June 12, 2017: Monday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time
Lectionary: 359
2 COR1:1-7
PS 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9
MT 5:1-12
Why do things have to be hard? I was speaking to someone on the phone just yesterday about life. That was the question she posed to me. Why can’t some things just be easy? Some things are easy but when everything is going wrong it all seems to gather and grow like an out of control snowball rolling down a mountainside. It’s easy to get stuck in that mindset as well. The thing is God never promised us a life without pain or sorrow. His own Son suffered and died a horrible death after being tormented, abused, and ridiculed. Somehow we think that Christ on the cross meant we wouldn’t have to suffer. Christ, though, continually reminded us to take up our own crosses and follow Him. Where is He leading? To Calvary. To our own deaths, our own suffering, our own difficulties for the sake of God’s kingdom.
Saint Paul reminds us in the first reading that we aren’t to simply suffer in silence or alone. We are to share with one another not just the suffering but the blessings and fruit that comes from it. Our attitude can be one of gratitude and growth, or sorrow and stagnation. We can choose to come through our suffering or live in our suffering with joy. How difficult that can be at times. We don’t just roll over and accept our suffering without prayer, yearning, and effort. We also don’t reject our suffering as some fault of our own sin but rather we can offer it up for the sake of the body of Christ. That’s a beautiful Catholic teaching there, that I can continue to suffer as a prayer. For some reason, I missed that as a Protestant all those years. I believed completely in the statement of “Pray at all times without ceasing.” Yet, would I have prayed and been filled with joy at suffering because it was a prayer as well?
Jesus reminds us in the beatitudes of the simple notion that our vulnerability, our weakness, is where God can meet us and strengthen us. When we have it all together, what need have we of anyone else? It’s in our sorrow, in our meek attitudes, in our poverty that we have need of a savior. By submitting ourselves to His Holy Will, which is love and mercy itself, we open ourselves to His Spirit to change us. When my stomach is full I don’t notice the food that lays around the house. When I have been fasting for 23 or 24 hours it’s all I seem to notice. The same with all pleasures of a sensate nature. How then can we expect God to fill our lives with His presence if we are constantly filling them with our own hedonistic pleasures? In a land of plenty, it’s easy to forget discipline. To forget that in the sermon on the mount Jesus reminds us that true obedience to God, true adoption as Children of God, means being like Christ himself. Meek, poor, humble, empty of our own wants and desires and filled instead with a heart to follow God’s will for us and the world. Lord help me to have the strength to do just that.
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?
In tomorrow's Gospel we see this amazingly detailed parable that speaks of a vineyard that has been leased to tenants. It's easy for us to digest it just as the Pharisees did by placing each of the people mentioned in context of who Jesus was and who he was speaking of. God the owner, Jerusalem the vineyard, the wicked tenants the leaders of Jerusalem, the servants that were sent the prophets, and of course the son being Jesus himself. That's easy enough for us to see two thousand years later with all of our Scripture, our writings of the Church and magisterium. Apparently according to scripture the Pharisees themselves could easily see that meaning as well. Scripture records: When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables,
they knew that he was speaking about them.
What about applying it to our lives though? God has given us a Church. He has declared that the gates of hell would not prevail against it. If we then place ourselves into this parable we see God is again the owner of course, the householder. The Church is the vineyard, surrounded by the hedge of protection, the Holy Spirit. Jesus of course would still be the son, sent to remind us to be faithful to the teachings of God.
We are the tenants in the vineyard of the Lord. He will be sending people to gather the fruit. Peace, love, joy... these are fruits.. they are spread by following those corporal works of mercy. Giving food to the hungry. Clothing the naked. Giving drink to the thirsty. These are the fruits of God's vineyard. He sends us not prophets, but homeless men and women, refugees and orphans, sinners and saints...these are his servants. They have come to collect the fruit that you and I are supposed to be producing. Are we like the tenants and refusing to give them that which God has prepared for them? Are we sharing the grace he has prepared for them in the hedged safety of the Church? Or are we holding them all for ourselves? The Owner of our vineyard will be returning at the end of time and not asking how much you know, or how many degrees you had, or how many of a specific prayer you said.. no he will be asking when I was thirsty, did you give me drink? When I was naked did you cloth me? When I was suffering did you comfort me?
God has shown that when we have good in us it increases, when we have bad in us it increases as well. Just like playing the guitar or the piano, if you don't use it.. eventually you begin to forget. It becomes harder to play, the muscle memory begins to fade. God gives us those gifts to serve with. If we don't use them? He will take them away and give them to another who will. If you aren't producing fruit, he'll find another tenant for the vineyard who will. The beautiful thing about the Church though is this, it's never too late. As we journey through the desert of Lent we can begin by seeking forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation that we might become better tenants, and God will take whatever fruit we produce and multiply it. Are you ready to be a good tenant? One who receives those in need of the fruit? One who receives the Son and cherishes him, lavishing him all he asks for and more? If not, what stands in your way? That's what prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is for... to help break down those walls, disciplining ourselves that we might realize that God is what is important.. not food, not money, not wealth, power, pleasure, or honor. Then God can say with confidence "They will respect my Son," who will then lead us safely in tow to that country to which the householder had journeyed to prepare a place for us, eternal in the heavens.
Illustration of Lazarus at the rich man's gate by Fyodor Bronnikov, 1886.
In tomorrow’s Gospel we see the familiar passage in which Jesus speaks a parable about Lazarus and the rich man. He tells the Pharisees in his presence about these two men and how they lived their earthly life. One was a poor beggar who sat at the rich man's doorstep begging for scraps. The other an extremely wealth man. A man not just presented as well to do, but extremely wealthy. Dressed in purple and fine linen, he dined sumptuously.
sumptuous[suhmp-choo-uh s] adjective 1.entailing great expense, as from choice materials, fine work, etc.;costly:a sumptuous residence. 2.luxuriously fine or large; lavish; splendid:a sumptuous feast.
Here is this man who has these magnificently lavish feasts daily, not just on special occasions. His life is full of excess, full of carnal pleasures. How great a contrast we have with Lazarus, the beggar. This man has no fine clothing. He sits begging at the door of the rich man's abode desiring to even eat the crumbs that fall from his table. Alas, they are consumed by the very dogs that lick the poor ragamuffins’ wounds. He has no one to support him, no one to bandage and dress him that he might get better, but is tormented by the very animals that eat the food he so ardently needs to survive.
Oh how this speaks to my heart during Lent as we try to raise money to build a well to bring clean water to those in distant countries who do not have any, or have very little access to them. We who sit lavishly in our homes with an unlimited supply to be had. They who just wish to drink of the drops that we so dishonorably waste in our excess. How can we not recognize Lazarus, the hungry beggar in the parable (cf. Lk 17:19-31), in the multitude of human beings without bread, a roof or a place to stay? How can we fail to hear Jesus: "As you did it not to one of the least of these, you did it not to me" (Mt 25:45)? (CCC 2463) During the super bowl this year, the only football game I actually chose to watch, there was this amazing commercial about water conservation. Colgate took a moment to highlight how much water we truly do waste, how much we take for granted, how much we let fall to the wayside to be consumed by the dogs of our sewers, instead of protecting for those who have none. They sit at the gate of our hearts and beg to partake of just our scraps, and are we aware?
When the disciples begged Jesus for their own crumbs, he fed them exorbitantly from the masters table. They said Master teach us how to pray and he so obliged, not holding back but opening up the floodgates of heaven with the prayer that is familiar to Christians of all backgrounds. In the Our Father we ask specifically for our daily bread. This speaks of trusting in God for God’s provision, not that we should become lax in our duty to try and earn our bread, nor that we should just stop providing and protecting our families, but that we should be aware of the blessings we receive.
But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition. The drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord's Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment. (2831)
How felicitous it is that the Church has been guided by the Holy Spirit to share this pericope of scripture with us at this point during Lent. To remind us of our duty to the poor as we are reminded of one of the three pillars of the journey through the desert, almsgiving. What are we doing to help those in need? How are we using our prayer, fasting, and almsgiving to bring that change into the world and into our own hearts? It’s not enough to simply conserve water, we need to be sharing it. God does not give us these wonderful blessings in our lives to be hoarded in our cabinets for future meals of our own. He intends them to be given out to those who have none. That is why the goal of Lent should not just be to reduce our consumption through fasting, but to then take that money that we have saved and use it to feed another.
It’s an opportunity for us to go out to the gate of our own hearts, lift up Lazarus as he sits watching our comfort, bring him into our home and bandage him, clean him up, care for him and nourish him to health. Lent is supposed to change us. It’s supposed to draw us closer to who Christ is. Christ heals. Christ cures. Christ feeds. Christ loves. As I sit here in my heated home, typing on my chromebook, surrounded by loved ones, books, comforts.. blessings, I realize I am not doing enough. How about you? Remember too that there are two responses to Jesus message today. Lazarus was downtrodden, a broken man who sat at the mercy of the world. Yet, we see from his presence in Abraham’s bosom that he never blamed God for it. He never turned his back on his faith. The rich man had every material comfort needed, but when he died he went to eternal torment. It’s apparent that in his faith he knew he needed to repent, he knew he needed to serve, he knew what he was doing was wrong. He kept it all for himself.
Which are we today? Are we Lazarus? Do we put our faith in God no matter what comes? Are we the rich man? Do we ignore God’s prompting to do good and simply lavish ourselves with comfort in a grand hedonism? Today if you hear the voice of the Lord, harden not your heart. Trust in God. Find comfort in his promise. Find a way to reach out to those in need materially, physically, and spiritually. You have been called to the greatest feast of all time, the wedding feast of the Lamb. You receive the most extravagant meal in the entire universe in the Eucharist... are you sharing those crumbs? Or keeping them for yourself? We are the hands and feet of Christ, we have work to do Church!
Tomorrow is the last Sunday in the liturgical year. Soon we will begin the season of Advent, leading up to Christmas. We will begin to think about the ways we can bring Christ into the world, and how we can celebrate his birth from day to day. This Sunday though, we will be celebrating Jesus Christ as our King, the King of the universe. I've spent a great deal of time thinking about these readings, and wondering.. what will I write about? I keep being drawn to a specific phrase: "Do you say this on your own or have others told you about me?"
I wonder what I would say if Jesus had said this to me? Our parents taught us about Jesus first in most cases. For some though, it was a teacher, a friend, a catechist, a priest. In every case our faith has been handed on by someone else. Someone told us about Jesus. They told us he was the King of the universe. They told us that we needed him in our lives. That's a beautiful thing. That is how the Church has operated since it's foundation in the first century. It can't end there though.
"Do you say this on your own?" It is so important that we don't just know Jesus intellectually. We must know him intimately. He is indeed the King of the Universe. He is indeed our Master and our Teacher. He's also our brother and our friend. We need to learn to know who he is. Unlike the Blue's Brothers, we don't just want the facts. We want a relationship. We need to spend time with Jesus. In the Sacraments. In our friends and family. In the poor. Jesus reminds us in the last part of tomorrow's gospel: "For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
How can we hear God's voice if we don't listen for it? Society encourages us to fill everything with sound, everything with self. Portable music devices, internet coverage from seashore to seashore, if you want something there is an app for that. We can hear the top songs. Watch the top shows. Videos from the top Youtubers are that touch of a button. What we need though is to spend some time just listening to Christ. If we are constantly talking or listening, we never give him room to speak. That I think is our challenge this day as we wonder if we truly have accepted, honored and realized the truth of what it means for Christ to be our King.
My wife and I just watched the movie Bruce Almighty together, again. Toward the end of the movie Jim Carey drops to his knees in the middle of a highway in a rain storm. He realizes that he doesn't know how to take care of things. That even with unlimited power he is just making a mess of things. He cries out to God and says "I surrender to your will." Of course, in typical comedic fashion, he is then hit by a truck. That leads us though to this amazing scene where he finally realizes how much he loves the lady of his life. So much so that he doesn't pray to get her back, but rather that she will be happy, no matter what that means.
Are you ready for that kind of prayer? "Lord, I want other people to be happy, no matter what it costs me." That's what making Jesus the King of our lives is about. Jesus showed us by example with his Disciples. He washed their feet. Then he said, this is what you must do for one another. Jesus, the King of the entire Universe... humbled himself to serve others. We as His adopted brothers, as co-heirs to the Kingdom, as Disciples of Christ... we must do the same.
Find some time today to listen to God's voice. Then, as Mary would tell you, "Do whatever he tells you." Serve him. Serve one another. If every Christian began to do this, we could truly fulfill that first reading in which all peoples, nations, and languages serve him.
