Kings Bishop to Knight 3....

A reflection on the daily Mass readings for Thursday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time (June 23, 2016)

2nd Kings 24:8-17
Psalm 79
The Holy Gospel according to Saint Matthew 7:21-29

When I was four years old my dad was electrocuted in the coal mines.   His heart stopped for a while, longer than should have been possible.  Another man kept him going this entire time by doing CPR until they could get an ambulance there.  The road to recovery was long and hard.  I remember though, that it meant he got to spend time with us.  I also remember playing chess.  I was never very good at chess, but what I do remember is that in order to win you need to get rid of their key players.   Going after the pawns doesn't do much.  Getting rid of the queen, a bishop or a rook... now that gets you closer to check mate.

The King of Babylon in the first reading knew exactly what he was doing.  He didn't take every one away into exile, some of them he left behind.   What he did do was take those who had influence.   The politicians who knew how to run the government, the skilled foremen and laborers who knew how to plant, build, design.   Anyone who would help to rebuild society was taken away, leaving only the uneducated, the poor, those who could not stand up on their own.   He left the nation of Israel reeling with no leaders to stand up and lead the people out of bondage.   He returned them to a worse state of slavery than Egypt could ever hope to impose.  A hopelessness, a fear that left them unable to act, unable to move.

The enemy seeks to do the same to you and I every day.   He seeks to use fear to instill in us doubt, hopelessness, depression and a sense that nothing can be done to make life better.  He wants to take all of our virtues, our gifts, and drag them off into bondage.  To repress them so that we can't see the light of day.  Faith, hope and charity are the rock foundations of the society of our soul.  When we begin to falter in these he sees an opening, all he needs to do is get us to instead follow despair, doubt, and hate.  That's when our spiritual life begins to falter.. that's when all that is left of our own faculties are left reeling, unable to act, unable to move towards Heaven, toward's Christ who never left.

You see, just like the remnant of people left in Israel, Jesus never moved.  He has always been there, waiting for us to turn to Him for help.  To realize that He is the key, the Rock on which we can build our faith.   A Rock that is not just passively sitting there, but which helps us to build up and turn into a rock of our own.  Just like Simon Peter, who at one point gave into despair and hopelessness, to the point of denying he ever knew Christ; we too can be transformed into a new person.  God offers us a new name, no longer will we be Simon, but Peter, the rock who guides others to Christ.

First though, we must become the poor.  In many cases the enemy has already taken away our leaders, our craftsmen, and our laborers.  He has replaced the King in our heart with one he has appointed in it's place.  It's only when we let go of all those things we hold on to, all of those things that stand in the way of Christ being the center of our lives... relationships, desires, hatreds... when we become completely detached from the world and it's enticements and instead only trust in God... when we become the true poor, that's when the beatitude is fulfilled:

And he lifted up his eyes on his disciples, and said:
“Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God."

So what is standing in your way?  What has taken the place of God in your life?  He's not something you just add into your schedule when you find time... but rather, He should be put in your schedule first, and all the rest should be put around Him.  Christian, are you taking time to listen to Him today as He tries to lead you out of captivity?  Out of bondage and into the freedom of salvation?  He is offering you a Rock to build your spiritual house on.... are you taking time to set the foundations?  To receive Him so that He can mold you into a solid structure? Don't be a fool and build on the sand of the enemy.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

Politics and Religion...

A friend of mine reminded me of how easy it is to get drawn into the political turmoil that is being made even worse by our American mainstream media.  While not necessarily always false, too often they are simply portrayed in a way that is either negative or makes a single scapegoat out of a situation that has not only a much more varied and nuanced truth but also has the involvement of many people.  We do have to be aware of who these people are, and what they've done.. but we also have to bring into the arena compassion and not forget the dignity of that person.  Am I defending any of the candidates?  No.  I personally am not a fan of the political stance of either of the front runners.  Simply reminding myself that kindness is paramount and that we must check our sources diligently to find the truth.

In tomorrow's Gospel Jesus reminds of us of that as well.  “I pray not only for these, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me."  Jesus sent the Apostles with a unique mission that we too take on, but they fulfill in a specific and distinct office.  These Apostles were chosen to initiate that mission, to be the first to evangelize the world, and to go forth with the authority of Christ himself to forgive sins and baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  They were sent into the world to teach the word of truth.  Christ is that word, it is in him that we understand exactly what their mission was and exactly what our mission is.

Jesus is the Father's Emissary. From the beginning of his ministry, he "called to him those whom he desired; . . . . And he appointed twelve, whom also he named apostles, to be with him, and to be sent out to preach." From then on, they would also be his "emissaries" (Greek apostoloi). In them, Christ continues his own mission: "As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." The apostles' ministry is the continuation of his mission; Jesus said to the Twelve: "he who receives you receives me."   (CCC 858)

How then do we see the Christian church divided?  The Apostles appointed successors, of that we see the truth in the appointment of Matthias. (Acts 1:12-26)  Eventually these became known as Bishops and the Chair of Peter as the See of Rome.   For 1000 years there was only one church, the Catholic church.   Then men started breaking off of it and making their own version, deserting the teaching of those Apostles.   The very Gospel which Paul declared we should reject even if "an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we preached to you, let him be accursed."  (Galatians 1:8)  How do we justify that in our own minds?  I did myself for many years, mostly because I was unaware of history.   Mostly because I had spent all of that time only reading a book, a book that belonged to the Catholic church, without listening to the author.  That would be like taking a book on science, reading it and then ignoring the writer when he tells me I got it wrong.

Why is it important?   Because in Jesus Christ we have the fullest revelation of God.. the final revelation of God... everything we need to know is in that revelation.  If that is true, if we truly believe that Christ is the Son of God and that He Himself is a part of the trinity.. then knowing Him.. being in relationship with Him, learning about Him... loving Him is paramount.  We can't know Him if we don't get the full story, if we don't realize He is more than text on a page.. but a living person.   He didn't stop being man when he went to Heaven, and he didn't stop being God when he came to earth.  He will be the same person for eternity, and the Apostles knew Him, walked with Him, learned from Him.

In Jesus Christ, the whole of God's truth has been made manifest. "Full of grace and truth," he came as the "light of the world," he is the Truth. "Whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." The disciple of Jesus continues in his word so as to know "the truth [that] will make you free" and that sanctifies. To follow Jesus is to live in "the Spirit of truth," whom the Father sends in his name and who leads "into all the truth." To his disciples Jesus teaches the unconditional love of truth: "Let what you say be simply 'Yes or No.'"  (CCC 2466)

Jesus is that Word of truth.   So take advantage of that.   Begin to read and study history, both secular and Church history.   Look at the writings of early Christians and see what they believed.   Find your way to one of successors of the Apostles,  of which only the Catholic churches can claim an unbroken line of succession directly to one of the twelve themselves.  Then open yourself to the reality that Christ has poured himself out into our lives through the Sacraments of those churches to bring us into full communion with Him and the Father.   "I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one."  What more perfect description of communion can you get?  Than to receive Jesus Christ himself; body, soul and divinity; into your very body? All too often people smear the Catholic church and drag it through the mud.. but it's time.. it's time to check your sources and to see exactly what we believe.

His servant and yours,
Brian

"He must increase, I must decrease."

So ya thought ya might like to go to the show

In today's news feed I found it interesting to see headlines that declared Donald Trump and the Pope at war with one another. One article making it seem as if the Pope had declared Trump a heretic and excommunicated him, another in which Trump declared the Pope despicable for questioning his Christian faith. All of them had one in thing in common, they weren't showing the whole truth. Clips out of context and misquotes abounded. What the Pope said rather, was that building walls instead of bridges was not the action of a Christian. What the Pope said was radical.  What he said was counter cultural.   What he said is Catholic teaching.

The readings for tomorrow's daily Mass remind us of this simple truth. God wants to forgive us. He wants to bring us to the fullness of humanity, to become the person that we are created to be. Thomas Merton said “For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.” That doesn't mean that how I am currently acting is saintly. Rather it means when I truly live out the fullness of what God created me to be... when I am the authentic Brian he intended me to be, that's when I find Sainthood.. that's when we have arrived. I remember when I was in school as a kid the ladies in the cafeteria had a sign hanging up with this little boy kind of frowning as if he was trying to figure something out. It said "I know I'm somebody, cause God don't make no junk." How true.

A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian. This is not the gospel. - Pope Francis

What do writings about anger and hatred have to do with Trump and the Pope? The Catholic Church teaches :

Our attitude to our neighbor will disclose acceptance or refusal of grace and divine love.  (CCC 678)

The more filled we are with love, the more we treat our brother with love, dignity and respect. The more like God we are, the more we want to share that love. Many conservatives often want to quantify this love by saying that of course Jesus did not mean to put ourselves at risk. Yet, when people came to capture him in the middle of the night he did not even defend himself, but even had Peter put his sword away. Then he healed his 'enemy.' Now, we have a right to self defense. Of that the Church has been clear of over the years. Not only a right but even a grave duty. (CCC 2265). Jesus though called us to a radical notion, a self giving that goes beyond our own box.

The problem truly has become our segregationist attitude. We in our search for greed, security, and pleasure; have divided the world up into countries, states, and political entities. It's a system that helps bring order, sure. It's also a system that turns our fellow man into the 'other'. Then we decide who is 'us' enough to be included as our neighbor, and who isn't. When we say 'lets take care of those at home first,' we are essentially saying 'those born in our country deserve more freedom, more love, more charity than those who were born elsewhere. How is that we get to decide that? What did they do to deserve that? Why is being born somewhere a deciding factor in how much we care for someone? Isn't that pretty much what the caste system attempts to do? Those born into the right family are treated with respect and dignity, those in the wrong are the unclean, the outsider, the ones who will always be downtrodden.

Building bridges, not walls. That is what Christ came to do. Christ came to tear down the wall of hostility and make the two into the one, the gentiles and the Jews into one family (Ephesians 2:14). He didn't come to die only for those in America, only those in the Church, or even only those who are free from sin. No he came to die for all men, that all might come to be one. When we pray the our Father we are praying for 'us.'

Finally, if we pray the Our Father sincerely, we leave individualism behind, because the love that we receive frees us from it. The "our" at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer, like the "us" of the last four petitions, excludes no one. If we are to say it truthfully, our divisions and oppositions have to be overcome.  (CCC 2792)

Doesn't that just hit home? It's time for us as Christians to truly ask ourselves, are we living the Gospel? Are we holding anything against our brother? Are we serving God's Kingdom or our own? The only crime many of these refugees have committed is being born in a country that is not our own. A crime that they did not choose to commit. In the case of Mexico alone, we see people being murdered in a drug war, raped and pillaged. Then we demean and degrade them by keeping them at bay. We use terms like illegal to make them seem unwanted, undesired, criminal. We put up a mental wall that makes us feel safer, and then cheer when someone wants to put up a physical one to keep out those undesirables. What will we do on judgment day when Christ says to us, “What you did to the least of these, you did to me”? None of us got to choose where we were born. It's time to stop punishing people for that.

What will we do on judgment day when Christ says to us, “What you did to the least of these, you did to me”?

The first reading from Ezekiel is wake up call. It remind us that for those who choose to do good, to live the fullness of what God created them to be, heaven awaits. For those who reject it, those who decide to do evil and ignore the potential for freedom of excellence that God has offered them, awaits the fires of Gahanna. 

The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few."  (CCC 1036)

Today we are faced with a choice. Jesus is asking us for water, he is asking us for food, he is a stranger asking for shelter. How will we respond to him? We have a right, even a duty to keep those we are responsible for safe. We also have a duty to reach out to fellow man and lift him up to that fullness that he too is created for. That fullness which was revealed completely and perfectly in the person of Jesus Christ. That's what Christianity is all about. That's what Lent is about. Forgiveness. Prayer. Fasting. Alms-giving. We are deeply entrenched in the desert of our own ego. God is offering us a chance to move outside of our own small mindedness and reach out to the rest of the world and say, “Christ is the way the truth and the life.” More poignantly than ever echoes the words of that beautiful hymn, “They will know we are Christians by our love.”

His servant and yours,

Brian

“He must increase, I must decrease.”

Grant me your peace

Lord make me an instrument of your peace. I say this prayer almost every morning as I awake, trusting God to transform me because I know I cannot make it through the day on my own volition. I am human. Just like the next person. I make mistakes. Almost all men and women of faith pray for God's peace, God's will.  We pray: Our Father, who art in heaven. They will be done. We pray:  Lord grant me the serenity We consistently pray for peace and joy.

Yet, there is also a disturbing trend to Christianity. We tend to be Christians+. On the surface that seems like a good thing, and sometimes it is; as long as it doesn't interfere with the Gospel. The problem is we tend to add something to our Catholicism, or religion, our Christianity. We take something we believe in, and we tack it on to the Gospel. Christianity + Democrats. Christianity + democracy. Christianity + republican. Christianity + the tea party. Christianity + a belief. Christianity + Occupy Wall Street.

It's ok to be a Catholic and a democrat. It's ok to be a Catholic and a republican. It's ok to be a Catholic and a member of the tea party. We must remember though, that we are Catholic first. We are Christian first. Our first and most important allegiance is to God. If there is a democratic belief that is contrary to the Gospel, then we cannot live by it.. follow it.. nor expect others to do so. The same with our republican beliefs.

We also have a tendency to say things like, real Christians must be members of this as well! If they really followed the gospel, then they'd be a democrat too! If they were really following Christ they'd be protesting on wall street with the Occupy Movement, etc. God has clearly laid out what we are to do. I agree there are causes we should join. There are indeed parts of certain movements I agree with, but the only movement a person needs to join to be a member of the body of Christ.. is the church. It's really that simple. If we examine every single movement out there, we are going to find there are parts of that movement which do not agree with our faith.

I agree with movements that want to help the poor. I don't agree with abortion. I agree with free market, I don't agree with removing the environmental protection agency in order to make business explode, at the expense of destroying God's creation. I am a vegan, but I understand that God has given permission (not requirements) to eat meat. I am Catholic. Not Catholic+, not Catholic-, but Catholic.

Let us all learn to follow God's peace, not our own. God's will, not our own. Let's learn to discern what God wants from us, what God calls us to do in the gospel.  Let us pray with all earnestly, God's will be done here on earth, as it is in Heaven.. and mean it.. live by it.. live it here, as we believe it will be lived there. The story of our lives is a many volume book filled with paragraphs of information, going on and on, filling shelf upon shelf. This life is but the very first letter... there is so much more to come after... let us start living as if eternity is what matters... because if eternity is what matters.. then love is what we need to be exhibiting here.. in every breath.. every action.. every moment.

His servant, and yours;
Brian