In the evening of life, we will be judged by love alone.

 

Thirty First Sunday in OT B  2021

 

The Great Commandment is at the head of today’s readings. The Great Commandment, we hear it in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy is one of the five books of the Torah. And when quoted by Jesus in Mark’s Gospel … in Mark’s Gospel it is there because, from the beginning of Deuteronomy, many, many centuries ago, Jew and gentile were one family.

 

This declaration of God’s unity and call to love God with all our being and our neighbour as ourselves is still today central in Jewish worship.

 

This is what Moses has to say, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone! Therefore, you shall love the LORD, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.”

The connection between the words of Moses and the Gospel from Mark is very apparent. “One of the scribes came to Jesus and asked him, "Which is the first of all the commandments?" Jesus replied, "The first is this: Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. The second is this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now it is so significant  that Jesus is making this statement that the two great commandments are essentially connected with each other.  If we really love God and pray, we will be led into active, generous love for someone who needs us.  The authenticity of our celebration of the Eucharist, the genuineness of the time we spend in Eucharistic adoration will be seen in the love and the service we share with one another.

 

How do I and how do you show our love of God in the day to day moments of our lives?    Many of us need to confess that too often we live our lives devoid of our awareness of God’s presence in our God.  Too often we live  when apparently we don’t need God, we can shelf Him.  Sometimes, God can be likened to one of the applications on our iPhone to open and shut at will.

 

 

In this liturgy, we humbly ask for the grace to experience God in our lives not as an application on the iPhone but rather to experience God as our very operating system by which everything else in our lives draws its existence and meaning.

 

So, as you continuously use your iphone throughout this day, ask yourself if God is merely an app on your phone or is your faith the very operating system by which you live your life.

 

If falling in love with God is the very operating system of who you are, what would that look like?

 

When we are in love, we know what our priorities are, we know each day how we will devote our time and our talents. And when we are in love we find time to nourish our relationships.”

 

This is very human. We take it for granted. A mother looks at her children not only with an understanding that the child will grow to manhood and womanhood, but an understanding that this child must be loved. And it is love that brings this child through life. And because the emphasis is on love, she finds time to nourish relationships.

 

Sometimes, maybe, we over-emphasise, especially in our schools, the idea of teaching people what it is and how to explain — how to explain God and how to explain this and explain that.

 

But this is of limited value.  This is so because it doesn’t reach into one specific area that Jesus again and again speaks of and we too often pay no attention to it: Love one another as I love you. Love me!

 

Jesus said to Peter:  “Peter, do you love me?”

 

Peter says, “You know I love you. Why are you asking three times? Why are you asking me this?”

 

“Peter, if you love me, feed my sheep.”

 

Love is what drives this Church on. And love is what we have to begin to judge ourselves on. Not do we understand. Not do we read enough books, are we on top of career charts.

 

We have to learn how to love. And, of course, that’s what Jesus does.

Jesus has come not to teach us grammar, not to teach us the wonders of the world, Jesus has come to teach us how to love. Because we don’t know how. We think we know, but we don’t.

 

Why?

 

Because love gives, love doesn’t take. There’s nothing in love that takes. It only gives and gives.

 

We worship God because He’s a giver. God, have you ever noticed, God doesn’t take anything from us. He gives and gives and gives.

 

And that is what He expects of us as Christians.

 

We’re not to ask what I get out of things. Will I get this? Will I go to heaven? Will I do this? Will I do that? This is a waste of time.

 

What matters is: will I learn to love, will I learn to appreciate, will I learn to walk through life knowing that everyone that I see is my brother and my sister and we are linked together in one long march through this life and into eternal life.

 

The question is not how high you make it in the world, how smart you are, your marks at school, even. The question is none of these things. These are secondary.

The question is can you love, are you afraid to love, are you running away from love, or are you going to follow Jesus’ love which finally leads to a cross? Jesus dies on a cross to tell us that there is only love in life that carries us through life into all eternity.

 

 

This is what God intends: that we learn how to love, that we learn how to care, that we learn how to sacrifice, that we learn how to become human beings.

And in all of this we are privileged to know that it is Jesus who has taught us, his children, and continues to teach us, for he is with us all our days, and the one thing he is teaching us is to learn how to love.

As Meister Eckhart has taught us, “At the end of the day, we are going to be judged by love alone.”

May God give us the grace to love God and to love one another.

Jesus is asking us: "What do you want me to do for you?"

 

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN OT B   2021

 

Today’s Gospel describes the beautiful miracle of Jesus giving sight to the blind man Bartimaeus.  In the account, Jesus asked Bartimaeus:  What do you want me to do for you?  He responded: “Lord, that I may see.”

In today’s liturgy, Jesus is asking us the same question that he asked Bartimaeus:  What do you want me to do for you?

Would like you to pause for a few minutes before you answer the Lord’s question to you.

In today’s Gospel, the disciples were the security guard for Jesus as He was leaving Jericho.  To keep some order and to keep people from bothering Jesus, the disciples kept people like the blind Bartimaeus at a distance.  The disciples basically told the blind beggar to shut up.  He was disturbing the peace.

The irony of this Gospel passage is that it was the disciples who were blind.  They had a spiritual blindness to the healing, merciful mission of Jesus.  They simply did not get it.  They were very content to leave people with disabilities as unnoticed people on the side of the road.

Yet, the ministry of Jesus was to reveal the merciful love of God to people in need.

 

Wondering if there is a message for us today.  Do we sometimes suffer from spiritual blindness and sometimes mistakenly try to keep Jesus from people in need?

I wonder if we faithful Churchgoers, starting with the pastor, sometimes act as the security guard for Jesus in the same way that the disciples did in the Gospel account.  Who are the people we tell to shut up, and we want to keep at a distance from our faith community?

Perhaps it is people who we judge are not living a moral life -- people with a different sexual orientation, people who have experienced separation and divorce in their married life, people we judge not to be living a Christ-like life, people we think are phonies, people who are disruptive to the ways we pray. 

Like the first disciples often we are unaware of the ways we can keep people from experiencing the merciful love of Jesus.

May the blind man Bartimaeus represent all the unnoticed people, all the forgotten, people with disabilities, and the people we try to shut up in very polite words. 

And may see have the spiritual sightedness to witness to the merciful love of Jesus to all who are in need.

As we pray over today’s Gospel, be aware of the physical blindness of Bartimaeus, and be aware also of the spiritual blindness of the disciples.  As we pray in the words of Bartimaeus, “Lord, that I may see.”  We pray for both physical and spiritual sightedness to the ways Jesus is present and the ways Jesus wishes to be present to all who are in need.

This week’s Gospel invites us to place ourselves along the way with the blind Bartimaeus.    How would you name your spiritual blindness -- contemplate and admit your own blind spots?  This is bit of a challenge for all of us because it is so easy to be unaware of our own blind spots.

Do we have a blindness to the unnoticed people on the side of the road that we so easily pass by?  How aware are we of the people near us in Church today?  What can we do to connect more fully with the people in our faith community?

Who is the person in our family life that we have built up a wall of blindness that makes it so difficult to reach out to?  Lord, that I may see how your grace can bring healing to this relationship?

A blind spot in our spiritual journey may be the blindness that keeps us from experiencing the merciful healing of Jesus in the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  What is the last time we have experienced this sacrament?  What would it take for you to remove this spiritual blindness and know the forgiving love of Jesus in this beautiful sacrament?

The dialogue of Jesus with Bartimaeus is the dialogue Jesus has with us today.  Bartimaeus, like each of us, needs to be loved, and is fortunate to receive by Jesus a loving question.  Not “what do you want to do?” asks Jesus, but “What do you want me to do?”  It’s a question that comes from the heart of Christ and shows His compassion.

The Lord is asking us:  What do you want me to do for you?  May we respond with Bartimaeus: “Lord, that I may see.”  Let Bartimaeus be our guide.  He asks for the most important gift God can give.  May we see what is of real value in life.  May we know what is true.  May we judge rightly and walk confidently in the light of Christ. 

Notice in the account that the very first thing Bartimaeus sees when he is healed is the face of Christ.  To know Jesus is the key to the Christian life.   To know Jesus is to know God and our true self.

Bartimaeus’ prayer is answered.  Once he has seen Jesus’ face to face, there is no other life for him except to be with Jesus and to follow him.  He leaves behind his beggar’s cloak and joins Jesus and the other disciples on the way to Jerusalem.  Like a man in love, he has seen the face of his beloved, and there is no turning back.   May we too be cured of our blindness which keeps from seeing the face of Jesus.

What would it take for us to have a vision of life in which we trust that Jesus goes with us in all experiences of life?   What would it take for us to have a vision of ourselves as a faith community in which we welcome everyone as one who is made in the image and likeness of God, and there is room for everyone in our faith community?

Bartimaeus never gave up.  He was persistent.  He made known his request to God.  He was a man of faith.  In this account, he understood the mission of Jesus far better that the disciples did.

May we with the persistence of Bartimaeus ask the Lord that I may see.  May we see and experience the truth of our lives.  God’s love for us is unending.  Whatever anxiety we experience, whatever struggle we are dealing with, whatever disabilities hold us down, we all are the recipients of the abundant merciful love of Jesus.  Lord, that I may see how you are present to me in my time of need.

May God give you the gift of peace and beautiful sightedness.

The authority of God is in listening, in caring, in forgiving, and in loving as God loves us.

 

Twenty Ninth Sunday in OT  B  2021

 

This Gospel about the brothers James and John asking the Lord for positions of honor in the kingdom of God at the Lord’s right and left hand.

 

This is one of my favorite Gospels for me to identify with.  James is my patron saint and I have a brother John.  And I must confess to you that pride easily gets the best of me wanting to be recognized and wanting to be successful.

 

In the scriptures of my own life, as far back as I can remember, as a Little League baseball player at Genesee Valley Park, losing a ball game seemed like the end of the world.  Thanks to my sainted mother, she helped to understand it was just a game and the sun was going to rise the next morning.

 

As a student in the seminary, with much encouragement from my dad, getting high marks and doing well academically was very important.  There was a definite competitive to myself.

 

After ordination, I have been very much blessed with a variety of priestly assignments.  I am grateful for the confidence the Bishop and others have placed in me.  I was beginning to feel like the apostles James and John.

 

The apostles James and James were on the inner circle of the apostles and so you might guess that would want to take the next step and see if they would get that extra recognition.  And so, they asked the Lord for the two prime places of honor in the Kingdom  of God.

 

 

There’s no doubt about it.  Competition is as keen today as it was during Jesus’ time.   Human nature hasn’t changed much in the last two millennia.  We are still driven to be No.1, to earn the most, achieve as much as we can, be recognized for our accomplishments, to have that seat at the “big table.”

 

I can identify with the ambition of James and John and get easily caught in pride and self-centeredness.

 

 

 

But as to opening up his apostles to the true meaning of discipleship, Jesus is so disappointed, because they are thinking of power and glory and praise and all these great, wonderful things, and he is thinking of his own death.

 

And so he says to them,

“Can you drink the cup that I drink?”

 

The cup is the cup of suffering.  Are we able to be followers of the crucified Christ, the Christ who came not to be serve but to serve, the Christ who was willing to lay down his life out of love for each and everyone of us.

 

And then he says,

“or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?”

 

We usually think of a little child being baptized, a new life being baptized. Baptisms of infants is such a precious part of my ministry and brings much to all.

 

But the word baptism means “to be immersed in water.”

 

And the whole story of baptism is we are immersed and drowned in the waters that we might die to our old lives and be brought up out of the waters and live to the new life in Christ.

 

This is why I so prefer immersion baptism so that we may be immersed in the life giving water of Jesus.  But we must know that to be immersed in the life of Jesus in to enter into the paschal mystery – the dying and the rising of Jesus.

 

And so,Jesus knows that he is going to be baptized means that he must die, but in three days he will rise again.

 

James and John said: “We can drink of the cup and we can be baptized with the baptism,” not understanding at all what they are talking about.

 

But Jesus softens and he looks at them and he knows in the future they will return and he says to them, “Yes, someday you will have to drink the cup and someday you will be baptised in this kind of baptism.

 

“But to give you places in heaven, that is not for me to talk about, that is for the Father. It is the prerogative of the Father to speak of rewards, to speak of the things that you are crying out for so much.”

 

 

But the other disciples hear about it and they protest.  Why do they protest?

They are jealous. They, too, want the first places at the table. They, too, want to be honoured. They, too, want power. They, too, are in the competition game. They want to be winners and not losers — finally. They have been losing their whole life and now this man is going to make them winners.

 

And Jesus listens to them squabbling. These are the men that he’s going to found the Kingdom of God?

 

These are the men that want the authority of the world. As we well know, in this life, you do not rise high unless you want power, unless you are somewhat arrogant and forceful. It’s a world in which the authority of the world is based on might and power.

 

And Jesus is offering the authority of God.

And what is the authority of God?

 

The authority of God is not in domination. It is not in winning.

The authority of God is in loving. It is in silence. It is in quietness. It is in accompaniment, a quiet presence. It is in listening. It is in caring. It is in accepting.

It is learning how to love the way the Father loves, because the Father is a giver and not a taker. It is learning how to love the way Jesus loves, so great that he will lay his life down for his people.

 

And this great mystery, that we take so readily today into our own lives, is not understood, or not heard, by the Apostles.

 

And so it is Jesus comes together and he explains it to them. And he explains it to them in these words:

Jesus summoned them and said to them,
“You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles
lord it over them,
and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you.
Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served
but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

 

Nest Sunday is Missionary Sunday.  Sometimes we think it is that we are sent out to kind of convince the whole world that we are right and they are wrong, that we have the truth and they don’t.

 

This is very far, not from the Apostles’ thoughts, but from the thoughts of God.

We are sent into this world to listen and to heal, to care and to reach out. We are,  sent into this world to learn how to love not as people love, to learn how to love as God loves.

 

And God gives His only begotten Son that he should offer his life that we might understand that God’s love is so great that He gives everything into our hands.

 

May God give you the gift of peace and a missionary spirit of listening, of compassion, of caring, and loving as God loves us.

Respect Life -- we become our best selves in loving and sharing and giving with each other.

 

Twenty Seventh Sunday in OT  B  2021

 

On this first weekend of the month of October, we are celebrating respect life weekend.  We are celebrating the dignity of every person God has created.  We are all made in the image and likeness of God.  From the first moment of conception till the day we are placed in the grave, each person’s life is to be respected and is very much deserving of our love.

In the first scripture reading from the Book of Genesis, the Lord God said: “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  God has created us for relationship.  The need for companionship is basic and God-given in each of us.  We become our best selves in loving and sharing and giving with each another.  We are made for each other.  God created us to share life and life in all its abundance.

Simply put, no person was made to be an island, in isolation from community.  Through God’s eyes, humanity is complete in partnership and in love.  We are better together.

In a session with some faith-filled children,  I asked them why they thought God said:  “It is not good for man to be alone.”  They responded so beautifully and honestly:  One said: “We need friends”….another “I love my mom and dad and brothers and sisters”….Another said:  “It would be so boring.”  Another said:  “Jesus wants us to love one another.” 

Even at a young age, maybe especially at their age, children know they are safe and very much loved in their family.  They know they are their best selves when they are kind, when they have friends, and when they love others.

The need for partnership and companionship and love is best expressed most beautifully in the marriage vows:  “I, John, take you, Mary, to be my wife.  I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health.  I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.”

Marriage is part of God’s loving plan of salvation.

Jesus, the great teacher, goes back to God’s original plan of creation.  God has created us to be in relationship.  When the examiners of Jesus brought up the question of divorce, Jesus turned it into a discussion of the dignity of each person and the fact that human beings are made for loving one another as truly as we are made to love God.

In his interchange with the Pharisees, Jesus went far beyond the question of divorce to teach about the meaning of human relationship in general.   Jesus went beyond the legality of the law.  He called people to discern God’s will as that which promotes life-giving relationships in each and every situation.

Marriage is a school of love and forgiveness.  When two people get married they bring with them to their marriage normal human weaknesses and discover weakness in the other which previously they did not know.    In the sacrament of marriage, it is not just two people coming together in love; the sacrament of marriage unites the couple with Jesus and brings them God’s blessing.

The faithfulness of God to this couple is lived out in the sacrament of marriage.  God is always faithful to us his people.  God is always faithful to the Church.

 

Our respect life theme fits very well with our commitment to the Catholic Ministries Appeal  (CMA).  The Gospel imperative for us clearly is the need to go beyond the boundaries of our parish in witnessing to the dignity and beauty of all human life.  We are to move our comfort and reach out in sharing our resources with people in need thought our 12 county diocese.

 

Our parish goal is $89,950.  This is a bit of a stretch for us but certainly it is not an unreasonable goal.  None of us get a  free pass in our to share what we have with those in need.  Our goal is high because we have been blessed by our loving, giving God with many blessings.  May we support the CMA, not  begrudgingly, but willingly with generous hearts.  For God loves a cheerful given.

 

Respect life is part of our parish’s DNA.  As such, we are called to support the dignity of human life with people in need throughout our diocese.  Personally, I will give generously to the CMA , and I will increase my giving over last year.  I would ask you to do the same if you are able.

 

Be assured that every cent of our CMA giving is used to support the needed and worthwhile ministries of our diocese.  You can be assured that you will never regret being generous with people in need.

 

In the second Scripture reading, the sacred writer says that Jesus was made perfect through suffering.  For us too, our relationship with Jesus is deepened through the sufferings we experience.  The cross, suffering in our life is part of our sharing in the paschal mystery of the Lord.  We are to die to ourselves so that we may live more fully in the life of Christ. 

As we celebrate respect life this weekend, may we respect the life and the dignity of all those who have experienced  pain and suffering.  The beauty of our respect life theme is that people most in need – for those who are divorced and those who have experienced brokenness in relationship – are people whom the Lord welcomes and forgives and desires them to be reconciled to the God who desires reconciliation with one and all.

May we be a faith community that is deeply committed to respecting all human life, and may this commitment lead us to support our annual diocesan CMA that enhances the human dignity of all the people in our diocese.

 

May God give you peace and a spirit of generosity.