June 29, 2014

Saints Peter and Paul, Apostles

Acts 12:1-11; 2 Timothy 4:6-8, 17-18; Matthew 16:13-19
Today is the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, giants in the Church…two who are opposites in so many ways, yet they passed on their burning desire to be totally ‘love’; it was an interesting journey for both.
Peter was with Jesus from the beginning of His public ministry. To the best of our knowledge, Paul never saw Jesus until five years or so after His Death and Resurrection. Paul was thrown to the ground by a blinding light while he was traveling to Damascus to ‘eliminate’ this new group that was so opposed to the Pharisaic way. To save his own skin, Peter denied that he had ever known Jesus. I read a legend once saying Peter was so devastated by the fact of this denial that he wept so bitterly he wore furrows in his cheeks. Paul was passionate and so sure of himself that he bragged first about his zeal to eliminate the followers of Jesus and later in his credentials of being a true apostle.
Peter’s first letter is a masterpiece on how to live a life as a Christian. He says that what is important is how we live our life here because this isn’t our home but merely a preparation for our true home in heaven. This means that each and every day we must continue to live lives of mutual love and service. It means that we should never be surprised when we are tested by rejection, or snide remarks or even by persecution. Peter tells us that this is the devil trying to use suffering to destroy this great gift of faith we have been blessed with. Jesus showed us the way and Jesus is with us every step of the way.
Paul consistently shares in his letters how each person is to realize that they are a gift from God. Each must take this gift of life and live in gratitude and service to God. God has first loved each person and brought them into existence to be with Him forever in heaven. To live as a follower, each has to live a life exampled by Jesus but this is hindered so much by the overwhelming power of the attractiveness of sin. How can we be delivered from this…only by God’s grace, God’s help, and the gifts of the Spirit! Paul goes into great detail into living as a Christian in his letter to the Romans, which is his longest letter. The eighth chapter tells us that God has dealt with sin by sending Jesus. Jesus taught us and showed us love. In a wonderful ending to this chapter Paul dramatically says that nothing can separate us from God’s love for each person.
So on this feast it is important to ask how am I doing in my faith journey? How am I progressing in living the life Jesus taught me? How am I encouraging and showing love to each person God has placed in my life? How am I living the Gospel?
Pope Francis has written an apostolic exhortation, The Joy of the Gospel showing so beautifully that Jesus’ message brings joy—“I have said these things to you, so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.” Leon Bloy a wonderful spiritual writer says that “Joy is the most infallible sign of the presence of God.” Yet at the same time, Pope Francis reminds us that life brings pain and suffering and there is no escape from this. He says “Faith always remains something of a cross.” Each person carries the weight of their own sins and tendency to hurt yet the mercy of God is forever on those who seek it. Pope Francis in speaking of himself says, “I am a sinner, a sinner forgiven by a merciful God.” He continues, “Everyone needs to be touched by the comfort and attraction of God’s saving love which is mysteriously at work in each person above and beyond their faults and failings.” The pope tells us that “The Church must be a place of mercy freely given, where everyone can feel welcomed, loved, forgiven and encouraged to live the good life of the Gospel.”
It is important that I daily reflect on how I am living the Gospel. I am gifted and have received, am I sharing? We all are gifted and constantly loved by God. Each is to examine critically how God has touched them, be grateful and be love. When the pope was the cardinal archbishop in Argentina, he said, “My people are poor, so I am poor.” He constantly reminds us that “there is an inseparable link between our faith and the poor…Money must serve, not rule. The pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect, and promote the poor. In speaking on the Incarnation, he wrote, “The Son of God, by becoming flesh, summoned us to a revolution of tenderness.”

Living the Word shares the message of this feast: “Saints Peter and Paul make an interesting pair. Peter: the impetuous one who acts first and reflects later, caught up as he is in his love for Jesus. Paul: the cerebral one who asks us to think though the implications of the love we have experienced in Christ. They represent not simply two different types of Christians, but two aspects of every Christian’s life.

The story of Peter at Caesarea Philippi shows him confessing faith in Jesus as Messiah, even though he does not yet fully grasp all that this means. He simply knows that, in his first-century Jewish context, this was the most exalted title he can give to Jesus. He does not yet grasp that this will mean that Jesus must suffer and die and be raised again, but time and trials will teach Peter the full meaning of the faith that he has so boldly confessed, the faith upon which the Church will be built.

While the Gospel reading presents Peter at the beginning of his life as a follower of Jesus our second reading presents Paul near the end of his life. He reflects on how his life has been poured out for the sake of the gospel, and how God has stood by him and given him strength. Unlike Peter’s impetuous profession of faith, Paul’s is one that arises from considered reflection on the path on which God has led him throughout his life. But the faith he expresses is the same as that of Peter: Jesus is the fulfillment of human longing, the anointed one who will lead us into God’s kingdom.”
So I reflect on:

• Is my faith more the impetuous one of Peter or the reflectiveness of Paul? Can I incorporate both in my faith journey and not be afraid where God is leading me?
  
• Paul said his life “is being poured out like a libation?” Does my life come close to this? Why not?
  
• When have I experienced God in the form of an ‘angel’ rescuing me from a dangerous situation? Did I recognize God’s hand in the rescue? How did I react?
  
• Who do I say Jesus is by how I live?
  

I pray:
“In the waters of Baptism, Holy Spirit, I was sealed with Your fire and love to spread the Good News of salvation in Christ. Strengthen me, as You strengthened Saints Peter and Paul, for this grace-filled mission. Amen.”

June 22, 2014

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14-16; 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17; John 6:51-58
Today is the Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ…growing up I remember this as the Feast of Corpus Christi. There are many articles and a number of books that deal with ‘Eucharistic Miracles.’ I find it very interesting that the origin of this feast is a miracle itself.
In 1263 there was a German priest (Peter) from Prague who had a lots of doubts concerning the Real Presence of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. He decided to make a pilgrimage to Rome and pray for guidance and to pray and do penance along the way. In his journey, he came to a small town in central Italy called Bolsena. While he was celebrating Mass there the ‘miracle’ happened. As he held the host and said the words of consecration,
“TAKE THIS, ALL OF YOU, AND DRINK FROM IT, FOR THIS IS MY BODY, WHICH WILL BE GIVEN UP FOR YOU.”
blood started to seep out of the host onto his hands and then onto the linen cloth (corporal) on the altar.
He knew that the Pope Urban IV was in the city of Orvieto which was very close and he asked to go there and have an audience. The pope had the incident investigated and that there was no natural explanation that could be found for it…and it was real blood. Pope Urban also had the blood stationed host and the corporal put on display in the Cathedral in Orvieto. The corporal is still there today to be reverenced by all who visit this miracle shrine. This miracle led Pope Urban to establish the feast that is celebrated today: The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ…its name in Latin is Corpus Christi.
Another fact about this miracle that is not often shared is that one of the people staying with the pope in Orvieto at that time was St. Tomas Aquinas, one of the greatest minds in the history of the Church. The pope asked him to write prayers and hums for this feast. These hymns are: O Saving Victim (known in its original Latin as O Salutaris Hostia) which I still used at the start of Eucharistic Adoration. Another is Down in Adoration Falling (in Latin Tantum Ergo) which is sung at Benediction and which is part of a longer song—Sing, My Tongue, of the Savior’s Glory ( in Latin Pange Lingua Gloriosi) which is sung on Holy Thursday night as the Blessed Sacrament is processed to the altar of repose at the end of the service.
I find this journey back in history very interesting but more so is what does all this mean? God is always with us…God cares for us…feeds us with Himself for the journey of our lifetime—to be with Him in heaven forever. Today’s gospel is from John’s sixth chapter and it is very important in understanding the significance of the Eucharist is to read this in its entirety. I will highlight some verses:

“Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee

…a large crowd followed because they saw the signs He was doing for the poor.

…Jesus was concerned about the people not eating even though He knew what He would do.

…Jesus took five barley loaves and two fish from a boy blessed and distributed them.

…there were twelve baskets of leftovers.

…the people said, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”

…that evening the disciples crossed the sea…the wind was strong…Jesus came walking of the water…they were terrified

“It is I, do not be afraid.”

The people walked around the lake to find Jesus, He said, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life, which the Son of man will give you.”

…the people asked ‘What sign are you going to give us so that we may see and believe you? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness.’

…Jesus “I tell you it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven”…the people said give us this bread always, Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever come to me will never be hungry and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
…the people complained and Jesus clarified, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

They disputed this…Jesus said “Unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day. For my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink.” They said THIS TEACHING IS DIFFICULT, WHO CAN ACCEPT IT? “Does this offend you? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before?” AND THEN THE SAD PART….BECAUSE OF THIS MANY OF HIS DISCIPLES TURNED BACK AND NO LOGNER WENT ABOUT WITH HIM…”So Jesus asked the twelve, Do you also wish to go away? Peter said “Lord to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that You are the Holy One of God. “
Today’s feast is about God’s love for each person. In Greek, Eucharist means gratitude…so I reflect on how God continually takes care of me and everyone. How is Jesus present in the Eucharist…it is a mystery…but it’s a part of a larger mystery: the mystery of God’s love for me even and especially when I don’t love myself. It’s the larger mystery of God’s desire to be with me and each person every day in the most intimate way possible. God is telling me each day, ‘Have I told you today how much I love you?’ Am I listening to this…God does speak it. Every time I say “Amen” in response to The Body of Christ…The Blood of Christ I am saying YES TO THIS SAVING MYSERY OF GOD’s LOVE. So I reflect on:

• How do I show my appreciation for the gift of the Eucharist?
  
• How much reflection time do I have at Mass?
  
• Do I look upon the Mass as an obligation or a great gift from God?
  
• Intrinsic to the sign of the Eucharist is the fact of its abundance…the manna never gave out…in the feedings of Jesus there was baskets that remained…GOD FILLS AND FILLS…Do I accept? Am I grateful? All are welcomed at the feast, all can share to their complete satisfaction, all are blessed with life.

June 15, 2014

The Most Holy Trinit

Exodus 34: 4-6, 8-9; 2 Corinthians 13: 11-13; John 3:16-18
Today is the feast of the Holy Trinity…do I understand what this means? Sometimes I have participated in discussions trying to convince people of the meaning of the Trinity. Yet the most important point about the Trinity is a question: ‘Who taught us about the Trinity?’ It was Jesus…He defined the Trinity as the loving Father, the Son who redeemed and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies. The Father who sent Jesus to share the Father’s deep and unrelenting love for each person; the Son who witnessed that love and proved it and the Holy Spirit who continues each day to send help to each person to be ‘Jesus’…to be love. Why do I want to complicate this in ‘discussions?’
Alice Camille wrote this commentary on today’s Gospel from St. John in Exploring the Sunday Readings: “God so loved the world that He gave His only Son….Whether we believe it or not, we Christians are in the love business. Every morning when you and I get up, in our respective beds, homes, cities, and situations, the only task ahead of us is to love one another. We think our lives are about a million other things: buying this, fixing that, cooking and eating and cleaning up afterwards. We think we’re about work and paying bills, ferrying children to school or elders to doctor appointments. We think life is about the struggle, or the payoff, or the great escape. Yet it’s all about love. We’re here to love, to be loved, to participate in love. Because love really is the answer. And some days we may not like that idea so much. Some days we’re even convinced that love is the problem. At the source of everything, God disagrees. Everything comes from love and makes its way back there in the end.”
The readings today convince each person to stop and to review in their minds their faith history how God is present and how He has interacted with our ancestors in faith and what this tells us about God.
The scene in Exodus picks us the story of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses. Exodus 24:15-18: “Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain. The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the cloud. Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel. Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.” The people knew that Moses had been called by God and that they are God’s people and He is their God. But they got restless: ‘why is Moses taking so long a time; has he forgotten about us; has God forgotten about us; are we to stay in this horrible desert wandering around for the rest of our lives; what kind of God would take us away from the ‘creature comforts’ that we had in Egypt; maybe God doesn’t care about us; let’s call on God ourselves…these sound so familiar at points in my life.
And that is what they did…while Moses was conversing with God from chapters 25 to 31 in Exodus, the people in chapter 32 reacted: “When the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people gathered around Aaron, and said to him, ‘Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So Aaron instructed them to bring him their gold jewelry and they formed these in a mold in an image of a calf…the Golden Calf and proceeded to worship the calf. Moses came down from the Mount with the two tablets of stone containing the Ten Commandments, threw them down, breaking them and then pleaded with the Lord to remember in love His people: “yet pardon our wickedness and sins, and receive us as your own.”…God did.
Today’s passage from Paul to the Corinthians is the conclusion of the so-called ‘Letter of Tears’ where Paul is strongly reprimanding them to change their ways and live in peace…a message for me.
Both passages look at the ‘sins’ of the people and it is a message today for myself and each person to look at our own sins: those of hurting, abusing, anger, hatred, all of the sins that show us living with the idea that I am the only person in the world; and therefore the most important and that I live just for myself. Yet Moses is telling us in Exodus and Paul is repeating this to the Corinthians that it is all about God: how God created us in love and God continually loves each and every person, each and every moment of each and every day. If we say anything else we are complicating the mystery of the Trinity that God is love.

Sunday Homily Helps expresses it this way: “So perhaps we’re the ones who make the mystery of the Trinity so complex. Maybe we complicate the fundamental essence of God: that God is love. a) In today’s Gospel, John teaches Nicodemus and us the magnitude of God’s love: that God so love the world that the Son was sent to save us. b) God’s love overwhelms us.

c) God loves us so much that, as the Creator, God made us in God’s own image.

d) God loves us so much that God the Son became one of us to redeem us.

e) God loves us so much that God the Holy Spirit, remains with us to sanctify us…

Instead of trying to reason our way thought the Trinity, we would do much better trying to appreciate how the Trinity affects us, how it helps us relate more loosely to God and to one another, and how it helps us realize how personal and loving God is.”

So I reflect on:

• I must spend some time this week to reflect on how the love of the Father; the example and love of Jesus and the grace to love the Spirit gives impacts my life.
  
• Can I share with someone else how important God’s love is to me right now and how it has changed my life?
  
• If this opportunity doesn’t present itself, can I take out my prayer journal and write about God’s love in my life?
  

Fr. Richard Rohr in The Shape of God: Deepening the Mystery of the Trinity says, “There are some things that can only be known experientially, and each generation must learn it for themselves. The prayer of quiet is a most simple and universal path. Of all the religious rituals and practices I know of, nothing will lead us to that place of nakedness and vulnerability more than regular experiences of solitude and silence, where our ego identity falls away, where our explanations don’t mean anything, where our superiority doesn’t matter and we have to sit there in our naked who-ness. If God wants to get through to us, and the Trinitarian Flow wants to come alive in us, that’s when God has the best chance…Perhaps much of the weakness of the first two thousand years of reflection on the Trinity, and many of our doctrines and dogmas, is that we’ve tried to do it with our logical minds instead of with prayer.”
Lord make me more aware of Your loving presence in and around me.

June 8, 2014

Pentecost

Acts 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:3-7, 12-13; John 20:19-23
‘I will never leave you alone...I will send the Spirit to be with you and help you...I love you always...I need you.’ Today is Pentecost, the day that the Lord makes all things possible by giving us the Spirit: giving each person who is trying to love the grace...the help...the encouragement...the wherewithal to be love, to be Jesus.
So often I have said, ‘I can’t do it’...well that is not true. I remember my father’s response to my saying that ‘I can’t do it’...he said this each time...there is no such word in the English language as can’t...it is two words -- can not...and I say you CAN do it. So much for trying to win an argument with my father... I have noticed myself down the years giving the same message, the same words to my students and people who came to me for help. The angel said, There is nothing impossible with God...all things are possible with God.
I look in detail at the Gospel: the apostles were hiding “in fear” behind locked doors and windows. Outside their barricade was ‘the enemy’...what would happen to them...they could not envision anything positive. They felt better commiserating with each other, probably encouraging someone else to go out ‘into their harsh world.’ They thought they were safe, listening for any harsh sound outside and then Jesus appeared right in front of them. The account seems to imply that this was noiseless...what did they do...what did they say...did they go up to Him and embrace Him? Luke does not give an answer in Acts nor does John in his Gospel. Here they were men 20 to 50 years old; many having spouses and families; all having some sort of occupation and now scared and unsure. And Jesus surprises them again. “I have come to give you the Spirit and this Spirit will enable you to do what you cannot do yourselves. Who is this Spirit? Jesus explains: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of love and compassion, the Spirit of passion and courage, the Spirit of realizing that they have been gifted and can and must share these gifts, the Spirit of being aware of people and situations around them; the Spirit is the Spirit of God and God’s love. And this Spirit is as totally present to me and each person as to the Apostles.
I have heard many stories from people these 47 years of my priesthood and I am always amazed, astonish and filled with awe on how God uses each person in some way to ‘get out of themselves’ to realize that there is a need and responding with kindness and love. And they were ‘surprised’ by being able to ‘get out of themselves’ and do something they thought they would never be able to do. That is the role and the activity of the Spirit. Mother Teresa says how surprised she was that at her age, time and place she could do something different and be something different. She had previously hid behind the closed door of the cloister and was called to be Jesus. She was surprised by the Spirit. I find it a special reflection to see how I have been ‘surprised’ by the Spirit. I never envisioned myself leaving family and dear friends in New York State. It was totally ‘not part’ of my makeup to go to places where I didn’t know anyone. And the Spirit has surprised me over and over in my 12 years in Virginia. It is important that each person realize that God’s gift to us through Jesus was the Spirit. God does not give gifts foolishly...God does not give gifts that are impossible to understand or figure out. God gives gifts to each person to be used to show God and to be God’s love to those He makes us aware of.

Msgr. Chet Michael likes the New Testament in Modern English by J.B. Phillips; he says this is the best translation of Paul’s letters. This section is from Romans 8: 14-19: “All who follow the leading of God’s Spirit are God’s own sons. Nor are you meant to relapse into the old slavish attitude of fear—you have been adopted into the very family circle of God and you can say with a full heart, ’Father, my Father’. The Spirit himself endorses our inward conviction that we really are the children of God. Think what that means. If we are his children then we are God’s heirs, and all that Christ inherits will belong to all us as well! If we share in His sufferings we shall certainly share in His glory.

In my opinion whatever we may have to go through now is less than nothing compared with the magnificent future God has in store for us. The whole creation is on tiptoe to see the wonderful sight of the sons of God coming into their own.” And this is seen so readily when me and each person are aware that God is needed and we are to be God’s hands, feet, mouth, ears, and love. If not me than who?
For my reflection today I look at Mother Teresa’s Pentecost reflection on ‘Jesus to me’. This is taken from My Life for the Poor pp. 106-107:

Jesus to me

This is Jesus to Me:

The Word made flesh.

The Bread of life.

The Victim offered for our sins on the Cross.

The Sacrifice offered at the Holy Mass for the

sins of the world and mine.

The Word – to be spoken.

The Truth – to be told.

The Way – to be walked.

The Light – to be lit.

The Life – to be lived.

The Love – to be loved.

The Joy – to be shared.

The Sacrifice – to be offered.

The Pace – to be given.

The Bread of Life – to be eaten.

The Hungry – to be fed.

The Thirsty – to be satiated.

The Naked – to be clothed.

The Homeless – to be taken in.

The Sick – to be healed.

The Lonely – to be loved.

The Unwanted – to be wanted.

The Leper – to wash his wounds.

The Beggar – to give him a smile

The Drunkard – to listen to him.

The Mental – to protect him.

The Little One – to embrace him.

The Blind – to lead him.

The Dumb – to speak for him.

The Crippled – to walk with him.

The Drug Addict – to befriend him.

The Prostitute – to remove from danger and

befriend her.

The Prisoner – to be visited.

The Old – to be served.

To Me Jesus is my God.

Jesus is my Spouse.

Jesus is my Life.

Jesus is my only Love.

Jesus is my All in all.

Jesus is my Everything.