THE FEAST OF THE HOLY FAMILY

Lk 2:22-40

 Dear Friends. “Silent Night” before Christmas is very different from after Christmas. As a society
we are wired for the emotional high of Christmas. I like to think that there are two “Silent Nights”. One is the commercial version. This is central to the Christmas that is the mixture of the major commercial event, our deeply cultural commitment and a nice dose of spiritual reflection. This “Silent Night” terminates sharply around mid-day on the 25th. The second “Silent Night” is available any day of the year if we are willing to enter deeply into the Gospel story free of all the commercial and cultural baggage.

On the 26th, we are left cleaning up the wrappings and exchanging the gifts for the right size. The great consumer event eases to an end with the post-Christmas sales. It is totally disconnected from the experience of Mary and Joseph. Their “Silent Night” was a frightening experience of poverty and insecurity. They handled it well because of their mutual support, love and trust rooted in deep faith.

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FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

CHRISTMAS REFLECTION

 Putting Christ back into Christmas is surely the desire of most Christians. The intensity of the “Black Fridays” and “Cypher Mondays” and the rest is so intense, it is truly difficult to break through the message to “shop till you drop.” On a personal level, a great number of people try to balance the gross commercialism and the spiritual significance of the feast. A serious reading of the Scriptures makes us aware of how far we must go. The truly radical message in Luke and Matthew of the birth of Christ has a minimum connection to the superficial slogan, “Put Christ back into Christmas”.

Our “Silent Night” interpretation of the event leaves little room for the true message of Luke and practically no room for Matthew’s description of the story. Both evangelists are inviting us into the deepest and truest dimension of our reality, a graciousness that is always calling us out of the darkness into the light.

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THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Isaiah 61:1-2, 10-11
First Thessalonians 5:16-24
John 1:6-8, 19-28

 
 Dear Friends. Isaiah is the book of Advent. Its history spans several different historical periods but its message is rich and fulfilling: the Lord is coming and the Lord is ever mindful of His people. It is a proclamation of hope in the most beautiful and poetic language.

Today’s passage is directed to a people who were just released from fifty years of captivity in Babylonia only to encounter a homeland and Temple destroyed and in chaotic condition. The dreams of the beautiful land of their youth were confronted with the reality of rabble and total neglect.

Isaiah’s message of hope helps change the broken hearts to creative energy necessary to build once again. This is the power of hope.

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SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Mark 1:1-8.

 Dear Friends, The Season of Advent is a time of hope. We long for the coming of the Lord. In the first three weeks, we put the focus on Jesus coming for us personally and coming to bring the final victory in the battle of good and evil, to deliver us from the consequences of a truly broken world.

Isaiah is the herald for the Church’s proclamation of this longing for the Lord. A central event in Isaiah’s message is the liberation of the people from their captivity in Babylonia. Much of his teaching flows from the deliverance from exile and the return home. This beautiful description shows God making the way clear. “Make straight the wasteland, a highway for our God. Every valley shall be filled in, every mountain and hill shall be made low.” (Isaiah 40:3-4)

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THE FIRST SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Mark 13:33-37

Dear Friends, Advent has us look backwards so we can look forward. Both views call us to live more
intensely in the present.

We look backwards through the prophet Isaiah. His message of hope is a central element of the Advent message. We look forward to the coming of Jesus. In the first three weeks, this coming is presented as the reality of our lives open to the future with its final temporal expression in the coming of the Lord. In the closing days of Advent, we switch gears to focus on celebrating the mystery of the Word become flesh and our Christmas Season.

Unlike the final Sundays of the past Church year and their message of the end times, the proclamation of Advent is all about the deep, passionate call of the season, “Come Lord Jesus!”

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THE FEAST OF CHRIST THE KING

MATTHEW 2 25:34-46

Dear Friends, This feast of Christ the King is a bridge between the year that is ending and the year
that is coming. It is more related to our life in a passing world where the tyranny of the clock gives way to the hope of a future that will transcend our mortality. These Sundays of ending and beginning are all about the transition from mortality to eternal life that is the ultimate human reality.

We have the majestic scene of Christ before us in judgement. We are confronted with a very surprising declaration. It has little to say about our ethical behavior. Likewise, we will not be judged whether we were believers or non-believers, Christians or non-Christians or even faithful Catholics. The criteria are only whether we responded to the urgent and basic needs of our brothers and sisters in their desperation. Mercy is the measure of the verdict in the eyes of the Crucified and Risen Judge.

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THE THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

MATTHEW 25:14-30.

Dear Friends.

The message for us in today’s Gospel is clear: to realize that God is calling us to use our time, talent and treasure to increase the kingdom of God. Our call is to create and support life in all of its various manifestations. We are invited to enter into and embrace the Gospel message of Jesus by always discovering new horizons of inclusion and acceptance and celebration. Our fundamental human task is to let reality open up the hidden presence of our loving God.

We have to move beyond the “dos and don’ts” of religion. The third servant operated out of a narrow and minimal investment of time, talent and treasure. He sees a “go to mass on Sunday” as a nominal effort to satisfy a harsh and demanding judge who holds out the threat of eternal punishment. He puts God on the fringe of life, a necessary but onerous obligation.

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THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 25:1-13

Dear Parishioners, In today’s Gospel story the Sadducees challenges Jesus with a simplistic and
absurd story about seven brothers marrying the same woman. Jesus turns the story into a profound truth that we profess in the Apostles’ Creed: the resurrection of the body. But before the new life in the coming age, where we neither marry nor are given in marriage, we must face death.

We are in the final weeks of the Church year. The liturgy weaves a very fascinating story of the end and the beginning. In the process it invites us into the mystery of time.

Today we are confronted with the reality our corporal death. Next week we are challenged with the end of the total historical venture that we call the end times. Then the first three weeks of the new year give us the Advent message and cry for the new reality, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

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THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 23:1-12

Dear Friends, In my second or third year as a young priest, at the end of the Second Vatican Council,
I began to tell people to drop the Father and just call me Tracy. Very shortly one of the wise leaders of the parish pulled me aside to tell me a simple truth: It was not about me!

She said the community needs to respect and honor the role of the priest. It was very important to them. Therefore, I would be wise to stop the nonsense about, “Call me Tracy.”

Jesus is basically saying the same thing in today’s Gospel message. While He is addressing the fault 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 calls us to seek privilege, prestige and recognition. We are all inclined to be special. Every gathering of human beings has to deal with organization and leadership that lives with the tension of power and service. Obviously, in the faith community this conflict plays itself out between the priest and the laity and the curse of clericalism that plagues the Church. However, there is no group that is not challenged by this tension between power and service.

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THIRTIETH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 22:34-40

Dear Friends. Today’s Gospel selection is the third of four conflict stories in chapter twenty two in which the leaders try to entrap Jesus. Each time Jesus turns the challenge around to give a deeper
a deeper insight into His Gospel message. In fact, today’s lesson is about as close as we are going to get to a summary of the entire Gospel message.

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 total and all consuming love of God means that we are called to share and participate in God’s love for our 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 seven “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 5:22); “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)

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THE TWENTY NINTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 22: 15-21

Dear Friends. Today’s Gospel is the first in a series of different groups that try to entrap Jesus and thus endanger his life. In each case, Jesus turns the issue into a teaching opportunity.

Today’s message is not the separation of church and state. It is a clear mandate on the centrality of our commitment to God in all things. The Gospel message is a clear and strong invitation to make God the center of all our activities.

The issue of the image on the coin is countered by the continuous and pervasive teaching of Jesus that teaches 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)

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THE TWENTY EIGHTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

St. Matthew 22:1-14

Dear Friends, In today’s Gospel reading, Matthew has multiple messages. I want to delve into two
points. We have received an invitation to the wedding feast and that has consequences for us.

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 join that very prestigious group in our own lives. We are invited to the wedding feast; we are called to follow Jesus. With the call there are responsibilities.

The often confusing 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 means our lifestyle is trying to express the Gospel values. The demands of Jesus’ message are not met by a token effort or just following the crowd. It demands a change of heart, a conversion.

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THE TWENTY SEVENTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 21:33-43

Dear Friends,We are quickly approaching the end of the Church year with our journey in the Gospel of Matthew. The next several Sundays have selections that highlight two things: Jesus’ conflict with the Jewish leaders and His call to make a decision on His message.

Down through Church history these final chapters of Matthew have been distorted to produce an anti-semiticism that has been a gross distortion of the Gospel and 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 of the vineyard asks us to face up to the need to make a decision. Will we be stewards of the gifts that God has given us? Are we living the Gospel message in our family? Are we making a contribution to our community to make it more life giving to all? Are we being responsible and not squandering the blessings of our environment? Are we responding to the call to act justly and be instruments of peace?

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THE TWENTY-SIXTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 21:28-32

Dear Friends, Today’s Gospel message has a context. It was after Jesus’s’ glorious entry into
Jerusalem on the back of a donkey. He then cleansed the temple. The escalation of these events led to even deeper conflict with the religious leaders. With today’s parable of the two sons Jesus is not subtle in further heightening the tension.

The parable of the two sons exposed the contradiction of 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 favored sons and daughters. This was going to be a test later on to the Christian Jews to accept Gentiles into the early church. It is also questions our acceptance of the ever-expanding openness of the Gospel for the outcasts of today in whatever manner they invade our complacency.

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TWENTY FIFTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 20:1-16

Dear Friends, Each Sunday the Gospel message invites us into a new world, a world where the values of Jesus call and challenge us to change. In this world, we are told that the last shall be first, the leader is to be the servant of all. The response to violence is not revenge but to turn the other cheek. These are just a few of the world- shattering views Jesus has for us.

The parables are a particular method Jesus uses to crumble our clear and confident grasp on the common sense mentality of how we think that things really are.

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

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THE TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 18:21-35

Dear Friends. Once again, Jesus uses the misinformed good will of Peter to lead us deeper into the mystery of God’s love.

To understand today’s message, there are several background points that are helpful. First, Peter’s suggestion of seven was quite generous in contrast to the operative law which was “an eye for and eye.” Second, the ten thousand talents were the highest imaginable figure of debt in the mathematics of the day. Third, the servant’s debt was about three months salary. Fourth, the King was a gentile so his forgiveness of the debt was all the more shocking.

The main message the parable is the Kingdom manifests a sea of divine mercy. We need to see the consequences of this gracious gift in our responsibility to our sisters and brothers. This is our struggle, the reality of the weeds and the wheat within our hearts that are confronted with the obvious and overwhelming demands of forgiveness to others.

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TWENTY THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 18:15-21

Dear Friends, Today’s message of forgiveness and reconciliation is where the Gospel becomes concrete, where the rubber hits the road.

This message is part of a special section (Mt 18:1-35) on the church as a community. The Christian community is made up of flawed human beings who have 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 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 really 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)

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THE TWENTY SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

Matthew 16: 21-27

 

Dear Friends, From time to time, when I am frustrated working with people, especially in the Church, I say Jesus made only one mistake. He chose to let people to do His work. Of course, this is basically no different than what Peter told Jesus in today’s Gospel.

In the beginning of the Gospel of John we have a world shattering proclamation, “The Word became flesh.” (Jn 1:14) This 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 God chose to save the world. This means He accepted all of us as we are as part of His reality.

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: broken 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.

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THE TWENTY FIRST SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME

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 “Who do you say I am?” (Mt 16:15) 
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 so much more. Now Jesus asks the question,

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?

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HOW MANY TIMES MUST I FORGIVE?

Matthew 18: 21-35 

Dear Friends, Today’s Gospel continues Jesus’ teaching on the Church as a Christian community. Peter asks the question that set the scene. In the question of how many times we must forgive, Peter reveals a tremendous amount of growth.

Remember all his life Peter was a faithful Jew who listened to the teaching of the Law. The message was clear: an eye for and eye, a tooth for a tooth. While this teaching actually put very severe limits on revenge, Jesus’ teaching of turning the other cheek was a world shattering challenge for His contemporaries and for us. Apparently, Peter had bought in when he asked if seven times met Jesus’ standard for forgiveness. When you think about it, how many people forgive someone outside their family seven times: very few!

Here again Jesus uses a parable to invite Peter and us into the radical world of the Gospel. The story is clear and inviting. The first person owes an amount that simply was impossible to pay back. The second owes a few months’ wages. The conclusion stares us in the face. We need to forgive as we are forgiven.

All of Jesus’ teachings on forgiveness are rooted in an invitation for us to share God’s love for our brothers and sisters. The Gospel teachings make it quite clear that God’s love is a free gift, a gift without conditions or bounds. God loves and forgives all, the good and the bad. Jesus repeats the invitation for us to share this love in his teachings, parables and life all throughout the Gospels. Very few truths are clearer.

Yet as simple, clear and forceful as the Gospel teachings are, it is the work of a lifetime of struggle for us to embrace the divine mercy and compassion in our daily life. The message of Jesus is a call into a world that ultimately only God can free our hearts to be forgiving as Jesus is forgiving.
It is with good reason that Jesus teaches us that the weeds and the wheat will be with us to the end. What Jesus wants more than anything is for us to stay in the struggle to live the forgiving and compassionate life. This demands humility which is the simple recognition of the truth about ourselves and a commitment to faithful prayer to know and embrace God’s word and will.

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