Lord, that I may see.

THIRTIETH SUNDAY1 IN OT  B   2018

This week’s Gospel invites us to place ourselves along the way with the blind Bartimaeus.    How would 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?

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.   We seek the conversion that comes from encountering Christ.

Today we celebrate Stewardship Commitment Sunday in which we place our stewardship commitment form of our time and talent in the collection today.  The commitment form you received in our parish mailing, we invite you to place this filled out form in the collection today.  Not to worry if you have forgotten to bring it with you.  There are extra forms in the pews today and we invite you to take a couple of moments after the homily to fill out this form and place this in the collection today.

In the stewardship of time, I invite you to consider the 1% rule in the spiritual journey.  1% of each day is 15 minutes.  We invite you to spend 15 minutes each day in prayer giving thanks to God for the blessings of your life and to celebrate God’s merciful love that is showered upon you.  May we pray just for a few minutes each and every day recognizing the spiritual dimension of life.  Yes, we live busy lives.  But may our busyness not keep us from giving thanks to God each and every day.

In the stewardship of talent, we are called to share our own giftedness for the building up of our faith community.  There is no such thing as being a lone ranger in the spiritual life.  From the Gospel of Jesus, what we have is to be shared, and it is to be shared in the service of others.

St Joseph’s parish is not solely to be pastor-driven; it is not intended to be primarily staff-driven; rather, we are to be parishioner-driven.  By baptism, all of us are called to proclaim the good news of the merciful love of Jesus with one another.

Our stewardship commitment, our willingness to be held accountable for our commitment to stewardship tells the story of the vibrancy of our parish life.

As we pray today with Bartimaeus, we pray with his words:  “Lord, that I may see.”  We pray for the spiritual sightedness to encounter Christ in our hearts and to celebrate God’s merciful love.

We pray also for the spiritual sightedness to embrace a spirituality of stewardship – a spirituality that enables us to see that all is a gift of God; that we are to live life with an attitude of gratitude; and we are to share what we have been given for the building up of our faith community; we are better together; and we are to share our love with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ 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?

On Stewardship Commitment Sunday, we thank you for who you are as God’s beloved, and we thank you for all the ways you have shared yourself with our faith community.  We are who we are as a faith community because of your love and generosity.  Thank you.  Thank you.

But we always desire to reach beyond where we are now and there is always room for us to grow as a parish community.  In that spirit, I invite you to fill out a stewardship form that is in the pew and to place it in the collection basket as we affirm our commitment to a spirituality of stewardship.  The Lord blesses us for the ways we serve one another.

Have a Blessed Day.

It is not good for us to be alone. We are better together.

Twenty Seventh Sunday in OT  B  2018

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.

This past Wednesday, I had the privilege of celebrating Mass with the children and their families in our Wednesday Evening Faith Formation at St. Joseph’s.  I asked our precious children 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.

In the Gospel, the Pharisees asked Jesus:  “Is it lawful for a husband to divorce his wife?”   The Gospel brings us the D – word – Divorce.  Divorce is more common in our community and in our country than we would like.    Today’s Gospel begins with the painful description of what happens when love is wounded beyond healing; when bonds are fragmented beyond repair.  We live in a time when divorce is common and acceptable in most countries and cultures.

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.

How are parishioners of the Holy Spirit who are divorced hearing this Gospel message today?  Are they welcome in our parish community?  Do they experience God’s merciful and forgiving love in their lives?  Yes, God’s plan for marriage is to be characterized by permanence and fidelity and openness to life?  The original plan for marriage is clearly found in the marriage rite:  “What God has joined together, let no one separate.”

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.  Regrettably, when a married relationship is moving farther and farther apart even leading to divorce, the suffering experienced can lead a person to experience the merciful love and forgiveness of Jesus in a new way.

As we celebrate respect life this weekend, may we respect the life and the dignity of all those who have experienced the pain and suffering of divorce.  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.

The respect life theme is also demonstrated in the second part of today’s Gospel.  Jesus said:  “let the little children come to me: do not try to stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.”

 Sometimes at our church services little children distract us: they make noise and make comments.  But they are teaching us a precious lesson that if we do not feel at home with them we can never enter into the  presence of God.

Jesus welcomes the little children to come to me.  We the Church of the Holy Spirit seek to welcome little children.  In fact, if we are not comfortable with children in our Church, to that degree we are depriving ourselves of experiencing the kingdom of God in our midst.

Have a Blessed Day.