Cathechism Corner

By prayer we can discern "what is the will of God” and obtain endurance to do it. Jesus teaches us that one enters the kingdom of heaven not by speaking words but by doing “the will of my Father in heaven.” (CCC 2826)

Readings: Ezekiel 18: 25-28; Psalm 25: 4-5, 6-7, 8-9; Philippians 2: 1-11; Matthew 21: 28-32

Balance is an opportunity available to all and evident everywhere in nature. As recent times show, both people and the Earth itself are reeling, seeking the peace of balance they once knew. In the face of new opportunities and solutions, would we prefer a wide-open highway or a long, winding road?

Einstein once said, “Everything changes except the human mind.” Our mindset of memory, will, intellect, and imagination pulls for attention in the human consciousness. To pattern and form our decisions based on one mental function to the exclusion of the others creates an unhealthy imbalance when it comes to change or decisions in our lives.

In this parable of the two sons, found only in Matthew, Jesus gives us the knowledge that God considers and weighs human conduct. Our free will and our freedom to choose, dulled as it may become by sin or suffering, still always offers the invitation and the possibility of change. How we react and how we respond is our journey of faith. Some experience God’s love and say they will share it with others, but they never do. Some resist God’s love, preferring to be masters of their lives by saying no to God’s presence and movement. Then, they overcome their initial resistance to God’s call, and in that change lies grace, growth, and greatness.

As human persons, we need God’s love to complete our built–in longing, and those who realize this know they need a savior. Can we allow and welcome God to change us? Jesus teaches today that the least likely people (sinners) enter heaven before those who are religious but do not love nor share his love. Change has been and is always a constant force and reality in life and in faith. 

We may be in love with being in love with God. We may like the security of staying still in the constraints of religion. We may look good and buttoned down on the outside, but Jesus argues with people who want the “things” of religion — ritual, rules, or a secure, safe way of life — more than they want God. As sinners, we know we need God, and God, who wants to be needed because he created us for no other reason than to love us, escorts us into the Kingdom.

Change is ever present everywhere, especially in nature and the human heart, both longing for the peace they once knew of the knowledge of God, a knowledge only acquired in the long winding road of faith and life.

The divine name,” I am, He is,” expresses God’s faithfulness: despite the faithlessness of men’s sins and the punishment it deserves, he keeps,” steadfast love for thousands.” By going so far as to give up his own Son for us, God reveals that he is rich in mercy. By giving his life to free us from sin, Jesus reveals that he himself bears the divine name. “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will realize that “I Am.” (CCC 211)

Readings: Isaiah 55: 6-9; Psalm 145: 2-3, 8-9, 17-18; Philippians 1: 20c-24, 27a; Matthew 20: 1-16a

Our North Carolina Education Lottery generates income to supplement operations to educate our children. How much ends up assisting that budget shortfall, only God knows. Some always seem to benefit more than others, and why is there a state budget surplus when our schools are underfunded with that same budget?

A reversal of fortune is in order for all who hear this parable found only in Matthew’s Gospel. All need a reversal of fortune, and unlike our state budget or its lottery, God chooses to be exceedingly generous in ways no one can predict. Expecting the unexpected is a skill we're not born with, yet it is a skill we must acquire in the kingdom of God. The only thing that matters is that God calls all to union with him, and no distinctions qualify those called.

God’s presence deals with us in conventional ways and means but also in the unexpected. Wisdom will show if we look closely, that God puts the puzzle pieces of our lives together because we learn that things in our lives do not always move in straight lines. Matthew invites us, as the church and as members of the human family in the vineyard of life, to be open to new possibilities by expecting God to act in improbable ways.

Whether in the past, present, or future, everyone God sends is a gift we cannot ignore, exclude, hold back, or oppress because of our jealousy or selfishness. Doing so risks being made poorer due to our lack of love and gratitude for the diverse peoples God brings to our community. To grumble is always a clear and present danger to the unity intended by God’s design.

Though our actions often fail to match our words, God still calls us, at all hours, to constantly go beyond the ordinary, the normal, and the expected and make our ways more like his. By doing this, we win the lottery of life, and we don’t even need to buy a ticket.

This outpouring of mercy cannot penetrate our hearts as long as we have not forgiven those who have trespassed against us. Love, like the Body of Christ, is indivisible; we cannot love the God we cannot see if we don’t love the brother or sister we do see. In refusing to forgive our brothers or sisters, our hearts are closed, and their hardness makes them impervious to the Father’s merciful love; but in confessing our sins, our hearts are opened to his grace. (CCC 2840)

Readings: Sirach 27: 30 – 28: 7; Psalm 103: 1-2, 3-4, 9-10, 11-12; Romans 14: 7-9; Matthew 18: 21-35

Mercy is as mercy does. Despite our self-centeredness and self-determination, St. Paul faithfully states, “In life and death, we are the Lord’s.” These readings for this 24th Sunday demonstrate the undeniable connection between God’s life and our lives. These are one relationship and not separate realities.

As humans, we tend to subdivide and compartmentalize to manage the perceived complexities of life. We separate things at home from things at work, things at school from things at church, things in society from things in the rest of the world. These and all they contain are our real lives and cannot be divided. Our world and God’s world are the same.

The Father, throughout time and history and ultimately in the person of Jesus, offers us forgiveness for every wrong interpretation of life. This great reality from above only has meaning and purpose in how we forgive ourselves and each other here below. A love of God that does not love neighbor does not exist.

Jesus teaches here, only in Matthew, that God’s merciful love extends to all so that all might respond generously in love and forgiveness to others, especially permeating all his disciples. Jesus’ exposition of the Father’s mercy is radically unlike any previous expectations of justice and mercy.

In our lives and media, we witness the struggle between mercy and ruthlessness play out daily. Life in the fullness of reality constantly challenges us to choose between self-righteousness, indifference, inappropriate attitudes, or to support things contrary to the gospel.

We know that Jesus founded one church in one body, yet history shows the Christian world as Catholic, Orthodox, and thousands of splintered Protestant denominations. If we want to help the world with the subdivisions of reality, the church must be first to reconcile its brothers and sisters. This reality of unity becomes the vital witness to God's powerful love and mercy.

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 also bears witness that, in our world, love is stronger than sin. The martyrs of yesterday and today bear witness to Jesus. Forgiveness is the fundamental condition of the reconciliation of the children of God with their Father and of men with one another. (CCC 2844)

Readings: Ezekiel 33: 7-9; Psalm 95: 1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Romans 13: 8-10; Matthew 18: 15-20

Though it exists within us, love is a learned behavior. Love does not mean accepting everything a person does. Love does mean accepting the person. This learning starts in our family, where we encounter others and become hurt or disappointed for the first of many times in life. Our responsibility to extend forgiveness, we learn, presents itself daily in our natural, adopted, acquired, or faith family. God does not tolerate unforgiveness.

Part of extending forgiveness is the willingness to offer a just correction, if needed, to the one who has transgressed. Correction done in love must be for the offender's benefit and the stable unity of the family or community. This is more than just "house rules" set down in the pride of wanting everything done "our way or the highway."

Love is the yardstick of all conduct because it regulates while respecting the dignity and worth of each person to God, family, and community. The Gospel today reminds us there will be times in family or community when we must follow the path of confronting and addressing another's wrongdoing and doing this by avoiding both judgment and the inaction of indifference.

We know love is stronger than sin anywhere. Whether in the world, the family, or the faith community, disciples must realize that it is not the particular sin itself (readily forgiven sacramentally) but the lies we concoct around our sins that escalate its gravity. We see this in everyday life, don't we? Human nature is prone to mistakes and evil, but woe to us if we try to cover it up. Usually, the politicians or the media lead us to express outrage, but we're all undermined by vanity in pretending to be unaffected by sin.

In the community of faith, the extension of God's mercy, forgiveness, and correction will protect the stability and unity of the family of faith. The vertical love and correction of God are always there. We must provide horizontal love and correction. The Sacrament of Reconciliation is the mechanism of God's mercy. Our baptismal priesthood requires us to help one another be open to receive mercy and forgiveness. Neither society nor the church can survive by condoning and sanctioning the unraveling of peace and unity caused by sin.
 

Outward sacrifice, to be genuine, must be the expression of spiritual sacrifice. "The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit." (Psalm 51) The prophets of the Old Covenant often denounced sacrifices that were not from the heart or not coupled with love of neighbor. Jesus recalls the words of the prophet Hosea, "I desire mercy not sacrifice." The only perfect sacrifice is the one that Christ offered on the cross as a total offering to the Father’s love and for our salvation. By uniting ourselves with his sacrifice we can make our lives a sacrifice to God. (CCC 2100)  

Readings: Jeremiah 20: 7-9: Psalm 63: 2, 3-4, 5-6, 8-9; Romans 12: 1-2; Matthew 16: 21-27

Love is always in the will and has been since the creation of human persons. Living our Christian life is uncomfortable in our increasingly sensual and self-centered society.

Not here in the U.S. yet, but in some areas of the world, living out faith in Jesus may mean suffering and death. This has always been part of Jesus’ message, as we see in the gospel of Matthew for this 22nd Sunday.

We hear that even though he was granted special insight into Jesus’ divinity, Peter could not grasp Jesus’ prediction of his suffering destined to come in the future. Jesus’ radical values and priorities seemed foolish to Peter as a part of God’s plan. Jeremiah, too, in the first reading, encountered derision and scorn as he brought God’s message to the people of Israel and so suffered as God’s love for his people burned in his heart.

Jesus constantly challenges our notions, like he did Peter, and demands that we take a stand for the different reality of God’s kingdom. That means we are not robotic conformists to correct social systems, norms, or behaviors politically. We learn to be open to discern God’s will, like Peter, to take up our crosses no matter when or where they arise.

This will mean discomfort, injustice, and suffering. In this sacrifice, we will learn to pray and judge God’s will and standards because of the living flame of love burning within us, like Jeremiah, allowing us to follow God’s word, Jesus, through death to resurrection. Love is in the will. God’s Will always will be done.

The Lord made Simon alone, whom he named Peter, the "rock of his church." He gave him the keys of his church and instituted him the shepherd of the whole flock. The office of binding and loosing which was given to Peter was also assigned to the college of apostles united to its head. The pastoral office of Peter and the other apostles belongs to the Church’s very foundation and is continued by the bishops under the primacy of the Pope. (CCC 881)

Readings: Isaiah 22: 19-23; Psalm 138: 1-2a, 2bc-3, 6, 8; Romans 11: 33-36; Matthew 16: 13-20

Do our public officials serve us with the authority with which we entrust them? Living in our republican form of democracy, the authority of our elected officials is given by the people who are governed. If we're not satisfied, we can only blame ourselves because it is our duty to ensure they are not re-elected and so withdraw our authority to be governed by them.

The biblical view of authority is much different and can be hard for us or our elected officials to accept. Paul's letter to the Romans speaks of the wisdom and knowledge of God as a given. God is the creator. God needs neither a counselor nor an adviser. Everything comes from God – everything, including authority. Isaiah notes in the first reading that it is God who removes those in charge and chooses those who replace them

In the Gospel, Jesus asks a key question, "Who am I?" Peter's answer is unlike any Jesus expected because only the Father could issue knowledge and wisdom to Peter, just as Isaiah and Paul discovered. Peter gets more than a name; he gets authority from God, and the church's authority also comes from God. Perhaps that is why the United Nations doesn't know how to handle the church. 

The difference from democracy or any form of government's slant on authority is that God's authority is not for tyranny but for service. Unlike all leaders who enjoy making their presence and importance felt, in God's view, they are to be servants only of their people. All the authority of the church and its individual faithful members is granted to serve the kingdom of God on Earth.

Our leaders should learn like we should learn that when we embrace the knowledge of who Jesus Christ is in the grace of self-forgetfulness, then we will realize how much God thinks of us. When we admit to ourselves and to others that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God, our very being changes as we realize that because we are thought of by God, therefore we are.

God's authority grants us a living status greater than any nation or form of government. This is our true identity. We are blessed because even in our inadequacies, we are configured in the wisdom and knowledge of Jesus, the Son of the Living God.

Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness, "whatever you ask for in prayer, believe you receive it, and you will." Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: "all things are possible to him who believes." Jesus is saddened by the lack of faith of his own neighbors and the "little faith" of his own disciples as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the centurion and the Canaanite woman. (CCC 2610) 

Readings: Isaiah 56: 1, 6-7; Psalm 67: 2-3, 5, 6, 8; Romans 11: 13-15, 29-32; Matthew 15: 21-28

In life, whoever we are, rich or poor, there are some places we’re not welcome. Whatever our skin color, age, or gender, there are places where we’re not allowed. All of us are victims of profiling and discrimination in one form or another. We all have been pre-judged. We all have been turned away because of dress, neighborhood, family, or physique.

We know the desperate woman's feelings in Matthew’s Gospel for this 20th Sunday. How she reacts and responds to what others think of her is a lesson for our faith life. We learn that Jesus’ sign of the kingdom is that the body of Christ accommodates the whole spectrum of people welcoming all strengths, talents, and gifts. Jesus accepts all weaknesses, limits, and sinfulness. The only pre-requisite is the necessity of strong faith in Him.

The temple of the body of Christ is a house of prayer for all nations, and all nations will come because it opens up salvation for all who live in it. It is words and actions that make us clean or unclean. Faith is our confidence in God’s abundant mercy. Our faith in that mercy must be strong enough to look for what is good in those who are different. Jesus sees the foreign woman and changes as he listens to the father’s voice and changes his heart as the woman reveals her faith in him and her love for her daughter.

When we see Jesus, we too will change, like the woman in the Gospel who will do whatever it takes to free her daughter. Our character, like hers, will change from being noisy and assertive, pleading and compliant, clever and confrontational. She is persistently consistent but not in her behavior because she is focused on her mission for her daughter. Her daughter is in trouble, not unlike us or our families. Her faith knows that Jesus can help. Her differences because of race or culture, or social hatred will not stand in her way.

As we should know, she knows that the one true God is always present, even when we are unwelcome and abandoned. As we should know, she knows that God is committed to our well-being and will find a creative way to help. This is faith.

 

Nothing is more apt to confirm our faith and hope than holding it in our minds that nothing is impossible with God. Once our reason has grasped the idea of God’s almighty power, it will easily and without hesitation admit everything that [the Creed] will afterward propose for us to believe- even if they be great and marvelous things, far above the ordinary laws of nature. (CCC 274)

Readings: 1 Kings 19: 9a, 11-13a; Psalm 85: 9, 10, 11-12, 13-14; Romans 9: 1-5;  Matthew 14: 22-33

Sometimes, somehow all of us experience a different reality. Our memory holds fast the feeling given by the ocean, the stars, a special sunrise or sunset, or the look in a baby’s eye. Suddenly we see our heart is touched, and we never forget it.

This is the presence of the Lord using Creation to break into our ordinary life, inviting us to a more profound way of seeing. How we respond to his invitation determines our journey toward the light of life.

Faith must take precedence as baptized children of God in life’s journey. This is why in today’s Gospel, Jesus has the disciples go ahead of him in the boat. We all must learn this dimension of being in the same boat, the church. Like Israel, God saves us as a people, not as individuals. We choose to stay and try to know, love, and serve God and his people, our brothers and sisters. We must stay together so that we may rightly worship God as Jesus has taught us.

To be church is to be in a storm-tossed ship, understanding our lack of faith and encouraged to trust at the same time in God’s loving presence giving us peace.

Like Elijah in the first reading, we must listen for God’s voice amid the natural noises of daily life because we will find him in both the sounds of silence and nature’s fury, assuring us of his great love and care. Peter’s reward is not just a divine hand but a challenge to not doubt the One who offers it. Fear distracts us from focusing on God’s continual presence.

The winds will always be more robust than we thought. We see a world of violent ignorance, greed, injustice, and just unkindness in humanity, surpassing the goodwill, prayer, and effort of ourselves and others. Fear and doubt do not calm the waves, but Jesus’ hand is there. We will not sink.

On the threshold of the public life: the baptism; on the threshold of the Passover; the Transfiguration. Jesus’ baptism proclaimed "the mystery of the first regeneration, namely our Baptism: the Transfiguration is the sacrament of the second regeneration our own Resurrection." From now on we share in the Lord’s Resurrection through the Spirit who acts in the sacraments of the Body of Christ. The Transfiguration gives us a foretaste of Christ’s glorious coming, when he will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body. But it also recalls that it is through many persecutions that we must enter the Kingdom of God. (CCC 556)

Readings: Daniel 7: 9-10, 13-14; Psalm 97: 1-2, 5-6, 9; 2 Peter 1: 16-19; Matthew 17: 1-9

We all have been "the people in darkness who have seen a great light." What will become of us? This wonder of wondering leads us to knowing and making choices to secure our future. Climate change, UFOs, Red State/Blue State, inflation, China, North Korea, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, Haiti, and whatever else shadows the horizons of our shared existence should point us today to the reality of the Feast of the Transfiguration.

Only when darkness approaches and envelops us do we pay attention to the power and majesty of light. In the darkness of the mount of Transfiguration, the Passover, and Resurrection are united before they occur.

For we people of faith, the Transfiguration of Jesus unfolds in creation and in us because of the Incarnation. And despite the darkness of previous ages or our present day, Jesus reveals his glory. We must learn to be aware of the wonder of this light because it obliterates any darkness, whether before creation or after.

Life is a destiny of choices, and destiny is always to be determined. This is God’s genius. This is what free will is all about. How we think determines how our body works; what occupies our mind always appears in our body’s language and actions. From the moment of creation, men and women are determined by God to dwell in his glory fully. When we participate in the Holy Spirit, we come to communion in God’s nature, just as Jesus’ human body was made to shine in God’s glory.

Since we are the Body of Christ, we contain and radiate what is contained and radiated in the sacraments of his body. We, too, are transfigured. We, too, are filled with wonder. We, too, like Peter, should realize that "it is good to be here."

We firmly believe that God is master of the world and of its history, but the ways of his providence are often unknown to us. Only at the end, when our partial knowledge ceases when we see God “face to face”, will we fully know the ways by which — even through the dramas of evil and sin — God has guided his creation to that definitive sabbath rest for which he created heaven and earth. (CCC 314)

Readings: Wisdom 12: 13, 16-19; Psalm 86: 5-6, 9-10, 15-16;  Romans 8: 26-27; Matthew 13: 24-43

Faith tells us that the kingdom of God has been present ever since Jesus took on flesh and lived among us. Everything Jesus teaches and promises is for now, and as we grow in faith, we learn that it is also for “not yet.” Since the garden, there has always been evil in the world, and we must be patient awaiting its removal yet not be scandalized by its presence because everything has a purpose in God’s world, God’s kingdom, supervised by God alone.

In this discourse for the 16th Sunday, Matthew records three parables. The one parable the disciples fail to understand is that of weeds and wheat. We, like them, often fail to see the role evil has in becoming holy. Our struggles with the choices of sin enhance our faith in Jesus as we realize that God sustains us in every moment of life. When believers realize that God loves us as we are right now, we lose the delusion that we are in control of life. Our trust grows in proportion to the knowledge of our misery without him.

The kingdom parable describes the church Jesus’ apostles will leave behind, whose leaders and members cannot be judged by appearances because only God judges his creation. He alone investigates the decisions of the heart. So, God’s people must avoid the weeds of elitism and intolerance. These have been present throughout its history, misjudging others and causing unrest, oppression, crusades, pogroms, and persecutions. Breaking this cycle of all human nature starts within God’s people in our homes, parishes, and civic communities; we must resist the arrogance that assumes we are better than others. 

In our church, we judge the “unworthy poor.” We judge those inactive as well as those very active, those of minimal faith and those of overzealous faith, those who question the church, and those who stand by the church. No wonder the world is in chaos if, as God’s people, we are like this. Intolerance, whether ecclesial or civic, kills unity because only God knows where the weeds are. Following Jesus keeps our eyes on him and helps us offer compassion to all we find difficult to tolerate.

Jesus' invitation to enter his kingdom comes in the form of parables, a characteristic feature of his teaching... parables are like mirrors for man: will he be hard soil or good earth for the word... Jesus and the presence of his kingdom in the world are secretly at the heart of the parables. One must enter the kingdom, that is, become a disciple of Christ, in order to "know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven. (CCC 546)

Readings: Isaiah 55: 10-11; Psalm 65: 10, 11, 12-13, 14; Romans 8: 18-23; Matthew 13: 1-23

What and where is life without change? There has been change ever since God said, "Let there be light!" Difference is as constant a force in natural life as in spiritual life. We know the world has changed, and we know we have changed. Hardly a media post or newscast fails to comment daily on the change, fragility, and resilience of life in our environment. Though the secular media fails to recognize it, it is the same for the life of faith — or the lack of a life of faith.

From the garden, man has had dominion over the environment, and that dominion has led to ancient practices of mining and harvesting of the land, sea, and air; these, along with the chaos of oppression and war, have left painful, extensive effects on the natural and spiritual life. During the Industrial Age (1760-1840), goods moved from hand-made to machine-made on a large scale. This yearning for profit and convenience significantly changed civilization in the consumption of goods and labor, generated new forms of power and transportation, and increased waste pollution in the local and global environment.

Long before this global stress, in the second reading, Paul foresees the interlocking nature of creation and humanity by describing the "groaning" man's dominion has caused while nature awaits restoration. This parable of God who sowed life in creation is the greater lesson of the effectiveness of God's word, natural and spiritual, spoken of in the agricultural examples of rain and seed in Isaiah and Matthew. God's word moves relentlessly from the beginning as the inevitable results of its' fertility come to its' fixed finality at the appointed time.

The first parable of Jesus Matthew writes about is the parable of the sower. The sower, however, is not the star of the story. It is the seed. Yet Jesus points out the necessity of the environment in responding to the seed of God's word. Whatever conditions are present, the seed, like falling rain, will nourish and inevitably cause growth. The soil of our consciences must choose to facilitate God's word among us just as we must strive to restore the environment in the best possible way amidst the inconvenience of change in the face of indifference, bureaucracy, and greed.

Change in the natural or spiritual order is difficult, even in our Age of Technology. Jesus uses a parable to remind us that not even God can affect the human heart more than goodwill permits. Change starts within us as we increase awareness of the shortness of our life. Jesus is the seed of that change, as he loves the ones who listen to him and engage with him in the creation environment. Change will come because the word will accomplish what it was sent to do.

Christ enables us to live in him all that he himself lived, and he lives it in us. By his Incarnation, He, the Son of God, has in a certain way united himself with each man. We are called only to become one with him, for he enables us as the members of his Body to share in what he lived for us in his flesh as our model. (CCC 521)

Readings: Zechariah 9: 9-10; Psalm 1-2, 8-9, 10-11, 13-14; Romans 8: 9, 11-13; Matthew 11: 25-30

Are we tired or worn out by the persistent wrongs apparent in daily life? Jesus feels the same way in Matthew’s Gospel for the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time. He has traveled through all of Galilee, and despite all his words, all his works, and all his miracles, he has largely been ignored and rejected. The people of the nation he was sent to save have not converted their ways to believe in him. 

So, his message is for those who know something is not right in life; the weary, the burdened, and the poor are the ones invited who get the Good News proclaimed to them. Jesus invites us because he’s one of us. Joining him in his kingdom enables us to bear our burdens and learn all lifelong to be humble of heart in order to find rest.

As we see the powerful grab for more power, exhaustion is easy as the resultant effects of fatigue trouble our bodies and minds. We must take comfort in the hope Jesus offers us today because God does not sleep. We must remember to learn to rest like we did when we were children, aware of our relationship to a higher authority to handle things beyond our control. 

This burden is God’s. Yes, parents, teachers, and civil and religious leaders should help, but often they forget to remember their childhood and rest in God just like us. We all have responsibilities, but ultimate control is up to God; after all, it is his creation, and that fact alone is our rest and regeneration on the highways of fatigue in daily life. We aren’t called to save anything; we are called to be one with Jesus in his kingdom now and forever.

Incorporated into Christ by Baptism, Christians are “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” and so participate in the life of the Risen Lord. Following Christ and united with him, Christians can strive to be imitators of God as beloved children, and walk in love by conforming their thoughts, words, and actions to the mind, which is yours in Christ Jesus, and by following his example. (CCC 1694) 

Readings: 2 Kings 4: 8-11, 14-16a; Psalm 89: 2-3, 16-17, 18-19; Romans 6: 3-4, 8-11; Matthew 10: 37-42

Examples of the gift and act of welcome and hospitality are exalted in the readings of this 13th Sunday. These should offer encouragement to our community of Mother Teresa because, as a people, we attempt to imitate her welcoming life as she strove to imitate the life of Jesus. The gift of hospitality begins with God, who was very hospitable in giving us life and a place and time to live it, and it ends with us returning his gift by imitating it. Could life be that basic and simple?

The first reading shows us that the woman of Shunem, knowing Elisha is a man of God, goes beyond mere hospitality by adding a room for Elisha. Matthew’s Jesus, after outlining the many challenges of imitating him, adds that there is a reward for even the simplest act of welcome and care. Life in Jesus is rarely easy, but the prophetic spirit of hospitality proves itself by always being an encouraging witness to God’s love shown to all in the life lived by Jesus.

Awareness of God’s love challenges us and requires us to welcome and be hospitable to family, friends, enemies, and strangers. This is the reality of our baptism. Even if we were baptized as infants unaware, the effects are as profound as each daily choice we make. Despite our sinful mistakes and failures, we are still united to him and must continue to strive to participate in this ongoing life of the risen lord.

Do our lives reflect the welcome mats that adorn our doorways? Mats are stepped on, dirtied, exposed to harsh conditions, and discarded when used up. Such was the public ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, and striving to imitate him is our call from Baptism. Like our patron, Mother Teresa, this is our call to always welcome and to always choose love. This is what the children of God do.

Even though enlightened by him whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised by faith. Our experiences of evil, suffering, injustice, and death, seem to contradict the Good News; they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it.” (CCC 164)

Readings: Jeremiah 20: 10-13; Psalm 69: 8-10, 14, 17, 33-35; Romans 5: 12-15; Matthew 10: 26-33

Since we hid naked in the Garden of Eden, secrets seem part of human life and experience. Intrigue, disinformation, and subterfuge have been with history through the ages. Even today, what is the true cost of fear of and the keeping of secrets for individuals, corporations, and nations?

"Do not be afraid" is a frequent phrase Jesus uses in his teaching, ministry, and post-resurrection appearances. Because of that disarray caused by Adam and Eve, fear has been here, and yet for every mention of fear, Jesus mentions the Father. In our life of living faith, what do we fear?

In Matthew’s Gospel this weekend, Jesus continues his teaching on the continuing mission of his disciples, making them aware of the certainty of ridicule, rejection, persecution, and fear they will encounter from others who refuse to believe in Jesus and the Father who sent him. Jesus reduces fear to three faces. The fear of our secret self and its shame, the fear of pain and death and its emptiness, and the fear of self-worth and uncertainty.

In the first reading, the Prophet Jeremiah notes the difficulties his message causes among God’s chosen people; yet he also notes that all his troubles do not derail his supreme trust and faith in God’s goodness. Jeremiah, Jesus, and now all who hear and follow know that even in failure, doubt, suffering, or opposition, trust and reliance on God is the acknowledgment necessary to speak the truth in love that all need to hear.

Only in knowing and relying on God can we see the truth in ourselves and in others and not be afraid. Following Jesus today is still not popular. Being a disciple comes with risks of alienation from family, work, school, and even faith communities. Risk always has a reward. Remaining faithful to God wins, for we sparrows have a privileged place in God’s Kingdom. Denying Jesus is denying our authentic selves. When we acknowledge Jesus, we become fearless.

The whole Church is apostolic, in that she remains, through the successors of St. Peter and the other apostles, in communion of faith and life with her origin: and in that she is “sent out” into the whole world. All members of the Church share in this mission, though in various ways. “The Christian vocation is, of its nature, a vocation to the apostolate as well. Indeed, we call an apostolate: every activity of the mystical Body that aims to spread the kingdom of Christ over all the earth. (CCC 863) 

Readings: Exodus 19: 2-6a; Psalm 100: 1-2, 3, 5; Romans 5: 6-11; Matthew 9: 36 - 10: 8

After slogging through the pains and inconveniences of Lent and experiencing the joys of the Easter Season, we return to Ordinary Time. The readings for this 11th Sunday remind us we are so dear to God that he includes us in his desires and plans. We are a kingdom of priests. We are his people who, while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us.

All of these things we have freely received. All of these things are worth sharing with everyone. All of these things move the heart of Jesus to ask us to help the brokenness and confusion of the world. All these truths that lead to salvation are so crucial for everyone that they must be taught and passed on regardless of age, language, culture, or social status.

As Matthew’s Gospel tells us, Jesus’ heart is moved with pity for people who are broken, abandoned, troubled, or thrown away. These life situations help us grasp and understand how easy it is for us to overlook the presence of Jesus here in the ordinariness of life. Jesus tells us that it will be in his apostles and disciples that suffering people will encounter the assurance of his love and the hope of transformation. 

When we can care for the sick, when we can mourn with those who lose a loved one, when we can accept and love those with unpopular diseases and opinions, when we can expel the fear of those who are frightened and unsure, when we can reach out to another in genuine love — this is the harvest of which Jesus speaks. We announce the mystery of God’s saving power by the way we love and so demonstrate.

Participation in the communal celebration of the Sunday Eucharist is a testimony of belonging and of being faithful to Christ and his Church. The faithful give witness by this to their communion in faith and in charity. Together they testify to God’s holiness and their hope of salvation. They strengthen one another under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (CCC 2182) 

Readings: Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16a Psalm 147: 12-13, 14-15, 19-20; 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; John 6: 51-58

Today’s solemn feast of the Body and Blood of Jesus (Corpus Christi in Latin) celebrates the two dimensions of this mystery, the Eucharist and the church. The body of Christ that is the Eucharist strengthens and sustains the body that is the church. The mystery of the living God is of longing and belonging. Creation occurs because God longed to share his immeasurable love with the people of creation.

In making himself known to Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, God reveals his desire for communion with people who choose to hear his word, share his love, and belong in him. From our earliest days, we all realize our need for others, our need to belong to something other than ourselves alone.

Our parents and family are the first to reinforce this desire. Our neighboring friends and schoolmates assist us in life outside ourselves. As we grow, we learn from others that we are not always welcomed for various reasons. We try and yearn to adapt and fit in to be accepted.

Happiness and frustration in our different situations in life unfold as we deal with the desires of others who may or may not be aware of their need for belonging. Yet God is always mindful of his longing for communion with his people. After millennia of human inability to recover and achieve original innocence, justice, and harmony from creation’s intent, God, in the fullness of time, sends his only begotten son to restore human longing for belonging and understanding of the unity of life on earth.

Bread from heaven, bread from Bethlehem, the house of bread, fills the primordial need for harmony in our lives with all peoples. Jesus embodies God’s longing for us to belong. Jesus gives his body as a memorial of this longing in himself to help us be always mindful and intimately united to him.

Jesus shares his very self with us. The flesh of Jesus links all people of every age in the timeless sacrifice of his body on the cross. To belong is to be connected to God and one another. God chooses us. We can no longer stay closed in on ourselves. The presence of Jesus in his body and blood and in his church guarantees, like the manna, the bread from heaven, that God is always with his people on their journey through life. God provides food for the journey even when they don’t feel him or even when they fail him.

The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith.” The whole history of salvation is identical with the history of the way and the means by which the one true God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reveals himself to men “and reconciles and unites with himself those who turn away from sin. (CCC 234) 

Readings: Exodus 34: 4b-6, 8-9; Daniel 3: 52, 53, 54, 55, 56; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; John 3: 16-18

As the Catechism states, the greatest of all the mysteries we discover in God is that of the Trinity, remembered and celebrated this day by the universal church. Though the name Trinity is not mentioned in sacred scripture, it’s the basis of the biblical experience of God in both the Old and New Testaments.

Our attempts at this and the other mysteries of God are bound up in our participation of the rich life God reveals in Jesus, enabling us to live in communion with the Holy Spirit.

As we try to live and understand this new life won for us in the passion, we must learn it’s impossible not to associate that the father’s gift of eternal life is the outcome of sending the son from the spirit, which is the giver of life. Our readings for this solemn feast focus on our experience of the Trinity acting for us in the work of saving and recreating the world.

Our belief requires a life lived in the harmony and peace of the love that is God in the Trinity, which continually transforms us day by day into that love. Peace is rare in our world. To live in harmony and peace, we have to identify ourselves with others, presupposing a vision of oneself in the other and of the other in oneself. To do this is difficult enough in family, but seeing ourselves in those of society and even fellow Christians is perhaps more problematic.

No one wants or desires to identify with people we consider too distant for comfort yet our capacity to take all peoples and personalities within us is the indication of the similarity between our love and God’s love.

These mysteries must lead us to believe we are dependent upon God. We will never “find ourselves” or our true identity apart from him. God is creator without us, but he cannot be our father without us. God so loves all people that he sent his only son to die for our sins.

It is our sins which killed Jesus’ body, not the Jewish leaders or the Romans. To share in the truth, goodness, and beauty of the Trinity is the glory for which we have been created because when truth and goodness become united in the divine love of the Trinity, indescribable beauty appears.

The fruits of the Spirit are perfections that the Holy Spirit forms in us as the first fruits of eternal glory. The tradition of the Church lists twelve of them: charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, generosity, gentleness, faithfulness, modesty, self-control, chastity. (CCC1832)

Readings: Acts 2: 1-11; Psalm 104: 1, 24, 29-30, 31, 34; 1 Corinthians 12: 3b-7, 12- 13 or Galatians 5: 16-25; John 20: 19-23 or John 15: 26- 27; 16: 12-15

After 40 days of trudging in the Lenten Season and 50 days of exhaling in the Easter Season, Pentecost asks us to freely inhale the breath of God and go out and change our world. Pentecost is harvest time as the spirit of the living God is unleashed from hovering over creation to guiding believers and followers of Jesus into the deeper life of truth and communion with God, creation, and one another.

The mystery of Pentecost is the maturing of a deep friendship. Discovering God's love binds us into a trust that cannot be broken. Even though we may not clearly perceive it, we share the confidence and dependence that it is certain and cannot be dissolved. We become one in the spirit when we give ourselves away within that trust, gradually discovering the truth of God's desires for us.

Jesus teaches those first-century disciples in the Gospel that the key example of shared trust is hidden in how we relate to those who injure and offend us by forgiving them. Binding and loosing in Jesus' disciples is, for us, the result of our baptism into Jesus as priest, prophet, and king. It helps us build community and social life, thereby changing our world from the perils and emptiness of unforgiveness.

The gift of the truth at Pentecost is to use our relationship with Jesus by revealing our true selves through the relationships that form our lives. To be a human person is to forge relationships with all people we encounter in the course of our lives. The fruits of life in the spirit are the gifts that knit together people from all walks of life desiring and sharing the same notions. Our most immediate example is that Mother Teresa was a community of life in the spirit long before we had a building to go along with it.

Every Pentecost reminds us to embrace this working relationship with the truth and abandon ourselves from the falsehoods of our world, which masquerade as a false attempt at unity and a future apart from the Holy Spirit. Like those first disciples, we must fight the temptation to hide in a locked room. Jesus always breaks into our presence to bring us peace and the means to share it and live it.

The Holy Spirit is the breath of God. Live it. Share it. Or lose it.

nly when the hour has arrived for his glorification does Jesus promise the coming of the Holy Spirit, since his death and Resurrection will fulfill the promise to the fathers. The Spirit of Truth the other Paraclete, will be given by the Father in answer to Jesus’ prayer; he will be sent by the Father in Jesus’ name; and Jesus will send him from the Father’s side, since he comes from the Father.

The Holy Spirit will come, and we shall know him; he will be with us forever; he will remain with us. The Spirit will teach us everything, remind us of all that Christ said to us and bear witness to him. The Holy Spirit will lead us to all truth and will glorify Christ. He will prove the world wrong about sin, righteousness, and judgment. (CCC 729)

Readings: Acts 8: 5-8, 14-17; Psalm 66: 1-3, 4-5, 6-7, 16, 20; 1 Peter 3: 15-18; John 14: 15-21

Knowledge of what should be done is observable in God’s creation. The heavenly bodies, the waters of the Earth, the seasons, and weather patterns all respond to their places. Plant and animal species also react and adapt to their places and pass on to their heirs the knowledge and strategies necessary to exist and survive in their situational environments.

Such learned behavior is not by chance. It is a sign of design, development, and progression, and logically, it should be no different for humans as creatures.

Our readings on this Sixth Sunday of Easter illustrate the aftermath of the Resurrection in anticipating the Ascension and the gift of the Holy Spirit. In our gospel farewell account from the Last Supper, Jesus teaches that love and obedience mark the beginning and end of the knowledge necessary for the strategy of survival and existence in his kingdom. This Gospel offers us the ability to understand that obeying Jesus the Christ is proof of our love and a condition of receiving the spirit.

The words and deeds of the early church in Samaria, in the first reading from Acts, reveal God’s continued presence as much as the words and deeds of Jesus showed Jesus was from God. Jesus was the first mediator from God and continues his presence through the promised Advocate and Paraclete. Loving Jesus and keeping his commands and teachings is not an ultimatum but a fact showing design and development, the strategies necessary to negotiate our environment, which is hostile to creation and its creator.

Jesus is not encouraging us to hope for life after death. Jesus is passing on the knowledge of what resurrection means so we may change our consciousness to become aware of his spirit and presence even without physical evidence. Jesus’ life of loving presence and self-gift continues after his death, resurrection, and ascension. Disciples will be rewarded for their love of Him and experience opposition in the world.

To know the spirit of truth, we must know Jesus, the truth, and must also know that the father demands this knowledge of and relationship with the son. This Gospel sums up our life of faith from baptism to our final vision of God. We must pass this survival strategy to others so we do not perish due to lack of knowledge. (Hosea 4:6)

The first and last point of reference of this catechesis will always be Jesus Christ himself, who is the way, and the truth, and the life. It is by looking to him in faith that Christ’s faithful can hope that he himself fulfills his promises in them, and that, by loving him with the same love with which he has loved them, they may perform works in keeping with their dignity. (CCC 1698)

Readings: Acts 6: 1-7; Psalm 33:1-2, 4-5, 18-19; 1Peter 2:4-9; John 14:1-12

War, famine, earthquakes, climate change, disasters, and disregard for people and peace are all part of what is going on in our world. In our day, it’s easy to be overwhelmed and tempted to fear for ourselves and our loved ones.

Jesus encourages us on this Fifth Sunday in Easter to “not let our hearts be troubled.” Faith in Jesus always calls us to commit our entire self to God beyond what we can feel and understand because our feelings are easily swayed and sidetracked.

The reward for such firm trust in God is a heavenly dwelling place, communion with Jesus, and the power to do works greater than him. Mastery over ourselves is God’s greatest gift to us. Jesus only shows his wounds to those who commit themselves to his passion. Faith and trust in him will always call us to go beyond our limited understanding due to human reason.

The going of Jesus to the Father is what we remember and celebrate in these upcoming days leading to the climax of the Easter season. This is our way. The going of Jesus enables the Holy Spirit to make the Lord ever present to the church for all time, and in every place, his disciples gather. This is our truth.

The church has always had tensions between the many people and groups the spirit has gathered. The church always has and always will adapt the apostolic ministry to the changing challenges of every era and, by sacraments and liturgies, retain those traditions giving the life of Jesus again and again to every age. This is our life.

Wherever we are, wherever we live, we are dwelling places where the love of God, in Jesus, resides. Whatever we see and whatever we do are opportunities to imitate that love and help conform creation and all the souls living within to experience the merciful love we have encountered.

The house of God is not only in heaven but wherever God is. The many dwelling places are living stones living out the unity of the Trinity. By prayer, works, and sacrament, we are becoming a holy priesthood dedicated by baptism to the worship and service of God because we love and serve God in each other.