December 28, 2008: The Feast of the Holy Family

As they held the Child, Mary and Joseph heard words from Anna and Simeon. Anna’s words have been lost to us, but Simeon’s are haunting: “this Child is destined to be downfall and the rise of many…a sign that will be opposed.” As I think on His message, a message about not judging others, a message about turning the other cheek and not resorting to power and violence, I think how often I, myself, have “opposed” those words and that message. I think of how I’ve “risen” by humility, and “fallen flat” when I forgot His message, and let pride puff me up, only then, to fall. I’ve seen Simeon’s prophecy come to life in me! The author of the letter to the Colossians knew that same struggle, and urges everyone to “forgive their grievances…as God has forgiven them.” For in doing so, we become the humble, peaceful “family of God,” setting His authority over us, and honoring Him, as the Book of Sirach begs us do.

December 25, 2008: Christmas

Light in life’s darkness, joy in the midst of tears, freedom born in slavery: these are the works of God in the world; of this Isaiah is certain. St. Paul calls this Light “Grace,” and describes it as a “Trainer.” How many of us have (or wish we had) personal trainers, helping us to keep physically fit? Here, God’s Grace (personified in Christ) is seen as “a spiritual trainer” coaching us to avoid life’s pitfalls, and to do good. Luke’s Gospel announces that although Augustus Caesar may have called himself “son of God, and prince of peace,” that the Light was really elsewhere…in a tiny manger, in little Bethlehem, attended by shepherds (a job considered one of the lowest occupations a human being could have at that time.) Yet they, in their smallness saw the Light. We can, too; and that Light can be the Grace that trains us to become men and women of depth, doing all the good we are capable of doing. Let us rejoice in our smallness, and welcome the Light this night.

December 21, 2008: Fourth Sunday in Advent. Scripture Reflection:

David’s one great wish was to build God a “house,” in other words, he wanted to be the one to build the Temple in Jerusalem. In this reading from Samuel, we see God gently remind David that it is God Who builds “houses,” and that He has, indeed, built the “house of David,” and that David’s heir, in this case Solomon will build the Temple. Solomon (Shlomo, in Hebrew) comes from the word “Shalom,” the word for peace. David had been a man of war, securing the boundaries of Israel, but God wanted His Temple built by a man of peace. And, true to his name, Solomon made treaties of peace with all the nations around him, and in so doing was worthy of building God’s “house.” In the Gospel it is to a “maiden of Nazareth,” not to a warrior, a revolutionary, or to a grand orator that God comes to “extend his spiritual House and Kingdom.” The powerless maiden will bear in her womb the Lamb of God Who will die for the world. It is to this powerlessness, St. Paul tells us, that we Gentiles are invited. May gentleness and humility carry us to the manger this year.

december 14, 2008

In the Gospel, John the Baptist found it hard to say exactly who he was, and found it easier to say who he was NOT. There is wisdom in that. Were he to have said, “I am the Voice of Deliverance!” he would have probably got a big head, and pride would have overtaken him. As it was, he said, “I’m NOT the Christ; I’m not even the light! I’m not Elijah nor am I a prophet…I guess I’m just a voice in the desert…” St. Paul encourages each of us to say, “I am NOT perfect! I am NOT particularly holy, and I am NOT irreproachable.” That way, we can be open to the Power of the One Who CAN make us holy, and lead us in goodness. It is so important to humility to know what we are not. It is when we are truly humble, accepting our insignificance that God can work through us, placing the Spirit upon us to help others heal and find freedom. As we approach the manger, low as it is, we have to learn to kneel, let us pray for humility and tenderness.

December 7, 2008

Can the desert road ever be a “traveler friendly place?” The biblical poet thinks it can. It’s in the deserts of our lives that God finds us, and makes “highways” to lead us out. If you’ve ever had a “desert experience,” you know it’s nothing to sing about. It was probably one of the lowest points in your life. And it probably felt like it would never end. St. Peter tells us that God doesn’t “delay,” in keeping this promise to rescue us from disaster, though it can feel like that. Rather, there are subtle shades of sadness with which we must become familiar to have the proper “repentance,” or “attitude of soul.” Otherwise, we won’t recognize the Voice of Deliverance when it comes—and this is what is hinted at in the Gospel: John the Baptist, the Voice of Deliverance was so unexpected that he was largely ignored. This week’s “preparation” for the celebration of the “Light” of Christmas involves learning from our darkness, or better said, learning why we are in the dark, so that when the way to the Light appears we’ll know to follow it. Interesting ideas, no? Maybe we should be preparing for our penance service on December 15th.

November 16, 33rd Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Next Sunday is the Last of the Church Year. So, this weekend's readings bring us very near to the "end of time," so our readings speak of the “end” of things as we know them. St. Paul discusses death and the world’s end with the Thessalonians, and in the Gospel, Christ gives a parable about “making an accounting” for all that has been given us. Obviously, these readings are preparations for the “end,” and ask us to always keep “the Higher Purpose” to Which our lives are dedicated, and for Which we will have to answer in the forefront of our minds. But it’s the first reading, from Proverbs, that tells us HOW to prepare. This reading is the “Eshet Chayil”–the celebration of the “Valiant Woman,” as the Text is known in Judaism, as it is read every Sabbath. How does she (the valiant woman, the "mother of Israel") teach us how to “prepare ourselves for the End?” She merely does what needs to be done, each day. For it’s in the daily tasks of life that we “work out our salvation,” as St. Paul put it. We bring light to the darkness, lift the fallen, help the hungry, care for the fragile. It’s in our daily living that our lives conform themselves to the Christ. Let’s get busy, then. As we’d say in Kansas, where I was raised: “Time’s a wasting!’”

November 23, 2008, Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King

Today’s readings focus on the future–with the prophet Ezekiel, in the first reading, poetically describing the final and ultimate “pasturing” by God of His weary, worn sheep, having grown frustrated with the poor pasturing they’ve had to endure for centuries, nay millenia. Then, St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church is a meditation on the cosmic "end time" work of the Christ in “collecting” all that is and has ever been into His hands, and then, at the end, presenting it ALL to the Father, redeemed and whole. The Gospel assures the reader of eternal rewards at the final judgement, the “Last Accounting–though it’s a “mixed bag.” Why? Well, anyone with a mind who reads this Gospel passage, reads it with some discomfort. Look closely: those who, apparently, thought they had “salvation” sewn up by “knowing” the Lord, don’t. And those who never had a clue, never knew Who the Lord was, “get it!” As I say, it’s disconcerting. It’s probably best to read it as the story of all of us–none of us perfect–all of us having fed some people, and ignored some people, cared for some people, not bothered about others. Such is life. Perhaps the point is to encourage us to “keep at it” when the going seems especially rough. Right now, our economy is so unstable that “taking care of ourselves,” alone, is a Herculean task, so perhaps we can read the lessons, today, as a “cosmic plea” from Christ’s own lips to try a little harder to care for the frail. If the world is tough for us–with all the resources we have at our disposal–how much worse for those with less! So...let’s let that old “Catholic Guilt” (which is really simply a Higher Consciousness) grab us, yet again, and may our lives become benedictions of Goodness in our world. God bless.

November 9, 2008, Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

This is an odd feast–celebrating the first church we ever built as a Christian religion. Before this, anything we used as a church was, in reality, a hiding place, for our religion was illegal. The emperor Constantine with the Edict of Milan made us a “legal religion,” and thus we were able to “build” in the open a place of worship for ourselves. We got this property in Rome from the Laterini family, and dedicated the church to the memory of St. John. So the readings are about the holiness of space–with the Prophet Ezekiel, in the first reading, speaking of the Jerusalem Temple as being the epitome of sacredness in the world–not a place “walled off from human traffic,” but rather a place from which “Life Energy” symbolized by “water in a desert,” flows forth to water all the earth. St. Paul reminds us that while there are sacred places, the Church is more than brick and mortar–it subsists in the hearts and souls of the believers, ourselves, as we make up a “spiritual Temple” of wonderful holiness. And the Gospel is all about Jesus’ “cleansing” of the Temple wherein He simply “symbolically” restored the “court of the Gentiles” as a place free of clutter and commerce, so that the Gentiles might, also, worship God in their assigned place. This latter act of Christ reveals His openness to the vague and the different of the earth–calling them to the “center of the world” (which the Temple was mystically thought to be) and recognizing them as worthy of God’s service--no matter how "far off" others thought them. So, what do we learn? We learn that “holiness” is always “life giving,” not sanctimonious, and that it resides throughout the earth, for God is everywhere, but especially in us, His people, and that with all our goofiness, we are, indeed, invited to experience the Grace and Goodness of God. Such is our celebration of our first building–celebrating “ourselves and our mission” as much as that ancient construction.

November 2, 2008, Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls’ Day)

Fittingly, the readings this Sunday are “funeral readings.” We are commemorating our dead. The first reading assures us that those who were tragically slain, young, before their lives could be lived (especially those who were struck down for the sake of goodness,) are in God’s eternal care, a “future” that may, indeed, involve them in the Greater Responsibilities of “judging nations.” Why? Because they’ve learned the hard way all about the pointlessness of violence and revenge, and, because His Grace and Mercy abide with them, they are tutored in a deeper, more profound charity. In the first option for a second reading, St. Paul reminds us that “the love of God has been poured out into our hearts,” the very same Love that the Song of Songs assures us is “stronger than death.” The second option for a second reading presents a “cosmic view” of baptism, wherein it may start in a small baptismal pool, but in reality it is an initiation onto the eternal path that will bring us “to the Glory of the Father”--the beginning, then, of an eternal journey to the Heart of God. And, in the Gospel reading, Jesus assures us by all that’s Holy and Good that the will of the One Who sent Him is that He should not lose anything given Him...and in I Corinthians 15, which will be read in a few weeks for the Feast of Christ the King, we are told that by the end of time, ALL will have been given Him, and all creation will be placed beneath His feet so that He can present it to the Father. These are indeed optimistic and hopeful readings in the face of death’s dominion, and they call us to trust the God Who gave us life–a God Who has proven trustworthy in every generation.

October 26, 2008, 30th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

We are beginning the climax of the Church year. At the end of November, the Church year ends. And, so the readings we’ll hear over the next few weeks orient us toward “The End”... of life, of time, of the world...and ask us to be prepared so that we may transcend the limitations of physical life, and time and the material world to know eternity. Just as the beginning of the Bible--Genesis Chapter 1–builds toward Sabbath, the crown of all creation–the day when God and humans “meet” and get to know each other, the readings of the next several weeks “build” toward the New Creation or Re-creation of all that has ever been, as all of existence and its history is bound up into the promise of eternal life. This week’s readings bring us to the basics of religion–just in case we were losing our way. The duties we owe to God are truly life-giving things, for He IS the Lord of Life! And, so, LOVE is at the center. Exodus reminds us, though, that “love, Love, LUV!” is merely poetry UNTIL we begin to do definite actions: stop oppressing aliens and the poor, being decent in lending to those in need, etc. It is in doing the daily “little things” that we embody religion and “imitate the Lord,” and fulfill the poetry of love. Let us “love” in the small things, so that our lives may paint the Greater Picture. God bless.

October 19, 2008, 29th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

There are dozens of different opinions about what today’s Gospel means. Without getting too deeply into that debate, we can safely say that when Jesus mentions Caesar and God in the same sentence, He seems to be addressing “power.” Isaiah is also addressing “power” in his oracle that comprises the first reading. Isaiah sees that this “foreign, pagan, Gentile dictator” is actually merely a “pawn” of God. He has “power” (he was the first “world emperor” in the ancient near east), but GOD put him where God wanted him so that he could do God’s bidding–in this case: rebuild the state of Judah and the city of Jerusalem. Christ recognizes a power in Caesar, but He, too, seems to see it as inferior to the Real Power: that of God. St. Paul speaks of the “power of the Holy Spirit” which touched the Thessalonian Church. So, the question for us is: when we are feeling weak and powerless, inferior and vaguely debased, how do we find strength? Where do we go for power? Do we shop? Do we manipulate our kids, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, our people? What do we do? The readings suggest something deeper, more interior, and more connected to God, the Source of All Power. May you be powerful this week in this sense of deep connection to Goodness. God bless. 

October 12, 2008, 28th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

We’ve entered the “difficult readings” of Matthew’s parables–last week’s, this week’s–they seem to present a “raging, moody, cantankerous God” who outdoes us, if that’s possible, in vengeance. Not only does he not forgive those who killed His servants (something Christ will do from the Cross,) He trashes those not fully prepared for the feast–those not clothed in the wedding garment after they’ve been dragged in from Heaven knows where, to eat! Christians have enjoyed seeing this parable as “the replacement of the Jews by Christians, and the wedding garment symbolizing baptism!” but that seems to me a spiritually lazy approach. We need to read this parable as a response to Isaiah’s vision for the future, which is one of God’s bounty being acknowledged by all the earth, as all make their way to God, and join the banquet, and tears of angers ancient and rages new all melt away as we learn to care for each other, and then, even death–the last human enemy–will be overcome. The question then that this parable raises is: “How do we live with the words of Isaiah’s positive hopefulness, in a world that is so very ugly and vicious? Is it even possible?” This Gospel parable is all about realism! It second guesses the entire Christian/Isaiahan project. Is it possible to overcome hate, and love the enemy deeply when the enemy doesn’t quit? St. Paul reminds us that in God there is always ABUNDANCE—whatever we need, He will supply. So, take heart. The possibility for overcoming the violence within us is there. Let’s try. Shall we?

October 5, 2008: 27th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Today’s Gospel is comprised of one of the very strangest parables in the entire corpus of the parables of Jesus: the “owner” of a vineyard abandons his property, leasing it to tenants, but not sticking around to pay attention to what they do; then after many murders of those he had sent to claim some of the harvest, he sends his son, who was also killed by those voracious thugs. Then the question: NOW, what do you think the “owner will do?” And the only intelligent answer would be “NOTHING!” He hasn’t done anything, yet! He’s shown no concern for daily management, or any number of deaths; why do we think his reaction to this one would be any different, just because it was his son? He must not have cared too much about his son to begin with! And this is the interpretative clue–there was only one ruler of Judea who didn’t love his children, and had a number of them murdered, for fear they were plotting to replace him, and who spent as much time "outside" the country as in it, as he "buttered up" the Caesar. That was King Herod, the Herod reigning when Jesus was born. Here, Christ is simply looking at history, and asking us to learn from it. And what do we learn? Violence begets violence–there is no end to it. Herod was followed by procurators like Pilate! The pain has only increased through rebellion. St. Paul urges us to be peaceful so that the God of peace may be with us, and only thus can we avoid being “overrun with thorns,” and ruined, as Isaiah’s vision instructs. Can we make our peace, today? God bless.

September 28, 2008, 26th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Today’s Gospel presents two sons, both of them portray most succinctly each one of us at different times in our lives, as we relate to God. There are times when we turn away, ignore the Voice–often at a distance from church, Mass and holy things. Other times, we are attending Mass, prayer groups, and Bible study groups, or maybe we’ve found spirituality in something else, but we’re practicing it....but, with all the “hoopla” of our practice, we know deep inside that we’ve closed ourselves off to what The Voice is asking of us. This is SO human and SO normal. So, how do we move? Change? Oh, it’s all a mystery–the Grace of God. We find ways to justify ourselves for a while–like what Ezekiel knew people in his day were saying: “The Lord’s way isn’t fair!” Or any number of other self-justifications for remaining pretty dense and ugly! Then, what happens? Somehow, we sense what God has done for us, in Christ, or in blessings more diverse, and we find ourselves on our knees! But, the readings call us NOT to stay on those knees; that’s not where we’re wanted! We are wanted “in the field” to which we were called by “our Father” in the first place, doing what we were asked to do. So, let’s get busy, shall we? 

September 21, 2008, 25th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

The Gospel, today, is strange and delightful because it’s strange! We’ve all heard it dozens of times, and each time, we’re vaguely uncomfortable, for we know we, too, would want more pay for a whole day’s work than what would be given someone for an hour’s lax effort. But, that really isn’t what the Gospel is about at all. If you look closely, you’ll see that land owner went to the town square 5 times throughout the day, and each time he takes everyone who is there. So, when he goes at the end--almost quitting time, and these ne’er-do-wells tell him, “Sir, we’ve been here all day, and no one would hire us,” he knows they’re lying! He's been there 5 times, and they were nowhere to be seen! He knows they’re lazy. He knows they don’t deserve “boo!” Yet, such is not the nature of our landowner. And at the end of the day, each gets what the landowner has to give, for that’s all he has to give. It’s a metaphor for “heaven,” if you will, or God’s love and care. In the end we all get to be with God. And that HAS to be enough! Some “turn” (a verb for repentance in the Bible) early, some of late, and most of us turn little by little, a bit now, a bit more tomorrow. But God’s love is constant and eternal for all His creation, which is why Isaiah realizes that His ways “are not our ways.” We’d have favorites! Or we would penalize! God sees it differently. It’s little by little, turning as we can, that we learn to “magnify Christ” in our lives, as Paul puts it, and this is its own reward, the one that keeps us into eternity. I don’t know about yours, but much of my life is spent avoiding getting hired! I’m “turning as I can,” a little at a time, and hope to be there by the 5 PM visit! May we with the maid of Nazareth say, “My soul does magnify the Lord!” God bless. 

September 14, 2008, 24th Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Can I ask you to look at something familiar through different lenses, just to see what it might reveal when seen in a different light? First the background: The first reading is a strange one: the Israelites are exhausted and grumpy, and they “complain against God and Moses.” This tells us that they are, truly, at the end of their tether. They’ve exhausted all others to blame, and now they are going for God! And, so, the Text says: “The Lord sent among the people ‘seraph serpents.’” Now, in Hebrew that means “a serpent of fire!” Like the “tongues of flame,” these serpents of light, attack, and people start to get sick and die. Then Moses makes the bronze serpent and lifts it up for all to see. WHY? Polished bronze in the ancient world was used as a MIRROR! This “shows” them what they’re doing! They’re striking out, like serpents, at each other and killing each other with their words. This “MIRROR” allows them to see what they’re doing and stop it. Thus will healing come, and the depth of Shalom. Now we come to a Gospel reading where Christ says, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent...so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever sees him might not perish but have eternal life.” Have you ever thought of Christ’s cross as a MIRROR? Showing us what we are doing to each other every day? Do you see the challenge this "lens" for viewing the Cross places on each of us? This Gospel is a plea to stop hurting each other for whatever reasons...just stop! And let the healing begin and the Shalom come. May we all know that healing and that peace. God bless. 

September 7, 2008: 23rd Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Today’s readings are all about living “blamelessly” on the earth, and we see from the outset that it’s next to hopeless! The prophet Ezekiel sees the problem: “I” may be avoiding some dangerous situation or behavior, but what if a friend is engaging in it, and I ignore it? How can I live with myself? The prophet senses he HAS to speak–for not to do so would be to consign a friend to awful pain that, with some help, he might have avoided. Jesus seems to touch on the same issues in the Gospel reading. The Church is not to be a “museum for saints,” but a hospital for sinners, and lots of folk are really floundering, when what they need is some direction. Christ says, “If he doesn’t heed you, treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.” Of course, that raises the question, “How should a Gentile or a tax collector be treated?” And Christ loved them! Dined with them. Made at least one a disciple. So...it’s not as “simple” a read as it first looked. For at the end of the day, we are called to “expand” our love, our circle of care. It’s in doing so that we “lift” ourselves and all humanity a little higher, which is why St Paul reminds the Romans that all duty to God and neighbor is summed up in loving care. This is the legacy we are asked to leave in our wake as we walk the earth--not a naive "blamelessness"--for who can live on the earth and not be somewhat sullied by it? But rather, the legacy we are to leave is a "care" for others that endures--through life's "thick and thin," through people's battles with their weaknesses. May we walk gently and love deeply and as broadly as Grace allows us! 

August 31, 22nd Sunday in OT, Cycle A

Ah, poor Jeremiah! A man torn apart in his lifetime. Here, we see him cry out to God, wishing his fate might be other than it is, yet knowing he has to live out his destiny. And in the Gospel, Jesus, too, senses the pain involved in living out His Destiny. And, like us, Peter cries out, “NO!” He doesn’t like pain–for himself, or for Christ! (I don’t either; I hate pain! And, I’ll bet YOU don’t like it much, either.) But, Christ is adamant. There is a pain in living that can not be avoided. And, if one wants to live a kind and gentle life, the pain may be brutal. No wonder St. Paul asks us to make our lives a “sacrifice” to God. What we are to see is that Jeremiah, St. Paul and Jesus–all men who chose to live gently and kindly on the earth–doing good, and not returning evil for evil, but absorbing it, and transforming it into something gentler and peaceful–these men were NOT masochists, loving pain and sacrifice and agony. They merely point out that every life has it price. The price of a kind and gentle life looks high, from the outside looking in, but, in the end, it is probably the far, far better option. The price of shallowness and dissipation is truly tragic. So, this weekend we are asked to look at OUR lives, and make decisions. God bless. 

August 24, 21st Sunday in OT, Cycle A

We had this Gospel where Jesus asks, “Who do people say I am?” not long ago. And we saw how it was a statement of Who the Christ is as compared with what other religions thought of as divinity. But, this weekend we are asked to look at it from a different perspective: that of what it says about the Church and the believers in the Christ. Just as the “Master of the Palace,” Eliakim, carried ceremonial keys in procession, symbols of the keys he held to “every part” of the palace of the King of Israel–all its secret cubby holes and nooks and passageways, so, too, the Church is entrusted with the “keys” to the mysteries of God, Whose ways are deep, inscrutable, and unsearchable. One other time this year, I believe (if I’m not mistaken,) we’ll have this reading again–closer to the end of October which Protestants celebrate as “Reformation Sunday,” and we’ll read this Gospel and meditate on the role of “Peter,” and order in the Church. Today, though, it’s all about wandering through the rooms of the palace of the King of Kings. Do you feel you have lots of keys to those passageways and cubbyholes of Grace? You do, you know; you truly do. That’s what it means to be Graced. God bless. 

August 17, 20th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

God’s aggravating universalism is the subject of all three readings, this weekend. On the one hand, we like a God who loves everybody. On the other hand, we like a God who “gets even” with those who don’t follow His teachings, and frankly, we would like Him to “draw some clear lines in the sand,” so that the “good” (we) are clearly distinguished from the “bad” (them.) Isaiah subverts that desire, and lets us know that God is the Lord of all, and finds a way to welcome all. Paul, says, something to the effect: you “Gentiles” are not better than the Jews you aren’t getting along with, nor are they “better” than you; so, be nice! And the Gospel is a remarkable account of Jesus, Himself, wrestling with the universalism demanded of Him–whether to heighten the suspense and thus teach His disciples more profoundly, as the early saints thought, or whether He, Himself, had to “grow,” too, as some modern commentators feel. One way or the other, God is bigger than we want Him to be, and His love more broad than we are comfortable with. (These readings should be “the” readings for all priestly and episcopal ordinations and all solemn religious professions! If those who lead don’t remember this truth, and try to own it, how shall the rest of us do so?) 

August 10, 19th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

In the first reading, we encounter a prophet trying to re-find God, and we are given the contrast of “Shock and Awe” vs. Silence as a “clue” to how he found Him. And in the second reading, Paul addresses the community of Christians in Rome, who, too wish to find God, and he urges them to pay attention to the silent heritage of Israel, a heritage not expressed in bombast, but in the silent page, open to be studied and learned from. And, then, poor Peter, in the Gospel who can’t overcome the seduction of the “bombast” to find a calm, holy center, and nearly drowns–a metaphor for all of us, most of whom will never walk on water, but who may nearly drown, nonetheless. True “religion,” the encounter with God, the Lord of our lives, isn’t complex, and needs no pyrotechnics. Nor does it need our personal shame to turn us around. It’s enough to be touch the source of Healing, and let the healing power flow. Then, we, too, like Christ, can become the “hand that lifts” the drowning.

August 3, 18th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

For the English speaking crowd, one of our favorite hymns is a musical setting for Isaiah’s elegant words, “Come to the water.” The prophet reminds his hearers and readers that the “Water” is always free, given at no cost whatsoever. What does he mean? What was “costly religion” in his day? It was the competing religions. There was Baalism, the traditional religion of the area, a religion centered in how to get and keep wealth, or there was Dagonism, the religion of the Philistine neighbors to the west, which was the religion of power and how to get it and keep it; the religion of Egypt, with its mysteries that sought out the meaning of the heavens as it tried to secure an afterlife, was always tempting, and the religion of the Ammonite neighbors to the east, Molechism, was a religion of rage, vengeance and disrupting all order to one’s gain. We have those religions with us, today, too; now they bear different names, and some of them have co-opted the name of the Prince of Peace as their champion. But they always were, and they still are, terribly costly, not only to the practitioner, but to the whole society. Then, there was Torah, the “Water of Life,” teaching simple justice in the "here and now," there for all to read and to study–free of charge. And when one delves into the Scripture and finds one’s Life there, there is nothing that holds us back on our path to each other and to God, as Paul would say. Matthew’s Gospel wants to say to us that the teaching of Jesus is nourishing to the Nth degree...water of life and bread of life, and, it, too, is there, for free–at no cost, other than the time one must invest in studying it and learning to enter into it so as to embody it. So, what’s stopping us? Hmmmm. 

July 27, 17th Sunday in OT, Cycle A

We meet King Solomon in this weekend’s first reading. Legends about him abound in Jewish lore. It was once popular to say that he was the wisest man who ever lived. The reading wants to tell us that he got that wisdom because he went to God, the source of all wisdom and asked for it. He didn’t ask for material things, but for wisdom. If we could ask God for anything (and we can) what would we ask for? (I might like a red sports car; it might push the darkness back a bit! Or, the winning Mega-Millions ticket!) Solomon asked only for wisdom. In the Gospel reading, Jesus suggests that God’s wisdom is shown in the “treasure” He finds buried in the field—and that is you and me! Imagine that! And the rest of scripture is spent telling us that God considers us precious enough to DIE rather than give us up. Awesome, no? Mull on that mystery as you wander the beach or hike in the mountains or sit by the pool this summer. I’ll bet it will make you feel as good as it makes me feel.

January 18, 2009: 2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Our readings speak of “listening.” Samuel must learn to “hear” the Voice of God, and as the disciples “hear” the words of John, they are drawn to Jesus the Word of God Whose Voice will form them and transform them from fisherfolk into faithful disciples of the Prince of Peace. Twenty centuries separate us from the disciples and Jesus, 40 centuries separate us from Samuel and Eli, yet the task they faced is the same task we face: training our ear to hear the Eternal Voice. Let us pray for ears that can hear the Voice of God over the myriad other voices that compete for our loyalty.