27th Week in Ordinary Time 2021 - Tuesday - The problem with anxious worrying

 

October began with the feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese. St. Therese teaches us that power of doing little things with great love—doing the ordinary, day-to-day chores and responsibility mindful of God’s presence with us, embracing the little inconveniences with greater and greater patience.

In the little, ordinary events of the day, there are opportunities to grow in grace and focus on God, but that means there is also the temptation to turn away from him. If you can become a saint through these small events, why aren’t we all saints?

So often, it is our anxious thoughts and our impatience which keep us from knowing the peace of God.  Proverbs says, “Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down”, it causes us to sink from grace to bitterness. Anxious worry about what other people are doing, minding other people’s business instead of focusing on your own can cause us to miss out on grace.

Like Martha in the Gospel today, who misses the whole point of Jesus’ visit, we miss out on opportunities to grow in grace because we are consumed with anxious busyness. You can imagine Martha cursing Mary the whole time she was doing her chores, “why is she just sitting there, doesn’t she know how much work there is to do?”

Ruminating in self-pity, “why am I the one stuck doing this?” certainly doesn’t bespeak of the prayerfulness that is to accompany our work. Perhaps, Martha’s complaining was even a sign that what she really wanted was to control her sister, and was using housework as an opportunity to manipulate or dominate. Nagging, after all, can be a form of subtle domination. Or, what kind of old resentments was Martha carrying around with her, that she could not imagine that her sister Mary could be doing something good?

Martha’s grumbling sure doesn’t lead us to believe that she was doing these small things with great love. Rather, we do well to begin our work prayerfully offering it to God, seeking to glorify God even by the way we do our work—with peace, humility, perhaps even cheerfulness.

The Lord responds to Martha: “you are anxious and worried about many things.” Psalm 139 says that God searches us and knows our hearts, he tests us and knows our anxious thoughts. And Jesus shows himself to be keenly aware that Martha was not doing her work with peace in her heart. Jesus in this Gospel isn’t condemning housework, but he is certainly teaching that we must let go of our anxieties, worrying what everybody else is doing all the time, if it keeps us from being at peace.

May we relinquish our anxious attitudes or domineering behaviors, and focus in our work and throughout the day on the Lord's Holy Will for our lives, for the glory of God and salvation of souls. 

- - - - - - - - - -  

That hearing the call to repentance preached by the Church, all men may turn away from their sins to the mercy of Christ.

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.

5th Sunday of Easter 2020 - "Do not let your hearts be troubled"

“Do not let your hearts be troubled”. We do well to return to those words, over and over, for if there is anything that we are not really good at, as humans, it’s keeping our hearts from being troubled, when we face danger or uncertainty or change or very strong emotion, like grief or anger. “Do not let your hearts be troubled”, easier said than done.

But, our Lord uttered these words knowing a little something about the human heart, with its frailties and fickleness. After all, he is its author. Knowing our tendency to over think, to be anxious, to lose our cool, to become frightened and discouraged, our Lord commands us still: “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”

It was on the night before his own death that he spoke these words to his apostles gathered for the Passover meal under some pretty strange circumstances. Jesus had already predicted that he would be killed because of his teachings and preaching of the Gospel. The apostles had already detected Jesus’ enemies conspiring against him. They knew that his mission would have consequences for him and for them, his closest followers. But now he spoke on the very night of his arrest, when he would be dragged before the high priest like the temple lamb being led to its slaughter.

They could no doubt sense something in the air. Perhaps they would be arrested like him, perhaps they would suffer like him, perhaps they would be put to death, as he predicted he would be. “Do not let your hearts be troubled” when you face the unknowable, the unthinkable. Do not let your hearts be trouble as you witness horror, when you see your world collapse, when those seemingly invincible earthly institutions begin to crumble, when security and health and mortality are threatened. “Do not let your hearts be troubled.” Ever. Custody of the heart is to be kept always.

Not an easy task. When your world begins spiraling out of control, when death takes a loved one, when you lose your job. When it just doesn’t seem like there is anything you can do, there is always at least one thing. There is a choice we can make when we face the great chaos. A choice, an act of the will, a decision.  We can keep our hearts from being troubled. Our Lord wouldn’t have made this command if it were impossible. And all things are possible with God, including this.

What is this trouble, the Lord is talking about? In St. John’s Greek…this word for trouble is the Greek word tarasso, which means physically agitated, disturbing the inner works of a thing by shaking it. When we are experiencing chaos, doesn’t it feel just like that, like our inner world is quaking and shaking apart. Our plans for the future, our understanding of how the world should work begins to fall apart?

The latin translation of this word also is interesting. St. Jerome used the word turbetur, which connotes an angry mob rioting. And the Lord is saying keep your heart from becoming like an angry, irrational mob, smashing what it does not understand. Keep your heart from shaking apart. Keep your heart from disquiet and dread, distress and doubt.

That the Lord assumes that we even have this power within us, is kind of surprising. But he knows we do, because again, he made us.

So how can we keep our hearts from trouble? What does this mean? This choice, this decision it doesn’t mean we ignore our troubles, ignore the chaos or injustice or the divisions in our church or in our families. Ignoring our problems is not the key to peace. Nor, does this mean playing some sort of psychological game of just looking on the bright side of things like naïve Pollyanna, hiding behind some invincible optimism or a pair of rose-colored glasses.

Nor does true inner peace come from imposing control on things outside ourselves. When we feel our life going out of control, sometimes we seek to impose control on others—nagging our family members—or giving in to addictions, things that we feel we can control, at least for a time.
Rather, to keep our hearts from trouble, or Lord says, have faith. Choose to have faith. “You have faith in God, have faith in me.” The Lord said.

Commenting on this passage, Augustine writes “Our Lord consoles His disciples, who, as men, would be naturally alarmed and troubled at the idea of His death, by assuring them of His divinity.” Faith that Jesus Christ is God, Chrysostom writes, “is more powerful than anything that shall come upon you; and can prevail in spite of all difficulties.”

Have faith, engage your faith, live your faith that Jesus is God. No matter what you are going through, put Jesus Christ, True God at the center of it. “For I am convinced,” writes St. Paul, “that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Faith that Jesus is God can conquer demons. This faith can move mountains. It grants us boldness and zeal when called upon to preach, it grants us fortitude when faced with temptation, it grants eternal perspective when faced with earthly ordeals. When you have true faith, when you have made Christ your cornerstone, your life becomes charged and changed by his presence. It grants the conviction that God’s plan is greater, and runs deeper, than our narrow perspectives.

So when you begin to experience any sort of trouble of heart, any temptation, dread or despair, recall that Jesus Christ is God—that He is victor over all sin and evil and death. And then consider what that truth impels you to do. I guarantee it never includes sitting around and worrying or overeating or numbing yourself with drugs or lashing out at a neighbor or conspiring against him.
May we exercise true faith today and all days, faith which keeps our hearts from all trouble, faith which impels us to work for the spread of the Gospel for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

6th Sunday of Easter 2019 - Anxiety and the Gift of Peace

Scripture speaks often of God’s desire to give his people “peace”. Psalm 85 says that God promises peace to his people. Psalm 29 says, “The LORD gives strength to his people; the LORD blesses his people with peace.” Paul tells the Galatians that the fruits of the Spirit are “love, joy, goodness, faithfulness, and peace” Isaiah prophecies that the Messiah will be called “Wonder-Counselor and Prince of Peace”

The Peace which the Lord exhibited in his earthly ministry must have been profoundly attractive to his people. You can tell when people are filled with the peace of God. The holiest people I’ve met have been the most peaceful—peace surrounds them like cloak. I think the opposite is also true; most of us have met people that seem surrounded by a cloud of distress, bitterness, unhappiness; drama and chaos and division follow them everywhere. Perhaps, you’ve met someone who has allowed grief to turn into anger at the world or anger at God and that anger just exudes from them. Christians, rather, should be known by their peace. We are called to be peacebearers and peacemakers.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.” What powerful words, especially when we know, all too well, how anxiety, fear, anger, worry can have such a negative effect upon our lives.

We worry or are angry about the economy, about our jobs, our families, our kids and spouses, our Church and our parish, our government, our country, the environment. Anxities and resentments can have serious repercussions on our physical and mental health, resulting in headaches, irritability, muscular aches and pains, gastrointestinal issues, depression, difficulty in concentrating, both extreme fatigue and sleeplessness, just to name a few symptoms.

And many people turn to compulsive behaviors to cope with their anxiety: overindulgence in alcohol, drugs, promiscuity or pornography, excessive eating and shopping. Anything to give some semblance of control.

Anxiety and restlessness can be a sign that things are out of balance. God designed the human person in such a way that we experience anxiety, some restlessness, when our lives are out of balance. Anxiety can be a sign that we need to make some changes to our Diet, exercise, and sleep schedule, that we need to spending more quality time with family and friends. Serious compulsions and serious anxiety is likely a sign that we need to speak with a counselor.

Yes, anxiety and restlessness can be signs that something is out of balance and needs to be changed about our physical and mental habits. They can also be a sign that something needs to be changed or improved about our spiritual habits. As St. Augustine said so rightly, “Our hearts are restless until they rest in God.” If we aren’t experiencing the peace we think we should, in our spiritual life, we do well to examine what might need to change.

The peace that God wants for us might come from personal changes, it will likely come through other people, working on relationships, and peace will certainly through prayer and the sacraments. One well-known Catholic psychologist said that 5 minutes in the confessional is worth a month of therapy. The honesty of admitting one’s failures in the confessional and acknowledging that God is the source of peace and strength for the future, has a powerful therapeutic effect, not to mention the spiritual cleansing we receive through sacramental absolution.

Boredom, too, is likely a sign that spiritual changes need to be made. I often tell the kids over in the school that boredom is either a sign that they need to get up and do something physical, or it’s a sign that they need to spend more time in prayer. Likely, it’s a sign of both.

Boredom, anxiety, anger, fear, worry, these are signs that we need to go to a quiet place and open ourselves to the gift of peace that Jesus promises in our gospel today. Now some people confuse prayer and worry. Prayer is not simply over-ideating on your problems. Going over and over your worries in your head is not prayer. Rather, prayer requires entrusting our worries to God, asking God to help us identify what we can do about them, and letting him take care of the rest. As they say in AA, let go and let God. Peace comes through faith: yes, it comes from doing what we can, praying hard, working hard, but finally, we need to entrust our needs to God.

St. Padre Pio, the great Italian stigmatist from the last century, is said to have received many letters from around the world. Thousands of letters every day. And these letters, as you guessed it, were filled with people’s problems, needs, and worries. And, it’s said that he would often write back the same thing in every response. He’d write, “work hard, do your best, pray hard, and don’t worry.” Work hard, do your best, pray hard, and don’t worry.

In thinking about worry and anxiety, I can’t help but think, as well, of our mothers who we celebrated two weeks ago on Mother’s day. Not as the cause of our anxieties…mostly…but as the remedy. Who here hasn’t brought a worry or anxiety to your mother? Mothers sort of absorb the worries and anxieties of her children. We no doubt have many mothers here who have taken their own children’s worries and anxieties and needs upon themselves, who have brought their children’s anxieties, in their hearts, to the altar today. And something happens in the mother’s heart, doesn’t it, problems are transformed, sometimes wisdom is discovered, peace is given.

On this final Sunday of the Month of May, I invite all of you to deepen and strengthen your relationship to our Mother in Heaven, Our Lady. She is called Our Lady of Sorrows, because she takes our sorrows and the sorrows of the world to God for us. She is Our Lady Perpetual Help because she is always there, always concerned for each one of us. She is Our Lady, Refuge of Sinners, because we can always find peace and protection in her care. As Mediatrix of Grace she is the channel through which God’s peace is offered to us.

So, bring your needs, your worries and woes, your stresses to Mother Mary every day. In the moment of fear, in the moment of anger, in the moment of temptation, call upon Mother Mary. She will always help us find and know the gift of peace, given to us by Her Son, Our Lord. No Doubt, Mary’s presence brought peace to Jesus Himself throughout his own sufferings. We know Mary comforted Jesus on the way of the cross, we know she stood by him as he suffered crucifixion and died. Jesus gave Mary to us as our own Mother, and we do well, to allow her to do a mother’s job in our own life, to be that powerful source of peace in our needs and troubles.

Please know that as I embark on pilgrimage this week, I bring all of your needs, worries, anxieties, and petitions with me, and pray that the Lord may continue to bless us with his gift of peace, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

13th Sunday of OT 2018 - Healing and Hopeless Causes

I’ve discovered that one of the beautiful traditions here at Holy Family Parish is that every Tuesday morning after the weekday mass is a special set of prayers, a perpetual Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. If you aren’t familiar with it, I invite you to visit the icon after mass today, say a prayer before this beautiful image of our Lady, tightly holding the Christ Child. Join your fellow parishioners in invoking her help for our parish, our families, our broken world. We face so many difficulties, and it is so good, to turn to Our Lady, who is united to Her Son, in bringing healing and peace to the world.

It is said that among the saints whose heavenly help and intercession is sought by the faithful, second only to Our Lady, is the apostle St. Jude.  Even many non-Catholics venerate St. Jude as the patron saint of Hopeless Causes. The patron of hopeless causes is so popular because so many of our difficulties seem hopeless: the terminal illness, the seemingly endless cycle of addiction, the corruption of government leaders, the plights of the poor—they seem hopeless.
Our readings this weekend speak to the experience of hopelessness.

Jairus, the synagogue official goes to Jesus for his very sick little twelve-year-old daughter. Is there any hopelessness like a parent who knows their child is dying? Jairus who feels he has nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to, turns to this itinerant preacher, this wandering miracle worker from Nazareth. Without saying word, at least St. Mark doesn’t record any spoken reply, Jesus begins to travel to the home of Jairus, to the bed of his dying daughter.

Jairus’ own servants emphasize the hopelessness of the situation. They meet Jesus en route, and say, “it’s no use, it’s hopeless, you are wasting your time, the little girl is dead.” And here we see the difference between Jesus Our Lord and so many of the charlatans of his day and our own. At the prospect of death, the charlatans, the fakers would find an excuse to turn away, for nothing exposes man’s limitations like death.

But Jesus brings to this hopeless situation, not the limitations of man’s science, but the grace of God. To God, death is as easy to be conquered as waking up a child from a nap. So, to this hopeless case, a dead little girl and her desperate Dad:, Jesus brings light and life.

St. Mark reports this weekend not just one hopeless case, but two. While on the way to the house of Jairus, a suffering, desperate woman, inflicted with terrible, mysterious hemorrhages, approaches Jesus. She had visited doctor after doctor, tried medicine after medicine, her savings were depleted, a truly hopeless case.  And then she hears of Jesus, who brings healing to the hopeless cases. She presses close as he is passing by, just hoping to touch his garment; and when she does, she is healed. 
It doesn’t take a great skeptic to say “well,  these stories from Jesus’ earthly ministry are fine and good, but what about my hopeless case: what about my sick child, my unemployment, the addict in my family, my broken marriage, the fallen-away Catholic, my unanswered prayers?”
So what is the Christian to do in our very own hopeless cases?

Like Jairus and the woman, we are to draw close to Jesus, in the sacraments and in prayer and ask for help. Jesus wants us to bring our needs to him.  He may not answer them in the way we want.  But God is not bothered by our prayers.  There are prayers he wishes to answer through our persistence in asking for them.

Now some of us confuse prayer with anxious worrying. Just because we are thinking about our hopeless cause, or worrying about our hopeless cause, doesn’t mean we are praying about our hopeless cause. Worry and fretting are bad, often sinful. Worry wastes time, prayer is powerful and productive.

So what do we mean by prayer? The 6th century bishop and doctor of the Church, St. John Damascene, said, “Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God.” Prayer shifts the focus from the object of worry to God the giver of peace. St. Paul says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Prayer is a request, not a demand. Prayer certainly does not mean telling God what to do. Jairus uses the word “please”, please help me, please help my daughter, if it pleases you, if it’s your will, if it will bring about the greatest good for my soul. Prayer does not seek to make God an instrument of our wills, but to change our wills to become instruments of his.

I think this is one reason why people don’t pray. Prayer requires surrendering control. We get our lives just like they like them, and to introduce God into the equation is to introduce an element we can’t control. Prayer requires giving up control, and such surrender is unacceptable to the willful heart.

We want healing, we want eternal life without having to change much, we want the healthy marriage and peaceful nation without having to expend too much energy, we want healing for ourselves without having to suffer for others.

You’ve probably heard it said that prayer is less about changing God than changing us. And many don’t turn to God because they know God calls them conversion. But it’s precisely through the converted heart, the surrendered heart, the obedient heart, it’s through you and me becoming saints, that God wants to bring healing into the world, into the hopeless causes.

So what is the Christian to do in the face of hopeless cases? We seek to become saints. We go to Jesus, we go to the Blessed Mother and the saints in heaven, with a truly open heart, a heart willing to be changed, to suffer for others, a heart willing to give up its vices and selfishness, a heart willing to say, “I was wrong”, “I’ve not trusted God enough”, “I’ve spent so much time on selfish pursuits rather than on your holy will, help me.”

May the Lord bring miraculous healing and peace to our hopeless cases, through our cooperation with his Holy Will, through our humble prayer and repentance and service. May he continue to shape us and form us to bring faith to the faithless, hope to the hopeless, love to the loveless, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

Tuesday - 27th Week of OT 2017 - Anxiety keeps us from encountering Christ

October began with the feast of the Little Flower, St. Therese. St. Therese teaches us that power of doing little things with great love—doing the ordinary, day-to-day chores and responsibility mindful of God’s presence with us, embracing the little inconveniences with greater and greater patience.
In the little, ordinary events of the day, there are opportunities to grow in grace and focus on God, but that means there is also the temptation to turn away from him. If you can become a saint through these small events, why aren’t we all saints?

So often, it is our anxious thoughts and our impatience which keep us from knowing the peace of God. Like Martha in the Gospel today, who misses the whole point of Jesus’ visit, we miss out on opportunities to grow in grace because we are consumed with the spirit of busyness, worldliness. You just know that Martha was cursing Mary the whole time she was doing her chores, “why is she just sitting there, doesn’t she know how much work there is to do?”

Psalm 139 says that God searches us and knows our hearts, he tests us and knows our anxious thoughts. And Jesus shows himself to be keenly aware that Martha was not doing her work with peace in her heart. Jesus in this Gospel isn’t condemning housework, but he is certainly teaching that we must let go of our anxieties, worrying what everybody else is doing all the time, if it keeps us from being at peace.

Proverbs says, “Anxiety in a man's heart weighs him down”, it causes us to sink from grace to bitterness.

Yesterday, we heard how Jonah was anxious and worried about how he would be treated by the Ninevites, to whom God was calling him to preach repentance. His anxiety and fear had disastrous results, storms, shipwreck, lives were put in danger because he anxiously resisted God’s will.

But today, we get the second part of the story: Jonah surrenders to the plan of God in his life, he preaches repentance, and he witnesses one of the most dramatic responses to the call to repentance in the entire old testament: a city of about 120,000 people all come to repent—the nobility, the peasantry, show signs of their repentance by fasting, covering themselves with sackcloth, and sitting in ashes.

Amazing things happen when we relinquish our fears and anxieties and trust in God. Jonah was no doubt able to rejoice with the words of Psalm 94: “When anxiety was great within me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.”

May we relinquish our misguided thoughts and anxious attitudes, and surrender and trust in the Lord’s Holy Will for our lives for the glory of God and salvation of souls.

- - - - - - - -
 
That hearing the call to repentance preached by the Church, all men may turn away from their sins to the mercy of Christ.

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.