Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: mercy

  • Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of Our Lord

    Today’s readings

    I often tell the children in our school that if there’s just one thing they ought to know about God, one thing they ever learn about God, and that is that God loves them more than anything, that would be enough. It’s the thing that I hope they remember me saying, because that’s the message I feel called to proclaim. God’s love is the most important thing we have in this life, the most precious gift we will ever receive.

    It is true gift, because there’s nothing, not one thing, that we can do to earn it. Filthy in sin as we are, we certainly don’t do it. And entitled as we can sometimes be, there is no way we can ever say that we have a right to it. But we get it anyway. God freely pours out his love on us sinners, not because we are good, but because he is.

    God loves us first and loves us best, and it’s a love that will totally consume us, totally transform us, if we let it. It’s a love that can break our stony hearts and transform our sadness into real joy. It’s a love that can change us from people of darkness to real live people of light and joy. It’s a love that obliterates the power of sin and death to control our eternity, and opens up to us the glory of heaven.

    And even if we live our lives passing from one thing to the next and barely noticing anything going on around us, we have to pause and appreciate God’s love on this most holy morning. This is the morning that confounded Mary of Magdala; it’s the morning that got Peter and John out of their funk and sent them running. It’s the morning that John finally starts to get what Jesus was getting at all this time. He saw and believed.

    He saw that his Lord was not there, that death could not hold him. He saw that the grave was no longer the finality of existence. He saw that Love – real Love – is in charge of our futures. He saw that there is real hope available to us hopeless ones.

    “To him all the prophets bear witness,
    that everyone who believes in him
    will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

    That quote, from Saint Peter’s testimony in the Acts of the Apostles, today’s first reading, is the Easter faith to which we are all called. We have to stop living like this is all there is. We have to stop loving our sins more than we love God. We have to live like a people who have been loved into existence, and loved into redemption.

    That means we have to put aside our disastrous sense of entitlement. We have to learn to receive love so deep that it calls us to change. And we have to love in the same way too, so that others will see that and believe.

    We’ll never find real love by burying ourselves in work or careers. We’ll do nothing but damage our life if we seek to find it in substance abuse. We’ll never find love by clinging to past hurts and resentments. We are only going to find love in one place, or more precisely in one person, namely, Jesus Christ. We must let everything else – everything else – go.

    Today, Jesus Christ broke the prison-bars of death, and rose triumphant from the underworld. What good would life have been to us, if Christ had not come as our Redeemer? Because of this saving event, we can be assured that our own graves will never be our final resting places, that pain and sorrow and death will be temporary, and that we who believe and follow our risen Lord have hope of life that lasts forever. Just as Christ’s own time on the cross and in the grave was brief, so our own pain, death, and burial will be as nothing compared to the ages of new life we have yet to receive. We have hope in these days because Christ is our hope, and he has overcome the obstacles to our living.

    The good news today is that we can find real love today and every day of our lives, by coming to this sacred place. It is here that we hear the Word proclaimed, here that we partake of the very Body and Blood of our Lord. An occasional experience of this mystery simply will not do – we cannot partake of it on Easter Sunday only. No; we must nurture our faith by encountering our Risen Lord every day, certainly every Sunday, of our lives, by hearing that Word, and receiving his Body and Blood. Anything less than that is seeking the living one among the dead.

    Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week in Lent

    Today’s readings

    Water is so important to us, and we see a lot of water in these readings. Water refreshes us, sustains us, cleans us. I find I always need to remind myself to drink more water. These readings talk so much about water, and when that happens, we are being led to a reflection on baptism. We ourselves are the sick and lame man who needed Jesus’ help to get into the waters of Bethesda. The name “Bethesda” means “house of mercy” in Hebrew, and that, of course, is a symbol of the Church. We see the Church also in the temple in the first reading, from which waters flow which refresh and nourish the surrounding countryside. These, of course, again are the waters of baptism.

    Lent, really, is all about baptism. This is the time when the Elect in our OCIA program are preparing intensely to receive that sacrament of initiation. But it’s not just about them; lent call us to renew ourselves in our own baptisms. We are called to renew ourselves in those waters that heal our bodies and our souls. We are called to drink deep of the grace of God so that we can go forth and refresh the world.

    But what really stands out in this Gospel is the mercy of Jesus. I think it’s summed up in one statement that maybe we might not catch as merciful at first: “Look, you are well; do not sin any more, so that nothing worse may happen to you.” Now, I’m sure being ill for thirty-eight years is really bad. It’s hard to imagine anything being worse. But I’m also pretty sure missing out on the kingdom of God would be that one, much worse, thing. There is mercy in being called to repentance, which renews us in our baptismal commitments and makes us fit for the Kingdom of Heaven.

    Back in the 80s and 90s, parishes would often remove the holy water from church during Lent in a kind of fasting. But here is why you shouldn’t: Lent is all about baptism, all about God’s mercy, all about being renewed and refreshed and healed in God’s grace. So I encourage you all to not take holy water for granted. Think about that the next time you put your hand into the font and stir up those waters of mercy. Be healed and made new; go, and from now on, do not sin any more.

  • The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C Readings

    The Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C Readings

    Today’s readings

    Today we have in our Gospel reading one of my very favorite parables; maybe it’s your favorite too. It’s one that we have heard so often, and I think it’s one that we can see with the eyes of our imaginations. Three main characters: a forgiving father, a prodigal son, and a loyal, but perhaps cranky, son. It’s the kind of family situation I think we can all wrap our minds around; maybe it sits a little uncomfortably close to home.

    So it says right at the beginning that “a man had two sons.” And I think we need to keep that in mind, and I’ll say more about that in a bit. But the one son is dissatisfied with his life so much so that he feels the need to change it: he asks for his share of the inheritance right now, before his father is even dead. And that is a request is so presumptuous that it feels hurtful. Kind of like saying, “Hey dad, I wish you were dead, give me my inheritance now, please – I just can’t wait.” But the Father gives him the inheritance immediately and without ill-will. And you better believe that would have ruffled the feathers of Jesus’ hearers: there were strict rules of propriety in families and this absolutely flies in the face of that.

    But the other son is almost as guilty of that as the younger son. When the story runs its course, and the younger son returns to the father with his little memorized speech, the father, who has been waiting for his return, is moved with compassion and runs out to meet him. They throw a big party, but apparently they didn’t send someone out to invite the older son. On his return from the fields, he is indignant, partially, I think because he was overlooked, but also and importantly because He feels the injustice of the younger son being rewarded after tearing apart the family. His refusal to come in to join the feast and his making the father come out to him could also be seen as sinful.

    What amazes me is that the Father comes out of the house to meet both sons. That’s significant because a good Jewish father in those days wouldn’t come out to meet anyone – they would come to him. Probably on their hands and knees, begging for forgiveness. But the Father meets them where they are and desperately, lovingly, pleads with them to join the feast. It’s an image of our loving, forgiving Father God who won’t let anything – not past hurts, not resentments, not social propriety, not even our darkest sins – get in the way of his mercy, and love, and forgiveness, and grace. That’s the God we worship; that’s the Father we have.

    I love to call this the parable of the Forgiving Father, because I don’t think the point of this is to look at the son. I think the point of this is to look at the father, whose mercy and forgiveness are prodigious and even a little outlandish! The point of this is that, if we prodigal ones would just return, God will meet us more than half way. That’s a great message for Lent, and it gives us the action item of admitting our sins and returning to the Father.

    But there’s another way to look at this parable too. Again, the emphasis is going to be on the father, but this time the father is us. Bear with me on this. Amy Jill Levine, a Jewish scripture scholar, reads the parables with the eyes of one who has grown up with the Old Testament, much as Jesus and his hearers did. And so she sheds a little light on this parable that made me look at this anew this week and say, “Hmm…”

    So the father is us. A man had two sons, but he forgot to count. Let’s face it, the older son does get the rotten end of the stick here – I’ve always felt that when I read the parable growing up. But it was selfish of me because I saw myself as the loyal, hard working son, which, seen at age sixty, I can see is far from true. But that son does get the rotten end of the stick. Look at what happens: the younger son is rewarded for his initial disrespect in asking for the inheritance, and then when he comes back poorer and broken, he is rewarded with a feast. And not only that, apparently they had time to call the caterer, and time to shop for a ring and sandals, but they didn’t have time to tell the older son, who is out working hard for his father in the fields? What kind of craziness is that? Any one of us would be indignant.

    A man had two sons, but he forgot to count. That father, who is us, is all about taking care of the child who is most needy, to the detriment of the other son. Professor Levine says that it reminds her of her students: it’s easy to cater to the A-students and reward their accomplishments; it’s even easy to journey with the students who are having difficulty, offering them tutoring or answering questions. But the ones who are the B+ students, who can’t seem to cross the line to the A, do they count too? Think about that in our lives. The people who are good to us and doing good things are easy to walk with, they even support us. And we have the ones who are challenging, and we do everything we can to help them, out of love. But are there people in our lives that we forget to count? Who do we need to notice more, to think of more, to love more, this week? Perhaps that’s our action item this week.

    So whether our action item is admitting our sins and returning to the Father, or remembering to count and love the ones in our lives who we tend to forget, we have work to do. We have to return to God for forgiveness and mercy, and we have to love everyone in our lives as if they were the only ones there. The stakes of letting this parable fly past us and not engaging it are too high: we would be missing out on the banquet of eternal life to which Jesus Christ came to bring us. Taste and see that the Lord is good!

  • The Third Sunday in Lent, Cycle C Readings

    The Third Sunday in Lent, Cycle C Readings

    Today’s readings

    God is extremely patient when it comes to extending mercy. That’s what Jesus is talking about in this rather odd parable. I have to admit that I’m no gardener: I’m just not patient enough for that! So I needed to do a little digging (no pun intended) to get a real sense of where this parable is going. I discovered that there are a couple of things we should all know before we get into this little story. First of all, fig trees actually did take three years to bear fruit. During those three years, of course, they would need to be nourished and watered and pruned and tended. It was a lot of work, so when those three years of hard work were up, you better believe the farmer certainly wanted fig newtons on his table! And the second piece of background is that, since the days of the prophet Micah, the fig tree has been a symbol for the nation of Israel, and Jesus’ hearers would have known that. So when they hear of a fruitless fig tree, it was a little bit of an accusation. Maybe more than a little bit.

    Conventional wisdom is that if the tree doesn’t bear fruit after three years of labor and throwing resources at it, you cut it down and plant a new one; why exhaust the nutrients of the soil? And if you’re an impatient gardener like me, why exhaust the gardener?! But this gardener is a patient one; he plans to give it another year and some extra TLC in hopes that it will bear fruit.

    So here’s the important take-away: God is not like Father Pat; he’s the patient gardener! And we, the heirs to the promise to Israel, if we are found unfruitful, our Lord gives us extra time and TLC in order that we might have time to repent, take up the Gospel, and bear fruit for the kingdom of God. That’s kind of what Lent is all about.

    But we have to remember: we don’t get forever; if we still don’t bear fruit when the end comes, then we will have lost the opportunity to be friends of God, and once cut down in death, we don’t have time to get serious about it. The time for repentance is now. As Saint Paul told the Corinthians, and us, on Ash Wednesday: “Behold, now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” The time for us to receive and share God’s grace is now. The time for us to live justly and work for the kingdom is now. The time for us to stop bickering and be kind to one another is now. The time to work on our prayer life is now. Because we don’t know that there will be tomorrow; we can never be presumptuous of God’s mercy and grace.

    The consolation, though is this: we don’t have to do it alone. The Psalmist today sings that our God is kind and merciful: We get the TLC that our Gardener offers; the grace of God and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We can trust in the Lord God, our great “I AM,” to come to us and lead us out of captivity to sin just as he was preparing to do for the Israelites in the first reading today. We can put our trust in God’s mercy. We are always offered the grace of exodus, all we have to do is get started on the journey and begin once again to bear the fruit of our relationship with Christ.

  • The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The hard part about reading from our Lectionary is that, while it is very good, sometimes the little bits we get of the story aren’t really enough for us to understand, or at least to fully appreciate, what is going on. That’s the case, I think, with today’s first reading. So bear with me a bit to summarize the story so far.

    Saul has been king of Israel for some time, but, like a lot of the kings of Israel, God wasn’t pleased with him. In fact, God rejected Saul and sent Samuel out in search of Saul’s successor. Samuel comes to Jesse in Bethlehem, because God has told Samuel that the Lord’s anointed will be found among Jesse’s sons. Now you may know this part of the story. Jesse presents to Samuel his oldest son, who is handsome and rugged in appearance, a guy who really looks like he could lead a people. Saul is all set to anoint him king when God tells him to forget it; that isn’t the one he has chosen. God says that even though this son – Eliab – looks like a king to Samuel, it’s not Samuel’s judgment that really matters here. So Jesse presents his other sons, one by one, and Samuel finds that God hasn’t chosen any of them. Then Jesse remembers his youngest son, David, out tending the flocks. When he is brought in, the Lord instantly confirms the choice and Samuel anoints him as king.

    So that’s how David was chosen. But the problem is, Saul is still alive. And apparently he wasn’t copied in on the memo about David being the Lord’s anointed one – clearly he wasn’t too happy about it. So Saul, who is by now not just disfavored by God, but also a little insane, makes it his life’s work to hunt David down and kill him. In the chapters that follow there are a couple of nice interludes of hope, including some efforts to work together (mostly on David’s part), and a strong friendship between David and Saul’s son Jonathan. But that’s about it. For the most part, the remainder of that first book of Samuel is taken up by Saul trying to kill David.

    Which brings us to the story we have in today’s first reading. Saul gathers up three thousand men and goes on a David hunt. David is accompanied only by his friend and faithful companion Abishai. When they get to the desert of Ziph, Saul decides to make camp there, and thrusts his sword into the ground. Thrusting his sword into the ground is the king’s way of signifying where his tent would be pitched. After this is done, they all take a little siesta. This, then, is how David and Abishai find Saul and his men, and they walk right into the camp.

    We are told here that God has put Saul and his men into a “deep sleep.” The Hebrew here refers to the same kind of deep sleep that Adam was put in when God took out one of his ribs to create the woman. Saul and his men are positively anesthetized such that David and Abishai can walk among them and have a conversation. So here we are: David and Abishai are standing right over Saul, with Saul’s spear stuck in the ground next to him. Clearly the best military decision would be to allow Abishai to thrust the spear into Saul and put an end to all this foolishness. But – and this is the whole point of this story that I have prolonged for you – instead, David in his wisdom prevents Abishai from doing that, and they take away the king’s spear and water jug. Now, understand that taking the spear was an act that would greatly humiliate Saul, but at least he got to live. And not only that, David gave the spear back.

    David, who had been stalked and tormented and relentlessly pursued by Saul for a long time, could have put an end to it right then and there. But instead he chose to become an icon of God’s mercy. This is such a remarkable story that it fully turns the universe upside-down. The word “anointed” has the same root as “Christ.” Saul was the Lord’s anointed, but he blew it. Now David is the Lord’s anointed, and his actions are so beautiful that the point the way to the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

    And today, Jesus speaks to all of us, we who also are anointed with the Holy Spirit in the image of Jesus Christ. We too are expected, just like David and Jesus, to be icons of the Lord’s mercy. We are expected to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, bless those who curse us, and pray for those who mistreat us. If someone strikes us on one cheek, we are told to turn and offer the other. If someone takes our coat, we are to offer the underwear also. If someone borrows from us, we are not to expect a return. This is not “woke Jesus,” friends, this is the Gospel.

    Indeed, all of today’s Liturgy of the Word has to make us bristle a bit. After all, we have a right to be well-treated. We have a right to respect. We have a right to do business the way we want to do it. We have the right to punish those who treat us poorly. We have the right to strike back when violence is done to us. We are entitled people, for heaven’s sake, so what right does Jesus have to tell us to be merciful?

    Perhaps we entitled ones can take a little solace in today’s Gospel. After all, there it is – the Golden Rule: “do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” And hey, that only seems fair. We can certainly all get on board with that. That seems to level the playing field and let us all still be entitled people. And yeah, Jesus says, that’s a good start. But disciples are expected to do more. For disciples, the playing field isn’t supposed to be level, it’s supposed to be turned completely upside-down.

    But rather, love your enemies and do good to them,
    and lend expecting nothing back;
    then your reward will be great
    and you will be children of the Most High…

    Why on earth should we do something this counter-intuitive? This completely unentitled? Well, Jesus tells us, because God himself is “kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.” Who on earth is he talking about? Well, I would have to say that I am blessed, and often I take those blessings for granted or don’t even appreciate them. I guess that makes me ungrateful. And sometimes I turn away from the path that God has marked out for me. And that would make me wicked. But I certainly can’t deny that God has been kind to me. After all, he has called me to be a priest – the best thing I have ever done in my life. And then he sent me to this wonderful place, with people who have been welcoming and loving and challenging. And that’s just one area of my life where I’m blessed – there are lots more. So I got to thinking, maybe I’m not so entitled after all. Maybe – even in my ungratefulness and wickedness – just maybe I’m graced by the God who is mercy itself.

    Here’s a good way to pray with this during the coming week. In your reflection time, ask, “How have I been blessed?” Have I ignored my blessings and been ungrateful and wicked? Has God been kind to me anyway? Am I ready to let the universe be turned upside down and give up my entitlement in favor of being an icon of God’s mercy?

    What would it look like for all of us to love our enemies and do good to them, to lend and expect nothing back? … Well, I guess it would look something like that (indicate the Cross).

  • Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Simon the Pharisee committed a grave error in hospitality, and a serious error in judgment. In those days, when a guest came to your home, you made sure to provide water for him or her to wash their feet, because the journey on foot was often long and hot and dirty, and it was pretty much always made on foot. But Simon had done no such thing for Jesus.

    Simon’s intentions were not hospitable; rather he intended to confront Jesus on some point of the Law so as to validate his opinion that Jesus was a charlatan. That was the purpose of his dinner invitation. Then, in comes the “sinful woman,” who breaks an alabaster jar full of extremely expensive ointment and anoints the feet of Jesus while she is in tears for love of Jesus and sorrow for her sin. But Simon simply judged the woman to be a sinner, someone to be shunned and ignored, and reckoned Jesus guilty of sin by association. Jesus isn’t having any of that, because Jesus is about forgiveness. He didn’t care about the woman’s past; he already knew it well, but was more concerned that, presently, she had need of mercy. Her act of love and hospitality, her posture of humility, her sorrow for her sin, all of these made it possible for Jesus to heal her.

    But the one who doesn’t think he is in need of healing, symbolized by Simon the Pharisee, can never be healed. And so that’s our examination of conscience today. Are we aware of our need for healing, or have we been thinking we are without sin, without brokenness, without openness to God’s mercy? If so, our moments of reflection today need to guide us to honest and open acceptance of God’s mercy, and a pouring out of the best that we have in thanksgiving. Like the repentant woman, we need to humble ourselves, and pour out sorrow for our sins, and love for Jesus who wants nothing more than to heal us.

    We are offered so much mercy and forgiveness for our many sins. Let us love much so that we might receive the great mercy our Lord wants to give us.

  • Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    “Do you want to be well?”

    That had to be a jarring question to the man at the waters of Bethesda. I wonder if he was thinking, “Of course I want to be well! Why do you think I’ve been lying here so long?” But it’s an important question for him to answer: Jesus can’t heal someone who has become entrenched in his or her own illness to the point that they just accept it. But he tells Jesus his plight, and accepts the command to rise and walk, and with that he is healed.

    In these Lenten days, the Elect among us – those preparing for the Easter Sacraments of initiation – are lying at the waters of Bethesda. Those waters are the waters of Baptism, which will be stirred up at the Easter Vigil. They will be taken down to the waters by their sponsors, and they will be baptized into the faith. What a glorious night that will be!

    In these Lenten days, we find ourselves lying at the waters of our own Bethesda, too (Bethesda means “House of Mercy). We find ourselves sick with sin, and needing the waters of Baptism to be stirred up in our own lives so that we can be made well, so that we can rise and walk. We are more than half way through Lent, and so it is time that we reflect on our sin and answer Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be well?” Because he stands ready to stir up the waters and command us to rise and walk. This is the time for a good Lenten confession if we haven’t made one yet. This Sunday we will have 15 priests to hear confessions. Those waters will be plenty stirred up.

    So, do you want to be well?

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.” I always like to joke that that’s how I ended up being the pastor of the biggest church in the state, so maybe it’s not such a good idea! But then, I love this parish and wouldn’t rather be anyplace else, so there’s a lot of truth to the joy of faithfulness.

    This Gospel passage is a very interesting reading that sometimes gets explained as a plea for us to use our time, talent, and treasure for the good of the kingdom.  And that’s a very nice message, except that it isn’t what the Church is going for on this, the second to last Sunday of the Church year.  We have to remember that, at the end of the Church year, the Church points us to the end of time, when Jesus will return and all will be put into proper order, and the Kingdom of God here on earth will forever be the Kingdom of God in heaven.  So what’s really going on with today’s Gospel reading?  Well, bookmark that for a bit, because it is truly the million dollar question of the day.

    I’ve often heard stories of those who grew up in the great depression.  Many years later, they still had deeply engrained in them the scrupulous care for everything they have that was etched into their very being during that horrible time in our history.  They spent a lifetime wasting nothing, even hoarding things.  They would eat leftovers well past their freshness dates.  It was just their response to having nothing, completely understandable.

    And that’s the lens through which I think we need to see this week’s Gospel parable.  Here Jesus presents the often-quoted story of a rich man entrusting his slaves with a great deal of wealth before he sets off on a long journey.  The word “talents” here does not mean what we mean when we use that word: here we are not talking about gifts or abilities, but rather money, and a large sum of money at that.  Scholars suggest that a talent was equal to something like one thousand days’ wages, or what a poor person could have lived on for fifteen or twenty years.  So think about it, even the servant who only received one talent actually received quite a bit – he received what the average person would earn in a little over three years!  That’s a lot of money for anyone.

    So who is it, then, that is receiving such a magnanimous gift?  On first glance, seeing what it is they have been given, we might think these are senior advisers to the master, people who would have been in charge of his estate and his business transactions.  But that’s not what it says.  It says he called in his “servants” – so we are talking here about slaves, slaves – not business advisers.  And so these slaves are getting ten talents, five talents, and one talent – all of them are getting a considerable amount of money!

    And we know how this plays out.  Two of them take what they have and very successfully invest it and when the master returns, are able to hand over the original sum with one hundred per cent interest.  Very impressive!  But the slave who received just a “little” (even though it was certainly still a lot of money), out of fear buries it in the ground and gives it back to the master untouched, with nothing to show for it.  It’s much like a person having gone through something like the great depression placing money under a mattress rather than trust the banks, which they saw fail miserably in their lifetimes.

    Now, we’ve established that the gift they are receiving – even the slave who received little – is worth an incredible amount of money, especially to a slave who would never have the opportunity to see such wealth if not for the trust the master has placed in them.  So let’s be clear that this parable is not about us using our gifts properly; it’s about us, the slaves receiving something very great, some inestimable wealth.  What could that possibly be?  Well, of course, it’s God’s love, grace, and favor, which is undeservedly ours and given to us without merit.

    Just for background, this is yet another indictment of the Pharisees and religious establishment of the time.  They were the ones who, because Christ was not yet present in the world, received just one talent.  But it was still a huge sum of grace!  Yet, their practice was to protect it so scrupulously by attending to the minutiae of the 613 laws of the Torah, that they missed the opportunity to really invest God’s love in the world and grow the faith to full stature.

    But we can’t be like that.  We can’t have the faith taken away from us and be tossed out to wail and grind our teeth.  We have to take the faith we’ve been given, the grace we have received in baptism, and invest it mightily in the world, without fear, so that everyone will come to know the Lord and we would all go on to be put in charge of greater things, in the kingdom of heaven.  That is our vocation in the world, brothers and sisters in Christ.  We have to get that right.  We can’t cower in fear, or think our faith is too little, or we don’t know enough.  That was the cardinal sin for Matthew in his Gospel.  We have to be bold disciples and make sure that Christ is known everywhere we go, everywhere life takes us.  That is the only acceptable response to God’s love.

    Next week, we will celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King of the Universe, and then look forward to a new year as we begin the season of Advent.  And so it is important that we take today’s Gospel parable seriously.  We need to spend some time reflecting on how well we have invested God’s grace and love in the world around us.  Have we been good examples to our family and others?  Have we been people of integrity in our workplaces, schools and community?  Have we served those who are in need out of love for Christ?  Have we been zealous to grow in our spiritual lives?  Have we taken time to root sin out of our life, and to receive the grace of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Penance?  Have we been unafraid to witness to our faith in every situation?

    If we can’t answer all these questions affirmatively, we have some new-Church-year’s resolutions to make.  Because, and I can’t stress this strongly enough, brothers and sisters, the alternative is wailing and grinding of teeth.  And forever is a long time to be doing that!  No; God forbid.  Our desire is to hear those wonderful words from our Lord one day: “Well done, my good and faithful servant.  Since you were faithful in small matters, I will give you great responsibilities.  Come, share your master’s joy.”

  • The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Eleventh Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Think back.  When you were growing up, in your faith formation, did you get the idea that somehow you had to behave yourself in order to win God’s love and grace?  I think that’s a common thing that people come to after a life of somewhat inadequate faith formation.  We got the idea that, if we wanted God to love us, then we had to behave in the right ways and follow all the rules.  And some of that comes from our human experience.  Many people often consume their lives with trying to win the approval of others, and so God is just an extension of that.  But we have it all backwards: God is not like that, and that’s what today’s Liturgy of the Word is trying to tell us.  The Scriptures show us a God who loves us first, and then calls on us to respond to God’s love by living the right way.  Our entire lives should be all about responding in love to the love God has for all of us.

    The first reading today recalls how God led the people Israel through the desert for forty years, bringing them safely to the land he promised on oath to their ancestors.  Traditionally this has been viewed literally, but there is also a tradition that sees the whole rescue of the Hebrew people from the tyranny of Egypt allegorically.  Many of the Church fathers see the rescue as our own rescue from the tyranny and slavery of sin, through the wilderness of the world, into the safe haven of God’s promise.  So whether we want to read this first reading literally today, or whether we want to see it as our delivery from sin, in either case, we see the Lord’s providence and kindness poured out on his people, delivering them from danger and bringing them safely into a land that had always been promised to them.

    For our second reading these coming weeks, we will be reading from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans, arguably one of the masterpieces of his, or anyone else’s, theological writing.  Today’s reading is somewhat the crux of his presentation in Romans: God in his mercy chose to save us even though we were not worthy of it: we were still sinners.  We had been enemies of God through the power sin and death had over us, but God in his goodness chose to redeem us anyway.  Having been reconciled, he now chooses in his kindness to save us from the power of death and bring us in to the grace and peace of his kingdom for all eternity.  This is all done through the grace and kindness of our God, who chooses to save us even though we are not remotely worthy of it on our own.

    The Gospel reading, though, presents us with the greatest personification of God’s kindness.  Throughout chapter nine of Matthew’s Gospel, we see the crowds hanging on Jesus’ words and deeds.  In this chapter, Jesus heals a paralytic, he calls Matthew – a tax collector and a sinner – to follow him, he raises the daughter of a local government official from the dead, he heals two blind men, and expels a demon.  The crowds were understandably entranced by his words and deeds, and Jesus can see that they are entranced because they had so long gone without any kind of adequate pastoral care.  The religious officials who should have been bringing them the good news of God’s kindness had instead been about the business of extracting the minutiae of the Law and filling their own coffers.  They had left the people abandoned of God, like sheep without a shepherd, and Jesus’ heart ached for them.  So in his kindness, he sends out the Twelve to continue his work and to call more and more people to come to know that the kingdom was at hand, and repentance would give them a place in that kingdom.

    So these readings have been a great rehearsal of the kindness of God as the Scriptures present it.  God created us in love, redeemed us from the grasp of sin and death, and gives us a place in his heavenly kingdom – all of this without our being worthy of any of it.  And that’s nice, but the Scriptures would be remiss if they stopped there.  Instead, they go on to prescribe the proper response to God’s love and kindness, and each of today’s readings give us a way to do that.  These readings call us to keep the covenant, to boast of God and to freely give.

    In the first reading, God makes the first move in favor of establishing a covenant.  He didn’t have to – clearly.  He had made us in love, but we had turned away from him, and not just once.  Yet, he was the one who sent Moses to lead the people out of the slavery of Egypt so that they could inherit the land he promised on oath to their ancestors.  If God has reached out that far to us, we can do no less than keep the covenant.  We have to live the life of grace: keep the commandments, love God and neighbor, show God’s love in everything we do.  We have to reach out to the marginalized and needy, just as God reached out to us in our own need.  “If you hearken to my voice and keep my covenant,” God says to the Israelites and to us, “you shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.”

    In the second reading, Saint Paul echoes what the first reading says.  God has made the first move.  He reconciled us while we were still sinners.  He gave us the way to the kingdom.  We didn’t deserve it, but our sinfulness is no match for God’s mercy.  So if God has been so merciful, we need to boast about it.  And we’re not to boast about it as if it was something we earned or accomplished on our own; we are to “boast of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”

    And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus gives us the key to our response to God’s love, mercy and kindness: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”  The gifts of grace are never given to us just for ourselves.  They are given to us to share.  Now that we have been redeemed and blessed, we must turn and bless others, leading them to the redemption God longs to pour out on them.  We are to freely give of the rich store of grace that has been freely given to us.

    God does not manipulate us for his pleasure.  He does not demand that we behave perfectly in order to receive his kindness, grace, and love.  Instead, he is the one who washes our feet, who stretches out his arms on the Cross, who dies that we may live.  In the face of such great and perfect love, we can do no less than love in return.

  • Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

    Tuesday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Have you ever felt like you were certainly in the fire? Things in life may have gone from bad to worse. When we’re in those times of life, sometimes we know that the reason for it is that we have sinned. Now I’m not talking about when people in your life are sick or anything like that, God doesn’t punish sin by unleashing evil on us.  Maybe it’s more like when relationships have gone bad, or things have gone wrong at work, or there’s financial hardship. You know the feeling, things are just piling up and you have no idea how to get out, it’s getting hotter all the time and it seems there is no salvation. But deep at the heart of it, you feel the weight of your own sin. I can testify to being in that place myself in my life on occasion. To that, the young man Azariah speaks:

    For we are reduced, O Lord, beyond any other nation,
    brought low everywhere in the world this day
    because of our sins.
    But with contrite heart and humble spirit
    let us be received;
    As though it were burnt offerings of rams and bullocks,
    or thousands of fat lambs,
    So let our sacrifice be in your presence today
    as we follow you unreservedly;
    for those who trust in you cannot be put to shame.

    We have to be a forgiven and forgiving people. When life crashes in on us, we have to confess our sins, and cry out for God’s pardon and mercy. And when it is given us – and it will be given us – we must become a merciful people who extend forgiveness to every single person in our lives without hesitation. We have to be a people who throw mercy around freely, because that’s how it’s been given to each of us.