5th Week of Lent 2021 - Friday - "You are gods"

 One week from Good Friday, with Holy Week looming on the horizon, our Gospel today begins in  dramatic fashion. The opponents of Jesus are ready to stone him to death. The violence, the plotting, the hostility toward Jesus is all starting to mount and come to a climax.  

It was the festival of the Dedication of the Temple—what today is called Hanukah, and Jesus stood in a sacred place, one of the porticos of the Temple, preaching the truth about how he has been sent by the Father as the promised Messiah, the Son of God.

This enrages the people who weren’t ready to believe in Him, and certainly weren’t ready to give him the authority as the Messiah.  So they plotted against him, and were prepared to carry out that plot by stoning him to death as the Gospel opened today.

Jesus then speaks up and asks them, “why” are they persecuting him? They claim Jesus has committed blasphemy, but Jesus asserts, “I have simply been restating to you what is in your own scriptures.”  Jesus says, “you are trying to kill me for claiming to be the Son of God, while your own scriptures make that claim about all God’s people”  And he is right, of course.  Psalm 82 speaks about how the children of Israel can rightly be called “gods”—not because they have any claim on Divinity—but because God speaks to them as his own children—and calls them into a filial relationship through justice and sharing his divine life.

While Psalm 82 certainly calls Israel to filial love of God, it also stands as a powerful indictment of Israel’s failure to love and bow to God’s authority. “How long will you judge unjustly and favor the cause of the wicked?” God asks the religious leaders in Psalm 82. Not ironically, that is precisely what Jesus was doing in that moment. He was standing in the Temple, the dwelling place of God, passing a sort of judgment on Israel’s leaders. For failing to acknowledge that He comes from the Father, Israel’s leaders will be counted among the wicked and die. 

This certainly puts into perspective why the religious leaders want to arrest and kill Jesus right then and there. They aren’t so much concerned about Jesus’ supposed blasphemy, but that Jesus exposes their wicked, unbelieving hearts.

This dramatic event certainly helps us to prepare for Holy Week by helping us understanding some of the dynamics that were going on in Jerusalem leading up to Good Friday. And yet, like so many of our Lenten Gospels, they invite us to examine our own hearts: how does my pride keep me from loving Jesus as I should? How does my hardness of heart keep me from the fullness of life as a child of God?

May these final Lenten days help to humble our earthly pride so to help us live in the fullness of God’s children, for the Glory of God and salvation of souls.

- - - - - - - -  

For an increase in faith for the catechumens and candidates who approach the sacraments of initiation in the coming Paschal Solemnity. And That the Church might be delivered and protected from all spirits of error, heresy, schism, and unbelief. Let us pray to the Lord.

That during this Year of St. Joseph, the Church may discover a deeper devotion to our Universal Patron. That through St. Joseph’s intercession families may be strengthened, priestly and religious vocations may increase, demons may be scattered, and the sick and dying may know the peace of Jesus. Let us pray to the Lord.

For those experiencing any kind of hardship or sorrow, isolation, addiction, or illness: may they experience the healing graces of Christ. Let us pray to the Lord.

For all those who have died, for all the poor souls in purgatory, for those who have fought and died for our country’s freedom, and for [intention below], for whom this Mass is offered.  Let us pray to the Lord. Let us pray to the Lord.

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.

November 13 2019 - Mother Cabrini - Impelled by Divine Love

Listen again to the first stanza of the psalm this morning, psalm 82:

Defend the lowly and the fatherless;
render justice to the afflicted and the destitute.
Rescue the lowly and the poor;
from the hand of the wicked deliver them.

Francis Xavier Cabrini was born near Milan, Italy.  She was rejected from joining several religious orders, having been told that her frail health would not be well suited to being a missionary.  So, she founded a new religious congregation, the Missionary sisters of the Sacred Heart. 

Her dream had been to be a missionary sister to China, but her bishop and Pope Leo XIII asked her to be missionaries to the United States, to care for the growing number of Italian immigrants. So, Mother Cabrini and six sisters of her congregation sailed for America in 1889 where they established schools, orphanages, and hospitals.

Mother Cabrini followed the Lord’s call to minister to the poor and the downtrodden, to lift them out of there desperate circumstances and to help them realize their dignity as children of God.  In the words of our Psalm, she defended the lowly and fatherless, rendered justice to the afflicted, rescued the lowly and the poor.”

In 35 years, despite constant poor health Frances Xavier Cabrini founded 6 institutions for the poor, the abandoned, the uneducated and the sick, and organized schools and adult education classes for formation in the Catholic Faith. She died of malaria in her own Hospital in Chicago in 1917.
Mother Cabrini was the first US Citizen to be canonized, and she is known as the patron saint of immigrants.

Pope Pius XII at her canonization asked, “Where did she acquire all that strength and the inexhaustible energy by which she was able to perform so many good works and to surmount so many difficulties?...the divine love burned within her.”

May the divine love burn within us. May we nurture it through prayer and the sacraments. May it impel us to be attentive to the lowly and fatherless in our midst. May it help us find the courage to leave our comforts to care for the needy. May that holy fire illuminate our lives and guide us in imitation of the selfless Christ and His saints for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

- - - - - - - -
 
For an end to the violence and poverty that displaces so many people from their homes and homelands, and that migrants, refugees, and strangers in our midst, may know the kindness and compassion of our local Church.

That our president and all civil servants will carry out their duties with justice, honesty, and respect for the dignity of every human life.  We pray to the Lord.

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

We pray in a special way during this month of November for all the faithful departed, for those whose names are written in our parish book of the names of the dead, all deceased members of St. Ignatius of Antioch Parish, and our deceased family members and friends, deceased clergy and religious, for those who fought and died for our freedom and for N. for whom this mass is offered.

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.