“Be vigilant at all times and pray that you have the strength to escape the tribulations that are imminent and to stand before the Son of Man” (21:36).

These are the last words we will hear or read this liturgical year from the readings of the Mass. The season of Advent and the new liturgical year begins tonight at the vigil Mass. As I read these words, I thought they are not only good words to end the year with but that they would also be good words to read at the beginning of each day.

“Be vigilant at all times” are certainly words to abide by. This is not a call to be paranoid or to live in fear. This is a call to be aware, to watch, and pray. Being vigilant is also a reminder that we need to resist the temptation of speeding through life with blinders on and not taking time to listen to that quiet voice of God that is available to guide us day in and day out. The more we hear the subtle, quiet leading of the Holy Spirit and ignore it, the less we grow in our awareness of his presence in our lives or the presence of those who need his mercy, grace, and love.

Worse yet, the less we take the time to hear and know God’s word, the more we will be tempted and persuaded by the myriad of other voices that are not from God, that might lead us astray. That is why prayer is so important, so we can develop an ear for our loving God and Father’s guiding voice heard when we are still. Once we begin to recognize his voice spoken in the silence of our hearts, we will begin to hear him speak in our daily activities.

Being vigilant also requires us to surrender our self-serving ego, for if we want what we want when we want, if we just keep up our pace at a fever pitch, if we are feeding ourselves with apparent goods, we can open ourselves up to some unsatisfying and pretty horrible scenarios.

God will provide us with the strength and awareness to pass through any tribulations. There are those who seek to do us harm in so many ways and forms that are unconscionable, yet, pretending that they aren’t there doesn’t work and being paralyzed with fear makes us more vulnerable. We need to be aware of, and establish clear boundaries for ourselves and communicate them with others. Each time we listen to our intuition, our conscience, and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit, we increase our confidence in who we are and who God is guiding us to be. We can also sidestep scenarios that can lead us down some very dark pathways.

Even while being vigilant people of prayer, challenges will still arise before us and those we care for. We live in a fallen world. There is imperfect actors within the Church as well. But in each and every case, we are to maintain hope in the one who we will be preparing for this Advent, the Son of Man, who we stand before. He is the Light that shines in the darkness who has not and will not be overcome by it (cf. John 1:5).

Though others may let us down, Jesus is the one we can trust. Jesus is the one who will accompany us through the trials and tribulations we face. As St Augustine said in one of his homilies, “while we are still in the midst of this evil, let us sing alleluia to the good God who delivers us from evil.” For, in the end, Jesus the Christ will be the one to lead us home to the Father’s embrace for all eternity. Watch and pray today and all days!

Painting: Head view of Rembrandt’s Christ with Arms Folded.

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, November 27, 2021

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Lk 21:33).

All that exists and that we know will pass away eventually because all things are finite, they are limited and material. The readings of this week repeat the same theme that we are not to place our hope and trust ultimately in the things of this world. The longer we live, the more we will experience loss, even the death of those closest to us.

The words of Jesus will not pass away because Jesus is who he proclaimed himself to be, God. He is the Logos, the Word, the very reality of God. Hearing his word is not enough though. We need to mediate and ponder his words, put his words into action and practice in our lives. In so doing, Jesus becomes one with us in our humanity and we, one with him in his divinity. In God’s time, we will begin to bear fruit. We will become like the fig trees when their buds burst open.

Momento Mori is the Latin phrase that means, remember you will die. Accepting the reality of death and contemplating on our deaths is not a morbid exercise when we enter this pondering with the end goal in mind that we will be one day be with God for all eternity. Also, those who contemplate their deaths more regularly live more fully now. By doing so, we don’t take our life for granted because we come to see the fragile nature of our human condition. We also come to realize that we do not know the time or hour when others or we ourselves will die.

What and who is really important to you in your life? Dr. Leo Buscaglia was a professor at USC and while he was still alive he assigned his students this proposition. Each of his pupils were to imagine that they had one week to live, and they were to come up with a list of what they would want to do for that week and with whom they would want to spend it with. After they turned in their assignments, Dr. Buscaglia then asked his students, “Why not live this way now? Why do you have to wait until you are dying to start living your life more fully?”

The less we push uncomfortable situations away to avoid them and the less we cling to wonderful experiences once they are gone, the more we will be able to fully experience the gift of our lives in the moment. Jesus helps us to live in this way because he lives in the eternal present. We are going to die someday, so let us begin to start living now.

Jesus, please help us to appreciate and experience each moment as it comes. Help us to resist denying or putting off conflicts and instead embrace and grow through them. Help us to be thankful for our enjoyable experiences, to look back and enjoy them from time to time, yet also resist clinging to them and to the past so that we can be free to experience even more wonderful expressions of life you have planned for us. Help us to bloom where we have been planted and to lives our life to the full.

Photo: Sometimes knowing the time we have left can be a blessing. Enjoying our final two months together with JoAnn, July 4th weekend, 2019. Swan boat ride on Echo Lake in, LA.

Link for the readings for Friday, November 26, 2021

As they were going they were cleansed. And one of them, realizing he had been healed,
returned, glorifying God in a loud voice; and he fell at the feet of Jesus and thanked him (Lk 17:14-15). Ten were healed from their leprosy and only one, a Samaritan, after realizing he was healed, returned to thank Jesus.

It is a good practice to spend some time each day to reflect on what we are thankful for. To see where God has entered our lives and provided assistance. At times when we feel a bit down and out, or in a bit of a funk, often the reason may be that we are focusing, on what we do not have instead of on what we do have. There is a quote, I am not sure of the source, that goes: “I cried because I had no shoes, and then I came upon a man with no feet.” We can be so bombarded by the mass appeal to the material, that we forget the truly important realities of this life that we have been given.

Times of family coming together can get a bit messy. There is all the cleaning, setting up and the prep for the big dinner, the travel, the unresolved issues of life, and there are the wonderful gifts of diverse personalities and points of view. If we can periodically stop, take a breath and be thankful for the fact that we have families and friends to prepare for, be messy and grumble with, we might appreciate each other a bit more and grumble a little less.

As Jesus reminds us, we do not know the time or the hour. Life is finite and fragile in the best case scenarios. We will not be here forever nor will those we love. November is a time in the Church when we remember those who have joined the communion of saints as well as those on the way. I know too many who have lost those close to their hearts.  My prayer is that they and JoAnn are now home with God and may we remember them through pictures and stories shared.

My thoughts and prayers are with you this day. Please allow the warm embracing arms of our loving God and Father to embrace you and be a reminder that we are never alone and that God cares for each and every one of us and our loved ones.

Jesus, please help us to remember that life is a gift to appreciate. Help us to be thankful for our lives and the lives of those near and far that we are blessed to call family and friends. May we also remember and pray that the Holy Spirit may provide comfort and aid for those who may be alone, struggling, or without family, food and/or a home this day.

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Photo: All together for Thanksgiving at Mia’s in San Francisco two years ago!

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, November 25, 2021

Jesus said to the crowd: “They will seize and persecute you, they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons, and they will have you led before kings and governors because of my name” (Lk 21:12).

Each of the predictions above; being seized, persecuted, handed over, and led before the rulers happened to Jesus’ disciples as was recorded by Luke in his second volume, the Acts of the Apostles. Jesus did not nor does he hide or paint a rosy picture of discipleship. He consistently shared and modeled in his own life how demanding it will be to follow his lead, the will of his Father, the demands of discipleship, as well as the reality of having to endure the persecutions of others. This continues to be true today. In fact, the number of Christian martyrs in the twentieth century rose to a higher level than at any other time in history combined.

Yet, there have been those who have said yes to the invitation to be a disciple of Jesus generation after generation. Each of us has to make our own commitment to Christ. It is a personal invitation and a personal response. Though the demands, the sacrifices, and the expectations are high, Jesus is present with us through the journey. St. Paul equated discipleship with running a race: “Every athlete exercises discipline in every way. They do it to win a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one” (I Cor 9:25).

Any athlete, musician, artist, or person engaged in any serious endeavor, must discipline themselves to accomplish their goal of freedom for mastery, for excellence. A lack of concerted discipline, fluency, and freedom for the sought after goal does not usually end well. The same is true with discipleship.

The discipline required that Jesus presents in today’s Gospel of Luke is to remain firm in authentically living out our faith even in the face of pushback and hostility. This pressure may not just come from those who would seek us harm, but from family, friends, and/or peers. This is where the issue of putting God first comes to bear again. We are not to be belligerent or in someone’s face about living our faith. We are to meet others with love, mercy, and respect, while at the same time not back down and away from what we believe. We are called to learn the teachings of our faith, put them into practice, share them with others, and clarify what we believe through dialogue with charity.

We are to also respect and allow another the opportunity to do the same. From a place of mutual respect and honoring the diversity of others within and without of our own faith traditions, as well as those having none, we grow. People are free to decide as they wish. We need to resist the temptation to water down what we believe to be accepted or to appease. Sometimes people will react emotionally, rudely, crudely, or even violently. Yet that is not an excuse nor does it provide the green light to respond in kind. If we do, then we will often feed into and justify another person’s preconceived notions.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen said: “There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be.” As disciples of Jesus Christ, it is our job to: know our faith and what we believe, live it out authentically, and clarify as needed through respectful dialogue, and above all to be icons of hope and love. We need not be afraid. The Holy Spirit will give us the words to speak as well as the ears to hear. The gift of respectful dialogue will result in the deepening of our relationship with the one who made us for himself and one another; for where there is the truth, there is God who is Truth.

Photo: Memorial today of St Andrew Dung-Lac and martyrs, over 130,000 died in Vietnam during various periods persecution between 1625 to 1886.

Photo by Nheyob (cropped by Rabanus Flavus) – File:Saint Paul Catholic Church (Westerville, Ohio) – stained glass, arcade, Saint Andrew Dung Lac.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0

Link for the Mass readings for Wednesday, November 24, 2021

While some people were speaking about how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings, Jesus said, “All that you see here– the days will come when there will not be left a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down” (Lk 21:5-6).

As we read yesterday, Jesus observed the widow donating her two coins. Today Jesus observes those who are commenting about the wonders of Herod’s temple. Jesus responds by sharing, as did Jeremiah, that the temple will fall, and not a stone upon another stone will be left. The reality of this statement would come to pass in 70 AD when the Romans destroyed the temple and crushed the Jewish rebellion during the Jewish War from 66-70 AD. The only significant remnant of the temple still to this day is the western retaining wall, also known as the Wailing Wall.

The people of the ancient Near East certainly witnessed and passed on tales of the rise and fall of mighty kingdoms beginning with Egypt’s impressive reign from about 3,000 to 721 BC, followed by Assyria who then gave way to Babylon. The Babylonian army would destroy Solomon’s temple as predicted by the prophet Jeremiah. The Persians would then overtake the Babylonians and push west only to be repelled by the unification of the Greek city-states under the Macedonian Philip and then his son Alexander the Great who would continue south and east all the way to India. The massive Greek empire would then give way to Rome. Rome would then fall in 476 AD.

As each empire fell, and especially during the fall of Rome, there was a great concern that the end of the world drew nigh. Throughout the ages up until the present day, nation has continued to “rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom…” and the world has experienced “powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place” (Lk 21:10-11). Each made their historical impressions on those who lived through them. There has also been a plethora of end of the world predictions from the ancients up to the more well known modern prognosticators such as Jeane Dixon, Pat Robertson, a handful of predictors around 2000, and most recently Harold Camping who caught a lot of attention with his prediction of the end of the world that was to have happened on October 21, 2011.

As of this typing, we are still here. The Gospels of Mark and Matthew record Jesus addressing the same concern of those questioning him: “But of that day or that hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (see Mark 13:32 and Matthew 24:36, RSV translation). In Luke’s presentation from today’s Gospel, he moves further away from Mark and Matthew’s eschatological or end of times talk and spoke more toward the destruction of the temple.

We have a few more days of Luke and Ordinary Time to go before the end of the liturgical year. Kingdoms have and will continue to rise and fall. Abuse of power continues worldwide. Storms and fires rampage. So many are displaced from war, terrorism, violence and too little are reaching out to provide compassion and support. Too many are enamored by our technological ingenuity and advancements, as were those who were admiring the adornment of Herod’s temple. Political division and this ongoing, global pandemic weighs heavily upon many of us. Are we in the final days? Only the Father knows.

Yet, we are not to be anxious about tomorrow as the Pope encouraged those in his homily when he spoke at Tokyo Stadium in Japan about this two years ago. We are to seek first the kingdom of God and “to re-evaluate our daily decisions and not to become trapped or isolated in the pursuit of success at any cost… [that] leave us profoundly unhappy and enslaved, and hinder the authentic development of a truly harmonious and humane society”.

We need to place our hope and trust in Jesus, the Son who knows the Father. He will help us to embrace the wonder and the marvelous gift of all life; human as well as all of God’s creation. Our investments ought to be in relationships not in anxiety and worry. We are called to encounter, accompany, and empower each person in the realm of our influence, while at the same time strive to be better stewards of God’s creation. In this way, we can make decisions, not just for what we can get now, but ones that will positively impact the next seven generations.

Photo: JoAnn and me in California around 2015.

Link for the Mass readings for Tuesday, November 23, 2021

“I tell you truly, this poor widow put in more than all the rest; for those others have all made offerings from their surplus wealth, but she, from her poverty, has offered her whole livelihood” (Lk 21:3-4).

There are biblical prescriptions for giving a tithe, meaning ten percent. We can see an example of this in the book of Genesis when Abraham offers a tithe of his possessions to the priest Melchizedek in thanksgiving to God for a successful battle and rescue of his nephew Lot (cf. Genesis 28:20-22). Tithing was practiced consistently and this, or the giving of alms, was most likely what Jesus was observing at the temple.

The widow far surpassed giving a simple tithe. Widows in Jesus’ time were often destitute and needed care and support from others. They were often recipients of alms. There was a long tradition in Judaism of the mandate to care for the widow and the orphan. This widow, though giving a significantly smaller amount than the heftier donations by those giving before her, proportionally gave much more, indeed, “her whole livelihood.”

St. Mother Teresa understood these verses very well, especially after receiving her “second call” in which she left her Loretto Convent and went to serve among the poorest of the poor in Calcutta. Often in her talks, she mentioned giving until it hurts, not from our surplus, but more like the widow. To her, this was true giving.

One of the many examples of giving Mother Teresa witnessed was when she gave a cup of rice to a poor Hindu family. The mother was very grateful for the gift and as soon as she received the rice, she measured out half of her portion and went to her Muslim neighbors to share what she had received. Upon her return, the woman told Mother Teresa, “They are hungry too.”

What impressed Mother Teresa was not that the woman shared the meager amount that she had received, she had often observed the generosity of the poor. She was touched by the fact that this woman was aware of her neighbor’s need.

Mother’s charge to us is, “Are we aware?”

Are we willing to see the needs within our own family as well as the needs of others? If so, are we then willing to share? We do not need to share just monetarily. We can and ought to discern how we can give of our time, talent, and treasure.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus’ observation and pointing out how the widow “gave more than all the rest” shows us how to participate in the kingdom of God. We are to recognize all that we have is a gift from God and all truly belongs to God. We are simply stewards of what he has given us. This teaching is apparent in the parables of the talents, the gold coins, and Matthew 25 – what you do for the least of my brothers and sisters, you do to me.

When we are willing to embrace the love of Jesus, he will empower us to be better stewards of our time, talent, and treasure so that all of our life is a participation in the building up of the kingdom of God. In this way, we will see not just poverty, hunger, or immigration, but a person who is poor, a human being who is hungry, a brother or sister who needs help and support to begin a better life.

When we are willing to share the love we have received, we will not see just an abstract problem but through the eyes of God we will see the opportunities for new relationships. We will also be more likely to put Mother Teresa’s words into practice, to “give until it hurts with a smile,” so that we too can experience the joy of sharing God’s love.

Photo of St. Mother Teresa that I took when I saw her in Massachusetts in the early ’90s.

Link of video of St Mother Teresa talk at National Prayer Breakfast 1994. Her talk begins at 48:58

Link for the Mass readings for Monday, November 22, 2021

Today is the last Sunday in Ordinary Time. Next Sunday will begin the new liturgical year in the Church calendar as we begin Advent. In today’s Gospel from John, Jesus faces the Roman procurator, Pontius Pilate:

“So Pilate said to him, “Then you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (Jn 18:37).

Clearly, Jesus is a king, yet not in the way of other kings who have gone before him or followed after. As Jesus said before his above statement, “My kingdom does not belong to this world” (Jn 18:36). The Son of God came among us to re-orient, to re-align the worldly order. Leadership is to not to be about the aggrandizement of self nor at the expense of others. God was very aware of the suffering of his people. He sent Moses to free his people from slavery from Egypt and he sent his Son to free all humanity from our slavery to sin.

Yet this freedom has a cost. Today we are reminded that we have a choice to make. Who are we to serve? Are we to serve Pharaoh or Moses, Pilate or Jesus, our self or God. If we seek to be free from the shackles of our slavery to sin, the choice is clear that we are to listen to the voice of the king of the universe, the truth of Jesus the Christ.

We can see in our own actions who we serve and whose voice we listen to in the action or inaction we direct toward one another. Are we indifferent, blind to another’s suffering or are we aware and willing to get involved, to be merciful, as Fr. James Keenan, S.J. wrote, “willing to enter the chaos of another.”

The reign of Jesus is about personal encounter. We serve Christ the King when we are willing to be aware of and accompanying one another. We are not to be about bringing world peace, ending hunger, providing homes for all in some abstract utopian pursuit. We are instead to be about treating each person we meet with dignity, we are to see Jesus in our midst: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, a stranger and you welcomed me, naked and you clothed me, ill and you cared for me, in prison and you visited me” (Mt 25:35-37). Jesus our king, commands us to act as he lived, to be aware, to accompany, and to make a difference, one life at a time.

We may feel overwhelmed with our own struggles, let alone the present state of our country or weight of the world, but we do not have to bear the weight alone, nor are we expected to change the world. We begin each day with ourselves. We are invited to resist the temptation to turn within and instead adjust our attitude and focus outward, while at the same time making a commitment to serve Jesus in one another. God is guiding us already through the love of the Holy Spirit he shares with us, we just need to be willing to receive his love, and have eyes to see, ears to hear, and a willingness to participate in his will.

On this feast day of Christ the King, let us remember who is in control and allow Jesus to re-orient and re-align the order of our life. Are we willing to allow Jesus to lead us such that we are willing to enter the chaos of another? May we, in this final week of Ordinary Time, choose who we will serve. What may help is to spend some time reading and meditating on the Beatitudes (Mt 5:1-12) and chapter 25 of Matthew. Jesus gives us not only this blueprint on how to be collaborators with him, he empowers us to accomplish that which he guides us to do.

As Pope Francis said in a 2014 homily these are: “Few words, simple words, but practical for all. Because Christianity is a practical religion: it is not just to be imagined, it is to be practiced. If you have some time at home today, take the Gospel, Matthew’s Gospel, chapter five. At the beginning there are the Beatitudes; in chapter 25 the rest. And it will do you good to read them once, twice, three times. Read this programme for holiness. May the Lord give us the grace to understand his message.”

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Pope Francis meeting with street kids in Manila, credit catholicnewsworld.com

Fr James Keenan article on Mercy:
http://www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/scandal-mercy-excludes-no-one

Pope Francis homily, 6 September 2014: http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2014/06/09/pope_the_beatitudes,_a_practical_programme_for_holiness/1101553

Link to the Mass readings for Sunday, November 21, 2021

The Sadducees present an absurd scenario for Jesus to respond to: a woman’s spouse died leaving her childless and then successively married her husband’s six brothers who all died, also leaving her childless. The question from the Sadducees was, “Now at the resurrection whose wife will that woman be? For all seven had been married to her.” (Lk 20:33)? The Sadducees sought to have Jesus weigh in on whether or not there was a resurrection of the dead.

The Sadducees did not believe in a resurrection of the dead because they only believed in a literal interpretation of the Torah, the law, or the teachings, which we as Christians today recognize as the first five books of the Old Testament. In the Torah, there is no overt reference to the resurrection. The Pharisees recognized the written Torah, but also acknowledged an oral tradition beyond the written text, and thus acknowledged the resurrection of the dead. Jesus deftly answered the question by keying in on the verse from Exodus: “That the dead will rise even Moses made known in the passage about the bush, when he called ‘Lord’ the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive” (Lk 20:37-38).

Jesus clearly pointed out that God was not a God of the dead but of the living. The deeper reason for the question was ultimately, and is the question that also arises today, “What goes on in heaven? What do we do all day?” Jesus’ response to the Sadducees then and to us today is: “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. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise” (Lk 20:34-36).

What Jesus means is that heaven is a different reality than we experience here on earth. Heaven is a different dimension of existence without temporal time as we know it. We will no longer marry because we will be living eternally, there will be no death, no more need to procreate.

Also, heaven is not so much a geographical place as it is a relationship and experience of an intimate and deep communion with God and those present with us. We want to know what we are going to do there because we are attached to what we have and what we do here. In heaven, we will experience the fulfillment of that which we have been created for, that which we truly crave and hunger for, that which will fulfill our deepest longing, which is to look upon God face to face, what theologians call the beatific vision.

Many would scoff and say, “That’s it?” I am sure there is more, but if that was all, there would be more joy, more acceptance, more totality of being than we could ever imagine or embrace in just a second of that eternal gaze. As the psalmist wrote: “Better one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere” (Psalm 84:11).

Definitively speaking, heaven is a mystery to us. Again, the Mystery of God is not a problem to be solved but a relationship to experience and develop. This is why prayer, worship, encounter, relationships, and experiencing God’s creation are so important. Each one is an encounter with the living God, each is a foretaste of heaven. If we are only tied to the material, the finite, our self apart from others, we will succumb to attachments and addictions that will create walls of division and separation such that we cannot even begin to conceive of the eternal or spiritual ground and foundation of our existence.

A good daily practice is to be more mindful and more present in what we do. This can begin when we pray. We can slow down our breath and allow our mind to be more still. We can reread today’s Gospel slowly, multiple times, pondering it, wondering about the gift of eternal communion with God, the God of the living, and what it would be like to see God face to face. We can worship with a community of faith this weekend, and actually sing during the service. God does not implore that we sing well, but only that we make a joyful noise unto the Lord (cf Psalms 98, 100).

During the Mass, heaven and earth become one through the presence of Jesus in his people gathered, his word proclaimed, and his real presence in the Eucharist. In our homes and in our everyday experiences, it is important to focus on what we are doing at the moment instead of allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by thinking of twenty other things such that we walk into the next room and forget why we went in there in the first place. It is especially important to really experience, accompany, and be with the people around us, talking with and listening to one another.

It is also helpful to seek a ministry of service in which we can participate in regularly as well as invite someone to join us. We can spend some time immersed in the wonder of God’s creation, whether taking a walk, taking long deep breathes while looking at the starry night, or just sitting and watching all the gifts of life unfolding before us by, birds, otters, bobcats, or whatever may cross our path. Each one of these practices provides us with an opportunity to encounter the God of all creation, the God of the living, and to experience a foretaste of heaven!

Photo: A family of bobcats JoAnn noticed playing in our backyard a few years ago. Witnessing the living interconnectedness between the three: A living icon of the Trinity?

Link for the Mass readings for Saturday, November 20, 2021

Jesus entered the temple area and proceeded to drive out all those who were selling things, saying to them, “It is written, My house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves” (Lk 19:45-46).

Luke’s account of Jesus casting out the money changers is the most succinct of all four Gospels. Luke uses the Greek term for “drive or cast out” – ekballō, eight other times. Each time he used it, Luke was making reference to exorcising demons and unclean spirits. The profanation of the body through possession of evil is equivalent to the desecration of the Temple precincts.

Jesus justified his actions of driving the sellers out of the Temple precincts by saying: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19). Jesus showed the dignity of our humanity, in that as the Son of God he entered our humanity. He entered into the chaos of our lives, our faults, and foibles, our sins while remaining sinless himself. He showed that even though we have turned away from God, we are not destroyed. He reminds us that what God has created is good and that includes us. Even when we turn away, he continually and infinitely reaches out to us in love and calls us home.

One of the wonderful features of the upcoming holidays is that families seek to come together, to return home. For some it has been a long time because of Covid and some may still not be able to do so in person but will be able to so through phone, email, or the other avenues of media platforms we now have available. But there are those, we may even experience this ourselves, who have recently lost someone who has died, or we may be estranged, or those who no longer have a family. There are those suffering today that are homeless, displaced, refugees and immigrants, or living in fear of deportation. May we pray for them and be avenues of solidarity and reconciliation when and where we can.

No matter who or where we are, Jesus is present. He became one with us to restore our communion with God and one another. He provides the living water that quenches the thirst of our deepest longings. Jesus, our Temple, our new covenant, the dwelling place of God, is alive and present to each one of us in every condition, situation, time, and the place we find ourselves. Through his resurrection, ascension, and our participation in his life, he has made us temples of the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit.

Jesus meets us where we are and loves us as we are, yet he wants more for us. Jesus, please cast out, as you did in the temple precincts, all from our being that would defile us and keep us bound in sin. Send the Holy Spirit to reign in our hearts that we may embody and bear his love with all we meet so to be reconciled with God and one another.

Painting: By El Greco, 1600 – Christ Driving the Traders from the Temple

Link for the Mass readings for Friday, November 20, 2021

As Jesus drew near Jerusalem, he saw the city and wept over it, saying, “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes” (Lk 19:42).

What Jesus foretold in these words would arrive some thirty years after his death. Jewish and Roman conflicts increased until it spilled over in 66 AD. A Jewish rebellion amassed such force that the Roman occupying military was pushed out of Jerusalem. This triggered a predictable and overpowering response from Rome which would result in the horrific deaths of over a million Jewish people. Jerusalem fell in August of 70 AD, and the Temple was destroyed. The only remnant was some of the retaining walls. The western retaining wall, still present today, is often called the Wailing Wall.

Jesus knew that peace would not come from violence. We can glean from his teachings that peace is not just the absence of war, but a change of mind and heart. A metanoia or conversion of the mind must take place. There must be peace within before there will be peace without or as Thomas Merton wrote, “If you are yourself at peace, then there is at least some peace in the world.”

The words of Jesus from today’s Gospel ring just as true today: “If this day you only knew what makes for peace– but now it is hidden from your eyes.” If Jesus walked across the northeast border of Israel into Syria, he would witness the horrific violence and devastation as far as the eye could see. Yet, is there anywhere he could walk and not experience violations of human dignity? I am sure he weeps as he approaches the US border from the south or walks among the dead who lost their lives from our rampant epidemic of gun violence.

How about even a little bit closer to home? If Jesus were approaching the border of our mind and heart, how would he react? Would he smile or would he weep?

Others have wept at the disharmony, dehumanization, and division in our world. Mohandas K. Gandhi marshaled a non-violent movement that defeated the colonizing grip of the English Empire. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. applied both the teachings of Jesus and Gandhi by shining a light that exposed the dark night of segregation, poverty, and our military presence in Vietnam. Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hahn, has dedicated his life to advocating for world peace and has stated that: “If in our daily life we can smile, if we can be peaceful and happy, not only we, but everyone will profit from it. This is the most basic kind of peace work.”

Through the bold witness and preaching of the Gospel through his words, writings, and presence, Pope St. John Paul II played his part in inspiring the fall of the oppressive regime of the USSR. So many others throughout our world history known and unknown have worked for peace in our violent and weary world. As we near the end of the liturgical calendar let us allow the love of Jesus to transform our hearts and minds such that each of our thoughts, words, and actions may, in collaboration with people of other faith traditions and good will, reflect that peace that Jesus gives, that peace that surpasses all understanding (cf Philippians 4:6-7).

Photo of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thich Nhat Hahn.

Link for the Mass readings for Thursday, November 18, 2021