THIRTY-THIRD SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

15 NOVEMBER 2020

 

          The earliest prophets of the Old Testament used the term “the day of the Lord” to give hope to the people of Israel that God would bring victory to them over their enemies.  However, as time went on, later prophets used that same term to warn people of the result of their infidelity to the Covenant.  These later warnings were realized when the Babylonians invaded to destroy Jerusalem and its sacred temple on “the day of the Lord.” 

            Saint Paul uses that same term when he writes to the Thessalonians.  He responds to their question about the timing of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.  Calling that event “the day of the Lord,” he reminds them that no one knows when the Lord will come again.  Instead of predicting when it will occur, he tells them to remember the light of Christ that they received at their baptism and to stay alert and be sober.  While their pagan neighbors remain in darkness, concerned only about avoiding the wrath of their Roman rulers, they should live their baptismal promises. In living those baptismal promises, their sacrificial love will reveal the presence of the risen Christ in the lives of their families.

            Saint Paul addresses this same message to us today.  He reminds us that we cannot know the timing of “the day of the Lord,” either in the Lord’s Second Coming, or when we will die.  Like the Thessalonians, we too are children of light, challenged to allow the light of Christ to shine through us when we live our baptismal promises.  Jesus has given each of us generous amounts of talents, as the man in the parable gave to his servants.  The Lord has given each of us natural abilities and talents.  He has entrusted to us financial resources in the comfort of the First World.  He has provided spiritual gifts.  Throughout the course of this Liturgical Year, he has entrusted us with knowledge of the workings of the Kingdom of Heaven in our midst.

            We are tempted to be like the third servant who does not think that his one talent matters.  Instead of taking a risk and responding with love to the talent he has been given out of love, he buries his talent and cowers in fear.  Talents are meant to be shared, not buried or hoarded.  That is what happened at the beginning of this pandemic.  When we entered the lockdown, people became afraid of lacking valuable commodities.  The shortage of toilet paper is an example.  Experts called it “zero risk bias.”  Instead of sharing toilet paper, too many hoarded it out of fear.  We cannot remain hidden and living in fear and darkness.  We must invest our talents.

            Every year, we sponsor a retreat for our eighth graders, as they prepare to receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit when they are confirmed.  They could not be gathered in one place this year.  So, they have participated virtually.  At two Masses this weekend, they are being enrolled as Candidates for the Sacrament of Confirmation.  As we support them and pray for them, they encourage us to put the gifts we received to use our natural abilities and talents to build up our human families and our parish family.  They encourage us to set aside a portion of our financial resources to assist the most vulnerable, especially those affected by this pandemic.  As they have learned about the Holy Spirit in class, they show us the need to participate in adult education offerings to deepen our understanding of the faith.  As they have listened to the Gospel of Saint Matthew this year, we can reinforce our faith that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst, keeping the Holy Spirit’s gift of hope alive in this darkness.

            The Book of Proverbs praises the industrious wife who puts her obvious skills at the service of her family and her community.  We can do the same, trusting that the risks we take in investing our many talents will bring light to a darkened world and keep us alert for “the day of the Lord,” whenever that day arrives.

 

THIRTY-SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

8 NOVEMBER 2020

 

          Saint Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians is the earliest writing in the New Testament.  The members of that Church expected that Jesus Christ would come again in their lifetimes.  That is why Saint Paul responds to their concern in today’s second reading.  Those who were mourning the death of loved ones were concerned that they had died before Christ had come again.  What will happen to them?  Saint Paul tells them that they should grieve the loss of their loved ones.  But they should grieve in hope, because Christ has already won the victory over death. 

            By the time Saint Matthew had written his Gospel, it was clear that the second coming of the Lord would be delayed.  Jesus uses the setting of a Mediterranean wedding feast to warn the Church about the danger of being complacent about his coming.  In the ancient world, marriages were arranged by parents.  When it came time for the actual wedding, the wedding party would process from the bride’s family to the groom’s family, where the new couple would live.  In the parable, Jesus does not give the reason for the bridegroom’s delay.  Instead, he contrasts the wisdom of the five virgins who had brought extra oil for their lamps with the foolishness of the five virgins who did not.  By the time the foolish virgins ran to the convenience store to buy more oil, it was too late.  The door to the wedding feast had been closed.

            This parable is addressed to the Church today, because our Bridegroom, Jesus Christ, has delayed his coming for two millennia.  In addition, our secular culture avoids paying attention to the reality of our own deaths, when the Lord will come for us.  For those reasons, we must make sure that we have plenty of oil.  The oil represents our deeds of righteousness.  In performing good works, we do not earn our salvation.  The Lord has already won that salvation for us.  Instead, our good works are a response to his presence and action in our lives.  When we perform those good works (giving humble service, respecting the dignity of each human person, attending the needs of the poor, putting the needs of others before our own), we allow the light of Christ to shine through us into a world filled with darkness.  The Lord’s message is clear.  We need to be prepared for the end by doing good works now.  We cannot be caught without oil in our lamps when Jesus returns.  But we do not prepare ourselves by cowering in fear.  We do so by expressing our deep relationship with Jesus Christ by our deeds of righteousness.

            Every year, our Diocesan Office of the Propagation of the Faith assigns every parish a mission preacher.  Last year, Father Larry Kanyike was our mission preacher, and we responded generously to assist him with his deeds of righteousness in his parish in Uganda.  This year, we have been assigned the Holy Cross Mission Center.  Because of the pandemic, they have asked me to make their case for them.  Please read the information in the bulletin and online.

            I have had personal experiences with the work of the Holy Cross Congregation in Africa.  Over thirty years ago, I visited their new center in Jinja, Uganda.  They had already opened a school for the children in the area, and they were establishing a seminary to attract African vocations.  They lived in a very humble dwelling, and I slept in a tool shed.  We also met refugees from the Holy Cross mission in Rwanda.  They had escaped with their lives.  They may have shared the waters of baptism.  But they had been born into the wrong tribe, threatened with genocide.  At the end of the trip, we stayed at the Holy Cross parish in Dandora, a very poor suburb of Nairobi, Kenya.  They were building a church, and they lived among the poor.  I can testify to the deeds of righteousness, the good works, of the Holy Cross Missions in Africa and trust that they are doing good work in Mexico, South America, and Bangladesh.  On behalf of the Holy Cross Mission Center, thank you for your support.

 

ALL SAINTS

1 NOVEMBER 2020

 

          Those who read the Book of Revelation often think of it as future oriented.  In a sense, that is true.  The Book of Revelation points to the Last Judgment and the realization of the new and eternal Jerusalem in the new heavens and the new earth.  But too many readers have tried to interpret the Book of Revelation to predict when those end times will occur.  They read the symbolic numbers and apocalyptic images to fit their personal reading of this incredibly complex Book.  They forget that the Book of Revelation was written at a time of great persecution to give hope to faithful disciples.  They forget that Jesus himself says in the Gospels that no one, not even the Son of God, knows those times. 

            In today’s reading from the Book of Revelation, the author shares a vision of a present reality.  His vision reveals the essence of heaven:  the throne of God surrounded by countless men and women who had been marked with the seal of the Lamb.  144,000 is a symbolic number of the remnant of the twelve tribes of Israel who acknowledge the Lamb who was slain.  Then the author has another vision of a great multitude, which no one can count.  Wearing white robes and carrying palm branches, they have shared the victory won by the Lamb who was slain.  The saints already share the blessedness of the Beatitudes in today’s Gospel. 

            In the heavenly kingdom, they are truly poor in spirit, because they are completely detached from material things.  They had not been afraid to mourn, because they had been freed from an addiction to “feeling good.”  They are meek, because they are not self-centered.  They no longer need to hunger and thirst for righteousness, because they are completely detached from sin.  They know the mercy of God, detached from revenge.  They are the clean of heart, detached from evil thoughts.  They are truly peacemakers, because they are free from hatred.  Many had been persecuted for their faith on earth.  But they do not care what other people think.

            We celebrate this present reality on this Solemnity of All Saints.  We not only honor those who have been officially canonized by the Church.  We honor all those who are now in the eternal presence of God, many of whom have touched our lives personally.  They challenge us to see the Beatitudes not as ideals that are impossible to grasp, but as practical guides to enable us to live holy lives.  In art, these saints have their heads surrounded by haloes.  Those haloes reflect the fact that they have achieved ultimate holiness, ultimate blessedness.  In picturing the essence of heaven, of being in the absolute presence of God, artists depict God in terms of a bright fire burning to dispel the darkness of death and sin.  That is why the Book of Revelation says that there is no sun in the new and eternal Jerusalem.  The fire of God’s love shines through the saints in heaven, because they are completely and totally transparent.  Nothing separates them from God or from each other in the Communion of Saints.

            The saints not only challenge us.  They also intercede for us.  They pray for us, that we see the Beatitudes not as ideals impossible to grasp, but as invitations to detach ourselves from those things that keep us from being transparent, of being truly holy.  Like them, we can continue to turn more completely to the Lord Jesus, so that we too can become more transparent, more holy.  We too can learn to detach ourselves from material things, from the addiction of feeling good all the time, from being self-centered, from being detached from sin, revenge, evil thoughts, hatred, and worrying about what others think of us.  We too can hunger and thirst for righteousness.  They are pulling for us now, because they want us to join them when the Lord calls us into the fulfillment of the Kingdom of heaven.

 

 

THIRTIEH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

25 OCTOBER 2020

 

          The religious leaders have been stung by the parables of Jesus, because they have portrayed them in a very bad light.  In last Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus outsmarted the Pharisees and Herodians when they tried to snare him in a political trap.  Today, the Pharisees try again.  They want to discredit this teacher.  The Pharisees have developed 613 laws from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.  They have labeled some of these laws as “heavy,” and others as “light.”  248 of these laws are “thou shalt.”  365 of these laws are in the form of “thou shalt not.”

            Only scholars of the law could navigate their way through this vast number of laws.  That is why the Pharisees regard so many people as “sinners.”  The laws are too complicated for most peasants to comprehend.  So, a scholar of the law tests him with a complicated question.  The scholar refers to Jesus as teacher, revealing his contempt for a Galilean rabbi with no formal education in the law.  “Teacher,” he asks, “which commandment in the law is the greatest?”

            Jesus does not hesitate.  First, he quotes Deuteronomy 6:5, which faithful Jews continue to pray every day.  It is the Shema Israel: the Lord our God is one.  The Lord our God is holy.  “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart (the center of a person’s being), with all your soul (the life source of a person), and with all your mind (the source of understanding and decision).”  He points out that this is the greatest and first commandment.  Then he says that the second is like it.  He quotes Leviticus 19:18:  “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

            In quoting from the Torah, Jesus is teaching nothing new.  What he does, however, is to link those two commandments in such a radical way that they can never be separated.   In the Biblical sense, “to love” has very little to do with emotions or feelings.  “To love” means “to belong”.  Jesus reminds his listeners that God had entered into a Covenant with their ancestors and continues it with them.  He loves them, not because they deserve to be loved, but because they belong to him and to each other as his people.  In the Parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus expands the definition of neighbor.  We who claim to love God must extend that love to anyone we encounter who needs our help, as the Good Samaritan did.

            As Saint Paul reminds us in his Letter to the Thessalonians, we are members of the New Covenant sealed with the Blood of Jesus Christ. We must respond as members of this Covenant not so much with our words, but with our actions.  He calls us to treat others as God as treated us.  The first reading from the Book of Exodus provides guidance.  The Lord speaks to his people who are now comfortable and prosperous in the land which he had promised to Moses and the Israelites.  In their comfort, they might oppress the alien, those immigrants who do not enjoy the protection of families and friends.  In their wealth, they might neglect the widows, who had depended entirely on men for their care.  In their security, they might forget the orphans, whose source of income is dead.  Nor can they take advantage of the poor who are desperate for help.  They cannot keep their cloaks as collateral, because they need them for warmth at night.

            The Lord speaks those same words to us.  Many of us are descendants of immigrants.  As residents of the First World, most of us enjoy comfortable lives.  We must do more than speak of our respect for human dignity of those pushed on the margins of our society.  We must continue our tithe to our sister parish of Saint Adalbert and our concern for Father Larry’s parish in Uganda.  We need to continue to support our Saint Vincent de Paul Society as they minister to the needs of the poor in our name.  We must also connect our love for God with our care for the immigrants, the widows, the orphans, and the poor of our day. 

 

 

TWENTY-NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

18 OCTOBER 2020

 

          For the last few Sundays, we have been hearing the parables of Jesus about the kingdom of heaven.  Speaking in the temple, the house of God built on Mount Zion, Jesus has fulfilled the prophecies of the ancient prophets.  These parables reveal that his risen body will replace the current temple, and that he is the successor of the current religious leaders of the people.  He will build up a temple, not made of stones, but of living stones, the Body of Christ.  Wounded by the rebukes of the parables, the Pharisees want to get even with Jesus.

            So, they team up with the Herodians, with whom they have nothing in common.  The Herodians work closely with the occupying Roman forces.  The Pharisees reject any cooperation with the Romans, whom they regard as unclean.  They approach Jesus, not to receive his honest opinion, but to trap him with a dangerous question.  First, they flatter him by telling him that he is a truthful man, teaching the way of God in accordance with the truth, not concerned about other people’s opinions, without regard to their status.  Then they ask him the loaded question:  Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?  If Jesus answers “No,” the Herodians will report him to the Roman authorities for inciting rebellion.  If he answers “Yes,” the Pharisees will expose him as siding with the hated Roman repression of a people waiting for a messiah.

            Jesus sees their malice and calls them “hypocrites.”  In a brilliant move, he asks them to show him the Roman coin. “Whose image is this?” he asks.  They have to admit, “Caesar’s.”  They all know the inscription on that coin:  “Tiberius Caesar, son of the divine Augustus, high priest.”  In response, he says:  “then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

            In his answer, Jesus clearly states that everything belongs to God.  When he asks for the image on the coin, he uses the word “Icon.”  Icons express the truth that all people are made in the image of God, even Caesar.  He calls those his disciples to be conscientious citizens on earth, and members of the kingdom of heaven, always mindful that everything belongs to God.

            By the time Saint Matthew wrote this Gospel, his readers were being persecuted by the successors of Caesar.  Some were put to death.  They struggled with the tensions between being citizens of the Roman Empire and members of the kingdom of heaven.  This Gospel is addressed to us, as we find ourselves in a divided society in a very contentious election season, made more difficult by the pandemic.  That is why our Bishops, the successors of the Apostles, are giving us guidance in our role as disciples and citizens.  They urge us to participate in the political arena and to vote.  Instead of telling us which party or which candidate for whom we should vote, they give us guidance in their statement, Forming Consciences for faithful Citizenship.  If you have not done so, please read the condensed version in our bulletin.  You can read the entire document on the website of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  It is a good review of Catholic Social Teaching.  There are also pamphlets available in the Parish Life Center.  The statement challenges us to examine our responsibility to see all human life, from conception to natural death, as created in the image of God, demanding respect and protection.  It also challenges us to be attentive to the ways in which the dignity of human life is not respected between conception and natural death.

            In these divided times, it is easy to see our disagreements.  But, there is much more that unites us as Catholics than divides us.  The principles in this document enumerate those issues that unite us.  As Saint Paul reminds the Thessalonians, we respond to God’s gifts to us by our work of faith, our labor of love, and our enduring hope in Jesus Christ.

 

TWENTY-EIGHTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

11 OCTOBER 2020

 

          The prophet Isaiah speaks to a people whose daily diet barely sustains their lives.  He promises that on this mountain, the Lord of hosts will provide a wonderful banquet, including rich food and choice wines.  On this mountain, he will swallow up death and wipe away the tears from every face.  On this mountain, people will recognize the Lord who will save them.

            When Isaiah speaks of “this mountain,” he refers to Mount Zion where the temple, the dwelling place of God is, built.  Today, Jesus continues to speak to the chief priests and elders of the people on this mountain in the temple.  He tells them another parable to explain the dynamics of the kingdom of heaven. 

            A king invites guests to a wedding feast for his son.  Like Isaiah’s banquet, this wedding feast is lavish and beyond the means of most inhabitants of his kingdom.  In 2005, Oprah invited hundreds of rich and famous people to a fabulous banquet.  They all came!  In this parable, the guests refuse to come.  So the king graciously sends out his servants to invite other guests.  These guests ignore the invitation and mistreat his servants, killing some of them.  Enraged, the king burns their city and sends his servants to invite anyone they encounter, good and bad alike.

            Throughout the Gospel of Saint Matthew, Jesus has been inviting everyone to be part of the rich and gracious feast that is the kingdom of heaven.  The chief priests and elders have refused the invitation.  Their ancestors had murdered God’s servants, the prophets, who had repeatedly invited them to repent and embrace the Covenant.  Now, they are refusing to accept the invitation of God’s only Son.  After they have had him killed, he will be raised from the dead and form a new temple.  This temple will not be built of stones.  It will be formed from his risen body and include all those who have been invited to participate in the wedding feast of the Son.

            You and I have accepted that invitation.  The Lord has invited us, not because we have deserved to be invited, and not because we have been good, but because he loves us and wants to include us in the kingdom of heaven.  As members of his Body, we are gathered here at the wedding feast of the Lamb, fed by the finest food anyone can imagine.  By participating in this Eucharist, we are being formed into a temple made of living stones.

            However, the parable has a warning for us today.  And that warning has nothing to do with a “dress code” in the Kingdom of heaven.  In a wedding feast at the time of Jesus, the king would have provided the guests with wedding garments.  He addresses this guest who is violating the dress code as “friend.”  His lack of response shows that he has no intention of changing.  In the parable of the workers in the vineyard, the owner addresses as “friend” the last one paid who complains that he got paid as much as the ones who worked for only one hour.  When Judas is about to betray Jesus with a kiss, Jesus calls him “friend.”  The Lord addresses us as “friend,” because he loves us and wants us to repent and be part of his kingdom.

            This parable challenges us to do more than simply show up at the wedding feast of the Lamb.  We must wear our baptismal garments and carry the values of the kingdom out of this church and into the world in which we live.  We are more than invited guests of the Bridegroom.  We are actually his bride, the Church.  Wearing our baptismal garments means that we take our faith seriously.  Mother Theresa said it best:  “We are all called to  be contemplatives in the heart of the world — by seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, everywhere, all the time, and [God’s] hand in every happening; seeing and adoring the presence of Jesus, especially in the lowly appearance of bread, and in the distressing disguise of the poor.”

 

TWENTY-SEVENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

4 OCTOBER 2020

 

          In recent Sundays, Saint Matthew has been helping us to understand the conflicts which Jesus has been having with the religious leaders of the people.  After he had thrown out the money changers from the Temple, he tries to help the chief priests and elders of the people that he has the ultimate authority over the temple.  But they refuse to listen to the words of John the Baptist calling them to repent.  They are like the second son in last Sunday’s parable.

            Today, he tells them another parable.  They are familiar with Isaiah’s song of the vineyard.  In that song, Isaiah used a vineyard as an image for the people of Israel.  Echoing the words of Psalm 80, he pointed out that God had transplanted them from Egypt and established them with great care and love.  But, they turned away from the Covenant and put their trust in false gods.  Despite God’s care and love, they had produced wild grapes.  As a result, God allowed his people to be overrun by the Babylonians.

            Jesus draws the chief priests and elders of the people into his parable.  He tells them about the servants who had been badly treated.  Then he tells them about the owner’s son.  He asks how the tenants should be treated.  When they agree that they should be punished, he clearly tells them that he is that Son.  He reminds the chief priests and leaders of the people that they are the current tenants of God’s vineyard.  Just as their ancestors had badly treated the prophets, they are the ones who will take the Son of God outside the vineyard and kill him.

            Then Jesus switches metaphors.  He speaks this parable in the temple, which had been undergoing a complete renovation for fifty years.  Just as the builders are choosing the ideal cornerstones to hold the structure together and rejecting those that do not fit, he identifies himself as the cornerstone.  He has been rejected by the builders and will form a new temple and invite those who embrace his message to become human stones being built into a magnificent structure.

            Jesus addresses this same parable to us today.  We are the current tenants of the vineyard.  We live at a time when so much of what we use is disposable.  All our goods are designed to be used for a short time and discarded.  The “state of the art” technology purchased in 2008 for our Parish Education Center is already out of date.  I have gone through at least three disposable printers for my computer since then.  Unfortunately, our culture has this same attitude toward human life.  Instead of regarding all human life with the dignity that comes from believing that humans are created in the image of God, our culture regards human life as disposable.

            Unborn children have no protection as human persons under our current laws.  Too often, euthanasia and assisted suicide are seen as solutions to difficult problems of aging and disability.  Human embryos are being destroyed in the name of research.  The death penalty is being used to combat crime.  And we are too quick to resort to war to address international disputes.

            We are tempted to believe that we can do nothing about the state of affairs in today’s vineyard.  Focusing our attention and prayers on life issues during this Respect Life month can give us the hope that comes from our union with Jesus Christ, the stone rejected by the builders.  We can study the Bishops’ guide to forming consciences for Faithful Citizenship as a way of growing in our understanding of Church teachings on life issues.  We can take another look at all the opportunities offered by Barb Williams and our parish pro-life activities.  We can support the effective work of the Women’s Care Center in reaching out to expectant mothers.  In a time of division and loss of objective truth, we can make more a difference than we think.  We must remain on the firm foundation established by Jesus Christ, the stone rejected by the builders.