those who love you, and to do good to those who do good to you, and to give expecting reward.  How many of us have people over for dinner because we know those same people will return the favor to us?  How many of us have Christmas card lists that are basically reciprocation for those who send greetings to us?  We have no problem loving and giving our best to those who do the same for us, but more is expected of us.

    For us disciples, we are expected to do the impossible: love our enemies, lend without expecting to be repaid, stop judging, stop condemning others, and to give with wild abandon.  Paul’s letter to the Colossians underscores the measure that will be used to measure us:

    Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
    as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another,
    singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs
    with gratitude in your hearts to God.

    And so our reflection today calls for us to reach out and go beyond ourselves.  We have to step outside our comfort zone, reach higher, and give in the same way that God has given to us.  That is how we will find true joy, as St. Paul also says, that is how we will reach our potential as true disciples.

  • Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Healing is a wonderful thing, and it is perhaps the greatest consolation we receive as believers in Christ.  But healing isn’t just for us.  Just as Simon’s mother-in-law got up from her fever, having been healed by the Lord, and began waiting on people, so we too are called to get up and go on.  When we have been healed, whether it is physically or spiritually, we are called to move on and continue to give witness to the Gospel.  We don’t get to rest in the moment, because the moment was never just for us.  Particularly with spiritual healing, those who have been forgiven through the Sacrament of Penance must then get on with their work as disciples.  The evil one would try to convince us that we are not worthy of the mission, but the only one whose opinion counts is Christ, and his intent is that having been forgiven and healed, we need to get back up and begin again in our work as disciples, whatever that work may be.

  • Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Seventeenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

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

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

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

  • Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Seventeenth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle B

    Today’s readings

    The Bread of Life Discourse: an outline

    Bishop Kaffer used to say that every celebration of the Eucharist was a greater creative act than the creation of the universe.  Now I think greater theological minds than mine would likely debate that, but what Bishop Kaffer gets at is worth considering.  The Eucharist is an incredible miracle, and we are privileged to be part of it every time we gather to celebrate Mass.  Beginning this Sunday, for five weeks, we will take a bit of an excursus from reading Mark’s Gospel as we do during this Church year.  We will instead read from the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel, which is commonly known as the “Bread of Life Discourse.”

    The Bread of Life Discourse is one of the most important themes of John’s Gospel.  For John, this is the account of the institution of the Eucharist.  For Matthew, Mark and Luke, the institution takes place at the Last Supper with the famous words, “take and eat” and “take a drink.”  But John’s Last Supper doesn’t have that story.  There John focuses on the washing of the feet, teaching his disciples to care for one another as he has cared for them.

    The feeding of the multitudes is a story that has the unique distinction of being in all four of the Gospels.  But, because this is John’s account of the institution of the Eucharist, he covers it a bit differently.  Still, that the story is found in all of the Gospel accounts that we have indicates how important the incident was for the early Church.  For John, though, it is clearly Jesus who is in charge here.  First of all, it is Jesus who notices that the crowds are hungry; they have expressed no such need.  Jesus doesn’t need anyone to tell him what the people need or how to minister to them; he has the ability to figure that out for himself.

    Second, like a good salesman, he doesn’t ask any questions to which he doesn’t already know the answer.  When he asks Philip, “Where can we buy enough food for them to eat?” he already knows the answer.  But certainly it stumps Philip, who, not recognizing it as a rhetorical question, notes that not even 200 days wages would provide food for each of these people to have a little.  The key here, though, is that Jesus asked the question knowing full well what he was going to do.

    And third, when the loaves and fishes had been gathered and blessed, it is Jesus, not the Twelve, who distribute the food to the people.  In Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus gives the food to the Apostles to give to the people.  But in John’s account, Jesus takes the food, gives thanks, and gives it to the people himself.  The word “thanks” here, in Greek, is eucharisteo, which makes obvious the fact that this is Jesus, fully in charge, giving the Eucharist to the people and to us.

    At the heart of John’s story of the feeding of the multitudes is the important teaching that Jesus is enough.  Here the boy brought two fish and five loaves of bread, and they were barley loaves, the bread of the poor.  It was probably his lunch for the day, and certainly not meant to feed so many people.  And there were a lot of people.  The gender-biased story says there were five thousand men there.  We can assume there were also women and children, after all it was the boy who sacrificed his lunch for the crowd.  So the actual number of people fed was huge.  But look again at how many pieces of food there were: five loaves, two fish, together that equals seven, which is a very Biblical number, usually symbolizing completeness.  Jesus takes the little lunch, and in his hands it is enough, and more than enough, to feed the crowd.

    And everyone who needed to be fed was not at the picnic.  The disciples gathered up twelve baskets of leftovers, reminiscent of the Twelve apostles, and the twelve tribes of Israel.  All these leftovers are meant to feed others, including you and me.  And that can happen because Jesus is enough, and more than enough, to fill our hungry stomachs, and hearts, and souls.  This little picnic is the Eucharistic banquet par excellence, the first giving of the sacrament that is the source and summit of our lives as Christians.

    Now I want to make a note about an explanation of this miracle that you may sometimes hear.  The explanation goes that when Jesus started passing around the loaves and fish, other people noticed what he did and they too decided to share their lunches with the crowd.  So someone took out a sandwich and shared it, another shared some of their fish, or some bread, or whatever it was they had.  And so on and so on until lo and behold, everyone has had enough and there are leftovers.  This is often known as the “miracle of sharing” and it’s very heartwarming to be sure.  It’s the kind of thing Oprah and Dr. Phil would be all over.  How great it is that we can help each other out and do great things.

    But that explanation is wrong, dead wrong.  Absolutely wrong, without a doubt.  Don’t let anyone insist to you that it’s right.  And here’s the rule of thumb: whenever an explanation makes the Gospel story more about us than it is about Christ, it’s always wrong.  Always.  Without exception.  The Gospel is the Good News that Jesus came to bring, and the story is always about him.  The miracle here is not that so many people were touched to their heart and decided to share.  The miracle is that a boy sacrificed his five loaves and two fish, and in Jesus’ hands they become enough, and more than enough, to fill the stomachs of every person on that grassy hillside, and twelve baskets besides.  Period.

    What is important here is that we need to know that this kind of thing goes on all the time, even in our own day. Jesus always notices the needs and hungers of his people. Perhaps you have seen a need in the community, maybe a family who is in need, or an issue that needs to be addressed. You noticed that because the Spirit of Jesus is working in you. It’s very easy to go through life noticing nothing and no one, but that doesn’t happen in disciples. Disciples are the ears and eyes of Jesus, and he notices the needs of his people through us every day. Now, having noticed a need, we may very well feel inadequate to fill it. What good is our few hours of time or few dollars going to do for such a huge need? How can our imperfect talents make up for such a need? Here we have to trust that Jesus will do with our imperfect offerings as he did with the five loaves and two fish. Jesus makes up for our lack, and we can take comfort in that. If we are faithful to respond to the need with what we have, we can be sure that Jesus will use what we have, and it will be enough, and more than enough, to feed our hungry world.

    We can do that because Jesus feeds us all the time. Every time we come to the Table of the Lord, we are given a little bit of bread and a sip of wine that has become the Body and Blood of Christ our Savior. At every Eucharist, we are fed more wonderfully and superabundantly than even the crowd in today’s Gospel. We are fed with food that will never pass away or perish, we are fed with the Bread of Eternal life. Since we disciples have that gift at our disposal, we would do well to bring ourselves to it as often as we can, and as well-disposed for it as we can. We must make it our constant care to attend Mass all the time, and to use the Sacrament of Penance to prepare ourselves to receive the grace of the Eucharist. Disciples who regularly and faithfully feed themselves with the Bread of Life will find it natural to offer their meager gifts to feed great hungers in our world, hungers that our God longs to fill.

    And so we gratefully come to the Eucharist today, to take part in a meal even more wonderful than the feeding of the multitudes, and partake of a bread far more nourishing than barley loaves. We come to the Eucharist today to have all of our hungers fed, and to take baskets of leftovers to feed those who hunger in and around us this week. We pray for the grace to notice the needs of others and the grace to offer what we have to serve the poor, trusting in God to make up for what we lack. We pray the words of the psalmist with trust and gratitude: “The hand of the Lord feeds us; he answers all our needs.”

  • St. James, apostle

    St. James, apostle

    Today’s readings

    “Can you drink the chalice of which I am going to drink?”

    What does that even mean for us?  We know what Jesus’ chalice was like: it led him through sorrow, and abandonment, and ultimately to the cross.  If we have ever been in a situation in which we have felt intense grief, or felt abandoned, or had to stand by and watch the death of one that we loved, well then, we know a little bit of what that chalice is going to taste like.

    Being a disciple is messy business.  It means that it’s not all the glory, pomp and circumstance.  It means that our faith sometimes has to move from the mountaintop experiences down into the valleys of despair.  It means that there are times when we will be in situations that are frustrating, infuriating, debilitating, grievous and horrible.  We will have to drink a very bitter chalice indeed.  And Jesus wasn’t just talking to John and James when he said “My chalice you will indeed drink.”  That’s the cup reserved for all of us who would be his disciples.

    Very clearly those words of St. Paul ring true for us:

    We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained;
    perplexed, but not driven to despair;
    persecuted, but not abandoned;
    struck down, but not destroyed;
    always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus,
    so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.
    For we who live are constantly being given up to death
    for the sake of Jesus,
    so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

    What is unspoken here but clearly implied is the grace.  Those who abandon their lives to take up the cross, wherever that leads them, will always have at their disposal the grace to live a life that is joyful in the face of affliction, confident in the midst of uncertainty, whole in the midst of destruction.  There is nothing that the world or its evils can throw at us that cannot be ultimately overcome by the grace of God.  We will still have to live through sadness at times, but that sadness can never and must never overtake the joy we have in Christ.

    Like St. James and his brother John, we are all called to drink from the chalice that Jesus drank. That means that we will always bear the dying of Jesus in our own bodies. We can’t explain why bad things happen to good people, but we can explain how good people handle bad situations well: they handle it well because they know Christ and live in Christ every day of their lives. Sometimes the chalice we will have to drink will be unpleasant, distasteful and full of sorrow. But with God’s grace, our drinking of those cups can be a sacrament of the presence of God in the world.

    Everyone who is great among us must be a servant, and whoever wishes to be first among us must be our slave. St. James learned how to do that and still thrive in his mission. May we all be that same kind of sacrament for the world.