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The possibility of being made partakers, in a way known to God in the Paschal mystery is offered to all men. He calls his disciples to "take up (their) cross and follow (him)... in fact, Jesus desires to associate with his redeeming sacrifice those who were to be its first beneficiaries. This is achieved supremely in the case of his Mother, who was associated more intimately than any other person with the mystery of his redemptive suffering. "Apart from the cross, there is no other ladder by which we may go to heaven." (CCC 618)

Readings: Isaiah 50: 4-7; Psalm 22: 8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24; Philippians 2: 6-11; Matthew 26: 14 – 27: 66 or Matthew 27: 11-54

Our apostolic faith is important and essential because it is what the apostles of Jesus believed. They were chosen to follow, to witness, to teach, to touch, and to share the life that they lived with Jesus of Nazareth. Every year we stand like sentinels to hear the account of the passion twice, today on Palm Sunday and again on Good Friday of the Triduum.

We're uncomfortable standing through the extended readings and don't look forward to shouting, "Crucify him!" But the silent, sinful actions we condone in our lives sanction Jesus' death sentence anyway. Like the apostles, faith means we own up to our responsibility in crucifying Jesus because the cross of Christ saves us from ourselves.

We may slouch disinterestedly while we stand, perhaps because we know we are Easter people. Yet we, like the apostles, must never allow the passion of Jesus to escape our awareness in thought, word, or deed.

Today's liturgy shows us that the double emphasis of apostolic faith is triumph and tragedy. We see Jesus fulfilling ancient prophecy in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem only to pay a steep cost in the coming Holy Week. The apostolic life of our family of faith calls us and shapes us to live imitating Jesus.

We encounter the passion of Jesus when we struggle with the pains and sorrows of life yet, like Gethsemane, still submit to the will of God. Whenever we choose love over hatred and forgiveness over resentment, we live the passion we stand up for. Jesus' passion is intimately connected to our lives, giving us grace and resolve to face each day, like the apostles, sharing the love freely given to us.

Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: “I am the Resurrection and the Life.” It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood. Already now in this present life, he gives a sign and pledge of this by raising some of the dead to life thereby announcing his own Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event the “sign of Jonah,” the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise thereafter o the third day. (CCC 994)

Readings: Ezekiel 37: 12-14; Psalm 130: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8; Romans 8: 8-11; John 11: 1-45

We don’t like to think about death or dying, but as these bodies age, these thoughts frequent the mind. Many avoid these thoughts because it forces us to generally reflect on our past and God. Death seems to be our last chance to gripe about life and challenge God’s trustworthiness. Even though all living things die, death is not natural for human beings.

As created by God, different from the rest, we would have been immune from death if we had not disobeyed in the Garden of Eden. The infinite question of the meaning of life requires an infinite answer which neither science nor reason can provide because we cannot possess anything as long as we fear death.

This Fifth Sunday’s scriptures are full of dead bodies and the changes to them that God promises. The Gospel of John tells us that God favors resurrection, not death, in the resuscitation of Lazarus, the friend of Jesus. Jesus shows that God plans to completely redefine living and dying not only on our last day but in relation to today. Each day has its little deaths, doesn’t it? Each day we encounter the possibilities of family sorrows, lost friendships, the gloating of bullies or enemies, and even our incompetence and failings.

But if we “live and believe,” as Jesus suggests, faith becomes linked to resurrection. There is a new way to see. There is no need to fear death or suffering. Resurrection is here in a life-giving pattern of loving and being loved. Even amid grumbling, muttering, and moaning, we can grow in learning to trust in God’s unlimited power for good as the source of our renewal.

As the passion draws closer, the goal of our Lenten striving should be to allow that sense of resurrection to continue to grow in our hearts, eclipsing that ancient fear of death. While we are at it, let’s let some of our friends and families out of their tombs today because to live in the resurrection, every thought should reflect our expectation to die today!

If we are not ready to die today, we won’t be ready tomorrow.

Life extends over all beings and fills them with unlimited light; the Orient of orients pervades the universe, and he who was before the "daystar" and before the heavenly bodies, immortal and vast, the great Christ, shines over all beings more brightly than the sun. Therefore a day of long eternal light is ushered in for us to believe in him, a day which is never blotted out: the mystical Passover. (CCC 1165)

Readings: 1 Samuel 16: 1, 6-7, 10-13; Psalm 23: 1-3a, 3b-4, 5, 6; Ephesians 5: 8-14; John 9: 1-41 

The readings for Laetare, this Fourth Sunday in Lent, give us joy in the images of sight and insight, light and correct vision. Jesus gives glory to God by giving sight to the man born blind and hope to us.

More important than seeing, Jesus helps man to gain interior sight — insight and empowers him to accept and understand Jesus and his way of life. Jesus, the light of the world, helps us realize that we live by an interior guide, the prompting of the heart.

The prejudices of our own darkness and blindness blur our vision. The prophet Samuel shows in the first reading that God does not see what we see. We prefer to see heroes. We love our heroes in life, and so often, that admiration comes crashing down when it is discovered they are human after all. Then how is it that the "little people" inspire us the most?

The medical people who care for us even when they can get sick from us. The first responders to any calamity who come despite the dangers present. Teachers who nourish us spiritually and intellectually. The elderly person who, whatever the weather, attends Mass each day, and the people who serve the homeless in food banks, shelters, or at the border. The laborer who views hard work as something sacred and the sick or invalid person whose acceptance of their situation reveals incredible faith. 

These are the heroes, the hearts that God sees. These are those who have little to give but give anyway and in receiving, share a grateful smile. God sees more in the simple, unsung people of our daily life much more than our heroes of sports, business, entertainment, or politics.

Our actions may do one thing. Our words may say another, but our heart is a living testimony to how we truly live: by the light of God or by darkness. As children of the Light, living out of our hearts demands the heroism of faith, honesty, and courage.

Spiritual progress tends toward ever more intimate union with Christ. This union is called "mystical" because it participates in the mystery of Christ through the sacraments "the holy mysteries" — and in Him, in the mystery of the Holy Trinity. God calls all to this intimate union with him, even if the special graces or extraordinary signs of this mystical life are granted only to some for the sake of manifesting the gratuitous gift given to all. (CCC 2014)

Readings: Genesis 12: 1-4a; Psalm 33: 4-5, 18-19, 20, 22; 2 Timothy 1: 8b-10; Matthew 17: 1-9

Have we changed any yet? The Second Week of Lent should stir up something disturbing within us, the power our senses and our bodies really have over us. Something deep within, like some survival mechanism, remembers our newborn state as our bodies scream to be listened to and demand satisfaction in whatever moment they encounter.

This deep call to satisfy ourselves first may be good to keep us alive, but it is the opposite of Lent’s call to holiness, which also yearns to be satisfied within us.

This daily call for holiness is the void in us that we try to satisfy by building tents, but our clumsiness does not satisfy our primal call to "be holy as our Father in heaven." Every Lent reminds us again to "Listen to Him." Countless times, all of us have suffered in our failure to listen for his "still, small voice." Our lack of selflessness is our inability to control the screaming newborn within us.

In the Transfiguration of Jesus, we get not only a glimpse of his (and our) glory but also his (and our) suffering as well. It is as if Jesus asks us, who are we? Where are we headed? He asks us not to get caught up in pitching tents so that we forget who He is, who we are, and where we are going in the time we have been given.

Our journeys in life have many roadblocks, dangers, sorrows, and joys. Listening to the transfigured Jesus helps us get through the late-night phone calls of emergencies or of death. Listening gets us through when there is too much month left after the money runs out. Listening gets us through even when our bodies and minds start to go downhill. Listening to Jesus is worth doing, even if we do it poorly.

All friendships begin with listening. The call to holiness and union in God transfigures us to live in the hope of, in the middle of, and beyond the Passion. This mystical union prepares us to ignore our newborn selves and die for others and the world. Lent is a four-letter word that should slap some sense into us. Two weeks in, there is still time to quiet the newborn and listen to Jesus.

The mastery over the world that God offered man from the beginning was realized above all within man himself: mastery of self. The first man was unimpaired and ordered in his whole being because he was free from the triple concupiscence that subjugates him to the pleasuring of the senses, covetousness for earthly goods, and self-assertion, contrary to the dictates of reason. (CCC 377)

Readings: Genesis 2: 7-9; 3: 1-7; Psalm 51: 3-4, 5-6, 12-13, 14 and 17; Romans 5: 12-19 or 5: 12, 17-19; Matthew 4:1-11

To give or to take, that is the question of human experience. In today's readings, Adam and Eve in the garden and Jesus in the desert illustrate these two options for life. British historian Lord Acton popularized an already existing notion that" absolute power corrupts absolutely" in an 1887 letter.

History shows that power is given but more often taken by those desiring it, often with poor results. In tempting Adam and Eve and Jesus, Satan offers power and control as the base of all temptations.

As we open another season of Lent, we're reminded of the desert of temptation that exists every day for all human people. Temptation, in itself, is not a sin. It only becomes a sin when we give in to it. Like the garden or desert experience, we enter this holy time to be alone and struggle with all the inner dimensions of our being asking us to take.

No one likes to dwell on sin or the havoc it creates in our lives. Lent invites us to reflect on whether "being like God" or "playing God" is the root of our daily difficulties. This Lenten mirror of our poor choices should cause us to reassess our relationship with God, whose goodness gave us all the power to give or take when He breathed into us the breath of life.

Like Adam and Eve and Jesus, we're all tempted to distrust this breath of God within us, especially if we make a choice that reflects a false center apart from God. Temptation mirrors an agony of hunger within us, desiring to be satisfied. This temptation convinces Jesus that there is a greater good in life, namely the absolute love of the Father, which provides for anything we may desire.

Imitating Jesus also convinces us to trust in this absolute love of God as the inescapable longing of our hearts. Jesus shows us that the only way to resist the "father of lies" is to not fail in worshipping the Father of Love. We must learn every Lent to stop compromising our supreme dignity to satisfy the idols of our senses.

The obedience of Jesus liberates all of us to share again in his new way of life by living from our true center, the Breath of God within, because if absolute power corrupts absolutely, then the converse is true. Absolute love loves absolutely. This gift we already possess is worth taking. 

Christian prayer extends to the forgiveness of enemies, transfiguring the disciple by configuring him to his Master. Forgiveness is a high point of Christian prayer, only hearts attuned to God’s compassion can receive the gift of prayer... Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of man with one another. (CCC 2844)
Readings: Isaiah 58: 7-10; Psalm 112: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5; Matthew 5: 13-16

Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony, Pulitzer, Nobel, Olympic Gold, World Cup, World Series, and Super Bowl are awards given to those attempting to achieve perfection by determined use in applying skills individually or collectively.

Perfection is a concept people expect to achieve in our modern world. Whether in art or entertainment, academics or athletics, perfection is more than its own reward because it brings fame, adulation, and money.

As we ready our hearts once again for the upcoming Lenten season, we understand imperfection in our world and in us. So, on this Seventh Sunday, Jesus shows a path to true perfection by being like him in word and deed.

Underneath the commandments and the natural law of God is justice that gives everyone their due. We owe God. We owe our parents and others, including our enemies. We owe everyone the perfection of justice generated by self-giving love, not retaliation.

We no longer must defend ourselves against being offended. We no longer must keep score of wrongs. We no longer must give in to resentment or envy. True perfection lies in making ourselves a gift to others by doing what our heavenly father does for us. Being holy like God, as Moses spoke of, or being perfect like God, as Jesus counsels, seems foolish.

But it is just this, our human perspective formed by our unbelieving world. We must try to abandon this perspective to take on the perspective of God and be able to, with God’s love, love as God loves because perfect justice allows the sun and rain to bless all creatures.

Jesus insists on this wide embrace of love. His expansion on the law is a new kind of heroic love that offers no resistance to injury. It is a love that extends itself, not refusing one in need. It is a love that embraces enemies and bullies. Giving something extra pleases God and fulfills justice because it lives in our bodies, in our time, and in our hearts.

We ponder our behavior, which needs forgiveness, every day and every Lent. Forgiveness is what we ask for ourselves in the Lord’s prayer. We learn to imitate God’s mercy when we extend it to others. If we fail to forgive, our conscience will reproach us each time we ask for pardon.

In forgiving, we act like God and become perfect like our heavenly father by responding non-violently with the integrity and dignity befitting a child of God. True perfection does exist when our love touches God’s love and spills over on the lovable and unlovable alike. This award only God gives.

The Law of the Gospel fulfills the Commandments of the Law. The Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, far from abolishing or devaluing the moral prescriptions of the Old Law, releases their hidden potential and has new demands arise from them: it reveals their entire divine and human truth. (CCC 1968)
Readings: Isaiah 58: 7-10; Psalm 112: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5; Matthew 5: 13-16

Free will began for us in the heart of God at creation. Free will is part of human nature. Evil choices and good choices are just that — choices. Over the ages, many of us declare our independence from God in some way to express our need for freedom of the individuality of self.

Scripture always invites us to consider the real, healthy, and difficult tensions of our human existence. Few clear answers are given to us, yet with the Spirit’s help and by recognizing the different realities of our human condition, staying balanced is possible so that we will not allow ourselves to be drawn too far in any direction.

Trust and faith in God’s goodness and presence in our families and community will help us find the strength and wisdom to make our best decisions because, as the Gospel shows today, holiness is a decision and must be a result of our intellectual transformation in understanding.

To fulfill the proper understanding of the Hebrew law, prophets, and writings, Jesus asks for greater faithfulness of heart, mind, and soul to the spirit of the law because God expects more than the mere observance. Jesus teaches that quality of belief and quality of practice are necessary because bad behavior, including sins of omission, will result in exclusion from the kingdom.

In this part of the sermon, Jesus restores God’s purpose and intention for the whole law because the reason for the law in the first place is, from the Garden of Eden, the motivation of sin which results in poor free will choices. So, the example of motives used in today’s section in Matthew are anger, lust, unforgiveness, adultery, divorce, and oaths.

Jesus insists all disciples be honest with themselves, with one another, and with God in order to form a more perfect union in him. Otherwise, if this preferred love and respect are missing, so are the Spirit of God and the law. Nothing surprises God. Nothing destroys the divine plan for the universe.

We are free to cop any attitude we desire, free to make our own judgments, and free to take the consequences of our own actions or inactions. In order to form a more perfect union, we are also free to declare our need for God and direct our thoughts, words, and actions to fulfill not our want of individuality but our need to belong, which becomes the peace and serenity of true freedom living in the hidden wisdom of the merciful love of the living God.

The fidelity of the baptized is a primordial condition for the proclamation of the Gospel and for the Church's mission in the world. In order that the message of salvation can show the power of its truth and radiance before men, it must be authenticated by the witness of the life of Christians. The witness of Christian life and good works done in a supernatural spirit have great power to draw men to the faith and to God. (CCC 2044)

Readings: Isaiah 58: 7-10; Psalm 112: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; 1 Corinthians 2: 1-5; Matthew 5: 13-16

Most of us would describe our lives as ordinary, and that's okay. There are always ups and downs, successes and failures, disappointments, and hopes. There are probably times we have not been salt or light to our families or world. Sometimes we may be tempted to feel unworthy of the Gospel's call to heroic love because we often seem not heroic.

But heroism is in the ordinary. Of all the seasonings available, salt is the most ordinary. Of all life's many necessities, light is the most basic. Jesus validates what is ordinary in our lives. He calls his followers to be common elements giving benefits to others and helping people find their way, and helping us to find our way.

Light is a keyword found in Isaiah and Matthew's readings today, on this Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The purpose of every liturgy is to strengthen and nourish us so we can live the ethical demands of the Gospels. Today, the ancient symbols of salt and light are called to our minds as Jesus urges us to grow into the fullness of what we are created to be, stewards and caretakers of all creation made in God's image.

It's important to note that light adds little to what it illuminates, but it makes all the difference. In the darkness of the physical world or the world inside of us, things are present there, even if not noticeable. The difference made by light is perspective. Outside, trees, rocks, flowers, and ditches are still there to tread on. Inside are tables, vases, doors, and chairs, ready to be bumped into.

Within our hearts are memories, desires, dreams, fears, and sins waiting to be mulled over. Light allows us to appreciate what is already present and help us navigate through it. Salt was always valuable as currency and food preservative. Salt adds no weight to food but sharpens flavor and adds the umami of deliciousness.

These ancient symbols of salt and light are to live in our faith communities. A community that lives in the right relationship with God is a shining light that dispels the darkness around it. This community of people envisioned by Jesus excludes no one and treats all with dignity and respect.

Because of this light, true human wisdom, as a pure gift from God, would never consist of backbiting, non-inclusiveness, or arrogant self-righteousness. The simplicity of salt and light help us in our gift of faith to explore and understand God's wisdom and mystery.

Our ordinariness, our weakness, is what the Lord wants us to use with his power and spirit to flavor and illuminate our part of creation.

“The People of the ‘poor’ ― those who, humble and meek, rely solely on their God’s mysterious plans, who await the justice, not of men but of the Messiah ― and in the end the great achievement of the Holy Spirit’s hidden mission during the time of the promises that prepare for Crist’s coming. It is the quality of heart, purified and enlightened by the Spirit, which is expressed in the Psalms. In these poor, the Spirit making ready ‘a people prepared for the Lord.’” (CCC 716)

Readings: Zephaniah 2: 3; Zephaniah 3: 12-13; Psalm 146: 6-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; 1 Corinthians 1: 26-31; Matthew 5: 1-12a

Few people today prioritize lowliness, humility, or meekness because they do not match our day’s assertiveness, self-reliance, and ambition. The readings for this Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time carry us to a deeper understanding of what God wants to be fashioned in the people he calls to himself in every age.

He extends favor to those who recognize his supremacy by avoiding the arrogance of self-sufficiency and embracing a humble spirit of dependence. Like a grand opening, the Beatitudes today in Matthew open the first of five major teaching sermons in his Gospel.

Paul’s epistle to the Church of Corinth shows us that “it is God who has given us new life in Christ Jesus.” Amid our mistakes, we must not pretend. We must realize that we are not in control. We must be transformed into people who are humble and lowly as Jesus’ Beatitudes slowly grow in us. Jesus becomes our wisdom reaching across our lives and putting it together in an entirely new way.

Jesus becomes our justice as we no longer seek to fulfill petty desires, worldly ambitions, or material demands. Jesus becomes the sanctification that cleanses all unworthy motives and selfish concerns, uniting us to God in a deeper way. Jesus becomes our redemption in that special unity because he endured the humiliation of the cross and shared in our death.

In every age, God chooses to leave a remnant. Jesus reveals in the Beatitudes that God chooses those the world looks down on, ignores, or marginalizes. God chooses wisdom, justice, holiness, and redemption as the path. God chooses that in suffering, we can rejoice in him, and in single-heartedness, we can see him.

We can do great things for God, but it is not a question of how much we accomplish. What matters is what God accomplishes in us. Today’s readings tell us it begins with the humility of self-surrender.

Christ stands at the heart of this gathering of men into the “family of God.” By his word, through signs that manifest the reign of God, and sending out his disciples, Jesus calls all people to come together around him... But above all in the great Paschal mystery... he would accomplish the coming of his kingdom... Into this union with Christ all men are called. (CCC 542)

Readings: Isaiah 8: 23 – 9: 3; Psalm 27: 1, 4, 13-14; 1 Corinthians 1: 10-13, 17; Matthew 4: 12-23 or Matthew 4: 12-17

Unlike our political disunity, which seems to always be on display, we people of faith must strive for the true unity of heart, mind, and purpose because this unity is the gift of light given to us. As people living in the darkness of this modern human life, we, like those of Isaiah’s time, have seen a great light.

Even now, in our land, always overshadowed by death of some kind, light always breaks into this darkness. What we do with this light determines our eternal life. Matthew’s Gospel on this Sunday marks the beginning of Jesus’ ministry of teaching and fulfilling the hopes of Israel, as evidenced by Isaiah’s prophecy 700 years earlier. In the weeks ahead, Matthew will lead us to understand the meaning of that kingdom that has come into time at that first Christmas.

This kingdom means to change. The change for us will be as dramatic as fishermen leaving the only thing they’ve ever known to follow Jesus. The kingdom means letting go of something familiar to discover something new. To follow Jesus into his kingdom means the obedience of service rather than being served because changing the way we live life from serving ourselves to serving others is the first step of repentance. Being able to forgive and asking for forgiveness for our failings is the conversion process as we re-constitute the unity of the created image and likeness of the one God, the one light who loves us, makes us, and saves us.

The unity of light is our share and participation in the Kingdom of Light. Every time we gather as family for liturgy, we celebrate this unity, and we should never go away from this gathering the same as when we began. Seeing the great light means we willingly enter the mystery of Jesus as the Holy Spirit transforms us. We must become what we receive. In the body of Christ, we go out as the fisherman in the Gospel, unsure of ourselves but in solidarity with Jesus, willing to live repentance and conversion, willing to continue the apostolic past propelling us through the present into the future. This kingdom of light means to change.

Our Lord voluntarily submitted himself to the baptism of St. John, intended for sinners, in order to "fulfill all righteousness." Jesus' gesture is a manifestation of his self-emptying. The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation and the Father revealed Jesus as his "beloved Son." (CCC 1224)

Readings: Isaiah 49: 3, 5-6; Psalm 40: 2, 4, 7-8, 8-9, 10; 1 Corinthians 1: 1-3; John 1: 29-34

All four Gospels begin the public ministry of Jesus with the preaching of the prophet John the Baptist, the first prophet to address Israel in the 400 years since Malachi. Every year in this church the Apostles of Jesus left behind, we begin Ordinary Time after the Christmas Season centering on the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. That ministry, like our own, begins with baptism.

On this Second Sunday, the Gospel of John continues the manifestation of Jesus begun at Christmas, witnessed at Epiphany, and validated at his Baptism. God reveals the identity of Jesus to us, as he does for John the Baptist, slowly and gradually so we can come to full, rooted, and conscious belief. The journey of faith is carried out in steps and stages of knowing but never coming to full perfection in our lives on this earth.

This is one of those rare Gospel stories where Jesus says nothing, yet his presence as word among us transforms us. The one sends John after Malachi in the fullness of time so that Jesus "might be made known," made manifest. John wants all of Israel to see what he has come to recognize in the Lamb of God. Beholding the lamb now unleashes the mercy of God flowing into creation, allowing us to recognize our faults, remembering that this mercy remembers us.

We, too, have grown slowly and gradually. We're no longer that child needing the faith of a parent or godparent to help us stand and recognize. Baptism is the mystery of God calling and touching all of us. Even if we choose not to behold the Lamb of God, we can't get un-baptized. That indelible mark of God's Holy Spirit will continue to hover over us, reminding us to recognize our faults and remember God's mercy on our journey because our mission is the same as Jesus, not in Israel, but in our families, in our neighborhoods and schools, in our workplaces, towns, and cities.

Baptism calls and elects us to empty ourselves, like Jesus, and live out our call of consecration and sacredness in this world of shifting, fading, and refused values that don't recognize the Lamb of God.

The Son of God worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things but sin. (CCC 470)

Readings: Isaiah 52: 7-10; Psalm 98: 1, 2-3, 3-4, 5-6; Hebrews 1: 1-6; John 1: 1-18

Nativity is a word used only, it seems, in the Christian tradition. In its yearly calendar, the church celebrates three nativities: Jesus, his mother, Mary, and his cousin, John the Baptist. All three have to do with ushering into creation of the word of God, literally living and dwelling among us.

Nativity is defined as a process or circumstance of being born, the positioned stars in the sky at the time of one’s birth, or place of origin. Though still used colloquially in the Central American Spanish dialects, use fell off in the Middle Ages in European languages. Perhaps the most interesting is the Latin definition of “arisen at birth.”

Today’s readings are as one in crying out that salvation is always at hand. Sin is vanquished, and God has come among us in human form to take us home. Between the two births of Jesus, born from eternity as the word of God and born at Bethlehem as the son of Mary, John’s Gospel shows a titanic struggle between light and darkness, with every particle of light revealing Jesus.

Each time goodness and sincerity are rejected, the battle between darkness and light is fought again. Up to today, the light shines in our world in fragments and various ways. All these scattered reflections come together in the glory and wonder of Jesus’ Nativity at Christmas. This light does not terrify but gives warmth and life because warmth and life come whenever we share whatever we possess of goodness. When we do this, we unite goodness with goodness. When we give of ourselves as Jesus does, the fragments of light and goodness reunite, and the glory of Jesus is revealed as the word becomes flesh dwelling in us.

Christmas is not the most important feast day, but it is the most popular among Christians and non-Christians. Perhaps it is the wisdom shown by the Three Wise Men doing what God led them to do. Their gratitude caused them to travel and give gifts which is still done today. Who doesn’t like giving or receiving gifts?

The Magi saw the gift God gives in the nativity of Jesus. We have seen that the gift God gives us at Christmas bore fruit all his life and gave that life up so all who follow could have the possibility of everlasting life. This is a gift that keeps on giving because this gift is “arisen at birth.”

The coming of God's Son to Earth is an event of such immensity that God willed to prepare for it over centuries. He makes everything converge  on Christ, all the rituals and sacrifices, figures and symbols of the "First Covenant". He announces him through the mouths of the prophets who succeeded one another in Israel. Moreover, he awakens in the hearts of the pagans a dim expectation of this coming. (CCC 522)

Readings: Isaiah 60: 1-6; Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 10-11, 12-13; Ephesians 3: 2-3a, 5-6; Matthew 2: 1-12

Our responsorial, taken from Psalm 72, sums up the theme for this special feast, “every nation on Earth will adore you, Lord!” It is left to the Jewish and Christian peoples to await the consummation of these scriptures of Epiphany from so long ago. Today’s Gospel from Matthew shows that from this moment, non-Jews begin to witness the glory of God in natural signs and an infant Jesus.

The catechism paragraph tells of this “dim expectation” awakening those not expecting the arrival of the Messiah because of their own non-Jewish culture and traditions. Even our Catholic tradition of Baptism into Jesus as adopted sons and daughters of Abraham does not guarantee we will appreciate what already exists in us nor understand the belonging to which God calls us.

For the Magi, this dim expectation leads them to travel as they seek and thirst for deeper meaning in life. They are drawn by this expectation and journey to the center of Jewish life only to discover the center is not in an earthly king nor in a particular place but only where God and his children are found. Like the Magi, we are illuminated by God from outside ourselves to journey into the great mystery of the Incarnation.

Like the Magi, our journey results in an encounter with Jesus that changes us and leads us in other directions. Those other directions and moments may not have the benefit of a star or lucid dreams. Still, we will see Jesus in moments of prayer, in other people, in deeds done for others, or in silence, sorrow, and the solitude of emptiness. Life is our journey of not turning back but pressing on until we rest in the one “who makes our hearts throb and overflow.”

Like the Magi, finding Jesus makes the efforts and struggles of the journey worthwhile. It can turn any dim expectations bright with the light of God’s eternal living flame of love. 

The Son of God worked with human hands; he thought with a human mind. He acted with a human will, and with a human heart he loved. Born of the Virgin Mary, he has truly been made one of us, like to us in all things but sin. (CCC 470)

Readings: Numbers 6: 22-27; Psalm 67: 2-3, 5, 6, 8; Galatians 4: 4-7; Luke 2: 16-21

Motherhood is essential for life. The mystery of human becoming starts with a mother. For many of us, our mother is with us, or our mother is gone. Maybe we never knew our mother, though we know she was there at the beginning with us, carrying us in her womb, nourishing us, speaking to us, and giving us hope in the promise of the mystery of life to come.

On this first day of every new year, it is fitting that we look back, remembering what we have done and what we have failed to do. It is also right to remember how we came to be. We were born of the love of two other humans, and for better or worse, those two persons had a role in the promise of who we are to become.

This is worth treasuring in our hearts. As I remember my mom on this feast of Jesus’ mother, I thank God and treasure all that God gave me through her as I marvel at how she welcomed all of us as individuals and as a family.

Mary, herself very young, like all moms, likely did not wholly understand everything as it happened to her. Mary is a woman of faith, and her life is an example for all of us in this upcoming new year. She pondered on what God revealed to her in the words of the angel, in the words of Elizabeth, in the words of the shepherds, and even the words of the boy Jesus in the temple and her dying son on the cross.

Mary shows us that we must listen for God’s will in all the experiences of life because God still intervenes in history in the fullness of time, giving purpose and direction for how life is to be lived. Like Mary, we must make possible God’s presence in life by believing and treasuring the fact that He is who He is and can work and will work in our lives.

On this spiritual Mother’s Day, let’s recall the treasure Mary keeps in her heart. As mothers, fathers, or children, we, too, must store up all the snapshots of joy, sorrow, giggles, and disagreements. This is being a faithful human in the presence of the Living God.

The angel of the Lord announced to Joseph, ‶You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.″ God created us without us; but he did not will to save us without us. To receive his mercy, we must admit our faults. (CCC 1847)

Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-14; Psalm 24: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6; Romans 1: 1-7; Matthew 1: 18-24

By freeing some individuals from the earthly evils of hunger, injustice, illness, and death, Jesus performed messianic signs. Nevertheless, he did not come to abolish all evil here below, but to free men from the greatest slavery, sin, which thwarts them in vocation as God’s sons and causes all forms of human bondage. (CCC 549)

Readings: Isaiah 35: 1-6a, 10; Psalm 146: 6-7, 8-9a, 9bc-10; James 5: 7-10; Matthew 11: 2-11

This Third Sunday in Advent is known as Rejoice (Gaudete in Latin) Sunday, for we are near the Nativity of Jesus. Advent celebrates the kingdom here and now and the kingdom not yet. We look forward to the day when Jesus will return as we recall his first coming and prepare for his present coming that explodes anew at Christmas but is always ongoing throughout our Christian lives. Advent, while reminding us of the end of history, deepens our appreciation of life in the present tense. That should be reason for rejoicing even in our world full of uncertainty and confusion; if not, what makes us rejoice?

John the Baptist’s question is our reflection today. Like today, Jesus did not meet his people’s expectations as Messiah then. Do we yearn to know if Jesus is really the one? We have millennia of faith understanding to reference if we dare. Like John the Baptist, we can seem unsure, yet Jesus, in the Gospel, does not give a yes or no answer. Jesus confirms his supernatural identity inviting those who seek to share personally in it.

Jesus is the one because he prefers the suffering, the lowly, the lost, and the poor. Jesus identifies his mission not as king, judge, or lawgiver but as a comforter and consoling healer. His invitation to compassion has ushered in the kingdom ever since. When we turn our attention to the poor, those unable to see will see, those unable to hear will listen, those who find it difficult to stand will walk, and those who are ill will be made whole.

What kind of savior do we want? Human history has shown that if we seek comfort in anything outside of Jesus, we are in prison like John the Baptist, yet unlike John, it will be a prison of our own making. Jesus tells John’s disciple today what is happening outside of prison, that the Kingdom of God is starting to work. It is always working when we envision in others their real possibilities of serving God as we encourage and support them. It works as we share the vision of faith left to us of loving God and loving neighbor. If this is the savior we seek in Advent, then steady our hearts because the coming of the Lord is at hand.

Our Lord voluntarily submitted himself to the baptism of St. John, intended for sinners, in order to “fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus' gesture is a manifestation of his self-emptying. The Spirit who had hovered over the waters of creation descended then on the Christ as a prelude of the new creation and the Father revealed Jesus as his “ beloved Son.” (CCC 1224)

Readings: Isaiah 11: 1-10; Psalm 72: 1-2, 7-8, 12-13, 17; Romans 15: 4-9; Matthew 3: 1-12

All four Gospels begin the public ministry of Jesus with the preaching of the prophet John the Baptist, the first prophet in the 400 years since Malachi to address Israel. Every year in this church, the Apostles of Jesus left behind, we begin Ordinary Time after the Christmas season, centering on the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. That ministry, like our own, starts with baptism.

On this 2nd Sunday of Advent, John continues the manifestation of Jesus begun at Christmas, witnessed at Epiphany, and validated at his baptism. God reveals the identity of Jesus to us, as he does for John the Baptist, slowly and gradually so we can come to full, rooted, and conscious belief. The journey of faith is carried out in steps and stages of "knowing" but never coming to complete perfection in our lives on this earth.

This is one of those rare Gospel stories where Jesus says nothing, yet his presence as word among us transforms us. The one sends John after Malachi in the fullness of time so that Jesus "might be made known," made manifest. John wants all of Israel to see what he has come to recognize in the Lamb of God. Beholding the lamb now unleashes the mercy of God flowing into creation, allowing us to acknowledge our faults, remembering that this mercy remembers us.

We, too, have grown slowly and gradually. We are no longer that child needing the faith of a parent or godparent to help us stand and recognize. Baptism is the mystery of God calling us and touching all of us. Even if we choose not to behold the Lamb of God, we can't get un-baptized. That indelible mark of God's Holy Spirit will continue to hover over us, reminding us to recognize our faults and remember God's mercy on our journey because our mission is the same as Jesus, not in Israel, but in our families, in our neighborhoods and schools, in our workplaces, towns, and cities.

Baptism calls us and elects us to empty ourselves, like Jesus, and live out our call of consecration and sacredness in this world of shifting, fading, and refused values that don't recognize the Lamb of God.

Since the Ascension, Christ’s coming in glory has been imminent, even though “it is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” This eschatological coming could be accomplished at any moment, even if both it and the final trial that will precede it are delayed. (CCC 673)

Readings: Isaiah 2: 1-5; Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13: 11-14; Matthew 24: 37-44

We can predict the exact date of Christmas, but the Son of Man is coming at an hour we will not expect. Amid the cacophony of noise in our world, Advent is a time for peace and quiet so all of us can detect those hints or signals God sends us to lead us out of our prejudice and fears.

In Advent, we must prepare for surprises and sudden changes. In Advent, we must be more patient with the attitudes of others. In Advent, we must be more tolerant of people’s words and actions that clash with ours. In Advent, we must believe in the hidden treasures still unexplored in ourselves and others so we will have hope in the sincerity of God’s loving care because “salvation is closer than when we first realized.”

People have prayed for centuries that the metals used for weapons become tools for farming to transform life into feeding, clothing, and caring for others. Isaiah’s reading shares with us today that we must wait until judgment for our viruses of greed, arms dealing, weapons development, and war to be removed from the human experience. This darkness will leave as sure as Jesus, at Christmas, brings the light of the House of the Lord. Until that time, life will go on. We will eat and drink. We will struggle and work. We will know sorrow and happiness. We will suffer disease and death, poverty of all kinds, and ignorance. We will know love. We will marry and have children. We will worry and pray. Life will continue for all as it has from the beginning.

This Advent, we can be still and pray. We can be patient so the noise of our time does not drown out the awesome silence in which God dwells. If we listen, we can hear and appreciate something of the eternal life of the House of the Lord already within us because of Jesus’ first coming. In Advent, as we wait in joyful hope, we must strive to listen and help bring in this peace of the House of the Lord which will be here in all its fullness at the Second Coming.
 

When he comes at the end of time to judge the living and the dead, the glorious Christ will reveal the secret disposition of hearts and will render to each man according to his works and according to his acceptance or refusal of grace. (CCC 682)

Readings: 2 Samuel 5: 1-3; Psalm 122: 1-2, 3-4, 4-5; Colossians 1: 12-20; Luke 23: 35-43

As the church year ends, our Gospel returns to where our king received his crown at the cross. Like that time, today’s world has so many examples of cruelty and harshness, of the desire for revenge when wronged, of the confusion that enables Christian people to support abortion, and the death penalty that it looks little different from any other age. The results seem to be the same. Yet, opposite the world, compassion was not secondary in Jesus’ life. It was how he exercised his royal authority. Even facing execution, he only wanted to bring pardon and hope.

This last temptation of Christ is to come down off the cross and prove himself to those of no faith who require a sign. Jesus, full of faith, proves his allegiance to his father’s will by not living his life for himself. His unwavering love makes the cross a throne, and in refusing to save himself from the torture of death, he redeems us from all our enemies.

This King of the Jews is vulnerable to the human condition as it finally catches up with him. He travels the route of all the suffering, confused, mistreated, and hurting people of all times. He meets the final judgment we all will face when some call us worthless, and others call us true. In this moment, he still makes room for, welcomes, and still speaks to another soul in pain, saying, “Come, follow me.”   

The good thief recognizes the reality of Jesus’ royalty, as should we. He accepts the already present fact that was his for the taking, that there is never a time when we are not loved or saved by our king. Freedom and self-governance are our gifts from creation and in our redemption in Our Lord Jesus Christ, the King of the Universe.

Jesus has come into his kingdom, and we, like the good thief, have gone in with him, and we do so still further. In the power of the Holy Spirit, we must serve him in our fellow human persons by not living for ourselves. Doing so in humility and patience will lead others to this king, in whom to serve is to reign in his kingdom of truth and life, of holiness and grace, of compassion for justice, love, and peace.

Before his Ascension Christ affirmed that the hour had not yet come for the glorious establishment of the messianic kingdom awaited by Israel... according to the Lord, the present time is the time of the Spirit and of witness, but also a time still marked by distress and the trial of evil which does not spare the Church and ushers in the struggles of the last days. It is a time of waiting and watching. (CCC 672)

Readings: Malachi 3: 19-20a; Psalm 98: 5-6, 7-8, 9; 2 Thessalonians 3: 7-12; Luke 21: 5-19

Autumn ablaze in color and interwoven in light is an array of joy in nature. However, as our liturgical year winds down, it seems our readings remind us of kicking the thick, brown, wet leaves of almost winter. For those who appreciate our temples' architecture, beauty, and adornments, today's Gospel encourages us to let other, more painful, issues enter our religious consciousness before they break in anyway, like the slap and sting of winter.

A disciple asked what the last days would look like, and Jesus replied, speaking of the time of witness to the world, the reality of the Holy Spirit, and the need to be ready for the hatred of those who cannot understand the narrow way of Jesus. Luke addresses the persecution of the church in the time before the Second Coming and how we will live in our period of salvation history.

There's always been persecution in one form or other since Jesus ascended. Persecution in our day comes in many forms, from Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Syria, Iraq, and China. Persecution can be physical and psychological. For many of us, it is ridicule and indifference to the church. Our strong beliefs are seen as "old fashioned" and "out of step" with the modern, progressive thinking world.

Our convictions of faith may stand in the way of promotion and advancement. We suffer for what we believe when we are honest in word and deed at home, school, and work. To stand on the principles of faith is to invite opposition and the harsh words of others. Yet to witness in this age, we must be providers of words and actions of justice, love, and truth, which is often not always popular.

This age of salvation history is our imminent reality. Whatever our contribution is, it is our part in the missionary activity of the church the Apostles of Jesus left behind. Whether in persecution, in prayer, in preaching, in acting justly, or celebrating the sacraments, we bring about, in our age, the presence of Jesus, the author of salvation, and bring about our hope in his pledge to us of the revelation of the end of time.

By his death and Resurrection, Jesus Christ has opened heaven to us. The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ. (CCC 1026)

Readings: 2 Maccabees 7: 1-2, 9-14; Psalm 17: 1, 5-6, 8, 15; 2 Thessalonians 2: 16 – 3: 5; Luke 20: 27-38

This liturgical year comes to a close soon as we ready ourselves again for the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas. Our joy from the First Coming of the Lord is tempered with our awareness and preparation for his Second Coming and the Last Judgment.

Still, it's difficult for us to imagine our future based on our present life experiences, yet society undergoes a spiritual void when times are tough. For people of faith, our vigor is renewed as we anticipate the end of time.

Does anybody remember how full and packed our churches were after the attacks of 9/11? Disaster and suffering help us to wonder if the end is near. Yet as humans, we're in the process of dying from the moment we are born. We are all dying, and this spiritual void cries out for true meaning in our lives. Every generation must face this temptation to fear, apathy, and doubt faith.

Our faith brings us to hope even though we know we're dying. These temptations to fear confuse us and make us chase after all kinds of other phenomena, thereby missing what is right before us. Jesus is truly present here and now amidst confusion and disarray. He is with us in the midst of our community, the Eucharist, his precious word, and creation itself.

The crowds that left us after 9/11 looked elsewhere for what was right before them. Being aware and prepared means living each day as if it were our last because Jesus will return. Everything else is God's problem which he will address at the proper time.

“... God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret.” (CCC 221)

Readings: Wisdom 11: 22 – 12: 2; Psalm 145: 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13, 14; 2 Thessalonians 1: 11 – 2: 2; Luke 19: 1-10

Our life of faith is real life, and like real life, it has ups and downs; it's a workout. We begin in Baptism, and as we mature, life claims our time, our talent, our treasure, our past ways, and our plans. Life signals changes in what we expect of ourselves and what we become for others.

Our workout is not unlike that of Zacchaeus in Luke's Gospel for this 31st Sunday. Sometimes we need to get up above our difficulties to see better with our eyes of faith, learning to live out our Baptism in an orderly, concrete, and natural way. Luke's story reminds us that Jesus comes looking for us if we are lost, lowly, and on the margins of life so he can eat at our house.

Unlike the rich young man who went away sad, Zacchaeus has no trouble knowing what he must do to enter the kingdom of God. Zacchaeus already has two strikes against him. He was not a believer in good standing. Being a tax collector, he was rich, which was not the best preparation for God's reign, which favors the lowly. Meeting Jesus sends him in the right direction.

Despite the many crowds seeing Jesus, he always does his best work one-on-one. Jesus is not put off by our problems. He cuts through the criticism and hypocrisy to touch the hearts of those ready for him. Miracles always happen, but the reign of God in our midst is the most exceptional reality, in our homes, in our parishes, and in our hearts. We know from bitter experience that it's hard sometimes to do good because we try to hide, even from ourselves, those attachments which are wrong.

Zacchaeus' willingness to stand his ground and give it all away gets Jesus' attention. In this world that still conspires against Jesus, we must come down and stand as justified sons and daughters of God. God's love is always present. Salvation is always the reality. Jesus always loved Zacchaeus, who responded to that love by sharing his wealth and showing his transformed heart. God's offer of salvation to all only needs to be accepted. Come down. Be rescued. Be found again by God's merciful love and dine with Jesus.

The first work of the grace of the Holy Spirit is conversion, effecting, justification in accordance with Jesus' proclamation at the beginning of the Gospel: "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (MT 4:17) Moved by grace, man turns toward God and away from sins, thus accepting forgiveness and righteousness from on high. "Justification is not only the remission of sins, but also the justification and renewal of the interior man." (Council of Trent 1547) (CCC 1994) 

Readings: Sirach 35: 12-14, 16-18; Psalm 34: 2-3, 17-18, 19, 23; 2 Timothy 4: 6-8, 16-18; Luke 18: 9-14

Fall is underway and moving towards the bleakness of winter. The church always uses this time of the seasons to have us consider again the Last Things. This season always gives us a chance to reflect on the end of our humanity and our ultimate dependence on God. The three readings comment on how God judges our prayers and posture before him.

We know God resists pride; therefore, he lends an ear more to the poor and lowly, hears their prayers, and offers them justice, which only he can do. So Jesus, in the Gospel, brings a successive parable on prayer's perseverance and showcases the interior dispositions which must accompany it, warning of the dangers of pride and our duty never to lose our sense of sin and judge anyone but ourselves. This makes lowliness and humility the path to knowing God.

"Come early and get a back seat!" Hasn't that always been the feeling for those who come to church and feel like the publican in the Gospel story? We just want to show up. We know we should be there no matter our behavior. But the back pews are not the muscle beach for honest sinners who think the Publican is a hero and the Pharisee is a villain.

Do we secretly compare our behavior with others? The publican's gift was that he looked within and not around and saw the holiness of God's mercy. God's mercy takes the pressure off us so we can be honest in our self-assessment. The Pharisee was a good synagogue attendee, doing all Moses required. He needs to move from a stance of entitlement to utter dependence on God. Personal and public prayer are always expressed in action toward what is just. Neither the temple nor the church establishes who is an outsider and who is an insider. People cannot become just on their own without God's mercy.

Our whole life will change if we bring success and failure before God in our helplessness. Jesus enters the thoughts of both the Pharisee and the Publican, revealing the content of prayer. We must remember our dependence on God because if we are full of ourselves, there is no room for God.

Once committed to conversion, the heart learns to pray in faith. Faith is a filial adherence to God beyond what we feel and understand. It is possible because the beloved Son gives us access to the Father. He can ask us to seek, and to knock, since he himself is the door and the way. (CCC 2609)

Readings: Exodus 17: 8-13; Psalm 121: 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8; 2 Timothy 3: 14 – 4: 2; Luke 18: 1-8

So many things seem to be going wrong in our world that the news outlets include "feel good" stories to assure us it's not all bad like they report. We know from daily life that things are "off." Words and actions of violence and words and actions of indifference dominate social life.

Adversity can be a one-time thing for many of us, but it can also seem chronically everlasting for some of us. It's like the cloud around that Peanut's character. Wherever you walk, you never see the sunshine, just clouds. Living constantly in adversity tests our faith. Adversity asks us to yield, to give up. It's easier for us to resort to words and actions of violence and indifference.

Persisting on doing what is right is the virtue that impels us to keep pressing forward despite the current events of phenomena in body, mind, soul, and spirit swirling around us. Persistence tells us, "We will get by. We can do this!" Perseverance is the tenacity of being persistent for extended periods. We can do persistence. We need God's help to do perseverance. 

In our scripture readings for this 29th Sunday, Moses and the widow are familiar with adversity. Both need help in addressing the difficulties of their day. Moses has seen God's wonders of power, knowing his presence and love are always with his people. So with the help of God and his friends, persistence and perseverance happen. The widow without friends and alone knows that God always gives justice to the defenseless, the humble, and the sinner. So she keeps coming and coming until she gets her result. Her relentless, persevering persistence wins out.

God's strength is shown in our forms of weakness when we persevere. In persevering persistence, God's kingdom is made manifest to us and others. The heart of prayer is constantly praying with our heart, especially when our hearts are weak, failing, or far from God. We must persistently persevere. Otherwise, our words are in vain.

So, if you are still in adversity's cloud, like me, you're not alone. God is with us. Let's persevere. Let's pray. Let's hold up one another's arms despite the fatigue of life until we're victorious. God's will and justice will be done now and at the hour of death. Amen.

The glory of God consists in the realization of this manifestation and communication of his goodness, for which the world was created. God made us to be his sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, for the glory of God is a man fully alive; moreover man's life is the vision of God. (CCC 294)

Readings: 2 Kings 5: 14-17; Psalm 98: 1, 2-3ab, 3c-4; 2 Timothy 2: 8-13; Luke 17: 11-19

Our world has many people considered outcasts. We're more familiar with the big reasons, like race, politics, religion, poverty, and ethnicity. Social groups shun people in public, at work, or in school for personality, body, clothing, possession of, or the lack of athletic or academic ability. That's why I like dogs. Canines love unconditionally. They don't appreciate beauty, truth, or wealth. They only recognize your attitude and behavior towards them. We can learn a lot from a dog.

Our modern media life is also concerned with what we tweet, text, think, or say to scrutinize closely to see if you offend them in any way because, after all, their rights to take offense or outrage are more important than yours to express your opinion. It seems humans are well practiced at dislike and hate and enjoy using them.

Each of the readings for this 28th Sunday gives glory to God. To reveal God's salvation to every human person is the primary task of every follower of Jesus. We have discovered what God has done for us, so we must make room for all others and neither offend nor take offense. Elisha has no difficulty in his contact with the pagan enemy, a military officer. In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus reaches out to a group of unapproachable, untouchable lepers, one of them a non-Jew, a foreigner, and culturally considered a dog.

Elisha and Jesus both defy the social norms of their day and defy those norms by neither giving nor taking offense. Who are we guilty of stigmatizing or keeping distant? Who do we consider lepers in our life? Family? Elderly? Immigrants? LGBTQs? Criminals? Disagreeable Citizens? God offers salvation to us all in Jesus. That alone should propel us to live thankfully by remembering what we have done and where we have been.

Kindness is not a contest. It is the fruit of the Holy Spirit's action in our lives. Saying thank you to God and others or showing gratitude does not compromise anyone's freedoms. It is not un-dignified to be needy. God's grace is not a thing. It is his constant intimate embrace in life.

Salvation is a matter of body and soul. Healing often happens along the way. God's intervention in our life is not distinct from the living of our life. God reveals his power while we're on the journey. Ten lepers took a chance on wholeness that day, hoping they wouldn't be ignored. The foreigner, the alien, the non-Jew showed that his healing was more than physical. Encountering Jesus made him a thankful believer. One out of ten; does that mean that only 10% of us say thanks, are healed and fully alive?

Christ, high priest and unique mediator, has made of the Church “a kingdom of priests for his God and Father.” The whole community of believers is as such, priestly. The faithful exercise their baptismal priesthood through their participation, each according to his vocation, in Christ’s mission as priest, prophet, and king. Through the sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation the faithful are “consecrated to be … a holy priesthood. (CCC 1546)

Readings: Habakkuk 1: 2-3; 2: 2-4; Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9; 2 Timothy 1: 6-8, 13-14; Luke 17: 5-10

Our typical homes have many features to help make life easier for us. We have help cleaning, storing, preserving, and cooking so we may enjoy food and warmth, entertainment, and shelter. But without electricity, our many gadgets go from fascinating to useless. So it is with God’s gifts like faith. If we’re unable to have faith in and follow Jesus, we won’t reach fulfillment as human persons.

Many of us have faith that centers on the miraculous. Ordinary is never sufficient. Many of us discount miracles, content to live life with a faith largely undisturbed. Real belief is somewhere in between. We are a lot like the apostles in today’s Gospel. We don’t just need an increase of faith; we need faith, period.

Faith is our openness of heart to God’s self-communication in the Holy Spirit. To ask for an increase of faith requires a willingness to lose our life by diminishing our willfulness and trust in God as we trust in electricity.

The key to faith is potency, not size. Our little faith will transform us as we reveal who we are by what we say and do. Jesus teaches that we must use the gift of faith we have because God’s gifts are gifts. They are not guarantees or warranties. We know the sun will rise tomorrow if God desires it to be so.

Faith and the ability to act on it, like everything we have, has been given to us by God. Exercising God’s gifts, like our house appliances, uses them as they are intended. By using them, we become what we are intended to be. In life and faith, much has been learned, and much has been forgotten. We know that spacetime, like light, is fixed, but it bends. We know gravity holds, but it also propels. We know death is certain, but somehow faith teaches us it is not final.

The ordinariness of life, like our homes, is the landscape of faith. We’re only required to embrace our humanity and limitations with ordinary faithfulness in furthering God’s kingdom.

Jesus tells us today that the little faith we have can change everything.

Human misery is the obvious sign of the inherited condition of frailty and need for salvation in which man finds himself as a consequence of original sin. This misery elicited the compassion of Christ the Savior, who willingly took it upon himself and identified himself with the least of his brethren. (CCC 2448)

Readings: Amos 8: 4-7; Psalm 113: 1-2, 4-6, 7-8; 1 Timothy 2: 1-8; Luke 16: 1-13

The 7th Commandment forbids theft, that is usurping another's property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal distribution of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing...) is to put at one's disposal and use the property of others. (CCC 2408)

Readings: Amos 8: 4-7; Psalm 113: 1-2, 4-6, 7-8; 1 Timothy 2: 1-8; Luke 16: 1-13

Doing what is right and just is a burning reality in our church and in our day. The church is firmly committed to the pursuit of social justice and international peace. We must safeguard the basic rights of humanity under every political system. All three readings for this 25th Sunday refer to stewardship, what we do with what we have been given.

In the parable of the honorable master and the not-so-honorable steward, Luke's Gospel illustrates our instinct for self-preservation and cautions us about the entrapments of wealth and the consequences of being unwilling to share it. Jesus invites us to a new or renewed understanding of God and his kingdom.

The prophet Amos today is bothered by those who profit off the poor, but what really enrages him is that some try to make greed and religion fit side by side. Jesus teaches that they cannot peacefully co-exist. We can't have it both ways. The Gospel attacks our instinct for calling things "ours" in the first place since everything, even our work, is God's creative action in us in the first place. As God's stewards, everything we own is already his. If we are generous and forgiving, it is not ours we give away but God's.

The human heart is made for love but cannot have opposing masters. There is never "a very small matter" that does not matter. Every moment and situation stands as an opportunity to demonstrate virtue. Every act of dishonesty makes a liar out of us. God's merciful love does not strike us dead when we sin. God uses even sin to bring us to the place of wisdom where, by love, redemption transforms disobedient stewards into faithful servants.

To succeed in living by faith, we must embrace Jesus as our only master and his cross as our only home. This is God's love and mercy. It is hope for all who are hopeless.

Penance requires... the sinner to endure all things willingly, be contrite of heart, confess with the lips and practice complete humility and fruitful satisfaction. (CCC 1450)

Exodus 32: 7-11, 13-14; Psalm 51: 3-4, 12-13, 17, 19; 1 Timothy 1: 12-17; Luke 15: 1-32

A cursory exam of the Papal Flag reveals the heart of Peter's ministry to his brother bishops and his people. The keys received from Jesus linking heaven and earth are the repentance and forgiveness that we must live to express our belief in Jesus.

The texts of today's liturgy remind us that "forgiveness of sins" is an article of belief every time we recite the Creed. After the tragedy of the Golden Calf incident, Moses persuades God to temper his giving and to give the chosen people another chance. This is only a glimpse of the concern for the sinner reflected in Luke's Gospel reading. In Timothy's letter, Paul presents himself as the repentant sinner who wandered far yet was still reached by God's great love.

In the parable examples of absurd, seemingly embarrassing behavior, Jesus teaches that God goes to great lengths to seek out those lost to bring them back to him. As disciples who recite our Creed, so we also must do. Repenting and forgiving are part of seeking and restoring. We all know or have known someone so steeped in hopeless living that they are sure there is no way out and that a course does not even seem to exist. Yet a last act of kindness is always the right time to extend respect, dignity, and the unlimited love of Jesus.

The Gospel parables respond to the grumbling of the Scribes and Pharisees over the fact that Jesus welcomes sinners and shares food with them. In the coin, the sheep, and the sons, Jesus gives the joy God has of recovering something that was lost in the ordinariness of life. Like Adam and Eve, these religious leaders forgot they are the image of God. They failed to remember God's mercy and forgiveness come with his image.

Sometimes we need to be slapped or to fall to come to our senses about right and wrong, about what is true and valuable. Sin itself should convince us to trust our forgiving Father. Without forgiveness, life cannot go on. If people are not prepared to forgive and forget, life becomes unbearable. Is this our golden calf, to ignore God's joy in seeking and restoring his people?
 

Conversion is accomplished in early life by gestures of reconciliation, concern for the poor, the exercise and defense of justice and right by the admission of faults to one’s brethren, fraternal correction, revision of life, examination of conscience, spiritual direction, acceptance of suffering, endurance of persecution for the sake of righteousness. Taking up one’s cross each day and following Jesus is the surest way of penance. (CCC 1435)

Readings: Isaiah 58:6-11; Psalm 33: 2-3, 4-5, 8-9, 10-11; 1 John 4:7-16; Matthew 25:31-46

Salvation is freely offered to all, yet to take advantage of this offer, we must change. We must be transformed into Jesus and experience conversion to the extent that we live one complete life, not facets of existence apart from our true selves.

This is a special day for us at Mother Teresa Catholic Church. On this feast day, we remember our patron, St. Teresa of Calcutta, in a unique way because Mother Teresa lived the Gospel of Jesus out in her life so well. She made a self-centered, modern world take notice. She inspires her namesake parish of people to transform their own lives of faith into life for others. It is her simple faith that leads to her life of conversion and her concern for the poor in India and everywhere.

Our Gospel for this feast day is Matthew’s description of the criteria that Jesus will use for Judgment Day and beyond. Where you live or what political system you live under is unimportant. How much money, power, and beauty you have is insignificant, according to Jesus. Given history’s inability to understand the living God, it is not surprising that religion is not mentioned as well.

A life of simplicity and humility lived out for others is the only price of admission to heaven for Matthew’s Jesus because those who do so, like Mother Teresa, are already living heaven on earth. Our redemption as individuals and community hinges on having an open heart. Salvation is as close as the nearest need or person that needs our attention and love- now and not tomorrow. The conversion transformation allows us to see Jesus as a window into God the Father.

Our final destiny is to live in a wholly new way, unspoken and undescribed. We do know that God wants us for himself. That is why he gave us his Son.

Prayer is the raising of one’s mind and heart to God or the requesting of good things from God. But when we pray, do we speak from the height of our pride and will, or out of the depths of a humble and contrite heart. He who humbles himself will be exalted; humility is the foundation of prayer. Only when we humbly acknowledge that we do not know how to pray as we ought, are we ready to receive freely the gift of prayer. Man is a beggar before God. (CCC 2559)

Readings: Sirach 3: 17-18, 20, 28-29; Psalm 68: 4-5, 6-7, 10-11; Hebrews 12: 18-19, 22-24; Luke 14: 1, 7-14

The liturgy for this Sunday stresses the importance of humility in our lives, a virtue not so greatly esteemed in our competitive society of self-determination, human ambition, and aggressiveness. In the Gospel parable, Luke’s Jesus emphasizes that the poor are closest to him, so this and humility should be part of every disciple’s life. We’re asked today to be humble and attentive to those who are humble.

In our world of selfies, selfishness, and self-centeredness beyond measure, today’s readings remind us of the great place humility plays in our relationship with God and all others. By genuinely being aware of ourselves, we will moderate our behavioral understanding because we know the importance and impact of the Living God in every facet of our existence. Humility is the wisdom to know we have true value before God and men. Yet wisdom keeps us lowly before God and before the esteem and admiration of the world.

When Adam and Eve took the fruit of the tree, they tried to put themselves on an equal plane with God. This primal insecurity made an idol out of individualism which plagues us today as we worry about demotion, dejection, and our place in other people’s minds and hearts. Like the banquet in the Gospel, instead of jockeying for the appearance of approval, we should recognize and regard reality the way God does by favoring the lowly, poor, and needy.

This begins with us. In the banquet of life, we should recognize our littleness, our powerlessness, and our nothingness. In the Last Supper of the Eucharist, Jesus invites all the blind, all the crippled, and all the poor in everything to be healed and transformed. Jesus invites all to humbly discover his mercy already at work in life’s most miserable and desperate circumstances.

There is a canny logic to the Gospel call for contact and acceptance of real beggars and cripples. It reveals to us that, before God, we are beggars and cripples. All we are and all we ever hope to be we owe to Jesus because Jesus took the last place for himself so that no one could ever take it from him.

The Father's self-communication made through his Word in the Holy Spirit remains present and active in the Church. God who spoke in the past, continues to converse with the spouse of his Son and the Holy Spirit, through whom the living voice of the gospel rings out in the Church — and through her to the world — leads believers to the full truth, and makes the word of Christ dwell in them in all its riches. (CCC 79)

Readings: Isaiah 66: 18-21; Psalm 117: 1, 2; Hebrews 12: 5-7, 11-13; Luke 13: 22-30

Freedom of choice is our greatest freedom of expression as it champions who we are in our awareness of ourselves. This is a test we take every day of life. It's not easy, like multiple choice, in which we give our best guess. It's not easy, like an essay, where our multiplicity or lack of words reveals our true comprehension of the subject matter. The real test question of life requires only one choice. And it is not easy when we look in faith at eternal life because the potential result for all is, ultimately, pass or fail.

Everyone must learn that salvation is a serious business to consider it in freedom of choice. Luke's Gospel for this 21st Sunday concludes Jesus' teachings these past three weeks on salvation, how we should live, and the choices we must make. The living voice of this Gospel is meant for all peoples from every corner of earth because God desires all to gain salvation and come to the knowledge of the truth, his son Jesus the Christ.

It's been the mission and responsibility of the church of the Apostles of Jesus to see that this knowledge of the truth is revealed to all so that all may choose the "narrow way" of Jesus. All must decide to "take and eat" and rest at table with him. The narrow way includes suffering. Our sufferings, whatever they are, share in the sufferings of Christ. They open us up to the universal mystery of salvation, that what is impossible for us is done for us by God.

Our challenge, test, and exam is to gain salvation in Jesus. Yet to be saved, we must realize where we have come from and where we are to go. We must choose to gain the understanding that we are from the Father and we are on our way to the Father. Our response is to live witnesses to our communion with God and others and love with all our hearts. all our soul, all our strength is the narrow way. Refusing to acknowledge this and identify with God forfeits our access to the divine. The narrow way is pass or fail.

One can sin against God's love in various ways: Indifference neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider its prevenient goodness and denies its power; Ingratitude fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him love for love; Lukewarmness is hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love, it can imply refusal to give oneself to the prompting of charity; Acedia or spiritual sloth goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness; Hatred of God comes from pride. It is contrary to the love of God, whose goodness it denies, and whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts punishments. (CCC 2094)

Readings: Jeremiah 38: 4-6, 8-10; Psalm 40: 2, 3, 4, 18; Hebrews 12: 1-4; Luke 12: 49-53

Fire is the element that burns. We've all seen what it can do in a cookout or fireplace. In our dry forests or homes, we must respect fire. We respect those who fight fires as it takes something we all possess, yet many are unwilling to do it. People are afraid of fire, especially the fire that burns in human hearts, because these are people who are driven and prepared to give everything. The readings this Sunday speak of this fire's effect. God's word is like fire for those who hear it as it cleanses and purifies and is the path to holiness in behavior. For those who will not hear God's word, its fire will ultimately destroy the self-importance of pride.

In the first reading, the prophet Jeremiah is rejected and unheeded by his people as God's word brings division to their accepted norms of religiosity. Jesus' words to Israel promise the same, even bringing opposition and unpopularity from family and amused indifference from society. As we learn to live with the fire of Jesus in our hearts, we encounter the same pushback as those in faith who came before us because our baptism into Jesus is the Holy Spirit and Fire. It is a baptism of choice in belief, in suffering, in death, and in life everlasting.

The fire of God's presence in life is Jesus, the light of the world.

Jesus speaks with urgency to remind us that Christianity is no "pie in the sky" religion. Sometimes, following Jesus is a cost more than we can endure paying.

Following Jesus is always turbulent because Jesus' fire brings a peace not understood in human terms. God's grace allows all of us to be free to choose between openness to light or preference for the dark. The catechism paragraph selected for this Sunday's Gospel lists many reasons for refusing to go into the Living Flame of God. Everybody has one. Some have all. Whatever they may be, Jesus invites us into the fire.

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour, only he determines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which Providence led everything towards its final end. The Last Judgment reveals that God’s justice triumphs over all the injustices committed by his creatures and that God’s love is stronger than death. (CCC 1041)

Readings: Wisdom 18: 6-9; Psalm 33: 1, 12, 18-19, 20-22; Hebrews 11: 1-2, 8-19 or 11: 1-2, 8-12; Luke 12: 32-48

Hurricane season is upon us again. Those more confident of being struck gather what they require and do what they need to withstand the event and survive. What do we believe on this 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time?

Today’s readings show the sacrifices and preparations the people of God make for their particular situations. The Israelites celebrate Passover prayerfully and alertly, awaiting their salvation in the exodus from slavery. The second reading showcases the faith shown by Abraham and Sarah as they unwaveringly placed their confidence in the Lord’s promise to them.

Jesus asks his disciples to remember his promises to return and welcome his warning for them to be ready, prepared, and vigilant. By waiting in joyful hope, we express our willingness to be prepared for that event of a return. Even though we cannot see it coming, our eyes of faith assure us of the knowledge that it will come. Uncertainty of day or hour does not give anxiety to us but the hope of opening the door to the master’s return in every person we encounter.

Modern life demands we prepare for anything from viruses we cannot see like COVID to viruses we can see like inflation, homelessness, health, fuel and food insecurity, and the greedy hatred of nations and peoples towards one another. For people of faith, amid all the uncertainty of life in the present world, the only certainty is the return of our Lord Jesus Christ. Every time we gather at his table, we live the Gospel, share with those in need, work for justice, and acknowledge our need for and dependence on Jesus as we alertly prepare for his Second Coming in glory.