11th Sunday in Ordinary Time: Where are the leaders?

 

"Like sheep without a shepherd"

Matthew 9: 36 - 10:8

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/061426.cfm

O God, strength of those how hope in you, graciously hear our pleas,

and since without you mortal frailty can do nothing,

grant as always the help of you grace, 

that in following your commands we may please you 

by our resolve and our deeds. 

(from Preface for Mass)

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Many of us have prized possessions or family heirlooms that we hold on to rather than donate to someone else, no matter how worthy their need may be. They are priceless to us because they have some family attachment or some personal memory, as a piece of jewellery or a watch may have.

Well this Sunday we hear that even God has a special possession and that possession is us; you and me, humanity created in the image and likeness of God.  He does not want to give us up and he hopes to gain our full attention. As Pope Leo XIV states in the title of his encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity). This precious value is spoken of in our first reading:

“You shall be my special possession, dearer to me than all other people.” We hear these comforting words from the Book of Exodus in this Sunday’s first reading. I would emphasize that God is saying “you”—not someone else, not something else, but you. To every human being he says that and therefore, God is love whose love is universal.  As we call him a jealous God - he does not want to share us with any other "god" whatever form that may be.  Do we love God above all things or is something/someone else the center of our lives?

In our Gospel passage from Matthew, that same theme carries over  from as we hear: “At the sight of the crowds, Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd.”

I find that line beautiful and heart wrenching at the same time.  Jesus' pity is because they lack effective leadership.  His pity is deeply heart-felt filled with compassion even empathy for the suffering of the crowd. 

The leaders, “shepherds,” are appointed to lead and guide, to form and inspire in the law of God but they have no one to do that for them so they wander like sheep lost with no direction with no leadership. Not only on a social level but indeed on a deeper level of faith which would give meaning and purpose to their lives. 

Isn’t this true in nations when those elected as prime ministers, presidents, even kings and queens are ineffective and that nation may be submitted to a more dictatorial and often violent leadership.  We need not look very far in our world today to see such leaders who care more for themselves than the people they represent. Power, greed, lust for fame are dark and destructive traits.

The same is true in the Church; the danger of poor leaders is glaringly obvious with any casual read of Church history.  At the same time, we find ourselves a  inspired and moved by saintly, holy, morally upright, selfless and outstanding leadership as well.  But scandal should be avoided at all cost.

So Jesus calls us to pray, to pray for an abundant harvest of good leaders, shepherds after his own heart and mind.  And then he turns to his own disciples, who became Apostles, and calls them to be the new leaders of the new Christian faith.  He chose them because they had great potential for leadership?  Likely not and in fact they were deeply flawed but in them he saw what he was looking for and he called them. 

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, they will root the Gospel in culture and society and by the grace of the Holy Spirit, will establish a new world order, the kingdom of heaven on earth.  Jesus states: “As you go, make this proclamation: ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give.”

Brothers and sisters, we are commissioned, each in our own way, to go out and by our example, in some cases our leadership, to establish Gospel values in society in our time and place.  We can’t change the world, but we are called to be faithful missionary disciples of the Lord as we accompany one another along the road to holiness.

Jesus wants to use us and with the gifts given to each of us for the upbuilding of God’s kingdom here, we are his hands and his feet.  Let’s be good harvesters of the crop God has planted. 

Peace and good mission.

 

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ - "Food for the journey"

Whoever eats this bread, will live forever

John 6: 51 - 58

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/060726.cfm

Our Catholic Catechism, makes this beautiful statement on the central place of the Eucharist in our Catholic faith:

“The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life . . . For in the blessed Eucharist is contained the whole spiritual good of the Church namely Christ himself . . . The Eucharist is the efficacious sign and sublime cause of that communion in the divine life and that unity of the People of God . . . “ (CC 1324-25)

It’s interesting that a kind of mountain top image is used: “the source and summit.” The implication is that in Christian worship, when we turn our hearts and minds to our God in thanksgiving and praise, there is nothing greater, no higher we can go.  When we celebrate the Mass, we are at the top.  Gathered in faith, we come for one ultimate purpose and that is to give thanks and praise to God and to encounter the living Christ in the most personal way: to consume him that we might become, by his grace, the very food we eat.

The fact that the sanctuary, the place where the altar is placed, is always higher than the main floor of the Church is not just an architectural design but a deliberate image to remind us that we go up the mountain to meet the Lord in the eucharist. It may be only two steps up to the altar or several more. 

In ancient biblical imagery, the mountain was always a place where God would encounter us.  Think: Abraham goes to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac, Moses on Sinai faces God in the burning bush and receives the commandments, the disciples follow Jesus up the “high mountain" where he is transfigured before them, Jesus delivers the sermon on the mount and feeds the 5,000, Jesus is crucified on mount calvary, He ascends to heaven on top of a mountain, etc. Yet, our God has also come to dwell among us: to come down to us.

This Sunday's Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ bring our attention back to earth.  The holy Eucharist was established by Christ not in the clouds or on a mountain top, but here on earth – at the last supper when Jesus gathered with his disciples for the last time before his passion and death.  Every time we celebrate the Mass, we remember, we are joined again to the one sacrifice of Christ on the cross for our salvation.  It happened only once for all but our remembrance of that event is made present to us through the sacrifice of Jesus’ body and blood. So, the Mass and the eucharist is that high-top mountain experience where God comes down to us as we rise up to him.

Our first reading recounts the final days of the journey through the desert in search of God’s promised land.  Before the people enter, Moses gives them a sort of pep talk, encouraging words, and a solemn reminder as to how they were cared for in their desert journey.  Primarily he reminds them: “Remember how for forty years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert . . . He therefore let you be afflicted with hunger, and then fed you with manna, a food unknown to you and your fathers . . . in order to show you that not by bread alone does one live, but by every word that comes forth from the mouth of the LORD.”

Moses emphasizes God’s care for his people on their journey, he heard their prayers and even grumbling.  Manna or “bread from heaven” that God gave them became their food for the journey.  It sustained them, gave them strength to carry on, reminded them of a loving God. As that bread from heaven upheld them on their wandering, so too does the eucharist become our food for the journey through life until we reach the promised land of heaven.  But, with one important difference.  That bread ended, it served its purpose.  It simply gave them physical satisfaction and strength to carry on. 

The bread of the eucharist has the power to bring us in to everlasting life. As Jesus states in our gospel: Whoever eats this bread, will live forever.   

Our second reading this Sunday from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians has a key word to understanding our call to be a Eucharistic people, to receive and to become in visible form, the Body of Christ as Church.

As Paul writes to his Corinthian Christians, he states: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? . . .”

To participate in the sense Paul implies means far more than just showing up.  It means to enter the experience of our Lord’s saving action in his death/resurrection and then to give thanks for the life given to us in the Eucharist. To enter that event, to share in it, and to receive our Lord in gratefulness through the sacrifice of our own lives after his example. Life changing food! We participate in the holy mystery of Christ’s presence among us, we receive him who is the resurrection and the life, and then we hear the call to mission and to take the good news out to the world around us and to reform ourselves in the process.

That is profound is it not?  Paul assured his early Christians that they are called to be different than others around them and to choose discipleship over self-centred living. In their gatherings for prayer and worship when they “broke bread” (the Eucharist) they were participating in a life changing mystery unlike any other food or drink.

A deeper understanding of the effect of our full participation is heard in our Gospel passage from John 6, the chapter on the Eucharist. Jesus says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; . . .”   Jesus makes himself to be bread – food for life, eternal life. 

As the manna remembered was a sign of the sacred Torah for the Jewish people, the manna that Jesus becomes is a sign of the new law given through his body and blood. He is greater than the manna eaten by the Hebrews. This living bread is beyond just food that satisfies physical hunger but is rather a super food that provides eternal life.  Every time, then, like Moses spoke to his people in the desert, we “remember” what God has done for us through his Son who gives himself to us under these ordinary signs of bread and wine: “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him . . .”

This is a great sacramental mystery – the Eucharist – which we Catholics truly believe to be not a symbol, some sort of reminder or recall of a meal eaten with Jesus 20 centuries ago like one might remember a birthday party or family picnic.  But this IS a Person and every time we consume, literally eat and drink, this Person who is sacramentally but truly present to us, we share in his risen life. Therefore, we are different than other Christian denominations around us who recognize the Eucharist, or their communion, more as a fellowship meal with the bread and grape juice as only symbolic.

The unity the Eucharist creates among us is meant to not stop in Church. As Catholic Christians we are so very fortunate to have this as the summit of our faith; not bread and wine but Jesus Christ who comes to us, body, blood, soul, and divinity, who encounters us and brings us to a holy life. 

Food for the journey every Sunday or even daily – as St. John Vianney said: “The eucharist is the greatest gift God has given us. If there was a greater gift, he would have given us that.”

Called to lay down our lives, to sacrifice for the common good and for the good of others, we live out the meaning of this super food.  Jesus doesn’t come for me alone but for US in a way that brings about a bond of unity with him and with others through this bread from heaven in this powerful transformative moment.

So let us remember this great act of divine love that continues to feed us and with humble hearts, and to participate with full heart and mind in that which has the power to change us to conform more to Christ’s own example.

 “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord”

 

Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity - A mystery revealed

 

John 3: 16-18

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/053126.cfm

God our Father, who by sending into the world

the Word of truth and the Spirit of sanctification

made knon to the human race 

your wondrous mystery, grant us, we pray

that in professing the true faith,

we may acknowledge the Trintiy of eternal glory

and adore your Unity, powerful in majesty. 

(from Collect of Mass)

“In the name of the Father + and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.” How often have we proclaimed our faith in the Trinity by the sign of the cross we make to begin and close a prayer. Often, though, it becomes routine. It’s the way a Catholic prays or blesses themselves so it may be done rather quickly, like your swatting flies, or with little thought. Things of faith become routine, like living in a fog if we’re not paying attention.

While we know that fog is basically a cloud much lower than it should be.  On this Feast of the Most Holy Trinity, the fundamental mystery of our faith on the nature of God, we do hear again of a cloud; not one that causes great anxiety but rather one that produces great hope and promise.

Our first reading from Exodus finds Moses on Mt. Sinai to commune with God who comes down to Moses in “a cloud.” In Scripture a cloud is a way in which God, though hidden like thick fog, makes himself present.  Hidden from our eyes and understanding yet very present and engaged at the same time. When the Hebrews wandered through the desert a cloud of glory descended on them, when God the Father spoke after Jesus’ baptism and the disciples were on Mt. Tabor at the transfiguration, he did so from a cloud of glory.

From this mysterious divine presence, we hear God proclaim his name “Lord” as he reveals his nature: “merciful and gracious . . . slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” Here Moses pleads with God on behalf of a people who had quickly forgotten the Commandments given on Mt. Sinai, that he would give his people a second chance.  God relents and assures Moses he is Lord who reaches out and desires a renewed covenant with his people for he is merciful, gracious, kind and faithful. And so, we see God revealed through what he says and proven true by what he does.

This weekend on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, always falling on the Sunday after Pentecost, we mark that great uncovering of the nature of the divine. We have come to know of the true God’s existence and nature as three in one from Jesus’ teaching.  He who is the word of God has spoken to us. Like dense fog that suddenly lifts we have a way of seeing that would not have lifted by any other way other than for this truth to be revealed through the Scriptures, the teaching of Jesus, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Belief in the Holy Trinity is uniquely Christian for no other world religion defines God in this way; as a community of persons, yet One and indivisible.

Although limited in our full understanding, we believe God is three yet one; three divine persons yet one in their unity: Father, Son and Holy Spirit One eternal God. Our Jewish brethren, while joining with us in belief that there is only One true God, see him as totally other and single in nature.

 True, this is heady stuff to be sure. Not something a logical human being would have created but a great mystery revealed to humanity. Although revealed to us, it was a bit of time to explain with more clarity. It is the language of later theological development in the Church and by the 4th century, the Council of Nicea in the year 325 A.D. the Church, in direct defense against false understanding about the nature of the Son, Jesus, formally defined the Trinity in what we proclaim as the Nicene Creed we recite each Sunday at Mass.  It should be very familiar to us:

“I believe in one God the Father Almighty. . . in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God . . . consubstantial with the Father. . . I believe in the Holy Spirit the Lord, the giver of life who proceeds from the Father and the Son . . .”

All the prayers of the Mass, the calling down of the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and wine, our personal prayer, our sacraments such as when we are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the prayer of absolution as our sin is forgiven in penance, and each time we make the sign of the cross we proclaim this core belief of the Christian faith as we do in the profession of the Creed at Mass.

Our Gospel reading from John offers more than theology but an invitation: John writes a very familiar phrase: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life.”  (Jn 3:16). John tells us: God “loved” and God “sent.”  Those two words to love and to send imply an active God.  A God who reaches out, who extends himself not out of vengeance or punishment but out of love and mercy towards those he reaches to. He communicates with us as a living being. His Son is his Word. 

Therefore, we might say that God in his unity creates a community of persons whose very nature is to love us into life.  This unity in community is the great understanding for how we are to live and in eternity where God wants that we dwell in him.  If we as Christians live as God desires, then our own lives will promote unity and not division; faithfulness and not selfishness; love and not violence; inclusiveness and not prejudice; forgiveness and not judgment.  The potential for human society is unlimited if we were to follow the way Christ has shown us.

May that unity in community reflect the true nature of this God who loves and reaches out to us continually. In the Holy Eucharist we see God revealed to us as he gathers us as one around his altar to feed and unite us in his mercy, kindness, graciousness and forgiveness.

 

Pentecost Sunday - The Church is born of the Spirit!

(Wesley Arning)

"Come Holy Spirit, come! And from your celestial home

Shed a ray of light divine!

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052426-Day

O God, who by the mystery of today's great feast

sanctify your whole Church in every people and nation,

pour out, we pray, the gifts of the Holy Spirit

across the face of the earth

and, with the divine grace that was at work 

when the Gospel was first proclaimed,

fill now once more the hearts of believers.

(from the Collect)

 

I enjoy live theatre productions so three years ago I had the opportunity with parishioner friends, to attend a live theatre production of the Broadway musical, “Come from away.” It's a memorable entertainment experience with actors in lively song and dance who relate a true and inspiring positive event which came from the tragedy of 9/11 in New York City.

When the twin towers were destroyed, the air space over the U.S. was closed and all planes flying to and out of the U.S. had to be immediately grounded! To the amazement of citizens in Gander, New Foundland, 48 of those enormous planes put down on their long-abandoned air strip.  In the matter of a few hours the population of Gander was doubled from nearly 7,000 residents to an equal number of now stranded travellers from countries as far away as Africa. The ultimate question from the stranded passengers and strangers as they were initially trapped in their planes for hours, not knowing what might come next, was “Now what?”

Within hours, these stranded strangers experienced the impressive hospitality offered by the citizens of Gander. Even more so they were surprised by the way in which they bonded with other passengers in solidarity and recognized the power of their common humanity and the force of good that overcame their initial fear and hesitation.

In one scene from the play, titled “the prayer,” two of the actors request a private and quiet place to pray at the town library. Then another and another one coming from a local Catholic Church, Rosary in hand. Meanwhile one actor enters and begins to sing the Prayer of St. Francis with the verse, “Make me a channel of your peace . . .” It was a beautiful moment in which we saw the grace of God create unity in the midst of diversity as people live out the message of peace rather than violence in contrast to the horrific actions in New York.  It is peace and trust not violence and fear that bind people together in a common unity. The same is true of the Holy Spirit as we mark this day of Pentecost.

In our Gospel on this beautiful Sunday, Jesus appears to his frightened and confused disciples in their locked room on the day of his resurrection.  He says to them: “Peace be with you.” Then confers on them his breath, the Holy Spirit with the authority to forgive sins in his name. It is that breath of God, that Holy Spirit, that third person of the Trinity, who heals, creates life, brings hope and peace, and importantly creates a unity in the midst of a diverse and formally broken and discouraged disciples. As God, after creating the first man, Adam in (Gen. 2:7) blew into his nostrils the breath of life, so the same here in a most dramatic way, that same Spirit blows upon the Apostles the breath of a new covenant between God and humanity, established in the death and resurrection of Christ.

The power of wind carried those passengers to their unintended destination in Gander.

On this day, we witness how the power of wind is heard in the upper room. As God created the universe, as we hear in the first versus of the book of Genesis, when it was yet formless and in chaos, the spirit, the wind, blew over the waters to bring life and order.

When Moses went up Mt. Sinai, the book of Exodus relates, to receive the commandments of the Lord, fire was seen and wind was blowing. These signs of the Spirit continue the express not only a divine presence but also a transformation and a new beginning.  The Church was born in fire and the waters of baptism, in the blood and water from the side of Christ on the cross, and this explosion of divine energy upon the Apostles, transforming them to become the bold and convicted first missionaries of the Good News, Jesus had brought.

The multiple “tongues of fire,” that strange event, signify the reversal of the pride of Babel. When human arrogance thought they could reach God and by human power establish a unity, here we see that God has brought around the unity we as his created ones so failed at doing by our own power.

Did the Apostles themselves speak different ancient languages or did the thousands gathered from around the ancient world in Jerusalem for the Jewish feast of Pentecost, wonderfully hear the message in their varied native tongues? Nonetheless the Gospel was proclaimed now to all the world through the Spirit’s intervention. That common message brought by our Lord is meant for all humanity.  Though we may find language a barrier to communication at times, faith has brought us together as one in Christ.

In the beautiful second reading from Corinthians, among other varied choices, we hear: “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different forms of service but the same Lord; there are different workings but the same God who produces all of them in everyone . . .”

Today it is undeniable how broken and divided we have become.  The dark spirit is at work, rejoicing in the division, hatred, animosity, and lack of trust that is rampant these days. The dignity of the human person has been corrupted and distorted in forms and presented as the "norm" rather than the exception.  We are not united but divided and trust in leadership has been so damaged in some areas, how can it be restored?

By divine grace and a return to God we need a Pentecost experience. As we live out the mission Christ has entrusted to us we can bring that renewal to the world around us. What happened at Gander as strangers united in a common bond so the world can benefit from the power of Grace in the unity we create within the church. We need to catch the wind of the Spirit in our own hearts to be witnesses of Christ increasingly, no matter the cost.  We sow seeds of peace and reconciliation and not stand at the corners of a "cancel culture." Woke ideology is a lie and we need to step back and choose to not participate in such a dangerous and God-less way of life.

So, let us be people of the Spirit and to live by the Spirit given to us at baptism and confirmation and who is always present in our prayer.

In the Eucharistic gathering each week we see the work of the Spirit in its visible form. With Christ present among us, his breath blows and gathers a diverse community where all are welcome, all are called to conversion of life, and all can be fed by the Lord, our food for the journey.

“Make us all channels of your Peace, O Holy Spirit.”