Jun 24 - The Nativity of St. John the Baptist

+ Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Birth of St. John the Baptist. John, of course, was a cousin of Jesus, the son of Zechariah, a priest of the temple in Jerusalem whose task it was to burn incense; and of Elizabeth, a cousin of the Blessed Virgin Mary. As we see in the gospel passage Zechariah’s tongue was released from silence only after the birth of his son, whom he communicated would be named John – because he doubted the angel’s word that his wife would bear a son in her old age, and that the child would be filled with the Holy Spirit from the moment of his birth.

John was the greatest of all the Old Testament Prophets because he was the last one of them: who had the exalted privilege and honor of literally pointing to Jesus, as he walked along the banks of the Jordan when he began his public life, and saying: Behold the Lamb of God, behold him who takes away the sins of the world! Behold the Lamb of God, indeed – these, of course, are the very words were restored to the celebration of Mass as the priest holds the Body of Christ before you to look at to see just before receiving him in Holy Communion.

But, John’s main duty in the history of salvation was not just to point: but to prepare for the one who would be pointed to: to prepare the way of the Lord – by preaching a message of repentance for sin: only when the heart is clean can a person be open enough to receive all the God has to offer through his beloved Son – for salvation!

John converted many to this stage of salvation, and then later encouraged them to follow the Lamb, Jesus, who is the true Messiah – the one they had been waiting for these many centuries – who would take them the rest of the way!

When Jesus finally did come on the scene he came to John at the Jordan to give credence to what John was doing, but also to be baptized himself, but not for himself (as he had no sin), but rather for us – to show us that one day baptism and confirmation would be needed by his disciples to bring them into his new and mystical body of His – the Church!

Later, John was imprisoned by King Herod because he told him that it was unlawful for him to marry his sister in law, Herodias. Herod knew that John was right, but when the opportunity presented itself the Baptist literally lost his head so that the King could save face at a dinner party in front of his guests. It was only fitting though – that the very last Old Testament Prophet would give his life as a martyr for Christ – whom he knew to be the Way, the Truth and the Life eternal that he and everyone else was seeking for!

May we each do our all for the Lord every day, even preparing the way for his coming into hearts who do not yet know him, or who may have forgotten about him, or who just seem lost – and so very, very many in our day today are truly lost!

Jesus came to save the lost! Jesus came to save us all!

Amen!

Jun 17 - 11th Week in OT - Wednesday

+ Our gospel passage today actually is a repeat of that of Ash Wednesday. Perhaps the reason for this is that any day is a good day to be reminded about the basics: our basic attitude of doing things for the right reason. The three great religious activities mentioned in the passage apply as much to today as to the ancient world in which we see them here. Almsgiving, prayer and fasting can always help not only the spiritual growth of the individual who does them, but also the people for whom they can be done as a sacrificial offering.

But when they are done, they must be done in an unassuming way, and not like Pharisees and hypocrites who love to do these things to be seen, so they will win the admiration of the people, and places of honor at banquets and the best foods and wines.

And so almsgiving (helping the poor with monies and goods) must be done quietly, even anonymously if possible: we must recall that when we help people, we are helping Christ himself: and he will reward and repay us beyond anything we can imagine. In our day: today: there are a great many in our own country who are newly participants in lines at food banks and other helping organizations in order to get the basic things they have lost because of the unemployment due to the Coronavirus – that shows signs of increasing rather than decreasing.

Private prayer (as opposed to community worship) needs to be done in the secret places of our hearts, in the inner recesses of our homes, in our prayer corners or chapels; in this way the flow of communication between God and us can be free and abundant. And again, the face of the Coronavirus where ordinary public worship is greatly restricted in size due to health concerns, learning how to stop, and go inside, into our very souls to meet God, adore, worship and pray to him – is actually being facilitated now by the restrictions.  

Fasting (giving up of certain foods and the like) should be done quietly as well: a gloomy “giver-up-er” gives a bad impression to everyone: if penance does not produce joy, then it is not being done right! – And it is vital in this age of so much disease, chaos and confusion, that we do not only pray for the successful outcome of what is distressing us, but also practice purposeful self-denial to be in solidarity with those who have some much less than they used to, than what they need for themselves and their families.

No! it doesn’t have to be Lent for us to practice these Christian activities: they are the key to right living and good results any day, any season of the year.

Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him,  and we will come to him.

Jun 11 - Corpus Christi

+ Jesus could not have left us a more real and visible expression of His Risen Self than in his Eucharistic Presence – under the sensible manifestations of bread and wine. Though we can see and feel and touch what still appears to be the bread and the wine, the astounding nature of the reality involved in them is beyond our wildest imaginings: it is so totally illogical, unreasonable and absurd: bread and wine changed into GOD, into Christ’s own Body and Blood! To those without faith it is absurd! But to those accepting and using the gift of faith, the Eucharistic Presence of Jesus is very comprehensible, wonderful and believable. It is what it is, a fitting object of adoration and worship by mind and heart! And it begins with an appreciation that is first sparked by divine grace and then nurtured and developed our whole lives long!

The Eucharist is the very Risen Jesus – in Person – given as spiritual food for our hungering and thirsting souls: souls hungering for love, peace, forgiveness and fulfillment; thirsting for truth, beauty, goodness and justice. And all of this is found in that transubstantiated “bread we eat” and “cup we drink” at every Mass. It is there for the receiving, it is there for our use!

While the ordinary route to everlasting life would be to eat this Bread so to gain everlasting life,  there are many auxiliary and supportive ways to eat the Bread, and thus sharing in the bliss of eternal peace in God. It is true that all who follow their rightly forming consciences at no matter what level of growth and maturing they may be at at any given moment are in fact participating in the Body and Blood of Christ.  

The Eucharist is also a sign of our unity – our communion with those who also ate the same bread, and have now gone before us – but this does not in any way mean that we are an “exclusive club” and that all others just won’t make the grade. That is nonsense. We are all “saved by the Passion Death and Resurrection of Jesus. We are all members of the “exclusive club.” The Eucharist is meant to be a sign of this universal membership, that now includes all manner and stages of initiation   

Let us rejoice in the fact that we are all invited to partake of the “New Manna from Heaven,” unlike the bread our fathers were given to eat in the desert, who ate it and died nonetheless – we feast on Panis Angelicus, the very Bread of Angels, and we will never be hungry or thirsty again – and we will have life forever!

And now, with what is going on in our homes, our neighborhoods, our states, our country and our world with our required navigation through unchartered waters where at least three major weight-bearing realities are converging on us: a Coronavirus pandemic that is showing no signs of letting up, police reform and racial injustice that must be addressed headon and compassionately NOW, and national economic structure that teeters more every day in undesirable negative ranges – we need to make “CORPUS CHRISTI” the BODY OF CHRIST our slogan – we are all ONE in his scourged, beaten, bloodied, battered, broken Body, that because he accepted it willingly and loving for ALL – makes us all  BROTHER AND SISTERS who can get through anything, who can rebuild anything, who can reform everything according to the Divine Plan of MERCY, COMPASSION, and LOVE.

All hail to you, Lord Jesus Christ, our Eucharistic King!

Amen! Amen!

Jun 10 - 10th Week in OT - Wednesday

+ Today we have two interesting readings for our consideration: the first reading is about how Elijah, a prophet of God – one who is chosen to be a mouthpiece of God, and a worker of works that could back up what was said: much like Jesus himself. Today we see Elijah have contest of sorts with the priest of the pagan god Baal. It was about lighting a fire to sacrifice bulls to their god. They prepared the sacrifice, but Elijah told them not to light the fire but to call on their god to light it. They did it! No fire. No sacrifice.

Then Elijah prepared a similar sacrificial site: except that he dug a trench around the place of sacrifice. Then he told the servants to fill large jars of water and to pour it all over the component parts of the sacrifice: drench everything – they did so – and the remaining water filled the trench that surrounded the site. Then Elijah prayed to the One God asking him to display his glory, his power and, oddly enough his love, by setting the scene alight – then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the holocaust and wood and licked up the water in the trench. And when all the people saw this they fell on their faces. “The Lord is God, they cried, the Lord is God!

An important, but not often mentioned lesson in this story is that – while at the time, pagan gods were many – and holocausts abounded – because the religious instinct in mankind was always present – so man could find his place in the universe – and a myriad of pagan prescriptions and rules were obeyed to assuage the gods they did not understand, yet, Elijah taught them now that belief in the One God – can fill up all they were desiring – and put it on a new footing – that the One God could do amazing, even contra-indicated things – and remove all their ignorant fears and cause them to wonder in awe at who He IS, but also, to tell them that it is LOVE that is behind all these things and that in time One would come who would explain and be everything. And that would be Jesus!

In the gospel passage Jesus recaps the message of the first reading: I have not come to abolish the Law – all the prescriptions and commandments that my Father gave Moses to give to you – I have come to fulfill them and model them in a simple and forthright manner: LOVE – love one another as I love you – with abandon, with compassion, with joy, with creativity, with forgiveness, with giving to God what is God’s and to civil leaders what is theirs by divine right, with being willing to lay down your life for anyone at all who needs us to. This is raining down fire into a watered holocaust, this is making the impossible happen, this is being engulfed in the burning cool heat of the Divine Heart of God Himself, who simply LOVES, simply CARES, simply will NEVER LET US DOWN.

We need to be doused with Grace everyday – as we find ourselves in a convergence of circumstances any one of which could bring us to our knees – just look at what is going on in the world, in our country, in our families, and the way to be doused is to first go into ourselves in moments of deep wordless, conceptless, imageless “prayer” – and then to be fired up with the Holy Spirit’s Strength, Determination and Truth, and go out of ourselves to help as many as we can – this one day – this one hour – his one moment!

Save us, O Lord, you alone are God! You alone are our refuge!

Jun 7 - Trinity Sunday

+ Today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity: One God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This celebration is entirely the result of God’s self-revelation! There is no way at all that mankind on its own could ever have imagined, constructed or invented such a God – He is entirely beyond our scope, and yet He is entirely and absolutely near, intimate, up close, direct, indwelling and personal! The infinity of his majesty, power and glory are found and proved in the minuteness, the tininess and the complete insusceptibility of his concreteness, his finiteness among us as demonstrated in creation, and in the sending of his own Son to be a part of our world, to be our model, and for our salvation! This is all very, very amazing – and yes, even awesome to the maximum.

And so we rejoice in the fact today that Jesus, the Son, has revealed his Father, as our Father! We rejoice that by his own merits of death on a cross and then resurrection from the dead to an entirely new and fullness of  experience of human life: the “ontological leap” that we all yearn for, was his; and now can be ours, by baptism and life in the Mystical Body of Christ: the Church. We rejoice that Son and Father have sent the Holy Spirit of Joy, of Love, of Truth and Life into the Church, into us, so that we can “light the world” with the Fire of Divine Grace and Sanctifying Presence.

It is at this point that I would like to take a short “theological off-ramp” tangent: and get a little more into the nature and composition of God as One, in Three Persons. In the past 40 years there has been a surprisingly clear insight into how God not only IS Three in One – but how God NEEDS TO BE Three in One – and how, unlike how many of us were taught decades ago that “The Trinity is A Mystery” so there is no need to go any further with that discussion: isn’t this a pretty shamrock – Trinity = Shamrock!

Well, not exactly, Sister Mary Tabernacle! The Trinity is quite basically and understandably a relationship of Persons, whose relating had no beginning and will have no end: the relationship simply IS, here, now, and every here, now – in our space/time world – that we can measure it in. A relationship involved TWO persons: You relate to Me, and I am drawn into relationship with YOU – but the “dynamic electric vibration” of the relating – as anyone who has ever even talked with anyone else, or have been in love with anyone, knows that “it’s almost like an independent “thirdness of persons” is present: this is real, and in the case of God we have God relating endlessly with the Son (his breath, his one utterance, his one gently moaning sigh) which generates the Spirit – who IS the LOVE vibrating endlessly between Father and Son. True relationship is always generative of something now outside of itself – which is its energetic manifestation of LOVE.

How we enter into the picture is twofold – God creates us, in his image and likeness – meaning with the gently whirring of this Divine Love Relationship sounding in our ears – we are made out of love when our parents conceive us – and that is all of us – all human beings who have ever existed, exist now or will exist on the planet – we are all created in the dynamic flow of Trinitarian love – expressing itself personally and individually in us.

Secondly, last Sunday was the Birthday of the Church – when this same Spirit – the Love, Truth, Goodness, Beauty, Joy, Compassion, Comfort and Forgiveness of God burst into the entire lives of those present in the upper room – the apostles and Mary, Mother of Jesus. The way to plug consciously, and knowingly, and willingly into this Divine Dance between Father and Son is now offered to the whole world, Jews and Greeks (the rest of the world) alike. The community of those reveling in the presence of the Dead/Risen/Ascended Lord and Friend – now filled with his Spirit – went out to invite others to be in a deep and special relationship with the Trinity – so that our ordinary daily lives could generate a spark of light, and truth and justice, and peace to those we interact with.

At NO OTHER TIME IN OUR NATION’S HISTORY are all who have access to the Spirit of God, and the Trinitarian Dance of God – and that is everyone – is called upon to fire up that Spirit by first periods of silence, periods of prayer, contemplative and/or other kinds, and then the willingness to peacefully yet forcefully make a difference as a global pandemic still rages across the globe and our country, as unemployment is still in “depression era” ranges, where racial injustice and an out of control policing contingency in many places, as life as we knew it is gone forever – IF SOMETHING NEWER AND BETTER IS TO GROW FROM THE ASHES OF OUR CONVERGING CATASTROPHES -  then we MUST IMPLORE the TRINITY to Dance in us, Dance with us, Dance for us, and Dance often times in spite of ourselves – our confused, weary and angry selves!   

Yes, God the Father, so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believe in him, who believes in his divinity and live their lives like they believe it, may not perish but may have eternal life – on high with God forever!

Glory and praise to God forever!

Divine Unity in Blessed Trinity! Amen!

Jun 4 - 9th Week in OT - Thursday

+ Our gospel passage today sums it all up, doesn’t it – LOVE. It’s all about love, isn’t it? It always has been, and always will be. Some scribes come up to Jesus and try to play a game with him: “So, which of all of the hundred commandments of Moses is number one, which comes first!”

And Jesus, immediately quotes the top choice: which really is the top choice: Hear, O Israel! The lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” and the second is just like it: in fact it is directly hooked up and connected with it: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

That’s it! and it’s “love, actually.” But, not Hollywood love, but a real “Love Story” that actually boggles the mind, in fact, so much, that many people these days don’t even want to hear about it anymore: GOD LOVING CREATION AND PEOPLE INTO EXISTENCE and then REDEEMING THEM when the flunked a test he gave them to determine if they would FREELY love him in return for all his blessings on them.

Yes, loving God FRIST is it! and since the GOD OF LOVE is intimately bound up with all of creation, especially people, he’s present there – we can’t say that we love God, if we don’t love everything that we see, especially people who are journeying with us back to the Father’s house in the heavenly kingdom.

Meaning: we are at home in creation that we will encounter today, we are at home with all the people we will encounter, safely distanced, and face covered, we are at home with all those we won’t encounter today, or can’t encounter, for whatever reason, we are at home with all those fighting for their lives with the coronavirus at their doorsteps, we are at home with those who have lost their jobs because of the virus, we are at home with those protesting the murder-for-all-to see of George Floyd, and yes, we are at home with all those errant brothers and sisters who are using these demonstrations for their own hate purposes, we are at home with ourselves, therefore, let’s all try really hard to believe these realities and live like we believe in them: LOVING AS CHRIST LOVED US! because Jesus IS GOD’S LOVE in the FLESH! – and we are spiritually and really related to him by means of our baptisms and confirmations.

The first reading exhorts us not to deny him and these teachings, especially about the New Law of Love - which absolutely comes first: because if we do, he will deny us FOREVER – and we just would not want to the see the consequences of that! we just wouldn’t!

“Your ways, O Lord, make known to me; teach me your paths, Guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God our Lover and our Savior!”