Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Tag: Word of God

  • The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday of the Word of God)

    The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Sunday of the Word of God)

    Today’s readings

    I want to begin my homily by reminding you of the words we heard in our first reading from Nehemiah:

    He read out of the book from daybreak till midday,
    in the presence of the men, the women,
    and those children old enough to understand;
    and all the people listened attentively to the book of the law.

    Wouldn’t that be fun! When you think Mass is too long, just think about that! We could be going from daybreak to midday!

    Today, the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, is now known as the Sunday of the Word of God. So we’re talking about teaching and the Scriptures, which is to remind us that we are all, always and forever, in the “school” of the faith. We don’t ever graduate from that school, until, of course, that great day, when we stand before our Lord to be judged, relying on his mercy and on our relationship with him, which is always a gift. Those who unite themselves to our Lord in faith throughout their lives, those who continue to study the Scriptures and see them fulfilled in our hearing, they have the promise of eternal life in the Kingdom of God.

    Saint Jerome underlined this for us. He said that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ, because for all of us who did not live in the same time as Jesus, we rely on the Scriptures not just to tell us who Christ was, but also to have a relationship with him, remembering that Jesus is always present in the proclamation of the Word of God.

    There are three Scriptural moments in today’s Liturgy of the Word. First, the Word is proclaimed. Second, that Word has an effect on its hearers. Finally, the Word is fulfilled. So first, the Word is proclaimed, and we see that twice. In the first reading, Ezra the priest reads from the scroll from daybreak to midday, in the presence of the men, the women, and those children old enough to understand. It was quite the proclamation, and also included a kind of homily, apparently, since the reading tells us that Ezra provided an interpretation. The second time we see this is in the Gospel reading. Jesus takes the scroll of the law, and finds a particular passage from the prophet Isaiah and proclaims it. He too provides an interpretation, in the form of his very life.

    The second Scriptural moment is the Word’s effect on its hearers. For Ezra, the Word produced a very emotional response. The people bowed down in the presence of the Word, and began to weep. The weeping is presumably because, hearing the Word, they realized how far they were from keeping its commandments. I think we might have that same reaction sometimes, and when it produces repentance, that’s really not a bad thing at all. But Nehemiah instructs them not to weep, and instead to rejoice and celebrate, because the proclamation of the Word on this holy day was an occasion for great joy. In contrast, we don’t get any idea of how the rest of the congregation at the synagogue reacted to Jesus’ proclamation of Isaiah in the Gospel reading, but one would think that it would have been a pretty tame reaction until he announced that he was the fulfillment of the prophecy. We can see that in the verses from the fourth chapter of Luke that follow the reading we have today. In those verses, they begin to question: “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?” and when he continues to convict them for being averse to the Scriptures, they attempt to stone him to death. Obviously a significant difference from the reaction to Ezra’s preaching.

    Finally, the Word is fulfilled. Jesus’ instruction in the Gospel that the words of Isaiah have been fulfilled in the synagogue-goers hearing tells us that Word is never intended to be a static thing. We do not just passively sit through the proclamation of the Word, nod our heads, and move on to the Eucharist. The Word is a living thing and it is intended to have an effect on its hearers. Indeed, the Word is always proclaimed with the intent that it be fulfilled, and that fulfillment began with the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. In his person, all of the promises of the Old Testament are brought into being, and the real hope of the world begins.

    We continue to celebrate the Word in those three moments. We come now come to this holy place to hear the Word proclaimed, and have it interpreted in the homily. Our Liturgy of the Word, then, goes back to ancient times, and looks much the way Ezra proclaimed the Scriptures. Except, of course, it’s a lot shorter now! We continue to be affected by the Word’s proclamation. We too may be moved to tears as we hear of God’s goodness, and think of the way we have fallen short. We too need to hear Nehemiah proclaim that the preaching of the Word is a time for great joy. Finally, the Word continues to be fulfilled among us. Having sent his Holy Spirit, Jesus continues to be the fulfillment of Scripture, every time someone hears the Word and acts on it.

    I want to try a bit of an object lesson. Jesus, quoting from Isaiah, said that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him. That is true too for all of us who have been Baptized and Confirmed, because we receive the Holy Spirit in both Sacraments. So I would ask all of you to close your eyes for a minute and listen to these words from Isaiah spoken not just to Jesus, but also to all of us, and to you specifically:

    The Spirit of the Lord is upon you,
    because he has anointed you
    to bring glad tidings to the poor.
    He has sent you to proclaim liberty to captives
    and recovery of sight to the blind,
    to let the oppressed go free,
    and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.

    You may find yourself ill-equipped to break people out of prison. But I know that you know at least one person who is in some kind of prison. Maybe they are imprisoned by illness or old age. Maybe they are imprisoned by fear of acting to better their lives. These people need you to journey with them and be present to them, thereby setting those captives free. You may not be too sure about how you can proclaim recovery of sight to the blind. Maybe you don’t even know anyone who is physically blind. But you probably know somebody who is blind to the fact that they are in an unhealthy or abusive relationship. Or maybe you know somebody who is blind to the fact that they are suffering from an addiction of some sort. Maybe you know somebody who is blind to the fact that someone they are close to needs them in a special way. You may even know somebody who is blind to the fact that they are a beautiful, gifted, and beloved son or daughter of God. You can be present to these who are blind and to gently but firmly accompany them to recovery of sight. Finally, you probably have no idea how to let the oppressed go free. But you may have an hour or two to serve a hot meal to those oppressed by homelessness at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. You may be able to spend some time occasionally with those who are oppressed by not knowing how to read. By giving of yourself, you can let these oppressed go free.

    We have been anointed with the Holy Spirit in order to bring glad tidings to the poor. By acting selflessly, we can turn things around in our own little corner of the world. By hearing and acting on the Word, we can proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord. May the Words of this Holy Book be fulfilled today – and every day – in our hearing.

  • 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?

  • Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Thursday of the Third Week of Lent

    Today’s readings

    How many times have you told someone in your life how to do something, and they chose another way, and you wanted more than anything to say, “I told you so!”? Maybe you’ve even gone so far as to actually say it. The whole thing about saying “I told you so!” is that it’s kind of a writing off of the other person, sort of washing your hands of the outcome of their decisions.

    But how much more could God say, “I told you so!” to us? How many ways have we been warned about doing the wrong thing, or been shown the path to the right thing, and have gone astray anyway? We have the Scriptures to show us the way – do we immerse ourselves in them? We have the Church to show us the way – do we look for her direction? We have prayer and Sacrament to show us the way – do we live in that? So how much more would God be justified in saying, “I told you so!” Yet, he doesn’t. Instead he keeps speaking to our hearts, through Scripture, the Church, prayer and Sacrament – he keeps on inviting us back.

    We are going to hear that invitation today, and when we do, may we listen to it with all our attention. May we let it guide the thoughts of our minds, the words of our lips, and the affections of our hearts. If today you hear God’s voice, harden not your hearts.

  • Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    It certainly seems like Jesus was being a little harsh with the people in today’s Gospel reading.  They weren’t even alive, most likely, when the prophets were killed.  But the prophets were, indeed, killed by their ancestors, and now they are building memorials to those prophets, while still ignoring the prophets’ message.

    And the thing is, they could have had an “out.”  They could have been forgiven for those ancestral, societal sins, by simply turning to the Word of God present among them, repenting of their sins, and entering the kingdom of God.  But, instead, predictably, the Pharisees and scribes try to detain Jesus, the Word of God, and interrogate him, so that they could have something against them

    We have to be on the lookout for any trace of this behavior in us.  We can’t double down on the sins of those who have murdered the prophets by neglecting the poor and the marginalized and refusing to be of service to others.  We have to put our worship into practice and distance ourselves from the scribes and Pharisees who focused on lip service to the law and their own convenience, rejecting the word of God proclaimed to them.

    And we have to be particularly observant of the prophets we have heard, because, unlike those who murdered the prophets who just heard the word of God, we have the Word of God, Jesus Christ, in our midst: on our tongues and in our hearts.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    We’ve all heard this gospel parable about the sower and the seeds dozens of times. We know, then, that the seeds are the Word of God: not just some words, but Word with a capital “W,” which is Jesus himself, God’s eternal Word, spoken to bring life to a world dead in sin.  We know that the seeds are that presence of Christ which fall on hearts that are variously rocky, or thorny, or rich and fertile.  We’ve heard the parable, with Jesus’ own explanation, as well as homilies about it, so many times.

    What stood out to me this time as I read it is how very easy it is to not receive that Word and grow in it.  All it takes is losing our focus: paying attention to something that seems (at least at the time we see it) more enticing than the Word of God.  Then we wither up on that wrong path.  Or we might not tend to the Word of God in our hearts and then some temptation or tragedy comes along and we perish on the rocky ground.  Or we may even, through neglect, get choked out by the things of this world.

    Obviously, we need to provide rich soil for the word to grow.  And, this time of the year, it almost doesn’t make sense to talk about it.  The liturgical cycle usually conforms to the calendar, more or less, and so why this parable about sowing seeds now, right on the verge of autumn when the harvest is pretty much over? Nobody in their right mind sows seeds this late in the year, certainly not in our climate!

    But God does.  He sows the Word among us all the time: every day and every moment.  It’s not just once for the season, and if the seeds don’t grow, then try again next year maybe.  He is constantly sowing the seeds in us, urging us to make of our hearts rich, fertile soil for the Kingdom.  And we do that by enriching the soil through reception of the Sacraments, participating at Mass, enlivening our prayer life, being open to the Word.

    The Sower is out sowing the seeds of his Eternal Word all the time.  Let’s give him fertile ground, that we might yield a rich harvest.

  • The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (Vigil Mass)

    The Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God (Vigil Mass)

    Today’s readings

    Sometimes we get an awful lot of information to process.  On this, the last evening of the auspicious year of 2020, there’s a lot I could say about all that we’ve been through, more or less together (although certainly socially distanced) this year.  So much of our attention has been, deservedly, focused on the COVID-19 pandemic: the health care emergency, its effects on our social, political, educational, and economic environments, and even its effects on our own lives: our health, our emotions, our psychological wellness, and, of course, our spiritual lives.  That alone is a lot to process.  But 2020 has produced a good list of other bad news, including:

    • The wildfires in Australia in December and January which burned 47 million acres.
    • Tensions between Iran and the United States in the early part of the year.
    • Conflict between Syria and Turkey in March.
    • The Harvey Weinstein verdict that fueled the “Me too” movement.
    • The killing of George Floyd which brought to light other deaths including Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Jacob Blake, and others, spurring racial protests and social unrest.
    • The global recession triggered by the pandemic which produced the Dow’s biggest one-day point drop ever in March, and which, throughout the year, has resulted in so many businesses closing and unemployment we haven’t seen in a very long time.
    • The arrival of “murder hornets” in the United States.  It was only a matter of time, unfortunately.
    • A massive explosion at a port in Beirut which resulted in the death of some 190 people in August.
    • Climate disruption brought catastrophic wildfires, a record number of tropical storms and hurricanes, and intense drought in many regions.

    And I’m sure you could think of many others.  Any way you look at it, it’s a lot to process.

    Mary’s story had a lot to process too.  Certainly the announcement of the birth of Jesus is one that she didn’t expect. Even though she was and is full of grace, that didn’t include omniscience, so the will of God had to be revealed to her. And when Gabriel did that, it spurred questions (“How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?”), but of course, ultimately and importantly, faith and acceptance: “Be it done unto me according to your word.”  And that was just the beginning.  Think about it:

    • She had to explain all of this to Joseph, and to others who were not full of grace.
    • Joseph will decide to let her go quietly in order to avoid embarrassment, until he too receives a visit from an angel in a dream.
    • In today’s Gospel, shepherds arrive and tell her what they had been told about Jesus.
    • Shortly, astrologers will arrive with mysterious gifts foreshadowing who Jesus was and what he would become.
    • Again in a dream, Joseph receives a message from an angel about a plot to kill Jesus which causes them to flee to Egypt for protection.
    • At the child’s presentation in the temple, a prophetess and a priest find the culmination of their spiritual lives in the birth of the child, and foretell a future of sorrow and of greatness.

    Becoming a parent for the first time is hard enough, but add in all of that, and it’s an awful lot to process.  Mary relied a lot on the grace she had been given, and on the strength of Joseph, and the protection of God, but still.  She had a lot to ponder in her heart.

    Here’s the thing.  Every age is filled with all kinds of challenges; every life has a story that includes hard stuff.  But every age and life is offered grace, and when that grace is accepted all of the craziness, all of the sadness, all of the horror and scandal can be transformed into glory.  That happened in Mary’s life because of the Cross and Resurrection of her son, and it can happen to all of us too, by that same grace.

    Mary’s reflection on the life of Jesus is really a model for us.  Keeping those events close to her and reflecting on them later is her way of reflecting on the Word of God.  She kept all these crazy events in her heart, and went back to them later in her life – even after the death and resurrection of Jesus – and came to a new understanding guided by the Holy Spirit.  And thank God she did that.  It’s probably her later reflection on those events that made the early Church Evangelist able to record them and pass them on to us.

    We too, must reflect on the Word of God if we are to make sense of the craziness of our time and the story of our life.  We have to put ourselves in the presence of The Story, story with a capital “S,” and ponder it in our hearts.  If we’re confused by Scripture, we have Mary as our patron to help us reflect on that Word and come to understand it, guided as we are by the Holy Spirit.  But we also have her encouragement to keep those Scriptures in the scrapbook of our hearts, to keep coming back to them.  That’s the only way the Spirit can work on us and help us to come to new and more beautiful understandings of the Word of God, and in doing that, to come to a renewed and vibrant relationship with our Lord.

    If we would make a resolution for this new year, let it be to follow Mary’s example.  Maybe we could set aside some time on a regular basis – even if just once a week or five minutes in a day – to put ourselves in the presence of the Word of God.  And not just here at Mass, although that’s a good start.  But maybe in private prayer or even in an organized Bible Study – we have a few of them going on in our parish on a regular basis.  If we regularly open ourselves up to the Word of God, maybe we too could come to new and more beautiful understandings of the Scriptures and understanding of our own lives, and a closer and more beautiful relationship with Jesus Christ, the Eternal Word of God.

    Mary, mother of God the Word, help us to understand the Word as you did.

    Pray for us, O holy Mother of God:
    That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

  • Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

    In today’s gospel reading, Jesus has just been given a great complement and he responds to it kind of brusquely, or at least it seems that way.  Earlier in this eleventh chapter of Luke, Jesus has taught the disciples to pray, teaching them what has become known as the Lord’s prayer.  Then there is the discourse on the need for persistence in prayer that we heard on Thursday.  Then a teaching on demons.  And now this.  From this point on in the chapter, Jesus will turn up the heat on the people’s prayer life.  Nothing less is effective.  Nothing else is acceptable.

    And so we hear the same invitation: “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”  We have been taught how to pray.  We have been given tools in Scripture and in the Church.  So the question is, have we observed that teaching?  Has our prayer become persistent?  Is it the life blood of our relationships with God and others?  Does prayer sustain us in bad times and give us joy in good times?

    Observing the word of God takes many forms.  Most likely, we think of the service we are called upon to help bring about a Godly kingdom on earth.  And that is important, make no mistake about it.  But that same word calls us to a vital relationship with our God, a relationship that raises the bar for all of our other relationships.  That relationship with God can be a blessing to us and to our world.  But we can only get there by prayer.  We have to make time for the one who always makes time for us.

    “Blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”

  • Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Saturday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    We’ve all heard this gospel parable about the sower and the seeds dozens of times. We know, then, that the seeds are the Word of God: not just some words, but Word with a capital “W,” which is Jesus himself, God’s eternal Word, spoken to bring life to a world dead in sin.  We know that the seeds are that presence of Christ which fall on hearts that are variously rocky, or thorny, or rich and fertile.  We’ve heard the parable, with Jesus’ own explanation, as well as homilies about it, so many times.

    But what got me wondering as I read the parable in preparation for this morning’s Mass, was why – why are we hearing this parable now?  The liturgical cycle usually conforms to the calendar, more or less, and so why this parable about sowing seeds now, right on the verge of autumn? Nobody in their right mind sows seeds this late in the year, certainly not in our climate!

    But God does.  He sows the Word among us all the time: every day and every moment.  It’s not just once for the season, and if the seeds don’t grow, then try again next year maybe.  He is constantly sowing the seeds in us, urging us to make of our hearts rich, fertile soil for the Kingdom.  And we do that by enriching the soil through reception of the Sacraments, participating at Mass, enlivening our prayer life, being open to the Word.

    The Sower is out sowing the seeds of his Eternal Word all the time.  Let’s give him fertile ground, that we can yield a rich harvest.

  • The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    The Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    There’s a little Christian Science church in the town where I grew up, on Main Street, just north of the downtown area.  They don’t anymore, but they used to list their upcoming sermon topic, followed by the line “All are welcome.”  Imagine my surprise when one day, the topic was going to be eternal punishment.  So the sign read: “Eternal Punishment.  All are welcome.”  Yeah, I had to drive around the block to make sure I read that right!

    But that sign 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 build 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.

    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 usually 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 the midst of a pandemic and a time of social unrest.  We have to be people who stand for what is right and not just wait for the whole racial thing to “blow over.”  We have to demand that our society gets this right once and for all, so that no one will ever be marginalized because of their race, not ever again.  And we have to be people who, in the midst of a pandemic that is demanding a lot of us, give as much as we are called to.  We have to wear our masks out in public because we could be protecting someone else.  We have to social distance when it’s hard to do that, because we have to stop the spread.

    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?

  • The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sunday of the Word of God

    The Third Sunday of Ordinary Time: Sunday of the Word of God

    Today’s Readings
    Pope Francis’s “motu proprio” APERUIT ILLIS, instituting the Sunday of the Word of God

    About fifteen years ago now, my home parish put on a production of the musical Godspell, and somehow I found myself part of the cast.  If you’ve ever seen the musical, you know that it is based on the Gospel of Matthew, the Gospel that we are reading during this current Church year.  I remember the first song of the musical was kind of strange to me at the time.  It’s called “Tower of Babel” and the lyrics are a hodge-podge of lots of philosophies and philosophers throughout time.  I didn’t get, at the time, the significance of the song, but I do now.  “Tower of Babel” represents the various schools of thought about God, over time.  It shows how philosophy at its worst has been an attempt to figure out God by going over God’s head, by leaving God out of the picture completely.

    The song ends abruptly and goes right into the second song of the musical, “Prepare Ye,” of which the major lyric is “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”  The message that we can take from that is that the useless, and in some ways sinful, babbling of the pagan philosophers was once and for all settled by Jesus Christ.  If we want to know the meaning of life, if we want to know who God is, we have only to look to Jesus.  That’s true of most things in life.

    That’s what is happening in today’s Liturgy of the Word too.  The people in the first reading and in the Gospel have found themselves in darkness.  Zebulun and Naphtali have been degraded.  They have been punished for their sinfulness, the sin being that they thought they didn’t need God.  They thought they could get by on their own cleverness, making alliances with people who believed in strange gods and worshiped idols.  So now they find themselves in a tower of Babel, occupied by the people with whom they tried to ally themselves.  Today’s first reading tells them that this subjection – well deserved as it certainly was – is coming to an end.  The people who have dwelt in darkness are about to see a great light.

    The same is true in another sense for Peter and Andrew and the sons of Zebedee in today’s Gospel.  These men have been fishermen all their lives.  Reading the Gospels and seeing how infrequently they catch anything unless Jesus helps them, we might wonder how successful they were at their craft.  But the point is that fishing is all they’ve ever known.  These are not learned men, nor are they known for their charisma or ability to lead people.  But these are the men who Jesus calls as apostles.  One wonders if they had any previous about Jesus, because on seeing him and hearing him and recognizing the Light of the World, they drop everything, turn their backs on the people and work they have always known, and follow Jesus, whose future they absolutely could never have imagined.

    All of this is good news for us. Because we too dwell in darkness at times, don’t we? We can turn on the news and see reports of men and women dying in war, crime and violence in our communities, corruption in government, and maybe worst of all right now, sniping between political candidates!  Then there is the rampant disrespect for life through the horrific sin of abortion, as well as euthanasia, hunger and homelessness, racism and hatred, and so much more.  Add to that the darkness in our own lives: illness of a family member or death of a loved one, difficulty in relating to family members, and even our own sinfulness.  Sometimes it doesn’t take much imagination to know that our world is a very dark place indeed.

    But the Liturgy today speaks to us the truth that into all of this darkness, the Light of Christ has dawned and illumined that darkness in ways that forever change our world and forever change us.  One of the Communion antiphons for today’s Liturgy speaks of that change.  Quoting Jesus in the Gospel of John, it says this:

    I am the light of the world, says the Lord;
    whoever follows me will not walk in darkness,
    but will have the light of life.  

    There is an antidote available for the darkness in our world and in our hearts, and that antidote is Jesus Christ.  The limits that are part and parcel of our human existence are no match for the light that is God’s glory manifested in Christ.  This is what we mean by the Epiphany, and we continue to live in the light of the Epiphany in these opening days of Ordinary Time.  Now that Jesus Christ has come into the world, nothing on earth can obscure the vision of God’s glory that we see in our Savior.

    Pope Francis has made this particular Sunday each year a celebration of the Word of God.  He means for us to spend time opening the Scriptures and finding the manifold riches that are there.  That’s what our Mass is always about.  Read carefully through the order of Mass and you’ll find scripture in every part of it.  Not just in the Liturgy of the Word – that’s a given, but in each and every one of the prayers of Mass.  Catholic worship isn’t something someone made up, it is literally a celebration of the Word of God from beginning to end.  And that makes sense, when you think about it: if we are called to “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord,” as one of the dismissal formulas invites us, we can do that with confidence because we have just been fed on the Gospel in every part of our Mass.

    The Mass, too, is an Epiphany celebration at every point of the liturgical year.  Because when we’re attentive to the Word of God and the prayer of the Mass, we can’t possibly miss Jesus present among us.  So Pope Francis on this Sunday of the Word of God encourages us to devote ourselves to God’s word: to join a Bible study – we have that here at Saint Mary’s, to help others break open the word by leading that part of the RCIA, to teaching the scriptures to children in our school and religious education programs, to proclaiming the Word at Mass.  Do any one of those things, sisters and brothers, and I guarantee you’ll grow in your knowledge of scripture.  And, turning a famous saying of Saint Jerome around to the positive, knowledge of scripture is knowledge of Christ.

    Jesus came to be good news for us.  He is the Word of God incarnate among us, not just two thousand years ago, but even now if we would give ourselves over to loving the scriptures.  So for those of us who feel like every day is a struggle of some sort, and who wonder if this life really means anything, the Good news is that Jesus has come to give meaning to our struggles and to walk with us as we go through them. For those of us who are called to ministries for which we might feel unqualified – as catechists, Eucharistic Ministers, Lectors, RCIA team members, small group leaders or retreat leaders – we can look to the Apostles and see that those fishermen were transformed from the darkness of their limited life to the light of what they were able to accomplish in Christ Jesus. Wherever we feel darkness in our lives, the Good News for us is that Christ’s Epiphany – his manifestation into our world and into our lives – has overcome all that.

    As the Psalmist sings for us today, the Lord truly is our light and our salvation.