Teen Angst and Broken Glass.

A Reflection on the daily readings for Monday, June 20th, 2016.

2 Kings 17:5-8, 13-15a, 18
Psalm 60
The Gospel According to Matthew 7:1-15

My mother and dad were good to me growing up.  Father's day reminded me of that.  To look back and see exactly what it was like growing up.  They were always there for me and gave me gifts other kids did not even have.  Most of my friends didn't have a car.  I had several that I was allowed to choose from to use.  I often took that for granted.  There was this one time that my mother asked me to take the garbage to the dump.   This was before curb side pickup for the whole county.  Back then they used to have a dumpster down by the bridge that crosses the lake.  I was so angry!  I wanted to do something else and she dared to ask me to do something before I went off to do my thing.  I stormed out, threw all the trash into the car they gave me, and sped all the way to the dumpster.   When there I threw the trash as hard as I could reveling in the sound of crunching glass, broken bags, and cracking debris.  Then I went to the hatch of the Bronco and slammed it as hard as I could. I had all the windows up.  I learned a very valuable lesson about air pressure in a closed environment.  The rear window shattered out in an explosion covering me with glass.

How could I explain this to my parents? I had destroyed the gift they had given me all because I was angry at being asked to do a small favor on my way to do something else.  The first reading from the Second Book of Kings reminds me of that.  God has given Israel everything.   He has saved them from slavery, delivered them to the promised land, sent messenger after messenger to tell them of His great love and mercy.  In return they continue to ignore his promise.  The Israelites at the time expressed it as God having "put them out of his sight."  We understand that more today as God was offering them an Amazing Grace and they were too stubborn to accept it.   My parents did not turn their back on me when I slammed the car trunk, they were rather offering me the use of the car and all that came with it, with a small request of just taking out the trash.  God never forgets us, He never stops offering forgiveness... but sometimes in our anger, in our frustration we refuse to take it.   We refuse to be faithful to the relationship and that grace is lost.. just like the glass of a window shattered in the antics of a frustrated teen.

Society reels from the impact of not receiving that grace.  We see it today in the actions of our government, youth, friends and families.  What was once considered taboo and personal is now lauded in the streets.  Religion is mocked and relegated to something you just do behind closed doors.  The things that were once considered perversions are now considered sacred and relegated to untouchable and one is labelled a bigot if they speak out against it.  Just like the Israelites they turn their back on the one true God and serve instead the God's of the enemy, the ones who encourage sexual impurities, incestual worship, and even child sacrifice.  The Psalm for today speaks of that reeling, that sense of lost.  That moment when we realize we are no longer being sheltered by God's grace and not because of His actions.  He is always faithful, but we, we often break the Covenant.

You have rocked the country and split it open;
repair the cracks in it, for it is tottering.
You have made your people feel hardships;
you have given us stupefying wine.

Doesn't that say it all? The thing about the Psalms is they often express that deep sense of loss, that deep regret of not having God on our side.. that longing in our hearts for a restoration of that relationship that makes us whole and complete.  Even those Psalms though always end with a declaration of hope, a trust and faith that if we return to the covenants, if we but plead with God with a contrite heart, then He will always be there to return to us.   Hope.

Christ is that fulfillment of hope. Even when all others are turning their back on Him, even when the northern tribes rejected His grace to the point that their enemies over threw them, God was there for Judah.  The remnant need not fear the enemy.   Christ is there for us always, but He requires something from us.  Relationship.  Faithfulness. Covenant fidelity.   He reminds us that first and foremost we are to be looking inward.   To examine our own steps to see if there are any 'specks' or splinters in our own eyes.  That means looking to see if we are right with God.   Are we in a proper relationship?   Or are we pushing God away and rejecting that grace?  Many of us are choosing to ignore the splinters.  Some small vice or some small addiction that we can't control.. and we excuse it.  "I'm not that bad."  "It's only this, at least it's not that."  "I can't help it, but God loves me."   He does indeed, but He challenges you to be better.  To be the person He created you to be.  That means being faithful to His commands, following the rules He established, in the way and through the authority He decreed.

That doesn't mean we never judge.   Too many quote the Gospel without the full message.   It means that we judge as God judges.  God is righteous and we deserve punishment.   He is also merciful and took the punishment Himself.   That's how we judge, with righteousness (truth) and with mercy (love.)   We cannot express a God who is only one or the other.  If God is only the righteous judge, then only the perfect will ever enter Heaven.. and how many of us are that?   If God is only merciful then the Gospel becomes pointless, everyone is going to Heaven so why bother evangelizing at all?  Rather we must judge with both, but only after looking inward and getting rid of even the smallest of splinters.

The thing about a splinter is that it festers.   It irritates and either you remove it?  Or it becomes more serious.  Infection can set in, gangrene, a lost toe or finger, a limb?   Where do we draw the line?  We don't allow it to grow.. we remove it as fast as possible.  That for us spiritually means frequent reception of the Sacraments, even the most under used and often despised Sacrament of Reconciliation.   That Sacrament is a beautiful encounter with Christ Himself in which He offers to restore you to the right relationship with the Father, that we may be one as They are one.   Not only does He remove the splinter of sin by forgiving all sin, but through the penance offered He encourages us to safeguard from getting another in it's place.  We have to grow though!  We have to go forth and try, not just give up and say "That's who I am."  Because it's not.  It's an action you've done, and it's less than you are capable of.

To be saints is not a privilege for the few, but a vocation for everyone. - Pope Francis

Then we are challenged to go into the world and share that mercy with others.  Not to overlook their sins, but to help them find peace, joy, and a Sacramental life of their own.  To help them encounter Christ first through you, then through the Church.  In Cursillo we call that "be a friend, make a friend, and bring that friend to Christ."   Don't try to take the log out of their eye while you're still not letting God's grace flow into your life.  Form a relationship with them, see Christ in them, love them.   Once a relationship is formed and they see you trying, they see you going to Confession and Mass.. then you can invite them to know Christ.  Then, Christ, the man with no splinters or specks in His eye, can help to remove the log that stands between a right relationship with Him.  Are you ready to do that?  Are you making frequent reception of the Sacraments a priority?  Not something to fit into your schedule but something your schedule fits around?  Are you making Christ, the remover of all splinters and logs, the focus of your day?  Are we ready to stop trying to break the glass of the other even further and instead bring them to the One who can restore them to wholeness?

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

A Little Salt and Lime

The other day I posted on Facebook about how disappointed I was when the school had a celebration for Cinco de Mayo and didn't include everyone.    I still don't know the details of why it was all inclusive, or even offered to everyone who wanted to participate.   What I do know is that it being Cinco de Mayo I want to talk about the significance of this holiday.   Here in America we tend to use it as an excuse to 'eat tacos and drink margaritas' as Father Don waxed poetically this morning.  The thing is, it's a celebration of freedom, of overcoming adversity and enormous odds.

I think to truly understand the significance of this date, we have to understand what the world was like when these events were occurring.   Mexico had been at war with America, followed by it's own internal civil war and was nearly out of resources.  Many lives had been lost, the treasury itself was almost bankrupt and the people were prime targets for occupation.   The United States were embroiled in their own civil war and couldn't pay attention to the geopolitical maneuvering that was going on.  Many countries decided to demand payment from Mexico for it's debts to them, but only the French saw this as an opportunity to gain new lands and peoples.   So they attacked the Mexican country and even though the French military was considered strong and enormously better trained and equipped than the small Mexican force, yet, the Mexican army "crushed" the premier army of the world.

Eventually the French did take over the Mexican government but were expelled a few years later.   The US began to get involved, the Mexican people continued to revolt never giving up, and all of these situations caused Napoleon to retreat.   This is a decisive moment in history not just for the Mexican people, but for the entire continent.  In fact, many historians believe that had the French maintained their hold in Mexico from the onset of this war they would have joined the southern forces to overthrow the northern yankees and our country would have turned out much differently than it did.  Lots of repercussions there that we need to understand as a people.

What does that have to do with the readings for today?   I think the first reading shows us a good example of exactly what the Mexican people did.   They were grounded.   They planted themselves where they needed to be.   They never gave up on their cause, even when they suffered defeat.  The Apostle Paul was not always successful.  Just the other day we read about his failure at the Areopagus, where people basically said "call me some other time, not interested."  Now we see him working tirelessly at a trade to support himself while still trying to spread the Gospel.  Then a few friends come and begin to support him so he can work at preaching instead of making tents.  Even then, with 100% of his efforts concentrated he begins to lose his temper and claims he's finished with the Jews.   But God isn't!  Paul ends up moving in with a man who lives next to the synagogue and all of a sudden the leader of that synagogue and his entire family converted!  Paul kept working, even when it seemed it wasn't going his way.  His friends backed him, supported him and worked with him.  No matter what failures, no matter what successes... they still worked preaching the word of God.. just like the Mexican people on Cinco de Mayo, they fought against odds that the rest of the world would never have faced, and were triumphant.

I think that's our lesson for today.  To stand our ground, to move when God needs us to move, to fight when God needs us to fight, and to preach when God needs us to preach.  How though do we prepare for all of this?  How do we get ready for knowing where God wants us?  How do we know when it's time to preach, when it's time to make tents, or when it's time to move shake out our garments and move on to a new household?   The Gospel reminds us of that simple truth.   Jesus disciples were a bit confused when he said: “A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me.”  We 2000 years later, in light of much theological thought and discussion have a glimpse into that truth.  Jesus was sending the Holy Spirit to not only lead us, to guide us and teach us, but also to make bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.   That's how we see him in the most substantial and present way we can on this side of Heaven.   Though he went away physically in his human, glorified body;  he comes back every time we gather to worship.  When the Priest lifts up that Host and says the words of consecration, do you realize that is the fulfillment of that promise?  "You will see me."

So when we receive him, when we gather together and proclaim to be Christian, we have to ask ourselves.. have we shaken out the dust of our cloaks?  As I was reading the office of readings this morning, these verses stuck out in my head:

Little ones,
let no one deceive you;
the man who acts in holiness is holy indeed,
even as the Son is holy.
The man who sins belongs to the devil,
because the devil is a sinner from the beginning.
It was to destroy the devil’s works
that the Son of God revealed himself.
No one begotten of God acts sinfully
because he remains of God’s stock;
he cannot sin
because he is begotten of God.

That is the way to see who are God’s children,
and who are the devil’s.
No one whose actions are unholy belongs to God,
nor anyone who fails to love his brother.

When Paul shook his cloak he was getting rid of everything he felt was wrong with that place, even the dust of the air.  How about you?  Your body is the temple of God, your spiritual covering... have you shaken out those things which are unholy? Or are you clinging to some of that dust?  What stands between you and being the kind of man/woman that God has created you to be?   It's been 40 days since Easter Sunday, have you transformed your life?   Or are you back in the same old ruts?   We have work to do Church.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."