I think mercy may well be one of the hardest virtues to cultivate; but then again, maybe I am just projecting my own issues! But in this day of entitlement, I think many people are quick to call others to task for just about anything that irritates them. How, then, would we have treated Saul if we were David, given that Saul was distracted, and David was there unnoticed, and had the means necessary to take his life? He even had good reason: Saul was trying to kill him. But instead he shows him mercy, and relies on God’s justice. We will be called upon to be merciful often. How often will we take that opportunity, knowing that God’s justice is greater than anything we can imagine?
Tag: mercy
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Advent Penance Service
I know a lot of people who get depressed this time of year. Probably you do too. Many people are missing loved ones who are far away from home, or who have passed away. Some of my friends have a touch of seasonal affective disorder, and so they are depressed when we don’t see the sun as much on cloudy days like today, or when it gets dark so early as it does during this time. Some people also look back on another year almost finished, and they lament what could have been, or what actually has been. If there is any reason for being a little depressed at this time of year, it often seems like the joy that other people are experiencing during the Christmas season makes the pain even worse.
So for whatever reason, many of us experience darkness during this season, when so many seem to be rejoicing in light. In essence, that’s what Advent is all about. The season of Advent recognizes the darkness of the world – the physical darkness, sure, but more than that the darkness of a world steeped in sin, a world marred by war and terrorism, an economy decimated by greed, peacefulness wounded by hatred, crime and dangers of all sorts. This season of Advent also recognizes the darkness of our own lives – sin that has not been confessed, relationships broken by self-interest, personal growth tabled by laziness and fear.
Advent says that God meets all that darkness head-on. We don’t cower in the darkness; neither do we try to cover over the light. Instead we put the lamp on a lampstand and shine the light into every dark corner of our lives and our world. Isaiah prophesies about this Advent of light: “The light of the moon will be like that of the sun, and the light of the sun will be seven times greater [like the light of seven days].” This is a light that changes everything. It doesn’t just expose what’s imperfect and cause shame, instead it burns the light of God’s salvation into everything and everyone it illumines, making all things new.
Our Church makes the light present in many ways – indeed, it is the whole purpose of the Church to shine a bright beacon of hope into a dark and lonely world. We do that in symbolic ways: the progressive lighting of the Advent wreath symbolizes the world becoming lighter and lighter as we approach the birthday of our Savior. But the Church doesn’t leave it simply in the realm of symbol or theory. We are here tonight to take on that darkness and shine the light of Christ into every murky corner of our lives. The Sacrament of Penance reconciles us with those we have wronged, reconciles us with the Church, and reconciles us most importantly with our God. The darkness of broken relationships is completely banished with the Church’s words of absolution. Just like the Advent calendars we’ve all had reveal more and more with every door we open, so the Sacrament of Penance brings Christ to fuller view within us whenever we let the light of that sacrament illumine our darkness.
And so that’s why we’re here tonight. We receive the light by being open to it and accepting it, tonight in a sacramental way. Tonight, as we did at our baptism, we reject the darkness of sin and we “look east” as the hymn says, to accept the light of Christ which would dawn in our hearts. Tonight we lay before our God everything that is broken in us, we hold up all of our darkness to be illumined by the light of God’s healing mercy.
Each of the days of Advent, we have been praying the “O Antiphons” which the Church gives us in Evening prayer each day. Yesterday’s “O Antiphon” spoke of the light we celebrate tonight: “O Radiant Dawn, splendor of eternal light, sun of justice: come, shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.”
Tonight, our sacrament disperses the gloomy clouds of our sin and disperses the dark shadows of death that lurk within us. The darkness in and around us is no match for the light of Christ. As we approach Christmas, that light is ever nearer. Jesus is, as the Gospel of John tells us, “the light that shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
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Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time
Today, Jesus gives us what might be considered to be his mission statement: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” Or at least we might consider this to be his statement of what he wants from us, his people. And we, like the Pharisees, might be tempted to make all sorts of sacrifices. That might mean sacrificing our time to work long hours to attain our goals. Or maybe we sacrifice to give to the poor, or spend more time at Church, or whatever. None of those things is bad in and of themselves, in fact, depending on our intentions, they are probably good things. But if we don’t have mercy in the mix, if we don’t then also extend God’s love to our family, coworkers, or whoever God puts in our presence today, then we’ve blown it. It’s all for nothing. But, if we put mercy first, if we forgive as we have been forgiven and love as we have been loved, then we’ve gotten our mission statement right, too.
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Tuesday of the Thirteenth Week of Ordinary Time
I want to feel bad for Lot’s wife in today’s first reading. Not only is she not even called by name in the entire reading, but she gets turned into a pillar of salt just for a backward glance. But, sad as it is, this is the whole point of the reading, and it’s not like they weren’t warned – the angel was very clear: “Flee for your life! Don’t look back or stop anywhere on the Plain. Get off to the hills at once, or you will be swept away.” So in some ways, she deserved what she got. But I think the reading is getting at something a little deeper here than a mere glance over one’s shoulder.
Indeed the real issue is, what did that looking back mean? Sodom and Gomorrah were being destroyed for their wanton evil. They may have once been wonderful cities, but they had become centers of every kind of evil and debased action. And this evil was so pervasive that no other corrective action other than total destruction of the cities would do. If yesterday had not been the solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, we would have heard the famous reading about Abraham and God bargaining to save those cities. At the end of it all, God agrees at Abraham’s urging not to destroy the place if just ten righteous people could be found there. Obviously the righteous numbered less than ten, amounting to just Lot, his wife, and his two daughters.
But, so pervasive was the evil of that place, that it infected even Lot’s wife, who didn’t just glance back to see if she dropped something. No, the backward glance was more likely sorrow for what she left behind; she was not untainted by the scandal of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The lesson is that when God leads us forward, we cannot debase ourselves to look back. The Psalmist has it right today, as always, when he says, “For your mercy is before my eyes, and I walk in your truth.” Your mercy is before my eyes, so I need to look forward, not back. Looking backward leads us to our old sinful ways; looking forward is what leads us to our God. So if God is giving us the chance to move forward, as he did for Lot and his wife and his daughters, then we can do no less than fix our eyes on the path ahead, cutting our ties with everything that is behind us.
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Tuesday of the Fourth Week of Easter
I think sometimes we really need to know that we are in the hands of God. Things here on earth can be pretty uncertain on a daily basis. The state of the economy, wars being fought all over the globe, the disrespect for human life, antagonism toward Christ-like values, all of this makes us feel pretty uncertain, at best. Add to that the stuff that affects us directly: illness, death of a loved one, unemployment, family difficulties, our own sins – all of this may find us asking the question from time to time, “Where is God in all this?”
That’s why it’s so good to hear Jesus say today:
My sheep hear my voice;
I know them, and they follow me.
I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish.
No one can take them out of my hand.This does not, of course, mean that life is going to be easier for us, or that we won’t still be challenged in this world. But it does give us confidence that we are on the right track, and that our ways are being guarded. With this confidence, we are expected then to be disciples. We are expected to go forth and do what God asks of us, ministering to those in need, reaching out to the broken, preaching the Good News just by the way that we live our life.
We can live and preach the Gospel with confidence, we can be called Christians as our brothers and sisters in the first reading were for the first time, knowing that God has our back. Whatever we may suffer in this life for the sake of Christ will more than be rewarded in the life to come. And the good works we do here on earth, as small as they may seem to us in the face of such adversity, are never for nothing: God takes our efforts and makes them huge advances in the battle for souls.
Jesus says that the Father is greater than all, and that all of us, safe in the Father’s hands, can never be taken from him. Praise God for his providence and mercy and protection today.
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Saturday of the Second Week of Lent
That Jesus would welcome sinners and eat with them is obviously a big deal in his day. The audacity of such an action was sinful in and of itself, at least as far as the religious leadership was concerned. But as an act of mercy, it’s grace unlike anything else. And the significance for us is understandable. Jesus still welcomes sinners and eats with them. If that were not true, none of us would be here for the Eucharist today, would we?
Something that often gets overlooked in this very familiar parable is that both of the sons are sinful. We take it on faith that the youngest is sinful: taking half of his inheritance before his father is even in the grave, living a life of dissipation and sexual excess, using up all that money in a short time, content to eat among the swine which no good Jew would even think about touching, and finding himself very, very broken. But the so-called good son is sinful too. On his brother’s return, he refuses to go into the house to welcome him back, and takes his father to task for showing mercy and love. Failure to forgive is itself sinful.
Both sons are sinful in their own way. Both need the father’s love and mercy and forgiveness. And both receive it. Far from the way a proper Jewish father would act, he runs out to meet both sons where they are. Protocol would have them come to him, and not he to them. He comes out twice, once to meet the younger son who is on the way back to him, and once to meet his older son who refuses to come in.
Much is often made on where we find ourselves in this very familiar parable. Are we the sinful son? Are we the good son? Are we the father? It probably depends on the day – we might be like all of them at one time or another. I don’t think that’s what matters here. What matters is that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, in our case, feeding us with the finest bread and wine which are of course his very own body and blood. Without this grace, we would have no life – salvation would only be a pipe dream. But because this grace is very real, we have the opportunity to gather here at the Table of the Lord, and one day at the great heavenly banquet.
Praise God today for his forgiveness, mercy and grace. Praise God that he welcomes sinners and eats with them.
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Tuesday of the First Week of Lent
Ancient sources say that we are to pray the Lord’s prayer at least seven times daily. Why? Because the Lord’s prayer in all its wonderful simplicity reminds us that we can turn to our heavenly Father who knows our needs and cares for our welfare. It reminds us that the best opportunities we have to live the Gospel come when we turn to God who is bigger than our sins, more than generous enough to cover our deepest needs and longings, more than holy enough to sanctify our poorer efforts at discipleship and charity. It reminds us that God is God and we are not.
To those of us who are concerned with our own prestige and dwell on our own ego, the Lord’s prayer says “hallowed be God’s name.” When we would like all of our problems solved on our own terms and everyone to do things our own way, the Lord’s prayer says, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done…” For those times when we over-consume the goods of the earth, or want more than we can afford, or covet things we don’t need, the Lord’s prayer says, “give us this day our daily bread” – because that’s all we need. For us sinners who prefer to hold grudges against others, the Lord’s prayer says, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” And when we stray into all sorts of temptations and give in to all the wrong things, the Lord’s prayer says “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
The Lord’s prayer is powerful in all its simplicity. Whether we say it seven times a day or even just once, we need to say it with full thought of what we are asking of our God. And God will hear and answer that holy prayer. For his is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
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First Sunday of Lent
Today’s readings
We’ve gathered here on the first Sunday of Lent, and as we might expect, our readings give us the motivation for how to spend these days of Lent. I’m not always sure that we get the idea of Lent as straight as we should. If we think Lent is just about giving things that we like up for forty days so that we can remember how awful we are, then we’re certainly on the wrong track. Is Lent about repentance, about changing, about becoming better Christians? Well, yes, but even that’s not primarily it.
Lent means “springtime” which is a little hard to appreciate on days that are still in the twenties and thirties, and when there’s precious little spring-like growth in nature. Spring conjures up images of new growth, flowers and leaves budding, the return of singing birds, that kind of thing, and certainly we’re not seeing any of that yet. The newness of spring is yet to come for us. But I think the “springtime” that Lent calls to mind is a springtime in ourselves. It’s another chance to get it right, another chance to grow, another chance to remember what we are about.
And I think it’s the flood that gives us the biggest clue here. It’s mentioned in both the first and second readings, which is kind of unusual for our Liturgy, so that kind of highlights its importance. And the story is familiar enough for us, isn’t it? We know about the ark, we know about the animals two by two, we know about Noah and his family, about the destruction of the wicked and the saving of the good, we know about the forty days and forty nights of rain, and we know about what we see in today’s first reading: the rainbow.
So I’d like to focus on two things today: the water, and the rainbow. First, the water. I remember a time many years ago now when I was leaving my job in Naperville to go work at another company. I had to go one day for my pre-employment physical and drug test, and when I was leaving to go home, it started to rain pretty hard. Overnight, the rain just continued to pour down, and when I was leaving to go to my job in Naperville the next morning, it was nearly impossible to get there. Somehow I found a few dry back roads and made it to the office, but I was certainly one of the few. My boss was even shocked I tried to make it there, considering I had already given notice that I was leaving.
We watched out the window as some people tried to make it down flooded Jefferson Avenue and of course got stuck in the water, which I fear was higher than some of their cars. The electricity was out, and the damage was huge. It took a long time for the water to recede, and even longer for everything to get cleaned up. It was a nasty picture of how devastating the power of water can be. Many of us have experienced floods in our lives, maybe some of you remember the one I am speaking of. But we know that all of this is but a small sample of the flood that happened in today’s first reading.
So what was the point of this flood? Was it so that God could take delight in punishing the wicked? Was this a vignette of sinners in the hands of an angry God? Was this the only way God could rid the world of its evil and make a way for goodness? Hardly. I think the flood meant something more, here. St. Peter tells us the reason for the flood in today’s second reading: “This prefigured baptism, which saves you now.” Whenever we see that much water being spoken of in Scripture, we should always think baptism. Baptism is, essentially, a washing away of the bad and cleansing the person so that goodness can take root and grow. Baptism is the precursor to a springtime of new life in all of us.
The second symbol is the rainbow. When our family was on vacation last year, we had kind of a stormy day one day. In the evening, just as the sun was setting, there was a beautiful, double rainbow over Lake Michigan. We all watched it for a while, and took some pictures … it was a really peaceful end to a rainy day. In today’s first reading, the rainbow is established as a sign of God’s covenant with us. The author has God saying it will be a reminder for him “so that the waters shall never again become a flood to destroy all mortal beings.” But I think the reminder is more for us.
When we see a rainbow, we should make ourselves aware once again of the great blessing and grace that is our relationship with God. Because it wasn’t Noah – or any other person – who initiated the covenant, it was God. God was the more powerful party and he didn’t have to forge a covenant at all. He could have wiped everyone out and been done with it, but that’s not who God is. God is all about our salvation, all about bringing us to eternal life, and it is God alone who can make that agreement, and he does it without even being asked.
This too is a sign of our own baptism. In baptism, we enter that covenant with God in which he extends the great offer of everlasting life. It’s a pledge of a really eternal springtime, with us as his chosen people, called and given grace to become completely his own, with all the many blessings that brings with it.
So as we enter this Lenten springtime, we have the opportunity to renew among us the dignity of our baptism. We do that in two ways. First, we see during this time of Lent increased activity among those who would join us at the Table of the Lord. This weekend, we have in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults the Rite of Sending of the catechumens to the cathedral for election. [Today] Tomorrow, Bishop Sartain will choose them on behalf of the Church for baptism, and they will no longer be known as catechumens, but instead as the Elect. Today [Yesterday] we have [had] the opportunity to approve these men for presentation to the bishop.
In the weeks ahead, they will participate in the scrutinies, during which their former life outside the church will be cast off, we will pray for the forgiveness of their sins, and we will perform a minor exorcism which allows them to receive the sacraments of initiation. Then, on the Easter Vigil of Holy Saturday night, among the retelling of our stories of salvation, we will welcome them in to our Church, baptizing them, Confirming them in the Holy Spirit, and sharing the Eucharist with them for the very first time.
But none of that, as you might suspect, is for the Elect alone. And so the second way we renew our baptism is by reflecting on our own experience once again. We too are Elect of God, having been called to the Sacraments, whenever we received them, not by our own power, but by the awesome grace of our God who always seeks us out, who runs to us wherever we are, who welcomes us back no matter how many times we have walked away, who catches us no matter how far we have fallen. We are not sinners in the hands of an angry God, we are the saved in the hands of a God of mercy and grace.
These forty days, then, are an opportunity for a new springtime in us. A new growth of grace in our lives, washed clean in the waters of baptism, renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit, and fed by the Bread of Life. Praise God for the gift of Lent.
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Monday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
We’re still in the opening chapters of human history in our first reading, and in these opening chapters we see some of the less beautiful parts of human nature. These are deadly sins, and they have continued to plague humankind ever since.
We start with envy, as Cain laments that his offering was not accepted with the same favor as was Abel’s. We move from envy to murder, with Cain committing the very first fratricide, killing his very own brother. From there, we go to apathy, as Cain rejects the opportunity to be his brother’s keeper. And then we meet false witness, as he lies about the murder that he committed. And if all of that isn’t enough, Cain then complains about his punishment as if it was something he didn’t deserve. If he’d only tried repentance, or expressed sorrow for his sins, or even accepted responsibility for what he’d done, maybe things would have turned out differently.
But, in this opening act of human history, we see God’s mercy. God does not remit the entirety of Cain’s punishment, but promises that even his death would be unacceptable. Maybe we should think about that in regard to the death penalty: if even God doesn’t condone the murder of a murderer, then who are we to do that? So God marks Cain, as we all are marked with God’s presence at our baptism. So even in this very early story of our history, we can see that baptism was always intended for our salvation.
The Psalmist this morning says that we absolutely cannot profess God’s commandments and sing his praises, without also accepting God’s discipline and following God’s word. A sacrifice of praise is a life lived with integrity, and that is the sacrifice that God wants of us in every moment.
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Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time: Let your mercy come to me, O Lord
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
I love that there were short verses for the psalm today, and we got to repeat this refrain from the Psalmist over and over. If you think about it, and if you really enter into it, it becomes a kind of mantra, or Taize chant, or the Jesus Prayer, a way to center ourselves and open ourselves up to the Lord in this Eucharistic celebration.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
Because we are all in need of the Lord’s mercy, aren’t we? Whether it is sinfulness, addiction, illness or infirmity, anxiety, worry about a family member, uncertainty about a job or the economy as a whole, we all have to realize that so much of the time we are in desperate need of the Lord’s love and mercy.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
And we come to the point that we know that the only thing that can help us is the Lord’s mercy. We may have tried so many times on our own to cure ourselves or make the pain go away or focus on the positive or not cause waves, we know that of ourselves, ultimately, we are unable to fix the things that really vex us. Sin takes hold, circumstances beyond our control confound us, powerlessness causes frustration. And then, all of a sudden, we remember the One we were trying to hide from, or with whom we didn’t want to bother with our troubles. But in the face of our own powerlessness, we must turn to the one whose power can overcome all.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
And so that powerlessness eventually, inevitably intersects with the loving power of our merciful God, who desires so much more for us than we would settle for. And then we really do let God’s mercy come to us. Because it was always there in the first place; never withheld. We had just to let it come to us, had to be open to it, had to be in the place where we could receive it and come to the point where we could acknowledge our need for it and our gratitude for receiving it. And when we at last arrive there, and that mercy comes to us, how overwhelmed we can be, how transformed, how loved we can feel, how cared for. God’s mercy is always there, we have just to let it come to us.
“Let your mercy come to me, O Lord.”
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