Homily: 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Readings: Dan 12:1-3; Ps 16; Heb 10:11-14,18; Mk 13:24-32

About 30 years ago, as a group of us celebrated a friend’s 50^th birthday, her husband raised his glass and wished her happiness, health and peace, and then he added, "And at the end of your days may you go straight to heaven."

Her response? “I really wish you wouldn’t say such things. I don’t enjoy hearing about death and sadness on my birthday."

Okay, she said it with a little smile, but it seemed to be mingled with a touch of fear.

Her husband had offered a prayer of hope and future joy, but she received it instead as an unpleasant subject best ignored.

Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel passage may also seem unpleasant to some, but they, too, are really a message of hope.

And I suppose how we receive that message depends on the depth of our faith.

You know, I’ve always believed the opposite of faith is not despair, but fear. Despair is just a sort of side-effect of fear.

It’s why Jesus so often tells us to “be not afraid,” but instead to accept the gift of faith.

Sadly, this wonderful gift that God extends to all is rejected by so many today. Let me share another encounter from my past.

I’ve actually retired several times in my life. But before my final retirement, I worked for a hi-tech firm in Massachusetts.

We had about 400 employees, and I was the oldest. Most were in their 20s and 30s.

One morning, having heard that a young colleague’s father had died, I stopped by his office and expressed my condolences.

His response was remarkable: “No big thing,” he said. “That’s what happens…death, then nothing. So, who cares?”

“We just have to enjoy life while we can. I do whatever makes me happy, whatever brings pleasure, no matter what."

Raised in a Catholic family, he now believed in what? The pursuit of ephemeral pleasure?

How unbelievably sad for him. He desired a continual earthly happiness that’s unattainable. Because he sees nothing beyond, his life has become essentially meaningless.

Beneath his cynical veneer one detects a deep despair, and an even deeper fear.

The great G.K. Chesterton once remarked that the problem with those who don’t believe in God is not that they believe nothing. It’s really much worse. They end up believing anything.

The early Christians encountered this among both pagan and Jews.

Today’s reading is from chapter 13 of Mark’s Gospel. In that chapter, Jesus refers to two very different events.

He had just predicted the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, something that occurred 40 years later when a Roman army under a general named Titus, fulfilled Jesus’ prophecy.

All that’s left standing can still be seen today – the single Western Wall of the Temple.

I supposed most of those listening to Jesus dismissed His prophecy as ridiculous ravings.

Imagine your reaction if on September 10, 2001, someone had told you the twin towers of the World Trade Center would not be there the next evening.

It's hard to conceive of such things happening.

But Jesus goes on, and begins to tell His disciples that they’re about to enter the final stage of God’s plan, the stage in which they will play a major role.

For they will fulfill the prophecy of Daniel we heard in today’s first reading:

“But the wise will shine brightly…and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever.” (Dan 12:3)

The destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple will be a sign that this change, this transition, is taking place, all beginning within a generation.

This change is highlighted too in our second reading from Hebrews. Here we’re told the Temple sacrifices of the Jewish priests cannot atone for sin.

Only Jesus’s “once-for-all” sacrifice on the Cross can do that. And every day, here and in churches throughout the world, we make present Jesus’ sacrifice on the Cross.

Yes, the sacrifice on the Cross and the sacrifice right here of the Eucharist are one single sacrifice.

And in truth you and I are made present to the Cross and receive the unlimited grace and power that flow from it.

Jesus is telling us that His passion, death, and resurrection fulfill the promises of the Old Covenant and initiate a New Covenant with Jesus as High Priest.

But Jesus also used His prophecy about the end of the Temple to tell His disciples about the end of time, about the end of the world as we know it.

When we first hear it, His message sounds like a message of fear, with its earthquakes, wars, famines, pestilence, and terrors in the heavens.

But it’s really a message of hope, not fear. Jesus gives us a real, tangible goal: to get to heaven, to gain the eternal life Jesus has promised us.

This is the mystery of our faith, the mystery we proclaim at every Mass:

We proclaim your death, O Lord, and profess your resurrection, until you cone in glory.

Today’s readings shouldn’t distress us because they’re not fearful; they’re hopeful.

How did Jesus put it? When these signs…"begin to take place, look up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near."

But what about today? What about us?

While waiting for Christ to come again, how should we act, how should we live?

Jesus tells us: watch and pray. Live as if He were coming tomorrow! Perhaps He is. We don't know.

Oh, there are Christians who say they have the inside story on the end of the world, and some believe it's right around the corner.

Their message is essentially the same: "The end is near! Repent!"

I suppose that’s not bad advice…but it’s slightly misplaced.

We’re not called to repent simply because we think the end is near. We’re called to repent and live accordingly because we’re Jesus’ disciples.

Jesus, of course, told us not to be deceived by those who come in His name telling us "The time has come."

Whether Jesus comes on Thanksgiving morning or two thousand years from now, we’re called to live as if He were arriving tomorrow.

Or better yet, as if He were already here. Because He is.

Yes, someday He will come in power and glory to place all creation at the feet of His Father.

But, today, He comes quietly, invisibly, wherever you and I are.

Look for Him not on a cloud surrounded by triumphant angels, and wearing the crown of a King.

No, as we wait for that majestic return, look for Him where He already is.

Look for Him seated all around you, beside you, in front of you, behind you, right here in the community of His faithful gathered together.

Here is the Body of Christ, His Church, and He is with us, for the Head cannot be separated from the Body.

Look for Him is His Word, for the Word of God is Jesus Christ. When you hear that Word proclaimed here at Mass, when you read your Bible at home, He is just as present to you as if He were right beside you.

As Jesus told us, “my Word will not pass away.” No, it never perishes, but remains to heal us, to nourish us, to give us strength.

And look for Him in the Bread of Life and His Precious Blood – here in His Eucharistic Presence, present here in a most special way – present in every way – Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Look for Him at home on the faces of those you love, for He is present in them too.

And look for Him especially where He told us to look: in those who hunger and thirst, in the stranger, the sick, the homeless, the imprisoned, in the lonely, that person in your neighborhood who has no one.

You see, Jesus has given us plenty to do before He returns in glory as Christ the King.

And as He instructed His disciples, “It will lead to your giving testimony.”

The day will come, He warns, when they hand you over, when you are powerless, terrified, betrayed.

The day will come when you are tempted by lies and persecuted because of my name.  

The day will come, Jesus says, when all that you have left is your testimony.

That’s right; the day will come when all we have left is our witness to our Christian faith.

Are we ready for that?

As Jesus assured us in today’s Gospel, we are in that final stage of God’s plan and our generation has some work to do.

As Christians, as members of the Body of Christ, we’re called to prepare the world for the Lord's return, but we must first prepare ourselves.

How ready are we to receive Him?

Each of us will have his own end of the world, and for many of us here today that last day will come soon enough.

When we stand in His presence and say, "Here I am, Lord. Did I do your will?"

How will He respond?

Homily: Third Sunday in Ordinary Time - Year B

Readings: Jon 3:1-5,10; Ps 25; 1Cor 7:29-31; Mk 1:14-20

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One theme present in today’s readings is time, or perhaps more specifically, the passage of time. Of course, at my age – and I suspect this is true for a few of you – the passage of time is very evident.

When we were children, time crept by, carrying us slowly and deliberately through our young lives. What a blessing this was! The movement of time let us anticipate and savor so much of life – to observe, learn, absorb all that we encountered…and if we were fortunate, to distance us from the not so good.

For several years, Diane and I took foster children into our home. We had four children of our own, but we took on emergency cases, children who often came from difficult family situations.

Amazingly, regardless of the tumult and confusion these little ones had endured, they were often able to set it aside. Moved by love for their parents, their fervent hope was to return, to return to a renewed family where all would be set right. One need only look at a child to see the true manifestation of hope as a virtue.

But as we age, time moves along more quickly, doesn’t it? It hurries us through our days, pushing us relentlessly to the very culmination of our lives. It’s as if time, like today’s readings, pleads with us, reminding us we cannot bargain with it; that for each life, time has a limit, one that can come on quickly.

In our second reading St. Paul doesn’t pull any punches, but comes right out and tells the Corinthians and us that, “time is running out…the world in its present form is passing away.”

Paul wants us to be ready, to prepare for all that is to come, to prepare for God’s transformation of the world, and to prepare for judgment. He calls us to prepare – not by our own power, but through God’s gift of grace.

For God comes to us. He comes to us here in His Word, proclaimed in our hearing, entering into our minds and hearts.

He comes to us in the Eucharist, joining our very being with His Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, joining us to one another in this shared Communion. Do we ever think of that? As we depart here today, we are surrounded by the Real Presence of Jesus in each other. Yes, through the Eucharist each of us becomes a God-bearer, called to take Jesus Christ to others.

He comes to us, too, when we encounter Him daily, especially in His least brothers and sisters. Do we see Christ in them? At the Wildwood Soup Kitchen, we told our volunteers, “We don’t serve meals; we serve Jesus Christ.” But do those we serve, experience Jesus in us? Do they turn to us in expectation, in hope? That marvelous writer, the late Flannery O’Connor, once wrote to a friend: “You will have found Christ when you are concerned with other people’s suffering and not your own.”

How foolish we are when we ignore these daily encounters. And yet so many of us do just that when we make the mistake of thinking the little slice of time we’ve been given belongs to us.

"Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

The apostles didn’t make that mistake. They had encountered Jesus in the flesh – hearing, seeing, touching Him – and realized that they had been called, called in God’s time, not theirs. They had no time to do anything but drop their nets, turn away from their former lives, and follow Jesus. They didn’t fully understand it, not then, but moved by the Spirit, they knew it was a special time.

Indeed, in that same brief Gospel passage from Mark, Jesus begins His public ministry with the words, “This is the time of fulfillment.” Here is Jesus, the Lord of History, standing at the very center of all time, bringing everything that went before to fulfillment – truly, a most special time. The very thought of the Incarnation, God’s thought, was made in eternity, outside of time itself. And with His coming, everything changed.

The time of the Old Covenant pointed forward, away from itself, to Jesus Christ, its fulfillment. Yes, Jesus tells us, all of time that came before, every moment from the creation of time itself out of eternity, is brought to completion. His coming thrust us into God’s time; and Jesus, our God become man, is now ever-present.

Yes, indeed, it’s His time; it’s God’s time, for Jesus goes on to tell us: “The Kingdom of God is at hand.” To be sure, then, this fulfillment of time also means the time of the Kingdom of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

But other than this, Jesus really tells us very little about this time, or what we can expect as it unfolds. He tells us only that God has acted and fulfilled all. Then, continuing His teaching at that first moment of His ministry, Jesus commands us to act as well – for we must do our part.

“Repent,” Jesus commands, “and believe in the Gospel.”

Instead of telling us what we can expect, Jesus tells us what God expects of us. First, we are to repent. Translated from the Greek, metanoia, it means a change of mind and heart.

Time and change — repentance calls us to look back, if only to acknowledge the sinfulness of our lives; but then, filled with hope, to look forward to conversion, to forgiveness, and to the joy of the Good News. Jesus calls us to faith, to accept the Gospel, and to love our God and to love each other. Then, with minds and hearts turned toward God, we can experience the surprising joy of the Good News.

Sisters and brothers, Jesus spoke those words to the people of Galilee gathered around Him that day. He spoke to each one of them, personally, individually, calling them to accept His gift of faith, calling them to repentance, conversion, and joy. And He speaks this message to each us as well; for we, too, are called…and as Paul reminds us, “time is running out.”

Are we like the people of Nineveh? Like all of us they needed to repent. They had turned from God…until He placed that ultimatum before them. God set a 40-day time limit to their lives, and when they heard Jonah’s message, the message of the most reluctant of all the prophets, they realized their time was running out.

But they didn’t wait, not for a moment. No, they acknowledged their sins, turned to God in repentance, and He lifted the dire sentence He had placed on them.

Nineveh Repents

Repentance, conversion, salvation, and joy.

What about our time? People move here to our little corner of the world to have the time of their lives, don’t they? But all too often they forget that the time of their lives is coming all too quickly to an end.

Christ’s message, then, is one of urgency. It’s a message that demands an answer. To put it off is to run the risk of missing the coming of the Kingdom into our lives.

This Gospel message is for every single one of us, for all of humanity stretched out over the entire span of time. It’s a message aimed directly at the heart, in which God marks each of us for repentance, and for the salvation He desires for us.

Brothers and sisters, that we're here today means you and I believe in the Good News of Jesus Christ, in the salvation He offers us. Our Lord calls us to live that belief in lives that glorify God by loving and serving Him and each other.

Have you and I done much God-glorifying lately? Maybe it’s time to give it a try. Then, through the grace of God, we really can have the time of our lives.

Birthday Numbers

Today is my birthday, my 76th, but I feel much younger...well, most of the time...ok, maybe sometime. They sang “Happy Birthday” to me in church this morning, right after the final blessing. It was a surprise, but very nice. It would have been nicer if Dear Diane had been there, but her shoulder was acting up, so I left her in bed with the ice machine soothing her pain. Dear Diane’s ad:

I think young people tend to forget, or simply ignore, the birthdays of their elders under the mistaken belief that anyone that old wouldn't want to be reminded of it. Here they're wrong. Older folks are really more like little children and take secret pride in their advancing age.

Remember when you were a kid and someone asked, “How old are you...five or six?” How did you respond? “I’m six and a half!” To be seen as only five was a huge insult, and six simply wasn’t good enough. You wanted everyone to know exactly how old you really were. Of course, at that age the years crawled by, so half-years were far more meaningful.

We old folks are much the same. 30 years ago I never would have asked a woman her age. But here in The Villages, they don’t give me a chance to ask. I need only say, “Hi, how are you today?”, and I’m greeted with, “Wonderful! Not bad considering I turn 79 next week.” What do you say to that? You have to say something. Here it’s best to remember how seniors and little kids differ. Both are proud of their actual age, but kids want you to think they’re older, while seniors want to be known as old but viewed as younger. Probably the safest response is something like, “79! You’re kidding! You can’t be 79.” That covers all the bases.

Of course birthdays are linked to time itself, and for me, time is probably the most intriguing aspect of God’s creation of space and time. (Read St. Augustine's Confessions, chapter 11 for one of the better discussion on this.) 

When it comes to space, we can revisit places again and again. They might have changed a bit over time, but they’re still there and usually still recognizable. If I’m planning a future trip to a new place, I can even call up Google Earth and check it out. Oddly, although I’m actually looking at the past as it appears on my computer screen, for me it’s more a peek into the future, a glimpse of the place I intend to visit. 

It’s with time that things get a bit messy. We can’t reclaim the past because it’s irretrievable, but we can call it back as a memory. 

My earliest memories are quite early. I remember watching my dad and brother playing in the snow in our backyard in rural Nichols, Connecticut when I was only two years old...well, ok, two years and five months old. I was sitting with my mom at our bay window looking out at the two of them and wanting so badly to join them. Years later, when I described this memory to my mother, she was amazed that I could recall that day. “You had a bad cold,” she said, “I was very worried about you, and wouldn’t let you go outside. My gosh! That was in February 1947, and you remember that?” Yep.

I have quite a few memories of my third year, again all in Connecticut. I’ve always been an early riser. Even as a young child, I would awaken long before everyone else, leave my room, and sit down in the hallway at the top of the stairway. There I’d be joined by our dog, a German Shepherd named Clipper. He and I would lie down, my head resting on his side, while I rattled on, sharing my thoughts. Clipper was a tolerant beast and feigned interest. Often my voice would waken my parents (I’ve never been a quiet talker) and Dad would come into the hallway and ask me, “Who are you talking to?” I, of course, thought that a silly question and simply said, “Clipper.” I have many other memories of Clipper, a terrific dog whose only vice was his uncontrollable desire to kill our neighbor’s chickens. 

Birthdays generate other thoughts. I was born in 1944, so someone who was my current age then -- 76 years old -- was born in 1868, just a few years after the end of the Civil War. If we repeat this exercise and go back another 76 years, we find ourselves in the year 1792, when the French Revolution was in full bloodbath mode, setting the stage for the far bloodier revolutions of the 20th century. 

Speaking of the French Revolution, when I was 13 I met a 96-year-old man born in 1861 in Philadelphia. His grandfather had left France in a hurry in the midst of the revolution because as an apprentice cabinet maker his shop in Paris had made furniture for French royals. For the revolutionaries this apparently was a capital offence. Born in 1776, he was only 17 years old when he made his way to America thanks to a gift from a wealthy friend. Arriving in Baltimore, he managed to find work in Philadelphia, again as a cabinet maker. He died in 1870, at the age of 94. (His grandson attributed the family's longevity to the daily consumption of French wines.) 

But that's just the background. The interesting part of the story began when the grandson told me his grandfather had made some furniture for Thomas Jefferson and visited Monticello on several occasions during the early 1800s. The old man had also told him many more stories of meeting other famous Americans during our nation's infancy. That's when it hit me. Old age and the compression of time placed me just two people away from our founding fathers. 

Maybe 80 years from now, one of my grandchildren will tell stories to his grandchildren of that strange year, 2020, and what his aging grandfather told him about a world so very different from the world they'll be facing then. 

Cherish the memories, friends. Share them and let the past live in the minds and hearts of those who follow. 

God's peace...and a Happy Birthday to all others who may be celebrating today.

COVID-19 Bible Study Reflection #6: Abandonment

Our elder son calls us almost daily. Of course, he loves us, and we enjoy talking with him. But I suspect he’s also checking up on the “old folks,” just to make sure we’re still capable of answering the phone. Anyway, the other day, when I answered his call, he asked, “How are you handling all this weirdness?”

And he’s right, isn’t he? It has been weird. For a couple of months now, except for walking the dog and making occasional but brief trips to the store and post office, we’ve been cooped up in our home, isolated from others, forced to redefine much of our lives. 

The weirdest part has been the absence of human contact, especially with our friends. And yet some good has come of this. Diane and I have certainly spent more time together and are even learning to compromise on our TV watching. We’ve watched a lot of Jane Austen DVDs together and are now working our way through some strange Amazon Prime series. I’ve also worked on honing my cooking and laundry skills.

Among the more pleasant changes, is my growing relationship with our trash collectors. I now recognize them, and they me. They collect our trash twice weekly, usually in the pre-dawn hours, about the same time I take Maddie for her morning walk. Hungry for human contact, I now stop and greet these young men as they jump on and off their truck picking up our garbage. They have a hard, backbreaking, and smelly job, but they always greet me with a smile and a cheery “Good morning!” In the midst of the “weirdness” I have developed a new respect for these men and their work.

Yes, indeed, things have gotten weird. But weirdness always generates questions, and questions often lead me to Sacred Scripture. After all, God not only has all the answers, He is the answer. And one of the best places to find that answer is the Sermon on the Mount; for it’s there that Jesus both challenges and comforts us. This morning offers a good example. While Diane underwent her physical therapy, I sat in the waiting room of the rehab center, wearing my facemask, and reading from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6 about the futility of worry. It’s not a long passage, so let’s read it now:

Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat (or drink), or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your lifespan? Why are you anxious about clothes? Learn from the way the wildflowers grow. They do not work or spin. But I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was clothed like one of them. If God so clothes the grass of the field, which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow, will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith? So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?' or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?' All these things the pagans seek. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given you besides. Do not worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will take care of itself. Sufficient for a day is its own evil [Mt 6:25-34].

Of course what Jesus is telling the crowd, and what He is telling us, is that worry over food, clothing, health, or any material need is simply a substitute, and a very poor one at that, for concern about our eternal salvation. He tells us to turn our attention from our worldly needs to eternal needs: “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”

So often, instead of being disciples, we are worriers. We spend much of our time planning our futures, calculating profit and loss, assets and debits, being the responsible people the world expects of us to be. This, Jesus tells us, is a waste of the energy and talents God has given us. We are called to do otherwise. We are called to put aside all anxiety and replace it with self-abandonment, to choose a life in which God provides and we receive. This eternal call of Jesus is echoed throughout all of Sacred Scripture. Here is just one example:

“Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build. Unless the Lord guard the city, in vain does the guard keep watch. It is vain for you to rise early and put off your rest at night, to eat bread earned by hard toil — all this God gives to his beloved in sleep” [Ps 127:1-2].

Our passage from the Sermon on the Mount is, of course, about more than freedom from worry. It’s really about how we should live our lives in times of both trouble and joy. And far too many of us live lives that don’t at all conform to Jesus’ expectations.

For example, some months ago I had a brief encounter with a parishioner who approached me right after Mass. She began by asking a straightforward question about the day’s Gospel reading. It related to prayer. I was in a bit of a hurry, so I gave her a pretty sketchy, off-the-cuff answer, one that seemed to satisfy her. But then she said, “I’d really like to deepen my spiritual life, but I just don’t seem to have the time.”

My first thought was one of self-criticism. (I’m pretty sure the Holy Spirit had a lot to do with this.) Here this woman had come to me, hoping for some spiritual direction, and yet I was so wrapped up in my own concerns, I really didn’t want to spend even a few minutes with her.

Her desire for a deeper spirituality is not uncommon. Many of us seek a more intimate relationship with God but become frustrated by the busyness of our lives. Work, family life, and other obligations and demands move God to a back burner. 

Although the woman who approached me is retired, I know she’s active in the community, involved in both recreational activities and charitable work. I won’t criticize her, though, especially in light of my own faults, because she obviously recognized this need in her life, or she wouldn’t have asked the question. I could tell it worried her. 

I suppose it all boils down to how we set our life’s priorities. Of course, she was really asking about prayer, wasn’t she? For it’s through our prayer lives that we deepen our relationship with God. And so, maybe this complaint of not having the time for prayer is worth looking into.

Perhaps we should turn first to the experts, the saints. Interestingly, when we examine the lives of the saints, we discover a kind of happy paradox. You see, the more they prayed, the more time they seemed to have for their apostolic work. Indeed, the busiest of saints – people like St. Dominic, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Benedict, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Francis of Assisi – all seemed to accomplish enough to fill several long lifetimes. And yet each devoted a considerable amount of time to prayer. 

Let’s return to our Gospel passage where the Lord promised to add “all these things” to those who seek first the kingdom of God. It would seem “all these things” must also include time. In other words, if we give time to God, He will give it back to us with interest.

This probably sounds a bit mysterious, and, like most of God’s doings, I suppose it is. But the importance of time in our spiritual lives becomes clearer if we just look at it from a human perspective, the only perspective you and I can probably understand.

You see, the saints considered time a gift from God, a gift through which they could work out their salvation. But to use this gift well demands some degree of conscious planning, but with special regard to the life of the soul. As any good time-management consultant would tell you, making better use of your time is often just a matter of changing habits. When it comes to your prayer life, you need only develop the habit of prayer. By this I mean turning the most commonplace activities into opportunities for prayer. Let me offer a few examples:

Try saying the Rosary while taking a walk or while waiting in the doctor’s or dentist’s office. After all, what’s more profitable for your soul, reading some two-year-old magazine or meditating on the mysteries of the Rosary?

What’s the first thing you do when you wake up each morning? Why not say, “hello”, to God? Pray some form of the morning offering in which you dedicate your entire day to doing His will in your life. It takes only a minute, and yet it sets the tone, a prayerful tone, for your entire day

Set aside a specific time each day to read from Sacred Scripture – just a few verses from both Old and New Testaments. The Psalms and Gospels might be a good place to start. Read and then meditate on what you have read. How does the Word of God apply to your life this day?

Before going to bed each evening, take a few moments to reflect on your day. Conduct a brief examination of conscience, reviewing your thoughts, words, and deeds, and asking God to help you in obedience to His commandment to love God and neighbor.

Such simple, prayerful acts provide wonderful ways to fix our minds on God as well as making intercession for those around us, especially those who don’t know God’s love. Just think of all the opportunities God gives us for prayer each day. It gives new meaning to what St. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians:

“Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. In all circumstances give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the Spirit” [1 Thes 5:16-19].

Rejoice always, pray always, give thanks always, and don’t quench the Spirit. Is this the way you and I live our lives?

As Christians we are called not just to make time for prayer, for rejoicing, and for giving thanks. We’re called to do so always, in all circumstances – to do so deliberately and perseveringly, even in the face of great difficulties. This is what our faith really means. To live our faith, we must rejoice always. We must pray without ceasing. We must give thanks in all circumstances. 

Now I don’t know about you, but I find this very difficult, so difficult that I fail daily as I struggle to live my faith. Eventually we must come to terms with our own weakness and realize we can’t do any of this on our own. God wants to lead us on the path to this ideal, this perfection to which He calls us. The first step, then, is how we use His gift of time. 

Remember, to those who love God, everything is a gift, something for which we should give thanks. If we are to give thanks in all circumstances, we must even thank God for this pandemic that has so confused our lives and taken the lives of so many. None of us can speak for others, but we can speak for ourselves. Consider the good that has come to you during this challenging time, the good you have embraced, that which you have ignored, and that which you have yet to experience. Thank God for it all.

If we have been given one thing during the past few months, it is time – time to change those old habits, time to deepen our prayer life, time to allow God to strengthen our relationship with Him. How much of that gift have you wasted on the frivolous and how much have you devoted to worry? 

Dear friends, God’s generosity can never be exceeded. He rewards faithfulness not only with progress in prayer, but also by providing more time to devote to it. You need only ask.

You see, it’s always best to take the Lord at His word. After all, He said, “Ask and it shall be given to you,” so why not simply ask God to lead you in your prayer life, to provide the time you need?

Like all spiritual gifts time must come from God according to His will and not be snatched against His will; therefore, we should not neglect the responsibilities that come with our state in life for the sake of prayer. Prayer is the means by which we allow God to move in our lives. It is not an end in itself. 

What else did St. Paul say? Oh yes, “Do not quench the Spirit!” How often, so wrapped up in our own plans and ways, do we turn away from the Holy Spirit? The soul should trust the Holy Spirit to take care of its sanctification, for He will find wondrous ways to unite the soul more closely to Himself. 

Don’t question the Spirit’s movement, for it is almost always surprising, showing us the power of God by calling us through our weakness. The Spirit works in us and through us even amid life’s confusion and turmoil and an apparent lack of time. 

Remember, too, that God has placed you in this time and place for a reason, to fulfill His will in your life and the lives of those He loves. Trust that He will bring about whatever must happen in your life to lead you and those others to a closer union with Him. 

God calls each of us to be faithful. We need only turn our lives over to Him and allow Him to work within us. By deepening your prayer life, by bringing your life into communion with God’s Will, you can expect Him to work major changes in your life. 

God is a demanding lover, but He will never force Himself on us. Because He respects our freedom, the choice is always up to you and me. But like the perfect lover, He calls constantly, patiently awaiting our response. Only then, only when we have opened ourselves to His love, will He go to work in our lives. Realize, too, that as your relationship with Him deepens, His demands on you will increase. 

I hope this rather disorganized reflection may lead you to a deeper understanding of the need to use God’s gift of time as a means to deepen your relationship with Him. For the faithful, worry achieves nothing because we trust that God will provide all that we need.

Let me conclude with a prayer written by Blessed Charles de Foucauld who was beatified in 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. Blessed Charles was a soldier, explorer, geographer, Trappist monk, linguist, hermit, and priest. He spent his last years living in North Africa, the only Christian living alone among the Tuaregs, a rather fierce tribe of Muslim desert nomads who ultimately took his life. To our knowledge he converted no one during his lifetime, and yet today his life has become a model for so many, a model of abandonment to God’s Will, regardless of the personal cost. Here is his prayer…

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;

do with me what you will.

Whatever you may do,

I thank you.

I am ready for all, I accept all.

Let only your will be done in me,

and in all your creatures.

I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;

I offer it to you

with all the love of my heart,

for I love you, Lord,

and so need to give myself,

to surrender myself into your hands,

without reserve,

and with boundless confidence,

for you are my Father.

What more can we give our God than this?

Mercy

Late Have I Served Thee

Three score and ten,

The days of our years

Approach speedily.

I number the hours

And press down, 

Shake it together, 

Run it over,

Hoping to do 

All the undone,

Trying to atone

For the wasting

Of a lifetime.

From the hungry,

From the stranger,

From the dying,

From the prisoner,

From Him

I hear the whispered,

Blessed word

Of forgiveness.

Homily: 2nd Sunday of Lent

Readings: Gen 12:1-4; Ps ; 2 Tim 1:8-10; Mt 17:1-9

Time is a very strange commodity. As St. Augustine said, “Time takes no holiday.” It’s probably the most defining aspect of our lives and yet we really have no impact on it. Indeed, our personal view of time means little. We can see ourselves moving through time or we can see time as a relentless force moving through our lives. It really makes no difference.

Time simply marches on, turning an imagined future into an instantaneous present and making the past no longer real. Because it is gone, the past really exists only in our minds, in our memories. Our lives are littered with memories, memories of events that in so many ways define who we are.

I once had an experience that had the effect of compressing time, moving me toward the past or moving the past toward me. It was in 1957 and my eighth grade teacher, Sister Francis Jane, a wonderful Dominican nun, had invited an elderly gentleman to speak to our class.

He was in his nineties, and had been born at the start of the Civil War. And he told us some wonderful  stories, stories about life in 19th century America, that held me spellbound. Even Sister Francis Jane, whom I'd always assumed was present at the Creation, seemed captivated.

He told us of his great-grandfather who had fled Paris during the French Revolution and eventually made his way to the United States. He told us of his grandfather, born in the year 1800, who as a youth was apprenticed to a Philadelphia cabinetmaker. At this point he told us something that completely overwhelmed me.

As a young man his grandfather had known Thomas Jefferson, had actually visited Jefferson at his home in Monticello, and done work for him. He went on to repeat the stories his grandfather had told him of Jefferson and his unique home.

Now as a child I always thought of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, and the other founding fathers as sort of mythical figures lost in the fog of a distant past, from another time disconnected from my own. And yet, here I was in the presence of someone whose grandfather had known one of these men. And the man speaking to me had known his grandfather. Quite suddenly I realized that Thomas Jefferson and I were separated by only two other people.

This strange revelation changed me permanently. I felt as if I’d been suddenly thrust into the history of my country, and present at its very beginnings.

Now you can take that experience and multiply it a thousand-fold and perhaps, just perhaps, you might approximate what Peter, James and John experienced when they witnessed Jesus' Transfiguration in today's Gospel. To understand what this must have meant to them, and what it should mean to us, let’s set the stage.

Up until now, the Apostles’ understanding of Jesus and His mission was incomplete and confused. Amazed by His miraculous works, they couldn't understand why He didn't use this power to set things right in the world. Indeed, He seemed almost oblivious to the severe political realities faced by the Jewish people under Roman rule. Instead, he focused His attention on individuals, especially the poor and those in need of spiritual, physical, and mental healing.

Jesus baffled even the Apostles. Just days before, an inspired Peter had proclaimed Jesus to be "the Christ, the Son of the Living God" [Mt 16:16]. And yet the Apostles couldn't grasp why Jesus wasn’t more Messiah-like. Yes, they wanted a Messiah, but their version, not God's.

Then, about a week earlier, Jesus had shocked them by predicting His impending death. This incensed Peter, who went so far as to scold Jesus for even mentioning such a possibility. But Jesus rebuked him, telling him he was seeing things from a purely human point of view [Mt 16:21-23].

Peter, you see, was afraid. Powerful men were plotting Jesus' death, and Jesus seemed to be playing right into their hands. Peter’s myopic human vision blinded him to the eternal realities of God's plan. He and the disciples needed God to open their eyes and show them the Father's abiding presence with their Master.

They needed a vision from God's point of view, not man's, to see that in spite of the death sentence hanging over Jesus, God was still with Him, that God is always in complete control and would see to it that Jesus ultimately triumphed. What Peter, James and John needed was to be present at the Transfiguration, to have their eyes opened, to see their Master bathed in the glory of the Divine Presence.

And so they encounter Moses and Elijah, the great lawgiver and the great prophet. Time is compressed. The past is brought forward and made real again. I might have figuratively touched history in my eighth grade classroom, but the Apostles came face to face with God's eternal plan, a plan spread before them over the tapestry of time.

In a few moments Father will pray these words that begin today’s Eucharistic Prayer: "…he manifested to them his glory, to show, even by the testimony of the law and the prophets, that the Passion leads to the glory of the Resurrection."

This Transfiguration, this manifestation of divine glory, was meant to strengthen the Apostles. When afterwards Jesus told them not to fear, He was referring not to the fear of God they exhibited on the mountaintop, but to their fear of man and the evil of which he is capable. They would need reassurance as they accompanied Jesus on His journey to the Resurrection, a journey that passed first through Calvary.

The Transfiguration planted a seed of hope, the hope St. Paul referred to in today's 2nd reading when he reminded us that Jesus "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light" [2 Tim 1:10]. God allows the Apostles to see this light in the glorified Jesus so that later, when they see Him reduced to nothing during His passion, they might remember this extraordinary event and cling, if only precariously, to the promise it offered.

In the same way, today, the Church asks us to pause during our Lenten journey and reflect on its goal: Christ's glorious Resurrection on Easter. For just as the Transfiguration foreshadows Christ's Resurrection, so Christ's Resurrection foreshadows our own. Our Lord's divine nature, revealed to the Apostles on the mountaintop, is now our gift, so that our human nature can be raised up, glorified, and changed completely by His holiness.

The beautiful reality of our Christian life is that we share increasingly in Christ's glory until, one day, we see Him face to face, an eternal day when time itself will be extinguished. We are Christ's Body, the Church, men and women who live in the world, and our mission, the mission of the Church, is to transform that world through Faith, through Love, and by demonstrating our Hope in the eternal life that is God Himself.

But before we can fulfill our mission to transform the world, we must allow God to transform us, to undergo our own transfiguration.

This Lent let God remove all fear and doubt and strengthen us to face with courage the challenges, trials, sufferings, and, yes, the death, we must pass through before we can share in the divine glory.

This Lent see how our savior is transfigured before our eyes in the forms of bread and wine. Accept God's loving presence with us at Communion.

This Lent approach the Eucharist, reconciliation, and all of the good things of God, not as obligations, but as invitations to share in the gift of His love and a life that will never end.

When Pope Paul VI was dying on the feast of the Transfiguration, his final prayer, repeated again and again, was the opening phrase of the Our Father: Our Father, Who art in heaven. This Pope, who loved the Church so much, knew the final grace in his life would come from the Father Whose voice was heard on the Mount of Transfiguration: “This is My Son, My chosen one" [Mt 17:5].

This Lent, may we come to understand more deeply the Fatherhood of God and imitate more closely Him Who makes the Son, His Son, shine on all alike.

Catching Up With the World

It's been a while since I've posted anything on the blog. My only excuse is the busyness of life and, paradoxically, the need to step away occasionally from that very busyness. I have tried to force some holes into my schedule, to liberate myself from the unimportant but loud demands that I create or allow others to force on me. Quite simply, I need some daily leisure time just to think and relax and savor this wonderful gift of life. After all, being is good!

Part of this effort includes taking a different approach to the blog. Once this blog becomes a burden, it will have defeated it's very purpose, the celebration of life. If writing a few words and sharing some thoughts with others helps me to appreciate and deepen my understanding of our being, well then, I'll post those thoughts. But I will try to resist the tendency to feel obligated to make regular posts. I will simply post them as they come.

Today, for instance, I am saddened by the recent death of Charles Colson. Known by most for his role in the Watergate scandal as one of President Nixon's "hatchet men", a role which sent him to prison, Chuck Colson's later life of repentance and service to the "least" of God's children has been largely ignored by the mainstream media.

After his release from prison Colson could have accepted any number of high-paying positions, but chose instead to found Prison Fellowship, a ministry devoted to serving the men and women locked away in our dysfunctional "corrections" systems. An Evangelical Christian, Colson was often at odds with many of the Christian right because of his rejection of political power as a means to reform the nation's moral order. Colson considered political power illusory and relied instead on the gospel mandate calling on each Christian to see Jesus Christ in others. He personified the challenge of Hebrews 13:3 -- "Be mindful of prisoners as if sharing their imprisonment, and of the ill-treated as of yourselves, for you also are in the body." Colson had indeed shared their imprisonment and was ever mindful of that fact.

In 1994 Colson, along with Fr. Richard John Newhaus and others, also formed Evangelicals and Catholics Together, an ecumenical organization of those who accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. While those involved don't ignore their differences, they focus primarily on that which unites them. Here's an excerpt from their foundational document:

"As Evangelicals and Catholics, we pray that our unity in the love of Christ will become ever more evident as a sign to the world of God’s reconciling power. Our communal and ecclesial separations are deep and long standing. We acknowledge that we do not know the schedule nor do we know the way to the greater visible unity for which we hope. We do know that existing patterns of distrustful polemic and conflict are not the way. We do know that God who has brought us into communion with himself through Christ intends that we also be in communion with one another. We do know that Christ is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14) and as we are drawn closer to him-walking in that way, obeying that truth, living that life-we are drawn closer to one another."

As you might imagine, Colson's active involvement in this organization brought him into conflict with many fundamentalist Christians who apparently believe the Catholic Church is the whore of Babylon and the pope is little more than an antichrist. But these criticisms didn't seem to bother him as he went about his ministry of helping others in Jesus' name.

I never met Chuck Colson, although years ago I owned a car -- a huge Ford station wagon -- that had once belonged to his mother. How's that for a connection?

We will miss him, a man who devoted his life to Jesus Christ and the Kingdom.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad