We are created to serve God by encouraging and lifting one another up.
“When you have done all you have been commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants; we have done what we were obliged to do'” (Lk 17:10).
This closing line from our Gospel reading today can be a hard verse to digest at first glance, especially with our track record of slavery in the U.S. We need to remember and recognize that this was a teaching that Jesus shared in a different time period, in a different culture, and in a place far removed from any clear modern context. The master/slave relationship is also a theme that Luke returns to often.
Another important point to touch upon when reading the Gospels is that when Jesus made the statement that, “we are unprofitable servants; we have done what we are obliged to do”, we are not to read this verse in isolation from the full context of Scripture. Jesus himself modeled service at the last supper when he washed his disciples’ feet (cf. Jn 13:1-17). This was the lowest of menial tasks. St Paul wrote to the Galatians informing them that in the Body of Christ there is no Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male nor female (cf. Galatians 3:28). The ultimate point is that God is God and we are not and we all have a part to play in participating in promoting the kingdom of God by following his lead.
As a disciple of Jesus, we are not to seek adulation and glory. We are to serve God and one another without hesitation. We are not to ask in the words of James and John, “Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left” (Mk 10:37). We serve God because he is the director and we are the directed. He is the master and we are the servant. In aligning ourselves in this way, we also experience the intrinsic joy of following his will.
When I oversee students in our cafeteria during retreats and other opportunities, as they finish eating, instead of telling them to pick up after themselves, I begin to pick up some of their plates and trash. I serve them. Some are quite happy to receive the service, some will say thank you, while others will join in to assist. It is my hope to model for them acts of service that they may respond in kind as well and experience the joy of serving themselves.
May we be open to serve God and one another today. No task is too menial or beneath us, nor do we need to be concerned about doing big and grandiose things. We just need to be obedient and act as God leads us. Each chance we have, to smile, to hold a door, to acknowledge a prejudice and be willing to interact with someone who we have considered as “other”, to be patient and present instead of losing our temper, and/or to listen with understanding, are all opportunities to say to someone that they have dignity and worth and that they matter.
Pope Francis said in a homily on June 11, that we are to: “Serve and give freely that which you have received freely. May our life of holiness be permeated by this openness of heart, so that the gratuitousness of God – the graces that He wishes to give us without cost – may enter our hearts.” As our hearts expand through small acts of kindness we are moved to serve and to love even more. As St Mother Teresa said, we are to be a pencil in God’s hand. In our willingness to be moved by God to serve, we and those in our realm of influence will be better for the effort. Our country and our world are in desperate need of some unconditional acts of kindness and service.
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Photo credit: Icon of service!
Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, November 12, 2019
Mindful breathing can help us to be more forgiving.
“If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents, forgive him. And if he wrongs you seven times in one day and returns to you seven times saying, ‘I am sorry,’ you should forgive him” (Lk 17:3-4).
Forgiveness is a cornerstone of our faith tradition as Christians. If we question or struggle with the degree of forgiveness we engage in, we are in good company with Peter, thinking he was being generous, Peter asked Jesus how many times should he forgive, seven times? Jesus responded, “I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times” (cf. Mt 18:21-22).
Luke records the exchange of the disciples asking Jesus to teach them to pray. He taught them the Our Father or Lord’s Prayer. While reciting this prayer often each day or multiple times each day, we say, “Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” or “forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Mt 6:11-12).
One of the barometers of being a faithful disciple of Jesus is that we are people who practice the sacred act of forgiveness. To forgive does not mean in any way that we justify the offense or even necessarily forget. We are to hold people accountable and lead them to respect our dignity and the dignity of others.
Holding on to grudges, seeking revenge, being unwilling to forgive, can be incapacitating, debilitating, and can lead to a premature as well as eternal death. What can be of help is if we can choose to be more mindful of our thoughts and actions. At the moment we experience discomfort from what someone says or does, instead of giving in to the temptation to react or to let our mind run with the offense, we need to take some deep breaths and relax our shoulders. As the negative thoughts attempt to rise again, don’t fight or feed the thoughts, just return to being aware of our breath and ask Jesus to help us be more understanding and forgiving.
Often we project onto others our own stuff, but we also rarely know what another is going through or dealing with. This is not a justification for the harm done, but a way to see a different perspective than our own limited point of view, and possibly bring us a few steps closer to being more supportive and provide an opportunity of healing for the one who has inflicted us.
We may struggle with being forgiving because we have not sought forgiveness ourselves. Advent is coming. It is a season to prepare to celebrate the coming of Jesus into our lives. This season provides a wonderful opportunity to participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Forgiveness is a healing gift of God’s grace. Once we have felt the healing balm of forgiveness, we might be more willing to forgive others.
Find a place of quiet, ask God to help you to forgive, even if your prayer begins, “God, I cannot forgive, I hurt too much, but help me to let go, please help me to forgive, (insert name).” Return each day until you can bring yourself to say, “I forgive, (insert name).” Visualize yourself saying that you forgive the person face to face and imagine an act of reconciliation. If the opportunity presents itself you may want to say that you forgive the person directly, send an email, or write a letter – even if you do not press send or mail it.
With the intent to forgive and asking for the help of Jesus who has forgiven us, even if in the beginning we are unwilling, with time, reconciliation is possible. Let us remember: “Forgive and you will be forgiven”.
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Photo: One of my quiet places to pray at home and seek forgiveness.
Link for the Mass readings for Monday, November 11, 2019
Together in this life and into the next.
The Sadducees taunt Jesus with their absurd proposition of seven brothers dying and each marrying the same woman to fulfill the law. They were ultimately challenging Jesus to defend the concept of the afterlife, which the Sadducees themselves did not believe in. This is why they were sad you see? (Could not resist 🙂
Jesus responded to their charge by stating that, “The children of this age marry and remarry; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Lk 20:36).
Jesus gives us a glimpse into the life hereafter in our Gospel for today. Heaven is a different reality than we experience now in this present life. It may be helpful to think of heaven as not so much a place but instead as a spiritual reality of communion and relationship with God that transcends our three-dimensional experience. We were created by God to be one with and in union with him. The fullness of this gift will be consummated when we die with Christ and rise with him.
When we participate in the Mass, we get another glimpse of heaven. For, in this celebration, we participate on earth as it is in heaven. There is a divine unity of heaven and earth at the climax of the consecration of bread and wine. Jesus is able to be truly present on every altar throughout the world because of his Resurrection.
In this sacred act, Jesus not only conquered death and rose again, but he also now operates on a different dimensional level. This is how we are truly able to consume the Body and Blood of the risen Jesus who now transcends space and time. He becomes substantially present after the consecration though the appearance of bread and wine are unchanged. As we consume him, we become one with him in his divinity organically and spiritually.
I believe that the closer we come to know and experience Jesus, the closer we are to those experiencing his full communion in heaven. Jesus assures us in today’s Gospel that we will live on into the next life and experience an intimacy with his Father and each other deeper than any relationship we have ever or will ever experience in this lifetime.
When JoAnn and I picked out our wedding bands, we had the jeweler etch the word eternally on the inside of each of our rings. I believe in this promise we made to each other and that I will be with JoAnn again in a deeper and more wonderful way, far beyond my present imagination and understanding. A deeper intimacy than our marriage and the relationship we had ever experienced together in our time together in this life. “The God of Abraham… is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Lk 20:37-38). In these words, I place my trust and my hope, for JoAnn, for you, and for me.
This photo was taken a few weeks before JoAnn took the hand of Jesus and he lead her home to see God face to face.
Link for the Mass readings for Sunday, November 10, 2019
We encounter Jesus in the church so we can go out to build up the Church, the Body of Christ.
When I ask my students if Jesus ever sinned, inevitably, some reference the account from today’s Gospel. In these verses, we read how Jesus, “made a whip out of cords and drove them all out of the temple area” (Jn 2:15). Jesus is not sinning here, rather, he is acting in line with the prophetic tradition. Jesus is making a bold spectacle to drive home the point that the temple is not a marketplace but is to be a place of worship and right praise to his Father.
Greater still than the temple, is the people of God. Further down in the text, when those present ask for a sign as to the reason he commits this act, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). Clearly, he was pointing to his body as the temple of God and referring to his Resurrection that would come.
The temple, the house of God, believed to be the very corporal presence, the very seat of God among his people, Israel, was destroyed in 70 AD by the Romans. This left a tremendous spiritual vacuum. Two groups that were intimately tied to the sacrificial cult of the temple, the Sadducees and the Essenes, very soon after the destruction, ceased to exist as a sect within Judaism. The Pharisees, who already were moving to a practice of home worship that mirrored the worship in the temple, would survive and be the ancestral root of Judaism today. Another sect would also arise as the followers of the new way of Jesus which became the Church, the Body of Christ.
Each of us has a unique part to play in the Church. We are called to bear witness and practice, in our unique way, our faith in our everyday experiences. We may be the only Bible someone ever reads. This call to put our faith into action is not an invitation to be overwhelmed by nor an excuse to assume a posture of elitism. We are no better than anyone else.
Pope Francis wrote: “Believers should not be presumptuous; rather, truth leads to humility. We know it is not ourselves possessing truth, it is truth that embraces and possesses us” (Costello 2013, 14). We are to seek and follow Jesus, the Truth, and allow his truth to shape our lives. We need to resist being defensive and rigid. Instead, we are called to be flexible and open to dialogue, sharing our stories and experiences, and inviting others to do the same. When we are willing to encounter and walk together, we learn and grow from one another. We become less other and more human to one another.
We need to resist all that contributes in any way to the dehumanization, hate, and violence that is rampant in our country and the world by rooting ourselves in Jesus, the living Temple. We need to recognize that we all fall short of the glory of God and on our own, we are limited in how far we can go. We need to be willing to be conformed to the will of God through spending consistent time in silence, prayer, study, worship, and service to be empowered by the love of Christ to be instruments of peace, contemplatives in action, and advocates for healing and reconciliation in a wounded and weary church, politics, country, and world.
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Photo: Exiting Mass from Mission del Rey, Oceanside, CA. We are dismissed after Mass to “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by our life.”
Costello, Gwen. Walking With Pope Francis: Thirty Days with the Encyclical The Light of Faith. New London, CT: Twenty Third Publications, 2013.
Link to the Mass readings for Friday, November 9, 2019
Jesus, please help us to be more prudent in serving you.
In the Parable of the Dishonest Steward, the steward who is on the block to lose his job for squandering his lord’s property comes up with a plan to settle his lord’s accounts. He lessened the amount owed with the intent to gain some support from those who had debts to pay to his master. Most likely he was giving up his own profits in settling these debts, much like a real estate agent or car salesman today would forego their commission to make a sale. He loses in the short term but hoped to gain some understanding in the long term with those debtors who were receiving a favorable payment on their debts.
The prudence or cleverness of the steward is commended by the lord because the dishonest steward had utilized foresight, which was a better quality to develop than the original squandering that landed him in this predicament in the first place.
Jesus commenting on this parable also acknowledged those who were clever in worldly ways, thinking and acting with prudence – being shrewd and having the foresight to navigate potential conflicts to acquire the desired goal is admirable. Jesus then shared the insight that we as “children of the light” ought to act with prudence as well. The difference being, the application is not for personal gain but applying cleverness in evangelization. As we spread the Gospel, we do so, not in a one size fits all approach, but being present and adjusting to each person in their uniqueness.
Many in the Church have gone before us aware of the needs of those people in their midst and coming up with creative ways to minister to them. Often they too, utilized the model of the steward’s prudence in today’s Gospel, giving up their opportunity for immediate gain to provide for the needs of others.
St. Francis of Assisi, lived his youth, not as a faithful steward, but as a pampered troubadour, part of the social elite. Then as his transformation began to take hold, he began to sell off his father’s cloth and gave it to the poor. He would ultimately renounce his family name as well as all material possessions, and give all to follow Jesus.
St. Mother Teresa, left her home at eighteen, never to see her family again to become a missionary in India with the Loretto Sisters. She became a school teacher in Calcutta, by no means squandering what the Lord gave her, but she too was called to go deeper. She left the convent to serve the poorest of the poor in the streets, those in the most deplorable of conditions.
Jesus has a unique call for each of us. We too are called to be faithful stewards, to be holy, and to be saints. What needs do we see in our midst? In what ways can we be more prudent? Each of us is invited into a deeper embrace of the Gospel. “We experience faith and encounter God in our own particular time in history, and faith lights up our journey through time. Faith must be passed on in every age” (Pope Francis, 20). Jesus, please deepen our faith and help us to put it into practice in the unique way you call us to.
Photo: Statue of St. Francis in our rosary garden at St Peter Catholic Church in Jupiter, FL.
Walking With Pope Francis: Thirty Days with the Encyclical The Light of Faith. New London, CT., Twenty Third Publications, 2013.
Link for the Mass readings for Friday, November 8, 2019
Allow Jesus to embrace you with his forgiveness, love, and mercy.
In our Gospel account today, Luke records that Jesus is critiqued for eating with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus responds to the criticism of the Pharisees and the scribes by sharing three parables, two of which we read today, and the third, the Prodigal Son, is often reserved for reading on Sunday during this liturgical cycle of readings.
The two parables we are given today display the love of God the Father for his children. Though we may not find being compared to a sheep or a coin endearing, the imagery of the shepherd going to find the one lost sheep and the woman searching all over her house for the one lost coin is a message well worth meditating on.
Someone hearing this parable might say, “Why bother looking for the one sheep when you have ninety-nine other sheep or why bother looking for one insignificant coin when you have nine other ones?” But if we ponder this parable for a bit we might recall a time or feel right now that we may be lost or insignificant. What Jesus is telling us is that we matter, that God loves us more than we can ever imagine, and he is constantly seeking us out. God is the creator of the vast expanse of the cosmos yet he cares for each and every one of us individually. He cares for you as if you were the only person in the world.
We do not need to look for God so much as we need to just stop, be still,,, and notice he is already waiting for us. If we feel a bit worn or tired, misunderstood, lost, lonely or underappreciated, know that we are not alone. God cares, he is present, yes, even in the midst of any conflicts, trials or tribulations we may be going through. Even if we have separated ourselves from him through our sin, God loves us more than we can ever mess up and he is the shepherd that watches over us and seeks us out even when we walk away from him. Return to him and feel the healing balm of his forgiveness.
I experienced his forgiveness, mercy, and love this past Tuesday after going to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and I invite you to do the same when you can. In the meantime, allow yourself to let go in the loving embrace of Jesus today, breathe slowly, rest, cry, or vent. Receive the gift of his love so as to share it with someone today who also needs to know they matter, that they have dignity and that they are loved.
Photo: One of my favorite pencil drawings by Kathryn J. Brown, 1982
Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, November 7, 2019
Onlooker or disciple?
I can visualize the opening scene of today’s Gospel in my mind’s eye. Jesus striding along with a gathering of people walking, talking, and moving about, and then he just stops and turns. Those closest to Jesus pull up to a stop with him, others continue right past, while at the same time others bump into and trip over those who had stopped before them. The subtle hum of random conversation then slowly comes to a halt, a stillness ripples through the crowd, and then there is silence. The dust begins to settle. Those closest have their eyes locked on his, while those further back are craning their necks, moving left and right to get a better look, others are cupping their ears to catch the sound of Jesus’ voice.
These crowds most likely consisted of some disciples, while the greater majority were those on the periphery gathering because of curiosity, intrigue, and maybe even wonder. Jesus then begins to speak, “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife or children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple” and then finishes with “In the same way, everyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple” (cf. Lk 14:25-33).
Those may be hearing it second hand, as they were further away from the point of direct hearing, may not believe that the message was transmitted to them correctly. These words cut to the quick, just as surely as when Jesus shared about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, and when he told another follower, who wanted to bury his father to let the dead bury their dead. Luke does not say, but I am sure that many of those gathered around him were just as shocked and began to walk away.
The familial bond for ancient peoples was strong. Though the invitation of salvation that Jesus offers is for all to be saved, he is not going to dumb down or sugar coat his message just to get numbers. Jesus presents, time and again, that the way to live a life of fullness and wholeness, to restore that which has been lost, is to put God first in our lives. God must be the primary focus, the primary relationship in our life, nothing else can have priority of place before him. When we do so, all other things will fall into their proper place.
We need to ask ourselves if we want to be an onlooker, just someone looking at Jesus from a distance, or a disciple, willing to be his servant sent forth to share the Gospel and invite others into relationship with him? Are we attached to any possessions, false substitutes, even members of our family, such that we place them before our relationship with God? Idols are anything that we put before God and will distract us from the very flow of his life force that fuels our existence. If we are willing to walk the path of discipleship, we must be willing to surrender our will to God, place him first in our lives, and be open to being transformed by his love.
Jesus is to be the interpretive key that opens our understanding to all else. All that which is material and finite in our lives find meaning in relation to him. Only when we are able to let go of the attachments to the things of this world will we then truly begin to be free, to be other-centered, to be more patient, understanding, and willing to love and be more present to our father and mother, wife or children, brother and sister, and even our very self and our neighbor.
Photo: In the chapel at St Ignatius Cathedral, just prior to my ordination Mass, September 2013. To my left, long-time friend Fr. Ed O’Brien, a true disciple!
Photo Credit: Deacon Michael Miller
Link for the Mass readings Wednesday, November 6, 2019
We have been invited to participate in reconciliation, friendship, and communion.
One of those at table with Jesus said to him, “Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.” He replied to him, “A man gave a great dinner to which he invited many. When the time for the dinner came, he dispatched his servant to say to those invited, ‘Come, everything is now ready'” (Lk 14:15-17)
In the midst of increasing violence, polarization, shouting over one another, delegitimizing, and dehumanizing one another, some react by sinking into cynicism, indifference, apathy, or worse, despair and hopelessness, while others dig in deeper and strike back with harsh words, rhetoric, or more violence. These reactions were present in Jesus’ time as well, yet he leads us to an alternative response to deal with division and hatred.
Judaism was far from unified. The Sadducees, Pharisees and scribes, Samaritans, Zealots, and Essenes all felt they were the authentic expression of Israel. Jesus not only addressed this division by sitting down to break bread with as diverse a population as possible, but he also shared parables around the same idea of the invitation to share in the celebration of a feast, as we read today.
Each encounter that we are blessed to partake in is an invitation to experience communion. We have the opportunity to interact in person, face to face, or through the myriad of other technological means of social media. Through each opportunity, we can demean, degrade, delegitimize, gossip, or defame or we can accept the invitation of encounter by embracing the opportunity to treat each other with dignity, respect, kindness, and understanding, yes, even when we disagree.
We all have wounds, each of us have suffered or are suffering, and we have or are experiencing pain in some form or fashion. We all seek to belong, to be a part of, and to be accepted. We need each other. Each day we have a choice to make. We can further perpetuate the condition of original sin, choosing our self over God and one another, or we can engage in being a healing agent of reconciliation, friendship, and communion.
Jesus helps us to notice the suffering of our brothers and sisters, to be aware of their trials and tribulations. When others act toward us in any way that is less than kind, grant us patience. If someone is short with us, let us resist the defensive response and instead ask if there is any way we can help. If someone is talking over us, grant us the mindfulness to take a deep breath and listen. Ultimately, please help us to be a vehicle for the love of God in our interactions with one another.
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Photo: Embodying friendship
Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, November 5, 2019
Spiritual Stepping Stones 