Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: righteousness

  • Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Saturday after Ash Wednesday

    Today’s readings

    “Those who are healthy do not need a physician, but the sick do.”

    A few months ago, I had a reaction to my cholesterol meds: hives, itching, severe joint pain. At first it was just the hives and I dismissed it, thinking it was a bug bite. But they quickly spread. I was thinking if it didn’t get better I’d call the doctor the next day. But then I realized I had had this reaction before, and I knew it wasn’t going to go away on its own. I was sick, and I needed a physician. How often, though, do we just dismiss the illnesses we have and hope for the best?

    It’s important that we learn to do that in the spiritual life. If you don’t think you need a physician for your spiritual life, then you aren’t going to get much out of Lent, I’m afraid, and that’s sad. If you don’t admit you’re sick, you deprive yourself of the doctor. If you don’t admit your spiritual life is ailing, you deprive yourself of the Savior. Jesus is very clear today: he came to call sinners to conversion, and that includes all of us. It’s been said that the Church is not a museum of saints, but a hospital for sinners. And thank God that’s true, because all of us, me and you, all of us, need the medicine of grace in our spiritual lives time and time again. And the good news is that Jesus gives us Lent to do just that. Let’s be converted, be healed, be made whole so that the glory of Easter can brighten our lives.

    So our reflection this morning is two-fold. First, where and how do I need the Divine Physician in my life right now? And second, invite him in and ask him to heal us.

  • Friday of the First Week of Lent

    Friday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    It would be so much easier if we could define our own righteousness. If we could choose who to reach out to and who to ignore, life would be good, wouldn’t it? If we could hold grudges against some people and only have to forgive some people, we would easily consider ourselves justified. But the Christian life of discipleship doesn’t work that way. Instead, our righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees or we have no part in the Kingdom of heaven. It’s that simple.

    So when we bear grudges, we murder. When we label people and then write them off, we are liable to judgment. Because justice and righteousness in the Kingdom of God isn’t about looking squeaky clean, it’s about being clean inside and out, changing our attitudes, changing our hearts, renewing our lives.

    If Lent purifies us in this way, we can truly pray with the Psalmist, “with the LORD is kindness and with him is plenteous redemption.”

  • Monday of the First Week of Lent

    Monday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Be holy, for I, the LORD, your God, am holy.

    People often recoil at the mere suggestion of being called to personal holiness.  Oftentimes, this is wrapped up in what is really a misplaced and false humility, that kind of humility that says that since I’m good for nothing, and so there is no way I can even come close to being like God.  Yet the fact of the matter is that we are made good by our Creator God who designed us to be like himself, perfect in holiness.

    And if that seems too lofty to attain, Moses and Jesus spell out the steps to getting there today.  Clearly, personal holiness is not simply a matter of saying the right prayers, fasting at the right times, going to Church every Sunday and reading one’s Bible.  Those things are a good start and are key activities on the journey to holiness, but using them as a façade betrays a lack of real holiness.  Because for both Moses and Jesus, personal holiness, being holy as God is holy, consists of engaging in justice so that hesed – the Hebrew word meaning right relationship and right order – can be restored in the world.

    Every single command we receive from Moses and Jesus today turns us outward in our pursuit of holiness.  Our neighbor is to be treated justly, and that neighbor is every person in our path.  Robbery, false words, grudges, withholding charity, rendering judgment without justice, not granting forgiveness and bearing grudges are all stumbling blocks to personal holiness.  All of these keep us from being like God who is holy.  And worse yet, all of these things keep us from God, period.

    The law of the Lord is perfect, as the Psalmist says, and the essence of that law consists of love and justice to every person.  If we would strive for holiness this Lent – and we certainly ought to do so! –  we need to look to the one God puts in our path, and restore right relationship with that person.

  • Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time: Right Worship

    Tuesday of the Fifth Week of Ordinary Time: Right Worship

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings are a call to right worship, to righteousness, or right relationship with God and others.  Worship of God, properly understood and properly performed, does not allow singing and praying and invoking God’s name in church and then cursing at someone in the parking lot, or even sending a tersely-written email the moment we get home.  More than that, right worship requires hesed, the Hebrew word that means something like love in action.  Worshipping our God means putting our faith into practice and loving as we are loved by God.

    Solomon, the architect of the Temple, is dedicating the Temple in our first reading this morning.  He stands before the altar in the presence of the entire community and prays that God would watch over the temple and forgive the sins of the community.  Now that they have a place to worship God rightly, the challenge for the community would be to honor that worship in day to day living, which as the scriptures tell us, sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t.

    Which leads to the conflict with the scribes and Pharisees in the Gospel reading.  They take the disciples of Jesus (and Jesus himself) to task for not following every prescribed ritual that is basically a human precept and minor tradition.  Yet they support people creating loopholes in order to violate the fourth commandment of the decalogue and dishonor their parents.  And I’m sure our Lord could have given them many more examples.  The point is that, if they want to honor traditions, they need to worship rightly, putting their faith into action.

    So this is a lesson we need to heed as well.  We can get caught up in the practice of our worship and never practice our faith if we’re not careful.  We must always remember that the true worship of God merely begins here in church; it plays out in the way we live our lives, the interactions we have with family, friends, community members, shopkeepers, coworkers, and so many more.  If we are not making the love of God present everywhere we go, are we really worshipping at all?

  • The Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    So often, when someone thanks us for something, we might say, “It’s the least I could do.”  As if it were some kind of badge of achievement to do the least thing possible.  I think it’s human nature to try to do as little as possible, without being perceived as lazy or something.  Sometimes we want to do as little as possible, and have others feeling good about it.  Or even worse, and we have seen this throughout the sadness of this pandemic, we want to do what we want to do, no matter how it affects others.  That too, is pretty typical human nature.  I have a right to do whatever is best for me, and if that affects your rights, well, then, too bad.  None of this, friends, is praiseworthy.

    And I think this is what is behind today’s Liturgy of the Word.  Certain things are expected of believers, and over the course of history, people have tried to get away with doing as few of those things as they absolutely need to do.  The first reading sets the stage: Moses places the law before the people and tells them that they are a great nation, because they have a God so close to them, and who loves them enough to give them the whole law that they have received.

    Now, for the Jews, the whole law is more than we might think.  Perhaps when we hear that, we think of the Ten Commandments, to which we also are bound in our discipleship.  But for the Jewish community back then, there were a total of over six hundred laws and precepts that made up the law.  Because of that, there was always this constant discussion over which of the laws was most important, and often people would be concerned more about a tiny little precept than about the whole big picture that God was trying to accomplish.

    This is the attitude Jesus came to address with the Gospel.  He wanted the people to get it right.  He wanted them to have concern for people more than for semantics in the law.  He wanted them to love as God loves, because if we do that, we’ll be keeping the law anyway.  But people didn’t always accept that teaching. If they did, Jesus wouldn’t have had to go to the Cross, and there would have been no need to preach the Gospel, because we’d just always live it to perfection.

    So in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus makes a major correction.  There was this law of purifying vessels before festivals, which is not unlike the way the priest washes his hands before the Eucharistic Prayer or the way that the vessels for Mass are purified after Communion.  But somewhere along the way, the precept got mangled, and everyone was bound to scrupulously wash themselves and every vessel they owned before a feast.  And Jesus chastises them for having more concern about a human tradition than about the real intent of the law.

    The real intent of the law was obviously something way more important, way more personal.  The real intent of that purification was the purification of our hearts.  Jesus gives a rather horrifying list of sins at the end of the Gospel reading and notes that these are the things that defile; not some dirt on the outside of a cup or hands that had not been scrupulously cleaned.  If we want to really purify ourselves for the festival, which is to say the Eucharist, then we have to be cleansed of our sins.  That’s why we have the Sacrament of Penance, right?

    James, in the second reading, picks up on the theme.  If we really want to be thought to be wise in regard to keeping the law, then we have to keep ourselves unstained by the world, which would be the same thing as Jesus was saying, but also to care for those in need, with which Jesus would certainly not disagree!  Indeed, that’s what was really at stake in the Gospel reading: people were more concerned about the minutiae of the Law than they were for securing justice for all God’s people.

    The thing is, we are hearers of the Word.  We have experienced the love of our Lord in so many ways.  Everything that we have is a gift to us.  We have to be wise in regard to all that, and to be certain that we keep the whole of the law.  Not just those little minutiae, but the very spirit of the law, the law of love which binds all disciples and all people of good will.  Because when we lose sight of that, the whole Church and all of society can go off the rails.

    So our reflection in these days has to be on where and how we need to realign ourselves with the Law of love and resolve to live it more faithfully.  Because, as the Psalmist says today, it is they who do justice who will live in the presence of the Lord.  And that’s just where we all want to be.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-second Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    When I think about this Gospel reading, I wonder what’s really going on.  Were the Pharisees really concerned that the Sabbath was being violated, and that people were not experiencing sabbath rest from their labors so that they could grow in relationship with their God?  Probably not.  Contextually, we can see how the Pharisees were being pharisaical: they were concerned more about the minute aspects of the law than on bringing people to relationship with God.

    For Jesus, there wasn’t such a thing as a Sabbath rest from his mission of healing, and teaching, and bringing people to salvation.  So as he walked along with his disciples, it didn’t bother him that they were “working” by picking heads of grain to eat.  They were hungry.  And Jesus was all about feeding people’s hunger, no matter what kind of hunger it was, and no matter what day it was – Sabbath or not.

    He would be widely criticized for teaching on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for news of salvation.  He would be called blasphemous for calling God his Father on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for relationship with their God.  He would receive death threats for healing on the Sabbath, but people were hungry for wholeness, and relief, and new life.

    Jesus’ point here is that the Sabbath is never important just for itself.  The Sabbath was an opportunity for people to rest in God, and it was God, not the Law, that could decide how that happened.  The Son of Man is lord of the Sabbath.

  • Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Monday of the Fifth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    I love the readings we have today!  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.  This story is certainly echoed in our Gospel reading about the acquittal of the woman caught in adultery, although Susanna was actually innocent.  In the Gospel reading, we see 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, especially 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 walk with those who walk through the dark valley, 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.

  • Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Friday of the Fourth Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    This homily was for the school children. I recorded a Liturgy of the Word for them to see during the time when they’d usually have a school Mass, but can’t now because of COVID-19.

    When I was a young person – many years ago now! – in my town, it mattered where you lived.  If you were on one side of the tracks, it meant you had money and people thought that was impressive.  If you lived on the side of the tracks that I lived on, though, you weren’t rich and so people sometimes looked down on you.  Thankfully, years ago, they tore up the tracks, but I think that kind of thinking still happens: not just in my home town, but all over.

    We kind of see it in today’s Gospel reading.  The people of Jerusalem see Jesus walking about openly, and they look down on him.  “But we know where he is from.”  Kind of like, we know what side of the tracks he lives on, so why should we think he is the promised Messiah?  Jesus sets them right: he is “from” God the Father, who sent him into the world.  That’s his true home, and because that’s his true home, he can offer the Father’s forgiveness, the Father’s mercy, the Father’s love.

    The people’s attempt to write Jesus off because they knew where he was from was their attempt to deal with the change of life he called people to.  Yes, he offered the Father’s love and mercy, but he also called them to change their lives, to live the right way, so they could live forever in the kingdom.  That’s real love and mercy there: calling people back to the way that leads to heaven.  But people don’t like to change, so they scoff at where he’s from.

    In our first reading today, a group of wicked people do the same kind of thing.  They say, “Let us beset the just one, because he is obnoxious to us, he sets himself against our doings, Reproaches us for transgressions of the law and charges us with violations of our training.”  They don’t like that the “just one” professes to be a child of God.  But he is. In fact, even though this is the Old Testament and the book of Wisdom didn’t specifically speak of Jesus, it is, in fact, talking about Jesus.  Jesus is the just one, the Son of God, who calls us to turn around from what we are doing and turn toward the way that leads to heaven, that leads to life.

    So that’s what our readings are calling us to do today.  It’s a great message for Lent, because Lent is about repentance, about “turning around” and walking in the way that leads to eternal life.  We all want to go to heaven one day.  Lent, and today’s readings, show us the way to get there: we just have to follow Jesus, even if what he asks us to do isn’t easy.

    Now, I want to say a word or two about what’s going on these days.  I know it’s hard for you to understand why you can’t come to school, why you can’t be with your friends.  I know that because it’s hard for me to understand too.  I miss you all and your families so much.  But what we are doing right now is what is best for everyone.  We want everyone to be safe and healthy, and this is the best way to do that, for right now.  I look forward to the day when you’re back here and we can celebrate together.  Until that day, I want you to know that I am praying for you, and that I love you.

    And please don’t ever forget that God loves you, always and forever.  Nothing can change that.  I’ve been encouraging everyone to do three things so that we can be together soon: stay well, stay safe, and stay home.  

  • Friday of the First Week of Lent

    Friday of the First Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    Today’s readings remind us that Lent is no time for “business as usual.” It’s not enough for us to merely claim to be righteous, because righteousness, literally a right relationship, means that righteous actions must back our lofty words. And so today we are called to a righteousness that surpasses the scribes and Pharisees, a righteousness that goes beyond our words and our reputations and what we want people to think about us. The righteousness that Jesus calls us to today is a righteousness that starts where everything must, and that is in the heart.

    Today’s Gospel comes from the somewhat scary “but I say to you” section of Matthew’s Gospel. Here, Jesus reiterates the teachings of Moses and then “kicks them up a notch.” That means that harsh words, grudges, anger, backbiting, gossiping and slander share equal dishonor with outright murder. They all, Jesus tells us, violate the fifth commandment, because they all start with the same murderous inclination of the heart. The one who has harbored these evil thoughts and actions must repent of them and seek reconciliation before offering his or her gift at the altar, or the offering will be tainted, ruined, and ultimately rendered sacrilegious.

    Ezekiel’s prophecy in the first reading is good news for those of us who have gone astray. His prophecy holds out the possibility of a second chance for us sinners and calls us to a fundamental change of life. Even if we have been known for our wicked deeds, we have the opportunity to repent and change our hearts and lives. If we repent, God will forget our wickedness and treat us with mercy.

    The Psalmist today rejoices in God who is trustworthy with his mercy and forgiveness. In this time of Lenten repentance, we can have confidence in our God who longs to bring us back:

    For with the Lord is kindness

    and with him is plenteous redemption;

    And he will redeem [all of us]from all [our] iniquities.

  • The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    This weekend we continue our preaching series at Saint Mary Immaculate called “A Crash Course in Catholicism.”  Please continue to pray for the success of this preaching series, and for the openness for all to receive the grace God is pouring out on us in these days.   So far we have spoken about the fundamental Good News of our faith that we are saved by Jesus Christ.  God did not abandon us in our sinfulness, but in love sent us His Son, Jesus, to free us from sin and death by His own life, death and resurrection. God desires our salvation and healing.

    In following God’s plan, we connect our lives to His through prayer, which we spoke of at length last week.  Hopefully over the past week you’ve had a chance to reflect on the way you pray, why you pray, and perhaps even tried some new way of prayer.

    So this week, we are reflecting on our call to discipleship, our living of the Good News of Jesus Christ in such a way that it is infectious to others.  This call to discipleship isn’t just for Sundays, or even primarily for Sundays, but an everyday decision to follow Christ and walk in the way he has marked out for us.

    Looking at the parable in today’s Gospel reading, I’m going to be very bold and say, you know, the Pharisee was quite right. His righteousness was beyond reproach. He has been innocent of greed, dishonesty and adultery. He has been more pious than even the law requires. Fasting was only required once a year, on the Day of Atonement, but he fasts twice a week. Tithes were only required to be paid on one’s earnings, but he pays them not only on his earnings, but also on all of his possessions, basically, he paid the tithe on his total net worth. He was probably quite right about his own righteousness, and he may well have been right about the failures of righteousness in the tax collector as well.

    And, in those days, tax collectors were despicable human beings. There was no taxation with representation, so the tax collectors worked for the Romans and were in league with the foreign occupation. They were told what they had to collect, and whatever the collected over and above that was theirs to keep. Now certainly, they were entitled to some income, so a modest markup would have been understandable – that was how they were paid. But mostly the modest markup was far from modest, and often bordered on extortion. The tax collector in our parable today does not deny that he has participated in those activities. He does not even pray about anything he has done except for one thing: he has sinned. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says.

    Both of these men were right in what they said about themselves. From an objective point of view, they have presented themselves honestly before God and everyone. So what’s the problem? Where has the Pharisee gone wrong and how did the tax collector, of all people, end up justified?

    It’s pretty easy to see what went wrong when we step back and look at the nature of their prayers. The Pharisee uses the word “I” four times. It’s all about him. The tax collector does not use the word “I” at all; he uses the word “me.” What’s the difference? Think back to your grammar lessons: “I” is the subject, “me” is the object. So, for the Pharisee, it was all about what he had done through his own righteousness, and not about what God had done or could do. The text even says that the prayer he prayed, he said to himself.  Did you catch that?  Not to God, but to himself!  For the tax collector, it wasn’t about him at all. He acknowledges his sinfulness and asked God to have mercy. And that’s the second difference. The tax collector asks for something, namely mercy, and receives it: he goes home justified. The Pharisee asks for nothing, and that’s just what he gets: nothing.

    So I think today’s Liturgy of the Word is asking us a very important question: have you been aware of your need for a Savior? Because sin is exhausting. Anyone who has struggled with sin, or a pattern of sin, in their lives can tell you that. Those who have been dragged down by any kind of addiction or who have tried to work on a character flaw or striven to expel any kind of vice from their lives often relate how exhausting the sin can be. Sin saps our spiritual energy, weakens our resolve to do good, and causes us to turn away in shame not only from God, but also from family, friends, and all those whose spiritual companionship we need in order to grow as Christians. That’s just the way sin works.

    But today’s Liturgy gives us very good news. Sirach says in today’s first reading that “The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right, and the Lord will not delay.” We see that very clearly in the parable in today’s Gospel. The lowly tax collector cannot even bring himself to raise his eyes to heaven. “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” he says. It is the perfect Act of Contrition. He acknowledges his sin, he prays for God’s mercy. And God responds. He can go home justified.

    So who here was the disciple?  It would seem like it would have been the praying, fasting Pharisee.  But is it?  Discipleship involves discipline – they have the same root word – a discipline that binds oneself to God and is committed to real change.  The Pharisee was self-righteous: he prayed to himself, did what made himself look good, it was all about him.  The tax-collector, on the other hand, had a righteousness that came from the mercy of God.  Because he depended on God, he was able to find forgiveness, bind himself to mercy, and go home justified.  Disciples don’t follow themselves, they follow Jesus.  They don’t pray to themselves, they follow Jesus.  They aren’t righteous in themselves, they are righteous in Jesus.

    Disciples aren’t perfect – certainly the tax-collector was not – but disciples are open to conversion, open to a true change in their lives that allows the mercy of God to make them a new creation.  Disciples think of everything in terms of their walk with Christ and living the Gospel.  They do it every day, not just Sunday.  When a decision needs to be made at work, they think about Jesus’ example and how the decision might affect others.  When deciding where to spend their family’s resources, they think about the good they are called to do.  When working through a relationship issue, they think about where God is in that relationship and direct their energies in that way.  Disciples see themselves first and foremost as sons and daughters of God, and everything else in their lives falls in line with that identification.  They may not be perfect, but they are open to being perfected.

    Disciples find themselves in the Church, receiving the Sacraments the Church offers them in order to perfect their lives of faith.  They receive the mercy of God in sacramental confession, and they live on the strength of God by receiving God’s Word and the Body and Blood of our Lord at Mass.

    Just like the Pharisee and the tax collector, we have come to this holy place to pray today. What is our prayer like? Are there sins that have become a pattern for us? Do we have addictions that need to be worked out? Have we failed in some way in our daily life? What dark corners of our lives desperately need God’s light and God’s mercy? In what ways do we need a Savior? Have we asked for God’s mercy, or have we been like the Pharisee, asking for nothing and receiving exactly that?

    I want to give you the opportunity to pray with this today…

    Pray the tax collector’s prayer after me: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”