St. Josaphat, Bishop & Martyr
Wisdom 13:1-9  +  Luke 17:26-37
November 12, 2021

“As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be in the days of the Son of Man”.

To His disciples, Jesus speaks of “the Son of Man”.  Regarding the Son of Man, Jesus explains that His presence is elusive, like lightning that “flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other”.  Jesus downplays the desire somehow to “pin down” the Son of Man.

At the end of yesterday’s Gospel passage, Jesus spoke about this Son of Man suffering greatly and being rejected by this generation.  Here Jesus is making clear how much His hearers’ expectations will be shattered.  What we hope for is often not what God has in store for us.  In today’s Gospel passage, we hear some of the context of “the days of the Son of Man”.  The context is dire, which shouldn’t surprise us given what the Son of Man Himself suffers.

Jesus’ final words today do not seem hopeful:  “‘Where the body is, there also the vultures will gather.’”  Yet Jesus is hopeful, of course.  He is simply not hopeful for the fate of this world.  Everything in this world must finally decay, so we must not be attached to such things.  Our hope must be for God alone, who draws us through this world, not to it.

The Thirty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Daniel 12:1-3  +  Hebrews 10:11-14,18  +  Mark 13:24-32

“At that time there shall arise Michael, the great prince, guardian of your people ….”

When we step back from the normal press of daily life, breathe deeply, and reflect on everything in order to gain some perspective, we can look backwards to the past or forward to the future.  Either perspective can prove helpful.  A great deal of our spiritual lives as Catholics focuses on the past:  the saving events of the Old and New Testaments, and the history of Jesus’ Church with all her saints.

But what about the future?  There’s only one Sunday of the Church year that reflects upon a future event.  For us Christians, then, how do we reflect upon the future?  To a large degree, the average Christian connects the future with getting his own soul to Heaven.  Prayer and the sacraments help in this regard.

But there’s another sense in which we look to the future.  This second sense of the future is not about Heaven, though, but about the same earth on which our feet are planted now.  Jesus teaches that the Gospel is not only for us to reach Heaven.  The Gospel is also about the earth, as we pray in the “Our Father”:  “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”  The basic game-plan for making this future hope a present reality consists in the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.  These good works are part and parcel of the path God means for us to take to Heaven.

But there’s also a third sense in which Christians look to the future.  This third sense is the rarest in the lives of most Christians.  We tend to think of this third sense only around the time of the Solemnity of Christ the King, which the Church throughout the world will celebrate next Sunday.  This third sense is an event in which all mankind will participate:  the Final Judgment of mankind by Christ the King at the end of time.

In today’s First Reading, Daniel prophesies about “a time unsurpassed in distress”, and Jesus in today’s Gospel Reading describes for us “those days after… tribulation [when] the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from the sky”.  These verses sound like apocalyptic science fiction.  Yet God tells us that every human being—including yourself—is going to participate directly in something just as earth-shattering as these events.

This Sunday the Church proposes a question in order to help you begin each day with your end in mind.  Next Sunday on the Solemnity of Christ the King, the Church will offer her answer.  This Sunday’s question is given in our First Reading from the Book of Daniel.  As strange as it may sound, this question comes in the form of a person.  Did you know that the name “Michael” is actually a question?

The name “Michael” literally means, “Who is like God?”  It’s a rhetorical question, of course, because no one is like God.  But Satan is blinded to that simple fact by his pride.  St. Michael is often pictured as the great warrior among God’s archangels.  But St. Michael’s power comes from his humility:  his power lies in allowing himself to be an instrument in the Hand of God.  As the English author G. K. Chesterton wrote, “Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly.”

As one prays privately after Holy Mass, thanking God for the graces received and asking God to help one bear fruit in the world as one goes forth from the Mass, it’s a venerable custom to pray the Prayer to Saint Michael.  This prayer reminds one not only of how important the virtue of humility is, but also of the stakes involved in the “Christian battle” of the spiritual life [see CCC 1496].

Some people trust that strength lies in numbers.  Some trust that strength lies in knowledge.  The saints trust that strength lies in humility, which opens oneself to the Love who is God.  When you begin each day with an act of humility by handing the day over to God, He will give you all the strength needed to accomplish His holy Will:  not your will, but His.  We beg from God the grace to conform our wills to His.  In this, God’s children can become united with each other and with God Himself.  The two great commandments—to love God and neighbor—become united.

St. Martin of Tours, Bishop
Wisdom 7:22—8:1  +  Luke 17:20-25
November 11, 2021

“For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.”

In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus describes the phrases “the Kingdom of God” and “the Son of Man”.  The meanings of both are elusive, and that’s Jesus’ point.

In the Pharisees, who ask “when the Kingdom of God would come”, we can see many in our own day who exert great effort in predicting and spreading news of the time of this coming.  Jesus splashes cold water on them all:  this coming “‘cannot be observed, and no one will announce, “Look, here it is”’”.  Along the same line, Jesus soberly explains to the Pharisees that while they “‘will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man,’” they “‘will not see it.’”

However, in the midst of this sobering up, Jesus declares something provocative, if not confusing.  “‘For behold, the Kingdom of God is among you.’”  So while the coming of the Kingdom “‘cannot be observed,’” it already “‘is among you.’”  How are we to understand what seems on the surface like a contradiction?  Perhaps such understanding ought only be sought by the Pharisees of old.  Perhaps our part is simply to live within the Kingdom of God, under the shepherding of the Son of Man.

Wednesday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 17:11-19

“Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

We may not feel inclined to think of ourselves as lepers.  It’s not an appealing image.  But that’s the plain meaning of these ten persons in today’s Gospel passage.  The ten lepers represent us.

In fact, we’re much worse off than lepers.  Leprosy ends with earthly death.  But the effects of sin—alienation and estrangement from God and neighbor—are unending, ever-lasting, without end if we die in mortal sin.  Without a Redeemer to save us from sin, our suffering will not end with earthly death, but only begin in earnest.

Jesus saves the ten from leprosy with little more than a few words, such is His divine power.  But Jesus saves all of mankind from the far greater penalty of eternal death.  Jesus offers salvation to you not by speaking a few words, but by sacrificing up His complete self—Body, Blood, soul and divinity—to a Passion and Death on the Cross that He suffered out of love:  not out of compulsion, or to get something back in return, or to impress anyone, but simply and completely out of love for us.  If this doesn’t inspire gratitude in each of us, it’s hard to imagine what might.

The Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome
Ezekiel 47:1-2,8-9,12  +  1 Corinthians 3:9-11,16-17  +  John 2:13-22
November 9, 2021

… 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

Monday of the Thirty-second Week in Ordinary Time [Year I]
Wisdom 1:1-7  +  Luke 17:1-6

Love justice, you who judge the earth; think of the Lord in goodness, and seek him in integrity of heart ….

At weekday Mass during this second-to-last week in Ordinary Time, the Church’s First Reading is taken from the Old Testament Book of Wisdom.  Not surprisingly, the Book of Wisdom is part of the Old Testament group of books called the “Wisdom Literature” (the other three groups of Old Testament books being the Pentateuch, the Historical Literature, and the Prophetical Literature).  There are seven books that make up the “Wisdom Literature”.

This book is fitting for us to listen to as we draw near to the end of the Church year.  Towards the end of the Church year, the Sacred Liturgy draws our attention to the Last Things:  Heaven, hell, death and judgment.  You and I need wisdom to think rightly about these four last things.

Today’s First Reading consists of the first seven verses of Wisdom.  It might surprise some just how “earth-bound” this passage is.  It is not “pie in the sky”, meditating abstractly on ideas and theories about God’s wisdom.  The passage is very concrete.

The first two words of the book are “Love justice”.  A good retreat master could develop an entire week-long retreat exploring just these two words, so profound are they.  Love and justice are both virtues:  the former the greatest of the theological virtues, and the latter one of the moral (or “cardinal”) virtues.  To love justice is to devote one’s self to a right ordering of one’s thoughts, words and actions:  giving to God what is His due, and recognizing God in our neighbors, whom He created for us to love.  In attending to the simple matters of daily life with divine love, we cannot fail to grow in wisdom.

Saturday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 16:3-9,16,22-27  +  Luke 16:9-15
November 6, 2021

“You cannot serve God and mammon.”

This sentence of Jesus is sometimes falsely and simplistically interpreted to mean that you cannot have both God and money in your life.  In other words, this false interpretation says that there’s a sort of competition in your life between God and money which is a zero-sum game.  Or to use a picture metaphor:  this false interpretation says that there’s a see-saw in your life:  God and money are sitting at opposite ends of the see-saw.  If one goes up, the other goes down.  The holier you are, the less money you will have, and the more money you have, the less holy you must be.  This interpretation of Jesus’ words is false.

Our spiritual well-being and our financial well-being are not in competition with each other.  Rather, when Jesus plainly tells you that “You cannot serve both God and mammon”, the key is the word “serve”.  “You cannot serve both God and mammon.”  You can serve God, or you can serve mammon.  But you cannot serve both.

The beautiful thing about serving God is that through this form of love, we become more like Him.  After all, “God is love”, as St. John taught the first Christians.  So in the very act of loving God, we become like Him:  that is to say, we enter into His very way of life, His very way of being.  This is as God wants, and in fact this is as each of you wants, in the deepest center of your heart, because God planted that desire there when He created your heart:  the desire to serve Him, and so become more like Him.

Friday of the Thirty-first Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Romans 15:14-21  +  Luke 16:1-8

… 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.

The Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
I Kings 17:10-16  +  Hebrews 9:24-28  +  Mark 12:38-44

“… she, from her poverty, has contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

Tithing is a biblical tradition by which one can carry out the Precept to support the Church materially (CCC 2043).  Yet tithing demands more from some than others.  To illustrate, say that the currency that the characters in today’s Gospel passage put into the treasury was dollars.  And let’s say that one of those “rich people” earned $100,000 a year, and that in today’s Gospel passage, this rich person put $10,000 into the treasury:  in other words, 10% of his annual income.  Certainly that’s a large sum.

So then imagine that the “poor widow” had an annual income of 20 small coins.  The “two small coins” that she put into the treasury was ten percent of her annual income.  But at the time of today’s Gospel passage, those “two small coins” were all she had in her possession.  She had no savings or checking account, no mutual funds or IRA, no annuity, stocks, or bonds.  She had no husband, no children or extended family, no Social Security or Lord’s Diner.  This widow, “from her poverty, … contributed all she had, her whole livelihood.”

By contrast, the rich person who put ten thousand dollars into the treasury had more where that came from.  As Jesus said, the rich person “contributed from [his] surplus wealth”.  So while the rich person and the poor widow both may have given equal percentages of their income, the rich person still gave from his surplus, while the poor widow gave “from her poverty”.

Jesus points our attention towards—and wants us to imitate—this “poor widow” giving “from her poverty”.  That’s easier said than done.  But there are at least two ways to make this easier.  The first is a virtue to be cultivated, and the second is a practice to be followed.

First is the virtue of trust:  specifically, putting one’s trust in God.  The virtue of putting trust in God first means acknowledging that God is your providential Father.  God has made you for Himself, and you can only reach Him in Heaven by surrendering each day to the One who is your providential Father.

What practice, then, might help us concretely to give like the “poor widow”?  It’s the practice of giving “first fruits”.

Giving God one’s first fruits is rooted in Sacred Scripture.  Of course, the examples in the Bible of giving from one’s first fruits are literal, based on harvesting different grains grown by many of God’s People.

Consider a farmer with 1000 acres.  In ancient times, having only primitive tools meant that it would take him a long time to harvest 1000 acres.  At any point during that stretch of harvest time, bad weather could destroy the remaining crops.  So for a farmer to give the fruits of the first hundred of his acres to be harvested—not knowing how much of the remaining 90% would ever be harvested—was a concrete act of trust on the part of that farmer.

So how would a modern person relate such a biblical example to giving one’s treasure to God?  How could one today imitate the “poor widow” in giving one’s “first fruits”?

Maybe the simplest way would be—to use a modern expression—by giving to God off the top.  If you haven’t gone green when it comes to paying bills, and if you don’t pay all your bills by means of automatic withdrawal, then each month you have a stack of paper bills to pay.  Many Christians are tempted to give God from their “leftover treasure”:  if, that is, there is any treasure left over after the bills are paid.  Instead, you can metaphorically offer God the first fruits of your monthly treasure by giving to God a sacrificial amount before even touching the first bill that needs to be paid.

There are many other practical ways to include one’s personal finances within the sphere of one’s spiritual life, rather than falsely thinking that the two have nothing to do with each other.  This inclusion—your finances within your spiritual life—demands the virtue of trust.  The foundation of this trust is the wisdom that the “poor widow” demonstrated:  knowing oneself to be nothing without God.  Knowing oneself to be nothing without God is the foundation that allows us to give from our poverty, and allows God to bear abundant fruit through our lives.