Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: mercy

  • The Second Sunday of Advent

    The Second Sunday of Advent

    Today’s readings

    This fall, it was a real pain trying to get in and out of my driveway at the rectory, let alone into our parking lot here at church. The village had torn up the streets in order to rebuild them. It was a huge inconvenience then, but the streets are nice to travel on right now. My dad used to say that there are tearer-uppers and fixer-uppers when it comes to road construction, and apparently there are ten times as many tearer-uppers as there are fixer-uppers. Now, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but when you’re sitting in a traffic jam, it starts to make real sense!

    We live in this area where there are just two seasons: winter and road construction, and so when we hear the prophet Baruch say “God has commanded that every lofty mountain be made low, and that the age-old depths and gorges be filled to level ground, that Israel may advance secure in the glory of God,” well, we may just cringe a little bit. But I think we can sure relate to the experience.

    At the time of the Babylonian empire, whenever the monarch traveled workers would precede him leveling the ground and filling in ditches to make the way smooth for his chariots. So that explains Baruch’s prophecy, and also the prophecy of Isaiah that St. Luke quotes in today’s gospel: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” And it’s easy for us to extrapolate that in order to prepare the way for our monarch, Jesus Christ our king, we would want the way to be smooth and pristine too.

    But for us, the roadwork isn’t so much the topography of the countryside as it is the topography of our spiritual lives. We all have rough spots, crooked ways and assorted obstacles on our spiritual paths. Our intentions to be friends with God may be good, but often we have lost our way or been stuck in a kind of spiritual traffic-jam. Our goal is communion with our friend, Jesus Christ. Our best intentions are to get there. Our frustration is that often we are derailed and never seem to reach the goal. But the promise is that God will indeed bring that good work to fulfillment, as St. Paul says in today’s second reading, and we will then rejoice in our salvation with all God’s holy ones.

    But all of that presupposes that we are clear about the fact that we need a Savior. We need God’s mercy. Wherever we are on the journey to Christ, whatever the obstacles we face, God promises to make it right through Jesus Christ – if we will let him. We may be facing the valley of hurts or resentments. God will fill in that valley. Perhaps we are up against a mountain of sinful behavior or shame. God will level that mountain. We may be lost on the winding roads of procrastination or apathy. God will straighten out that way. We may be riding along on the rough and bumpy ways of poor choices, sinful relationships and patterns of sin. God will make all those ways smooth. And all flesh – every one of us, brothers and sisters – we will all see the salvation of God. That’s a promise. God will forgive us all of our sins. But we have to be open to the experience.

    And so, in the spirit of encouraging that openness, I want to make a very personal invitation. If you find that you have quite a bit of unfinished road construction to do in your spiritual life, I invite you to take care of it this Advent. The Sacrament of Penance is where we Catholics level those mountains, straighten those winding roads, and fill in the potholes that have derailed us along the way. And we have plenty of opportunities to do that. This Thursday, we will have our Advent Reconciliation Service, with a number of priests available to hear your confession. We also have First Reconciliation on Saturday, and invite all the parents and families of our second graders to go to confession along with their children. And each Saturday we have confessions from 3:45 to 4:30. So you have many opportunities to be open to the “baptism of repentance” that John the Baptist was preaching, and to make the way straight once again for the coming of the Lord in your own life.

    Now, having said that, I fully understand that there are many of you here who have not been to confession in many years. I get it. I myself was away from the sacrament for years before God worked on me and brought me back. So here is Father Pat’s “Consumer’s Guide to the Sacrament of Penance:” If you have been away a long time, it will be hard to go back, but take that leap of faith anyway. Be honest with the priest and tell him that it’s been years. Even tell him if you’re not sure how to make a confession. If he doesn’t welcome you back warmly and help you to make a good confession, you have my permission to get up and leave and find a priest who will. Because it’s my job to help you make a good confession. And it’s a privilege and a responsibility that I take very seriously. Nothing must stand in the way of you receiving God’s mercy and grace and forgiveness, because it is a gift too precious to miss.

    That’s what Advent is about. The coming of Christ in our world isn’t just something that happened two thousand years ago. Advent means that Christ is coming into our world today, and every day, if we would just open our hearts and smooth out a place for him. God becomes incarnate in our world every time someone turns back to him and repents of his or her sin. God’s love comes to birth every time we accept the gift of forgiveness and the unfathomable grace of the Eucharist. Advent means that Christ is Emmanuel, God-with-us NOW. Advent means that the salvation and forgiveness that God promises us is available to us NOW.

    The truth is, brothers and sisters in Christ, we come to this holy place to this sacred Liturgy, each of us at different places in the spiritual road. Our goal – all of us – is to advance on that road, tackling the obstacles that face us, and defeating our sin by the power of God’s forgiveness and mercy. There may only be one unforgivable sin: the sin of thinking that we don’t need a Savior. When we rationalize that we’re basically good people and we’re okay and that there is nothing wrong with our lives or our relationships, then we’re lost. It’s not that God doesn’t want to forgive us this sin, it’s more that we refuse to have it forgiven. If Advent teaches us anything, it’s got to be that we all need that baptism of repentance that John the Baptist preached, that we all need to prepare the way of the Lord in our hearts, making straight the paths for his return to us.

    On Tuesday, we begin the Holy Year of Mercy. What better way to begin than by experiencing God’s mercy in the Sacrament of Penance? The Psalmist sings today that “The Lord has done great things for us; we are filled with joy.” I pray that you all find that out in the Sacrament of Penance this Advent season.

  • Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time: Merciful Like the Father

    Friday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time: Merciful Like the Father

    Today’s readings

    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. Because we, like the Pharisees, might be tempted to make all sorts of sacrifices. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it 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 here’s where Jesus is making his point: 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. All our striving, all our hard work, none of that means anything if we don’t become more like God himself; our God who is mercy and love and grace at his core.

    Pope Francis has called for a special Year of Mercy to begin this December and the theme for it is “Merciful Like the Father.” That’s where we have to put our intentions and effort. We have to become more merciful in every moment: giving a break to the guy who just cut us off in traffic; being more patient with a six-year-old who has just asked the same question ten different ways, ten separate times; being loving enough to check in on an elderly relative whose disabilities have made him or her a bit cranky; and forgiving the one who has hurt us to our core. None of these things is easy to do, especially that last one. So we look to the one who is mercy itself to teach us how to do it; we ask him to make us more merciful like him.

    Because 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.

  • The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    The Most Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Today’s readings

    Yesterday I had a bad flare-up of plantar’s fasciitis, and had to go to the doctor. I was in pain a lot of the day, and it just got exhausting. In the evening, I was to have dinner with one of my priest friends, and when he found out how I was feeling, he had dinner for me at his rectory so we could relax and not have to walk around a lot. It was nice to be taken care of. I think that is true whenever we’re not feeling well: when someone takes care of us, it seems to heal us deep inside.

    And that’s what today’s feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus is all about. We are all broken and hurting and in pain, spiritually. We might ignore it, or offer it up, or worst of all, might try to mask it with alcohol or other addictions. But none of that really heals us. The only thing that really heals is the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

    We don’t trust God as much as we should; we don’t let God love us as much as we should. We want to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, take care of number one all by ourselves. Pope Francis says that God never gets tired of showing us mercy, it’s we who get tired of asking. And that’s so wrong. We weren’t made for that. We were made to be cared for and to be loved so that we can take care of others and love them in the name of Christ.

    God’s love is awesome. It doesn’t just cover our sins, it wipes them out, obliterates them so that they aren’t who we are any more. In the Sacred Heart of Jesus, we find a love that is so pure and so powerful that it cannot be overshadowed by any kind of darkness, nor be snuffed out even by the grave.

    But we absolutely have to let him love us, or we will miss it every time.

  • Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Holy Thursday: Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper

    Today’s readings

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    The Church sees this evening’s Mass as the beginning of a three-day Liturgy that embodies our Lord’s passion, death and resurrection. These three days are the Paschal Mystery, in which we see our Lord’s love and Divine Mercy poured out freely on sinners – which is to say, of course, on you and me. No one in this church has merited this Divine Mercy; it is freely given, and if we have prepared ourselves properly this Lent, freely received.

    At the beginning of every Liturgy there is an introit or entrance antiphon. It’s a brief scriptural verse that provides the mindset, if you will, that the Church wants us to have as we pray that Liturgy. For these three days, the Church gives us an adaptation of the fourteenth verse of the sixth book of Saint Paul’s letter to the Galatians:

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

    The Church wants us, appropriately enough, to focus on our Lord who is, after all, the whole reason we’re here tonight, and for the rest of these days. More specifically, the Church wants us to reflect during this most holy three-day liturgy on our Lord’s Cross. And quite honestly, that’s kind of inconvenient. It’s hard to gather people together to celebrate the Cross – it’s not pretty and it doesn’t portray the glitzy kind of happy message that beckons Christians to church.

    It’s always been that way. In the early days of Christianity, they knew the cross all too well. They saw it on almost a daily basis. What had been intended to provide an ignominious and painful death to the worst criminal offenders soon enough became the way to execute all those who were politically inconvenient, most especially Christians who refused to take up the worship of pagan gods which was required by the government of the day.

    But even now, quite honestly, who wants to look at the cross? We don’t like pain or grief or anything like that. We take a pill for every malady, even braving a horrifying list of side-effects. To those who have experienced the death of a loved one, we offer meaningless platitudes like “everything happens for a reason,” and then we expect them back at work in no more than three to five days, functioning and behaving just as they did before. We anesthetize ourselves with drink, or drugs, or hours in front of the television or computer, or immersing ourselves in work, so that we don’t have to confront the difficulties in our relationships, or family lives, or whatever else might be on our plates. So for us, reflecting on the cross is just too painful, and glorying in the cross – well, that’s just ridiculous.

    But we know the Truth: we know that it is only by our Lord’s Cross that we have won salvation; we know that we too have been called to take up our own crosses and follow our Lord; we know that we have been given an example and that we need to follow it – we know that if we don’t glory in the Cross, we can never have a resurrection. And so during these three days, I’d like to suggest some ways that we can reflect on the Cross and glory in it, that we might come at last to Easter glory.

    Today we see in the Cross our call to service. But by service, I don’t mean the light and fluffy things we see as service – it’s not a quick service project, or writing a check to do our little part of handling a need. Those things are nice, but they don’t really measure up to the example our Lord gives us today. Our Lord’s service was one of kenosis – the Greek word for “emptiness.” Our Lord emptied himself of his own will so that he could completely embody the Father’s will. He did that to save us from our sins. So the service our Lord calls us to today is one of emptying our own will out so that we can be filled by God’s will.

    Jesus emptied himself of his will to be served by serving in the most menial of ways. At the banquet, it was not the host who washed the hot, dirty and tired feet of the guests – it was instead the task for a servant or slave. But because none of those at the Last Supper thought himself low enough to take on that task, our Lord did it, and one wonders if Peter’s reluctance to have his own feet washed was because he didn’t want our Lord to stoop down and serve him, or if it was because he knew it meant that he had to do the same thing. How willing are we to empty ourselves of our entitlement and instead to serve the poor and needy among us?

    Jesus emptied himself of his will by giving his body and blood to be our Eucharist – our reason for thanksgiving – and to sustain us on the journey to eternal life. He didn’t come just to give us directions to heaven. He came to bring us there, nourishing us along the way, helping us to get up when we’ve fallen, giving us food for body and spirit. He knew that it was only his Body and Blood that would overcome our profane human nature, that would give us enough a share in his Divine nature, that we could find our way to heaven. How willing are we to empty ourselves out, completely giving ourselves for others?

    Today the Cross we glory in is one of service – and it’s a service that is a complete giving of self for another. It’s love beyond words. It’s mercy and grace given with wild abandon. It’s an emptying out of self-will so that God’s will can be accomplished now and in the life to come. That Cross can be heavy and inconvenient and even repulsive at times. But it’s the only way to heaven.

    We should glory in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ,
    in whom is our salvation, life and resurrection,
    through whom we are saved and delivered.

  • The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had sort of a bad feeling when I heard this Gospel reading. I mean, here Simon’s mother-in-law is sick with fever, and the minute she’s cured, they have her up waiting on them. But I love it when a piece of Scripture irritates me, because it means I probably just need to roll up my sleeves and dig into it a bit to see what the Lord wants me to learn. And this reading is no exception!

    The first thing we ought to remember here is that when Scripture tells us about someone who is healed, or even raised from the dead, we are not getting the story just because the author wants us to be edified by the healing. It’s not just to get us saying “well, how nice for them!” What we are supposed to be seeing in the healing is the healing of ourselves.

    And that brings us to the second thing we ought to remember. The story is about us, because all of us, to one degree or another, have some kind of spiritual illness. If that were not true, we would never have needed Jesus. The Father would never have had to expose his Son to ridicule, torture and death. But he did send his Son: to heal us of our sins, fix our brokenness, and make us more the people he created us to be.

    And then there’s a third thing we need to remember: God’s gifts are never for us only. Whenever he gives us grace, it’s grace for us, but it’s grace that we are called to share with others. When we have been forgiven, we’re not supposed to just sit and think about how wonderful we’ve become. We are supposed to learn from our forgiveness how to forgive others. When we’ve been healed, we are supposed to go out and help make others whole. And that’s why Simon’s mother-in-law is up waiting on them: she has been made whole and in gratitude for her healing, she is extending God’s mercy to others. Now I get it and I don’t feel so irritated by this Gospel reading!

    This week we’re talking about the Diocesan Catholic Ministries Annual Appeal. The theme for the appeal is, exactly, Extending God’s Mercy. Having been made whole time and again through God’s grace present in the sacraments, we are called upon to help extend God’s mercy to those in need. Our diocese does this through Catholic Charities, which provides service to those who need to know God loves them. These efforts help provide almost 137,000 nights of shelter and housing to the homeless as well as countless meals provided through the Shepherd’s Table soup kitchen to the hungry. The diocese extends God’s mercy by teaching the faith at 48 Catholic elementary schools and 7 high schools. There’s a lot more, and I know that you’ve received the mailing, and if not, the information is in today’s bulletin.

    Next week, we’ll be asked to make a commitment to the Appeal if we have not already done so. I absolutely promise not to take you through the process of “put your name on line one (pause), your address on the next line (pause)…” I know you know how to do that. But I do ask that you prayerfully consider a pledge to the Appeal, because so many people in need depend on what we do. If God’s mercy is to be known in the world, we may be the ones who make that happen. I support the appeal, and I hope that you will too.

  • Advent Penance Service

    Advent Penance Service

    Today’s readings: from the First Sunday of Advent

    The prophet Isaiah has a way with words, to say the least. The way that he expresses God’s word is almost irresistible. The first reading today is one that has really taken hold of me over the years. Back when I was in my first year of seminary, I came home for Christmas break on the same day our parish was having its penance service, and I went. I was asked to read the first reading, and it was this same reading. It so completely expressed the way I felt about my own sins and my desire to have God meet me doing right, that I thought the prophet was speaking directly to me.

    Of course, he is; he’s speaking directly to all of us, and I hope you too find inspiration in his message. I think he expresses the frustration of us when we try to take on our sinfulness and straighten up our act, all by ourselves. That’s an overwhelming proposition, and really we can’t do it. And so when we try and fail, and try again and fail again, and so on, maybe we might pray those same words of Isaiah: “Why do you let us wander, O LORD, from your ways, and harden our hearts so that we fear you not?” Certainly something can be done, can’t it, so that we aren’t always wandering off the path to life?

    Can’t God just “rend the heavens and come down” – kind of like a parent descending the steps to where the children are misbehaving in the basement? Wouldn’t it be nice if he would even take away our ability to sin, and empower us only to live for God? But that would make us less than what we were created to be, would make us less than human, less than children of God.

    And so we have to continue to take on the struggle, and Isaiah’s reading shows us how to do that. The first thing we have to do is to acknowledge our sins. That’s the word that the priest uses in the Roman Missal at the beginning of Mass: “Brothers and Sisters, let us acknowledge our sins…” And I think that is a very good word to use, because it’s not like God hasn’t noticed our sins, and it’s not like we don’t know we’re sinning. Everyone knows what’s going on. But this can’t be like an Irish family squabble where everyone knows what’s going on but nobody says it out loud (I can say that because I’m Irish); we have to acknowledge our sinfulness so that our Lord may heal us.

    The second thing Isaiah does is to acknowledge our complete inability to heal ourselves or doing something good while we are in sin. “Behold, you are angry, and we are sinful; all of us have become like unclean people, all our good deeds are like polluted rags; we have all withered like leaves, and our guilt carries us away like the wind.” It’s pretty harsh stuff there, but it’s also objectively true. Sin does that kind of thing to us, and guilt carries us away to further guilt like the wind scatters the leaves of the autumn. Isaiah’s prayer here is a very good act of contrition.

    But the final and most important thing that Isaiah does for us in this reading is to acknowledge God’s mercy: “Yet, O LORD, you are our father; we are the clay and you the potter: we are all the work of your hands.” God is that merciful Father who created us out of nothing – we are the work of his hands, and in his hands, we are sustained in being. He didn’t create us for death and sin and destruction. He created us for life and eternity. And this is the point that we often forget when we are busy about the pain of our sins. We sometimes forget that there isn’t a place our sins can take us that is beyond the grasp of God’s love and mercy, unless we let it. So acknowledging God’s mercy is crucial in the process of reconciliation.

    And so we all come here on this Advent night, aware of the fact that we need to be here. The cold weather and earlier darkness perhaps makes us feel the pain of our sins so much more. So we come here to acknowledge our sins, to acknowledge our own inability to heal ourselves, and to acknowledge God’s love and mercy that will do just that: grant us healing and grace and eternity and the light of endless day. On this Advent night, as we yearn for the nearness of our God, there is no better place to be than in the presence of his love and mercy.

    That presence, of course, is why God gave us his only begotten Son in the first place.

  • The Second Sunday of Advent: Be Reconciled

    The Second Sunday of Advent: Be Reconciled

    Today’s readings

    I don’t know about you, but this week, when I heard that New York was going to announce whether another police officer was indicted or not for the death of a suspect, I pretty much held my breath. After seeing all that has been going on in Ferguson, Missouri, I just feared the worst. And none of it is good. Crime is a problem, and so is racism; all of this comes about as a byproduct of the reign of sin in the world.

    And so as we enter into Advent this year, I think we need it more than ever. We need Jesus to come and put an end to all our foolishness, to fix all our brokenness, and heal all our sin and shame. I am guessing the followers of Saint John the Baptist felt the same way. They dealt with all the same stuff that we do: corruption in government, poverty, racism, and crime – none of this is new to our day and age. And so they did what I think has to be a model for all of us today: they came to John, acknowledged their sins, and accepted the baptism of repentance.

    They came to John, because at that point, Jesus wasn’t in full swing with his ministry, and they were seeking something new and something good. We then, might come to Jesus in the same way, come to the Church, seeking something good and something new. And then, like them, we have to acknowledge our sins – personal sins and those that we participate in as a society. And then we have to accept the process of repentance. We can’t keep sinning; we have to repent, literally be sorry for our sins and turn away from them, as we turn back to God. That’s an important Advent message for every time and place.

    It genuinely strikes me that, if we’re ever going to get past the events at Ferguson or New York, or if we’re ever going to finally put an end to whatever sadness this world brings us, we have to begin that by putting an end to the wrong that we have done. That’s why reconciliation is so important. What each of us does – right or wrong – affects the rest of us. The grace we put forward when we follow God’s will blesses others. But the sin we set in motion when we turn away from God saddens the whole Body of Christ. We are one in the Body of Christ, and if we are going to keep the body healthy, then each of us has to attend to ourselves.

    So today, I am going to ask you to go to confession before Christmas. I don’t do that because I think you’re all horrible people or anything like that. I do that because I know that we all – including me – have failed to be a blessing of faith, hope and love to ourselves and others at some point, I know that so many people struggle with persistent sins, little thorns in the flesh, day in and day out. And God never meant it to be that way. He wants you to experience his love and mercy and forgiveness and healing, and you get that most perfectly in the Sacrament of Penance.

    There was a time in my life that I didn’t go to confession for a long time. I had been raised at a time in the Church when that sacrament was downplayed. It came about from a really flawed idea of the sacrament and the human person. But the Church has always taught that in the struggle to live for God and be a good person, we will encounter pitfalls along the way. We’ll fail in many ways, and we will need forgiveness and the grace to get back up and move forward. That’s what the Sacrament of Penance is for!

    One day, I finally realized that I needed that grace and I returned to the sacrament. The priest welcomed me back, did not pass judgment, and helped me to make a good confession. It was an extremely healing experience for me, and now I make it my business to go to the sacrament as frequently as I can, because I need that healing and mercy and grace. And you do too. So please don’t leave those wonderful gifts unwrapped under the tree. Go to Confession and find out just how much God loves you.

    When you do find that out, you’ll be better able to help the rest of the Body of Christ to be the best it can be. When your relationship is right with God, you will help the people around you know God’s love for them too. That kind of grace bursts forth to others all the time.

    This year, we have plenty of opportunities to receive the Sacrament of Penance. Those of you who have a second grader receiving the sacrament for the first time can also receive the sacrament when they do, next Saturday. Then our parish reconciliation service is Tuesday, December 16th at 7pm. Finally, on the weekend just before Christmas, on Saturday the 20th, we will have four priests here from 4:00 to 5:00 or until all are heard. We will also hear confessions after all of the Masses on Sunday the 21st. And if none of those fit in your schedule, or if you would prefer to go to another parish, we will be publishing the schedules for other parishes in the bulletin.

    If you have been away from the sacrament for a very long time, I want you to come this Advent. Tell the priest you have been away for a while, and expect that he will help you to make a good confession. All you have to do is to acknowledge your sins and then leave them behind, so that Christmas can be that much more beautiful for you and everyone around you. Don’t miss that gift this year: be reconciled.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Have you ever seen a fig tree? I haven’t. But I can tell you I’d be pretty frustrated if I had cared for a fig tree for three years and never saw one bit of fruit. I think we could all understand the man wanting his gardener to cut the tree down and give the good soil to some other plant. Having nourished the plant and watered it and put in hours pruning it and doing all the things it takes to care for a tree, nothing has come of it. Time to get rid of it and move on.

    And so, one could certainly understand if God would turn out to be just like that frustrated man. Having cared for, fed, nurtured, guided and corrected us sinners, when we don’t bear fruit, certainly in his frustration, God would be justified in blotting us out and never giving us a second thought.

    But God is not the frustrated man in the parable, is he? No, God is the gardener, the one who has really done all the work of nurturing, and he is amazingly patient. The gardener says of the tree, “leave it for this year also, and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it; it may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down.” And so God is with all of us. God gives us another chance, even when we’ve had so many chances before, even when it seems like we just aren’t worth the trouble. But God is patient.

    And we are better than fig trees. We know enough to respond to the nurturing of our God. Our prayer today leads us to reflect on those ways in which we have borne fruit, and those times that we have been fruitless. We are being cultivated and fertilized yet again at this Mass, so may we be fruitful in the days and years to come.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Simon the Pharisee had 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 minutiae of the Law so as to validate his opinion that Jesus was a charlatan. He judged the woman to be a sinner, and reckoned Jesus guilty of sin by association. But Jesus is about forgiveness. He didn’t care about the woman’s past; he just knew 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 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.

  • Saturday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the First Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    In today’s Gospel, we have the continued Epiphany of Jesus manifested as one who identifies with sinners.  That is not, of course, to say that he was a sinner; quite the contrary, because we know that Jesus was like us in all things but sin.  But today we see that he is certainly concerned with calling sinners to the Kingdom, and concerned enough that he will be known to be in their company.  He eats with them, talks with them, walks with them.

    This of course, riles the Pharisees.  And, to be fair, for good reason; Jewish law taught that sinners were to be shunned; they were cast out of the community.  But Jesus has come to say that he hates the sin but loves the sinner; that nothing in us is beyond the power of God to redeem.  Nothing that we have done can put us so far away from God that we are beyond God’s reach.  And God does reach out to us, in tangible ways, in sacramental ways, in the person of Jesus and through the ministry of the Church.

    Sin is a terrible thing.  It’s often cyclical.  Because not only does the judgment of the Pharisees – and others – make sinners feel unworthy; but also does the guilt that comes from inside the sinner.   The more one sins, the less worthy one often feels of God’s love, and so the more does that person turn away from God, and then they sin more, feel less worthy, turn away again, and so on, and so on, and so on.

    But Jesus won’t have any of that – he has come to put an end to that cycle once and for all.  Jesus is the One who walks into the midst of sinners, sits down with them and has a meal.  He is the divine physician healing our souls, and those who do not sin do not need his ministry.  But we sinners do, so thanks be to God for the manifestation of Jesus as one who came to dine with sinners.