TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 14:25-33

Dear Friends,

These words of Jesus are very strong. In fact, they are the most extreme in expressing the demands of discipleship in all of the Gospels. Likewise, they probably are the most neglected.

It is clear from the rest of Gospel that Jesus does not mean that we “hate” our loved ones. What he does mean is that we must place Jesus first. It is simply a question of priorities expressed in the style of the language in Jesus’ time. This leaves plenty of room for concern and compassion for our loved ones

Secondly, the carrying of the cross is a non-negotiable component of walking with Jesus, of being a disciple. It is a clear and evident. Following Jesus has a steep price. We have to die to our selfishness. We have to cast off the world’s values of success and prosperity. We have to free ourselves from the clutches of a pervasive consumer mentality of bigger and better. Jesus’ forceful words leave no doubt about it; true discipleship is a costly affair.

The clarity and power of Jesus’ terms and the call to decision too often lead to either the neglect of true discipleship or its reduction as a commitment to a more convenient and comfortable Jesus. This distortion of a popular Jesus has been a challenge down through Christian history. The very elements of power riches, privilege and power that Jesus attacked in all his teachings, ministry and life too often are the operative values of his followers and Church. The Church has always been burdened by far more token disciples than true followers of Christ.

Today’s Gospel passage makes it quite evident. Jesus demands that we follow him on his terms. Jesus makes it obvious that everything else must make sense in light of this commitment. All other loves must find their true meaning and direction from the love of Jesus.

When we place this mandate of taking up the cross in isolation, it is both frightening and more than difficult. However, we encounter a much more enticing view when we place this call of true discipleship in the context of Jesus’ call to the Kingdom. Here we are invited to share the conquest of sin, injustice and eventual death of this life. We are invited to the Kingdom’s way of love and everlasting life. Jesus words, “My yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt 11:30) make true sense.

Jesus asks us to calculate our decision on the basis of the final victory. That victory will not come from comfort and wealth, indulgence and prestige. All this will pass away. The ultimate victory is the conquest of the cross over all the evil of this world. The decisive victory is the cross as the instrument of the new life and everlasting love that comes in true discipleship to the risen Christ. There is no payment too high for this treasure that begins now when we walk with Jesus in the way of love. This love that flows from true discipleship begins with our loved ones but is always expanding to new horizons. It reaches out to the peripheries of the forgotten and neglected.

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THE TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 14:1, 7-14

Dear Friends,

The Gospel passage generally has many levels. Today it seems that Jesus is offering some practical advice. It touches on two strong customs in his day: hospitality and reciprocity. Both were wedded to the idea of status and recognition rooted in false values of prestige, power and privilege: “You do something for me and I will return the favor” “I welcome you to my private and special club!”

Jesus, however, is going much deeper. Jesus’ teaching is about the transformation of the false values of the world. He is proclaiming the truth of the Kingdom. The foundational teaching is humility. This means recognizing who God is and who we are. It is about the Creator and the creature. We are being called to a humble discipleship that recognizes the presence of God in all, especially, the poor, neglected and marginalized. We are being called to a new mindset, a sharing of the vision with Jesus in identifying and serving in a humble attitude that exalts the other not ourself.

Jesus offers us two practical ways that have far ramifications in opening the wonders of the gospel message. This enlightenment draws us into the mystery of Luke’s theme of reversal. Service prevails over prestige and privilege. Humility reigns so clearly in contrast to the world’s exaltation of self in wealth, power and prominence.

The honor/shame system and the self- serving reciprocity program of Jesus’ day and our day gives way to the challenge of the gospel. Jesus is calling for a revolutionary change of mindset that penetrates our heart and lifestyle.

Luke places today’s teaching in the context of a meal. Much of the evangelist’s teachings are presented in the sharing of a meal. It has been said we can eat our way through the Gospel of Luke. Obviously, Jesus was always inviting his followers into a much more profound level of human experience than practical table know-how. He is always drawing us into the presence of God that opens the stuff of daily life to the deepest mystery.

Luke puts special emphasis on Jesus’ mission to turn the world upside down. He puts great importance on the theme of reversal: “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted” (Lk 14:11).

Today’ teachings are given in the form of parables. The message is about the Kingdom: the great reversal that is to come. We are called to receive the poor and the lowly. There we will find God. The great and powerful of this world will find their fate woefully lacking and diminished in the new upside-down world of the Kingdom. The call for us in this great reversal is to go beyond writing a check or giving a handout to true hospitality.

Hospitality in Jesus’ teaching is not a token gesture but true sacrifice and involvement with those in need in our midst. Too often, it is about fundraising and not service, feeling good and not self-giving that draws us out of our narrow comfort zone.

Jesus was challenging the deeply entrenched and self-serving customs of his day: a distorted sense of hospitality and reciprocity. Jesus is calling us to truly go beyond our self-interest to share our table and our life with those in our midst in need. This is no easy task. It shares the uprooting and world-shattering dimensions of all of Jesus’ teaching. Too often, the ordinary practices of our helping those in need prove to be an obstacle and a hindrance to the message of Jesus in today’s Gospel. More frequently than not, it is about self-satisfaction rather than personal sacrifice.

In the great reversal of God’s Kingdom, God will be the host. As Luke teaches us in the Magnificat (Lk 1:51-53) and the Beatitudes and the Woes (Lk 6:20-26) the poor and neglected will have a special place. The way of the world that wraps self-serving activity in the twisted activities of false hospitality and reciprocity, will come to a crashing conclusion. God, as the host of the heavenly banquet, will readily take care of all the humbling and exalting. This is the Good News: all have an invitation to the table. The guests will be measured by service not by prestige and wealth. The ticket is a heart and life committed to truly helping those who are in need.

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THE TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Luke 13:22-30

Dear Friends, Religion is always a many-sided issue. The weeds and the wheat are an ever-present concern. A lot of selfishness takes place in the name of Jesus. Often, what seems righteous is a search for personal grandiosity. St. Luke is very strong in presenting the theme of reversal which addresses the issue of spiritual self-seeking. Today, we close the Gospel with another expression of Luke’s often repeated theme of reversal, “For behold, some are last who will be first and, some are first, who will be last.” (Lk 13:30)

There are many who call themselves Christian and often image themselves as Christian warriors. Their main job is to attack the “sins” of others. Some are full time against abortion and homosexuals, others are crusaders against the racists and those opposing immigration reform. They are occupied completely pointing out how horrible other people are. Others make it a full time job finger pointing at certain people who do not follow the minor laws of the Church in the liturgy and sacraments.

A clear message in today’s gospel is that everybody is invited. However, we need to work at it; we need a personal responsibility first and foremost if we are going to participate in the grand feast that is the kingdom of God.

Universality is a central part of Jesus’ message that is always under attack. Yet we are in constant battle with exclusivity whether it is a matter of race or sexual orientation, immigrant status of ethnic origin. There is always some item out front as transgender issues hold sway today. “Them versus us” is never far below the headlines.

Jesus’ statement today is a wake-up call for us. “I do not know where you are from.” (Lk 13:25)

Jesus is pretty clear on these issues. “Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye…You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your own eye first.” (Mt. 7:3-5)

It is very clear that being an usher or lector or Eucharistic minister or a member of the liturgy committee or school board, while admirable, are not the main concerns. Jesus invites us to be humble and forgiving servants in a Church of sinners seeking the mercy of God together.

St Teresa of Avila has two fundamental teachings that address today’s Gospel. Jesus is telling us to listen to his message and live it. To do this, we need to know ourselves. Teresa repeats over and over that the way to God is first and foremost guided by self-knowledge. We need to know we are sinners, but sinners who are loved and forgiven. That is why the great Carmelite mystic says the story of our lives is always, in the final analysis, the story of God’s mercy.

This theme of mercy was at the center of Pope Francis’ message that delighted and inspired the world. He said that to be a Christian is not to never fall down and fail. That human weakness is part of the journey for all of us. It is to get up again and embrace God’s mercy that is always there as a critical option for all of us.

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TWENTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

LK 12:49-53

Dear Friends, Any true version of the gospel must balance two elements in tension with one another. This is the experience of genuine comfort and an uprooting challenge. The promise of peace from the angels at the birth of Jesus must be incorporated into Jesus’ journey on the road to Jerusalem and the Passion and Death. Today’s gospel passage invites us to search for the balance between the message of hope and the prophetic encounter of pain and conflict that always confronts us when we choose to place Jesus first above all else.

In today’s gospel we find ourselves joining Jesus on the journey to Jerusalem. Luke’s ten chapters dedicated to this passage are mostly an invitation to enter into the teachings of Jesus. This large selection of Luke’s Gospel is a fundamental and clarifying experience of the basic human reality: the conflict of good and evil.

Whether we are aware of it, or not, we are totally immersed in this conflict. Through Luke, Jesus is telling us we must make a choice. This choice has consequences. There will be fire and division. Jesus sees his mission, made very concrete on the road to Jerusalem, to expose the reality hidden by deception and corruption wrapped in the false face of a religious practice that does not want to offend anybody.

Any authentic religious experience is always in need of the prophetic dimension. Jesus embraced this role of the prophet. He came to attack the world’s mediocrity, its indifference and, most of all, its captivity in evil. Jesus states his desire for fire and baptism. This was his destiny from the beginning: the redemptive death on the cross that would unleash the firestorm of the Holy Spirit.

This ultimate conflict of good and evil was revealed in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. His proclamation of the Kingdom exposes a reality that is already in place even though it is hidden. He seeks to destroy the divisions that flow from sin and injustice. The fire and baptism of the saving love of the Cross lead to true unity and peace that the human our hungers for. However, his message and his life, and especially the death and resurrection, attack the superficial façade of peace that avoids and is blind to the true violence of rampant poverty, suffering, separation and isolation of “others.” True peace will always come at the cost of sacrifice for all others whether in our family or in distant countries.

When Jesus speaks of division in the family in today’s Gospel selection, he was laying out the harsh realities his presence unleashed in the world. Fire and division are non-negotiables on the road to Jerusalem. We as a church, as a parish and as individuals need to examine ourselves in light of this encounter with God’s word. Do we upset anyone by our commitment to Jesus? Does the level of our comfort allow for sufficient space to live the challenge of the true gospel? Have we reduced Jesus’ message to an inoffensive religious practice that upsets no one?

God’s word always challenges the unthinking acceptance of the false peace. God’s word will constantly produce confusion and uprooting as it leads to the true path of peace that hears and responds to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth. Love is never without a cost. Jesus challenges us to be on fire for the Lord. This is why his priorities transcend even the deepest of human loves in the family or elsewhere.

True peace demands conversion. This is the personal transformation that accepts Jesus as the center. Only a heart committed to Christ will experience this true peace. Jesus will create a heart in true harmony that will deliver us from the deception of evil and a comfortable mediocrity of indulgence and indifference. True peace in Christ transforms all human love into the true love that springs from the divine Mystery of Love.

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NINETEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Luke 12:32-48

Dear Friends, When people come to worship on Sunday they always share with varying degrees of intensity the burden of the human condition. This means real problems and concerns. Sometimes the issues are more urgent than others. Nevertheless, the problems are always there. They are always real.

Most worshippers have a plan for what is necessary for them and their loved ones to be happy. They eventually recognize that they need God’s help to implement their plan. They believe with God’s cooperation they can wipe out the tensions and difficulties. Therefore, they come to pray for deliverance. A major part of their prayer is asking God to buy into their plan.

On the other hand, God also has a plan. God wants us to change. God wants us to share in his love for all creation and especially our brothers and sisters in all their human flaws. God wants us to know we are loved beyond our wildest dreams. God wants us to embrace that love and share it especially with the most marginalized and forgotten.

In today’s gospel passage there are eight references to Jesus “returning or “coming”. Everything about our Christian calling urges us to be ready. Our expectations need to be clear. The Lord is coming. We need to be vigilant. We need to have our act together. Today’s message is that God judges us both now and later. We are being judged in how we are treating our neighbor. We are being judged how we are using the gift of God’s creation and our personal time, talent and treasure. We need to know how we live and use our goods have consequences.

In the Gospel today, Luke has the seemingly harsh and unrealistic plea for us to sell our goods and give alms to the poor. This is a theme about property that Luke repeats often in different ways throughout his Gospel.

Luke’s point is to put things in perspective. The perspective is that first of all there is more to life than our immediate security and convenience. Secondly, Luke teaches us that God’s love for us Is our invitation into the Kingdom. This is God’s plan where we will find our real treasure and our real peace. When we understand the wonder and beauty of this gracious gift of God revealed in Jesus and his teaching on the Kingdom, we then are able to put both our worries and possessions in perspective. This is how God wants us to change and to grow. We need to learn that God has a better plan than our plan. The message of the Gospel tells us to see our life and our possessions in light of God’s Kingdom that is taking place now. We share in that Kingdom when we walk with Jesus in love. This love will carry us beyond our mortality to life beyond death

When we put Jesus’ words in this context, they do not seem so harsh and unrealistic.

“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the Kingdom. Sell your belongings and give alms. Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no their can reach nor moth destroy.” (Luke 12:32-33)

God has a plan. It is the Kingdom. We are invited to buy in. That is how God wants us to change. That is what it means when we say. “Let go and let God.”

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JOHN’S DARK NIGHT AND TERESA’S MESSAGE-10

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Part Two

Self-knowledge Opens to God’s Mercy
People spend billions of dollars on advertising to encourage us to feed the exaggerated demands of the false self. The unending pulls of a consumer society are a singular and horrendous obstacle on the road to the true self. All these deviations work together to weaken, and even hide, the longing of the true self calling us to move on to the center for a more authentic life.

Here again, self-knowledge, an awareness of what is going on within us, is critical in the necessary conversion that comes when we hear God’s word and obey God’s will in prayer.

The Importance of Prayer
Prayer becomes an energizing force on the passage to this life-giving self- knowledge. The encounter with God’s word and God’s will in deep personal prayer is our ticket to our true destiny at the center. Prayer is an invitation to redirect our lives. The light of the Scriptures often opens new horizons in our normal awareness. This leads to deeper self-knowledge. This new spiritual maturity leads to novel ways of accepting others. Our relationships and responsibilities move out of a narrow world of self-concern. They grow into a more spacious stance of openness, acceptance and service for others.

For Teresa, prayer was the answer to almost all problems. However, she had an expansive notion of prayer. It took place in the context of the relationship between God at the center, our person and our life experience. In the interaction of these elements in prayer, self-knowledge has a pivotal role. The mystery of God unfolds in the dynamic of the person’s prayer and life experience. Self- understanding brings this process together. The movement, in accepting the reality of God’s place and our place, brings God’s mercy to the forefront. As Teresa advanced in self-knowledge, she became more convinced in her oft-repeated belief: “My life is the story of God’s mercy.”

The Loving and Merciful Creator and the Loved and Forgiven Creature
Teresa identified two elements as the foundation of her spirituality. The first was her sinfulness. Through self-knowledge, she slowly accepted her helplessness to change. Through the growing light of God’s presence within her, she truly saw herself as a world class sinner. Secondly, she realized she was loved and forgiven, in spite of her opinion, that she was deeply flawed. The path of self-knowledge gradually opened Teresa to the grandeur of God and her total dependence on God. She was the creature caught in sin but both forgiven and loved as a child of God. Her ever-expanding awareness of herself as a sinful creature let her realize that she lived in a sea of mercy. Self-knowledge was a critical component of Teresa’s fundamental grasp of her reality as a sinner both loved and forgiven.

Pope Francis echoes these insights of Teresa in Laudato Si. 1 He says any authentic spirituality must start with the recognition of God as the all-powerful Creator. Otherwise, we place ourselves or some other creature such as the state as the final measure of all things. This leads to destructive activity against God, our brothers and sisters, and all creation. The news each day tells us the story of the ravages of evil unleashed by this most fundamental denial of all reality.

The only answer is to accept ourselves as we are, creatures in need of liberation from the forces of evil through the mercy of God.

Conclusion
In the Dark Night, John is the theologian, offering an ever-expanding analysis of the issues leading to the experience of God. His gifts are clear and his message is powerful.

On the other hand, Teresa is a great balancing factor to John’s sometimes overwhelming analysis. The Interior Castle lays out the growth in spiritual experiences and the practical consequences of the unique spiritual journey to the center, the dwelling place of God. Self-knowledge and the search for the true self are helped by humility and love. Along the way, she describes many mystical gifts such as visions, locutions, and absorptions. However, she always keeps the focus clear.

The goal is to bring ones heart to the true center where God dwells. The entire spiritual search and journey is to move to the center. This can only happen with true self-knowledge, the unending gift of self-discovery. To Teresa, this wise woman of faith and true daughter of the Church, this journey of self-discovery brought her to the Trinity dwelling in the depth of her being.

Once again, John and Teresa discovered and described the same destiny, union with God. His gift was the clarity of analysis and precision in the details. Her gift was more the warm acceptance of the human experience with a much more delicate human touch.

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EIGHTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 12:13-21

Dear Friends,

Jesus’ message in today’s gospel passage is straightforward. Nothing is more destructive in life than care about acquiring and holding onto wealth that is ultimately transient. The man of the bigger barns forgot that life itself is a temporary gift in this world. It is a loan that God can recall at any moment, regardless if we own the expanded wealth of newly filled barns or hefty bank accounts.

Hebrew Scriptures have a clear understanding of what constitutes a fool. This is a person who has denied or forgotten God. In this story, the neglect of God is manifested in the greedy farmer with the very productive land. He was rich because he had many crops. He was a fool because he thought that they made him secure. He failed to realize that you cannot bring the well-stocked barns through the pearly gates leading to heaven. “You have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink and be merry” (Lk 12:19).

In choosing God, we do not drop out of life. We continue to use things and possessions. In fact, we would be irresponsible if we did not. Jesus’ message for us today is to clear up our priorities. We need to avoid the blinding and crippling power of greed. The constant pursuit for more is not the gateway to security. Discovering what is truly sufficient has to be the governing principle in dealing with our possessions. Our task has to be rooted in true wisdom if we are going to allow our wealth and belongings, large or small, lead us to God.

The owner of the new barns is clearly a person who is self-absorbed. The idea of sharing never entered into his planning. He placed his bet down on his crop. Material possessions were his gateway to happiness. He became a fool simply by not being real. Life is a passing venture. In spite of all the guarantees of the advertising world, there is no lasting happiness as long as the funeral directors continue to have a lucrative business and even if they go out of business. Death is universal and inevitable for all of us. The choice is between things and God. The fool choses things.

Jesus is pointing out that our possessions can be destructive. In life, concern about acquiring and holding onto wealth is a bottleneck to the gospel call. The irony is that the wealth, most often, leads to feeling more insecurity.

Chase or Bank of America or whatever bank is simply a means to an end. Jesus clearly shows us that we cannot store up our treasures in the banks or barns of this world. Greed and avarice always blind our heart to reality. Possessions create gross deceptions along life’s journey. We need to get our values clear. We need to free the heart so our wealth, no matter how small or grand, is a stepping stone into the Kingdom. All things either free us or constrict us in our effort to walk with Jesus.

All of Jesus’ teachings are a guide to free the heart from all that is not God. Just prior to todays’ passage, (Lk 12:1-12) Jesus counseled his disciples against all anxiety, telling them God knows their needs and wants. They will never be beyond God’s providential care.

Left to its own, the heart is an idol-making machine. Jeus is calling us away from the idols in whatever fashion they may come. He tells us to trust in God’s loving care for our security. Jesus was very clear in teaching his disciples and us this simple truth. Our efforts should not be directed to having more but to become more like him. We need to keep our eyes on the prize that is Jesus.

God’s tender presence will be the only sure ticket on the final, inevitable passage through death which is the most non-negotiable part of life. We should fill our barns with the only true and lasting grain of this life: trust, service, compassion, humility and love. “Then he said to the crowd, take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions” (Lk 12:15).

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SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 11: 1-13

Dear Friends,

Today, we have the Lukan version of the Our Father. This special prayer is the culmination and deepest expression of all the prayers in the Bible. It has been described as the summary of the Gospel.

Down through the centuries, the saints, and particularly the Doctors of the Church, have sung its praises. St. Thomas Aquinas called it a prayer of the end times. At our present moment we experience the mystery of salvation in what has been described as “already but not yet.” This means that the Pascal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection has accomplished our salvation. Yet we are in a process of moving toward the completion of that reality in our Christian life and final destiny of human history. We are moving toward the fullness of the Kingdom of God, the restoration of the original innocence. It still remains an object of hope, a time where we will be completely free of the consequences of sin: no more sickness, division, hatred, violence, ignorance, de-humanizing poverty and prejudice and, finally, death gives way to eternal life. St. Thomas’ point is that the Our Father is a prayer for the coming of the New Day and the New Creation that is God’s Kingdom.

When Jesus gave his followers the Our father, he was offering a way of life. This prayer was a guide of how they were to live and relate to God. This is the prayer for those who wish to walk with Jesus on the journey to the Kingdom.

Our Father

The great gift of Jesus is that we have become adopted children, allowing us to address our God as Father. When addressing the Father, Luke has Jesus using the term “Abba” and invites us to do the same. This is the most intimate and familial expression a child would use in addressing a parent. Matthew uses the term we translate as “Father.” This term is more distinguished and majestic. Both Evangelists direct us into the great mystery that Jesus reveals in the Our Father.

The term “Our” identifies us as part of the family of God. Jesus is creating a community of believers to share his relationship with the Father. All our prayers include the personal needs but also take account of all God’s children. All the petitions in this prayer are communal as well as personal.

Hallowed Be thy Name

Hallowed means to make holy. The request here is that recognizing God’s holiness that we respond to that divine holiness. We are called to be witnesses to God’s holiness as we follow in the footsteps of Jesus in search of his Kingdom.

Thy Kingdom Come

Jesus reveals the Kingdom as God’s plan. His works and teachings and especially in the death and resurrection disclose God’s action. This is the initiation of the destruction of all the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin.

Love, justice and mercy have the final say in the Kingdom. Our sins are forgiven, the sick healed, enemies are reconciled, the poor share the blessings of the Lord in abundance and the captives are freed. Every desire in harmony with God’s love is fulfilled. The human venture is brought to a just and peaceful resolution.

In the Lukan version, God’s will clearly is part of the Kingdom we seek in our prayer. Jesus showed us the way in fulfilling the Father’s will. God’s plan is for our freedom leading to eternal happiness. God invites us into that treasure beyond our dreams. In Gethsemane, Jesus showed the power of his surrender to the Father’s will. His acceptance of the divine will produced the passage from death to life for all humankind. God’s will for us, both personally and communally, continues to call us into the fullness of life.

The Thou Petitions

Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread

By saying give “us” we are again showing our communion with all our brothers and sisters. The bread we ask for includes all material needs of ourselves and others, a steady supply of sustenance. As part of a communion, the needs of others, especially the poor, must be a priority.

At the same time, we are praying for the Bread of Life which includes the Word of God and the Body of Christ in the Eucharist. These gifts of the spirit strengthen and enable us to respond generously in making the petitions real in our life.

Forgive Us Our Trespasses as We Forgive Those Who Trespass against Us

Reconciliation looks forward to the coming of the Lord in judgment. We are asking for the great gift necessary to enter the Kingdom: forgiveness. Only our willingness to forgive will open the passage to new life. Lack of forgiveness hardens our hearts and closes the way into the merciful love of our God.

Do not subject us to the final test

We now recognize our human weakness caught in the battle of the spirit and the flesh. We are asking God to protect and guide us away from sin. We are asking for discernment, vigilance and perseverance.

This final test means deliverance from the Evil One who is Satan. We are asking for guidance through the harsh and horrible appeal of all elements in the world that are in total opposition to our salvation. We are asking God to deliver us from all the evils that are the relentless work of the Evil One whose overriding desire is to draw us away from God.

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SIXTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 10:38-42

Dear Friends, True hospitality is one of many important themes in the story of Martha and Mary. Martha, as is so often our own experience in life, lets her anxieties and concerns define her action. It is clear her desire is to put on a great culinary display. She is more present to herself than to Jesus. She is not in touch with Jesus’ situation. He is in the midst of a traumatic experience on the road to Jerusalem. On the other hand, Mary is focusing on Jesus. Her hospitality is defined by the needs of her guest.

It is no easy task to achieve a balancing posture that integrates prayer and service. The two elements of prayer and service are easily distorted by the ever-present demands of the ego. Only true spiritual maturity will allow us sufficient self-knowledge to be aware of the power of our self-deception. A pattern of deep personal prayer will free us to act with true faithfulness that actually integrates prayer and service.

Teresa of Avila tells us that it is in the conclusion of the spiritual journey that the traits that we characterize in Martha and Mary become one in us. Our goal is to achieve a freedom for the true love for God and neighbor. In the meanwhile, the grace is in our struggle to seek this integration and authenticity in our life.

Today’s short passage of Luke’s gospel seems like a simple story. It tells us there must be a balance between prayer and action, service and contemplation. However, when we are delving into the gospel of Jesus, we are always running into a mystery of profound depth. There are always new levels beckoning us into multilayered stages of understanding and action. Likewise, we are exposed to the shattering of our cultural norms.

• In today’s story, Jesus challenges us on the role of women in his day and ours. Here are five points where today’s gospel contests the status quo:

• In Jesus’ time women were not allowed to be students of the Law. In our story we have Mary in the position of a disciple, listening attentively at the feet of Jesus.

• When the guest is a prophet, the proper response is to listen the Word of God being proclaimed. Mary is attentive to this task. She again shatters the accepted function of her culture as a woman.

• In contrast to the multiple biblical stories of conflict between brothers, this is the singular story of conflict between sisters.

• Jesus entered into a house with only two women present according to the story. This was a deliberate violation of the expected behavior.

• The entire episode of Jesus’ interaction with two women contains multiple violations of the culture and proclaims the dignity of the two sisters. There is not much here to say the proper place for women is in the kitchen.

As always, the Gospel message invites us to delve deeply into our heart to see with new eyes the very ordinary things in life with the help of Jesus’ word and example. There is always more for; us to see and make the changes Jesus so desires for us.

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FIFTHTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

LK 10:25-37

Dear Friends, The Jewish lawyer in today’s gospel passage was not interested in Jesus’ answer to the question, who is my neighbor? He had his own agenda. He was trying to draw Jesus into some kind of violation of Jewish law and tradition that would lead to his humiliation and punishment.

Meanwhile, Jesus uses the deceitful context to give us one of the great messages of God’s love and involvement in our human brokenness. It is an invitation into the wonder of Jesus’ redeeming love for all of us. Jesus is inviting us to participate in the great act of salvation by our serving and healing presence to our neighbor.

In the parable of the Good Samaritan Jesus reveals the depth and breadth of God’s presence to all human beings. This story of the Good Samaritan shatters any configuration of the narrow definition that prejudice continually spawns. Indeed, history has shown the incredible length we can go in isolating, dehumanizing, discriminating and simply hating our neighbor.

“Good Samaritan” is easily understood in our day. It even is defined in a dictionary as “an exceptionally charitable or helpful person”. It is quite problematic for us to grasp the power of the contradiction that Jesus set up in the parable for the Jewish community in his day. Depending on your personal sensitivities, the label “Good Samaritan” today might be a militant Al Qaeda or white supremist or a hateful anti-Semite or another far out contradiction of your creative imagination.

Jesus explodes all expressions of normality with the Samaritan individual, the most despicable of Jewish enemies. This explosive choice is followed up with a sense of grandiosity in service that continued the pattern of shock and awe. When the enemy benefactor pays the bill and promises more, we are well beyond any sense of generous decency. This all flows from Jesus’ new definition of neighbor as one in need.

The love Jesus unveils knows no limits. The human heart is capable and works constantly at drawing limits of this gospel love. Phrases like “Charity begins at home” are transcended by the message of Jesus: love begins with our concrete response to the suffering person in our midst.

We can easily identify three qualities of the Samaritan love in Jesus’ parable. First, it transcends all prejudice and is totally inclusive. All it saw was the pain and urgent need of the person. Secondly, the situation was seen as an opportunity not a burden and gross aggravation. Thirdly, Samaritan love does not count the cost, the inconvenience and the shattering of one’s schedule and comfort. It des not seek recompense or recognition.

We all have a challenge to embrace these three simple characteristics in our daily life with all of its demanding relationships and responsibilities. It is not so much that charity begins at home but charity begins wherever we encounter pain and suffering and all its variations in the human scene.

Today’s parable challenges us to see the problematic situations in our life from the vision of the gospel. We are called to share the extravagant hospitality of the Samaritan. Like the Samaritan, we are invited to see our goods as a means of assistance not exclusively an assurance of our personal security. This is only possible by a continual withdrawal from a narrow, fenced-in world-view. The flow of our daily life and responsibilities offers countless opportunities to reach out in loving service. Jesus’ words always remain the same. Our task is to “go and do the same” (Lk 10:37).

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FOURTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

LK: 10:1-11

Dear Friends, Jesus was very clear. The selected seventy-two were to proclaim the arrival of the kingdom of God. This message was forthright and simple. God is acting. Their message is the good news that there will be a day of justice. There will be saving peace that has the last word over all evil and all violence and its seemingly endless designs of new horror. God is responding to humankind’s pervasive evil. The healing that Jesus tasked the disciples with is the beginning of the final transformation of reality in peace, wholeness and integrity. Justice will prevail over a sinful and broken world, over each and every person. This is the saving mission of Jesus that is being proclaimed.

Today’s gospel passage invites us share the involvement the first missionary disciples. This was the vision of Pope Francis for all of us. From these first missionary disciples we can learn what is necessary to perform the task of proclaiming the good news. First and foremost, our responsibility is to let the message of Jesus flow from a heart of deep personal conviction. To do this we must travel lightly and strip ourselves of the false values and deceptions of the world and be people of deep personal prayer. Our world today, like the world in Jesus’ time, has no acceptance for God’s messengers who witness against the false values, materialism and hedonism of our day. The integrity of the disciples’ presence and commitment is the most important part of the proclamation of the kingdom. It has to be a commitment that consumes one’s whole being.

Centuries after the first missionary disciples, Francis of Assisi captured the depth of this mystery. He said we must preach the gospel at all times and use words only when necessary. Such a person has been described as a witness whose life speaks so profoundly that one cannot hear what they say.

For almost fifty years, the Popes, from Paul VI to Francis, have been insistent on the utter priority of the mission of evangelization, the proclamation the Good News. You can be sure one of the first substantial statements from Leo XIV will be on the Church’s most fundamental task, to proclaim the gospel.

Pope Francis’ first statement was The Joy of the Gospel, a canticle of wonder on the topic of evangelization as the self-defining task of the People of God. In the Joy of the Gospel, Francis brings a brilliance and power to highlight the mission of the People of God to proclaim the Gospel. By baptism, all are called to holiness. All are called to be missionary disciples. No longer is preaching the gospel a specialty of the theologically trained. All are called to be witnesses and proclaimers of Jesus Christ.

Francis envisioned a new day for the Church. All this renewal will flow from a heightened awareness of the purpose and importance of evangelization. The Pontiff says, “I dream of a ‘missionary option,’ that is, a missionary impulse capable of transforming everything, so that the Church’s customs, ways of doing things, times and schedules, language and structures can be suitably channeled for the evangelization of today’s world rather than for her self-preservation” (#27).

The main characteristics of the evangelizing mission Francis calls us to are:

1. It is the fundamental task of the Church. It is also the essential ministry of the parish and the individual disciple of Christ.
2. The evangelization involves not just the personal transformation in the values of the gospel but of all reality in its social, economic, political and cultural realities must be transformed in these gospel values.
3. The proclamation must always center on the saving love and mercy revealed in Christ crucified and Christ risen.

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THIRTEENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Lk 9:51-62

Dear Friends, We have just finished almost three months celebrating, pondering and praying the central truth of our faith, the Pascal Mystery. This is the great act of love that is Jesus Christ Crucified and Jesus Christ Risen. Now we return to our weekly encounter with the Gospel of St. Luke. For the next twenty weeks the liturgy will invite us to search for direction and guidance in our daily life through the message of God’s Word in St. Luke’s Gospel.

Today’s gospel passage considers Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem. This takes ten full chapters in Luke. It is almost like a gospel within a gospel in the depth and breadth of its message. It consists mostly of teachings by Jesus with only a few miracles during this time. Jesus has grown in awareness that the intensity of his conflict with the leaders will claim a total commitment, even to the point of death. This is what Luke means when he says, “he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem” (Lk 9:51). We are being invited to contemplate a discipleship and journey in the footsteps of a Suffering Messiah.

The discipleship, that Jesus is offering is described as a joint journey to Jerusalem. We begin the journey with the first step. In this journey of discipleship, God always takes us where we are. There will be many more steps to follow but without the first step nothing happens.

We need to let go of anything that will be an obstacle to our choice to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. On our way to Jerusalem, we will slowly see, with a growing clarity, the many demands of this commitment. Everything will eventually be brought to the surface. We will grow in our ability to determine whether our actions, possessions and relationships either help or hinder our choice of Jesus. We will learn that we cannot turn back.

The concept of journey or pilgrimage is a common pattern in the Bible. It reveals how we experience God. It demands a singleness of purpose. It is definitely a one-way ticket.

In today’s gospel passage Jesus talks about the requirements for this journey. The first is to let go of our hostilities. Jesus’ disciples on the journey are to be people of tolerance and an acceptance of an ever-growing number of people. In Jesus’ world, boundaries are only new passages to further inclusion. Secondly, to be a disciple of Jesus we must surrender the comfort and convenience of past ways. It is an uprooting experience. The deeply human desire to settle down with clear borders and to be in control has to be forsaken. Jesus is not into mortgages. His way demands a letting go, a one way ticket into an unknown future. Thirdly, Jesus demands a faithfulness that does not accept any delay. The choice is to walk to Jerusalem now. Too often, we hope to avoid the walking. We want the luxury of the next train. Jesus is not into shortcuts. There seldom is a next train.

We are called to make a decision. The rules of the journey to Jerusalem demand a discipline that is both challenging and comforting. We are called to walk with Jesus. This is the fundamental choice of the Christian life. Like so many other biblical lessons, this teaching has been distorted over the centuries. Jesus does not want to cutoff responsible relations to families or others. He simply wants to put them in order. God comes first. When this order is maintained, all other relationships are enriched and enhanced.

The true commitment of discipleship that Jesus requires is not like having a second job or an effort to work Jesus into our schedule. Everything else needs to fall into second place!

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BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST

Lk 9: 11B-17

Dear Friends,

For the early Christians, the event of the multiplication of the loaves and fishes was a very important part of Salvation History. It is repeated six times in the four Gospels. It is obviously connected to the gift of the mana in the Exodus event. It relates to several other events of God’s hospitality of sharing the bread of life in the Old and New Testaments. Most significantly, it foreshadows the great gift of the Eucharist.

The bread that is “broken” and shared reflects Jesus being “broken” on the Cross. This ultimate act of love is rooted in the past and calls us into the future. We experience this very same act of love in our liturgy today and every day. We are always challenged to go beyond the words and the routine in worship.

Ever since Vatican II we, as a Christian community, have worked to create a truly faith-filled experience of Jesus’ loving presence in our participation in the Eucharist. The renewal of the liturgy has been the driving force of our search for a communal transformation. In the active participation in the liturgy, we continually try to make the liturgical prayer the source and summit of our faith. Here we encounter Jesus as the first disciples did. This insight is part of the iconic statement from the Council’s liturgy document.

“The celebration of the Eucharist, as an action of Christ and the people of God…is the center of the whole Christian life, for the universal church, the local church and for each and every one of the faithful….the Liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; it is also the fount from which all its power flows….All who are made children of God by faith and baptism should come together to praise God in the midst of the church, to take part in the sacrifice and to eat the Lord’s supper.” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 1963, #2, 10, 41)

In the Eucharist, true active participation means that we are asking God to make us an instrument of his peace and a contributor to God’s plan for salvation. Through the liturgy we are becoming the Body of Christ to continue the proclamation of the Good News to all humanity.

In the reception of Communion, we are energized in this call to continue Christ’s work. Jesus comes to us in the most intimate way possible to renew us into his image. This presence is first and foremost about Jesus calling us into a new reality. It is a time to share at the deepest level with One we know loves us. This conversation should be about God’s plan first. Then we can present our many concerns and worries. Love is the dominating dimension of the basic Eucharistic moment of grace and intimacy in the reception of Communion. Jesus is calling us into a new way. There should be less concern about ourselves and more concern about God’s presence in our brothers and sisters along with the needs of our family, friends, community and the world. This a very appropriate time for the prayer of our times. ”May God hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth!”

In the time of reception of the Eucharist we are never closer to the words of Teresa of Avila that describe prayer as a loving conversation with someone we know loves us.

The depth and beauty of this encounter with Christ cannot be more personal and intimate if we are truly aware, accepting and attentive to Jesus’ presence in the depth of our heart. Along with the personal experience of love, Jesus’ presence is always calling us out of ourselves and our petty concerns to the loving service for others especially in sharing the Good News of God’s love in Christ Crucified and Christ Risen.

We all would do well to examine ourselves to see how much effort and attention we give to this encounter with the living Christ at the time of communion.

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Trinity Sunday

Jn 16: 12-15

Dear Friends, Jesus said, “I have much more to tell you but you cannot bear it.” (Jn 16: 12).

Our celebration of this feast of the Blessed Trinity is the most profound and most simple expression of all reality. God is love. One clear aspect of this foundational truth is the relations of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are invited through the gospel to mirror this love in our lives.

Teresa of Avila, the great Carmelite Saint and Doctor of the Church, was one who learned how to hear this truth of God. Through a long process of purifying mystical experiences and a dedicated life of prayer and service, she learned much of Jesus’ hidden message about the mystery of God that we call the Trinity.

She reduced her insights into a simple truth, a truth that transformed her life. God is the Creator. We are the creature. God, the Creator, is a loving and merciful savior. We, the creature, sinful and broken, are, nevertheless, loved and forgiven. This led Teresa to transform her life to put God at the center and herself at the fringe. She came to understand her life as the story of God’s mercy. For Teresa, the Trinity was a love story that she encountered in the lived reality of her life.

A learned pagan philosopher described the Christians in the second century this way: They love one another. They never fail to help widows; they save orphans from those who would hurt them. If they have something, they give freely to the person that has nothing; if they see a stranger, they take him home and are happy as though he were a brother. They do not consider themselves brothers in the usual sense, but brothers instead through the Spirit, in God.

On this feast of Trinity Sunday, we recall that Jesus is the full revelation of God, a God of unlimited and unconditional love. All of Jesus’ teachings are anchored and contained in this command that we love as Jesus has loved us. This is how we share in the mystery of the Trinity. It is not information to be gained. It is the very foundation of reality that must guide our lives. It is love that must be lived.

The real message of the Trinity is not some profound super Jeopardy question. It is an invitation into the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This message of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as love is most clearly revealed in the Crucified Christ on the cross.

In the seventh dwelling places of The Interior Castle, Teresa has a simple message for us: embrace God’s will in good works and love along with forgiveness of your sisters and brothers. In the end, it is all about love. It is in this loving relationship with our neighbor that we manifest our deepest relationship with God. This life of love, in turn, reveals the saving action of God in our lives. Love makes this profound complexity become a simple entrance into the God who is love.

Jesus invites us into the mystery of love and life that is the Father and Son and Holy Spirit. The choice is ours. We can accept it or reject it.

This choice brings us into the great irony of life. Our brokenness drives us to think and act as if we have a better plan than God. Our choices make us think that we are seeking true happiness. In the process of our sinfulness, many just reject Jesus altogether. Others spend a lifetime placing side bets and trying to reconfigure Jesus into a more comfortable, watered down version. We want the price to be right according to our standards and not the gospel. Few have the openness to live as the early Christians described by the pagan philosopher.

The great joy of today’s feast and every proclamation of the gospel is that God never gives up on us. In Jesus, we are constantly called to accept Him as the way, the life and the truth. Slowly, life tends to teach us that Jesus really does have a better plan both for here and hereafter. We learn that our life, like that of Teresa’s, is the story of the mercy of God.

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PENTECOST

John 20:19-23

Dear Friends, Jesus had just experienced the most profound expression of evil ever in His Passion and Death. He had chosen to participate in all the horrors of violence and hatred in all of human history. This encounter with the consequences of sin and death had terrorized his disciples. They hid in confusion and fear that they would be next. Despair had conquered the most minimal element of hope. Faith and trust had fled with the arrival of the mob in the Garden.

They now huddled together in the naked vulnerability of their humanity. All of a sudden, Jesus is in their midst. His message is not vengeance. Amazingly, He does not even point the finger at their cowardly collapse. His bewildered disciples were too awe-struck to feel the shame. It was a “wow” moment to the thousandth degree.

His message was direct, clear, and simple: “Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19) This peace is not a wishful hope. It is a divine declaration. This is the peace that had been won in the victory of love over hate, of life over death in the self-sacrificing death on the cross.

In addition to the peace, He renders the power of forgiveness. These two gifts of peace and forgiveness are in the context of His commissioning of the disciples. “‘As the Father has sent me, I send you.’ As He said this He breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” (Jn20:21-23)

Receiving the Holy Spirit is a symbol of a new creation. Just as God breathed life into Adam in the Garden, so too, Jesus breathed new life into the disciples that makes them holy and leads them to conquer evil. This is made possible by the love expressed in the gifts of peace and forgiveness.

Then follows a second declaration of peace. Jesus assures his gift of peace to the disciples and to us. With this second announcement of peace and the gift of the Spirit, the mandate is clear. The gospel must be proclaimed to all the world. This is a task that has continued in grace and sin, in human heroics and woeful neglect for over two thousand years even to the election of a new Pope from Chicago! In the midst of the weeds and the wheat, the Church has continued to grow. Even to this day, each of us still are called to share in the proclamation of love’s victory over a very broken world. This is some very good news indeed!

After the encounter with the Risen Jesus, the disciples’ story is very different. Fear gave way to courage and commitment. A new conviction led them to confront power with patience and perseverance and the overwhelming wonder of Jesus’ gospel message. The gospel was proclaimed in spite of conflict and confusion. Cultural barriers and native parochial narrowness opened up to a universal community that continues to grow in openness to this very day.

Just as in the Resurrection of Jesus, the transformed disciples, gifted with the Holy Spirit, witnessed to the victory of love over evil and death. The seeds of the new creation began in the renewed hearts of these very weak and pedestrian followers of Christ. They began an ever expanding community of faith that has survived and prospered over these two thousand years. It is our responsibility to continue that task to witness to God’s love in our daily lives.

Paul draws us into the beautiful mystery of how this new creation flows from the Spirit-filled hearts of the recipients of the Holy Spirit. In Galatians Paul writes: “I say live by the Spirit and you will certainly not gratify the desires of the flesh…the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.” (Gal 5:16, 22-23)

Today, on this feast of Pentecost, we are invited again to receive the gifts of peace and forgiveness. To do so, we need to turn away from sin which is a refusal to love. Like the first disciples, the Spirit beckons us to continually expand the horizons of our love. For most of us, this demands forgiveness with a risk wrapped in courage.

The peace of Christ comes at a price. The patience and gentleness along with the joy and kindness and the other fruits of the Spirit described by Paul are ever so precious gifts. They are possible only in a heart seeking reconciliation that brings the new life of Christ into a world ravaged by sin and death, division and exclusion. This is the call for us on this Pentecost: transform our lives by the gift of Christ’s peace and His call to forgiveness. Slowly, we must understand that for the Spirit there is no limit on forgiveness and the target of inclusiveness is ever expanding and dynamic. The numerous descriptions of “those people” in our heart have to give way a new definition of “us”. In this struggle to move out of our comfortable world, we will find the only way that leads to the prized gift of Christ’s peace.

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