Thursday, October 29, 2020

“Strength and Haven in God” by Beth DeCristofaro

 “Strength and Haven in God” by Beth DeCristofaro

 

Thursday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

 

Lectionary: 482

 

Brothers and sisters: Draw your strength from the Lord and from his mighty power. (Ephesians 6:10)

 

‘Behold, I cast out demons, and I perform healings today and tomorrow, and on the third day, I accomplish my purpose. Yet I must continue on my way today, tomorrow, and the following day, for it is impossible that a prophet should die outside of Jerusalem.’ “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,
but you were unwilling!”
(Luke 13:32-)

 

Piety

Have mercy on me, O God, as I struggle with myself rather than submit to you.  May your praise, Jesus, be ever in my heart, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.  Holy Spirit, animate my actions to spring from God’s joy in my heart.

 


Study

Have you ever watched a nature documentary of a cheetah stalking then chasing her prey on the veldt?  Have you been impressed and admiring of the figure skater who lands a quadruple quad - especially if you can’t stand up on skates?  Have you been in awe of doctors or social workers who year after year serve populations that struggle with insurmountable economic odds or make bad choices yet remain dedicated to what seems a losing battle?

 

Jesus is unfaltering in his mission to bring wholeness, healing, and salvation to his people.  He remains undeterred and undistracted toward this goal and remains in harmony with God.  A cheetah hunts for survival.  Is not our survival as humans, created in God’s image, dependent on our need for God?  The skater accepts long, grueling hours of practice plus injuries to perfect her jump.  Our time spent with God becomes more fruitful with fewer vacillations as we practice, request, and open ourselves to God’s strength.  Inner dedication propels the caregiver to fix or to care.  God is with us in that inner dedication, closer than we know.

 

Jesus’ beautiful image of the brood hen sheltering Jerusalem under his wings is comforting and nurturing.  It is especially poignant as he clearly understands that Jerusalem rejects him.  He will shelter us.

 

Action

Can we stoop, filled with the strength of God, to be comforting and nurturing to someone who rejects us?  Ask for God to grace you with a “yes.”  Be God’s strength and haven to someone.

Illustration:  A modern mosaic of a mother hen protecting her chicks—on the altar of Dominus Flevit Church on the Mount of Olives (Matt 23:37; Luke 13:34)

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

“Decision Making Jesus’ Way” by Colleen O’Sullivan

“Decision Making Jesus’ Way” by Colleen O’Sullivan

Feasts of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

Brothers and sisters:  You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone.  (Ephesians 2:19-20)

 

Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.  When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles. (Luke 6:12-13)

 

Piety

Only You, Lord, know what is in our best interest.  Help us to open our hearts to receive Your grace and wisdom when making important decisions.

Study

Two of the Twelve we honor today:

James Tissot, Saint Simon, c. 1886-1894, Brooklyn Museum, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons  


Anthonis Van Dyck, The Apostle Judas Thaddeus, c. 1619-1621, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons

On the feast day of not one but two saints, there’s surprisingly little to be said about either one of them.  We know from today’s Gospel reading that they were among the Twelve whom Jesus chose for his inner circle of Apostles.  In Acts 1, we read that they were among the Twelve on the day of Pentecost.  Beyond that they never appear again in the Scriptures.  There are legends and conjecture about what happened to each one, but no reliable information.

Given the lack of hard facts, what becomes more important today than everything we don’t know about Saints Simon and Jude is the process by which they became Apostles.  In both the Old and New Testaments, mountains symbolize holy places.  We’re not told what specific mountain Jesus climbs in today’s Gospel reading, but the fact that a mountain is part of the story tells us that this is holy ground, a sacred place Jesus chooses for communion in prayer with his Father.  

After spending the entire night praying, Jesus returns to the disciples.  With his Father’s help, he has decided who among his disciples would become Apostles.  Jesus had many more disciples than Apostles.  Disciples were considered to be those learning from a teacher or leader in order to follow in that person’s footsteps.  Apostles, on the other hand, were those chosen from among the disciples to pass on the Lord’s teachings.  The Apostles’ successors today are the bishops of our Church. 

This was a momentous decision for Jesus.  He knew his enemies were circling and the day would soon come when he would no longer be on earth to preach in Word and deed the Good News of salvation.  He needed people he could depend on to carry on his work after his death. 

Jesus didn’t make this decision lightly.  He didn’t pick his inner circle based on anything like awarding friends’ political favors.  He didn’t take suggestions from the crowd around him.  He didn’t even trust himself to make such a weighty decision alone.  He spent the night, an entire night the Gospel says, talking with and listening to his Father.  Only then did he get to his feet, walk back to the disciples and announce the names of his Apostles.

Action

We make decisions every day, many times a day.  What should I wear? What can I have for breakfast?  Should I defrost something for dinner?  What route is quickest today according to my Navigation app?  We don’t put a whole lot of thought into decisions like those.  They’re pretty straightforward. 

There are other decisions we make, however, that are much more important and have much greater impact on our lives.  As a child, you decided who you were going to be friends with?  When first dating, you asked yourself what values you should look for in another person.  What kind of person do I want to be?  Later, should I marry him or her? How do I know he or she is the right person to be my life partner? Even if you’ve attended CCD all the way through high school, at some point you have to ask yourself, Am I going to be a disciple of Jesus?   Am I willing to walk in the Lord’s footsteps? 

Later, if children come along, hopefully you ask yourself, “How are we going to raise them?  What kind of people do we hope they grow up to be?”  These are the kinds of questions and decisions that merit a night spent in prayer, searching for guidance from the Lord. 

As I look around, I’d be willing to bet that many of us seldom remember to include God in our decision making.  We ask our friends what they think we should do, or our families.  We turn to advice columnists, hoping for answers.  We rely on Dr. Phil’s solutions for others with problems similar to our own.  It’s far better to rely on God’s wisdom when deciding the big things in life.  

When you have some quiet time, look back on some of the major decisions you’ve made in your life, how you made them, and how they turned out in the long run. 

I’ve found An Ignatian Framework for Making a Decision on ignatianspirituality.com very helpful on including God in our decision making.

Monday, October 26, 2020

“Yeast” by Melanie Rigney


“Yeast” by Melanie Rigney

Tuesday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time 

For no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church, because we are members of His Body. (Ephesians 5:29-30)

Blessed are those who fear the Lord. (Psalm 128:1a) 

Again he said, “To what shall I compare the Kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of wheat flour until the whole batch of dough was leavened.” (Luke 13:20-21)

Piety

Jesus, you are the bread of life. Please show me how to share You with those who hunger. 

Study

Remember earlier this year, when toilet paper, paper towels, and the like were in short supply? Well, so was yeast. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to bake bread, sweet rolls, and the like.

Slowly, paper goods returned to the shelves, as did yeast. Now, we’re being warned that the surge in covid-19 cases and deaths could put in particular baking goods in short supply as more people will be staying at home for the holidays and making cookies, pies, candy, and, yes, bread and other things that require yeast. 

Yeast is a funny thing. While it will last a couple of years unopened in a cool place, once it’s opened, you’ve got about four months to use it if you keep it refrigerated. Otherwise, please don’t count on it doing its thing with dough.

The Kingdom of God is a funny thing that way too. While faith will last a while without some care, it leavens nothing in ourselves and others if we don’t use it. If you take it off the shelf or out of the cupboard after months, it may be dead. And while unlike yeast, dead faith can be reborn, it takes a lot of effort. 

So, if you’re stocking up on sugar, flour, toilet paper, and the like, don’t forget the yeast—but not just the kind you buy.

Action

Be a leavening agent.

Image credit: https://pixabay.com/photos/dough-knead-bake-food-cake-eat-3082589/ by Andreas Lischka from Pixabay.

Sunday, October 25, 2020

“What Does Love Look Like?” by Rev. Paul Berghout

“What Does Love Look Like?” by Rev. Paul Berghout

Monday of the Thirtieth Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 479

Piety

Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. Be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma. Ephesians 4:32-5:2

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. Psalm 1:1-2

Jesus was teaching in a synagogue on the sabbath. And a woman was there who for eighteen years had been crippled by a spirit; she was bent over, completely incapable of standing erect. When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, “Woman, you are set free of your infirmity.” He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.” Luke 13:10-13

Study

It is the story of the courtship of Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the great German composer Felix Mendelssohn.

Moses Mendelssohn was a small man with a malformed, humped back. One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter. Though Mendelssohn admired her greatly, she avoided him, seemingly afraid of his grotesque hump.

On the last day of his visit, he went to tell her good-bye. Her face seemed to beam with beauty, but she cast her eyes to the floor when he entered. Mendelssohn’s heart ached in love with her. After some small talk, he slowly drew to the subject that filled his mind. “Do you believe that marriages are made in Heaven?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied the young woman. “And do you?”

“Of course,” Mendelssohn answered. “I believe that at the birth of each child, the Lord says, ‘That boy shall marry that girl.’ But in my case, the Lord also added, `But alas, his wife will have a terrible hump.’

“At that moment, I called out, ‘Oh Lord, that would be a tragedy for her. Please give me the humped back and let her be beautiful.’”

The story goes that the young woman was so moved by these words that she reached for Mendelssohn’s hand and later became his loving and faithful wife.

Isn’t that a beautiful story? Hold on to it. We’ll come back to it in a few moments.

Which of God’s laws is greatest? We heard in our Gospel reading Sunday that set the stage for our week of lessons.  The answer isn’t as straightforward as we might prefer.

WHEN WE ASK FOR ONE COMMANDMENT, JESUS GIVES US TWO. The questioning student did not ask for a second-place commandment. He only wanted to know what the number one, greatest single commandment.  However, Jesus gave two commandments instead because the whole law and the prophets depend on two commandments, not one.  These are, namely, that we love God with our entire being and our neighbor as ourselves.

If you are keeping the first without keeping the second, you’re not maintaining the first. If X is more important than Y, we’ll treat Y as something to get around to sooner or later, once X is complete. 

Our focus, he says, must be thoroughly divine and no less entirely humanitarian. (source: ANDREW WILSON Two Commandments for the Price of One).

A pious Catholic maxim is, “At all times, have a special love for your companions, and this mutual love must come from God and tend to God.”

However, your neighbor is anybody. For example, in Sunday’s first reading, we heard that you should not oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. Oppressing a foreigner means economic oppression, but the root meaning is forced labor. Nevertheless, when the undocumented (so-called “illegal”) alien cries out to me, I will hear him, says God, for I am compassionate. This common biblical theme implies that God has his ear particularly cocked for the plea of those without resources and recourses. God is the guardian and avenger of those who lack social protection, which includes the unborn.

We see the face of God in others, especially in the faces of undocumented, law-abiding people who have been working and paying taxes for decades yet are not allowed to become citizens. Of course, we have the right to protect our national borders and manage immigration in a just way, but one that works.

The second commandment also checks fanaticism because you can’t say “I love God” and kill non-believers of your religion. It is not necessary to like everyone, but only to accept them. Jesus bases the second law on the other person’s relation to God. It is unconditional love, not unqualified approval.

The bonus is that if you keep one and two, you get three because Love of God, love of neighbor, and love of self all grow together and sustain one another.  If one is absent or neglected, the other two can suffer.

However, it’s not just about the self-understanding that comes with a relationship with God.  That can remain too subjective, individualistic, and inward-focused. They neglect the third essential component to Christian spirituality: love of and service to other people, a spirituality of action to serve the eternal benefit and eternal life of others, and their material well-being as a life goal.

Regarding love of one’s self- that is implied in the second: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

We hear Paul tell the Ephesians (5:28): “A husband who loves his wife loves himself.” Love of self here is a given—not a command per se.

St. Paul continues by writing to them: “After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church.” St. Catherine of Sienna offers the same insight when she says that we love other people with the same love we see when others – including ourselves -- love us.  If I do not accept myself as I am, it will show resentment and conflict with others as projections of our interior battles.

However, the phrase “Need love” is always born of emptiness. Only through a life a prayer can that emptiness be filled daily.

Action

What does love look like? 1 John 4:9 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him…”

I said we’d return to that beautiful story from our beginning -- the story of Moses Mendelssohn, the small man with the large hump on his back. Remember he told the girl he loved, I believe that at each child's birth, the Lord says, that boy shall marry that girl. But in my case, the Lord also added, his wife will have a terrible hump. Please give me the humped back and let her be beautiful.

What does love look like? It’s like a man taking on a hump on his back so that his wife can be straight and beautiful.

But instead of a hump, let us say, as we think of the message of the Gospel, it’s like a man who takes a cross upon His shoulder so that you and I might be free from the power of sin and death and solely because of God’s love for us.  Amen.

Saturday, October 24, 2020

YA BETTER WATCH OUT!!! By Sam Miller

YA BETTER WATCH OUT!!! By Sam Miller

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

“You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt. You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them, and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry. My wrath will flare up, and I will kill you with the sword; then, your wives will be widows and your children orphans. “If you lend money to one of your poor neighbors among my people, you shall not act like an extortioner toward him by demanding interest from him. If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, you shall return it to him before sunset; for this cloak of his is the only covering he has for his body. What else has he to sleep in? If he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am compassionate.” Exodus 22:20-26

R. I love you, Lord, my strength.

Praised be the LORD, I exclaim,

and I have been delivered from my enemies. Psalms 18:2-3

[Y]ou became imitators of the Lord and us, receiving the word in great affliction, with joy from the Holy Spirit, For from you, the word of the Lord has sounded forth not only in Macedonia and in Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has gone forth, band how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to await his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus, who delivers us from the coming wrath. 1 Thessalonians 1:5C-10

When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:34-40

Piety

“You Are Near” by The St. Louis Jesuits

Yahweh, I know You are near, standing always at my side.

You guard me from the foe, and You lead me in ways everlasting.

Lord, you have searched my heart, and you know when I sit and when I stand.

Your hand is upon me, protecting me from death, keeping me from harm.

Where can I run from Your love? If I climb to the heavens, You are there;

If I fly to the sunrise or sail beyond the sea, still I’d find You there.

You know my heart and its ways, You who formed me before I was born.

In the secret of darkness, before I saw the sun, in my mother’s womb.”

Study

Okay, I can already hear the “Boos” and “Ughs,” so I’m just going to get it out of the way. Did anyone, besides me, think of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” in the first reading?! (Anyone?!)

Upon deeper reflection, I got from the first reading Psalm 139, which brought to mind the Piety song, “You Are Near.” A still shorter version, GOD SEES ALL AND KNOWS ALL!!!

In general, the first reading tells us how to live, the difference between right and wrong, or good and evil, so we can become imitators of those who bring us the Good News to follow Christ and live His commandments!!

Peace, Out!!!

Action

“God, I stand beaten and battered by the countless manifestations of my inadequacies. Yet, I must live with joy…Aid me in this quest, O God. Help me find satisfaction and a deep, abiding pleasure in all that I have, in all that I do, in all that I am.” Rabbi Nachman of Breslau

AND may all that I do follow Your will and Your commandments! Amen!!

I am a voter, are you?!

Thursday, October 22, 2020

"Blazing in Faith" by Beth DeCristofaro


"Blazing in Faith" by Beth DeCristofaro

Thursday of the Twenty-ninth Week in Ordinary Time

 

(May God) grant you in accord with the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner self, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:16-19)

 

Jesus said to his disciples: “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing! There is a baptism with which I must be baptized, and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished! Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division. (Luke 12:49-51)

 

Piety

Glorious God, grant me to know your breadth, length, height and depth.  Holy Spirit, strengthen to me the grace to accept the purifying fire of your presence and justice.  Lord Jesus, please grant me the peace of your presence and mercy. 

 

Study

Paul certainly endured the refining fire of God’s glory during his conversion. In the sudden and complete wrenching of Paul out of Saul, he no longer feared.  Paul’s strength, freedom, teaching, surviving, traveling, and everything was now embedded in his sure knowledge of salvation through Christ.  And in this he saw further, he longed for God more deeply, he felt his life expanded not confined.  Jesus chose God’s refining fire not for his own need but ours, the divine refining of sin and exile into righteousness and resurrection. 

 

The burning of a blast furnace is awesomely frightening. Worthless elements are burned away in the refining process.  Paul acknowledges that process with humility and strength, grateful that God touched him and he accepted.  We all too easily gather elements upon ourselves that keep us from God but it is a dreadful course to discard that which we believe is us.  We mistake those extraneous elements as essential to us.  Jesus’ challenge is to let those be purified away through him.  Jesus’ gift is himself, gateway to God.

 

Denise Levertov uses an image of water in her poem “To live in the mercy of God”.  She writes:

 

To live in the mercy of God.

 

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself

unabating down and down

to clenched fists of rock.

Swiftness of plunge,

hour after year after century,

 

O or Ah

 

uninterrupted, voice

many-stranded.

To breathe

spray. The smoke of it.

Arcs

of steel

white foam, glissades

of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—

rage or joy?

Thus, not mild, not temperate,

God’s love for the world. Vast

flood of mercy

flung on resistance[i]

 

Action

What image speaks to you of losing yourself to gain God?  Falling off a horse? Blast furnace? Hanging from a tree? Deluged in a waterfall?  In a different poem, Levertov’s image is of floating lightly in a warm stream, resting in God’s arms.  Ask for the grace to courageously accept the division Jesus brings as well as the loving mercy he extends.

 

Illustration:  Skógafoss Waterfall, Iceland, https://hekla.com/blog/14-waterfalls-you-have-to-visit-in-iceland/

 


[i] “To live in the Mercy of God”, https://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/denise_levertov_2012_3.pdf, p. 95.