COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #1: God's Presence

I wrote this reflection today for the regular participants of my Bible Study sessions conducted weekly at St. Vincent de Paul Parish. Because the pandemic has caused us to cancel these sessions, as least for the time being, I thought perhaps I should send our participants some Scripture-related thoughts on a regular basis. The following is my first attempt. 
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There’s nothing like a pandemic to get people asking questions about God and why such things as this nasty virus happen. 

Did God cause this disease? Did He inflict COVID-19 on the world? Or did He simply allow it to spread? Why? Is there some divine purpose behind all this, or is it the work of Satan? Is it a sign that the end times are upon us? 

In recent weeks I’ve been asked every one of these questions, and a few dozen more. I think, perhaps, the best way to address these concerns is to turn to Sacred Scripture. After all, the Bible actually has a lot to say about plagues and sickness and healing and end times.

First of all, let’s address the last: pandemics as signs of the end times. The most important thing to remember when it comes to the end times is that no one knows when Jesus will return. I’m always amazed by the number of people who are convinced they know when God will bring His creation to its fulfillment. How many books have been written, how many movies made, how many sermons preached, all telling us that Jesus’s return is imminent? Some even give us specific dates. Not only are they always wrong, but they also contradict the Word of God. We can safely dismiss them all.

And yet, at the same time, we are told that pandemics should not be ignored. As Jesus revealed to His disciples when addressing the end times:

“There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky” [Lk 21:11]

Yes, indeed, among other signs, we can expect plagues as we approach the end. But notice that Jesus immediately adds something else:

“Before all this happens, however, they will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name. It will lead to your giving testimony [Lk 21:12-13].

I suppose one could make a good case that the persecution of Christians is at an all-time high, but God’s People – both the Israelites and the Church – have suffered persecution for thousands of years. The persecution of God’s people is nothing new. In the West today, the persecution of Christians and Jews is perhaps a bit more subtle than that which they experience in other parts of the world. Anti-Christian political correctness, because it manifests itself largely through social and psychological intimidation, can seem almost benign. But far too many Christians react by turning inward, as if their faith is strictly personal. Of course, it isn’t: “It will lead to your giving testimony.” We cannot hide our faith under a bushel basket, folks [Mt 5:14-16]. We are called to evangelize. 

Plagues, too, have been with us since the beginning. We get our first taste of this very early in Genesis, when God describes the effects of the sin of our first parents. Unlike the bodily immortality with which God originally blessed them, they would now suffer hardship, pain, and death [Gen 3:16-19]. In other words, disease is one of the results of our fallen nature. 

We encounter plagues throughout the Old Testament, with perhaps the most famous being the “plagues” suffered by the people of Egypt as described in the Book of Exodus. Of course, a number of the Egyptian plagues were not diseases at all, but extreme manifestations of otherwise natural events. But we can lump some of the others – livestock epidemic, boils, and the death of the firstborn – into the category of disease or other physical ailment. 

In Exodus we are told why God inflicted Egypt with this series of calamities when He instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh:

“Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews: Let my people go to serve me, for this time I will unleash all my blows upon you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is none like me anywhere on earth. For by now I should have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with such pestilence that you would have vanished from the earth. But this is why I have let you survive: to show you my power and to make my name resound throughout the earth! Will you continue to exalt yourself over my people and not let them go?” [Ex 9:13-17]

Although God allowed these plagues, His purpose was not to destroy the Egyptians but “to show you my power…” so the entire world would come to recognize His sovereignty. Remember, too, that God displayed that sovereignty by sparing His people from the effects of these plagues:

“But for you the blood will mark the houses where you are. Seeing the blood, I will pass over you; thereby, when I strike the land of Egypt, no destructive blow will come upon you” [Ex 12:13]. 

Today as our society struggles to deal with the current crisis, perhaps we will come to realize that this virus, this tiny piece of God’s creation, is also a manifestation of God’s power. Unlike the Egyptians we might actually understand and accept the message God sends us. Because He has blessed us with intelligence, we have the capability to overcome this disease. But our application of His gift of intelligence and the knowledge that results are always imperfect. In the meantime, then, many will die. 

This, of course, leads to our next question: Why have we been inflicted with this virus? Is God sending us a message, as He did the Egyptians? Is He punishing us for our sins, for our lack of faith? Or is this pandemic simply another consequence of our fallen nature?

I suppose the best answer to these questions is “Maybe” or a qualified “Yes.” The truth is, you and I do not know the mind of God, but we can get at least a glimpse if we turn to His Word. Let’s turn to the New Testament and find those wonderful signs of hope that God offers us.

It’s important to realize that no plague, no illness, no affliction can withstand the Word of Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate. Matthew put it beautifully:

“Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and curing every disease and illness” [Mt 9:35].

He did it all, didn’t He? “Every disease and illness” covers the waterfront. But notice that these cures, all that healing, did not take place in isolation. Jesus also taught and proclaimed the kingdom. In other words, the cures offered proof that the Word the people heard was indeed the Word of God. In his Gospel, John calls these miraculous manifestations of God’s power “signs.” And signs they are, because they point to something greater than themselves. They point to the divinity of Jesus, the Son of God. They point to the salvation and hope Jesus offers us through His Passion, Death, and Resurrection. They point to His Church and the grace manifested by the Holy Spirit through its sacramental life. And they point to Jesus’ continued Eucharistic presence, a presence that will remain with us “until the end of the age” [Mt 28:20].

The question for us: How should we respond? Most importantly, we should not fear. Faith and fear cannot coexist in the human heart. Indeed, fear is the great enemy of faith and leads us to despair. Buoyed by the gift of faith, we come to accept that God is always in charge, that He has sovereignty over all things. You and I, the medical profession, the scientific community, and yes, even the government, are all called to respond in faith. And because God gave us intelligence, we must also be prudent and use our intelligence wisely. By ignoring the obvious, by refraining from doing what is necessary to stop the spread of this virus, we would, in a sense, be putting God to the test [Mt 4:6-7], something we should never do.

And finally, realize that a living faith, a faith that demonstrates our love for God and for each other, always leads to the good. How did Paul famously proclaim this truth?

“We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose” [Rom 8:28].

We don’t fully understand God’s purpose, but we do know that when we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, only good will result. Let us not forget this during these challenging times.

Too many people, including too many Christians, fall prey to panic and pessimism, which leads only to fear. Instead, we must always remember what awaits. Jesus came to redeem us from our own sinfulness; he will come again to lead us to eternal life:

“Christ, offered once to take away the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to take away sin but to bring salvation to those who eagerly await him” [Heb 9:28]. 

Once again, remember those words of Jesus: “It will lead to your giving testimony” [Lk 21:13]. Accept this pandemic as an opportunity to respond to Jesus’ call to evangelize, to ease the fears of others, to share God’s sacred Word, and to be carriers, not of a virus, but of God’s love.

Homily: 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year C

I have embedded a video of my homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year C). The full text of the homily follows:

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Readings: Wis 9:13-18; Ps 90; Phmn 9-10,12-17; Lk 14:25-33
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For several weeks now, Jesus has given us some hard teachings. He certainly hasn't minced words has he? 

Perhaps before we attempt to grasp what Jesus is telling us in today's Gospel passage from Luke, we should consider the opening words of our first reading from the Book of Wisdom:

"For what man can learn the counsel of God? Or who can discern what the Lord wills? For the reasoning of mortals is worthless, and our designs are likely to fail" [Wis 9:13-14].  

In effect we're told that without God's help, without His revelation, we cannot understand His will for us, His plan for our salvation. We must, then, set aside our own human judgments, our own worldly concerns, and listen to what God is telling us. Too often we filter the words of Jesus through the lens of our humanity, forgetting that God's ways are very different from the ways of our world. 

Of course, this is nothing new. Remember how Our Lord rebuked Peter when the apostle tried to lead Jesus away from the Cross? How did Jesus respond?

"Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me; for you are not on the side of God, but of men" [Mt 16:23].

Believe me, like Peter, you and I can get caught up in our world, a world that colors so much of our thinking. It's hard to avoid it, especially today, so pervasive, so intrusive is the world in our lives. The great crowds surrounding Jesus might not have had the Internet, but they were plagued by their own set of worldly influences.

Interestingly, the fact that Jesus drew such crowds really bothered some folks, especially the self-important folks. That, too, hasn't changed much. Pope St. John Paul II visited 129 countries during his papacy, and drew huge crowds everywhere. I once heard a grumpy bishop say, "This pope probably travels too much. It might be better if he stayed in Rome and paid more attention to the Church."

St. John Paul, of course, knew that the Church isn't a collection of Vatican buildings and the people who occupy them. No, the Church is far more expansive; it fills the earth because Jesus called us to "Make disciples of all nations..." [Mt 28:19]. Like Jesus, St. John Paul traveled on his road, calling us all to discipleship.

But I wonder what that Galilean crowd thought when they heard these words of Jesus?

"If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple" [Lk 14:26].

Maybe a more important question is, what do you and I think when we hear these words? 

Most people are troubled by the use of the word "hate" which seems to violate the very heart of Christian teaching. But we shouldn't get too bothered by the effects of translations. It's actually more accurate to understand hate in this sense as meaning "love less." This becomes clear when we read Matthew's account of this same teaching by Jesus:

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me." [Mt 10:37-38]

Here we seem to find words we can accept...but, in truth, we really don't accept them, do we? Or perhaps I should say, how we live our lives doesn't always reflect an acceptance of Jesus' teaching.

Jesus is actually telling His budding disciples what their discipleship is all about. He'd just called His twelve apostles and they were together on the road, making their way through the towns and villages of Galilee. But, as Luke tells us, they were joined by great crowds, who followed Jesus. 

It was to all of these that Jesus revealed something of God's will, the divine intention, and He did so through a pair of brief parables. On the surface the parables seem to address the construction of farm buildings and the tactics of waging war, but like every parable their true meaning is much deeper. 

Jesus was really describing the cost of discipleship, that if we hope to follow Him we'd better first calculate that cost. Are you willing, He asks the disciples, to accept the cost of placing God first in your life?

This wasn't new to believing Jews since it was proclaimed in the Shema' - the very foundation of Jewish faith, introduced by Moses with the words:

"Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and you must love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength" [Dt 6:4].

The problem is, you and I and that crowd of Galileans are so wrapped up in the realities of this world, so close to them, it's easy for us sinners to put these created realities first, to put them ahead of God. No! the Shema' tells us: God, the Creator of all that is good, must be first.

And now, speaking to the crowds, Jesus applied this revealed truth to Himself - that to be God's disciple is to be His disciple. Once more He reveals His divinity, providing more ammunition to the Pharisees. But Jesus is focused on the people.

The Cost of Discipleship

Are you willing, He asks them and us, to place your love for me above the love you have for those in the world who are most precious to you?

Do you understand that loving God must be a sacrificial love, that other loves in your life must never come first?

To follow Jesus isn't simply to tag along behind Him. To follow Him is to become a living image of Jesus...but even more than that, it means being wherever Jesus is, serving Him by doing whatever Jesus happens to be doing. It means being like Mary, whose birthday we celebrate today, being the perfect disciple, always looking to Jesus.

To do what Jesus does: to bring comfort and healing to the sick, to feed the hungry, to forgive those who have hurt you, to see God's presence in every person you encounter.

To love beyond your family and friends, beyond those you're expected to love. To love less your own life and love more the lives of others.

It's not about me bringing Jesus into my life, but the exact opposite: it's about letting Jesus rule me. St. Paul said it best: 

"I live no longer I, but Christ who lives in me" [Gal 2:20].

Jesus calls us to understand what He is asking of us before we commit our lives to Him. He wants disciples who know and accept the cost, disciples who follow full-heartedly. The half-hearted, the lukewarm, need not apply.

Embrace the Gospel, He calls to us, embrace it without compromise; and this can be frightening. It demands we set aside our own plans, that we abandon ourselves in trust to the will of God.

Yes, it can be frightening, and overcome by fear or by false pride many turn away from God. Others, motivated by a false humility, do the same, unable to accept the unconditional love of God. 

Once again Simon Peter provides an example. On the day He first perceived, if only vaguely, the Lord's divinity, he fell down in that boat, fell before Jesus and said:

"Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man" [Lk 5:8].

Depart from me, Lord

To love God in His perfection is also to recognize our own imperfections, our own sinfulness. Peter had gone this far, but hadn't yet tasted God's mercy. Soon enough, though, Peter witnessed God's forgiveness, and personally experienced the Divine Mercy Jesus showers on the repentant. 

Discipleship is not easy; indeed, it's so difficult we can't do it alone. Jesus knows this and promises to walk the road with us, just as He walked with the twelve along the hard roads of Galilee on His way to Jerusalem, on His way to the Cross and our salvation.

He wants to walk by our side, brothers and sisters, to be your strength and my strength.

He wants to make the impossible possible.

Homily: 15 Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 14, 2019

Readings: Dt 30:10-14; Ps 69; Col 1:15-20; Lk 10:25-37

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Don't you just love Moses? In effect he told the Israelites: OK, folks, God's Law is really pretty simple...And you don't have to look for it, because it's already in your hearts.

And that Law, in all its simplicity, is clearly spelled out in today's Gospel passage from Luke: You must love God with everything you have...and love your neighbor as yourself. 

But how many of us do that?  How many of us instead use our minds, hearts, souls and strength to love the perishable things of the world? How many of us seem even to love ourselves more than we love God? And our neighbors? I suppose we tolerate most of them, but do we really love them? 

Consider all the thoughts that cross our minds in the course of a single day. How many are of God and how many are of the things of the world? Yes, indeed, loving God is hard when the world tries to extinguish the light of God's truth. There's a lot of darkness out there, brothers and sisters.

As Pope St. John Paul II often reminded us, the world's darkness is nothing other than a culture of death, one that surrounds us with its evils of war, terrorism, abortion, hatred, infanticide, euthanasia, and so much more. But God is the God of life, who calls us to love Him and each other, even in the midst of all this hatred.

"I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly" [Jn 10:10].

Indeed, how can we love God, while accepting these evils? How can we love our neighbor, but turn our backs on those in need?  Do we even understand whom we're called to love? Like the scribe in today's Gospel, will we too be surprised by the Lord's answer when we ask Him: "And who is my neighbor?" [Lk 10:29]

Well, he's not just the guy next door, the one who joins you for golf on Tuesday, or just the woman who plays Mahjong with you on Thursday...you know, all those folks we like, the ones who are amazingly just like us. 

No, Jesus gets a little radical as He redefines neighbor. 

\Our neighbor, He tells us, is the stranger, the one we've been taught to distrust. The one who's not at all like you and me. He's also the public sinner, the 20-year-old addict, the pusher, scared to death as he awaits trial in the county jail in Bushnell. She's the down and out, the homeless single mom with three kids, wondering how she'll keep her family together, where the next meal will come from. 

That's right, Jesus tells us, our neighbor includes all those wounded by life. And then Jesus challenges us: Stop what you're doing and care for my people.

To the priest and the Levite in the parable, God's house was the Temple in Jerusalem. But Jesus teaches his disciples that God dwells in the ditch alongside the road, that they can see His face in the faces of the beaten, the downtrodden, the oppressed, and, yes, in the faces of sinners.

About 45 years ago, out in Monterey, California, I was one of our parish's youth ministers. At one weekly meeting, while discussing the Good Samaritan, I asked the kids to tell the rest of us who in the parable they most closely identified with - the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. 

I got the expected answers until this one young man said, "I can't identify with any of those guys. I'm more like the guy who got beat up. And no Samaritan has ever come along to help me."

It was a remarkable moment in the life of that small group of teens. At first everyone laughed, but then, as we talked about it, their opinions began to change. It gradually dawned on them that no one is immune from life's problems and difficulties, that sometimes every single one of us needs help, needs God's healing touch.

Years later when we were living in Massachusetts, our eldest daughter, Erin, chose to attend a college in California. So Diane and I decided to load up the old station wagon (and, believe me, it was old) and drive her there ourselves. 

Somewhere in Arizona, along an empty stretch of Interstate in the middle of the desert, the car's engine simply stopped and refused to start. I immediately did what every red-blooded American male does in such a situation. I opened the hood, stared blankly at the engine, and swore at it. My wife and daughter just prayed. 

Within minutes, though, three teenage Navajos in an old pickup stopped on the dirt service road that paralleled the highway and volunteered to drive to a service station a few miles down the road to get some help. But before they could leave, another car pulled over in front of us. The driver, also a Native American, but from Oklahoma, took one look under the hood and had the car running again in about three minutes. In a hurry, he just drove off before I even had a chance to thank him. And then, no longer needed, the three young Navajos gave us a smile and a wave and sped off down the dirt road trailing a cloud of dust.

Since that day I've often thought of those good Samaritans and how they took the time to stop and help this obviously befuddled white guy from Massachusetts.

If our roles had been reversed, would I have stopped for them? As much as I hate to admit it, probably not. How easy it would have been to rationalize a decision to pass them by. After all, we were in a hurry, anxious to get to our hotel before nightfall. Anyway, a state trooper would probably be along soon. And you can't be too careful, can you? You never know the kind of people you'll run into.

How easy it is to magnify our own needs to ensure they outweigh the more obvious needs of others. And by doing so we ignore the command of Jesus and His Church, the command to act always with justice and charity, to act as the Samaritan acted.

The Samaritan wasn't at all responsible for the victim's plight, but in justice he knew he still had to respond to the man's basic human needs.  Yet he didn't stop there, did he? No, he went on to tell the innkeeper that he would pay for all the man's expenses, something that in charity goes beyond anything human justice might require. 

You see, Jesus is telling us that because we are baptized into the Kingship of Christ, we each must reflect the justice of the Kingdom. We're called to go beyond, to give our lives for others, to give them in love without measure. We can do this only do through the grace of Jesus Christ, who makes us part of His Body, the Church, and lifts us up to heights far beyond our own capabilities  What did St Paul say in today's second reading?

'God wanted all things to be reconciled through Him and for Him, everything in heaven and on earth, when he made peace by his death on the Cross.' 

Brothers and sisters, the love of Jesus Christ, the love of His Cross, carries us beyond man's justice, bringing peace and healing where hope has been lost, and lifting us to the joys of God's Kingdom.

He calls each of us to continue His work, to be Good Samaritans to all God's people, and He's given us a roadmap with the path clearly marked. We're asked to obey His commandments and to love -- to love Him with all our being and to love each other. If we do this, He takes care of the rest.

Allow Jesus to make His home within you. This will happen today through the Eucharist, when we are called to Communion with God Himself. God doesn't force Himself on us, but if you allow Him, He will give you the strength you need to cope with any and all of life's challenges.  He will give you the courage you need to accept your calling. He wants us to do His work in the lives of those we touch, even the lives of strangers we encounter on Arizona highways.

Oh, by the way, after graduating from college and going on to earn her Master's degree in education, our daughter's first teaching job was at a mission school on a Navajo reservation.

St. Bonaventure School - Thoreau, NM

God does have a sense of humor, doesn't He?

Homily: 31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Readings: Dt 6:2-6; Ps 18; Heb 7:23-28; Mk 12:28b-34
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"Which is the greatest commandment?" This question, put to Jesus by an unnamed scribe, was no simple inquiry. The Torah, the Jewish Law, was full of commandments - 613 of them according to later rabbinic tradition - and this scribe was honestly searching for an answer to his question. Was there one commandment that encompassed them all? 

Jesus says, "Yes", and provides an answer from Deuteronomy, by referring first to the Shema. This Hebrew word means "Hear," the first word of the command: "Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone."

And so Jesus answers first by saying that God is One. He is One, and One Alone. And if God is Lord Alone, there is no other to worship. He takes the Scribe back to that day when Moses first asked God to identify Himself. What is your name?

"I am who am." And then God adds, "This is what you shall tell the Israelites: I AM sent me to you." And so, this is our God. Our God is "I AM." Our God is not one God among others. No, He is existence itself. As John tells us, "without Him nothing came to be." And so the words from Deuteronomy, the words of the Shema, seem fitting and proper, don't they?

Jesus continues from Deuteronomy: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." It's an answer that rolls up all the laws, prohibitions, and commandments into one.

Jesus also takes us back to the first of the Ten Commandments, "I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me." We often interpret this as God saying, "Put me first."  We see it as a question of having the right priorities. But to think that way would be wrong. Putting no other gods "before" me doesn't mean "ahead of me," it means "anywhere in my sight."  God can see above, below, around, and through.

It's an all-consuming commandment.  Anything that is not of God is to be removed from our lives. It's an all-infusing commandment.  Even that which is good is to be immersed and permeated by God. The Oneness and Aloneness of God means that not one fiber of our being can be spent on anything but that which is good, that which comes from God.  We are called to see and honor God everywhere, in all things, in all the activities of our lives. 

God's Oneness, therefore, is a call to relationship. If there is no other to love, then we must give our heart to God. If there is no other to care for us, then we must allow our being to be shaped and molded by God.   If there is no other to follow, then God must order all our thoughts and intentions. If there is no other to whom we can devote our energy, then whom are we to serve?  In all of this we become one with God.

This doesn't mean we are called to desert our ordinary lives, to run off to the mountain top and lose ourselves in contemplation...although a little retreat from time to time wouldn't be a bad idea.

No, becoming one with God means to find God in all of life, because God is there, everywhere present. He's in our music and in our dance, in our work and in our play, in our romance and adventures, in our families and our friends, and in those we dislike, those we mistrust, those we avoid...God is there!

From God's cosmic perspective, His command to love Him with all our heart, soul, mind and strength - with all of our being - expands to include everything we do that is pleasing to God. Being one with One God is not a flight from reality; it's a true and complete embrace of reality. If God is One, then all creation, all humanity comes from God. There is no other source of creation. And if indeed we become one with God, then we also become one with all that comes from God.

And so, out of that one commandment, bursts a second, from Leviticus: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." For, truly, we are all children of God, expending our energy and living our lives in ways that, in the end, give glory to God our Creator. What gives glory to Him? What on earth is pleasing to God? Nothing less than obeying this second commandment, which flows logically from the first.

Our neighbors spring from the heart of God.  If we touch them we touch the heart of God. As God loves them we must love them too. God is One, and cannot be divided. To separate ourselves from our neighbor is to separate ourselves from God. To harm that which is created by God is to do violence to the Creator.

When we profess that Jesus is Lord, we attest to the truth of His call and become advocates for His vision of the world, taking on His concerns, bringing His love to others. By describing ourselves as Christians, we say we are Christ-like, that we will love as Christ loves.

The question is, do we?

Do we reach to the poor and homeless, to those who hunger and thirst, to the sick and imprisoned, or do we blame them for their situation?

Do we believe in the dignity and honor of all people, or just those who live as we feel they should?

Do we forgive as Jesus forgives, or do we find satisfaction in harboring our own hurts and hatreds?

Most of us probably come down on both sides of these questions at one time or another, because we, too, are sinners. Yes, in our sinfulness, we gather in this sacred space, as others gather in churches throughout the world, all of us possessed of the hope that through God's grace we'll become more Christ-like.

We take instruction from God's Word.

We admonish one another to be more loving and forgiving, without sacrificing the Truth.

And we eat from the sacred altar, the table of this Eucharistic sacrifice, receiving the Saving Body and Blood of Christ, all the while praying that it will transform our hearts.

You see, sisters and brothers, our hearts are connected not to our mouths, but to our hands. To discover the truth of our commitment to these two great commandments, others look to what we do, not what we say. It's by the work of our hands that we test the call of Jesus to love the Lord our God with our whole hearts, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

We press our hands together in prayer to connect the hands with the heart and drink deeply of the grace of God, and once we have been filled with that peace and passion, we go forth - we go forth with open hands so we can touch the world with the Spirit and presence of Jesus Christ.
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And don't forget to vote, to vote as an informed and faithful Catholic.

Homily: 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year A)

Readings: Ex 22:20-26; Ps 103; 1 Thes 1:5c-10; Mt 22:33-40
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Remember last Sunday’s Gospel passage? Sure you do. You remember…the Pharisees tried to entrap Jesus by asking if it were right to pay taxes to the Roman emperor. Their scheme, of course, failed because Jesus' only concern was God and God's Kingdom. He turned the tables on His accusers by saying, “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.”

Well, in today's passage the Pharisees once again tried to entrap Jesus. When they asked Him, “Which commandment of the Law is the greatest?” they were far from sincere. Jewish scholars of the Law spent their lives pondering this question, and few agreed. Yes, the Pharisees hoped to demonstrate publicly that this upstart from Galilee was an ignorant country bumpkin. How could He hold His own against these experts in the Law? Jesus’ answer would only demonstrate his ignorance. 

Or so they thought. Once again Jesus surprises them by quoting two passages from Scripture, and in effect tells them that all God’s teachings are based on these two commandments. The first, from Deuteronomy 6:5, “You shall love your God with your whole heart, your whole mind and your whole soul.”

God wants it all. He wants us to turn every dimension of our lives and our being over to him. He wants our whole minds. He doesn't want us to think about Him only when we need Him and then forget about Him. He doesn't want us to fill our minds with powerful distractions that obscure or erase His presence. He doesn't want us to misuse our minds, filling them with evil thoughts of greed, jealousy, anger or lust.

"Give me your whole minds," Jesus says to us. "Are you distressed? Do you despair? Have your children or your parents hurt you? Remove the hatred from your minds and let my love take over. I’ll transform your thoughts and give you a new understanding. I’ll give you wisdom." 

Jesus also tells us to give God our hearts, our whole hearts. He tells us to love him with every part of ourselves, with every way there is to love. We are called to imitate God, to return the love He gives to us. But God’s love is total love, sacrificial love, the love we see on the Cross. Are we ready to love God sacrificially? Are we willing to give our hearts, our very lives for God, as so many others have?

And Jesus tells us to love God with our whole souls, our immortal souls, that which separates us from other creatures. We have the ability to think and to love. We have the ability to choose, to imagine, and to express ourselves. 

We are unique reflections of God – made in His image and likeness. And what is God’s image? What is His likeness? St. John tells us clearly: “God is love.” Our ability to see meaning in life, to recognize purpose to existence, is directly proportional to our willingness to reflect the presence, the love, of God. We each have a capacity to reflect God’s presence, our own unique way to bring His love into the world.

The other passage Jesus chose was from Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”  This is the second great commandment, Jesus tells us. 

If we love God as He calls us to love Him, we then must love ourselves; for we were created out of His love. If God loves each of us so much, then, of course, we should love ourselves.

I remember a story about a young mother who was trying to help her little boy understand this commandment. “God put us here to help others,” she told him. He thought for a moment and then asked, “What are the others here for?” The little lad would have made a good Pharisee.

God wants us to love Him by loving each other; and to love each other completely not just now and then.

He tells husbands to love Him by loving their wives, and wives to love Him by loving their husbands. Love, true love, is God's presence. The sacrament of marriage is the union of God's love to the love of husband and wife for each other. 

We cannot love God if we love only with a selfish love, a what’s-in-it-for-me love. We cannot claim that something is love, when we are in fact just using another person. We cannot love God if we nurture a hatred for another in our hearts. 

 “Love me,” the Lord says, “by loving your neighbors, your spouse, your children, your parents, your relatives, your colleagues at work, the kid who mows your lawn …everyone.” 

You see, Jesus’ definition of neighbor differs from that of the Pharisees, who applied this commandment only to other Jews. Jesus changes this. Recall the parable of the Good Samaritan, in which He expands neighbor to include strangers, even our enemies. And this, brothers and sisters, ain’t easy. 

But even more shocking to those who resisted His teaching, Jesus goes on to include sinners and all kinds of other folks. He includes the prisoner, the criminal, the drug addict, the prostitute. He includes the homeless, the panhandlers. He includes the dying, the disabled, the mentally ill. He includes those we haven’t met and those we don’t know. He includes people from the farthest corners of the globe, people from our inner cities, people whose cultures and ways of life are alien to us. 

Among our neighbors are the unborn infant, the lonely and forgotten one in the nursing home, the convict on death row, the terrorist. He includes not only those who are hard to love but those it’s easy to ignore or forget.

Do you remember a dozen years ago when the Washington DC area was plagued by the pair of snipers who were shooting people indiscriminately? Well, one of the later victims was seriously wounded as he and his wife left a Virginia restaurant. His wife refused to be interviewed by the media, and instead asked a hospital representative to read a statement. In it, she thanked those who were praying for her husband, and asked for their continued prayers not only for him but for the person who shot him. She didn’t scream for vengeance…she didn’t cry out for revenge…she didn’t plead for closure. No, she asked only for prayers.

Our Christianity obliges us to reach out to others, to the poor, the sick, the defenseless…and even those the world expects and encourages us to hate. But Christian charity isn’t motivated by humanitarianism. It’s motivated by love, by a desire to do God’s will, a desire to be Christ-like.

Quite simply it’s the work of evangelization. People who are starving first need food before they can hear God’s Word or praise His Name. Those who are ill need to experience God's mercy and compassion in others if they are to make sense of their sickness. Those locked in a prison cell, who’ve never known love, never heard a kind word, need to experience another’s love for them before they can accept the perfect love of God.

And let’s not forget, as we approach Election Day, that we can give to Caesar only what is his. And one thing that is not his is God’s gift of life. Life, brothers and sisters, belongs to God, and to God alone. No government has the right to take innocent life, to support such inherently evil acts as abortion, infanticide, and assisted suicide. As true disciples we must resist these evils…just as we should resist capital punishment which so often hinders a person’s redemption.

Every good law, every law that makes any sense, is implied in the Lord's simple answer to the Pharisees: “Love God with your whole mind, your whole heart and your whole soul; and love your neighbor as yourself.”

As we celebrate the sacrifice of Jesus, as Jesus re-presents on this altar His eternal act of love for us on the cross, let’s each take a moment to ask God for the courage to be the people he has called us to be, people who return all they have and are to God – people of his Kingdom. 

Jesus wants you, all of you! He wants it all!