Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: witness

  • The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    One of my jobs before I went to seminary was in the sales department of a computer supply company.  In that job, they taught us that one of the first good rules of sales was never to ask a question to which you didn’t already know the answer.  I think teachers get taught a version of that principle as well.  I can’t help but think that Jesus’ question to the disciples in today’s Gospel falls under that heading.  Because Jesus obviously knew who he was.  But, as often happens in our interactions with Jesus, there’s something more going on.  And to figure out what that something more is, all you have to do is go back to the Gospels the last couple of weeks and see in them that Jesus is looking for people’s faith.  He was looking for faith from Peter when he called him to walk on the water.  He was impressed by the faith of the Canaanite woman last week as she persisted in her request that Jesus heal her daughter.  And now he queries the disciples’ faith – and ours too – as he asks us the million dollar question: “Who do you say that I am?”

    He actually starts with kind of a soft-ball question. “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they recount all the obvious and probably much-discussed options of the time.  If there were bloggers and podcasters and talk radio people and cable news in that first century, they too might have said “John the Baptist” or “Elijah” or “Jeremiah” or “one of the prophets.”  So this is an easy question for the disciples to answer.  But when he gets to the lightning round question, “But who do you say that I am?” there’s a lot more silence.  And, as often happens with the disciples, it’s the impetuous Peter who blurts out the right answer, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

    But here’s the thing: that answer is going to require much of Saint Peter.  You see, his answer not just a liturgical formula or a scriptural title or even a profession of faith in the formal sense.  Jesus is looking for something that goes quite a bit deeper, something that comes from the heart, something integrated into Peter’s life.  He is looking for faith, not just spoken, but faith lived, and that’s why Peter’s answer is actually pretty dangerous.  If he is really convinced that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” then that conviction has to show itself in the way Peter lives.  He can’t just believe that and keep it under his hat.  If Jesus really is the One who is coming into the world, the Promised One of all generations, the salvation of the world, then Peter has to proclaim it from the rooftops.  And, as we know, that proclamation isn’t going to be very welcome.

    So I’m very sorry to tell you all this, but we have all gathered here on a very dangerous Sunday.  We too, you know, are being asked today, “But who do you say that I am?”  And Jesus isn’t asking us just to recite the Creed, the Profession of Faith.  That’s too easy; we do it all the time.  Jesus doesn’t want to know what you learned at Bible Study or what you read on Facebook.  He isn’t going for what’s in our heads.  Jesus is calling all of us today to dig deep, to really say what it is that we believe about him by the way that we act and the things that we do and the life that we live.  It’s a dangerous question for us, too, because what we believe about Jesus has to show forth in action and not just word.  Our life has to be a testament to our faith in God.  And if we cannot answer that question out of our faith today, if we are not prepared to live the consequences of our belief, then what are we doing here?

    Because if we really believe that Jesus is who he says he is, then we cannot just sit on the news.  Like Peter, we are going to have to proclaim it in word and deed.  In our homes, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our communities – we must be certain that everyone knows that we are Christians and that we are ready to live our faith.  That doesn’t mean that we need to interject a faith lesson into every conversation or bludgeon people with the Gospel.  But it does mean that we have to live that Gospel.  In St. Francis’s words, “Proclaim the Gospel at all times.  If necessary, use words.”  People absolutely need to be able to tell by noticing the way we live our lives that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  If they can’t, then our faith is as tepid as the Pharisees’ and that’s certainly not praiseworthy!  Frankly, that too has consequences.

    Every part of our Liturgy has consequences for us believers.  “The Body of Christ.”  When we hear that proclamation and respond with our “Amen,” we are saying “yes, that’s what I believe.”  And if we believe that, if we are then filled with the Body of Christ by receiving Holy Communion, then we have made a statement that has consequences.  If we truly become what we receive, then how does that change the way that we work, the way that we interact with others?  “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.”  “Thanks be to God.”  If we accept that command, then what?  What does it mean to glorify the Lord with our life?  Does it mean that we just do some kind of ministry here at Mass?  Not even close.  The first word in the command is “Go” and that means we have to glorify the Lord in our daily lives, in our business negotiations, in our community meetings, in our interactions with peers or the way that we mentor those who work for us.

    So if we really believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, then our lives just became a whole lot more complicated.  We may have to give up some of our habits and vices, we may have to make a concerted effort to be more aware of Christ in our daily lives, we may have to learn to treat other people as the Body of Christ.  We may have to do all this preaching in a hostile environment, because sometimes people don’t want to hear the Good News, or even be in the presence of it.  I think that’s more true today than ever.  The Gospel is met with hostility just because Christians preach it.  Therein lies the danger, because if we really believe, then we have to preach anyway.  Peter did, and it eventually led him to the cross.  What will it require of us?

    So I don’t know just how dangerous this will be for me or for you. I’m not even sure how we will all answer the question right now. But one thing is for sure, all of us sitting here today have the same one-question test that Peter and the disciples had. Who do you say that the Son of Man is? Be sure to take that to your prayer this week.

  • The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    There’s a hymn that we sing often called “All are Welcome.” It’s been around for a while and is somewhat of a “moldy oldy.” That’s because I think we like to say we are welcoming, but sometimes it’s really hard to really welcome “all.”

    But that song came to mind this week as I was reflecting on the readings for today.  There is a strong theme of welcoming, of hospitality, in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  But it’s not just a matter of saying to someone who’s new, “Hey, how are you?  Welcome here!”  The hospitality that we’re being called to in the readings today is a welcome of the Word of God.  And that sounds much easier than it actually is, so hang on to that, because we will come back to it.

    In our first reading from the second book of Kings, Elisha the prophet is extended hospitality by the Shunemite woman.  Beginning by giving him food, eventually she builds a little room on the roof of her house so that Elisha could stay there whenever he was travelling through town.  We don’t know if she was a believer or not, but she recognizes that Elisha is a holy man and uses her influence and means to see that his prophetic ministry could flourish.

    In the Gospel reading, Jesus speaks of those who would welcome the apostles as they went about their preaching mission.  “Whoever receives you receives me,” he tells them.  When someone accepts the messenger – and, importantly, the message that he or she brings – one receives the giver of the message.  This is the basis of our Catholic teaching that Christ is present in the word of God proclaimed in church.

    The true prophet, of which Elisha was one, always brings the Word of God.  The Shunemite woman reacted to the Word of God by making it welcome, in the person of Elisha.  She is a model for us of the hospitality and welcome of the Word that we are asked to consider this day.  So we too have to feed the Word and make a home for the Word.  We can feed the Word by exposing ourselves to the Scriptures in prayer and reflection.  I had a professor in seminary who used to beg us to read the Bible every day – even just a few verses.  He would say, “Then, brothers, when you close your eyes in death, you will open them in heaven and recognize where you are!”  When we feed the Word, we are able to grow in our faith and the Word will bring life to our souls.

    From feeding the Word, we then have to build a little room for it, on the roof of our spiritual houses.  It’s instructive that Elisha’s room was built on the roof, because then the Word of God was over everything in the Shunemite woman’s life.  The Word of God was the head of her house and the guiding principle of her family life.  When we build that room, figuratively in our own lives, it must take top precedence for us too.  Jesus makes that a commandment in today’s Gospel.

    And so we feed the Word and give it a home in our lives, and then it becomes the guiding principle of our own lives, as it should be.  But here’s the thing about that, and maybe this is why so many people don’t want to do this.  Because there is a cost to welcoming the Word of God.  Remember that the prophets were not always as welcome as Elisha was in the Shunemite woman’s house.  The prophets were often berated, ridiculed, even imprisoned, beaten and murdered, because the Word of God isn’t always welcome.  Jesus says in the Gospel reading today, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward.”  We have to be clear about the fact that we fully expect that reward to be in heaven, because it’s tough to be a prophet in the world, in any age or place.

    And that’s because the Word of God calls us to live a certain way.  The Word of God wants us to be open to change, the Word of God actually demands that we change.  The Word of God wants us to be Christ to others, because Christ is the Word of God.  And so we must be forgiving of those who harm us, loving to those who test us, reaching out to those who need us (even when it’s inconvenient, or they’re not the people we want to be around), welcoming of those who are different than us.  Welcoming the Word of God means that we have to take up our cross and follow our Lord, meaning that there will be death involved and we might have to give up a whole lot.

    In today’s world, the Word of God calls us to be Christ in a world that is increasingly intolerant of anyone who isn’t us.  We all want what we want when we want it, and we don’t tolerate delay or inconvenience in any form.  We hate the idea of compromise so much that political discussion isn’t discussion at all, and no one’s life is worth as much as our own, no matter the stage or circumstance of that life.  Add to that the scourge of racism, war, and attacks on family life and other values, and we live in a very unwelcoming world indeed.  But into that world, we are called to be Christ to others, to love without counting the cost, and to be a living witness to the Gospel.

    Doing that means we may have to die to what we think is important, die to our own self-interests and desires, die to what makes us feel comfortable.  That’s what giving up one’s family meant in Jesus’ day: being cast out of the family was a form of death.  So not loving mother and father and son or daughter more than Christ meant dying to life in this world.  And dying to life in this world is exactly what welcoming the Word of God will cost us.  That’s the message of the Gospel today.

    But giving up our lives will not be without its reward.  The Shunemite woman was rewarded with a child, even though her husband was advanced in years.  Jesus says the same.  Giving the Word of God even just a cup of water to nourish it and let it grow will be rewarded in ways we cannot even imagine.

    So welcoming the Word of God will definitely cost us something, but it will also change everything.  Are you willing to embrace the cost and build a home in your life for the Word of God?

  • Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Friday of the Eleventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It amazes me when I think about all that the early Church had to go through and put up with. Saint Paul writes that he put up with persecution from all sides: from his own people as well as the Gentiles. He was beaten often, endured hazardous journeys and perilous weather, as well as every kind of deprivation. His experience was definitely extreme, but others who lived the faith in those days were also subject to persecution, torture and death. Our experience isn’t quite like that, is it? I mean, here we sit in this comfortable and safe church. We came here freely to Mass this morning and it is unlikely that anyone will openly persecute us or torture us or put us to death for worshipping our God, although of course, it does happen occasionally in some parts of the world.

    But there is a subtle kind of persecution that we often must endure. We know that even if our society is not openly hostile to living the Gospel, it might be just one step short of that. Life is not respected in our society: babies are aborted, the elderly are not respected or given adequate care, children are not raised in nurturing families, people are hated because of their race, color or creed. Faith is ridiculed as the crutch of the weak. Hope is crushed by those who abuse power. Love is diminished by the world’s shabby standards of loving. Living the Gospel is costly to anyone who would want to be taken seriously in our culture.

    To all of us who come to this holy place to worship this morning and who hope to work out our salvation by living the Gospel, Saint Paul speaks eloquently. We know that he, as well as all of the communion of saints, is there to intercede for us and show us the way. He says to us today, “Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is led to sin, and I am not indignant?” He points us to our Lord Jesus who paid the ultimate price for the Gospel, and reminds us of what our Gospel proclaims to us today: that in living that Gospel, regardless of its cost, we store up for ourselves incredible treasures in heaven, because it is in heaven that our heart resides.

  • Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Ninth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

    Today we hear the end of the story we have been reflecting on all week.  Tobit and Tobiah’s family fortune has been restored; Sarah’s sadness from her seven previous husbands dying on their wedding night has been turned into joy when she was given in marriage to Tobit.  And finally, in yesterday’s first reading, Tobit helps heal his father’s blindness, and Tobiah sings in praise to God.  It’s an almost uncharacteristically happy ending for a book of the Old Testament!

    But happiness, real happiness, eternal happiness, that is the purpose of the Scriptures.  That happiness comes finally from the resurrection of Our Lord which opens to us the way to salvation.  Just as Tobiah and Sarah were saved from their ailments, so we are saved from the ailments of sin and death by the death and resurrection of Christ.  The happy ending of the book of Tobit foreshadows the happy ending of the life of grace which we receive by following our Risen Lord.

    But, as the archangel Raphael makes clear twice in today’s first reading, this happiness is not to be a well-guarded secret.  Some things are best kept secret, sure, but not salvation, not the works of God.  So we have to be disciples who live as saved people and tell everyone the reason for our happiness.  Others need to see our joy so they can experience it too.

    A king’s secret it is prudent to keep,
    but the works of God are to be made known with due honor.

  • Graduation Mass

    Graduation Mass

    Sometimes when we come to major moments in our lives, there is this crazy though that comes to us – what do I do now?  It’s kind of like, I’ve looked forward to this moment for so long, even though I know the next step, I don’t know how to be me in that next step. 

    The good news is, right in the middle of tonight’s Gospel reading, there is one word that sums it up for Christian disciples.  This is the word that marks what we’re supposed to do; it wraps up all the instructions Jesus gave to his Apostles, and to all of us who are his disciples.  It tells us who we should be and what we should do.  This one word is especially appropriate for you graduates today, as you get ready to begin the next phase of your life in a new school.  That word is: GO!

    We hear that word a lot.  Once we have learned the rules of a game or a race or some kind of contest, the person officiating the game will say something like, “Ready?  Go!”  “Go” is a word we look forward to: we can’t wait to begin the game or start the project, or whatever it is we’re doing.  There’s no time like the present, and we always want to keep going.  But that same word can trigger a bit of sadness.  We don’t always want to go; we like where we are, where we are has been home, and it’s comfortable.  When we go, we’re often in unknown territory, and so going can be as much an occasion for pause as anything else. 

    So going is part and parcel of life, both our life in this world, but also our life with Christ.  In this life, we will, like it or not, experience a lot of coming and going.  We are always on the move, until that great day that we get home to heaven, that place that is our true home, that place to which we journey all through our earthly lives.  So I thought it might be well to take a quick look back and review some of the important things you’ve been taught during your time here at Saint Mary’s.  The first thing I’d mention is what I have taught you is the most important thing that you can know about God in this life.  And that is that God loves you – in fact God is love itself.  God is a love so perfect that it surpasses anything we can know about love in this life.  God is a love so pure that God cannot not love – that wouldn’t logically be possible.  And so God, in love, made people – you and me and everyone else – so that he could have a way to show his love.  And so God loves us, forgives us, guides us, challenges us, and loves us some more.  And so I’ve told you that writing “God loves me” as the answer on a religion test would get you at least half a point.  I’m not sure if that works in high school, but I obviously think it should!

    The second thing I’d want you to remember is that it’s not all about you.  You, and your relationship with God, are certainly part of the equation, but we disciples aren’t just supposed to live for ourselves.  We are a people who are to go out and preach and teach and share and witness what we’ve been taught.  Sometimes, we will do this with words, but most often, we will do this with actions.  We will reach out and take care of people in our lives, and people God puts in our lives.  We will make a decision to give of ourselves so that people in need can have a better life, or at least a better day.  The gifts that we have are never given to us just for ourselves; they are meant to be shared, and when we share them, we find they don’t run out, we just keep getting more to share.  It’s kind of like the feeding of the multitudes: when we share our little offering of five loaves and two fish, God makes it enough, and more than enough, to feed everyone.  But only when we remember that it’s not just about ourselves.

    The final thing I’d like to remind you is that as a leader – and all of you will lead in some way at some time – you should never ask people to do something you’re not willing to do yourself.  Jesus is the absolute best example of that.  In teaching us to love each other and lay down our lives for each other, he literally laid down his life for us: dying on the cross to pay the price for our sins and to give us the possibility of eternal life, of going to that place prepared for us in his Father’s house, that home that is our true home – in heaven.  And so just like Jesus, we too have to lead by being servants, and taking up the cross, and doing what we might not want to do but what needs to be done, so that others will see the way to live too.  We have to witness by example and to lead the way we want others to live.

    I believe these lessons will serve you well.  Know that you are loved just for who you are.  That will give you peace on your darkest days.  Know that you are called to reach out to others so that they can find light in the darkness.  And know that you are a leader when you witness by your life and example.  When you do all that, you’ll be successful beyond your wildest dreams, and you’ll have a relationship with your God that no one can take away from you, and will bring you to that place of ultimate happiness.

    Having learned all this, I charge you all to GO.  Go, make a difference.  Go, live in God’s love.  Go, be a witness to what you’ve been taught.  Go, lead the world to a better place.  Go, be a disciple and make disciples of everyone you meet.  Go, knowing that our Lord is with you until the end of the age.  Go, and glorify the Lord with your life.

    Because Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

  • Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Thursday of the Fifth Week of Easter

    Today’s readings

    In our first reading today, we have from the Acts of the Apostles a rather defining moment for the early Church.  Jesus hadn’t given them a precise rule book of how to make the Church develop: he simply sent them out to baptize.  But he also told them to make disciples of all the nations, and that’s what’s at stake in today’s reading.  The Gentile nations didn’t observe all the laws that were part of the Jewish culture.  And so admitting non-Jews to the Church meant deciding whether they had to be circumcised, and whether they had to observe all the other laws of the Old Testament, as they had.

    Well, obviously, this little mini-council, swayed by the great stories of Paul and Barnabas, hearing all the wondrous deeds that God was doing among them, decided that the Spirit could call anyone God wanted to be disciples, and they shouldn’t get in the way.  So they decide to impose very little upon them, outside of avoiding idol worship and unlawful marriage, very basic things. 

    And then the Psalmist’s prophecy, “Proclaim God’s marvelous deeds to all the nations” came to pass.  Think about it: because the disciples agreed to allow the Gentiles to come to Christianity in their own way, the proliferation of the Gospel was put into warp speed.  If it weren’t for this little council, we very well might not be Christians today.  Praise God for the movement of the Spirit!

    And now the command comes to us: we have to be the ones to proclaim God’s deeds to everyone, and not to make distinctions that marginalize other people.  God’s will is not fulfilled until every heart has the opportunity to respond to his love.  So we who know the Lord, now need to help others to know him.  We have to go beyond what we know in our head and bring it to our heart, so that we can love other people the way he has loved us.  When they experience that love in us, they will be attracted to come to know about Jesus too.

    That’s how it happened in the early Church.  That’s why Paul and the others were so successful.  That’s why the Gentiles couldn’t get enough of the faith.  We can reignite that fire in our world today if we bring our experience of the Lord to the world who desperately needs his love and presence.

    Christ is risen!  He is risen indeed!  Alleluia!

  • Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Wednesday of the Thirty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Engage in trade with these until I return.”

    Today’s Gospel reading presents us with Luke’s version of the Parable of the Talents from Matthew’s Gospel.  Luke’s version seems a little confusing to our ears, perhaps.  There is evidence that the nobleman seeking the kingship was actually a contemporary nobleman trying to do just that.  Whatever the case, we have a jumble.  Ten men get coins, but only three get questioned at the end, there’s the whole story about the nobleman and the delegation that didn’t want him to be king, and then the slaying of those delegates at the end.  If you’re scratching your head about all that, I think that’s most understandable!

    I think the pivotal command is what I just quoted: “Engage in trade with these until I return.”  That’s what the nobleman says to the ten servants who received the ten gold coins.  The ten gold coins are extremely valuable.  Their value is more or less what a poor servant might make in his entire lifetime.  So the real question today is, what is it that is really worth that much?  With what have we been entrusted that could possibly be so valuable?

    Obviously those ten coins represent the Gospel to us, the command to engage in trade with them is our witness.  And as we approach the end of the Church year, it would be a very good idea to see which of the servants we have been.  Have we been hard at it, giving witness by the way we live our lives, the service we give without anyone knowing about it, the integrity with which we conduct our business, which has caused people to admire our way of life, to seek to find what we have?  Or have we wrapped it all in a handkerchief and stored it away so that we won’t lose it and can find it when we need it, making it all about us, caving in to our fear, and never giving anyone a reason to suspect we are Christians? The Church year is ending, our Master will soon return.  What return will we give him on his investment in our eternity?

  • The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time

    “My whole world is falling apart.” We’ve all heard someone say that, or maybe we’ve even said it ourselves, at some point in our lives. I think today’s Gospel points to that kind of experience.

    But to really get at the experience Luke’s Gospel was getting at, you have to imagine how we would feel if we came to Mass one day and found this beautiful Church demolished and in ruins. I think we’d all be devastated and feel hurt, abandoned, and lost in some ways. And that’s just exactly how the original readers of Luke’s Gospel felt. Luke’s Gospel was written somewhere between 80 and 100 AD, so 50 or more years after Jesus died. And at this point, the glorious Temple of Jerusalem, once stately and glimmering white and gold in the sunlight, now lay in ruins, having been destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. For the Jews at that time, the Temple meant everything: it the center of their worship, which was crucial. But in the Temple they also found the symbol of their identity as a nation. It was a sign that God favored them among all the nations on earth and had chosen them to be his own. Jerusalem was no more, and a world ended with it.

    But as I mentioned at the start of this homily, we all go through something that makes it seem like the end of the world at some point in our lives. Family, friends and our communities experience various forms of dying and they are never easy. Cancer debilitates a formerly-vigorous and full-of-life friend or relative; a marriage breaks up; an injury makes it impossible to keep a job; aging diminishes a once-vibrant person. And more. Our churches offer more and more empty seats, our nation moves from one crisis to the next, we scratch our heads as legislatures seem incompetent or cantankerous or ineffective, perhaps we are dismayed by the recent election season, or are fearful at the growing violence in our major cities. We might even think of devastating natural disasters like the hurricanes and earthquakes that happen around the world. When we experience any of that, it can seem like the world is ending.

    And when things like that happen, it’s hard to find words to express our sadness, fear, pain, and desertedness. It can even be hard to find words to speak in prayer. But Jesus knows this will happen to us and promises that if we persevere, we will gain our lives and that God himself will give us a wisdom in speaking that cannot be refuted. In Christ, we can find wisdom to make painful circumstances occasions for God’s grace. What we experience as difficulties and painful endings, he sees as opportunities to witness to our faith in him.

    Very often when catastrophic things happen, people read it as the coming end of the world. Sometimes people even see these things as signs of God’s displeasure at the way humanity has been behaving. But today’s Gospel doesn’t support those kinds of ideas. God alone knows the time for the world’s ending, and he’s not going to provide definite signs. Not only that, but catastrophe is the symptom of evil in the world, and not a sign of God’s feelings about the state of the world, or the depravity of the human condition, or even about our own personal sinfulness.

    As the Church year comes to a close, it may be well for us to look back at our lives over the past year and take stock of our growth in faith. Has our relationship with Christ led us to a place where we can weather the storms of life, and hear his voice even when the world is falling down around us? Have we grown in our ability to make God’s presence in our world known when the world around us seems rudderless and adrift? Have we been open to God giving us words to speak in witness to the faith, so that we stand up with integrity for what we believe? If this year has not been a solid experience of growth for us, that needs to be our prayer for the year to come.

    I feel the need to comment on the past election season here, because it really calls for us to give the kind of witness that our Gospel reading calls for today.  We definitely need to find candidates on both sides of the aisle who respect life and are people of integrity.  The vacuum of that causes election seasons like we just experienced.  Pro-life people are not extremists, abortion is not healthcare but instead the murder of an unborn person, and it’s never a morally acceptable choice for anyone.  The fact that Catholic candidates have caved to outside pressure and ignore that teaching doesn’t make it right for Catholics or anyone.  On the other hand we can’t allow pro-life people to behave badly, or their lack of integrity ruins their witness and gives the other side the opportunity to label us as extremists.  Somehow, our witness has to get this right; that’s our call in the world.

    But remember what Jesus says at the end of the Gospel reading today:

    “You will be hated by all because of my name,
    but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
    By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

    On the second-to-last Sunday of the Church year, it would have been wonderful for the Liturgy to tie up all the loose ends and give us a happy ending. But that’s not what we have here is it? Why? Because life isn’t that way. Jesus tells us as much today. The message that we have is that, no matter how messy things may be, we can praise our God who is with us in good times and in bad, and promises to lift us up even when the world seems like it is coming to an end.

  • Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time (Election Day)

    Tuesday of the Thirty-second Week of Ordinary Time (Election Day)

    Today’s readings

    Turn from evil and do good,
    that you may abide forever;
    The just shall possess the land
    and dwell in it forever.

    So says the Psalmist today, and I think these words are encouraging ones. Here we stand, finally, on election day, in the midst of another rancorous and in many ways, disheartening, campaign season. Now all the sound bytes and debates and campaign ads and news stories coalesce into the cornerstone of our democracy: your vote and mine.

    We Catholics are required by our faith to participate in this democratic process. The Catechism tells us: It is the duty of citizens to contribute along with the civil authorities to the good of society in a spirit of truth, justice, solidarity, and freedom. The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity. Submission to legitimate authorities and service of the common good require citizens to fulfill their roles in the life of the political community. 

    Submission to authority and co-responsibility for the common good make it morally obligatory to pay taxes, to exercise the right to vote, and to defend one’s country. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2239-2240)

    Every one of our voices matter, and so we are required to vote even when we think we’re just one person. It is up to us to stand up for what’s right: to defend the sanctity of life, to advocate for the poor, and generally to build up a society in which all people of good will can grow in their faith while they await their turn to move to that place in heaven that God has prepared for us.

    I understand when people say, this year, it’s all too depressing. But the Psalmist’s reminder is a good one: The just shall possess the land / and dwell in it forever. God is in control, and he’s using you and me to make his message known.

    Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, Mother Mary, patroness of the United States of America, pray for us.

  • The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    What if this life was all there was?  I’m sure you know some people who think that.  I’m not sure how people who think that can get out of bed in the morning, let alone keep on living day after day. Questions about life and death and last things and life after the last things are what’s going on in the Church’s mind and imagination in these last days of the Church year.

    It’s little wonder these questions grab us in these waning days of the year. The trees are losing their foliage. The daylight hours are getting shorter. The air is a bit colder, and we might get the feeling that winter can’t wait to get here!  We can sense there is a change approaching, and perhaps it isn’t one that we look forward to.  Even with the festive atmosphere of the upcoming holidays, or perhaps even because of the holidays, many of us feel depressed or blasé, and the festivity of the holiday season only serves to highlight it for us.  Please God, let there be something more.

    Fundamentally, we human beings need to make connections.  We want life, we want light, we want peace, we want love.  And because we want all these things, we know we are alive.  We attempt to fill them up as best we can.  We hope that our attempts are healthy, but honestly sometimes we find ourselves stuck and attempt to fill our desires with things that are well, just shoddy.  We anesthetize ourselves with drugs or alcohol or internet pornography or retail therapy.  We enter into relationships that are unhealthy.  We work ourselves to death. We distance ourselves from loved ones.  We sin.  We often just try to fill up the something more that we desire with something less than that of which we are worthy.

    And that’s exactly what the Sadducees were doing in today’s Gospel reading.  The Sadducees, we are told, were a group of religious authorities that taught there was no resurrection.  So these Sadducees come to Jesus and seem to have an earnest question.  They speak of a woman seven times widowed and wonder whose wife she will be in the resurrection of the dead.  Except that their question wasn’t earnest at all.  Clearly they were out to discredit Jesus, even embarrass him.  “So you think there will be a resurrection,” they say, “well then, what about this…?”

    The Sadducees didn’t get it when it came to the resurrection, and they weren’t willing to open their minds to any kind of new possibility.  If what Jesus said didn’t fit what they believed, then it absolutely must be wrong.  They were filling their desires with the sin of pride instead of the possibility of eternal life.  What a horrible, shoddy way to fill up their desires!

    But swing that around and look at the seven brothers in the first reading.  All they would have to do was eat a little pork and they could have lived.  I mean, who’s going to begrudge them a little bacon?!  Yet they patently refused to do so.  One by one, they are tortured and killed.  Why would they have let themselves be treated that way?  All they had to do was eat some pork, for heaven’s sake; surely God would forgive them, right?  But listen to what the first brother says: “You are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever.  It is for his laws that we are dying.”  These brothers and their mother realized that there was something greater, something more.  They knew their desire could never be filled up with a little pork, or the shoddy life that would come about as a result of giving up their beliefs.  What a stark contrast they are to the prideful Sadducees!

    We may be tempted to settle for something less, but we know there is something so much better in store for us.  There is something that will fill up our desires once and for all, and that something – or rather that someone –  is Jesus Christ.  It’s not going to be our pride, boasting of our elaborate wisdom or ability to take care of ourselves.  It’s not going to be a little pork, or giving in to whatever temptation comes our way to take us off the path.  It’s not going to be alcohol, or drugs, or unhealthy relationships or self-help gurus, or anything else.  It’s only going to be Jesus – only Jesus! – who will fill up the desires that touch us to the core of who we are.

    The Church in these waning days of the Church year would never deny that there is suffering in the world.  But she will encourage us to open up our desires to be filled with our Savior who comes not to make our suffering go away, but instead to fill it up and sanctify it with his presence.  There is something more, and we can expect to be filled up with it when we realize that the fit for the hole we have in our hearts is Jesus Christ.

    That, friends, is why it is so important that we gather as believers every Sunday, and avail ourselves of the other sacraments, especially reconciliation, on a regular basis.  We have an unquenchable desire that can only be filled up with Christ, that Christ who longs to be our life, who died to be our savior, who rose to be our salvation.

    Our God is not a God of the dead, but of the living.  To him all are alive.  So in these last days of the year, if we find ourselves desiring peace, desiring wholeness, desiring comfort, desiring love, desiring fulfillment, or desiring anything else, that’s okay.  Because what we’re really desiring is Christ, and he is always there to fill us beyond our wildest imaginings.