Fill Us With Your Love

Memorial of the Passion of Saint John the Baptist

Now may God himself, our Father, and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you, and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we have for you, so as to strengthen your hearts, to be blameless in holiness before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his holy ones.  1 Thessalonians 3:11-13

The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her.  So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head.  He went off and beheaded him in the prison.  He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl.  Mark 6:26-28a

Piety

Father, give us the wisdom to pray unceasingly so that we may listen to and genuinely hear the words you have for us today.  Jesus, work through us to continue to build up your people.  Holy Spirit, fill us with love so we can help others achieve their dreams. Amen.

Study

How do we succeed?  Is it by stepping on the backs of others or by lifting them up? 

The readings give us another stark contrast between the norms of society as exhibited by the king and how the new emerging Christian community changes the outlook for success.

The King – pretending to be all powerful, promises his daughter her any wish.  When she makes a bold and lethal choice, the king could have shown some moral leadership.  Instead, he gave in to the situational pressure and the expectations of follow-through behavior to fulfill the “trappings” of his supposed power.  However, in showing what he thought was the power over the life and death of John, he really showed how powerless he was in the face of evil choices that controlled his behavior and the trap set for him by his wife.

The message in Thessalonica is the opposite of such peer pressure and envy.  The people of this Greek community hear from Paul that the way to success is NOT by climbing over the dead bodies of others.  Rather Christian success is accounted for by lifting up others so that we can ascend the ladder of the Lord with them, not over them.

Action

Early in its history, I used to be fascinated by the show “Survivor.”  But in reality, this show gives us a very Herod-ian picture of life.  To succeed in the end, the “winner” actually has to put down challenges from others in the community until he stands alone. 

In Thessalonica, to win in the game of Biblical Survivor, the formula is to reassure (not reject) others.  To live if others stand firm, not if others are trampled.  Rather than envy, the disciples share joy and thanksgiving.  Rather than directing our lives for selfish pursuits, Paul will succeed if he pursues and assures the success of others, not their failure.

How can you promote the success of others?  When we are filled with love for others, not jealousy, or conceit, or pride, then we can show others the way to heaven on earth. 

Beautiful in Christ

Memorial of Saint Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church

By Colleen O’Sullivan

And for this reason we too give thanks to God unceasingly, that, in receiving the word of God from hearing us, you received it not as the word of men, but as it truly is, the word of God, which is now at work in you who believe.  (I Thessalonians 2:13)

Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of filth.  Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.” 

(Matthew 23:27-28)

Piety

O Lord, may my heart ever be your dwelling place.

Study

I wonder what Jesus sees when he looks at us.  We live in a culture that puts a premium on physical appearance, and I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time blow-drying and styling my hair, putting on makeup and picking out clothes and accessories that coordinate before I walk out the door in the morning.  But when Jesus looks at me, does he care about any of that?

He certainly seemed to notice the Pharisees’ appearance, saying they looked for all the world like whitewashed tombs.  We know that tombs hold nothing but death and decay within them, and that’s what Jesus zeroed in on.   He wasn’t impressed by the outward appearance of gleaming beauty, because he could see beyond that to the emptiness within.  These weren’t godly people; their hearts were full of self-righteousness.  They knew the words of the Law, but the loving spirit of God was missing.

In Jesus’ eyes, what makes a person beautiful has nothing to do with outward appearances, which can be deceiving.  When I think about beautiful people, I often think about my grandmother.  She had a hard life.  She was one of 13 children who were separated when she was orphaned at age 4.  Farmed out to relatives who treated her as a servant, she could easily have become a bitter person.  However, she was anything but.   She was always laughing and telling funny stories. She always had hugs and kisses to spare.  She would never have been crowned Miss America, but her faith in and devotion to Christ made her shine.

When I think of beautiful people, I also think about the women in my Cursillo group.  Each one brings her unique spirituality to the group.  There are as many different ministries represented each week as there are Cursillistas.  It’s the Word at work in their hearts and souls that makes them stand out in the crowd.

Action

Imagine Jesus walking past you today.  As he glances at you, what does he see?  

Raise Me from My Small Horizons

Memorial of St. Monica

By Beth DeCristofaro

Our exhortation was not from delusion or impure motives, nor did it work through deception. But as we were judged worthy by God to be entrusted with the Gospel, that is how we speak,  not as trying to please men, but rather God, who judges our hearts.  (1 Thessalonians 2:3-4)

Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin  and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. (Matthew 23:23)

Piety

“Who can free himself from his meanness and limitations, if you do not lift him to yourself, my God, in purity of love?

How will a person

Brought to birth and nurtured in a world of small horizons,

Rise up to you Lord.

If you do not raise him by your hand which made him?

You will not take from me, my God,

What you once gave me

In your only Son, Jesus Christ,

In whom you gave me all I desire;

So I shall rejoice:

You will not delay, if I do not fail to hope.”

        (Prayer of a Soul in Love, St. John of the Cross, “The Impact of God”, Fr. Ian  Matthew, Hodder & Stoughton, p. 50)

Study

Jesus, St. Monica, Paul, St. John of the Cross shared an intensive, on-fire love of God.   God filled them not their own wants and desires.  Paul denies the “small horizons” with which the Thessalonians accused him of deceit and self-aggrandizement.  Jesus points out to the temple leaders the “small horizons” of their own suffocating hold on power.  In part Monica’s large horizons and faith brought her family and her son, Augustine to a true faith.  John of the Cross recognizes God’s limitless love for him and for us created beings.   God’s abundant generosity lifts us above our small horizons if we ask for God’s love which we constantly and misguidedly seek elsewhere.

Action

This passage from Matthew ends with Jesus identifying to the Pharisees that they clean the visible, the public, outside of their cups while leaving the interior filthy.  Our own agendas muck up the inside of our bowls.  What desires and wants fill us up leaving less room for God to fill us?  Pray with St. John of the Cross to be raised above our small horizons.  Then act on it, even if you don’t yet feel the difference.  Be love to someone in a way which challenges your own wants and desires.  Be Jesus to her.  See Jesus in him.

How You Were Chosen

Monday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time 

We give thanks to God always for all of you, remembering you in our prayers, unceasingly calling to mind your work of faith and labor of love and endurance in hope of our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father, knowing, brothers and sisters loved by God, how you were chosen.  1 Thessalonians 1:2-4

Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.  You lock the Kingdom of heaven before men.  You do not enter yourselves, nor do you allow entrance to those trying to enter.  Matthew 23:13

Piety

Father, protect us from the tendency to be hypocrites saying one thing and doing the opposite.  Help us to see the good in all around us and sing their praises so that – no matter how narrow the gate – we may unlock it not only to enter but also to bring other people through with us.

Study

Faith in Jesus changes everything.  Just consider the differing pictures revealed in today’s readings about the Pharisees of the old church and the ministers of the new.  The Pharisees made it difficult for their followers to get close to God.  However, the disciples in the early Christian Church exalted their followers for the faith they showed. 

Paul and the other leaders of the Church were indeed singing a new song – not a song about how hard the faith would be, but rather a song about how the Lord loves his people. This new faith makes it all possible.

Action

What is your work of faith today?  What will you do that is a labor of love?  What pain will you endure and overcome to keep your hope in the Lord?

After the weekend celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the March on Washington for jobs and racial equality, what would YOU march for if invited to such a demonstration today?  What do you dream for and how does your labor of love and endurance in hope work to make your own dreams a reality?

Enter Through the Narrow Gate

Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time 2013 C

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.  So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees.  Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be disjointed but healed.  Hebrews 12:11-13

“Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I tell you, will attempt to enter but will not be strong enough.  Luke 13:24

Piety

Piety is seen in the narrow road we follow.  Our closeness to the Lord is the measure of our Piety.  We walk at his side when we love one another.  He invites us to surrender all the things in our life that compete for our attention to the Lord.  The narrow gate is a door within the door of the gate to Jerusalem where you can only enter one by one.  You cannot ride through that gate on the lap of luxury.  There is nothing we can take with us as we go through that gate.  Naked we came into the world with the love of God and naked we will go out except for the love of God we have held unto.  We do not want to be turned down at the gate.  God will recognize us in what we have done for the least ones of our lives.  We do not have to worry about our place on the line.  The first shall be last and the last will be first.

Study

Love of the cross of Christ comes from our prayer.  The gradual dawning awareness comes home slowly that we can be identified with Christ who is our way, our truth and our life, by the way we carry the crosses of our life in his name.  Our study of the meaning of the cross of Christ opens us to awareness that God disciplines those he acknowledges as Disciples of Christ.  We try to listen to the invitation of Christ by our prayer and our prayer allows us to carry our crosses as his disciples and friends.  Christ calls us to a closeness that has its strongest expression in how we carry our crosses of life.  Our desire to be his disciples is seen in the joy we have in suffering in the name of Christ.

Action

The cross belongs to Christ when we have done everything possible to avoid it by hard work and proper preparation and it is still there.  The cross is not the result of our laziness.  It is rather the something extra we must put out if we are to help a friend in need or do what no one else is trying to do for the sake of a better world.  We strengthen our drooping hands and our weak knees by pushing the envelope.  No one comes to the Father without doing their best to accompany Christ in the hungry, thirsty, sick, homeless and the prisoners.  What we do for the least ones in our life is how we enter the narrow gate.  The door of heaven is never locked to those who put out their best effort in the name of the Lord for the needy of their lives.  

See Greater Things

Feast of Saint Bartholomew, Apostle 

The angel spoke to me, saying, “Come here.  I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.”  He took me in spirit to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God.  It gleamed with the splendor of God.  Revelation 21:9-11a

Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?”  Jesus answered and said to him, “Before Philip called you, I saw you under the fig tree.”  Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the King of Israel.”  Jesus answered and said to him, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree?  You will see greater things than this.”  John 1:48-50

Piety

Father, through the labor of obedience, help us to turn away from our habits.  Jesus, using the tools you provide and exhibited in your life on earth, help us to take on those practices.  Holy Spirit, bestow upon us a new identity, so that we can see greater things than just the grass under our fig tree.  Amen.

Study

To what heights can we climb from under the fig tree of our existence?  To emerge from our grounding, we, like Nathaniel will have to leave behind our contradictory human nature – our thoughts, words or actions which are driven by our self-ish ego.

Like Nathaniel, we are invited to share in the vision of the Kingdom.  To climb those stairs, we must surrender.  Surrender self.  Surrender ego.  Surrender expectations.  To gain heaven, we must lose this world.  Leave it behind as we climb Jacob’s ladder.

In the Benedictine Rule, the primary quality of the Christ-follower is humility.   We do not have to enter a monastery to exhibit those qualities.  But the path into the monastery is a path of growth in one direction.  The Rule and the community, guided by Scripture and practices – help to form the member along the way.  Every step of entering into community and living there depends upon the follower renouncing their selfish desires and following God’s desires.  Humility has stages or steps in order to achieve it to the highest degree.

Along with vows, one step for a monastic is to renounce even the very name in which they were known and to take on a new identity in Christ, in the church and in the Christian community.    That new identity pledges mutual obedience, humility and restraint to the community.  Then, they go through stages in to the community – postulants, novices, temporary profession and then solemn vows. 

Action

We are not expected to go leap to the top of the ladder in a single bound distancing ourselves from the ways we have known for our whole lives.  Habits of 55 years – in my case -- have taken root and are hard to supplant.  However, to grow in a new direction, we have to get out from under the shade of our fig trees so we can grow in a new direction.  Like a young vine is pruned to grow along the lines of a trellis, we can grow away from our habits, neglect, and laziness into new virtues of piety, study and action

But, to get to the top of the ladder, we have to take it one rung at a time.  Take small steps – like being the first to show respect or patience for others.   Then we can all become beginner’s again -- postulants to a new way of living. 

“After that, you can set out for the loftier summits of the teachings and virtues we mentioned above, and under God’s protection you will reach them.  Amen.”  (Conclusion, Chapter 73, RB1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in English).

Depend on These Two Commandments

Friday of theTwentieth Week in Ordinary Time

By Melanie Rigney

Ruth said (to Naomi), “Do not ask me to abandon or forsake you! For wherever you go, I will go, wherever you lodge I will lodge, your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16)

The fatherless and the widow he sustains, but the way of the wicked he thwarts. The Lord shall reign forever. (Psalms 146:9-10)

When the Pharisees heard that he 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

Lord, You ask much of me. Hold my hand as I attempt to live in a way that is pleasing to You.

Study

You would not think twenty-seven words would be so difficult  to weave into our moral and ethical fabric:

You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. … You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And yet, they are so challenging in their simplicity. We don’t get a pass if we don’t happen to worship the same God as our widowed mother-in-law who wants to return to her native land. We do not get a pass in those situations where it doesn’t seem God is aware of our existence because we are in so much pain or despair. As a priest friend once said, if we get those commandments right, we don’t have to worry about much else.

Imagine what the Pharisees thought at Jesus’s answer. In a way, he laid waste to hundreds and hundreds of laws. He even dared to synopsize the ten commandments! Who was this guy to think he could edit all those rules into twenty-seven words?

With apologies to Jesus and Mark and my priest friend, I think we can boil down even further those two greatest commandments, those twenty-seven challenging words. We only need three words to do as God commands, the first three words of the two sentences above:

You shall love.

Action

Write “you shall love” on your to-do list for the day. Live the day in a way that you’re comfortable marking it as complete for the day. Then do the same tomorrow.

Your Plan for Us

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary 

The Spirit of the LORD came upon Jephthah.  Judges 11:29

[W]hen the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment.  He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’  But he was reduced to silence.  Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’  Many are invited, but few are chosen.”  Matthew 22:11-14

Piety

We have set our trust and security in many places.  Social Security.  Transportation Security.  National Security.  Insurance Companies.  Financial Security.  Food Security.  None of these are where the Psalmist advises us to place set our security.  How do we strike the right balance in today’s world between rendering to the Lord what He asks of us and meeting the practical considerations of protection in a dangerous place?

Study

Today’s lessons drive home the reason for the Coronation of Mary.  This final mystery in the Rosary is not a scriptural based but inferred.  The maiden from Nazareth – in her humility and obedience to the will of God – was the perfect follower.  So based upon “Queenship” as a sign of respect, traditions grew up in the church starting with some great art in the 13^th century.

The Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam (To the Queen of Heaven), issued by Pope Pius XII in 1954, less than 60 years ago – long after the Renaissance artwork started using this image. His letter teaches that Mary has the title Queen of Heaven because her son is the biblical king of Israel and heavenly king of the universe. Because it is not an actual scene in sacred scripture but more a sacred tradition, all churches do not share this ideal and veneration.  For example, the Eastern Orthodox Churches do not share the Catholic dogma, but still maintain a rich liturgical history in honor of Mary.

Whether or not Mary was crowned with jewels or a dove or a halo upon entering heaven is not for us to know.  What we do know is the attitude and disposition which she displayed that causes us to honor her in this fashion.

Action

In honor of all the feasts that we have to celebrate Mary, consider how you can bring more humility into your life. 

Yesterday, I had a chance to hear a short talk by Chaplain Jerry Pitts from the United States Air Force.  Among the many points he made in his talk, is how one shift in attitude can make all the difference.  He asked us to imagine an office in which we all asked NOT “What’s in it for me?” but rather, “What’s in it for you?”  He was not telling us to think less of ourselves, just to think more of others.

I think that Mary would agree with this. Chaplain Pitts suggested that rather than trying to outshine each other, what if we concentrated on trying to “out-humble” each other? “Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled, and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:11). 

Maybe we come into church with our wedding garment stained by the sins of our week.  However, we can place those frailties at the foot of the altar, turn away from our desires and start each day and each week anew.  We, too, can ascend Jacob’s ladder of humility. 

No Need for Envy

Memorial of Saint Pius X, Pope

By Colleen O'Sullivan

When it was evening the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Summon the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and ending with the first.’ When those who had started about five o’clock came, each received the usual daily wage.  So when the first came, they thought that they would receive more, but each of them also got the usual wage.  And on receiving it they grumbled against the landowner, saying, ‘These last ones worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who bore the day’s burden and the heat.’  He said to one of them in reply, ‘My friend, I am not cheating you.  Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?  Take what is yours and go.  What if I wish to give this last one the same as you?  Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money?  Are you envious because I am generous?’  (Matthew 20:8-16)

Piety

Count your blessings, name them one by one,

Count your blessings, see what God hath done!

(from “Count Your Blessings,” by Johnson Oatman, Jr., 1897)

Study

As I was reading this parable of the workers in the vineyard, the words and music to the old-time gospel hymn “Count Your Blessings” played in my head.  We’d all be better off spending more time tallying up our own blessings and less time envying what we think others have unfairly received.  Truthfully, if we appreciated, even to a small degree, the infinite nature of God’s love for us, we’d be brimming over with gratitude.  There’d be no room left in the day to be jealous of what anyone else has or when they got it.  We’d be so full of joy, we’d want others to experience that same bliss, and we’d rejoice when they did!

It all gets back to how thankful we are.  Even just a bit of ingratitude creates an opening where envy can wiggle in.  Envy is ugly.  Envy leads to resentment and bitterness.  Not a pretty picture at all.

Matthew was writing to a Christian community that wasn’t so sure about all the johnny-come-lately Gentile converts.  After all, the Jews had thousands of years’ history being God’s people.  They envied the ease with which these “undeserving” new kids on the block received God’s love, mercy and forgiveness.  The irony of that is that none of us deserve or can earn God’s love.  We are each recipients of all of God’s compassionate love, because God is generous beyond measure.  Those early Jewish Christians already had what they were envying in their newer brothers and sisters.  Maybe they had stopped seeing it as a gift and forgotten to be grateful for it.

Action

Every day, when you pray, take a few moments to reflect on the ways in which God has blessed you.  They may be small things, but if you make this a daily practice, it will gradually transform you.  You will find that you no longer envy others, because you have in abundance all you need from God – love, mercy and forgiveness.  You might even find it easier to rejoice in others’ good fortune, because you are so loved yourself. 

In God All is Possible

Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church

By Beth DeCristofaro

The LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have and save Israel from the power of Midian.  It is I who send you.”  But Gideon answered him, “Please, my lord, how can I save Israel? My family is the lowliest in Manasseh, and I am the most insignificant in my father’s house.” “I shall be with you,” the LORD said to him… (Judges 6:14-16)

Jesus looked at them and said, “For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible.”  (Matthew 19:26)

Piety

I arise today

Blessed by all things,

Wings of breath,

Delight of eyes,

Wonder of whisper,

Intimacy of touch,

Eternity of soul,

Urgency of thought,

Miracle of health,

Embrace of God.

May I live this day

Compassionate of heart,

Clear in word,

Gracious in awareness,

Courageous in thought,

Generous in love.

        (from “Matins”, John O’Donohue)

Study

St. Therese of Avila is credited with speaking her mind to God:  “If this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few of them.”   Her prayer comes to mind in Gideon’s word to God’s decree..  “Me? Lord? Save Israel?”  Or others like Moses:  “Me Lord?  I stutter, Lord…”  who heard God’s seemingly outrageous commands.

But for God, all things are possible.  Poet John O’Donohue reminds me that instead of feeling afraid, harried or overwhelmed, rather I can see each (of many) God-given blessings as gift.  And when I choose to say “yes” to God I also say “yes” to allowing God to love me.   “I shall be with you” God says.  The possibilities are infinite.

Action

In what ways do I struggle with controlling the possibilities in my life?  And in what way do I overlook God’s potentiality because I have made up my mind about certain people or am distracted by acquired things?  In what specific way can I say “yes” to God today, opening myself to compassionate, clear, gracious, courageous, generous loving action?

You Will Have Treasure in Heaven

Monday of the Twentieth Week in OrdinaryTime

Even when the LORD raised up judges to deliver them from the power of their despoilers, they did not listen to their judges, but abandoned themselves to the worship of other gods.  They were quick to stray from the way their fathers had taken, and did not follow their example of obedience to the commandments of the LORD. Judges 2:16-17

Jesus said to him, “If you wish to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven.  Then come, follow me.”  When the young man heard this statement, he went away sad, for he had many possessions.  Matthew 19:21-22

Piety

We are visitors on this planet.  We are here for ninety, a hundred years at the very most.  During that period we must try to do something good, something useful with our lives.  Try to be at peace with yourself and help others share that peace.  If you contribute to other people’s happiness, you will find the true goal, the meaning of life.  – The Dalai Lama

Study

There are times that I doubt the Bible is an historical document.  Today’s readings provide a prime example.  Most of the people of ancient Palestine were poor.  They were shepherds.  They were fishermen.  They were carpenters.  They were farmers.  While there was a ruling class, a priestly class and a military class, the majority of people we encounter in sacred scripture were of simple means. 

When I hear Jesus admonish such plain folk to eschew their many possessions, I wonder how much they could possibly have – BY TODAY’S STANDARDS.  It was big news when Peter abandoned all that he had.  A fishing boat.  It was big news when Matthew walked away from his tax collecting ledger. 

Likewise, it was bad news when people did not give up their possessions – like in today’s story.  One of Judas’ faults was how he kept control of the money pouch that helped to fund the excursions of Jesus teaching in the world. 

On the scale of what you will find in one room of any of our houses today, these people were poor in every aspect of life.  Life has changed little in some places from the quality of life when Jesus walked among these same sand dunes.  While today the Egyptians and Syrians and Turks and Jews have cell phones and air conditioning, they still lack water and continue to fight over the land that holds water and other precious natural resources and commodities. 

Despite how little they had, Jesus still asked them to give up all that they had.  What in the world would he ask of us if not the same thing?

Action

We are more like the people described in the readings today than the examples provided to the prophets writing Judges or Matthew.  Last weekend, I participated in two events.  Saturday, Fairfax County had a “document shredding event” at the North County Government Center in Reston.  Cars – mostly fairly new cars – lined up with up to five boxes of personal papers (tax returns, cancelled checks, etc.) which would be shredded and recycled for free.  Ostensibly to protect our private information from identity theft, getting ready for the event game me an opportunity to sort through reams of papers and boxes which had accumulated in our attic and basement and office and lives.

Sunday was “Electric Day” at (I love this name) the I-66 Solid Waste Transfer Station.  When I was growing up, we called this place the town dump.  But no.  Not in Fairfax.  In fact, we had to have a special day to discard our old computers, phones, stereos, and other equipment.  Some of that retains the same dreaded private information.  However, much of this has to be reclaimed separately because of the toxic chemicals which would be released if the monitors, screens, motherboards and more leeched into our water table…I guess that also protects our private information – our life.   

The scene was like the opposite of Black Friday when eager shoppers rush the doors at Wal*Mart.  In our fancy cars and trucks and SUVs, we lined up to get rid of the “stuff” we so eagerly bought just a few years ago.

There we were, giving old computers and cell phones and MP3 players the heave-ho.  But, in reality, every car in line had another one or two computers – newer models of course – still perched back at home.  Not exactly what Jesus intended in his instructions to the rich man. 

How much of what was tossed in the dumpsters could have been reclaimed and sent to another part of the globe where people would love to have what we toss aside?  How much of the stuff we tossed was even necessary from the outset?  How much of what remains behind in our offices, dens, kitchens, and bedrooms, could have been passed over as well?

Have we abandoned ourselves to the gods of Apple, Sony, Panasonic, and Google? 

How, then, shall we live?  This is the question posed by Wayne Muller in his book of the same name.  Muller’s version of the Ideal talk poses four questions to contemplate – questions that are as difficult as the directive Jesus issued to the rich young man. 

·         Who are you?

·         What do you love?

·         Knowing that you will die, what ideal will form your life?  Acceptance of what you have or a desire for more?  Simplicity?  Gratefulness?  Generosity?

·         What gift will you leave behind? Not the flotsam and jetsam intended for the dump (excuse me, the Solid Waste Transfer Station).  But what gift of lasting value will you leave behind?  

Set the Earth on Fire

Twentieth Sundayin Ordinary time 2013 C

By Rev. Joe McCloskey, SJ

Since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us rid ourselves of every burden and sin that clings to us and persevere in running the race that lies before us while keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith.  Hebrews 12:1-2a

“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

The fire that burns in our hearts for Christ is our piety.  How close to Christ we come depends on that fire.  If we love Christ more than anything else in life, then we have the fire that Christ brings to us.  How we walk in the footsteps of Christ determines how close we will come to the love that God sends into our world in His Son.  We are called to love the Lord our God with all our mind, heart and soul.  We can give all our strength of mind and body to his service if the fire burns hot enough.  We fan the fire with our study.  How much we pray makes a difference in our following Christ.  The ways we imitate good friends help.  The frequency of Eucharist allows us to take Christ into ourselves even as we become his presence to our world. 

Study

Following in the footsteps of the saints allows us learn how to incorporate Christ into our own time and place even as they did for their time.   Each Saint is an update of Christ because they bring into play all they have learned about Christ with the growth of appreciation of what Christ means to their day and age.   Every sermon we listen to gives fuel to the fire.  We have the chance to be close to Christ by surrounding ourselves with good people.  Wherever there is love, God is there.  Christ has loved us with the same love that the Father had for him.  We are challenged by Christ to love one another even as he has loved us.  No greater love has anyone who gives his or her life for another. 

Action

The fire that Christ brings into the world is divine love.  How we run the race of life to catch up to the Christ of our time brings out many differences in all of us.  The challenge of Christ’s love in our hearts is to love one another with such a great love that no one is able to tell whom we love the most.  We are challenged to love our enemies with the same love God has for us in the love of his Son who gives his life for the good and the bad alike.  Christ asks us to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds.  There is a great crowd of witnesses to the love of Christ and each action of our lives allows us to be one of them.  We are called to live the Sacrament of the present moment which means that all of our lives is a preparation for the moment we are now in.  It only takes the moment now to live a lifetime of love.  An afternoon with the Lord is the equivalent of a thousand years according to Peter.  (2Peter 3:7-8) We must try to love each other even as Christ has loved us.