Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: mercy

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Susanna’s story is one of the most eloquent in the Old Testament Scriptures, in it we see the wisdom of the prophet Daniel, as well as the mercy and justice of God.  I think when we hear it, we can’t but help think of yesterday’s Gospel reading about the acquittal of the woman caught in adultery, although Susanna was actually innocent.  In that Gospel reading, we are treated to the wisdom of Jesus, brought about as it is with the mercy and justice of God.  But sadly, we see in both stories also the fickleness of the human heart and the evil and treachery that makes up some of our darker moments.

    To those who seek to pervert justice and to collude with others against some other person, these readings expose those evil thoughts and flood the darkness with the piercing light of God’s justice.  No one has a right to judge others when their own intentions are not pure.  Only God can give real justice, just as only God brings ultimate mercy.

    To those who are the victims of oppression, these readings give hope that God in his mercy will always hear the cry of the poor and give to the downtrodden the salvation which they seek.  God is ultimately very interested in the kind of justice that is characterized by right relationships with one another and with Him.  It is the desire of God’s heart that this kind of justice would be tempered with mercy and would go out and lighten all the dark places of the earth.

    Today we are called upon to right wrongs, to be completely honest and forthright in our dealings with others, to seek to purify our hearts of any wicked intent, and most of all to seek to restore right relationships with any person who has something against us, or against whom we have something.  Our prayer this day is that God’s mercy and justice would reign, and that God’s kingdom would come about in all its fullness.

  • The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    The Fifth Sunday of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Back in the sixth century before the birth of Christ, the Israelites were in a bad way.  They had been separated from their God by sin: against God’s commands, they had betrayed their covenant with the Lord and made foreign alliances, which he had forbidden them to do.  He forbade this because he knew that as they made these alliances, they would give in to the temptation to worship the so-called gods of the people they with whom they allied themselves.  As punishment, God separated them from their homeland: the cream of the crop of their society was taken into exile in Babylon, and those left behind had no one to lead them and protect them.  Because they moved away from God, God seemed to move away from them.  But he hadn’t: I think it was really they who had exiled themselves from God.  In today’s first reading, God shows them that he still loves them and cares for them, and promises to make them a new people . I love the line: “See, I am doing something new! Now it springs forth; do you not perceive it?”  God would indeed bring them back and create their community anew.

    The Israelites were in exile, but exile can take so many forms.  And Saint Paul had a good sense of that.  For him, the exile was anything that was not Christ; a sentiment we should embrace.  Saint Paul knows that he has not yet taken possession of the glory that is promised him by Christ, and so he wants to leave behind the exile of the world and strains forward to all that lies ahead, the goal and prize of God’s calling in Christ.

    Which brings us back to the woman caught in adultery.  We certainly feel sorry for her, caught in the act, dragged in front of Jesus and publicly humiliated.  But the truth is, just like the Israelites in the sixth century before Christ, she had actually sinned.  And that sin threatened to put her into exile from the community; well, it even threatened her life.  The in-your-face reversal in the story, though, is that Jesus doesn’t consider her the only sinner – or even the greatest sinner – in the whole incident.  We should probably wonder about the man with whom she was committing adultery; that sin does, after all, take two.  And as serious a sin as adultery certainly is, Jesus makes it clear that there are plenty of serious sins out there, and they all exile us from God.  As he sits there, writing in the sand, they walk away one by one.  What was he writing?  Was it a kind of examination of conscience?  A kind of list of the sins of the Pharisees?  We don’t know.  But in Jesus’ words and actions, those Pharisees too were convicted of their sins, and went away – into exile – because of them.

    Sin does that to us.  It makes exiles out of all of us.  The more we sin, the further away from God we become.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.

    Jimmy and Suzy went to visit their grandparents for a week during the summer.  They had a great time, but one day Jimmy was bouncing a ball in the house, which he knew he shouldn’t be doing.  It didn’t take long for the ball to hit grandma’s favorite vase, knocking it off the table and breaking it.  He picked up the pieces and went out back and hid them in the woodshed.  Looking around, the only person who was around was his sister Suzy.  She didn’t say anything, but later that day, when grandma asked her to help with the dishes, Suzy said “I think Jimmy wanted to help you,” giving him a rather knowing look.  So he did.  The next day, grandpa asked Jimmy if he wanted to go out fishing.  Suzy jumped right in: “He’d like to, but he promised grandma he would weed the garden.”  So Jimmy weeded the garden.  As he was doing that, he felt pretty guilty and decided to confess the whole thing to grandma.  When he told her what had happened, grandma said, “I know.  I was looking out the back window when you were hiding the pieces in the woodshed.  I was wondering how long you were going to let Suzy make a slave of you.”

    That’s how it is with sin: it makes a slave of us, and keeps us from doing what we really want to do.  It puts us deep in exile, just as surely as the ancient Israelites.  And it doesn’t have to be that way.  You see, it’s easier than we think to end up in exile.  All we have to do is a good examination of conscience and then think about the way those sins have affected us.  Have they made us feel distant from God, family and friends?  Have they caused us to drift in our life and not feel God’s presence in times of hardship?

    Exile is heartbreaking.  And to the exile of sin, God has three things to say today:

    First, “Go, and from now on, do not sin anymore.”  That sounds like something that’s easy to say but hard to do.  But the fact is, once we have accepted God’s grace and forgiveness, that grace will actually help us to be free from sin.  Of course, that’s impossible to do all on our own.  But God never commands us to do something that is impossible for us, or maybe better, he never commands us to do something that is impossible for him to do in us.  God’s grace is there if we but turn to him.

    Second, God says: “Forget what lies behind and strain forward to what lies ahead.”  Once sin is confessed and grace is accepted, the sin is forgotten.  God is not a resentful tyrant who keeps a list of our offenses and holds them against us forever.  If we confess our sins and accept the grace that is present through the saving sacrifice of Jesus, the sins are forgotten.  But it is up to us to accept that grace.  We truly have to confess so that we can forget what lies behind and be ready for the graces ahead.

    Third, God says: “See, I am doing something new.  Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?”  We are the ones who get stuck in the past, always fearing to move forward because of past sins, hurts, and resentments.  We are called today to be open to the new thing God is doing in our lives.  The way to open up is to confess our sins and get rid of the past.

    For a long time in my young life, I didn’t go to confession.  I didn’t think I needed to.  I grew up in that whole time of the church when it was all about how you felt about yourself.  Garbage.  I knew something was wrong when I was in my young adulthood and felt lost.  I took a chance and went to confession at a penance service, and the priest welcomed me back.  In that moment, I knew exactly the new thing God was doing in me, and it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of me.  In fact, I was released from the exile of all my past sins and hurts.

    I never forgot that, and whenever anyone comes to me in confession and says it’s been a long time since they went, I am quick to welcome them back.  Because that’s what God wants, and it’s a great privilege for me to be part of that.  He wants to lift that weight off of you, to end your exile.  All it takes is for you to see that new thing he is doing in you, and to strain forward to what lies ahead.

    So we have just a few times left to receive that grace before Holy Week and Easter.  On Monday evening at 6:30, we will hear confessions until all are heard.  Saturday, as usual, we will hear confessions from 4:00 to 4:45pm before Mass.  And next Sunday, Palm Sunday, we will hear confessions after the 7:30, 9:30 and 11:30 Masses until all are heard.  Would that we would all take this opportunity to forget what lies behind, and strain forward to what lies ahead.  God is doing a new thing in all of us these Lenten days.  Let us all be open to it.

  • Monday of the Second Week of Lent

    Monday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading is one that gives me pause, to say the least.  The whole notion of the measure that we use will be the measure that God uses to measure  is more than a little a little scary. Think about it: how often do we fail to give people a break? How often do we forget that the person who just crossed us may be having trouble at home, or might be facing the illness of a loved one, or any number of things.  Those mitigating circumstances may not excuse bad behavior, but they may explain a lapse in judgment.  God gives us grace when we go through those things; we should do no less.

    We confess our sins and long to be forgiven, just like Daniel did in today’s first reading. And our God longs to forgive us those sins. But God’s expectation is that the mercy he has shown us will be the mercy we show to others.  We are called to the same perfection that is present in God himself.  The crux of that perfection is love and mercy.  We know what it looks like, because God has given those to us.  We then need to imitate that in our lives.

    If we would pray with the Psalmist today, “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins,” then we should be willing to let go of the sins others have committed against us.  It’s not easy, but the letting go frees us in much better ways than vengeance ever could.

    “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

  • The Second Sunday of Lent [C]

    The Second Sunday of Lent [C]

    Today’s readings

    One of the best Lenten reminders that I can think of comes in today’s second reading.  Here, Saint Paul tells the Philippians that “our citizenship is in heaven.”  We know how true this is.  We may have made homes here, and experienced our lives thus far here on earth, but the truth is we are just passing through this place.  Our true citizenship is in heaven, and it is the goal of all our lives to get there.  That’s why Lent is so important: this season reminds us of where we are going and gives us the opportunity to get there, if we have been off the path, which we all have in some way.  That’s the Lenten message of repentance and it’s the reason for our fasting, almsgiving and prayer.

    We see that message throughout today’s Liturgy of the Word.  In the first reading, God promises Abram – later to be named Abraham – that he would make his descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.  Abraham placed his faith in that promise, and God sanctified it by making covenant with him.  In the Gospel, Peter, John and James get to see a little bit of the heavenly inheritance when they experience the transfigured Jesus conversing with Moses and Elijah, the personification of the Law and the Prophets.  On this Transfiguration Sunday, we can catch a glimpse of where we’re going, and hopefully be energized anew to pursue that inheritance.

    The way that we pursue it is the essential Lenten discipline of repentance.  Here we recognize the fact that we have wandered from the path to our reward, ask God’s pardon, receive the mercy and are restored to the inheritance promised to Abraham and made perfect in the covenant carved out of the sacrifice of Christ.  That’s why we have Lent each year: we get the opportunity to repent, refocus and get back on the way. [We celebrate that this morning with Brian, our candidate who is preparing for Full Communion with our Church and will soon take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time.  As he prepares for that sacrament, we can see our own need for God’s healing mercy.]  The alternative to repentance is truly life in hell: and it’s not so much that God sends us there, but more that we choose to go there by shutting God out and not receiving the gift of mercy that he longs to pour out on us.

    I’d like to illustrate this by plucking out one of the story lines in the musical, Les Miserables.  I had seen the stage version, but went on New Year’s Day to see the movie version with a priest friend, and it reminded me once again of the incredible truth that the story proclaims.  Of the musicals that I have seen, this is truly my favorite.  If you haven’t yet seen it, you should, and please know I’m not spoiling the whole thing for you.

    The story begins with the release of the central character, Jean Valjean, from prison.  But even as he’s released, he finds out from his jailer, Javert, that he really will never be free.  He must carry papers that show that he was a convict for his entire life.  Now, one might argue that this would be appropriate if he had, say, murdered someone.  But we learn that his crime was a very excusable one: he stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister and her child.  For that, he served nineteen years in prison, and would be on parole for the rest of his life.   The jailer, Javert, is the other central character here.  He felt Valjean’s sentence was a just one, and he could say that because his idea of the law was very black or white: either you did what was right, or you could go to hell – literally.

    As the story unfolds, Valjean quickly learns the gravity of his plight.  He can hardly find work or a place to stay, because the papers that he has to carry have him branded as a criminal, and even if someone would take him in or give him work, they were going to cheat him, knowing that he could not complain.  He is eventually taken in by the local bishop, who gives him a meal and a place to stay.  He treats Valjean kindly, but Valjean doesn’t know how to receive it.  So he gets up during the night, takes some of the bishop’s silver, and heads out.  He is quickly brought in by the police who take him to the bishop and tell him that Valjean claimed the items were a gift.  The bishop, surprisingly, not only backs up his story, but says that Valjean had “left the best behind” and gives him two silver candlesticks.  As the police leave, the bishop tells Valjean that he has been given grace in order that he might “become an honest man” and serve a higher purpose.  That’s how grace works; we must receive it and then share it.

    So that’s what Valjean does.  He uses the money to start a business, which employs many people who would otherwise be poor, and he becomes the mayor of the town.  But he learns that Valjean has continued to pursue him, and although he originally thought the mayor was Valjean, it turns out another man had just confessed to his crimes and is that very day being sentenced.  He comes to Valjean to ask his pardon and offer his resignation for allegedly mistaking Valjean for, well, Valjean.  At this point, Valjean could have ended Javert’s long career and pretty much ended his life.  But he doesn’t do that; he goes to court and confesses so that the innocent man won’t have to pay for his crimes.

    Valjean escapes the grasp of Javert and goes on to take in Cosette, the young daughter of a dying woman.  He pledges to her mother that Cosette would want for nothing, and he raises her as his own daughter.  This has him pretty much constantly on the run, always looking over his shoulder for Javert.  Fast forward a bit to the revolution, during which Javert works as a spy and is caught by the student revolutionaries.  Valjean helps them, and is promised a reward.  He says that he wants nothing except to dispatch their prisoner.  And it’s here that Valjean offers grace to Javert for the second time in the story.  He lets him go and pretends to fire a gun at him, making the revolutionaries think he is dead.

    Javert continues to pursue Valjean, swearing that he will “never rest” until he sees him “safe behind bars.”  Later, after watching Valjean slip away yet again while extending mercy to a dying revolutionary, Javert confronts the issue of the grace that Valjean shows juxtaposed with what he thinks of him personally.  He wrestles with why Valjean would choose to show him mercy, when he could have taken his life and had his vengeance.  Unable to make sense of that, he realizes that he is already in hell.  And he’s right – when we cannot accept grace, we have shut God out and are, in fact, in hell.  That’s what hell is.  At this point, all Javert could do was die, and so he commits suicide.  In the movie version, that’s done in a rather jarring fashion, too.  For me, this is the saddest part of the story, bar none – and that says a lot, because I usually shed quite a few tears when I see the show.

    So there are two paths here.  We can take Javert’s path, in which we refuse mercy to others and to ourselves, and trust instead in our own beliefs.  When these don’t turn out to hold water, the realization is that this is hell, and all we have left to do is die.  Or we can take Valjean’s path, accepting grace, using it to change our hearts and our lives, and live the life we were meant to live: a life that seeks out others and extends them mercy.  The lesson here is that mercy transfigures us and puts us back on the path to our heavenly inheritance.  Valjean eventually gets to see that, but I won’t spoil the end for you.

    This Lent, I propose that we take Valjean’s path, and use our fasting, almsgiving and prayer to get back on the path to heaven.  I propose that we celebrate God’s mercy by taking part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  We have lots of opportunities for that.  Mondays at 6:30, we hear confessions until all are heard.  On Saturdays, we hear them from 4pm to 4:45.  This coming Saturday, we have our morning of healing and will be hearing confessions from 10am to 11, when we’ll celebrate our Anointing of the Sick Mass.  And we have the Parish Lenten Penance Service coming up next month.  Please be sure to go to confession sometime during Lent.  You’ll be amazed at how much you, and the world around you, can be transfigured by God’s mercy, and you’ll find all the world to be clothed in dazzling white.   It’s an experience not to be missed, and while Javert thought his was the “way of the Lord,” the Sacrament of Reconciliation truly is.

  • Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twelfth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Pride is, perhaps, the most insidious of the sins with which we have to deal.  And I say “we” because yes, we all have to deal with it at some level at some point in our lives.  Pride keeps us from seeing that we’re headed down the wrong path.  Pride also keeps us from asking for help, or even from accepting help, when we’re in trouble.  Pride, as the saying goes, goes before the fall, and it can land us in some serious difficulty if we don’t work hard to eradicate it from our lives.

    In today’s Gospel, Jesus clearly wanted to make sure his disciples were not bogged down with pride.  Perhaps he was trying to keep them from following the behavior of the Pharisees, or maybe he even saw traces of pride at work in them as a group.  Whatever the case, he warns them clearly that pride has no place in the life of the disciple.

    Now, to be clear, he is not telling them that they can never pass judgment on anyone.  Judging is a part of law and order, without which no society can survive.  Also, he knows full well that rightly-disposed believers can and should stop others from heading down an erroneous or dangerous path.  What he is saying, though, is that the rod we use to measure the other is the same measure that will be used on us, so it would be well to make sure that our motives are pure in all cases.

    It’s a chilling prediction, I think.  I shudder to think of the measure I use on others being used to measure me.  But if I measure with love and charity and genuine concern, I know that I can accept that same measure on myself.  It’s a good thing that’s the kind of measure God wants to use on all of us.  And he will, if we lay down our pride.

  • The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    The Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    In ancient days, a diagnosis of leprosy was a death sentence.  And that’s not just because they didn’t know how to treat the disease.  They didn’t, but what was really horrible is the way the lepers were treated.  First of all, they were called lepers – not people – so being labeled as such stripped them of the personhood, and put them on the same level as a virus that needed to be eradicated.  They were cut off from the community, so they would have no community or even family support.  They were forbidden to worship with the community, so they must also have felt cut off from God.  And so it went for those who contracted leprosy: sick and alone, they were left to survive as best they could, or just to die.

    The worst part of it is that most of the time people didn’t actually have leprosy: the ancients’ lack of scientific knowledge led them to label as leprosy any kind of skin ailment.  The rules for dealing with people with these diseases were based on fear: they didn’t want to contract the disease themselves, so the “clean” ones ostracized those with disease, treating them as if they didn’t exist.

    Jesus, obviously, didn’t agree with that kind of way of “treating” the illness of leprosy.  He didn’t really have any more scientific resources at that time to treat the disease, but it wasn’t the disease he was concerned about.  No, he was concerned about the person, not the illness.  And so he does not take offense when the leper breaks the Levitical law that we heard in our first reading and actually approaches Jesus.  Jesus, too breaks the law by reaching out to touch him and saying, with an authority that comes from God himself, “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    The thing is, we don’t treat lepers very well today, either.  I don’t mean people who have the actual disease of leprosy – that is actually very treatable, even curable, in this day and age.  What I mean is that there are a lot of leprosies out there.  Some people tend to ostracize a loved one when they contract a difficult disease, like cancer.  They can’t bear the thought of death, or they don’t like hospitals, or they feel powerless to help in these situations, so they stay away.  Hospitals and nursing homes are full of people who never receive a visit from family or friends.  Our pastoral care ministers could probably tell you many heart-breaking stories with that theme.

    And leprosy doesn’t apply just to sick people.  People who are different in any way are subject to ostracization: people who have different color skin than us, people who are not Catholic or not Christian, people who are homosexual, people who are poor or homeless.  All of these we treat from a distance, keeping them outside the community, outside of means of support, outside of the love of God in just the same way the ancients dealt with lepers.  We have a tendency to label people and then write them off.

    I don’t know about you, but I’m glad God doesn’t treat broken people that way.  Because then I might be cut off because of my many sins.  We all have something in us that is unclean, and it would be woe for us if God just wrote us off.  He doesn’t.  He reaches out to touch us to, exactly where we are at, without fear of contracting the illness of our sin himself, and heals us from the inside out.  “I do will it.  Be made clean.”

    Our religion, thankfully, has rituals for the things that infest us.  When we are sick, there is the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  When we are sinful, there is the sacrament of Penance.  We call these the sacraments of healing, because they do just that: give us God’s grace when we are sick or dying, and his forgiveness and mercy when we have sinned.

    Many people misunderstand the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick.  No longer do we think of that as something to be done at the last possible moment.  It should be done as soon as it is known that a person is gravely ill.  We rely on doctors to tell us that.  It should be done before someone has serious surgery.  It should be done when a person is suffering from mental illness of any kind.  It might be done more than once: when a person is first diagnosed, for example, and then again when they are near death, or when the illness is worse in any way.  It should be done at a hospital or nursing home, or in a person’s home, or even here at church.  Wherever the person is or is most comfortable.  We are also having a Mass with Anointing of the Sick during Lent here in church.  The sacrament provides grace to live through an illness, or mercy on the journey to eternity, sometimes even healing if that is what God knows to be good for the person.  Please don’t wait until a person has just moments left to send for a priest, don’t be afraid to ask us to anoint you before surgery, and don’t assume that if you’re in the hospital, we will know – they can’t really tell us that any more.

    As for the Sacrament of Penance, there are many opportunities to celebrate that sacrament: Saturdays at 4pm, during Lent we will have a Penance Service, and we’ll also have Confessions before the Mass of the Anointing of the Sick I just mentioned.  You can also always call a priest for an appointment if you need to.  The problem can sometimes be that a person feels embarrassed to go to Confession if they’ve been away from the sacrament for a long time.  Don’t be.  It’s our job to help you make a good Confession, and we are absolutely committed to doing that.  Your sins don’t make us think less of you; in fact I always have deep respect for the person who lowers his or her defenses and lets God have mercy on them.

    These are wonderful sacraments of healing.  God gives them to us because he will not be like those living in Levitical times.  Just as he reached out to the leper in today’s Gospel, so Christ longs to reach out and touch all of us in our brokenness, in our uncleanness, and make us whole again.  As the Psalmist sings today, so we can pray: “I turn to you, Lord, in time of trouble, and you fill me with the joy of salvation.”   Praise God for Jesus’ words today: “I do will it.  Be made clean!”

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    Today’s readings: Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b; 64:2-7 and Matthew 1:18-24

    Isaiah’s lament in our first reading this evening sounds like a lament for every time and place, quite honestly.  Wouldn’t we all prefer to hope that God would come and meet us doing right, being mindful of him in all our ways, mindful of the mighty deeds God has done for us?  But unfortunately, we are sinful people; our neglect of God would justly make him angry, our sins enough to pollute even our good deeds.  It’s a sad state of affairs: it seems like no one calls upon God’s name, no one rouses him or herself out of the sad state of our world to even cling to God.  God forbid that Jesus return in glory only to see us so completely delivered up to our guilt.

    And that’s where we find ourselves tonight, I think.  We see sinfulness in our world: wars being fought and terrorism keeping us bound up in fear; the poor neglected and poverty’s sad effect on society; crime is proliferating and apathy increasing.  Would that God would rend the heavens and come down, and put an end to all this sad nonsense!  Even more to the point this evening, though, is the sadness in our own lives: unconfessed sin, broken relationships, cyclic patterns of bad choices and bad actions.  Why have we wandered so far from God’s ways?  Why have our hearts been so hardened that we don’t even fear God anymore?

    But in all of this, Isaiah recalls God’s promises:  “Yet, O Lord, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter; we are all the work of your hands.”  God’s mercy is beyond anything we can imagine.  In justice, he could leave us to experience the consequences of our sinfulness.  But in mercy, he sent his Son to pay the ultimate price.  There is nothing we can do to make up for our sins, but thanks be to God, he thinks enough of his creation to allow us to be redeemed by the coming of our Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ.

    The coming of our Savior in the mystery of the Incarnation is the great hope of Advent.  We know that the sad state of our sinful lives and our sinful world is not the end of the story.  We know that God has sent his only begotten Son to be our Savior, to walk among us knowing our grief and pain, our joy and sorrow.  He died on the cross to pay the ultimate price for our sins, and rose from the dead, erasing death’s power to keep us from spending eternity with our God who made us for himself.

    Advent, then, gives us the opportunity to prepare to experience the wonder of the Incarnation in our own lives.  We need a Savior to bring us from the grip of death and sin to the embrace of God’s mercy and love.  We need a Savior who will lead us to justice and peace. We need a Savior who will lead us to reach out to the poor and oppressed. We need a Savior who will bind up our wounded lives and world and present us pure and spotless before God on the Last Day. We need a Savior who can bring light to this darkened world and hope to our broken lives. We need a Savior who can bring us God’s promise of forgiveness.

    There is an ancient prayer of the early Church that the first Christians would pray in the years just after Jesus died and rose and ascended into heaven.  In their language, the simple work was, Maranatha which in English is “Come, Lord Jesus.” This is a great prayer for every day during Advent, perhaps for every day of our lives. When we get up in the morning, and just before bed at night, pray “Come, Lord Jesus.” When you need help during the day or just need to remind yourself of God’s promises, pray “Come, Lord Jesus.” The early Christians prayed this way because they expected Jesus to return soon. We do too. Even if he does not return in glory during our lifetimes, we still expect him to return soon and often in our lives and in our world to brighten this place of darkness and sin and to straighten out the rough ways in our lives. Let us keep the expectation of the Lord and the hope of his promise of forgiveness alive in our hearts:
    Come, Lord Jesus and change our hearts to be more loving and open to others.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to pray; help us to grow in our spiritual lives.
    Come, Lord Jesus and dispel our doubts; help us always to hope in your forgiveness and mercy.
    Come, Lord Jesus and heal those who are sick and comfort all the dying.
    Come, Lord Jesus and bring those who wander back to your Church.
    Come, Lord Jesus and turn us away from our addictions.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to be patient with ourselves and others.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to eliminate injustice and apathy.
    Come, Lord Jesus and teach us to welcome the stranger.
    Come, Lord Jesus and give us an unfailing and zealous respect for your gift of life.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to be generous; teach us all to practice stewardship of all of our resources.
    Come, Lord Jesus and help us to work at everything we do as though we were working for you alone.
    Come, Lord Jesus and bind up our brokenness, heal our woundedness, comfort us in affliction, afflict us in our comfort, help us to repent and to follow you without distraction or hesitation, give us the grace to pick up our crosses and be your disciples.

    Joseph had the assistance of an angel to help him to be open to Christ’s coming into his life.  Through his intercession, may we be open to all of the grace that the Incarnation of our Lord brings us.  May we be completely transformed by the birth of Christ into our world and into our lives.  May Christ come quickly to lead us to eternity and help us to navigate the world and all its dangerous obstacles.  Maranatha!  Come, Lord Jesus!

  • Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    The Liturgy in these past summer months has been teaching us how to be disciples of Jesus.  Today, the readings give us another tool for the disciple, and that tool is forgiveness.  These readings come on the heels of what we heard last week, which was about the way the Christian disciple resolves conflict.  Forgiveness is the natural conclusion to that discussion.

    In the Gospel, Peter wants the Lord to spell out the rule of thumb: how often must we forgive another person who has wronged us?  Peter offers what he thinks is magnanimous: seven times.  Seven times is a lot of forgiveness.  It was more than the law required, so Peter felt like he was catching on to what Jesus required in living the Gospel.  But that’s not what Jesus was going for: he wanted a much more forgiving heart from his disciples: not seven times, but seventy-seven times!  Even if we take that number literally, which we shouldn’t, that’s more forgiveness than we can begin to imagine.  But the number here is just to represent something bigger than ourselves: constant forgiveness.

    The parable that Jesus tells to illustrate the story is filled with interesting little details.  The servant in the story owes the master a huge amount of money.  Think of the biggest sum you can imagine someone adding and add a couple of zeroes to the end of it.  It’s that big.  He will never repay the master, no matter what efforts he puts forth.  So the master would be just in having him and everything he owned and everyone he cared about sold.  It still wouldn’t repay the debt, but it would be more than he would otherwise get.  But the servant pleads for mercy, and the master gives it.  In fact, he does more than he’s asked to do: he doesn’t just give the servant more time to pay, he forgives the entire loan!  That’s incredible mercy!

    On the way home, however, the servant encounters another servant who owes him a much smaller sum than he owed the master – like ten or twenty bucks.  But the servant has not learned to forgive as he has been forgiven: he hands the fellow servant over to be put into debtor’s prison until he can repay the loan.  But that in itself is a humorous little detail.  In prison, how is he going to repay the loan?  He can’t work, right?  So basically the fellow servant is condemned for the rest of his life.

    We don’t have to do a lot of math or theological thinking to see the injustice here.  The servant has been forgiven something he could never repay, no matter how much time he lived.  But he was unwilling to give that same forgiveness to his fellow servant; he was unwilling to give him even a little more time to repay the loan, which the other servant certainly could have done.  That kind of injustice is something that allows a person to condemn him or herself for the rest of eternity.  The disciple is expected to learn to forgive and is expected to forgive as he or she has been forgiven.  “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  We can’t just say that all the time; we actually have to do it.

    At this point, I could diverge a few different ways.  We could talk about sin, salvation and eternity.  But I think, given what today is, I’ll just stay a little basic.  Let’s stick with the theme that presents itself: forgiveness and our ability to forgive, be it once or seven times, or seventy-seven times.

    This call to a kind of heroic forgiveness takes on a new meaning today, the tenth anniversary of the terrorist attacks against our nation on September 11, 2001.  Rest assured, these readings were not “chosen” in some way for this day: we use a three-year cycle of readings and so these readings just so happened to come up today.  But I wonder, of course, if God didn’t give us these readings for today on purpose.  I think maybe we are being invited to be more forgiving, even considering the huge debt that is owed to us, in terms of the wrong that was done to us.

    I don’t think anyone would say our world is significantly more forgiving today than it was ten years ago.  We still have conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in many other places.  In fact, I’ve read that as many as a third of the nations of the world are currently involved in some sort of conflict.  In fact, a military response to what happened to us ten years ago may be what justice demands.  And we owe a great debt to those who are fighting to keep our nation safe.  But I don’t think we can stop with that.  We will never find the ultimate answer to terrorism and injustice in human endeavor.  We have to reach for something of more divine origin, and that something, I think, is the forgiveness that Jesus calls us to in today’s gospel.

    And it starts with us.  We have been forgiven so much by God.  So how willing have we then been to forgive others?  Our reflection today might take us to the people or institutions that have wronged us in some way.  Can we forgive them?  Can we at least ask God for the grace to be forgiving?  I always tell people that forgiveness is a journey.  We might not be ready to forgive right now, but we can ask for the grace to be ready.  Jesus didn’t say it would be easy, did he?

    Because every time we forgive someone, every time we let go of an injustice that has been done to us, the world is that much more peaceful.  We may well always have war and the threat of terrorism with us.  But that doesn’t mean we have to like it.  That doesn’t mean we have to participate in it.  If we choose to forgive others, maybe our own corner of the world can be more just, more merciful.  And if we all did that, think of how our world could be significantly changed.

    In 2008, Pope Benedict visited the site of Ground Zero in New York.  This was the prayer he prayed there:

    O God of love, compassion, and healing,
    look on us, people of many different faiths and traditions,
    who gather today at this site,
    the scene of incredible violence and pain….

    God of understanding,
    overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
    we seek your light and guidance
    as we confront such terrible events.
    Grant that those whose lives were spared
    may live so that the lives lost here
    may not have been lost in vain.
    Comfort and console us,
    strengthen us in hope,
    and give us the wisdom and courage
    to work tirelessly for a world
    where true peace and love reign
    among nations and in the hearts of all.

  • Monday of the Second Week of Lent

    Monday of the Second Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s Gospel reading is one that gives me pause, to say the least.  The whole notion of the measure that we use will be the measure that God uses to measure  is more than a little a little scary. Think about it: how often do we fail to give people a break? How often do we forget that the person who just crossed us may be having trouble at home, or might be facing the illness of a loved one, or any number of things.  Those mitigating circumstances may not excuse bad behavior, but they may explain a lapse in judgment.  God gives us grace when we go through those things; we should do no less.

     

    We confess our sins and long to be forgiven, just like Daniel did in today’s first reading. And our God longs to forgive us those sins. But God’s expectation is that the mercy he has shown us will be the mercy we show to others.  We are called to the same perfection that is present in God himself.  The crux of that perfection is love and mercy.  We know what it looks like, because God has given those to us.  We then need to imitate that in our lives.

     

    If we would pray with the Psalmist today, “Lord, do not deal with us according to our sins,” then we should be willing to let go of the sins others have committed against us.  It’s not easy, but the letting go frees us in much better ways than vengeance ever could.

     

    “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.”

     

  • Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Today’s gospel reading deals with a major theme of Jesus, and that is sin and forgiveness.  That was why he came here to earth, as we well know, and today he tells us why, while sin can run rampant, it will never have the final say.

    “Things that cause sin will inevitably occur,” he says.  And don’t we know how right he is!  Anyone who has had to deal with some pattern of sin knows how futile it can sometimes be to battle it.  Just when you think you have made progress, something or someone comes along, presses the wrong button in us, and – just like that – we are back in our sins again.  The inevitability of sin is one of the scourges of this present life, and it is the root cause of so many of the ills that plague us, ills like depression, disease, war, terrorism, death – all these and many more owe their very existence to the inevitability of sin.

    Sin has to be rebuked.  We have to be open to accountability, and to the warning of our brothers or sisters to get us back on the right track.  Kind of like when my doctor told me that my asthma would get a lot better if I lost a little weight.  I didn’t like hearing that, but I knew he was right, and if I want to be able to breathe better, I need to listen to him.  So when a brother or sister urges us to turn away from sin, blessed are we when we are open to their counsel.

    But as inevitable as sin is, Jesus tells us, it never gets to have the final word.  Forgiveness does.  Mercy does.  Love does.  If a brother or sister “wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him,” Jesus tells us.  Because that’s what he is about.  The only thing Jesus came to do was to forgive sins.  That’s what opens to us the gates of heaven and the promise of eternity.  And our job is to keep those gates open for each other, even if we have been wronged seven times in a day.

    Sin is rampant and it can dog us day in and day out.  But it doesn’t get to mar our eternity.  Not if we let Jesus do the one thing he came to do: to forgive our sins.  And of course, that means we have to forgive as we have been forgiven as well.