Nov 30 - St. Andrew, Apostle

+ It is the feast of St. Andrew, the Apostle. There must have been something in his voice, there must have been something in the way he said things, there must have been something in his look and manner that would make these four long-time dedicated fishers of fish leave everything immediately and follow someone who has just offered to make them “fishers of men.” What could this possibly mean? But, they didn’t have to stop to figure it all out: their intuition, their instinct, their gut told them to go and find out what this new adventure was all about.

Andrew was actually the first Apostle called by Jesus as seen in another account; he was the brother of Simon Peter and led him to Jesus. He was a follower of John the Baptist; and like John, he spent his life leading people to Jesus, both before and after the Crucifixion. He was a missionary in Asia Minor and Greece and possibly areas in modern Russia and Poland. He was martyred on a saltire (x-shaped) cross and is said to have preached from it for two days before he died.

There are several legendary explanations for why St. Andrew became patron of Scotland. The first being that in 345, the Emperor Constantine the Great decided to move Andrew’s bones from Patras, Greece to Constantinople. Then St. Regulus of Scotland was instructed by an angel to take these relics to the far northwest. He was eventually told to stop on the Fife coast of Scotland, where he founded the settlement of St. Andrew. And, when the Pictish King, Angus, faced a large invading army, he prayed for guidance. A white cloud in the form of a saltire cross floated across the blue sky above him. Angus won a decisive victory and decreed that Andrew would be the patron saint of his country. The Saltire became the national flag of Scotland in 1385.

The first reading today from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans beautifully describes the mission of the apostle and evangelist. The world must hear the Good News in order to believe in it; and someone must be sent to bring that Good News to the waiting world: this would be the Apostles and their successors and helpers. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news!” Faith comes from what is heard and what is heard comes through the word of Christ. May we rejoice that their voice has gone forth to all the earth and their words to the ends of the world; and may we do our part today to spread that word, that message, that hope to at least one person, if not many!

Come after me, says the Lord, and I will make you fishers of men.

St. Andrew, pray for us!

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Meditation:

When St. Andrew first caught sight of the gibbet on which he was to die, he greeted the precious wood with joy.  "O good cross!" he cried, "made beautiful by the limbs of Christ, so long desired, now so happily found!  Receive me into thy arms and present me to my Master, that He Who redeemed me through thee may now accept me from thee."  Two whole days the martyr remained hanging on this cross alive, preaching, with outstretched arms from this chair of truth, to all who came near, and entreating them not to hinder his passion.

Nov 26 - Monday 34th Week in OT

+ The gospel passage today sets an important precedent: God is very pleased when we trust him absolutely and give until it hurts, give even our last penny to his service. God takes care of his own, his children, and when he sees them with so much love and trust, he immediately and directly sees to their needs. We say in the prayer that Jesus taught us: give us this day our daily bread: this is exactly what it means: we also say with the psalmist: “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” – indeed I shall not want for anything that is essential to my life on this sojourn to heaven.

The only real evaluation of the situation that we can make on the natural level is to use of frail and broken reasoning: and hoping against hope, holding our breath, drop the last of our earthly fortune into the hands of the Church – but if we could look at it from God the Father perspective, he can see that his trusting beloved one is not hoping against hope at all: but rather hoping with all her/his might so that we can soon sing our Father’s praises for taking care of us once again.

May we pray today for such childlike abandon and confidence, so that once we give away what we think will be our last gifts – like the multiplication of loaves and fishes – God will see to it that we have more than enough for our own true needs as he see them, and the needs of others, as he sees them.

They shall receive blessings from the Lord, those who seek his face, and love him with all their hearts!

Nov 21 - Wednesday 33rd Week in OT

+ Our gospel passage today has to do with the investment of the gifts that God entrusts to each of us. Just as God can distribute 10, 5 1 talents to whomever he wishes – and he expects us to use them for his glory and to help other human beings who in the scheme of things only we have been placed with them to do.

The passage shows how the ones with the 10 and the 5 invested the money and brought forth even many more good abilities and creative ways to give God glory and their neighbors the help they needed. But the person with 1 – knowing the master expected a return on the trust placed to him – wrongly concluded that the best thing to do was not to lose the 1, but to carefully guard, protect and bury it until his master’s return. The master was very angry at this report and he took the one and gave it to the man with the 10 – and disparaged the carrier by saying: you could have at least put the money in the bank so I could have interest on it. Then Jesus concludes the lesson by saying that: everyone who has will be given more (if it is rightly invested), but from the man who has not, even what he has will be taken away. This is not harsh – it is just in the way God sees things, which unfortunately 99% of the time is not the way man sees them.

Let us then be industrious and prudent possessors of the many gifts that God gives us on behalf of others – let us give until it hurts, and then give them some more! That’s what Jesus did on the Cross – he gave it ALL – and won for us the forgiveness of our sins and eternal life in a glorious new kingdom that awaits us all!

I chose you from the world to go out and bear fruit, fruit that will last, says the Lord!

Nov 15 - St. Albert the Great

+ Albert the Great was born in 1200 in Swabia, near Ulm, Germany, the son of a military nobleman. He joined the Dominicans while studying at the University of Padua in 1223 and taught theology at Cologne Germany, and Paris France. He became an influential teacher, preacher and administrator. Against his will he was named bishop of Regensburg in 1260; and because of his inability to deal with the serious problems in the diocese, he resigned the see in 1262 to devote his time and energy once again to teaching and writing in Cologne. He partook of the Council of Lyons despite the shock of the announcement of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas on his own way to the council. Albert introduced Greek and Arabic science and philosophy to medieval Europe and was known for his wide interest in what became known later as the natural sciences – botany, biology and the like.

He wrote and illustrated guides to his observations and was considered on a par with Aristotle as an authority on these matters. Albert’s health began to fail him in 1278 as he lapsed into a form of dementia today called Alzheimer’s disease. He died on November 15, 1280 and was buried in the Dominican church in Cologne. He was beatified in 1622 and canonized and declared a Doctor of the Church and patron saint of students of the natural sciences in 1931.

As the Book of Sirach tells us in the first reading today, it is he who fears the Lord – who understands his dependent relationship with the almighty, loving, Creator, Father – who is given the gift of deep insight into the realities of both heaven and earth. Albert the Great must have then had a deep and real sense of fear of his Lord and God to reach the heights of understanding and knowledge that he did.

The gospel passage tells us that as we await the end, saints and sinners must coexist side by side, but as we try the best we can to be saints and influence sinners to turn away from sin, we trust God that, fearing him, and using the gifts he gives us will help the cause – as St. Albert the Great used his!

Lord, teach me your statutes.

Nov 13 - Tuesday 32nd Week in OT

+ Our readings today are pointed and right on time.  St. Paul, through Bishop Titus, is laying the groundwork for millennia of Christian attitudes, guidelines, and boundaries. If you belong to Christ then the presence of the Holy Spirit, his Father’s gift and his, will inform all that you think, say and do, and therefore you will appear to be “different” from the wild, boundary-less, children of the world and of the devil.

Words like: “temperate, dignified, self-controlled, reverent in behavior, models of good deeds, using sound speech and giving God the credit for all these things – accompany those who truly have Christ as their King, their Lord and their Savior.

The gospel passage reminds us that we are to do these things classifying ourselves as “unprofitable servants” who have done “what we were obliged to do.” This reflects the fact that the very power to do any of these virtuous deeds does not come from us, for without God’s grace, we can literally not even move a muscle.

When we recognize that God is God and we are not – then we will act as his true children, dependent on him for everything we need to use the talents and gifts he has given us to make life better for others – as we  progress in our journey through this vale of tears to the teeming shores of the Waters of Life that flow from the very White Throne of God in his heavenly Temple!

Trust in the Lord and do good, that you may dwell in his native land and be granted your heart’s deepest requests.

Nov 8 - Thursday 31st Week in OT

+ In the first reading for Mass today from Paul’s Letter to the Philippians he tells them that once one comes to a better, more truthful perspective and insight into something – then one is bound to grab onto it, to investigate it, and to apply it to one’s life of service to others. This after all is what the heart knows is the purpose of human life: to love and serve others, as we have been loved and served by God. This too is a lifelong learning task for us.

Paul says that his whole earlier life as a zealous Jew, even an overzealous one – persecuting the Christians as he did – once the higher calling and insight was presented he went for it with all his might, with all his being and with all his heart: everything else became loss, he says.

In the gospel passage the finding of the lost sheep and the lost coin, sparks a flame of rejoicing and merry-making because we know deep inside, when the lost is found, there is an innate sense of relief and the celebration: and we also have an innate evangelical sense that we need to call in our friends and not celebrate just alone,

Whether we find ourselves as the one who loses something today or are witness to someone else finding something of value – we need to actively, in the presence of others, celebrate the grace that made the finding possible: there are no coincidences. Grace loves to increase in a party with others.

Let us not forget that at each Mass we attend, or prayer time that we engage in at home or on the road, it is a chance for God to find us, if we seem lost to ourselves or others, and for us to look around and try to find another who might need our help in being found by God – maybe through us.

This is the day the Lord has made, it is full of surprises and opportunities to put our love and our faith into action, either energized by reception of Holy Communion if that is possible, or in making any number of Spiritual Communions – moments set aside to “let God find us adoring him, praising him, thanking him, and asking for help in matters great and small” – then our light will shine today – and when our head hits the pillow tonight we will quickly drift off into an experience of deep restful sleep – with angels watching by our side!

Amen.

Nov 7 - Wednesday 31st Week in OT

+ St Paul tells the Philippians, and it applies to us as well, that once safe in the Body of Christ, the Church, we have to work for our salvation! Now, wait a minute, isn’t that already a contradiction that doesn’t make too much sense: if salvation is a free gift, and cannot be worked for, then why are we ordered now to “work for it.” Good question!

The key to the answer is the Prime Mover, or the Origin of the Salvation: and that is God in his mercy, love and forgiveness. We may not be able to produce the salvation on our own, but once its deposited in our souls, then we darn well better work to keeping it there – and to reach it.

So faith and works, good works done in imitation of Christ, and for love of his Father, is the formula for life, here and hereafter!

The “world” – held hostage by the Devil – for the time being – though not permanently so – will always be “the crooked and perverse” reality that all are meant to wallow in as a test – but activated and energized, like the bunny, we are meant to shine like lights, like stars, like objects of hope, in the twisted and perverse generation that will always be there – until the end of time.

Jesus puts it another way in the gospel passage: if you want to complete your salvation – then you must focus on it absolutely and totally – turning away from an attachments to family, work, pleasure or anything else – you must take up your cross and follow me to the kingdom – the is your “work of salvation” – “I carried my cross to Calvary” – your are to carry yours to the same place – so you can have the full benefits of my Resurrection – which I activated for you!

Did you not know or remember, that every time you come to Mass – you come to the one and the same Sacrifice of Calvary – you are there – so that your sins the you commit now, and those of your brothers and sisters in the church for whom you pray – will be forgiven – and the gates of heaven will be opened widely to us and to them!

May the communion we receive today be truly the pledge of our participation in our own reconciliation with God – and may we resemble more and more in thought, word and deed, the Christ who becomes us, and we become him as the host digests into both our physical and spiritual systems.

Lord, help me to keep my light shining brightly so I can see my way through this day, and so I can help others see their way as well! Amen.

Nov 5 - Monday 31st Week in OT

+ Our readings today are simple and beautiful.  The first reading finds St. Paul telling the Philippians that the thing that would make him most happy is, as baptized members of Christ, having his very life within them,  to be united in their convictions and in their love for one another – having a common purpose, and a common mind. United in mind and heart therefore.

He tells them that there should be no competition among them, no conceit, but everyone is to be self-effacing, and always to consider the other person to be better than themselves, and to consider his / her interests above their own.

The hallmark of being a Christian is love: See how they love one another!! This was said about the early Christians – can it truly be said of us, here, now? If not, we have work to do – because this is actually the only thing that God will be interested in taking an account of us one day: how we loved one another rather than ourselves.

This is again, illustrated and highlighted in the gospel passage when Jesus tells the Pharisees that when giving a lunch they should invite not their cozy little in group, who can repay you with a like feast at their house, but no, they are to invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind – because they cannot repay you. This is the virtuous thing to do. After all he is telling the Pharisees that such guests are actually him in a sort of disguise. Reward will come with an eternal banquet prepared in heaven.

All there is is love – plain and simple! If we live this way – we are truly Christian, truly Catholic, and truly members of Christ – and will be so forever in heaven. Amen.  

Nov 1 - All Saints

+ Today is the great feast day of all the saints in heaven: the canonized and the not yet canonized. So often we think of saints as those who live a pure, holy and basically unearthly life and then somehow get assumed into heavenly glory. There are a small minority of those in heaven. There are also those specially chosen by God to go outside their often-times selfish comfort zones and do something really important for the life of the Church – when crises arise and spiritual heroes are needed to bolster the faith, and lead the flock. Among these are those who found religious orders who preach, teach, take care of the poor and the sick and the suffering.

But I think more important than all of those are the ones who lived a real human life, encountering real human interactions, making mistake after mistake after they committed themselves to lead good Christian Catholic lives, but kept getting up and starting over again – who are also called to heroic measures of self-sacrifice, love, compassion, helping those God the Father places directly in their paths each day: be they family, coworkers, or total strangers – who wake up when Jesus hits them over the head somehow and says: hey I want to use you for my game plan – in saving people, in saving the world, are you game?? St. Paul comes to mind here, and St. Francis and saints to be like Thomas Merton, and Dorothy Day.

These are the kind of saints who eventually – when their own strivings and wills are smashed, put to rest and buried: can at last think only of doing what God would have them do: thus living the life of Beatitude proclaimed by Jesus in the gospel passage. Brother Richard Steinberg, aka Paul Andre, JSC RN is such a saint now that he has been “transferred to the Motherhouse in heaven” as the Joyful Servants of the Cross like to put it – he lived a very full life and was tempted in all of the ways the rest of us are – but as he puts it: when God hits me over the head and gets my attention, then I am willing to do what he asks of me: and great great things he did indeed as a monk previously, as a soldier, as a husband, as a father, as a nurse, as a gardener, as a gourmet cook – giving his all for the people God put in his life – and many cats, and dogs, and birds, and geese and ducks as well!

In co-founding the Joyful Servants of the Cross, we both followed God’s bidding – and lived 13 years a life of true holiness, worship, study, recreation, and hard work in the vineyard of the Lord: he as a nurse, and me as a priest.

Brother was more than ready to make the simple leap into his promised eternal inheritance on February 5^th of this year, the feast of St. Agatha, Patron of Nurses of all days: and now with all the other saints of any making – while glorifying God at each moment, still do all they can for us here on earth who are still “in via” on the road to where they are!

I have not a shadow of a doubt that Brother is here at our monastery in spirit, and that he is very active in inspiring and suggesting things as to how I an “keep the order going as long as I can” – which was his last wish for the group.

Yes, there are Saints, and then there are saints of all sizes, ages, stages and flavors: and the are just so willing for you to pray to them, talk with me, do things with them, things that will help the Kingdom to Come more this day than yesterday! Just think, one day we can be saints WITH THEM! AMEN!

Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints!