What Do You Want from Me?

Three pastors--a Methodist, a Presbyterian and a Lutheran--walk into a coffee bar …

Sorry.  No joke here.

They just sit down with a Baptist pastor and me, to plan an interfaith Thanksgiving service.

But I did learn something interesting in our conversation.

We all use almost identical Lectionaries for our Scripture readings.

Our Mass readings follow a general pattern that may date back to the time of Moses.

Each day we read multiple passages drawn from different books of the Bible.

During the early years of the Church, those passages were selected and arranged.

And eventually became the book that we call the Lectionary.

On any day, the different selections might have a common message.

But then again, they might not.

Sometimes the readings just track along sequentially in the book they’re following.

This week, our First Readings are tracking along in Paul’s letter to the Hebrews.

And our Gospels are tracking along, independently, in Mark, Chapters 3 and 4.

But it doesn’t take a particularly keen eye or ear

To sense that, today, those two readings have a common message.

And today's Psalm was chosen to go along with that message.

In fact, that Psalm is the very Scripture that Paul was quoting in his letter.

And that Psalm was also one that Jesus clearly took to heart.

And probably had in mind when he spoke in today’s Gospel.

He was the personification, the fulfillment, of that message.

If repetition is the mother of learning, we should learn something today.

We hear the message repeated eight times.

We hear it twice in Paul’s letter.

We repeat it five times as the Psalm response.

And then we hear Jesus reference it again in the Gospel.

Here I am Lord, I come to do your will.

Jesus tells us how he feels about people who adopt and act on those words.

He embraces them as his immediate family.

His brother and sister and mother.

So we need to do only two things.

Know what God wills for us to do.

And do it.

But how can we, as individuals, know what God wills for us to do?

All we can really do is keep asking Him.

Tuesday, Third Week of Ordinary Time

MK 3:31-35   HEB 10:1-10                                 Read this Scripture @usccb.org  

Hear and Share

Today, this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Pretty bold words from the young rabbi-prophet.

Claiming to be the embodied fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophesy.

Quite a tall order he was setting for himself to live up to.

Claiming to be anointed with the Spirit of the Lord,

To bring relief to the poor.

Claiming to be sent by God,

To liberate captives,

Give sight to the blind,

And free the oppressed.

If we were sitting in that synagogue on that Sabbath we might have wondered—

Just like most in that assembly did—

Who does this guy think he is.

But we benefit from the perspective of history.

We have the full story.

We know that he delivered on his claims.

We know who he really was.

We know that he was not only anointed with the Spirit of the Lord.

He was the Lord, the Son, the Second Person of the Trinity.

One in being with the Father and the Spirit.

And he was sent by the Father to bring relief to the poor.

Not only the materially poor, but also all of us who are poor in Spirit.

A strengthened Spirit to pursue what’s truly important in this life.

He did liberate those he met who were held captive and oppressed by disease and disability—

Through physical, mental and spiritual healings.

And he also sacrificed himself to liberate all of us from the captivity of sin.

Removing the walls that held us captive and separated from the Father.

He freed us from the effects of oppression in this life.

By teaching us and showing us that what matters most is the next life.

That we should Seek first the Kingdom of God.

He freed us from the oppression of the numerous, burdensome, strictly enforced Jewish laws.

By giving us just two simple commandments.

Love God with all your heart, soul and mind; and love your neighbor as yourself.

He gave sight to the blind

Both then and now.

Both literally and figuratively.

Jesus did all that.

He delivered on his claims.

He fulfilled the prophesy of Isaiah.

He could have proclaimed the work complete, and made it so.

But he chose to leave some of the work for us.

The continuation of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

To do that, he draws us into one body.

He calls us his Church.

And he empowers us and calls on us to continue that work.

He continues to bring sight to the blind.

By opening our eyes to our blessings, our responsibilities and our mission.

We too are anointed with the Spirit of God for that mission—at Baptism.

We too are sent forth, by God, to bring relief to the poor.

To bring liberty to captives, sight to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed.

If all of that was a tall order for Jesus.

Even our scaled-down mission would be an impossible order for any one of us to accomplish alone.

But he gives us the Spirit and the grace to try.

As we heard in the letter to the Corinthians, he gives us our individual talents.

And when we bring our gifts together as one body, individual members working as one Church,

We can accomplish far more than we could acting alone.

Hard as we may be trying, we still have to wonder, Am I doing enough?

What more can I do?

What more should I be doing?

How can I do my part to build the Kingdom of God?

The organized Church helps and guides us in doing our part.

It helps us find those opportunities for service.

Helps us aggregate and multiply the benefits of our contributions.

Whether those contributions be from our time our talent or our treasure.

One of those opportunities is here for us now.

The Cardinal’s Appeal.

It’s an annual opportunity to share our material treasure.

To help meet the spiritual, educational, and temporal needs

Of parishes, schools and the people throughout our Archdiocese.

An opportunity to give back from the material gifts we’ve received.

Our bulletin gives more information on the good works we can support 

through the Cardinal’s Appeal.

And next week at Mass we’ll hear Cardinal Wuerl’s recorded appeal—asking us for our support.

In the mean time we can consider what part of our material wealth we’re willing and able to share.

What financial contribution we might share to support the work of building the Kingdom.

That scripture passage from Isaiah— repeated in our Gospel—is a good summary of our continuing work:

To bring relief to the poor.

To free the captives and the oppressed.

And to bring sight to the blind.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus stood in the synagogue and said

Today, this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.

Indeed, his work is now complete. 

In today’s world , it’s up to us to continue his work.

In this world today, this scripture passage is fulfilled in your sharing. 

Third Sunday of Ordinary Time

Lk 1:1-4; 4:14-21                                 Read this Scripture @usccb.org  

Christian Slaves

Just two hundred years ago, the African slave trade was near its peak.

Regrettably, the Church had not yet become a staunch opponent to slavery.

It did however hold that slaves should be baptized before being taken to market.

Those slaves knew little or nothing of Christianity.

They hadn’t expressed any desire to become Christians.

But they would be gathered together and baptized in assembly-line ceremonies.

Those baptisms don’t seem like particularly holy or noble acts by the Church of that time.

They look more like forcing Christianity on uninterested or unwilling people.

People without the power to resist or object.

But part of the justification was that the baptism clearly established the personhood of the slave.

It refuted the position popular among some slave traders and slaveholders.

That these were sub-human creatures.

It’s a shameful thing to have to admit.

But it was mostly Christians who were buying and selling those poor slaves.

Most of those poor souls were destined to lives under the absolute control of a Christian master.

So the baptisms were intended to have an impact on those buyers, sellers and masters.

Even if many Christians of that era were blind to the fact that slavery was evil and un-Christian,

Their treatment of the slave might be tempered by acknowledgement that the slave was a person.

And not only a person, but a fellow Christian.

One significant benefit for the Christian slave was the entitlement to a rest from his or her labors.

Rest on the Sabbath.

As Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel.

The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath.

We do have one of the Ten Commandments (the Third) directing us:

Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day.

Physical rest was only part of the intended holiness of the Sabbath.

It was also a time set aside for other special human needs:

Worship, community, family activity and quiet contemplation.

Keeping the Sabbath holy is indeed a command, and we are supposed to obey it.

But not, as the Pharisees viewed it, merely for the sake of obeying the law.

That Third Commandment is there, just like the other nine, for our benefit.

Not just as a test, or as a requirement for entry into the next life.

But as wise divine guidance for happiness in this life.

Tuesday Second Week of Ordinary Time

Mk 2:23-28                                  Read this Scripture @usccb.org  

New Beginnings

Every day is a new beginning with new possibilities.

You might even say every second is a new beginning.

Life can change in a second, a happy turn or a sad turn.

An epiphany or a conversion (or a further conversion) can happen in an instant.

Even though it may have been building up over years.

Today we’re surrounded by examples and invitations to new beginnings and new possibilities.

These invitations, like the new beginnings, occur more than once; so they’re not completely new.

They’re cyclical, but they bring a newness and freshness each time they come around.

They can serve as reminders and rekindlers for our faith and our motivation.

We see some new beginnings in our recent scripture readings.

Last Sunday we had the Baptism of the Lord.

The start of Jesus’ public ministry.

Today we hear of Jesus’ first miracle—The beginning of his signs.

Compared to later miracles, this first one might seem like a modest start.

Changing water into wine isn’t as important as:

Curing lepers, cripples, the blind, the deaf, and the possessed.

Or raising the dead.

But it was very important to that wedding family at that moment.

They didn't ask; they wouldn't have known to ask.

But Mary was attentive to the family’s need.

And she knew that her son could do something about it.

Jesus hesitated, saying: My hour has not yet come.

But he went ahead at his mother’s urging—his mother’s invitation.

It was an important miracle to all of us, because it convinced his disciples to believe in him.

We have some new beginnings in our secular lives as well.

Our year is still new—just three weeks old.

And hopefully we still have some optimism left in us.

Today is the actual inauguration day for a new presidential term.

The ceremonial day is tomorrow, but the official inauguration is today.

Within the past few weeks we’ve had the start of a new congress.

May our new and renewed leaders be attentive to the needs of their people.

This is a busy week of new cycles and new beginnings and rekindlers.

Along with the inauguration we also celebrate Martin Luther King Day.

And Friday, we have the March for Life.

And the whole week is designated a Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Many of us remember seeing Martin Luther King in person or on the TV news.

As he led the struggle against racial injustice.

Those who didn’t live through that era can still see and hear his recorded speeches.

And see the news videos of the sit-ins and the marches.

And the dogs, the fire hoses, the clubs, the guns and the bombed homes and churches.

Martin Luther King was certainly attentive to the needs of his people—the whole nation.

And their needs were great and the issues were of enormous spiritual and societal importance.

I remember the riots,

And the soldiers in the streets of Cincinnati where I was living when he was killed.

Here in Washington, rioters burned down H Street.

Just a few years later I started law school at Boston University.

On campus, they proudly displayed a plaque marking the building

Where Martin Luther King had earned his Doctor of Theology degree.

And with that training, and his spirit, and his character, he set off on his new beginning.

He brought our country, through years of struggle, to another new beginning.

He didn’t fight and win the battle alone.

But he was the key recognized political and spiritual leader of the movement.

Friday, we’ll have this year’s March for Life.

Another annual event in another struggle for human rights.

Another struggle for people in great need, and issues of enormous spiritual and societal importance.

Even if we’re attentive to such problems, none of us can solve them alone.

All we can do, in these great matters, is to make sure we do our own part.

Maybe our part is simply to pray. 

Maybe our part is to take some further action.

Maybe even to lead the way to new solutions.

We do give attention to the big societal issues and to the small personal issues.

But it's hard to know if we're really doing enough.

Is God calling us to focus on a particular issue?

Where should we be directing our energy and our talents?

What are our talents?

St Paul offers a nice list to consider in today’s second reading.

As deacon, I attend a lot of Masses.

And I get to listen to a lot of great homilies.

I've noticed that over the past couple weeks, Fr Begg has had a recurring message:

An invitation to pray.

This seems like a good time to jump on that bandwagon.

Let’s seize on this time of new beginnings.

Our hour has  come.

Let’s be more attentive to the needs of those around us—and to our own needs.

Let’s get to know more about God's plan for us, what he's calling us to do.

To do that, we need to talk with him and listen for his guidance.

And we don't have to start with some dramatic, extraordinary effort.

We can begin by reserving just 15 quiet minutes a day.

A brief regular time slot reserved for prayer—that is for talking to and listening to God.

If we’re already faithfully doing that, we might pray for guidance in stepping it up a notch.

Let that be our new beginning—

Starting today, a new life in closer personal communication with God.

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jn 2:1-11                                  Read this Scripture @usccb.org  

Psychiatric Assessment

(from Tuesday, January 15)

Last month the American Psychiatric Association dropped Asperger’s Syndrome

From its diagnostic manual.

Now, it’s just one relatively mild level in the broader range of disorders classified as autism.

Mental conditions, and what to call them, and how to deal with them, are an age-old problem.

We see in today’s Gospel that there’s a lot that hasn’t changed in 2000 years.

We’re told that in the synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit.

Unclean or evil spirits often indicated what we now call mental health or behavioral problems.

It’s not clear what the man’s tone was when he addressed Jesus.

What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?  Have you come to destroy us?

Was he aggressive and belligerent?  Or meek and cowering?

Maybe he had a persecution complex, maybe he was paranoid.

Whatever his problem was, Jesus recognized it immediately.

And just as quickly, cured it. 

He had that absolute power and authority over nature.

We don’t.

So how can we deal with people who have significant mental health and behavioral problems?

It seems that, as a society, we’ve made a lot of progress.

At least in comparison to the snake-pit asylums and lobotomies of the not too distant past.

We’re now able to fix or treat a lot of problems.

With counseling or drugs or both.

It’s harder to tell how much progress we’ve made in comparison to those biblical times.

The man in the synagogue seems to have been somewhat mainstreamed.

He’s there with the rest of the people.

And we hear of others with evil spirits who seemed to remain part of their families.

Like the boy who would throw himself into the fire and into the water.

But there were others who were ostracized, like the demoniac who was chained to the tombs.

Perhaps, like today, there were many among the beggars lining the streets.

There’s clearly a broad spectrum of problems; a vast range in the degrees of disorder.

While society struggles to find cures and to find ways to deal with the afflicted,

What can we do as individuals?

We can be more aware and understanding.

For the clearly needy, we can offer a kind word and try to help them find support.

For the offensive, we can reserve judgment and not write them off as being evil themselves.

We can give time or money or votes to support programs to find cures and to aid the afflicted.  

Jesus saw a person in need, and he used what power and authority he had to help.

We can do that too.

Tuesday Week 1 of Ordinary Time

Mk 1:21-28                                   Read this Scripture @usccb.org  

Feeding the Hungry

What can we offer to feed the hungry? 

The physically hungry and the spiritually hungry.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus feeds thousands with just a few loaves and fishes.

That feeding is recognized as a foreshadowing of the Eucharist.

At the Last Supper, Jesus repeats words similar to those in this passage.

And the priest repeats them in every Mass, at the consecration and elevation:

… looking up to heaven, he said the blessing, broke the loaves,

     and gave them to his disciples.

These are familiar words.

And we’re well aware that more is being offered than just the physical food.

We realize that the food is also a symbol of Jesus offering his whole self.

Especially when we hear the added phrases: This is my body and This is my blood.

And know that the bread and wine have passed even beyond the symbolic stage.

And have actually been transformed in substance.

We’re familiar with all that, even if we can’t fully explain the miracle.

But today’s Gospel passage also presents a less familiar line.

The disciples express their concern over the crowd’s need for food.

And Jesus responds, Give them some food yourselves.

Of course, the disciples can’t do that on their own.

But they do participate in the feeding effort.

They scout up the five loaves and two fishes.

They distribute the miraculously multiplied food to the crowd of thousands.

And they collect the leftovers.

That idea of active participation is also carried into our Eucharistic celebration.

Before the consecration and the elevation,

We bring our gifts to the altar.

We bring the bread and wine—the works of human hands.

But at that point they are already taking on added symbolic meaning.

They represent all the gifts that all of us offer.

Then we each join in praying that the gift we chose to offer may be acceptable to God.

We also add a few drops of water, symbolizing us, into the wine.

And pray: By the mixture of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ,

Who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

It’s only after all that is done that we move on to the consecration.

So, before consecration, the bread and wine are already steeped in symbolism.

And it’s that symbol-packed bread and wine,

Already mingled with the gifts we’ve offered,

That is ultimately transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ.

Whatever individual gift we offer gets incorporated into the body and blood of Christ.

So, considering all that, what can we offer to feed the hungry?

Would we offer anything less than our whole self?

Tuesday after Epiphany

Mk 6:34-44                                    Read this Scripture @usccb.org