homily Oct 10th

 CCC 2544
Jesus enjoins his disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them "renounce all that [they have]" for his sake and that of the Gospel.335 Shortly before his passion he gave them the example of the poor widow of Jerusalem who, out of her poverty, gave all that she had to live on.336 The precept of detachment from riches is obligatory for entrance into the Kingdom of heaven.
2545 All Christ's faithful are to "direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered in their pursuit of perfect charity by the use of worldly things and by an adherence to riches which is contrary to the spirit of evangelical poverty."337
2546 "Blessed are the poor in spirit."338 The Beatitudes reveal an order of happiness and grace, of beauty and peace. Jesus celebrates the joy of the poor, to whom the Kingdom already belongs:339

The Word speaks of voluntary humility as "poverty in spirit"; the Apostle gives an example of God's poverty when he says: "For your sakes he became poor."340
2547 The Lord grieves over the rich, because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods.341 "Let the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."342 Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about tomorrow.343 Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of the poor. They shall see God.

2557 "I want to see God" expresses the true desire of man. Thirst for God is quenched by the water of eternal life (cf. Jn 4:14).


Jesus looked on him with love, but his face fell. Our attention to stuff takes away our ability to see God’s love for us.
Self-justification vs reception of Christ’s redemption.

God loved us first. Then we respond back in love.

Idolatry with new names today.

homily - Oct. 31 - Priorities

Priorities.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing.
Aka first things first. Second things second. Don’t confuse the two, and don’t lose any of it.

I am speaking to myself as much as to anyone else. We all of us have the tendency to get off track, and there is also an enemy who is trying to do the same for us.

Screwtape Letters - the devil’s goal is to conquer your heart. But he never starts there. One of his first strategies is to get us to lose our priorities.
If we have a good sense of then, he tries to distract us, to make us lose sense of what the main thing is. “I need to focus on this for just a few weeks, then I can get back to my priorities”
…Even if a particular train of thought can be twisted so as to end in our favour, you will find that you have been strengthening in your patient the fatal habit of attending to universal issues and withdrawing his attention from the stream of immediate sense experiences. Your business is to fix his attention on the stream. Teach him to call it “real life” and don't let him ask what he means by “real”.
Remember, he is not, like you, a pure spirit. Never having been a human (Oh that abominable advantage of the Enemy's!) you don't realise how enslaved they are to the pressure of the ordinary. I once had a patient, a sound atheist, who used to read in the British Museum. One day, as he sat reading, I saw a train of thought in his mind beginning to go the wrong way. The Enemy, of course, was at his elbow in a moment. Before I knew where I was I saw my twenty years' work beginning to totter. If I had lost my head and begun to attempt a defence by argument I should have been undone. But I was not such a fool. I struck instantly at the part of the man which I had best under my control and suggested that it was just about time he had some lunch. The Enemy presumably made the counter-suggestion (you know how one can never quite overhear What He says to them?) that this was more important than lunch. At least I think that must have been His line for when I said “Quite. In fact much too important to tackle it the end of a morning”, the patient brightened up considerably; and by the time I had added “Much better come back after lunch and go into it with a fresh mind”, he was already half way to the door. Once he was in the street the battle was won. I showed him a newsboy shouting the midday paper, and a No. 73 bus going past, and before he reached the bottom of the steps I had got into him an unalterable conviction that, whatever odd ideas might come into a man's head when he was shut up alone with his books, a healthy dose of “real life” (by which he meant the bus and the newsboy) was enough to show him that all “that sort of thing” just couldn't be true. … He is now safe in Our Father's house. (Hell)
You begin to see the point? Thanks to processes which we set at work in them centuries ago, they find it all but impossible to believe in the unfamiliar while the familiar is before their eyes. Keep pressing home on him the ordinariness of things…. don't let him get away from that invaluable “real life”. … Do remember you are there to fuddle him. From the way some of you young fiends talk, anyone would suppose it was our job to teach!

So we must keep God first. But how? Well, how about our time. If our daily / weekly routine shows our priorities, then what is the main thing for me? How about our calendar? Does our planner put God first?

How about our checkbook or budget? Does that show that God is first?

Here's an interesting one: how about our home? Does our house speak of God first and foremost? Do we have any space dedicated to God? or are we worshipers of "the screen" in all its various sizes.

Finally, what is going on in our heart? What are we worried about all the time? What is filling our head constantly? That is also a good indicator of what is our "main thing."

The monastic life is a great witness to the priority of God in our life. Their existence makes no sense to those who think in the ways of the world, because God is at the center of their life in every possible way, unless they are letting sin creep in.

If we were to compare their way of life with ours, it might seem like we don't care about God at all. but that isn't quite true, our vocation is different. However, the heart of our life should be the same as the heart of theirs. Or else we can be pretty confident that sin is creeping into us as well.

Their example of silence, of getting away from all the "noise" that the enemy throws at us, is perhaps a great starting point. You may try sitting in silent prayer for twenty minutes or so and paying attention to what comes out through that quiet. In that silence you will begin not only hear what is broiling in your own heart, but also what God is trying to say to you beyond that.

Let the Holy Spirit reveal to you one way that you can put God first more clearly in your life.

The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. And nothing could be more important than getting that right in our hearts.