Mark 10:45

Tag: Homily

  • Our Mother, Clothed With the Sun: Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe

    Revelation 11:19a; 12:1-6a, 10ab; Luke 1:39-47

    The book of Revelation is apocalyptic literature. This was a genre used in and around the time of Christ. It is overloaded with rich and mystical symbolism; a single image may represent multiple things. Further, the imagery can be violent and warlike, even though its ultimate message is one of hope and peace.

    In the passage of Revelation chosen for today’s feast lurks a huge red dragon. The Hebrew word translated as dragon can also mean “serpent” or “sea monster” and is thought to represent the devil and the forces of evil, ready to make war against the Christ and his Church.

    In late 15th century Mexico, the Spanish conquistador Cortez saw echoes of that dragon in the violent, warlike Aztec religion. Every year, thousands of people were sacrificed to appease its bloodthirsty gods. In 1487, the dedication of a new pagan temple saw 80,000 people sacrificed in just a few days. As if that weren’t bad enough, the dragon’s shadow also appeared in some of the immigrants to the new world, who spoke of peace but practiced avarice, treating the Mexicans and their land as things to be exploited for personal gain. Even some within the Church hindered the spread of the gospel by refusing vocations from the local community; Catholic Mexicans were not allowed to minister to their own people. It’s not hard to understand why many resisted converting to Catholicism.

    If a reflection of the dragon could be found in the new world, so could a reflection of the woman. In 1531, a mystical apparition identified herself as “the ever Virgin, Holy Mary, the Mother of God” to a middle-aged Mexican man named Juan Diego. In Revelation, the woman was clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet, and wore a crown of stars. The apparition at Tepeyac is also rich in symbolism, but it is all Aztec. The woman stands in front of the sun, eclipsing the Aztec sun god; her foot rests on the moon, dominating their chief god, Quetzalcoatl; her mantle holds the stars, which they worshiped. Yet, the woman is not divine; her hands are in a posture of prayer and she looks down, which Aztec gods never do. She is a queen, for she wears the Aztec royal color of turquoise; a Christian, for there is a cross on her brooch, is pregnant, for she wears an Aztec maternity belt; yet she is a divine mother, for over her womb appears a four-petal flower, the Aztec symbol of a deity.

    As important as her image was, her words were far more so; for what she said, how she said it, and who she said it to. She spoke in the language of the Aztecs, not in Spanish; she spoke to a simple peasant, and through him to all people; her message was one of comfort and hope: She was there; she was their mother; she held them in her arms, heard their weeping, and knew of their hardships and sorrows. Above all, she wanted them to rest assured that through her intercession they would be healed.

    our-lady-of-guadalupe-4542831_1920She became known as Our Lady of Guadalupe, and as word of the miraculous appearance and image spread, she became the most effective tool of evangelization that Mexico or the world had ever known. In the gospel, Mary carried the Eternal Word into the Judean countryside where the babe within Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy; 15 centuries later, Mary’s maternal word went out into the Mexican countryside where millions leaped for joy. Conversions increased so dramatically that for a couple of years the missionaries could almost not keep up with them. More than that, the peoples’ faith was strong; to this day, the faith of the Mexican people remains vibrant, with deep devotion to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

    In our own time the dragon still lurks. We do not have thousands dying in pagan temples, but we do have millions dying in abortion mills here and throughout the world. Still, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe reminds us that the woman of Revelation is still present, still giving birth to the Church, still giving her ever victorious Son to the world. As she comforted the Mexican people, so she consoles us. She is our mother; she holds us in her arms; knows of our hardships and sorrows, and assures us that through her intercession, we too will be healed by Christ, her son.

    Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us.

  • The Miracle of the Nuns: Saturday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

    Wisdom 18:14-16; 19:6-9; Luke 18:1-8

    In November 1950, three nuns found themselves in the Arctic Circle, in a Russian gulag (or prison camp) named Vorkuta. Found guilty of proclaiming the gospel of Christ, they were assigned to work in a plant there that made bricks.

    The first verses of today’s reading from the book of Wisdom come from Chapter 18, which recalls another prison camp, where Hebrew slaves made bricks for their Egyptian masters. Yet, as the reading says, the Lord, a fierce warrior, bore into the doomed land the sharp sword of his inexorable decree, filling every place with death.

    No one saw Vorkuta as doomed, and death already filled it; more prisoners died there than in Auschwitz. Further, no one had mistaken the nuns for fierce warriors, but perhaps they knew a different art of war. All the camp’s commandant knew was that these nuns were troublesome. They refused to work, claiming that anything they did to support Communism was tantamount to working for the anti-Christ.

    Dead nuns make good martyrs but poor slaves, so the commandant did not want them killed; he wanted them to change their minds. After various ghastly tortures failed, he had an idea; if he couldn’t change their minds, then perhaps the Arctic winter would. He commanded that the nuns be brought outside every day for 8 hours and forced to watch the other women work.

    The first day, the guards led them to the top of the windy hill below which the women worked. In the bitter cold, the nuns knelt and prayed. The next day, their gloves and hats were taken away; again, the nuns knelt and prayed. The third day, their scarves were removed; just as before, the guards returned after 8 hours to find them once again kneeling in prayer. Not only were the nuns very much alive, they had no trace of frostbite at all. Word spread throughout the entire camp about the miracle of the nuns. The next day, the guards refused to take them out again and the commandant ordered them to be left alone; these nuns had some sort of power over which he had no control. They never worked a day of their sentence. Awhile later, in 1953, the entire camp followed suit. Their refusal to work led to the gulag of Vorkuta being declared a failure. The myth of Soviet invincibility suffered a blow from which it would never recover.

    No one reported that a cloud had overshadowed the gulag; then again, perhaps no one asked the nuns. Like the Hebrew slaves long before them, the nuns were preserved unharmed, sheltered by the hand of the One to whom they prayed. Like the Egyptians before them, the Soviets could only stand by helplessly and behold the stupendous wonders of God.

    In the gospel, Jesus exhorts us to pray always without becoming weary. Even as unjust a judge as the commandant of Vorkuta was powerless when confronted with the faith of the three little nuns who understood the power of persistent prayer.

    winter-1565442_640.jpgPersistence in prayer does not test God’s patience or change his mind; rather, it tests our faith and changes our attitude. Through his life and the Scriptures he has given the world, Jesus has told us that God loves each of us with a love beyond our understanding and knows our needs before we ask. That being so, God wants our prayer to consistently express the trust we have in him and his providence; that is the faith that Christ wants to find upon his return.

    We will have reached perfection in prayer when it expresses the same total abandonment to God as that of Jesus when he prayed: “Father, not my will, but Thy will be done.”

  • The Light of a Single Candle: 32nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

    2 Maccabees 7:1-2, 9-14; 2 Thessalonians 2:16-3:5; Luke 20:27-38

    In 1968, Chicago mayor Richard J. Daley was questioned about allegations of police brutality during the riots. He famously responded that “the policeman isn’t there to create disorder; the policeman is there to preserve disorder.” Although we can laugh at the mayor’s confused language, we understand the thought behind it. The common good of every society demands order. In fact, order means so much to us that from capital punishment to the military draft, we allow the government even the right to take life to preserve and protect it.

    However, leaders can presume too much on this right, as the first reading shows. The story takes place about 170 years before the birth of Christ. The king is not named but is known to be Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Unlike other successors of Alexander the Great, the king took exception to the Jews’ refusal to adopt Greek culture. In his anger he desecrated the Temple by erecting a statue of Zeus in it and, as we heard, commanded that the Jews either learn to live with a pagan diet or die with their own.

    Although the king was certainly a tyrant, at least he was honest; he never pretended that what he was doing was good. More recent tyrants hide their brutality behind euphemisms. Less than a century ago when the National Socialist party came to power in Germany they arrogated to themselves the legal right to define the mentally and physically handicapped as “unworthy of life” and their extermination a “mercy.” They later redefined mercy as ridding society of Jews, to “purify the race.” They weren’t alone; think of the genocides in China and Cambodia and the “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia and Rwanda.

    Even worse, the latest attacks on life target the weakest and most defenseless. Consider the elderly and infirm. When euthanasia was legalized in parts of Europe, it was hailed as a “mercy” and critics were reassured that strict safeguards defined who could be terminated. Once again though, mercy was redefined; now a physician can legally terminate anyone over 70 or those of any age who say that they are suffering mentally or physically and no longer want to live. Those declared mentally incompetent have someone else decide for them. In the United States, physician-assisted suicide is legal in two states and under consideration in others. At the other margin of life, abortion advocates defined person-hood beginning at birth but did not foresee the redefinition proposed by the bio-ethicist Dr. Peter Singer who wrote: ‘Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons…(T)he life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.’ Singer wrote that in 1979. To atheists such as he, humans are just another animal; nothing more. As atheism has continued to grow, Singer’s ideas have gained a foothold. The cause for redefining what it means to be a person has begun. Again. We may well live to see a society where it is perfectly legal to declare an infant as “unworthy of life.”

    The fatal flaw of every tyrant is that they see the worth of the human being as beginning and ending with the mortal body. Like the Sadducees’ misguided argument, this fantasy dissolves in the light of Christ who in the gospel defines the body not in terms of mortality but of eternity when he says that those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead … can no longer die, for they are like angels.. they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise. Society may arrogate to itself the right to manipulate, control, even destroy the human body but they are powerless to define its worth or control its destiny.

    The martyred brothers and their mother from the story in Maccabees knew this, and it is the power behind the hope given in the second reading when St. Paul speaks of the endurance of Christ. This is the power that drives the good to endure, to hold onto the promise of resurrection in the face of a tyrant who promises only death.

    hands-1926414_640We who have inherited this faith must never forget these two lessons from the readings: First, the worth of the human body was not, is not, and never will be ours to decide. God has given us freedom, so we can define and re-define who is and who is not worthy to live, but in the end these are just words; our laws  are meaningless when not based on divine law and their power stops at the same death long since conquered by Christ. Second, silence that allows such deadly evil to go unchallenged is complicity in it and as such is a breakdown of the moral conscience. Even if it seems too powerful, even if it seems that everybody else agrees, even if it hides behind euphemisms such as “mercy killing” or “reproductive rights,” Christ asks us to stand – alone if need be – call evil what it is despite the consequences, and do whatever we can to bring light into the darkness, for as St. Francis of Assisi once taught, all the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

  • Stained Glass Images of God: Friday of the 29th Week of Ordinary Time

    Romans 7:18-25a; Luke 12:54-59

    As a young man I spent several years attending a church that I thought had the most beautiful stained glass windows. I used to love sitting there early in the morning or late in the afternoon, watching how the sunlight made those images so warmly luminescent. I never liked going there at night when most of the lights were out. In the darkness the images appeared so lifeless, dull, and indistinct.

    Those memories came to mind as I thought about today’s readings. Every person conceived in original sin knows firsthand that struggle between light and darkness within ourselves. We have been given both knowledge of the light – what St. Paul calls “the law of God” – and the darkness of concupiscence, or the tendency to do evil – what he calls the “law of sin.” The saints are no different. Stained glass images may depict them as solemn, haloed people in pious postures, but they were flesh and blood just like we are. They felt all the same joys and sorrows and they knew the frustration of feeling trapped in a seemingly endless cycle of knowing the right yet so consistently doing the wrong. It was one of the greatest saints known to us, St. Paul himself, who wrote of this frustration, Miserable one that I am! (Romans 7:24)

    In today’s gospel, Jesus points out why we’re miserable. It is our failure to read the signs of the times and to settle with our opponent. The opponent may be the devil, and it is convenient to blame him, but many times we don’t need his help; we are our own worst enemy. And our enemy knows us very well. When we’re caught up in the darkness of sin and feel its misery, he fools us into thinking that all we need to feel better is more of what made us sick to begin with. This was portrayed perfectly by C.S Lewis in his novel The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Remember how Edmund craved the Turkish Delight? He couldn’t eat enough of it yet the more he ate the worse he felt, the more addicted he became, and the easier he was for the witch to manipulate. Our Turkish Delight may be money, power, or control. We think, “If only I can get more, I will be satisfied,” only to find upon getting it that the emptiness we longed to fill is still there, maybe worse than before. Like those stained glass windows in the dead of night we become lifeless, dull, indistinct images of God. Who couldn’t sympathize with St. Paul as he asks, Who will deliver me from this mortal body? (Romans 7:24)

    Of course, he knew the answer for he says, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:25). St. Paul knew that even the darkest night gives way to dawn. What makes a saint a saint is not that they rid themselves of their concupiscence but that they did as Christ taught; they settled the matter on the way. Their repentance set the example for us in three ways. First, they made a firm resolution to turn from the darkness of sin and live in the light of Christ. This happens in Confession when we pray an Act of Contrition, telling God that we are sorry for what we have done not only because we fear his judgment but because our sins have offended him, who is all good and deserving of all our love. Second, the saints amended their lives, which again is obeying the voice of Christ who through St. John the Baptist urged us to show fruits of our repentance (Matthew 3:8). Third, because they knew that they would never in this life be free of concupiscence, the saints spent the rest of their lives cultivating the virtue of hope. They have come to realize once and for all that the redeeming light of Christ is the only sure hope against the ever-looming darkness of sin.

    king-1841529_640That is the image I think of now when I think of saints. Not images set in glass that glow with the sunlight, but people who now and forever glow with the radiance of the one true Light – Christ, the Morning Star who never sets.

    Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

  • The Power of One: Feast of St. Luke, Evangelist

    The next time you are tempted to think that one person cannot make much of a difference, consider:

    One man singlehandedly wrote a quarter of the New Testament. His is a two-volume work; the first a detailed gospel and the second the only account we have of how the Church developed in her earliest years.

    His gospel is packed with rich, unique characters: Zechariah and Elizabeth, parents of John the Baptist, Simeon and Anna in the Temple, the penitent woman who washes the feet of Jesus with her hair, the widow of Nain, the ten lepers, the good thief, and the travelers on the road to Emmaus. Women are accorded an unheard-of place of honor. First and foremost is his mother; told by the angel that she is to be mother of the Son of God, Mary is the only person to appear at his birth, his death, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost. Other prominent women featured include Mary Magdalene, Martha and Mary, and those who supported his ministry out of their own resources.

    He also uniquely portrays our Lord. Son of God and son of Adam, Jesus has a special compassion for the poor, the outcast, and the sick, and an equally special dislike of Herod. His Jesus is also kinder and more compassionate to his family and the Apostles than either Mark or Matthew; the family are those who hear the word of God and do it and the Apostles have his prayers, even at the Last Supper for Peter, who he knows will deny him. In his passion Jesus agonizes to the point of blood yet still has the presence of mind to heal a servant’s ear. Most movingly, on the cross he forgives his persecutors and promises the good thief Paradise. Finally, after his resurrection he appears on the road to Emmaus and stuns back to life the faithfulness of those two downhearted disciples who failed to recognize him until the breaking of the bread.

    Apart from these unique characters and perspective, the evangelist has a wonderful sense of story. He made sure to include some of our Lord’s most memorable parables: The lowly guest, the great banquet of the king, the lost sheep, the lost coin, the unjust steward, Lazarus and the rich man, the Good Samaritan, and of course the Prodigal Son. More than that, he crafted in beautiful prose the vignettes that form many mysteries of the holy Rosary (including much of the Hail Mary prayer itself): the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Presentation, the finding of Jesus in the Temple, and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. His mastery of Greek, unparalleled in the Scriptures, is on full display in such prayers as the Benedictus of Zechariah, the Magnificat of Mary, and the Nunc Dimittis of Simeon. Every day around the world, millions of people recite these – probably from memory – as part of the Divine Office of the Church.

    As if all this weren’t enough, this same man then goes on to give us yet more of what no one else has: the story of the early Church. From Pentecost on he tells the amazing story of the spread of the gospel throughout Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth – including Rome. In sometimes intimate detail he gives us both the beginning of St. Peter’s ministry and virtually all of St. Paul’s, writing the story at times as a fellow traveler, from Paul’s mystical encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus, through his victories and failures in ministry, all the way to his ultimate destination, the seat of the Empire – Rome.

    Overall, the span of his work is breathtaking; it is a complete narrative that stretches from before Christ’s birth, through his ministry, passion, death, resurrection, and ascension all the way into the development and growth of the early Church.

    italy-2472027_1920There is much more we could say on this, the day we remember him, but it would only belabor the point, which is that none of his work would have been possible unless this man had given himself completely over to the will of the Father, in devotion to our Lord Jesus Christ, through the power and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. But he did, and this masterpiece was the result.

    Remember the power of one; not one person alone but one who has conformed himself to being in union with the will of God. There is a plan and we all have a part to play in it. So let us each take the time to meditate on how God is calling us, then submit to his will and do it. This is what changes the world.

    St. Luke, pray for us.

  • What Faith Demands: Memorial of St. Ignatius of Antioch, Bishop and Martyr

    Romans 3:21-30; Luke 11:47-54

    Although the Hebrew bible and Christian Old Testament are very similar with regard to the books they contain, they are structured quite differently. In the Old Testament the prophets come at the end, just before the New Testament. Placing them there emphasizes the prophets’ role as looking forward to the coming of Christ. In the Hebrew bible, however, the prophetic books come much closer to the Torah, or the first 5 books of the bible. This placement emphasizes the prophets’ role of looking back, reflecting on the Law and urging people to live it out in their daily lives.

    This role of reflection and exhortation made the prophets very much the conscience of Jewish society. The voice of the voiceless, the champion of the downtrodden, they spoke the word of God in words of men. While this made the prophets popular to some, the feeling was not universal; others, like the powerful and influential who were threatened by the cries for justice, found them irritating and troublesome. This is why in the gospel today Jesus refers to the blood of the prophets (Luke 11:50); at least a few tyrants thought the best way to deaden the social conscience was to kill those speaking it.

    But God is not so easily dismissed; for every voice silenced, another made itself heard. This was most perfectly the case for Christ, whose voice not only echoed through the prophets but rang through the hills and valleys of Israel in his earthly ministry and continues to ring in the words of the Scriptures he gave the world.

    In the first reading, St. Paul reflects on the foundation of equality preached by the prophets, as regards both sin and righteousness. As he reminds us, sin is no one’s private property; it is the shared condition of all humanity. But the remedy for it also equally applies; slave and king alike share in the righteousness bestowed as the gift of the Father, given through the blood of his Son, in the love that is the Holy Spirit. This is the love Christ most wants us to have for it is the life of God himself (1 John 4:16), given that we may have life in abundance (John 10:10).

    Of course, the abundant life requires listening to the prophetic voice within that urges a selfless life of God first, others next, and ourselves as servants of all. Like the scribes and Pharisees in today’s gospel it is tempting to want to silence that voice in favor of the comfort and complacence of the status quo. But in his merciful love Jesus assumed the role of prophet to forcefully remind them – and us – that every time we fail to be the voice of the voiceless, champion of the downtrodden, or justice for the oppressed, every time we hear his law of love in our hearts but refuse to live it out in our lives, we keep ourselves from God and worse, keep others away as well.

    colosseum-1234144_640St. Ignatius of Antioch understood this. The depths of divine love moved him to be one of those of whom Christ said, I will send to them prophets and apostles… (Luke 11:49a). Sent to oversee the Christian faithful as bishop of Antioch, Ignatius tirelessly preached the truth of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist as well as the necessity of accepting the faith as it was handed down by the Apostles. Ignatius had such deep faith in Christ that he chose to remain with him despite the conclusion of that same verse: … some of them they will kill and persecute (Luke 11:49b). Preferring to die rather than betray Christ, Ignatius was brought to Rome and martyred around the year 115.

    We as disciples must be ready for the acceptance and rejection that our role as prophet brings. This is what faith demands, for it is not faith in ourselves or our ability to move hearts but in the One who has justified, commissioned, and sent us, and in whose name we do all that we do. Let us pray that like St. Ignatius of Antioch we never lose heart in the face of persecution or rejection, but rather redouble our efforts at living out the gospel, that through us many are called to the repentance and salvation that only Christ can offer.

    St. Ignatius of Antioch, pray for us.

  • Sent: Monday of the 28th Week in Ordinary Time

    Romans 1:1-7; Luke 11:29-32

    One day at a high school for wealthy children in India, a teacher happened to wander outside the school’s gates. In the poverty and misery that surrounded her, this young nun saw and heard something greater than the wisdom of Solomon. Saint Teresa of Calcutta spent the rest of her life serving the poorest of the poor in the gutters and slums of India and the world.

    In another part of the world, a young Frenchman rejected the faith of his family and indulged in a carefree life of luxury. After squandering a huge inheritance he entered the military, who threw him out. His second attempt at military service drew him into contact with the people of the Sahara; in their poverty and solitude, this man saw something greater than the Temple. He went home, rediscovered his faith, became a priest, and returned to Africa. Blessed Charles de Foucauld spent the rest of his life ministering to the Muslims of the desert.

    It would be hard to find two people more different at the outset, yet how similar they became. One a hedonistic playboy looking out only for himself; the other a consecrated religious doing what she thought God wanted her to do. Both were called by Christ to a life they would have never imagined and in the end would never relinquish. Their responses transformed them and transformed the world.

    Their destiny points to the choice that Jesus lays before us. Either we can be part of the “evil generation” that demands the certainty of miraculous signs and rejects the certitude of faith, or we can use our God-given faith given to discern the only sign that matters. Jesus called it the sign of Jonah, but in reality it is his own true presence, for he is the Temple not made with hands; he is Wisdom itself.

    passion-3807312_640This is what the saints and the blessed have discovered. The greatest good in life is to see and serve Christ; that is what gives our life its ultimate meaning. However, we will never be able to do that until we see Christ in each other and become Christ for each other. St. Paul knew this; that is how he could write that the grace of apostleship is found in the obedience of faith. By faith we believe that God loves everyone and that we are to love as God loves, but it also teaches that the people who we think are least deserving of our love are the ones most worthy of it. Thus, obedience to the faith means that as apostles we are sent to be Christ and to find Christ in everyone, even those we find hardest to serve. Only grace can provide the humility and openness to vulnerability that can empower us to do the work for which we have been sent.

    That brings us to the final point. Where have we been sent and who are we to serve? Consider this thought from Blessed Charles de Foucauld:

    It is not necessary to teach others, to cure them or to improve them; it is only necessary to live among them, sharing the human condition and being present to them in love.

    Put that in the context of this thought from Saint Teresa:

    It is easy to love the people far away. It is not always easy to love those close to us. It is easier to give a cup of rice to relieve hunger than to relieve the loneliness and pain of someone unloved in our home. Bring love into your home for this is where our love for each other must start.

    So, you are the apostle to your home, to your parish, and to your community. See Christ in them; love Christ in them; serve Christ in them.

  • The Hope of Happiness: Saturday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time

    Joel 4:12-21; Luke 11:27-28

    In the reading from the prophet Joel, God vanquishes the enemies of Judah and the land produces in overflowing abundance. As the earlier chapters of this book make clear, a famine brought on by a plague of locusts had ravaged the land, both city and countryside. The images offered by Joel of a conquering, provident God were a hope-filled reflection of this suffering people’s desire to know that God was dwelling among them; in other words, this is how they wanted their prayers answered, in security and abundance.

    We are not so different from them. In our own prayers we ask God to do things like conquer our foes, provide abundant harvests, heal us or those we love. We speak of our prayers being answered and we give thanks to God when the enemy is gone, the harvest is good, and we or someone for whom we have prayed does in fact recover.

    On one level, there is nothing wrong with that. God does keep us secure; does provide for us; does heal. For this, we can and must give thanks.

    There is a deeper level though, and Jesus points us toward it in today’s gospel. When a woman blessed the womb that bore him and the breasts that nursed him, Jesus replied that Mary was blessed because, as his first disciple, she heard the word of God and did it. As St. Augustine said, Mary conceived in her heart before she conceived in her womb.

    This is the deeper level on which Jesus focuses our attention. Although we can pray that things go the way we want them to, the most fruitful prayer is that our will be aligned to the will of God. This was Mary’s prayer when she said, May it be done to me according to your word (Luke 1:38); it was Christ’s prayer when he said not my will but yours be done (Luke 22:42b). This doesn’t mean that we are happy if and when catastrophe strikes, but it does mean that we hear the word of God and do it, keeping in mind that he has also said, I know well the plans I have in mind for you … plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope (Jeremiah 29:11).

    maria-100112_1280As the Catechism teaches, hope is “the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our happiness, placing our trust in Christ’s promises and relying not on our own strength” (CCC 1817). Joel pointed toward Christ our hope when he spoke of the spring that will rise from the house of the LORD (Joel 4:18b). This is the hope of life that springs eternal; the happiness to which Mary was united at the end of her earthly life; the hope of happiness that we desire. May we unite our wills to the will of God as she did, and may it be done to us according to his Word.

  • The True Beauty of a Pearl: St. Pelagia the Penitent

    John 8:1-11

    Near Antioch in the year 341, a group of bishops met to discuss matters lingering from the Council of Nicaea 16 years earlier. As they spoke, a beautiful woman who was also a known harlot passed by them riding a donkey and wearing little more than jewelry and precious stones. Groaning and sighing, the bishops looked away in disgust in the face of such grave sin. All but one, that is; only bishop Nonnus watched intently as she passed by, and kept watching until she disappeared into the distance. Turning, he then asked his brother bishops if they weren’t delighted with her beauty.

    In the gospel passage we read that the scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery and made her stand in the middle (John 8:3). Although the woman in Antioch had passed them by, Nonnus centered her image in the minds of his brother bishops. Like the scribes and Pharisees, they saw nothing more than a woman caught up in worldliness and sin. They remained silent, for they already passed sentence.

    Jesus also remained silent, but he did have something to say. The evangelist tells us that he bent down and began to write on the ground with his finger (John 8:6). We don’t know what he wrote, but we are reminded of Jeremiah’s prophecy that those who turn away from God shall be written in the earth, for they have forsaken the LORD, the fountain of living water (Jeremiah 17:13, Revised Standard Version). Only after beginning to write did Jesus speak; not to the woman but to her accusers. If they were concerned about worldliness and sin then their proper focus was themselves, for they were the objects of judgment, not the arbiters of it.

    Bishop Nonnus remembered this, for in his brothers’ accusing silence he said, “(W)e have vast promises…stored up with our hidden Lord who cannot be seen. It is he we should please, but we fail to do so; it is for him that we should adorn our bodies and souls, but we totally fail to do so. We should take pains over ourselves in order to scrub away the dirt of sins, to become clean from evil stains; but we have paid no attention to our souls in the attempt to adorn them with good habits so that Christ may desire to dwell in us… (W)e have not taken pains to make ourselves pleasing to God nearly as much as this prostitute… has taken pains to please men – in order to captivate them…” 1

    Mercy begins when we look upon someone else and see our own sinfulness. Compassion is born in the eyes of those who see that as others have fallen, so we have fallen. Their pain is our pain; their healing, our healing; their God, our God.

    shell-3480818In the marvelous healing providence of God, it so happened that this same woman heard bishop Nonnus preach the homily the next day at Mass. Whatever he said moved her to repentance. She asked him to make her a Christian. Not long afterward, the same bishops who once looked away in disgust now watched in wonder as this woman threw herself upon the floor of the church, washed the bishop’s feet with her tears, and dried them with her hair. Once baptized, she traded her jewels for a robe and devoted the rest of her life to penance in the strict regimen of a cloistered monastery. The beautiful, bejeweled harlot once known in Antioch as Margarita (meaning “Pearl”) transformed herself into a beautiful model of penitence known to this day by her birth name, Pelagia.

    We and bishop Nonnus both know that through the grace of Orders, it was Jesus who preached, Jesus who baptized, and Jesus who transformed Pelagia, just as he does to all who ask him with a contrite and humble heart. Like the woman caught in adultery, the only gaze she knew from him was that of merciful love and the only words those of him who said, Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now on do not sin any more (John 8:11).

    St Pelagia, pray for us.

  • Increase Our Faith: 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time

    Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2:2-4; 2 Timothy 1:6-8, 13-14; Luke 17:5-10

    People sometimes speak as though there are saints and then there is everybody else. I know; I’ve done it. Somebody says, “You know, you’re a good person,” and I reply, “Well, thanks, but I’m no saint.” We might begin to think that saints are people of superhuman faith who go around rebuilding the Church, baptizing thousands, levitating, going into ecstasy, healing the sick, and finally converting thousands through their own martyrdom.

    And although many people have done exactly those things, the readings today remind us that saints are ordinary people who know what it means to have their faith tested; to get frustrated, to need encouragement, and even to ask God for an increase in faith. We just heard the prophet Habakkuk cry out to God, clearly frustrated and bewildered because God had not put an end to the violence and misery all around. We should be able to sympathize with him; we pray week after week, year after year for an end to violence in the world, yet it continues. Why doesn’t God stop it? Next, the Apostle Paul tells Timothy to stir into flame the grace of his ordination, for he’s going to face his share of hardship. Don’t we too know how it feels to face hardship yet still be asked to keep on giving? Then in the gospel the apostles ask our Lord to increase their faith and little wonder, for Jesus had just told them that if your brother wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him (Luke 17:4). I don’t know about you but on a bad day forgiving the same offense even twice can be a struggle; seven times is going to take some real moral fiber.

    But the readings don’t stop there; they also show God’s responses. Habakkuk is told that fulfillment will come and it won’t disappoint; have faith and wait. In other words, be patient and don’t lose hope. As hardship looms, Paul says to Timothy: Take as your norm the sound words that you heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus (2 Timothy 1:13). That is, hold on to what you’ve been taught; Christ gave us the plan and he is our strength. Finally, Jesus talks about strength in two ways. First, he speaks of faith as powerful enough to uproot a mulberry tree. As the Apostles knew, that’s a lot of power. Mulberry trees are hard to pull; their roots are thick, wide and dense. Second, he talks about a servant who labors outside all day but still must serve when he comes inside. He’s talking about the power of fidelity to our call. Jesus reminds us that servants don’t stop being servants depending on where they are or what time it is. When I was ordained, Christ didn’t tell me that I’m a servant only when I’m wearing my vestments; I am called to serve God’s people, period. Similarly for you; all of us who are baptized in Christ receive a new garment; we put on Christ and we can’t just take him off. We are servants of God and each other; our attitudes and our behavior are to reflect that every hour of the day, every day of the week.

    This story of the servant is only found in the gospel of Luke and I think there is a good reason for that. Luke sees Jesus as that servant. Consider: The servant worked in the field, plowing or tending sheep. Jesus did both; he spent his entire ministry planting the seed of the gospel until the harvest was abundant (Luke 10:2) and called himself the Good Shepherd (John 10:11). Then when Jesus “went in” for dinner for the last time with his disciples, he remained a servant, washing the apostles’ feet (John 13:5). As the servant provided the dinner for his master, so at the Last Supper Jesus instituted the Eucharist, feeding his apostles the bread of life (Luke 22:19). Finally, as the servant said that he had done what he was obliged to do, so the Good Thief looked at the dying Jesus and said, this man has done nothing wrong (Luke 23:41, RSV). Then after his resurrection he walked with two disciples, opening the Scriptures until they felt their hearts burn within them. Finally, the flame of the Spirit was poured upon the apostles (Acts 2:3), strengthening them to proclaim the gospel in Jerusalem, throughout Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth (Acts 1:8).

    cropped-awake-o-sleeper-graphicThis is the strength that has inspired the saints throughout the centuries. Every saint knows what it means to wonder as Habakkuk wondered how and when God will fulfill his promises, but they also know what it means to offer themselves as the instruments through which that promise is fulfilled. Every saint knows what it means to face hardship or to be with others as they face them, but like Timothy and Paul they also know what it means to possess the grace to endure and to support others who need to endure. Finally, every saint knows what it means to feel as if their own faith is inadequate to uproot their mulberry tree full of weaknesses. But they also know what it means to surrender themselves totally to the power of the One who nailed those weaknesses to his own tree and cast them once and for all into the ocean of his infinite mercy.

    This is the consolation that speaks in the silence of God’s replies to every prayer. What makes a saint is not that they understand the mind or the providence of God but that they never allow their incomprehension, frustration, or anger overwhelm the great promise of the cross; that faith overcomes and will always triumph over fear. Thus could Augustine rightly say that every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.