5th Week in OT 2018 - Friday - Healing divided kingdoms and divided hearts

Scripture portrays Solomon's reign as the high point of Jewish political and economic history. King Solomon’s riches and wisdom surpassed all the kings of the earth. His kingdom was so formidable that for years he never even had to fight a war.

In a prophetic gesture, Ahijah the prophet ripped his coat into 12 pieces to show how Solomon's seemingly invincible kingdom would be torn to pieces. Ahijah's shocking prophecy soon proved true when civil war divided the country after Solomon's death.

Jesus teaches that “Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste.” President Lincoln quoted this verse when speaking about our divided nation during the civil war. The most established, endowed, seemingly impregnable, and developed organizations and systems will quickly collapse if the hearts of people are not entirely with the Lord. Sin has a terrifying power to bring division in any human endeavor--in governments, dioceses, parishes, families, and marriages. 

In less than a week we begin the season of Lent. The devil fears Lent because it can be a time of great spiritual healing, where the causes of division in our organizations and in our hearts are uprooted and mended by our Lenten prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

Throughout the Gospels Jesus healed people physically as a sign of the deeper spiritual healing he came to bring to all mankind. He opened the ears of the deaf and freed the tongues of the dumb and speech-impaired as a sign that He would open our ears so that we can have a greater faith and open our mouths to proclaim that faith.

The Lord will heal the wounds of sin and division, he will heal our spiritual deafness, dumbness, blindness, our spiritual paralysis, he will make our families and parishes endure, if we let him, if we allow him to reign over our hearts.

We can open ourselves to receive deep spiritual healing and transformation by engaging rigorously in the Lenten practices, by repenting of sin, and committing to living and sharing the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

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For the Holy Father’s prayer intention for the month of February, that those who have material, political or spiritual power may resist any lure of corruption.

For those who have fallen away from the Church, for those who have fallen into serious sin, for those who have lost faith in God, for those who reject Church authority, for all troubled marriages, for the healing of all sin and division.

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.

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

Homily: Thanksgiving 2016: Abraham Lincoln's Promulgation of Thanksgiving Day

In the middle of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be celebrated on the final Thursday in November. 

The great president of emancipation wrote:

“The gracious gifts of the Most High God…should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.  And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.”

Thanksgiving Day is a civil holiday, yes.  But President Lincoln was not hesitant in urging Americans to turn to the God of Creation in thanksgiving and praise for his blessings.

In a few weeks, the busyness of the Christmas season will be upon us, and we will be reminded to keep the Christ in Christmas, to remember that his glorious and saving birth is the reason for our celebration.  Today, I think, we do well, to keep the Thanks in Thanksgiving.  To recall the blessings of our life, food, shelter, family, the beauty of nature, and of course our faith. 

In the Gospel, 10 lepers received healing, but it was the one leper, who returned to the Lord to give thanks who was saved.  True thanksgiving opens our hearts to the eternal.  True thanks is not just focused on the things of this earth, but sees in them goods that come from God, which we have a responsibility to use wisely.

President Lincoln also encouraged humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience. A scourge of atheism and indifference to God have certainly swept over our land: a selfishness, entitlement, and gluttony fill the hearts of many. But Selfishness and thanksgiving are like oil and water.

In our first reading, St. Paul prayed in thanksgiving to God for the grace bestowed upon the Corinthian community, yet we know that grace was not always used; the Corinthians were a divided community, a community which often allowed the perversity of the pagan culture to dictate their behavior instead of the charity and wisdom of God.

So we certainly pray in thanksgiving for the blessings of our lives today, but also for the wisdom to put those blessings, firstly, in service to God, for the needs of the poor, for the building up of the church, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.