Adopted through Christ

Thursday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

By Beth DeCristofaro

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ … In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ, in accord with the favor of his will, for the praise of the glory of his grace that he granted us in the beloved. (Ephesians 1:3, 5-6)

(Jesus said) Woe to you, scholars of the law! You have taken away the key of knowledge. You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter. (Luke 11:52)

Piety

Oh Brother Jesus, show me the path of life.  I thank you and I bless you for the joy of your presence.  May I always follow you and be your instrument not an obstacle to anyone.  Grant the keys of knowledge to leaders in your holy church and our quarrelsome country.

Study

In today’s Gospel, the notes to the NAB^[i] reference Matthew 23:13 in order to illuminate the above passage. In Matthew, Jesus’ words are very clear: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You lock the kingdom of heaven before human beings. You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.” Jesus chastises the leaders because their actions do not match their study and their preaching. Juxtaposed is Paul’s wonderful belief that the Divine Being adopts us, frail and mortal, through His own Son.

Do our deeds match our words and our public persona?  Do we bless the Father and the Son, grateful in both action and study for being adopted? Does what we do and who we are testify to God’s work in the world? We have been gifted beyond our wildest expectations and dreams yet often our dreams and expectations become deadlocked and stifling as did those of the synagogue leaders. Paul was persecuted, shackled and ultimately martyred for his teachings. But he counted himself as not only free but wildly rewarded because he lived fully as beloved and chosen of God.     

Action

Pray today for leaders. Pope Francis, the new Cardinals he designated and our new Bishop of Arlington Michael Burbidge. Pray also for those running for office that they might serve as enlightened servants and peacemakers. Pray that all leaders be open to the keys of knowledge that God grants rather than seeking self-aggrandizement.

Follow the Spirit

Wednesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

In contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such, there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit. Galatians 5:22-25

Then one of the scholars of the law said to him in reply, “Teacher, by saying this you are insulting us too.” And he said, “Woe also to you scholars of the law! You impose on people burdens hard to carry, but you yourselves do not lift one finger to touch them.” Luke 11:45-46

Piety

Blessed the man who follows not
the counsel of the wicked
Nor walks in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the company of the insolent,
But delights in the law of the LORD
and meditates on his law day and night.

R. Those who follow you, Lord, will have the light of life.

He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
Whatever he does, prospers. (Psalm 1:1-4)

Study

St. Paul contrasts life in the spirit with life in the body.  Those who belong to Christ can lead others to Christ by following the Spirit.  However, when Jesus addresses the leaders of the church, he is not addressing people who are living in the Spirit.

Jesus is not putting his best Dale Carnegie lessons to work today – winning friends and influencing people.  He pulls no punches calling out the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the scholars of the law. Jesus accuses them of leading others astray through their seeming over-zealous attention to the law.  For example, leading people to walk over “unseen graves” results in ritual impurity – requiring cleansing at the temple (with an appropriate coin in the collection basket).

Action

AFP PHOTO / OSSERVATORE ROMANO

Among the latest examples of the men who will wear the red cap of the rank of

Cardinal in the Catholic Church is a man some call a living martyr who exemplifies living in the Spirit.  Fr Ernest Simoni who was condemned to death by the communist government in Albania and whose witness moved the Pope has been named Cardinal.

In a recent article in America magazine, we read more about the story of how this Albanian priest endured decades of imprisonment, torture, and forced labor during his country's communist crackdown against the church brought Pope Francis to tears.[i]

During the pope's 2014 visit to Tirana, Cardinal-designate Simoni moved many listeners when he described the brutality a militant atheist regime wielded against people of every faith, and paid tribute to God's infinite goodness, grace, and love for allowing him to survive.

Cardinal-designate Simoni dedicated his life to drawing people away from hatred and revenge.  For that work, he will be one of 17 prelates elevated to cardinal in a consistory on Nov. 19 at the Vatican. Of the group, 13 are eligible to elect Pope Francis' successor in a conclave. Cardinal-designate Simoni is one of four older than 80 and, therefore, ineligible to vote.  Fr. Simoni returned to the public priesthood after the communist government fell in 1991.  He is the only one to get the red cap who is not an archbishop.  He is a Franciscan priest.

On Christmas Eve 1963, the priest was arrested while celebrating Mass and was sentenced to death by firing squad. He was beaten, placed for three months in solitary confinement under inhumane conditions, then tortured because he refused to denounce the church.

He was eventually freed, but later arrested again and sent to a prison camp, where he was forced to work in a mine for 18 years and then 10 more years in sewage canals.

All the time he was imprisoned, he has said, he celebrated Mass from memory in Latin, heard confessions and distributed Communion to other prisoners -- all clandestinely.

When Pope Francis learned how severe the religious persecution was, he made Albania the first country in Europe he visited.  During a vespers service in Tirana's cathedral, the pope listened to Stigmatine Sister Marije Kaleta and Father Simoni talk about holding onto their faith and sharing it with others despite the cost.[ii]

As a college friend would comment on some of the Americans in this class, “the smell of the sheep is strong in this man.”

---

[i] http://www.americamagazine.org/issue/red-hat-goes-priest-who-moved-pope-francis-tears?utm_content=buffer489c8&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

[ii] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/09/once-he-was-sentenced-to-death-now-hell-be-a-catholic-cardinal/

Faith Working Through Love

Tuesday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

You are separated from Christ, you who are trying to be justified by law; you
have fallen from grace. For through the Spirit, by faith, we await the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love.  (Galatians 5:4-6)

And I will walk at liberty, because I seek your precepts. (Psalm 119:45)

“Oh you Pharisees! Although you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, inside you are filled with plunder and evil. You fools! Did not the maker of the outside also make the inside? But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.” (Luke 11:39-41)

Piety

Jesus, cleanse my soul, my heart, and my head. Help me to find true liberation in obedience to the Father.

Study

Checklists are wonderful, aren’t they, when they’re manageable? Get 10,000 steps in each day. Get the oil changed in the vehicle every X number of miles. Replace the furnace filter every X number of months. Keep up with your lists, and you reduce the likelihood of a heart attack, a malfunctioning vehicle, or a high energy bill. We like predictability.

On the surface, organized religion has a lot of checklists too: go to church once a week. Tithe. Pray at least X times per day. Keep up with your lists, and it’s smooth sailing to heaven, right?

Except that we’re told today it’s just not that simple. Paul tells the Galatians that a follower of Christ isn’t about whether a man’s been circumcised; it’s about “faith working through love.” Jesus tells the Pharisees it’s not about following the rules about pre-meal washing; it’s about helping our brothers and sisters and the inside of our souls.

There’s nothing wrong with checklists if we keep them in the right place—and are willing to put them aside as the Lord asks. Opportunities to show love and obedience trump the checklist every time.

Action

Do a random act of love and obedience that isn’t on today’s list. Talk with the Lord tonight about how the opportunity was presented to you… and thank Him for the grace to say yes.

Set Us Free

Monday of the Twenty-eighth Week in Ordinary Time

For freedom Christ set us free; so stand firm and do not submit again to the yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1

While still more people gathered in the crowd, Jesus said to them, “This generation is an evil generation; it seeks a sign, but no sign will be given it, except the sign of Jonah. Just as Jonah became a sign to the Ninevites, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. Luke 11:29-30

Piety

The Bible in 50 Words

God made
Adam bit
Noah arked
Abraham split
Joseph ruled
Jacob fooled
Bush talked
Moses balked
Pharoah plagued
People walked
Sea divided
Tablets teach
Promise landed
Saul freaked
David peeked
Prophets warned

Jesus born
God walks
Love talks
Anger crucified
Hope died
Love rose
Spirit flamed
Word spread
God remained

Study

Oh, freedom!  Paul exhorts the Galatians to side with the freedom that comes from faith rather than being enslaved to ancient laws and traditions (like circumcision).  This attitude opens up the mercy of God to all people, not just the Hebrews who viewed themselves as the chosen. Faith is what counts on the road to freedom. This result of Christ’s work for our freedom is then outlined in the confrontation related in Luke’s “good news.”

Recall the story of Jonah – he was a reluctant prophet doing everything he could do to escape the need to witness to the Lord in the world. Rather than head to Nineveh to preach, Jonah flees. It was not until being swallowed by the whale and then spit back out into the world that Jonah is granted his “freedom” to preach.  The reborn Jonah is a changed man accepting his mission. Thus the “sign of Jonah” referenced in Luke is accepting change as the ticket to freedom.  The sign also is doing what we are asked to do even if that means preaching of the need for repentance as a reluctant prophet who comes with news that the people do not want to hear.

Jesus does not stop there with his preaching to win us our freedom from sin. As the crowds on the road to Jerusalem increase, Jesus refuses to grant them yet another miracle or sign.  Instead of delivering a sign on the road, if people stay with Jesus on his walk to Jerusalem, through faith they will soon see something greater than another leper cured or another lame person walking. They will see Jesus endure a public trial, humiliation, capital punishment, and death to win our freedom through his resurrection. There is something greater here.  Maybe this is the greatest gift?  Faith would tell us that there is no “maybe” involved at all.

No more signs will be needed other than the light of Jesus in our lives. His yoke is easy.  His burden is as light as the cross you will pick up daily.

Action

Most would agree the Bible is a Very Big Book. From Genesis to Revelation, there are 73 books in the Catholic canon; 46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New. One could literally study it for a lifetime. Still, it’s awfully handy to have it condensed to just 50 words.

If God remains in this world fighting for our freedom, after all, we can at least accept the mission of Jonah and Jesus in how we conduct our lives.

Recognize Grace

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

By Lisa Helene Bacalski

I will no longer offer holocaust or sacrifice to any other god except to the LORD. (2 Kings 5:17b)

Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands: break into song; sing praise.

(Psalm 98:4)

But the word of God is not chained. (2 Timothy 9b)

And one of them, realizing he had been healed, returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.
(Luke 17:15-16)

Piety

Sing to the LORD a new song,

for he has done wondrous deeds;

his right hand has won victory for him,

his holy arm.

Study

This weekend we celebrate miracles God performed, cleansing the skin of Naaman and the ten lepers. The joy here is not just the physical purification that stopped their suffering. It is also the fact that those who were cured could rejoin their communities. Being part of a community is essential to our human nature; we were made for God alone but given each other to serve him together.

Our society does an excellent job of driving us apart and diverting our focus from where it belongs: on God. Instead of casting lepers outside the gate, we just hand everyone their very own tablet or smartphone and open wide the streams of content designed to make us feel better, but only briefly. Pursuing our own interests without companionship or a community often leads us to be selfish and judgmental instead of generous and compassionate.

How can we respond more faithfully, especially when so many images in our media are filled with destruction or despair? Fortunately, we have the advice of two wise saints to help us. St. Julie Billiart lived through tumultuous times and suffered a serious and mysterious paralysis.    Her travails brought her closer to God and she advised others, “Be like the sunflower that follows the movement of the sun, and keep your eyes always turned towards our good God.”

Mother Teresa said, “Never worry about numbers. Help one person at a time, and always start with the person closest to you.” Somewhere in your daily path is “the least of your brothers,” a person physically or spiritually poor who needs your kind and loving assistance.

Action

Find one concrete thing you can do for a person near you who needs a meal or a listening heart. 

Clothe Yourself with Christ

Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to the promise.  Galatians 3:27-29

While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.” He replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” Luke 11:27-28

Piety

May the Lord Give Might to His People

A prayer for all those affected by Hurricane Matthew (from www.crs.org)

Compassionate God, we pray for all those in the Caribbean affected by Hurricane Matthew, and offer the words of the psalmist: “May the Lord give might to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!” (Psalm 29:11)

As families seek shelter, we pray: “May the Lord give might to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!”

As people search for loved ones, we pray: “May the Lord give might to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!”

As survivors look to the future, we pray: “May the Lord give might to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!”

As rescue workers work tirelessly, we pray: “May the Lord give might to his people; may the Lord bless his people with peace!”

Lord, give might to those who need your strength to carry on. Fill their troubled hearts with your peace and move us with your compassion, that we may respond generously to those in need. Amen

Study

When someone compliments our mother, we would be happy and proud.  However, today, Jesus corrects the woman in the crowd. While Mary’s act of humble acceptance to bear God’s son is a pillar of our faith, Jesus elevates the compliment to a higher level.  Mary did not just bear a son and nurse him to life.  Mary heard the word of God through the message of an angel.  She accepted it.  She observed it and she lived it.

Mary literally put the reading from Galatians into practice.  She clothed herself with Christ and is the prime example of piety, study, and action for us to follow in life.

Action

We are not being asked to bear God’s child or raise that child.  However, we are

asked to bring the Word of God to life in the world today. We need no further calling than the pictures of the latest devastation in Haiti. 

Residents work to clear a house of debris after
Hurricane Matthew struck Les Cayes, Haiti

The island is the third largest in the Caribbean yet it is about the size of the state of Massachusetts (44^th out of 50 in size) – which is to say Haiti is a pretty small island nation with problems way out of proportion to its size.

In 2004, Tropical Storm Jeanne skimmed the north coast of Haiti, leaving 3,006 people dead in flooding and mudslides, mostly in the city of Gonaïves.

On 12 January 2010, at 4:53pm local time, Haiti was struck by a magnitude-7.0 earthquake. This was the country's most severe earthquake in over 200 years. The 2010 Haiti earthquake was reported to have between 46,000 to 85,000 people dead and 1.6 million homeless.

On 4 October 2016, Hurricane Matthew made landfall near Les Anglais, making it the worst hurricane to strike the nation since Hurricane Cleo in 1964.

In between these natural disasters, they have suffered from outbreaks of cholera and throughout the island has faced severe poverty.

As of the evening of October 7, at least 877 people are known to have died in Haiti, with the number expected to rise.  The government also estimates damages at close to $1 billion dollars.

According to an October 6 dispatch from CRS:

As Haiti’s official death toll from Hurricane Matthew moved past 100, Catholic Relief Services (CRS) staff in the hard-hit southwest region of that country are getting to work to help the thousands affected by the storm.

The CRS personnel who rode out the storm in Les Cayes are assembling kits containing hygiene, kitchen and shelter supplies for distribution in this hard-hit city. They report that many houses are without roofs and those near the sea totally destroyed.

Water from Matthew’s heavy rainfall and wind-driven storm surge was over three feet deep in many parts of the town, flooding into homes. People are beginning to return to markets in search of food and trying to dry clothing and other household items even as the rainfall continues.

Please visit www.crs.org and donate to Haitian relief. 

Deliver Us from Evil

Memorial of our Lady of the Rosary

By Colleen O'Sullivan

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.  (Luke 11:23)

Piety

Lord, fill our hearts with your presence.  Deliver us from evil, we pray.

Study

Our Gospel reading today is about the very real presence of evil in our world.  We only have to look online or read a newspaper or watch on the streets of our workplaces or homes to see that evil is a very real presence.  Yesterday, a few doors up from my office in Old Town, an elderly man was shot and killed.  Millions of refugees around the globe seek to find a home; theirs having been destroyed or rendered uninhabitable by war or terror.   Our political process has degenerated to the point where no one really listens to or hears what anyone else is saying, and much of what is said is filled with negativism and invective. 

Jesus doesn’t just talk about evil; he’s busy fighting it.  Jesus must surely have felt exasperated at times.  In today’s Gospel reading, the Pharisees again show themselves as people who are “watching” him but without any real sight or insight, as people whose minds are closed.  They just want to get rid of Jesus.

In the verse before today’s reading, the Lord has driven a demon from a man who couldn’t speak.  The crowd accuses him of doing so by the power of Satan, which makes no sense.  Why would Satan want to drive out his own cohort?   Jesus goes on to say that he casts out evil by the finger of God, and that means that the reign of God is right there in the crowd’s midst, if only they would open their eyes to the truth.

Once evil has been cleaned out, Jesus says we’d better fill ourselves with the things of God, lest the emptiness be filled with an even greater evil.  Satan wants nothing more than to come between us and God.  He wages a constant battle to gain control of our souls.  Jesus knows that if we’re not 100% with him, Satan will wiggle his way in through the tiniest crack in our relationship.  The days we don’t pray because we’re too tired or we’re too busy doing other things, the Sundays we take a “vacation” from worship, the times we don’t defend our faith when we’re hanging out with people who ridicule believers, the missed opportunities to help the poor, the sick, or those vulnerable in any way – these are Satan’s delight.  They are his way into our hearts.

Action

Maybe you don’t think in terms of the “devil” or the “evil one,” but something or someone keeps pulling me away from being the person in Christ I long to be.  I can readily identify with the apostle Paul’s words: “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.” (Romans 7:19) What can I do about it?

In an October 2014 homily on this Gospel reading, Pope Francis gives us a suggestion:

“We know – Jesus says clearly – that the devil always returns. Even at the end of life, He, Jesus, gives us an example of this. And to guard, to watch, so that the demons don’t enter in, we must be able to gather ourselves, that is, to stand in silence before ourselves and before God, and at the end of the day ask ourselves: ‘What happened today in my heart? Did anyone I don’t know enter? Is the key in its place?’ And this will help us to defend ourselves from so much wickedness, even from that which we could do if these demons, who are very clever and at the end would cheat all of us, even if they enter.”

Try praying the Daily Examen that Pope Francis suggests.  When you’ve done it for a while, you begin to see the areas where you are particularly vulnerable to being pulled away from the Lord.  You come to know better where to pray for the Lord’s protection from evil.

Knock and Be Open

Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

By Beth DeCristofaro

O stupid Galatians! Who has bewitched you, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified? I want to learn only this from you: did you receive the Spirit from works of the law, or from faith in what you heard? … Does, then, the one who supplies the Spirit to you and works mighty deeds among you do so from works of the law or from faith in what you heard? (Galatians 3:1, 5)

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. (Luke 11:9-10)

Piety

Almighty ever-living God, who in the abundance of your kindness surpass the merits and the desires of those who entreat you, pour out your mercy upon us to pardon what conscience dreads and to give what prayer does not dare to ask. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. (Collect, Mass for the Day)

Study

So what happens when prayers aren’t answered?  My dad died way too young when I needed him.  Bombs are still falling on Aleppo.  The ugly public discourse in this country seems to be heightening.  Black men continue to be shot by police and police continue to be blamed for every evil on our streets.  I struggle with being sanctimonious and disapproving.  Haiti is hammered with yet another disaster. Oh, Lord, hear my pleas!

These prayers are good, and the Lord hears, but they are also full of my own preoccupations.  Perhaps my prayer might also contain the request that the door to my own heart be opened.  Perhaps my persistence in knocking will be or even has been answered in ways that I do not yet recognize.  Perhaps the Spirit will gift me with increasing patience and a deeper awareness of Jesus’ presence every day.  Perhaps the gift of life is so precious that part of my answer is increasing empathy – which might be painful for me – to the tragedies of this world and thus an increasing capacity to give to those in need.

Paul addresses the Galatians as stupid!  Paul gets my attention too. Could I be stupid like a kid who doesn’t want to learn to read, thus misses the wonderful poetry of Shel Silverstein and Doctor Seuss?  Am I closing the doors of my heart to the Spirit by relying on myself rather than faith, God’s gift to me?   As I pray, pray, pray, may my nano-mustard seed of faith listen, listen, listen for the voice of God at my own door and recognize God’s surprising answers around me.  And may I work for God’s kingdom here on earth.

Action

Today, try listening as well as praying.  Listen. Pray.  Listen.  Are you offering to others your last loaf of bread or a scorpion as you speak, with your attitudes, in your actions?  Let your heart be open to that which you dare not conceive of but which God has waiting for you.

They Glorified God Because of Me

Hans Speckaert (circa 1540–circa 1577)
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi

By Melanie Rigney

And I was unknown personally to the churches of Judea that are in Christ; they only kept hearing that “the one who once was persecuting us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” So they glorified God because of me.  (Galatians 1:22-24)

O Lord, you have probed me and you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand; you understand my thoughts from afar. My journey and my rest you scrutinize, with all my ways you all familiar. (Psalm 139: 1-3)

“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.” (Luke 10:41-42)

Piety

Lord, bless all the people who love me in Your name.

Study

A parish council meeting that had gone on and on and on finally seemed to be ending. Then someone piped up randomly with: “Father, do you think people can change?” She was off to the races with complaints about someone who had done something egregious -- someone who always was committing the same offense, over and over again. Others joined in with their stories.

I started to say, You fools. Of course, people can change. I changed. I didn’t go to Mass for decades, and now I do. But I couldn’t get a word in. So, I started a new page of doodling and resigned myself to another half hour before we’d be done.

Then the pastor started to speak. I stopped doodling.

“Yes, I think people can change,” he said very slowly. “But it’s very difficult.” The conversation died down. The meeting ended shortly thereafter.

Years later, I get it. Going to Mass or calling yourself a Christian when you didn’t use to doesn’t necessarily change you. Much more than that is involved. There’s surrender of the parts of yourself that grieve the Lord and others in your community, parts such as gossiping and judging and, yes, doodling instead of paying attention during a parish council meeting. It is very difficult.

Paul knew that too, of course. He went from being a persecutor of Christians to being persecuted because he couldn’t stop talking about Christ and the Good News. Beyond his rock-solid faith, I’m thinking the willingness of other Christians to accept his story of conversion fed him as his evangelization ministry took him far and wide. They believed God was capable of anything, including touching Paul’s heart and soul… and in that belief, glorified the Lord. May we have that same faith.

Action
Cut somebody who offends you some slack. Believe change is possible. Pray for the person.

“Teacher, What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?”

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a slave of Christ. Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Gospel preached by me is not of human origin. For I did not receive it from a human being, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:10B-12

Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers’ victim?” He answered, “The one who treated him with mercy.” Jesus said to him, “Go and do likewise.”  Luke 10:36-37

Piety

A Prayer for Camden

Almighty God, we praise you for all you have done.

Help us with all that you want us to do!

Come, Holy Creator, and rebuild the City of Camden

So that we do not labor in vain without you.

Come, Holy Savior, and heal all that is broken

In our lives and in our streets.

Come, Holy Spirit, and inspire us with energy and willingness

To rebuild Camden to your honor and glory. Amen.

Study

The topsy-turvy order that Jesus is installing in the world takes a big step forward today with the telling of the Parable of the Good Samaritan.  However, connecting this story to ancient Samaria loses something in translation.  Samaria was a place I studied in history class.  It hardly exists today. Samaritans were the enemies of the Jewish people (even more so than the belligerent Roman occupiers).

Samaria was the territory between Judea and Galilee west of the Jordan river. 
For ethnic and religious reasons, the Samaritans and the Jews were bitterly opposed to one another.  A more appropriate parable parallel today would be the story of the Good Palestinian, perhaps. 

Since 1967, Samaria has been used by Israeli officials to refer to the north of the West Bank, as the administrative Judea and Samaria Area.  Jordan ceded its claim to the area to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in August 1988.  The Palestinian Authority and the international community do not recognize the term "Samaria"; in modern times, the territory is generally and almost universally known as part of the West Bank.

Expecting a Samaritan/Palestinian to take better care of a wounded Jew than a priest or a Levite was unheard of in ancient Israel (probably modern Israel as well). Many individuals defy stereotypes then and now and that is a key lesson that Jesus is driving home with this story.

People who are expected to help do not and the one who is not expected to help does.  There is no try.  There is only help or help not.

Action

What stereotype can you defy this week?  What vulnerable population can you aid?  Sometimes it is easier to focus on the needs of the foreign missions than on the needs of children in our own inner cities.  Sometimes it is easier to sponsor a child in South America than it is in South Camden.

However, not if you read the monthly letters from Fr. Michael Doyle.  Fr. Michael is pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Camden.  The poor, inner city parish does not have enough funding to pay for its Catholic School.  So Fr. Doyle took a page out of the Christian Children Fund playbook and every year he sets out to raise about $1 million by getting people to sponsor one or more students in his school.  Do you want to know what?  IT WORKS!

Check out the school’s website http://sacredheartschoolcamden.org/. While there, you might read the full version of this excerpt of note by Fr. Michael:

Some years ago, Sacred Heart School did a survey of its students, asking this question: “What do you like best about your school?” Eighty-five percent declared: “I feel safe here.” On the one hand, that was good to hear; on the other, it was very sad, because it indicated that our dear children did not feel safe in their own neighborhoods. 

Children have only one chance to grow up and Camden is not an easy place to do it.

I grew up in a very safe place in Ireland, but I was burdened with a school experience that was mostly miserable because of the severity of physical punishment. I loved learning and hated school. Consequently, it is a great joy to me to see the happy faces of children in Sacred Heart School where they are treated with care and support in an atmosphere of warmth and appreciation.

Sacred Heart School is not only a center of education and development but also it is a place of prayer, where God is honored, where people are respected and God’s gifts of creation are not taken for granted.

The parents of Camden’s children have the same dreams as parents everywhere –that their children will be healthy, happy and safe; that they will have the opportunity to get an education in a nurturing environment, and that a bright future awaits them. And the children dream, too – of friends and fun, school, college, a career, a family. Just like children everywhere around the country.  And so, the sponsorship program was born.

Fr. Michael asks people to sponsor a child for $300 a year. At first, the letters went to a few hundred people. Now each month over 3,000 people receive the letters, and from these a huge number become Sponsors. For these thirty years, Sacred Heart Church has kept the Sponsorship Program alive through Father Michael’s letters and an enormous amount of volunteer time by Sacred Heart parishioners who embrace the mission to keep our school open.

We are one month into a new school year and 3,350 sponsors are needed.  Full sponsorship of one student is 82 cents a day.  (Twelve $25 contributions, six $50, three $100 or just one check for $300).  It is so easy that you can even use PayPal.

You can be a Good Palestinian in Camden (yes, I know it is New Jersey after all and we are in Virginia).  Your sponsorship is the only way Sacred Heart School can continue to educate the children of Camden. If you prefer the old-fashioned way of leaving two silver coins with the innkeeper, then send your check along with your address to:

Sacred Heart Church
Attn: Gail Gooney
1739 Ferry Avenue
Camden, New Jersey, 08104

Please mark your check memo: School Sponsorship

How Long, O LORD?

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary

by Jim Bayne

How long, O LORD? I cry for help but you do not listen!  I cry out to you, “Violence!” but you do not intervene.  (HAB 1:2)

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Come, let us bow down in worship; let us kneel before the LORD who made us. For he is our God, and we are the people he shepherds, the flock he guides. (Ps 95:6-7)

For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.

(2 TIM 1:7)

The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith.”  The Lord replied, “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted in the sea, and it would obey you.”  (LUKE 17:5-6)

Piety

Lord, I have faith about the size of a mustard seed. 

Surrounded by violence, I often wonder if that’s enough.

It is enough to bring me to my knees and to pray for your guidance.

In the silence, you remind me that you are still in control; you are still the shepherd.

Knowing you are at my side gives me the power and love and self-control to go forward.

Lord, help me to always remember that I am doing nothing special; it’s just my job.

Study

In the first reading today, the prophet Habakkuk complains mightily: “Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and clamorous discord.”  Listening to this description, he could have just come away from watching a nightly news report on TV. 

Destruction, violence, strife, etc. are a few examples of the kinds of crosses each of us must sometimes bear. Jesus gives us the answer: “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

This statement begins with the big IF: “If anyone wishes to follow...”  If you don’t wish to follow, then you can try doing it on your own. You DO have a free will.  Good luck!

Second challenging word is daily.  We don’t just take up the cross until we win the lottery; we are called to pick it up each and every day.  Our crosses may differ from day to day, but every day has its crosses to bear. 

When I begin to think my cross is too much, I remember Fr. Paul Berghout’s story in this space a couple of weeks ago about the pilgrim who sought to make his cross easier by cutting off several feet of it.  That worked fine until he reached a chasm where he needed those few extra feet to get across.  Nothing is wasted in God’s plan for our lives.

In the final segment of today’s Gospel, Jesus tells us that our daily job of carrying the cross doesn’t make us someone special.  We don’t earn extra brownie points for carrying our cross; it’s part of our job description as followers of Christ.

Action

We live in a violent and unnerving time.  It is very easy to get discouraged and want to give up.  When you get discouraged, – better yet, BEFORE you get discouraged – stop and take some time to be in the silence away from the TV, computer, smartphone... whatever it is that connects you to the chaos of our world.  Let God shepherd and console you. Let the silence restore your power to love and console others.

See What You See

Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, Virgin and Doctor of the Church

Job answered the LORD and said: I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be hindered. I have dealt with great things that I do not understand; things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know. I had heard of you by word of mouth, but now my eye has seen you. Therefore, I disown what I have said, and repent in dust and ashes. Job 42:1-3

Nevertheless, do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.”  Turning to the disciples in private he said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I say to you, many prophets and kings desired to see what you see, but did not see it, and to hear what you hear, but did not hear it.” Luke 10:23-24

Piety

"I will seek out a means of getting to Heaven by a little way—very short and very straight, a little way that is wholly new. We live in an age of inventions; nowadays the rich need not trouble to climb the stairs, they have lifts instead. Well, I mean to try and find a lift by which I may be raised unto God, for I am too tiny to climb the steep stairway of perfection. […] Thine Arms, then, O Jesus, are the lift which must raise me up even unto Heaven. To get there I need not grow; on the contrary, I must remain little, I must become still less.” (Le Petite Voie – The Little Way of Saint Thérèse)

Study

Was Job the model for the Parable of the Prodigal Son?  Perhaps.  In his comments delivered directly to the Lord, Job publicly repents for his past indiscretions and is rewarded – not with a gold ring and a fatted calf – with “fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she-asses. And he had seven sons and three daughters.” Although Job’s descent was not self-inflicted, Job ultimately changed the direction in which he sought happiness. 

This same pivot is what Jesus is witnessing among his followers.  The disciples are returning from their mission and Jesus rejoices “in the Holy Spirit.”  The Spirit of the Lord which had been upon Jesus since his reading in the temple also is now upon the seventy-two.  No longer to they rely solely upon themselves.  They have returned – after taking nothing on the journey – and now know that the secrets of the Father are enough to carry them through their trials and triumphs just as Job changed.  Their salvation is not delivered because “the spirits are subject to [the disciples.]  Rather, Jesus tells them to “rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” 

Jesus is about to upend the law with his condensed set of Two Commandments and illustrate how those new rules are brought to life by the Good Samaritan.  But for now, Jesus is filled with joy at the return of the seventy-two.  He is jubilant that through the experience of mission – where the disciples deprived themselves of material goods – they have made the same progress toward repentance that we see in Job.

The moment and prayer of Thanksgiving that Jesus offers also once again illustrates a central theme we have seen develop in the readings from Luke this liturgical year: radical reversal. As Michael Card points out in Luke: The Gospel of Amazement:

[The theme of radical reversal] helps us to see why those who should don’t, while those who shouldn’t do.  It is because God wants it that way.  Jesus is almost singing, “You have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to infants…because this was Your good pleasure.”  This is an appropriate song coming from a man whose mother once sang, “He has satisfied the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty” (Luke 1:53).  The world is being turned upside down because the Father wants it that way, and Jesus could not be more joyful at the prospect.  It is a rare moment of light on an otherwise dark journey to Jerusalem.

Action

When has your world been turned upside down? Unemployment?  Illness?  The death of a loved one?  On this Memorial of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus, we consider how our lives can be more child-like so that our trust in the arms of the Lord will lift us up no matter what the hardships are that we face.