9th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Friday - The healing of Tobit's Blindness

 Last week our first readings came from the Book of Sirach; this week they’ve been from the Book of Tobit. But because of all the wonderful feast days of the saints, we haven’t really been reading from Tobit. 

So firstly, who is Tobit anyway? Tobit describes himself in the first chapter of his book as a Jew from northern Israel taken to Nineveh in slavery by the Assyrians. He was a very successful businessman, he was faithful to all his religious duties and generous to the poor, married to a beautiful and pious wife.

One day, through a strange act of providence, he went blind—bird droppings fell into his eyes and blinded him and he developed cataracts. For 4 years, he goes to doctors, and his blindness only gets worse. His life becomes unraveled. His marriage becomes rocky. Tobit becomes so despondent that he wants to die. He reminds us a lot of Job. He seems cursed. His faith was certainly being tested.

And yet, through their sufferings, both Tobit and Job come to a deeper understanding of God. In many of the speeches of Tobit and Job, why find them crying out to God, “Why me?” What did I do wrong to deserve this suffering? I diligently obeyed God’s rules, why is this happening to me? Both Tobit and Job seemed to be operating under this very prevalent idea, that If I obey all God’s rules, He will bless me with earthly prosperity. 

But, both Job and Tobit come to discover that God is worthy of worship and adoration and love not just when things are going well in our lives, but also when things aren’t going well. 

This realization, this deepening of faith in Tobit and Job, is a foreshadowing of the Lord’s teaching in the Gospels on the cross. Jesus promises his disciples a share in the cross. Each of us will bear a cross, many crosses in life—temptations and sufferings and setbacks and losses and bodily ills. 

The Christian disciples is called to a much more radical faith, than of those who only praise God when things go well, or who only worship God in hopes of earthly prosperity. We are to be bearers of the cross, who trust in God’s providence, who worship God even when we are sharing deeply in the sufferings of Christ. 

When he finally comes to trust in God’s providence, Tobit receives a healing from God. His son returns with medicine—his cataracts are able to be removed—reminding us of the scales that fall from the eyes of St. Paul—when he comes to faith in Christ Jesus. 

Deeper faith, deeper trust brought spiritual healing for Tobit, the healing of spiritual blindness. This story helps us to yearn for a healing of all of our spiritual blindnesses which keep us from trusting in God and embracing God’s will for our lives. May we come to see God’s goodness and God’s majesty in the crosses of our lives, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

 

That all members of the Church will discover and offer their gifts wholeheartedly in service of the Gospel. 

For our young people beginning summer vacation, that they may be kept close to the truth and heart of Jesus, that young people may live in faith-filled homes where the Gospel is cherished, studied, and lived-out.

For all of the sick and suffering, for the grace to unite their sufferings with Christ and to know His consolation and peace.

For our departed loved ones and all of the souls in purgatory, and for N. for whom this Mass is offered. We pray to the Lord.

Incline your merciful ear to our prayers, we ask, O Lord, and listen in kindness to the supplications of those who call on you. Through Christ our Lord

25th Week in OT 2020 - Friday - A time for everything (School Mass)

 I’ve been able to say hello to some of you in the parking lot in the mornings before school, but I’m very happy to greet you all for the first time, albeit virtually, and to wish you all a very blessed new school year.

This is a year unlike any other years, isn’t it? Virtual classrooms, social distancing. And I don’t think we could have a more relevant first reading than we did this morning. So, relevant to the strange circumstances in which education must occur this year. 

Ecclesiastes says, there is an appointed time for everything, a time for everything under the heavens.  

“A time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces.” Most schools years fall into that first category, don’t they? A time for embrace—of being close to each other. The word embrace literally means, being able to throw your arms around a friend or a loved one. And now, about half of our students are not able to join us in person, quite yet. And, sadly, we have to avoid the physical contact we are used to.

It is a time to be far from embraces. Most of our families even are forced to be far from embraces. We can’t just go and throw our arms around our cousins or aunts and uncles or grandparents. And that’s terribly sad.

But, this reading from ecclesiastes reminds us that through all these different changing times and seasons of life and human history, even very strange times like the one we live in now, God is working in our lives. God is bigger, God is stronger, than even our worst problems. 

And what is God doing? What is God doing even now in this time of sickness, this time where we must be far from embraces?. God is at work, the book of ecclesiastes says, to put the timeless into our hearts.

What does that mean? That means when we are living through good times, God is at work to make us holy. And when we are going through bad times or difficult times or terrible times, God is at work to make us holy. God wants to make us holy whether we are in peace times or at war, whether we are rejoicing over the wonderful things happening to us, or we are mourning over the very sad things.

Ecclesiastes says that God is at work, often, without us discovering what he is doing. Often, and especially when we are going through difficult times, like we are right now, it is hard to know what God is doing. It’s hard to fathom that anything good can come out of evil. It is hard to see the hand of God. It is hard to imagine just what good God can bring out of social distancing, distance learning, quarantine.

There is an old saying that absence makes the heart grow fonder. In other words, being far from embraces, as ecclesiastes puts it, helps us to value and be grateful for the times that we are able to be together and share embraces. God wants to help us see goodness everywhere and in all people. God wants us to work to bring goodness out of every evil and to love and cherish every person—every human life. Ecclesiastes reminds us to make the best use of the time that we’ve been given, and that always means, looking for God, praying to God, and valuing the things of God. 

I’d rather that all of you would be able to join me in church today, but, perhaps, God is teaching all of us to value being in Church more than we did, when we could come here freely.

The theme for this school year is “go out to all the world and tell the good news”, with the help of the Holy Spirit, may we continue to look for creative ways to do that, even with the constraints upon us, to share the good news of Jesus Christ with the time that we’ve been given, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That we may use the time, talent, and treasure with which they’ve been blessed, to grow in the timeless virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Let us pray to the Lord.

For blessings upon the teachers and staff of St. Ignatius of Antioch Elementary, that they may strive to share their knowledge with gentle patience and endeavor always to bring the truth to eager minds. Let us pray to the Lord.

For parents, the first teachers of their children, that their faith and love may be an example to their children always. Let us pray to the Lord Let us pray to the Lord.

For students: that they may use their God given gifts and talents to apply themselves diligently to their studies, for peace and harmony among them, and the flowering of the Gifts of every spiritual gift. Let us pray to the Lord.

That all of our homes may be places where the timeless word of God is studied, cherished, and practiced Let us pray to the Lord.

For an end to oppression, racism, hatred, addiction and injustice. For those most profoundly impacted by the coronavirus, for first responders, the underemployed and unemployed, and the healing of all the sick Let us pray to the Lord.

For the deceased members of our family, friends, and parish, for all of the poor souls in purgatory, and for N. …for whom this Mass is offered. Let us pray to the Lord.

O God, you know that present life 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.

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.