THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 23:1-12

Dear Friends, Jesus was very clear on his teachings about morality. In fact, he had few statements about moral laws, little to say about sexuality and the moral norms most preached from our pulpits today. The gospel passage challenging us today is about his fundamental insight, integrity. For Jesus, integrity was connecting the very long distance between the mouth, the head and the heart. Integrity unites the word, action and the lived experience. It is living out of the heart.

Jesus’ conflict with the leaders was the exaggeration of appearances to the neglect of humble service. The leaders’ teachings were empty but even worse was their dimishment of the Word of God.

When Jesus met sinners of any kind, he was merciful and forgiving but he asked them to change their life. The underlying reality with the leaders was they wanted Jesus to change his life. When Jesus maintained his integrity it led to Cavalry!

The issue of today’s gospel is the importance of personal and institutional integrity. All organizations need to use titles no matter how hierarchical or democratic. The question is, do these titles lend themselves to service of the greater good or do they lead to the personal enhancement of the individual?

While Jesus is addressing the faults of the Jewish leaders, he is even more forcefully speaking to the disciples about leadership in the Christian community. It must be service first and foremost. “The greatest among you must be a servant.” (Mt. 23:11)

That is easier said than done. There is a drive in the ordinary human experience that inclines us to seek privilege, prestige and recognition. We are all disposed to be special. Integrity is not only a challenge to priests but to parents and teachers and all of us.

Every gathering of human beings must deal with organization and leadership that lives with the tension between power and service. Obviously, in the faith community, this conflict plays itself out between the clergy and the laity and, even more so, in the role of the hierarchy in the Church. All of this festers in the curse of clericalism that plagues the Church.

Those who are the recipients of titles have the responsibility to become free of the title. They need to live the integrity of service free of privilege and prestige. This is first and foremost the task of the clergy. However, there is no group in the Church that is not challenged by this tension between power and service.

The Festival committee wants to passionately help the parish, but it is very easy to lose track and reduce the whole effort to how much income one group makes on their project in comparison to other groups. The Liturgy Committee deals with the same tension. While all are there in the name of Jesus, it is not unheard of that some of the greatest conflicts in a parish take place in how to arrange the worship of the Lord! The ushers and the Eucharistic ministers also tend to raise the ego above the service sometimes. There is no parish group that is free of this insidious temptation.

I always remember an old Baptist minister that told me as a young priest, “Tracy, the devil comes into the church through the choir!” Over my many years as pastor, I have come to realize that the choir has no monopoly as the welcoming committee for the devil.

Jesus gave us a lesson about the Christian community in chapter eighteen of Matthew’s Gospel. Asked who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God, Jesus says we must become like little children. Then there is a series of teachings about the Christian community. Jesus lays out a clear plan for all, especially the leaders. Humility is the foundation. We must especially pay attention to the weaker members and the ones that stray away. All this is done in the context of a deep and loving forgiveness.

Personal and institutional integrity is clearly the message for us in Jesus’ teaching today. We need to maintain the connection of our core gospel values and our actions. The clear implication about the scribes and Pharisees is the frightening challenge of the slippery slope of hypocrisy in public ministry as well as in daily life. This cancer of hypocrisy is never far away from all of us but especially in any public ministry in the Church. This is why we all need deep personal prayer to set us free from this dreadful self-deception.

It is obvious that we have work to do to realize who is the only Teacher and the only Father. (Mt 23: 9) It is a long journey for all of us to realize “it is not about us”. Jesus tells us that that the real journey of the gospel is away from personal power and prestige and towards service: “The greatest among you must be your servant.” (Mt 23:11)

Matthew 22:34-40

Dear Friends This is the third time that the Jewish leaders are trying to insnare Jesus in a fatal ambush. It is also the third of four times that Jesus uses their deceit and lies to offer a clear insight into the gospel message. Today’s response from Jesus is as close as we are going to get to a concise summary of the gospel. love of God and love of neighbor.

We need to grow into the challenge of Jesus to love our neighbor. Amid the frequent conflicts, the many hurts we experience and the downright hostility we encounter with our fellow human beings, Jesus pleads for a universal love. This love needs to grow continually to meet the divine request. This is only possible for us to achieve by taking one step at a time. We need to let the fear, confusion and hostility in our heart grow slowly into a heart sharing in the love of God for all of humanity. We learn in many other sections of Matthew’s gospel that this love transcends the difference of race, gender, ethnicity and all the many other deceptions the human heart can create to divide and isolate us.

In His instruction about the twofold commandment of love of God and love of neighbor Jesus said, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Mt 22:40)

The unreserved and all-consuming love of God means that we are called to share and participate in God’s love for our neighbor. There is a basic and intrinsic bond between loving God and loving neighbor. This divine love is unconditional and without limit. We have many expressions of this love in Mathew’s Gospel but especially in the Sermon on the Mount. A very powerful example of this personal invitation to share God’s love for all is in the incredibly challenging section in Matthew 5: 21-48. There are a series of six “You have heard” statements about the law, adultery, divorce, oaths, retaliation and love of enemies. Each example offers a radical alternative of selfless love. The demands of this section of Matthew seem utterly impossible to our common-sense approach to reality: “Whoever is angry with his brother (or sister) will be liable to judgment.” (Mt 5:21); “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery.” (Mt 5:28); “When someone strikes you on the right cheek turn the other one to him as well.” (Mt 5:39); “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mt 5:44)

These teachings from the Sermon on the Mount shine out in the life of Jesus. These, and the rest of the Gospel message, are summarized in the two commandments of love of God and love of neighbor. The task of participating in God’s love is the work of a lifetime on the journey with Jesus.

The summons of the Gospel is a gradual opening up to the awesome reality portrayed by Matthew where we read, “Lord, when did we see you… and the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen I say to you whatever you did for one of these least brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.” (Mt 25: 39-40.)

Love is the key to the law. In the end, when there is confusion about which way to interpret and follow the law, love is the answer. Jesus’ invitation to love enlivens the entire law. In the discernment for direction, love will always open the most meaningful path forward. This is perfectly compatible with Matthew presenting Jesus as fulfilling the Law not replacing the Law. When it is wrapped in love, there is no inconsistency.

Our good friend St. Teresa of Avila states this in the seventh mansion, the highest state of mystical union, the deepest state of love in our human condition: “Good works, my sisters, good works, good works!” In other words, at the highest and most purified expression of love in the transformed human heart, love of God and love of neighbor are totally one: service to our brothers and sisters.

This is our goal. The journey is long and arduous, but it is possible when we take the next step, no matter how small, on the passage to love in the footsteps of Jesus!!

The Environmental Crisis: Fundamentally A Spiritual Crisis

The environmental crisis is rooted in one major flaw. It centers its energy on humankind to the neglect of God. It directs us to see nature as a source of profit and convenience and not an invitation into the wonder of God’s presence and love.

On the other hand, God sees all creation and humanity as one reality, manifesting and celebrating God’s benevolent power in both humankind and all of nature.

There needs to be harmony, not domination, between the human venture and all of creation. The prevailing mentality sees nature as primarily a resource for profit and support for our economic wellbeing. This misuse and abuse of nature’s gifts is the foundation of our modern economy. The growing pattern of climate change and its mounting destructive forces flow from this gross distortion of God’s plan for harmony and unity.

The situation in the Amazon is a clear example of this exploitation. The stripping of the Amazon is profitable for a few but affects the breathing of everyone in the world. This blinding greed exemplifies the patterns of production and consumption that underpin our way of life and the way we are destroying God’s gift of creation.

Placing humanity over and above nature fosters a sense of dominion over all the elements of creation. In this approach to God’s creation, all of nature has one main purpose: to create a comfortable and profitable life for the beneficiaries of the human economy.

This attitude drives an outlook that poisons our air, destroys land and sea, and causes the extinction of whole species of animals. There seems to be no end to the stripping of forests, removal of wetlands, and treating our water resources as an infinite garbage dump. The ultimate consequence is the destruction of our environment.

Pope Francis in his letter tells us: “We are always capable of going out of ourselves toward the other. Unless we do this, other creatures will not be recognized for their true worth; we are unconcerned about caring for things for the sake of others; we fail to set limits on ourselves in order to avoid the suffering of others or the deterioration of our surroundings. Disinterested concern for others, and rejection of every form of self-centeredness and self-absorption, are essential if we truly wish to care for our brothers and sisters and for the natural environment. These attitudes also attune us to the moral imperative of assessing the impact of every action and personal decision on the world around us. If we can overcome individualism, we will truly be able to develop a different lifestyle and bring about significant changes in society.” (Laudato Si´ #208)

The following quotes from Laudato Si´ invite us into deeper reflection and action.

“As never before in history, common destiny beckons us to seek a new beginning… Let ours be a time remembered for the awakening of a new reverence for life, the firm resolve to achieve sustainability, the quickening of the struggle for justice and peace, and the joyful celebration of life.” (Laudato Si´ #207)

Environmental education has broadened its goals… It tends now to include a critique of the “myths” of a modernity grounded in a utilitarian mindset (individualism unlimited progress, competition, consumerism, the unregulated market). It seeks also to restore the various levels of ecological equilibrium, establishing harmony within ourselves, with others, with nature and other living creatures, and with God.” (Laudato Si´ #210)

Addendum

In these several blogs on Laudato Si´ about Ecological Conversion, I will be adding a few items of helpful Information, mostly from the Carmelite Newsletter of the Province of the Most Pure Heart of Mary with special thanks to Dennis Kalob, editor. Likewise, I will use numerous quotes from the encyclical letter both within the text of the blogs and in reflective quotes at the end of each blog. The hope is to familiarize the reader with the significance of Francis’ radical vision for our time. While these many quotes from the Papal letter will, no doubt, make the material more difficult to read, I believe it is well worth the effort.

Pope Leo’s message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation (Sept. 1, 2025). Here is an excerpt from that message:

“Environmental justice – implicitly proclaimed by the prophets – can no longer be regarded as an abstract concept or a distant goal. It is an urgent need that involves much more than simply protecting the environment. For it is a matter of justice – social, economic and human. For believers it is also a duty born of faith, since the universe reflects the face of Jesus Christ, in whom all things were created and redeemed. In a world where the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters are the first to suffer the devastating effects of climate change, deforestation and pollution, care for creation becomes an expression of our faith and humanity.”

In the 11th edition, I included this great quote from Pope Leo:

“God will ask us if we have cultivated and cared for the world that He created, and if we have taken care of our brothers and sisters. What will be our answer?” –Pope Leo XIV

Matthew 22:15-21

Dear Friends Today’s Gospel has Jesus undergoing four conflicts with different groups. Each separate group tries to entrap Jesus in way that endangers his life. He turns each disagreement into a teaching opportunity.

Today’s message is not about the separation of church and state. It is a clear mandate to put God at the center in all things. By saying, “then repay to Caesar what belong to Ceasar and to God what belongs to God.” (Mt 22:21) Jesus sets a clear standard for all to follow. All are to obey the civil power within the context of paying to God what belongs to God.

The priority of God puts the image of the coin into this context. The image on the coin is countered by the continuous and pervasive teaching of Jesus that every human being is in the image of God. “Whatever you did for one of the least brothers (or sisters) of mine, you did for me.” (Mt. 25:40)

The Gospel invites us to participate in each and every group whether it is social, economic, political, civil or even family by respecting the image of God in our brothers and sisters. This leads us to always being in search for the common good.

This is no easy task. All groups are a mixture of the good and the bad and a whole lot in between. It takes true wisdom to discern the most responsible level of participation. Whether it is as simple as a block club or active participation in a labor union, whether it is the direction of an economic corporation or a PTA group: they all suffer the consequences of the weeds and the wheat, generosity and selfishness, private agendas and self-sacrificing service.

All of our involvement in political or civic activity needs to be driven by the image of God in our brothers and sisters. This leads us to the very tricky task of discerning the presence of God on our quest for the common good. This complex search for the truth allows persons of good will to choose very different paths. That is why we have Republicans and Democrats. Truly understanding Jesus’ message will always lead us to go deeper into what seems an either /or situation. Most times, there are several sides to be discerned in the state of affairs. In the end, today’s Gospel calls us to be involved in the very problematic reality of our social, economic and political life. Giving to God what is God’s does not mean staying aloof. It demands our being engaged in the work for justice and peace and the integrity of creation at some level in our quest for the common good. This takes a lot of wisdom.

I remember being very active in a community organization as a young priest. Our goals were very clear. We were seeking justice for a poor, neglected community that was suffering all kinds of social ills. It was all to the good in the beginning. But because there were flawed and weak human beings on all sides of the issues, I slowly realized the thrust of our actions was moving steadily away from the gospel values. Hatred, anger and gross self interest usurped much of the program. No matter how righteous our goal, the means often were in conflict with Jesus’ teachings and values.

The same potential is in every group whether it be a PTA or a large bank, the President or the most local politician, the bishops or the parish council. We always stand in need of deep and discerning prayer if our life commitments are to give “to God what belongs to God.” (Mt 22:21)

Laudato Si´: Pope Francis’ Call to Conversion
Introduction

I am going to offer a series of blogs on Laudato Si´, the transforming encyclical of Pope Francis on our environmental crisis. This document was written more than a decade ago. It continues to grow in importance and relevance by the hour. In this Papal letter, Francis sets forth a call to respond with urgency, intelligence, sacrifice and generosity to the massive ecological crisis confronting our world.

My message will consider just one small part of the encyclical’s call to personal conversion in the face of our world threatening ecological crisis. In the end, Francis states that ecological conversion has a precious contribution to make toward the renewal of humanity.

In the first paragraph about ecological education and spirituality in chapter six, Pope Francis makes this important observation: “Many things have to change but we human beings above all, have to change. We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes, and forms of life. A great cultural, spiritual, and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal.” (Laudato Si´ #202)

Pope Francis begins his text with the first words of St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle to creation:

“Praise be to you, my Lord.” In the words of this beautiful canticle, the Francis reminds us that our common home is like a sister with whom we share our life and a beautiful mother who opens her arms to embrace us.” (Laudato Si´ #1)

“This sister now cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her Lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air, and in all forms of life.” (Laudato Si´ #2)

Pope Francis’ message is wide-ranging and comprehensive. He applies the most advanced scientific and rational responses to the ecological crisis. He concludes, “Finally, convinced as I am that change is impossible without motivation and a process of education, I will offer some inspired guidelines for human development to be found in the treasure of Christian spiritual experience.” (Laudato Si´: #15)

The following blogs will offer some reflections on the need for conversion. While chapter six, Ecological Education and Spirituality, is less than ten percent of the entire document, it is critical to the basic call for change. This conversion is related intimately to the ecological crisis we often call climate change. There is much more to it than climate change. In the end, the only real change that will make us responsible for a healthy and cooperative climate and environment will be a change in our lifestyle. This is only possible through a life that truly embraces the values of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Addendum

World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,
September 1

“They shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks.” (Isaiah 2:4) That is the theme chosen by Pope Leo XIV for this year's World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation

The Holy Father's message for the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation highlights the connection between armed conflict and environmental degradation. Such degradation constitutes both a serious violation of our duty to care for creation, as well as a long-term threat to the lives of hundreds of millions of people. The now widespread awareness of the impact of war on natural resources has not led to the creation of adequate institutions or to responsible decisions aimed at resources preventing conflict and resolving disputes peacefully. The title - a message in which Isaiah prophecies the transformation of weapons into agricultural tools - is an explicit invitation to prioritize development and sustainability over violence and destruction. (Carmelite Newsletter on Laudato Si´)

Number of deaths worldwide from war, 2025: 240,000+ (excluding indirect deaths due to destroyed infrastructure, hunger, etc.)

Number of people displaced by war has been escalating and is now over 120 million.

In 2024, global military spending reached $2.7 trillion; 37% spent by the U.S.

Military spending continues to increase. War is a very profitable business.

The U.S. Defense Department is among the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.

Laudato Si’ calls all of us to hear the cries of the earth and the cries of the poor. War represents the loudest possible cries! It is severely destructive of the natural world and the poor are almost always the most victimized by it. Just the preparation for war takes money away from efforts that can house, feed, educate and care for the most vulnerable. Much is said about “just wars.” The truth is, however, few (some say none) are ever truly justified, though those with great power and privilege try to convince us otherwise…constantly.

In a Pentagon prayer service (March 25, 2026), U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, prayed for “overwhelming violence of action against those who deserve no mercy.” Hegseth has repeatedly exalted violence and has done so in the name of Christianity.

Below is an excerpt from the homily given by His Holiness, Pope Leo XIV, on April 11, 2026, at the Global Prayer Vigil for Peace.

Enough of the idolatry of self and money! Enough of the display of power! Enough of war! True strength is shown in serving life. With evangelical simplicity, Saint John XXIII once wrote: “The benefits of peace will be felt everywhere, by individuals, by families, by nations, by the whole human race.” And echoing the incisive words of Pius XII, he added: “Nothing is lost by peace; everything may be lost by war” (Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris, 116).

Let us, therefore, unite the moral and spiritual strength of the millions and billions of men and women, young and old, who today choose to believe in peace, caring for the wounds and repairing the damage left behind by the madness of war. I receive countless letters from children in areas of conflict. In reading them, one perceives, through the lens of innocence, all the horror and inhumanity of actions that some adults boast of with pride. Let us listen to the voices of children!

Dear brothers and sisters, there are certainly binding responsibilities that fall to the leaders of nations. To them we cry out: Stop! It is time for peace! Sit at the table of dialogue and mediation, not at the table where rearmament is planned and deadly actions are decided! Yet there is a no less significant responsibility that falls to all of us—men and women from all over the world. We are an immense multitude that rejects war not only in word, but also in deed. Prayer calls us to leave behind whatever violence remains in our hearts and minds. Let us turn to a Kingdom of peace that is built up day by day—in our homes, schools, neighborhoods, and civil and religious communities. A Kingdom that counters polemics and resignation through friendship and a culture of encounter. Let us believe once again in love, moderation and good politics. We must form ourselves and get personally involved, each following our own calling. Everyone has a place in the mosaic of peace!

St. Matthew 22:1-14

Dear Friends, Today’s gospel highlights the call, the invitation to the heavenly wedding feast. In the Bible, the theme of the invitation or call is repeated often. Abraham is the first, then Moses, David and the prophets. In the New Testament it is Peter and the Apostles and finally, Paul.

We all join that very prestigious group in our own lives. We are invited to the wedding feast. All are honored guests with whom God will share the heavenly banquet. Everything is ready. Therefore, it is urgent that we attend to God's invitation and respond with hungry hearts right now. Otherwise, we will find ourselves outside looking in at the feast of our salvation. Today’s gospel message is clear. There are responsibilities with the divine invitation. The message of today's liturgy also challenges us about our attitudes and biases here and now.

Jesus’ invitation, like his life, is an unending, unmeasurable and relentless act of love. The feast that Jesus hosts is open to all at all times. Our task is simple yet profound. We need to recognize that accepting the invitation demands the wedding garment of living according to the gospel values. The wedding garment means producing good fruits of reconciliation, service, welcoming the stranger and all the demands of the gospel. These good fruits will ensure the believer’s place at the table.

The banquet is beyond anything one could imagine. It awaits our arrival. Our seat is reserved for eternity. The story of the wedding garment helps us to understand this reality. When God calls, and He does so often, we need to take action. We have to accept the message of Jesus. We want to make our yes express itself in a new way of living. The wedding garment is a witness to the gospel message. The demands of Jesus’ wisdom are not met by a token effort or just following the crowd. It demands a change of heart, a conversion meaning a radical change of values. Our invitation is a call to move away from the standards of the consumer world to the liberating message of the gospel. This is a life of simplicity and humility. This is a call of service to the least among us.

The wedding garment tells us that just showing up is not enough. We need a commitment that goes deeper. The fact is that God is never finished with us. God always wants more. The Christian life asks us to constantly choose Jesus who, indeed, is the wedding feast. The Christian life is never satisfied with just following the routine.

We need to work at reconciliation to keep on forgiving not just seven times but seventy times seven times. We need to hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth not with a casual effort but with true sacrifice and generosity. We need to be open to all, not just our parish or our group, but to the stranger and the ones that are different.

Jesus really meant it when He said if we want to save our life, we have to lose it. If we are to be the leader, we need to be the servant of all! He has loads more of these upsides down and inside out changes of reality that never let us forget to put on the wedding garment so necessary for the wedding feast. All of this is so because God’s love has no limits. God wants us to share in the fullness of the feast of that love. We must die relentlessly to our self-love. As always, we do this by walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

Matthew 21:33-43

Dear Friends, Our liturgical year continues to move on. There is no stopping the clock. Our journey with the Gospel of Matthew is moving to its conclusion. In the next few Sundays, we will have selections that highlight two things: Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders and His call to choose life in following in his footsteps.

Down through Church history these final chapters of Matthew have been distorted to produce an antisemitism that has been a dreadful distortion of the gospel. This misrepresentation of Jesus’ message has led to activities that have been abhorrently inhuman and unjust in the relations between Jews and Christians.

The basic message of the parable of the murderous tenants asks us to address the need to decide. Will we be stewards of the gifts that God has given us? Are we living the gospel message in our family? Are we contributing to our community to make it more life-giving to all? Are we responding to the call to act justly and be instruments of peace? Are we being responsible and not squandering the blessings of our environment?

Jesus demands a decision. Do we accept His call and the gift of unconditional love? Are we able to recognize that all of life is a gift to be cherished and developed? The call of stewardship asks us to recognize the dominion of God and our reality as finite creatures who are forgiven, gifted and loved.

Today's Gospel passage from Matthew points to the rejection of Jesus’ preaching by the leaders of Israel. But it also should raise the question for us. Does our way of life offer some kind of partnership with the murderous tenants? We can ask ourselves: what role does justice and righteousness play for us in the garden of our daily life? Matthew will point out in the famous passage chapter 25 about the “the least of my brothers and sisters". We are told that failing to feed the poor is the same as denying Christ himself. This lack of justice and concern for the poor is the opposite of giving life. This is the murder of the Son in our time. We are choosing death over life. The rejection of the owner’s Son was not the monopoly of the Jewish leaders. It continues down through history.

Our task is to be faithful workers in the vineyard of life. Today, this calls us to both concern for the poor and marginalized along with concern for God’s gift of creation. Both are victims of gross neglect. The poor are almost always the first victims of climate change and other abuses of nature.

As we are called to address these overwhelming issues we are called to accept the Son. It is Jesus who will guide us and direct us to the truth and freedom that is the true hunger in our hearts. Stewardship in the vineyard of life is made so much easier and so much clearer when we accept the Father’s gift, Jesus Christ.

We are not alone. God is always with us. We need to realize that our small personal efforts are important. They benefit society in a way most often hidden from us. Likewise, they lift our self-esteem, encouraging us to stay in the battle.

As we begin to understand the challenge to our environment, most of us will need to change our understanding about creation. The most common view of creation is that God created the world and it was good and that was it.

Our disengagement from Creation flows from this static view of creation. The reality, however, is that creation is dynamic. Creation is filled with God’s presence. Laudato Si, Pope Francis’ eloquent reflection on the the enviornmental crisis, speaks eloquently on this dynamic presence of God in creation. It states that violation of the natural environment is a direct affront to God. Stripping of forests and polluting the rivers, lakes and oceans are not neutral acts but direct violations of God’s presence and plan for creation. There is a plea for responsible participation with nature, not the violent denial of responsibility. This sin against the natural world is a sin against both ourselves and God.

The gospel message of Jesus frees us to see with both the eyes of the heart and the eyes of the mind. Jesus’ teachings encourage us to create the virtues to let us live responsibly with what we need, not with the desires coming from a multibillion-dollar advertising industry that engulfs our daily life with falsehoods. These are the first steps in a journey to help all of humankind live a productive, healthy and responsible life that respects and nourishes God’s gift of creation. When we begin to live this call to respect God’ creation, we will be choosing life for both ourselves and the poor.

Matthew 21:28-32

Dear Friends, Today’s events from Matthew emerge just after Jesus’s glorious entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. The cleansing of the Temple escalates the already intense hostility between Jesus and the religious leaders. The impact of these events set the scene for even deeper conflict. With today’s parable of the two sons, Jesus is not subtle in accelerating the tension.

An important point to remember right at the beginning is that the order of the challenge to the two sons eliminates a strong prejudice held over the centuries that the people of Israel are the 1st son and the Church is the 2nd.This is not the case in this parable or any authentic Christan teaching. It is not a matter of chronology. What is at stake is something more profound and more permanent in the life of a believer: doing the will of the Father.

The contrary actions of the two sons highlighted in today’s parable point out the contradiction between the leaders’ program and the all-inclusive mercy of the God revealed by Jesus. Jesus’s point about the tax-collectors and prostitutes entering the kingdom before the chief priests and elders was intended as a challenge to those who thought themselves to be God’s chosen and, therefore, the favored sons and daughters. Later on, this was going to be a test for the Christian Jews to accept Gentiles into the early church. It also questions our acceptance of the ever-expanding invitation of the gospel for the supposed outcasts of our day in whatever manner they invade our complacency.

The parable is a vessel of self-awareness. It does not take much insight to see that we share the ambiguity of commitment that Jesus discloses in the two sons. The perennial fickleness of the human heart is never far from us. When it comes to true discipleship, doing takes priority over saying. There is no denying that we play the role of both sons at different times in our lives. The struggle for us is to constantly search for the singleness of purpose. We need to make our yes to God more faithful and more determined in our daily lives.

Jesus’s question, “Which of the two did the will of the father?” (Mt 21:31) is a challenge to the listeners and to us. He is asking which son is truly righteous? With whom do we identify?

A true spiritual life helps us come to grips with the problem of personal ambiguity. Prayer opens the eyes of heart to the experience of the Hound of Heaven. This is the beautiful poem revealing God’s grace in relentless pursuit of us in our perennial resistance to God’s call. God’s love continually seeks to make our yes ever more generous and consistent. Faithful and committed personal prayer lets us gradually grow in awareness of our personal ambiguity. God’s wondrous and merciful love is always present to us no matter the distractions, attachments or illusions of our fractured heart. We need to simply accept our poverty which enables us to respond to the unending call to new life. This is our yes to Jesus. This is our conversion. It is not a one-time event. It is an on-going process of a steady struggle to be faithful in commitment to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.

It is especially fitting that we use our weekly presence at the Eucharist as a time of renewing our yes to God for the entire week. Our weekly encounter with the Eucharistic Christ is always preparing us for the special and, so often, surprising moments of grace that await us during the week.

As we get to know ourselves, we become more familiar with our tendency of self-deception. Our strongest inclinations are to work out a comfortable compromise where our yes is a minimum for God and a maximum for us. By faithfulness to prayer, we learn the geography of the human heart. We learn to identify the great chasm between the good intention in the mind and the lived reality. We learn that anyone who chooses to change their heart for the better, will be welcome into God's reign.

God is patient with us but just like the disciples, there comes a time we when must walk with Jesus to Jerusalem. It is in faithfulness to prayer that we will free us from a troubled heart caught in the enigma of commitment or self-indulgence. Faithfulness to Jesus leaves us with only one longing in our heart, a free and generous yes to the gospel message.

Matthew 20:1-16

Dear Friends, Each Sunday, in the readings of the Mass, we encounter the values of Jesus. We are told that the last shall be first, the leader is to be the servant of all, and we need to be the one who washes our neighbors’ feet. The response to violence is not revenge but to turn the other cheek. These are just a few of the of the truly demanding perspectives Jesus has for us.

In the parables, Jesus hopes to crumble our clear and confident grasp our daily reality. Our commonsense mentality of how we think that things really are, cannot stand up to the power and wisdom of Jesus’ parables.

We're invited to the wonder of God's mercy in today's gospel and in the first reading from Deuteron Isaiah. Without this quality of God's mercy, our situation would be helpless and hopeless. God's mercy is without condition or limit. The main message for us in our confusion about the all-day workers is this. I will never earn God's mercy.

The key to understanding this parable and our deep feelings of injustice is this: a message is about the Kingdom of heaven telling us that we can begin early or we can begin late. It makes no difference. We can never enter into the Kingdom by ourselves. It is a total gift of God's mercy. Generous mercy on God's part is the only pathway into the Kingdom of heaven.

It is obvious that today’s parable is a shocker. Our immediate response is, “No way!” How can the “dawn to dusk” workers not complain about the inequality of the “one hour crew” for getting equal pay?

In all the parables, Jesus is setting us up for change. He is inviting us into a new world of God’s generosity. When it comes to justice and mercy, we use the teaspoon to work at the right measurement. Jesus is teaching us that God’s mercy and justice are more truly portrayed like a torrential downpour where there is neither instrument of measurement nor limits on the outpouring of love.

No doubt, Matthew understood our extraordinarily strong tendency to measure God by our limited standards. We are naturally inclined to have God see things as we see them. God, in fact, has a different mode of operation. God reaches out to all, deserving and undeserving. For us, it is just a person butting in at the front of the line. God sees if this individual is one who is late for “happy hour” leading to a night of self- indulgence or a husband rushing his wife to the delivery room or a thousand other variations on the motive.

Isaiah (55:7-9) tells us: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so high are my thoughts above your thoughts.”

The entire gospel message of Jesus is one relentless attack on our deeply rooted self-centered approach to reality. The parable of the Generous Landlord is just one more invitation for us to see and embrace the new world that Jesus offers to us.

A few years back I had a singular encounter with the reality of Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard.

I was asked to visit a young man who was paralyzed from the shoulders down. He was the innocent victim of a drive-by shooting. Naturally, I felt quite apprehensive because I had little in my arsenal of pastoral advice that made any sense in this situation.

Immediately, the young man put me at ease. He shared the story of how some of the other, more veteran victims of a similar condition had ministered to him to cast away despair and call him to embrace life. He shared how grateful he was to be alive, to be able to see his daughter, even to enjoy the Lakers championship! His cousin was killed at the same time of his tragedy, and he shared his sorrow for the family.

If ever there was a “dawn to dusk” worker in the circumstances of life, I was in the presence of it in the paralyzed young man. There was no pity party for the injustice of life though the whole rehabilitation hospital was filled with victims of life’s arbitrariness.

Our encounter with Jesus’ parable invites us to appreciate the giftedness of life that finds most of us in the “one hour crew” even though we imagine we have been in the vineyard of life for many long hours. Jesus wants to provoke us to count our blessings with new eyes and an open heart. The merger of God’s justice and mercy is always in our midst. Our task is to grow in an awareness of God’s overwhelming goodness and not be blinded by the passing burdens of our daily life.

Mt 18:21-35
The Forgiving Community

Forgiveness is at the heart of the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed and lived. At the very beginning, he said, “Repent, the kingdom is at hand” (Mt 4:17)! Those who accept the invitation into the kingdom need to understand its demands. God’s intervention is unleashing an overwhelming explosion of divine mercy and forgiveness. This calls all to both absorb and share the lifegiving current of the new reality that Jesus is setting free. This great blessing of mercy is a healing power that must be shared. Forgiveness is to be extended to all in the gracious and abundant manner God has displayed. What God wants is “mercy, not sacrifice” (Mt 9:12; 12:7).

Forgiveness is the lifeblood of the loving community. To get this point across, Jesus uses a parable. Parables tend to make us glide over the surface and miss the depth of their main message. This is especially true with this parable of the unforgiving servant. We should also be aware that the King is a Gentile King and not substitute for God.

In reading and experiencing this parable, we should pay attention to the great overestimations that are used to make a simple and clear point. The first exaggerations are about the debt of the unforgiving servant. In the context of Jesus’ time, it was the equivalent of billions of dollars. The servant’s plea for time was just another deception. There was no way he could pay the debt. The generosity of the king in his merciful forgiveness is likewise pressing the limits of the imagination. Then, receiving the incredible mercy, the unforgiving servant almost immediately attacks the fellow servant whose debt is quite manageable. The second servant has an almost verbatim plea for mercy, but it is rejected. He is cast into prison with no way to pay the debt and no way to freedom.

None of this makes any sense if the issue is paying back the debt. Of course, It is not. The issue is forgiveness received and forgiveness to be shared. The king does not condemn the unforgiving servant because he had stolen his money. The king’s main grievance is the failure to share forgiveness. The king’s question is directed to all of us: “Should you not have mercy on your fellow servant as I had on you” (Mt 18:34)?

The appeal is clear. We have been forgiven. In the divine economy, our forgiveness has consequences. We must share it with all our brothers and sisters. If forgiveness is truly our gift, it will flow to others. Otherwise, we cancel it if we stay locked into the rigid and self-centered condition of the unforgiving servant.

The point is so blatantly clear. We say it in the Our Father. We express it in the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12). The Sermon on the Mount is saturated with its implications. Most of all, Jesus utters it during his agonizing death. We need to forgive! If we do not, we block the flow of divine mercy. We cannot earn God’s forgiveness, but the simple painful truth is, we can lose it by not sharing it.

The main message the parable is a summons into a sea of divine mercy. The consequence of this gracious gift is our responsibility to our sisters and brothers. Our ambiguity draws us into the struggle to let go of the hurts. The presence of both the weeds and the wheat within our heart pulls us away from the obvious and overwhelming demand to forgive others. Even with all the clarity and power of the revealed word, we know how difficult it is to forgive.

In fact, forgiving is one of the most problematic of any human tasks. The immensity of the hurt, the unfaithfulness, the injustice or the neglect consume our soul. For most of us, the journey from the hurt and pain to the “I forgive” is a long and treacherous road. Today’s message of divine mercy, so clear and overwhelmingly righteous, is very slow to penetrate the hurting heart.

I like to describe it like this. When it comes to mercy and forgiveness, we tend to use a teaspoon to measure our distribution of mercy to those who have offended us. On God’s part, mercy and forgiveness is like a torrential downpour that washes clean all in its path. The contrast is frightening, but so very real.

There are some things that we can do to help ourselves in this dilemma. We should have patience with ourselves and admit we need to let go of the hurt. We should pray for the person and ourselves. We should accept our weakness in God’s sight and seek to lean on God’s unrelenting love and mercy. We also should face up to another common self-deception. We label individuals unworthy of our forgiveness.

Thomas Merton talks about the absurdity of trying to determine who is worthy of our forgiveness. He asks just who among our “unworthys” are persons Christ did not die for. We know well that Christ died for all, plain and simple. We need to share that universal love in our life. It surely will be a struggle to forgive. But it is utter foolishness for us to have a list of those who are not worthy of our forgiveness. Our obvious choice should be to use God’s list. God has made it clear that everyone is on the divine inventory.

Social Dimension of Self-Knowledge

Our self-knowledge is deeply influenced by social factors. We have inherited a deeply rooted alienation that is the product of original sin. This disruptive force is nurtured by social, economic and cultural factors. These influences play a big part in creating a false consciousness for all of us. This, in turn, creates a worldview where we are strongly inclined to see things for our own benefit. We seldom look on the world free form the pull of our self-interest. From these most fundamental desires flow the division, the isolation, the conflict and hatred so inherent in our common human experience. Likewise, culture creates further false values to support hostility and separation. The economic system adds to the pattern of lies that define us as consumers. We wake up in the morning to face the on-slaught of our advertising industry that spends billions of dollars to set the priorities of our self-knowledge. It hardly is a level playing field that awaits us. We are told that we have needs can be met only by new and wonderous products. Happiness is always at our fingertips as long as they hold a credit card.

Consequences of False Consciousness

The following five observations help clarify the intensity of this false consciousness that engulfs us.

We are locked into a false consciousness.
This false consciousness creates a world view that is a gross distortion of reality but a world view, nevertheless, that we embrace as true.
Part of this perspective, fostered by society and culture, and driven by our innate egoism, defines us primarily as a consumer.
We are constrained by the deep and hidden prejudices aimed at protecting our economic, political, cultural, gender, social and racial privileges to the exclusion and deprivation of others.
The power of the ego is in a relentless struggle to avoid any diminishment of its control of our false consciousness.

The interplay of all these forces, generating a false consciousness, deeply influences our quest for happiness. The fact is that these patterns of consumption are a never-failing way to ultimate disappointment and grief. These are patterns of deceit and distortion. They create a mindset that pursues goals that, in the end, can never achieve lasting happiness. Authentic self-knowledge is the only way out. Jesus has told us, “The truth will set you free.” (John8:32) The first step on the road to freedom is moving out of the captivity of the destructive lies. We need to move into the truth of God’s call to our original innocence. This is the work of the Christian life. Self-knowledge is a critical feature of this venture. Likewise, we are bombarded by a heavy dose of prejudices that supposedly protect our self-interest.

My spiritual journey has been an on-going struggle to break free of this racism, prejudice against the LGBTQ community and sexism. All of these destructive lies have festered deep within my false consciousness over a lifetime. Like a cancer, they have quietly been eating away at my spiritual well-being. The search for true self-knowledge has led to a fierce battle against my ingrained captivity. Eventually, a growth in self-knowledge, has been generated by seeking a true life. This has been possible only with an encounter with Jesus in the Gospels and deep personal prayer. The struggle continues. Other elements of this communal false consciousness are our blindness to numerous and profound patterns against our environment. A second area is the blindness that props up the inherent injustice in the relations between the rich and poor at all levels of life.

The Urgency of Personal Transformation

Prayer has a special role in creating 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 to be one with God. Prayer is an invitation to redirect our lives. The light of the Scriptures often opens new horizons in our normal awareness. At the heart of God’s Word is the person of Jesus. Knowing Jesus 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. This personal growth helps our love of Jesus become more real.

The slow process of growing in self-knowledge leads to a gradual development of personal transformation called conversion. It is repeated at several levels. The journey to discover and accept the True Self, leading to God at the center, can only begin when we acknowledge our sinfulness, prejudices and pettiness. Once again, humility surfaces as essential to our growth in prayer. Recognizing our sinfulness, sets us free to truly love Jesus and our neighbor.

To face ourselves with honesty is a challenging task. It is not a joyful part of our growth. The price tag for faithfulness to God, this walking with Jesus, drives away the timid and comfortable. When we accept the challenge of accepting our limits, we discover the bridge between our heart and our life. This connection always joins God’s loving call and our acceptance of these three items: our poverty, our longing for God’s mercy and determination move on to the True Self.

Matthew 18:15-21

Dear Friends, Today’s message of forgiveness and reconciliation is part of a special section (Mt 18:1-35) on the church as a community. The membership of the Christian community is made up of flawed human beings. There is a great need to heal the ever-present differences and conflicts that arise. Jesus presents a program of deep insight and wisdom.

When the conflict happens, Jesus asks us to approach it with humility and a heart open to radical forgiveness. Recall the advice from the Sermon on the Mount (Mt.5-7). There are all kinds of teachings about forgiveness and reconciliation. One relevant one in today’s case is, “Remove the wooden beam from your eye first, then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.” (Mt 7:5)

Secondly, Jesus advises us to bring the conflict or hurt out into the open, into the light of day. Going in love and vulnerability to the one who offends helps us to see another point of view. Often, we see that there are not just two sides to every story. Sometimes there are six or seven ways to interpret the reality.

When we need to correct another, the key is love. Only love can open the closed mind and the closed heart. Emotional ambushes with high-minded correction and painful admonitions seldom open the door for reconciliation. Love is the pathway to healing and to the truth that sets us all free.

Jesus’ teaching is to keep us from the trap of being the victim. The victim seeks to divide not to heal. When we are the victim, we escalate the problem by telling others how we have been hurt. In this way we further disrupt the community. What we are really doing is seeking power to control others.

Jesus asks us to involve others in a totally different way. Only after we have personally sought reconciliation, then we involve one or two others in a positive way. The goal is not punishment and control but forgiveness and compassion.

This is the stuff of the gospel. Jesus precedes this lesson with the story of the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine to go after the lost sheep. He follows it up by answering Peter’s question of how many times we need to forgive. Jesus says we are not to forgive only seven times but seventy times seven which means without limit.

Nevertheless, Jesus also teaches us that till the end we will have the weeds among the wheat. For the sake of community, it may be necessary to remove an unrepentant one from the community. But even in this case, we should continue to be open, and where possible, seek reconciliation.

Finally, Jesus teaches us to bring it all to prayer. As my very good friend St. Teresa of Avila teaches us, one of the great gifts of prayer is self-knowledge. It is with this gift that we can approach life in community with deeper humility and greater openness not to be the first one to cast the stone! (Jn 8:7)

Teresa’s Constant Plea: Self-knowledge and Humility

Teresa opens The Interior Castle with a description of the beauty and wonder of the human person. The basis of this great marvel is the presence of God. The human person is not only made in the image of God. This loving God is present at the deepest center of every human being. The destiny of each and every human being from the moment of conception is union with this God of love revealed in Jesus Christ.

Alongside this marvel of divine presence and human destiny, each person shares the destructive and pervasive consequences of Original Sin. This leads to the human battle of good and evil, sin and grace, the weeds and the wheat that dominates our lives and all of human history.

From time to time, Teresa lays out this dominance of sin that is the ugly condition of all of us. However, she puts more emphasis on the beauty and wonder of our heritage as children of this loving God.

When Teresa repeats her relentless call for self-knowledge and humility, she is deeply conscious of the battle within the human heart. However, she is always leaning to the gracious gift of God’s ever-present call to life, love and new life.

This great Carmelite Saint never tires of proclaiming the absolute importance of self-knowledge. She points out its significance even in the early material of the first Dwelling Places, in fact it is a major theme of this first section of the Interior Castle. Likewise, she is ever singing the beauty and importance of humility that she understood as living out the the truth of our relationships with God: “Once I was pondering why our Lord was so fond of this virtue of humility, and this thought came to me – in my opinion not as a result of reflection but suddenly: it is because God is supreme Truth; and to be humble is to walk in truth for it is a very deep truth that of ourselves we have nothing good but only misery and nothingness. Whoever does not understand this walks in falsehood.” (IC 6.10.7)

Teresa says shortly afterwords: “While we are on this earth nothing is more important to us than humility.” (IC II-9)

She continues proclaiming the wonders and importance of self-knowledge and humility empathizing that we will never truly know ourselves without true knowledge of God.

Our sinful condition creates a relentless pull to center on ourselves as the final measure of reality. Our independence is what truly matters. This self-centeredness is the central consequence of our heritage from Adam and Eve. The Christian life, the call to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, is a movement away from this self-absorption.

The gospels are full of teachings by Jesus that make this truth of self -knowledge very immediate and concrete. In Mark we read: “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all.” (Mk 9:35) Matthew tells us: “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Mt 10:39) Again, John says: “Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains a grain of wheat, but if it dies, it produces much fruit.” (Jn 12:24) Finally, Matthew adds: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me.” (Mt 16:24)

This struggle for self-knowledge and humility is at the heart of the ever-present tension of good and evil that is the heavy burden of the human heart. As a result, all of life both on the personal and social level is caught up in this perpetual battle. The heart is always on the edge of human ambivalence which is in a constant search to water down the gospel of Jesus Christ to make life more comfortable. Teresa’s consistent plea is for us to keep our eyes and heart on Jesus.

Teresa resolved this very harsh reality as a sinner standing before God in this way. She found the answer in a simple gesture. She grew in a deeper awareness of her personal brokenness while at the same time, she had an even stronger embrace of God’s limitless and always available mercy. She saw herself as a world class sinner but a sinner who was loved and forgiven. This led her to declare often, “The story of my life is the story of God’s mercy.”

By this she means that when she had arrived at the deepest and clearest moment of her life, her “Lord, save me!” moment, she learned what it meant to be a creature. She embraced the fact of her reality as creature because for her it meant she was cradled in the loving hands of a gracious Creator revealed in her great friend and Savior, Jesus Christ. The ultimate reality is that God is good not that we are good. In the end, God’s limitless mercy is her victory.

Teresa understood self-knowledge as our relationship with God. To truly know ourselves, we must accept our creaturehood in all its limits, most especially our mortality. This is to recognize our total and absolute dependence on God. This should make us share Teresa’s insight that our life may be the story of God’s mercy.

Humility’s role is to help us live out the truth of our awareness of self-knowledge. It directs us on the journey away from the False Self and its message of lies and distortions. It shows the way to the True Self which draws us into the Mystery of Love. It guides us into a gospel-rooted lifestyle of love and service. It goes beyond seeing the goodness and mercy of God to accepting it and letting it direct our lives as children of God.

Matthew 16: 21-27

Dear Friends, In the beginning of the Gospel of John we have the heart of God’s plan of salvation. The world-shattering proclamation, “The Word became flesh.” (Jn 1:14) is God’s plan. This is how Jesus accepted the call to save the world. Becoming flesh was not an isolated event. It is in accepting the totality of His humanity that we were to be saved. This meant Jesus accepted all of us as we are. He embraced all of us in our broken and sinful condition as part of His reality. For Jesus, this meant an encounter with evil that would lead to his Passion and Death.

So, when Jesus named Peter as the rock upon which He would build His Church, He accepted Peter, and all of us, His followers, as we are: defective and in need of being fixed. This is why it is so difficult for us to understand the Church. It is a home for sinners in need of healing, a home for the broken and lost in need of wholeness and new direction.

In Mattheew’s passage today, Jesus tells Peter, and all of us, His chosen way of salvation. He was going to restore the world by entering into the pain and suffering of our truly flawed humanity to heal it from within. The suffering and death of Jesus are the ultimate consequences of “the Word became flesh.” (Jn 1:14)

Peter could not handle Jesus’ words about the cross and rejection, denial and death. Most likely, he had great difficulty in the potential loss of personal power and prestige along with the unthinkable invitation to take up his cross. Peter was shocked by Jesus’ new direction, a way Peter surely had not anticipated nor desired. Jesus was replacing the popular expectation of military might and privileged prosperity and power for God’s Chosen People. Now Peter was confronted with the cross and loss of his comfort and convenience. So, he did what we have been doing throughout the history of Christianity, making Jesus over in our image rather than accepting God at his Word which is Jesus in the flesh. Only in Jesus do we have a real expression of God’s plan of salvation.

The command of Jesus is very forthright, “Get behind me, Satan!” (Mt 16:18) Peter had just been called “rock” but now he had become a stumbling block.

At one level Jesus is rejecting Peter’s misguided statement. On another level, it is a message of forgiveness. Jesus is telling him to get behind him and be a faithful disciple by following Jeus. Even though Jesus is very clear in His rejection, He still trusts Peter and forgives him.

Jesus understood clearly that discipleship is a process, most often a long and arduous process of trial and error. This experience of Peter is one of many events where Jesus is patient, kind and understanding with Peter as He is to us as we so often flounder on the road to Jerusalem.

Today’s announcement of the Jerusalem journey leading to rejection, suffering and death is the first of three such proclamations in the next few chapters of Matthew’s Gospel. In each episode the disciples totally miss the point.

We continue the difficult task of accepting Jesus on His terms and not our terms. The Church is always in the struggle of searching for the integrity of the gospel message. We are never far from the temptation to tell Jesus how to do it our way just as Peter did. We continue to live with false expectations of having this perfect community and a problem-free personal life to carry on the ministry of the Gospel. We find it hard to accept that Jesus has fully embraced us in our brokenness and confusion. He has chosen us as the vessels of clay that we are to proclaim and celebrate the gospel message.

We cannot stand the sex scandal, the clericalism, the anti-women expressions of the Vatican officials, the distorted wealth and you name it. The Church can be truly agonizing with so much clarity in its documents and such mediocrity in its reality. Yet, these very same failings are always mixed with the incredible faithfulness of so many families working against all odds, good priests trying their best, women religious continuing to be quiet and hidden heroes of the Gospel, the silent and loving suffering of so many hidden lives. The weeds and wheat will be with us to the end.

Jesus wants us to be open to the mystery of the Incarnation. We need to accept each other in our brokenness just as Jesus did when He became flesh. Paul expresses the wonder of this event in his great hymn in the letter to the Philippians:

Though He was in the form of God,

Jesus did not deem equality with God

something to be grasped at.

Rather, He emptied Himself

And took the form of a slave being born in the likeness of men

He was known to be of human estate,

And it was thus that He humbled Himself,

Obediently accepting even death,

Death on a cross! (PHI 2:6-8)

God Is Our True Destiny

This the second of a series of blogs on some major themes of The Interior Castle.

When Teresa was a child, she was taught about the utter importance of saving her soul. This meant avoiding hell. So, she convinced her brother that they should go to the land of the Moors and die as martyrs and go straight to heaven. They only had gone short distance from their home when they began to re-think the issue and return home. It was Teresa’s first experience with ambivalence, selling God short with the very human practice of compromise.

It was a hard and long journey for Teresa to embrace the true freedom to let go and let God. This happened when she eventually realized that union with God was her true and singular destiny. Finally realizing in the depth of her heart that God was the goal, she began to filter everything in her life through this overwhelming truth. She began to see her life and all of reality with an extraordinary unity. Her values changed and her life now had an outstanding harmony. This opened her up for God as all-loving and all merciful.

It was in this time of full spiritual maturity that she wrote The Interior Castle, the journey through the stages of progress to the center and final calling of the Castle, to be in union with God.

In this painful pursuit of God that she describes so beautifully in her text, Teresa discovered several truly important details about her destiny. These insights gave her a clear sense of direction. Growing wisdom allowed her to see that union with God was the final and ultimate calling of her life. Therefore, everything else needed to be measured in light of this goal. Death is simply a step on this journey.

In the following reflections on the themes of The Interior Castle, there are many truly significant truths about the spiritual life. Self-knowledge, humility, prayer and service are all critical to this journey to God. However, none is more important for Teresa than the energizing and unifying goal of union with God. This is the spiritual life, in the final analysis

Teresa sets the stage for the journey to seek God with the image of the Castle. We need to recall that for Teresa, the Castle is a symbol for the human person. The path is to God at the center of our being.

We can see that the over-all message of The Interior Castle in the following points:

The goal is union with God. This will take place in this life by purification and transformation in one’s journey to the center, where God dwells. Failing that, we will pass through purgatory after this life has ended. Either way, we end up united with God. However, the method and time are our choice.
The journey to the center, where God awaits, unfolds in our ever-deeper awareness and acceptance of God’s love and mercy.
The way forward in the experience of God is a process of letting go of our selfishness. In that process there is a relentless exposure of the depth and breadth of our self-absorption. Teresa is clear that only God can both expose and transform the deeper levels of self-love.
She presents a vision for our journey to the center but little is said about methods of prayer emphasizing the unique and constant call to be open to the Spirit on the journey.

In the end, it is all about love and service for our sisters and brothers which we embrace by participating in the coming of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and the integrity of creation.

The other themes so prominent in the Interior Castle are rooted and emerge from the clear goal awaiting at the center of the Castle: union with God.

The text reveals a long passage which is the spiritual life. Prayer is the only sure entry into the Castle. Teresa calls this beginning of a relationship with God as becoming “the servants of love”. However, it soon becomes apparent that prayer demands the twofold gift of self-knowledge and humility. Likewise, the growth in prayer needs the support of Teresa’s Program of integrating and practicing the three qualities of humility, detachment and fraternal charity.

Even with these gifts of deep personal generosity, it is only God’s action that will provide the final purification and transformation that prepares us for the new life of being one with God.

In all of this, Teresa gives us a beautiful and ever-so-useful road map to the life-giving experience of the Divine Presence. This is the gospel truth of the way, the life and the truth. It all grows out of the clear destination of union with God.

Matthew 16:13-20

Dear Friends, Peter had quite a journey from the time Jesus asked him to leave his boat and nets and follow Him. He saw it all: the blind seeing, the lame walking, the devils cast out, the loaves and the fish and, of course, his short, ill-fated attempt to walk on the water and a lot more. Now Jesus asks the question, “Who do you say I am?” (Mt 16:15)

Peter was ready, or at least he thought so. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mt 16:16)

Peter got it right. Jesus says, “Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my heavenly Father.” (Mt 16:17)

But once again, Peter was that profoundly human expression of the weeds and the wheat, a mixture of generosity and hard-headedness. In the following paragraph that is next Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus puts Peter down with the powerful phrase, “Get behind me Satan!” (Mt. 16:23)

Peter thought he had arrived, but Jesus had to give him the tough love to let him know they were only half way there. Peter had to change. He had to get to know Jesus as the one on the road to Jerusalem, a suffering and rejected Messiah. Peter had to die to his dreams of power, prestige and privilege.

We all have to face the same struggle when we confront the most important question in our lives. Who do we say Jesus is?

Like Peter, we want God to be there for our needs, for our programs, for our dreams. Indeed, God is with us in our struggles but God wants more. Like Peter, we have to mature enough to accept Jesus as the one on the road to Jerusalem revealing a Savior who suffers and dies. Like Peter, we have considerable trouble with this when it comes to us personally taking up our cross and following Jesus.

In choosing Peter, Jesus obviously chose a very flawed and gifted person, a great mix of self and selflessness. Jesus does the same with all of us. We all have our own special role in this great event of the Christian venture in the footsteps of Jesus. Certain keys have been given to all of us. We need to be sure that we use them to open doors rather than close doors by the witness of our life.

Jesus invites us to follow Him. We need to pray to do this. We pray for many things but there is no greater gift than to learn in prayer that God loves us. As this awareness of God’s personal love grows in our heart, we gradually begin to accept Jesus and His plan rather than imposing our agenda. It is only in the context of this loving relationship with Jesus that we can truly answer the most important question in our life. Who is Jesus for us?

Unlike Peter, we cannot walk and talk with Jesus in the flesh. We can, however, read the and pray the Gospels. We can let the stories enter into our mind and heart. This will lead us to prayer: a conversation with someone we know loves us.

This praying of Scripture is a rich tradition in our Catholic faith that is being renewed in our day. It is called, lectio divina. It has four simple steps. First, we read the Scripture passage. We ponder and reflect upon it to see how it applies to our lives and how it calls us to change. Then we pray. This is the conversation that is with someone we know loves us and wants to let us know what that personal love means for us. Then we may be moved to just rest in silence in the presence of this loving God.

This prayer will be very helpful in our response to the most important question we will face in life. Who do we say Jesus is? The right answer is the work of a prayerful lifetime.

In this encounter, Jesus gave Peter a task that we must share. We must identify Jesus. We must believe in him. We must lead others to share our faith and commitment to Jesus. We must do this most especially by the way we live walking in the footsteps of Jesus.

The Interior Castle: Teresa of Avila’s Major Text

This the first of a series of blogs on some major themes of The Interior Castle.

The Interior Castle was the most important and influential of all of Teresa’s writings. As a Doctor of the Church, we are assured that her message is profoundly rooted in the gospel of Jesus. The original audience of the text was a small group of nuns in the early days of her reform. Today it is a major classic in Christian spirituality. It has been published in dozens of languages. It has been a consequential contributor to our understanding of the many levels of experiencing God in our long and rich tradition of Christian spirituality.

Teresa wrote her classic text from the graced gift of her experience of pursuing God and receiving God in her life. She wrote from her experience as a woman which was very rare in her day. It was an era marked by truly powerful patterns of a destructive and truly ugly sexism that saturated all levels of society. Her style of insightful writing is very different but complementary to the very analytical and theological writing of John of the Cross. Both are fundamentally poetic and deeply insightful in their message to walk with Jesus.

Teresa’s message was simple but revolutionary. For her, God is the Creator, all loving and all merciful. She is the creature, sinful but loved and forgiven. As a sinner she was caught in the unrelenting pull toward creatures and away from God. She saw herself immersed in the persistent appeal to choose the lesser gods and their deceptive illusions of happiness. However, in Jesus, she understood that she lived in a sea of loving mercy. Her life was a constant movement to choose the gift of love and mercy over the deceiving attraction to the creature comfort and control that led to self-absorption and isolation.

Teresa wrote with passion, clarity and intensity about this eternal struggle to free her heart to love God alone and turn away from the deceiving power of self-love.

In this painful pursuit of God, she discovered several truly important items that opened up and facilitated her understanding and commitment to her true destiny.

Gradually, she saw with new and deeper insight that union with God was the final and ultimate calling of her life. Everything else needed to be measured in light of this goal. Death is simply a step on this journey.

Other significant factors on the passage are self-knowledge, God’s will, prayer, fraternal charity and service. Teresa adds her Program which is the development of the three virtues of humility, detachment and charity. These clear the mind and heart to seek God in all the actions of one’s life.

Teresa shows the importance of all these spiritual themes in her classic text, The Interior Castle. This text has a simple organizational arrangement. There are seven levels or steps leading to the final destiny, union with God. These different stages are called Dwelling Places from the gospel use of the term by Jesus. Each describes the individual’s path of growth on the spiritual journey. The first three quickly describe the beginning of our movement out of ourselves and towards God. Teresa is in a hurry to get to her special message of how God acts in our spiritual life. In the first three, human effort is the key. In the last four it is God’s action that predominates. The fourth Dwelling Places is like a bridge to this divinely driven activity called contemplation.

I hope to present a series of reflections on these themes in the following blogs on The Interior Castle. The first will be on the importance of our clear destiny to be one with God.

My fondest hope is that these reflections will be a helpful enlightenment about the need for a truly gospel-driven spirituality that will help us walk with Jesus in a love that continues to grow in depth and intensity. As always, the growth of deep personal payer will be a driving force in this search.

Matthew 15:21-28

Dear Friends, In days of Jesus and from their earliest history the family of Abraham always treasured their heritage as God’s Chosen People. It is very hard for us to grasp how deeply the Jews at the time of Jesus saw themselves as the Chosen People of God to the exclusion of all others. It penetrated and permeated their reality with a clear vision and an acutely guarded set of protocols that defined all social interaction with the Gentiles. The Jews cherished their God-given position of privilege and uniqueness among all peoples.

The dialogue between Jesus and the Canaanite woman really challenges us. We also need to be aware of another deep truth that is transpiring in this beautiful event. The God of Jesus is the God of the Jews. It was though the Chosen People that Jesus entered into the world . The God of Jesus is the God of the Jews. The woman’s faith in Jesus had wonderful personal consequences in the healing of her daughter. It also unveiled a great truth for all Gentiles. They come to God through faith in Jesus.

The early Christian Church struggled for two generations to break loose of this bondage of exclusiveness. Down through history, the Church, and all societies, have continued to manufacture various expressions of this elitism.

Today’s story from St. Matthew’s Gospel is as relevant as the latest headline on the evening news.

Over the centuries, Christian voices have produced some incredible fantasies to explain away Jesus’ harsh language addressed to the Canaanite woman. It still stands for what it is: a statement of the blind prejudice of His times. I especially like those who claimed it was protocol not prejudice.

History is filled with protocols that came from laws that simply hid the prejudice of the time behind a legal façade. In Ireland in 1710, a law said all government and military leaders must receive the sacraments of the Church of England. This was the first of a set of Penal Laws that led to the oppression and poverty of the Irish for over two centuries. In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court declared separate but equal was acceptable under the law. This led to the segregation system that attempted to dehumanize the African Americans for decades with “white only” and “the back of the bus” set of protocols that were considered legal and righteous. With the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920 women finally changed another protocol and won the right to vote. This was a great step in the struggle that continues to this day for equality for women.

When this embattled mother confronted Jesus, she was showing the way for the oppressed of all human history. Her action and her words are a simple declaration of her dignity no matter what the protocols and prejudice of the day has to say to the contrary. In one of the most moving gestures in all of the Gospels, she kneels before Jesus in total vulnerability and begs for help. Her wit turned around Jesus’ words of remoteness. Yet, in the end, it was her faith that moved Jesus to expand his mission as he embraced her pain and healed the poor child.

Jesus saw and heard this declaration of human rights and began a journey toward inclusiveness that continues for us today. God’s grace and God’s love are for all. It makes no difference how deeply and expansively the cultural, legal and theological norms are used to prop up the walls of separation and isolation.

In her simple and brilliant response to Jesus, the Canaanite woman was speaking for all of us. We are the children of God. After three confrontations, Jesus saw the light and celebrated her truth expressed in her faith. Her daughter was healed. All of us continue the healing every time we go beyond the accepted protocols and legalized prejudice and embrace the humanity of the “outsider.” It makes no difference if the excluded is the illegal, the Muslim, the gay and lesbian or maybe just a mother-in-law or father-in-law.

In our day, and all through Christian history, we have used labels in the name of righteousness to hide hatred and all manner of discrimination and dehumanizing activity. Anti-Semitism has been proclaimed and practiced throughout history in the name of the Christian religion. In American history, we have constantly created a hostility toward immigrants in the name of true Christian faith. Today, racism and all manner of hostility toward immigrant hide behind an honorable label of Christian nationalism.

Today’s Gospel message invites us to move beyond the simplicity of labels to the reality of God’s presence in every human being.

The human heart has a seemingly unlimited capacity to divide us in “us” and “them”. Today’s Gospel message is an invitation to move away from the common sense interpretation of reality to the wonder of the gospel message Jesus models for us today. Through the power of love for the outsider we hold the potential to transform our broken world into the wonder of God’s kingdom.

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