Mark 10:45

Tag: inspiration

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Wounds of Love: St. Birgitta of Sweden

    The Wounds of Love: St. Birgitta of Sweden

    Galatians 2:19-20; John 15:1-8

    I once instructed a woman in the RCIA program who excelled in her studies of the faith. After receiving the sacraments she moved away and I lost track of her. Years later, I learned that she had stopped practicing the faith. She was now “spiritual but not religious.” I think that means she believes that while there is a spiritual dimension to the world, it isn’t what we understand as the faith most fully revealed to us in Christ.

    The sticking point for her, as for many, may well have been the passion and death of our Lord. Indeed, the crucifixion was called by St. Paul a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles (1 Corinthians 1:23). But to one of the saints, St. Birgitta of Sweden, the crucifixion held a special place; it was the nexus of the physical and spiritual worlds.

    Birgitta lived a life full of the joys and sorrows of family. Born in Sweden around the year 1303, the daughter of a governor, by age 42 she had already been a wife for 28 years and a widow for one. She had a wide and deep experience of motherhood; as mother of 4 boys and 4 girls, she saw one daughter run off to marry a troublemaker, one son die as a boy, one as a man, and another daughter grow up to become St. Catherine of Sweden.

    She also knew the life of the working world. While raising her own children she served as lady-in-waiting to the queen of Sweden. Her kind, motherly way drew her into the confidence of the king and queen, both of whom tended to enjoy worldly life too much for their own good. Birgitta worked as hard as she could to keep their religious concerns before them; this became a frustrating and unfortunately futile struggle.

    Finally, Birgitta knew the religious life as well. After becoming a widow and devoting herself to care of the poor, who greatly loved her, she dedicated buildings and land on family property to a new contemplative order. She wrote the rule for her order which became known as the Order of the Most Holy Savior.

    At the same time, Birgitta lived a full life in the spiritual world. She was a mystic. At age seven, she had a vision of being crowned by the Blessed Mother. Three years later came her most profound mystical experience: The crucified Christ appeared to her and bid her gaze upon him. When she asked who had so cruelly treated him, he replied, “Those who despise me and spurn my love for them.” This was her own Damascus road moment; although she had many visions, dreams, and locutions afterwards, she devoted the rest of her life to the contemplation of Christ’s suffering.

    After wisely consulting her spiritual advisor and obtaining his approval, Birgitta began to share her visions with the world. She met with Magnus, the king of Sweden, and advised him that Christ would visit a plague on the land if he and the queen did not change their ways. As usual, he laughed off her vision. The Black Death came two years later, wiping out half the population. Needless to say, the king stopped laughing.

    Birgitta next focused her attention on the popes, who had long since deserted Rome in fear for their lives. Leaving Sweden with her daughter Catherine, she moved to Rome. In the midst of its crumbling churches and society, Birgitta ministered to the sick, fed the poor, housed pilgrims, and called on the pope to return. Her call took on a special intensity due to her dislike of pope Clement VI, who she called “a murderer of souls, more unjust than Pilate and more cruel than Judas.” During a thunderstorm on the night of December 3rd 1350, lightning struck the bells of St. Peter’s, melting them. Birgitta prophesied this as a sign that Clement’s life was coming to an end. He died a few days later. When the next pope fled to get away from her Birgitta literally chased him down, begged him to approve her order, which he did, and to return to Rome, which he did not do. After her death in 1373, her call for the popes to return was taken up by St. Catherine of Siena. Not long after, the papacy returned to Rome to stay. Birgitta was vindicated.

    In the first reading, St. Paul wrote:

    I have been crucified with Christ; yet I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me; insofar as I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who has loved me and given himself up for me (Galatians 2:19-20).

    jesus-753063_640

    Birgitta’s life is a testament to the triumph of St. Paul’s words. From the moment of that first overwhelming spiritual encounter with the suffering, crucified Christ when she was 10 years old, she began to internalize them; to sense as we all must, not only the pain of Christ’s passion but the passion behind his pain. The ultimate reality of the cross is love, a love so great it unites heaven and earth, the physical and spiritual. What else could it be but love that would cause God himself to take on our humanity, our sinfulness, and in the face of humanity’s rejection, nail it to the cross? Birgitta spent her life contemplating not the pain of futility but the pain which Oscar Wilde called the wounds of love. In her own way, St. Birgitta spent her life showing her family, her king, her people, and her pope that this is not only a love worth dying for; it is a love worth living for – eternally.

    St. Birgitta, pray for us.

  • Truth Beyond the World: The Feast of St. George

    Revelation 21:5-7; Luke 9:23-26

    When I was a boy my favorite comic book was The Amazing Spiderman. Every month I haunted the drugstore waiting for the next issue. When it finally arrived I’d read it over and over again. It was great fun imagining myself as the quirky yet powerful superhero.

    Although comic books date back only to the 1930’s and 40’s, the kids of bygone eras had something every bit as exciting: The Golden Legend, a classic of the faith from the 13th century, which contained in great and often colorful detail the dashing exploits of the heroes of ancient Christianity.

    Among the most dashing was St. George. Like most saints of the early Church, little is known. He appears to have been a young soldier martyred in Palestine around the year 304. What we do know is that there must have been something especially appealing about him, for he quickly became legendary. The Golden Legend includes a few stories about him, the most familiar being the dragon. Passing through a foreign kingdom and coming upon a princess about to be devoured by a dragon, George slayed the dragon and converted the kingdom to Christ. There is also the amazing story of his martyrdom. Arrested during a persecution of Christians, George was handed over to the torturers. Despite their best attempts, which included beating him literally to pieces, crushing him beneath heavy spiked wheels, and submerging him in molten lead, George miraculously reassembled unharmed. Amazed and inspired by this, the governor’s own wife converted to the faith. Infuriated, he had her executed and George finally martyred by beheading.

    But that’s not the end of the story. If he was powerful in life, St. George was even more so in death. The Legend tells of victories won by soldiers carrying his relics into battle, of healings at his tomb by those placing their hand in it, and of healings of those who touched the chains he wore in prison. His tomb became a place of pilgrimage and churches bearing his name were built as far away as Italy. Little wonder that England, whose Crusaders brought home his story, chose him as its national patron, that a kingdom in the Caucasus mountains was named Georgia in his honor, or that to this day Palestinian Muslims, Jews, and Christians would all honor him and ask his intercession for those suffering from various illnesses. Clearly, St. George became a man of mythic proportions.

    Unfortunately many stumble on the word “myth.” As early as the 5th century, the stories of St. George were dismissed as fantasy. Like some ancient, amazing Spiderman, he was too large for life; his adventures unreal and unrealistic; the product of uneducated, unsophisticated people. A fairy tale.

    They completely miss the point, as Chesterton knew when he said, “Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.” Or, to paraphrase the French philosopher Jean-Paul Ricœur, the purpose of myths is not to tell the truth about the world but the truth beyond it. The deeper truth about St. George is written between the lines of the stories, not within them. What matters is not that St. George slayed a dragon but that, in committing to follow Christ, he received the grace to slay the dragons in his own life. Similarly, it doesn’t matter whether he was actually beaten to pieces, crushed by wheels, submerged in molten lead, and miraculously reassembled; the truth is that St. George loved Christ and did what he asked in the gospel; he took up his cross daily and followed him (Luke 9:23), saving his life by quite literally losing it.

    statue-1394654_1920Of course these truths are not reserved to St. George, they are for all of us. In Revelation Christ says, Behold, I make all things new (Revelation 21:5); for that to mean anything, we must ask for the grace to find and slay our own dragons. We all have them; they are the sins we allow to linger, the attachments we find hardest to put aside, and the fear, self-doubt, and self-condemnation that keep us from drawing nearer to God. The fear is real because the pain is real; it is the pain of having our pride beaten to pieces, allowing our bodies to be crushed by illness or infirmity, and submerging ourselves in the depths of humility. Nevertheless, the truth is that if we allow the power of God to work within us, we will experience what even the legend of St. George could never imagine: The joy of being reassembled into the person that Christ has called us from all eternity to be.

    St. George, pray for us.

  • The Other Side of Suffering

    Hebrews 5:7-9

    From the time we first became Christians, we have learned that the standard for our behavior is not those around us but Christ. Given that, it might be easy to give up and say that we can never reach that standard of perfection.

    That’s true. Left to ourselves, we can’t.

    But as the author of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us, we aren’t left to ourselves. In his infinite mercy, Jesus sympathizes with our weakness. Even though he himself never fell to the many temptations that weighed on him like a cross and surrounded him like a crown of thorns, he knows what it’s like to carry them, to bear their weight and feel their pain, but also to endure and overcome them.

    Fully man, Christ knows what it means to feel the kind of pain that leaves us without words; able only to offer prayers and supplications with loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him (Hebrews 5:7). Enduring that kind of torment, he must also have felt the natural reaction of the human body to fight against and relieve the pain – on this day, to come down from the cross – yet Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered (Hebrews 5:8).

    good-friday-2264164_640But Jesus also taught us through his obedience unto death that glory waits on the other side of suffering; that being made perfect is not a matter of doing all things on our own, but the opposite: Letting go of control and uniting ourselves more and more to the will of the One who is our true strength.

    This is the ultimate lesson of Good Friday. Christ’s triumph over self-will and self-reliance did not enable him to merely sympathize with our suffering or feel our pain but to be perfectly in himself the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him (Hebrews 5:9).

    We adore you O Christ and we praise you, because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

  • The Standard of Love: Tuesday of Holy Week

    So he dipped the morsel and took it and handed it to Judas (John 13:26).

    Judas was chosen by Christ; he accompanied Him throughout his ministry. Like every disciple, he was fed spiritually and physically. Empowered by our Lord, Judas healed, expelled demons, preached the coming of the kingdom, and shook the dust of unbelieving towns off of his feet. On top of that, he witnessed countless signs and miracles.

    Yet still Judas betrayed Jesus.

    Nevertheless, even to the end Jesus fed him; He never shook the dust of his betrayer off of his own feet. To the contrary, Jesus extended hospitality toward him; He put him first.

    last-supper-1921277_640Let us keep this in mind as we prepare to receive the Sacred Morsel of our Lord in the most Holy Eucharist. For we are all like Judas; we have all betrayed our Lord’s innocent blood with every sin, no matter how small. And as He did with Judas, so does our Lord do to us; He continues to feed us, to respect our dignity, to love us unconditionally.

    This is the standard of a love that is bigger than any sin; this is the love that we are called every day to imitate. This is the love of Christ.

  • A Fragrant Aroma: Monday of Holy Week

    John 12:1-8

    Awhile after my father died, my mother asked if I would help her sort out his things. As I took some clothes out of his dresser it struck me; they still smelled like him. It was as if my father was right there. It took me several minutes to regain my composure.

    Scientists have known for years that the sense of smell is intimately tied to memory and emotion. In fact, smell is the only sense that works directly with the area of the brain that controls emotions. We’ve all experienced it; no matter how far away or far removed we are from a certain time, the aroma of something – perhaps a certain food, a perfume – can bring it all back again. It is if we are there.

    In the gospel we see how one of the sisters of Lazarus gave to their home a sense memory of our Lord: Mary took a liter of costly perfumed oil made from genuine aromatic nard and anointed the feet of Jesus and dried them with her hair; the house was filled with the fragrance of the oil (John 12:3).

    This is significant on many levels. First, it is the perfect counterbalance to the family’s recent experience at the tomb of Lazarus; the foul air of death is literally blown away by the fragrance of new life found in Christ. But second, this perfume is costly; the price of victory is high. As if she senses that his enemies are as near as Judas and plotting his demise, Mary anoints not the head of Christ the King but the feet of Christ the Servant which shall soon be pierced with nails and placed in a tomb. Finally, it may seem odd that Mary wipes away some of the perfume with her hair but I see in it a sign of her devotion; a way to identify herself with Christ and his sacrifice, personifying St. Paul’s meaning in 2 Corinthians when he said, we are a fragrance of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing (2 Corinthians 2:15).

    glass-4108085_640There is an ancient rabbinic saying that “the fragrance of a good perfume spreads from the bedroom to the dining room; so does a good name spread from one end of the world to the other.”1 As Mary filled her house and her hair with the fragrance of Christ, so may we fill the world and ourselves with his holy and glorious Name. And may be as untiring and devoted as she, willing to sacrifice whatever is costly to ourselves to do it. There is no greater identification with Christ than this, as St. Paul knew when he prayed that we may be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma (Ephesians 5:1-2).

    1Based on Ecclesiastes 7:1 and cited in Brown, R.E. (1966) The Anchor Bible: The Gospel According to John I-XII. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., p. 453.