The party don't start till I walk in...

In many movies we see the youth getting away with throwing a party while the parents are gone.  The party gets out of control and the house is trashed.  The parents, who were supposed to be gone a set number of days or hours, for some reason come home early.  Somehow the kids get everything cleaned up as if by magic before they arrive.   In the movies this seems to work so well that the parents are none the wiser to what has happened in their home while they are away.  In real life?   Well, it doesn't ever seem to work out that way.   

In this day and age our lives are highly scheduled and our lives filled with digital communication.  Not only do our kids know when we are supposed to be home, but they often receive a text on the way or a phone call from the car.   With all of this information we humans tend to be less ready for the arrival, not more.  We get distracted by all the things that are bombarding us and instead of doing that which we know to do?  We end up 'shinied'.   Distracted.  Unable to focus on what needs to be finished.  The parents arrive and not only aren't the kids finished?  They haven't started.  In this case it's not just the kids, but the parents too.   We know someone is coming over and we meant to clean, but the show was on... or we should have gone to confession... but the game was on... We schedule to do things, but then we find other things to do and forget the schedule. 

The thing we lose about this Gospel parable in today's modern age is exactly how hard it is to be ready for the Master when he returns.   Jesus talks of a man coming back from a wedding to find his servant up and waiting.  The servant's just doing what he should be doing right?  It's what he is for.   He's not doing something extraordinary on the surface, he's just serving his Master by being ready for his return.   When will the master be back?   Now that's the hard part.   Weddings in first century Palestine were not like they are today.  They were an involved affair!   Taking several days, a week or more!   The servant couldn't possibly stay up the entire time, could he?  How diligent would he have to be to be ready and waiting for the Master's return?  Unlike us He wasn't going to receive a text or phone call during the week to say "I'll be back on Friday!" 

I believe that the readings for today are a call to Stewardship and preparedness.   They remind us of what Pope Francis was trying to teach us in Ladauto Si.  We have been given charge of a home, a place to keep up and take care of.   We aren't doing a very good job of that.  Not just creation, which I am a big proponent of, but also our selves and each other.  The Master has given us signs of his return, but informed us that no one, not even Jesus himself, knows the day of His return.. only the Father.   So we must be diligent.  We must be ready for Him at any time.   Like the servant in the parable, are we awake?  Do we take care of the world we are given?  Our own bodies that are temples of the Holy Spirit?   Others that we encounter during the day?  As my friend always says, "Get ready, be ready, stay ready."  

His servant and yours, 

Brian 

"He must increase, I must decrease." 

A reflection on the readings for the Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time: August 7th, 2016.  Wisdom 18:6-9; Psalm 33; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19; The Holy Gospel According to Saint Luke 12:32-48

Pull em up!

There is a saying that my friend uses.  He says "get ready, be ready, stay ready."   The first reading from 1st Peter reminds me of that saying.  Peter reminds us to gird up the loins of our mind.   That doesn't seem to say a lot to us in today's society.   Our clothes are normally already split up the middle.  Jeans, pants, shorts.. we can easily go from walking to running without really worrying about any preparation, as long as we pull them up ;)   Ages ago people wore robes though.   To gird your loins meant to tie them up, to form them into a kind of pant so that you could run freely.  If you didn't, you would likely trip and fall.

It has another echo though that we as Christians should be aware of, one that our Jewish brothers and sisters would see almost immediately.  That of the Passover.   Be ready.   Have your shoes on.  Eat with your staff in your hand.  Have your loins gird and ready to go.  The Passover is coming and you need to be ready to leave.   What good would it be for you if God came and freed you if you couldn't outrun the army of Pharaoh?    So gird your loins.  Get ready, be ready, stay ready.

Peter talks about girding the loin of our minds though.   "Therefore, gird up the loins of your mind, live soberly, and set your hopes completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Like obedient children, do not act in compliance with the desires of your former ignorance but, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in every aspect of your conduct, for it is written, Be holy because I am holy."  Peter is challenging us to be alert because the devil is prowling about like a lion to devour us.   He wants us to fail, to sin.   Not only that, he wants us to wallow in our sin.. to think we are too bad, too horrible for God to forgive.  We must be ready at every moment.  Aware of what we are seeing, listening to, thinking.  Not out of some fear of doing something wrong.  No, out of love for Christ.

Jesus goes on to talk about the reward in Heaven, the reward for being Holy.   Just like the Apostles we are challenged to examine everything in our life and get rid of anything that prevents us from living our calling.  Even if it means giving up family, friends, wealth, power, success, pleasure, and honor.  All of those things will be restored 100 fold in Heaven.  Why?  Because of Christ.   Christ is the fullest revelation of God.   Everything we want to know about Him we can learn from the incarnation.  First and foremost, we see that Christ emptied himself of his power, of his glory, of everything that made Him God, to become a man.  To experience us fully, to draw so close to us that we ourselves can then draw closer to Him.   In Heaven, Christ will be our light, our glory, our honor.  It will be more amazing, more pleasurable, more real than anything we have ever experienced.

We don't have to wait till then though.   We can experience Christ fully right now, Heaven fully right now in the Sacraments.  The book of revelation gives us a view of Heaven, and we see that view lived out in the Mass.   At Mass, Heaven kisses earth!  It requires though that we gird up our minds!  Get ready, be ready, stay ready.   That's what we need to do before Mass.   We need to be ready for what is coming.  That means we need to be aware of what is coming.   It means we need to be in a state of grace.   It means we need to fast before receiving Him.  It means we need to go into mass with reverence and devotion, with the proper dispensation for receiving the grace of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar.   In the Eucharist we can experience exactly what Jesus was speaking about... the fullness of God coming to reside in our minds, our hearts, our souls.  Do you believe that?   Lord I believe, help my unbelief.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Feast of Saint's Simon and Jude

What does it mean to be chosen by God?  Tomorrow we celebrate the feast of two people who not only where chosen by Christ but also suffered martyrdom for their faith.  What can we learn from these readings?  How do they apply to us as Catholics today, 2000 years after they were recorded?

While looking at the first reading I wanted to ask myself, how does that apply to me?  The reading talks about the Apostles being the foundation of our faith.  That the church Jesus left us with was built on them as the base.  That's an important thing to us as Catholics.  We are an apostolic faith.  That is we believe in the teachings of the Apostles, as handed down through their successors, and recorded in the Scriptures.  So we hold to those teachings, we trust in them and we try to live as the Apostles did.  We listen to their testimony about who Jesus is and what that revelation means to us as humans.   We learn from them more about our relationship in this covenant of love that unites us with God as his people.

There is an important thing though to notice in that reading.  The Apostles are indeed the base, the foundation of our faith.. but Jesus is the Capstone.  It is Jesus himself that holds us together in our faith.  Without a capstone an arch, a building, a pyramid.. they all fall.    The capstone holds all the weight. It is the 'key' to the entire structure.  That shows us a very important thing.  We are not a people of the book, we are a people of God.  The book is part of the foundation, it was given to us by the Church, by the apostles.. but the key, the key to the Church, to understanding the book, to our faith in it's entirety is a person.   The person of Christ.  It is through him, through his support, through his guidance and his spirit that we are lead to not only understand our faith (and our book) but also to be able to follow it.  When we try to do things on our own, our flesh gets in the way.  That is why we keep falling into the same sin over and over.  We don't turn it over to God and let him take it away, we try to fight it on our own.  "I got this" we say.  It's only when we humble ourselves, humble our own egos, that we begin to say "I don't have this Lord. I am struggling.  I need you to help me."  We have to make him the Capstone of our lives, so that he holds us together.  Without him, we ourselves fall apart.

Just as the Gospel reading reminds us that Jesus personally called each and every one of his 12 Apostles, even Judas who would betray Him, he also calls each of us into a relationship.  He wants us to step out of our world, out of our comfort, and to build a temple for Him.  A temple of living stones,  all support and held together by Jesus Christ himself.  He has been calling us since the moment of our birth, are we ready to listen?  Are we ready to turn it all over to him? Or will we just sit where we are, afraid to respond?  It's ok.  You don't even have to move.  All you have to do is make Him the Capstone, and he will lead you out. 

The LORD will fight for you; you have only to keep still. - Exodus 14:14 NAB

"Be still and know that I am God," the Psalmist reminds us.    Elijah stayed still in the cave.  He listened for God and found him in the silence.  God has been reminding me over and over to be still, to listen for Him, and then do what He guides me to do.  So my challenge to you today, is to get in some quite time.. some 'still' time with God.  Find a quiet place, away from the sounds and influences of the world, and spend some time just listening for God's voice.   Find an adoration chapel, a Sanctuary to sit in with the reposed Christ, or even just a quiet corner in your home and say "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."  Then be Still.   Listen for His call.  Realize he has already called out to you, he has already chosen you, he is just waiting for you to realize how much you mean to him.

In Christ, His Servant and Yours,
Brian