Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
1 Timothy 1:1-2,12-14  +  Luke 6:39-42
September 10, 2021

“Remove the wooden beam from your eye first ….”

When you make your nightly examination of conscience, and prepare monthly for the Sacrament of Reconciliation, there’s a simple way to recollect yourself for the needed self-scrutiny.  After all, if it’s been a long day or month, we can feel overwhelmed and unsure how to assess our efforts to live (or our failures to live) in Christ.

This simple means is to recall that all the commandments of the spiritual life converge in Jesus Christ.  What does this mean?  Today’s Gospel passage offers a concrete example.  The imagery with which Jesus preaches today seems only to be about the challenge of loving our neighbor:  specifically, a sinful (“blind”) neighbor.  But the two great commands of Jesus—to love God fully, and to love our neighbor as our self—converge in Him.

We are not to look down on our sinful brother, but rather to look up to him.  This is possible because of our authentic need for humility.  Christian humility is in one sense nothing more than honesty.  Both my brother and I are sinners.  We are equal in this.  But Jesus calls me to serve as brother as if I were serving Jesus Himself.  For this reason, from my state of sinfulness, I look up to my sinful brother.  From this stance, I may help him remove the splinter from his eye.  Jesus, of course, never sinned, but He did “become sin”—in the phrase of St. Paul—so that in my sinful brother I can see the Jesus whom I am to serve.

The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Isaiah 50:5-9  +  James 2:14-18  +  Mark 8:27-35

“For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it ….”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”  If you’re an adult, you were surely asked that many times when you were little.  But imagine that you travel back to the first decade of the first century A.D.  Arriving in the town of Nazareth, you come across the child Jesus and ask Him, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  How will He answer?

His answer might be gleaned from what He demands from us in today’s Gospel passage.  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  For you to be a Christian, you must do these three things:  deny your self, take up your cross, and follow Jesus.  Consider just the first of these.  What does it mean for you to deny your self?

What is your self?  Reflect on just three possible answers to this question.

The first self is the fallen, sinful self.  This is not the self God created you to be.  Instead, this is the self that concupiscence helps you become as a child of Adam and Eve.  This is the “selfish self”:  the self who sins.

You can deny this first self by declaring a strong “No!” to sin and temptation.  Hopefully you declare that “No!” as soon as you experience the movement of temptation:  as soon as you recognize that you’re within the proximity of the occasion of sin.

Of course, each of us on earth is a sinner.  That’s why Jesus, on the evening following His Resurrection, instituted the Sacrament of Confession.  Part of the beauty of Confession is that God allows us, after we’ve sinned, to practice self-denial:  that is, to say “No!” to the sins we’ve already committed by placing them in the confessional at the foot of Jesus’ Cross.

The second self that you must deny if you want to follow Jesus is the “animal self”.  Although God raised us above the other animals of the earth in that we can speak, create works of art and literature, and split the atom, each of us remains an animal with basic needs such as eating, drinking, and sleeping.

The second form of self-denial that each Christian must practice is prudent, occasional denial of basic needs like food, drink, and sleep.  The Gospel accounts tell us that the Son of God Himself practiced these types of self-denial:  fasting from food and drink, and spending entire nights in prayer with God the Father.  If Jesus practiced these, how can you not do the same?

Unfortunately, many Catholics today have never been told that the Church obligates every Catholic to practice penance on almost every Friday of the year, not just the Fridays of Lent (Fridays that are solemnities are exempt).  The Church only specifies what form this penance must take during Lent:  on Fridays of Lent, Catholics must abstain from meat as their penance.  On the other Fridays of the year, Catholics are free to decide the form of their penance.

The third self that you have to deny if you want to follow Jesus might be called the “aspiring self”.  Being human naturally means planning, dreaming, and imagining where one wants to be in the future.

However, “the best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray”.  The future is unpredictable for several reasons.  First, life on earth is chaotic by its nature.  Second, sin and its consequences constantly throw monkey wrenches into the gears of human hopes.  But third and most importantly, God’s grace is Providential.  God often bestows His graces upon us by surprising, unpredictable, and unexpected means.

So in life on this earth, we sometimes have to deny our “aspiring self”.  While the most responsible thing we can do is plan for the future as best we can, we also need to remember that God sometimes offers us something better than our best.  We don’t know when that might happen, so we have to be alert every day to the possibility, standing ready to deny our plans for the sake of God’s Providence.

That leads us back to the first century, where we asked the child Jesus, “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  There’s really only one possible answer.  Jesus replies, “I want to be faithful to my Father’s Will.”  Every thing, person, circumstance, success and failure in this world must be subordinated to that final goal.

Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:27-38

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.”

In today’s Gospel passage Jesus bids us to follow the Golden Rule.  “Do to others as you would have them do to you.”  The Golden Rule is heard within the setting of admonitions by which Jesus leads us to share in His Cross:  “Love your enemies.”  “Do good to those who hate you.”  “Pray for those who mistreat you.”  These admonitions are examples of living out on the moral and spiritual planes what Jesus accomplished on the Cross.

We all know that it’s very hard to live out these admonitions.  But it’s good to remember that Jesus is not only our teacher, who set us an example on the Cross.  He is also our Savior, who from the Cross on Good Friday bestows grace upon all who beseech Him as they strive to imitate Him.

In the final part of today’s Gospel passage Jesus offers us some rhetorical questions.  The first is representative:  “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?”  By the questions that follow Jesus leads us to see the Face of His heavenly Father.  When we live the Golden Rule, we will be “children of the Most High”.  Finally, to sum up everything He’s been exhorting us to live, He offers a simple principle that you and I might take and repeat throughout this day whenever there is a quiet moment:  “The measure with which you measure will in return by measured out to you.”

The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Micah 5:1-4 [or Romans 8:28-30]  +  Matthew 1:1-16,18-23
September 8, 2021

“She will bear a son and you are to name Him Jesus ….”

As the Church today celebrates the nativity of Mary, we reflect on human nature.  In the great universities of the Church, this is the study of theological anthropology:  that is, the study of man vis-à-vis God who is man’s Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier.  God in Himself—as Father, Son and Holy Spirit—had no need whatsoever to create man.  Nor did He have need to care for fallen man.

But God chose, and still chooses, to redeem and sanctify individuals.  He does this through Christ Jesus, who entered our world through the life of Mary.  In the field of theological anthropology, Jesus and Mary stand at the head of our prayer, reflection, and study:  Jesus as a divine Person who took on a human nature, and the Blessed Virgin Mary as the perfect human creature.

Today we hear in the Gospel about the family tree of Jesus.  There were some great figures in Jesus’ family tree, such as King David.  But most of the people in Jesus’ family were very ordinary.  Maybe the most ordinary was Mary.

That might seem strange to say, because we might want to say that Mary was the most extraordinary.  Of course, Mary was the most holy of Jesus’ ancestors:  she was the only person to come before Jesus who had never sinned.  But still, at the same time, Mary was really the most ordinary person to come before Jesus.

If you were to walk down a busy street in a large city, and Mary walked by you, you probably would never recognize her.  That’s because Mary lived out the Gospel so fully.  She lived out the Gospel even before Jesus became a human being.  It’s because Mary lived out the Gospel so completely that Jesus became a human being.  But living out the Gospel is really very simple, very quiet, and very ordinary.  It doesn’t mean being famous, or looking for attention from others, or wanting to be better than those around you.

For me to live the Gospel means living like Mary:  listening for God’s voice every day, letting his Will for my life sink into my heart, and carrying out that will with the love of my own human heart.

Tuesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Colossians 2:6-15  +  Luke 6:12-19
September 7, 2021

Jesus departed to the mountain to pray, and He spent the night in prayer to God.

St. Luke the Evangelist seems to speak more about prayer than the other evangelists.  He does so both by giving us Jesus’ words about prayer, and by illustrating occasions on which Jesus prayed.  In today’s Gospel Reading we have an example of the latter.

In the example of Jesus’ prayer shown us today by the evangelist, two things stand out.  The first is that Jesus “spent the night in prayer”.  Most of us Catholics in the Western world live very spoiled lives.  We consider the making of a Holy Hour a great sacrifice on our part.  The Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life show how common it was for Jesus to spend an entire night “in vigil”.  The lives of the saints show men and women from various stations in life all taking up this practice of the Lord in order to be close to Him.

The second notable thing about Jesus’ prayer in today’s Gospel passage is that He is engaged in prayer before a significant choice.  This reveals that the choice that follows—here, the choosing of the Twelve—is a choice made together by the Father and the Son, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.  For ourselves, the choosing of the apostles shows that great sacrifices in prayer, such as vigils, ought to spent for the sake of God’s work, and not for our own personal interests.

Monday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time [I]
Colossians 1:24—2:3  +  Luke 6:6-11
September 6, 2021

In God is my safety and my glory.

Jesus in today’s Gospel passage (and on many other occasions during His earthly life, leading to the Cross) faced those who had turned the meaning of religion inside out.  Jesus in this passage heals the man with the withered hand, and the response of the scribes and Pharisees is to become enraged:  they discussed together what they might do to Jesus.

In this we see a similarity between Jesus’ day, and our day:  a similarity between the world of Jesus, and the world in which we live.  The world in which we live today may be much larger than Jesus’ world:  there may be more countries, and more peoples who have to speak with each other, and work to get along.  Likewise, the Church today extends throughout the world instead of consisting of a small band of disciples.

Yet there are today people, just as in Jesus’ day, who return evil for good:  whose actions make no sense.  Whether we reflect upon the example of the scribes and Pharisees in today’s Gospel passage, or Pontius Pilate, or Judas Iscariot, the question we have to ask is:  how did Jesus respond to those who hated Him, and nailed Him to the Cross?  Can we be like our Lord Jesus, even in a situation like this?

Saturday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time
Luke 6:1-5

“How he went into the house of God, took the bread of offering, which only the priests could lawfully eat, ate of it, and shared it with his companions?”

If the physical setting of today’s Gospel passage – Jesus and His disciples walking through a field of grain on a sabbath – does not alert us to the passage’s Eucharistic overtones, Jesus’ words ought to.

To the objections of the Pharisees, Jesus speaks about King David.  Yet David is a biblical “type” of Jesus, a type being someone or something who foreshadows another person or thing.  What Jesus describes David doing foreshadows what Jesus will establish at His Last Supper.  The Last Supper, of course, was the first Mass:  the ritual celebration of the new and everlasting Covenant of which Jesus speaks at the Last Supper in the words of consecration.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in the sixth verse of his Eucharist hymn Sacris Solemniis, describes the Eucharist in terms that echo what Jesus says of David.  “Panis angelicus / fit panis hominum”:  “Thus angels’ bread is made / the Bread of man today”.  Jesus describes how David shared something reserved to the Old Testament priests with his companions.  In an infinitely profounder way, Jesus takes the Eucharist – the bread of angels – at His Last Supper and gifts it to His disciples.

St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church
Colossians 1:15-20  +  Luke 5:33-39
September 3, 2021

“Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”

Depending on circumstances, two given cousins may resemble each other very closely, or not at all.  Today’s Gospel passage presents a contrast between Jesus and His cousin, John the Baptist.  Jesus confirms the differences between Him and John, although these differences lead in the same direction.

The context of this contrast is a complaint lodged against Jesus by the scribes and Pharisees.  They uphold the practice of fasting and prayer, but at the same time note that Jesus’ disciples don’t seem to engage in either.

Jesus responds with a metaphor and a parable.  Consider the former.  Jesus describes Himself as a bridegroom.  We as modern Christians understand that by this metaphor Jesus is referring to Himself as the bridegroom of the Church, though that part of the metaphor would have been lost on His original hearers.  But He continues by noting that when the bridegroom is taken away, then the wedding guests will fast.

The latter part of the metaphor can be applied in two ways.  The first we can reflect on in terms of Jesus’ earthly life, and the time of His Passion and death during Holy Week.  The second we can reflect on in terms of our own earthly lives as pilgrims on our way to Heaven:  that is to say, as members of the Church Militant.  We may only share fully in the wedding feast of the Lamb in Heaven, and so while still here below we fast and pray, hoping for complete union in Heaven with the Lord.

The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time [B]
Isaiah 35:4-7  +  James 2:1-5  +  Mark 7:31-37

“Then will the eyes of the blind be opened, the ears of the deaf uncleared ….”

Mercy is the key that unlocks the human heart.  Mercy makes it possible for the human heart to become what God created the human heart to be.  Yet once a person has opened his heart to the gift of mercy, God is free to pour in all manner of gifts.  But if the sinner refuses to accept mercy, his heart remains tight shut, and God respects that decision.

It’s in this sense that mercy is God’s primary gift to fallen man.  Mercy is not primary in importance, in the sense that there is no mercy bestowed to those in Heaven.  Yet mercy is primary in the order of fallen man.  God always respects human free will, even though His divine Will is infinitely more powerful.  But if you don’t accept God’s gift of mercy, your heart is shut to all His other gifts.

The Church, as our mother, has for two thousand years preached that mercy is the primary need of mankind.  This is true not only within the Church, but outside the Church as well.  That is to say, each of us Christians needs to accept mercy so that we can be forgiven and hopefully one day enter Heaven.  However, we also need to accept God’s mercy because He calls us to bear the Good News of mercy to the fallen, divided, hateful world in which we live.  Yet we can’t be messengers of God’s mercy to those outside the Church if we haven’t first been on the receiving end of God’s mercy.  So consider the meaning of mercy.

By way of practical example, consider the way that a child does or does not experience mercy from those around him.  A child who doesn’t know that he’s loved at his worst will never accept the gifts that will make him his best.  Remember the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  If the prodigal son hadn’t turned to his father for mercy, then the father—who all along was deeply hoping and praying for his son to return—could not have rushed out to give him mercy and then also other gifts such as a ring and a feast.

It’s the same in your life as a sinner.  Because you are a sinner, God the Father’s merciful love is primary.  He has already accomplished the work of forgiving your sins by the offering of His Only-Begotten Son on the Cross two thousand years ago.  But you have to accept that gift of mercy.  Once you accept that gift into your heart, mind, and soul, the flood-gates are opened and God the Father can pour into your life many other gifts.

Imagine the life of a child in a wealthy family.  Imagine the child’s father is named Daddy Warbucks.  Daddy Warbucks is a man who constantly gives material gifts to his child.  But there’s one thing that Daddy Warbucks never gifts his child with, and that’s mercy.  Fortunately, this child’s conscience is smart enough to tell him that he needs mercy in order to have an authentic relationship with his father.  Unfortunately, this child’s conscience also knows that without mercy, no other gift has final meaning, no matter how expensive.

But keeping that first example in mind, imagine a second scenario.  It’s very similar, with the same child and the same generous Daddy Warbucks.  However, while Daddy Warbucks in this case does offer mercy to his child as a loving gift, the child—for whatever mysterious reason—refuses to accept his father’s gift of mercy.  Some might think it odd that a child would refuse the gift of mercy.  Unfortunately, for whatever mysterious reason, it’s far more common than people think.  There are many adults who have grown up without ever accepting the gift of mercy into their hearts.

It sounds simple, but we know from experience how divided we find ourselves in trying to put our Catholic Faith into practice.  We often blame God, claiming that God isn’t granting to us what we need to grow in holiness.  In this, we might remember a saying of the Little Flower’s namesake, St. Teresa of Avila:  “Christ does not force our will.  He takes only what we give Him.  But He does not give Himself entirely until He sees that we yield ourselves entirely to Him.”