4th Week of Lent 2022 - Tuesday - Good versus evil

 

Yesterday, we reflected upon the second of the seven miracles stories in St. John’s Gospel: the healing of the royal official’s son. We also noted how St. John often includes people’s reactions to those miracles: some are amazed by Jesus, some come to believe, some fail to make that leap of faith or they walk away grumbling because his subsequent teachings are unappealing or deemed too difficult.

What was the reaction to the miracle detailed in today’s Gospel of the paralyzed man. On one hand, you have the obedience and witness of the man himself. He gets up and walks just as Jesus told him to do. When asked about the miracle, he testifies to the source of the healing. He is certainly a model for all of us. We are to testify to the healing we have received through Jesus Christ. 

For Jesus has healed our paralysis—our spiritual paralysis. Without the healing each of us have received in the pool of baptism, we would be paralyzed of walking toward heaven, walking in righteousness, walking in truth, walking up to the altar of God, God who is the source of our joy. Jesus has changed my life, and I know he has changed yours as well. And when people ask us about what animates our lives. We need to point to Him. You know what gets me up in the morning? The desire to serve my Lord who has healed me. We should not be timid about our faith.

So the Gospel contains this wonderful reaction of obedience and witness. But there was another reaction—that of the Jews, the religious authorities of Jerusalem. Their hearts were so far from God that they could not, or would not, recognize the goodness of what Jesus did. This man had been paralyzed for 38 years. Most of us cannot imagine what his life was like. The inability to work to support a family. The boredom. The abandonment. And the religious leaders criticize Jesus, when none of them lifted a finger to help the man into the pool. 

And for healing this man, freeing this man, liberating this man, restoring his hopes, helping him to know the love of God, the religious leaders, St. John tells us, begin to persecute Jesus. That was their response. “Goodness made itself known, and we can’t let that happen again.” Do you see how the powers of evil were rampant in the hearts of Jesus’ enemies?

As we near Holy Week, this reading helps us to understand the conflict that will reach its crescendo on Good Friday: the goodness of God—the life and the healing and moral and spiritual freedom God wants for us—versus the evil that takes root in the hearts—the coldness of the hell we make for ourselves when we turn away from God and seek to selfishly control and manipulate our fellow man.

Lent: it helps us to be open to the healing Jesus wants to work in our lives, it strengthens us to have courage to lead others to Jesus. It also helps us to repent and do penance for those time, when like those religious authorities, have coldly closed ourselves to the goodness of God. 

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For an increase in faith for the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity.

That the Church might be delivered and protected from all evil—all coldness toward good, all indifference to life, all selfishness, error, heresy, schism, and unbelief.

For strength to resist temptation, and the humility to sincerely repent of sin.

That through fasting and self-denial, we may be ever more conformed to Christ.

That those in need may find assist in the charity of faithful Christians and that peace and security may be firmly established in all places.

For all who have died, and for all the poor souls in purgatory, and for X. for whom this Mass is offered.

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.

27th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Friday - Irrational hatred of the Gospel

 As the Lord’s mission progressed, the Jesus faced mounting opposition. His critics even began to criticize the good he was doing. When Jesus forgave the sins of the paralytic, the Jewish leaders accused him of blasphemy; when he allowed the sinful woman to anoint and honor Him, a Pharisee was upset that he allowed such a woman to touch him.  Jesus was constantly being ridiculed for reaching out and eating with tax collectors and prostitutes. And, we heard in the Gospel today, when he cast out a demon, the Pharisees accused him of being in league with demons.

To accuse Jesus of casting out demons by Satan’s power shows the level of resistance against him; it also reveals the lack of sound judgment of his opponents. If you can’t recognize that casting out demons is a good thing, a holy act, than your logic is all messed up. You are calling evil “good” and good “evil”. 

The Lord’s teaching is certainly echoing the condemnation of the wicked by the Prophet Isaiah centuries before, who said, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who turn darkness to light and light to darkness, who replace bitter with sweet and sweet with bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.”

This certainly says something about who twisted the human mind and heart can become, how fallen. It is possible that we become so blind we cannot recognize goodness, so deaf we cannot recognize truth. 

The Lord was saying this about the Pharisees, but if it could happen to them, it could happen to anyone. 

The grace and truth of the Gospel is a remedy for the pride and the sin which twists, and wounds, and perverts the human soul. Jesus is the light which shows us the way out of the darkness of error and self-delusion. 

Sadly, some people will never recognize an authority higher than themselves. And they will criticize and perhaps even persecute the Church because she challenges their authority, like Jesus challenged that of the Pharisees. 

There will always be irrational resistance towards the Church, toward the Christian message, until the end.  But that doesn’t mean we stop preaching or compromise the Truth.  Like the Lord, we continue to make the invitation to conversion, even to those who reject it, even those who hate it. God willing they’ll wake up before it’s too late.

Lord heal us from our delusions, our irrationality, and our lack of love. Give us patience when we face resistance in laboring for your Gospel, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That Christians may be faithful to evangelization, especially in the face of opposition.

For those who have fallen into error, for Catholics who have grown lukewarm in their faith, for those who have left the Church, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.

For an increase in devotion to Our Lady’s Holy Rosary, and that we may all come to more fully imitate Our Lady’s faith and purity.

That the love of Christ, the divine physician, may bring healing to the sick and comfort to all the suffering. 

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased priests and religious, and for those who have fought and died for our freedom.

O God, you know that our life in this present age is subject to suffering and need, hear the prayers of those who cry to you and receive the prayers of those who believe in you. Through Christ our Lord.

5th Week in OT 2019 - Wednesday - The choice

Monday and Tuesday, we heard of how God brought creation into existence out of nothing. Unlike many pagan creation myths, material creation in the book of Genesis is ordered according to the divine plan and pronounced very good. And that goes especially for human beings—created in the image and likeness of God.

And today, we read the more detailed account of the creation of man and woman in the second chapter of Genesis.  God forms man from the dust, and settles him in the garden of Eden to cultivate and care for it.  God breathes into the man, the breath of life, and immediately gives him a job: to work the garden, to care for it, to guard and protect it—to maintain the Order God has created.

Along with this job, God also issues a command:  “You may eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, you will not eat, for on the day you eat of it, you will die.”  So what’s at stake at the very beginning?  Life or Death.  Obedience brings life, disobedience brings death.  God’s not lying about this—He’s not just trying to scare Adam.  Obedience brings life, disobedience brings death.  Here’s the choice given to every human being.  What’ll it be?  Will you exercise your will according to the knowledge given you by God? Will you trust God? Or will you turn your will and mind against God? 

These theme will play out over and over again throughout the Scriptures.  Adam and Eve are given a choice. Noah, Moses, the Israelite people, the judges, the kings, the prophets and those who hear the prophets. Obedience—trusting in God—brings life; disobedience—trusting in yourself or the cunning lies of serpents—brings death.

In the Gospel today, Jesus lists actions which cause defilement and death: unchastity, theft, murder,
adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.  He says all these evils come from within, not from without.  Meaning, you can’t claim the “devil made me do it” or “the culture made me do it”, these are actions that people choose freely, they are contrary to the divine will, and they bring death. Moral choices have eternal ramifications.

May we use the breath of life that comes from God, to choose the good. May we trust him when we are tempted. May we repent of the evil we have done through our own fault. And, through our obedience to the Divine Will, may the Holy Spirit renew the face of the Earth, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the Holy Church of God, that the Lord may graciously watch over her and care for her.
For the peoples of all the world, that the Lord may graciously preserve harmony among them.
For all who are oppressed by any kind of need, that the Lord may graciously grant them relief.
For ourselves and our parish, that the Lord may graciously receive us as a sacrifice acceptable to himself.
For the dead, for all of the souls in purgatory, and for X, for whom this Holy mass is offered.
O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you are the source of all goodness, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith, we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.

2nd Sunday in OT 2019 - Buddhist Detachment & Christian Morality

I was watching a documentary last night that contained an old Buddhist story, I think you might like. There was an old farmer who had a prized horse. And one day the horse ran away. And the farmer’s neighbor comes over to commiserate—to offer his condolences. He says, “I’m so sorry. I heard about your horse.” And the old farmer says, “who knows what is good or bad?” And the neighbor is confused because this is the farmer’s prized horse, after all. So the neighbor bids his farewell. Well the next day, the horse returns and he brings with him 12 wild horses from the countryside. Now the farmer is rich in horses. And the neighbor comes over and says, “Congratulations, you have all these horses.” And the old farmer says, “Who knows what’s good or bad?” And the neighbor is confused again. And then the next day the old farmer’s son is taming one of the horses and is thrown off the horse and breaks his leg. And the neighbor comes over again to commiserate, and the farmer says, “who knows what’s good or what’s bad”. And then the next day the army comes through the countryside and they are conscripting able-bodied young men to go off and fight in the war, and the farmer’s son is spared. And this story can go on and on and on.

Though this is a Buddhist story, there is some Christian truth. The Christian is to be detached
in a sense. We don’t know what the events of our life will hold. As they say, when God closes a door he opens a window. Being fired from one’s job, for example, might open up a new opportunity that is in the end more lucrative or more meaningful and fulfilling. The Christian martyrs, like our own St. Ignatius, they saw meaning behind what most people would consider evil: their suffering. St. Ignatius even told the Christians of Antioch not to try to rescue him from being brought to Rome for his martyrdom, so confident was he, that God could bring about something good through his suffering, just as God brought about the greatest good through the greatest suffering, our human salvation through the suffering and death of Jesus.

So, like the old farmer, Christians are called to practice a certain level of detachment. We aren’t to curse God when things don’t go our way. We are to trust God’s providence. Like Old Job would say, “the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”

The Buddhist story however seems to only give insight into the events that happen around us. What it doesn’t address is human choice, human free will, that choices that I make. “Who knows what’s good or bad” applies to the events that happen to us and around us. The farmer had no choice that his horse ran away—so who knows if it was good or bad. However, the choices that we make, the exercise of free-will, that’s different. The Judeo-Christian tradition, our scriptures, the teachings of our Lord and the theologians are very clear that choices are either good or bad, and we can know the difference.
Some choices are so clearly in violation of the natural moral law, they are called objectively evil, objectively sinful: it doesn’t matter who does them, or the circumstance, they are always evil. One example, is the intentional destruction of innocent human life in the womb. And thousands and thousands and thousands of Christians and people of good-will marched upon our nation’s capital on Friday to bring an end to this national tragedy—this embarrassment to history--the legal allowance to murder unborn babies because they are unwanted by their parents. Christians are called to be the moral conscience of a place.

So some choices are clearly wrong. Sometimes it’s not always easy to know what is right or wrong. So God has given us through the Scriptures and through the teaching of his own lips, clear moral teaching. The 10 commandments, the sermon on the mount help to illuminate for us the right way to live, the way that leads to the flourishing of the human soul, the way that leads to everlasting life.

Our Gospel today contains some very important moral teaching from the lips of our blessed mother. Mary doesn't speak often in the Sacred Scriptures, but every time she does speak her words overflow with wisdom: "Do whatever he tells you." That is what is good, always. The teachings and commandments of Christ are always good. They aren’t always easy, but they are always good.

In the case of the wedding at Cana, the command was to bring Jesus jars of water, a strange request. But, when happened when the stewards were faithful to the command of Christ: goodness and power and glory were manifest.

“Do whatever he tells you” means that we can have unbounded confidence in Jesus. His teachings flow from a heart full of goodness, mercy, and love that understands humanity better than we understand ourselves. He wants what is best for us——he came to reconcile sinful man with God, to save sinful man from error and death. And when you trust him he will lead you to all truth. The compelling thing about Christian truth, besides the fact it comes from God himself, is that it is logically consistent, it holds up to greatest rational scrutiny. It is truly Catholic—universally intelligible to all people of all places of all times.

So we trust in Christ and those who he has established to speak and teach in his name. We are to have unbounded confidence in Him and in the teachings of His Church. For he himself said, “he who hears you” speaking to the Apostles, “hears me”. And “he who rejects you rejects Me.” He’s given His authority to the church in matters of faith and morality. And so when the Church clearly teaches that a particular human action is a sin, we trust that teaching and adapt our lives accordingly.

The true test of our confidence in God's goodness and power is our obedience to his will. To “do whatever he tells us”. And what does he tell us? To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to carry our crosses, to love our enemies, to forgive unreservedly, to build our lives and families on the solid foundation of his teaching, to believe in all the all the truths which the holy Catholic Church teaches, because God has revealed them, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.

Believing in good and bad is becoming increasingly unpopular. Naming actions as good or bad is labeled as intolerant or bigoted. But our Gospel today shows us, that when we say yes to Jesus, as incomprehensible as that is to the world, bringing 80 gallons of water to be changed into wine, when we say yes, to whatever he tells us, he does something amazing, something that reveals the goodness and power and glory of God that leads hearts to salvation through belief in Him.

May we be faithful to all the Lord and His Holy Church teaches and commands, may we do “whatever he tells us” for the glory of God and salvation of souls.