Who and where is Lazarus among us today?

Today’s Gospel begins with the words:  “There was a rich man.”  The real message in this parable of the rich man is that he needs to see his life in the context of stewardship.  We could critique Jesus in is parables as always talking about money.  Did not Jesus get the memo that money is personal, and you are not supposed to talk about it?  After all, we come to Church to pray.

Very, very true.  We come to Church to pray.  We come to Church to raise our awareness about spirituality, do we not?  We come to pray and reflect on our longing for God.

In last Sunday’s Gospel and this Sunday’s as well, Jesus stays on point to an essential component of spirituality and discipleship -- what we do with what we have is to the heart of discipleship.  Jesus is saying again and again in Luke’s Gospel that we are to share with we have with those who don’t have in order to level the playing field on earth.

In the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the extravagant luxury of the rich man is played off against the utter destitution of Lazarus.  The rich man is not a miser; he is not a cheat; he pays his taxes; hopefully he goes to Church every Sunday.  Why bother him?  The point of the parable is that he is simply numb to the poor man Lazarus, and inattentive to his needs.  For us to live a gospel way of life, this is a big deal.

In fact, it is a deal breaker.  In the parable, we see the decisiveness of death.  If change and growth is to happen, it needs to happen this side of the grave.  The parable is meant to bother us, to get under our skin, to annoy us.

The real challenge to my spirituality and to yours is that it is hard to be humble in a society where humility is not much valued.  It is hard to be giving in a society where having is more important. The way of the world is not the way of God.  The ways of God do not support inequality.  The real energy of God strives to rearrange the goods of the world so that all the people of the world share in them.

My Gospel question for all of us today is who and where is Lazarus among us today?  Lazarus lives in the children of this world who are dying each day from war, hunger, abuse, neglect and disease.  As you and I look with great love on the children of our families and our parish family, may we be mindful of all children who suffer in our society today.

Lazarus lives in the immigrants, refugees, and otherwise displaced people.   While I fully recognize that immigration is a hot political topic in this election cycle, Lazarus lives is the heart of each and every immigrant.  They are God’s beloved.

Lazarus lives on in the many  people in need who are supported by the our diocesan Catholic Ministries Appeal – children and adults of immigrant farm families, the sick in the hospital, the young adults on our college campuses, serving people in need through Catholic Charities, and promoting the sanctity of all human life.

As we pray over today’s Gospel, unapologetically and in the name of Jesus, I ask you to generously support this year’s CMA.  I will make a generous commitment to the CMA, and I ask you to do likewise.

Yes, excuses abound for not responding to the Lazarus in our midst as we are asked to support the CMA.  You may say:  “I can’t give to every beggar…That person should find a job…I don’t like our Bishop and therefore I’m not giving to the CMA…I need to take care of myself and my family.”

Today’s Gospel doesn’t hand out any free passes.    Each of us is to give and help in the ways we can.  While each of us has different gifts and different resources, none of us can remain indifferent to the poor among us.  The torment for the rich man began by locking himself in his narrow ego, going against his calling to give.

We need to begin with our remembrance that every Lazarus is a child of God, created in God’s image.  For that very reason, every Lazarus deserves my respect, my love, my proactive care.

Jesus took the initiative in reaching out to foreigners, the sick, the sinners, the criminals and the otherwise disenfranchised of his society.  If we are the disciples, are we not called to do likewise?

We are called to revive the quality of caring that Jesus showed to all people.  If God cannot act through you and me to recognize the Lazarus who lives among us, then through whom will their needs be met? 

While the CMA is not the only way to reach out to Lazarus in our midst, it is a very, very good way for us as a faith community to reach to those who are in need.

Have a blessed day.

Be patient with all that is unresolved in your heart... Live the questions now.

While I have been on retreat this week, I have prayed over this beautiful reflection by Rainer Maria Rilke:

Be patient with all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.  Do not now search the answers which cannot be given to you because you would not be able to live them.  And the point is, to live everything.  Live the questions now.  Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Could it be that too often reluctant parishioners experience the judgmental scowl of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son?

Where were you 15 years ago when you first realized that the Twin Towers in New York City had been hit by a terrorist attack and those iconic towers were being demolished?  On that morning of September 11, 2001, 2,976 people from 93 nations lost their lives in New York, at the Pentagon, and on Flight 90.  Today we pause to remember that moment of horror and pray for those scarred by those terrible events.  We remember the brave men and women who responded to help those impacted by the terrorist attack.  Perhaps we will never be the same.  The need for safety and security continued to be raised up to new levels.

As we remember and pray for all those who lost their lives on that tragic day, we celebrate God’s ongoing faithfulness to our nation.  We celebrate the love of God that has been revealed to us in Jesus.  We will never will never fully understand these senseless acts of violence, but may we deeply trust in God’s merciful love that is revealed in the words and action of Jesus.  We remember your Spirit inhabits your Church.  Help us bring your comfort and peace to all.

Each of us gathers today because the Lord has sought us out and forgiven us.  At Mass, we gather to join with Jesus in offering thanks to the Father for His love.  We gather to grow in our awareness of how we are sought out and welcomed home by Jesus.

The three parables in today’s Gospel are part of the basic memory of the disciples about the content of the Good News.  Today’s Gospel proclaims how the Lord seeks us out; never gives up on us; and shares his merciful love with those in need.

 We are invited to see in these parables a metaphor for God’s searching love that draws the sinner and the lost back to the fold, back home, back to God’s loving heart.

In the first parable, imagine God as a shepherd abandoning ninety-nine obedient sheep to seek the stupid one who got lost. From one perspective the parable of the shepherd doesn’t make sense to leave the 99 sheep, but from another perspective this beautiful parable reveals to us a God who never gives up on us.  In the second parable. Imagine God as a distraught woman losing something and turning the house upside down to find it.  Then in the third parable, imagine God as an unconditionally forgiving father granting an unworthy son an undeserved feast.

The parable of the prodigal son is the parable of the prodigal, forgiving father.  The father was filled with joy when he spotted his son returning home – the son a bit desperate, recognizing he had made a mess of his life.  The message of the parable is found in the father.   The father ran to his son, embraced him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and welcomed his son with an extravagant celebration.  Jesus tells us this parable to describe extravagant forgiving love of God for us.  Like the prodigal son, we are the recipients of God’s merciful love.

I pray everyday that we as a parish community will be a faithful witness of God’s extravagant, unconditional, healing love in the lives of people.  God’s love for us is unending.  In both the stories that Jesus told and the story that he lived, we are given chance after chance to return to the embrace of a loving God.

And yet, sadly, the Church has not lived up to her high calling.  Isn’t it amazing and tragic that though sinners felt so drawn to Jesus, some of them have so much difficulty feeling drawn to His Church.   Could it be that a world of prodigal sons and daughters have experienced in the Church the judgmental scowl of the older brother’s in today’s Gospel parable.

The older brother in the parable of the prodigal son needs to caution us against the rigidity and the resentment that can be the downfall of the righteous.  People can feel distant from the Church for any number of reasons:  divorce and remarriage, alleged or real insensitivity on the part of church authorities, scandal caused by church leaders, disagreements over moral issues such as abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, capital punishment, war, and so on.

May we, the church of St. Joseph’s,  be a faith community that re-commits ourselves to witness to God’s love and mercy in our world.  May we commit ourselves to bring healing and forgiveness to a broken world.  May we in all situations and circumstances witness to the love of Jesus Christ in our world.

All are welcome in our faith community.  One of the most memorable lines in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is:  “When the son was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.  He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”  May we be faithful witnesses of God’s compassionate love in the lives of all people.

This leaves us with a challenge:  if the central message of Jesus is mercy and forgiveness, is this also the central message of the faith community of St. Joseph’s in this jubilee year of mercy?  May this always be the ongoing grace we seek:  to share freely and abundantly the gifts that have been given to us.  Jesus came not only came to reveal the Father’s love, but sent us His Spirit so that we would become agents of reconciliation.  He came to bring us peace, but called us to become peacemakers.  He came to seek out the lost, but calls us to welcome the outcasts and the poor.  The message of the Gospel is always two-sided:  he reconciles us, and we must reconcile others.

May we test the Catholicity of our faith community by the ways we witness to the 15^th chapter of Luke’s Gospel.  We gather indeed because has chosen and sought us out and never gives up on us.  We gather to give thanks to God who is the Good Shepherd and the Merciful Father.  As we have been given, so we are to share.  We are to  welcome, forgive, be peacemakers, and be a community that proactively reaches in the service of the marginalized and the poor.

As we remember 9/11, may we celebrate God’s ongoing faithfulness, and may we be the witnesses of God’s  peace and reconciliation among all people.

Have a blessed day.

Mother Teresa: If you judge people, you have no time to love them.

Labor Day weekend marks summer’s end.  Vacations are over.  The academic year begins again.  In the parish, faith formation resumes again and the parish ministries revive.  Depending on your perspective, it is the best of time; it is the worst of times.

As we pray over the Scriptures, in this season or in any season of the year, we know that Jesus is the face of God made visible and the one who challenges each day on the quality of our discipleship.  Much of the Lucan Gospel is set against the backdrop of Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem where he was to suffer and die.  On their way, Jesus continued the formation of his disciples, telling them both the blessings and the struggles entailed in following Him.  As Jesus teaches, his message and words reach across the centuries and invites and challenges us in our discipleship of Jesus.

In our Gospel today, we hear that Jesus was thronged by large crowds swelling around him as he journeyed to Jerusalem.  If he was a politician that would be grand news indeed.  Indeed, politicians often will say or do anything to increase their ranks.  Not so with Jesus.

So when Jesus saw the crowds rushing toward him, coming along side to journey with Him to Jerusalem, he offered the words of our Gospel for today.  There are three jarring statements:  “If anyone comes to me, and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters--yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple...Anyone who does not carry his own cross and follow me cannot be my disciple…Any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”

What?  Say that again!  Hate your family, carry a cross, and give up everything else in life—that is the cost of following Jesus.  Who would sign up to be a disciple?  For anyone just looking for an easy tour of the Holy Land, that was not the Messiah you would want to follow.  Jesus is not enlisting fair-weather fans.  Jesus wants to be very clear with his would-be disciples.

For a disciple of Jesus, discipleship demands single-minded loyalty.  Every disciple of Jesus must be prepared to endure suffering.

What does Jesus mean when he says we are to hate.  It would seem that Jesus did not get the memo from Pope Francis that we are in the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  In fact, what Jesus is confronting his disciples with is that we must choose Jesus and in so doing we need to reorder all other priorities which compromise our discipleship of Jesus.  We need to reorder even intimate relationships if they block us from making Christ first in our lives.  Discipleship of the Lord Jesus can never be a “Sunday only” commitment.

Today we celebrate the canonization of Mother Teresa, St Teresa of Calcutta.  Indeed Mother Teresa had a single minded loyalty to Christ and her service to people most in need.  Indeed Mother Teresa was prepared to endure suffering for the sake of serving the poor.  May we embrace the spirituality of Mother Teresa who says “it’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” Another piece of her wisdom:  “If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”  If you ever question the need for prayer before we engage in ministry, listen again to the words of Mother Teresa:  “Unless you can hear Jesus in the silence of your own heart, you will not be able to hear Him saying “I thirst” in the hearts of the poor.”

We as a Church are grateful for the ministry and the spirituality of Mother Teresa.  May we be inspired by her single--minded love of Christ.  Her vocation is not our vocation in the sense that we are not missionaries of charity in Calcutta.  However, our vocation to be a disciple of Jesus is the same discipleship as Mother Teresa’s.   Discipleship of Jesus takes many forms, and we are to interpret this Gospel in the light of the particular form of discipleship to which we have committed ourselves—marriage, parenting, friendship, career, religious life, lay ecclesial ministry, or priesthood.  We also think of other commitments we and others make:  to the social change of bringing reconciliation between ethnic groups or religions.

For us to respond to the jarring demands of discipleship expressed in today’s Gospel, our hearts need to be touched by the person of Jesus.  We need conversion experiences.  In the words of Mother Teresa, we need to hear Jesus in the silence of our own hearts.  We need to experience ourselves as God’s beloved sons and daughters.  We need to know the merciful love of Jesus in our lives.

What will it take for us to experience and know God’s love for us?  This is what motivates us to renounce anything that keeps us from our discipleship of Jesus.

Again in the words of Mother Teresa:  “At the end of life we will not be judged by how many diplomas we have received, how much money you have made, how many things we have done, we will be judged by “I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was naked and you clothed me.  I was homeless, and you took me in.

We cannot discover new oceans unless we dare to lose sight of the shore.  Lord God, to discover new oceans, we need to give up relationships that compromise our relationship with Christ; we need to embrace some suffering and take up our cross; we need to renounce possessions we have become attached to.

We pray for parents who have let go of their children as they have gone off to college; we pray for collegians as they begin a new chapter in their journey of discipleship; we pray for parishioners who have chosen to engage in ministry that pushes them out of their comfort zone; and we pray for parishioners who are coming to terms with the aging process; we pray for parishioners who are dealing with illness in their lives.

The truth is many of us are being challenged to “give up something.”  This may be a voluntary or just plain dealing with the reality of life.  May we discover Christ in this letting go process.  May this letting go be grace-filled and challenge us to trust in Christ more fully as we renounce, as take up a new cross, as we have to die to something that is difficult to let go of.  May we see with a spiritual sightedness that indeed like Christ we are on a journey to Jerusalem in which we need to continuously die to self and to make Christ more central to our lives.  Have a blessed day.