Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Discipleship

  • 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.

  • Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Seventh Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    One of the greatest obstacles to the Christian life is comparing ourselves to others. Because, and I’ll just say it, discipleship isn’t meant to be fair. At least not as we see fairness. The essence of discipleship is doing what we were put here to do, we ourselves. We discern that vocation by reflecting on our own gifts and talents, given to us by God, by prayerfully meditating on God’s will for us, and then engaging in conversation with the Church to see how best to use those talents and gifts. That’s the process of discernment, which is always aided by the working of the Holy Spirit.

    What causes us to get off track, though, is looking at other people and what they are doing, or the gifts they have, or the opportunities they have received. We might be envious of their gifts or the opportunities they have to use them. We may see what they are doing and think we can do it better. We might be frustrated that they don’t do what we would do if we were in their place. And all of that is nonsense. It’s pride, and it’s destructive. It will ruin the Christian life and leave us bitter people.

    That’s the correction Jesus made to Peter. Poor Peter was getting it all wrong once again. He thought Jesus was revealing secrets to John that he wanted to know also. But whatever it was that Jesus said to John as they reclined at table that night was none of Peter’s business, nor was it ours. Peter had a specific job to do, and so do we. If we are serious about our discipleship, then we would do well to take our eyes off what others are doing or saying or experiencing, and instead focus on the wonderful gifts and opportunities we have right in front of us. As for what other people are up to, as Jesus said, “what concern is that of yours?”

    As always, the Psalmist has it right. We don’t look at others, we have only one place to look: “The just will gaze on your face, O Lord.”

  • The Ascension of the Lord

    The Ascension of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    For some reason, whenever I’m in the car with my mother, taking her wherever it is we need to go, we seem to get all the red lights. After we stop for a dozen of them or so, it becomes kind of a joke, and she just laughs and says, “well, it’s because I’m in the car with you!” What makes it so funny is that neither of us is really that good at waiting. But hey, are any of us good at waiting? We are a people who want to get on with it, we don’t like to stand around doing nothing. We want to come to a decision, to make things happen, to get it over with already.

    So today’s feast is a little bit of a challenge for us, I think. The Ascension in some ways is the feast of waiting. The disciples in our first reading from Acts want to know if this is it, is Jesus finally going to restore the kingdom to Israel. And this betrays the fact that they’ve gotten it wrong once again. “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has established by his own authority,” Jesus tells them. They want to know the big picture, to see what’s coming next, and Jesus isn’t going to do that for them. They are just going to have to wait.

    Waiting is hard for the Apostles to do. They have fervor having been with Jesus, but they were always getting it wrong. They are looking for the coming of the Messiah. They want Jesus to be the one to restore the kingdom to Israel. They want everything wrapped up, all of their hopes and dreams fulfilled, and they’d like all that to happen now, please. And who can blame them? Don’t we too have these same expectations of Jesus from time to time? Don’t we too want the wars in the world to come to an end and peace to break out all over the globe? Don’t we want to stop experiencing illness, and death and sin? Don’t we want the kingdom to come now, not later, in our lifetime, so we can see it? Who can blame the Apostles for not wanting to wait? We ourselves cannot wait for the fullness of the kingdom to be accomplished.

    But they, and we, are told to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Because by themselves, Jesus told them, they can do nothing. It is only with the grace of God, poured out by the Holy Spirit, that anything worthwhile can ever be accomplished. Without the Spirit, those first disciples were always misinterpreting Jesus’ words and actions. Without the Spirit, they scattered at the first sign of trouble. This too, is something we experience. Whenever we attempt to do anything, worthwhile as it may be, without God’s help, we are destined to fail. We might want to better ourselves in some way, by giving up a vice or learning something new, but without God’s grace, it falls flat soon after we resolve to do it. We may want, as our Gospel says, to drive out demons, to speak new languages, to heal the sick. But how do we do that on our own? The answer is, we don’t. We too have to wait for the Holy Spirit.

    Waiting is a spiritual discipline that we must all learn. The reasons to develop the habit of waiting are good ones. In waiting, we have that time out that keeps us from doing something wrong. In waiting, we gather better information and think things through before we launch into something the wrong way. In waiting, we are given the gift of the Holy Spirit who leads us in the everlasting way. And that gift of the Spirit is absolutely worth the wait!

    So today we stand here with the disciples. There are so many questions to ask. What’s going to happen when? How do we be a Church? What do we need to do to spread the Gospel to every creature on earth? But this isn’t the time to get all the answers. We will have to wait. Because now, our Lord ascends from our sight. In his glorified, resurrected body, he rises to heaven, returning to the Father from whom he came. Will we do the same, returning in our resurrected bodies to the Father? Yes. When will that happen? That’s not for us to know right now. Again, we will have to wait.

    And so, with those first disciples, we stand here, peering up into the heavens, waiting for our Jesus to answer all our questions, to bind up all our woundedness, and to bring us all to glory. But we can’t go there just yet. And so, what are we doing standing here looking up into the sky. Jesus will return. We don’t know when; we will just have to wait. But while we are waiting there is much to do.

    “Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” This is important work that has been entrusted to us. Because the consequences are dire: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned.” And this task is given to us disciples. We have to proclaim the gospel in everything that we do. In the words we speak, in our actions and habits, in the love we bring to others – this is how people will hear the gospel. If they don’t hear it in your actions and love, they may never hear it in a homily or sermon. “Preach the gospel at all times,” St. Francis once said, “and when necessary, use words.”

    So that’s what we are to do while we are waiting. We have to make sure everyone knows that God loves them enough to send his only Son to be our salvation. Jesus came to earth, taking on our human body, becoming one like us in all things but sin, walked among us and died the same death we all do, paying the price for our sins and obliterating the obstacles of sin and death that kept us from God. People need to know that and if they’re ever going to hear it, they need to hear it in you – in your families, in your workplaces, in your schools, your communities, wherever God puts you. And it is that gift of the Holy Spirit, that gift for which we wait on this Ascension day, that will give you the power to do that convincingly.

    These last months have been a difficult time of waiting for me. I had asked the bishop and the personnel board of our diocese for permission to stay at St. Raphael’s another year. Because there is much that still needs to be done. But, this week, I was reminded that I’m not supposed to do it all. I learned that in the week after Father’s Day, I will be transferred to St. Petronille in Glen Ellyn, and that a new priest, a newly ordained priest, would be coming here to St. Raphael. So now the waiting is over, and the moving and the leaving and the saying goodbye has to start. Quite frankly, if there is anything I dislike more than waiting, it’s moving and leaving and saying goodbye. But that’s where life takes us from time to time.

    You absolutely have to know that my heart is breaking as I leave here. You have been my family, and you have been the family that has formed me in my first years of priesthood and has made me always want to be a better priest every day. You have loved me into my vocation, and have been shining examples of faith and discipleship for me. You have prayed with me, and worshipped with me, and served with me. You were the ones who helped me through the illness and death of my father in my very first year as a priest. You will always have a special place in my heart, and I will always be grateful for the gift of having been your priest.

    I hope that you give those same gifts to the new priest. He will need your love and support. He will need you to challenge and teach him. He will need your prayers. Fr. Ted and I will need your prayers too as we go through this transition. I’ll still be here for a few weeks, so this isn’t goodbye just yet. Instead it is a thank-you. And God bless you for being the people you have been for me.

  • Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    We gather here today on the eve of the Ascension. The tension is palpable; the disciples have so many more questions to ask, and they have no idea how short a time they have left to ask them. They are certainly not prepared to have the one they lost briefly to death ascend from their sight. They have been reunited with their friend and have gathered around him with a purpose; not wanting to ever be parted from him again.

    And Jesus has been preparing them in the Gospel readings this week for what must come. If God’s purpose is to be advanced on this earth, then Jesus has to return to the Father. They will mourn once again for the loss of their friend. But if he does not leave them, he would not be able to send the Holy Spirit, the new Advocate to come and lead them to all truth. If the Spirit does not descend, the Church would not be born. If the Church were not born, the Gospel would be but an obscure footnote in the history of the world.

    And so Jesus, their friend, prepares them for his parting. When he is gone from them, they will be able to ask the Father for whatever they need in Jesus’ name, and it will be given them. Their friendship with them will bear fruit in blessing.

    The same is true of us. We disciples, we friends of Jesus, can count on his blessing, the rich gift of the Holy Spirit, the great witness of the Church. Our lives are enriched by our faith and our discipleship. What we do here on earth, what we suffer in our lives, what we celebrate — all this will bear fruit for the glory of God.

  • Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Saturday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Now think about this just for a minute – pretend you are Paul or Barnabas or one of the other apostles. Think about all the things they went through in that first reading. Paul hasn’t even been a Christian for very long, and already he is being hounded and persecuted. Maybe that makes sense because I’m sure some people viewed his conversion as a kind of treason. Whatever the case, as they speak out boldly in the name of Jesus, they receive nothing but violent abuse from the Jews. So they turn then to the Gentiles who were delighted to hear the Word preached to them. But the Jews didn’t even leave that alone; they stirred up some of the prominent Gentiles to persecute Paul and Barnabas and eventually they expelled them from their territory. What a horrible reception they received over and over again.

    But, listen to the last line of that first reading again: “The disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit.”

    Really? Think about it. Would that be your reaction? Or would you say, “enough is enough” and let God stir up someone else to preach the Word? Obviously, that’s not what Paul and Barnabas, or any of the other disciples did, or we wouldn’t be here today. No, they were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit, thanks be to God!

    That’s the way joy works. It’s not something conditioned by the external events of a person’s life. Joy is not a feeling. Joy, instead, is a direct result of the disciple’s decision to give their life to Christ and to follow his way. Joy does not mean that the disciple won’t experience sadness or even hard times. I have experienced that in my own life, and I’m sure you have too. But joy does mean that the disciple will never give in to the sadness or the hard times because all those things have been made new in Christ.

    Christ is the source of our true joy. We disciples must choose to live lives of joy and remain unaffected by the world and the events of our lives. We choose joy because we know the One who is our Salvation, and because it is he who fills us with joy and the Holy Spirit.

  • Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    “Don’t shoot the messenger!” That’s our colloquial way of saying that the words we speak to someone come from someone else; they are not our ideas. Most of us have probably said that to someone at some time.

    But that doesn’t work for we who are followers of Christ. Yes, we are messengers. The Greek word for messenger is “angeloi” from which we get our English word, “angel.” Angels are messengers sent by God to communicate something specific to humankind. We’ve seen the archangel Gabriel herald the coming of Christ to a young woman named Mary. A whole host of angels heralded the birth of the Savior to shepherds working in the fields. The letter to the Hebrews tells us not to neglect hospitality, for we may be entertaining angels. And Jesus tells us today, “whoever receives the one I send
    receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

    We are all sent, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be messengers. We have received the Gospel and have been schooled in it through our participation in the Mass and our education in faith. We are not angels, because angels are a different species of creation than humankind, but we are in a sense angeloi, we are messengers who are sent by God to bring the Good News, the Gospel, to all those who need to hear it. And that would be every person God puts in our lives or in our path. We have to preach it every day, maybe not by standing on a soapbox, but definitely by our living of the message ourselves.

    Just as St. Paul courageously preached the truth in the synagogue in today’s first reading, we have to be ready to courageously share our faith in whatever way God calls us, wherever God puts us, to whoever God gives us. The Psalmist has it right today, as always, when he says, “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!” Whether we have trained voices or not, we must always sing the praises of God who gives us everything we have and everything we could ever hope for. Singing those praises with our lives makes our message every bit as beautiful as the choirs of angels sang on that great first Christmas.

    May our guardian angels show us the way to be angeloi for the glory of God!

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    I think sometimes we really need to know that we are in the hands of God. Things here on earth can be pretty uncertain on a daily basis. The state of the economy, wars being fought all over the globe, the disrespect for human life, antagonism toward Christ-like values, all of this makes us feel pretty uncertain, at best. Add to that the stuff that affects us directly: illness, death of a loved one, unemployment, family difficulties, our own sins – all of this may find us asking the question from time to time, “Where is God in all this?”

    That’s why it’s so good to hear Jesus say today:

    My sheep hear my voice;
    I know them, and they follow me.
    I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
    No one can take them out of my hand.

    This does not, of course, mean that life is going to be easier for us, or that we won’t still be challenged in this world. But it does give us confidence that we are on the right track, and that our ways are being guarded. With this confidence, we are expected then to be disciples. We are expected to go forth and do what God asks of us, ministering to those in need, reaching out to the broken, preaching the Good News just by the way that we live our life.

    We can live and preach the Gospel with confidence, we can be called Christians as our brothers and sisters in the first reading were for the first time, knowing that God has our back. Whatever we may suffer in this life for the sake of Christ will more than be rewarded in the life to come. And the good works we do here on earth, as small as they may seem to us in the face of such adversity, are never for nothing: God takes our efforts and makes them huge advances in the battle for souls.

    Jesus says that the Father is greater than all, and that all of us, safe in the Father’s hands, can never be taken from him. Praise God for his providence and mercy and protection today.

  • Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

    Wednesday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Our actions – even the righteous ones – have consequences. Jeremiah famously complains in our first reading today that his reward for speaking the truth was that every influential person in the land plotted to take his life just to shut him up. And the sons of Zebedee – James and John – find out that being a disciple does mean that they will have to drink the chalice that Christ will drink, but what they don’t know yet is that the chalice he’s talking about is a cup of suffering, which they will certainly share. As we take the Body and Blood of Christ today, we too might wonder what the chalice will bring for us, and how we will respond to it.