Jesus has a strange way of looking on whom to invite and who are the most important.

 

Twenty  Second Sunday in OT  C  2022

 

Today can be fittingly called HUMILITY SUNDAY judging from the perspective of the first reading and the Gospel. Please take a close look at the word humility.  The word comes from the Latin humilis which means lowly, close to the earth.  The root is actually humus which means soil.  Hence to be humble is seen as being down-to-earth.  Humility goes with selflessness.

 Sirach in the first Scripture reading says that God loves the humbles and detests the proud.   The more we humble ourselves, we find favor with God.

We see in today’s Gospel what is often true in the parables of Jesus is that we go from the known to the unknown.  In this parable, the known for all is that we are familiar with eating together at table.  What is the unknown is that Jesus is pointing to is two very important lessons on what the kingdom of God is like. 

So we ask what is God’s kingdom like?

First Lesson:  Jesus is observing how the guests are choosing places of honor at the banquet table.  Where we are seated at the banquet is indicative of your place of honor.  For those of us invited to wedding banquets, the bride, or perhaps the bride’s mother, has somewhat carefully chosen who seats with whom at the wedding banquet. The places of honor are somewhat predetermined.

There is a side of all of us that welcomes a bit of honor and recognition.

Jesus invites us to take the lowest place and hopefully the host will invite you to come higher.  But please notice that this parable is not about clever maneuvering so that you will be honored when the host invites you to come up higher.

Rather Jesus is challenging that side of us that wants to be honored and recognized.

The meaning of the parable can be found by recalling the Last Supper with Jesus and his disciples in which Jesus knelt down and put a towel around his waist and washed the feet of his disciples.  Jesus gave the example to the apostles of how they were to be His followers.

 

 The first lesson from this parable is that his disciples, rather than jockeying for places of honor, were to humbly serve one another.  The way of humble service is to characterize table fellowship in the kingdom of God.

It takes humility to know God and to love Him and our neighbors.  It takes humility to pray.  It takes humility to repent from one’s sins.  It takes humility to say: “I am sorry.”

What do you think?  Is it true that there is abundance of pride but scarcity of humility in politics and in all the ways we try to climb the ladder of success?  It takes humility to let go and to let God.  Our salvation was an act of humility.

St Paul said:  “Though he was in the form  of God he did not deem equality with God with something to be grasped but he humbled Himself taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient even unto death, death on the cross.

Humility is a garment we all need to wear.  There is a true story that during a presentation at a certain University, a student was holding his paper at his left hand while making his presentation.  Sighting him, a professor scolded him harshly and asked him to hold the paper in his right hand and sit down.  The young man raised his right arm for everyone to see that half of it was cut off.  The professor seeing this came to the boy knelt down before him and begged to be forgiven because he did not know about his disability.  This act of the professor touched and changed the life of not only the boy but many of the students.

God is not interested in what we are but in who we are --  that is where humility can be found.

The second extremely important lesson can be found in the latter part of the parable when Jesus says: “When you hold a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind; blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.”

 This second lesson speaks to the hospitality of God that the Church is to embody.  All are welcome without prejudice in the kingdom of God.  Jesus is the embodiment of God’s hospitality.

How do we as a parish community welcome the outcasts into our parish community?  Do we welcome all people without regard to their race, their sexual orientation, their marital status or whatever there is about a particular person?

And do we feel at home eating where the poor, the crippled, and the outcasts eat or is this below our status and way of life?  This is a challenge, is it not, to go beyond our comfort zone.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has a strange way of looking on whom to invite and who are the most important.  The point is everyone is invited to the banquet of Jesus.

As we gather for this Eucharistic meal today, we reflect on how we have gathered for this meal.  Do we see each other as brothers and sisters?   Do we see ourselves as servants of each other?  Do we see ourselves as the servants of all who are poor?  Are all welcome to this table of the Lord?

If there is a bit of the parable that makes us uncomfortable or challenged beyond our comfort zone, we have understood well the message of Jesus.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When our hope is in the Lord, the narrow gate becomes the widest of gates.

 

Twenty First Sunday in OT   C  2022

 

Today’s Gospel catches our undivided attention.   The disciples asked Jesus:  Lord, will only a few people be saved?”  Jesus responds:  “Strive to enter though the narrow gate.”

 

Then Jesus goes on to say:  “When once the owner of the house has got up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then in reply he will say to you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’”

 

As people strived to enter the narrow door of salvation, the door was shut and people panicked and said: “Lord, open to us.”  Jesus responds:  “I do not know where you come from.”

 

Did you ever think of the Kingdom of God as a gated community?  As a gated community to which I am not welcome!  People who live in gated communities value privacy, security, and safety.  It is usually associated with some degree of affluence.

 

But isn’t the kingdom of God a home for all of God’s people – just the opposite of a gated community, is it not?  All are welcome into the kingdom of God.

 

I invite you to reflect on that haunting statement of Jesus in the Gospel:  ”I do not know where you come from.”  We need to ask ourselves the question:  “Where do you come from?”  It obviously means much more than geography and social connections.  In the Gospel account, people responded to the Lord:  “Lord you know us and where we come from.”  They come from the villages and towns where he taught and the dinner gatherings where he ate and drank.  We played golf together, don’t you remember? But superficial contacts of eating and drinking aren’t going to cut the mustard.

 

There will always be those who want in on their own terms.  They want to enter into the banquet table of the Lord because of who they know.  In all honesty, we need to confess that at times we want to come to God on our own terms.  We try to balance living out our faith amid the many commitments of our life.  We try to fulfill our obligations.

 

 

 

But is not enough to say that I’m spiritual in some abstract fashion.  It isn’t enough to say I’m spiritual when all is going very, very well.  Does our notion of spirituality embrace accepting the crosses of life?  Where is our spirituality as we struggle and deal with setback and loss and sickness and death?  Where is our spirituality when people disappoint us, and we are disillusioned by the hypocrisy and sinfulness of others?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is the willingness to die to self and center our lives on love of God and love of others.  What are the limits we place on our commitment to others?  Are we the followers of the Christ who died to bring healing to all people?  Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is sharing in this Eucharistic banquet Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.  To what degree can we say that the Sunday Eucharist is the source and summit of our prayer life?

 

Being spiritual as a disciple of Jesus is learning the great lesson of grace.  We begin through our efforts and spiritual disciplines to enter through the narrow door but ultimately our spiritual striving leads to spiritual surrender.  We ultimately live life with open hands and trusting hearts.  We trust in God’s healing grace for us, and we rely on God’s grace to lead us through the narrow door.  When our hope is in the Lord, that narrow door becomes the widest of gates. Our journey through the narrow door is a journey of faith.   All salvation comes from God.

 

The takeaway message of the Gospel is learning this great lesson of grace.

 

Yes, the great lesson of grace calls us to the spiritual discipline of laying down our lives but always with the deep realization that it is not our will power; rather it is God’s loving and healing and forgiving presence in our lives that leads us to the fullness of life.

 

Jesus’ Gospel admonition still catches our attention:  “Strive to enter the narrow door.”  As with the entire Gospel, the “narrow door” is good news, not bad news.  It is the evangelium.  The Evangelium, the Gospel of Jesus is always Good News.  In fact, the narrow door is not so much about the constraint of space that keeps us from access of the kingdom of God.  Rather the narrow door is about the focus of our commitment to discipleship.  Actually the narrow door is the only entryway that is equally available to everyone, regardless of nationality, financial status, respectability, or health.  The narrow door is simply that still, small place in the heart where one says “yes” or “no” to the Gospel message of love.  It is the one place through which no external force can shape or coerce one’s choices.  It is what Theresa of Avila called the “the center of the soul,” wherein God dwells.

 

Finding the narrow door that leads to the center is not a matter of eating and drinking, or of knowing the right people or of reciting the right formulas.  It is, first and last, to share in the heart of Jesus that embraces in love all of God’s people.   Sharing in the heart of Jesus is an act of faith, trusting in the Lord, confident that God will indeed lead us to the narrow door of salvation. 

 

The door is narrow because all of our talents and abilities and disciplines and pieties will not lead us to the heart of Jesus.  For all of us the entreway to the heart of Jesus is simply that act of faith trusting that Jesus accompanies us in all experiences of life.

 

Jesus says in the Gospel that the last shall be first and the first last.  The first are those who have found in their heart what Jesus knew in his heart – divine love makes brothers and sisters of us all.  When we know this, the Lord knows us; and the narrow door becomes the widest of gates.

 

Have a Blessed Day..

 

 

 

 

 

Our cost of discipleship is to witness to the self-giving love of Jesus in the lives of others.

 Twentieth Sunday in OT C  2022

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing.” ...  Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division.”

This Gospel imperative runs in the face of a more compassionate pastoral approach to ministry.  To become a member of St Joseph’s Church, you simply need to be breathing and fill out a census card.  It is very, very easy.  I try to short circuit the hoops that people sometimes need to go through in the Catholic Church.  My mother taught me always to be kind and trust that God’s love will be revealed.

If your body is in the Church today, you get a gold star from me as being a very active member of St. Joseph’s.  After all, there are many parishioners who are not here today.  It’s still summer.  So, congratulations.

However, however, I am not the final word on discipleship of the Lord Jesus.   Jesus is!  Jesus, of course, is the Savior and Lord of our lives.  For Jesus, being here on Sunday is just the beginning of our discipleship.  There is much more expected of me and much more to be expected of you.   Jesus expected the same prophetic fire that burned in him to burn also in the hearts of his followers.

In answering the call to follow Jesus, we are in for rude awakening as to the cost of discipleship.  We need to look no further than the crucifix to witness the extent of the giving love of Jesus.  He gave us His life.  The cost of discipleship for us is the kind of giving love that Jesus has given us.

It can be hard to tell the truth about what it means to be Catholic, to be a follower of Jesus, to be a disciple.  After all, we want people to feel good about being spiritual.  Yet, as disciples of Jesus, we are called to give of our time, talent, and treasure.

This Sunday we are asked to be generous in the second collection in support of a Catholic high school for girls that is tucked away in Mazinde Ju in Tanzania.  Yes, that is not in our back yard and can fall easily into the category of out of sight, out of mind.   But clearly and unmistakably, these faith-filled high school students, over 1000 in number who are taught by the religious sisters of Usumbara under the leadership of a most remarkable Benedictine Father Damien Milliken, a native of Elmira, NY are part of our missionary cost of discipleship.

 

On three occasions dating back more than ten years ago, parishioners from St Joseph’s have gone on pilgrimage to St Mary’s School in Tanzania.  I have the privilege of going with a group of parishioners in 2018.  This has been a life changing experience for me as well as all from St Joe’s who have had the opportunity to be a part of this Christ-like school that provides a spiritual and academic opportunity for high school girls who otherwise would be without educational opportunities.

Over these last several years, St Joseph’s has been a major benefactor to this school – contributing as much as $50,000 in a given year.  There are several of us, myself included, who contribute $1,000 per year to provide scholarship for deserving students.

My mantra is you never regret being generous for people in need.

As a priest of 54 blessed years, I have the opportunity to celebrate Mass in many sacred places including at St Peter’s Basilica in Rome when St John Paul II ordained my nephew Jason a priest.  That was a wow experience for me. Tomorrow, for example, I am going to Camp Stella Maris on Conesus Lake to celebrate Mass for many, many enthusiastic campers.

But I tell you, my most mystical celebration of the Eucharist was in the school chapel of St Mary’s at 6:00 am on an ordinary school day.  Looking out from the altar, I was in the presence of 1,000 high school girls in full Catholic school uniform singing the opening hymn with angelic and enthusiastic voices accompanied only by one high school girl in the choir loft striking a well-worm drum.  The joy in their hearts was unmistakable.

What I would emphasize is that this wasn’t special feast for Our Lady, this liturgy happens each and every school day at 6:00 am in the morning with the same kind energy and prayerfulness.

The holiness of this liturgy remains with me four years later.

I wish for you that somehow you too have the opportunity of experiencing firsthand our missionary commitment to St Mary’s School in Mazindu Ju, Tanzania.

 What is so amazing is to be aware of how the graduates of St Mary’s have gone to leadership positions in the legal area, in the medical area and in business and government.  These graduates hold leadership positions improving the quality of life in Tanzania.

 

What is so amazing to me in my visit to Tanzania, is that St. Mary’s School is so much more than a quality classroom experience.  This is a residential school that is for me is an experience of Church in which everyone has their fixed on the Lord.  The spiritual leader of this community is a priest from the Diocese of Rochester, Fr Damien Milliken, a Benedictine priest who has served his priestly ministry for over 50 years in Africa.  This wonderful community of faith has an abundance of consecrated women, the religious sisters of Usumbara, who are teachers for these high school students.  All in this school community live out the Gospel values of love and service and friendship with one another.

I regard it as a privilege for us as a parish community to be benefactors of this Christlike school community of faith.  I invite your generosity in the second collection.

Going back to today’s Gospel where Jesus confronts us with the cost of discipleship, my prayer is that we will shower these deserving high school girls with the same love, generosity, and prayer as you would your own daughters.  As we are mindful that these young women are God’s beloved daughters, we are called to share from our giftedness in our generosity for these high schoolers.

 

We have it right in our ministry here at St Joseph’s Church when both St Joseph’s School and St Mary’s School in Mazindu Ju, in Tanzania are recipients of our prayer and our generosity.

 

May God bless you with the gift of generosity.

A person of faith is a person who trusts in God's unconditional and unending love for us.

 

 

Nineteenth Sunday in OT  C  2022

 I have a question for you:  Do you see yourself as a person of faith?

 What does that mean for you?

 As a person of faith, does it mean that you practice considerable spiritual disciplines?  Does it mean that you are a very moral person?  Does it you have memorized the Nicene Creed without looking at the screen?  Does it mean that you keep all the rules and the commandments or at least most of them?

 What does it mean?

 First and foremost, a person of faith is a person of trust.   For Abraham and Sarah in the second Scripture reading today, their faith was life changing – such was their trust in God’s loving kindness.

 

Faith is the willingness to risk, to jump when we are not in control and to trust that we are in the hands of God.

 

Faith is trusting God is holding onto to us in both the green pastures and the dark valleys of life.

 

Faith is our trust in God’s unconditional and unending love for us.

 

Are we able to be people of faith when our spouse or our child goes home to God?  Do we believe that the world is not coming to an end and the sun is going to rise the next morning?

 

Are we people of faith when our children do not make the life choices that make sense to us and still trust they are God’s beloved sons and daughters and that our love for them is unending.

 

Are we people of faith in the senior years of life when our health is slipping a bit, but our souls are still vibrant with God’s life in them?  Physically we may be on the back nine, but our spirit is alive with our faith in God’s unending love for us

In today’s Second Scripture Reading, the author of the Letter to the Hebrews speaks about two faith-filled people, Abraham and Sarah. He recalls how our early faith ancestors placed their trust in God.  Abraham and Sarah left their comfortable home and set out for an unknown land because God called them. They passed through great deserts and villages full of strangers; dwelt in temporary shelters along the way.  When God promised them that their descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sands of the sea, they were old enough to be great-grandparents and Sarah too was sterile. Even though for so long they saw no fulfillment of the promise, they believed. They had the virtue of faith, a lasting confidence that God's Word would be fulfilled someday.

 

And when God finally granted them a son, He asked Abraham to sacrifice him and still continue to believe, to trust, and to hope that the promise would still somehow be accomplished.  Abraham, faithfully listening to the Word of God, 'hoped against hope' that his son would be restored to him, even as he was willing to sacrifice him. It is shocking to think that somebody was willing to sacrifice his own son to God. Essentially, Abraham's readiness to sacrifice his son is an act of trust, of faith, in which he was proved right. We consider Abraham our father in faith, and he is a model for our own times – he took great risks; he had no agenda other than his faithful obedience to the God in whom he trusted completely.

 

The gift of faith was life changing for Abraham.  He relied completely on the steady reality of God’s loving kindness.  On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your trust in God in your challenging life situations as did Abraham?

 

Is our faith a remote part of our life resembling our belief in a detached divine power in the heavens or is our faith our trust in the personal presence of the person of Jesus within us all the days of our life?  Yes, there are times we act in unlovable ways and yes we do not wish to be defined by the dumbest things we have done in life.  Yet, God still loves with us with an unending love.

 

We live in a very scary world. This week we experienced the moving funeral service for officer Anthony Mazurkiewicz. He was killed in a most senseless act of violence.  The war in Ukraine continues to result in the deaths of thousands of innocent people.

 In the midst of this madness, can we continue to believe that as people of faith, our future is full of hope no matter what circumstances in life we are facing.  We are always surrounded and lifted up by a loving God.  This is not too good to be true.  This is the truth of our lives.  This is the meaning of our faith.

 

 In the big scheme of things, at the end of the day, what are we waiting for?  What is your hope for the future?  What is your ideal retirement?  Would it be wealth or power or pleasure? 

 

 Jesus warns us that material possessions can capture our heart, not allowing us to be free to follow him.  Jesus challenges us to reveal what it is we truly value --  may we truly value loving and being loved.  In faith, we are loved by Jesus completely and unconditionally.  May we find the fulfillment we are looking for in the ways we love and serve one another.

 Our faith in Jesus calls us to face life or meet death, not because we can see, but with the certainty that we are seen; not that we know all the answers, but that we are known. Faith is not merely us holding on to God -- it is God holding on to us. And He will never let us go!

 

In the world that we live in which there are deadly random shootings of innocent people, in a political world in which decency and civil dialogue is hard to come by, in our society in which too many relationships have been broken, is there any room left for trust?  In our Church, is trust the defining characteristic of who we are as the disciples of Jesus or is the lack of trust more of a reality in our Church today? 

 In the midst of all this stuff, Jesus assures us in the Gospel: “Do not be afraid any longer, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.  Sell your belongings and give alms.  For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

 

With a spiritual sightedness, may we know that our treasure is the gift of faith that enables us to trust in God’s unending and unconditional love for us.

 

May you value the gift of faith in your life.