Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: preaching

  • Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    Petty jealousy is a pernicious thing. Paul experienced it, directed against him by those Jews who were jealous of Paul’s effective preaching and suspicious of the Christian Way. In their fear and jealousy, they appeal to Gallio, a Roman official, complaining that Paul stirred up the people to worship God contrary to the law. By this they did not mean that Paul and the others were worshipping in a way they didn’t like – although that was certainly true. What they were trying to do was get Paul and the others arrested for worshipping God at all, in violation of Roman law.

    The Romans were a pagan people, with their own gods, and it was required that all citizens worshipped these gods and not the God of Israel or certainly Jesus Christ. Sometimes this was not enforced so rigorously, as was the case with Gallio. So those troublemakers among the Jews were guilty of it too. But these troublemakers were trying to get Gallio to enforce it against Paul and his followers, and not against themselves of course. Gallio sees through their very thinly veiled patriotism and throws them all out, turning a blind eye as they beat a synagogue official who was a supporter of Paul.

    What a horrible mess, isn’t it? Neither those troublemakers nor Gallio were at all virtuous. The troublemakers weren’t so much concerned about the laws of the land as they were quibbling about following Jesus. And Gallio wasn’t so concerned about defending the Christians as much as he wanted them all to go away and leave him alone. Through it all, Paul was able to see the fulfillment of God’s promise in the vision he had: “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you.” And that’s exactly what Paul did.

    It is up to us to witness to our faith courageously too. We might face opposition, and even petty jealousy. But the message is too important to bury for fear of what might happen. We must trust that the Lord will preserve us too, in the same way he guarded Paul in his efforts to proclaim the Gospel.

  • Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fourth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    “Don’t shoot the messenger!” That’s our colloquial way of saying that the words we speak to someone come from someone else; they are not our ideas. Most of us have probably said that to someone at some time.

    But that doesn’t work for we who are followers of Christ. Yes, we are messengers. The Greek word for messenger is “angeloi” from which we get our English word, “angel.” Angels are messengers sent by God to communicate something specific to humankind. We’ve seen the archangel Gabriel herald the coming of Christ to a young woman named Mary. A whole host of angels heralded the birth of the Savior to shepherds working in the fields. The letter to the Hebrews tells us not to neglect hospitality, for we may be entertaining angels. And Jesus tells us today, “whoever receives the one I send
    receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”

    We are all sent, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be messengers. We have received the Gospel and have been schooled in it through our participation in the Mass and our education in faith. We are not angels, because angels are a different species of creation than humankind, but we are in a sense angeloi, we are messengers who are sent by God to bring the Good News, the Gospel, to all those who need to hear it. And that would be every person God puts in our lives or in our path. We have to preach it every day, maybe not by standing on a soapbox, but definitely by our living of the message ourselves.

    Just as St. Paul courageously preached the truth in the synagogue in today’s first reading, we have to be ready to courageously share our faith in whatever way God calls us, wherever God puts us, to whoever God gives us. The Psalmist has it right today, as always, when he says, “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!” Whether we have trained voices or not, we must always sing the praises of God who gives us everything we have and everything we could ever hope for. Singing those praises with our lives makes our message every bit as beautiful as the choirs of angels sang on that great first Christmas.

    May our guardian angels show us the way to be angeloi for the glory of God!

  • Third Sunday of Easter

    Third Sunday of Easter

    Today’s readings

    “You are witnesses of these things.”

    That is what Jesus tells the disciples at the close of today’s Gospel reading. He is almost ready to ascend to the Father, and so he takes care to make sure that the disciples are ready for the mission. They are the ones who will have to testify to the death and resurrection of Christ, and to preach forgiveness of sins in his name to every person on earth.

    And we can see that the disciples did indeed take up this mission. In the first reading from Acts, Peter speaks to the Jews and tells them what Christ suffered for all of us. He emphatically urges them to repent and to believe in the Gospel. In the second reading, John exhorts believers to follow the commandments and live the Gospel if they would testify to the love of God. You can’t say that you love God but not follow the commandments – that’s ridiculous – and so John exhorts all his hearers to become people of integrity and to witness with their lives.

    “You are witnesses of these things.”

    And so we are the hearers of the message now. We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, are witnesses of these things. We may not have seen the events unfold in front of us, but we have seen them in the Liturgy, and we believe that our celebration of the Liturgy is not some simple re-enactment of the events of our salvation, but in a very real sense is a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ in our own day.

    We are the witnesses now. And people have to see us preaching with the way that we live our lives. We have to preach it by going to Mass faithfully, by keeping the commandments, by being people of integrity and fairness at our jobs or in our schools, by reaching out to those who are poor, needy and marginalized, by giving ourselves to others whenever, wherever, and however we can.

    We are witnesses of these things. The question is, will others witness Christ in us?

  • Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Sixteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today's readings

    The job of a prophet is not an easy one.  And we should all know, because we are all in some ways the prophetic seeds the Lord is sowing in the world.  We might fall on good soil, or amongst rocks or thorns, but wherever we are, we are expected to bear fruit.  We are called upon to preach the Word in our actions and sometimes our words, no matter how difficult a job it can sometimes be.

    The reading about the call of the prophet Jeremiah that we have in our first reading today was the first reading at my Deaconate ordination.  I picked it myself.  But like a lot of deacons at their ordinations, I cleverly didn’t pick the verses that follow in Jeremiah’s account, detailing all the bad news he would be called upon to preach to the people of Israel.  Sometimes what we prophets have to say is not politically correct, or suitable for polite company.  We might bear good news, but more than likely we’ll bear bad news, or at least warnings of bad news.  And sometimes that’s just hard for people to hear.

    But whatever we have to say, and wherever our prophetic actions or words take us, the Lord makes it clear to Jeremiah – and us! – today that we will never be delivering that news alone:

    To whomever I send you, you shall go;
    whatever I command you, you shall speak.
    Have no fear before them,
    because I am with you to deliver you, says the LORD.

    So in our offering today, maybe we can renew our prophetic promise to God.  We can once again give him our lives and promise to follow where he takes us.  And whatever soil we land on, may we all bear “a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.”

  • Wednesday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today's readings

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    When I read St. Paul’s message to Timothy in our first reading last night, I resonated with the spirit of his message.  St. Paul reminds Timothy of his calling and of the authority that was given him when St. Paul laid hands on him.  The life that Timothy was called to lead as a consequence of that anointing was one that would be challenging, but blessed.  He would have to bear his share of hardship for the Gospel, but St. Paul tells him never to be ashamed of it.  Whatever is to befall them, St. Paul’s confidence is in the Lord: “For I know him in whom I have believed,” he says, “and I am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.”

    That got me thinking about my own ordination as a priest, which was two years ago yesterday.  I clearly remember the words that Bishop Imesch spoke when he handed me the chalice and paten that I use for Mass to this day.  He said, “Receive the oblation of the holy people, to be offered to God.  Understand what you do, imitate what you celebrate, and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”  I think those very words would be words that St. Paul would understand.  “Understand what you do” seems easy enough, until it gets to the second instruction: “imitate what you celebrate.”  What I celebrate here is a sacrificial moment, and if I am to imitate that, then my life must be basically sacrificial.  That’s what is meant by the third instruction in what the bishop said to me: “and conform your life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.”

    Sometimes it’s hard for all of us to know that whatever our call may be, it will involve sacrifices.  Every single vocation necessarily requires that, because nothing authentic can ever be just about us.  We have to lay down our lives in love every single day because that’s what Jesus did for us.  Some days, as I tell the couples getting married here when I preach the homily for them, that may be hard work.  But it is always our hope that every day, whether it’s easy or difficult, it will be the greatest joy of our lives.  That’s why St. Paul tells Timothy that he should not be ashamed of his testimony to the Lord.  That’s why the bishop told me to conform my life to the mystery of the Lord’s cross.  Because none of us will ever regret anything we’ve sacrificed for love.

     

  • The Solemnity of Pentecost

    The Solemnity of Pentecost

    Today's readings [display_podcast]

    tongues-of-fireIn a few moments we will stand together and pray these beautiful words:

    We believe in the Holy Spirit,
    the Lord, the giver of life,
    who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
    With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified.
    He has spoken through the Prophets.

    And we pray those words so often, that they are probably something of second nature to us.  They may even pass right out of our lips without us ever stopping to think about what it really means to believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.  And that’s too bad, because people through the ages have literally suffered and died for these words.  The writing of them into our Profession of Faith was not done without some heated debate and many tears.  These words about the Holy Spirit unfortunately were partly the cause of the split between the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox.  And so as we pray them, we need to take special note of them, knowing that it is never the intent of the Holy Spirit that we remain divided and when we pray these words we must remember our brothers and sisters who gave of themselves so that we might have faith.

    So, what does it mean to believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life?  The Holy Spirit informs our faith and guides our life, so our belief in that Spirit ought to be evident, it should look like something.  If we really, truly believe in the Holy Spirit, our lives should be a certain way, and I think our readings today give us some attributes of the Spirit-led life.

    In our first reading, the disciples receive the Holy Spirit in a very public setting.  They were all in one place together, and the Spirit descended upon them with a strong, driving wind and tongues of fire.  This Holy Spirit enabled them to proclaim the Good News in the various tongues of the then-known world.  Every foreign person in Rome was able to hear the Word in his or her own language.  Now being a person who has very little facility for foreign languages, this would be my dream gift of the Spirit!  I know un pocito of Spanish, and most days struggle a bit with English!  But here the disciples are able to speak in all the languages of the world, enabling the Word to be heard by people of every nation.

    Whether language is our gift or not, we too are filled with the Spirit and sent forth to preach to all nations.  That the Word was heard by people of every nation in their own tongue was evidence of the fact that Jesus was quite serious when he commanded the apostles to go forth and make disciples of all nations.  God really does want the Word to be known by every person everywhere, and he expects us to preach it.  Maybe we will be sent off in mission to speak to people in their own language.  Or maybe we’ll have to put the Word out there in a way that people in our own time and place can understand.  We’re in a culture that very rarely if ever speaks the word of God, and it’s evident that so many people have lost the ability to relate to God.  It’s up to us to make the Gospel known to them by preaching it with our lives.  As St. Francis said, “Preach the Gospel always.  If necessary, use words.”  People will come to know the Gospel as they see us living it.  Love is a universal language.  Joy is evidence of the presence of God.  People can relate to love and joy and peace and grace and kindness and compassion.  All we have to do is to live that way, and people will come to know the Lord.  The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to preach the Word to people of every nation and tongue.

    In the second reading, St. Paul preaches to the Corinthians that people of the Spirit can do everything.  “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit;” he says, “there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.”  Now, I admit, some days we all get out of bed thinking there’s no way we can do anything really good.  Some days just breathing seems to be a major accomplishment.  So the ability to do everything is something that for most of us – me included! – seems so far out of our grasp.

    But we don’t have to be the one person who does everything.  We are all united in the Spirit, and together we can do everything.  We all have some gifts.  We have celebrated those gifts this year as our parish has focused on stewardship as our theme.  And as St. Paul tells us, the gifts of the Spirit are never given just for us.  We are meant to use them for the good of others and the glory of God:  “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit.”  The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to do everything, when we share the gifts we have been given in concert with all of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

    And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus forgives his apostles and calls on them to forgive others.  Now we’re getting to the end of the Gospel of John, a Gospel that has been a kind of mirror of the book of Genesis.  Both the book of Genesis and the Gospel of John begin with the words, “In the beginning…”  And that’s not an accident.  John is doing that for the very specific reason of showing us how God is re-creating the world.  Just as the book of Genesis showed the first creation of the world, so the Gospel shows us the re-creation of the world in Christ.  If the Gospels show us anything, they show us how we need to be re-created.

    The apostles were gathered on that first day of the week, the day of creation, but also the day of the Resurrection.  They are afraid, the Gospel says today, “for fear of the Jews.”  They knew that what happened to Jesus could certainly happen to them.  But there’s more to it than that.  Jesus has risen now, and they know that.  Gathered together, they are a group ashamed of the way they treated Christ on his last day.  They let him down by denying him and running away.  They had sinned, and their sin filled them with shame and fear.  The were hiding behind locked doors.  They needed to be re-created.

    They needed to be re-created just as much as all of us need to be re-created when we sin.  When we treat others poorly, or withhold compassion, or don’t forgive, or let our relationships deteriorate into sin, when we spend too much time on the internet looking at the wrong things, or cheat on a business deal or in school, when we waste the gifts of the earth or any of many other ways we can go wrong, when we do any of these things, we need to be re-created.  We too can find ourselves behind locked doors, afraid of what will happen to us and ashamed of the way we have treated God, ourselves, and others.  We need to be re-created almost every day, don’t we?

    But just as Jesus could break through the locked doors that kept the apostles cooped up, so he can break through our own locked doors.  And what he said to them then is what he says to us now:  “Peace be with you.”  That isn’t a fluffy, kumbaya kind of peace, but a peace that re-creates us from the inside out.  It’s a peace that wipes away our sins and gives us a second chance. 
    Or even a third or fourth or nine thousandth chance.  “Peace be with you.”  We receive this same kind of peace in Confession when the priest says to us in the prayer of absolution: “Through the ministry of the Church, may God give you pardon and peace…” 

    But having been forgiven, the apostles then and us now are told that that peace is something that has to be spread around.  We forgiven, re-created children of God must now reach out to others and invite them to experience that same peace.  “Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them,” Jesus says, “and whose sins you retain are retained.”  The cost of retaining any sin is disastrous.  In terms of the Church, the only sins that are really retained are those that are unconfessed and unrepented.  There is no peace possible when that happens.  But we can sinfully retain others’ sins when we refuse to forgive them, when we bind them up with stereotyping, discrimination and hate.  This is not the way that has been laid out for us.  This is not the example we have received.  We have received peace, and we are commanded to give peace in return.  We must be a people who forgive because we are a people who have been forgiven and at a great cost.  The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to be forgiven and to forgive.

    And so, we who believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, are a people who are enabled to proclaim the Word to every person in our words and deeds, a people who can do everything as we use our gifts in communion with our brothers and sisters, a people who can forgive as we have been forgiven.  We could never do any of this on our own, of course.  It takes the Holy Spirit alive in us and in our world to make all things new.  And so every day we pray with the Psalmist: “Lord, send out your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth.”