19th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023 - The need for quiet prayer

 Often times throughout the Scriptures we find our Lord going to a secluded place to pray. In the Gospel, we hear how after a very long and arduous day teaching the crowds, healing the sick, performing the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves, seeing to the feeding of thousands of people, as the sun set, Jesus climbed a mountain in order to pray in solitude. His heart-to-heart prayer with His Father must have been a great consolation for the Lord, especially as he prepared to offer his life on the cross. 

The Lord’s own prayer is an example for all of us. As the master has done, so must the disciple. We need prayer, every day, to refresh us, and strengthen us, and guide us, in which we go to a quiet place, to church or a quiet room in our house, to focus our minds and hearts on God, in which we lift up our needs and the needs of our families, and we allow God to speak to us. Quiet solitude is often the place of divine encounter.

In the first reading from the first book of Kings: there was this loud earthquake, but the Lord was not heard in the loud earthquake, there was this loud booming fire, but the Lord was not heard in the booming fire, there was a strong driving wind, but the Lord was not heard in the wind. Rather, it was in the tiny whispering sound.  God’s voice was detected and heard in the quiet. The lesson here is that we must become quiet in order to hear the voice of God. We are often deaf to the voice of God because we have failed to become quiet enough to hear Him.  He wants to speak quiet piercing words to our hearts which help us to fall in love with Him; but if we have the television going, the iphones going, the video games going all the time, and so we do not hear him.  

Recall the Gospel story of the Lord healing the deaf man: the Lord places his fingers in the ear of the deaf man and says, “ephphatha” and his ears are opened. The Lord opens our ears so that we may hear his voice. The Lord wishes to perform that same healing for us. Prayer is part of the remedy for spiritual deafness, but also that healing requires the removal of those things which are causing too much noise.

Oftentimes its our own anxious thoughts keep us from prayer. Now of course, we are allowed to bring our anxieties to God, and we should. Daily we should be honest with God, and let him know what is causing us fear and anxiety: “Dear Lord, these are the things that are causing me anxiety right now.” But anxious fretting is not prayer. Rather, prayer is needed which surrenders to God and hands over those anxieties so we can experience the peace of his presence, to ask God to give us strength to bear our crosses, that his will be done, like Our Lord prayed in the Garden.

With the busyiness of life, it is often difficult to find time to pray, but it is necessary to make time. Christians do well to recall that prayer is essential for the Christian life. It’s essential. It’s a pillar without which the temple will crumble, the foundation without which our houses will fall. The Scriptures are clear: Christians need to pray. Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation.

The Christian Life involves learning how to pray, learning to imitate the Lord, who himself drew near in faithful communion to his Father. And it does involve learning; for St. Paul admits, “we do not know how to pray as we ought”. But just because they are unknown waters, doesn’t mean we aren’t to traverse them, or become immersed in them. The Holy Spirit will teach you how to swim in the ocean of prayer, if you let him. But you have to practice, and you have to prioritize.

And the more we pray, the happier we become. The more we pray, the less anxious we become, and we are filled with a greater peace of mind and heart. The more we pray, the more we understand ourselves, for we come to know God more intimately, and we really only know ourselves to the degree that we know God personally. The more we pray, the more we begin to see the hand of God in our day to day life—we see Him acting in our life. We begin to see that He loves us, personally. 

Prayer isn’t to be a sporadic or undisciplined practice where we only pray when we need something really badly. Rather, the Christian is to develop a habit of prayer, a habitual practice, as habitual as eating, maybe more so. Because there may be days where we don’t get to eat, but we must still pray. I think of so many Christians who have been imprisoned, where prayer sustained them. 

Prayer brings protection from the waves and storms which seek to overcome us. Through prayer, the Lord deepens our faith and trust, enabling us like Peter to walk on the waters toward Him. 

Prayer also protects our hearts from going astray toward sin. Prayer keeps us from greed that seeks to secure happiness in created things. Prayer keeps us from lust that seeks happiness in the pleasures of the flesh. Prayer keeps us from pride which seeks to build a life without God’s help. Failure to pray is a sign that we’ve failed to put our lives in God’s hands. That we are failing in the first beatitude, for to be poor in spirit is to allow God to be in control. Prayer surrenders control to God. 

Prayer also protects us from the deceptions of the evil one. The Devil is superior to us in intelligence and willpower. We are not smart enough to outwit him and to see through his lies on our own. We need God’s help and that comes through prayer. Where there is division, hatred, unforgiveness and animosity, there is a failure to pray. 

At bare minimum, each day we need, what I call a prayer sandwich, like two thin slices of bread, with a bunch meat and goodies in the middle. Begin the day, with simple prayer, as I mentioned last week, a prayer in the morning asking God to guide your day, to fill your day with His light, and then pray the hail mary; and then a prayer at the end of the day, before laying down to bed, in which you make a brief examination of your conscience and repent of your sins and thank God for the blessings. And then pray the hail mary, or the hail holy queen.

But then, you still need the meat, the stuffing, and that’s where scripture reflection, meditation, and contemplation, come in. A break, somewhere in the day, where it is just you and God, like Jesus in the Gospels going to that secluded place to pray. Bring to God the deep stuff, your deepest struggles. Open the Scripture and allow the Holy Spirit to teach you how to pray with God’s word, to open your mind and heart to be pierced and illuminated by God’s Word.

St. John Vianney wrote, “When we pray with attention and humility of mind and heart, we quit the earth and rise to Heaven.  We reach the outstretched arms of God." Recall how in the Gospel, the  Lord extendshis hands to lift Peter out of the depths. This happens to us when we pray.

May we accept the invitation of the Lord to walk on the water toward Him in prayer, toward Him who is our delight, our Lord, that he may be the firm foundation of our lives for the glory of God and the salvation of souls.

First Friday Holy Hour - February 2022 - The truth that conquers lust

 This morning at mass I reflected upon how today’s Gospel helps us to understand that as disciples of the Lord, we, like John the Baptist will experience hostility when we stand for Truth.

John the Baptist was hated by Herodias for speaking the Truth about her adulterous conduct with King Herod. “It is not lawful for you to have your brother’s wife” he told the King. 

For speaking the truth, the Baptist’s life, like Our Lord’s culminated, in a violent death: for speaking the Truth of God, John was beheaded.

Herodias did not want to hear the truth, so she did everything in her power to silence it. John was silenced for challenging Herodias’ lust for flesh, foreshadowing how Jesus would by silenced by the scribes, chief priests, and pharisees, for challenging their lust for power. 

Nothing incurs some people’s wrath like speaking the truth about their lusts. They do not want to even acknowledge the possibility that their life has become bent on something disordered, something harmful to their souls, to their families, to society. But the Truth of the Gospel helps us to unravel the lies of our life, in order to live more fully for God.

Here in the Lord’s Eucharistic presence, in the silence, we ask him to speak to our hearts. Our lives are so frenetic, but this time of silence with the Lord, will help us to quiet down in order to hear him. Anything True that the Lord wants to tell us, any truth that he wants to communicate to us, we need to open our hearts and our minds to. For the Lord desires our greatest good, he desires what will make us eternally happy in heaven. 

We can be sure that he will tell us nothing that will contradict God’s laws, but what he has to say will help us to follow them more faithfully. Speak O Lord your servants are listening, you have the words of everlasting life. 

May our time with the Lord open our hearts and minds to his truth, and help us to communicate that truth with patience, boldness, conviction, courage, and clarity. May we hear the words he longs to speak to us, the words we long to hear, that we need to hear, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

1st Week of Ordinary Time 2022 - Wednesday - Marking our days with prayer

 

On Monday, we heard Jesus begin his public ministry with powerful words of preaching. Yesterday, we heard Jesus take on the powers of hell, casting out a demon from a possessed man in the Capernaum synagogue. Today, we heard of Jesus healing, not just an individual, but a whole town. We’ve had quite a display of Jesus divine power and authority. 

After his very busy first day in Capernaum, presumably Jesus goes to sleep, like any ordinary man. For Mark tells us that he rose, again, presumably, he rose from sleep, but what a beautiful foreshadowing of the resurrection. He battles the powers of evil, sleeps, and rises early in the dawn. Kind of like Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter, where Jesus definitively defeats the powers of evil on the cross, sleeps the deepest sleep of death in the tomb, the rises in the early morn on Easter Sunday.

Christians reading Mark’s Gospel, those who already know the end of the story, would pick up on this foreshadowing. But imagine you are hearing this story for the first time. Who is this man, who fishermen leave their livelihood immediately to go and follow, who demons claim to know as “The Son of God”, who can miraculously cure an entire village of people, before retiring for the night and then rising early to pray.

And why is he praying. If he is the Son of God, to whom is he praying? Given this stunning display of power, how humble he must be, to speak and act with divine authority, but then go and kneel down in a deserted place to pray to God in heaven. 

Mark’s Gospel will depict Jesus praying on several occasions. Prayerful communion with his heavenly Father will also mark his ministry. Though he is God, the second person of the Trinity, Jesus shows how he seeks—prayerfully seeks—to do the will of his heavenly Father. He is subject to the Father, he obeys the Father, he prayerfully agonizes over the father’s will in the garden of gethsemane, but he remains faithful to his Father, always.

By his example, he teaches us that prayer must mark our days and our deeds too. We, like him, to do well, beginning the day with prayer, rising at dawn, or whenever we awaken, and immediately turning our hearts and minds to heaven. We like him, need to seek quiet deserted places throughout the day to seek guidance and refreshment. In those moments of temptation, agonizing over difficult decisions, we must pray fervently. And on our crosses, in moments of suffering, we, like our Lord must pray, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the preaching and teaching and governance of the Pope, Bishops, and clergy may be free from all error and imprudence, and be a source of constant strength and guidance for the Church.

That those in civic authority may submit their minds and hearts to the rule of Christ, the Prince of Peace and Hope of the nations.

That frequent prayer will mark the lives of every Christian, as we seek to do the will of the heavenly Father. 

For all the needs of the sick and the suffering, the homebound, those in nursing homes and hospitals, the underemployed and unemployed, immigrants and refugees, victims of natural disaster, war, and terrorism, for all those who grieve the loss of a loved one, and those who will die today, for their comfort, and the consolation of their families.

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

O God, our refuge and our strength, hear the prayers of your Church, for you yourself are the source of all devotion, and grant, we pray, that what we ask in faith we may truly obtain. Through Christ our Lord.

Homily: December 19 2016 - Quiet and Faithful Waiting

We return to one of the important Advent themes today: the patient waiting of God’s faithful ones. In the first reading we heard of Samson’s mother and father waiting for a child. They remind us of the Jews enslaved in Egypt, or the Jews captive in Babylonian exile, who waited and waited for deliverance—the faithful remnant who trusted that God would be faithful to his promises of salvation.

Zechariah and Elizabeth, too, had waited and waited for a child, even to the point where Elizabeth had been disgraced for her barrenness. At that time, remember, that children were considered as great blessings from God, and to experience barrenness was considered a curse.

Yet, the times of barrenness, the times of waiting, are not so much curses, as opportunities for God to test and strengthen our faith. In times of waiting, God purifies us of superficial desires, and increases our desire for the one thing that really matters: salvation, union with God.

I think the purification that waiting brings is seen in the punishment Zechariah undergoes for his doubt. When the angel announced that he and his wife would conceive, Zechariah initially doubted. Because of his doubt, the angel prescribed a punishment or a penance. Zechariah doubted the Word of God, so he himself was struck mute. But his muteness was medicinal. During those nine months, as he saw his wife show signs of pregnancy, he would ponder again the word of God, to renew his trust in it.

Muteness, silence is one of the wonderful aids for growing in holiness. This 4^th Week of Advent which is characterized by peace should be a quiet week, a week of reflection, pondering the promises of God, treasuring God’s word, like Mary, in our hearts.

This is a good week to make an extra visit to the adoration chapel, to schedule extra quiet time with the Scriptures. To put away the superficial distractions in order to focus on the one thing that matters most. To nurture a peace and calm and quiet akin to the silent night on which Christ is born.

Such silence, quiet, and peace will help us treasure Him above all else, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.