Homily: Wednesday, 2nd week in Ordinary Time (Year 2)

The following are a brief reflection on the day's readings offered during Eucharistic Adoration after Mass. 

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Readings: 1 Sam 17:32-33, 37, 40-51; Ps 144; Mk 3:1-6

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A couple of years ago, during a Bible-study session, someone asked me why the Pharisees lacked faith, but the Apostles didn’t. At the time we were reading today’s Gospel passage from Mark, so I asked the group if they noticed anything different about Jesus before he healed the man with the withered hand.

Almost immediately someone said, “Jesus is angry.”

Mark is the only Gospel writer who mentions the anger of Jesus. Oh, John tells the story of Jesus driving the buyers and sellers from the Temple, but he never explicitly says that Jesus was angry. Only Mark does that.”

Jesus had just asked the Pharisees a question: “Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?” It’s a pretty simple question. And so how do the Pharisees answer it?

They don’t. “But they remained silent,” Mark tells us. And it’s easy to see why. A “Yes,” would be a lie and would highlight their hypocrisy. But a “No,” would be a public admission of their lack of charity. They had set out to trap Jesus and, once again, he had trapped them. Usually, it was their words that exposed them. This time it was their silence. What happens next? Well, Mark tells us that Jesus looked “around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart,” and then went on to heal the man’s hand. 

Pharisees Silent

It's interesting, virtually every scene in the Gospels has at one time or another been the subject of a painting. Except this scene. I know of no painting that shows Jesus looking around at the Pharisees with anger. I suspect such a painting wouldn’t be very popular among those who have this distorted image of a warm and fuzzy Jesus who roams through Galilee and Judea dispensing hugs.

It reminds me of a woman who told me she had left the Church to “join a denomination that wasn’t so judgmental.” I just told her to read the gospels and then tell me Jesus doesn’t judge.

“Why was Jesus angry?”

One translation says, “Because they had closed their minds.” And another, “Because of their hard-heartedness.” Closed minds or hard hearts -- these only seem different. The mind is open by its very nature. Notice how young children are very open-minded, always ready and able to learn. It’s only when they grow up and get stupid like the rest of us that they do otherwise; for it is the heart that closes the mind.

But these particular Pharisees had lost any sense of compassion for others. They had ceased being childlike. They had stopped loving. And because love couldn’t penetrate their hearts, their minds were closed as well, so tightly that they couldn’t even recognize the hand of God in the miracles that occurred right before their eyes. They had created an almost impenetrable barrier to the gift of faith.

The Apostles, on the other hand, were in a sense more childlike, more open to the Spirit’s urgings, more open to receiving the gift, more willing to love.

You see, brothers and sisters, hatred closes, and love opens. Indeed, love is itself an opening, a kind of wound.

The 14^th century mystic, Julian of Norwich, when she prayed, prayed for “the wound of true compassion.”

Let’s all pray today that we may never be healed of it!

Reflection: Divine Mercy Novena - Day 6

Once, when I saw Jesus in the form of a small child, I asked, 'Jesus, why do you now take on the form of a child when You commune with me? In spite of this, I still see in You the infinite God, my Lord and Creator.' Jesus replied that until I learned simplicity and humility, He would commune with me as a little child" (St. Faustine's Diary, 335).

Many years ago, Fr. Adam Domanski, a Polish priest and friend, gave me a copy of St. Faustina’s Diary. I’ll confess, I didn’t read it right away, but when I finally got around to opening the book, I could hardly put it down.

And when I read those words you just heard, I thought immediately of St. Therese, the Little Flower. For she, like St. Faustina, came to understand the necessity of approaching our God with the humility and innocence of a small child. Indeed, as St. Therese wrote:

 “…I am too small to climb the rough stairway of perfection…then… I read these words coming from the mouth of Eternal Wisdom: ‘Whoever is a little one, let him come to me.’ And so I succeeded. I felt I had found what I was looking for… for this I had no need to grow up, but rather I had to remain little and become this more and more.”

Such an attitude, of course, goes against everything the world tells us. Can anything be more countercultural? To try to remain childlike…but not childish. For as our Lord taught St. Faustina, to be childlike is to embrace simplicity and humility.

So often you and I try to complicate our relationship with God when all He wants from us is our love. To love God is to embrace the simple truth of the Gospel. It’s not complicated. You don’t have to be a theologian; in fact, that’s probably an obstacle.

Realize, too, that humility is simply the byproduct of reality. As St. Faustina reminds us, our God is “the infinite God, my Lord and Creator.” Knowing this, accepting it, believing it can do nothing but drive us to humility.

These two holy women, then, have taught us so much about becoming a spiritual child. We must learn and accept our total dependence on our God, so we can lead a life of trust and abandonment. We need to let God carry us to holiness. As Saint Therese confessed:

"What pleases Him is seeing me loving my littleness and poverty, the blind hope that I have in His mercy."

Childlike trust is possible only by God's merciful love towards all sinners. His mercy is bigger than any sins we may have committed. Let us always try to approach God with love, and with confidence in His mercy. To live in simplicity and humility is to rid ourselves of all that draws us away from God. When we've sinned, we must throw ourselves, like a child, into the arms of God's mercy. That's the beauty of the sacrament of reconciliation. God always waits for us with open arms.

Anxiety comes from worry, worry about that over which we have little or no control. Don’t worry about the past or the future. Live in the present moment as a child does. Interestingly, the older I get, the more I come to accept this. Children and saints seem to find lots of joy by living in the here and now. Let's join them, forgetting the sins of the past, and trusting that God will take care of our future.

Homily: Tuesday, 19th Week in Ordinary Time

 Readings: Ez 2:8-3:4 • Psalm 119 • Matthew 18:1-5,12-14

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Jesus spent a lot of time shaping His disciples’ hearts, opening them to the Kingdom, to the Church they would soon be called on to lead. In today’s passage from Matthew, we see this shaping taking place.

The disciples ask Him a question: “Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?” Jesus answers with a little “show and tell.” He calls a child to join them, instructing the disciples to be like this child, who acts in faith and humility.

“Do not despise one of these little ones…their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father.” [Mt 18:10]

We all know how different, how wonderfully innocent, children are from adults. Over 45 years ago, when our eldest was just a little girl, we lived on campus at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis where I was teaching. One morning our two daughters were playing with a bunch of neighborhood children, when the youngest came running up to us crying.

When Diane asked her older sister what had happened, she said, “A boy pushed her, and she fell down.” Diane asked, “Which boy?”, and our six-year-old responded with, “The boy in the red shirt.” We looked out at the mob of children, and there was only one boy in a red shirt. He was also the only black child there, the son of a friend and neighbor, another Navy pilot.

Now, almost any adult would have responded differently, probably saying, “the black kid.” But not a child. You see, there’s no bigotry; to the child the only differences are the externals, the red shirts, all those things that really have nothing to do with who we are.

This reminded me of our saint today: St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, perhaps better known as Edith Stein, a Jew who became an atheist, then a Catholic, and then a Carmelite nun. But her Jewish roots brought her to Auschwitz where she died a martyr 80 years ago today. She was certainly no child, but rather a brilliant philosopher who came to love the Lord. But Jesus, speaking of children and the Kingdom, brought her to mind.

You see, when I was a child of seven, we lived in Heidelberg Germany. On one of our vacation trips to Bavaria, our father took us to see Dachau, one of the Nazi death camps, this one near Munich.

You might think this would be too traumatic for a seven-year-old, but, no, it wasn’t, and my dad wanted us to see what people were capable of when they turned away from God.

I remember much of that day because it changed my life. For the first time, I saw a Godless world. I remember not understanding why anyone would do such things to others…all because I was a child, still innocent enough to disbelieve or excuse sin.

But for many, God’s love is so incomprehensible, they actually despise how God approaches us in Jesus. They hate it for the same reason Cain despised and killed his brother, Abel. The motive is clear: Jesus presents us with the reality of our better selves, but too often it’s the self we left behind when we grew up.

Like St. Teresa Benedicta, Jesus allows Himself to fall into the abuse and violence of men’s hands. But when they wound Jesus, they are covered by the tide of His Precious Blood flowing from Calvary, and from this very altar and thousands like it. For His blood has the power of absorbing into its love, and therefore neutralizing, the worst hatred of which we are capable.

Victor Frankl, the Austrian Jewish psychotherapist who spent much of World War II as a prisoner in Auschwitz, wrote a remarkable book of his experiences called, Man in Search of Meaning. In it he describes how in the midst of unbelievable brutality and the most degrading conditions he found so many examples of remarkable faith and unselfish love.

Again and again, he encountered people who had achieved victory over the sinfulness that surrounded them. And out of this experience of abject suffering Frankl had a revelation. He wrote,

“Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, ‘The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.’”

The Apostles, with the help of the Holy Spirit, also came to understand what Jesus meant when He asked them to be childlike. Let’s learn from them and today turn to the Holy Spirit. Invite Him into our hearts, to shape us, to give us the joy that only the love of God can bring. For the Spirit waits patiently, always listening for our invitation, always responding to our prayer.

 

Bible Study Reflection #23: Anticipation

One of the lost joys of childhood is the joy of anticipation. Remember looking forward to something truly special? Remember the excitement you felt? The almost unbearable sense of anticipation? It didn’t matter what it was because, as children, so many things excited us: a planned family trip; the first day of summer vacation; a visit by a favorite relative. Often enough, it involved simpler things: a Saturday matinee at the local movie house; a birthday party; making home-made ice cream; smelling the cake your mother was baking, watching her frost it with a spatula and hoping she’d leave a little extra in the bowl.

For me, though, and I suspect for most of you too, the most exciting time of the year, the day I looked forward to more than any other was Christmas. Our family life was so entwined with the Church, my anticipation of Christmas never really got going until the First Sunday of Advent. Until then, Christmas just seemed too far away to think about. But with Advent, it was official. Advent calendars suddenly appeared, forming a kind of countdown to Christmas Day.

The Church is actually very childlike in its anticipation of Christmas, and it does so with almost the same degree of excitement. Advent means a coming or approach, but it’s not the approach of today’s commercial holiday that we celebrate. Rather, we are asked to look forward with childlike anticipation to the birthday of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by remembering His coming into the world 2,000 years ago.

As we make our way through these last days of Advent in joyful anticipation of the coming of Our Lord, let’s take a moment to read once more St. Luke’s description of the Annunciation to Mary by the archangel Gabriel, an event that triggered the first Advent.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you!"

But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there will be no end."

And Mary said to the angel, "How shall this be, since I have no husband?" And the angel said to her, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God. And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible."

And Mary said, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." And the angel departed from her. [Lk 1:26-38].

This passage from the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel really tells the story of that first Advent, with Mary as the main character. But the drama is far more than a nice story, as Mary is far more than a mere actor. For Mary is our model, and her response to the good news of the archangel Gabriel teaches us the meaning of Advent and the response God seeks.

Although surprised, Mary wasn’t frightened by Gabriel’s sudden appearance. No, it was his words that caused her initial concern. “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you” [Lk 1:28]. With her simple humility and her awareness of God’s greatness, Mary was puzzled by the meaning of this greeting. But Gabriel went on to explain his mission. Mary will conceive and give birth to a son, the Son of the Most High, a King who will inherit David’s throne, who will reign forever.

No doubt this was a lot for a young girl to absorb. But don’t underestimate Mary. Probably no more than 15 or 16, she had been raised in a devout Jewish family. Her parents would have taught her the Scriptures, primarily the Torah, the Psalms and Proverbs. From Scripture she would have known about God’s promises of a messiah. Moreover, there was plenty of messiah talk going around in those troubled days.

But more important than all this: Mary was “full of grace.” In other words, God had blessed her from the moment of her conception with the grace-filled gifts of the Holy Spirit. Mary, then, knew exactly what Gabriel was telling her: that she would conceive a son immediately, and that He was the promised Messiah. Her only question? How will God bring this about since, although betrothed to Joseph, she was a virgin? Notice that Mary didn’t question God’s plan or that He had chosen her. She merely wanted to know how – a most reasonable question.

Gabriel told her that God’s own Holy Spirit would overshadow her, that her son will, therefore, be the Son of God. To emphasize God’s power, Gabriel reveals that Mary’s long-barren relative, Elizabeth, has also conceived a child.

God didn’t command Mary. He permits her to choose and awaits her answer. Not only God, but all of creation and the entire span of human history, awaits Mary’s answer. Adam and Eve, who chose sin over obedience, beg her for a Yes. So too do Abraham, Moses, and David, all the patriarchs and prophets. Their pleas echo down the centuries, and we join them in anticipation. For in that moment, God placed the salvation of the human race, past, present and future, in the hands of this simple Jewish girl. She need utter only one word to embrace the living Word of God in her womb.

Her response, a response straight from the heart, brings a sigh of joy from all creation: “Let it be done to me according to your word” [Lk 138].

It is a choice of total abandonment to God’s Will. We encounter its foreshadowings throughout Sacred Scripture. Consider the choice of Abraham when called by God to become father of God’s own people. The choice Moses made when asked by God to lead His people from bondage to the promised land. The response of the prophets when called to speak God’s word to a stubborn people. These set the stage for the great drama presented to us when Gabriel reveals God’s will to Mary, His servant, and she responds with complete abandonment.

It’s not unlike the choice each of us is called to make, a choice founded on the certainty of God’s promise of eternal life. It is a choice buoyed by faith and hope, a hope of expectation, the hope of Jesus’ return in power and glory. For this is the other Advent we celebrate.

Will we, like Mary, make that choice? Can we set aside our willful natures and abandon ourselves to God’s loving will? It’s never too late, for God continues to call us to Him all the days of our lives. And remember, as Gabriel told Mary, “For with God nothing will be impossible" [Lk 1:37].

Of course, to understand what God wants of us, we need only turn to Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church. Thanks to the efforts of my mother and the Dominican Sisters at St. Augustine School, I had to learn the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes, even though as a child, I really didn’t understand what all those mysterious words meant. Back then we weren’t told to memorize them; no, we were told to “learn them by heart.” What a beautiful expression! When I memorize something, I simply store the words in my brain for later retrieval. But to learn something “by heart” is to make it a part of me – the words, their meanings, the goodness and beauty of the message. Yes, indeed, growing up we learned so many good and wondrous things – prayers and Bible verses and poems and songs and hymns – and learned them all “by heart”, just as Mary, when confronted with the wonders surrounding her Son, "kept all these things in her heart" [Lk 2:51]. 

Among my favorite passages from the Letters of St. Paul – another something I learned by heart many years ago – is a rather brief instruction Paul offered the Thessalonians. I had to learn it by heart because in the seventh grade Sister Mary Andrew assigned it as a mild punishment for misbehaving before school. (I got into a bit of a skirmish with Donnie Anderson.) The good Sister also asked me to explain each verse to her, thus encouraging the involvement of the heart

Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstance give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil [1 Thes 5:16-22].

As it turned out, I became quite a fan of these few verses, partly because of their brevity, making them easy to remember, but mostly because they say so much in so few words. The Church also considers these words by Paul worthy instruction for Advent and includes them as the Second Reading on Gaudete (“Rejoice!”) Sunday, the Third Sunday of Advent (Year B). Paul begins by calling us to do three things:

·         Rejoice always! because life itself is a gift and demands a joyful response. As Christians, then, we must rejoice always, as long as we live and breathe.

·         Pray without ceasing by making every aspect of your life a prayer, everything an offering to the God who created you.

·         In all circumstances give thanks. As Paul reminded the Romans, "...all things work for good for those who love God" [Rom 8:28]. Not only life, but every part of life, is a gift from God whose will leads us only to the good. All, then, is deserving of our thanks.

Did you notice the repetition – always…without ceasing…in all circumstances – central to these brief verses? Paul wants to ensure we don’t miss the message – that we learn it by heart – and realize this is God’s will for us. Just as God’s love knows no bounds, so too must our response be all-encompassing and extend through all time and space. For most of us this demands a significant change in how we live our lives, helping us respond to the call for a lifelong conversion.

How often do you and I rejoice? Always? Probably not, but God tells us everything is a cause for joy. Even the evils we encounter? Yes, because they provide opportunities for God to reveal His love and goodness, and to do so through those who suffer because of the world’s evils.

Years ago, after I had preached about this, a parishioner approached me after Mass and said, “Everything is not a cause for rejoicing. How can we rejoice about the deaths of millions of aborted unborn children?”

I think my answer took him by surprise. “Don’t get trapped in worldly time. That’s what Satan and his flunkies want us to do. Try to think as God thinks, eternally. All those aborted babies, those special innocents, are with God, immersed in His loving embrace. His love for them is beyond our comprehension and what do they do? They intercede for the world they never saw, and for the souls of those who took their lives. And that’s certainly reason to rejoice.”

To “pray without ceasing” may seem a tall order, but only if we view prayer narrowly. When we feed the hungry and welcome the stranger, when we extend Gods love to another, when we celebrate the wonders of God’s creation, when we do God’s will in our lives, we are praying.

To give thanks in all circumstances is to rejoice in God’s goodness. We spend far too much time these days grumbling about the pandemic and its effects. Were there no pandemic, we’d no doubt find other things to grumble about. How much better to instead help those most affected? How about turning to God in thankfulness for the opportunities He presents to you, opportunities to extend His love to others?

“Do not quench the Spirit,” but open your heart to His urgings. Do you realize the Holy Spirit calls you always? That’s right, He never stops calling. He calls you through the others you encounter. He calls you through a word you hear or read. He calls you in response to your prayer. He calls you in a thought He reveals to your open heart. We need only listen and remain open to His continual urgings. He will lead the way.

Test everything; retain what is good. Refrain from every kind of evil. As Jesus taught us, "By their fruits you will know them [Mt 7:16]. Don't fall prey to the evil disguised as good, to that which the world fancies but bears only evil fruit. False prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but underneath are ravenous wolves [Mt 7:15], are always among us. If we remain true to the urgings of the Holy Spirit, we wil always recognize them.

Rejoice, pray, give thanks, be open to the Spirit and the goodness of God…this is how our merciful Father wants us to approach the birth of His Son, with the joyful anticipation of a child.

Bible Study Reflection #21: Do Angels Laugh?

 “For he will give his angels charge of you to guard you in all your ways” [Ps 91:11]

I’ll begin with a story, a true story about an event that happened almost 40 years ago.

For 25 years Diane and I and our four children lived on Cape Cod in a large 200-year-old house. Late one December 23^rd an ember made its way through a crack in the masonry of our old fieldstone fireplace and set the wooden wall between garage and family room on fire. Fortunately, the smoke alarm awakened Diane (who then shook me awake) and we were able get all the children outside. Well, almost all the children.

Diane sent the youngest, our two boys, along with the dog, out the main front door. Our younger daughter, Siobhan, was on a sleep-over at a friend’s house, but Erin, our eldest, was asleep in her room at the other end of the house. Diane awakened her and told her to go downstairs and out the other front door. (It was a rambling old house with four stairways, two front entrances, and another four or five outside doorways.) I had been in the kitchen calling the fire department when Diane found me. The two us then joined the boys who were trying to stay warm in our car parked in the driveway.

Moments later Erin arrived and asked if one of us had laughed at her when she almost fell off the porch. Of course, none of us had laughed because we were already outside. No one else was in the house.

We were having work done on that old porch and the steps had been removed, the reason why Erin almost fell. The outside door was also being worked on, and to keep it closed that evening we had put a screwdriver through the bolt lock at the top of the door. Suddenly recalling the screwdriver wedged tightly in the bolt, we asked Erin, who was about 12, how she had opened the door since she probably couldn’t reach the screwdriver. She knew nothing about a screwdriver and said the door opened easily. But forgetting that the steps were gone she almost fell off the porch. That’s when someone behind her laughed aloud. The next day I found the screwdriver in the center of a coffee table about 10 feet from the door.

Oh, yes, a fire engine happened to be just two blocks away on a false alarm at a local B&B and arrived at our home within minutes. We lost the garage – an old, dirt-floor one-car affair built back in the 1920s that we used for storage – but they saved our wonderful old home. We had a thankful, if a bit smokey, Christmas.

Do angels laugh? Oh, yes, they certainly do. And why not? After all, they spend eternity looking after the most laughable of all God’s creatures. I suspect the work of guarding and guiding us yields many laughable moments, which they occasional share with those they protect. Erin grew up, earned undergraduate and graduate degrees, taught Navajo children at a New Mexico mission school, taught inner-city children in San Bernardino, then married and now has five children of her own. She was protected for a reason.

Do you believe in angels? I hope so because they are marvelous creatures. But far too many Christians never even think of them. Some years ago, I attended a seminar conducted by a highly respected scriptural scholar. It soon became apparent he didn’t accept the miraculous, the existence of angels, or any manifestation of the supernatural found in Sacred Scripture. He attributed all of these scriptural references to over-zealous piety among Jews and early Christians. Exasperated, I finally raised my hand and asked him what he did believe in?

“Do you believe in the Trinity, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, in the Resurrection, in Christ’s Eucharistic Presence?”

He laughed and replied, “Of course.” And then proceeded to cast doubt on each. In humility, and infected perhaps with a touch of cowardice, I just shut up. But how sad for him, that the object of his life’s work had become essentially meaningless. After all, if he rejects so much of Sacred Scripture, believing it to be false, in what part of Scripture can he believe? Where does he draw the line between that which he accepts and rejects?

As for me? I’ve witnessed hundreds of miracles in the lives of so many people, including my own, that I am certain of the miraculous. And angels? Well, I’ve had encounters that remove all doubts.

But like our scholar, so many today, even many who claim to be believers, seem to think that God doesn’t (or can’t) act in the world. That a Christian could believe this is strange indeed, since the Incarnation, a central belief of Christianity, is God’s ultimate act. Through the Incarnation God enters the world in the person of Jesus Christ, the Lord of History, the Creative Word of God.

Sacred Scripture also shows that God uses others to carry out His eternal plan. Not surprisingly, when God calls on men and women, their sinfulness often gets in the way and He must exercise His power to ensure His will is fulfilled. But when God calls on His angels, it is God Himself who acts, for no creatures are more faithful doers of God’s Word than the angels.

Sacred Scripture is filled with angels. We even find them in Genesis doing God’s just work at the very beginning of human existence.

“The Lord God therefore banished him from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he had been taken. He expelled the man, stationing the cherubim and the fiery revolving sword east of the garden of Eden, to guard the way to the tree of life” [Gn 3:23-24].

And they appear as well in Exodus when God assigns an angel to protect His Chosen People and guide them to the Promised Land:

See, I am sending an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place I have prepared. Be attentive to him and obey him. Do not rebel against him, for he will not forgive your sin. My authority is within him. If you obey him and carry out all I tell you, I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes. [Ex 23:20-22].

When God says, “My authority is within him,” He means exactly that: all that the angel does, he does in God’s holy Name. God extends His complete trust to His angels, even allowing them to wield divine power. We encounter this angelic protection manifested again and again throughout the Old and the New Testaments.  

Perhaps my favorite angel passage in the Gospels is in Matthew where we find the disciples, once again displaying their pride, asking Jesus,

"Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of heaven?" [Mt 18:1]

But Our Lord, knowing their hearts, again calls them to deep humility, to kenosis – the emptying of self that Paul described to the Philippians [Phil 2:6-8]. Just as the divine Jesus humbled Himself through the Incarnation and His passion and death, so too must His disciples, and that's you and me, be childlike in our humility. We must empty ourselves of ourselves.

To emphasize this, Jesus calls a child to Him, just as He had once called His disciples, one after another, thus reminding them that it is God who acts, God who calls, while we either respond in humility or turn away in pride.

Now what had that small child done to humble himself? Nothing that we know of. Jesus is not talking about actions here; rather he's describing an attitude of being. Unlike the disciples, the child is aware of and content with his lowliness. He is "poor in spirit" as in the first Beatitude [Mt 5:3].

We encounter perfect humility, this attitude of being, manifested by Our Blessed Mother when she proclaims,

"My sould magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For He has regarded the low estate of His handmaiden" [Lk 1:46-48].

Indeed, the entire Magnificat [Lk 1:46-55] is a hymn of personal humility in the presence of God's greatness – a good reason for its daily recitation in the Evening Prayer of the Church’s Liturgy of the Hours. Yes, lowliness, emptiness, hunger – these all allow God to raise up, to fill, to extend mercy, to make the last first, to place us at the center of His divine life.

Returning to Matthew’s Gospel, we hear Jesus declaring something truly remarkable about the child He has called to Himself. He reveals that these little ones have angels assigned to them by God Himself:

"See that you do not despise one of thesel little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of my heavenly Father" [Mt 18:10].

We are struck by the wonder of it all: Angelic beings, those closest to God Himself, who stand in His presence, are those whom God has appointed to serve His little ones. His children – and these, brothers and sisters, include you and me. For as St. John reminds us

"See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God" [1 Jn 3:1].

But to be a child of God is not to be childish. Not at all. No, God calls us to be child-like. To love Him as a child loves its parent, to trust in Him as a child trusts, to realize He wants only the good for us. In humility, then, the childlike experiences a radical freedom, seeing himself completely dependent on God.

That which is scorned on earth, the humility of the childlike, is raised up to the very highest level of being. We find a reference to guardian angels early in the Old Testament, when Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh, the two sons of Joseph

"The angel who has delivered me from all harm, bless these boys that in them my name be recalled, and the names of my fathers, Abraham and Isaac, and they may become teeming multitudes upon the earth!" [Gn 48:16]

Do you see how greatly God esteems and honors the angel He has chosen to guard and lead you? Pray to your angel, asking that you remain always open to his guidance. Turn to him in prayer, plead for his protection and intercession, for this constant companion forever beholds the face of the Father. Can you imagine a better guardian and friend?

I think some people don’t realize how loving and kind their angels are, and how helpful they want to be. God didn’t assign them as guardians and tell them to do nothing. Our angels have been assigned to guard us from that which defies God’s will for us. Their guardianship, their protection, can be both spiritual and physical, and is much like a call from God Himself in that it seeks a response from us.

But angels do more than guard and guide us. They are also God’s messengers, revealing His Word to chosen men and women. We are perhaps most familiar with the archangel Gabriel, who foretold the birth of John the Baptist to his father Zechariah and later announced the Incarnation to the young Virgin Mary [Lk 1]. Similar events are described in the Old Testament. Perhaps my favorite is the angelic visitation to Manoah and his wife when the birth of Samson is foretold. Conversing with the angel, Manoah asks,

"What is your name, that we may honor you when your words come true?" The angel of the Lord asnwered him: "Why do you ask my name? It is wondrous" [Jgs 13:17-18].

In other words, even the true names of the angels are beyond human comprehension, beyond the limitations of human language. While many Christians give their guardians human names for the convenience of prayerful interaction, they should realize that God alone names each of these remarkable creatures. We will learn and come to appreciate these wondrous names when we join the angels in God’s presence.

Yes, the angels are carriers of love and messengers of God’s holy will. They protect us, lead us, guide us, and reveal God’s will for us. They encourage us to accept the gifts God offers us, and rejoice when we do

"In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents" [Lk 15:10].

Finally, a remarkable truth about our relationship with the angels. Tradition and Scripture hold that Lucifer led some of the angels to reject not just God’s creation of man but the revelation that God Himself would take on human nature. The angels, then, would adore the Son who, through the Incarnation, became one of these lowly creatures. This was too much for a proud creature like Lucifer who would not serve the Person of the Son in His human nature. The angelic choirs who chose God over pride accepted that Jesus Christ, the Son, is far greater than any angel:

"He took His seat at the right hand of the Majesty on high, as far superior to the angels as the name He has inherited is more excellent than theirs...Let all the angels of God worship Him [Heb 1:3,6].

This first chapter of the Letter to the Hebrews concludes with a verse that defines the human-angelic relationship

"Are they not all ministering spirits sent to serve, for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation?" [Heb 1:14].

What a revelation! The angels are called not only to serve God, but also to serve you and me, “those who are to inherit salvation.” This is another amazing result of the Incarnation. Because the Son becomes man, humanity is exalted, raised up, called to inherit salvation, and to be served by choirs of angels. It’s enough to make an angel laugh joyfully.