5th Week of Lent 2021 - Friday - "You are gods"

 One week from Good Friday, with Holy Week looming on the horizon, our Gospel today begins in  dramatic fashion. The opponents of Jesus are ready to stone him to death. The violence, the plotting, the hostility toward Jesus is all starting to mount and come to a climax.  

It was the festival of the Dedication of the Temple—what today is called Hanukah, and Jesus stood in a sacred place, one of the porticos of the Temple, preaching the truth about how he has been sent by the Father as the promised Messiah, the Son of God.

This enrages the people who weren’t ready to believe in Him, and certainly weren’t ready to give him the authority as the Messiah.  So they plotted against him, and were prepared to carry out that plot by stoning him to death as the Gospel opened today.

Jesus then speaks up and asks them, “why” are they persecuting him? They claim Jesus has committed blasphemy, but Jesus asserts, “I have simply been restating to you what is in your own scriptures.”  Jesus says, “you are trying to kill me for claiming to be the Son of God, while your own scriptures make that claim about all God’s people”  And he is right, of course.  Psalm 82 speaks about how the children of Israel can rightly be called “gods”—not because they have any claim on Divinity—but because God speaks to them as his own children—and calls them into a filial relationship through justice and sharing his divine life.

While Psalm 82 certainly calls Israel to filial love of God, it also stands as a powerful indictment of Israel’s failure to love and bow to God’s authority. “How long will you judge unjustly and favor the cause of the wicked?” God asks the religious leaders in Psalm 82. Not ironically, that is precisely what Jesus was doing in that moment. He was standing in the Temple, the dwelling place of God, passing a sort of judgment on Israel’s leaders. For failing to acknowledge that He comes from the Father, Israel’s leaders will be counted among the wicked and die. 

This certainly puts into perspective why the religious leaders want to arrest and kill Jesus right then and there. They aren’t so much concerned about Jesus’ supposed blasphemy, but that Jesus exposes their wicked, unbelieving hearts.

This dramatic event certainly helps us to prepare for Holy Week by helping us understanding some of the dynamics that were going on in Jerusalem leading up to Good Friday. And yet, like so many of our Lenten Gospels, they invite us to examine our own hearts: how does my pride keep me from loving Jesus as I should? How does my hardness of heart keep me from the fullness of life as a child of God?

May these final Lenten days help to humble our earthly pride so to help us live in the fullness of God’s children, for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

- - - - - - - -  

For an increase in faith for the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. And That the Church might be delivered and protected from all spirits of error, heresy, schism, and unbelief. Let us pray to the Lord.

That during this Year of St. Joseph, the Church may discover a deeper devotion to our Universal Patron. That through St. Joseph’s intercession families may be strengthened, priestly and religious vocations may increase, demons may be scattered, and the sick and dying may know the peace of Jesus. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or illness: may they experience the healing graces of Christ. Let us pray to the Lord.

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  Let us pray to the Lord. Let us pray to the Lord.

Mercifully hear, O Lord, the prayers of your Church and turn with compassion to the hearts that bow before you, that those you make sharers in your divine mystery may always benefit from your assistance.

2nd Week of Lent 2020 - Monday - Daniel's Penitential Prayer

At the beginning of his beautiful penitential prayer in our first reading, Daniel recalls God’s covenant with Israel. “Lord, great and awesome God, you who keep your merciful covenant”

The idea of covenant is an important one throughout both Old Testament and New. Through covenants God works for our salvation by establishing these new relationships with the human race. God makes promises of grace and protection and revelation. He promises to help us be holy as he is holy.

At the Last Supper, the Blessed Lord speaks of the new and everlasting covenant to be established through his blood: through Him, all peoples of all races and all times can enter into covenant with God and be saved and become adopted sons and daughters of Him and heirs to the kingdom of heaven.

The gift of salvation is free, and yet, it also carries responsibility on our part. The Catechism says, “The free gift of adoption requires on our part continual conversion and new life.” Continual conversion means desiring to become like God. St. Cyprian says, that “We must remember . . . and know that when we call God "our Father" we ought to behave as sons of God.”

The Lord Jesus often teaches us to become his father. “Be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.” He says in the Gospel today, “Be merciful, just as your father is merciful”. As children of God we are to value the things of God, to strive to be holy as God is holy in our actions, behaviors, attitudes, and works.

The season of Lent is so important because during this season we recognize how short we have fallen of our divine vocation. We like Daniel, acknowledge, “We have sinned, been wicked and done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws. We have not obeyed your servants the prophets”

Penance is part of our continued conversion. By penance, we acknowledge our sinfulness, our failure to live up to that dignity of being called children of God, and endeavor to do better. The call to penance is part of the Good News: change is possible, transformation is possible, new life is possible.

But that involves stopping and examining, where I have I failed to be merciful as God is merciful, where have I failed to be generous as God is generous, pure of heart, humble, forgiving, and steadfast as Jesus?

May we take seriously the Lenten call to conversion, the call to penance, the call to new life, for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.
 
- - - - - - -

That the season of Lent may bring the most hardened hearts to repentance and bring to all people purification of sin and selfishness.
For those preparing for baptism and the Easter sacraments, that they may continue to conform themselves to Christ through fervent prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
For the Holy Spirit to guide the appointment of our next Bishop—that he may be a man of true faith and courage.
That we may generously respond to all those in need: the sick, the suffering, the homeless, the imprisoned, and victims of violence. And for all victims of the coronavirus and their families. And for the Church in China and all places where the Gospel is silenced.
For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.
Grant, we pray, O Lord, that your people may turn to you with all their heart, so that whatever they dare to ask in fitting prayer they may receive by your mercy. Through Christ our Lord.

All Saints Day 2018 - Children of God

As a student here at Holy Family School, or in your youth, you may have been asked, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” As a kid, I remember enjoying reading the comic strips in the newspaper, like Bill Waterson's "Calvin and Hobbes" and Gary Larson's "The Far Side". And so for a time, I wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, that’s before I realized I can’t draw. If I were to ask the young people in our congregation here today, I’d bet I’d come up with a whole host of answers: a professional athlete, an astronaut, a doctor, a truck driver, a professional dancer, an artist, musician, a soldier; perhaps one or two might be thinking of being a priest or a nun.

No matter the profession, I bet every single one of us could answer that question, “when I grow up, I want to be happy.” No one wants to grow up to be sad or bored.

There are a lot of things that may cause us unhappiness, sadness in life: not becoming as successful as we thought we should, not having the house or car or job that we thought we should, perhaps losing a loved one before we were ready. It was the French philosopher Leon Bloy who said, “There is really only one sadness in life, not to be a saint.” For if each of us have been made by God to become holy, to be a saint, the only real sadness, is to not become the person God made us to be, happy with him in heaven for eternity.

If you had to choose between all of the material wealth, power, and fame the world could give you and being a saint, if you choose anything but becoming a saint, you’ve chosen wrong.

The saints show us what it means to be truly alive—to have truly lived a good life. Life is not meant to be all about the pursuit of material things, earthly things, but spiritual things, heavenly things.
In the Gospel today, did Jesus say blessed are you when you win trophies for your athletic accomplishments? No. Did he say, blessed are you when you are well known in your professional field? No. Did he say, blessed are you if you have more friends, more money than other people? No.
What did he say? Blessed are you when you are merciful, blessed are you when you are pure of heart. The beatitudes are the key to true human flourishing and true human happiness.

And today we celebrate those individuals who made the beatitudes the most important pursuit in their lives—saints like those our second graders are dressed-up as today. Francis, Mother Theresa, Saint Clare, Saint Patrick. If you want a truly good life, become like them. Don’t just learn their names, learn the love they had for Jesus, learn the love they had for fasting, prayer, spreading the Gospel, charity toward the poor.

Why is there so much unhappiness, boredom, perversion in the world? Because instead of seeking to become saints, we turn to trivial, selfish pursuits.

Today is a celebration of those who turned away from selfishness, and immersed themselves in lives of mercy, into the life of Christ. They choose to fully embrace their identity as children of God.

Any of the saints would tell you: don’t get swept up with all of the distractions in the world. Being a saint means saying “no” to a lot of things—things which seek to ruin our friendship with Jesus, things that seek to corrupt our minds, sour our hearts, and corrupt our souls. But we say “no” to the things of the world, because of our great desire to say “yes” to God with all of our being.

We all of us today recognize our own call to become saints, and come to thank God for this great cloud of witnesses who teach us what it really means to be Christian, what it really means to be human, what it really means to be children of God, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.