Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Discipleship

  • Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Monday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Today, Jesus has for us good news and bad news.  The good news is that he is eventually going to send the Holy Spirit upon the world.  The Holy Spirit will be a new Advocate for us, and will testify to everything that Jesus said and did.  The Spirit’s testimony will be further evidence of God’s abiding love for us, a love that did not come to an end at the cross or the tomb, but instead triumphed over everything to make known his salvation to the ends of the earth.  The testimony of the Holy Spirit, combined with the testimony of the Apostles, would be the birth pangs of the emerging Church, given by Christ to make the Gospel known in every land and every age.

    But the bad news is, that glory won’t come without a price.  Those Apostles would be expelled from the synagogues and misguided worshippers would think they were doing God’s will by killing them.  Jesus knew this would be the lot of his baby disciples and he cares for them enough to warn them of what is to come.  It is an important aspect of their discernment to know what is to come.  Also, by warning them, he is preparing them for what is to come so that when it does happen, they may not be flustered or frightened, but might instead hold deeply to their faith, knowing that God’s providence had foreseen these calamities and they might know that in God’s providence, these calamities would not be the end of the story.

    We are beneficiaries of the good news and bad news of today’s Gospel.  We have heard the testimony of the Spirit and the Apostles, have been nourished by the Church they founded, have been encouraged by all that they suffered to bring the Good News to us.  It is important that we too know that there is good news and bad news in the future of our discipleship.  The Spirit continues to testify and the Apostles continue to teach us – that’s the good news.  The bad news is, sometimes our faith will be tested, and sometimes our faith with cost us something.  But in the end, it’s all Good News: even our suffering will not be the end of the story.  God’s love triumphs over everything.

  • Monday of the Third Week of Easter

    Monday of the Third Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    So they drag Saint Stephen before the Sanhedrin, and make all sorts of false claims against him.  Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  We heard a story just like this during Holy Week!  In fact, Stephen is in good company.  He is brought to the same place where his Lord Jesus, and later Peter and the apostles, have gone before him.  And just like all of them, even with all the lies and accusations flying around him, he is at peace.  The source of his peace, is of course, his Lord who has gone before him, that same Lord who now fills him, as the first line of the reading says, with “grace and power.”  The peace that fills the martyrs is remarkable, and indicates that they have indeed been called to that kind of witness and are empowered to withstand it by their God.

    We too, will be tested in this life because of our faith.  It’s the mark, really, of authentic faith.  We too, can rely on that same grace and power if we unite ourselves to our Risen Lord.  Maybe we won’t be called on to actually give up our lives, but we will are all called at one time or another to suffer in some way when we give that true witness to our faith.  Like Stephen and the martyrs, that is our calling, it’s what disciples do, and we can rely on the help of the Lord to get us through it.

  • Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Go and do likewise.”

    What a wonderful instruction for Jesus to give us this morning.  “Go and do likewise.” Jesus is telling us that those who hear the Gospel must also live it, or it is useless.  Those who do not go out and do likewise are like the foolish Galatians in today’s first reading who seem to be abandoning the Gospel and replacing it with all kinds of other rules, including circumcision, that are mere appearances of holiness.  Those of us who would call ourselves disciples of the Lord must do better than that.  We must indeed “go and do likewise.”

    We’ve all heard the story of the Good Samaritan umpteen times so it may all too easily go in one ear and out the other.  But we really must hear what Jesus is saying in this parable if we are to get what living the Christian life is all about.  As an aside, I must say it is extremely humbling to me personally that the priest in this story was not the good guy.  The good person in the story is one that Jesus’ hearers would have expected to be anything but good: the very name “Samaritan” was synonymous with being bad.  So for the Samaritan to come out as the good guy was something that made his hearers stand up and take notice.  Think of a group of people that our society tends to bracket as evil; then think about Jesus calling one of them “good.”  That’s what this was like for them.

    Yet it was this person, who was considered to be less-than-good, that knew instinctively the right thing to do.  He was the one who bound up the victim’s wounds and led him off to safety and healing.  Compassion for others is part of the natural law, something that every person should possess, Christian or not, and for Christians it is certainly foundational to living the Gospel.  Turning one’s back on those in need is reprehensible and any who do that are not hearing what the Gospel is teaching us.

    The Gospel is not merely for our edification; it is for our instruction.  Those of us who would dare to hear it must be willing to go and do likewise.

  • The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    Today’s readings

    One of my favorite things to do when I have spare time is to read a good mystery novel.  My mother passed her love for that genre on to me, and to my sisters.  I always used to love Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and I’ve read and re-read my favorites from them many times.  I also love to see mysteries played out in movies and on television, and some of my favorite shows are dramas along those lines.  The thing that I’ve learned about mysteries as a genre is that the best of them are the stories that keep you guessing; they aren’t solved all in the first six pages.

    During these Ordinary Time Sundays of the year, the Church presents two main topics for our edification and our growth in faith.  One of those topics is instruction in discipleship; how do we live as disciples and what does it look like?  We’ve been hearing that throughout the summer.  The other topic is what we are seeing today: and that is instruction in who Jesus is.  And this is where the mystery begins to play out.  Just when the disciples (and, truthfully, we ourselves) think they have Jesus all figured out, it turns out they don’t really get it at all.  Jesus is like an onion in some ways, every new clue just peels away one layer, and there is always more there to be discovered.

    In the first reading, the figure speaking is commonly referred to as “the Suffering Servant,” a figure that is later identified with Jesus.  Whoever the figure is, he or she has incredible faith.  One might expect that faith to be rewarded, but it’s not.  Instead, his back is beaten, his beard is plucked, and his face is buffeted and spat upon.  Yet, he continues to have faith, setting his face, knowing that he will not be put to shame.  Maybe you have met a person who has gone through incredible trials like unemployment, family strife, or serious illness, and has remained faithful.  If you know a person like that, perhaps you have sensed a bit of Jesus working in that person.

    In the second reading, St. James tells us that our faith must be living, or it is not faith at all.  He has seen far too many people who will say nice things to people and claim to have faith, but refuse to help alleviate anyone’s real needs.  “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well” are nice-sounding words, but are, of course, meaningless when spoken to people who have serious problems: no place to live and keep warm, and little if anything to eat.  James’s faith is one that sees the great mystery of Christ’s presence in those who are in need.  We have the same challenges today, of course.  There are many who are needy among us, and we disciples are called to a living faith that reaches out to those in need.  Perhaps you’ve had the opportunity to work at a soup kitchen or a shelter, or go on a mission trip.  If you’ve done that, maybe you have seen the face of Christ in those you’ve served.

    The Gospel continues the theme of mystery by asking the question point-blank: “who do you say that I am?”  The people of Jesus’ time, the disciples included, were constantly trying to figure him out.  Peter seems to have figured out one of the clues: Jesus is the Messiah.  But he totally misses the boat on just what kind of Messiah Jesus is to be.  When Jesus talks about the necessity of his suffering and death, Peter just can’t wrap his mind around it.  Jesus’ response to Peter is that to really know who Jesus is, Peter needs to think like God, not like a human being.  The strangeness of this mystery is so great that it applies not just to Jesus, but also to anyone who would want to follow him.  Disciples like us must take up our cross: if we wish to save our lives, we must give them away.  This is a very great mystery indeed.

    The real mystery to this mystery of who Jesus is, is that the more we find out about him, the more we find out about ourselves.  Because we too are called to be suffering servants: all of our good efforts won’t always be rewarded in this life.  Sometimes standing up for what is right will lead to scorn and abuse.  But we do it nonetheless, knowing that ultimately, we will never be put to shame.  And we too are called to have faith that is living, faith that reveals itself in the works we do.  We can’t claim to be people of faith if we don’t give of ourselves and extend ourselves in service.  Faith that never says yes to the call of Jesus is not faith at all.  Faith that is only evident one hour a week is not faith at all.  And finally, we are called, by the very words of our Savior, to take up our cross and follow him.  Following him will ultimately lead us to glory if we do it faithfully.  But following him will also lead us to the Cross.  Yesterday we celebrated that mystery in the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.  Yes, we will suffer in this life, yes we will die, but that death will release us to the glory of the resurrection, if we embrace it in faith.

    The psalmist sums it all up for us today.  Yes, the suffering in our lives leads us to experience the cords of death that encompass us.  We often fall into distress and sorrow.  But when we embrace that suffering and call on the Lord, we will find ourselves freed of death and able to walk before the Lord in the land of the living.  We who have embraced and remembered and celebrated the mystery of Christ’s presence in our lives, in our Church and in our world, can approach suffering with great faith.  There’s a contemporary Christian song that says “sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.”  God won’t always make our tears and pain go away.  But he does promise that we will never go through them alone.  We will probably never completely figure Christ out this side of the Kingdom.  The disciples didn’t and we won’t either.  But when we enter into the mystery, we can keep turning the pages and finding more and more clues.  When we enter the mystery, we can look forward to the great unveiling of the solution when we enter our heavenly reward.

  • Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The immediacy of discipleship is of paramount importance.  The call of our baptism is more urgent than anything else in our lives.  Or, at least, that’s how it should be.  Just like anything else in life that requires something from us, discipleship can take a back seat to other things that come along.  Whether it’s the kids’ soccer game at one point in our lives, or lack of energy at another point, or so many life issues that come along, we can be derailed rather quickly from following God’s call the way we should be.

    That’s how it was for the scribe in Jesus’ day.  There was no way he could ever tear himself away from the things that tethered him to this world.  Even assuming that his offer was genuine, it’s unlikely that he ever could have made good on his promise to follow Jesus wherever he went.  Jesus wasn’t letting any grass grow under his feet; he had to go where people needed healing, where people needed to hear the Gospel.

    We can too easily be tied to the things in this world that are dead.  But our call is to live the life of the Gospel.  May we all hear God’s word today and follow him with urgency.

  • Saints Philip and James, Apostles

    Saints Philip and James, Apostles

    Today’s readings

    Today is the feast of St. Philip and the man we call “St. James the Lesser” because he is probably not the St. James that we know as a relative of Jesus and the traditional author of the book of James.  Unfortunately, all that we know about this St. James is that Jesus chose him as an apostle, and that Jesus appeared to him after his resurrection, as we hear in today’s first reading.  St. Philip we know a bit more about.  We hear of him in the Gospel story of the feeding of the multitudes because he is the one who tells Jesus “Two hundred days’ wages worth of food would not be enough for each of them to have a little.”  In today’s Gospel we see him again as an apostle who is slow to believe.  “Show us the Father,” he says, “and that will be enough for us.”

    So this, I think, is the feast for all of us disciples who don’t put ourselves in the limelight.  Maybe we too have been slow to believe, or were never really sure how to accomplish the mighty deeds God requires of us.  Maybe we’re pretty unknown in discipleship circles.  And maybe that’s good enough for us.  Today’s feast says that’s okay.  It says that our efforts of faith, small though they may be, make us great believers in God’s time and in God’s eyes, led to the Father, as we always are, by our Savior.  It says that we might need a little convincing that we can do the work God asks us to do, but that filled with the Holy Spirit, all things can be accomplished.  It says that we don’t have to be on the front page of the book to live our faith with conviction.

    Today is the feast of apostles who are called to make God’s love known despite their imperfections or apparent lack of ability.  It is a feast for all of us who know that we are called by God and led by the Spirit to do great things in Christ.  To Philip and James and all the rest of the Apostles, Jesus said then, “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.  If you ask anything of me in my name, I will do it.”  Jesus says that to us today, too, all of us disciples who are slow to believe and understand.  “Whatever you ask in my name, I will do.”

  • The Third Sunday of Lent [B]

    The Third Sunday of Lent [B]

    Today’s readings

    Most of us have probably experienced at least one time in our lives when it seemed like our whole world was turned upside-down.  Maybe it was the loss of a job, or the illness or death of a loved one, or any of a host of other issues.  It probably felt like the rug was pulled out from under us and that everything we believed in was toppled over.  Kind of like the table in front of the altar, like the story we just heard in the Gospel.

    You may have heard the interpretation of this rather shocking Gospel story that says that this is proof that Jesus got angry, so we shouldn’t feel bad when we do.  That sounds nice, but I am, of course, going to tell you this interpretation is flawed.  First of all, there is a big difference between the kind of righteous indignation that Jesus felt over the devastation of sin and death that plagues our world, and the frustration and anger that we all experience over comparatively minor issues from time to time.  It might make us feel better to think that Jesus acted out in the same way that we sometimes do, that he felt the same way we do about these things, but that doesn’t mean it’s right.

    So feeling better for being angry isn’t the theme of this reading, or the intent of today’s Liturgy of the Word.  And I do think we have to take all of the readings as a whole in order to discern what we are being invited to experience.  Our first reading is extremely familiar to us all.   The ten commandments – we’ve heard them so often, violated them on occasion, perhaps we don’t even think they’re relevant any more.  But the mere fact that they are read at today’s Mass tells us that the Church says they are.  And while every one of them is certainly important, one of them stands out as having top billing.  And that one is the very first commandment: “I, the LORD, am your God … you shall not have other gods besides me.”

    That one commandment comprises the whole first paragraph of the reading, a total of thirteen lines of text.  I think that means we are to pay attention to it!  It’s the commandment that seems to make the most sense, that it’s the most foundational.  We have to get our relationship with God right and put him first.  But this commandment is rather easy to violate, and I think we do it all the time.  We all know that there are things we put way ahead of God: our work, our leisure, sports and entertainment, and so many things that may even be darker than that.  Don’t we often forget to bring God into our thoughts and plans?  Yet if we would do it on a regular basis, God promises to bless us “down to the thousandth generation!”

    Saint Paul is urging the Corinthians to put God first, too.  He complains that the Jews want signs and the Greeks want some kind of wisdom, but he and the others preach Christ crucified!  We are a people who want signs.  We almost refuse to take a leap of faith unless we have some overt sign of God’s decision.  And we are all about seeking wisdom, mostly in ourselves.  If it makes sense to us and it feels right to us, it must be okay to do.  But nothing could be further from the truth.  We get tripped up in our own wisdom and sign-seeking all the time, then we wander down the wrong path only to end up several years down the road, wondering where it all went wrong.

    And then we have the really challenging vignette at the end of the Gospel reading.    Jesus knows how long it took to build the temple.  But he wasn’t talking about the temple.  He was talking about his body.  His body is the new Temple, and that was the Temple that would be torn down and in three days raised back up.  Because Jesus is the new Temple, none of the money changing and animal selling was necessary.  It was all perfectly legitimate commerce for the old temple worship.  But worshipping the new Temple – Jesus Christ – would require none of that, and so he turns it all upside-down.

    It’s not easy to put God first.  It’s not easy to glory in Christ crucified.  What a horribly difficult and unpopular message to have to live!  But that’s what we are all called to do if we are to be disciples of Jesus, if we are to yearn for life in that kingdom that knows no end.  Glorying in Christ crucified, putting God first, that’s going to require that some time or another, we are going to have to take up our own cross too, and let our entire lives be turned upside-down.  God only knows where that will lead us: maybe to a new career, maybe to a fuller sense of our vocation, maybe to joy, maybe to pain.  But always to grace, because God never leaves the side of those who are willing to have their lives turned upside-down for his glory.

    There’s no easy road to glory.  You don’t get an Easter without a Good Friday.  Jesus didn’t, and we won’t either.  Our lives will be turned upside-down and everything we think we know will be scattered like the coins on the money-changers’ tables.  But God is always and absolutely present to those who pray those words the disciples recalled:

    Zeal for your house will consume me.

  • The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: No Time Like the Present!

    The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: No Time Like the Present!

    Today’s readings

    One of the things that I think plagues us modern people is that we tend to have delusions of eternity.  By that I mean, we tend to have a view that we have all the time in the world, and so we put off things that are truly important, because we always think we have plenty of time.  We put off going to confession, because we don’t have time to think about that right now, and besides it takes time to examine our conscience.  We put off being of service, because the kids have sports and we don’t even know where to start.  We put off our prayer life because we’re exhausted and it’s hard to quiet ourselves and let God speak to us.  It’s no wonder someone once said, “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.”

    So the readings today really speak to us.  The theme today is that there really is no time like the present.    In our first reading, after some procrastinating of his own, and ending up in the belly of a big fish, God has him disgorged on the shores of Nineveh to do what he was sent to do: preach repentance to the Ninevites.  The Ninevites were unspeakably evil to the Israelites, so it’s no wonder Jonah dragged his feet when it came to preaching to them.  Why would they listen to him?  And who cares if they didn’t?  Let God destroy them, he thought, and be out of our hair forever.  But that was not God’s will.  So he preaches repentance to them, and notice what happens: they immediately put on sackcloth and ashes and take up a fast.  They do penance for their evil deeds right now, and thus God repents of the punishment he had planned to inflict on them.

    In our second reading, Saint Paul is very clear with the Corinthians: time is running out.  And because time is running out, there is no time like the present to cast off the concerns of this earthly existence.  So stop worrying about purely human relationships, stop worrying about weeping, rejoicing, buying and selling and using the world.  Because there’s not going to be a world here for long.

    Now, I should mention that Saint Paul was certainly writing out of the view that people of his day generally had, which is that the second coming of Christ and the final judgment would happen very soon.  It did not, obviously, happen in their lifetimes, but the message is still valid.  We don’t know how much time we will have, and so ultimately we must always be prepared to go to heaven.  We can’t be putting it off: we have to cast off cares that are purely rooted in this life and hitch our wagons to what will bring us to the life to come.

    And so we see the issue brought out in the call of the first apostles.  Jesus passes by a fishing town and calls to Andrew, Peter, James and John.  They don’t hesitate for a second when he tells them to “Come follow me and I will make you fishers of men.”  They leave behind the boats, their fishing equipment, their family and even the workers who were hired to help them and follow Jesus.

    I always wonder what made them do that.  I mean, here Jesus just passes by, gives them a one-sentence command, and they drop everything and follow him.  There was no plan laid out, he didn’t give them a bunch of reasons why they should do what he asked of them.  He just commanded, and they just followed.  Now, it occurs to me that perhaps they knew about Jesus beforehand.  Maybe they had heard him speak or at least heard people talk about Jesus.  So perhaps they were very eager to meet him.

    And one wonders, too, how good they actually were at fishing.  Other stories in the Gospel seem to suggest they didn’t have much success.  They really never catch anything worth noting unless Jesus is there, telling them to put out into deep water, even though they had been hard at it all night.  Then they bring in hundreds of fish.

    So maybe their quick obedience to the call of discipleship is a combination of things: they have a hard life and maybe aren’t making much of a living; they probably heard Jesus talk or heard about the miracles he had been performing; he spoke of a better life and the promise of eternity.  Maybe all of this made them very eager to jump at the chance to follow Jesus.  But whatever the reason is, we need to see that when they are called they follow immediately.  They don’t put it off; they don’t say, hey, let us bring in fish for today and send the hired men home.  They don’t ask for time to say goodbye to their family, they don’t hesitate even for a moment.  There is no time like the present: come, follow me.

    We disciples also are called to be fishers of men.  And there is no time like the present.  We may not have tomorrow, so we have to preach the Good News to those God puts in our path, through our words and most importantly through our actions.  We don’t know when Jesus will return in glory and demand – as he is most worthy to demand – an accounting of our life and our blessings, so we have to reach out and be of service to every person in need, no matter who they are, even if they are as unspeakably evil as the Ninevites.  And on this day of prayer for the Sanctity of Human Life, in remembrance of the sad decision of Roe v Wade in 1973, we have to be a people who pray and write our legislators and take a stand for life in any way we can.  Thousands of babies die from abortion every year, the sick elderly are ignored, racism and discrimination continue even in this day and age, and so much more.  We know, we have been taught that life is precious from conception to natural death.  We need to tell the world how urgent that is so that no more lives would be wasted or suppressed for convenience.

    The work of discipleship is of the utmost importance and is extremely urgent, souls need to be saved, hearts need to be won for the kingdom, lives need to be changed – and so we have to be willing to do it right now, not just when we’re good and ready, not when we have a few moments, not when things settle down a bit.

    The Kingdom of God is that important, brothers and sisters.  When will we respond?  When will we give everything to follow God’s call in our own lives?  It better be now, because the world as we know it is passing away.

  • Second Sunday of Advent [B]

    Second Sunday of Advent [B]

    Today’s readings

    When I was a teenager, some of us would climb up onto the roof of our house on the fourth of July so that we could see the fireworks.  It was by far the best seat in the house.  We could usually see the fireworks not only in our own town but in some others nearby as well.  Time has passed and the trees are taller and I am older and less okay with heights, so we don’t do that any more, but it was a beautiful view back then.  You’ve experienced that if you’ve ever been hiking somewhere beautiful and hilly or mountainous, and you get to the highest point along the way and take in a breathtaking view.  What wonderful things we can see when we’re up on the heights.

    That’s the challenge I take from today’s readings.  Isaiah urges Jerusalem to go up onto a high mountain.  From there they can see the Lord coming in power.  Us too, I think, if we’re open to going there.  I think the climbing is less literal than it was, perhaps, for them, but it is climbing all the same.  It means ascending in our spiritual lives, going up higher in our living of the Gospel and call to discipleship.

    The prophet Isaiah makes the case in our first reading:

    Go up on to a high mountain,
    Zion, herald of glad tidings;
    cry out at the top of your voice,
    Jerusalem, herald of good news!
    Fear not to cry out
    and say to the cities of Judah:
    Here is your God!
    Here comes with power
    the Lord GOD…

    Isaiah was speaking to a people in exile.  They had sinned, had not respected God’s commandments, they even rejected the prophet’s call to get their acts together, and now they’re paying the price.  After an initial message of comfort early on in today’s first reading, Isaiah now turns and gives them the way back.  Do they want to have rest from their enemies?  Well then, climb up high, see your God coming in power, and cry out at the top of your voice the message you should have been proclaiming all along.

    That is the charge we are all receiving in these Advent days.  The Israelites aren’t the only ones who need to get their acts together.  We do too.  We can look in the papers for signs of communal sin: world financial markets coming at least close to the brink of failure, corporate greed that makes the news time and time again, the effects of poverty run rampant resulting in increased crime.  But we almost don’t have to go that far to find our discipleship lacking.  We can look at our personal sin: the times we have neglected prayer or have been judgmental of others.  The times we have chosen not to help others when we could have, and so much more.  It is high time we climbed up onto that high mountain and started to live the life the Gospel calls us to live.

    Thankfully, Advent gives us the time to look at that in our lives.  That does mean, though, that among all our gift-buying and party-going, we have to make time for our God who gives us the reason for celebrating the season in the first place.  Maybe this Advent can see us creating even five minutes more time for prayer, reflecting on the scripture readings for the day, or the meditation in the blue books we have available.  Advent should see us repenting of our sins, going to confession even if we haven’t been in hears, and turning our hearts back to God.

    I want to be absolutely clear here.  This Advent, if you haven’t already been to confession, you should go.  We have many times available for you to do that.  Every Saturday, we are here from 4:00 to 4:45.  We have an Advent Parish Penance Service scheduled for Thursday, December 15 at 7:00.  There will be several priests here to hear your confession.  You can always also make an appointment with me or Father Steve.  We will also be publishing a list of local parishes’ schedules in case ours doesn’t work for you.

    Perhaps the more pressing issue is what happens if you haven’t been to confession in a long time?  What do you do if you don’t know what to do?  The answer is just go: tell the priest you haven’t been to confession in a long time, and that you need help.  It is our job to help you make a good confession, and we can help you do that.  For me, it is always a great joy to help someone come back to the sacraments.

    As we ascend that high mountain by confessing our sins and revitalizing our prayer life, we should also reach out in service to others.  Adopting a needy family for Christmas, or collecting food for the food pantry, or giving to Toys for Tots.  These and so many other opportunities are there for us this time of year to give of ourselves and help others in their time of need.  Giving of ourselves helps us to see others as God does, and gives us a heart that is like the heart of God.

    Isaiah says that we should climb that high mountain and announce the good news, the Gospel, crying out at the top of our voice.  It’s not like we need to stand on a soapbox on a street corner to do that.  We don’t even have to travel to a mountainous region.  All we have to do is to live the Gospel with integrity, because then everyone will see that.  Who knows if our small acts of faith, prayer and service won’t lead someone else down the right path in their own lives?

    Today, we celebrate the baptism of NNNNN.  This is an occasion of joy for HIS/HER family, but also for us as a parish.  Every time someone is baptized into the faith, our Church is one person stronger.  We need to be supportive of HIS/HER parents and godparents by being a parish that lives the faith and helps them to do the same.  Children need to be part of a community that takes its own baptismal call seriously, so that they can learn to do that too.  It is our responsibility as people of faith to help our children climb up onto that high mountain that Isaiah talks about, so that, knowing the Lord and having a relationship with him, they can one day enter with all of us into eternal life.

  • 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?