Mark 10:45

Tag: Bible

  • The Heart of the Matter

    The Heart of the Matter

    Saturday of the 3rd Week of Lent

    Hosea 6:1-6; Luke 18:9-14

    When we hear the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, we are rightly drawn to the differences between them. However, I think time is well spent thinking not only about the differences but also the similarities, and what both have to teach us about ourselves and our prayer life, which is the reason Jesus taught this parable to begin with.

    The fact is, the two men have some important things in common. First, they’re both truthful. The Pharisee is telling the truth when he says he isn’t greedy, dishonest, or adulterous; so is the tax collector when he calls himself a sinner. Second, their actions are pious. The Pharisee tithes and fasts, while the tax collector stands at a distance, keeps his eyes lowered, and beats his breast as he prays. Third, both are men of deep conviction; they speak to God straight from the heart.

    Speaking to God from the heart is key, for Scripture teaches us that prayer is a work of the heart. The heart is where we live, our inner Temple, the place to which we withdraw (CCC 2563). At the same time, it is the place God knows best; he looks at the heart and knows its secrets (1 Samuel 16:7; Psalm 44:21). If we are righteous in God’s eyes, our prayers are fruitful (James 5:16); if not, our prayers are in vain (CCC 2562).

    This brings us back to the Pharisee. Although he seems to be speaking to God, his words betray a heart turned inward. Our Lord may be hinting as much when he says the man spoke this prayer to himself (18:11), but even if not, one thing is clear: God is the audience of his prayer, not the object. It’s tempting to think that we never do this, but my guess is that in the quiet of our own inner Temple, we can all recall times when we’ve focused a little too much on ourselves, have resisted what God is asking, acted as if the good things we’ve done we did on our own, or that in some way God likes us just a little bit more than he does some other people – especially people we don’t like.

    That’s the real problem. The Pharisee is right to say that he is not like the rest of humanity, but wrong because he’s comparing his behavior with what other people do, not with what God expects. The same is true for us; our standard is not other people, it is Christ. Given that, we can understand why God would say through Hosea, Your piety is like a morning cloud, like the dew that early passes away (6:5). Fasting, tithing, coming to the Temple: All are false piety if they don’t come from a truly humble heart.

    Humility, the foundation of all prayer, helps us to recognize our dependence on God and to appreciate our place in His plan. It is the virtuous balance between the extremes of pride on the one side and self-abjection on the other, which happens when we fail to recognize and use the gifts God has given us.

    As our Lord pointed out, humility was the great virtue of the tax collector. We know it from his posture and his words: Be merciful to me a sinner. What we do not know is what happened next. Did he live that humility out in his daily life by doing what the Baptist advised, Stop collecting more than what is prescribed (John 3:13)? While we must not push the parable beyond its limits, we must remember that humility not only orients us to God, but to each other as well. As with the Pharisee, it’s tempting think that we already live humbly in the world, but we must ask ourselves: Do we ever dwell on other peoples’ faults, gossip about them, seek their admiration, or return insult for insult?

    Like the Pharisee, this is the problem. True humility urges us to remember that God’s loving plan extends to all of humanity. We cannot live equitably with other people unless we treat them like equals, and we certainly cannot pray, no matter how humbly, “O God, be merciful to me a sinner,” if we refuse to be merciful to those who sin against us.

    Through the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, our Lord teaches us two lessons about prayer: First, the foundation of prayer is not our honesty, piety, or sincerity, but a contrite and humbled heart (Psalm 51:19). Second, the fruit of righteous prayer is a life of virtue most perfectly found in the life of Jesus, who took the form of a slave, humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross (Philippians 2:7-9). Indeed, no man so humbled was ever so greatly exalted.

  • Being Who We Were Made to Be

    Being Who We Were Made to Be

    Solemnity of St. Joseph, husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary

    Matthew 1:16, 18-21, 24a

    A theologian once said that “great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to our eyes. Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last some crisis shows what we have become.”1 When I read that, I wondered if he was thinking of St. Joseph. It fits him so beautifully.

    Joseph was certainly not a man accustomed to great occasions. The ordinary ones were enough: Learn a trade, get married, bring up a family. By the time we meet him in Matthew’s gospel, Joseph had already checked two of those boxes. It was the third that brought about the crisis.

    We know the basic story well: Learning that Mary is pregnant and unwilling to expose her to shame, Joseph intends to divorce her quietly. What we may not know are a couple of details. First, in that time and culture, “expose her to shame” meant the legal right to “make a show” or public mockery of her. That Joseph would not do this speaks of his love for Mary and sensitivity toward her. This brings us to the second point: his intention to divorce her quietly. Where we read “intention,” Matthew’s original word implies a decision made in angst, in the heat of a deep and inner passion. It might even go so far as to mean that Joseph was tempted to feelings of anger, shame, or indignation.

    Who can blame him? How would we feel? Joseph had plans for his life and had worked, maybe even suffered, to achieve them. Now, on the verge of actually realizing them, he found his plans shattered to pieces. Even more, Joseph loved Mary; he knew that divorce meant disgrace for her and the child, not to mention very dim prospects for their future. This was the heart of the crisis. He had to make a decision, to do something, but what could he do? Mary was pregnant, he was not the father, and the law was clear. His decision for a quiet divorce was the best he could think of. Even if it meant pain or distress for the woman he loved so much, the law came from God, who Joseph loved above all.

    This I think is the key. Remember the theologian’s words: “Silently and imperceptibly, as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak.” Joseph came to this crisis with a strong moral center; born into the faith of his fathers, he was raised in it, steeped in it, and guided by it. He wasn’t going to abandon it now or ever. No matter the cost to his own or to anyone’s honor, Joseph would honor his heavenly Father first.

    In its section on the 4th commandment, the Catechism lists two qualities of a respectful child: docility and obedience. As they apply to our role as children of God, docility is our readiness to follow God’s will rather than our own, and obedience is our willingness to do whatever God asks of us.

    Joseph had both of these gifts in abundance, and in time God would ask him to use them to their fullest measure. For now, though, what He asked was more than enough: First, that Joseph set aside his plan of being husband of Mary of Nazareth and instead be the husband of Mary, the Mother of God; second, that he set aside any plan he might have of raising his own children and instead raise the Son of God as his own.

    This is a lot to ask, but as we know, God is never outdone in generosity. In return for all Joseph was willing to do, God bestowed many honors on him: Joseph, called ‘son of David’ by God himself, would see the Son of God; Joseph, whose family line had held the God’s promise in their hearts for so long was now chosen to hold His fulfillment in his arms; and he, Joseph, was now the only one ever asked to give that Promise a name: Jesus, or “God Saves.” Ultimately, Joseph would be honored as the greatest saint of all time next to Mary, for as Blessed William Chaminade has reminded us, “To give life to someone is the greatest of all gifts. To save a life is the next. Who gave life to Jesus? It was Mary. Who saved his life? It was Joseph.”

    Let us pray that we become like St. Joseph; that every day, in the silence he modeled so well, we too grow stronger in our love for God, our faith in him, and our willingness to do whatever He asks. Then, like St. Joseph, when our own crises come, as they always do, we too can show God exactly what Joseph showed Him: The person He has called us from all eternity to be.

    St. Joseph, pray for us.

    1 The 19th-century Anglican bishop and theologian, Brooke Foss Westcott.

  • Is the King Glad? Saturday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time

    Is the King Glad? Saturday of the 1st Week in Ordinary Time

    1 Samuel 9:1-4; 17-19; 10:1; Psalm 21:2; Mark 2:13-17


    Guided and inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Church takes great care to choose readings for each day that highlight certain themes, most often represented by the psalm that comes between them. Today we hear a wonderful case in point, Psalm 21. On a purely human level, this is a joyful song of praise that God has endowed authority on an earthly king. On a divine level and as a messianic psalm it speaks of Christ, who indeed is glad and rejoices in the full authority given him by the Father. With good reason we repeat the second verse: Lord, in your strength the king is glad. But that doesn’t answer how the readings highlight that theme. As we will see, they do so in very different ways.


    As the story of Saul begins, it’s hard to know what he would have been glad about. It must have come as such a surprise! One minute he’s out looking for his father’s animals; the next, he is anointed as the first king of Israel. But although we can’t tell his mindset in the beginning, as the story unfolds it becomes clear: This king isn’t glad in the Lord at all. To the contrary, he has little regard for God’s authority; he has his own ideas and doesn’t want anyone, even God, to correct him. Worse, despite Samuel’s warnings, Saul never sees the problem; he remains blind to his own arrogance and self-exaltation until everything ends for him in complete disaster.


    By contrast, the story of Matthew doesn’t end with disaster but it does begin that way. Like Saul, Matthew is a man going about his business; unlike Saul, his business was what most Jews would have called a complete disaster: the customs post. Such men were among the worst of sinners; quislings who took money from their own people, gave it to their conquerors, and even kept some for themselves. Yet this is the kind of darkness where the light of Christ most brightly shines; passing by, the Divine Physician diagnoses Matthew, and in two words prescribes the remedy: Follow me.


    As with Saul, we have no idea what went through Matthew’s mind at that moment, but as always Mark invites us to put ourselves in the scene and contemplate. What would we do? Would we have doubts, fears, or misgivings? Did Matthew? Perhaps. All we know is what Matthew actually did, and here Mark couldn’t be clearer: He got up and followed Jesus. Again, this is only the beginning; the story unfolds in the fullness of time. Mark tells us that Jesus went to his house, ate with him and his friends, and told others that he came to call sinners. Though Mark then goes silent about it, that doesn’t mean we know nothing. We know that Matthew was glad in the strength of the Lord who called him out of his sinful life and offered him another, so glad that he followed Christ to the end and to the point that a gospel account would bear his name for all time.


    Two men, two calls, two responses, two completely different endings, yet the same theme: Lord, in your strength the king is glad. How does this apply to us? In two ways:


    First, we must understand that we, the baptized, are kings. At our baptism we were anointed kings and called as Christ was called – not to be served but to serve (Mark 10:45). And if we are kings, then we are glad in the strength of the Lord from the moment we decide to be a king less like Saul and more like Matthew; when we see every day as a call to live not on our own strength but on God’s, for it is he and he alone who points the way, who leads the way, who makes a way, and who is the way.


    Second, we must remember that good intentions aren’t enough; actions are required. How we act will depend on the gifts God has given us and the circumstances we find ourselves in. Whatever they are, the time is now and we will not be – we cannot be – glad in the Lord’s strength until we take what the Father has given us and, through the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, put it at the service of the kingdom he gave us through his Son.

  • Minute Meditation: Thank God

    1 Thessalonians 1:1-5, 8b-10

    In the first reading today, St. Paul says,

    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.
    For our Gospel did not come to you in word alone,
    but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction.

    I don’t. Thank God, I mean. At least, not enough.

    I know the ACTS of prayer – Adoration, Contrition, Thanksgiving, and Supplication – but tend to get stuck on the letter “S,” asking God for things. Of course I need to ask, but if that’s all I do then I risk treating God as little more than a divine vending machine. I also want to show God that I adore him, am sincerely sorry for my sins, and am grateful for all he has given.

    Which is where you come in. For as St. Paul reminded me this morning, God has given me you: People practicing the faith in your daily life, working to love all you meet, and enduring in great hope of the promises of Jesus Christ. I do thank God for you.

    But I can’t properly do that unless I also thank God for how you were chosen. Being self-centered and self-conscious, I get in the habit of behaving as if it all depends on me, that I must be eloquent enough, loving enough, patient enough. Those things are important but your faith doesn’t depend on them. No; as St. Paul reminded us, the Gospel comes to us not in word alone, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with much conviction. There is a power to the process far beyond any of us, working in ways we cannot understand, reaching us in depths no human being can go, touching and moving us in ways that nothing and no one else can.

    If that’s not worthy of thanksgiving, then what is?

  • One of the “Do Nots”: Friday of the 16th Week in Ordinary Time

    Exodus 20:1-17; Matthew 13:18-23

    Even though I’ve gone through it countless times over the last 35 years, each time still amazes me. I look at one of my kids, say, “Do NOT do that,” then find myself standing there incredulous, less than 5 minutes later, saying, “Didn’t I just tell you not to do that? Will you ever grow out of this?” But it was just recently, as I was going through it yet again, that I heard a voice in my head say, “You do the same thing.”

    Now, that could have been an echo of my mother or father, for I definitely did the same thing to them. It could also have been any of a number of nuns or priests, for I did it to them, too. Come to think of it, it could have been any of the adults who had to deal with me as a kid. It could have been, but I had the distinct feeling that it wasn’t. No, this was my conscience speaking, and not about past behavior, either. The voice didn’t say, “You did the same thing,” it said, “You do the same thing.”

    It’s true. Day after day, year after year, God has taught me through his word. It couldn’t be clearer than on a day like this when we literally read the 10 Commandments. Yet time after time, year after year, sometimes not 5 minutes later, I do exactly what God just said not to do. Why? If I understood the gospel today, our Lord has wrapped the reason in a parable which teaches me that I have a hearing problem.

    My ears work fine, that’s not the issue. The problem seems to be an inner, spiritual sort of deafness. When Jesus begins his explanation of the parable by saying, Hear the parable of the sower, he clearly wants his disciples to do more than use their ears; he wants their hearing accompanied by an attitude that says, ‘Lord, I am ready to be taught.’ Ask yourself how many times you’ve heard a gospel begin, thought, ‘Oh, I know this one,’ and then tuned out or paid little attention? This is the seed that falls on rocky ground; we hear but lack the docility, the teachable spirit, needed to help the word take root and endure. The gift of docility inclines us to remember that no matter how familiar a passage may seem, there is always something new to be learned.

    Our Lord also relates our hearing problem to a lack of understanding. We hear the word, but like the seed that falls on the path, let it go because we don’t understand it. In and of itself, lack of understanding is nothing to be ashamed of. Scripture can be hard to understand; it refers to cultures, peoples, and times far removed from our own. The problem comes in when we make no effort to learn more; to ask for help; to set time aside for study and contemplation of God’s word. Those who do this will find their time and effort well rewarded.

    Other times we can’t hear God because, as Jesus implies, his voice is drowned out by our own anxieties. We all know what it’s like to come to Mass or prayer with problems weighing us down. They distract us and before we know it the time has slipped by. It helps to begin preparing for our time with the Lord before leaving home, or if we’re praying at home to sit and recollect ourselves in silence before we begin. I find it helpful to repeat one of the old aspirations of the Church: “Let go and let God.” Not to forget or minimize what is on our mind but to make it part of our prayer, our offering to God, laying it on the altar and offering it as our sacrifice to the only One who can bring good out of it. I can’t think of a better way to quiet the inner voices so we can hear what God is saying.

    In years past, I thought of this parable as referring to different kinds of people: Those who hear the word of God and those who do not. That’s fine as far as it goes, but when God reminded me that I am one of the “do nots,” I looked a little deeper and saw the parable referring not to different kinds of people but different states of the spiritual life. That is great news for all of us, for it reminds us that conversion is possible; we can do something about our hearing problem. It is true that in the deafness of our sloth and arrogance, we are in the path; in our ignorance and shame, the rocky ground; in our anxieties and temptations, the thorny ground. But we don’t have to stay there; these grounds aren’t meant to be passively endured but to be grown out of. Christ ends the parable in the place we all want to be, so let us all today resolve that we will show him the humility, docility, and perseverance it takes to be transplanted into the soil that, truly hearing his word, bears fruit thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.

  • I Will Make You Great: Friday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time

    Genesis 46:1-7, 28-30

    An important part of getting to know someone is finding out about their background – their childhood, family, whatever details they’d like to share. It gives us a fuller, richer picture of the person, puts what they say and do in context, and helps us come to a better understanding and appreciation of them.

    Of course, we’re much more limited when it comes to getting to know people in the bible, but that doesn’t mean there is nothing to learn. Sometimes, important details lie hidden between the lines, and knowing them helps us not only to learn more about that person but also more about us and God. This is true for one of the most important, indeed foundational, biblical characters we have heard about this week – Jacob, the son of Isaac and grandson of Abraham.

    As we study the chapters of Genesis that tell us about his life, one thing is clear: Jacob came from a dysfunctional family. It began from the twin brothers’ birth. The name Jacob means “to supplant” or “replace,” and that is what he did, first duping Esau out of his inheritance, then tricking his father into giving him the blessing intended for his slightly older brother. But their parents, Isaac and Rebecca, are the real problem; they play favorites, Rebecca going so far as to help her favorite (Jacob) steal from his brother and get away, while Isaac sat idly by as his favorite (Esau) plotted murder against Jacob. Not what anyone would call a healthy family dynamic.

    Sadly the problem followed Jacob into adulthood, for he too played favorites. We heard this week how his favoritism of Joseph led to such envy in Jacob’s other sons that like their uncle Esau they too plotted to kill their brother – and nearly succeeded.

    Yet we also saw that things don’t always work out the way we think they will. Where in Jacob’s family revenge would be expected, by the grace of God Joseph took a different tack; just yesterday we heard him say to his brothers, It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you (Genesis 45:5).

    And therein lies the lesson: With God’s help, the unchangeable can change. Like Jacob, we are born with problems, born into problems, problems plague us all our lives. They may be dysfunctional relationships, addictions, abuse, the list is endless. Whatever they are we feel powerless to change them, and on our own we probably are. But the story of Jacob teaches us that we are not alone, that no matter what the problems are God has ways of dealing with them that we do not, and that as St. Paul once said, all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

    Although Jacob may have taken too much pride in himself and his own schemes over the years, he never forgot God’s purpose and to humble himself before it. In today’s reading we find him doing exactly that at Beersheba. He’s been there before; recall on Monday Scripture told of him fleeing from Esau as a frightened young man. Then, God spoke to him in a dream and, although the words are slightly different, the main points are exactly the same today: I am God… do not be afraid… I will make you great… I will be with you… I will bring you home. Through all that had happened to him from that first moment on – the joys, the sorrows, the love, the loss, the bliss, and the agony – Jacob was never alone. God was right there with him, doing what he said he would do.

    So let us resolve to respond as Jacob did. Scripture tells us that he took everything he owned and everyone in his family with him to Egypt (Genesis 46:6-7). That is, he was totally committed to whatever God wanted him to do. This takes great faith but that is ours for the asking. Jacob asked for it at Beersheba; we have the present moment, here in His presence. And let us remember too that God is never outdone in generosity. For his act of faith, Jacob was rewarded not only with the joy of holding his long-lost son in his arms once again but also, through the great prosperity and growth that Israel, the nation named after him, would come to enjoy, he could rest secure in the knowledge that God’s plan is far above any of human schemes and His merciful love infinitely bigger than any of our problems.

    The best news of all is that to those who commit themselves to Him as Jacob did hear the same words that Jacob heard. Keep them with you today and everyday. Here they are again: I am God… do not be afraid… I will make you great… I will be with you… I will bring you home.

  • All Things to One Man: The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    All Things to One Man: The Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus

    Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8c-9; Ephesians 3:8-12, 14-19; John 19:31-37

    In high school we once did an exercise on self-perception. Sister began by asking us to take out a sheet of paper and write down 3 negative things about ourselves. After a couple of minutes she said, “Alright, now write down 3 positive things about yourself.” I can’t remember what I wrote but I know I didn’t list three; I’m not sure I even wrote two. That was Sister’s point; self-conscious teen-agers aside, people in general tend to be very good when it comes to focusing on their negative qualities but not so good when it comes to the positive.

    The same goes for our relationship with God. If you’re anything like me, it’s probably much easier to come up with reasons why He shouldn’t think very highly of you than reasons why He should. Today, on the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, our Lord gives us at least three reasons to focus on the positive.

    First, listen again to his words in the 11th chapter of Hosea: When Israel was a child I loved him… I taught Ephraim to walk… took them in my arms… fostered them like one who raises an infant to his cheeks… stooped to feed my child… I will not let the flames consume you (Hosea 11:1, 3-4, 8-9). This isn’t the imagery of a God who loves from a distance, impersonally, or until we leave or hurt him; no, this is a God who loves intimately, with a deeply personal, boundless, and most of all, healing and merciful love.

    Second, as St. Paul makes clear, this is a love that goes beyond all words except the one, Eternal Word – Jesus. We can hear Paul struggling to express the inexpressible as he prays that we may have the 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 which surpasses knowledge (Ephesians 3:18-19). This is the key; divine love surpasses human knowledge and can be known only by faith (Ephesians 3:17), the gift of the Father possible only by the strength that comes from the Holy Spirit (CCC §683). To those who have faith, all the riches of grace are available.

    Finally, every image of the Sacred Heart reminds us with its crown of thorns of the cost of this love. We hear in the gospel of the soldier who thrust his lance into his side, and immediately blood and water flowed out (John 19:34). There is no love worthy of the name that is not asked to endure insult, temptation, and suffering. From the dawn of humankind it is written into our nature; it’s in our blood. But it isn’t in the blood of Christ, either from his Heavenly Father or his holy Mother, the Immaculate Conception. He willingly took it on. This is perhaps the greatest and most positive of all – that God, purely out of his infinite and merciful love for us, gave his only Son that we would be raised to life eternal. As Christ himself said, there is no greater love than this.

    St. Pio of Pietrelcina, Padre Pio, understood that very well. While passing through a crowd of people all clamoring to get near him, someone shouted, “Padre, you are all things to all men!” He replied, “No, I am all things to one Man.”

    May we all come to that kind of understanding! May we all see the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a day to set aside the negatives and focus on the overwhelming positive – that we too are all things to one Man. We are loved infinitely, personally, and mercifully; we are given the gift of faith which alone can make this love known to us beyond any human understanding; and finally, that as the ultimate expression of this love the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity took human form and allowed his own heart to be pierced that we may not only look upon him in mourning for the sinfulness that put him there but with rejoicing that divine love can take even the passion and death of Christ, the greatest insult of all time, and transform it into the greatest victory the world will ever know – the resurrection to eternal life for all who believe and return to God with their whole heart (Joel 2:12).

    Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us.

  • Lost and Found in Translation: Tuesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time

    Lost and Found in Translation: Tuesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time

    Ephesians 5:21-33; Luke 13:18-21

    When people say, “it’s all Greek to me,” they mean that they don’t understand what they’re hearing or reading. We may not realize it but we could often say the same thing about the bible, not so much because it really was written in Greek (and Hebrew) but because things get lost in translation. Sometimes those things don’t matter much; other times they can make a great deal of difference.

    Today’s first reading is a perfect case in point. What may come across as little more than a discourse on marriage is actually a beautiful meditation on various aspects of love that can benefit all people, married or not. The problem is that some of the subtleties lie hidden beneath the surface, lost in translation.

    For example, he begins: Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ. Although the meaning seems obvious, there are nuances. First, the word we translate as “subordinate” also implies obedience, like servant to master. Second, when he says “one another” he means everyone, not a select few. Third, the phrase “reverence for Christ” literally translates “in the fear of Christ.” So, what seems like a simple exhortation to treat each other well is actually a bold challenge to love like Christ: with the humility that seeks to serve and not to be served, and the fear of the Lord by which we reverence God above all things and others out of love for him.

    When it comes to the married, St. Paul begins with what many today see as a put-down of women: Wives should be subordinate to their husbands…. And while he clearly does follow the custom of placing men at the head of the household, an important subtlety is missing from our text. The original Greek reads, wives should be subordinate to their own husbands…. Whatever the reason, St. Paul clearly feels the need to remind the Ephesians of two additional aspects of love: Chastity and faithfulness. Once again, this is a lesson for us; just as we love the Lord and have no false gods before him, so we are to be chaste – faithful to our state in life – whether lay or clergy, married or single.

    Notice too that St. Paul quotes Genesis: a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This is the highest unity we can achieve – a bodily and spiritual communion ordained by God and indivisible by man. When I say “indivisible” I mean exactly that. In the original Hebrew and Greek the word is not joined, but glued. Imagine gluing two sheets of paper together and then, after it has set, trying to separate them. They will tear. We all know of the pain and sadness of the disunity that comes with divorce.

    Not that unity is pain free. In any long-term relationship like marriage, unity requires self-sacrifice. This is especially true as relationships mature over time. Life tends to show us things we didn’t see in the early years; among them, the weaknesses and failings of others. Our natural tendency is to focus on our own pain and suffering, to place blame on others rather than see our own role in them, and to withhold forgiveness rather than make peace with them and ourselves.

    But as St. Paul reminds us, we are to love as Christ loves the Church: Completely, despite and beyond its weaknesses, to the point of dying that she may live. This is the daily discipline of being servant of all, faithful to our state in life whatever it is, and bound to God and each other in a relationship that is life-giving, life-sustaining, and life-affirming, no matter the cost. This is painful but that is the pain of healing, the death that gives way to the new life of resurrection.

    Our Lord points to this in parable form in the gospel, where we see another aspect of love: that it not only unites but multiplies. When the Christian dies to self like leaven, the Church rises like three measures of flour; when husband and wife die to self, their new family flourishes, rising like the branches of the mustard plant toward Heaven, a home for its children.

    This is not possible apart from the grace of God, for God is Love and his grace the glue that binds us one to the other. The power of his grace works within us to form the mind of Christ, to imitate the love of Christ, and to hope more and more in the promise of Christ: that those who love as he loves will one day live as he lives, in the eternal life and infinite love of the Most Holy Trinity.

  • The Slave of the Slaves: Memorial of St. Peter Claver

    Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible.

    1 Corinthians 9:19

    Imagine being dragged aboard a ship, naked and chained in the darkness below deck, lying helpless for several weeks, through rough seas and stifling heat. There are over 500 of you; males here, females there. You are fed just enough to keep you alive. Starvation, disease, and death are rampant. No one knows where you’re going or what awaits you when the hatch finally opens. Over the centuries of the slave trade, millions of people saw that hatch open only to a lifetime of slavery in a strange New World.

    Yet, like a drop of mercy from heaven, hundreds of thousands of these same people saw that hatch open to reveal the caring, concerned face of a gentle Spanish Jesuit. He would come below and find the newborns who were still alive, pour water over them, make the sign of the Cross and pray. He then ministered to the dying, and the dead he had respectfully removed. To the sick he brought medicine and bandaged their wounds. Those too sick to leave the ship on their own he helped carry above. When he got to you, he would clean you, give you food, clothing, and fresh water. He would speak warmly and gently through an interpreter, although no translation was needed for his touch. This was a man fluent in the language of love and by the time he had finished, he had restored a measure of the dignity so shamefully taken away. Every moment, this man acted as if he was your slave and happy to be nothing more.

    That’s because he was.

    The man was Peter Claver, a 17th century priest and Jesuit who devoted his life to ministering however he could to every slave shackled in the darkness aboard the hundreds of ships landing in the port city of Cartagena. Fr. Claver took to heart the words of St. Paul, who said, Although I am free in regard to all, I have made myself a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible (1 Corinthians 9:19).

    Father’s devotion to the service of slaves sprang from his desire to imitate the service of his model, the Blessed Mother, to whom he was devoted. As a young novice he was so moved by a pilgrimage to one her shrines that he wrote, “I must dedicate myself to the service of God until death, on the understanding that I am like a slave, wholly occupied in the service of his master.” He traveled to the New World after hearing that millions of enslaved people died there knowing nothing of Christ. After his first few years serving them, Father signed the document of his final profession to the Society of Jesus with the words, “Peter Claver, slave of the slaves, forever.”

    Before the slaves were sent on, Father took whatever time was given him to teach them about Christ. He used pictures, rosaries, crucifixes, anything he could find. He concluded every session by teaching them to say, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, You are my Father. I am sorry for having offended You. I love You very much. I love You very much.” It is said that he personally baptized over 300,000 slaves.

    Fr. Claver continued his ministry for 40 years. Finally, sick, frail and exhausted, he knelt and kissed the feet of his young Jesuit successor and on the day he predicted – the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, September 8th, 1654 – he died at the age of 73.

    portsoy-1244572_640Although the slave trade of that era is thankfully no more, slavery still abounds. Who are the people in our own lives, chained in the darkness of sin, feeling helpless, uncertain and fearful of their destiny? Who are those with wounded or even dying spirits, on the brink of losing hope? Who are those starving for affection, for shelter, for safety, for dignity? Will you be the one to open the hatch to descend into their suffering and restore what dignity you can?

    Let us pray that we, like St. Peter Claver, may be the slave of the slaves, forever.

    St. Peter Claver, pray for us.

  • Fed to the Dogs: Wednesday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Fed to the Dogs: Wednesday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Matthew 15:21-28

    There are times in the gospel when Jesus says something that makes us ask, “Did he really just say that?” For example, his mother came to see him and what does he do but turn to his disciples and say, Who is my mother? (Matthew 12:48). Then there is the time he said, If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away (Matthew 5:29). Today is yet another, as he says to a woman pleading for help, It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs (Matthew 15:26).

    Did he really just say that?

    Well, yes. The question is, what did he mean? To answer that, we have to know more about the context.

    To begin with, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon (Matthew 15:21), pagan lands. We might wonder why he went there but I think it was for two reasons: First, as the Catechism tells us, Christ comes to meet every human being (CCC 2560); he wants none lost but all brought to knowledge of him. Second, he has just sparred with the Pharisees about what truly defiles a person, teaching them that it is not what goes into the mouth that matters but what comes out of it (Matthew 15:1-20); that is, vice or virtue. Where better to demonstrate that than pagan territory for, by implication, the Gentiles are not defiled (as the Hebrews assumed) because of who they are; to the contrary, there may be great virtue among them. He has come to see.

    The Canaanite woman does not disappoint. She too has come to see – to see Him – and on finding him shows the faith to call him Lord and the love to pray on behalf of her child: Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon (Matthew 15:22). She doesn’t know it but the Holy Spirit is moving within her, making her as St. Augustine once said, “a beggar before God” (CCC 2559).

    And a persistent beggar! Three times she is rebuffed. First when Jesus does not answer her (Matthew 15:23), again when he says, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel (Matthew 15:24). Anyone less persevering might have gone away but the Holy Spirit prompts her to move closer, now to the piety of doing him homage and pleading, Lord, help me.(Matthew 15:25). If it is help that comes it is of a mysterious sort, coming in the third rebuff, the now brief but infamous parable, It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs (Matthew 15:26).

    Before we get to the term “dogs,” consider the word “food.” Its literal translation is “bread.” In reality, Jesus is the Living Bread; in the parable, he is referring to himself. As for “dogs,” it is true that Hebrews compared people to dogs or called them dogs to imply they were either of very low status (e.g., 2 Kings 8:13; Exodus 22:31; Deuteronomy 23:18; 2 Samuel 3:8; Proverbs 26:11; Ecclesiastes 9:4; 2 Samuel 9:8; 1 Samuel 24:14) or evil (Philemon 3:2; Revelation 22:15). And although Christ softened the term by changing it to puppy or house dog, it was still in no way complimentary. However, taken as a whole, Christ is challenging her by way of parable to ask herself, “Jesus is the bread, Israel are the children; where do I belong? How am I fed?”

    Her answer is inspired: Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters (Matthew 15:27). Not only does she say nothing about the term ‘puppies,’ she humbly puts herself in the dog’s place yet proposes an ending to his parable that allows everyone to partake in Christ, Jew or Gentile, each in their own place. The Holy Spirit has enlightened her mind with the gift of understanding; she has begun to see that the answer to her prayer, to all prayer, means uniting her will with the will of Christ, which as we said above is that none be lost but all come to knowledge of God, who is love.

    Thus, through this faithful woman’s inspired reply to his challenge, Christ has vindicated his argument to the Pharisees that the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart (Matthew 15:18), in her case humility, perseverance, love, and understanding. These are as he said the key to “great faith” (Matthew 15:28) and they only happen when we allow the Holy Spirit to work within us, slowly but surely uniting our will to the perfect will of God.