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Gospel Reflection 20071125

Humility is the foundation of prayer because it reminds you that you don't even know what to pray for.
Humility is a very positive and constructive way of thinking and acting because it's a reminder that you need the help of others to become more like Jesus. You go to God with your needs, after all, and not to ask God to give you what you already have. You ask God for forgiveness by humbliing yourself and by realizing that you need help to get back on the right track when you've sinned. Being humble you actually improve yourself.

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Show in our Daily Lives that Jesus Christ is Indeed our King
November 25, 2007


Feast of Christ the King



Lk 23:35-43

The rulers sneered at Jesus and said,
"He saved others, let him save himself
if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God."
Even the soldiers jeered at him.
As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
"If you are King of the Jews, save yourself."
Above him there was an inscription that read,
"This is the King of the Jews."

Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,
"Are you not the Christ?
Save yourself and us."
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,
"Have you no fear of God,
for you are subject to the same condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,
but this man has done nothing criminal."
Then he said,
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
He replied to him,
"Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise."


A boy was not doing too well in the public school. So his parents got him into a Christian school to see if he would improve. Immediately the boy stopped watching TV and playing computer games and spent all his time in studies. At the end of the year he was the best student in class. His baffled parents asked him what happened. “The first day I went to school,” he explained, “and saw that man hanging up on the cross, I knew you couldn’t fool around here and get away with it.”
The sight of the crucified Christ might have spurred our young man to success, but the crucifixion, humanly speaking, depicts failure. It signals a brutal and disappointing end to the life and work of Jesus. When Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) his God did not take him down from the cross. When he cried, “Eli, Eli,” and the bystanders waited to see if Elijah was coming to save him, nothing happened. One of the thieves crucified with him even challenged him, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”(Luke 23:39) and he was still hanging there. By every observable, measurable, human standard, the crucifixion was a disappointing end for Jesus whom we acclaim today to be our King.
But Jesus has said that his kingdom is not of this world. By this he means to say not simply that his kingdom is not localized in this world but that the ways and standards of his kingdom are not the ways and standards of the world around us. One of the first people to appreciate this mystery is the repentant thief on the cross about whom we read in today’s gospel. Choking with the pains of crucifixion and imminent death, he turns and says to Jesus, his fellow convict hanging on the next cross, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42). Unlike the other convict who asks to be delivered from the cross, this holy criminal knows that success in God’s kingdom is measured by a different set of standards. He knows that to get into the kingdom of Christ one has to be saved on the cross, not from the cross.
How often we, followers of the Crucified, make the mistake of the unrepentant thief, of seeking to vindicate ourselves by a show of power, wealth or connection!
A certain knight dragged himself back to the king’s court after a narrow escape from a wearisome campaign. The king ran out to meet him. “What is wrong, Sir Erasmus?” asked the king. “My Lord, the king,” answered the knight, “I have been out fighting your enemies to death.” “Which enemies?” asked the king. “Your enemies on the western border,” replied the knight. “But,” countered the king, “I have no enemies on the western border.” “Well,” replied the disillusioned knight, “now you do.” In his zeal for the king, the knight has been going about sowing seeds of enmity and discord in the kingdom whose peace and harmony he was supposed to safeguard.
Aren’t we often, like this knight, so different from our King? As soldiers of Christ when shall we learn to fight with the same weapons used by our Master? What weapons did Jesus use to wage the spiritual war of the kingdom of God? He used the weapons of Truth and Love. The truth of the word of God is a sharp sword against all the forces of the enemies of the kingdom. Salome, the mother of James and John wanted to add her financial power to propagate Jesus’ teaching. Jesus turned it down. The people wanted to make Jesus king, and so to prop up the power of his words with the power of royalty. Jesus ran away. The sword of the word of God, wielded with love and meekness as Jesus did is all that we need to spread the kingdom of Christ on earth.
As we celebrate the kingship of Christ today, Jesus invites us as he did 2000 years ago: “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart” (Matthew 11:29). Today is the day to ask ourselves how far we have responded, as individuals and as a community, to this invitation to cultivate the mind of Christ in our dealing with one another, especially in our dealings with those we perceive to be different from us. This is the way to show in our daily lives that Jesus Christ in indeed our king: by cultivating and living out in our lives the gentle and humble mind of Christ.

In his encounter with Dimas (the rebuking criminal), Jesus fulfils in a very beautiful, personal way, the meaning of his entire life: to save a person, any person, all persons from sin through his Cross and Resurrection. Jesus cannot save us if we will not accept our sin –all of our sin- and show that acceptance by confessing it. For if we are sinless, we do not need to be saved. He is King of the redeemed, not of those who state that they stand in little or no need of redemption. In a world, in a country, in a soul which denies the presence of sin or justifies it in the name of tolerance or free choice or lifestyle, Christ cannot be King. The truth is that the certainty of death already tells us that we are indeed in sin. If we deny our sin, death will not be a doorway to the resurrection unto life, but unto the permanent condition of a living death, damnation or hell.
In its essentials, the story of Dimas is the story of every soul. We all live with the crimes of our sins and deserve death; we all live in suffering, but no more so than Jesus who comes to our side to suffer with us and for us so that our sins might be taken away. He asks us only to be open to His friendship, to recognize and confess our sins, to profess his sinlessness, to witness the immensity of his tenderness and compassion and to die in the sure promise that he will remember us when we stand naked at the threshold of paradise.

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St. James of the Marche
(1394-1476)


Meet one of the fathers of the modern pawnshop!
James was born in the Marche of Ancona, in central Italy along the Adriatic Sea. After earning doctorates in canon and civil law at the University of Perugia, he joined the Friars Minor and began a very austere life. He fasted nine months of the year; he slept three hours a night. St. Bernardine of Siena told him to moderate his penances.

James studied theology with St. John of Capistrano. Ordained in 1420, James began a preaching career that took him all over Italy and through 13 Central and Eastern European countries. This extremely popular preacher converted many people (250,000 at one estimate) and helped spread devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. His sermons prompted numerous Catholics to reform their lives and many men joined the Franciscans under his influence.

With John of Capistrano, Albert of Sarteano and Bernardine of Siena, James is considered one of the "four pillars" of the Observant movement among the Franciscans. These friars became known especially for their preaching.

To combat extremely high interest rates, James established montes pietatis (literally, mountains of charity) — nonprofit credit organizations that lent money at very low rates on pawned objects.

Not everyone was happy with the work James did. Twice assassins lost their nerve when they came face to face with him. James was canonized in 1726.

Comment:

James wanted the word of God to take root in the hearts of his listeners. His preaching was directed to preparing the soil, so to speak, by removing any rocks and softening up lives hardened by sin. God's intention is that his word take root in our lives, but for that we need both prayerful preachers and cooperative listeners.

Quote:
"Beloved and most holy word of God! You enlighten the hearts of the faithful, you satisfy the hungry, console the afflicted; you make the souls of all productive of good and cause all virtues to blossom; you snatch souls from the devil's jaw; you make the wretched holy, and men of earth citizens of heaven" (Sermon of St. James).

posted by Mike Young @ 11:26 AM