Martha and Mary - Our dual-personality - Contemplatives in Action

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Abraham. Vocation is to have a son. Daily tasks lead to that vocation.  By living well the vocation of the present moment, God is able to bring Abraham to his bigger vocation.

Mary represents heaven (Vocation) where we will be with God forever and all our desires will be satisfied.  But we get there through daily acts of loving service in this earth, seen in Martha.

In this short story, the two women also represent the two sides of the Christian life.  Mary also represents prayer or contemplation.  Martha represents service or action.  We need to sit at the Lord’s feet and we need to make the faith concrete in our daily lives.  For this reason, you cannot aspire to be only a Mary or only a Martha.  You must be both.  Even the Benedictine monks, who depart from the world for a life of prayer, have as their motto “prayer and work” – but their work serves their prayer (they don’t get sucked into workaholism).

The goal of the Christian in the world, who is not consecrated for a life of prayer like the Benedictines, is to be a contemplative in action, to be Mary and Martha in the world.

Contemplation:  “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength…”

Action: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The two sides work together. The vocation of the present moment does not impede our union with God that we draw from our prayer. Contemplative union can continue after prayer is done. Perhaps noticed after times of adoration or retreat or after Good Friday service etc.

A lovestruck person carries the beloved with them everywhere they go.  This is what it means to pray without ceasing – to always bear within us the union of our heart to the Lord and His Will.

The mission of the present

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Don’t go searching long and far for the mission God gives you.  It is simple: love the Lord, and love your neighbor.  The people in your life concretely are your mission.  Not people you never see.  As Mother Teresa put it: grow where you are planted.  Love your family with their warts etc.

G. K. Chesterton

The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.

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The modern writers who have suggested, in a more or less open manner, that the family is a bad institution, have generally confined themselves to suggesting, with much sharpness, bitterness, or pathos, that perhaps the family is not always very congenial. Of course the family is a good institution because it is uncongenial. It is wholesome precisely because it contains so many divergencies and varieties. It is, as the sentimentalists say, like a little kingdom, and, like most other little kingdoms, is generally in a state of something resembling anarchy. It is exactly because our brother George is not interested in our religious difficulties, but is interested in the Trocadero Restaurant, that the family has some of the bracing qualities of the commonwealth. It is precisely because our uncle Henry does not approve of the theatrical ambitions of our sister Sarah that the family is like humanity. The men and women who, for good reasons and bad, revolt against the family, are, for good reasons and bad, simply revolting against mankind. Aunt Elizabeth is unreasonable, like mankind. Papa is excitable, like mankind. Our youngest brother is mischievous, like mankind. Grandpapa is stupid, like the world; he is old, like the world.  Those who wish, rightly or wrongly, to step out of all this, do definitely wish to step into a narrower world. They are dismayed and terrified by the largeness and variety of the family.

The people in your life concretely are your mission.

Good Samaritan – leading others to the safe-house of the Church and her sacraments that restore us to the image and likeness of God.  (Deification)

Good Samaritan is ultimately Jesus.  He often enjoys using other persons as secondary causes of his healing and mercy.

Medjugorje – Five hours of Confessions (6pm-11) outside in 80 degree weather dressed in my black clerical attire (shade and a breeze, thank God), hearing Confessions with about 30 other priests in various languages (English, Polish, Croatian, Italian, Spanish, German, Lithuanian, etc.).

The stones of the mountain.

Other pilgrims.

The Eucharist (Mass).

The rosary.

The Bible. (passages of Scripture)

Fasting.

The saints themselves.  Mary.  Therese.  Louis and Zelie Martin.

We all need to be healed.  We all should also be instruments of healing in our world.

Don’t go searching long and far for the mission God gives you.  It is simple: love the Lord, and love your neighbor.

Corpus Christi - "Give them some food yourselves"

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God is giving Himself to us at all moments, but here above all.

CCC 1380 It is highly fitting that Christ should have wanted to remain present to his Church in this unique way. Since Christ was about to take his departure from his own in his visible form, he wanted to give us his sacramental presence; since he was about to offer himself on the cross to save us, he wanted us to have the memorial of the love with which he loved us "to the end," even to the giving of his life. In his Eucharistic presence he remains mysteriously in our midst as the one who loved us and gave himself up for us, and he remains under signs that express and communicate this love.

Give them some food yourselves.  You cannot give what you don’t have.

We need to be refreshed by Christ in order to give Him to others.

Who thinks breathing regularly is a good thing?

Who thinks eating food daily is a good thing?

Prayer is our breath.

Sunday Mass, and most importantly the Eucharist, is our food.

As the Lord wants to be present to us, may we truly remain present to Him.

Trinity Sunday - You are Loved into Existence and into Eternity

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          The center of the universe is love. “love always wins.” (I would add: “even when it loses.”)

          And as we discover it in ourselves as well, we see that Love is the center of our identity. If you want to know what something was made for, whether a plant, an animal, a car, or a baseball, look for what that thing is doing when it is at its best and fullest. That's when you can tell what it's truly made for. At our best and fullest (aka not when we are operating out of dysfunction or illness or in some extremely unhealthy or rare situation) we see the human person living a life of loving relationship with others. This is perhaps one of the simple proofs that we are created in God's image and likeness.  And this makes us unique among all creation.

Our first reading from Proverbs reminds us of all the beauty that God made in the world. And it is truly magnificent. We can all perhaps find different things in nature to admire, but I am almost certain there is at least one thing that could keep you mesmerized for quite some time by its beauty and intricacy like the structure of plant or animal life, or by its vastness and echoes of the infinite like the galaxies or the ocean sunsets, or by its simplicity and purity like a pristine lake or a snowflake.

These things are amazing, but Proverbs tell us that they are nothing compared to the pinnacle of creation: the human person.

Realize this: with all that beautiful stuff in the universe, only the human person did God unite to Himself in the flesh of Jesus. God took our human nature into himself, and that is the mystery we celebrate today with Trinity Sunday. Simply put: Jesus is God; he wasn't just another one of us or a really special angel or something. He was God Himself. God became man so that mankind can become God. (that's what the life of Grace ultimately leads to, and what heaven really is.)

God did this because of his love for you. Proverbs says that God “delights in” you!

We often think that love is some nice generic love. But that doesn't hit home with us, because it isn't love and it isn't a real relationship. It's like when everyone gets a trophy or a sign that says “you're special.” Even children develop a knack for telling the difference between trite phrases and more heartfelt words of praise and affirmation, and they hunger and strive for the things that can win that praise. In that way, we adults are really often just big kids who have our talented ways of hiding and masking the same deep desire for praise, and we don't think God loves us unless we are “awesome” and “perfect” and a “gold star” Catholic.

But that's a lie. God doesn't love you only when you have it all together neatly wrapped up and tied with a bow and sparkles. God loves you when you are still in the midst of your mess and your heart is in pieces and your life looks like my office desk (not a pretty sight).

          The fact that you exist is actually proof of this, for at every moment God lovingly chooses you. But even more so by your baptism: when you are configured to Christ Jesus, you are Beloved by the Father.

Pentecost

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Transformation by the Holy Spirit – symbolized by the fire.  Fire transforms, fast and hard.  Only safe when you aren’t close to it.  Same for the HS.

We must be changed.  Not just change for the sake of change.  Not arbitrary or based on personal preference.  CHANGED INTO CHRIST JESUS.  *we don’t look like Jesus unless we are changed*

Blessed Cardinal Newman said  it well: “To live is to change, and to live well is to have changed often.” Change and growth are the work of the Holy Spirit, guided by the Father’s hand.  Jesus is the VINE, and the Father is vine-grower (the “husband-man” as in “husbandry”).  And we are branches on that vine, a vine that is ever growing, changing, and finding new ways to bear fruit.

If we aren’t changing, then the Holy Spirit isn’t working in our lives – and it isn’t His fault but ours.

*caveat* Change can’t be measured by the standards of this world’s definition of success, etc.  It always must be God’s standards, and we cannot forget how often God works below the radar or in ways that we don’t tend to focus our attention.  Think of the Incarnation.  God spoke to Mary, yes, but worked in quiet for 9 months, and then really for 30 years of hidden life as things were being prepared.  God worked for centuries with the Jewish people preparing for Christ.  God often works in quiet and under the radar in our souls, too.  But eventually, just like every Spring, we will see life bursting forth, we should see fruit being borne.  If that isn’t happening, then we must ask God to show us what we need to change, what we need to prune away or do different in our lives. 

Ultimately, we must look for growth in our soul for an increase in the virtues.  This is the concrete change of holiness that God will produce, first and foremost.  Secondly, it will be in things outside of ourselves.  Certainly in good works of charity for the building up of the Body of Christ (the Church) and the Kingdom of God.  These are good fruits to keep our eyes open for.

All that change is summarized in one word: love.  Love is the great revolution in a world of selfishness.

This isn’t just for us as individuals.  As a priest, and as a parish staff, we are trying to be willing to let the Holy Spirit move and change and lead us to where the Lord wants to bear fruit.

Ascension

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“IT is not for you to know…” 

-         We want what isn’t God’s will at times.  Sometimes, God has to redirect our desires.  If we need it, we will get it.  His three answers to our prayers are “Yes.”   “Not yet.”   “I’ve got something better.”

-         WE ALREADY HAVE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS.  The things we really need are already given to us.

o   The Blessed Trinity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Salvation.  Redemption.  Forgiveness.  Mercy. Love.  Peace.  Heaven.  Eternity.

“They were continually in the temple praising God” They were blessing God because they were focused on what they were already given, not on what hasn’t come yet.  And they were, in the advice of Blessed Solanus Casey (a humble, simple Franciscan priest who lived for a time in our diocese) thanking God in advance! This is something that we easily might not do!

“Sending the Promise of the Father.”  - the promise is a person.

“Stay in the City.” – we must obey Jesus to get the Spirit.

“You will be my Witnesses” – we must be with Christ and in Christ in order to share Christ.

Messiness and the Paraclete

Life is very messy at times.  Today’s first reading remind us of this truth.  As the earliest Christians are trying to discover what they are to do with the problems that come up.  You see, Jesus didn’t leave an instruction manual with all the answers in it.  He knew what was coming, but instead of setting all the rules out in a book (remember, the New Testament didn’t start to get written down until ten or twenty years later, and wasn’t finished for about sixty years after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven) – so instead of leaving them with a church manual, he gave them people.  He appointed judges to sit on thrones.  He appointed apostles who would be the twelve pillars that the new Heavenly Jerusalem that God was building.

But Jesus didn’t just give the Church these fallen, imperfect human beings to make the decisions.  Ultimately, He left the Advocate (or Paraclete), the helper who “will lead you into all truth” – that is the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, God Himself and the most difficult person of the Trinity for us to really get a grasp of, is the one who guides the Church through all the messiness, past and present, of figuring out how God wants us to live in this world.  'It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us
not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities… It is the Holy Spirit who works in the Apostles at the first Church Council (let’s call it “Jerusalem One” like “Vatican II”) makes it clear that many, many of the ancient Jewish practices are not required for us in Christ Jesus.  You can thank the Holy Spirit for bacon.  But you should thank Him for much more than that.  Ultimately, he is the one who gives that Peace that Jesus speaks of today in the Gospel.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.  This is possible because Jesus’ Spirit is given to us.  Just earlier this weekend we had our parishioners (and those of other parishes) receive the Sacrament of Confirmation.  This great gift allowed them to be fully initiated in the sacraments, strengthening their Baptismal gifts.  The Holy Spirit is strengthening them and allowing them to have a peace that the world cannot give.

What does that mean?  It means a peace that continues to “not be troubled or afraid” even in the midst of trial.  The world can give peace alright, if a person has enough food, water, shelter, health, job security, entertainment, sports to play, music to hear, and chocolate to eat.   I guess that’s my list but anyone’s list would be pretty similar.  That’s worldly peace: if I have all those things.  But if some of them start falling away, or if even one of the more important ones goes, I can’t have worldly peace.  It gets exposed as a fake source of happiness.

Jesus’ peace comes from knowing you aren’t alone, and from knowing that He “is going away and will come back to me.”  That He will take us home to heaven.  Knowing that an eternal bliss is waiting for us allows us to have peace.  Knowing that the Heavenly Jerusalem exists and is there for us allows us to have peace even in the midst of trial and messiness.  Even if we have to be shamed for being a follower of Jesus, if we have to endure our own Crosses like His own, we are ready, because the Spirit is with us and because Jesus has won the war even if the nations rage on.

Thank the Holy Spirit for the assurance that the Church leads us and guides us into all truth, and gives us a peace that the world cannot give, a peace that the world can never take away.

Amen.