The Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]
II Maccabees 7:1-2,9-14  +  2 Thessalonians 2:16—3:5  +  Luke 20:27-38

   “Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.”   

Many Christians aren’t sure how to go about the practice of meditation.  One difficulty arises from the fact that meditation always requires something to meditate upon:  an idea or image of a person, event or truth.  But how, then, can the individual Christian decide what to fix his attention upon during daily meditation?

The simplest answer is found among the Scripture verses proclaimed at the current day’s Mass.  The persons, events and truths spoken about in a given Scripture verse can serve as the focus of Christian meditation.

Of course, even on a weekday there are three different passages of Scripture to choose from if you include the Responsorial Psalm.  There are also the Entrance Antiphon and Communion Antiphon for the day’s Mass, which almost always are taken from Sacred Scripture.  So in the midst of this wealth of Scripture passages at a simple weekday Mass, where does a Christian begin to meditate?

Tradition offers two suggestions.  The first and perhaps most obvious is the Gospel Reading from that day’s Mass.  In the four Gospel accounts, the Word made Flesh speaks directly to us through both words and works.

The other suggestion comes from the day’s Responsorial Psalm.  The reason that the day’s Psalm is often suggested is that the psalms are poetry.  They were originally composed to be sung.  But even if we only read them, they’re lyric and are often easier to “break open”, as it were, than a Gospel passage that requires more background knowledge to comprehend it.

So if you decide to use the Psalms from Holy Mass to nurture your daily meditation, the most obvious place to start is the refrain of the day’s Responsorial Psalm.  This refrain guides you through the course of the entire psalm, and presents a single theme that you can focus upon in meditation.  As an illustration, consider the Responsorial Psalm’s refrain from this Sunday’s Mass.

“Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.”  Why does the Church put this verse from Psalm 17 on our lips today, the next-to-last Sunday of the Church year?  This last month of the Church year means to alert you to what she calls the “last things”:  Heaven and hell, death and judgment.  For you who are a pilgrim on earth, all four of these lie in your future.  They’re not past events, like the creation of Adam and Eve, the birth of Jesus, or the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  Heaven and hell, death and judgment lie squarely before you in your future, either as inevitable or possible.

However, one of the difficulties in meditating on the “last things” is that they’re somewhat abstract.  It’s easier to meditate upon them by relating each of them to the Second Coming of Jesus at the end of time.

Likewise, the Second Coming of Jesus can help us focus concretely on the refrain of Sunday’s Responsorial Psalm:  “Lord, when your glory appears, my joy will be full.”  The Second Coming is often pictured in religious art as apocalyptic and frightening.  It’s certainly natural to fear the reality of death and the possibility of eternal damnation.

Today’s Psalm, however, presents a future full of hope.  With the Psalmist, we Christians hope for the Second Coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Jesus isn’t just some ancient guru about whom we read in dusty books, and whose example and teachings we strive to follow.  Jesus is the eternal Son of God.

He is as alive now as He was two thousand years ago.  Further, through the virtue of hope, we know that the joy open to us here and now as Christians is destined to be surpassed.  The Psalmist speaks to the Lord of a future time:  “when your glory appears”.  Christians know that this verse refers to the glory of Jesus’ Second Coming.  We not only wait for this second coming, but long for it, since when He comes, our “joy will be full”.  That phrase—“my joy will be full”—speaks to man’s vocation in Christ:  that is, to the fulfillment of human life as an adopted child of God the Father, called into the fullness of joy that is His Heavenly Liturgy.

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
Ezk 47:1-2,8-9,12  +  1 Cor 3:9-11,16-17  +  Jn 2:13-22
November 9, 2019

   … you are the temple of God….   

Today’s Gospel passage shows us God’s passion for His temple, and His passion for the sacrifice offered there.  In the confessional, priests often hear people confess anger.  A priest might find it necessary to ask questions when someone confesses “getting angry”.  In light of Jesus’ action in this passage, it’s important to remember not only that merely “getting angry” is not necessarily a sin.  Also, even acting in anger is not necessarily a sin.

Acting in anger, or fostering anger in oneself or others, certainly can be a sin.  But Jesus acts in anger in today’s Gospel passage, and with good reason.  When reflecting on a state of anger, and actions that flow from it, it’s important to ask what the object of one’s anger is.  This object can make all the difference in the morality of such an act.

While experiencing the passion of anger, Jesus purifies the Temple.  In the passion of love, He purifies the temple of the human body of sin on Calvary, by offering up His own body in sacrifice.  St. John the Evangelist makes this point clearly.  When Jesus challenges His opponents, saying, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up”, the evangelist explains that Jesus “was speaking about the temple of His Body.”  The Church’s belief in the great goodness of the human body is based in large measure on this Gospel truth.  The Church’s challenging ethic of purity of body stems not from a belief that the human body is bad, but that the human body’s purity ought to concern us as much as the purity of the Temple concerned Jesus.  Both temples ultimately belong to God, for His purposes and for His glory.  The temple of the human body is meant for the offering of sacrifices, small and large.

Click HERE to take a virtual tour of the Papal Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome

Friday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 15:14-21  +  Luke 16:1-8
November 8, 2019

…because of the grace… in performing the priestly service of the Gospel of God….

There are differences among Christians, and then there are disagreements.  Differences can be of various types, including those willed by God Himself for the sake of the Church.  Saint Paul has preached about “diversity for the sake of unity” in the First Readings of recent days.  Differences can come about through human sin, contrary to the will of God.  But disagreements often point to something more difficult to reconcile:  beliefs that are contrary to the mind of God.

There are disagreements among Christians about Christians serving others as priests.  A priest, of course, is a mediator:  in more common parlance, a “middle man”.  He stands between God and another human person in order to serve that person:  in order to bridge the gap between God and the other.  Is there such a thing as an authentic Christian priesthood?  If so, what form or forms does it take?

Saint Paul in today’s First Reading shows us that the answer to the first of these questions is “Yes”.  Speaking to the Romans about himself, St. Paul speaks of his “priestly service of the Gospel… so that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable”.

Among Christians who speak regularly against Catholic teaching and practice about the priesthood, you will often hear that there is only one mediator, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, there ought to be no human mediators between “me and Jesus”, as they might put it.  But St. Paul’s words today—inspired as they are by the Holy Spirit—clearly show such an idea to be contrary to the mind of God.  This is only the first principle by which to understand Christian priesthood, but it’s good for us to reflect on it today.

Thursday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 14:7-12  +  Luke 15:1-10
November 7, 2019

   “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”   

Jesus’ first parable in today’s Gospel is heartfelt, offering us hope of God’s compassion for the wayward.  Jesus offers a “moral” to the parable in explaining that “there will be more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”

Although Jesus’ “moral” seems straightforward enough, there is something about it that seems paradoxical.  Wouldn’t it make sense for the “righteous” to rank higher in Heaven than the repentant?  Why isn’t there such rejoicing in Heaven over the righteous?  There are at least two responses that might be offered.

First, the “righteous” of whom Jesus is here speaking are defined by the righteous themselves.  Yet such self-righteousness is a false righteousness.  Only God can make a human person righteous.

Second, those who are righteous in the true sense of the word are so only through their repentance.  A saint is a sinner who knows he’s a sinner.  In this sense, all human beings in Heaven (excepting, of course, Our Lord and Our Blessed Mother) are righteous through their self-repentance.  You and I as sinners rejoice that the Lord has not left us in our sins, but has offered us His grace, which is the means to righteousness in God’s sight.

Wednesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 13:8-10  +  Luke 14:25-33
November 6, 2019

   …love is the fulfillment of the law.   

In today’s First Reading, Saint Paul speaks about the second of Jesus’ two great commandments.  As you know, Jesus taught His disciples that the Law of God could be simply expressed in two great commandments.  Before Jesus, with the Ten Commandments that God had given Moses, and the hundreds of moral prescriptions developed by rabbis to explain them, Jewish morality had become complex, and to many, overwhelming.  Jesus profoundly simplifies matters for His disciples.

Love God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.  Jesus teaches us that these two sum up the entire law of God.  St. Paul in our First Reading explains that “love is the fulfillment of the law.”  Love is not simply the summary of the Law, but its fulfillment.

When we are young, our parents make sure that we memorize the Ten Commandments.  It’s important to memorize these ten, as each of the ten touches on a key manner in which we must love God and our neighbor.  But we should not lose sight that all of them are about love.  Today’s First Reading helps us focus on what it means to love our neighbor as our self.  Pray for the grace to bring your love for your neighbor into focus through your love for God.

Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 12:5-16  +  Luke 14:15-24
November 5, 2019

   … persevere in prayer.   

Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans touches on nearly every theme of the Christian life.  Today’s passage from Romans proclaims the mystery of the Church as Christ’s Body.  The diversity of the Church’s members serves her unity.  The Church’s diversity is willed by God for the sake of her unity, to foster that unity.

From this consideration of the Church as one body with many members, St. Paul moves to a rapid-fire consideration of many virtues that mark the Christian life.

Many of the virtues that ought to mark a Christian’s life come through simple fidelity to one’s calling from the Lord.  Yet we know that each person is called in many different ways.  Whether one reflects on a calling that takes the form of a vocation such as marriage or consecrated life, or a more specific and perhaps temporary calling based upon work, such as teaching or works of mercy, these varied callings are “near occasions of grace”, so to speak.  They all and always find their proper measure within the setting of the Church.

Other virtues that ought to mark a Christian’s life come from struggles and challenges common to all Christians.  Many of these struggles are due to sin.  St. Paul addresses these also in today’s First Reading.  “Endure in affliction.”  “Persevere in prayer.”  “Bless those who persecute you.”  Through these common challenges, we are called to have compassion on our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We are called to recognize our common struggles as sinners:  children of Adam and Eve.  Thanks be to God for the New Adam, Jesus Christ, into whose life He calls us.

St. Charles Borromeo, Bishop
Romans 11:29-36  +  Luke 14:12-14
November 4, 2019

   “For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”   

Although Jesus’ words today take the form of a command (“do not invite…”) to us as His disciples, we can reflect today on His words through a process of inversion.  That is, we can consider ourselves as those invited to a banquet.  The one inviting us is the Lord Jesus.  The banquet is the sacramental celebration of the Last Supper:  the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Shortly before the distribution of Holy Communion, the priest—holding aloft the Sacred Host—proclaims that “[b]lessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.”  The response of the faithful is, “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof… .”  In this, both priest and faithful gaze on the One who has called us to Him.  We are “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” of whom Jesus speaks in today’s Gospel passage.

For God Himself, of course, it’s not that He will be blessed because of our inability to repay Him.  It is from the Lord’s own divine goodness—eternal and infinite—that He bestows on us the blessing on being called to the banquet of the Eucharist.  Although we are unable to repay the Lord “in kind” for this invitation, we can nonetheless repay Him with our lives:  with the self-gift of our own body and blood, soul and humanity as Jesus’ disciples.

The Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time [C]
Wisdom 11:22—12:2  +  2 Thessalonians 1:11—2:2  +  Luke 19:1-10

   So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus….   

Out of the 52 Sundays of the Church year, more than thirty are Sundays in Ordinary Time.  When we reach these “Thirty-something” weeks, the Church’s liturgical year is drawing to a close.  During these final weeks, the Church focuses on what are called “the Last Things”:  that is, realities commonly associated with the end of the world.  The Last Things are Heaven, Hell, death and judgment.

Nonetheless, the Gospel on this 31^st Sunday in Ordinary Time is not dramatic or apocalyptic.  It’s a simple story about Jesus and a fellow of short stature named Zacchaeus.  Yet the simplicity of this story helps us relate to it.  We might be impressed or even awed by dramatic stories about the end times, but it’s hard—once we return to the ordinary grind of daily life—to convince ourselves that such stories have much to do with us.  But the story about Zacchaeus is easier for us to relate to because it’s such a humble story.

Look at Zacchaeus.  He is a rich collector of taxes.  Each of us, like him, is attached to worldly things.  Zacchaeus (meaning you) wants to see who Jesus is, but Zacchaeus has two strikes against him.

The first strike against Zacchaeus is the crowd, because everyone wants to see Jesus.  It’s easy to get lost and to feel unloved when you’re in the middle of a crowd.  You might ask, “How can Jesus love everyone?”  The second strike against Zacchaeus is his small size, which may represent the size of our souls.  You might feel unworthy of God’s love and ask, “How could Jesus love me, as small as I am?”

That’s why Zacchaeus climbs up into a sycamore tree to see Jesus.  This is all Zacchaeus wants:  simply to see Jesus.  But that’s not enough for Jesus.  This reveals to us an important point about the spiritual life.  God always wants more for us than we want for ourselves.  The question, then, is whether we’re willing to do what’s needed to accept what God wants for us.

This brings us to the turning point in Sunday’s Gospel passage.  When Jesus reached the place where Zacchaeus had climbed the tree, Jesus looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly; for today I must stay at your house.”  Jesus takes the initiative to reach out to this individual.  Likewise, just as he reached out to this little sinner, he is trying to reach into your life.

This passage illustrates the point and purpose of the spiritual life:  that God would dwell within us, and from within, transform us.  This is the point of listening to God in the Liturgy of the Word at Holy Mass:  to come down from our self-regard and allow Jesus to enter our home—to enter our soul—in order to transform us from within through the grace of the Eucharist in Holy Communion.

In the last sentence of today’s Gospel passage, Jesus offers Zacchaeus hope.  Zacchaeus knew that he was coming up short in life, but he didn’t know if Jesus would offer him what he was lacking.  Jesus responds by declaring, “the Son of Man has come to seek and to save what was lost.”

The Commemoration of All Souls
Wis 3:1-9  +  Rom 5:5-11  +  Jn 6:37-40
November 2, 2019

   The souls of the just are in the hand of God.   

The belief the Church celebrates today is part of the “communion of saints”.  That’s a familiar phrase—we recite it in the Apostles’ Creed—but the “communion of saints” isn’t just those who are canonized saints in Heaven, but also the members of the Church who are in Purgatory, as well as those on earth.  Today we who are members of that third group pray for those in the second, so that joined through prayer, we all may become members of the first.

Sometimes we feel torn like Saint Paul.  While it’s better to be in heaven, God wants us here on earth for His purposes.  Those purposes call each of us to help others in many ways.  One of the most important of these is prayer for others, which is formally called “intercession”.

Even in heaven, saints are given missions by God.  Saints are not simply fixed on God, without regard for others.  Saints in heaven pray for the rest of the “communion of saints”.

We on earth are like the saints in Heaven in this regard.  While we might want to fix our attention on God alone, God wants us to offer our lives for others, because this is often where we find God revealed in our lives.  So it is through our prayers of intercession, both for fellow pilgrims on earth, and for those in Purgatory.

Does this take away from God?  No.  God wants us to turn to each other.  Intercessory prayer is a form of Jesus’ command to “love your neighbor as yourself”.  If it’s valid in God’s eyes to pray for oneself, why wouldn’t it be to pray for others?  When a family suffers a tragedy, they draw closer together.  Part of this occurs through prayer, and they all are stronger afterwards, and more closely knit together.

Our prayer for others draws us closer to those we pray for.  Those in Heaven, in Purgatory, and on earth are drawn closer together through intercession.  When we intercede for another—or ask someone’s intercession—we don’t believe that that person is God.  We ask another to take our prayers to God.  When we call our mother and ask her to pray for us, we’re doing the same as when we kneel and pray a rosary:  we are asking our mother to pray to God for us.

Through all prayers of devout intercession, the Body of Christ grows stronger.  In the person of Christ, God and man are united.  Within Christ, we live as members of his Body.  Within Christ, we build others up, and so find God’s love for us.