Tag Archives: Christian life

The poor widow’s offering: Heart speaking to Heart

10 Saturday Nov 2018

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the-poor-widows-offeringAs some of you know I recently went to Yellowstone National Park and led a retreat there. Before and after the retreat I had free days so I took advantage of those days and went on some hikes. The first day going in I stopped at the ranger station just to check on things and make sure there were no concerns about the trails I was considering. The ranger suggested that I download the Yellowstone Park app as it would be a help to me. I took his advice and downloaded the app. It was a great help. What they have done at Yellowstone (and I am not sure if this is at other parks or not) is that they have mapped out every trail in the park on this app. Not only that, but when you go out on the trail you take your phone with you, switch it to airplane mode so that it is not continually searching for coverage and draining your battery and with GPS the phone shows you via a little dot on the screen exactly where you are at on the trail. One phone in the vast expanse of Yellowstone communicating with some satellite in the sky telling you exactly where you are at and which way to turn when the trail splits. I just find that level of technology, connection and focus amazing!

Our Lord, in today’s gospel, has a level of focus that is also amazing. He is watching a crowd giving their contribution to the temple treasury. To his disciples he singles out one poor widow in the midst of that whole crowd. She gave not out of her surplus but, even in her poverty, she gave out of her livelihood. Her act was an act of faith and of trust. In essence it was a movement of love from her heart to the heart of God and we have a God who notices such movements – even the smallest of movements. Bl. John Henry Newman said that true evangelization, true sharing of the good news occurs when “heart speaks to heart”. There was such a communication going on here In this moment, the heart of that woman – by trusting and giving out of her livelihood – was speaking, was calling out in love to the heart of God. And the heart of God, in Christ, saw her, and heard her and blessed her for it!

Our Lord had just condemned the scribes and their need to go around in long robes, who recite lengthy prayers and who accept seats of honor in banquets in order to be noticed, but, who themselves, never notice the widows. I am sure that there were scribes in this crowd along with all the people giving out of their surplus. Just another day at the temple treasury. The people in the crowd themselves probably never noticed the poor widow. Some of them may have even viewed her as a nuisance – a nobody getting in the way of their holy and respectable duty. But, Jesus does not notice any of them because even with their long robes, their lengthy prayers and their large sums of money their hearts were not open. There is no heart speaking to heart because on their side the heart is mute and has nothing to say, despite all the show. Jesus, takes no notice of them.

Jesus sees the widow; his heart hears her. In contrast to the scribes, our Lord invites us to learn and live the simple and honest faith of the poor widow. No crowds, no distance, no outward appearances or show distract the heart of God. The heart of God is focused on the human heart that calls out to him in honesty, in love and in faith. Heart speaks to heart – this is where God will meet us. God is found and God is encountered in the sincerity of belief, the sincerity of a heart that is open, honest and trusting. In this regard our Lord confirms that the poor widow was, in fact, the richest contributor within that crowd of people that day because her heart was open. “Amen, I say to you, the poor widow put in more than all the other contributors to the treasury. For they have all contributed from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

“Heart speaks to heart,” true evangelization, true sharing of the good news occurs when one heart opens to another.

In this witness of the poor widow and our Lord’s noticing of her even as she seems hidden amidst the crowd of people, we also learn that God’s heart is open and searching – searching for the human heart that is open and calling upon him in humility, faith, trust and love.

Jesus, Facebook and true encounter

07 Saturday Jul 2018

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jesus-friend-requestLiving in our social media age has led me to ask the following questions in light of today’s gospel (Mk. 6:1-6). “If Jesus were alive today would he be on Facebook?” “If he were on Facebook, what would he post?” “How would we react to his posts? Would we like them, would we unlike them, would we unfollow him, would we perhaps even defriend him?”

I just returned to Facebook after a short break and I took the break not because I think Facebook is evil and trying to control our thoughts – advertisers have been attempting this since the dawn of trade – and not because I don’t want to see people’s pets or what my friends had for dinner – I’ve posted both of these myself. (It’s interesting, I will post what I think is a thoughtful reflection and maybe get a few likes. I post a picture of my dogs and I get hundreds of likes! What’s up with that?!)

I took a break from Facebook because I was tired of the demonizing of the “other” (whoever that might be on whatever issue) that I often see, especially around political and social issues. The negativity is toxic and it does wound one’s soul I believe. I reckon the effect of viewing a steady stream of negative posts and memes on our psyche to being similar to being force fed an unceasing diet of bags of potato chips. It does nothing but leave a person’s soul and intellect bloated, obese and capable of only belching noxious gases in return.

I tend to believe that our Lord would not be on Facebook and not because he does not want to know what we had for dinner or our pet’s latest escapade but because we see throughout the Gospels how he values true encounter and true relationship. Although social media has positives – keeping people connected and sharing information to some degree – it is neither true encounter nor does it give space for real dialogue or for real friendship.

We are told in today’s Gospel that the people in our Lord’s “native place” – the ones who knew him and his family – took offense at our Lord when he returned and taught in the synagogue. “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands?” These people preferred to stick with their “perception” of Jesus rather than take the risk of true encounter and true relationship with him in that moment which, by its very nature, challenges and changes people.

For this reason, Jesus was not able to “perform any mighty deeds there”. The gospel even says that our Lord, “was amazed at their lack of faith.” Our Lord was amazed and the people missed that opportunity for new life! No mighty deeds were performed there.

Avoiding Jesus, which can even occur within a life of attending Mass devotedly yet choosing to remain with our limited perception of who we think Jesus is rather than risking a true encounter with him, has effects. The opportunity of new life is missed and we, like the people in Jesus’ “native place”, are less because of it. Our Lord departs that place.

Our Lord desires true encounter and true relationship! He invites each of us to encounter him. Yes, it will challenge and change us … and it will give life.

Turn the screen off.

Take a walk outside.

Just have a face-to-face conversation with another human being.

Charlottesville and the Call to be Community in Christ

17 Thursday Aug 2017

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Charlottesville, VAIn light of the violent and tragic events that have occurred in Charlottesville, VA a dear friend asked me what can one person do “on a regular basis to fight racism and some of what’s going on in this country/world?” It is sad and frightening what is going on in our country and what we see happening in our world. We must reaffirm that there is no place for bigotry, prejudice and violence in our country, our world and in our hearts as Christians and, I think, we must do this as we also reaffirm and in many ways, rediscover, the value and unique power of Christian community.

In Matthew 18:15-20 our Lord gives his disciples some instructions on the reality and role of Christian community. “If your brother sins against you,” our Lord says, then go and tell him the fault, if he fails to listen then take one or two others along with you and if he still refuses to listen then tell the Church and if he fails to listen even to the Church, “then treat him as you would a Gentile or tax collector.” It is worthy to note that Jesus often entered into relationship with the Gentile and tax collector throughout his ministry and that he sought their healing and salvation. Jesus then gives to the community the authority to bind and loose. “Amen, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Our Lord then doubles down on the unique power and authority of the church community. “Again, amen, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted to them by my heavenly Father. For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

The power of the Christian Church, the power of our Christian faith, is a weak power. We do not have the force of arms or military or police might, neither do we have economic or even (in our increasingly secular age) social might. What we do have is the presence of Christ in our midst and the gift of the Holy Spirit. This alone is that power that can bind and loose and that can open and call forth the grace of heaven through prayer.

Like many people, I viewed the Vice media video that recorded and interviewed the white supremacists during these horrendous days in Charlottesville. I was truly shocked by the vitriol, hatred and anger expressed by these people and I was also extremely saddened for them because I saw people locked in fear and hate. Theirs is a pseudo-community. Despite the bravado and the appeals to white unity there is no community there. They are people locked in a sad echo chamber stoked by the negative isolation of social media, resentment, fear and ignorance. They are imprisoned in their hate.

To this pseudo-community we are called to be community in Christ – the only true community that can both bind and loose and here is found our unique weak strength. Because Christ is with us and the Holy Spirit has been given us we can both bind and loose. Through the living of Christian community, we can work to truly bind those forces in society and the human heart that seek to separate and isolate each one of us in resentment and fear. Through the living of Christian community, we can even help to loose those brothers and sisters who have become bound by resentment and fear. This has been my prayer and my hope since I have viewed those sad images coming out of Charlottesville. Pseudo-community only leads to a sad mockery and false caricature of human dignity. All the pseudo-communities of our time must be met by the true community of the disciples gathered in prayer, truth and the mercy and the grace known in Christ.

There are many sad and broken things that lie at the root of the violence and hatred given expression in Charlottesville the past few days. One of these, I believe, is a crisis of true community in our society. People are isolated, people are lost, there is pain, uncertainty and fear and in such circumstances the false appeal of pseudo-community can be strong and alluring. This is all the more reason for us to strive in humility, love and grace to be Church – the community where Christ is present and where the Holy Spirit is given and the only true community that has the power to bind and to loose.

The choices we make and their consequences.

11 Saturday Feb 2017

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sermon02The first reading from the Book of Sirach (Sir. 15:15-20) begins with a very direct statement,

If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live; he has set before you fire and water to whichever you choose, stretch forth your hand.  Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses shall be given him.  

We all have been given the ability and the freedom to exercise our will.  We can each one of us make choices and all choices have consequences.  We are all free to make choices but no one is free to deny the consequences of his or her choices.  How we choose to exercise our will can lead to either more life or can lead to death (in a variety of forms).

Earlier this week the priests of our diocese gathered for our annual study days and at one point the presenter talked a little about the physiological effects of prayer.  He shared that there are studies which indicate that the discipline of prayer is a factor in the development of the areas of our brain connected with attention, focus and compassion.  Prayer (a spiritual discipline) can positively affect our minds, our biology.  This makes sense for Christians because we hold mind, body and spirit together.  It is all connected.  The choice to pray and to enter into the things of faith, which is an exercise of the will, is a choice that leads to more life. 

Interestingly, the presenter also shared that there are studies coming out indicating that there is another choice we can make that negatively impacts the biology of the brain and that is the choice for porn.  Studies are demonstrating that persons who fall into this habit experience an over-development of the lowest level of brain functioning (the reptilian area of the brain) and less development of the areas connected with attention, focus and compassion. 

All choices have consequences – some lead to life and some lead to death.

Our God is a God of life and not death. 

Our Lord goes deep in today’s gospel.  (Mt. 5:17-37)  He is not content to remain on the surface but wants to go to the heart where healing is needed.  Christ is the fulfillment of the law and the prophets and he wants us to know that in our keeping of the commandments is found life.  So Christ calls us to look within – to look at the anger, the greed, the judgmentalism, the pride, the lust that can dwell there – and to begin making choices (by his grace) beyond those sad realities and temptations.  Choices made for sin all leave us locked within our small selves.  God does not want this for us.  God wants us to be turned outward – towards Him and towards our brothers and sisters.  Here is where life is found. 

One final thought.  It begins today – by the choices we make now.  Some of you know that I am not the most consistent in my jogging routine (more than partly due to my own choices, some poor) but I have been around enough joggers to know that you don’t just get up one morning and say, “Today, I will run a marathon.”  It doesn’t work that way.  To run a marathon you prepare months in advance and during those months you make daily choices – some choices are not “fun” and some are downright painful.  The choice to watch what you eat, the choice to plan and chart miles, the choice to run even when you don’t want to, the choice to not do other things when you need to get your running hours in, etc…  The race does not begin the day of the marathon; it begins the months before and it continues with all those daily choices.

We will all face “marathons” in life – times of struggle that will try and test us.  To begin trying to make the choices for life when the struggle is upon us is often just too late.  The choices for God and His commandments that we make today and parents, the choices you help your children to make today, are the choices that will see us through the marathon when it comes. 

Each one of us is free to make our choices but no one is free to deny the consequences of the choices we make. 

Before man are life and death, good and evil…

But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.   

Come, let us adore him.

08 Sunday Jan 2017

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adoration-of-the-magiDuring the weeks of Advent we hoped for and awaited the coming of the Messiah.  On Christmas we rejoiced in the birth of our savior.  Now, on Epiphany we travel with the wise men from the East in order to “do him homage”, in order to adore Christ. 

Adoration is the proper attitude of today’s feast.  Just as the wise men reveal that the gospel message is meant to go out to all nations and peoples; it also reveals that all peoples and nations are meant to travel to Bethlehem and adore the Christ-child, and do him homage. 

But what does it mean to “adore” and how do we know that we are doing it properly?  Just as the three gifts offered by the wise men reveal truths about Christ so they also reveal truths about our adoration.

Gold is a proper gift to offer a king.  By offering gold the wise men were acknowledging the infant Jesus as the “newborn king of the Jews”.  Gold symbolizes the kingship of Christ.  Gold is our best that we offer to God in gratitude.  God loves us and God wants us to know and experience the joys and beauty of life.  In moments of joy and beauty, if we can just turn to God and say “thank you” then we are adoring, we are offering gold to God.  We ought to thank God for all the blessings, beauty and joys of life.  Gratitude is the gold we have to offer. 

Frankincense accompanies worship and sacrifice.  It is the stuff of priests.  Christ is the High Priest who offers himself as the sinless lamb for us.  The gift of frankincense given at the birth of Christ is a foreshadowing of his great sacrifice and offering of himself on the cross.  We offer frankincense when we offer prayers and a desire to live in relationship with God.  This is part of the great mystery of our faith.  God wants relationship and friendship with us, God seeks us out.  When we are willing to live in relationship with God, when we make the time to pray and just be with God then we are offering frankincense for ourselves and for our world. 

Myrrh is used to anoint bodies at burial.  Myrrh given at the birth of our Lord points toward the death Christ would suffer for us.  When we are willing to die to self for Christ, when we offer up our pains, sufferings, and even little annoyances of life we are, in essence, bringing myrrh to our Lord.  This also is adoration – to bring God our pains, sorrows, dying to self and the injustices we bear in life. 

Today, we come to adore.  Epiphany teaches us how to adore our Lord and Savior – to bring our joys and gratitudes–this is gold; to bring our prayers and desire to live in relationship with God – this is frankincense and to bring our sorrows, dying to self and the injustices we bear in life – this is myrrh. 

Today, we adore.    

Christmas, 2016

25 Sunday Dec 2016

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birth-of-jesusCaesar demanded a census and the whole world was in motion and turmoil.  People and families around the empire travelling to their own town.  The emperor had spoken and therefore it had to be! 

Joseph and Mary – humble, poor, obedient to authority – travel to Bethlehem, even with Mary near child-birth.  They register for the census but the gospel does not specify one thing; did they register before the birth of Christ or after?  Did their census notation say, “one Jewish couple expecting a child” or “one Jewish couple with newborn male”?  I tend to believe that Joseph and Mary registered with the census before the birth of Jesus because it would be consistent with God’s way of working throughout scripture.

Let the powers of the world flex their muscle and show all their strength.  Peoples need to travel, life needs to be interrupted, Caesar Augustus wants a census!  God laughs.  God comes silently and humbly amidst all the turmoil of the time.  God even uses the great emperor’s project to accomplish His plan.  Who today remembers the census that Caesar ordered?  Yet all time and history celebrates the birth of the son of Mary.  Christ coming after the census is fulfilled demonstrates who is really the Lord of history.

Caesar in the exercise of his power and might through the census was trying to grasp and claim the entire empire.  “These … all these lands and peoples … are mine!” is what Caesar was saying through his census.  Christ being born after the census shows that he does not belong to the power of Caesar nor to any worldly-power yesterday or today.  Jesus will not go down in history as a small notation in a Roman emperor’s census, rather he will be revealed as the very one who ushers in God’s Kingdom to which all the kingdoms and powers of the world must submit. 

The Word of God enters the world unexpectedly.  Information is power.  A census – a measurement of peoples – gives information and therefore it gives the emperor great power and control.  Yet right beyond the boundary of Caesar’s knowledge occurs the greatest event in all of human history and Caesar misses it.  Caesar has no knowledge of it.  The first ones who do come to know of it?  Not Caesar but rather the lowly shepherds – the poor and the insignificant ones in the eyes of the world.  It is to them that the angel appears and tells of this new thing that God has done!  “Do not be afraid; for behold, I proclaim to you good news of great joy that will be for all people … a savior has been born for you who is Christ and Lord.”  (Lk. 2:10-11)  It is not abstract and isolated ideologies and theologies cut off from everyday reality that grasp the ever-new work of God, rather it is simple people of faith – the poor and the humble.

The lessons of Christmas are so profound and so necessary.  Despite the turmoil of any age and the raw exercising of power, God is at work accomplishing his plan.  This babe born in Bethlehem is the one to whom all knees must bend and all hearts must bow and when we can do that, then peace and joy will be found!  In Christ, knowledge comes humbly – knowledge for the pains of our world and the pains of our hearts.  Abstract and isolated ideologies quickly become cold, hard and dictatorial.  This is not God’s way.  God reveals himself to the poor and the humble and God chooses to abide with them. 

Lord Jesus, we welcome you.  Heal our world.  Soften our hearts.  Help us to know the newness of your peace.  You are Wonder-Counselor, God-Hero, Father-Forever and Prince of Peace.  Lord Jesus, you choose to be born in your time and in your way.  May we be humble and poor enough to recognize you when you come to us.

Thank you Jesus for loving us.           

“Arrival” and catching the language of God.

03 Saturday Dec 2016

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arrivalThis last week I saw the movie “Arrival”.  I found the movie to be very thought-provoking.  I do not want to ruin the movie for anyone so I will not delve too deeply into the story but the heart of the movie is about language, thought and even time.  The movie asks a simple question; “If aliens arrived on earth how would we communicate?”  Especially if the aliens were so different physiologically from us and did not communicate by sound as we do.  The movie centers on a  translator and her work to overcome this barrier.  At one point in the movie there is a discussion about how learning another language might actually effect and even change a person’s way of thinking.  Learning a new language helps us to think differently and to see the world differently.  

In biblical thought, a prophet is not a fortune-teller or someone who can somehow magically tell what is going to happen in the future.  Rather, a biblical prophet is someone who lives a deep relationship with God and who is able to read the signs of the times from that perspective.  To make use of the discussion in the movie – a prophet is someone who has caught a bit of the language of God and is able therefore to think differently and to see the world differently.  A prophet is someone who begins to see as God sees and to dream as God dreams.  

In today’s gospel (Mt. 3:1-12) we are given the figure of John the Baptist.  The man whom Christ himself called the greatest of prophets.  John is this uniquely charismatic figure drawing huge crowds from all over Jerusalem, Judea and the whole region around the Jordan.  He proclaims the coming Kingdom of God and he calls his listeners to repentance.  Almost as if to provide a contrast, the gospel brings the Pharisees and Sadducees into the picture.  They approach the baptism of John not as a true spirit of repentance but because it looks good before the crowd who they knew held John in high regard.  John’s eyes were on the promise of eternity and the mercy of God because he had caught the language of God while the eyes of these religious authorities were only on what looked good in the moment and what would seem pleasing to others.  John’s eyes were on the ever new possibility of the Kingdom of God precisely because he had caught the language of God. 

We could say that John already saw and set his life by the vision offered by the prophet Isaiah in the first reading (Is. 11:1-10).  John saw that day when the one would come on whom the spirit of the Lord would rest and who would judge rightly and who would strike the ruthless and bring forth justice and through whom the wolf and the lamb would be guest of one another.  In the Jordan River, John would baptize the one who is himself the incarnate Word of the Father. 

In Christ, the language of God is fully revealed and spoken and it overcomes all the sad divisions of our world.  Isaiah’s poetic use of imagery is all about the divisions and fears and animosities of life being overcome – “the cow and the bear shall be neighbors … the baby shall play by the cobras den …” – all this shall occur through Christ. 

And it continues through his body, the Church.  In Christ the role of the prophet is not ended, it is multiplied infinitely!  Through our baptisms we are all called to be prophets!  In the Eucharistic Prayer entitled, “Jesus, the Way to the Father” we find these words, “Grant that all the faithful of the Church, looking into the signs of the times by the light of faith, may constantly devote themselves to the service of the Gospel.” 

To be a prophet is not to somehow magically see into the future but to live in deep relationship with God and to read the signs of the times from that perspective.  The prophet learns the language of God fully revealed in Christ.  The prophet allows that language to change his or her own pattern of thought and the prophet lives by the ever new possibility of God’s Kingdom which says that all the sad divisions of our world and our individual lives can be healed and can be overcome.  

To learn a language changes the way we think.  The prophets caught the language of God, John learned it and even baptized the Word incarnate and, now, the Word is given and spoken to us. 

We can live differently.  We can live through the very Word given to us as God intends.

That which endures

12 Saturday Nov 2016

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church-destroyed-by-earthquakeScholars suggest that by the time Luke composed his gospel the temple had already been destroyed.  This grand edifice, seemingly unmovable, adorned with costly stones that people were admiring in this passage was, by the time of Luke setting quill to parchment, just a heap of ruins.  It demonstrates how quickly things can change and also how little we really know about what will happen tomorrow.  We like to think we are in charge … but we are not.

Using the temple’s destruction and our Lord’s prophesying of that even as a springboard; today’s gospel (Lk. 21:5-19) invites us to go deep in the spiritual life.

There are levels to the spiritual life.  Saints and mystics throughout the Church’s history testify to this.  The first level and most basic is a level often caught up with outer things.  The grandeur of a temple, the use of precious stones, only a certain style of music or liturgy in worship, only this type of devotional practice or prayer.  Is there a value to the beauty of a church or worship or prayer?  Certainly, that is not being denied but all of these exist in order to usher one into an encounter with the Divine.  If they themselves become the focus then something is off-kilter.  As a friend of mine once said, there is always the temptation to major in the minors.

We have all heard of the recent earthquakes that have hit Italy.  In one of these earthquakes a beautiful church connected to St. Benedict completed collapsed.  A picture I saw just had the front façade standing with all else behind it flattened out.  Miraculously no person was killed when this happened.  What I found inspiring was that as soon as the monks and nuns of the community whose church has been destroyed determined that everyone in their community was accounted for they went out into the larger area and began to minister to others in need – helping physically to dig people out of the rubble and also bringing the sacraments to people.  They did this because they were rooted in something deeper than a building (an external).

The deeper reality our Lord is inviting each of us to in the journey of faith is relationship with him.  There will be false predictions that the end is upon us, nation will rise against nation, and there will be earthquakes, famines, plagues and signs in the sky.  These are all shifts in the greater turning of human history but there will also be personal shifts and turmoil.  People will be led before kings, governors and all the different powers of the world and our lives.  Families will be split and there will not be understanding.  Christians will be hated.  Yet in the midst of all this foretold turmoil of the history of our world and our own personal histories, our Lord – the one who foretold the destruction of the temple – says this, “Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand, for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.”  

“…for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking…”  The truth implied here in the midst of all the turmoils that this life brings is a living relationship with Christ.  Remaining on the level of the external spiritually – while not really knowing the Lord or allowing him to know us – will not cut it when life gets tumultuous.  In all seasons of life the Christian must root him or herself in relationship with Christ.  Only in this relationship can be found the wisdom and perseverance that we need in life.

Our Lord listened as people who had no idea of what tomorrow would bring spoke admiringly of the temple.  He asked them to move beyond the external to that which truly lasts.  He asks us to do the same – to trust in him and to find life.

A God and a community who seek out

10 Saturday Sep 2016

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good-shepherdOne of the truths revealed in today’s gospel (Lk. 15:1-10) is that our God is not a God content to let people remain anonymous.  The shepherd goes out in search of the lost sheep because that one sheep truly matters to him.  The woman turns the house over searching for the lost coin because that coin is of real concern to her.  We are of concern to God.  We are not alone in a vast universe governed by random chance.  We do not have a God who does not care.  God is willing to seek each one of us out, willing to even enter the darkness of sin and death, to find us and then rejoice in the finding!

But this truth also applies to us who are called to be God’s people in our world.  The Christian community is not meant to be an anonymous collection of individuals made up of people without names and without love – separate and alone.  Because we have been loved by God and sought out by God we must, in turn, strive to love as God loves and seek out as God seeks out.  The community Jesus calls us to is not one of anonymous and separate persons but of brothers and sisters who know each other by name.  Friendship and care must be at the heart of the Christian community but it needs to be noted that this friendship is not of our own doing or crafting.  The friendship of the Christian community flows out of Jesus’ own call to his disciples and obedience to his Word.  The origin of friendship in the Christian community is in God himself.  This is a great mystery and it is a mystery we are called to live and it is a mystery we proclaim in front of a world that seems so intent on reducing the full dignity of the human person to just a caricature of the anonymous individual.

Every person has a name.  Every person has a worth.  Every person is valued and sought out by God.  No one is left behind.  We need to live this friendship of Christ as Church and, by so doing, witness to our world.  For a Christian community to have the most beautiful sanctuary or the most active list of ministries without this friendship that seeks out is (to paraphrase St. Paul and our Lord himself) to be just a noisy gong, a clashing cymbal and even a whitewashed tomb.  No life is ultimately produced.

The identity of the Church is not found by remaining within but is realized in mission.  It has been this way from the very beginning with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the call to proclaim the good news to the ends of the world!  We each have a name given by God and a task given by God, we only become who we are meant to be as we live the task we have been given.  The Christian community only becomes who she is meant to be when she lives the friendship she has been given by Christ.

This friendship begins within the Christian community herself and then it goes out into the world.  We must seek out one another.  We must be of concern to one another.  In order to be true to the gift that we were given (meaning being sought out by God himself), we cannot remain content in just being a collection of anonymous individuals.  When we meet one another in the friendship of Christ we learn we can even look out on the multitudes of our world and see not just anonymous individuals who threaten my space and my freedom but brothers and sisters and the multitudes of people who are alone and suffering learn that they are in fact not alone and that there is a God and a people who seek to care and who seek to know their name.

Let us invite one another to wisdom. St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

04 Sunday Sep 2016

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Mother Teresa

St. Teresa of Calcutta

In the first reading (Wisdom 9:13-18b) we are told that wisdom is a gift given from on high.  It is not something we acquire by our own effort and ingenuity but it is a gift from God.  Or who ever knew your counsel, except you had given wisdom and sent your Holy Spirit from on high?  And thus were the paths of those on earth made straight.  Wisdom is the fruit of relationship with God and, as we learned in last Sunday’s gospel, it both comes and is received on our part through the actions of humility and living a generosity toward those who cannot repay us.

But we can invite one another to wisdom.  This is a truth found in today’s second reading (Philemon 9-10, 12-17).  The Letter to Philemon is a short letter written by Paul to Philemon, a member of the Christian community, on behalf of Onesimus – a runaway slave of Philemon’s whom Paul had befriended and converted while they were held together in prison.  According to the law of the day, Philemon had the right to punish Onesimus severely, even having him put to death, but Paul writes and asks Philemon not only to be lenient and receive Onesimus back but to even receive him back as now a brother in Christ.

Paul is inviting (not forcing) Philemon to a new awareness.  He is inviting him to wisdom in Christ.  Things had now changed.  Elsewhere Paul will write …in Christ there is neither slave nor free…  Paul is aware of this new reality, he does not wish to force it on Philemon for that would not be true to the gospel but he does want to invite Philemon to this new awareness.  Paul is also crafty about this invitation though.  He knows that when his letter arrives it will not be read privately by Philemon first; rather it will be read before the whole gathered community with Philemon present.  All eyes will certainly be on Philemon but also, if the members of the community are honest, all eyes will need to be on each of their own hearts as the letter invites all who listen to it to wisdom and a greater awareness even to our own day.  Can we receive the other person as brother and sister in Christ?

Christ continually invites us into the wisdom of the Kingdom of God.  It is a wisdom that asks us to be willing to continually step away from the rigid and constricting thought of “this is the way things are, this is the way things will always be” toward the ever new possibility of the Kingdom.  If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.  Christ continually invites us to calculate and set our lives by the ever new possibility of the Kingdom of God!  Just like the person building a tower calculates out resources or the king calculates out the cost of a battle we must calculate and set our lives not by our own small and often meager possessions of thought but by the sheer gratuity of God’s Kingdom!  Christ invites us set our lives by this wisdom!

Today, the Church gives us a wonderful witness of a person who set and calculated her life by the sheer gratuity of God’s Kingdom in St. Teresa of Calcutta.  Where the world saw a simple little woman, God saw a great disciple to our age.  Where the world saw lives with no value, St. Teresa saw children of God.  Where the world saw hopelessness, St. Teresa found beauty.  Where the world saw wealth, St. Teresa saw poverty.  Where the world gave up, St. Teresa persevered.

St. Teresa allowed herself to be invited into the wisdom of the Kingdom of God – even in the darkness of it all.  Now, like Paul himself, St. Teresa invites us into the ever new possibility of the wisdom of Christ and the Kingdom of God.

“If you can’t feed a hundred people then feed just one.”

“Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person.”

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!