The Son of God was born as an outcast in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God.

 

CHRISTMAS 2022

 “Keep Christ in Christmas.”    This is a very familiar Christmas mantra.

My question for our prayer today is: “What about Christ are we keeping in Christmas?”  I suggest that Bethlehem crib is a school where Jesus chooses to teach a lot of lessons.

The first lesson Jesus teaches us that we need to keep in Christmas the humility and simplicity of his birth in the Bethlehem crib. It is not insignificant that the Son of God chooses to come into the world in a stable in the tiny town of Bethlehem.   Do our exterior Christmas decorations obscure how we are to discover the presence of Christ in our lives in 2022?   Do we pay as much attention to the simplicity of the Bethlehem crib as we do to the impressiveness of our Christmas trees?  Are we able to get in touch with the simple, the ordinary, the humble moments of our day and to know in that simplicity we will best discover the Bethlehem crib in our lives? 

Let us ask ourselves: can we accept God’s way of doing things? This is the challenge of Christmas: God reveals himself, but men and women fail to understand. He makes himself little in the eyes of the world, while we continue to seek grandeur in the eyes of the world, perhaps even in his name. God lowers himself and we try to become great. The Most High goes in search of shepherds, the unseen in our midst, and we look for visibility, to be seen. Jesus is born in order to serve, and we spend a lifetime pursuing success. God does not seek power and might; he asks for tender love and interior littleness. 

 

A second lesson:  we need to keep in Christmas the message that all are welcome at the Bethlehem crib.  What is the housing situation in the inn of your own heart?  Is there room in the inn of your heart for the family member for whom you have difficulty getting along with?  Is there room in the inn of your heart for people who think differently than you -- politically, religiously, or in any way whatsoever?  Is there room in the inn of our hearts for Jesus who lives in the hearts of the poor, the immigrants, and children of all cultures and of all ways of life?    How many people in our world today experience “no room in the inn” because of race, color, religion, gender, or sexuality?  The Son of God was born an as an outcast in order to tell us that every outcast is a child of God.

This Christmas, Jesus is still looking for shelter in your heart.

Third lesson:  The mystery of Christmas happens for us when we connect the story of our lives with the story of Christmas.  Each of us is an innkeeper who decides if there is room for Jesus.  The Christmas message is the story of God’s unconditional love for us.  As his disciples we are to fill this world with many other stories that mirror and give witness to God’s love for us.  That is the meaning and wonder of the Incarnation.  Keeping Christ in Christmas happens when we are to be immersed in the merciful love of Jesus.

It also means that Christmas is to be found in the presence of Jesus among us and in our love for one another.  The story of Bethlehem points to a vision of hope, one that relies not on the exercise of military power but an on appeal to the common instincts of the human heart.  These common instincts of the human heart are very spiritual – a spirit of peace, a spirit of joy, a spirit of family, a spirit of love, the spirit of Christmas

The real meaning of Christmas is that God is with us.  In the inn of our own hearts, there is an infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. 

Yes, we are celebrating the birth of Christ to Mary and Joseph in the Bethlehem crib.  But even the fact of celebrating his birth, is that enough?  As we celebrate Christmas in 2022, Christmas is not simply about Mary and Joseph and the baby.  It is about God becoming part of our daily struggle, transforming the world through us. Tonight, love has conquered fear; new hope has arrived.  God’s light has over the darkness.   Celebrating Keeping Christ in Christmas in welcoming the birth of Christ in the inn of our hearts in 2022.

It means also we need to keep in Christmas the compassion and love and joy and the light of Christ that shines through all the dark places of life, transforming the world through us.  We are the people who walk in darkness – the darkness of sin, the darkness of war, the darkness of relationships that are broken, and the

 

 

 

darkness of the threat of violence and terrorism.   The message of Christmas is that Jesus comes for people like us in dark places.  The real, lasting, and deep joy of Christmas is that light shines in the darkness.

We recognize on this Holy Night that even after centuries of knowing Jesus Christ, our world still wanders in darkness.  Even after proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ, our hearts are not yet converted completely to Him and our world even less so.  We humans are a broken people and each of us is broken.

Therefore, we are missioned to be the keepers of the mystery of Christmas – God is with us. We give birth to Christ when we allow the light that is within us to extend to our family, and our parish family, and to all of creation.  The Christmas mystery happens when we allow ourselves to be loved by God.

Let us return to Bethlehem.

Yes, we are to keep in Christ in all the ways we welcome God to become part of our daily struggle and to transform these struggles by allowing the love of God into our lives.   we need to keep Christ in Christmas in all the ways we communicate that all are welcome at the Bethlehem crib.  We are to love our neighbor, no exception.  We are to connect our story with the story of Christmas.  We are to keep Christ in Christmas through our faith-filled awareness that God is within us.  In the inn of our hearts, there is infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

 

 

Have a blessed Christmas day.

 

Doing it my way needs to give way to doing it God's way.

 

Fourth Sunday of Advent  A   2022

 

If I had the voice of Bing Crosby, I would begin this homily singing:  “I’m dreaming of a White Christmas just like the ones I used to know.”  Dreams are part of the wonder and awe of Christmas.  Part of the wonder and the awe of the Schwartz family at Christmas is that my mom and dad had convinced the six of us that we were very special and that on Christmas eve Santa Claus would bring our family Christmas tree down the chimney and decorate it and we would see it for the first time on Christmas morning.  Awe and wonder filled our Christmas dreams.

What are your dreams?   What are your Christmas dreams today?  On a grander scale we dream that there will be:

                        Peace on earth.

                        Peace in our lives.

 

In the Gospel today, Joseph was a dreamer.  “The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.  She will bear a Son and you are to name him Jesus.’’

Joseph thought this dream could become a nightmare for initially he was going to divorce her quietly not knowing how her Son was conceived.

The angel of the Lord said to Joseph:  “Do not be afraid.”

God has a dream too.  God has a dream for the world.

                                    That the poor are fed

                                    Justice is experienced by all people.

                                    The unborn are treasured.

                                    The elderly are protected.

 

The Scriptures tell us that Joseph was a righteous man.  That meant he was “law-abiding.”  Tell me what the rules are, and I will be a faithful rule keeper.  The laws in Joseph’s time were very strict.  If you found out that the woman you were engaged to was pregnant and you were not the other party to the pregnancy, you were to cancel the engagement, and the woman might be stoned to death.  Did I mention that the laws in Joseph’s time were quite strict!

With a compassionate heart, Joseph was unwilling to expose Mary to shame, and so he wanted to divorce her quietly.

It was then that the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said: “Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.”

“When Joseph awoke from the dream, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him to do.”

In a word, Joseph did it God’s ways.  Unlike Frank Sinatra who prided himself “that I did it my way.”  Joseph chose to do it God’s ways.

It is worth reflecting on the discernment-conversion process that took place in Joseph and then to wonder how and if we are to model this discernment in our own lives.

  Joseph’s dream is God’s dream for us all. It is of the child who will save all people, who is Emmanuel, God with all of us.

God has a dream for you.  That you will experience in the inn of your heart the birth of the Savior this Christmas.   God has a dream that we will speak the language of love to one another.

The Buddha website says: Never give up on your dreams: ‘If you work hard enough and do all of the necessary planning, you can achieve any goal that you set yourself.’

Joseph’s dream is God’s dream for his life.    Joseph’s dream is of pure gift. It is realized in a child who offers us everything, for free.

Like Joseph, we need to be open to the mystery of life, however life challenges us and calls us.  True religion is open to mystery.  We need a Church lit with the light of God, as Joseph was.  His burden was lifted when he was open to God, to take Mary home as his wife, no matter what others might think.

Pope Francis has captured the imagination of the world and breathed new life into the Church as he has extended the compassionate love of Jesus to one and all.  For Pope Francis, more than keeping rules, we are to be faithful to the commandment of love that Jesus has given us.

Going back to the Gospel, the angel of the Lord led Joseph to be open to God’s plan for his life.

How does that play out in our lives?  When does "doing it my way” need to give way to “doing it God’s way,” even when this requires us to trust in God’s grace for us?

 How do you share your unconditional love for your children and the merciful love of Jesus for your children even when they are not keeping the rules you would like them to keep?  Are all of your children and grandchildren and extended family members going to Church Sunday after Sunday after Sunday?  So, with the mantra of seeking to do it God’s way, how do we witness to the love of Jesus in the lives of all your family members?

What would be an example of letting go of my way in order to be open to God’s plan for us?  This was the life and commitment of Joseph in today’s Gospel?    When did or do have you have deal will illness in your life or someone you love, when you have to deal with death in the life of someone you love, how is it for you when you need to let go of your children in their growth and development process, and what happens for you when someone you love betrays your trust?

For me, the two great teachers of God’s plan are found either in love or pain or both.

What I do know for myself and for you is that God has a plan for us.  The problem is that sometimes God’s plan doesn’t look like a gift we like to receive.  It requires far more trust to accept what God gives that what Santa gives.   May we pray for the openness to listen with a trusting heart and then to live out God’s plan for us.  Doing it “my way” needs to give way to “doing it God’s way.”

Have a blessed day.

Before we fast forward to the joy of Christmas, we need to repent.

 

Second Sunday of Advent  A  2022

We light the second candle of the Advent season today. 

In the first Scripture reading, the prophet Isaiah promises that the Savior will usher in a new era of relationships.  Then the wolf shall be the guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the calf and the young lion shall browse together…There shall be no harm or ruin on all my holy mountain.

In my way of thinking, the lamb and the wolf shall lie down together – but the lamb won’t get any sleep.

We haven’t yet arrived on the Lord’s holy mountain in which there will be no harm or ruin.  This points to the need and the meaning of the Advent season.

The countdown to Christmas is moving on.  The media, and especially advertisements, remind us constantly that the time is drawing short.  Of course, the reminder is too often in terms of how many shopping days till Christmas.

Today’s Scripture readings give us a different point of view.  John the Baptist is clear and direct: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is close at hand.”  There is passion in the words of John the Baptist; not the passion about the number of shopping days left but a passion about us preparing for the coming of the Lord into our hearts and our world.  The passion of John was a call to repentance.

In today’s Gospel, we are to enroll in the school of John the Baptist, hear his message and put it into action.  John the Baptist is our model for advent preparation preaching a baptism of repentance.  John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness to give us a wake-up call.  Before we fast forward to the joy of Christmas, we need to repent.

 

What does this say about the human condition?  Do we really need to hear the call to repentance in this advent season?  In truth, all of us are flawed pilgrims on a journey through life, doing our heartfelt best to love God and neighbor.

The Advent question I have for myself and for all of us is do we have the passion of John the Baptist in recognizing our need for repentance and conversion in our lives?  What are the habits, the addictions, the sinfulness that we need to confess?  Humbly may we seek the grace of God to help us leave behind all that keeps us from putting Christ at the center of our lives.  All of us, including and especially myself, need to seek the conversion of our lives whereby God is our true North Star in all we say and do.

We need to more aware of the wilderness that is in our lives and in our world.

 The repentance we seek is a fundamental change of heart which results in leaving sin behind and embracing God’s freely shared life and love.  Advent has more to offer us, however, than that.  Advent has a Savior for us.  Beyond our own efforts to recognize sin and failure in our lives, beyond our confessions and admissions that lead us to repent, Advent presents us with what we truly need – a Savior.  For if we’re honest with ourselves we will admit that we cannot deal with sin, repentance, and conversion all on our own.  We can’t manage our lives all by ourselves.

The Advent season calls us to be a disciple of Jesus.  He is the true teacher, the authentic “life coach,” the personal mentor we ought to seek.  We seek to revisit the meaning of our baptismal vocation to be a disciple of the Lord Jesus.

I invite you to consider the first three steps of the famous Twelve Steps in Alcoholic Anonymous.   Of the twelve, the first three are the most vital and critical.  They deal with what John the Baptist is talking about in the call to repentance.  So, substituting the word sin for the word alcohol the steps are:

1 – We admit we are powerless over sin – that our lives have become unmanageable.  As Pope Francis himself acknowledges very freely, we confess that we are all sinners.  We need more than what our will power provides us.  The truth of our lives is that we are not lone rangers.  Left to ourselves, we become entangled in demons that keep us from placing Christ at the center of our lives.

2 – Came to believe in a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.  That power is the merciful love of Jesus of which we are the generous recipients.  May we all value the grace offered to us in the sacrament of reconciliation.  May this Advent be all about our journey back to God.

3 – Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understand him.   God’s grace is freely offered to each and every one of us, but we need to make the decision to say yes to the plan for our lives.  We have the wonderful example of Mary who we celebrate in a special way on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception this.  Mary said: “I am the servant of the Lord.  Be it done to me according to your Word.”

Mary is our example of John the Baptist’s call of repentance.  When Mary said yes to the plan of God for her life, she made the decision to live out God’s plan for her life, rather than providing for her security and comfort. 

In our Catholic liturgical tradition, we are richly blessed in our sacramental life.  God still illumines our eyes through the light of baptism.  God still opens our ears through His Word.  God frees from what holds us bound in reconciliation.  God feeds us at the table of the Eucharist.  In these ways and many others, we come to experience something of God’s vision for us, and we are empowered to take that vision into the world through acts of justice and mercy.

Advent, like discipleship, calls us to firmer conversion and deeper commitment. It calls us also, and in equal measure, to Christ-like compassion even as we extend God’s mercy to all.  May God give you peace.

+Jesus is the great teacher of gratitude.

 

THANKSGIVING DAY 2022

 

 

As we gather on Thanksgiving Day, this national holiday that expresses very well the spiritual roots of our nation.  We are at our best as Americans when we are grateful to God, grateful to one another, and grateful for the blessings we enjoy as a nation.  We are at our best as a nation not by the force of our military might, but when we in humility give thanks for the incredible blessings that we enjoy.

 

In the words of the psalmist:

 

          Let all your works give you thanks, O Lord,

          And let your faithful bless you.

 

Gratitude is always our best response to the blessings of life.

 

The great St Augustine preached: “When you say, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ we profess ourselves to be God’s beggars.”  May we never be ashamed as seeing ourselves as God’s beggars.  No matter how rich we may be on earth, we are still God’s beggars.  And gratitude puts us in right relationship to our loving and giving God.

 

In our prayer on Thanksgiving Day and every day, may we be dripping, even drowning, in our focus on grace and gratitude.  Human life is a gift.  This gift is made in the image and likeness of God.  All life is created by God, not by us.  We must treat each other and the world we share like the precious gift it is. 

 

From the Book of Sirach:

 

          Bless the God of all, who fosters people’s growth, from our mother’s womb.  May God give you joy of heart and may peace abide with you.

 

Joy and Gratitude are our response to God’s blessings.

 

As we gather with our families and as we gather now as a parish family, joy and gratitude are our posture in which we live our lives.

 

I look forward and treasure time with family today as do you.  May we have the genes of gratitude and joy throughout the day.  I can predict that everything won’t be perfect.  Resist the flight to a bevy of “could have been or should have done” and stay in the blessed lane that we are grateful for the giftedness of life and the giftedness we share with each other today.

 

May we and especially the mothers in our midst be conscious of the gift of life that has come from your womb and how you have shared in the mystery of life that comes from God.

 

In the second Scripture reading from St Paul’s Letter to the Corinthians: 

“Grace and Peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.  I give thanks to my God always on your account for the grace of God bestowed on you in Christ Jesus.”

 

Paul is giving thanks for his parish family in Corinth.  We too give thanks for our parish family of St. Joseph’s.  We are so blessed with so many loving and giving families that enrich and inspire each other.  In Eucharist, we give thanks to the Lord our God as a community.  We pray best as a community of believers.  This is God’s plan for us to be a parish family invested in the life and holiness of each other.

 

In the Gospels, Jesus is the great teacher of gratitude.

 

May we be mindful that Jesus is the great teacher of gratitude – grateful for the love of His heavenly father, and he showed that gratitude in his living and dying witnessing to the Father’s love.

 

In the stories that Jesus told and in the story that Jesus lived, gratitude to His heavenly Father was at the center of the Lord’s life.  Jesus was always grateful for his disciples.  We are among the disciples Jesus is grateful for.

 

Jesus’ message in today’s Gospel passage is that gratitude is the way to find and experience true joy of heart.  The grace of gratitude, the life posture of gratitude creates an open and truly receptive heart.

 

In the Gospel in the healing of the ten lepers when only one came back to give thanks, implicit in this episode is the idea that something is missing.  Giving thanks is a vital and necessary part of our relationship with God.  For thankfulness is a measure of faith, a measure of our dependence on God and of our own humility.

Physical healing of leprosy is a great blessing no doubt.  An even greater blessing is the healing of relationships and experiencing the friendship and the salvific love of Jesus that is offered to us.  The Samaritan received a healing far greater that a physical healing when he came back to Jesus to give thanks.  Yes, we desire physical health, but may our greater desire be for spiritual health that comes from encountering the Lord with grateful hearts.

 

 

We express our gratitude in the context of the Eucharist in which we give thanks to the Lord our God.  This day expresses our spiritual roots not only as a nation but also as a Church, as the disciples of Jesus.  This day is not a holy day of obligation; rather this day is a holy day of opportunity.  It’s an opportunity to think back on what we have been given…and to give something in return:  thanks and gratitude.  We are here to honor with grateful hearts what God has done for us.

 

On this Thanksgiving morning, may we as a faith community ask for the grace that our community life will always be marked by a radical gratitude to our loving God.   May we be mindful that Jesus is the great teacher of gratitude – grateful for the love of His heavenly father, and he showed that gratitude in his living and dying witnessing to the Father’s love.

 

God give you peace and have a Blessed Day of Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Jesus as Christ our King, His power is the power of love.

 

FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING   C   2022

 

The priest was blessing and congratulating this couple in his parish who had been married for 50 years.  The priest was asking Mary what was their secret that sustained their marriage relationship in good times and bad.  Mary explained that they agreed on the day of their marriage that Mary would make all the small decisions and her husband would make the big decisions.  The priest wondered about this a bit, and then Mary further explained, with a twinkle in her eye, that they haven’t needed to make any big decisions.

Today on this the last Sunday of the liturgical year, we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.  We ask is Jesus the King of your life – over both the small and big decisions of life?  What is the power, the dominion Jesus exercises over your life as Christ the King?

 

The Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, is the crown of the liturgical year.  The Gospel in fact presents the kingship of Jesus as the culmination of his saving work, and it does so in a surprising way. “The Christ of God, the Chosen One, the King” (Lk 23:35,37) appears without power or glory: he is on the cross, where he seems more to be conquered than conqueror. His kingship is paradoxical: his throne is the cross; his crown is made of thorns; he has no sceptre, but a reed is put into his hand; he does not have luxurious clothing, but is stripped of his tunic; he wears no shiny rings on his fingers, but his hands are pierced with nails; he has no treasure, but is sold for thirty pieces of silver.

 

Today we proclaim this singular victory, by which Jesus became the King of every age, the Lord of history: with the sole power of love, which is the nature of God, his very life, and which has no end (cf. 1 Cor 13:8). We joyfully share the splendour of having Jesus as our King: his rule of love transforms sin into grace, death into resurrection, fear into trust. It would mean very little, however, if we believed Jesus was King of the universe, but did not make him Lord of our lives: all this is empty if we do not personally accept Jesus and if we do not also accept his way of being King.

 

 

I would ask you to be mindful of the image of Christ the King as proclaimed in the Gospel today.  It is the story of how Christ died on the cross.  Recall the scene:  his throne was a cross, his crown was made of thorns, his ushers were his executioners, and the people closest to him were common criminals.  What kind of king is this?  Why do we call him a king at all?

 

The cross shows the kind of King Jesus is:  he is one who cares for us right to the end. He cares enough to suffer and die.  He cares enough to be misunderstood and rejected.  He cares enough to seem a failure.  He is a King who cares and is prepared to make any sacrifice for the sake of those he loves.

 

So here we see Christ the King, dying on the cross.  And at this moment he is at his most God-like.  He is the man who showed us -- fully and uniquely -- what God is like, because he gives, and doesn’t count the cost.

 

The power of Jesus can be seen in his loving forgiveness of the thief on the cross:  “This day you will be with me in paradise.”  How often do we exercise this power? -- the power of forgiveness.  Yes, it is hard to forgive when we are innocent.  Yet none of us is innocent as Jesus was.

 

The words of the thief:  “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”    It is amazing where you find faith.  The thief saw in Jesus what religious leaders, government authorities, soldiers and onlookers could not. 

 

What about us?  What do we see in Jesus?   As we celebrate this feast of power, the king is revealed to be a broken, dying man.  The sign of this feast -- the cross of Christ -- is traced on our foreheads in baptism, over our bodies as we gather in worship and on our coffins in death. 

The temptation before our Church is the temptation that faces our culture:  it is so much easier to command than to persuade;  it is so much more efficient to ignore the weak and  the outcast than to serve them.

Yet, the God we believe in confuses the proud and lifts up the lowly.  Yes, God accomplishes our salvation through his broken yet baptized people.  Here there is no envy.  There is only mercy. 

I go back to the words of the good thief in the

Gospel:   “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (v. 42). This person, simply looking at Jesus, believed in his kingdom. He was not closed in on himself, but rather – with his errors, his sins and his troubles – he turned to Jesus. He asked to be remembered, and he experienced God’s mercy: “Today you will be with me in paradise” (v. 43). As soon as we give God the chance, he remembers us. He is ready to completely and forever cancel our sin, because his memory – unlike our own – does not record evil that has been done or keep score of injustices experienced. God has no memory of sin, but only of us, of each of us, we who are his beloved children. And he believes that it is always possible to start anew, to raise ourselves up.

 

Let us ask for the grace of never closing the doors of reconciliation and pardon, but rather of knowing how to go beyond evil and differences, opening every possible pathway of hope. As God believes in us, infinitely beyond any merits we have, so too we are called to instil hope and provide opportunities to others. The true door of mercy which is the heart of Christ always remains open wide for us. From the lacerated side of the Risen One until the very end of time flow mercy, consolation and hope.

 

What are you willing to die for?

 

Thirty Second Sunday in OT  C  2022

 

 

I recently heard two teenage girls commenting on a rather good-looking guy that had their undivided attention:  “Isn’t he just gorgeous?  He’s to die for.”  (They weren’t talking about me.)

I would like to take that comment to another level.  So my question for you today is:  “Just what are you willing to die for?”  I realize this is a rather heavy question, especially if you haven’t had your first cup of coffee this morning.  This is the question the Scriptures invite us to consider.  Just what is big enough, important enough that I would give my life for it?

 

The Sundays of November bring us to the conclusion of the Church Year.  Today’s readings also call to our minds the conclusion of our own years on earth.  The mystery of life and death reside within each one of us. 

 

 

In  Bette Midler’s The Rose, she sings, “It’s the soul afraid of dying, who never learns to live.”  She is right.  Unless we have identified our ultimate values, we have not begun to live fully, for we are locked behind the bars of fear. What

This past Wednesday, I brought Communion to a woman dealing with significant cancer.  She was just given the sobering diagnosis that statistically she had only another year to live.

Understandably this is frightening news.  This challenges us to dig deeply into our faith and trust in God. What does it mean to be given a statistical timeline on the length of one’s earthly life, and in faith how do we believe that yes one day all of us will enter into a different kind of life – our life in union with Christ for all eternity. It is in dying that we are born to eternal life

 

In the first Scripture reading from the Book of Maccabees:  “It happened that seven brothers with their mother were arrested and tortured with whips and scourges by the king to force them to eat pork in violation of God’s law.  One of the brothers, speaking for the others, said:  “What do you expect to achieve by questioning us?  We are ready to die rather than transgress the law of our ancestors.”

The brothers and their mother had drawn a line in the sand.   Their trust and faith in God was that important to them.  Their trust in a resurrection faith was non-negotiable.  It was to die for.

Bette Midler was not singing about these brothers and their mother with the words:  “It’s the soul afraid of dying, who never learns to live.”

The Scriptures today invite to reflect on the lives of people who place God first in their lives.

Today’s Gospel passage comes late in Luke’s Gospel and late in the liturgical year.   In the Gospel, the Sadducees were the religious leaders who denied that there was life after death.  To prove their belief, they asked Jesus a trick question about a woman who ended marrying seven brothers.  Then they Jesus the absurd question:  whose wife will this woman be in the resurrection?

The Scriptures calls us to reflect on the last things – on death and the mystery of the resurrection of Jesus.

The resurrection of Jesus is the linchpin of Christian faith, the source of our hope, the cause of our joy.  In the light of a resurrection faith, we seek to place God first in our lives.

We do not know with any empirical certainty; nevertheless we anchor ourselves in the sure faith that ours is a living God and a loving God who has accomplished our salvation in the dying and rising of Jesus.  In this faith is also founded our hope, and this hope gives meaning and purpose to our days and nights until such time as death takes us beyond time unto life everlasting.

We have to live with the reality that we don’t all the answers about the mystery of eternal life.  What we have is our faith that God’s love leads us onto a fuller sharing in life everlasting.

 

It is true because we trust in the power of the resurrection of Jesus.  Through and through, as the disciples of the Risen Lord, we are a people of hope.  Our hope is rooted in our trust that the risen Lord goes with us in all experiences of life.  The risen Lord is with us in our parish community.  Yes, we still are a sinful, stumbling group of people who make mistakes.  But we believe that the risen Jesus is with us in this celebration of the Eucharist.  We believe that the power and grace of the Risen Lord enables us to trust our God never abandons us.  Our God cares for us.  We are a people who can sing Alleluia.

 

 

The mystery of life and death, like holy twins, reside within each of us.  Both of these holy twins have voices for those who have ears willing to listen.  Death speaks of the urgency of growing one’s soul larger and larger by acts of love.  Death constantly admonishes us not to take for granted those we love and not to miss the countless opportunities to live well.  Listen to death.  Your death is only a door that leads to home; do not fear the hour it will open.  Live watchful of that Grand Opening and prepare for it with prayer.

 

 

 

 

Jesus looked into the heart of Zacchaeus with much love.

 

THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY IN OT  C  2022

 

What was he thinking?

This short-of-stature tax-collector who took advantage of people climbed this sycamore tree.  Zacchaeus wanted to catch sight of Jesus as he was about to pass by.  Something must have been going inside of Zacchaeus.  Perhaps he simply meant to see Jesus without being seen.

Zacchaeus surely didn’t expect Jesus to stop and to look up at him as he was passing by.  But that’s what happened.  In fact, Jesus looked into the heart of Zacchaeus, and Zacchaeus experienced the compassionate love of Jesus at this moment.  Jesus said: “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay in your home.”

It is worth noting in this Gospel account that both Jesus and Zacchaeus sought each other out.  Zacchaeus climbed the sycamore tree to get a better vantage point from which to see Jesus.  In turn, Jesus called forth Zacchaeus by name saying:  “Zacchaeus, come down quickly for today I must stay at your house.”  The joy is palpable between them.

The back story on Zacchaeus:  He was an unloved sinner.  He is not an attractive person.  He worked for the enemy as a Roman tax collector.  He had become a wealthy man, perhaps by overtaxing the poor.  His physical smallness matched the low esteem in which he was held.   Then there was an awareness in Zacchaeus that his lifestyle led to loneliness and greediness.  He was coming to the awareness that there was more to life than getting rich by taking advantage of people. 

At this point, Zacchaeus just wanted to see Jesus.  And so, he climbed the sycamore hoping to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was going to be passing by.

A significant moment of grace in this Gospel account is when Jesus stopped and caught sight of Zacchaeus in the sycamore tree.  Jesus looked into his heart with love and invited him down as Jesus wished to come to his house today.  Zacchaeus, at that moment, experienced himself as loved by the Lord.  This beautiful moment of encounter with the Lord was a conversion in Zacchaeus.  Nothing would ever be the same.

 

 

The story of Zacchaeus is our story as well.  How does the Lord encounter you in your life?  As was the case of Zaccheaus, what would it take for you to realize that you need the Lord?  Like Zacchaeus may we experience ourselves as being loved by the Lord.  Nothing is ever the same.

Notice the sharp contrast between Zacchaeus as he is the recipient of the Lord’s extravagant mercy and unconditional forgiveness. and the crowd of the so-called righteous who grumbled judgmentally at God’s mercy.   In this Gospel account, Jesus desired to save not only the sinner Zacchaeus, but Jesus wanted also to save the people who were so ready to condemn Zacchaeus.  As a sinner’s home became salvation’s house for Zacchaeus, Jesus was directing this message to the religious leaders of his day that God is extravagant in mercy and unconditional in the forgiveness of sins.  Instead of anger and violence and judgment, they are to proclaim to one and all the merciful love of God to people in need.

Who are the lost in the Gospel today?  Is it Zacchaeus who rejoices in the compassion and forgiveness of Jesus or is it the righteous who grumble that Jesus is staying at the house of a sinner?  Jesus is inviting Zacchaeus to experience repentance and to move forward into life and the fullness of life.  The folks who were accompanying Jesus were left grumbling at God’s mercy.

Where do find ourselves in this Gospel account?  Are we aware of our need to encounter the Lord as did Zacchaeus, or are we more focused on our judgments on the worthiness or unworthiness of others?  Are we scandalized by the extravagance in which Jesus reaches out to others?

In the Gospel, Zacchaeus wanted more of life that what his wealth provided him.  He was isolated by his greed and wealth.  He wanted to experience the love he saw in the followers of Jesus.  This awareness of his need for the healing and forgiving love of God provides the fertile soil to experience the extravagance of God’s mercy.

 

As we gather for Eucharist, please God we too have that awareness of our need for God’s healing love.  If you recall last Sunday’s Gospel about another tax collector, his simple prayer:  “Lord, be merciful to me a sinner.”  Do we come before the Lord in a spirit of humility? 

I invite you as we pray over this Gospel is to ask yourself the question:  What tree do I need to climb in order to encounter the Lord more deeply in my life?   

In receiving Jesus into his home, Zacchaeus accepted God’s outreach of love.  Zacchaeus was then inspired to share what he had.  Zacchaeus said to the Lord, “Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor, and if I have extorted anything from anyone I shall repay it four times over.

Zacchaeus not only physically welcomes Jesus into his home but also offers him every aspect of his life.  Are we willing to welcome Jesus into our hearts, and are we willing to commit ourselves to a life of stewardship in our spiritual journey?

The Lord wishes to encounter you as much as the Lord desired to encounter Zacchaeus.  When we open ourselves up to accepting God’s love into our hearts, we like Zacchaeus will experience how our lives change in our desire to serve the needs of one another.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

Lord, be merciful to me , a sinner.

 

Thirtieth Sunday in OT  C  2022

 

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 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.  Again, if I simply come before the Lord empty-handed, then I will be ready to receive God’s gift of his merciful love.

Indeed, this beautiful Gospel of the Pharisee and the Publican 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.”     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.

We really have 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 may be filled with credentials and trophies.  Life is about me and what I have.  The spiritual problem is that when we are filled with ourselves, 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 to 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 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 bet the word and my soul shall be healed.

 

Have a Blessed Day.

 

May the persistence of the widow in today's Gospel be a witness for us of a God who never gives up on us.

 

Twenty Ninth Sunday in OT  C  2022

Today’s Gospel parable tells the account of the widow who because of her persistence was able to get the assistance she needed from the judge.  She is the example of perseverance – she simply won’t be put off and finally the unjust judge gives in. 

There are many ways to pray over this Gospel account.  I would suggest three ways for your prayerful consideration. 

First, I would invite to see the widow in this Gospel as an image of God.   This parable invites us to think about that God never gives us on our faith community.  Like the persistent and resilient widow of the gospel, God never gives up on us.

 Yes, we could be more faithful in our full participation in Sunday Eucharist; yes, we could spend more time in prayer at our Eucharistic Adoration; yes, the families of our parish could be more committed to family prayer; yes, we as a parish could be more mission-minded in serving the needs of the poor.  I think we would all say there is room for improvement in our spiritual journey.  But God, like the widow in the Gospel account, continues to call us back to a life of discipleship.

What is our image of God?  May the persistence of this widow give us an insight into God’s unending love for us.  There is nothing we can do to stop God from loving us.  The perseverance of the widow witnesses to the God of second and third chances who neve gives up on us and invites us to embrace God’s unconditional and unending love.

 

Secondly, the widow in the Gospel account is representative of ourselves in our spiritual journey.

There was a time in my life when I was a marathon runner – 26 miles and 385 yards.  My sister thought this was crazy.  She didn’t like to drive her car for 26 miles.  To train for and to run the 26.2 miles takes some perseverance.  There is a grace to sprint short distances at full speed, but there is grace in the perseverance that is needed to run a marathon.

Our lifelong journey of faith is a spiritual marathon.  In the various seasons of our life, in both the green pastures and the dark valleys, we need to trust always in God’s abiding presence.

A fundamental faith question for all of us is:  In the hard times of life, do we bail out from trusting in God’s unconditional love for us or do we have the gift of perseverance we trust that our God goes with us in all experiences of life?

 

Persistence in prayer is not to be understood as trying to change God’s mind, as if God was unwilling to help us in the first place.   It’s we who need to change… Our prayer needs to be: “Not my will but thy will be done.”  God’s will be our peace.  His death on the cross is his gift of faith and a love that heals and saves us all.

 

Have you called an emergency number in your life?  If ever you called 911, I am sure, it now brings to your mind some traumatic experience.   In any case, I suppose, the emergency number is not the most frequently dialled number on your personal telephone. 

What is the most dialed number in your phone, anyway?  Is it your spouse, child, parent, friend, business partner, or someone you love?  Perhaps, these days, thanks to the mobile phones you might even call the same person more than two, three times a day!  And what does that frequently dialed number say about your own priorities in life? 

Now, here is a more important question:  how would you describe your own acts of calling on God!  Are they emergency calls like a 911call, or are they frequent calls?

God needs to be the most frequently dialed number in our daily lives.  Like the widow in the Gospel account, may we continuously call upon God to accompany in all the challenges and in all the joys of life.

Thirdly, the widow in the Gospel represents our neighbor whom we are called to love and serve.

The widow may have reminded us of people we know:

                    --the single mother determined to get her children a valued education and getting them access to quality health care.  She would persist in coming to government offices, principals of schools, hospitals, and doctors’ office.  She had little concern for what people think of her, how she appears in the general public or whether she is being a nuisance.

Are there groups of people who are the widows of the modern world?

                    --ethnic minorities throughout the world

--women looking for equal opportunities in society.

--poor nations standing for their rights before the world community.

Who are the widows in the life of the Church?

--Are their people who would not be welcome in our parish community?  Are their people who feel like widows relative to our parish community?

And so, we ask ourselves:   In all truth can we join in solidarity with the widows of our society?

Do we recognize that the widow in today’s Gospel has so much to teach us?  

In today’s Gospel, Jesus encourages his disciples to pray always without becoming weary.  Another essential aspect of our prayer life is to see the value of our faith community to support and to inspire our prayer journey.  We see in the first Scripture reading, when Moses grew weary in prayer, the Israelites were losing in the battlefield.  But with the aid of his friends Aaron and Hur, Moses became strengthened again in prayer.

 Perhaps we too need the help of the believing community to support us in our continued prayer life. We are at our very best as the Church of the Holy Spirit if we are brothers and sisters to each other.  You heard the expression it takes a village to raise a child; it takes a Church community for us to grow in our journey of faith.  We are to inspire, to support, to love, and to pray for each other that God’s love will be experienced by everyone in our faith community.

 

Have a blessed day.

 

 

What we do with what we have is to the heart of our discipleship .

 

Twenty Sixth Sunday in OT  C  2022

 

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 his 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 what we have with those who don’t have.  We are to serve and to help and to love one another.

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 point of the parable is not about rewarding the poor and punishing the rich. Rather, it is about the sense of duty and responsibility that comes with what we have been given. Despite his riches, the rich man simply does not look beyond his own gate. He does not care; he does not recognize Lazarus as a fellow human being and his brother. He fails in his responsibility as the brother’s keeper.

 

 

 

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 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.  Our parish goal is $219,000.  This is a big number, but may we see our commitment to the CMA not just as an obligation dumped on us, but it is an opportunity for us to share the blessings of life we have been given.  God loves a cheerful giver.

Our goal is very doable with a twofold parish commitment:  First, all of us are asked to participate in this year’s CMA, and secondly those who have been blessed financially, we ask that you give generously and increase your gift over last year if you are able.  I assure you I will personally give generously to the CMA and increase my gift over last year.

Those who have given previously will be receiving a letter from Bishop Matano and myself and an accompanying pledge card.  If you have not previously given to the CMA, there will be pledge envelopes in the pews for your convenience.

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.

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? 

We are gathered for the meal which is the Eucharist. We are fed with his body and blood; we are nourished with the fullness of life and love. But we are reminded that the flesh we eat is broken for others and the blood we drink is shed for the life of the world.

Therefore we cannot properly receive the bread of life unless at the same time we give the bread of life to those in need wherever and whoever they may be.

May our sharing at this table strengthen us in our commitment to be humble servants of our brothers and sisters.  May we be filled with the fullness of life and the love of God and endeavor to share that life and love with others.

 

Have a blessed day.