All Souls Day Reading Suggestions

All Souls Readings Suggestions (Lectionary 668)

Mass I (From USCCB website)

First Reading: 1. (Wis 3:1-9)

Responsorial Psalm: 1. (Ps 23:1-6)

Second Reading: 1. (Rom 5:5-11) or 3. (Rom 6:3-9)

Alleluia 3. (Jn 6:40)

Gospel 8. (Jn 6:37-40)

Mass II.

First Reading 2. (Wis 4:7-14)

Responsorial Psalm 3. (Ps 27:1-14)

Second Reading 5. (Rom 8:31-39)

Alleluia 5. (Jn 11:25-26)

Gospel 5. (Lk 23:44-24:6) or 7. (Jn 5:24-29)

Mass III.

First Reading 3. (Is 25:6-9)

Responsorial Psalm 2. (Ps 25:6-21)

Second Reading 7. (1 Cor 15:20-28) or 8. (1 Cor 15:51-57)

Alleluia 1. (Mt 25:34)

Gospel 4. (Lk 7:11-17) or 11. (Jn 11:32-45)

30th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C 2013

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I must say that at this point in my life… I am happier than I have ever been. I am a happy man. That’s an awesome thing to say! I haven’t always been able to say that. In seminary I vividly remember wondering, “When will I be ordained? How long is this going to take? Will I be able to cut it as a priest? Can I even make it through seminary?” When I was a deacon at St. Gabriel and an Associate Pastor at St. James, I wondered, “Can I do all that a pastor has to do? Will I be a good shepherd?” Over the 4 months that I’ve been here, I have found great fulfillment in being the shepherd of this flock. My heart and soul are invested more than they ever have been. I live and breathe these parishes and can truly say that I am happier than I’ve ever been.

There have been some challenging moments. Change is hard for everyone. For you and for me. For you, I imagine it’s like receiving a whole new father. Fr. Chris was with you for 16 good years and was well-loved. He has definitely left some big shoes to fill. For me, it’s a little bit like leaving home, graduating from college, beginning a new career, getting married, and starting a family all at the same time! (The Basic Plan for Ongoing Formation, Part II, A) One of the most difficult things though has been bumping up against the gossip that so often characterizes small parishes and small towns. It’s really a problem in all parishes, big and small. I don’t mean to say that everyone here is gossipy, but you and I know that it doesn’t take many people to stir things up. Gossip really does sap the life and energy out of a parish and its initiatives.

I am part of the parish too, though! If this parish is gossipy then that includes me too! I am also guilty of venting at times to the first person that will listen without taking the time to pray about it and fully understand the situation. If we want to break the mold of what a small-town parish is like, if we want to prove to God and our neighbors that we don’t have to be gossipy parishes, then the change must start with me. With the theme of this weekend’s readings focusing on humility and prayer, we have the perfect occasion to recall the Church’s teaching on this subject to help us break this mold.

Last Monday at RCIA, when we studied the last seven of the Ten Commandments, we looked at how the Catechism of the Catholic Church expands on the 8^th Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” This is the commandment that the Pharisee broke in the Gospel reading today. Here is what the Catechism says about this in paragraphs 2477 to 2481: “Respect for the reputation of persons forbids every attitude and word likely to cause them unjust injury.” It then goes on to list some examples of sins against the 8^th commandment. One is Rash judgment, which is when one “even tacitly assumes as true, without sufficient foundation, the moral fault of a neighbor.”

The Pharisee in the Gospel definitely committed this sin. His prayer, full of pride, was not even a prayer to God. The Gospel said he “stood and prayed thus with himself.” The whole time he simply rattled off his accomplishments in order to somehow impress God. Full of himself, he saw no need for God’s grace or mercy. He boasted that he was not like the rest of sinful humanity; “even like this tax collector,” he smirked. On what grounds was the Pharisee able to conclude that he was a sinner? Simply because he was a tax collector? This particular tax collector could have been St. Matthew for all we know! What we do know is that because he was so quick to judge his neighbor, his prayer bore no fruit for him. “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, “Jesus said. It is only when we humble ourselves that Jesus is able to lift us up. It is only when we acknowledge that we are in need of his mercy that Jesus is able to give us his mercy. It is the “prayer of the lowly” that “pierces the clouds,” said the prophet Sirach in the first reading.

Another sin against the 8^th commandment is called Detraction. This is when one, “without objectively valid reason, discloses another’s faults and failings to persons who did not know them.” This one is particularly tempting because of our desire to want to be included and favored. When you or I see a group of folks that we relate too, that we are friends with, or that we want to impress, the latest nugget of gossip turns their eyes toward us and we have their attention. We think, “They are listening to me! They want to hear what I have to say! They want me as part of their group!”

This sin plays on all of our insecurities. “I know what so-n-so did and they don’t. Wait till I tell the guys this one! They’ll really approve of me then! And we will be able to say to ourselves, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this guy.” The devil loves this one because he loves for us to compare ourselves to anyone other than Jesus. Simply saying, “At least I’m not as bad as him over there” keeps us stuck where we are. But saying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner! Make me holy as Jesus is holy!” is a statement that moves us forward and up to him. Jesus is our audience, he is the only one we have to impress. …And we thwart our spiritual progress for what? A few moments of recognition from friends who love us anyway? And meanwhile a man’s reputation is ruined, his name drug through the mud, and our hearts turned against him.

Calumny, another sin against the 8^th commandment, is when one “by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives occasion for false judgments concerning them.” This one comes about largely from a certain disruption that leads to misunderstanding. What begins as the innocent question, “Well… that’s different… why did Fr. Hardesty do that!?” then turns into, “Well, he must not like us… he must not want to spend time with us… he must want to inconvenience us… he’s keeping us here for a full hour on purpose!... he wants to make us miserable…. What are we gonna do?? Well… there’s no use… I’m just gonna go to a different parish!” And all of that happens without the person giving me one chance to explain.

One of the best things you and I can do to avoid committing this sin of calumny is to simply approach each other directly and kindly. Let’s help each other with this one. If I do something or decide something that you disagree with or are uncertain about, come to me and ask me directly about it. My role as a spiritual father is to listen to the needs of his sons and daughters and to be eager to respond to them. And you as spiritual sons and daughters should feel free to voice these needs to me. For my part I will take more time to learn and understand different practices or features of the parish before I make a faulty conclusion about them.

Lastly, the Catechism goes on to quote St. Ignatius of Loyola who says that to avoid rash judgment, everyone should be careful to interpret insofar as possible his neighbor’s thoughts, words, and deeds in a favorable way: “Every good Christian ought to be more ready to give favorable interpretation to another’s statement than to condemn it. But if he cannot do so, let him ask how the other understands it. And if the latter understands it badly, let the former correct him with love. If that does not suffice, let the Christian try all suitable ways to bring the other to a correct interpretation so that he may be saved.”

You and I together need to give each other the benefit of the doubt rather than being quick to condemn. Rash Judgment, Detraction and Calumny “destroy the reputation and honor of one’s neighbor.” Whenever we sin against the 8^th commandment, we have a duty that “obliges in conscience” to repair the wrong, publicly or privately, insofar as possible. This humble making of amends along with frequent, at least monthly, confession can help us break out of this cycle and give us the grace and strength to continually “put on the new man, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.” By “putting away falsehood,” we will be able to “put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander.”

My comments on the Pope Francis interview

PASTORAL LETTERS – September 29, 2013

Last weekend would have been perfect timing for me to preach on the now-famous Sept 19 interview that Pope Francis gave to Jesuit publications around the world and its coverage by the mainstream media. But, I try to always let the readings set the direction for my homily rather than my own agenda. So I wanted to use this weekend’s column to give some brief comments that I hope will be helpful to you. You can read the interview in its entirety at http://www.americamagazine.org/pope-interview

On one hand, the mainstream media has enabled people who are not very well tuned-in to the Church to now be introduced to our Holy Father. Hopefully their interest will be piqued to explore his statements further. But, we, as faithful Catholics, should be tuned-in and should pay attention to coverage from outlets that aim to present the Church faithfully. Toward that end, I highly recommend the newspaper, National Catholic Register (ncregister.com); on T.V., EWTN, the Eternal Word Television Network (ewtn.com); and in magazines, I especially like First Things (firstthings.com).

My comment is that a caricature of Pope Francis has been constructed that does not coincide totally with the full depth of who he is. He is presented as a “pastoral” pope who is more “pastoral” than his predecessors, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Blessed (soon to be Saint!) John Paul II. And often the word “pastoral” is used to mean “more open, less tied to those bothersome teachings on abortion, homosexual acts, and artificial contraception.” But, it is helpful to remember that “pastor” is Latin for “shepherd.” To put it simply, Bl. John Paul II was philosophically rigorous and Benedict XVI was theologically rigorous. Shepherding us in how to think well (what philosophy does) and then what to think about (what theology does) is an exceptionally pastoral and charitable thing to do! Now that we have been recently taught how to think well and what to set our minds too, Pope Francis (himself a rigorous thinker) exhorts the thoughtful Catholic to give a loving expression to our faith and teachings. He wants us to convey the GOOD NEWS of these teachings, not only the “Thou Shalt Not’s”. He wants our evangelization to bring about encounters with the Person of Jesus Christ and to reach out and capture the hearts of all God’s people. Pope Francis wants the content of the Truth to remain the same; after all, he is the servant of the Truth, not Its master. The presentation should change though, wherever it is not showing the loving and merciful face of a mother, our Holy Mother, the Church. I couldn’t agree more.

For a better understanding of particular points of the interview, check out the very good article on ncregister.com, titled, “Pope Francis Grants an Interview and Shakes Up the Church” at http://tinyurl.com/k48ckf9

In Jesus and Mary,

Fr. Hardesty

Homily 25th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C–The Joys of Accounting

I have to admit that I had some difficulty with this weekend’s Gospel reading. I had to look at a couple of Scripture commentaries to really understand the point that Jesus was trying to make. He tells a parable that is unlike his other parables. And he uses language that is unfamiliar to us today, speaking of the “steward,” the “master’s debtors,” “promissory notes,” “making friends with dishonest wealth” – what does that mean?! – “being welcomed into eternal dwellings,” and not serving “both God and mammon.” This all seem disconcerting but we must remember that a parable is simply a rhetorical device that Jesus used to convey a particular teaching (Navarre, Lk 16:1-15). It was meant to use images and phrases that were familiar to his audience. Even though these are unfamiliar to us today, they still convey a teaching that is valuable for us.

A “steward” is a head servant who handled the business affairs of his master’s estate (Ignatius, Lk 16:1). And this particular steward today has wasted his master’s goods. His master calls him to the carpet, tells him that he has gotten wind of his wastefulness and asks him to prepare an accounting of his management, his stewardship of the master’s property, because he is about to lose his job. The steward figures, “Well, if I have a little bit of time to prepare this account, I may as well use this time to set myself up well for life after employment!” So while he still has charge of his master’s property, he uses it to relieve his master’s debtors and win their friendship so that they will welcome him into their homes once he is broke!

The first debtor owed 100 “measures” of olive oil, which today is equivalent to 800 gallons. So the steward wrote him a promissory note which the debtor could cash in on the master’s estate and receive half-off on his debt! The second debtor owed 100 “kors” of wheat, which today is equivalent to 1000 bushels of wheat. The steward wrote him a promissory note which he could cash in on the master’s estate and receive 20% off of his debt! (Ignatius, Lk 16:6-7) When he finally came before his master to give his accounting, the master commended the steward for his being so astute and clever. He in effect said, “Well played… you’ve still lost your job! But… well played.”

Jesus takes for granted that his audience understands that what the steward did was selfish and unethical (Navarre, Lk 16:1-15). But he still finds the steward’s behavior useful for conveying both an example to follow and a caution to take to heart. In a time of urgency, the steward was well prepared. A few weekends ago, Jesus made this same point about wanting disciples who were well prepared to be his servants when he compared them to a contractor who prepares to build a tower or a king who prepares for battle. The spiritual parallel is that as the steward prepared for life after employment, Christians should take even greater care in preparing for life after death (Ignatius, Lk 16:1-8).

Under pressure, it is amazing what we can accomplish! I can’t tell you how many times in seminary that I started a 5-page paper at 2:30am that was due at 8:30am!! For me, when the train is barreling down the tracks, my mind is a sharp as a steel trap. When the pressure is on, I think clearly, logically, sequentially. You also may be able to call to mind times when you surprised yourself by what you accomplished under pressure. St. Josemaria Escriva, one of my favorite saints, wrote, “When you and I put the same zeal into the affairs of our souls, we will have a living and working faith. And there will be no obstacle that we cannot overcome in our [ministries].” (The Way, 317, in Navarre, Lk 16:1-15)

The steward shows how to expend every effort in making use of our means to prepare for the future. Just as his cleverness won him comfortable living in the “houses” of his master’s debtors, so we are challenged to become friends of the poor by supporting them with our resources so that we will be received into the “eternal dwellings” – the many mansions of our Father’s house in eternal life. (Ignatius, Lk 16:8)

Is not the story of the steward also our story?? We too must realize that the resource we have are not absolutely or only ours – they truly belong to our master. We are his stewards – this is where we get our notion of “stewardship” – we are his head servants entrusted with the care of our Master’s goods and treasures.

The steward’s dilemma is our dilemma! We too will be asked to give an account! We know not when! Do we have his same urgency? Do we prepare for this accounting by urgently giving to the poor, by donating from the treasures entrusted to us? This is a defining question of our salvation! Remember how our Lord characterized the Final Judgment?? Some will be arrayed at his right hand, others at his left. To those on his right he will say, “When I was hungry, you gave me food. When I was thirsty, you gave me drink. When I was naked, you clothed me, etc.” And those on his right will say, “Lord, when did we feed you, give you drink, and clothe you?” He will reply, “Whenever you did these for the least of my brethren – the poor – you did them for me. Come into my Father’s House.” To those on his left he will say, “I was hungry and you gave me no food; thirsty and you gave me no drink; naked and you did not clothe me.” And those on his left will say, “Lord, when did we not feed you, give you drink, and clothe you?” He will reply, “When you did not do these for the least of my brethren – the poor – you did not do them for me. Go away from me, you accursed, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” This is the challenge placed before each one of us today.

This also shows the aspect of caution from the parable. We must take this challenge seriously. We cannot serve both God and “mammon.” “Mammon” is an Aramaic term for “wealth.” The Pharisees have been listening carefully, critically, to everything Jesus has said. In the very next verse after our Gospel passage, Jesus will call them “lovers of money.” They, like the steward, cared only about themselves and their own wealth, the esteem of others, and the temporal comforts of this world.

Whether we have been entrusted with a little or with a lot, we must serve God with what we have and value Him more than our wealth. We must look to him instead of our wealth for our safety and security. We must be “servants of the Lord,” as the Responsorial Psalm said, not servants of our wealth and ourselves. Otherwise we will be regarded as those in the first reading who despised the Lord and his holy days and cheated the poor (Scott Hahn, salvationhistory.com, Homily Helps, 25^th Sunday).

We cannot serve both God and mammon, both God and our wealth. We are the stewards in the story but we are also the debtors. All the mammon, all the wealth in the world could not have paid the debt we owe our Master by our sins. So He paid it for us. He “gave himself as a ransom for all,” St. Paul wrote in our second reading. Because he gave to us first, we are enabled and empowered to give in return (ibid).

We can redeem the steward’s story. This is a challenge not only to you, but to me too! I was greatly challenged when this Gospel reminded me that after three months of being here, I am not yet tithing to this parish! So when our bookkeeper comes in on Friday I will rectify that. My challenge to you in return is to notice in the bulletin that I have started included the weekend offering for Holy Trinity and Holy Rosary, as we had done in the past. You’ll notice that Holy Rosary gave about $1200 last weekend while Holy Trinity gave twice that, about $2400. But remember that Holy Trinity is four times their size! I was embarrassed to bring this up, but a priest at the New Pastors Workshop that I went to last week, who was an accountant in his former life, told us that we should be more embarrassed not to bring up something like this! What kind of priest would I be if I was not affirming you, encouraging you, and challenging you to prepare for the accounting that each one of us will have to make? I would have to account for that too!

Again, we can redeem the steward’s story, both of us together, by using well the treasures entrusted to us. By being merciful to the poor, relieving their burdens in a disinterested way. By resting secure in our Father’s House, knowing that we have been trustworthy stewards, able to answer confidently and rightly at our own accounting – a joyful accounting! – an accounting to a Master who, God-willing, will be pleased with us; pleased by our virtue and our love for the poor and for Him.

Homily 24th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C–The Joy of Reunion

Do you remember a time when you lost a child in a department store or an amusement park or a time when you got lost yourself as a child? If you were like me, you were walking along with your siblings until something flashy caught your eye and you thought, “Oooh!” Then you suddenly remember you’re supposed to be with some other people! You look around and when you realize no one is there you get that terrible, horrible feeling in your stomach. You franticly look from one aisle or path to the next and finally, at the end of the store or across the park you spot mom or dad in the distance. The sudden surge of joy, a truly Christian Joy, is the greatest feeling in the world! This feeling explains why Jesus eats with the tax collectors and the sinners.

This is the feeling that God has when sinners repent, the feeling of a Father who has finally found his lost child. And to be sure it is our feeling too, when we are reunited with Him. Our Lord is the Mediator of this Joy. The Pharisees accused him of being a little too friendly with the sinners. But, in order to lead sinners to the Joy of Reconciliation with their Father, he must necessarily spend time among them, dining with them, listening to them, and calling them to Himself.

The Joy of Reunion and Reconciliation is a Joy that the Father feels even for just one child. Furthermore, he rejoices more over one recovered child than he does over having his other children always with Him. This is similar to the experience of a mother who feels much greater joy over finding a lost child than she does over having her other three walking peacefully beside her. It is because of this Joy that He can leave “the 99,” so to speak, and go in search of the one “lost sheep.” It is because of this Joy that He searches like the woman in the Gospel who lost one of her ten coins, each equaling a day’s pay, because each means so much to her.

God’s Mercy does not let Him forget the one that is lost. The woman did not say, “Oh, I will not worry about the one last coin, I still have 9 others.” And the shepherd did not say, “Oh, I will not worry about the one lost sheep, I still have 99 others.” God’s Mercy remembers the Joy of Reunion. As the prophet Ezekiel proclaimed, “’Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked,’ declares the Lord God, ‘and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?’” (Ezekiel 18:23) This Joy and His Mercy causes Him to go out, to pursue us. We so often concern ourselves with finding Him, looking for Him, searching for Him… but we forget that He is the one searching for us. The prophet Ezekiel also proclaimed, “For thus says the Lord God: Behold, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them” (Ezekiel 34:11-16).

Do we let ourselves be found? Do we get used to being away? This would be like a boy getting lost in the department store but then just getting used to the toy aisle, forgetting altogether the siblings he was with and even his parents. Do we hide while we are away, becoming obstinate in our being lost? Are we like the “stiff-necked” people described in the first reading, so-called because they refused the direction of their father Moses, like an ox who refuses the promptings of the plowman? They had been led miraculously out of slavery in Egypt and were brought to the foot of Mt. Sinai on whose peak Moses communicated face-to-face with God, learning His will for His people through the Ten Commandments. But, Moses took too long to come down the mountain and the people forgot all that God had done for them. They rejected God and lost themselves in idol worship, attributing to a golden calf the miracles of God. They would have persisted in this going astray, gotten used to their new god, had Moses not snapped them back to reality.

It is obstinacy that keeps us away or is it fear? Are we afraid of Him finding us? There is nothing to fear in our Heavenly Father finding us. There is only Joy in reunion and reconciliation with Him. Remember that He is more pleased over the grievous sinner sincerely repenting than he is over the minor sinners who repent often! He is definitely more pleased with all of his repentant children than He is with those who think that they have nothing to repent of, no sins to confess.

Moses implored God’s Mercy on the people who had lost themselves in idol worship, he prayed for them, he interceded for them, and God was indeed merciful. Jesus, the New Moses still pleads for God’s People at the Right Hand of the Father. We said in the Penitential Rite, “You were sent to heal the contrite of heart, Lord have mercy. You came to call sinners, Christ have mercy. You are seated at the right hand of the Father to intercede for us, Lord have mercy.” He intercedes for us and He searches for us as he did for the tax collectors and sinners. He looks for you in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Does he find you there? Does he find your children and grandchildren there? Will you help them to feel the Joy of God’s Mercy too? Or will they miss out on this Joy because they have no one to take them? He came into the world to save sinners. He saves us and our families through the sacraments. Will we let Him?

Homily 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C–Freedom to be Intentional

If we pause for a moment to call to mind the things we prepare so much for, we can be embarrassed to consider how much we prepare for our spiritual lives. Teachers and parents and students put much preparation into the school year; getting supplies, arranging classrooms, organizing schedules. Other things like a new job, or a new house, or a new car require all sorts of planning and research. We do all of this readily and with conviction. Do we even think about preparing to be followers of Christ and active Catholics? Do we even think about those things as requiring preparation? So often, we just coast into who we are, especially so-called, “cradle Catholics.” If you have met recent converts to Catholicism, they are usually always filled with great zeal, and energy, and initiative. But there is no reason that cradle Catholics can’t approach their own Catholic identity with the same newness and zeal.

Like a contractor who sets forth to build a tower and plans very carefully the design, materials and placement; and like a king who plans for battle by surveying his troops and the enemy force; just so, Jesus explains, we must prepare to go about the mission of being his disciples – with intentionality, foresight, and wisdom... otherwise, we cannot be his disciples. This preparation includes examining ourselves regularly to identify the things that keep us from being more active and involved Catholics. What are the obstacles that I or others have placed that I need to overcome? What are the opportunities that I am neglecting? Where have I become complacent in my Catholic identity or taken it for granted?

Another part of this examination is surveying our priorities. When Jesus said that unless we hate our family or even our own life, we cannot be his disciples, he meant that there must be ongoing growth and conversion in order for there to be an “old man,” a “former man” to hate. We must not desire our old way of living and anything that comes before Him, even our family. In my own life, I delayed going to seminary because I was hiding behind my family. A vocation director who I met at a conference once asked me when I was going to enter seminary. I told him that I wasn’t ready because I was renting a house with my brothers at the time and paying most of the rent and bills. His answer snapped me back into reality. He said, “Oh, you’re just enabling them.” He was right, they could have, and did, get along just fine. I was using them as an excuse to not commit myself to following God’s will for my life. Not even our families should ever come before God’s will for us or be an obstacle to Him.

Another obstacle to becoming more prepared and zealous is that we have a hard time imagining ourselves living any other way than we are right now. Again, in my own life, when I was having those initial stirrings of Priesthood, I would have doubts about if God was calling me to be a priest because I was having troubling imagining myself doing the tasks I would see my pastor doing. One Sunday my whole extended family planned to go out to eat after Mass and I was so much looking forward to it – it was going to be a blast! I looked forward to it all through Mass. After Mass as I was walking out of the Church, I looked back and noticed my pastor alone, picking up papers, tidying things, getting the liturgical books together, saying a few words to different people here and there. I thought, “How boring… I don’t wanna do that… I wanna go out to eat!” But, as God drew me closer and closer to the Priesthood, I invested my heart more and more into it so that now, after the last Mass, when everyone is going out to eat, that’s not a source of loss or sorrow for me! My heart is fully invested in this now so that I care so much more about it. I like going around and tidying up everything after Mass now; its sort of meditative for me!

My point is that, while many of you are very active and intentional about your Catholic identity – which has been very inspiring for me – there also many here today, or perhaps among your family and friends, who just coast in their Catholicism because they have trouble imagining what it would be like to live a different way. If you’re not going to confession monthly when you know you could, or you’re not going to daily Mass when you know you could, or you’re not volunteering at the parish when you know you could… you don’t have to start all of this tomorrow! God is pleased to see you approaching Him! All you have to do is challenge yourself to take small steps in this direction and as your heart becomes more and more invested you’ll find it coming more and more naturally to you and part of who you are.

Besides, how well do we really know our current way of life, let alone what God is calling us to?! The first reading captured it perfectly! “And scarce do we guess the things on earth, and what is within our grasp we find with difficulty; but when things are in heaven, who can search them out?! But, like Onesimus in the second reading, freed from slavery, free to be sent to Philemon to be a part of a new family – we too have been freed by Jesus Christ to be members of the active and growing family of God: His Church. We are no longer slaves to our past lives or our current complacency, no matter how uncertain the present or the future may seem. We too can live with a newness and joy and set out to become the full, conscious, and active Catholics that Jesus is calling us to be, filled with the youthfulness of the Holy Spirit.

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C: Pride, Poverty, and True Humility

During my seminary years, I had what’s called a Pastoral Year. This is a time when a seminarian spends an academic year out of seminary, between the second and third years of Theology, and in a parish in his home diocese. I was at St. Athanasius in Louisville. During that year, I had an experience of both pride and humility that I’ll never forget.

We were coming near to Holy Week and I had been feverishly preparing for the Easter Vigil. Even though the Easter Vigil had been going on like clockwork since long before I got there, I was determined to have everything figured out. Since I was going to serve the Mass, I poured over all the documents and instructions pertaining to the Easter Vigil, and made pages of notes, so that I could know exactly how everything should happen. It was a very prideful attitude for me to have. The pastor there at the time, Fr. Terry Bradshaw, very wisely left me to my devices. He knew before I did that I would learn from this. One should always prepare well for liturgy, but never think himself its master.

When the Easter Vigil finally came, I was a nervous wreck. But, I had a pretty good relationship with the sacristan so I was kidding with her a little bid in order to ease the tension. In the midst of that I said an off-color remark that hurt her feelings and she walked away sad. This was 15 minutes before the Easter Vigil was about to begin. I was crushed. I felt like the scum of the earth. Even after I apologized to her, I still felt terrible.

But it didn’t stop there. I forgot all about the careful preparation I had done, I forgot all about my notes. I was thrown all out of whack. On my way into the Church from the Easter Fire, instead of holding the paschal candle by the base, I held it by the candle itself and the base went crashing down on the tile, making a terrible noise. After that I sulked and moped throughout the entire Mass. After all my prideful preparation, after thinking I could be the master of this liturgy, God allowed me to be humbled in a profound way. He allowed all my preparation to come tumbling down. And of course, everything still went smoothly.

I think God allows that to happen to us because pride is one of the biggest obstacles that comes between us and Him. When Jesus was invited to a banquet at the home of one of the leading Pharisees, he knew the room would be filled with people watching carefully his every move, conniving and scheming for a way to trap him. But he went because he loved them too. He did not write them off as being beyond salvation. He took the opportunity to teach them a lesson that he hoped would soften their hearts toward him. He wanted them to see that despite their lofty position in society, the state of their souls was quite low. In that way they were the poorest of the poor.

When he saw them clamoring for the highest positions at table once they had all gathered there, he no doubt had pity on them. In his Sacred Heart reverberated our responsorial psalm today. “The Father of orphans and the defender of widows – is God in his holy dwelling – God gives a home to the forsaken – he leads forth prisoners to prosperity.” In their worldly exaltedness and their spiritual depravity, the Pharisees had orphaned themselves from the Father of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had spurned Lady Wisdom – she is a widow in relation to them. But God the Son, Jesus Christ, enters the home of the forsaken to offer them a new home in his heart. He leads forth those imprisoned to sin to the prosperity of the freedom of innocence by challenging them to take first the lowest place at the table, rather than presuming that they deserve the highest place. He warns them that if they exalt themselves in the eyes of the world, then they lower themselves in the eyes of God. “My child, conduct your affairs with humility,” Ben Sirach advises his grandson in the first reading, “and you will be loved more than a giver of gifts. Humble yourself the more, the greater you are, and you will find favor with God.”

You and I must carefully examine how humility and pride characterize our lives. Pride sneaks into our lives quietly but can soon become a roaring lion. We can have a string of successes or favors and then all of a sudden, it’s “all about me.” “Look at how good I did, look at how successful I was!” We’re the first to brag about our successes and we want to be the center of attention. We want more and more, to advance our own position and we forget the needs of those around us, those looking to us for help. Pride is the worst kind of poverty. It stores up worldly praise, treasure, and ambition that fade away like vapor and is empty of the life of God and the spiritual riches that have eternal significance.

But, this is not to say that we should walk around gloomy and sulking – as I did during that Easter Vigil several years ago after feeling so terrible for what I had said. God doesn’t want gloomy Christians either. Being humble does not mean being constantly self-deprecating which is so tiring to one’s family and friends. This is a false humility – a humility that springs from a desire to appear humble rather than springing from a true humbled and contrite heart. We also see this in those who have an almost belligerent rejection of the charity of another or of proper praise when it is due. “No, No, No! That wasn’t nearly as good a homily as it could have been! Well, I got through it! Eh, it was OK… it wasn’t that great” – those kinds of statements often come from a false humility. Another funny example is what you can sometimes witness in a restaurant – the feverish competition to see who will pick up the tab – “Oh, allow me! Oh, no I couldn’t! Oh, but I insist! Oh, no please let me!” and there is this game of hot potato back and forth with the bill and the cash until someone ends up sliding money through the window of the car or hiding it in the other’s pocket! What we often forget is that accepting charity is an act of humility.

Humility is not a gloominess or a stubborn refusal of help or appreciation. It is simply an accurate estimation of one’s standing before God and of one’s situation. To adamantly reject the notion that we need or could use help in a given moment is to have an inaccurate estimation of our sinfulness, weakness, and room for growth. Only after we acknowledge how much help we truly need, will God be able to provide for those needs, to lift us up by the hand, and exalt us in the spiritual life.

This authentic humility brings peace and calmness. It comes naturally. It is attractive, it is gracious, it is welcoming. It is steady and even-keeled. It is joyful because it finds its sustenance through reliance on God who never fails, rather than on itself who often fails. Humility says, “Thank you very much, I appreciate that” when a comment is given. It says, “Well, that’s very generous of you, God bless you” when a friend offers to pick up the check. It carries always on its lips the song of Mary: “the Almighty has done great things for me and Holy is His Name. He has cast down the mighty from their thrones and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty…” and the Glory be, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.”

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C–Share Your Faith, Broaden the Narrow Gate

Before I entered seminary in 2005 I was a software developer for an investment firm in Louisville. I was on a team that made in-house software that our portfolio managers used to track their performance. I did that for about 2.5-3 years and it was during that period that I discerned the priesthood. I felt like God had led me to Louisville via that job so I decided to study for the Archdiocese of Louisville rather than the Diocese of Owensboro where I was born and raised.

Toward the end of that job, I decided to send an email out, not only to my software development team but to the whole company, all the traders, portfolio managers, finance folks, etc. to tell them how happy I was to work with them and to explain that I was resigning in order to study to be a Catholic priest. After I sent that email, I got replies from many people who I had interacted with off and on over those three years but who I had no idea were Catholic. They would say, “Hey, I think its great what you’re doing… I’m Catholic too!” As I thought back on that later I realized that there was a piece missing from that whole experience. Why did I not recognize so many of my coworkers as Catholic? Why did they not express their Catholicism to me until that email at the very end? I think our readings this weekend provide several phrases we can use to piece together an answer to this type of problem: rubbing shoulders with people day-in and day-out without our Catholic faith being known.

“I come to gather nations of every language… that have never heard of my fame or seen my glory… to Jerusalem, my holy mountain, says the Lord” to the prophet Isaiah. On his way to Jerusalem, Jesus walks with a crowd of disciples and followers. One shouts out a question, “Lord will only a few people be saved?” Jesus doesn’t answer them directly. He answers the question they should have asked. They should have asked how to be saved, not how many. He said, “Strive to enter through the narrow gate.” By this our Lord implies that it is not easy to be Christian or to be saved. It is difficult. It is a “narrow” gate.

It is not enough simply to belong to the Church, to the new covenant People of God. We should not have false confidence. In our Lord’s parable, when the people knock on the door of the kingdom, they say, “We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets.” How else do we eat and drink in his company than by the Eucharist? How else does he teach in our streets than by the proclaiming of the Gospel and of our faith? But, it is not enough to simply be passive receivers of these. For our Lord replies, “I do not know where you are from… you evil-doers!” It is not enough to simply belong and receive, we have to DO well. We have to DO good, animated by our Catholic faith.

God desires all to be saved. In order to bring that about, he commands each one of us here today, in the Responsorial Psalm to “Go out to all the world and tell the Good News.” “So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees,” the second reading said, “Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed, but healed.” We have an image of someone bowed low by the difficulties of this life. Nevertheless, our Lord wants us to go out to all the world, with our heads held high, with confidence and with zeal to work with him for the salvation of souls. It is a call to be exemplary, to encourage those who are wavering or have less strength of faith. When someone who has great suffering can still be a joyful witness, that makes a profound impact on people.

I will send fugitives – a better translation is “survivors” – I will send survivors; survivors of the difficulties of this life “to the nations and they shall proclaim my glory among the nations”… and from the Gospel we heard that “people will come from the east and the west, and from the north and the south and will recline at table in the kingdom of God.” This has been fulfilled; the Church proclaims the Gospel in all four corners of the globe, but it is not yet complete. There are still so many who do not know Jesus. We must say with John the Baptist to those around us, “Among you stands one who you do not know.” Among you stands one whom you do not know.

We must play a part in the Church’s evangelizing mission. We each have a responsibility to help others to find the narrow gate that leads to heaven. A document from Vatican II, on the apostolate or the active ministry of the laity explains, “Inserted as they are in the Mystical Body of Christ by Baptism and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit in Confirmation, it is by the Lord himself that they are assigned to the apostolate… to bear witness to Christ all the world over” (Apostolicam actuositatem 3).

It is not about doing something odd or peculiar or neglecting our family or work to do it. Since I had been such a lukewarm Catholic for most of my life, when I had this life-changing conversion upon researching answers to my girlfriend’s questions about Catholicism in my senior year of college, my mom was rightly concerned that I would be this obnoxious Bible-thumper, all up in everyone’s face! But that’s not what this is about. It is precisely in the midst of our family and work, where we already are, that we find the place for this mission. It may even be a silent witness. Often it is simply the peace and joy with which we live our lives that has a more profound effect on others than any argument or statement we put together.

We can bring Christ to where God has placed us in several ways: By our example, the way we live our lives; by putting our faith into practice; by being cheerful, being someone people can easily approach; by refusing to be perturbed by the difficulties that are the common lot of all mankind; by encouraging others with the joy that comes from following Christ; by giving new hope to those near despair, fighting the temptation to always just mind our own business; and by helping others go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. With this last one I have in mind many of our elderly who have an acute desire for this sacrament but have no one who is willing to take them.

These last few weekends we have found much fruit in these readings for our nightly examination of conscience. Some questions this weekend that we can ask ourselves are: Do those who know us recognize us as disciples of Christ? Do we rub shoulders day-in and day-out with people who have no idea that we are Catholic, like I did at my old job? How many have we helped take a decisive step toward heaven? How many have we spoken to about God? How many have we recommended a good book too, that may provide that extra encouragement someone needs? How many have we explained the Church’s teaching to on marriage and family? How many have we shown the joy that comes from giving of ourselves?

And again I think about confession – and this is going to take me away from my outline but I don’t care – How many have we helped to go to confession? This time I refer to our children and youth. You all are going to get tired of me preaching about this, but it is too important for me to ignore. I have heard the confessions of very few children and young adults since I’ve been here. This worries me because I love you all and I know that we cannot grow in holiness on our own strength; our souls are fragile, we need the help of that sacrament. I know that our children who go to Catholic schools go to confession once or twice a semester but that is not enough. We need to be helping them find the narrow gate by bringing them to confession.

I have heard the horror stories, about being forced to go to confession when you were young, every Saturday, whether you had something to confess or not. I have heard how you had to just make something up to get through the confession only to have the priest be mean to you or rush you along. These stories weigh heavily on my heart. It doesn’t have to be this way, once a month is a healthy practice. And I promise to all of you that I will never be mean to you. I will never yell at you. I will never rush you to get you outta there… though I may ask you to be succinct if Mass time is approaching. I will be serious, but I will always be merciful with you. I am nothing to be afraid of. This sacrament is too important for some jerk priest to turn you away from it forever.

Back to my outline, my final point is that what the soul is to the body, the Christian is to the world. Is that said of us in our family, at work, at school, or at a football game? Are you the soul of wherever you happen to be? No one is excused from this type of mission and no one is excluded from receiving it from us. Every generation needs to redeem and sanctify its own time. True, we are faced with ideologies which use powerful means of communicating a contrary message. Just think about those closest to you and start with them. Don’t worry about feeling like you can’t share your faith very well or you are too few to make a difference. Our Lord will multiply our strength and the Queen of Apostles will assist us. If we cooperate with them they will make the narrow gate broad for us.

20th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C–On Fire but Not Consumed

It is startling hearing Jesus use all of this fiery language today; language about the earth being ablaze and division among families. This goes against the vision we sometimes have of Jesus as a meek and mild character. But, language of fire is something we’re all familiar with, we use it often in reference to our spiritual and emotional lives. Spiritually, there are Catholics who are “On fire” for their faith – they are bold and courageous, they have zeal and excitement for their faith, they want to share it and participate in it to the full. There are also Catholics who are “lukewarm.” This perhaps is the worst kind of Catholic – The Book of Revelation describes how the Lord “spits out” the lukewarm, like water that is distasteful to him (Rev 3:16). Lukewarm-ness is that wishy-washy, uncommitted middle ground wherein a Catholic is not “on fire” for his faith, but hasn’t necessarily “gone cold” to it either – he just doesn’t really think about it, going through the motions every week. Moving further away, some Catholics have “gone cold” toward God, maybe due to an illness, or death in the family, or other difficulty that tempts them to reject him or be angry toward Him.

We also use language of fire in our emotional lives. We speak of “burning with passion” or lust – a temptation comes and it overcomes like a fire. There is also “burning with anger” – someone cuts you off in traffic, says an insulting remark, or makes your job at work more difficult and you can feel the anger boiling inside you. Or the “fire of resentment” – where just the sight of someone who slighted you in the past burns you up inside. Or the “fire of jealousy” that burns every time you see the person that got something you’ve been eyeballing all year. If it’s not fire in our emotions, sometimes it is Lukewarm-ness, which is experienced as a sort of malaise, or complacency, or indifferentism – just coasting through life, day to day. And coldness comes when we feel alone, isolated, alienated from family and friends, or self-centered.

I think Jesus uses language of fire to redeem our experience of the degrees of fire in our spiritual and emotional lives. Jesus burns with a fire too! He burns with a holy impatience to bring to fulfillment his baptism, to accomplish the Father’s Will, to suffer, die, and rise again for us to save us from our sins. “How great is my anguish until it is accomplished!” we hear him exclaim in our Gospel today. But, the difference between his fire and ours is that he burns with love, a fire that burns continuously but does not consume or destroy. On the other hand, the fires we experience in our emotions – lust, anger, resentment, and jealousy – DO consume us as they burn; they burn us out, they burn us up. And the fire in our spiritual lives is quick to die down. Our Lord today wants to transform these fires into fires of love that burn continuously but do not destroy us – like the fire in the burning bush from which God revealed Himself to Moses – “although the bush was on fire, it was not being consumed” (Exodus 3:1-4). The first reading illustrated this transformation. The fires of anger that caused the king’s princes to throw Jeremiah into the cistern to die, are later in the story transformed into fires of mercy that cause the king to send his court official and three men to save him.

Our Lord burns for each one of us personally, to save us from the pits that our sins cast us into. But do we burn for Him in return? Last week I talked about how a nightly examination of conscience can reveal the small signposts that tell us we are on The Way or have gone astray. Part of that examination could be to ask ourselves how we burn for God. Does our faith stoke the fire when our feelings don’t? This is a very important question! Often we let our subjective feelings dictate the objective truth. Sometimes when we do not feel the warmth of God’s love or the warmth of his closeness to us then we conclude that He must not be real or must be distant from us. But if the truth was based on our feelings, which often come and go, then we would never know the truth. On the other hand, the fires of faith tell us that God is Love and He is close to us, even if we do not feel it. You could ask yourself, “Do I have a faith that fuels perseverance, or do I ‘go cold’ toward God at the slightest difficulty?” “Let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us,” the second reading said, “and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.” Two very powerful ways for stoking the furnace of faith, perseverance, and love are the sacrament of confession and Eucharistic Adoration.

In Dante’s narrative poem Divine Comedy, he describes an epic journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven. In the first part, Dante’s “Inferno,” it is interesting to note how he describes the ninth circle, the deepest level of Hell. It is not like a lake of fire and brimstone with huge blazing flames like we usually imagine. Rather, it is a frozen lake of ice, with Satan trapped in the ice and gusts of icy wind blowing all around him.

Dante probably describes it as ice rather than fire because fire has connotations of warmth and comfort. Sure, Satan loves to stoke destructive fires of lust, anger, resentment, and jealousy within us. But, if it has been a while since you have been to confession, it can also feel like he has been packing ice onto your faith and love. Every time we sin, Satan packs more and more ice onto our hearts. Sometimes you can even feel the chill. But, remember what the prophet Isaiah foretold about our Lord: “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not quench” (Isaiah 42:3; Matthew 12:20). If we carefully carry the small ember still burning within us to the confessional, our Lord in his gentleness and mercy takes it carefully to Himself. Then, through the confession of our sins, the counsel of the priest, absolution, and forgiveness he adds more brush and twigs to the ember until it is built back up into a bonfire. Here, the lukewarm are emboldened and those cold to God are warmed up to Him.

If you have not been to confession in a while, let Jesus’ fire of love purify you and reignite you. “Then flew one of the seraphim to me,” Isaiah also foretold, “having in his hand a burning coal which he has taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth, and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven’” (Is 6:5-7, RSV). Rekindled, we can return to our duty of enkindling the world with true fires of love as Jesus desired, in such a way that no one who comes in contact with us will walk away empty. Either through a smile, an act of deference, a kind word, a supportive arm, a prayer, or an outstretched hand, everyone we meet will be touched by the fire of love in us. It only takes a spark to ignite a blazing fire.

Finally, Eucharistic Adoration also keeps the fire going. Of course, as you know, when a host is consecrated at Mass it becomes the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. What looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, and smells like bread, after the consecration, is not bread, but the living Presence of God with us. And on Monday morning after the 10am daily Mass, I take one of those hosts and display it on the altar in a beautiful structure called a monstrance. This display has a beautiful gold base and stem and a window surrounded with gold beams like the rays of the sun. There lies our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament waiting for us to visit Him throughout the day and to talk with him as with a friend.

Come… listen to his voice in your heart… tell him about your children, your siblings, your parents, your neighbors, your friends… tell him about your joys, your sorrows, the raise you got, the demotion you got, the “A” you got, the “F” you got. Tell him about your birthday, your healing, your progress… tell him about your illness, your disappointments, your failures. Let him love you and give you his light and his strength. Learn from Him how to set a fire of love to the world. Let him transform the destructive fires that burn within you. Let him embolden you to withstand any hardship. The fire is set, but it is not yet blazing. Will you be a part of the flame or a part of its extinguishing? Let Jesus, through confession and adoration, set you on a blazing path that burns its way to everlasting life.

Solemnity of the Assumption– At the Mass during the Day

I fondly remember an inscription on the baldachino standing over the altar at the seminary I went to, St. Mary’s, in Baltimore, MD.  A baldachino is an architectural element, a canopy structure on four pillars.  It is the first phrase of Mary’s canticle of praise to God that we heard in our Gospel- Magnificat anima mea Dominum – My soul magnifies the Lord.  At every daily Mass at the seminary, going back to when I first entered seminary in August of 2005, I read that phrase and pondered its meaning.  What does it mean?  I think this is both a statement of humility and a statement of victory.  Mary does not magnify herself by her virtues.  She sings, “my soul magnifies the Lord.”  And her entire soul, her entire life joyfully proclaims to all generations our Lord’s conclusive victory over sin and death.

Due to the fall of our first parents, sin took hold over the beginning and the end of human life.  At his conception, man inherits original sin and what we call concupiscence or the tendency toward sin.  And at his very end he must suffer the wages of sin which are death and the decomposition of his body.  But, the Blessed Virgin Mary shines forth as a beacon from God’s heavenly kingdom, showing us even now, before Christ’s second coming, that he is completely victorious over sin and death.  The Lord, by Mary’s Immaculate Conception, saved her from original sin before she could be sullied by it, thus showing his victory over the beginning of life.  By freeing her from the snares of concupiscence, he prepared her to live a life free from actual committed sin.  And by assuming her body and soul into heaven he showed his victory over the end of life.  Mary was saved completely from the dominion and the bonds of sin and death.

When Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption in 1950 he defined it this way: “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death” (Munificentissimus Deus).  This is what Catholics must believe.  But what does this have to do with us?

Mary’s Assumption is the guarantee that those who share in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, will share in his victory.  Some of the early Church Fathers differ on this point, but many taught that Mary did die.  But, the key difference between her death and ours is that our death will happen by necessity because we are fallen and sinful.  On the other hand, Mary’s death was not by necessity because she had no sin, whether that be original sin or committed sin.  Her death was a grace from God so that she might be conformed to her Son even in his death.  And her death lasted only an instant, in order to serve this purpose and in order that she might continue to be conformed to him in eternal life.  Her body was joined to her soul in heaven at the moment of her death, so that it would not know decay, and so that she would not have to wait for her Son’s second coming, wherein all of our bodies will be joined to our souls in heaven, hell, or purgatory.  Her body and soul were immediately assumed into heaven.

By sharing in Christ’s sufferings at the foot of the cross, and by sharing in his death, she proved to us that Jesus keeps his promises: she shares in his heavenly glory.  If we humble ourselves, we too will be exalted.  If we offer up our sufferings, great and small, to the Father and die to ourselves, our passions, and our own will, each and every day, we too will share in Christ’s victory and glory alongside our Blessed Mother who reflects the glory of her Son every time we look to her.  Today we can say with St. Paul, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us” (Romans 8:18).

That inscription in the seminary chapel helps us reflect on Mary's humility and victory.  One final reflection today that may be easily overlooked, is what the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary also teaches us about the honor due to our father and mother.  Jesus followed the fourth commandment - Honor Thy Father and Mother -  to its ultimate degree by bringing his mother, body and soul, quickly to his side at the moment of her death.  He crowned her Queen of heaven and earth.  As Mary described in her canticle of praise from our Gospel, “The Almighty has done great things for me; … [he] has lifted up the lowly.”  How do we honor our father and mother, especially as they approach old age or death?  Do we place them in nursing homes and then forget them or abandon them?  Do we “honor” them by squabbling over money or inheritance?  Jesus Christ is calling us today to follow his example, to honor our father and mother as he did at the Assumption and Crowning of His Blessed Mother.

Let us pray that through the intercession of our Blessed Mother, Queen of Heaven and Earth, we will not magnify ourselves by our faith and works, but instead always magnify our Lord.  Let us pray that through her intercession we will share in his suffering and death and so share in his glory.  That through her intercession we will honor our father and mother and give them the crown that they deserve.  Finally, let us pray, that through her intercession we too will be brought swiftly to the side of our Lord when we die.

Vigil of the Assumption

Celebrate Mary as the New Ark, as a Victor, and as the Perfect Disciple.

Interesting to have a first reading on the ark of the covenant.  What does it have to do with Mary’s Assumption?

David commanded the chiefs of the Levites
to appoint their kinsmen as chanters,
to play on musical instruments, harps, lyres, and cymbals,
to make a loud sound of rejoicing.

We too rejoice in the presence of an ark, the ark of the new covenant.

In the Old Testament the Ark is described as being about 2.5ft square and about 4.5ft long.  It was made of special acacia wood which was incorruptible, was covered inside and out with the purest, finest gold, and had a ring of gold on top. On each of the two sides were two gold rings that two wooden poles went through to allow the Ark to be carried. Even these poles were sheathed in gold. Over the Ark, at the two ends, were two cherubim, with their faces turned toward one another. Their outspread wings over the top of the Ark formed the throne of God, while the Ark itself was his footstool.

The Ark of the Covenant was built so magnificently because it stood for God’s very presence among the Hebrews. The Book of Lamentations called it “the beauty of Israel.”  It was pure, incorruptible, and of the highest beauty. It also held inside three items that were crucial to their faith and identity: the tablets of the 10 commandments of God’s Law; a golden vase containing the manna from heaven that fed them in the desert; and the rod of the high priest, Aaron, that bloomed in affirmation of his priesthood. But the beauty of the ark was not only due to what it symbolized or what it contained but what it prefigured, what it pointed to in the future: The beauty and purity of the Ark of the New Covenant: The Blessed Virgin Mary.  We celebrate today a New Ark of a New Covenant with a beauty the Old Ark only aspired to have.

This point is packed with meaning! First the gold lining and covering of the old Ark pointed to the Immaculate purity of the Virgin Mary, the New Ark. And the three things the old Ark contained – The tablets of the Law, the golden vase of manna, and the rod of Aaron – are also in the New Ark, in the person of Jesus Christ, when Mary carried Him in her womb. He is the author of the Law, He is the Bread from Heaven, and He is the eternal High Priest.

In Israel’s history the Old Ark traveled often with them, finally resting in the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem where scholars believe it was lost when the temple was destroyed in 587 B.C.  This too prefigured something greater. Today we celebrate Mary’s entrance, body and soul, into heaven as the entrance of the new ark into the heavenly temple of Jerusalem.  Immaculate in soul and virginal in body she is without corruption and found worthy to enter immediately into glory.

In celebrating the Assumption we also celebrate the victory of Christ, as our second reading suggests:

When that which is mortal clothes itself with immortality,
then the word that is written shall come about:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

Due to the fall of our first parents, sin took hold over the beginning and the end of human life.  At his conception, man inherits original sin and what we call concupiscence or the tendency toward sin.  And at his very end he must suffer the wages of sin which are death and the decomposition of his body.  But, the Blessed Virgin Mary escaped both.  She shines forth as a beacon from God’s heavenly kingdom, showing us even now, before Christ’s second coming, that he is completely victorious over sin and death.

The Lord, by Mary’s Immaculate Conception, saved her from original sin before she could be sullied by it, thus showing his victory over the beginning of life.  By freeing her from the snares of concupiscence, he prepared her to live a life free from actual committed sin, thus showing his victory over the course of life.  And by assuming her body and soul into heaven he showed his victory over the end of life.  Mary was saved completely from the dominion and the bonds of sin and death.

When Pope Pius XII defined the dogma of the Assumption in 1950 he defined it this way: “The Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul  into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death” (Munificentissimus Deus).  This is what Catholics must believe.  But what does this have to do with us?

Mary’s Assumption is the guarantee that those who share in the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, will share in his victory and glory.  By sharing in Christ’s suffering and death at the foot of the cross, Mary proved to us that Jesus keeps his promises: she shares in his heavenly glory.  If we offer up our sufferings, great and small, to the Father and die to ourselves, our passions, and our own will, each and every day, we too will share in Christ’s victory and glory alongside our Blessed Mother.

Finally, in the Gospel we celebrate her as the perfect disciple.  She traveled a rough road to the glory she now enjoys.  She was active and cooperative.  She said Yes throughout her life.  She had faith, she trusted God without knowing the future.  She surrendered completely to his will even to the death of Jesus on the cross.  She is the mother of Jesus, but also his disciple.

To be a disciple of Christ is more blessed than to be his mother.  The woman in the crowd praised Mary for being Jesus’s Mother.  But when Jesus replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it” he was making a point that Spiritual relationship is more important than blood relationship.  Of course, She was blessed on both accounts.  St. Augustine said, “Indeed the blessed Mary certainly did the Father’s will, and so it was to her a greater thing to have been Christ’s disciple than to have been his mother, and she was more blessed in her discipleship than in her motherhood.  Hers was the happiness of first bearing in her womb him whom she would obey as her master.”

She is taken up into heaven not only as his mother but as the perfect disciple.  She heard the word of God and kept it.  We are invited to follow her.  How is God calling you to follow Him in your particular state in life?  To know, we need to be open to the Word and respond with our own Yes.  If we respond like this, like Mary, we too will be glorified.

19th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C: Await the Blessed Hope

When we think of our family history we tend to think back a couple of generations to our grandparents or great-grandparents and the memories of where have lived and grown up and where we have come from. There is more interest now than ever-before in genealogy and family trees. People love to know where their roots are. In fact I had a family come in this past week who were not Catholic but were interested in finding a record of their great-great-great grandfather. And we saw a couple weekends ago at the Manton Music Jam how many people from all over the region came to listen to some good bluegrass music and recall their roots at Holy Rosary.

Sometimes we hear people say, “I come from a long line of…” any given profession. For example, “I come from a long line of farmers… or soldiers… or doctors.” Children look back to their fathers and grandfathers to find direction for their own lives in the present. Our readings helps us to see that we have a spiritual family that goes back much more than 2 or 3 generations. In fact, we have a family history that goes all the way back to Abraham and the Israelites of the Exodus. We are as much a part of that spiritual family line as we are of the family of our last names. And we can look back to our fathers in faith for spiritual direction in our lives today.

The second reading described the calling of Abraham, his summoning into the desert. God gave him no direction, no destination, no departure time; He just said “Go” and promised that he would make Abraham’s descendants as numerous as the stars. Abraham loved and trusted the Lord so much that he did go; he just started walking. The first reading described the summoning of God’s people out of slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land. God promised he would free them. He gave Moses very specific instructions regarding a Passover meal. The people were to consume an unblemished lamb and sprinkle its blood on their doorposts. When the angel of death swept through to punish the Egyptians for enslaving God’s people, he saw the blood as a sign, and passed-over their houses. The Israelites ate the Passover meal in haste, ready and eager to follow Moses and God’s call to the Promised Land.

Our fathers in faith trusted the Word of God, put their faith in his oaths, and were convinced that what He promised, He would do. They did not live to see these promises fulfilled. Abraham’s descendants didn’t truly become as numerous as the stars until Christ and His Church appeared. The Passover that freed God’s people from slavery to Egypt to pursue a territorial Promised Land wasn’t truly fulfilled until the Last Supper and the Eucharist which frees God’s people from slavery to sin to pursue the Promised Land of Heaven. But, we too still wait for a fulfillment, the final fulfillment that will come with Christ’s Coming – either at our death or at the end of time – whenever that will be. Will we be as watchful, trusting, and vigilant as our fathers in faith were? Will we follow their direction?

To be vigilant in our faith doesn’t mean scrupulosity. But it does mean being attentive to the small victories in our day-to-day spiritual lives. We do not know the hour when Christ will come for us. Vigilance through the small victories will ensure that we are ready and will make Christ’s coming a joyful one. But, if we are lukewarm in our faith, not trying to learn more about it or grow in it, or if we have turned away from the Lord, then his coming will not be joyful, but will be like a thief in the night.

A daily examination of our conscience and of the day, at the end of each day, is a helpful tool for discerning how vigilant we really are. When we prayerfully think back over each day, we can notice the small signals, the little red flags that show us that we followed The Way or had gone astray. A daily examination helps us to become more astute observers of all of the little temptations of each day that can in turn become many occasions for compiling victories.

St. Francis de Sales has a wonderful reflection on this approach in his great work, The Introduction to the Devout Life, which I highly recommend to you. It is very accessible and readable. There he emphasizes that many small victories are better than a single great victory in the spiritual life (In Conversation with God, 57.3). When an enemy force is attacking a castle, they focus all of their strength on the front gate so that a clever spy can go unnoticed to the back of the castle and infiltrate it through a small crack or crevice. It is the many small temptations and victories that we should not lose sight of. Little things are a prelude to greater things. Small daily victories strengthen the interior life and mold it to be more sensitive and receptive of divine things.

St. Francis de Sales also gives some very helpful examples of these many opportunities. One, he calls the “heroic minut:” that minute when you first wake up or when your alarm first goes off. Heroically getting up in that first minute – I’m so terrible at this! – is a small but very good victory! Another example is overcoming, when you first sit down to perform a particular duty or responsibility, that first temptation of curiosity that leads to a waste of time. Overcoming the first temptation to see if your favorite blog has been updated, or to check your email, or to check for facebook comments is a wonderful small victory! Other examples are offering a self-denial at meals – overcoming the temptation for second or third helpings or the desert you know you don’t need; living sobriety at social engagements – stopping at 2 or 3 beers at the family cookout or wedding reception; or offering pleasant conversation to others – injecting a kind word when your friends begin to gossip about a neighbor. These temptations come many times each day. It can be inspiring to consider, St. Francis de Sales says, that “For all the battles we win against the small enemies there will be a precious stone placed in the crown of glory that God prepares for us in his holy kingdom.”

One final bit of advice he gives is to make each small temptation an occasion for payer or an act of love. The devil tries to infiltrate our lives, to pick away at us little by little with all of these small temptations in the hopes that the more they are indulged, they more he can lead us to even greater transgressions. But if every temptation brings a prayer to God then he will cease to tempt us. The last thing he wants us to do is pray! Men… every time you see a young lady immodestly dressed say a prayer for her in that instant rather than staring at her, then the devil will cease his efforts at driving you to lustful thoughts or actions.

As these little victories compound, we will find ourselves growing in peace, serenity, and joy “as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.” We will find ourselves vigilant and ready for the final fulfillment of God’s promise to us of true freedom in heaven. Living this way, when the Lord comes, he will find us not only ready, but joyfully awaiting him as servants who await a master to prepare a feast for them; as a bride who waits for her groom to take her to the wedding feast; as a young mother who waits for her husband to return home from battle. This isn’t a gloomy waiting or a gloomy readiness, this is a joyful readiness! This is how the Lord wishes to find us when he comes again.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C: Rich in What Matters to God

As Christians, when we think about avoiding materialism, we focus on trying not to accumulate things just for the sake of accumulating them, like clothes, shoes, DVD’s, whatever it may be. But it seems like the accumulation of books is an acceptable form of materialism. The guys who helped me move into the rectory will tell you that much! I have four bookshelves over there filled with books on philosophy, theology, the spiritual life, the sacraments, etc. They go on and on. And I tell myself that I need them, or that someday I will refer to them. Many of them are in fact very useful, but most have only been read in bits here and there.

The guys who helped me carry in box after box of books may not believe this, but I actually gave away many books as I packed up to move here. That was a very liberating exercise. It not only helped me have less to pack, but it also relieved a bit of that spiritual and psychological burden that escalates as we – as I – accumulate more and more books and things. I felt like a 50 pound weight has been lifted off of my shoulders as I gave those books away. My dad says for every one book I buy I should take two off of the shelf. Well, then they would just pile on the floor!

I pray that I can retain an impulse to periodically pare things down, to unload a bit, and to free myself of so many things that distract me from what is most important. We see this impulse especially in the elderly and most especially in those who are preparing for death. Facing death causes one to look back at how well he has lived his life. “Did I live well? Did I do the right thing? Was I a good husband and father? How well did my children turn out? Will my family be OK?” All of these are questions that I have heard elderly people ask as I have visited them at home or at the hospital. And the point that many make is that the things they thought were most valuable, really aren’t that valuable anymore in the grand scheme of things. Many feel a certain disappointment or embarrassment.

They fought and worked so hard for so many decades in order to have a wealthy retirement or to finally enjoy all of the things they felt cheated out of as they concentrated on raising their family. Now all they want to do is be free of it all, to have peace and quiet, to see virtuous living among their children, to give and to receive love, to share the stories and the lessons they have learned. And the wisest of the elderly want to die well, detached from all of the things and all of the plans that now have little value before the eternal value of their own soul and their preparedness for eternal life.

In one of the most important encyclicals of our Catholic Social Teaching, Populorum Progressio, On the Development of Peoples, Pope Paul VI wrote, “Increased possession is not the ultimate goal of nations nor of individuals. All growth is ambivalent. It is essential if man is to develop as a man, but in a way it imprisons man if he considers it the supreme good, and it restricts his vision.” Our first reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes began by exclaiming “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity!” The Hebrew word, translated here as “vanity” really means “a breath” or “a vapor”; “vanity of vanities” is the Hebrew way of saying, “the merest breath.” The author isn’t talking about being “vain”, he is emphasizing that the things we work so hard for in life, what Pope Paul VI called our “increased possession,” are like “a breath”, like “a vapor”, they pass away with the wind. Those who are approaching death from sickness or old age readily see how their things will pass away like “a breath”, like “a vapor” and the wisest among them are liberated, not embittered by this fact. Why can’t most of us, who cannot see our death approaching, have the same liberation and experience the same freedom of detachment?

The fact is, God put into man an insatiable desire for the infinite, but we try to fulfill that desire with finite things. Because we do this, we live in constant frustration, going from one thing to the next, never satisfied. But, our satisfaction will only come, even in this life, when we satisfy our infinite desire with things that have eternal significance. Perhaps we need a healthy reminder that death could come for any of us at any minute. This might cause us to be a little nervous or anxious; maybe it should. The better reaction though is to live each day valuing what is most important, what does not simply pass away on its own, for example, the share in God’s own divine Life in the grace of the sacraments; the gifts of Faith, Hope, and Love; the spiritual growth of our children and grandchildren; the peace and fulfillment that comes from working with “wisdom and knowledge and skill,” as the First Reading put it; or the freedom that comes from interior detachment from the things that we own.

It is not a sin to be rich or to own many things. We have many saints in our tradition who were kings or queens. But it is a sin to value finite things over eternal things. Our things should be instrumental toward our salvation; they find their value in the way they help us toward it. They should not amount to our salvation or be the source that we look to for a sense of salvation here on earth. When you and I die, what will people say? Will they say: “Yes, he lived a life accumulating, day after day, year upon year… grace, prayer, charity toward his family and neighbors, parishioner after parishioner who decided to be a more faithful Catholic because of his example. He thought ‘of what is above, not of what is on earth,’ as St. Paul wrote to the Colossions. He accumulated rosaries prayed, confessions humbly given, novenas offered, hours spent before the Blessed Sacrament. And he accumulate these not so he could provide a final tally to God, but because they brought him true fulfillment and happiness. They brought others relief from their burdens. They were pleasing to God.” Or… instead… will God say to you and me what he said to the foolish rich man in today’s Gospel: “‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves but are not rich in what matters to God.”

17th Sunday Ordinary Time Year C: Prayer and Persistence

Why is it that… of all the things that are the most life-giving in our faith, prayer can be the most confounding? The questions that we have when we first learn to pray continue to pop-up when we are most advanced in prayer: When should I pray? How should I pray? What should I say? Why should I even try? The good news is we are not left on our own to find the answers to these questions. And we are not alone in asking them. Jesus’ disciples, even after his preaching, teaching, and parables; even after his miraculous cures and his miraculous feats; even after he calmed the storm at sea, cast out demons, and multiplied the loaves and fishes; even after the Transfiguration, they still felt the need to ask him how to pray.

And this we should pay close attention too. This is Jesus Christ, fully divine and fully human. The Father cannot resist the prayers of His Son. The very words of the “Our Father” that Jesus gave his disciples were given to Jesus by the Father as he prayed in silence. At the same time, Jesus knows the human heart perfectly. He knows how to put into words exactly what we need. The “Our Father” is the perfect prayer. No matter your experience of prayer it is the surest way to our Father’s heart. It should always be a staple of our personal prayer.

The words of the “Our Father” in St. Matthew’s Gospel are the words we are most familiar with. In St. Luke’s Gospel today, the “Our Father” is a little more succinct. He starts out with, “Father, hallowed be your name.” He doesn’t say “who art in heaven.” St. Luke does this because he doesn’t want us to think that God is somehow confined in heaven and distant from us. He leaves this out in order to draw us up to heaven, close to the Father, and to draw us away from earthly things (Theophylus, Catena Aurea, Luke 11). This closeness to him is the reason that we are able to call him “Father.” We truly are his children and we should feel like his children. We should feel like we can come to him with whatever needs we may have. And if we pattern our prayer after the “Our Father”, he is sure to answer us, even if not how we expect.

Believe it or not, there is a right and a wrong way to pray. The Letter of St. James, chapter 4, verse 3 says, “You ask, but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Sometimes children pray for silly things, like when a girl prays for God to make her brother mute so he’ll stop picking on her! This is OK because it cultivates a familiarity with God and an impulse to turn to Him regularly. When we become adults we should have a child-like faith, but not a child-ish faith. We shouldn’t pray to win the lottery or for our favorite team to win. Like the “Our Father,” we should praise God first – “hallowed by Thy Name” – ask for his will to be ours – “Thy Will be done” – then pray for only those things which are objectively good for us. We should examine our motives and ask God to purify them.

Even a seemingly good prayer, like “God, grant me a deeper understanding of your Church’s teaching,” could be tinged with the desire for others to praise us for this understanding. And God, who knows our hearts perfectly, will not answer us right away because he does not give what is not good for us now. Like the gospel said, he will not “hand his son a snake when he asks for a fish” or “hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg.” This is because no matter how good the fish or the egg might sound, if in his will they are not good for us now, then they will be harmful. But, when we pray the “Our Father” or pattern our own prayer after it, asking for good things with pure motives, our Father will surely answer us, even unexpectedly. He would not encourage us to ask, seek, & knock if he was not willing to give and give abundantly.

Our ancestral father in faith, Abraham, gives us another sure and certain way to our Father’s heart: persistence. The Lord in the form of an angel was determined to go to the wicked towns of Sodom and Gomorrah to see if the outrage expressed against them was really true. Abraham knew what the verdict would be if it was: The Lord’s justice would prevail over those cities. Moved with hope he concluded that surely there are innocents among them. Then out of love for these unknown innocents he implored the Lord repeatedly to make concession for them. He was humble, he expressed all along his desire not to pester the Lord. But with courage he continued to intercede for the innocent residents of Sodom and Gomorrah. And with patience and generosity the Lord progressively tempered his justice with his mercy at each of Abraham’s requests. It was Abraham’s persistence that elicited the most generosity from the Lord.

We should never be afraid to be persistent in prayer. Jesus Christ himself taught us to pray “Give us this day our daily bread”. This daily bread is both our temporal, physical, or emotional needs for that day and especially our spiritual need for the Eucharist. These we should pray for every day. But, when we think of praying to God about the same thing over and over we imagine a little child in line at the grocery store who begs and begs for candy until his mother finally buys it. The mother in that case isn’t teaching the child about the nobility of persistence or rewarding him for his perseverance. She buys the candy because she can’t bear the whining any longer! This is not how God operates and it is not how he sees our relationship with him. From God’s point of view, He is unwearied in his love for us. From our point of view, we pray repeatedly for something not because we want to pester God into submission but because we believe that he can provide what we want. It’s actually a sign of great faith. If you are one who prays repeatedly, you should know that God has given you a great faith

Repetitious prayer also develops our reliance on Him rather than on ourselves. It helps us to give the proper value to God’s gifts and not to take them for granted. One who toils for years for something keeps it safe and secure, he doesn’t leave it unguarded to be lost or stolen or forgotten. God’s gifts, his graces, virtues, assistance and healing are more precious than gold. He doesn’t wish for these things to be taken so trivially. But this doesn’t mean that he is stingy in his giving. In fact, He gives much more than we are willing to receive.

God sometimes delays in answering our prayer because he knows that this delay will serve us better in the end. If the man in the parable today had opened the door on the first knock for his friend who needed bread for his guest, then the friend in his hurry would have taken the bread and ran home immediately to his guest. Instead, the man inside delayed, forcing his friend to consider not only his immediate need, but also the late hour of his request and the courtesy due to the family inside who were asleep. The man caused his friend to think more deeply about their friendship, to honor it more, and to think outside of himself toward others. God’s delay in answering our prayer should cause us to consider the same things.

When we pray the “Our Father” in a little while say each phrase carefully and think about each phrase as you say it. When we sing “Holy, Holy, Holy” and “Hosanna in the Highest!” praise God from the depths of your heart. Before you receive Communion, ask the Father, through Jesus, by the power of the Holy Spirit to unite your will to his. Then spend some quiet time in prayer after Communion, the most fitting time to pray, and ask for what you need. When you praise him, seek his will, and ask for good things with good intentions at this time – right after receiving Communion – you will not only be praying like Jesus and with Jesus, but you will be praying as Jesus, because the Father will look upon you and see the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of His Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ, living in you. When He sees His Son in you, He will not fail to answer.

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C: In Contemplation, We Love the Lord with Our Whole Heart, Being, Strength, and Mind.

Do you remember last week’s Gospel? A scholar of the law asked Jesus what he must do to inherit eternal life, but Jesus asked him for his own take on the answer. The scholar replied, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, …being, …strength, …and mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Then Jesus vividly illustrated the second half of his answer by telling him the parable of the Good Samaritan. St. Luke, today, follows up this parable by illustrating the first part of the scholar’s answer, how we are to love God with all our heart, being, strength, and mind.

Last week we went deeper into the parable because it is too easy to just dismiss the priest and the Levite who passed by, praise the Good Samaritan for his good deed, say, “Just love everybody,” and end it at that. In this account of Martha and Mary we must also go deeper in order to see how it really illustrates loving God with one’s whole heart, being, strength, and mind. Again, it is too easy to just dismiss Martha for her busywork, praise Mary for her listening, say, “Just listen to God more” and end it at that. We need to appreciate the work Martha was doing. In the first reading, Abraham busily tended to his three guests. He saw the Lord in them, he ran to greet them, ran into his home to have Sarah prepare a meal, then ran to his servant who quickly prepared the meat, and finally he waited on them while they ate. With eagerness and haste he waited on the Lord.

This sounds a lot like the hospitality that Martha gave our Lord. She too “welcomed him” and was “burdened with much serving.” We see in her the same sense of eagerness and haste in serving the Lord that Abraham had. In fact, Abraham’s scenario – which occurred “by the terebinth of Mamre” – and Martha &Mary’s scenario – which occurred in a “village”, probably Bethany – both happened in the same area, just south of Jerusalem. These parallels help us to see that Martha’s “anxious and worried” hospitality should not be simply dismissed. Jesus would never rebuke such hospitality outright. We can imagine that Jesus had his disciples with him and Martha wanted to honor them by being a good hostess. The Lord’s reply to Abraham, “Very well, do as you have said” should comfort Martha too.

But, at the end of the day, very little was needed physically or temporally. After all, in serving the Lord, Abraham only brought his guests “a little food”, just enough to “refresh” them. Jesus himself says to Martha, “There is need of only one thing.” His physical needs will come and go, but his Word endures forever. Mary preferred to sit at his feet, as a disciple does before a master, and listen carefully to his teaching, tending to the Word of God. Were these words to be lost on Martha? Her work for Jesus was good and will continue to be good but only after she spends some quiet time with him listening to his voice, and receiving it deeply into her heart. This is how we are to love God, by allowing our whole heart, being, strength, and mind to be filled with and permeated by the Word of God.

How can we, like Martha’s sister Mary, choose “the better part” each day, if we do not love the Lord enough to let Him speak to us? Ignoring or not giving enough attention to his voice is tantamount to not loving him. How many wives would insist that their husbands loved them if their husbands never communicated with them on a deep level? How many children would insist that their parents loved them if their parents completely ignored them? Loving God involves much more than just hearing the readings on Sunday. It means much more than fitting some quiet time for Jesus into our busy day. Loving the Lord means fitting our day into Him! Setting aside time for quiet prayer is certainly very good. But the other parts of the day that do not give us silence can still be lived in dialogue and union with God who is always speaking to us, always calling us to be with Him.

Fr. Jean Corbon, a Dominican theologian, wrote a book that I read a few summers ago called, The Wellspring of Worship, about how we can constantly live in the grace of the liturgy. In that book is a quote that always comes to mind whenever my conscience tells me to pray but the evil one makes me feel guilty for not being busy. It’s a simple quote that just says, “Contemplation is the most fruitful human activity.” This is because contemplation involves our whole heart, being, strength, and mind.

Contemplation can happen in silence or in activity. In silence, we love God with our whole heart when we give him all our inclinations and passions and ask him to make our heart like his Sacred Heart which beats with purity, sacrifice, and perfect love. In silence, we give our whole being to him when we surrender to him as his faithful disciple and he fills us with his own being by making us holy through grace. In silence, we give all our strength to him when we focus all of our attention on him despite how tired, or bored, or distracted, or rebellious we may be and he gives us strength to persevere in prayer when it is dry or to be consoled when it is fruitful. Finally, in silence we give our whole mind to God when we give him all our thoughts, feelings, and desires and he in turn gives us what he gave St. Paul: the completion of the word of God, “the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past”, and “the riches of the glory of this mystery”, indeed, “all wisdom.”

Contemplation can also extend to the activity of our day. We can and we must extend the dialogue of our quiet time in prayer throughout the rest of our day. I really like how you all spend some time in prayer before Mass in order to gather your heart, being, strength, and mind to be filled by God. Many parishes have fallen out of this practice. I also encourage you to spend time in prayer after Mass to thank him for making you holy and to draw the rest of the day’s plans into his presence. We must continue to do this.

Then when we get up Monday morning for work we can say to God that we will work this day not for some superficial goal but in order to glorify him. And during the day we could say: “Lord, let me approach this customer as if it were you.” Or, “Lord help me to offer up the pain I feel from my illness for the salvation of my family, just as you saved all mankind through your crucifixion.” Or, “Lord I invite you to be a part of even the smallest steps of this project.” Now, work is not prayer, it must have its own time. But our work can be done prayerfully when we contemplate the presence of God in everything we do and in everyone we encounter.

This is the “better part,” when we fit our entire lives and our entire day into him, rather than fitting him only into some small part of our life or our day. When we pray at night, at the end of a day of both quiet and active contemplation, we will not feel as if we are finally speaking to our long-lost friend again. We will be speaking to the Lord who all the while was “standing nearby” us, was running to “the entrance” of each day to greet us, who has brought us the “little food” of the Eucharist for our eternal refreshment, who hastens and runs to bring us his graces, and who “sets these before” us always. We will discover that He was the one “burdened with much serving” so that even through a busy day, he “will not be taken” from us. Through contemplation, the most fruitful human activity, we shall “love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, …being, …strength, …and mind.” We “will live in the presence of the Lord” and “shall never be disturbed.”