August 26, 2018

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time B Joshua 24: 1-2, 15-18; Ephesians 5: 21-32; John 6: 60-69 Do I ever feel that being a Catholic Christian is difficult? Is it harder to be a Christian or a Catholic? Do I regard the Catholic part of it as one that has a whole bunch of rules? Do I find the ‘rules’ on the Catholic side harder than the ‘commands’ on the Christian side? We probably have never looked at it this way, but it is an interesting exercise in sorting out our beliefs. It is also good for us to ask these questions: Who is God? What difference does God make in my life? What might by life be like without my belief in God? Do I really want to have God in my life? Or only when it is convenient? The readings today provide thought provoking examples of how our ancestors in faith responded to being challenged about who is God and what it means to serve God. Moses brought the Israelites to the border of the Promised Land. There he died. Joshua had been chosen by God to be Moses’ successor and he would lead the people into the Holy Land. Right off the bat, Joshua was lacking in confidence. God had to assure him: “As I promised Moses, I will deliver to you every place where you set foot..No one can withstand you while you live. I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be firm and steadfast…taking care to observe the entire law which my servant Moses enjoined on you. Do not swerve from it either to the right to the left…Do not fear nor be dismayed, for the Lord, your God, is with you wherever you go.” God, as always, kept His word. In this reading God is calling Joshua ‘my servant’ the same exalted title He gave Moses. The scene is very dramatic All the elders, officers and people stand in ranks before God. Joshua assembled them to give his final instruction before he dies. It seems that Joshua is giving them the opportunity to choose whether to serve God or one of the local deities. In reality, there is no choice. The following verses make it perfectly clear that the Lord alone is their God. Joshua boldly proclaims that he and his family will serve the Lord. The people totally agree: “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord for the service of other gods..we will serve the Lord, for He is our God.” Joshua challenges the people even more and they affirm their devotion and faith. We come to often maligned passage of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. Probably most parishes only read the ‘short form’ and leave out the phrase, “Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife just as Christ is head of the church, He Himself the savior of the body As the church is subordinate to Christ, so wives should be subordinate to their husbands in everything.” In the Greco-Roman world, society was classified and ranked according to status (free or slave) citizenship (Roman, Egyptian etc) and gender. Going back to Aristotle, the well-being of the state had its origin in the good order of the household. As a result rules governed households. Ephesians today gives us an example of a household code, which limited the leadership and behavior of women and slaves. A VERY IMPORTANT POINT to remember is that the earliest Christians expected an immediate return of Jesus (parousia) so they did not address social issues. Paul is saying that the Church is the Body of Christ. It is the manifestation of God’s wisdom and thus is holy. Like Colossians (3:18-19) which shows that a well ordered house is where the husbands are reminded to love their wives in a relationship like that between Christ and the Church. This development describes the wife’s relationship to her husband as that of the church and Christ. IT HAS NOTHING to do with wives being subject to their husbands, or putting up with them when there are abusive. New Testament scholar, Pheme Perkins describes it this way, “You can see from this description of love that abusive behavior of any sort does not belong in a Christian marriage. On another level, you can also see that the holiness of the church is not something that its human members create on their own. The holiness of the church comes from the sacrifice and love of Christ.” So husbands and wives belong to the body of Christ and thus should nourish be devoted to each other as Christ nourishes and is devoted to the church. The Gospel concludes Jesus’ Bread of Life sermon. The disciples and those listening had a real hard time understanding this because many took Jesus’ words literally. They find Jesus’ words too hard and leave. They murmur, disbelieve, reject and go home because they could not comprehend this kind of intimacy with God. John shares how Peter had a real problem. He had just heard Jesus say things that he doesn’t understand and the little that he does understand he can’t really accept. All of us have been in this situation. We just don’t understand. How can God possibly love me when I don’t even love myself? God loves! How can God love people when they do evil and horrible things? God loves! It all boils down to our own reaction of how God can love everyone, even or especially those that I can’t love? We just have a problem with the intimacy of God: God just plain loves me and you and everyone totally, all the time, without exception. Jesus is calling out the best, all the time, in you and me. At the Last Supper, Jesus commanded, Do this in memory of Me. Unfortunately we do not realize Jesus is calling us out — to do more — our whole life. Doing what? Homily Helps states “Healing, forgiving, including outsiders, challenging wrongful authority, taking time to go away and pray, serving others by washing feet— so that it is we who are blessed and broken open so that we can give and share ourselves to defend the world. Jesus waits for us to grasp the power He left within us. When we act in loving ways we are using that power, the power of the Holy Spirit.” Joshua posed the problem: DECIDE TODAY. Jesus continued DO YOU ALSO WANT TO LEAVE? Living the Word concludes, “Lord Jesus, You have words that are food for my soul. You call me to become more than I could be without You. Refresh the presence of Your Holy Spirit within me. Feed me with Your very self. Help me respond with the Israelites and with Peter: You are my God, I will serve You, for You have the words of eternal life.” I reflect on: • When have the words and ways of Jesus affirmed me? How have they challenged me? • How has a spousal relationship or a deep friendship stretched me? How has it limited me? • “Do you also want to leave?” Ask in prayer with Peter, “To whom shall I go?’” • The one who believes already possesses ‘eternal life.’ Think in prayer about how faith leads me to a fullness of life. Sacred Space 2018 states “The disciples understood that, no matter how confusing or troubling it might be to follow Jesus, there was no place else to go. When we hear the truth and know it is the truth, that narrows down all other choices, doesn’t it? Lord, there are days when I waver; I flirt with the idea of going someplace else, of forgetting about being Your disciple. Maybe I’m weary, or maybe I’m revising some part of your message. May Your Holy Spirit remind me that You have the words of life, and that is enough.”

August 26, 2018

August 19, 2018

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time B Proverbs 9: 1-6; Ephesians 5: 15-20; John 6: 51-58 So many people use the expression today of ‘their bucket list.’ Some might even ask, ‘what is a bucket list?’ A bucket list is a list of things to do before you die or ‘kick the bucket.’ The key here is that one’s list should be things that a person wants to do and would love to do. It was made popular as a result of the movie, Bucket List. Two terminally ill guys (Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson) meet in a hospital and then set out an amazing adventure to try to do everything on their lists. I’m sure that most of us have thought of this and wished that we could see and do they things we have always dreamed about. The readings today lead us to another list, a spiritual list. Perhaps we could start with another question, what do I hunger for? Let’s add the word ‘spiritually’ to this question. We hunger for so many things. The bottom line is that only God can satisfy our deepest hungers. The people who came up to Jesus today have been curious as to who and what Jesus was all about. John has been following and writing about these people’s search. It started right at the beginning of Jesus’ appearance on the scene. The Pharisees had learned that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John the Baptist (John 4). On His way back to Galilee, He had passed through Samaria, an area that most Jews bypassed by going along the Jordan River route. The Samaritans believed that their worship was the true religion of the ancient Israelites from before the Babylonian captivity. The major issue between the Jews and Samaritans has always been the location of the Chosen Place to worship: Mount Zion in Jerusalem according to the Jewish faith or Mount Gerizim the place from the time that Joshua conquered Canaan. Jesus stopped at Jacob’s well and encountered a Samaritan woman who ran to tell the townspeople, “Come see a man who told me everything I have done. Could this be the Messiah?” Jesus stayed there two days and His popularity began to grow. The Pharisees were alerted to this preacher/messiah or threat. Then He returned to Cana where He had changed the water into wine and a royal official had a son who was very ill. He came to Jesus begging for help. Was this unusual…yes. Why would a person of his position and class lower himself to come to this street preacher at best? Jesus healed the son ‘at a distance’ never seeing the lad in person. Then Jesus went back up to Jerusalem and watched the sick, ill, infirm, crippled poor gathering at the Sheep’s Gate Pool at Bethesda. They believed that whenever the water stirred, the first ones in would be healed. Imagine the traffic and the mad rush for healing. Jesus saw a man and told him “Rise, take up your mat, and walk.” This was the home turf of the Pharisees and religious leaders. The Temple was a short distance from this site. The leaders questioned Jesus as to who He was and how did He get the authority to do all of His amazing miracles and teaching? Jesus told them, ‘The works that the Father gave me to accomplish these works that I perform testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. Moreover, the Father who sent me has testified on my behalf. But you have never heard His voice nor seen His form and you do not have His word remaining in you because you do not believe in the One whom He has sent.” (John 5: 36-39) Then Jesus goes back to the Sea of Galilee and “A large crowd followed Him, because they saw the signs He was performing on the sick.” (John 6:2) Jesus was concerned because they were hungry. The disciples felt it was for food, Jesus knew that their real hunger was for God. They needed to know that they were important, special and loved. They needed God’s food. Jesus performed the miracle of the loaves and fish…five thousand were fed. The people wanted to make Jesus their king, Jesus left the scene. The apostles went by boat to the other side. Jesus came at night, walking on the water. The next day the crowd found where He had gone and wanted to know more, to be fed more. Jesus explained with what is known as the Bread of Life Discourse. God fed the people in the desert with manna…Jesus is the true Bread come from God, food that endures for eternal life. ‘Bread of Life’ is a figure for God’s revelation in Jesus. The people asked to be fed this food forever. The opening chapters of Proverbs include many saying promoting a right relationship with God. Today’s reading, Lady Wisdom, extends an invitation for all to come to her beautiful house. She has prepared a sumptuous banquet for her guests. They will learn the path that leads to God. Wisdom is committed to guiding people away from the lure of sin and ignorance. Wisdom’s path leads to life and coincides with the coming of the Messiah. Christians will see it as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist, and of the heavenly banquet which the Eucharist anticipates. Paul is telling the Ephesians that since they belong to Christ, they should take full advantage of every opportunity to display their spiritual wisdom to the world. Live positively, don’t be foolish, be wise. The Gospel continues which may at first sight be viewed as shocking: “Amen,Amen I say to you, unless you eat the flesh the Son of Man and drink His blood, you do not have life within you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise them on the last day.” Now Scripture scholars tell us that ‘Body and blood’ stand for the whole person. When we eat the bread and drink the wine of the Eucharist we are not receiving a body and blood. We are receiving a person, a living person. In the Eucharist Jesus comes to us, not under the form of something that is essential for life — food. Through the food of the Eucharist Jesus nourishes in us the undying life of God which we received in baptism. That is why He says, “Anyone who eats this bread will live forever.” The Eucharist is not just a reminder; it is a real sacrifice and a real gift. The Catechism of the Catholic Church, (1365) says, “In the Eucharist, Christ gives us the very body which He gave up for us on the cross.” John, A Devotional Commentary states, “Whenever we celebrate the Mass, we participate in a representation of Jesus’ death and resurrection When we receive Jesus with a disposition of faith and love, we enter into those actual events of His life-giving sacrifice. We not only receive bread and wine—or flesh and blood, for that matter. We receive salvation. Let us rejoice that Jesus has given this gift to all generations until He returns in glory” — where all our hungers are filled totally with God’s all embracing love. I reflect on: • What brings you back to celebrate the Eucharist week after week or day after day? What brings me back to celebrate with you? • What helps us understand Christ’s real presence in the bread of life and saving cup? • How would I describe my relationship with Jesus today? ten years ago? How might Jesus describe it? Sacred Space 2018 states: “There can hardly be a more graphic or a more surprising description of the indissoluble participation of one life in another. In Hebrew, the expression ‘flesh and blood’ means the whole being. The reality of Christ’s presence at the Eucharist is beyond our comprehension. We are asked not to understand it, but to experience it. ‘Abide in me’ is a phrase Jesus uses over and over again He invites us to take Him into ourselves and become one with Him. How might I take today’s reading, along with ‘abide in me,’ to the table when I next partake of the Eucharist?”

August 12, 2018

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time B 1 Kings 19: 4-8; Ephesians 4: 30 - 5:2; John 6: 41-51 Its good to take time to reflect on the things that cloud my vision as I live my daily life. For example: Do I get upset when I don’t get my way? What discourages me? Do I find myself getting jealous over what others do or have? Do I find myself saying ‘It’s just unfair’ more often in my conversations? Does it seem that at times ‘people are out to get me’? Do I find myself ‘hearing what I want to hear’ versus what is really said? Do I find myself more inclined to anger? Just a few of these can put me in a ‘quiet mode’ of feeling ‘persecuted’ or of ‘poor me’s’. This could even make me not a very nice person to be around. When we reflect on this, we see that we make decisions or react to people not in a very right-minded way. Hopefully forgiveness and apologies are a part of our daily lives too. The point is that this is what ‘influences’ our lives in a negative way. A big problem surfaces when we apply these negative attitudes to our loving God…and we all do this. We see this in today’s readings and we hear Jesus’ beautiful description of His love and care for each of us. In chapter 18 of the 1 Kings, Elijah had confronted over four hundred prophets of Baal over which god was the real god—Baal or Yahweh. Now ‘Baal’ was the god of many ancient Middle Eastern countries. The Canaanites considered him a fertility deity and one of the most important gods. He was also called the ‘lord of rain and dew’, two-forms of moisture that were indispensable for fertile soil in Canaan. Elijah had challenged the 400 prophets and won; then slew them and the people declared that the Lord alone was God in Israel. Jezebel the ‘wife’ of King Ahab treatened to kill Elijah who flees for his life. This is where today’s first reading begins. Elijah felt that after all his faithful service, God had abandoned him and he was a failure and prays for death. But an angel brings him food and water and commands that he takes nourishment because God continues to have plans for him. Reluctantly he does and the angel brings him more nourishment for his trip to Mt. Horeb, where Moses had encountered God in the days of the Exodus. Paul is encountering the Ephesians. Verses before today’s reading Paul had told them, “So I declare and testify in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their minds; darkened in understanding, alienated from the life of God because of their ignorance, because of their hardness of heart, they have become callous and have handed themselves over to licentiousness for the practice of every kind of impurity to excess. This is not how you learned Christ” (Ephesians 4: 17-20). The people are to stay clear of those vices against others, such as lying, anger, stealing and evil talk. Today Paul starts with the final admonition, “Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption.” By our Baptism we have been called to imitate the love God has for each person. So as a result each of us “…must be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ.” If we are totally focused on ourselves and how we are being ‘persecuted’ we are not aware of others, and we don’t want to be: ‘It’s me that has been hurt…’ Love for one another in imitation of Jesus who loved everyone and showed us how to love by His example culminating in His death the Cross, is the aspect that defines a Christian. So how am I living as a Christian, a believer in Jesus and His follower? Is it about me or is it about God? The ‘Bread of Life Discourse’ continues on in this week’s gospel. The people are complaining. They can’t understand Jesus. They grew up with Him and knew His family? How can He be someone special? Jesus is moving them beyond the literal surface of the issue at hand. “Stop murmuring among yourselves. No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws them, and I will raise them on the last day.” Jesus is talking to each one of us. He is telling us that God, the Trinity loves totally each person. Jesus declares that He is the bread of life come down from heaven. He is contrasting this to the ‘manna’ that also came down from heaven (Exodus 16). They can’t figure out how He came down from heaven because everyone knows where He lived and who His parents were. The point is that Jesus, not the manna is God’s life-giving gift to the world. Jesus is showing us His relationship to God. Jesus is showing us God’s love. Jesus is God’s love. Am I letting God break through my ‘complaints’ to see His constant love that has been present in my life? Do I respond in gratitude for God’s continual goodness and care for me? Am I responding to, “They shall all be taught by God.” Jesus is promising resurrection on the last day for each person. Then Jesus employs the “amen, amen” devices indicating that He is about to make a very emphasis: “Whoever believes has eternal life.” Jesus is focusing on the fact that HE is the bread of life. Manna only provided nourishment for their physical well being. Manna had no power to prevent death. Those who eat the real bread’ that comes down from heaven will not die. Again He emphasizes His identity as that living bread. He continues and goes even further declaring that this bread is His “flesh for the life of the world.” While this is not yet a full blown development of the doctrine Eucharist, it is moving quickly in that direction. Jesus is asking if I believe this? Jesus is asking if I trust Him? Each time I come to receive the Eucharist I say “Amen” which means ‘Yes, I believe’. Do I? Maybe, I could add, ‘Help my unbelief amid my distractions today.’ In each Eucharist we receive the bread of life from heaven. We receive Christ: His strength, His love, His compassion, His grace, His help with all that ails us. We share in His divine life. AND He promises heaven to us. So I reflect on: • How has eating the Bread of Life helped me to see in new ways? • Which of the vices listed in Ephesians do I need to remove to help me see as God sees? • When have I been so discouraged that, like Elijah, I just wanted to give up? • What do I murmur in my heart? • How much do I need to be fed and nourished by Jesus right now? Do I ask? What’s holding me back? • Are there people who refuse to be nourished by Jesus? How much of society’s disease is the result of spiritual malnutrition? • Elijah was fed by an angel. Who are the ‘angels’ who meet those who are tired and weary, empowering them to continue of their journey in life? Where have they helped me? Sacred Space 2018 “Their personal knowledge of Jesus has made the people skeptical about His claims. Is our sense of awe and wonder blunted by familiarity? I am invited daily to the eucharistic table, to eat the bread of eternal life. Do I approach that table with apathy or with a quickening heart? When were my eyes last opened, and when did I last recognize Christ in the breaking of the bread?”

August 5, 2018

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time B Exodus 16: 2-4, 12-15; Ephesians 4: 17, 20-24; John 6:24-35 Our dinner table was always an interesting place when I was young. Mom and Dad, my three older sisters, my brother and myself all sat in ‘assigned’ seats with Mom and Dad at either end. We started with grace before meals, then the meal began. My sisters always helped mom in the preparation and all five of us kids cleaned the dishes and silverware. We never could receive phone calls or go out with friends until everything was completed. We really couldn’t rush things along. Unlike the Israelite community in the first reading, no complaining was allowed. It was special because Mom was a great cook and fabulous baker. Dad was the one who determined the meal, since mom only cooked what he liked. It did not matter if we liked it. ‘Those were the rules’…and we followed them as best we could. I remember hearing ‘Do you eat to live or live to eat!’ Today’s readings focus us to see our identity as a eucharistic people. We claim that Jesus is our bread of life. This is our faith statement. Do we trust that the Lord is continually bringing us closer to Himself and showing us how to live as eucharistic people? What does this mean to us? Jesus is the source of our subsistence, our bread of life. He gives us life and sustains each one of us on our journey to heaven forever with the Trinity. This is bringing us right up against the subculture of our society whose values and norms of behavior deviate from those of the mainstream of our Christian culture. We have been experiencing a society that is angry and concerned so much with themselves and not claiming that we need God and that God is the source of our life. In the first reading from Exodus, we hear of the people of Israel who learned how to depend on God for their survival. Then they wavered and complained. Earlier in their journey they feared the Egyptian army would annihilate them; God saved them at the Nile River. Then there was a lack of fresh water, and the people quarreled with Moses about this and he criticized them for testing Yahweh. The text states that it was on this account that the place gained the name Massah, meaning testing, and the name Meribah, meaning quarreling. God continued to love the people by having Moses touch the rock and water constantly flowed. God had a plan for them and it was His design to manifest through them His saving plan for the whole world. Jesus brought this so succinctly and beautifully in John 3:16 where God so loved the whole world that He gave His only Son, Jesus Christ. The cross became the ultimate gift of love which united heaven and earth. The night before He died, Jesus showed us the completeness of His love in the Eucharist. St. Thomas Aquinas said, “Material food first of all turns itself into the person who eats it, and as a consequence, restores his losses and increases his vital energies. Spiritual food, on the other hand, turns the person who eats it into itself, and thus the proper effect of this sacrament is the conversion of man into Christ, so that he may no longer live for himself, but that Christ may live in Him. And as a consequence it has the double effect of restoring the spiritual losses caused by sins and defects and of increasing the power of the virtues.” St Augustine, the great bishop of Hippo in Africa earlier spoke words he heard for the Spirit of God he shared in his conversion story, Confessions ”I am the food of grown men. Grow and you shall feed upon Me. You will not change Me into yourself, as you change food into your flesh, but you will be changed into Me!” The Lord comes to dwell within us and makes us like Himself. We come in gratitude to live our lives differently. This is what the word Eucharist means, thanksgiving…let us become what we consume. Do we do this? Can people see each day that we are ‘different’? Do they see us as Beatitude people? Do they see people who are constantly trusting in God’s help to be people who care and forgive; people who are compassionate and reach out to help people in need; people who are love? Paul was addressing the people of Ephesus, a Gentile audience, who were very caught up in the various ‘philosophies’ of living. He told them to shun the lifestyle of their former ways and ‘Be’ Jesus. “…you should put away the old self of your former way of life, corrupted through deceitful desires and be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self, created in God’s way in righteousness and holiness of truth.” The attractions of their world were definite distractions to belonging to Christ. Their way of thinking has shifted to a new level of understanding. It is good to look at our own lives for some concrete examples we have experienced. How many of us can look back at our…let’s call it, ’waywardness’ and see how we have changed. We can use and maybe have used the expression ‘I’m not going back to what I was before…never again.’ There is no difference in this from the conversion of St. Augustine and what the early Gentile Christians experienced. Jesus told His listeners, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to Me will never hunger, and whoever believes in Me will never thirst.” His listeners that day on the shores of the Sea of Galilee had a problem: they thought that Moses had given the people the ‘manna’ in the desert. They had to be reminded as Moses shared today, “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion; thus will I test them, to see whether they follow My instructions for not.” So often when we come to the Eucharist we mistakenly think that it is just ‘me and God.’ Living the Word states emphatically, “Too often we mistakenly view the Eucharist as something meant only for us to receive. We forget that celebrating the Eucharist transforms us to become what we eat and drink, the Body and Blood of Christ. We get so caught up in the sign of Christ’s ‘Real Presence,’ we forget that Jesus feeds us to become really present to others through the way we live.” With this in mind, I reflect on: • Am I living a life of care for those in need? • Am I living a life of service or is it all about me? • At the end of the evening, when I look back on the day, do I see where love has been that day? Have I been on the giving end or the receiving end? Has gratitude been a part of that day? • Have I examined how God has lead me and changed me more into Himself? • Have I reflected on what glorious deeds God has done to feed me this day? • When do I assume I know what people need? What cautions me to listen instead of jumping to conclusions? • How does Jesus as ‘the bread of life’ affect my life? Sacred Space 2018 states: “When God sent down manna from heaven to the Israelites as they starved in the desert, they were delighted at first. However it did not take them long to grow tired of this food. When am I tempted to turn to material things to feed my soul rather than seeking nourishment from the ‘true bread from heaven?” A prayer from Living the Word: “Holy God, You gave our ancestors manna in the desert and You continue to offer us bread from heaven. Help us express our gratitude for that bread of life by feeding those we meet with Your presence, which notices their hungers and shares Your gifts with them.”