Recently on a silent retreat we were encouraged to meditate on thankfulness as we sat on this beautiful outlook, overlooking the great Mississippi river. The previous afternoon during our one hour of fellowship I was telling my friends about the frog I had been meditating on the morning before. They told me about humming birds, eagles, deer, rabbits, and butterflies. How wonderful the diversity of life in this place! As I sat there watching the golden rays of the sun crest the morning sky, a butterfly passed by. A red tailed hawk flew overhead and a rabbit scampered on the trail below. The breeze was picking up and I was in awe of the beauty of the moment. Then I thought, this moment would be perfect if a deer would just walk out of the forest right now.
How frustrating that must be for our Heavenly Father. To be in a relationship with a stiff necked people who are never happy with what He offers them. Here I was meditating on being thankful for the moment and even in that moment had notes for God on how to make it better, instead of just being content and happy with the beauty and grace I was already receiving. There are times when I am just in an ill mood. My wife tells me when I am in that mood she can do nothing right, nothing seems to calm me down. How horrible that must be for her! To not be the cause of my angst and yet be the one to receive the annoyances and ire. God gets even worse from us.
In the Gospel for today Jesus has brought to the people the glorious and wonderous news that God is offering forgiveness to all people! Eternal life! He offers it with a simple message, love God and your neighbor. It's not a new message, but the same message God gave to Moses in the desert. Simply live what you already know to be true and you can live forever in Heaven with God! "You know what would make this message even better Jesus? If you were to do a miracle here for us to prove it." It was their deer. Instead of realizing the beauty of what was right before them, God himself incarnated in the person of Christ, they wanted more.
He comes to us every day in the Sacraments offering that same salvation and He challenges us to live the message we already know to be true in our hearts. As Moses said last week in the readings, It is not in some far off land or in the skies that someone must go and get it for us, it's right here in our hearts and on our lips. Love. Saint Camillus De Lellis, our Saint for the today, reminds us how to live that out. By greeting Christ in His most distressing of disguises. That whatever we do to the least of these, the poor, the sick, the widow, the orphan, the angry young man with a gun, the police officer shot in the line of duty, the family left behind... whatever we do for these, we do for Christ. Are you ready to encounter Christ? In the face of the sick and dying? The old and the young? The refugee? The Muslim? The Jew? The Atheist? We need to stop asking God to give us a sign to push us out into the world to do good, and just do good. He's already given you a sign that goes beyond anything else you could ask for... He rose from the dead that you too might have eternal life. Now go spread the good news!
His servant and yours,
Brian "He must increase, I must decrease."
Many years ago a dear friend of mine and his wife lost a child. It was a heart wrenching experience. I tried to be there for him, tried to comfort and be a true friend. I did not know what to say. I did not know how to handle it. I had never been through that experience and while I did try to understand and emphasize, I truly could not know what he was going through. I remember him asking me if I wanted to hold her. She was like a porcelain doll. Her features etched and fine, premature but there was no doubt in my mind that she was beautiful. I still to this day remember holding that child and sobbing inside. Years later, after having lost a child of our own to miscarriage I understand even more. I know that the heart mourns the life it has not had a chance to live. My heart still aches to this day, and while I am comforted to know that I have a young Saint in Heaven who is praying for me and watching over me, I still long to see him. I still find myself in tears sometimes, mourning the loss when some scene comes on the TV or I see a child playing.
In the first reading today we see that same grief. Written over 500 years before the birth of Christ, we as Christians see a clear prediction to the Passion of our Lord. "They shall look on him whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a firstborn." The mourning that day will be as great as one of the 'worst days' in Jewish history, the day when one of the greatest kings of their time had fallen in battle. I was just watching the movie Risen (2016) again last night. I am struck by the scene at the foot of the cross where the guard says "surely this man was innocent." His acting was amazing in my mind. You could see the confusion, the terror, the understanding. The responsible Psalm captures his emotions in a simple way: "My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord, my God." As God Himself hung before him on the cross, with water and blood pouring from His side to form the Church that would fulfill that longing by bringing us face to face with our God in the Sacraments, his mind reeled with confusion as that longing and restlessness was confronted with divinity.
St. Augustine said it well when he said "Our hearts are restless, until they rest in thee O Lord."
In the Gospel we see Jesus asking His disciples the simple question that should resound in all of our hearts, just as it resounded at the foot of the cross: "Who do you say that I am?" St. Paul talks in the reading from Galatians about being clothed in Christ. How can we claim to be clothed in Him if we do not know Him? And how can we claim to know Him if we do not have a relationship with Him? If I told you I love my wife and family and know them well, and you asked well how is your wife... and I responded "I dunno, I haven't talked to her lately." You'd say this man is crazy! He doesn't know his wife? How can he claim to love her if he doesn't even speak to her? Doesn't spend time with her? Doesn't know what makes her tick? Doesn't at least listen and care enough to be present to her? And so it is with Jesus, we have to get to know Him. We have to spend time with Him. We have to learn to do the things He loves, learn to avoid the things that He dislikes, and above all learn to spend time with Him.
That means two things in my mind: A Sacramental life, and living out Matthew 25. Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for me. Today we listened as Father Moses from the Missionaries of Saint Paul speak about doing just that. He talked about celebrating Mass in make shift shelters, performing things normally done by nurses and doctors because a life was at stake, feeding the poor, comforting the sick, giving clean water to the thirsty. He spoke of times when he smelt the flesh of those burnt by Boko Haram and had to minister to those burnt, maimed and harmed by them. It wasn't till his last story that I began to cry though I was close the entire time. When he spoke of a woman who walked up to him and said, "Father I loved your story. I do not have money to give you, but can I give you a hug?" That alone was enough to make me emotional but his response was amazing: He said it was such a powerful gift because he carries his ministry in his heart, so when she hugs him, she hugs all those in need, all those he has served.. the women, children, the poor, the destitute, the refugee, the indigent, all those Christ speaks of in Matthew 25.
Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee, or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ - Mathew 25: 34-40
That's what it means to be a disciple of Christ, to truly be clothed in Him. It means carrying Him in your heart and all those He cares about. It means being so immersed in your love and service for others that when they see you, they see through you to the Christ you have been in a relationship with you. Christ in the Sacraments gives us the strength to go out and share grace with Christ in the stranger. Are you holding Him in your heart in such a powerful way? Are you ready to be so united with Christ that you allow Him to not only take you into the Tabernacle with Him in the Eucharist, but to make you into a living tabernacle that goes out into the world to share Him with others? Jesus has the poor, the meek, the mourning, the hungry, the merciful, the pure of heart, the peacemakers, and the persecuted with Him, they are with Him always.. are you with them? Not all of us are called to be missionaries, but all of us are called to be disciples, to serve where we are.. to bloom where we are planted. Are you blooming? Will He find you when He comes with fruit? Or will He find you not dressed for the wedding?
For tomorrow's daily mass the readings continue to examine the Epistle of Saint James. He continues to encourage us to work for God's kingdom and to avoid things of the world, things of the ego and of the flesh. He uses some pretty strong words, indeed. He compares worldly things to adultery! Why would he do that? Because this thing we live as Christians is a relationship. We, the Church, are the Bride of Christ. Greed, pride, and disordered attachments to worldly things are the very cause of our conflicts, arguments, even wars. When we do these sorts of things we are breaking our relationship with Christ, we are 'cheating' on Him with something worth much less, with something inanimate. It's a rejection of the one we should love completely and instead replacing it with something that doesn't fit.
You know those kid games? The ones where you have all these different shapes and you have to fit the correct game piece into the right hole? Well, each of us is created with a God shaped hole in our heart. We can force something into it, for a time.. and it might even kind of fit.. but eventually it rubs us and chafes us.. because it's not the right shape, not the right size. Only when we take a God shaped object and put it in a God shaped hole does our life become complete.. anything less... is adultery.. it's cheating.. it's avoiding the rules of the game and jamming something that shouldn't fit in there to try and fill up that hallow, empty place.
“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
James reminds us of that saying: lex orendi, lex credendi. That is: how we worship is how we believe. If we worship as if God is the most important thing in our lives then that will help us form our belief, and vice versa. If you worship like God is a thorn in your side, something that chafes and makes life harder? So will you begin to believe. I pray the liturgy of the hours every day. I pray about an hour in the morning, fifteen minutes midday, and an hour a night. Sometimes it's tedious and my mind wants me to think: I could be doing other things! My favorite show is on! The yard needs mowing! I could be running or riding my bike! So many excuses flow in that make me want to skip it. If I continue to do that though, I am choosing the wrong shape to fit in my God shaped hole. If I act like God is just something to fit in my schedule, well then I'm gonna start feeling that way.. treating him that way... Instead if I realize it's a gift to pray for the Church... a gift to spend time with the creator of the Universe praying the words He has revealed to us through the Holy Spirit.. If I instead treat it like the most precious thing in my life instead of something to just fit in, and I put God at the center of my day and then put everything else in my calendar, well that's when I am living out our relationship to it's fullest.
Jesus reminds us of that with a simple phrase: “Whoever receives one child such as this in my name, receives me; and whoever receives me, receives not me but the One who sent me.” A child is so trusting, aren't they? Yesterday I got to see my twin nieces. It doesn't matter how long it's been they run up to me, hug me and ask me to lift them up. They play with me and of course want to see my phone. They trust me. There is joy in their eyes and hearts, a joy at seeing one that they love. It reminds me of that poster in our lobby at the Church, the one for Food for the Poor, which reminds us of Matthew 25. When did I see you thirsty? Whatever you did for the least of these. When did I see you hungry? Whatever you did for the least of these. When did I see naked? Whatever you did for the least of these. We are all made in the image of God... every person out there; especially the downtrodden, the widow, the orphan, the refugee, the immigrant, the poor; are not only God's children but to be seen as Christ in the world. We are challenged to not only receive Christ in the Eucharist, but to go forth and look into the world with his eyes... we should look on those in need of our help with that same joy that my nieces exude when they see someone they love.
When we leave Mass it's not enough to just go home and wait for tomorrow, it's not enough to simply go about our day not thinking about Christ. We are challenged instead to go forth and live our faith. That Latin phrase has another part: Lex credendi, lex orendi, lex vivendi. As we worship, so we believe, so we live. The way we act in our worship, leads us to believe certain things, and believing certain things leads us to live a certain way. If we worship in the Mass in a way that shows we believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist, our belief will grow to reflect that. As our belief grows our lives will change. We will go forth into the world attempting to feed the poor, give drink to the thirsty, comfort the widow and the orphan, find home and safety for all in peril, house and protect the refugee, and share Christ with every person we meet. Both readings reflect a simple truth.. all of this requires humility. It is in being a servant that we emulate Christ the most. Are you ready to be a servant? What better heart can Christ fill than the one that reflects His own?
