You might think life is about Seeds based on todays Gospel, but Today is just as much about The power of Words as it is about Seeds.
Let me start w/ a little bit about me. I’ll be honest, I Love movies – especially action or fantasy. Of all though, I’m a Disney guy – it’s because I’m a kid at heart. There’s character that has always been my favorite and it was because I loved the story. It might sound odd, but ONE HINT, she’s a Villain. This Weekends readings remind me of a version of her story. You see Disney released a tale just about her.
It’s called Maleficent. Maleficent is Disney’s recreation of the story of Sleeping Beauty. But this time told from the perspective of Maleficent herself. What’s amazing is that Maleficent utters a curse over Princess Aurora, whom we know is Sleeping Beauty.
And it’s a curse that no power on earth can undo. That’s how powerful Maleficent words are. Nothing on Earth can undo her words once she’s uttered them. At one point Maleficent tries to revoke her own curse over the beautiful Aurora but her words were so powerful that not even she could undo them. Our faith tells us that God’s word is more powerful than anything. Think back to Genesis, How did God create the world? By speaking words!
Let there be light. How did God give direction and guidance to God’s people, by God’s word, communicated through the law and the prophets? And how did God redeem this world by sending God’s Word Christ into the world? So His Word is Unchangeable, Awesome in Power, Unfailing.
Isaiah today concludes by saying that just as the rain comes down from heaven and has tremendous power, watering the earth and making it fertile and fruitful and transforming seeds into wheat from which we make our daily bread. So too God’s word rains down on us, watering our sometimes dry spirits and bringing life to our DRY BONES. But does God only share the rain with good people? Does God only share the sun with those who appreciate it? No. Instead, God causes the sun to rise on the good and the evil and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. The image that comes to mind is the parable from today’s gospel, God indiscriminately throws seeds in all directions.
Yes, some of the seeds fall on hard soil and never take root. Yes, some of the seeds fall on shallow, rocky ground that never produce fruit. Yes, some of the seeds fall among thorns and are choked. But there are also some seeds that fall onto good ground and produce an incredible harvest. In the early church, people understood that Jesus was really talking about them. These were also His Apostles. They realized that they were the different types of soil, each receiving the seed of God’s word in different ways.
Some of them were hard. Hard hearts that would seemingly never allow God’s word to bear fruit. Some of them had lives that were simply too shallow or rocky to produce great fruit. For some of them, the seed of God’s word would be choked by the thorns around them. BELIEVE ME, there are plenty of thorns in this life. And ultimately, they all hoped that their hearts might be that good soil in which the seed of God’s word might take root and bear fruit.
But before that interpretation of today’s gospel sprang up, there was an older interpretation that focused on the prodigal sower, on the generosity of the soul, who indiscriminately threw the seeds out in the direction of all types of soil. These are the seeds of all those values that we hear every day in the Church. Those seeds are of love and peace and forgiveness. So, How generously are you sharing them with others? Are you like the prodigal soul or in today’s gospel, generously sharing your love with all types of people, regardless of how hard their hearts seem to be? Do you respond with pride with some, humility with others?
Are you wishing peace and forgiveness to all? Regardless of how shallow some may sometimes seem? Are you following in Jesus’s footsteps indiscriminately sharing your love with everyone, regardless of who they are, what they look like, or how they live their lives? Do you avoid those who are being choked by the thorns of life? Or do you take the risk of being pricked? And do you do your part to help all our brothers and sisters to flourish as the people that God intends them to be?
If you haven’t seen the movie I’m talking about, I’ll tell you this, In the beginning, Maleficent is a good person. She’s Beneficent. She lives in a peaceful and tranquil kingdom of gentle creatures. She helps heal, snapped branches, She has mercy on a captured raven. She’s a good person until she meets someone who deceives her, hurts her, and she discovers how greedy and power hungry some can be, so she erects thorns all around her kingdom. We do this to protect our hearts.
Those thorns remain where they are until we find peace in our hearts. Her words were powerful. Let’s be honest, our words are pretty powerful too. Words can erect thorny walls between us and others, and our beneficent words can help to tear down those walls and to help liberate those who are experiencing thorny moments in their lives.
May we be more and more like generous in sharing words of love and peace and forgiveness with all people, regardless of how good or hard or shallow or thorny their lives seem to be. Amen
What troubles your heart today?
I’m sure the list is long and it’s not pretty. Some crushing & excruciating. I think about all the vigils & prayers we have offered in the last couple of years for the violence and suffering in the world: Syria; France and Turkey; Aleppo; Orlando; Istanbul, Bangladesh, and Baghdad; Beirut and Paris; Baton Rouge, Minnesota, and Dallas; Fires/Hurricanes/Fallen planes, now Covid-19. I think about the protests around the world & in America. I think about healthcare, immigrants, & refugees. I think about gun violence, racism, and poverty. I think about stories of bullying & suicides. I think about ISIS, Russia, North Korea, & increasing tensions around the globe. I think about political dysfunction in every direction. I think about those grieving & mourning the death of a loved one. I think about families that are struggling, spouses that are divorcing, children that are hungry, and people that are hanging on by a thread. I think about my own sorrows as well, the losses, & disappointments. I think about the ways today’s gospel may get interpreted & used to exclude, condemn, & even to bludgeon others.
Despite what Jesus says about not letting our hearts be troubled, my hearts is troubled and I suspect yours might be too. What would you add to my list? What is troubling your heart today? None of us get through this life without a troubled heart. I don’t think we can look at the pain of the world today, the suffering of a loved one, or our own wounds and hurts and not feel heartache. At least, I hope we can’t.
That’s the context in which I hear Jesus say, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” It’s not that different from the context in which Jesus said those words. It is the night of the last supper. Jesus has announced his departure from this world, his death. Feet have been washed. Judas has left the table and stepped into the nighttime of betrayal. Peter will break his silence with a threefold denial. Thomas is lost and asks, “How can we know the way?” Philip has lost his center & can’t see what is right in front of him. “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” he says.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled,” Jesus says. “Do not let your hearts be troubled?” Are you kidding me? Is Jesus really serious about that? Does he know what is happening in our lives & our world? How can Jesus say that with a straight face when he was troubled at seeing Mary & the Jews weeping at the death of Lazarus (John 11:33), when he said that his own “soul is troubled” (John 12:27), and when St. John tells us that Jesus “was troubled in spirit” (John 13:21)? What is Jesus telling us? It’s not as if there is an on-off switch for troubled hearts. How do we begin to make sense of today’s gospel in a world whose heart is constantly troubled?
It’s not hard to understand why this text is so often used in a burial liturgy. Death troubles our hearts and we want to find some balance, stability, and harmony. This text, however, is about more than the after life. It has something to say right here and right now. It’s speaks to the very circumstances that trouble our hearts today.
Think about times when you heart has been troubled. Maybe it is now. What does that feel like? We all experience it in our own ways but see if this sounds familiar: isolated, paralyzed, overwhelmed, powerless, off balance, out of control, disconnected, afraid, thoughts spinning in your head, no stability, despair, grief, tears, anger. Do you recognize any of those?
In the midst of a troubled heart the unspoken question is this: Will the center hold or is everything collapsing around us. Thomas and Philip are feeling the collapse. Much of the world is. Maybe you are too. Will the center hold? That’s our question.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Jesus recognizes that our hearts are troubled. He is not warning us about a future condition. He knows the troubling has already begun. He can see it in us because he’s experienced it within himself. He also knows that our lives and the world are not defined by or limited to what troubles.
What if not letting our hearts be troubled begins with looking into our hearts and seeing and naming what troubles? That means facing our selves, our lives, our world. That may be the first and most difficult thing Jesus asks of us in today’s gospel. I don’t know about you but sometimes I don’t want to see. I don’t want to name. It’s too difficult and too painful. It’s takes me too close to the edge of the abyss and a free fall into a collapsing life and a collapsing world. “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Thomas speaks for us all. We’ve lost our center. How do we recenter? Where do we go when it seems everything is collapsing around us?
Here’s the paradox. Sometimes we have to lose our center in order to find it. I want to be clear about this. I’m not suggesting that God purposely de-centers us. De-centering just happens. It’s a part of life. It’s a part of the human condition. Sometimes it comes out of circumstances we didn’t create or choose. Other times it is a consequence of our choices or actions. Regardless, Jesus says that is not a place to stay or a way to live. It is not the life he lives or offer us.
If your heart is troubled then it’s time to re-center. Re-centering doesn’t mean our hearts won’t be troubled. It doesn’t necessarily fix the problem, whatever it might be. It means that our lives are tethered to something greater than ourselves. It means that our hearts are held secure by the Divine Life and we are not free falling into the abyss. Jesus is reminding us that there is a center and it is not us. It is not America and her laws and constitution. It’s not merely the church and her creeds and doctrines but the heart. It is not our success, accomplishments, position, or power. We do not have to be the center nor do we need to establish it. In fact, we can’t. Instead, we awaken to it. We already know the way to and the place of this center Jesus says. We Say It – ABBA
“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be satisfied,” Philip says to Jesus. He’s bought into the lie that the Father is apart from, outside of, and distant from himself. The center, however, is within. The Father’s house is within. The kingdom is within. Wherever you go, there is the center. Whatever you face, there is the center. Whoever you are, there is the center, Regardless of what troubles, there is the center. Wherever you are, there is the center. Not because you are the center, but because God is within.
The center is the Father’s house and there are many dwelling place in this house. In the Father’s house there is a dwelling place for every troubled heart. I’m not talking about the after life, & this isn’t some sort of celestial dormitory for those who have enough of the right beliefs & right behaviors. I’m talking about His Home in our Heart: mercy, forgiveness, justice, generosity, compassion, healing, love, beauty, wisdom, hope, courage, joy, & intimacy. These are the dwelling places for troubled hearts, places of re-centering. Every time practice these, we regain our center, restore balance, and take up residence in the Father’s house.
What in you today needs re-centering? “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.”
This centeredness, balance, & harmony within can help you see & respond to your own troubles or the troubles of the world. My friends – “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.” “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”
What if in the midst of troubles your heart could maintain a normal rhythm and beat with God’s life? Can you listen to the Heartbeat of God? It’s within you. My God Blesses You – Amen
O how good and how pleasant for us to dwell together as one”. After so much isolation brought on by the Corona virus, we are able to be together in prayer and fellowship. I am very happy to be with you today, and with you I pray that this pandemic will loosen its grip upon the world, especially upon the poor. Let us look ahead to that day when it will again be possible to move about freely and to see one another in person always, rather than on Zoom, YouTube and Facebook! I’m excited to talk about both the Parable of the Mustard Seed and Saint Bonaventure, our Patron Saint and why I chose him in re-naming the Parish just a few years ago.
The Parable of the Mustard Seed is one of the shortest parables Jesus gave us. It appears in Matthew, Mark, and Luke and it’s meaning is this; The Kingdom of Heaven is Unstoppable. Like St. Bonaventure’s, and the Holy Mother Church – we come from something Meek and Small but to Fulfill God’s Will – We Will Grow Stronger.
Happily today, we have gathered to celebrate the Feast Day of St. Bonaventure, which was this past Wednesday. He was a great saint and theologian of the Middle Ages, who hails from the 13th century. St. Bonaventure was the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor also called the (Franciscans), and later, the Cardinal-bishop of the ancient See of Albano, near Rome, as also a leader at the Second Council of Lyon (the last of the greatest councils, one presided over by Pope Saint Gregory the Great, and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Bonaventure died during that council, in 1274. Now, you may be wondering what St. Bonaventure has to say to the likes of us, who live in the 21st Century and who seek to serve the Church, not as members of a religious order but more importantly, as Brothers And Sisters. That answer is, plenty! But I’ll try not to go on too terribly long!
There are three lessons from Bonaventure’s life that I would like to talk about: First, inspired by St. Francis of Assisi, he focused singularly on Christ. Second, St. Bonaventure teaches us how to seek and find wisdom. Third, St. Bonaventure teaches us how to combine contemplation with action.
First, Bonaventure’s Singular Focus was on Jesus the Christ
And you may say to yourself, what’s so singular about that? Is there any saint who didn’t focus on Jesus? This is a point I must concede. But what Bonaventure did was to absorb & integrate into his life & teaching the singular focus of St. Francis of Assisi on Jesus Christ. Bonaventure, in fact, wrote the biography of St. Francis and in it he shows how completely Francis lived the Beatitudes, and became a living portrait of Christ, a portrait made more dramatic by the marks of Jesus’ passion on Francis’. He was the Perpetual Student (like me), however the writings & sermons of St. Bonaventure, overflow with an intimate knowledge & love of Jesus. Even though Bonaventure was a Master of Theology at the University of Paris, and rose to become Minister General of the Franciscans, and still later a bishop of an historic See and even a Cardinal … Jesus remained the sole teacher and the sole master in Bonaventure’s life. Everything about him pointed to Jesus & therefore to God the Father. There have been many preachers & teachers to speak about Jesus but none with the intimate terms of Bonaventure. He heard Him; He saw Him; He Knew Him.
The Priesthood for me has become a prayerful intimacy with Christ, and though I am no Bonaventure, and by no means a Francis and pale next Christ Jesus, I hear Him; I can see Him; and I know Him.
Pope St. John Paul II once said … we must center our lives “in Christ himself, who is to be known, loved, & imitated, so that in Him, we may live the life of the Trinity, & with Him, transform history until its fulfillment in the heavenly Jerusalem” (NMI, 29). We are all Mustard Seeds, who with an intimate knowledge & love of Jesus can change this world. I know, as did Bonaventure, that, for all the challenges the Church is facing, “Christ’s works do not go backwards or fail but progress!”
The Second is this; The Search for Wisdom
Bonaventure taught us to seek & find wisdom. I think you would agree that, in these troubled times, we are not lacking in loud voices but we are lacking in wise voices. Bonaventure was no stranger to troubled times. In his tenure at the University of Paris, the right of the Franciscans & Dominicans to teach was bitterly disputed. Many even called into question the very legitimacy of the Franciscans & Dominicans as religious. They didn’t dress-up but served meekly. Bonaventure didn’t respond in quickly or in anger but rather with a beautiful text that showed how the mendicant religious life of simplicity, chastity, & obedience springs from the Gospel itself. We live in the age of instant communication, but we can still be reverent. At the very least, Bonaventure ought to make us hesitate to push that “send” button! Some have asked me, what should I do, should I speak loudly. Only if it’s to Lift Christ’s Glory – not our own.
Bonaventure helped me find wisdom in today’s readings from the Book of Wisdom – “But though you are master of might, you judge with clemency”. It reminds me of St. Paul, who urged the Ephesians once to seek, with all the saints, the strength to comprehend the breadth & length & height & depth of Christ’s love (Eph. 3:18), that is to say, the four directions or dimensions of the Cross of Christ. In his Soliloquy, Bonaventure urges us to do the same: to look within ourselves, created good but deformed by sin & redeemed by Christ; outside of ourselves, where we see how fleeting are riches & honors; below ourselves, where we see the reality of death & judgment; & above ourselves, where we begin to gaze on the beauty & the glory of God. Bonaventure shows how we gradually assimilate the wisdom of the Cross, and how this wisdom comes to be reflected more clearly in our lives. This, I assure you, is a life-long project but worth the journey to the mountain top.
And The Third: Contemplation Finds Action
Bonaventure taught that the old world & new were joined, that Science can mingle with Faith, that our Hearts must meet w/Action. One day you might think that a saint like Bonaventure had more options than we have – he had time for reading, prayer, & reflection. But he didn’t spend all his time in a chapel or library or resting – In the midst of prayer & scholarship, he faced demons, he faced administration & governance’. He Faced a world in turmoil & a fracturing Church he wanted to heal.
It’s amazing that as Bonaventure was in the midst of challenges, he remained deeply committed to Listening for, Looking for and getting to Know Jesus. It did not detract from effectiveness in fulfilling heavy responsibilities, but instead vested him w/Wisdom to help heal & unite the Church. Looking back on my own life, I see how some of my decisions might have benefited from more prayer & contemplation & Acting on the Words God gave me. So St. Bonaventure stands a model for where prayer & action must meet.
I would like to conclude with a prayer from the heart & pen of St. Bonaventure himself: “All you souls devoted to God, run with intense desire to this fountain of life & light, and cry out to him with all the power of your hearts … Your depth [O God] knows no bottom; your width knows know shore; your vastness no bounds, your clearness no taint.”
My friends, may God bless you, my family may he who is God from God and light from light, guide and direct your steps, now and throughout your lives.
24th Sunday in Ordinary (B) 09/11/2021
Who is this Jesus and Will We Follow His Way?
First I would like to begin with a story – this is a story about a man with bad heart. You see good or bad news might cause a heart attack. He happened to win 50 million in a national lottery. His wife called a friend of the family and counselor to break the news. The counselor came over for dinner and he begins slowly asking him what he would do if he won $1k (said would pay off cc’s), $10k (said would pay down on a new car) and $50 million ( said would keep half and give away other half to his counselor who was so kind to him. The counselor dies of a heart attack. The point is we aren’t always or even in most cases, truly prepared for the news we get.
This is about the news. What’s the news like today? What was the news Jesus came to deliver? The important question is, Are you Prepared to truly Hear and Receive and Act on it????
Jesus today makes 3 points: The 1st, who do people say I am, who do you say I am? The 2nd, the son of man must suffer greatly. 3rd, if you wish to follow me, you must too, take up your cross. Jesus is God, He is Savior, He is friend and brother and teacher and guide and All. His Way was to endure for Us. Our Way is our choice, it’s our freedom, but with that freedom what will we choose? Will we follow Him, honor him as God honored a people who had never been faithful, will we live the Gospel of Mercy, or will we abandon our obligations to honor and love and to serve one another? With words, with prayers-and with Actions????
This weekend Jesus tells us what his mission is, who he is, and who we Must Be, if we are to be one with Him. There is no other Way, than the Cross, the cross of Mercy.
This weekend we celebrate the nativity of the BVM, we celebrate that she Chose rightly to Magnify Who He was, and not herself, to magnify Grace, and Never Fear.
This weekend we honor the Holy Cross. This instrument made to torment was the Path to true Freedom. it IS the bridge between death and life. It is our Tree of Life, our 2nd shot in the new Garden to choose Him before Us, to make the right choice. Will you.
This weekend we remember 9/11, the difficulty, the loves ones, and we also remember the strength and unity in an impossible time.
It’s easy to say yes and give God Glory in good times, to pray for loved ones, to celebrate mercy to those who are kind, But that isn’t all we are called to do. Mother Teresa of Calcutta said “holiness does not consist in doing extraordinary things. It consists in accepting, with a smile, whatever Jesus sends us. It consists in accepting and following the will of God. “
I have a story I think you should hear:
The Story of the “It is well with my soul”
Horatio Gates Spafford was born in New York, on 20th October 1828, but it was in Chicago that he became well-known for his clear Christian testimony. He and his wife Anna were active in their church, and their home was always open to visitors. They counted the world-famous evangelist, Dwight L. Moody, among their friends. They were blest with five children and considerable wealth. Horatio was a lawyer and owned a great deal of property in his home city.
Not unlike Job in the Old Testament of the Bible, tragedy came in great measure to this happy home. When four years old, their son, Horatio Jnr, died suddenly of scarlet fever. Then only a year later, in October 1871, a massive fire swept through downtown Chicago, devastating the city, including many properties owned by Horatio. That day, almost 300 people lost their lives, and around 100,000 were made homeless. Despite their own substantial financial loss, the Spaffords sought to demonstrate the love of Christ, by assisting those who were grief-stricken and in great need.
Two years later, in 1873, Spafford decided his family should take a holiday in England, knowing that his friend, the evangelist D. L. Moody, would be preaching there in the autumn. Horatio was delayed because of business, so he sent his family ahead: his wife and their four remaining children, all daughters, 11 year old Anna, 9 year old Margaret Lee, 5 year old Elizabeth, and 2 year old Tanetta.
Another Tragedy
On 22nd November 1873, while crossing the Atlantic on the steamship, Ville du Havre, their vessel was struck by an iron sailing ship. Two hundred and twenty-six people lost their lives, as the Ville du Havre sank within only twelve minutes.
All four of Horatio Spafford’s daughters perished, but remarkably Anna Spafford survived the tragedy. Those rescued, including Anna, who was found unconscious, floating on a plank of wood, subsequently arrived in Cardiff, South Wales. Upon arrival there, Anna immediately sent a telegram to her husband, which included the words “Saved alone….”
Receiving Anna’s message, he set off at once to be reunited with his wife. One particular day, during the voyage, the captain summoned him to the bridge of the vessel. Pointing to his charts, he explained that they were then passing over the very spot where the Ville du Havre had sunk, and where his daughters had died. It is said that Spafford returned to his cabin and wrote the hymn “It is well with my soul” there and then, the first line of which is, “When peace like a river, attendeth my way..” There are other accounts that say that it was written at a later date, but obviously, the voyage was one of deep suffering and is the clear inspiration of the moving and well-loved hymn. Horatio’s faith in God never faltered. He later wrote to Anna’s half-sister, “On Thursday last, we passed over the spot where she went down, in mid-ocean, the waters three miles deep. But I do not think of our dear ones there. They are safe….. dear lambs”.
After Anna was rescued, Pastor Nathaniel Weiss, one of the ministers traveling with the surviving group, remembered hearing Anna say, “God gave me four daughters. Now they have been taken from me. Someday I will understand why.”
Naturally, Anna was utterly devastated, but she testified that in her grief and despair, she had been conscious of a soft voice speaking to her, “You were saved for a purpose!” She remembered something a friend had once said, “It’s easy to be grateful and good when you have so much, but take care that you are not a fair-weather friend to God.”
Following this deep tragedy, Anna gave birth to three more children, but she and Horatio were not spared even more sadness, as on February 11th, 1880, their only son, Horatio (named after the brother who had died, and also after his father), he also died at the age of four.
Further Service
In August 1881 the Spaffords left America with a number of other like-minded Christians and settled in Jerusalem. There they served the needy, helped the poor, and cared for the sick, and took in homeless children. Their desire was to show those living about them, the love of Jesus.
The original manuscript of Spafford’s hymn has only four verses, but later another verse was added. The music, which was written by Philip Bliss, was named after the ship on which Horatio and Anna’s daughters had died – Ville du Havre.
Horatio Spafford died of malaria on 16th October 1888. Anna Spafford continued to work in the surrounding areas of Jerusalem until her own death in 1923. Both Horatio and Anna were laid to rest in Jerusalem. It can truly be said, in the words that Spafford penned that, “It is well with their souls.”
The question remains, is it so with yours?
Learn more from God’s word in our Daily Devotions, so that you too may be able to sing with full gusto, that “Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to know, It is well, it is well, with my soul.”
Today we know who Jesus Is, Now it’s for you to decide, Will you, Will We, Follow His Way?! Amen
The last 3 weeks our gospels have been about vineyards. Two weeks ago, we had the Parable of the Laborers in the Marketplace. The Good Employer called people to work in his vineyard throughout the day. Last week we had the parable of the two sons who were called to work in their father’s vineyard, one said, “No,” but went. The other said, “Sure,” but did not go. This week we have another vineyard story, the story of the evil tenant farmers who tried to steal the vineyard from their Master, even putting his messengers to death & finally putting his son to death.
So why all these vineyards? The vineyard was and is everything. Back then it was very important, Everybody drank wine & Wine cannot be produced unless there are grapes. Therefore, there were many vineyards in the ancient world all requiring work. Actually, there are many today, throughout the world. You might be familiar with the vineyards of California, Napa Valley, Sonoma, or maybe you know of Tuscany, Umbria, Bordeaux, Burgundy, those in Argentina, Spain & Germany and even Greece. It’s a massive production in the world today.
Once I lived down past a fairly large vineyard, out in California – a place called Robert Mondavi Vineyard’s. That was my employer’s vineyard in LA County. This was nothing like those just mentioned, but beautiful. There were wooden slats everywhere. In the spring, the grape vines would wrap around the slats. By the summer clusters of grapes started appearing. Whole families, grandparents, children & grandchildren would help harvesting the grapes along with a large migrant population. I remember the smell of those grapes. They say that your memory retains smells from the past. I think that is true. I can still smell the grapes. The aroma was amazing. My lungs filled up with their sweetness. After the grapes were harvested, just over half would make up wine locally, then for families nearby and shipping. some of the grapes would then be used to make grape jelly. You have not tasted grape jelly unless you have tasted this grape jelly. I still remember smelling the grape juice being pressed out of the grapes, and the smell of jelly as soon as it was ready.
The vineyard was a treasure to all. It was a treasure because it produced fruit. It was not constructed for its looks. Nor was it constructed for the shade, even those the vineyard produced leaves large enough to picnic under. That isn’t why the vineyard or any mentioned were made. It was constructed to provide fruit for its owner.
The vineyard in today’s Gospel is immeasurably larger than Modavi’s or Bordeaux, Umbria, Tuscan, Sonoma and Napa. BUT its reason for existing was the same. It was constructed to produce fruit for its owner. Only, in today’s Gospel, the laborers in this vineyard decide to steal the vineyard from the Master & keep the fruit for themselves.
Who are these wicked laborers? On 1 level, they are the Jewish leaders’ of Jesus’ day. Those entrusted with the Vineyard. They were called upon to provide fruit & failed. They were given the mission to nourish the people in the Word of God & prepare them for the Word Become Flesh, not to Kill Him. They used the people for their own selfish gain. They would tax the people exorbitantly for their own financial support. The people were their power over the Romans. The sheer number of the people were a threat to the Pax Romana. They did not prepare the people or themselves for the Messiah. They did not want a Messiah. A Messiah would eliminate the need for the Temple. Then what would they do? A Messiah would not fight but build a spiritual kingdom. A Messiah would disrupt their system of using God’s people to enrich themselves.
“So,” the Lord says, “the vineyard will be taken from those evil farmers & given to others who would nurture it and bear the fruit of the Kingdom.”
This parable also speaks of all salvation history. Even for us who live over 2000 years after the birth of the Word Made Flesh. We, the baptized, have now been entrusted with the. We are given the responsibility of providing fruit. We must produce fruit for Him, not for ourselves. All that He gave us, Gives Us, is to produce fruit for Him & we are entrusted with His people for that reason.
We celebrate the great work of the Vineyard today & at every Mass. The Mass is the Sending Ceremony, you see. The word Mass in Latin, “Ita Missa Est” “Go, you are sent”, means we are to receive God’s Grace in Word and Sacrament so we can bring the Lord’s presence to the people of the world who long for God. The Mass is about being strengthened to produce fruit for the Lord.
We come to Mass & use the grace we receive here to lead children, classmates, spouses, and yes parents to Jesus Christ. We do this, by growing closer & closer to the Lord so that our words & actions naturally reflect His Presence. We do this by standing up for all that is right & moral. For praying for one another – because we are all His Children. We do this by being kind to others. Think about how Jesus cured the sick, raised the dead and shared time and a meal with those others thought were beyond redemption. Think about how Jesus said to those who were sinners, and says to us, “You are better than that. Now receive God’s mercy and change your lives.”
We have been entrusted with the vineyard of the Lord to produce fruit for our God. Grapes, sweet smelling grapes, bundles of grapes, bundles of love, must be nurtured by our kindness to be transformed by the Lord, not just into wine, but into the very Blood of Christ. For we, the tenant farmers, have been entrusted to do no less, than to FILL the world with the Presence of Christ.
May we work hard to care for the vineyard of the Lord. Amen.
Today’s Gospel tells us about the Heart of Jesus. It gives us these words of comfort: “Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
What do these words tell us about the Lord? What do they mean for us?
They tell us something about the image of God that is very different from the images of God we might have. Many of our images are of the Almighty Awesome Creator of the Universe. We think of the great frescos on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel as Michelangelo portrayed God creating the universe with a dazzling display of power. We think of the image of creation of Adam, and God’s powerful hand touching the limp finger of the first man, giving him life. Or we think of some of the wonders of nature we may have experienced: the summits of the Rocky Mountains, the great canyons of Arizona, or the fire red skies of a Tampa Bay Sunset. And we remember that God is the Awesome Creator.
But He is more than this.
We also have images of Jesus the Son of God as the Judge of the living and dead. He is the One we will have to come before and present the work of our lives, not just the individual things we have done, but how well we have allowed His love to permeate the world. There is reward or punishment waiting, there is mercy and compassion, and there is justice. Again, going back to the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo depicts the scene of the Last Judgment showing the joy of the saved and the grief of the condemned. Jesus is the Just and Merciful Judge.
But He is more than this.
Jesus is meek and humble of heart. The prophet Zechariah prophesied that this is how our King would come to us. This was in today’s first reading from Zechariah 9:9. And this is how Jesus presents himself in the Gospel, meek and humble of heart.
What does it mean to be meek? To be meek is to be patient and gentle. This is not the surrender of rights or some form of cowardice, but the opposite of sudden anger, of malice and of long harbored vengeance. Jesus is meek. He is not waiting for the right time to strike us down for what we have done to Him, how we have attacked His Holiness with our sins, how we have attacked those whom He loves, or how we have attempted to thrust Him out of our lives. He is gentle. He is patient with us. Many of the parents of Teenagers are meek in just this way. They are patient with their Teens and not concerned with what their children have said to them or even done to them.
We can see this Divine Meekness in one of the fiercest books of the Bible, The Book of Revelations. Chapter 6 of the Book of Revelations presents the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. This is in the section of the seven seals. A White horse comes forward and its rider is given a crown and called on to continue the victory of the Lord. A Red horse is summoned, and its rider told to let people slaughter each other in their continual and unending wars. Then the Black Horse comes, and its rider has a scale as people are afflicted with famine, and finally a sickly Green colored horse comes. Its rider is Death. When the fifth seal is opened, prayers are heard from under God’s altar. There, under the altar, are the souls of all those who have been slaughtered for giving witness to the Lord. These are the martyrs. Saints Peter & Paul are there. St. Ignatius of Antioch and all those thrown to the lions and killed by the Romans are there. Twelve-year-old Agnes is there as are the new mothers, Perpetua and Felicity. So also, are all those throughout history who have died giving witness for Christ. The sixteen Carmelite nuns of Compiegne are there. They were beheaded during the French Reign of Terror, singing Veni Creator Spiritus as they were murdered youngest to oldest before a hushed crowd. The North American martyrs are there, St. Isaac Jogues, St. John DeBrebeuf and their companions. Those who have been killed for being Christians by radical Moslems are there. The 58 martyrs of Baghdad murdered on October 31, 2010 are there adding their voices to the thousands and thousands before them calling out, as the Book of Revelations says: “How long will it be, holy and true Master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth.” It is right here that we find Divine Meekness, “Be patient,” the Lord says, “Be patient for a little while longer, More will be added to your number.” More will have the chance to choose the Lord.
When we say the Lord is meek, we do not mean that He is submissive. We mean that He is so full of love that He is willing to be patient. Perhaps some of the murderers will have the opportunity to join the eternal family of the martyrs they created and themselves give witness to Christ.
Jesus is humble of heart. A proud person sees the universe revolving around him or her. If there is an offense, the proud person refuses to forgive. “Who does he think that he is?” the proud person asks. He or she is not concerned with returning the sinner to love. His or her only concern is with vengeance. That is not the way of the Lord. Jesus is humble of heart. His concern is not with how He has been offended. His concern is with the sinner and returning him or her to love. This is the mercy of God streaming from Jesus’ heart.
What does all this mean to us? It means that we need to give Jesus our burdens. This is more than the difficulties of life, sickness, marriage, or family problems. Yes, we give these to the Lord, but there is more that He wants. He wants us to give Him all that is keeping us from Him. All that we think is hidden away. Give up pride, substance abuse, immorality, anger and even grief from loss and the sadness that follows. We have difficulty forgiving those who have hurt us. This is serious sin. Just as serious as taking a life. God will forgive but we must as well. We have attacked God, willingly and knowingly, But still -do not fear seeking His forgiveness. Do not think yourselves condemned to carry these burdens, waiting for everlasting judgement.
“No,” the Lord says, “Give me your burdens, come to me for I am meek and humble of heart.” He is saying, “I am not so offended that I am shutting off mercy and compassion. I am not concerned about myself. I am concerned about you. I suffered on the cross for you. Give me your burdens. I want them, no matter how ugly, how messy they may be.”
And then the Lord says, “And you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” The burden of being a Christian is light next to the burden of carrying our sins to our death and further. Only He has the strength to Bare them. Holiness requires a Humble Heart and a Meek Tongue. Holiness is being different, seeing differently, being patient and calling out to the Lord in our Need.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI once said: “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.” Every one of us was created for greatness. To achieve this greatness means that there are times that we must reject the comfort of the world. There are times that we must be uncomfortable. You may be mocked for your faith or for your morality. We are mocked for our refusing to live for ourselves. We are mocked because we know that marriage is sacred and life is sacred. We are mocked for preaching love and not vengeance, We are derided because we call for peace. We are mocked because we are not part of the crowd. This isn’t comfortable. But we were not created for comfort. We were not created to be part of the crowd. We were created for greatness. That is the burden, that is the yoke, that Jesus calls us to accept in today’s Gospel.
Jesus’s Way, His Truth, His Life, IS that Burden, IT IS His Yoke, and it’s worth carrying His than the burden carrying sin, of carrying anger, resentment, malice, distrust and of carrying sorrow. It is so much easier to carry the burden of the Lord because He Smiles on Us and carry’s it with us. It brings us peace with ourselves in this life and total union with Him in the next.
It is easy to sin, but difficult to live with our sins. It can be a challenge to avoid Our Own Wrath, even a burden. But it is a Joy to live free of IT. It is a joy to join those who sing with their lives, “All is well, all is well with my soul.”
“Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy and my burden light.”
Peace Be with you. My dear friends, As human beings we sometimes find that our memory isn’t always perfect and sometimes when we look back on certain events we remember things differently that’s what we have in today’s scriptures today we have stories by both Luke and John of the first Pentecost, the day in which the Apostles received the Holy Spirit; or as we often call it, the day on which the church was born, the birthday of the church – that’s Pentecost and both Luke and John tell different stories about that first Pentecost.
Nearly 2,000 years ago John tells us that on the evening of Jesus’s resurrection from the dead that is on Easter Sunday Jesus appeared to his disciples and breathed on them the Holy Spirit. That was today’s gospel. It was John’s story of the first Pentecost. According to Luke though, it didn’t happen like that at all, and it didn’t happen on Easter Sunday either. Luke tells us that it wasn’t the night of Jesus’s resurrection, but that it was now fifty days later.
As we had said last Sunday, we hear the story that Jesus was with his friends for forty days after his resurrection, and that Jesus then stepped on a cloud and was lifted up into heaven, and ten days later, what happened as our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles suggests, the Holy Spirit came down on the Apostles. This was a dramatic event, the spirit entered with a noise like a strong driving wind and appeared like flames of fire above the Apostles’ heads and filled them with the Holy Spirit so much that they began to speak in several different languages; they spoke in tongues.
Imagine this great symbol of unity. Different languages could no longer keep people apart. The apostles were now able to speak their own languages, and the Apostles were able to bring the people together – despite their differences in race, ethnicity, origin or language. St. Paul tells us in today’s second reading his first letter to the Corinthians that that’s what happens when we’re filled with the Holy Spirit we realize that we’re all joined together as parts of the same body. We realize that we all share the same spirit, that we’re all baptized into the same family, and so regardless of whether we are Jewish or Greek, whether we’re slaves or free, we’re all now joined together as one in the spirit.
We Have heard this before – of being joined together, of being United, of being buttoned together with God and one another. This is what happens when we celebrate the Church’s sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation.
It is together, as one family where we can live happily ever after, loving and forgiving and living in peace with one another but we all know how it is right. Receiving the Sacraments doesn’t make us any holier or any less of a troublemaker. We have to stir up the Holy Spirit – Call It to the surface and share in its’ gifts. We do this when we pray, when we read the bible, when we go to Mass and share our time, and talents. We stir the Holy spirit by reaching out to one another, by loving others and forgiving them and living in peace with them.
Every Christian Is a Burning Flame of Grace my friends: I call you to Fan the flames of your hearts first.
For the past seven weeks we have kept the Easter Candle here in the sanctuary, lighting it every time we have celebrated Mass.
• The living flame of the Easter Candle reminded us that Christ is alive, that he rose from the dead just as the sun rises each morning to put an end to the darkness of the night.
• The tall, white candle with a burning flame on top reminded us of God’s faithfulness throughout all of history.
• It symbolized the two miraculous pillars – smoke by day and fire by night – that had guided the ancient Israelites out of Egypt, through the desert, and to the Promised Land.
• Now it is Christ, the Risen Lord, who is our pillar of smoke and pillar of fire, our sure guide out of slavery to sin, through this world of trials and temptations, and into the Promised Land of Heaven.
But today we remove the Easter Candle from our sanctuary.
Until next Easter, we will only use it during baptism ceremonies, when Christ’s risen life is given for the first time to new members of the Church.
Does the removal of the Easter Candle mean that Christ is no longer among us?
No. The sanctuary lamp beside the Tabernacle reminds us that Christ hasn’t’ gone on vacation.
Rather, today is Pentecost, the day when Christ’s risen life was entrusted to the Church by the gift of the Holy Spirit!
• Today, when we take the Easter Candle out of the sanctuary, we do it because we ourselves have become living Easter Candles, burning flames of wisdom, pillars of Christian faith and love spreading Christ’s hope in the world. My friends; make your choice, Fan the Flames of your hearts, Stir the Holy Spirit within and Light the Way to Peace.
There are two cities relatively close to each other on the West Coast of Florida that have a tremendous historical significance, St. Augustine, Florida and Savannah, Georgia. Each was the place where explorers landed and claimed the land for their King.
On September 8th, 1565, Don Pedro Menendez de Avila landed on the northeast coast of Florida and established the first colony in the new world, St. Augustine. With banners flying and in full regalia, Menendez planted the Spanish flag and claimed the land in the name of Philip II, the King of Spain.
Just a two and a half hour drive north of St. Augustine another colony was established for another king. On February 12, 1733, 168 years after Menendez, General James Oglethorpe landed in Savannah and claimed the land in the name of his king, George II of England. The colony was also named after the king and called Georgia.
Once a land was claimed for a king it was considered part of the Kingdom. Any assault on that colony would be treated as an assault on the Kingdom, not on a remote land.
When we were baptized we were claimed in the name of the Holy Trinity. The priest or deacon poured the water and said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” From that point, the Kingdom of God was extended to wherever we might be. We are under the protection of the Kingdom against any assault, particularly the assault of evil.
But why were we baptized in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit? Why not simply in the name of Jesus Christ? Why were we not baptized simply in the name of God? We were baptized in the name of the Trinity because we were claimed by all that God is, the fullness of God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Today’s celebration, the Solemnity of the Holy Trinity, reminds us that we belong to the fullness of God. The readings each give a glance at one of the Persons of the Trinity. In the first reading from Exodus God came down for a cloud and proclaimed His Name, “Lord.” Or perhaps it was the angelic hosts that cried out, “The Lord, the Lord, a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” These are the attributes given to the first person of the Trinity, the Father. The Gospel proclaims that God’s love is so great, that He gave his Son to us to save us from the assault of evil. The second reading from Second Corinthians presents Father, Son and Spirit as St. Paul prays that we continue to enjoy the union with the Holy Spirit, the Power of God working through us and uniting us into the Church.
The heart of the mystery is simply that God dwells within us. Sadly, some people continue the concept held by many during revolutionary times that God is removed from us. That is not what God told us. In John 14 Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” He is not out there somewhere. He is in here, in the spiritual life that makes a human a child of God. Jesus promised us that He would never leave us alone, and we are not alone. He is with us always, not just outside of us, but within us. The ability to call upon the power of God and the ability to be vehicles of this power forever is the gift of Pentecost, the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Our dignity as sons and daughters of God is far more than a title. We have been claimed by God. We belong to Him. He belongs to us. We have to keep this in mind when others present as normal that where God is not found. We need to ask ourselves, “Is God in the room, in the house, at the party?” If people are enjoying His gifts while still honoring His Presence, then we know He is there. If people are flaunting the basic dictates of morality, then we know He is not there. And we know that it is beneath our dignity as children of God to be there ourselves.
In the sacrament of penance, good people come to a recognition that they have not behaved as well as they should. Sometimes people will have a huge laundry list of serious sins they wish to confess. They will go on and on talking about sexual sin, sins of hatred, sins of disrespecting themselves and others, etc. When they finish, if they have sat across from me, they will often look at me sheepishly expecting a scolding or something. I do not scold people. I simply mention to them, “You are better than that, and you know that. That is why you are here. And I know also that I am better than the many times I have strayed from God.” By better I mean that we are sons and daughters of God. We are children of God. We are better than the forces of the world that are trying to destroy us.
St. Augustine was not just a remote colony. It was part of the Spanish Empire. It could claim the King of Spain as its protector. Savannah was not just a remote colony. It was part of the British Empire. It could claim the King of England as its protector. And we are not just members of a religion. We are part of the Kingdom of God. We claim our God as our protector, our protector from the evil that is trying to destroy us.
Today we are reminded both of who God is, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and who we are, God’s children carrying His Presence into the world.
Christmas Nativity Homily 2020 (B)
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the object of almost 2,000 years of wonder. I hope to tell you about the magnitude of the gift we were given in Christ’s Birth. You see we have been claimed as Co-Heirs to Eternity and yet give Freedom to Choose the Love of Christ Jesus in Manger, Emmanuel, the Frist Noel. Christmas, you see, is about Freedom – Freedom from Sin – Freedom to See, Freedom to Choose. So Freedom to Choose, YES, but also Freedom From – FROM What – From Slavery. Did you know slavery was an absolutely essential part of life in the Roman Empire. In-Fact ancient Romans could not have imagined life without slaves any more than we could imagine life without electricity today. Rome was the superpower of Jesus’ day and one-third of the population were slaves. There were many ways in which someone could become a slave, prisoners of war when the Roman army conquered an enemy. You could be sold as a slave if you could not pay your debts. You could be a slave if your parents were slaves. A father could sell his own children as slaves as well. The Universal was that no one was guaranteed Freedom, To – or From. It was up to family to pay off this debt and it didn’t guarantee Freedom, even then. This Person who paid the debt of a Slave is called the “Redemptor” and it’s where we get the words Redemption and Redeem. They are buying one out of slavery and that is why we call Jesus our Redeemer for he is the one who redeems us from that which truly enslaves us.
Slavery is not just ancient history. Did you know there are currently as of November 2020 45.8 million victims of modern-day Slavery in the world and more than a quarter are small children, exploited To This Day, just as in Christ’s Time, and the Heart of Darkness in King Leopold’s Congo, yes, we still have those in bondage. Some trapped in a similar slavery and some held captive from Joy, Those who cannot speak of the Love in the World and those who cannot see the Hope that came into the world is to come.
Christmas though, is different, you see – Christ (our Redeemer) Paid what no man could Pay and He did it to give us, not a gift that would fade or become broken or become meaningless, but a living Gift of Hope – Hope for a True Freedom – Freedom to See – Freedom to Choose. –
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MY STORY – (I once was full of pain and prayed to God that I would endure all, that I only wished to see the JOY and Reason for Hope – he gave it that night at 7 years old) – 3 visions (Pasture outside to school with bright windows overlooking lake of sapphire, white sandy beach with enormous cross, courtyard thinking man serpent in the sky on a cross surrounded by four castles) – 3 real events (I saw that enormous lake of Sapphire, that enormous cross on the beach, and I even walked that courtyard – full of despair and saw another in despair, preached Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones) – MY CHOICE Made clear in Toronto, Canada, My Choice made clear again in the Baptist Church, and My Choice again when an old priest had a Stroke and Told me God gave him one message for me (Ezekiel’s Dry Bones). My friends, I choose Hope because I still have a dream.
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So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. The energy, the faith, the devotion given by this Infant on Christmas is to be our great endeavor and it will light our hearts on fire. And the glow from that fire can truly light the world. My fellow citizens of the Kingdom of God ask not what can be done for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man’s heart. I have a dream, that the Gift of Christ will give us Ears to Listen and Eyes to Seek. I have a dream today – A dream of Freedom. This Christmas, this day, this time, our time, Let freedom ring. Let it ring in your homes, your towns, through out the world but let it first ring out in your hearts. Let us speed up to that day when all of God’s children – of all denominations and walks of life join hands in brotherly love. Yes, there is still madness in this world, but there are poor to be lifted up, cities to be built and there is a world to be helped. We have what we need – we are Emancipated, a Joyous daybreak arose to end the long night of our captivity. Our Lord visited His people and so we say again, “I’m free at last, I’m free at last, thank God Almighty I’m free at last. “
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This Great Gift of Freedom requires and act on the part of man, and one day, there came out from the great white throne of light, an angel of light and descended down over the plains and came to a woman kneeling in prayer. The angel of God said to the woman, will you give me a man – will you give me a human nature speaking in the name of all humanity – Will you, by an act of freedom, say “here is a man” and she said “Fiat” – Thy Will be Done. Her mission was submission, a surrender that man could not be without love without fire without passion. The fire and the passion and the love that descended upon her – the spirit and the brain and the love of God nine months past one night, rang out over the stillness of an evening breeze, out over the white chalked hills of Bethlehem – a cry – a gentle cry. Not a voice as could be heard, for the sea was filled with its’ own cry. The great ones of the earth did not hear the cry, for they could not understand how a child could be greater than a man – only 2 classes of people could hear the cry that night – shepherds & wise men – shepherds, those who know they know nothing – wisemen, those who know they do not know everything. They came and saw a babe whos’ tiny hands we’re not quite long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle all the while with the strength to steer the Sun & Moon & stars in their courses. This infants baby feet could not walk for they could not bear the weight – but His Divine omnipotence could read the secrets of every living heart. Under that baby brow was beating a mind and an intelligence that formed the universe along with the human intelligence that would grow in age & grace & wisdom before God in men & this babe who was born was not man who made himself a God, was not a man who was an ethical reformer, not just a teacher like Socrates, not someone who had developed a consciousness of Godhead that he went on but someone who from all eternity was God & began to be in time – the only one on earth that ever had a prehistory – a prehistory to be studied not in the dust & the slime of primeval jungles but in the bosom of an eternal father.
The poet Francis Thompson wrote a poem one Christmas Eve while looking at a crib.
Little Jesus, wast Thou shy
Once, and just so small as I?
And what did it feel like to be
Out of Heaven, and just like me?
Didst Thou sometimes think of THERE,
And ask where all the angels were?
I should think that I would cry
For my house all made of sky;
I would look about the air,
And wonder where my angels were;
And at waking ‘twould distress me–
Not an angel there to dress me!
Hadst Thou ever any toys,
Like us little girls and boys?
And didst Thou play in Heaven with all
The angels that were not too tall,
With stars for marbles? Did the things
Play Can you see me? through their wings?
And did Thy Mother let Thee spoil
Thy robes, with playing on OUR soil?
How nice to have them always new
In Heaven, because ’twas quite clean blue!
Didst Thou kneel at night to pray,
And didst Thou join Thy hands, this way?
And did they tire sometimes, being young,
And make the prayer seem very long?
And dost Thou like it best, that we
Should join our hands to pray to Thee?
I used to think, before I knew,
The prayer not said unless we do.
And did Thy Mother at the night
Kiss Thee, and fold the clothes in right?
And didst Thou feel quite good in bed,
Kissed, and sweet, and thy prayers said?
Thou canst not have forgotten all
That it feels like to be small:
And Thou know’st I cannot pray
To Thee in my father’s way–
When Thou wast so little, say,
Couldst Thou talk Thy Father’s way?–
So, a little Child, come down
And hear a child’s tongue like Thy own;
Take me by the hand and walk,
And listen to my baby-talk.
–You See – was just his way of understanding omnipotence in bonds – the maker of the stars under the stars – the creator of the earth not having a place to lay his head and what does it mean, why did he come? He did not come to make us nice people. He came to make us new – to change our nature by being lifted up. At His Birth – we suddenly began to be children of God so that the divine nature began to pulsate within us, so that we were lifted up by offering our human nature – as Mary offered the first human nature. We were given in this new nature a united wisdom – a Truth that would begin to flood our mind and then his will & his law began. The meaning of Christmas is this – the Son of God came to this earth to make us – the other sons of God. To make us more than just human beings, the Creator of Time was laid in a manger. He gave us Back the Hope once given to Abraham, to Moses, and David.
–True Freedom is God’s Gift in Christmas – A gift that is Alive at every Mass and in Every Believers Heart. The Lord stepped out of Heaven to Free Us – to give us sight like Simean to see each other as love, worthy and Chosen as Co-heirs. To give us a voice like Zachariah to use that Freedom to set hearts on fire – to give us hands to build a better world like those of Martin Luther King – to give us the Will to give our lives and live our lives for our Fellow Man. This is the meaning of Christmas – Those of you that are knowing and loving will know what I mean when I say, Thanks – Thanks – Thanks, May the Lord Bless you. Merry Christmas.
Once more the liturgy reminds us of the final moment in Jesus’ life among men, his ascension into heaven. Many things have happened since our Lord was born in Bethlehem. We have thought of him in the manger, worshipped by the shepherds and the Magi; we have contemplated those long years of unpretentious work in Nazareth; we have gone with him all through the land of Palestine, as he preached the kingdom of God to men and went about doing good to all. And later on, during the days of his passion, we have suffered on seeing him accused and ill-treated and crucified.
Then, sorrow gave way to the joy and light of the resurrection. What a clear and firm foundation for our faith! But perhaps, like the Apostles in those days, we are still weak, and on the day of the ascension we ask Christ: “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom of Israel?” Is it now that we can expect all our perplexity and all our weakness to vanish forever?
Our Lord answers by going up to heaven. Like the Apostles, we remain partly perplexed and partly saddened at his departure. It is not easy, in fact, to get accustomed to the physical absence of Jesus. I am moved when I think that, in an excess of love, he has remained with us, even when he has gone away. He has gone to heaven and, at the same time, he gives himself to us as our nourishment in the sacred host. Still, we miss his human speech, his way of acting, of looking, of smiling, of doing good. We would like to go back and regard him closely again, as he sits down at the edge of the well, tired from his journey; as he weeps for Lazarus; as he prays for a long time; as he feels pity for the crowd.
It has always seemed logical to me that the most holy humanity of Christ should ascend to the glory of the Father. The ascension has always made me very happy. But I think that the sadness that is particular to the day of the ascension is also a proof of the love that we feel for Jesus Christ, our Lord. He is God made man, perfect man, with flesh like ours, with blood like ours in his veins. Yet he leaves us and goes up to heaven. How can we help but miss his presence?
Today is really about seeing and knowing God through Christ’s Word & the Holy Spirits Call.
Jesus today said, that won’t be easy, Jesus says to His Disciples then and now, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows Him. But you know Him, because He remains with you, and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.”
Being led by the Spirit is one of the greatest benefits of being a Disciple, other than just your salvation and knowing that your sins are forgiven by Grace that you’re gonna go to heaven & live eternally with God. It’s a wonderful thing to have this privilege, to have been led by the Spirit, every believer can hear from God, every believer has the privilege of being led by the Spirit. That means that you really don’t have to run around & ask other people all the time what you should do in situations. He didn’t leave us blowing in the wind.
God will show you what to do. But you know what; in order to be led by the Spirit you’ve got to have a little confidence. And you’ve got to have a little bit courage and a little bit boldness, because sometimes it’s a bit scary until you get experience stepping out into things, and realizing that the only proof that you have of whether or not you’re right, is what you sense in your heart & what you read & hear in His Word.
We would much rather be able to dial the hotline to heaven, To dial-up God and say, “Could I to speak to God please? Oh God, so good to talk to You. This is Joe down here on Earth. Listen, um… I a…
I need to know what You want me to do. I have this situation. But ya’ know really while we’re talking’ I’d just like to know, really, what You want me to do with my whole life. I mean, this life is confusing & its’ so easy to get lost in it. You know what, since I’ve got You, What’s my future look like – what’s my true calling in life?”
As a side note: God really did Call me a few times, and good thing He did, because I thought He had the wrong number. 😉
So back to our Call w/ our Heavenly Father. “Father will I have children, and will there be many? And You know, I’d like to ask how you think I’m doing down here. “ Huh? What?
Oh, You want me to read the Word… O – & you want me to follow the directions, I see?
You say, You put Your Holy Spirit in me & you want me to learn how to be led by the Spirit of Gladness.
“Well wouldn’t it just be a whole lot easier if You’d just tell me? Because, ya know, being led by the Spirit, it’s tough in this world” Huh? You gotta go now? Oh…Oh, okay, You already told me once, You’re not going to tell me again. “ok, ok, I get it, & I will. Alright, well, I love You Lord. Bye.”
Everybody wants to know how to hear from God. We all wish we could just make a phone call.
We all wish for just 5 minutes with God, that way, we could get our whole lives straightened out. Right? But you know it’s interesting, though God really is mysterious in so many ways, He’s always there. We can’t always grasp everything He’s doing with our minds, but we’re spiritual beings after all & we have to learn how to function & flow in the Spirit. We have to learn how to discern things spiritually. Make Christ’s Word & the Spirit in your Hearts your focus; & then you will Hear Him. God has shown me so many things, but He requires you to do the Search, to Seek Him – to Seek His Will & there, to Truly See & Know Him. Our Father wants us to walk in faith. And to be honest He wants us to learn, to grow & to stretch our Spiritual Muscles.
It’s ok to step out & to sometimes even make mistakes; learn by them. Keep Seeking, He will Answer. Do not be afraid to step out again, to learn & learn again. Every one of you, can learn to be dynamically lead by the Holy Spirit, Then you will know what it means to hear literally hear from God. You’re not going to do it sitting around idle asking the world to live for you. You’re gonna have to get with God, to know His Word, to learn, to learn how to follow PEACE. You can do that. Listen and be led by the Spirit. Amen
Recently, I read a touching example of what Christians are supposed to look like.
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago.
They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner.
In their rush through the airport, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table which held a display of apples.
Apples flew everywhere.
Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane, just in time. All but one.
He told the others to go on without him and went back to where the apples were all over the floor.
He was glad he did. The 16-year-old girl, the apple seller, was totally blind!
She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks, as she groped for her spilled produce, the crowd swirling about her, rushing to their flights. The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the apples, put them back on the table and helped reorganize her display.
He set aside the bruised and battered apples in a separate basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, “Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?” She nodded through her tears. He continued, “I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly.”
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, “Mister….” He paused and turned to look back. She continued, “Are you Jesus?”
He couldn’t get that question out of his head for days. It was such a simple, small-scale event, but it made him see clearly what following Christ was really all about.
“Love one another as I have loved you.” To be a Christian is to be another Christ.
The atheist philosopher of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said: “if Christians want me to believe in their redeemer, they need to look more redeemed.”
He was drawing the wrong conclusion from a perceptive observation. To Nietzsche, most Christians looked just as burdened, clueless and lost as everybody else. When he looked into their eyes, he did not see hope, excitement, joy, and a sense of purpose. They seemed to be still wandering around the Sinai desert, emaciated and anemic; their faces full more of impossibilities than possibilities.
MILK, HONEY & ABUNDANT LIFE
When the early Church of Rome celebrated the Easter vigil and the newly baptized came forward to receive their first holy communion, there was another cup on the altar besides the one containing the Lord’s precious blood. It was filled with milk and honey. For having passed through the waters of baptism, they had crossed the Jordan and entered into the Promised Land.
Never mind that they could not worship openly for fear of being dragged off to be thrown to the lions. After years in the desert, they were bound and determined to enjoy the fruits of the Land every chance they could. The nourishment did them good. Evidently they looked redeemed, because, despite the danger of persecution, so many of their neighbors came to believe in their redeemer that finally even the Emperor confessed faith in Christ.
Jesus did not pour out the last drop of his blood so that we could drag ourselves through life with the hopes that, after a lengthy stay in purgatory, we could just barely squeeze through the pearly gates. Rather he says: “I came that they might have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10).
SHEEP & THE GOOD SHEPHERD
He said this while discussing sheep and shepherds. In a recent visit to the Holy Land, I learned something about sheep and why the patriarchs of Israel herded them through the wilderness. Unlike cows and horses, sheep can survive on just about anything, even scraggly clumps of weeds, scorched brown by the Middle Eastern sun.
But Jesus is a good shepherd. He is not content to see his sheep barely survive. He wants us to thrive. He takes pleasure in energetic, robust sheep, not scrawny, anemic ones. So the pastures to which he leads us are verdant, lush, and green (Psalm 23), not scorched and brown. He spreads out a table, a true feast before us, not lunch in a brown bag. He does not ration our nourishment. Instead, our cup overflows.
Imagine his surprise when most of his sheep walk right by the oasis with its succulent grass and instead insist on munching the dried weeds at the desert’s edge.
GREEN & VERDANT PASTURES
But that’s exactly what many Christians do. Have you ever noticed that more show up to repent on Ash Wednesday than rejoice in the Eucharist on Holy Thursday? Has it ever appeared odd to you that, of the many who give up things during Lent, very few enjoy the abundant life of daily Mass, adoration or extra time reading Scripture during Eastertide?
You can lead sheep to pasture but you can’t make them eat. The verdant pasture of the Catholic heritage is full of delectable treats that will make our spirits strong and our hearts sing. The exciting, new world of the Bible, the healing balm of confession, the writings of the Fathers, Doctors, and spiritual masters, the wise teaching of councils and popes, and, most especially, the Feast of Faith which is the Eucharist, all these provide an abundance of savory nourishment that most of us have scarcely sampled.
TAKE AND EAT
In the Holy Land, to visit someone’s home and not eat the food laid out lavishly before you is a great insult.
The Church offers us a feast. It cost the Lord his very life to prepare this table for us. Out of courtesy to Him, for the sake of your health, and for the sake of the Nietzsche’s of the world that need to see before they believe, eat!
There once was this little boy who came home from Sunday school and his father said to him, what did you learn today. Oh, he said, I learned how Moses defeated the Egyptians how did he do it. well the Egyptians were chasing the Israelites and Moses called the airfield and the airfield flew in some engineers and they built some pontoon bridges over the sea and the Jews crossed over the pontoon bridges then another fleet of planes came and they bombed the pontoon bridges, as the Israelites, I mean the Egyptians were on them and they were all killed.
His father said is, that what they told you? No he said, it isn’t, but if I told you what they really said you wouldn’t believe it. I was once talking on prosperity and adversity and I used the example of flowers. I said, sunflowers prosper only in sunshine while others seemed to thrive only in the shade, like fuchsias and afterwards a sweet older woman came to me and she said, that was a wonderful sermon, first time in my life I ever knew what was wrong with my fuchsias.
My point to both of these stories is: sometimes the obvious is blurred but Christ will walk with us and open up our eyes for the mission he sent us on…
most of us live below the energy the level of our energy
The two traveling to Emmaus did not recognize the Lord, so did they later say they burned with passion at his word. It’s because their faith in everything began with and through Jesus Christ revealing himself to them, at the breaking of bread after walking through our past in scripture.
The Lord once again told at. Peter, if you have faith, the impossible things, can be done.
I’ll tell you a story about football, and I’m not a huge football guy, but this isn’t my story. This is a story told by coach Paterno. coach Paterno was the coach of Penn State at the time and told our congregation thar a few years prior, his team was playing the University of Kansas. now coach Paterno has an old mother, an Italian mother, full of faith, knows absolutely nothing about football, but she has two sons who coach football. one coaching at Penn State and the other coaching the Merchant Marine in Connecticut, so the score of the football game 50 seconds before the end of the game was Kansas 14 penn state 7. the other son who coached in connecticut was with the mother and he said to his mother, mom it’s all finished, joe is lost. She said, no! i’ll go in the bathroom and pray. Now i don’t know why she went into the bathroom to pray but at any rate that’s the story, she went into the bathroom. now picture this good good old lady going into the bathroom to pray to the good Lord. what happens now in the remaining seconds, Penn State threw a touchdown and the score was now with a touchdown 14 – 13. what do they have to do pick a field goal would there be any other way of making extra points before word yes or run through the line yes there will be another way well they decided not to kick the field goal because that would mean on a tie 14 to 14 so they try to forward to get behind the goal line and that would count two points and make the score 15 to 14 they tried it and they missed but Kansas was offside so they had to try it over again the next time they made it well her son screamed he shouted out mom they won and she came out she’s I told you I told you so you see you believe believe the incredible and you can do the impossible and it would seem as if coach Joe Paterno’s wisdom had won the game but actually it was the mother now my time is up oh yes listen my good my good people it’s always better for you to say I wished you talked longer than to have you say he had three good chances to quit. I leave you with this. Jesus was on a mission, and now we carry that mission. We will find ourselves walking to wmaus, but on that journey we do not walk alone. Now you must manifest him in your lives that as you move among others they will say of you as the maidservant said of Peter thou has been with Christ. Thank you and God love you. Amen
Pope John Paul II’s Homily
On the first universal celebration of Divine Mercy Sunday, 2001.
Divine Mercy: The Easter Gift
“Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one; I died, and behold I am alive for evermore” (Rev 1:17-18).
We heard these comforting words in the Second Reading taken from the Book of Revelation. They invite us to turn our gaze to Christ, to experience His reassuring presence. To each person, whatever his condition, even if it were the most complicated and dramatic, the Risen One repeats: “Fear not!; I died on the Cross but now I am alive for evermore”; “I am the first and the last, and the living one.”
“The first,” that is, the source of every being and the first-fruits of the new creation; “the last,” the definitive end of history; “the living one,” the inexhaustible source of life that triumphed over death forever.
In the Messiah, crucified and risen, we recognize the features of the Lamb sacrificed on Golgotha, who implores forgiveness for His torturers and opens the gates of heaven to repentant sinners; we glimpse the face of the immortal King who now has “the keys of Death and Hades” (Rev 1:18).
Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His mercy endures forever! (Ps 117:1). Let us make our own the Psalmist’s exclamation which we sang in the Responsorial Psalm: “The Lord’s mercy endures forever!” In order to understand thoroughly the truth of these words, let us be led by the liturgy to the heart of the event of salvation, which unites Christ’s Death and Resurrection with our lives and with the world’s history. This miracle of mercy has radically changed humanity’s destiny. It is a miracle in which is unfolded the fullness of the love of the Father who, for our redemption, does not even draw back before the sacrifice of His Only-begotten Son.
In the humiliated and suffering Christ, believers and non-believers can admire a surprising solidarity, which binds Him to our human condition beyond all imaginable measure. The Cross, even after the Resurrection of the Son of God, “speaks and never ceases to speak of God the Father, who is absolutely faithful to His eternal love for man. … Believing in this love means believing in mercy” (Rich in Mercy, 7).
Let us thank the Lord for His love, which is stronger than death and sin. It is revealed and put into practice as mercy in our daily lives, and prompts every person in turn to have “mercy” towards the Crucified One. Is not loving God and loving one’s neighbor and even one’s “enemies,” after Jesus’ example, the program of life of every baptized person and of the whole Church?
A great joy
With these sentiments, we are celebrating the Second Sunday of Easter, which since last year, the year of the Great jubilee, is also called “Divine Mercy Sunday.” It is a great joy for me to be able to join all of you, dear pilgrims and faithful who have come from various nations to commemorate, after one year, the canonization of Sr. Faustina Kowalska, witness and messenger of the Lord’s merciful love.
The elevation to the honors of the altar of this humble religious, a daughter of my land, is not only a gift for Poland but for all humanity. Indeed the message she brought is the appropriate and incisive answer that God wanted to offer to the questions and expectations of human beings in our time, marked by terrible tragedies. Jesus said to Sr. Faustina one day: “Mankind will not have peace until it turns with trust to My mercy” (Diary, 300). Divine Mercy! This is the Easter gift that the Church receives from the risen Christ and offers to humanity at the dawn of the third millennium.
The Gospel, which has just been proclaimed, helps us to grasp the full sense and value of this gift. The Evangelist John makes us share in the emotion felt by the Apostles in their meeting with Christ after His Resurrection. Our attention focuses on the gesture of the Master, who transmits to the fearful, astounded disciples the mission of being ministers of Divine Mercy. He shows them His hands and His side, which bear the marks of the Passion, and tells them: “As the Father has sent Me, even so I send you” Jn 20:21).
Immediately afterwards, “He breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained’ ” (Jn 20:22-23). Jesus entrusted to them the gift of “forgiving sins,” a gift that flows from the wounds in His hands, His feet, and especially from His pierced side. From there a wave of mercy is poured out over all humanity.
Let us relive this moment with great spiritual intensity. Today the Lord also shows us His glorious wounds and His Heart, an inexhaustible source of light and truth, of love and forgiveness.
The Heart of Christ!
His “Sacred Heart” has given men everything: redemption, salvation, sanctification. Saint Faustina Kowalska saw coming from this Heart that was overflowing with generous love, two rays of light which illuminated the world.
The two rays, [according to what Jesus Himself told her], denote blood and water (Diary, 299). The blood recalls the sacrifice of Golgotha and the mystery of the Eucharist; the water, according to the rich symbolism of the Evangelist John, makes us think of Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Spirit (See Jn 3:5; 4:14).
Through the mystery of this wounded Heart, the restorative tide of God’s merciful love continues to spread over the men and women of our time. Here alone can those who long for true and lasting happiness find its secret.
“Jesus, I trust in You!”
This prayer, dear to so many of the devout, clearly expresses the attitude with which we too would like to abandon ourselves trustfully in Your hands, 0 Lord, our only Savior.
You are burning with the desire to be loved and those in tune with the sentiments of Your Heart learn how to build the new civilization of love. A simple act of abandonment is enough to overcome the barriers of darkness and sorrow, of doubt and desperation. The rays of Your Divine Mercy restore hope, in a special way, to those-who feel overwhelmed by the burden of sin.
Mary, Mother of Mercy, help us always to have this trust in your Son, our Redeemer. Help us too, St. Faustina, whom we remember today with special affection. Fixing our weak gaze on the divine Savior’s face, we would like to repeat with you: “Jesus, I trust in You!” Now and for ever. Amen.
It is Easter my friends. Alleluia.
The restrictions on assembling prevent us from celebrating Easter inside the church. But we still proclaim with our lives our joy in the renewal of the world, our Easter joy. Many are suffering from the corona virus, and so we keep them all in our prayers. Today is Easter & No pandemic can destroy Easter.
Easter is the Feast of feasts, the Solemnity of solemnities & the Great Sunday.
The celebration of Easter stands in stark contrast to our commemoration of Good Friday. On Good Friday, there are no flowers or alleluias. There is solemn music. And there was the Cross.
Yet, both Good Friday and Easter, as well as Holy Thursday, are bound together into one celebration, the celebration of the Paschal Mystery. Paschal, referring to the lamb who was sacrificed & whose sacrifice brought life.
Before Jesus’ sacrifice, mankind had lost the capacity to hold the Spirit. Mankind’s sin, his decision to push God out of his life, destroyed his own spiritual life. God is the Lord of Life, but mankind decided that he didn’t need God. His choice of sin was a choice of death. Without God, without a spiritual life, without sacrifice & vulnerability, mankind’s existence was limited. There was no eternity for us before He came. Jesus is the fullness of time, and so He entered life, as us, with us and for us. Giving all His Fathers’ Love through His Death, but then Jesus rose from the dead giving us back Eternity, Grace and Glory. That is why we call out “Alleluia.” We are dead no more. We are alive in Him. We were made new in baptism, sealed in confirmation and join Him, in this Life through His perpetual Sacrifice.
I am blessed to know so many of our people’s stories, your stories. I see people come forward expressing a deep faith that the Lord will care for them and their loved ones, a deep trust that all will be well even if the future is uncertain. They represent all the people who are in pain right now, all those who are suffering. They represent those who are fighting cancer and other serious ailments. I have found happiness in their hope. I pray that for you too.
We Christians have as our happiness the hope of eternal life. Easter is the celebration of hope. Our hope is that we will share in the fullness of the New Life Jesus won for us through His suffering and death. It is our hope in Christ that helps us endure challenges like the corona virus.
We now Know that we share in His New Life. We need to grasp on to our faith with both hands. Only our faith brings peace, meaning, and purpose to our lives. A Life Worth Celebrating. The corona virus has brought sickness and death, turmoil, unemployment, and all sorts of other crises into our lives, but our faith gets us through because despite the suffering, we have happiness in hope & we have each other. No one can take the Risen Savior from us. No one and no situation, can take His Presence from us.
This is the Gift of Easter Sunday! We have entered the spiritual. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. May our spiritual lives have an infinite precedence over our physical lives.
May the life of the Risen Lord flow through our veins, so that every thought and word and deed of our lives may shout out: Jesus Lives! And may we all be happy in the hope of eternal life.
Easter is indeed the greatest feast, even greater than Christmas. Our Lord was born in order to redeem us — so the feast celebrating his life’s mission must be the most important, & so we Sing:
May you praise the Paschal Victim,
immolated for Christians.
The Lamb redeemed the sheep:
Christ, the innocent one,
has reconciled sinners to the Father.
A wonderful duel to behold,
as death and life struggle:
The Prince of life dead,
now reigns alive.
Tell us, Mary Magdalen,
what did you see in the way?
I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ,
and I saw the glory of the Resurrected one:
The Angelic witnesses,
the winding cloth, and His garments.
The risen Christ is my hope:
He will go before His own into Galilee.
We know Christ to have risen
truly from the dead:
And thou, victorious King,
have mercy on us.
Amen. Alleluia.
This is the high point of the Christian year, the celebration of the Paschal Mystery – The mystery by which all others flow in the great Easter Eucharist, summit and source of the liturgical action and life of God’s People.
This “Holy Night” is the “Mother of all Holy Vigils” that begins the “Queen of Feasts”. The full meaning of the Easter Vigil is a waiting for the Lord – A longing for His Return.
He who took our human flesh, who suffered & died for us in that flesh, now rises in that same human body, now glorified & immortal, as befits the new life of Resurrection.
With the Joyous “Alleluias” of her new Passover, Mother Church celebrates a unique event, at once historical & cosmic.
At the broken tomb, the Incarnation reaches its fulfillment, and the ultimate purpose of our Redemption is revealed in the frailty of human flesh – nothing less than a literal sharing in the glory of His bodily Resurrection.
For this we were washed by the waters of Baptism; for this we were sealed with the Spirit’s fragrant Chrism; for this we feast on the Body & Blood of the One who leads us on into Eternal Life.
As believers in a risen Christ, we are called to risen life. Our hope in resurrection must push us to be in the forefront of the transformation of human existence as we find it around us today. When we realize that human life is to be transformed, then we have to be in the forefront in rejecting anything that degrades humankind. To be indifferent to what degrades even a single one of our brothers and sisters is to deride at what resurrection is telling us. Faith in the resurrection is not an opting out of the challenges which we encounter in our world, leaving everything to eventual rewards in the next life. Resurrection means that Jesus is with us now; he not just waiting somewhere for us in some unknown future.
Every human life has its value. Every apparently failed human life maintains its value and the Christian must be a witness and a beam of light and hope for those who have lost that hope and no longer see light in their future or are attracted to the temptation of bright lights on the wrong roads.
The resurrection is the sign of life and hope for all, even in a world where the message of Jesus is not understood or indeed is subject to hostility. The light of Christ is a light which challenges. Sadly in our world a frightening hostility to those who espouse that light often appears. Recent events have made us all more aware of our own mortality and my prayer is that it wakes us all up to the New Life Given freely by the only One who could; He who died for us and has Arisen to bring us a Life worth Living. Don’t waste it. Seek Him – See Him.
The light of Christ challenges but it is always a light of love and respect and a light which leads us beyond our narrow human categories and limits to wish to conquer the power of darkness, not by violence and revenge, but through our conviction that Jesus Christ is truly risen and lives in our history and our hearts. He now opens the path to a renewed humanity to those who turn to Him in faith. Amen & Alleluia.
At the summit of the Church yar, the 3 Great Days of the Easter Tri-du-um encompass the Paschal Mystery and draw us into the Passion, Death & Resurrection of Jesus, our Savior.
With His disciples, we enter the Upper Room to celebrate the Passover.
We Accompany Him to watch at his agony in Gethsemane, and then We Follow Him through the halls of judgement to His bitter Passion.
We take His way of sorrow that leads to Calvary and death on a cross. Then we assist at His burial in the Rock Hewn Tomb.
We wait in Solemn Vigil until He rises again, in our Human Flesh, glorious and immortal. So we look in hope to our compassionate High Priest returning to the Father and taking us to Glory with Him in His Mystical Body, the Church.
This is not the Celebration of Palms; tonight, we Commemorate the Summit of our Faith. Christ is the new Passover, the Final and Perpetual Sacrifice. It is not symbolic or figurative as Hope is not a symbol. The Last Supper, to prepare them for the Everlasting Hope resides in Truth that is evident.
Jesus says this night, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” He says this to St. Peter because He was teaching them the impact of His suffering and death to come, that it was necessary for their redemption: Jesus is saying to US, this Night and All Nights, His Love is Unconditional and to receive what He freely gives through Life & Death, we Must be Vulnerable, Sacrificial as He is.
Scripture says, “He loved His own in the world & He loved them to the end”. Today, He shows that love by upending the entire Social Order and then emptying Himself to take the form of a Slave. He Made Himself one w/tax collectors, sinners, w/immigrants & refugees, w/prisoners, the marginalized and with all of us around the world even now suffering with illness worse with fear. That is why He gave All he had and it’s why Jesus told His Apostles (that’s us too) to do 2 things in His memory: To celebrate the Eucharist & to wash one another’s feet.
St. John, the Disciple He loved most once wrote, “The way we have come to know Love was the He laid down His life for us: so we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” You my friends, my Beloved, are my brothers & sisters. Today, if you learn nothing else, Learn this: Put Other First. This is not weakness. Jesus, the master, did not diminish His authority by washing the feel of St. Peter and the Apostles; Rather, He was exercising authority in such a way that it touched their Hearts & built up Trust.
Failure, however to wash each others’ feet can and has led mistrust and error. Jesus Christ, the Fullness of God and Man, made Himself the servant of all. We, the Bride of Christ, the Church should remember Him YES, but more than that. We should Lives our Lives in service to One Another, Loving One Another the Way Christ has. A Sacrificial Love, a Vulnerable Love. Let us Love the way He Loves Us, by Taking up our own crosses for each other and staying True to our Faith, with an endearing Call for Hope.
I remind you All, God Said Love your Neighbor because we are all neighbors, and brothers & sisters. WE should all be Beloved. He said, Love your Enemy, because none of us should be enemies to one another. Be quick to forgive, slow to anger, and Harden Not Your Hearts because the One who made Us, who Made the Universe by His Will Alone, has already Given a Love strong enough to conquer all anxiety, doubt, fear and even death. Love each till the end. Amen.
The restrictions due to the corona virus will most probably prevent us from assembling for Passion Sunday. We can still remember what Passion Sunday signifies to us. Two of the Gospels from the weekday Masses of the Fifth Week of Lent catch my attention. In one Gospel Jesus condemns the religious leaders of the Jewish people for refusing to recognize the Messiah. The question that occurred to me was, “How could those who spent their lives in religion miss the Christ standing right in front of them?” I am convinced that they their fatal flaw resulted from their deciding that they had all the answers among themselves and within themselves. We can easily make this mistake ourselves. God’s Presence in the world is far greater than we could ever imagine. His Power is deeper than we could ever achieve ourselves. Wrapped up in themselves, the Jewish leaders missed the Power and Presence of the Lord. If we are wrapped up into ourselves, we will also miss His Presence. The second Gospel from this week that caught my attention contained Jesus’ proclamation that when He is lifted up He would draw all people to Himself. The suffering of our Lord was necessary for all people. Christianity is not just a belief system for a select group of people. All people are saved by Jesus Christ, even good people searching for God, who have not received the grace to become Christian. By dying on the cross, Jesus re-established mankind’s ability to be united to God. Jesus’ death gives all people spiritual life. This is what we mean when we use the term: redemptive suffering. In the mystery of the Redemptive Suffering of the Lord, we participate in the cross of Christ. St. Paul put it this way in his Letter to the Colossians: “in my body I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of His Body, which is the Church.” We all are. We all are making up for what is lacking. But how can their be a deficiency in Christ’s sacrifice? The answer is this: we are entrusted with the proclamation of the Kingdom of God. The only way we can do this is by living the Life of Christ. That is why we are called Christians. We make Christ real in the world. Our living His Life includes our embracing His Sacrifice. We unite our pains and sorrows to the Lord as our part in making the presence of the Suffering Savior real in the world. I wish I could tell you that pain does not exist and that you can make it go away with your mind. The pandemic that is the corona virus has certainly reminded us of our human condition. Suffering is part of our lives. One of the great beauties of our faith is that there is value in every aspect of the Christian’s life, even those aspects of life that are full of pain. Therefore, we give it all to the Lord. We give Him our joy and our pain. If our health is poor or failing, if our lives are not going as we hoped, whatever pain we have, we give it to Him. We unite everything to the cross so others can experience the Sacrificial Love of Jesus in our lives. Let me ask you this, “Have you ever met a truly holy person?” If you have, and I am sure we all have, we cannot help but realize that for that person pain is secondary. The only thing that matters for him or her is Christ. Moreover, his or her very suffering provides us with the experience of Christ’s Redemptive Presence. He or she is making up for what is lacking in the Cross of Christ: the participation of His people. We focus on the cross today, and throughout this Holy Week. We unite our pains to Jesus’ pains. We receive His healing through His Cross. We bring His healing to others by allowing them to experience the Power of the Cross at work in our lives. We are called to participate in Redemptive Suffering.
Today is about more than Life & Death. It’s about True Faith – Faith by Seeing beyond the obvious. A Shepherd’s Trick – Even our sufferings are proof that God never gives up on us – they are sometimes a last resort to get our attention.
There once lived in a village in Germany a wealthy and popular couple.
They were Catholics in name, but passive in their faith, never making time to pray, go to confession, serve their neighbors, or develop a friendship with Christ.
After many years, God gave them a child, whom they loved dearly – they even had him baptized.
But while he was still very young, he became sick, suffered terribly, and died.
The couple was devastated. Their sorrow soon turned to anger, and they came to speak with the priest.
“If God loves us, why did he do this to us?” They asked.
The priest said, “God does indeed love you. And his taking your son to heaven is a special sign of that love.”
They began to protest.
“Listen,” the priest went on:
A good shepherd prepared a delicious feast for his sheep. But when he opened the sheep pen, they wouldn’t come and eat it. He called and whistled and sang, but they just kept wandering farther away.
Finally the shepherd went out and picked up a little lamb, carried it into the pen, and set it down beside the food.
When the other sheep saw the lamb eating hungrily, they all made their way in to enjoy the feast.
This is what Jesus has done with you.
Till now, you always refused to prepare yourself to come to the great feast he has prepared for you in heaven – no matter how many invitations he sent you.
You have been giving so much attention to earthly comforts that you neglected the care of your souls.
Now he has taken your child, whom you loved so much, so that you will find yourselves inspired to follow Christ here on earth so you can follow your son into heaven.
Even our sufferings can be a proof that God never gives up on us.
Christ Bends Over Backwards to Prove That He Can Bring Good out of Evil
Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. He’d been in the tomb for four days, and Jesus Christ calls his name, orders him to come out, and he does. Death itself obeys Him. Imagine the crowds wonder that silenced them as Lazarus stepped out from the tomb. This is a perfect end of the Lenten liturgical crescendo:
two weeks ago Christ told the woman at the well that he was the Messiah;
last week he cured a man born blind, something no one had ever done before;
and now he tops everything by raising Lazarus from the dead.
Jesus knows that in order to fulfill the Father’s plan of salvation he will soon have to suffer humiliation, torture, and death. He knows we are quick to Fear and Anxiety = Sound Familiar.
As that moment draws near, he performs miracle after miracle to bolster his disciples’ faith, so that it will survive the horrors of Calvary. Jesus wants us to be prepared to Stay the Course – To Climb Calvary with Him and Rise with Him too. That only Happens if we too are prepared to See the Cross for what it Can Be – PROOF – undeniable proof that God’s Providence can bring good out of evil, just as it is going to bring Easter Sunday out of Good Friday.
The Pilgrim Church Is an All-Weather Church
In this life, we are making our way towards eternal life in heaven, we can rest assured that if God permits harsh weather or difficult stretches along our journey, he has his reasons. This is why we call the Church on earth the “pilgrim Church.” This Lenten Journey is bringing us to the Image of our Eternal Joy.
There is a story of a Christian merchant who lived a long time ago.
He was riding home from a long business journey with a leather satchel full of money attached to his saddle.
As he was riding along through an open plain, a storm broke out.
He spurred his horse, but the plain was large, and by the time he reached the woods he was soaking wet.
As he entered the path underneath the trees, it stopped raining, and he slowed his horse to a walk.
He began complaining to God about the weather and discomfort it was causing him.
Suddenly, a bandit jumped onto the path in front of him, leveled a musket at the merchant, and pulled the trigger.
For some reason, the gun didn’t go off, and the merchant spurred his horse into a gallop and got off unharmed.
The rain had dampened the musket’s powder, making the gun misfire.
As he continued his journey, the merchant thanked God for his life, and for the rain.
He never complained about the weather again.
Jesus Christ is not a distant God.
Jesus wept, and he weeps. He weeps with us when we weep.
He stays with us in the Eucharist when everyone else abandons us.
Jesus wanted to assure us that he will always be with us in our sufferings too.
Amen
Eyesight vs. Insight
We Must See in a Different Way. An Intimate and Sacrificial Way.
Today and in every moment of Jesus’s life, He does not lead us, heal us or greet us from afar. He is close at hand, intimate and just as human as we are.
Sometimes that is confusing to us or unnerving and we miss it like the Pharisees did. We sometimes think, this image He’s given isn’t so clear. God’s Timing is perfect. Sometimes He shows us JUST What we can Handle – what we need at that moment.
(Story of woman at the Gas Station)
God’s Timing is perfect. Sometimes He shows us JUST What we can Handle – what we need at that moment.
God’s Timing is perfect. Sometimes He shows us JUST What we can Handle – what we need at that moment.
I remind you Christ is the Light of the World. We cannot Hope to See if not through His Light. Jesus is our Healer and we need Him now, more than ever.
St. John once wrote, “No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
Though they saw His mighty deeds, in their thirst they grumble and put God to the test in today’s First Reading—a crisis point recalled also in today’s Psalm.
Jesus is thirsty too in today’s Gospel. He thirsts for souls (see John 19:28). He longs to give the Samaritan woman the living waters that well up to eternal life.
These waters couldn’t be drawn from the well of Jacob, father of the Israelites and the Samaritans. But Jesus was something greater than Jacob (see Luke 11:31-32).
The Samaritans were Israelites who escaped exile when Assyria conquered the Northern Kingdom eight centuries before Christ (see 2 Kings 17:6, 24-41). They were despised for intermarrying with non-Israelites and worshipping at Mount Gerazim, not Jerusalem.
But Jesus tells the woman that the “hour” of true worship is coming, when all will worship God in Spirit and truth.
Jesus’ “hour” is the “appointed time” that Paul speaks of in today’s Epistle. It is the hour when the Rock of our salvation was struck on the Cross. Struck by the soldier’s lance, living waters flowed out from our Rock (see John 19:34-37).
These waters are the Holy Spirit (see John 7:38-39), the gift of God (see Hebrews 6:4).
By the living waters the ancient enmities of Samaritans and Jews have been washed away, the dividing wall between Israel and the nations is broken down (see Ephesians 2:12-14,18). Since His hour, all may drink of the Spirit in Baptism (see 1 Corinthians 12:13).
In this Eucharist, the Lord now is in our midst—as He was at the Rock of Horeb and at the well of Jacob.
In the “today” of our Liturgy, He calls us to believe: “I am He,” come to pour out the love of God into our hearts through the Holy Spirit. How can we continue to worship as if we don’t understand? How can our hearts remain hardened?
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Today we learn a lesson. Jesus has now told His disciples twice what is to come. In our Gospel of Mark this year we skip over the Mountain of the Transfiguration because we celebrated it earlier this year, but is where Jesus for the 3rd time tells His Disciple’s what is to come and He tells them to tell no on…
They are journeying from the North down to the South, from Safety to Peril, closer and closer to Jerusalem, Nearer and Nearer to the Cross, where it is waiting for Jesus.
He has again told them that the Son of Man – the same referenced by Solomon in the Book of Wisdom was here, was to be handed over, tortured, executed and that He would on the 3rd day, Rise Again… They had many questions but did not want to ask for Fear.
So instead, they had courage to ask one Another – Who would be the top dog? Who would be the greatest one on the Mountain? Would it be James or John, Peter or Andrew? Jesus called them aside. They didn’t know what greatness was. They still were looking in the wrong place.
Let me tell you a story:
A little boy was looking for his missing coin on the lawn in front of his home.
His mom who had just returned from the grocery store joined him in the search,
after a few minutes of searching and not finding the coin his mom asked him, “son
where exactly did you drop the coin”, the boy answered, “under the sink in the kitchen”, and the surprised mom asked further, “if you drop the coin under the sink in the kitchen why then are we outside here searching for the coin”, and the boy answered, “because there is no light in the kitchen”
…A problem well identified is a problem have solved.
The Apostles, Were in Search of what Matters Most, but they weren’t looking in the right place. They weren’t looking with their hearts. …the first step to recovery is getting the diagnosis right.
In the book of Wisdom – King Solomon warms us not to live by our Passions – St. James tells us that instead of Passions but be ruled by Faith and that Faith requires walking the talk. He tells us that even war, and all conflict, internal and in the world, comes from our Passions – our desire for temporary importance, self-serving importance.
There is another lesson to learn here – that is this, “no one gives what he does not
Have” -= In other words, a person cannot give you peace – if the person lacks inner peace
He cannot love, where love does not dwell, Truth where it does not reside. We therefore cannot continue to search outside for what we lost inside. That’s where Jesus steps in – taking a decisive step from the north, where He is safer, to the south where the Cross awaits. He today is preparing His Apostles for lies ahead. He announces that in Jerusalem awaits His Passion, Death and Resurrection and that there is only One Way.
He get’s to a stopping place and Asks, “what are you saying to one another” – in other words, what has stolen your focus and what is in your heart? They felt ashamed, they could not respond. They couldn’t say, “we were debating our Elevation in Role, Stature, Power, Preeminence”, but Jesus knew, so he takes a child and sits the child on His lap, Sitting down before them, preparing to give the greatest Treasure, no coin, no gold, but utter truth. He says, “Whoever wants to be First, Must be last.” He’s saying they must be servant first, they must be willing to lift up their neighbor to be truly triumphant.
Jesus then says, “whoever receives this child, receives me, and not just me, but the one who sent me.“
He’s saying We Must be like a child, with no prejudice, with no elevated role of power, but with a heart of Joyous Expectation, of Adventure and Wonder, of Love and of Friendship.
I have 2 short stories – One about a historic sportsman and One about a little girl:
The first is a story about the 2000 Sydney Olympics, two best friends and competitors of Tae Kwon Do were both from the USA team and they were preparing for the 2000 games, but each in a different weight class. On and On, Each progressed further and further in the pre-Olympic trials, but the US could only send 2 weight classes and 1 was already chosen. The only test next was for these two friends to go up and compete against each other. One would go on their dreams, the other would lose.
Kay and Esther were friends. Kay hurt her leg in one of the competitions which meant that all Esther had to do was Show up and her victory was all but guaranteed. At the last minute, Esther saw her friend hobbled and she saw with her heart. She decided to bow out for the final match and concede victory – that meant she gave up her Olympic dream so that Kay could realize hers.
She told her friend “You deserve it more than I, and I’m not throwing away my dreams, I’m putting them in you.” They had to bow to one another so that it was official and reporters stopped Esther and asked her why she did it – She said, “There’s more than one way to be a champion”.
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We called to look and act with the heart of a child – so that in doing so we see each other as the children of God with the sole focus on lifting each other Up. My young cousin Heather when we were much younger did this perfectly. She and her mom/dad/brother had very little and I still remember to this day one Christmas we all gathered and her mom and dad brought so much food as the family gathered and Heather had saved money that whole year as a little girl babysitting, doing chores, working in her neighbors garden and she spent everything she had to buy a small gift for each of us, to say she loved us and that we were the Gift she Wanted Most.
So back to our Gospel - Who would be the greatest among the disciples? Who would make it to the top? Would it be James, John, Peter, or Andrew? They did not know what greatness was. They would learn though. Jesus would show them greatness from a cross.That was the message that Jesus was trying to get across to his disciples after he heard them arguing. For Jesus to be great was to serve. To Love – to Lift another up – above ourselves.
Jesus calls us to be his disciples, His true followers. He calls us to set aside our own desires for the sake of others. He calls us to seek the greatness of humble generosity, to "rank first" among our families, friends and communities by taking on the spirit and role of being their servant. "If anyone wishes to be first, he shall be last of all and the servant of all." The jealousy and selfish ambition that attacks the just man in the Book of Wisdom in our first reading this Sunday, and that James berates in the second reading are the sad marks of the identification of the godless, people who have rejected God and His Son. The sign of the Christian is seen in his or her setting another's needs over his or her wants. We are all called on a Mission – Make sure you are looking for that Mission where it can be found, where there is light. Amen And the infant cries. And the girl with the MBA gets up to nurse him and change him. Her education was worth it. Someday she may go back to the office, but she has learned greatness through sacrifice. And the retired man spends at least eight hours a day making sure his wife suffering from dementia has care and company. He had learned a lot in his life. Now he is a teacher. He is teaching the rest of us what greatness is. And the young single walks away from the bar scene, the wild scene, and becomes an AIDS buddy. He is a great person, using his time to provide care for the dying. The goal of our lives is union with God. The strength to achieve this union comes from Jesus Christ on the cross. He made Himself weak so we could be strong. We pray today for this strength, the strength to reach out to others in charity, the strength to ascend the Mountain of God.
Twenty-eighth Sunday: Riches and Choices
Over the last few weeks and truly the entirety of Marks’ Gospel, Jesus has been Reconciling Us. That is His Message to us and Reconciling us to each other and to the Father was always the Plan. He gave us the tools to do the job, to See, to Hear, and to Feel, all with our Hearts. He reminded why a Hardened Heart was so dangerous, why Fear has no place in the Kingdom and Love requires a sacrifice, and a Humble Heart.
Jesus has been telling his disciples along the way what the meaning of life is and what the Kingdom of God is all about. He also warns them of the pitfalls along the way, the biggest isn’t the Crosses we must bear, though these are for us to carry. Today Jesus doesn’t use parables to teach about the Kingdom, about treasures to find or pearls of wisdom or coins or banquets we arrive early for, but instead He speaks plainly to a kind, good, faithful young rich man. Jesus says what none of us want to hear. He says the Key to the Kingdom is Himself.
Jesus is saying plainly what Zacchaeus learned along the way. That the Kingdom is like a little rich tax collector who gives everything up for Jesus to Dine with Him – that is the day the Kingdom of Heaven came to his house. Ask, Seek and Knock that the door be opened.
I can’t tell you how many times mankind has written about its’ search for the meaning of life and the fountain of Youth – and YET Jesus today says that He is the Key. He tells the young man, you know the law, and in knowing it, you also know it is impossible without me. You have one think left, he tells him as He loved him. Give up everything else that is your way to me.
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Today we Talk about Riches – Who’s Rich – what your Riches are – What’s on your Bucket List, or rather what should be – and we talk about where our Focus is. First I want to remind you that God doesn’t want Lukewarm hearts – who have enough Jesus already, because with Christ, there is no limit.
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Ya know sometimes we’ll look at the world and say, that’s weird, the way they live, the way they look – but no – we are the weird. Some might say, Father Joe’s weird because he’s bald – but no – it’s you because you’re not. Did you know nearly every American home has a computer, a tv and a cell phone? Did you know over half the world lives on just $1-2/day – a quarter on $1-2/week – In the USA we live on nearly $100/day on average. That means we are 100 times richer than over half the planet – not just rich but 100 times as rich. That’s just the money – not the other stuff, like Freedom, job protection and on and on. I’m saying this because our Riches are not just money -but in that Wealth Alone – we are staggeringly rich. We must Seek Holiness to abandon our focus on these riches including anything else we place before God – That includes:
Lust – to have an intense desire or need: “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
Gluttony – excess in eating and drinking: “for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags” (Proverbs 23:21).
Greed – excessive or reprehensible acquisitiveness: “Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more” (Ephesians 4:19).
Laziness – disinclined to activity or exertion: not energetic or vigorous: “The way of the sluggard is blocked with thorns, but the path of the upright is a highway” (Proverbs 15:19).
Wrath – strong vengeful anger or indignation: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” (Proverbs 15:1)
Envy – painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage: “Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation” (1 Peter 2:1-2).
Pride – quality or state of being proud – inordinate self esteem: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18).
Did anyone notice anything there – That Everything that get’s between us and Jesus – Those are the deadly sins, so called because they prevent us from Everlasting Life.
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Some, their focus is on unnecessary unhappiness – there once was a monk – could speak except 2 words every 5 years – year 1 (bed hard), year 2 (food bad), and year 3 (I quit) – the Abbot said of course you do, you’ve been complaining ever since you got here. The point – Choose your Focus – on the grit of the word – or the Good Shepherd.
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So why focus, because we get what we Seek – This is a story about Phythius, an ancient King of Lydia, in what is now Turkey, He made money and wealth his top priority in life, as this rich young man so tragically did.
Pythias, the king, was very wealthy, but also very greedy, and he would spend as little as possible.
His queen was determined to cure him.
One day when he came home hungry from a long hunt, she told the slaves to place before him at dinner dishes filled with gold, fresh from the royal gold mines.
He stared down at his gold-filled plates, admiring them for some time, and then he asked for some food.
“Food?” his wife asked, feigning surprise, “But surely they have brought you what you love best in the world, haven’t they?”
“What are you talking about?” the King replied. “Gold can’t satisfy my hunger.”
“No?” the Queen answered, “Is it not foolish then to have such love for something that cannot be useful so long as you hang on to it? Believe me; gold is truly of service only to people who exchange it for the good and useful things of life.”
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Last – Let’s be On Fire for God – not Just Satisfied with 1 day a week –
I say again; God doesn’t want Lukewarm hearts!!!
St. John wrote a letter from God to 7 very real churches – one is the Church of Laodicea.
Here are the words of the Great I Am –
“Write to the angel of the church in Laodicea:
“The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Originator[a] of God’s creation says: 15 I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. 16 So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit[b] you out of My mouth. 17 Because you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t know that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked, 18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire so that you may be rich, white clothes so that you may be dressed and your shameful nakedness not be exposed, and ointment to spread on your eyes so that you may see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and discipline. So be committed[c] and repent. 20 Listen! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me. 21 The victor: I will give him the right to sit with Me on My throne, just as I also won the victory and sat down with My Father on His throne.
22 “Anyone who has an ear should listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.”
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A few years ago a great movie came out starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson called The Bucket List. Two men who were dying but in temporary remission, one of whom was very rich, decided to make out a list of the things they wanted to do before they died. It was really a great movie, even though we Catholics would have far more important things to write on your lists, the type of actions that would help us grow in closer union to God. Still, there was an extremely beautiful scene in the movie. The Jack Nicholson character made the huge step and was reconciled with his daughter with whom he had been estranged for years. Then she showed him his little five year old grand-daughter. He gave her a hug and a kiss. When he left the house, he crossed off, “Kiss the most beautiful girl in the world.”
We think in Life about our Wants as a sort of Bucket List – so did the Rich Man today – maybe even things like youth and health could be added to our Riches – these things also should not be on a bucket list for the Faithful – Our Wish – Our Want – Our Hope, must be in Christ Alone!
St. Augustine in his Confessions said, “Our hearts are made for you, O Lord, and shall not rest until they rest in you.” He learned this lesson because All Else Failed – Learn from Him.
The readings today hit to the core of our lives. They ask us to consider where we find meaning in life. Scripture does that to us. The Word of God is a two edged sword, it is very sharp and very strong. It cuts into us and uncovers the thoughts, reflections, and desires of our hearts.
All of us want to be happy. All of us want to live lives of meaning. All of us want to finish our physical lives united to God. God and His Presence in others must be first. His love must grow. His Word must envelope the world and If we allow that to happen, God Himself will take care of the rest of our needs. Jesus promises that those who live only for His sake and the sake of the Gospel will receive a hundred times more than they gave up in this age and eternal life in the next.
So, what is on our lists, be they our bucket lists?
The Word of God, the Great I Am, this two-edged sword, asks us today to consider where we are seeking happiness. Mine is in the Lord. Amen