3rd Sunday in OT 2019 - Jesus brings us God

Over in the school these past two weeks, I’ve finally had the opportunity to do a little teaching. I’ve visited each of the grades now, and I taught a lesson for each of them on the liturgical year: how the seasons of the Church year celebrate the different seasons of Jesus’ life so we can follow Jesus more faithfully. So I reviewed with them how Advent and Christmas helps us to prepare our hearts to believe in Jesus and love Him, and how now in Ordinary Time we hear about many of the wonderful miracles Jesus performed and his preaching and teaching about the Kingdom of God. Again, Ordinary Time helps us to put the lessons of Jesus’ miracles and preaching into practice into the ordinary events of our life.

Last Sunday, those who braved the snow and cold, heard of Jesus’ first miracle: his miracle at the Wedding at Cana—how Jesus changed water into wine at the urging of his mother. We, like the servants at the wedding, should, as Jesus’ mother teaches us, to do whatever he tells us. And like the disciples who witnessed the miracle, we are to glorify God for the amazing things Jesus does in our lives.

And now this weekend, we hear Jesus’ very first homily recorded in Luke’s Gospel. Emerging from the desert, having fasted and prayed for 40 days and having faced the temptations of the devil, Jesus goes to the synogogue in his native place, Nazareth. There Jesus reads from the scripture and teaches people what God is doing in their midst. Jesus explained how those ancient prophecies of Isaiah were being fulfilled in their midst. God promised that He would bring glad tidings to the poor, liberty to captives, recovery of sight to the blind. And Jesus make the amazing claim that those promises were being fulfilled in Him.

Well, what does this event in the life of Jesus mean for our Ordinary day to day lives?

In his book Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI asks this question another way. He asks “What did Jesus actually bring us?” We still have wars. We still have famine. People still suffer. People still get sick and die. So what did Jesus actually bring? And Pope Benedict answers the question by saying: “Jesus brought us God. Jesus brings us God.”

Jesus is much more than a social worker. He’s not just a nice guy who came to teach us a few useful things about living together in harmony. He’s not just a philosopher who gives us a theory about life, the universe, and everything. He’s not just a politician who promises to fulfill every wish we could ever have.

Jesus brings us something that nothing else and no one else on earth can give: the gift of God Himself. Jesus is God, and Jesus is God’s gift of Himself to Us who need Him. Only God can give us the liberty we need to truly be free. Only God can forgive sins. Only God can give us the gift of eternal life. Only God can give us the good news that changes our life from the core. Jesus shows us the face of God. Jesus reveals the heart of God. Jesus brings us God. For He is Truly God who gives Himself that we may have life.

One of the errors of our modern day is that we think we can save ourselves, that we don’t need God, we can do it on our own. If we just elect the right politicians. If just enact the right law. If we just force everyone to adopt the right set of public policies, if we just get the right sized house or the right amount of cash in the savings account, if we just outlaw certain “triggering” words, then we’ll be free…then we’ll be happy.

This attempt to save ourselves—this belief that we can live rightly without God—is a symptom of the deepest soul sickness, going all the way back to the garden of eden, when adam and eve grasped at a reality divorced from God. They chose to ignore God’s command, to ignore God’s plan for humanity. And each one of us does the same when we choose sin over faithfulness.

And the wars, the violence, the hostility between men and women, the brokenness in families,  the addictions, the penchant for self-destruction is a result of this attempt to build a life and build a world without God. Who will save us from this? Who will save us from the tendency of “not doing the good we want to do, and doing the evil we don’t want to do” as St. paul says? Who will give us the strength to be able to love one another as deeply as we yearn to do? Who will teach us what humanity is meant to be? Who will reconcile us? Who will bring us peace? Jesus “Jesus brought us God. Jesus brings us God.”

In our first reading, we heard a foreshadowing of this amazing truth. From the book of Nehemiah we heard how the Jews fell face-down and wept when the priest read to them from God’s Word. 70 years they had been captive in Babylon. An entire generation did not know God, they did not know the promises of God, they did not know the commandments of God that help us to live a holy life. And they wept when they discovered what God wanted for them, they wept when they discovered that they were not created to be captives to the powers of the world, they wept when they learned they were created to be God’s chosen people, chosen by God to manifest His goodness, his truth, his beauty, his light.

And the Jewish people had this reaction simply from reading from the first five books of the Old Testament. What should our reaction be, how immense should our gratitude be, to come here, and to receive the very gift of God, the body and blood of Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior in the Eucharist. I have known Catholics, similarly to break down and weep in gratitude after encountering Jesus in the confessional, they weep to discover that their sins are forgiven.

This, too, is why daily prayer and daily reading of the Word of God is so important. Because daily we, God’s chosen people are meant to encounter him, to open our hearts and minds to him. We are meant to prayerfully encounter the God who desires to free us, to illuminate us, to guide us in being his holy people, members of his mystical body tasked at manifesting his goodness, his life, his beauty, his truth in the ordinary circumstances of our lives, and bringing sight, freedom, good tiding to those in need of it, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Thursday - 27th Week of OT 2017 - The promise of finding God

About four years ago, Pope Francis promulgated his first encyclical, Lumen Fidei, “The Light of Faith.”  This encyclical completes the series of Papal teaching begun by Pope Benedict, who had written on the two other theological virtues of Charity and Hope. Lumen Fidei is called the encyclical “written by four hands,” as it is clear that Pope Benedict wrote much of Lumen Fidei before his resignation.

The encyclical takes up the topic of man’s search for God and learning to live by the light of faith—and how faith can help and unite the people of the world. “Religious man strives to see signs of God in the daily experiences of life, in the cycle of the seasons, in the fruitfulness of the earth and in the movement of the cosmos. God is light and he can be found also by those who seek him with a sincere heart.”

The encyclical echoes what Jesus teaches in the Gospel today, “seek and you will find.”

Sometimes God is hard to see.  For many modern-day atheists and fallen away Catholics, God is particularly hard to see.  Some people don’t see God and can’t find God because they don’t want to see him and don’t want to find him.  Sometimes, as the Holy Father says, our eyes are not accustomed to seeing God because we’ve spent so much time in the world and not enough time in prayer.

Sometimes it is hard even for life-long Catholics to find God.  Particularly with the proliferation of war, so much violence and perversion, so many Catholics, our family members, falling away from the faith, , it’s hard to find God amidst all that.

But for those who are willing to undertake the journey to seek God ardently, Jesus promises that God will be found.

People of faith also have a responsibility of helping people without faith on their journey. Encourage them, challenge them, challenge their complacency, and even possibly their arrogant assumptions. The church year is full of celebrations of saints who were once godless and faithless. Remind them that God himself has promised that he can be found by those who seek him sincerely.

Listen to this beautiful prayer to the Blessed Mother concluding the encyclical. Mother, help our faith!  Open our ears to hear God’s word and to recognize his voice and call. Awaken in us a desire to follow in his footsteps, to go forth from our own land and to receive his promise. Help us to be touched by his love, that we may touch him in faith. Help us to entrust ourselves fully to him and to believe in his love, especially at times of trial, beneath the shadow of the cross, when our faith is called to mature. Sow in our faith the joy of the Risen One. Remind us that those who believe are never alone. Teach us to see all things with the eyes of Jesus, that he may be light for our path. And may this light of faith always increase in us, until the dawn of that undying day which is Christ himself, your Son, our Lord!

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That our Church leaders may be instilled with genuine Faith, Hope, and Charity and help all people of the world to grow in those virtues.

That world leaders may look upon the Son of God, believe in him, and seek the peace and justice that only he can bring.

That our young people may take seriously the missionary call of Christ, that they will turn away from the evils of our culture to spread the good news of Christ’s eternal kingdom.

For all whose lives are marked by suffering, may they come to know the healing and peace of Christ.

For the deceased members of our families, friends, and parish, and all the poor souls in purgatory, for deceased clergy 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.

August 28 2017 - St. Augustine & the Quest for Truth

Pope Benedict XVI wrote about St. Augustine, “A civilization has seldom encountered such a great spirit who was able to assimilate Christianity’s values and exalt its intrinsic wealth, inventing ideas and forms that were to nourish future generations.”

And yet, when we reflect on the life and works of Augustine, it’s not the story of a sinless human being. In his great work, his autobiography, the Confessions, Augustine writes with stunning honesty about his sinful youth, his practical atheism, his lustful indulgences, his adoption of heresy.

Fulton Sheen said that there are two ways of knowing God, knowing him through innocence, and then knowing him as a reconciled sinner through His mercy. Augustine certainly came to know God through the latter path.

The Gospel for the Feast of Augustine speaks of the need to humble ourselves. Augustine’s conversion, like any conversion, certainly came through humility. He was among the intellectual elite. Like so many of today’s academicians he thought he knew better than the ancient faith. But Augustine, continued seeking the truth.

In his Confessions, Augustine details his intellectual conversion away from the Manichaeist heresy, especially due to the preaching of the holy bishop of Milan, St. Ambrose.  He had the humility to listen to wisdom of the saints. He had the humility to open the Scriptures to learn from the Word of God.

Augustine wrote: “What does the soul desire more ardently than truth?  The truth is known by love.” Augustine realized that true wisdom is not found in the philosophies of the age, and that without the love of God the intellect is darkened.  Without humility and love, the quest for Truth is in vain.
Augustine was a genius, but genius without humility, faith, hope, and love, is nothing. However, surrendering his genius to God, responding in humility to the grace of God enabled him to become as Pope Benedict called him, “the greatest Father of the Latin Church. The man of passion and faith, of the highest intelligence and tireless in his pastoral care, a great saint and Doctor of the Church.”

Augustine is a great patron Saint for our own day, for our youth, for the arrogant university intelligentsia, for those addicted to sin, for those who flee from the Church and from the Truth of the Gospels.

May we come to understand and experience that same conversion of mind and heart, so we too, like St. Augustine may say: “Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I love you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and It was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.  You called, you shouted, you broke through my defenses.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me, and I burned for your peace.” For the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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That the preaching of holy bishops and priests may attract those seeking for Truth to Truth of the Gospels.

That our young people may be kept safe from the evils and errors of our culture, and seek to conform themselves to Christ in all things.

For those who have fallen into error or serious sin, those whose pride keeps them from knowing God’s mercy, and for those who have fallen away from the Church or do not know Christ, for their conversion and the conversion of all hearts.

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.