Teach Me Your Ways

Teach Me Your Ways

June 7, 2012

Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

This saying is trustworthy: If we have died with him we shall also live with him; if we persevere we shall also reign with him.  But if we deny him he will deny us.  If we are unfaithful he remains faithful, for he cannot deny himself. 2 Timothy 2:11-13

The scribe said to him, "Well said, teacher.  You are right in saying, He is One and there is no other than he.  And to love him with all your heart, with all your understanding, with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is worth more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."  And when Jesus saw that he answered with understanding, he said to him, "You are not far from the Kingdom of God."  And no one dared to ask him any more questions.  Mark 12:32-34

Piety

Blowing in the Wind by Bob Dylan (1963)

How many roads must a man walk down
Before they call him a man
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand
How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they are forever banned
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

How many years must a mountain exist
Before it is washed to the sea
How many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free
How many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky
How many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry
How many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind
The answer is blowing in the wind

Study

Would it not be great to be able to get today's lesson straight from the mouth of Jesus as the Scribe did today?  He had a troubling theological issue and he did not have to open up the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Google the issue, write to his bishop, corner the pastor or deacon after Mass or sign up for a religious education class.   He just walked right up to the Lord and asked him. 

If Jesus were still alive bodily on this planet, we probably would not have the chance to find him and talk to him among the 6 billion or so people who are here.  Chances are, he would not be in this country.  If ancient Palestine was one of the poorest places on earth 2012 years ago, today we might find him in Haiti, or Honduras, or Burundi.  In these places, the per capita GDP is only about $300 per person.  That is what some of us probably spend monthly on a car payment, grocery bills, or other items.

Yet we do have a chance to hear what Jesus has to say every day in the Scriptures.  And today, Jesus is present among us -- in these ordinary post-Pentecost days, His holy Spirit remains with us daily and speaks to us through each other and the world around us.

Action

Listen today to the places where you will hear the word of God. 

When I was growing up, "Blowing in the Wind," was a song written by Bob Dylan and popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary.  After posing numerous questions throughout the verses, the refrain responded:   "The answer my friend, is blowing in the wind."  

The message:  The answers are all around us.  Today, we can seek the answers in so many more places than the Scribe could.  Consider one question or issue that you have and seek out the answer today.

I Know In Whom I Have Believed

I Know In Whom I Have Believed

June 6, 2012

Wednesday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

By Colleen O'Sullivan

For this reason, I remind you to stir into flame the gift of God that you have through the imposition of my hands.  For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.  So do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord, nor of me, a prisoner for his sake; but bear your share of hardship for the Gospel with the strength that comes from God.

He saved us and called us to a holy life, not according to our works but according to his own design and the grace bestowed on us in Christ Jesus before time began, but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus before time began, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel, for which I was appointed preacher and Apostle and teacher.  On this account I am suffering these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have believed and am confident that he is able to guard what has been entrusted to me until that day.  (2 Timothy 1:6-12)

Piety

O Spirit of God, enkindle in my heart the fire of your love.

Study

Just two Wednesdays ago, we saw Paul saying goodbye to the elders from the church in Ephesus, believing he would never see them again, and Jesus, in his final moments with the disciples, praying for his friends to be held close to the Father and each other when he is gone.  Today we have still another farewell.  Paul is in prison, most likely in Rome, and is writing a sort of last will and testament to his protégé Timothy.

He tells Timothy that he prays for him every day and reminds him of the gift of God Paul has imparted to him through the laying on of hands.  Whether or not this was an ordination, we’re not told.  The Apostle exhorts his younger friend to stir that gift into flame.  Again, we’re not told why Paul feels the need to say this.  Has Timothy become complacent?  Is he discouraged or afraid?  We do know that by the time this letter is written, there is much strife within the young Christian community and some Christians are forsaking their faith and leaving.

Maybe we need to read Paul’s words as addressed us today.  When I look at the congregation on Sunday mornings, my parish church has many more empty seats than it did 10 or 15 years ago.  When I look around the table at weekly staff meetings at work, I see several Catholics who have left the church in the time I’ve worked there.  From what I read online and in various publications, many Protestants could say the same thing about their churches.

So what is it that keeps the apostle Paul going in the midst of adversity?  Keep in mind, he’s imprisoned for no other reason than his faith and preaching.  I think the key lies in the line where he says, “I am suffering these things; but I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have believed…”  Paul never met Jesus until after his death and resurrection, but he doesn’t just say he knows about the Lord; he says “I know him.”  If we merely know about Jesus Christ, if he’s just another piece of information in our heads, it’s easy to walk away when problems and dissension arise.  But, if we know Jesus as our closest friend and Savior and have an ongoing relationship with him, we aren’t so likely to walk away when the going gets tough.  I couldn’t desert a friend anywhere nearly as quickly as I can forget an idea.

Action

Take a few minutes today and think about your closest friends.  How did they get to be in your inner circle?  What keeps them there?  When problems arise, what stops you from just walking away?

It takes time to build up relationships and commitment to keep them going.  The same is true in our relationship with the Lord.  If we truly want to know God and not settle for just knowing something about him, we have to set aside time for him.  We have to read the Scriptures and hear God speaking to us through them.  We need to have that two-way conversation (speaking and listening) with him that we call prayer. 

If you neglect your friends, you’ll find that some of them go on to something or someone else.  The wonderful thing about God is that he never deserts us.  It’s never too late to revive your friendship with him or deepen your relationship through prayer.

Repay To God What Is God’s 

 June 5, 2012

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

By Beth DeCristofaro

But according to his promise we await new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  Therefore, beloved, since you await these things, be eager to be found without spot or blemish before him, at peace. And consider the patience of our Lord as salvation. (2 Peter  3:13-15)

So Jesus said to them, "Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God."  They were utterly amazed at him.  (Mark 13:17)

Piety

Thank you, my God, for your patience with me as I each day I learn a little more how to give to Caesar what is his and to You what is Yours – everything my Lord and my God.  For all that I have and all that I am is yours.

Study

Hmm, without spot or blemish…at peace…  Being well schooled as a cradle Catholic, I am awfully ready to see each and every one of my spots and blemishes and many times feel a lot more guilt over what I have  failed to do and even done wrong to others than peace.  It’s easy to find the places that I’ve come up short, less easy to say “yes, Lord, I did my best , not perfect but it was in your  honor”.

These readings strike me with the message of Trinity Sunday.  The extraordinary reality that God became like me and you in birth and in death.  Jesus surmounted our human limits and stays with me and with you, individually and personally, indwelling Spirit.  We belong to God.  How do I possibly repay that? 

Action

If I can stretch the metaphor a bit, it seems that our relationships with each other can emulate the relationship of the Trinity in that I repay by loving my own brothers and sisters (yes, in pale imitation).  That eternal dance of love is available to me here on earth.  Ain’t easy for me.  In my dance, I like to lead.   Cataloging my failings just makes me try harder…which means holding onto the lead more strenuously.   

What Will The Owner Of The Vineyard Do?

What Will The Owner Of The Vineyard Do?

June 4, 2012
Monday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, virtue with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with devotion, devotion with mutual affection, mutual affection with love.  2 Peter 1:6-7

What [then] will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come, put the tenants to death, and give the vineyard to others.  Mark 12:9

Piety

Father, you have bestowed upon us everything that makes for life and devotion, when we commit to know you through our piety, study and action.  Jesus, help us to escape the shallow life that the world corrupts so that we may lead our lives for your sake alone.  Holy Spirit, grant us the gifts that support virtue, self-control, devotion and love in order to give our lives totally over to the Lord. Amen.

Study

Today's Gospel story challenges the scripture knowledge of the people to whom he preached.  The meaning of the story of the killing of the landlord's son was not lost on this crowd.  When Jesus posed the rhetorical question about knowing the passage about the stone the builders rejected was patently obvious to them.  While the seeds of insurrection were being sown that day, the confrontation would wait until another time.

The lessons from the Second Letter to Peter could easily be applied to the crowd that gathered that day.  While these people had the knowledge of scripture, they did not supplement that with action.  While they were a temple-attending group, they did not balance their piety with love.  Their tripod was not balanced on all three legs.  

Action

What will the owner of the vineyard do with us?  

How would our knowledge of scripture measured up if we were in the audience that day? Would our piety shine through?  Would our action spring forth from this knowledge of God and sacred scripture?  How does it measure up today?

Despite the approach of summer, recommit yourself to the Cursillo Tripod in your daily life over the summer months.  Set aside daily time for prayer.  Read a book to advance your study each month.  Pick up a volunteer project that you can support.

Cry "Abba, Father!"

June 2, 2012

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity 2012 B

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

Did anything so great ever happen before?  Was it ever heard of?  Did a people ever hear the voice of God speaking from the midst of fire, as you did, and live?  Or did any god venture to go and take a nation for himself from the midst of another nation, by testings, by signs and wonders, by war, with strong hand and outstretched arm, and by great terrors, all of which the LORD, your God, did for you in Egypt before your very eyes?  Deuteronomy  32b-34

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.  For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, "Abba, Father!"  Romans 8:14-15

Then Jesus approached and said to them, "All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age."  Matthew 28:18-20

Piety

Piety is the lived expression of the love of God in us.  The Trinity is the love name of God.  The Father speaks the Word of love that is the Son.  Total giving meets total receiving.  Perfect giving and perfect receiving is the meaning of love and the makeup of the Holy Spirit.  God’s love reveals to us the mystery of his hidden life.  We could never have known the makeup of God without his revelation.  Our love is what makes us like God.  Wherever there is love God is there.  We hear God speaking to us in the voice of Creation.  God gives us a world to live in and opens the heavens with all great gifts that we might know the love of God in the daily bread of our lives.  God gives us what we ask for.  He sends his son into our lives that the daily bread of love might feed us with God’s life.  He opens us to be god-like in who we are.  Our piety is how we love life and love Gods.  By living the fullness of the gift of love.  God gives us of his life.

Study

Our Study teaches us what God is asking of us.  The commandments of God and how we relate to each other are the perfection of interpersonal love.  The secret of life is no longer secret when we accept the commandments as how to live out our lives in God.  We discover how to imitate the perfect unity of God in community.  No man is an island that accepts god as lord of life.  God calls us to love one another as he loves us.  God enjoins us to love each other with the giving of our lives for the sake of a God-like world made so by our living our lives in a deep personal love of everyone that is a part of our lives from family to strangers.

Action

Our greatest action will always be calling God “Abba, Father.” We have not received a spirit of slavery, but rather a spirit of adoption.  We live our lives as heirs of God by the respect we have for all of creation around us.  There is no genuine spirituality that spoils the world we live in.  How we share what we have with other is how the love of God is seen.  We must treat everything as a gift for our use to love and serve the Lord our God with all our heart and spirit.  We put up even with injustice to be like the Christ whose life reveals the perfection of how to live as one of God’s children.  We do what we do because the Lord commands us to baptize our world into the possession of God by our recognition of the God of creation.  Our observance of all that Christ has commanded us gives us the presence of God in our lives.  We worship the Trinity by living our lives with love of every one.  We give our lives that there be a better world because we have lived in it.  We call God Trinity because God has revealed himself to us as three persons in One God.  Our family reflects Trinity and makes Trinity part of all we are.

Keep Yourselves in the Love of God

Keep Yourselves in the Love of God

June 2, 2012
Saturday of the Eighth Week in Ordinary Time

Keep yourselves in the love of God and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.  On those who waver, have mercy; save others by snatching them out of the fire; on others have mercy with fear, abhorring even the outer garment stained by the flesh.  Jude 17, 20-23

The chief priests, the scribes, and the elders approached him and said to him, "By what authority are you doing these things?  Or who gave you this authority to do them?"  Jesus said to them, "I shall ask you one question.  Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I do these things.  Mark 11:27b-29

Piety

Prayer of St. Francis

Lord, Make me an instrument of Your peace; Where there is hatred let me sow love; Where there is injury, pardon; Where there is doubt, faith; Where there is despair, hope; Where there is darkness, light; And where there is sadness, joy.

O divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled as to console, To be understood as to understand, To be loved as to love, For it is in giving that we receive, It is in pardoning that we are pardoned And it is in dying that we are born To eternal life. Amen.

Study

Clearly the Pharisees wanted to know the authority under which Jesus taught, preached, drove out demons and healed the sick..  One implication in their question was that if they recognized the authority by which Jesus operated, then they would become followers.  If they did not, then they would reject Jesus.  However, there was no guarantee that the Pharisees would accept any answer which Jesus provided.

Rather than fall into that trap, Jesus slipped out by springing on them an even tougher question. The Lord’s avoidance of a confrontation with the Pharisees foreshadows his attitude and actions when he stood before Herod and Pilate on trial for his life.  Although the stakes in today’s Gospel story were not as high as they would be on Good Friday, this is another incident which sets the wheels of betrayal and execution in motion.

Jesus’ words and deeds give us an example of obedience to a higher authority -- and bypassing the temporal authority of the “state” and the ecclesiastical authority of the “church.”  

Action

Authority...how do you deal with it?  We are surrounded with modern-day examples of the clash of authority between the church, state and individuals conscience.  Melanie detailed many of these in her reflection yesterday.  

Now, added to that we have the reaction of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to the sanctions imposed by the Vatican.  One account of that is here.   (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/post/catholic-nuns-push-back/2012/06/01/gJQAR69k7U_blog.html?hpid=z6).    

Dionne concludes that he would like to think that the Holy Spirit is operating through the nuns.  Maybe the Holy Spirit is testing us by operating through the nuns AND the bishops so that all members of the church may work together as instruments of peace.  

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

Love Covers a Multitude of Sins

June 1, 2012

Memorial of St. Justin, Martyr

By Melanie Rigney

The end of all things is at hand. Therefore be serious and sober-minded so that you will be able to pray. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:7-8)

The Lord comes to judge the earth. (Psalms 96:13)

(Jesus said:) “Therefore I tell you, all that you ask for in prayer, believe that you will receive it and it shall be yours. When you stand to pray, forgive anyone against whom you have a grievance, so that your heavenly Father may in turn forgive you your transgressions.” (Mark 11: 24-25)

Piety

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.

Study

You can’t say we’re not a community. A community some think is in danger of pulling apart at the seams, but a community nonetheless. Major gatherings of Catholics this month include:

• The Leadership Conference of Women Religious national board today concludes its initial discussion on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s assessment that the some of the conference members’ comments and actions pose “serious doctrinal problems.”
• Vatican’s The Seventh World Meeting of Families, themed “The Family: Work and Celebration,” wraps up Sunday in Milan.
• The “Fortnight for Freedom,” which the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called for in light of what the bishops view as threats to religious freedom in the United States and abroad, begins June 21 (the Feasts of St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More, both of whom were executed by order of King Henry VIII during the Reformation).

Earlier this week, the bishops from the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central America met here to discuss immigration. Separately, many are agog about the ouster of the Vatican bank president and confirmation that the pope’s butler was feeding information to the media about the Vatican’s internal workings.

The news media on all sides of these issues wring their hands and wonder how people can stay with this Church that seems so radical at times yet so or out of step with public opinion, and yet such an institution of venal humans.

The words from Peter’s letter resonate today, much as they must have for those early Christians, during the Crusades, during the Inquisition, at the dawn of Vatican II, and in so many other times in the past nearly two thousand years:

Therefore be serious and sober-minded so that you will be able to pray. Above all, let your love for one another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.

As laypeople, we can’t be sure anything we say or do will influence the bishops or cardinals or the pope. But we can pray. And we can forgive. And we can love.

Action

The Arlington Cursillo steering committee meets this evening to begin developing an action plan to implement Lay Director Phil Kiko’s vision statement. Please pray that the Holy Spirit may guide Phil and this temporary committee that will help make plans for our movement in the coming months and years.