May we measure our discipleship of the Lord Jesus not by what we have but by what we have given away.

Thirtieth Sunday in OT  C  2019

Have you thought about what Gospel you would like proclaimed at your funeral liturgy?  What Gospel best describes your spirituality?  I suppose this seems like a strange question.

When the late Benedictine Cardinal Basil Hume learned that he had terminal cancer, he specified that this Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican tax collector was to be the Gospel for his funeral liturgy.  When asked why, the Cardinal explained:  Two short months ago when I learned of my terminal cancer, I was at first tempted to think “If only”…”if only” I could start all over again, I would be a much better monk, a much better abbot, and a much better bishop.  But then on second thought how much better to come before God not to say thank you that I was such a good monk, a good abbot, a good bishop, but rather I simply want to say to the Lord: “O God. Be merciful to me a sinner.”  For If I come empty-handed, then I will be ready to receive God’s gift of his merciful love.

Indeed, this beautiful Gospel can make every day of our life a jubilee of mercy.   May we come before the Lord not impressed by our own accomplishments, but rather in a spirit of humility we are loved and healed and forgiven by the merciful love of Jesus.

The parable reminds us that when we pray, we must remember our need for God in our lives. If we are too full of ourselves, there is too little room for God's grace to work in us.  And so we begin our liturgy with the penitential rite asking for God’s merciful forgiveness; before receiving Communion, we pray:  “Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; say only the word and my soul shall be healed.”

The unspoken question in today’s Gospel:  which of the two:  the Pharisee or the publican tax collector are you?  In our personal inventory of the actions of our lives, there is probably a bit of the Pharisee and a bit of the publican in all of us.

The Pharisees were for the most part religious people.  Most of the people held them in high esteem.  We too can point to many accomplishments in our lives.  Many “I” statements:  I succeeded in school; I make good money; I know the right people; I support the Church and charitable causes; I once worked in a soup kitchen.

There is a temptation for some of us who come to Church Sunday after Sunday and wonder why the Church is not more packed with parishioners like the good old days. We are not called to come to Church on Sunday and look down on those who no longer have faith. That would make us exactly like the Pharisee in today’s Gospel from Luke.   Instead, we should be asking the Lord to have mercy on us, to change our lives, to make us fully alive in Him so that others can see the presence of God once more active in our world.

If you listen closely to the Pharisee’s prayer, he really isn’t speaking to God, the evangelist Luke says:  “He spoke this prayer to himself.”  He probably was one of those churchy types whose very presence makes you aware that you don’t measure up.   

Let me be quick to say the problem for the Pharisee was not his piety and religious observance, but his inability to name his dependence on God.

In fact, we are asking you to be generous in your generosity to the CMA, and on the weekend of November 10 we celebrate Stewardship Commitment Sunday of Time and Talent.  We are not trying to turn you into proud Pharisees by which you list all your proud accomplishments on your commitment card.  We are asked to give and share ourselves generously with others so that we then come before the Lord empty-handed and trust that we then will be the recipients of the merciful love of Jesus.

We really have it right it right as disciples of Jesus when we give and share ourselves so completely that we need to trust only in the merciful love of Jesus. The perfect example of one who has given himself so completely is the apostle Paul.  In the second Scripture reading, Paul writes:  “I am already being poured out like a libation and the time of my departure is at hand.  I have fought the good fight; I have completed the race; I have kept the faith.”   Paul is saying that his entire life has been a pouring out, an emptying of himself.

The temptation for us is to think that life in Christ is measured by our successes, our achievements.  Our house is filled with credentials and trophies.  Life is about

Me, and what I have.  The spiritual problem is that we are filled with ourselves and there is no room for God.

In contrast, Paul writes from prison and measures his discipleship by what he has given away.  So much so, that he comes the Lord empty handed and simply trusts in the merciful of Jesus.

Please God we do not consider our plate as already too filled to be available for others.  As long as the Lord keeps on loving us, we are to keep on loving others -- in gratitude for the love we have received.  As with St Paul, may our lives be poured like a libation, and may we measure our discipleship of the Lord Jesus not by what we have but by what we have given away.

Going back to the Gospel, the tax collector comes empty handed before the Lord and simply says:  “O God be merciful to me a sinner.”  It is important to know the reputation of tax collector in Jesus’ day.  Tax collectors commonly stole from those they taxed and pocketed the money for themselves.  They accepted bribes as a matter of routine.  In this Gospel account, the significant message is that this tax collector trusted in God’s mercy.

If a tax collector can find mercy before God, who is excluded?   May we never exclude anyone in our parish life from being the generous recipients of the mercy of God.   Instead of the Pharisee, may our model for prayer be the tax collector.  We are drawn to trusting in the great mercy of God.  Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof, say only the word and my soul shall be healed.

Have a Blessed Day.

As disciples of Jesus, how could we ever dare to judge or exclude a fellow leper, a fellow sinner?

The story of the ten lepers is a very familiar one, and everyone is reminded of the need for gratitude.  We are to live in gratitude.  All of life is a gift to us. May we live life with an attitude of gratitude for the ways that our lives are so richly blessed.

Gratitude is not a just social grace in learning to say thank you.  Gratitude is a habit of the heart.  Gratitude enriches us:  it opens us to experience the bounty of God and the generosity of others.  The more we become grateful people, the more we will find to be grateful for.  I know for myself as I am open to seeing the goodness and the beauty of others, I find myself more and more recognizing the many blessings of life.

The great mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.  The prayer of gratitude is our best prayer.  Each time we gather to celebrate the mystery of the Eucharist, we gather to give thanks to the Lord our God.

Lepers in ancient times were unclean, as people to be shunned and kept far apart.  It was one of so many things for which society ostracized individuals.  When Jesus healed the lepers, he told them to go to the priest who could end their isolation and restore them to the community. 

For Jesus, the mission of the priest, indeed the mission of the whole Church is to reconcile and welcome one and all into the community of the disciples of Jesus.  In God’s eyes, we are all meant to be brothers and sisters with each other.  This is the great truth of our lives as the parishioners of the Church of the Holy Spirit.  In Christ Jesus, we are brothers and sisters to one another.

Did Jesus cast aside anyone as He traveled the roads or cities of His times?  How often did He point out that love of God was central, and that the temple and law were to facilitate and serve women and men, not to burden and harden their journey.  Anything separating us from each other or from God is not then in God’s plan.  Unnecessary burdens or regulations or laws are just that and should be abandoned.

Truth be told.  In some way or another are we not all Samaritans and lepers, outsiders and outcasts, yet graciously admitted to the covenant by the love of God that dares to violate boundaries in order to make us whole again.  As each one of us examines our conscience, we need to confess that our sinfulness separates us from God’s loving embrace, and yet it is always God’s desire that we are welcomed back into the covenant of His love.  How then could we ever dare to judge or exclude a fellow leper, a fellow sinner?

Is this Gospel message motivational for you to give to the CMA in support of all the diocesan ministries?  The purpose of your CMA gift is to enhance the capacity of the Church to be a Church of welcome, to be a Church of healing, and to be a Church that reconciles outsiders and outcasts.  The more we hold ourselves to be accountable to giving to the CMA, the more blessed our generosity becomes and the more we experience in the depths of our being the heart of God.

Today Jesus sees ten lepers from afar and shows extraordinary mercy.  Jesus looks upon us as well and shows extraordinary mercy.  We are called to be witnesses of the extraordinary mercy of Jesus in the lives of one and all.  This is our God-given mission as a parish community.

We see the Samaritan healed leper coming back to give thanks.  God’s healing love is a gift (a grace) that is given to the ten lepers in the Gospel account and God’s gift of His love is given to each one of us, but God’s love to us demands a response, a RSVP.  Our response to the love of God is that we are to live in gratitude; we are to live a life of stewardship in which we show our gratitude by sharing what we have with others.  As disciples we seek to live out our faith in the actions of our lives as a means of giving thanks. 

The profound message and warning that can be found in the healing of the ten lepers is the temptation of treating salvation as an entitlement given to us Catholics.  The missing ingredient for nine of the lepers is gratitude. 

All ten lepers believed Jesus could heal them.  Their mistake was in taking that healing for granted, thinking somehow that their faith made them deserving of healing as an entitlement.  Only one realized that his healing was an unmerited grace, the one who returned to give thanks. 

The grace we receive is a free gift from God who loves us.  It is the power with which we overcome obstacles, find healing, resist temptation and serve the needs of the kingdom.  May the graces we receive from our loving God lead us to a lifetime of thanksgiving. 

Have a Blessed Day and may we live lives of Thanksgiving.

Giving to help others is not a burden. This is living out our high calling as the disciples of Jesus.

Growing up in the 19^th ward in the City of Rochester and going to Our Lady of Good Counsel School and Church and playing ball in Genesee Valley Park and riding my bike along the streets of Southwest Rochester, trust was a stable of my growing up years.  Some of my neighbors were second mothers to me, and we did not worry about safety.   My brothers and sisters grew up in a safe and loving environment.

Fast forward to today, that kind of trust has been replaced my “stranger-danger;”  keep everything securely locked and have as many video cameras as possible to provide for our safety.

Sadly, very sadly, in many ways, we have lost our ability to trust others.  Our government leaders too often add to the distrust we have with each other.  The bankruptcy filing of our diocese doesn’t encourage trust as well.

We see in today’s First Scripture reading that the issue of trust was familiar territory for the prophet Habakkuk – even his trust in God was shaken.

The prophet Habakkuk lived about 600 years before Christ.  The Jews were in desperate shape.  They were being threatened by their enemies and falling apart internally.

 Habakkuk cries out to God:  “How long, Lord, must I call for help, but you do not listen?  Or cry out to you, ‘Violence!’ but you do not save?  Why do you make me look at injustice?”

Habakkuk had wondered where the absent God was.  In the second Scripture reading the apostle Paul had a radically different experience of trusting in God.  Paul had come to know through faith in the crucified Christ that God was never absent but endured our suffering with us.  In today’s Scripture passage, Paul is encouraging Timothy to a similar faithfulness.  He says: “Stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.”

As we pray over the Gospel today, let’s, you and I, stand in the shoes of the apostles who said to the Lord:  “Increase our faith.”  Let us also hear the Lord say to us:  “If your faith is the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.”

Jesus is telling us:  “Don’t let yourself off the hook!  You have already plenty to accomplish all that I ask.  The apostles are suggesting that Jesus needs to give them more faith.  Jesus is telling them they have plenty of faith already.  So stop making excuses for yourself.

We are all capable of feeling sorry for ourselves as a parish community, are we not?  We do not have as many people coming to Church on Sunday as we once did.  Our CMA goal of $230,000 is too much.  This an unreasonable request.  The Bishop doesn’t know the challenges we face.

In having the faith even the size of a mustard seed is an incredible God-given gift.  The potential of the faith that we have is enormous.  In fact, nothing is impossible with God.  When our gift of faith is a quality of life, a way of living, and a way of seeing, we will encounter the Lord in all that we say and do.    As we gather at Mass today, you may have come with family members, but with faith-filled eyes may we see all of us gathered as sisters and brothers coming together in the name of Jesus.

When we trust in the faith that has been given to us by our faithful God, to raise $230,000 CMA dollars to help people in need across our diocese is very, very doable.  In fact, it is a privilege for us to share from our resources to help others in need.  This is not a burden.  This is living out our high calling as disciples of the Lord Jesus. 

If we claim the gift of faith that has been given to us, if we believe that Jesus gives us an inner strength, if we are willing to share our five barley loaves and two fish, again to raise $230,000 CMA dollars to help people across the diocese is very, very doable.  It is a privilege for us to share from our resources to help others in need.  This is not a burden.  This is living out our high calling as disciples of the Lord Jesus.

In a spirituality of stewardship in which everyone commits a bit of time, talent, and treasure, the potential we have as a parish community is comparable to uprooting the mulberry tree and planting it in the sea.

 We will trust in one another when we encounter the Lord as we encounter one another.  The Lord will increase our faith by making us more aware of who we are already are as God’s beloved sons and daughters.

As the prophet Habakkuk proclaimed, “Write down this vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.”  As a people of faith, as a people with faith the size of a mustard seed, our vision for our parish is full of hope and abounding with the inner peace and joy that comes from the Lord.

Have a blessed day.