6th Sunday: To choose wisely

"You have heard it said . . . But I say to you"

Matthew 5: 17-37

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/021526.cfm

O God, who teach us that you abide

in hearts that are just and true,

grant that we may be so fashioned by your grace

as to become a dwelling pleasing to you.

(from the Collect for 6th Sunday)

Those who were among that Catholic “baby boomer” generation, if they attended either Catholic school or religious education (CCD), well remember how they came to know the tenets of the Catholic faith.  Besides their parents, in school we were taught from the Baltimore Catechism, in the famed straight forward question and answer format. 

For example: Question: What is a sacrament? Answer: A sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace.  Question: Why did God make us? Answer: God made us to know him, to love him and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him in the next. And so on and so on.

There was/is nothing wrong with the Baltimore Catechism and with this method of memorization. St. Thomas Aquinas arranged his catechism the same way, and it confers knowledge.  One knows what the Church teaches and what God desires of us. Yet the why and the who question may be a bit more challenging.  In other words, how do I apply these teachings to my life.  How can I gage my level of obedience and my deeper understanding of what they imply for my behaviour.  Is just head knowledge enough or shouldn’t faith be more than knowledge and something of the heart. Here we come to the issue of our free will. To know what the Church teaches is one important thing but to apply it to my life is another.  God has given us all the power to choose – good or evil.  To love him and to act accordingly or to love something else that is not of God. I may well be versed on what the Church teaches but after Mass in the parking lot, I curse the person who cuts me off or criticize the homily that challenged me to admit my lack of humility.  

This weekend before Ash Wednesday we see in the long Gospel passage from Jesus’ sermon on the mount, the essential teaching on Christian morality. But our Lord is not simply giving us knowledge as the ancient people’s were given by their teachers, he now expands an understanding of that teaching and comments on our actions in response to each commandment. This is what they are and here is how you live them out.

He identifies himself with the Law and makes himself the center of each: “But I say to you . . . “Not just commentary but he becomes the sacred Law itself as he speaks with an authority never heard before from a human Rabbi.  In essence to say that he is the Law itself – he is the ultimate word spoken.

In our first reading, Sirach reminds us: “Before man are life and death, good and evil, whichever he chooses will be given him.” What could be clearer than that? The rest is human history, and it all indicates why God wants us to stay on the mark he has set for us. He not only what us to do well as a loving parent would say to their children, he wants us to be spiritual and moral athletes! To strive for the gold medal and not be content with anything less. To choose life and not death.

So, our readings this Sunday on one level seem harsh.  Sirach speaks of God who “has set before you fire and water . . . life and death, good and evil . . .” Then Jesus in what is likely the toughest part of the New Testament uses some strong imagery as he minces no words: “whoever is angry at his brother will be liable to judgment . . . settle with your opponent quickly . . . thrown into prison . whoever looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart . . .”  Then the clincher: “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out . . . if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off . . .”

Leaving no stone unturned, he speaks to the marriage covenant: “whoever divorces his wife causes her to commit adultery and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery . . .” Finally, “let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no. Anything more is from the evil one.”

Where do we go with this?  In light of today’s more tolerant, independent and permissive culture we may find these words way off the “mark.”  Surely God is not so strict, demanding, unbending and judgmental.  Or so it seems on the surface of things.  However, we must see this great wisdom of Christ as coming from a perspective of love and mercy; of how we are to live in harmony with one another and with God.

That harmony is marked by God’s law which is inside the circle of the mark he has set for us.  Notice here Jesus consistently speaks: “You have heard that it was said” and follows with “But I say to you . . .” You have heard and followed the law of God given to Moses and passed on to his people.  Now I come to fulfil, to flesh out that law and apply it to social relationships.  In effect, to touch on the core cause of sin and to attend to that before it grows more deadly. For example, anger which is the source of murder, lust which can lead to adulterous behavior, etc.

Yet, it is not a black and white application for we, because of Adam and Eve’s original choice, must work to achieve this level of goodness and perfection that staying on the mark provides for us. Yet, we know the danger of rigidity and the sad result of being too lax.

Human weakness being what it is, Jesus counsels us about the danger of straying too far away from the center. Most of us live in the gray area of life and Jesus was well aware of that.  We know the ideal but live in the real.  The everyday distractions and challenges work very hard to lure us away from the mark and towards what may seem easier or more attractive at the moment.

But the wisdom with which Jesus teaches in our Gospel, as harsh as the imagery may seem, is good for us to know just how far we could go without his invitation to holiness and the gift of knowing what will bring us to live in harmony with God and our neighbor.  That sin is a reality and leads to brokenness and a death of the spirit.

Marriage means something for example and Jesus teaching today on adultery and divorce is meant to remind us that fidelity in the marriage covenant is the better choice in keeping with God’s law.  Divorce as such in the time of Jesus had a different understanding.  It did not mean the end of a marriage as divorce in our day does. Then, a husband could simply dismiss his wife for nearly any reason, leaving her vulnerable and desperate to beg for a living, marry again, or give over to a life of prostitution. Jesu states that to put one’s wife in such a desperate position as to survive by prostitution, is to commit adultery.

Living in peace with our brother and sister, to seek forgiveness and to reconcile differences is the meaning of God’s commandment to not kill.  For we can kill the reputation of another, we can kill the friendship we enjoy with another, we can bring great scandal to another.  Make peace first then when you offer your gift it is truly sincere.

All these come down to Jesus’ own summary of the law:  Love God and Love your neighbor as yourself.  If we can do that, if when we stray away from the mark and come back, and not be content with mediocrity, then we can be wise disciples of the Lord.  As Sirach reminds us today:

“If you choose you can keep the commandment, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live . . .”

In the Eucharist this weekend, before you offer your "gift," make peace with anyone you may feel estranged from for any reason.  If you cannot contact them personally, then make a promise to do so as soon as possible but at least to pray for them, wish them no harm, and just let it go.  If your marriage was not in the Catholic Church, visit your Pastor to see about having that marriage bond blessed and sacramentalized. God invites us to choose wisely that we may live. Peace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

5th Sunday: We are the hands and feet of Christ

 

"You are the salt of the earth . . . you are the light of the world"

Matthew 5: 13-16

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/020826.cfm

We are warned that too much salt in our diet is unhealthy.  We look at the salt content of food we buy and may be shocked to see how much is contained in canned soup for example. Yet we know that we need a certain amount in our diet.  We use salt to enhance the flavor of food, but we’re also concerned about its effect on our blood pressure and water retention. Still, I like salt on my food – what about those salt and vinegar potato chips?  Delicious, in moderation of course. Too much of a good thing can be bad.

In the same way, we are concerned about the general cost of energy, so we use new forms of light that are developed for lower energy yet shine with equal brightness such as in LED lighting. Our comparisons these days seem based more in science or common everyday use with no particular life changing qualities. Yet from the Gospel today we hear something more “earthy” as Jesus often used as metaphors in his teaching.

“You are the salt of the earth . . . You are the light of the world.”  Interesting comparisons Jesus makes in the Gospel this Sunday from Mt 5: 13-16: salt and light. As last Sunday’s Gospel opened the famous Sermon on the Mount, so today we hear it continued in this imagery. In these passages Jesus explains the quality of discipleship and how we live out that vocation as witnesses for Christ amid a flavorless world.

We may think of ourselves as compared to other things such as a particular animal as in “gentle as a lamb” or “strong as an ox,” I generally haven’t heard that we compare ourselves to a common daily flavor enhancer such as salt.  Likewise, to imagine that we shine like a light may require some explanation.

Jesus’ use of these images is important for he means them in a different context. He means this as a reminder of our need for true conversion. Here, the Gospel continues the image of Jesus as a wise and practical teacher. He offers guidance on the Christian life for his followers to those who will hear him and pay attention. After speaking of the “poor in spirit” and the “merciful” and “peacemakers,” he now indicates the effect of living in such a way as his disciples in his use of salt and light metaphors.

In ancient times, salt would flavor food but was also precious as a food preservative and was even used as payment for services rendered. We may imagine it was a kind of gold for barter and trade and valued widely. One would be “worth their weight in salt.”   Salt had many implications for its value and usefulness.

Jesus reminds us to not be “bland” and lukewarm Christians but give “flavor” to our Christian faith.  Preserve the faith passed on to you and be energized by it.  Bring the Gospel into a bland world searching for meaning and purpose. Recognize the importance of attracting others to follow the Lord and his Church.  If we Christians/Catholics are just blah, same old same old, or as Bishop Barron has famously described: “beige Catholics,” exhibiting no fervor or excitement about following the Lord, then why would anyone join us?  What would be the attraction? Where would be the salt?

A Christian who simply keeps his faith quiet and private, our beautiful contemplative communities aside, or one who never shares in the joy of the Gospel or being a man/woman of conviction in the way of the Lord, is ineffective and tasteless.  Jesus implies: “But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?  It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Ouch but true!

By comparison, if only we would be as committed to, as excited about our faith as so many are about sports events or politics, (for many their secular “religion”); just think what a powerfully “salty” community we might have.  Just think of the Super Bowl or the Olympics or a favorite college football team.  While a good game is indeed fun, we sure have no tasteless fans there.  How does such an event compare with your experience of Sunday liturgy or your latest encounter with a fellow parishioner or your most recent discussion about the faith? What role did you play and how flavorful were you with another?  While no one wants to turn Sunday Mass into a wild football game still the point is made. Where’s the conviction and the enthusiasm for what God has done and continues to do?

The image of light is clearer.  Jesus teaches, “. . . your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father” so that others can see and be attracted to the Lord. Not fascinated with ourselves and all the good we supposedly do but rather find a welcome to Christ and his way in the Church.

The first reading from Isaiah offers concrete ways to give flavor and light to our faith:

“Share your bread with the hungry; shelter the homeless; clothe the naked when you see them . . . then your light shall break forth like the dawn . . .” Love lived out in concrete behavior towards others is the point Isaiah makes and that becomes the light we shine. As one author described, “Christianity with work boots.”

So our readings this Sunday have an especially practical application to how we live out the Gospel values laid before us. How we exist in this world with purpose and meaning. In the world of rabid independence, gender confusion, and questions about what constitutes the human person, our light must shine on both what is good and indicate what is not or what is false.

This is a kind of wisdom literature from the Son of God himself. To be a genuine and effective disciple of the Lord and an effective Catholic witness to the faith, we must be distinctive salt and a shining light, each in our own way according to our ability.

Our weekly assembly makes this clear when we refer to the Holy Eucharist as “food for the journey,” the Bread of Life and we are sent forth at the end to “Announce the Gospel of the Lord” or to be Christians who are “glorifying the Lord by your life.” In the end it is Jesus himself who sends us out on his mission.  How salty will we make ourselves and how bright will we shine?

As the well-known contemplative in action from the 16^th century, St. Teresa of Avila, famously reminded us:

Christ has no body but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which he looks

Compassion on this world,

Yours are the feet with

Which he walks to do good,

Yours are the hands,

With which he blesses all the world,

Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,

Yours are the eyes, you are his body.

Christ has no body now but yours,

No hands, no feet on earth but yours,

Yours are the eyes with which

he looks compassion on this world.

Christ has no body now on earth but yours.

(Teresa of Avila)

 

 

February 5: St. Agatha, Virgin & Martyr

Third Sunday: Let's go fishing

"Come after me, I will make you fishers of men"

Matthew 4: 12-23

The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/012526.cfm

While the number of people at work in a decent job and a respectable living wage lends dignity to a person, we know that fulfillment as a human being demands more than just a place to work. There is a deeper need we should answer – that for meaning and purpose - something more to follow and something greater than ourselves.

In the time of Jesus, a job or career track was not something you applied for through a job interview or searched for on the internet, prepared for through a college education, or any other way in which one may find work today. Such a way of life was non-existent.

In ancient Israel, work was passed down from one generation to another through one’s father to his son(s).  Whatever the trade was, carpentry, fishing, farming, there was no hope you would advance to a higher level.  The vast majority of people simply lived day to day and this was the prevailing atmosphere that Jesus encountered within the Galilee region. Yet this northern region of Israel was also a crossroads of world travel. It was a Gentile region populated by the very poor and also historically a region of mixture between Jew and Gentile. Here Jesus chose to begin his public ministry.

Our first reading from Isaiah speaks of: “. . . the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali . . .” which in itself really means nothing to us.  However, in the history of ancient Israel, one thousand years before the coming of Christ, this was the far northern region overrun by the Assyrians. A land where the twelve tribes of the Jews were dispersed far and wide in exile.  The darkness of Assyrian conquest had nearly destroyed this culture but now a new light has arrived.  Hope is fulfilled in the coming of Jesus as the light of the world and here our Lord begins his public ministry announcing that “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Jesus begins along the Sea of Galilee and calls to himself a new leadership which will reunite the twelve dispersed tribes of the Jews in the twelve apostles and his new world order according to God’s design: the kingdom of heaven.

So, he calls Andrew and Peter, James and John, away from their familiar surroundings to set out in a new direction under his direction to be his disciples: “Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.”  It is Jesus gathering an action plan for the future and he invites these four to be among the first to help him implement a new vision for all humanity. In fact, the whole ministry of Jesus was to gather to himself those who would be his followers. God comes to unite the divided. God calls these men; he chooses them for discipleship. They hear his voice and instantly drop what they are doing.  We see their reaction described as “at once” and “immediately.” So, their response to the Gospel event today is inspiring.

Called away from one of the most stable works of the time they are now invited to discipleship by Jesus, these men illustrate an eagerness that is surprising. Jesus calls us to be his followers; he seeks us out and invites. For these men they could have responded in one of two ways. The suggestion of discipleship could be seen an intrusion into their plans for the future, or they drop what they are doing, leave those plans behind, and follow Jesus. But it is God who calls.

So our Lord essentially makes an offer: Come after me. What did he offer them?  Our Lord did not offer them a book of instructions, or a map to follow, or a promise of riches and fame.  He offered them himself and there was undoubtedly something about this teacher and wonderworker that compelled them to respond as they did.  Would you do the same?

What does Jesus call us away from and where are we called to? Does discipleship demand a complete abandonment of all attachments both familial and material?  The call may be radical, or it may be situational.  In other we are called by Christ to be a light shining in darkness. Our baptism marks us for Christ through the sign of the cross and washes away the guilt of original sin making us among the band of his followers. In essence we are called away from the world with its empty promise of fame, wealth, power and prestige and to give ourselves to the greater promise of the kingdom of God.

Yes, we must leave behind certain ways of living and attachments that distract us from the Gospel, but we must do so in the time and place we find ourselves; in the varied vocations we live and as witnesses to God’s promise of redemption and freedom from those powers that bind us: the lure of riches, fame, and ego satisfaction.

To hear the call of Jesus and to find him in a personal encounter in prayer, in the sacraments, in the suffering, and ultimately to see him present in the Eucharist and then to go out on mission to transform a world by the faith he entrusts to us.  Called away from all that is not of God and called to all that is of him.  In this way the light of Christ can shine through us in the land of darkness. In the many tasks and moments of daily life, let’s not miss the call that Jesus offer us and set out more fully in his way: “Come, follow me.” Imagine our Lord is standing before you as he looks into your eyes with those words of invitation.

Almighty ever-living God

direct our actions according to your good pleasure,

that in the name of your beloved Son

we may abound in good works.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,

who lives and reigns with you

in the unity of the Holy Spirit, 

God, for ever and ever.

(Collect of Mass)

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