Choose the Better Part

In today’s Gospel from Saint Luke, Jesus says, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried about many things.  There is need of only one thing.  Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”  The better part that Mary has chosen is to be silent in the presence of Jesus, she has let go of everything and given Him all her attention.

Jesus does not intend that we stop working, planning, or building up our families and communities, but what He does mean is that He must be first in all things and that when we do approach Him, He has our full attention.  Sometimes that is difficult.  It is amazing that human nature has not changed in 2,000 years.  Martha is anxious and worried.  What was on her mind?  What was preoccupying her?  What was she going through?  Like any person, she may have been thinking about the next thing, i.e. making sure everything is ready and that all flows smoothly instead of just letting things happen and unfold.  That is very hard for us to do, to just let things unfold, we feel like we lose control when that happens.  We want every iota figured out and planned.

Sometimes what prevents us from being fully present to Jesus is our fears which come from worry and anxiety.  That fear could be from anything, it could be fear of the future, i.e. will I and my family be ok?  The worry, doubt, and fear could come from trying to please others and trying to become everything to everyone.  We cannot please everyone in this world nor will we like everyone we meet.  Though we must love everyone, and yet what others may think of us in some way does matter, because we want to be well thought of, but it should not be what makes us tick, what makes us tick is what’s inside of us, our own motivation, drive, and desire to be virtuous and holy.

Other times the worry and anxiety can be about everyday things ranging from, will my children be safe to will we get dinner prepared in time?  Jesus tells us not to worry for every hair on our heads has been counted.  I just hope He took the count when I was twenty-five years old.  All kidding aside, I know it’s sometimes hard to let go of everything, but we must and especially when we come into the presence of the Lord, here at Mass, wherever and whenever we pray, when we quiet ourselves before Him.  In those moments all the worry and anxiety fall away from us.  A great way of doing this is to go to a quiet place, breathe slowly and deeply and then begin a rosary or reflect on Scripture or any prayer; you will quickly notice the change.  This is what Mary did and she entered that place of peace and was able to let go of everything while Martha still carried all of the worry and anxiety around with her even though Jesus was in her presence.  Mary chose the better part; I pray that we too will choose the better part.

Something Very Near to You

"For this command that I enjoin on you today is not too mysterious and remote for you.  It is not up in the sky, that you should say, 'Who will go up in the sky to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'  Nor is it across the sea, that you should say, 'Who will cross the sea to get it for us and tell us of it, that we may carry it out?'  No, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts; you have only to carry it out."  What a beautiful passage we heard today from the book of Deuteronomy.   The commands of the Lord are not mysterious or difficult that we cannot know them; rather they are simple, sometimes so simple we look past the words, thinking, no, it cannot be that easy, but it is.  The words that God gave us through Moses were simple, the command comes down to love as is also affirmed from today’s Gospel, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

Even though the command is a simple one it is sometimes difficult to carry out.  The difficulty is not in the commandment itself, rather the difficulty arises in us.  When we turn inwards, for all sin, I believe is an inward movement towards self, i.e. selfishness.  I do not mean self care, relaxation, meditation, prayer, etc. I mean those things that are sinful, that are vices.  When a person over indulges in drink, that is an inward movement of selfishness, i.e. I want to feel a certain way.  The same can be said for over indulging in food, becoming a workaholic, ignoring ones prayers, becoming prideful, vengeful, etc.  All of those sins impede or altogether prevent true love flowing into me and out of me.  The command becomes difficult and even burdensome.

We are used to the two part command, but in that two part command is also implied, self love.  We must also love ourselves, not to the point of pride or selfishness, but know that we are fearfully and wonderfully made by our God and that through His grace we become like gods, higher even than the angels.  I have to be able to love myself, love others and love God.

I spoke previously about some of the things that hold us back from following the commandment of love; I would now like to speak about some of the remedies or the virtues that help us to love.  The virtues that help us come right from St. Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  He says faith, hope, and love are three of the greatest virtues.  We are to have faith, not only belief in God, but to trust Him in both good times and bad.  We are to hope for the best and our final hope is union with God.  And finally love, in this sense love as sacrifice.  Before that Paul speaks of kindness, honesty, humility, and perseverance, all which help us to move outwards towards God and neighbor.  Instead of us being selfish we are now being selfless.

During the week we should try to remember this two part command and exercise to the best of our ability to love self, others, and God.  Opportunities always arise in which we can show love, let us not miss those opportunities because it is in those opportunities that we bring about the Kingdom of God, a kingdom of faith, hope and love.  God bless you, Fr. John

Go Forth Good Apostle and Preach the Good News

As an undergrad at Catholic University we had a choice at the end of our classes to either take a two day test in front of the faculty or write a forty page thesis.  I chose the forty page thesis.  I wrote it on St. Vincent Pallotti and Vatican II’s Vision on the Laity.  St. Vincent Pallotti is not a well known Saint in the United States, except in those places where the Pallottines have taken assignments, in our Diocese we have Bishop Eustace, where I once taught theology and we have the Church of St. Vincent Pallotti right next to Paul the Sixth High School, so you may have heard of this little Roman Saint.

St. Vincent Pallotti was born in Rome 1795 he died in 1850.  In his life time he was dubbed the apostle of Rome, as he worked tirelessly in that city.  He established a lay group called the Union of Catholic Apostolate, a group that would help re-enkindle faith and charity among Catholics and to spread the faith to those who did not believe.  He wanted to get the laity involved as much as possible, where as in the past and for a long time, it was work, pray and obey for the laity.  St. Vincent realized that all people are apostles by virtue of their baptism.

But now, thus says the LORD, who created you, Jacob, and formed you, Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine. (Is 43:1)  By virtue of our Baptism we are called and sent.  Jesus knows us personally and gives us our vocation, though it may take some time to figure out what that vocation is, nevertheless just like the seventy-two we are also sent.  In that sending we are required to teach, to preach, and to heal.  When I say to teach, preach, and to heal I do not mean that all of us will preach like St. Augustine, or that all of us will be able to teach like St. Thomas Aquinas, or that all of us will be able to heal the sick like St. Peter or St. Paul, yet in our own way we are called to do so. 

The opportunities for us to do so are plenty and all around us.   The vision of Vatican II, especially on the work of the laity is that they take the Gospel message from where they hear it and bring it to the world.  You bring it to the world in your family first, then your friends, places of work, at school, even during recreation.  One is not required to be an expert in matters of theology and religion, but we are required to love.  Think for a moment how often we do have the opportunities to share the Good News, be it with a friend who needs for someone to listen to them, when someone doubts their faith, when we are a healing presence to the sick, when we forgive others, when we teach the young about a good moral life and the beauty of our faith, when we admonish one another and challenge one another to be saints, there is so much to do and Jesus asks us to do it and trust in Him, by taking, “no money bag, no sandals,” and any other comforts, but a total trust in His love and mercy.

Obviously our time, our culture, our problems are not the same as the problems of the 1^st century, though in some ways they are similar and the human condition is the same.  We are called to also be voices crying out, “make straight they way of the Lord.”  As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has asked that we especially call to mind and make others aware of our religious liberties.  When someone tries to take our religious liberties away or puts a stranglehold on them as apostles we are to speak out against such discrimination.  Over the last thirty years or so, slowly and now more quickly our religious liberties have come under attack.  We have to speak out on topics such as the freedom to be able to speak our mind on matters concerning right to life, immigration, helping the poor, the true nature of marriage, and many others.  It seems now that when we speak of such things there is a growing intolerance against Christians.  The Church is the moral voice of the world, through Christ, and sometimes the world does not want to hear that voice because the world many times looks to self interest first.  We are to be brave, but at the same time compassionate.  If we argue and grow angry we lose credibility, we must be “like lambs among wolves, crafty as a serpent and gentle as a dove.”

Remember, you are apostles; Jesus has called each and every one of you by name and has sent you out like the seventy-two.  You have the gifts, you have the grace, and you have the love to take the message of Christ and change the world, yes change the world, just like the twelve did with a small group of others.  Know that the Saints pray for us, the angles watch over us, and Jesus gives us the grace to go forth, to go forth with good courage and with love.  Go forth good apostle and change the world, change the world!

Don't Look back

The beauty of the Scriptures is that they record not only the brave and valiant deeds of the Apostles, but they also record the shortcomings, the temptations and even the sins of the Apostles.  We look back on these twelve men and we rightly honor them and follow their example.  The examples they left us were the virtues, virtues of humility, wisdom, courage – even in light of arrest, torture and martyrdom.  They were not only saints, but great ones.  And yet, the Scriptures also record their failings.  At times we see the Apostles arguing among themselves on who would be the greatest among them.  We see one of them deny Jesus three times and another betray him completely.  In today’s Gospel we see that two of them, James and John, the sons of thunder as Jesus would call them wish that they could call down fire from heaven to consume the Samaritan town that did not accept Jesus.  It shows us the humanness of the Apostles.  

As the Gospel continues Jesus shows what a true Apostle is, one that does not look back, but keeps his eyes forward on the prize, and the prize is God Himself.  We should not judge James and John too harshly, we too would have done the same, and how often have we wished that God reign down thunder and fire on our enemies?  Rather, Jesus asks for perseverance and patience with such things in order to allow time for conversion and mercy.  For James and John there was frustration, in the sense of, how dare these people who do not accept us, who do not accept the Christ, especially after how hard we have worked to spread the message.

Jesus responds by saying, not to worry about what just happened and who did not accept you, keep your eyes fixed forward, and carry on in your duty.  Jesus also was teaching those around Him, what it meant to be a true disciple, because looking back takes on many forms, not just what we perceive as failure, looking back could also mean possible regret we feel, or doubt, fear, past hurts, sin or something else that keeps us from going forward such as attachments.  

You remember the Old Testament story of Lot’s wife who looked back on Sodom and turned to a pillar of salt.  She looked back because she longed for what was before, what she had left, the comforts of what she had, she did not trust that what was in front of her was better as God had promised, “Do not look back!”

How much are we like James, John or even Lot’s wife.  What are we looking back to?  Today’s Gospel reminds us that we must look forward because in looking forward we know we can rejoice in God’s promises, we can have confidence in those promises because the one who made them is trustworthy, we should be brave and know that what lies ahead is better because what lies ahead, even though it may seem like a crucifixion is also resurrection.  God bless you, FJ

From Jerusalem to the Cross to the Resurrection

Passion Week begins today on this faithful Sunday in which Jesus enters into the Holy City.  He enters His own city, the city He has made and sustained and a city He will continue to bless until the end of time, which is Jerusalem.  However, He enters into more than just an earthly city, but He enters into salvation for the inhabitants of the entire world, for all of those present, all of those before Him and all of those who would come after that accept His grace.  His entrance into Jerusalem has two meanings one, Jesus is revealing Himself as the King of Glory and two, He comes to save us.

Jesus gave many hints, both obvious and others more sublime that He is the Son of God, the Messiah, that He is Divine.  This was done in order to prove that God was among us, that He no longer wanted to speak in prophecies, dreams and visions, through nature, etc. but in person.  God desired, not out of need, to be present with us but out of love.  God among us.  The entrance into Jerusalem is precisely that, not just another King David, but your God is coming to you riding on a donkey.

There is also another reason and maybe twofold here, is that Jesus is coming to save us from our sins and He will have to enter into His passion.  It also signifies how quickly we forget because today the crowd is cheering, “Hosanna in the highest to our King, Hosanna,” and by Friday the same crowd will be cheering, “Crucify Him, crucify Him.”

Who are we in the crowd?  Are we the fickle ones who change their minds quickly and often?  We would never be the ones cheering crucify, crucify Him, rather we would be shouting out, Hosanna.  I wonder even in my own life sometimes, who am I in that crowd?  After honest reflection I have to admit I am sometimes the fickle one, the weak one.  How often do we go to confession or ask God for forgiveness and then quickly return back to the same sin or some other sins, we go from the strong resolution to the weakness that is in us.  Peter himself said, “Lord I will die with you.”  Less than a few later He was denying He ever knew Him.  Am I better than Peter, are you?  I would imagine not!   That is why Jesus enters into the passion so that His work on the Cross would be our saving remedy and not just a onetime remedy, but that every time we failed we could go back to the Cross and be forgiven.

His act of love is powerful enough to forgive every sin except the one or ones we do not want to be forgiven for.  God’s grace is more powerful than any sin or evil that can be committed because of His mercy.  The Cross of Christ proves this lest one think that evil is more powerful than God’s grace.  More importantly we must remember what this cost Jesus, it cost Him everything and ultimately His life for ours.  

When Jesus enters Jerusalem today to begin Holy Week (Passion Week) we too must make an effort to enter into it with Him, we must follow Him today to the Upper Room, to Mt. of Olives, to the way of the Cross, to His Crucifixion and death on Calvary and finally to rise with Him.  Let this week be one of serious reflection, prayer and sacrifice so that we may enter into that Spirit that is freeing, loving, and all forgiving, the Spirit of God.

Went Home With Head Held High

We can take many lessons from the Woman Caught in Adultery story from today’s Gospel.  The first is obvious, forgiveness.  However there are more lessons, such as “the angry and righteous mob,” “feelings of humiliation,” “feelings of defeat,” and most of all – feelings of relief and happiness.

The angry mob who wanted to stone this woman to death had become the self righteous and angry mob.  They wanted to make sure that they rooted out all that of which was immoral from their sight with no second thought to anything, this is what usually happens in the mob mentality, it is a mentality we see today often in our political world where everyone makes their own candidate the Messiah and the other guy a demon and these feelings are disguised and bathed in one’s own self righteousness which then makes it easy to go from point a to point b, i.e. catching the woman in the act and then dragging her through the streets and getting ready to kill her.

The feelings the woman had would have been of fear but also humiliation as now she is exposed publicly.  However, those same feelings got turned around on the angry mob as Jesus challenged them in looking for the person who had no sin to cast the first stone; it was they who now felt humiliation.  The question for those persons would have been, did they finally understand mercy or did they walk away bitter?

The woman finally would feel relief in that she was not going to die that day or in that fashion and she also felt great happiness as the sin of adultery, which in fact is a very grave sin had been lifted from her.  She already paid the price and penance for those sins, being dragged through the street and almost stoned death would have been enough much more than just saying two rosaries.   I like to picture in my own mind, Jesus picking her up by the hand and looking at her face to face.  I am sure when her eyes met His, her knowledge of Jesus went beyond Him just being a nice guy but someone who could take away her sins.

Two groups of people came out that day, on the trip out the mob held their heads high in self righteousness and the woman held her head low in humiliation but on their journey back to their homes the mob went home with heads held low and the woman now made clean went home with head held high, Amen!

Bringing About the Kingdom

In today’s Gospel from Luke the congregation that was listening to Jesus read from the scroll the passage from Isaiah and then to complete it by adding, “Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” could have only meant two things to do those who were listening.  The first interpretation could have been, “He (Jesus) is reminding us that God’s spirit is with us all and that these days will be blessed because of God’s presence among us.”  The other interpretation could have been a more literal one, i.e. is He saying He is the fulfillment of that passage?  Does He mean to tell us He is the anointed one?  Yes and yes!

That is why just a little bit later Jesus says, “Surely you will quote me this passage, physician heal yourself.”  He says this so there could be no mistake He was speaking literally, i.e. He (Jesus) is the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God on earth.

Many did not understand that yet in Jesus’ time, others would eventually come to believe through Jesus’ words and actions proving He was the Messiah.  We all have come to believe it since we are here worshiping.  Nevertheless, Jesus still says to us right here and right now, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  It begs the question of us, do we believe it and if yes, then do we also help bring about the kingdom of God in this world?

For some, to bring about the kingdom here on earth means, attending mass and prayer.  That is just one component.  We are to bring the kingdom to others through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, especially this Jubilee Year of Mercy.  As a reminder for all of us here they are in an easy list we can remember.

The Corporal Works of Mercy

feed the hungry
give drink to the thirsty
clothe the naked
shelter the homeless
visit the sick
visit the imprisoned
bury the dead

The Spiritual Works of Mercy

counsel the doubtful
instruct the ignorant
admonish sinners
comfort the afflicted
forgive offenses
bear wrongs patiently
pray for the living and the dead

Not everyone is drawn to the same works, some love to visit the sick while others more like teachers and gravitate towards instructing the ignorant or counseling the doubtful.  During this great Jubilee year we really need to look at these works, one at a time and try to practice them as best we can, again some may be more to our suiting but also the Lord may be pulling us out of our comfort zone.  Either way please pray about it and incorporate them into your life, they help build virtue and holiness and give us great joy knowing that we are being another Christ to someone\s.  We are bringing about the kingdom so that no matter what we are doing and where we are doing it we can say along with our Lord, “Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  God bless you, Fr. John