Gospel Reflection 20071216
Search for people who help you appreciate yourself in genuine ways.
You may discover that some people tend to put you down. It may be necessary to spend less time with those who do not build your positive sense of self. Enter worthwhile activities that enable you to spend time away from those who make you doubt yourself. At the same time, deal honestly with the self-improvements you discover you need.
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Turn to Christ in Every Circumstance of Life
December 16, 2007
Third Sunday of Advent
Gospel
Mt 11:2-11
When John the Baptist heard in prison of the works of the Christ,
he sent his disciples to Jesus with this question,
“Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?”
Jesus said to them in reply,
“Go and tell John what you hear and see:
the blind regain their sight,
the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed,
the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.
And blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.”
As they were going off,
Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John,
“What did you go out to the desert to see?
A reed swayed by the wind?
Then what did you go out to see?
Someone dressed in fine clothing?
Those who wear fine clothing are in royal palaces.
Then why did you go out? To see a prophet?
Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.
This is the one about whom it is written:
Behold, I am sending my messenger ahead of you;
he will prepare your way before you.
Amen, I say to you,
among those born of women
there has been none greater than John the Baptist;
yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”
Have you ever seen someone take offense at the Lord? I have. A certain lady who spent her time working for the Lord — visiting the sick and the bedridden, helping the elderly and the handicapped — was diagnosed of a knee problem needing surgery. The surgery was not a success and so left her in constant pain and unable to walk. It seemed the Lord had ignored the prayers of this woman and her friends for a successful surgery. This was a woman who considered herself a personal friend of Jesus. And was she disappointed? Her otherwise cheerful disposition turned into sadness and gloom. One day she pulled herself together and shared with her confessor what was going on in her soul. The confessor suggested that she go into prayer and ask her friend Jesus why he has treated her this way. And she did. The following day the confessor met her and saw peace written all over her face in spite of her pain. “Do you know what he said to me?” she began. “As I was looking at the crucified Jesus and telling him about my bad knee, he said to me, ‘Mine is worse.’”
“And blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me." (Matt 11:6)
Does John the Baptist in today’s gospel find himself in a similar situation? John has spent all his life in the Judean desert in anticipation of the Messiah who was to come. He has prepared the way for the Messiah by calling the people to a baptism of repentance. Now he is languishing in prison because he denounced the sins of Herod Antipas. In the meantime Jesus begins his public work as the Messiah. He doesn’t go to visit John in prison or send him a word of encouragement. John hears that he is performing miracles. Why doesn’t he use his miraculous powers to set John free and vindicate him? Doesn’t prophecy say that one of the signs of the Messiah is that he will set prisoners free? Naturally John would expect to be one of the first beneficiaries. After all, it was he who baptized Jesus in the first place. Some reciprocal benevolence would certainly be in order. So John sends messengers to Jesus to remind him. Jesus’ message back to John was, “Yes I am indeed the Messiah. But please do not take offence at me if all your expectations are not met.” Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.
What is going on here? Wrong expectations. Popular theology in biblical times held that prosperity was a sign that God was with someone and adversity a sign that God was not with them. The author of Job questioned this theology by telling the story of Job who was a man of God and yet met with adversity. But that theology has survived and is still with us today in spite of the teachings and personal example of Jesus.
In Jesus we see that the sure signs of God’s presence are not primarily material but spiritual. It is true that in the ministry of Jesus “the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised” (Matt 11:5), yet these miracles can be seen as “signs” of an inner spiritual blessing. What does it profit a person ultimately to receive the use of physical eyes and feet if they continue to be spiritually blind and lame? No. The vital signs of God’s presence are spiritual — spiritual enlightenment (blind see, deaf hear) and empowerment (lame walk, dead raised). Of course these have inevitable salutary effects on the physical order, but these are secondary.
Once there was a blind man who became a preacher. He drew crowds to his preaching because, even though he was still physically blind, he would often begin his preaching by declaring, “I was blind but now I see.”
We are, like John, waiting for the coming of the Lord. What are our expectations? Today’s gospel reminds us that we need to entertain expectations that are in accordance with the Lord’s priorities. Without discounting the physical and the material we are reminded that the primary domain of God’s saving work among us is the spiritual. Ultimately this has saving effects on the material and social order, but God’s salvation is primarily spiritual.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus makes the following, puzzling statement: “Blessed is the one who takes no offense at me.” The original Greek here means: “Blessed is he who is not scandalized at me.” If we focus for a second on the anti-Christian attitudes we see and hear around our own country and around the Western world, we might well conclude that Jesus was preparing his followers of today to understand that, indeed, he would be a source of scandal and offense to some people. He would therefore be rejected by them, and so would those who associate themselves with him. We should not be surprised, then, that Christ and Christians would be seen as an impediment to man’s perception of how a free and secular society should function. I would go further. We must see for what it is the reality of those who call themselves Christians but who are ashamed of it in the face of modern society.
We want to have our cake and eat it. We are willing to admit that there is evil in the world, but not to address it when we see it in our own lives or in the lives of those around us. We like the idea of God’s mercy and forgiveness, but we insult it by never even thinking of confessing our sins or holding ourselves and others to live according to his truth and his law. Is it that we have simply become moral cowards? Have we not made of religion an entertainment, a kind of pampering of our souls when the illusion of our worldly lives exhausts us? What real meaning can religion have, if it is not the heart and soul of our daily lives? If Christ in his Church is not the first and last authority over our conscience, our reason for making decisions, our standard for love and friendship, the strength of our marriage and family: what, pray, is he? A concept? A drug? An idol? An object of consumerism? A scandal?
The stress and the drudgery of our lives, the unrelenting attacks of an anti-theistic society and the subtle slavery of material success, are like an over-dose of sleeping tablets. They make us inaccessible to the energy, the life, the urgency, the power and the grace of the Gospel. Christmas is not a time to give in to their tyrannical demands even more than usual. It is the time to wake up and to shake up, to seek mercy in truth, to find new perspective and hope, to make and take time out to ask: do I even know Christ any more? Is he not even a scandal to me, because I have become so indifferent to him? What am I doing with my life? What does it mean, anyway? Where is my true joy? What is the hope of my existence, something that will fade away with my decaying body, or something eternal? Why am I a Christian?
There will be less atheism and anti-theism, less a-Christianity and anti-Christianity in society when those who are Christ’s awake from their slumber and proclaim, without fear, without shame and without apology that they glory in the Cross of Jesus Christ, and that his wisdom and truth and grace are their light and their strength and their life. Be a real Christian and have the guts to be a scandal to your world so that, through you, the Spirit of the Savior might bring the world back to God.
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Blessed Anthony Grassi
(1592-1671)
Anthony's father died when his son was only 10 years old, but the young lad inherited his father's devotion to Our Lady of Loreto. As a schoolboy he frequented the local church of the Oratorian Fathers, joining the religious order when he was 17.
Already a fine student, he soon gained a reputation in his religious community as a "walking dictionary" who quickly grasped Scripture and theology. For some time he was tormented by scruples, but they reportedly left him at the very hour he celebrated his first Mass. From that day, serenity penetrated his very being.
In 1621, at age 29, Anthony was struck by lightning while praying in the church of the Holy House at Loreto. He was carried paralyzed from the church, expecting to die. When he recovered in a few days he realized that he had been cured of acute indigestion. His scorched clothes were donated to the Loreto church as an offering of thanks for his new gift of life.
More important, Anthony now felt that his life belonged entirely to God. Each year thereafter he made a pilgrimage to Loreto to express his thanks.
He also began hearing confessions, and came to be regarded as an outstanding confessor. Simple and direct, he listened carefully to penitents, said a few words and gave a penance and absolution, frequently drawing on his gift of reading consciences.
In 1635 he was elected superior of the Fermo Oratory. He was so well regarded that he was reelected every three years until his death. He was a quiet person and a gentle superior who did not know how to be severe. At the same time he kept the Oratorian constitutions literally, encouraging the community to do likewise.
He refused social or civic commitments and instead would go out day or night to visit the sick or dying or anyone else needing his services. As he grew older, he had a God-given awareness of the future, a gift which he frequently used to warn or to console.
But age brought its challenges as well. He suffered the humility of having to give up his physical faculties one by one. First was his preaching, necessitated after he lost his teeth. Then he could no longer hear confessions. Finally, after a fall, he was confined to his room. The archbishop himself came each day to give him holy Communion. One of Anthony's final acts was to reconcile two fiercely quarreling brothers.
Comment:
Nothing provides a better reason for reassessing a life than a brush with death. Anthony's life already seemed to be on track when he was struck by lightning; he was a brilliant priest blessed, at last, with serenity. But his experience softened him. He became a loving counselor and a wise mediator. The same might be said of us if we put our hearts to it. We needn't wait to be struck by lightning.
Gospel Reflection 20071209
Planning for the future is a good thing. Missing the present is not.
Over the centuries, Christians have been criticized for living either too much in the past or too much in the future. We are challenged to focus our attention on today. Loving God and loving our neighbor demand that we be involved in the lives of the people around us and the events that are happening now.
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The Concept of Sin
December 9, 2007
Second Sunday of Advent
Gospel
Mt 3:1-12
John the Baptist appeared, preaching in the desert of Judea
and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!”
It was of him that the prophet Isaiah had spoken when he said:
A voice of one crying out in the desert,
Prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight his paths.
John wore clothing made of camel’s hair
and had a leather belt around his waist.
His food was locusts and wild honey.
At that time Jerusalem, all Judea,
and the whole region around the Jordan
were going out to him
and were being baptized by him in the Jordan River
as they acknowledged their sins.
When he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees
coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers!
Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath?
Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.
And do not presume to say to yourselves,
‘We have Abraham as our father.’
For I tell you,
God can raise up children to Abraham from these stones.
Even now the ax lies at the root of the trees.
Therefore every tree that does not bear good fruit
will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
I am baptizing you with water, for repentance,
but the one who is coming after me is mightier than I.
I am not worthy to carry his sandals.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
His winnowing fan is in his hand.
He will clear his threshing floor
and gather his wheat into his barn,
but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”
Today’s Gospel provides a very straightforward message. John the Baptist urges us to admit to our sinful condition and to continually do everything we can to overcome it. In today’s politically correct world it’s a major challenge for each of us to admit that our default is to regularly fall short of how God wants us to live our lives. Without putting out any effort, we tend to, at best, worship the law or material things in place of our God. People seem to spend more time trying to change laws in an effort to improve society than to lead people to Christ. We’re continually told that we must be accepting of one another, and it’s only when we enter territory that is deemed “illegal” that we should examine our choices. This is a good thing, however, John the Baptist urges us to challenge ourselves further by striving to meet God’s standards in addition to the standards of this World. The United States is a great place to live since US citizens enjoy freewill, the way God intended. However, in order to successfully live as God desires we must continually reject the human tendency towards sin. In other words, we must work to eliminate our bad habits and develop good habits. As St. John urges us, “every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.“ This will not happen without devoting our full attention to the problem of sin and without the full cooperation of both ourselves and other followers of Christ. There’s no reason to sugarcoat the reality. This type of work is the most difficult work you will ever do in your life here on Earth. If you’re struggling with sin and need assistance, please don’t wait any longer. Reach out to Godly people and allow them to help you… I don’t know of any true follower of Christ that will not be willing to help. If you’re doing well with suppressing the desire to sin in your life, go out and assist others that may not be so fortunate as you. God has allowed each of our lives here on Earth so that we may help one another to gain the opportunity to eventually live in true Peace and Love in Heaven. Remember, Christmas is not just about the tree, presents, time off, visiting family, elves, Santa, etc. Don’t miss this opportunity! “Produce good fruit as evidence of your repentance.“
What is sin? It’s all explained here in detail:
Commandments 1 through 3 - http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt1ind.htm
Commandments 4 through 10 - http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3sect2chpt2ind.htm
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St. Sabas
(b. 439)
Born in Cappadocia (modern-day Turkey), Sabas is one of the most highly regarded patriarchs among the monks of Palestine and is considered one of the founders of Eastern monasticism.
After an unhappy childhood in which he was abused and ran away several times, Sabas finally sought refuge in a monastery. While family members tried to persuade him to return home, the young boy felt drawn to monastic life. Although the youngest monk in the house, he excelled in virtue.
At age 18 he traveled to Jerusalem, seeking to learn more about living in solitude. Soon he asked to be accepted as a disciple of a well-known local solitary, though initially he was regarded as too young to live completely as a hermit. Initially, Sabas lived in a monastery, where he worked during the day and spent much of the night in prayer. At the age of 30 he was given permission to spend five days each week in a nearby remote cave, engaging in prayer and manual labor in the form of weaving baskets. Following the death of his mentor, St. Euthymius, Sabas moved farther into the desert near Jericho. There he lived for several years in a cave near the brook Cedron. A rope was his means of access. Wild herbs among the rocks were his food. Occasionally men brought him other food and items, while he had to go a distance for his water.
Some of these men came to him desiring to join him in his solitude. At first he refused. But not long after relenting, his followers swelled to more than 150, all of them living in individual huts grouped around a church, called a laura.
The bishop persuaded a reluctant Sabas, then in his early 50s, to prepare for the priesthood so that he could better serve his monastic community in leadership. While functioning as abbot among a large community of monks, he felt ever called to live the life of a hermit. Throughout each year —consistently in Lent—he left his monks for long periods of time, often to their distress. A group of 60 men left the monastery, settling at a nearby ruined facility. When Sabas learned of the difficulties they were facing, he generously gave them supplies and assisted in the repair of their church.
Over the years Sabas traveled throughout Palestine, preaching the true faith and successfully bringing back many to the Church. At the age of 91, in response to a plea from the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sabas undertook a journey to Constantinople in conjunction with the Samaritan revolt and its violent repression. He fell ill and, soon after his return, died at the monastery at Mar Saba. Today the monastery is still inhabited by monks of the Eastern Orthodox Church, and St. Sabas is regarded as one of the most noteworthy figures of early monasticism.
Comment:
Few of us share Sabas's yearning for a cave in the desert, but most of us sometimes resent the demands others place on our time. Sabas understands that. When at last he gained the solitude for which he yearned, a community immediately began to gather around him and he was forced into a leadership role. He stands as a model of patient generosity for anyone whose time and energy are required by others—that is, for all of us.
Gospel Reflection 20071202
We have a role to play in supporting the recovery of people close to us.
It is important that we adopt healing attitudes in order to support people close to us when they are experiencing suffering - mentally, emotionally, spiritually and physically. There are eight things we can do: 1) Educate yourself. Learn about what is wrong. 2) Learn what types of activities would be appropriate and initiate them. 3) Be there. Don't shy away, 4) Listen, listen, listen. 5) Don't be judgmental. Let the person express what they need to without labels of good or bad.. 6) Be patient. 7) Don't let yourself be pushed away. Stay in touch. 8) Pray. Listen to your heart and let God guide you.
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Jesus Warns About Possible Death of the Human Spirit
December 2, 2007
First Sunday of Advent
Gospel
Mt 24:37-44
Jesus said to his disciples:
“As it was in the days of Noah,
so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.
In those days before the flood,
they were eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage,
up to the day that Noah entered the ark.
They did not know until the flood came and carried them all away.
So will it be also at the coming of the Son of Man.
Two men will be out in the field;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Two women will be grinding at the mill;
one will be taken, and one will be left.
Therefore, stay awake!
For you do not know on which day your Lord will come.
Be sure of this: if the master of the house
had known the hour of night when the thief was coming,
he would have stayed awake
and not let his house be broken into.
So too, you also must be prepared,
for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”
Today’s gospel speaks about the coming of the Lord at the end of the world and how to prepare for it. In our world today, there are two big mistakes people make with regard to the coming of the Lord. One is to prepare for it with paranoid anxiety. The other is to dismiss it with nonchalant abandon and do nothing about it.
It is good to be given a “heads up” before a difficult situation appears. When that difficulty involves death itself, the one who warns us may well have saved our life. That is precisely what Jesus does in the Gospel, but the death of which he warns us is not just the death of the body, but of the human spirit.
Strange though it is, we all need to be reminded that our lives on this earth will have a conclusion. It will be the most important day of our lives, when the truth of who we are and of what we have done will be made manifest. On that day (and it will come), we will meet the Son of Man face to face. All of our deeds and motivations, both secret and known, good and bad, will be brought to light. We will not be able to hide or deny them. We will rejoice for the true good in us, and be ashamed of what is truly evil. The judgment we receive will be the result of how we have lived and, therefore, of whom we have become. In childhood and youth, a person’s life is like mixed cement in their own hands; as they move on, the cement is shaped by the decisions they take, but, it also hardens and it becomes more and more difficult to change the shape it is given. We get used to what we make of ourselves. What are habit and custom, if not choices which were once fresh and conscious and which have become repetitive and fixed? If those habits and customs are formed by decisions made out of love for the truth, then a person becomes more and more virtuous. If we continually choose evil, then we become more and more vicious. And if we try to choose both, we will become spiritually insane, a living, and a dying, contradiction.
Jesus makes reference to Noah in order to give the people of the Christian era their “heads up” and to get themselves in good shape before their “cement” sets. The book of Genesis explains repeatedly that corrupt excesses of humanity is why God chose to destroy it. Noah was mocked for building the ark, but mockery soon turned to vindication for him. How many people in our own time mock those who try to live according to Christ? How many Christians disdain the teaching of Christ’s Church about good and evil because of worldly-wise preferences? Baptism alone, or membership of the ark of the Church, does not guarantee salvation! “Not all those who say to me, ‘Lord! Lord!’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven.” As in the time of Noah, so in our own time, there are many who live, to use the words of St. Paul, performing the ”works of darkness”, in “orgies and drunkenness, in promiscuity and lust, in rivalry and jealousy”. We could add, “in power-mongering and oppression, in corruption and fraud, in pedophilia and lying cover-ups” and, alas, many other things.
The gospel uses two images to make the point that “you do not know on what day your Lord is coming” (Matthew 24:42b). One is the flood which overtook the unprepared people of Noah’s time. The other is the analogy of a thief in the night, who always comes unannounced. The Lord’s coming and the end of the world as we know it will occur suddenly and unexpectedly. It will come unannounced, springing a surprise on an unsuspecting world. Like a wise householder, therefore, we are urged to be watchful and ready.
Jesus says: “Stay awake!” St. Paul echoes him: “it is now the hour for you to awake from sleep.” The works of darkness want to keep us in the dark, in the sleepiness in which the weight and the power of the flesh are strongest. Anything we choose to do which is not in accordance with the Spirit and doctrine of Christ, as it is taught by the Church, is a work of darkness and makes us spiritually sleepy. You cannot espouse the ways of dark human wisdom, however clever and relevant they may seem, and be truly ready for Christ. Not to be ready for Christ is to reject him, either by outright opposition or by indifference. Not to be ready to do Christ’s will, to carry out his program for one’s life, to choose what to do and to be under his gaze: all of this is to say that one’s life is about oneself, not about him. If I do not at least desire to live my entire life as and for Christ, then I am simply living for myself. In that case, for me, the coming of the Son of Man is of no consequence, and so my choice for eternity is to live in my own obscurity. What I may not see, however, is that in an ego-centered eternity, I will not have the gifts of creation to exploit and enjoy: I will be alone with my own self-made misery.
Stay Awake! Our Lord doesn’t sugarcoat his advice. He knows that death awaits each of us and that we tend to want to ignore that reality. The best way to live each day is to live it as if it were our last day. That means having a serious prayer life and acting with a deep spirit of charity.
What does it mean to be watchful and ready? It does not mean to go about listening to and getting excited over the end-of-time prophecies and visions that have multiplied in our day. Rather it is to be more assiduous and faithful to our duties as responsible children of the world and of God. The early Christians used sleep as figurative language for the life of sinful indulgence. Paul says in 1Thessalonians 5:6-8
So then let us not fall asleep as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober; for those who sleep sleep at night, and those who are drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.
To be awake, therefore, is to live a life of faithful service to the Lord, following the Lord’s commands and abiding in his grace. There is no better way for us to ready ourselves for the unexpected coming of the Lord at the end of time than by faithfully carrying out his commands in our daily lives.
Let us resolve to shun the doomsday paranoia on the one hand and reckless complacency on the other. Let us resolve to be always awake in the spirit by living a life of faith and love in service to the Lord so that whenever he comes we shall be ready to follow him into the glory of eternity.
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St. Nicholas
(d. 350?)
The absence of the “hard facts” of history is not necessarily an obstacle to the popularity of saints, as the devotion to St. Nicholas shows. Both the Eastern and Western Churches honor him, and it is claimed that, after the Blessed Virgin, he is the saint most pictured by Christian artists. And yet, historically, we can pinpoint only the fact that Nicholas was the fourth-century bishop of Myra, a city in Lycia, a province of Asia Minor.
As with many of the saints, however, we are able to capture the relationship which Nicholas had with God through the admiration which Christians have had for him—an admiration expressed in the colorful stories which have been told and retold through the centuries.
Perhaps the best-known story about Nicholas concerns his charity toward a poor man who was unable to provide dowries for his three daughters of marriageable age. Rather than see them forced into prostitution, Nicholas secretly tossed a bag of gold through the poor man’s window on three separate occasions, thus enabling the daughters to be married. Over the centuries, this particular legend evolved into the custom of gift-giving on the saint’s feast. In the English-speaking countries, St. Nicholas became, by a twist of the tongue, Santa Claus—further expanding the example of generosity portrayed by this holy bishop.
Comment:
The critical eye of modern history makes us take a deeper look at the legends surrounding St. Nicholas. But perhaps we can utilize the lesson taught by his legendary charity, look deeper at our approach to material goods in the Christmas season and seek ways to extend our sharing to those in real need.
Quote:
“In order to be able to consult more suitably the welfare of the faithful according to the condition of each one, a bishop should strive to become duly acquainted with their needs in the social circumstances in which they live.... He should manifest his concern for all, no matter what their age, condition, or nationality, be they natives, strangers, or foreigners” (Decree on the Bishops' Pastoral Office, 16).
