Feb 27 - 8th Sunday in Ordinal Time

+ Our readings today are about speech, speaking, communication. Jesus makes it clear that what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and not essentially from the mind, although the mind must interact with the heart to make its final proclamation. This sounds kind of illogical, but it is very true. We speak from the fullness of the heart, the overflowing well-spring of either good or bad intention and will. Things, situations, circumstances, propositions, ideas are either basically good or bad, productive of goodness and truth, or of badness and deceit and lies.

 

Yes, it seems more logical to believe what Jesus says.

 

And so, St. Paul in the second reading from the letter to the Corinthians tells them and us to be firm, steadfast, and always devoted to the good works of the Lord, knowing that in the end we will indeed be rewarded after the test and struggle of earthly life is over for us.

 

The first reading from the Book of Sirach tells us to be word-wise and wait for the speaker to speak before we praise him, for in his presentation he will reveal his true heart and mind.

 

It is so easy at times to spot the one whose heart is very lax, very confused, very cunning, very deceitful, and very malicious at the core. And sometimes these sit at the head of governments, which is a devastating reality.  We must pray for these souls, so that they can have their outside match their inside, if not for the smooth running of a family, a workplace, a school, a church community, a sports team, and governments. Enterprises must run on truth and good and beauty and justice.

 

Jesus is all these things in the flesh! Let us call on him who knows what it is like to live in a human body, to help us live in ours, while we are always vigilant to help others live in theirs, for the love of God and his ultimate plan for our astounding and unimagined happiness.

 

The just one shall flourish like the palm tree, like a cedar of Lebanon shall he grow.

 

 

Feb 20 - 7th Sunday in Ordinary Time

+ Our readings for Mass today are full to the brim with all kinds of imagery, innuendos, and instructions, being the continuation of last Sunday’s gospel passage of St. Luke’s version of St. Matthew’s great Sermon on the Mount. This last sentence just demonstrates the fullness, amplitude, and comprehensiveness of some very useful and helpful gospel imperatives: which all boils down this week to the Alleluia Verse before the Gospel:

 

I give you a new commandment (says the Lord):                                                  Love one another as I have loved you.

 

In this one sentence Jesus summarizes all of what came before him, and what proceeds after him: he provides and gives the foundation and moral sense that David employed in the first reading when he spares the life of King Saul, who was chasing after him with 3000 soldiers to kill him (seeing him as a threat to his Kingship) – David would be later chosen by God to replace Saul as King. But it was the heart of David that beat with the same love that God himself had, that will move God to choose David to be king, a man “after his own heart” – and so we see David’s goodness, kindness, and compassion in full array even at an early age.

 

This can be helpful to us, when, as sometimes happens, we finally get our “enemy-”of-sorts (if even those we make up in our own heads) into our grasp: sound asleep at our feet, with the “spear of justice” sitting right close at hand, and we follow the God-given impulse not to beat the daylights out of them (or even to kill them), but rather to have mercy on them, to show mercy with them, and to become mercy for them, in sparing that person’s life, be it literally or figuratively and symbolically.

 

In the second reading St. Paul tells the Corinthians that redemption for them means a kind of real and authentic incorporation of themselves into Jesus, who became the Second Adam – thus becoming spiritually generated children of God who become at the same time “assimilated into God’s mercy, compassion and forgiveness – just as Jesus always was.

 

And so, we need to bear our physical likening to Christ, as he bore ours and then rejoice that we do indeed have a share in the very mortality that he has come to transform into his own divinity and likeness, because he loved us and showed us mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.

 

In the gospel passage then, we see St. Luke “sermonizing” with a variety of suggestions, applications, and instructions on how we are to interact with one another lovingly from the heart – and not just half-heartedly like the pagans do sometimes. We are to allow ourselves to be moved to do for others what God has done for us: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you: this is going over and above bare minimums:

 

          Turn the other cheek, give your shirt and your coat to those who ask for just one thing, give without expecting repayment, give generously and overabundantly, because you will receive back an amount based on what you have given, and with the same motivation and willingness: for the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you!

 

And so, all these matters today can be tied in with and bound together with the reality that LOVE – self-sacrificial outpouring of yourself for the good of another DOES MAKE THE WORLD GO ROUND – and that BEING FEARFUL and not willing to go out of your way for others for any number of reasons – MAKES THIS WORLD A MUCH DARKER, COLDER AND LESS INVITING PLACE than it can and ought to be!  

 

The Lord is kind and merciful! And so must we be so, that our joy knows no bounds and that we infect everyone we come into contact with, with love, hope and peace!

 

Feb 13 - 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

+ Taking a look at the readings for today’s Mass, we can certainly say” “What in the world do these have to do with the secular celebration of Valentine’s Day, and the Church’s celebration of World Marriage Day on top of that? Well, actually, quite a bit, if we dig deep, and open our eyes and ears of faith!

 

The first reading puts some cards right out on the table: “cursed is the one who trusts in human beings: he is like a barren bush in the desert;” but then it goes on to say: “blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord: he will prosper like a tree planted near water.”  The response for the psalm puts it the same way: “Blessed are they who hope in the Lord.” If our trust and hope are in the only source that can reward and fulfill them, then we will have all we need, come what may, in our lives. If God is the object of our trust and hope, then we can get through anything – anything at all, either as a single person, or as a married couple – especially a couple whose marriage has been blessed by the Catholic Church. Very special graces and helps are given to those receiving the Sacrament of Marriage. (But God does not abandon those at all who for whatever reason are not partaking of such a sacramental blessing at the present time.)

 

Graces and helps for what, you may ask? Ask any married couple! The Gospel passage can help illuminate this aspect for us. It is actually St. Luke’s version of St. Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. But Luke only uses three categories to list the beatitudes, where Matthew uses eight. Luke simply summarizes the necessity of anyone who wants to be included in the Kingdom of Heaven to be actually committed to everything about it, willing to take the risks involved in finding out more and more about it, and actually trying it out, even in the face of ridicule from others.

 

Luke therefore is not talking about classes of people: “the poor” (those who have very little money or social standing); and “the rich” (those who have the money and the social standing)! Everyone, every “class of people,” is eligible to get to heaven if they work for it using the same rules – and the rules are these: KEEP YOUR EYES FIXED ON JESUS, HE WANTS ALL OF YOUR ATTENTION, SO HE CAN REDEEM ALL OF YOU, AND THEREFORE TAKE ALL OF YOU TO HEAVEN to live forever with him – BECAUSE HE LOVES YOU!

 

This is an amazing love story, good for Valentine’s Day, World Marriage Day and any other day of the year! We will all be exceedingly rich in the graces that God will give us through Jesus who died for us to prove his astounding love, if we detach ourselves from our need to feel rich, full and rewarded now – if we let go of everything that hinders our progress to get to heaven!

 

All of this has everything to do with marriage! “Blessed is the married couple who hope in the Lord alone – who embrace the idea of living out their marriage as a preparation for entering fully into the Kingdom of Heaven -living by the same rules as all other Christians: being actually committed to everything about being not only a Catholic but a Catholic in a Sacramental Marriage, and willing to take the risks involved in finding out more and more about these things, and actually trying them out, day in and day out, especially when the going gets tough, even in the face of ridicule from others who may even sneer and say: “so where is your God now” – not all of you are living “happily ever after” – hasn’t your God let you down? Well on that day, both St. Matthew, St. Luke and Jesus tell us to jump for joy, and be glad for it is in suffering humiliation and ridicule that the real happily ever after has a chance to begin for you one day at the end of your lives – when death parts you – and as brothers and sisters in God’s family you live forever in the bliss that you rightly dreamed about at the very beginning of your marriage!

 

Yes it is true, blessed are those who trust in the Lord absolutely and are willing to do it his way completely; and the converse is true: cursed are those who trust in human beings, who seek strength in flesh and fleshly desires, and whose heart therefore turns away from the Lord. The Lord will turn away, by rights, from them in the end, forever! This will not be a case of “happily-ever -after!”

 

Let us celebrate today those who choose God, who choose life with God, who choose to be committed to him and to one another in a partnership of Christian experience, even if it is an unpopular thing to do: single persons and certainly, married couples, who have the Spirit of God at their beck and call to shower them with all the help, support and guidance they need – if only they ask it of him!

 

The Lord watches over the way of the just, whatever they do prospers, because they delight in the law of the Lord!

Feb 6 - 5th Sunday in Ordinary Time

+ Today we consider the “simple radicalness” involved in true discipleship to Jesus. Jesus invites us to be an “all-or-nothing” kind of person where it matters most – our eternal salvation! And if you really stop to think about it what else deserves more intense consideration than where we will spend forever? And we will spend forever somewhere! Peter realized – when confronted with the majestic, powerful and gentle person of Jesus – that he, Simon of Bethsaida, just did not measure up! I can hear him say: “How can I possibly even consider spending forever with Jesus, who is so awe-inspiring and powerful, yet caring and compassionate! I am a sinful man!”

 

But Jesus told him to stand up, dust himself off and to get ready, for soon he would be catching not fish, but men. Jesus would take care of the “sinful” part – with Peter’s cooperation. And then he would be inviting Peter to spend a lifetime here and hereafter with himself as Lord, Messiah, Redeemer and Friend. Simon Peter could not have imagined that morning when he woke up that he would be an all or nothing follower of an itinerant rabbi that afternoon. But he was – and he was glad about it!

 

The Prophet Isaiah in the first reading today foretold, at least partly, Simon Peter’s willingness to become an uncompromising disciple of Jesus. The reading tells of a vision that Isaiah saw where he was in the lofty throne of God – where he heard everyone crying out: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts”. He himself saw his own unworthiness in comparison and said: “Woe is me, I am doomed! I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” How can I possibly do him justice with my words. Then an angel took a burning coal with tongs and touched his mouth with it and said: “See, now that this has touched your lips, your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.” Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying,” Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?”” Here I am,” I said; send me!”

 

I wonder what Isaiah thought when he heard those words coming from his own mouth? I wonder what went through Simon’s mind when he left boat and business and went to follow Jesus forever?

 

Actually, perhaps it was the same that went through the mind of St. Paul when he was chosen by the same Lord Jesus to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles – born out of normal course: becoming an apostle not by being handpicked by Jesus to follow him around for three years for a special type of “seminary” training but by means of a special attention getting event – including a persuasive blinding display of light. Paul already had a different kind of education – and Jesus chose him for his tenacity and his enthusiasm and his stick-to-itiveness – and his love for his Jewish roots. Isaiah handed on what he got from God; Peter handed on what he learned from Jesus; Paul handed on what he received from the other apostles and the early members of the Church: that Jesus is the Messiah, and that he died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; and on the third day he was raised, in accordance with the scriptures. Then he appeared to the apostles and to many who hand on the story one person to another. So the preaching occurs and so believing can be a response!

 

When we hear of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus preached to us – what is our “for real” belief quotient? Is it slight, moderate, heavy, extreme? For good or bad, where we will spend forever depends on our response! May we like Isaiah, Peter, Paul and so many others – receive the word of God that is preached, let it take root deep in our hearts, let it say exactly what it has in mind to say (rather than what we might want to hear), and let it have an effect in our lives that will give God glory and will upbuild the lives of others around us, upbuild the Kingdom – then we can be assured of being in the right place at the right time – when forever begins!

 

In the sight of the angels I will sing your praises, Lord!

Feb 3 - St Blaise

+ Today we celebrate the feast of St. Blaise, (who died around the year 316), an early bishop of Sebaste in Armenia who was martyred under the emperor Licinius. He is also one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, a group of saints to whom there was much popular devotion in Germany in the 14^th and 15^th centuries. Little is known about his life. One legend has him saving the life of a boy with a fish bone caught in his throat. The boy’s mother is said to have brought Blaise food and candles when he was imprisoned. Thus we have the use of two candles held in the form of the St. Andrew’s cross to bless throats on this day. This custom, still in use today, supports the Church’s belief in the intercessory power of the saints against ailments of not only the throat but of the whole body! It is Christ who heals, but through the intercession of not only Fourteen, but many thousands of helpers.

 

Our first reading today for Mass, tells us to boast not only of the good things that happen to us, even the answer to our prayers for healing, but also for our afflictions – for these produce endurance, character and hope – that one day Christ will heal all that needs healing in everyone. The gospel passage recommends the sick to the “elders” – the priests – who are to lay hands on them for their restoration and recovery; if done with faith, much transformation and renewal can take place in the ailing person.

 

The Lord is with us always, especially now in his Church, and in its ministers! Amen.