More Than a Metaphor

Years ago my family lived in a small town in Massachusetts.

Our neighbors across the lane were an elderly couple.

My teenage brother used to hang out with them, and help them with chores.

The husband, Will, was an artist and poet of some local renown.

And he gave my brother a few paintings.

And an old trunk with some papers and other items he’d laid aside over the years.

Decades later, just a few weeks ago, my brother came across that trunk in his basement.

He found a poem in the papers—written by Will almost a hundred years ago.

It was a poem about St Joseph.

So, since I’m here at St Joseph’s, he sent me a copy.

It was a good poem; well written; thoughtful; showing St Joseph as the hero he was.

It was also heretical.

It spoke of St Joseph finally fathering his own children after Jesus was born.

I told my brother that Will must have been a more modern protestant.

From the earliest times, Church doctrine has held that Mary was ever-virgin.

She bore no children other than in the miraculous virgin-birth of Jesus.

Even the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, held with that doctrine.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Wesley, Huldrych Zwingli.

But more modern evangelicals and fundamentalists go with their own interpretation.

As do some modern members of those old main-line protestant churches.

When they read the Scripture and see reference to Jesus’ brothers and sisters.

And many see it as a plain statement that Mary bore other children.

They’re unaware of, or dismiss, the interpretation from the days of the early Church.

From Church fathers, scholars, theologians and saints.

Including the saint we honor today, Thomas Aquinas,

Who addressed the question in his Summa Theologica.

Most early Church leaders agreed in their conclusions, but not in their explanations.

Some believed that the brothers and sisters were actually cousins.

The Jewish language and culture often used the same words for those relationships.

And even for broader relationships.

Others believed that Joseph was a widower with children before he married Mary.

So Jesus referred to those family members as brothers and sisters.

The early non-Scriptural work, the Gospel of James, says that this was in fact the case.

It also states one of the reasons why the issue is important.

It says that Mary’s parents offered her, as a child, to serve God in the Temple.

And that she had taken a vow to remain a perpetual virgin.

We can draw two key points from today’s passage from the Gospel according to Mark.

One point is that we need a deep background to fully understand Scripture.

Seemingly plain words, like brother and sister, can have complicated, broader meanings.

The other point, the truly major point, is the Good News message of this Gospel passage.

Jesus himself further extends the broad definition of his brothers and sisters—
He extends it to include us.

 Tuesday, 3rd Week of Ordinary Time

Mk 3:31-35           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Advance Team

There’s a lot happening this week.

We’ve already begun the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

Monday is Martin Luther King’s birthday.

Wednesday we have the March for Life.

We’re in the middle of Poverty Awareness Month.

Busy times.

And every few years we squeeze an added presidential inauguration into this week.

These programs and events take a lot of preparation.

Ecumenical teams at the World Council of Churches prepare their programs.

Prayers, liturgies, readings, and other events for Christian Unity.

Thousands of organizers tackle the massive preparation effort for the March for Life.

Preparing Masses, rallies, and other events.

Preparing plans to handle all the challenging logistics.

All the work of accommodating hundreds of thousands of marchers.

A lot of effort goes into the preparation for any important event.

In modern political campaigns, that’s the job of the advance man, or woman or team.

Getting everything prepared for the candidate who will come after them.

Someone has to make sure everything’s ready.

The reservations, transportation, media, security, venues—even the crowds.

This advance work to prepare for someone’s coming isn’t really a new idea.

And it’s not limited to politics.

It’s for generals, CEO’s, celebrities, popes and all sorts of important people.

They all have someone to lead the preparation for their coming.

Even to serve as the warm-up act to get the crowd ready for the headliner to take the stage.

Advance teams work to prepare for even more mundane events.

Before an organization installs a new computer system they send someone out to the offices.

To make sure the physical site is ready for the new equipment.

And to make sure the users are trained and prepared for the new system.

Before a builder begins construction, others go out to survey and evaluate and prepare the site.

Advance men have played an important role since the time leaders first began making appearances.

It’s an ancient practice.

As it turned out, all the prophets were advance men—preparing the way for Jesus’ coming.

But John the Baptist was the prophet closest to Jesus.

Closest in time and space—they were contemporaries, they actually met.

Closest in kinship—the Gospels tell us their mothers were cousins.

Closest in spirit—John sensed Jesus’ presence when both were still in the womb.

When they met 30 years later, John knew at a glance that Jesus was the Lamb of God.

John the Baptist is the perfect model of the advance man.

Jesus himself said that there was no man born of woman who was greater than John.

John started with a single-minded dedication to his mission.

Preparing the way for the coming of the Messiah.

When people thought he himself might be the Messiah,

He was quick to correct them and stress his humbler role as merely the one helping to prepare.

And, when the time came, he was quick to point people toward the true Messiah.

He didn’t seek fame and glory for himself.

His greatest satisfaction was serving God and serving well.

Preparing the people, so that they might better recognize and accept Jesus.

John was fully committed to serving the Messiah before he even knew who the Messiah was.

And when the Messiah’s identity was revealed to him, he dedicated himself to Jesus.

It was his great joy to be surpassed by the one he had worked so hard to promote.

We can strive to follow the example given by John.

We already have a lot in common with him.

Our primary mission is the same as his.

To know, love and serve God in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in Heaven.

His more specific mission was to prepare the way for the coming of Jesus.

And we share that more specific mission too.

Jesus is coming again.

We need to prepare ourselves and others for that coming.

He won’t come unrecognized, as he came to Israel.

We’ll next see him when he comes in glory at the end of time.

Or, more likely, when we face him for judgment at our own death.

But either way, the next time we see him there will be no doubt that he is God.

We need to be always prepared for his coming.

We need to prepare ourselves.

And we need to be God’s advance men, helping prepare others.

The preparations John made benefited the people of his day.

But also everyone who came after them—including us.

His words and actions continue to strengthen and guide us today.

We benefit directly from the impact of his words and acts as they’re proclaimed in the Gospels.

We also benefit from the goodness that those acts and words have brought into the world.

Through the impact they had on those who were present there with John.

Witnessing those actions and hearing those words.

And by the response of those new disciples; the goodness their actions and words have brought.

And all that resulting accumulated goodness, growing and flowing down through generations.

Today, we’re the ones God is counting on to continue and increase that flow of goodness.

To spend our efforts preparing for something far greater than an election or a new building.

It’s up to us to make the Gospel known.

To testify, as John testified, through our words and acts and example.

God’s now counting on us to prepare the way for his coming.

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time
Jn 1:29-34           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Ancient Wisdom

We sometimes have a tendency to think of people from the distant past

As less sophisticated, or more gullible, or less intelligent than we are today.

Maybe we suffer from some scientific and technological snobbery.

We have made enormous advances in those areas.

But it’s clear from history and from reading what they wrote,

That the people who lived thousands of years ago were just as intelligent,

Just as capable of reasoning, and just as discerning as we are today.

That’s certainly the case for the people who lived just 2,000 years ago.

A few hundred years after Socrates and Plato and Aristotle.

Those people of 2,000 years ago weren’t easily fooled or deceived.

They were just as perceptive and just as skeptical about outlandish claims as we are.

They questioned authority the same way we do.

So when Jesus showed up in Palestine, he was scrutinized by intelligent, savvy people.

They were impressed with his speech and his knowledge and his wisdom.

But they were still skeptical of his authority.

Why should they listen when his teaching contradicted the prevailing ideas of the day?

Things like:

You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'

But I say to you, love your enemies…

Or, It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

And why should they keep listening even as his statements grew more and more radical.

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

I am the way the truth and the life.

Unless you eat my body and drink my blood you shall not have life.

There’s no doubt that he spoke as one having authority.

And there’s no doubt that many people did question that authority.

But he convinced them; he demonstrated his authority.

He drove out demons.

He cured diseases.

He raised the dead.

The people were amazed.

Thousands of those intelligent, discerning, questioning people came to believe in him.
And when his death shook their faith, he bolstered it---increased it---by rising again.

It’s okay for us too, to question his authority.

It’s more than okay.

It’s good for us from time to time to contemplate the question of Jesus’ authority;

To test his teachings and his claims against our life experiences.

Should we really believe that Jesus was who he said he was?

Our life experience tells us, Yes; or at least Why not?

Our gift of faith tells us, Yes.

The voice of the Spirit dwelling within us tells us, Yes.

The testimony of billions of other Christians, past and present, tells us, Yes.

And—not least of all—the testimony of those intelligent, savvy eye witnesses tells us, Yes.

Tuesday, 1st Week of Ordinary Time
Mk 1:21-28           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Yes

Not far from Nazareth, the body of a young woman was found.

She had been about four months pregnant.

And evidently, that was her crime.

She had been killed by members of her family or her community.

Because she had brought dishonor upon them.

Barbaric as it may seem to us today, such killings were the accepted practice in ancient times.

And a practice that hasn’t been ended.

This incident near Nazareth took place in April of this year!

The United Nations estimates that there are more than 5,000 of these honor killings each year.

Perhaps many thousands more—many by stoning.

Fathers, uncles, brothers and other community members often join in the killing.

Most are committed in the Middle East.

But last year there were dozens right here in the United States.

In most countries, including Middle Eastern countries, these killing are now illegal.

But in some areas they’re still condoned because of strong cultural and religious traditions.

In First Century Israel such killings were sanctioned—even demanded—by the law.

Remember the woman caught in adultery and dragged to Jesus for judgment.

The law of the land called for her stoning.

With that background, Matthew’s words in today’s Gospel seem quite the understatement.

Joseph was unwilling to expose her to shame.

That could have been the shame of dying by public stoning.

It’s not clear how often the law was actually carried to that full extent.

But Joseph did have the right to demand that the law be enforced.

That punishment be meted out for the broken contract and the disrespect that he had suffered.

And that the community be ridded of the offender.

But Matthew tells us Joseph was a righteous man.

He was humble, he was compassionate, he valued mercy over justice.

His ego didn’t need to see Mary suffer extreme punishment to salve his wounded pride.

So, even while believing that she had done wrong, he decided to divorce her quietly.

To let the matter end there.

But then Gabriel came onto the scene.

Our recent Gospels show that Gabriel had been busy lining everything up.

He visited Zechariah some months earlier to announce the coming birth of John the Baptist.

He visited Mary just weeks earlier to secure her agreement to be the mother of Jesus.

And now he comes to Joseph in a dream.

And assures him that Mary had done no wrong.

That her child was conceived through the Holy Spirit.

We see from Joseph’s quick reaction that he was a man of strong faith.

A man who knew God well enough to hear Him and trust Him in this extraordinary situation.

He accepts the message from his dream and drops the divorce plan.

He continues with his marriage to Mary.

And takes on the responsibility of foster father, supporter, protector and teacher to her child.

This miraculous child who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, and who would save his people.

We often hear of the importance of Mary’s Yes to God’s call.

If she had not said yes, where would we be today?

Would God have kept preparing and asking other young women?

Would any have yet said Yes?

Today we also see the importance of Joseph’s Yes.

If he had ignored Gabriel, where would we be?

Would God have quickly found another willing foster father?

Worse yet, what if Joseph had demanded strict enforcement of the law?

Would there have been a stoning?

But Joseph did say Yes.

And assumed his important role in salvation history.

Providing support and protection and care for Mary and Jesus.

Moving them away from the danger of Herod to the safety of Egypt, and back again.

Guiding and teaching Jesus through his early years.

This is St Joseph.

We don’t know much more about him than that.

Some early non-biblical writings tell us more—but they’re not reliable.

One says Joseph was an old man, 90 years old, when he married Mary.

That he’d been previously married and had adult children from that prior marriage.

(Those could explain the Gospel references to Jesus’ brothers and sisters).

But we really don’t know; he could have been a young bachelor when he married Mary.

Joseph most likely died before Jesus began his public ministry.

The Gospels don’t mention his being present for any event past the trip to Jerusalem,

When Jesus was 12 years old and was lost in the temple.

During this Advent and Christmas season we hear about Joseph more often.

This is the season when we celebrate those early years of Jesus’ life.

Those years when Joseph was around.

Soon, after this season, Joseph will step into the background.

We may know little more about him than the few facts mentioned above.

But that’s enough.

Enough to make him patron saint of the Catholic Church, the Americas, parishes like our own,

And many other places, groups, occupations and causes.

Enough for us to know that he was righteous, just, merciful, and humble.

That he listened for God and said Yes to God’s call.

That like Mary, he devoted himself to Jesus, and shows us the way to Jesus.

God is calling all of us to our own particular roles in salvation history.

We may not be visited by Gabriel, or called to so great a mission as Joseph.

But our Yes to God’s call is still of vital importance.

And we’re blessed to have a patron who’s an ideal model of virtue and attitude.

A patron who can help us get to our own Yes.

4th Sunday of Advent
Mt 1:18-24           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Grab Their Attention

Grab the audience’s attention with your opening words.

It might seem that Matthew is ignoring that literary advice.

He opens his book with the simple words …

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

But actually, those are shockingly powerful words for Matthew’s initial audience.

Eight words into the book and he’s already claimed that Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah.

Then he sets up the background for the story he’s about to tell.

His initial audience is the Jewish community.

And ultimately, his story will claim fulfillment of Jewish Scripture as a proof of credibility.

So he starts out by positioning his story within Jewish history and Scripture.

He links Jesus directly to Abraham and David, two of the greatest figures in Jewish history.

And then he provides a detailed genealogy of forty-two generations.

The precision of that genealogy can be questioned.

But Matthew’s goal wasn’t exact precision.

It was to show Jesus as an integral part of Jewish heritage and Scripture.

And Matthew throws a few twists into the genealogy.

There were other genealogies in the Old Testament.

But typically they didn’t include women.

Matthew mentions five women in his genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.

Jews who knew their scripture would already be familiar with those first four.

And recognize that all came to bear their children under unusual circumstances.

Tamar disguised herself to trick her father-in-law, Judah, into fathering a child with her.

Rahab was probably the same Rahab presented in the book of Joshua.

A prostitute of Jericho who helped the Israelites conquer the city.

Ruth was an outsider; like Rahab she was a gentile.

Bathsheba may have been a gentile too, and the wife of the soldier Uriah.

Not a likely candidate to bear one of Israel’s greatest kings—Solomon.

Matthew uses these women in his opening verses as a hint at things to come.

He signals the listener that this will be a story filled with new and unusual things.

A story beginning with Mary and the unusual circumstances of Jesus’ birth.

And continuing through his often surprising teachings and encounters.

His most-uncommon miracles, and his unique death and resurrection.

A story that many would find unbelievable.

A story that has to overcome the Jewish listener’s preconceived image of the Messiah.

A story that has to overcome the Gentile listener’s sense of incredulity.

Throughout this newly begun liturgical year, we’ll read our way through Matthew’s Gospel.

We’ve heard it all before, most of us many times; we know the story.

This year we might try to listen as if we’re those First Century Jews hearing it for the first time.

But however we read or listen,

We’ll be receiving the living Gospel—the Word speaks still.

And indeed, we’ll find that there’s always something new to grab our attention.

Something to strengthen our faith and take us deeper in understanding.

Tuesday, Advent, December 17th
Mt 1:1-17           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Watchmaker/Watchkeeper

When we take the time to look around us, it’s pretty clear that there is a God.

And that seems to be the conclusion reached by nearly every civilization known to us.

There is a being or a force out there that orders and controls the universe.

Whether we look outward into the vastness of space.

Or inward into the intricacies and complexities of our earthly surroundings and ourselves.

The more we learn about science and how things work,

The clearer it becomes that all this had to be created by some initial mover.

One analogy popularized in the early 19^th Century was that of the watchmaker.

If you look at a watch, you realize that there had to be a watchmaker.

You know it couldn’t have just come into being by itself.

It had to have an intelligent designer.

If you look at nature you realize the same thing.

It too had to have an intelligent designer and creator.

A popular theology during that Age of Enlightenment was Deism.

Some of America’s founding fathers, notably Thomas Jefferson, had Deist leanings.

Deists believed that there was a God who created everything.

The Great Clockmaker who set everything into motion.

But who then had no further involvement with that creation.

He left it to operate on its own.

We might sometimes tend to feel that way ourselves.

Is God really listening to our prayers?

Does God really care what we do?

Why would God listen to us?

And even if he did, would he ever intervene?

Why would he trouble himself with our little personal problems?

As Christians we know that we shouldn’t muddle for long in that kind of doubt and despair.

Of course God gets involved in our little lives.

What greater show of involvement could a creator give,

Than to become physically part of his creation?

Just as God did when he came to us on that Christmas day 2000 years ago.

We’re now in the midst of Advent, our preparation to celebrate the anniversary of that coming.

And today we celebrate one of the preparations that God Himself made for His arrival.

He intervened; He got involved in the personal life of Mary.

At the instant she was conceived in the womb of her mother, Anne.

He exempted Mary from the taint of original sin.

That hereditary defect that all the rest of us bear from the instant we come into existence.

Clearly, God does get directly involved and intervene in our human lives.

Mary’s Immaculate Conception and God’s own Incarnation at Christmas are just two examples.

And he continues today to interact with us in our lives, and to keep watch over us.

We Christians can take comfort in knowing, our God is not only the Great Watchmaker.

He is also the Great Watchkeeper.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Lk 1:26-38           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Crazy

Our Scripture readings today point to this underlying problem.

Isaiah foretells the qualities of the Messiah:

He shall judge the poor with justice

And decide aright for the land’s afflicted.

The Psalmist adds:

Justice shall flower in his days,

And profound peace, till the moon be no more.

He shall rescue the poor when they cry out,

And the afflicted when they have no one to help them.

Justice shall flourish in his time, and fullness of peace forever.

Well here we are, two thousands years into “his time”.

Anno Domino—in the Year of Our Lord—2013 AD.

And where is that flourishing justice?

Where is that fullness of peace?

Jesus came and started the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.

And called on us to nurture and spread that Kingdom.

By word and act and example.

Working with the rest of his Church, and with the help of his Spirit.

After all these centuries, why aren’t we closer to a world of full justice and peace?

In large part, it may be because of what Jesus tells us in today’s Gospel.

The Father has hidden these things from the wise and learned,

[And] revealed them to the childlike.

Who doesn’t want to be wise and learned?

That’s certainly sounds like something we should all strive to be.

The wisdom of the world tells us to be practical.

Peace and Justice have actually made some progress from our more harsh and brutal times past.

And we’ve been around long enough to know:

We don’t want to bite off more than we can chew.

We can’t solve all the problems of the world.

Our first responsibility is to look out for ourselves and our own.

The wisdom from learning those lessons can help us attain a degree of comfort in this life.

But it doesn’t promote speedy growth of the Kingdom.

It makes us too wise to make the same crazy, impractical mistakes Jesus made.

Tuesday, 1st Week of Advent
Lk 10:21-24           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

One Hundred Fifty Thousand

Yesterday, 150,000 people, died.

Every day, worldwide, about 150,000 people die.

Some days are busier than others.

One day in 2004, 230,000 people died in just one relatively small area around the Indian Ocean. 

The result of an earthquake and tsunami.

One day in 1945, 70,000 people died in just one city—in just five seconds.

Hiroshima.

We all know we’re going to die.

At least intellectually we know it.

We know of all the historical figures who have died.

We don’t know of anyone alive who’s older than 110 or so.

We know of all the deaths we read about or hear about every day.

We’ve even seen friends and relatives die.

We feel their absence.

Yet, at some level our minds play down the fact that we’re going to die too—relatively soon.

As we enter these last few days of our liturgical year, our Gospel speaks of the end times.

The end of this world.

Some unknown day—some far distant day—this world will end.

Some unknown day—a not so distant day—our time in this world will end.

There’s a standard cartoon image.

Long lines of people, queued-up in the clouds, waiting to see St Peter.

He’s sitting there at the Pearly Gates with his quill and his ledger book

Clearly, that’s no way to process 150,000 arrivals per day.

And clearly, we don’t really know the full details of the time-of-death process.

But we do know that after death we’ll move on to our new life.

And it’s there that we’ll await the final end of time and the transformation of this world.

Our Gospel’s focus on the end times draws us to consider our own end time.

Even with our incomplete knowledge, we have a lot of material for contemplation.

Pondering our own death could be a fairly depressing exercise.

If we looked upon death as a final end.

But we look beyond death to that glorious life to come.

With that glorious goal in view:

Are we making the best of this “present” we’ve been given?

How prepared are we for our end time?

There’s always room for improvement.

What course corrections might we make now?

Tuesday, 34th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 21:5-11           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Necessary Words

We can talk to almost anyone about fluff like entertainment and sports and gossip.

And even weightier subjects like world events, social issues, moral issues, and the economy.

We can even discuss our personal politics, health conditions and finances.

But in today’s culture, any talk of God seems proper only in strictly restricted settings.

Settings where everyone knows that they’re going to be exposed to that kind of talk.

Settings where their consent to exposure is implied by their knowing and voluntary presence.

Maybe I exaggerate just a little.

But in our culture, how can we be expected to go out and spread the Gospel?

And yet the last three popes have been calling us to a New Evangelization.

Calling us, as individuals, to help spread the Good News.

To share what we’ve found in our Church and in our relationship with Christ.

Share not with some isolated tribe deep in the Amazon.

But with our family, friends, neighbors, coworkers—the people we encounter every day.

For some reason many of us are reluctant to do that.

Maybe we’re just naturally private or shy.

Maybe we don’t want to risk a conversation that might feel awkward or uncomfortable—

Either for ourselves or for the person we’re speaking with.

We might even fear that we’d offend the other person.

They might think we’re acting holier-than-thou.

Or maybe we don’t feel like we’re expert enough to start a discussion about God.

That might lead to a discussion of religious beliefs or doctrines.

We could end up having to explain or defend our beliefs.

We can seek some comfort in the old quote:

Preach always, and when necessary use words.

Preaching by action could be an easier form of evangelization.

And a truer, more genuine form.

Far better than Do as I say, not as I do.

But it relies on people not only noticing our good actions,

But also seeing the link between our actions and our faith.

Living a life of good example is certainly required.

But as even the quote concedes, words too are—at least sometimes—necessary.

Our Scripture readings today show examples of good actions combined with necessary words.

And they confirm, as we already know, that good actions are not always easy.

The leading scribe, old Eleazar, gave his life when he could have opted for an easy out.

His torturers offered to let him merely pretend to join in the idol worship.

But he was concerned that his pretense might lead others astray.

So Eleazar chose to endure torture and death rather than set a bad example.

And he didn’t go silently—he used words.

He explicitly stated his reason for choosing death and he proclaimed his devotion to God.

Zacchaeus also chose to take actions that weren’t easy for a man who loved his money.

And he used words to pledge those acts.

Saying he’d donate half his wealth to the poor and repay four-fold for any prior cheating.

And he made those pledges in public and in the clear context of his faith in Jesus.

...

God, help us to share the necessary words.

Tuesday, 33rd Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 19:1-10           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

The Time Has Come

Today we celebrate the 33^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time.

Those weeks outside the four seasons of the Church year: Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.

This is the last numbered Sunday of the Liturgical Year.

The last green vestments we’ll see for a while.

Next Sunday is the 34^th and final Sunday, but we call it the Feast of Christ the King.

And the Sunday after that we begin a new year with the Advent Season.

So, the end is near.

The end of our liturgical year.

A year that traces through the birth, life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus.

A cycle that we repeat and relive each year.

And as we near the end of that year, nature points us to the end times.

We haven’t yet had much of the bone-chilling cold.

But we have the short days, the bare trees, the flowerless gardens.

The dead leaves swirling into heaps along the sidewalks and gutters and doorways.

And our Scripture also points us to the end times.

The end of the world as we know it, with the second coming of Jesus.

We hear of the signs of that second coming.

We all want to know when it will be.

We all want to be prepared for it.

Jesus has told us that no one except the Father knows when that will be.

But we wonder and ask anyway.

In our Gospel today, the people ask about the destruction of the temple.

And Jesus’ answer addresses both the end of the temple and the end of the world.

But the signs he tells them to look for are signs that we see in every generation.

Wars, famines, earthquakes, plagues, mighty signs from the sky.

One other sign he mentions has always intrigued me.

False prophets.

People publicly claiming to be Jesus in his second coming.

They say: I am he.  The time has come.

Surprising as it may be, those false prophets are always around.

Wikipedia lists more than a dozen out there today; some well known with many followers.

I’ve been doing an annual check on one of them for nearly ten years.

Jose’Luis De Jesus Miranda.

Jose’ was a preacher who began his notoriety by claiming to be The Man Christ Jesus.

Eventually expanding his claim, saying he’s both Christ and the Antichrist.

He travels around in a Cadillac Escalade with a posse and lots of bling.

He claims to have millions of followers in thirty countries.

Even if he exaggerates those numbers,

It’s a fact that he does have radio stations, multiple churches and many followers.

Every year I expect to see his fall, but it turns out that 2013 was a big year for Jose’.

His ex-wife reported on YouTube that he died this past August in a Texas hospital.

But in a September video, Jose’ himself says he’s back.

There’s a lot of buzz among his church officials and followers.

As they ask, Did he die?  Is he dead?  Is he alive again?

They debate this great mystery on their Internet sites.

They debate as if they couldn’t simply consult the official State of Texas death records.

Jose’ and other would-be-Christs and would-be prophets like to predict the end of the world.

They point to those same signs that we see in every generation.

They themselves, unwittingly, fulfill the sign of the false prophets.

They ignore the fact that Jesus told us no one can know the hour or the day of his return.

And that his return will be unmistakable.

As clear as lightning filling the sky from East to West.

Why do we even worry about the end of the world?

People have been waiting for it for the past 2,000 years.

And there’s no reason to think they won’t go on waiting for thousands more.

So, the probability that the end will come in our lifetime is pretty remote.

Maybe we’re enthralled by the enormous scope and finality of it.

Doomsday, a day of dread.

The end of the world; the end of time.

The day of reckoning; the great general judgment of all who have ever lived.

But that finality isn’t an ultimate end.

It’s the end of only one stage of humanity’s existence.

It’s also the start of the final stage; the eternal stage.

The day of reunion of soul and body.

A day we should look forward to with great joy and hope.

We’ll all be there on that day.

But the overwhelming odds are that we’ll have died long before.

We’ll have already, at the time of our death, faced our particular judgment and learned our fate.

So there’s the end time we really need to prepare for.

The day of our death and particular judgment.

Our last day of opportunity to exert any impact on our own eternal fate.

But we don’t know when that day is coming either.

We do know it won’t be a thousand years from now.

It will be relatively soon—in a few decades or years or months or minutes.

In two weeks we’ll have one of those landmark occasions for new beginnings, for renewal.

The start of a new Liturgical Year.

We can use those two weeks to reflect on how we did in reliving this last cycle.

This specially-designated Year of Faith.

Maybe there’s something more we’d like to accomplish before it ends.

Or maybe we can consider the things we hope to accomplish in the fast-approaching new year.

We’ll probably have many more opportunities in this life for renewal.

Every new day can be a fresh beginning,

But some day—some day neither we nor the false prophets can know—

That day’s opportunity will have been our last.

33rd  Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 21:5-19           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Servant Spirit

Count the many major roles you’ve filled in life.

Child, student, employee, volunteer, friend.

Maybe spouse, parent, sibling, caregiver, adviser, leader and protector.

Maybe aunt, uncle, grandparent or mentor.

And at a more mundane level, we’re all consumers, patients and clients.

If you’re still counting, you’ve probably run out of fingers by now.

Each title there implies a relationship with someone else.

Child/parent, student/teacher, friend/friend, and so forth.

Each role carries a set of obligations.

And each requires a certain level of commitment and effort for success.

A number of us here might add the role of public servant.

We don’t all have the word servant explicit in our titles.

But all of our roles involve some kind of service.

So we’re all servants.

Serving the other person in each of those relationships.

Doing at least the minimum things we’re expected or obligated to do.

Or failing in that relationship.

A friend told me about an experience he had when he began his public service career.

He went to a seminar for newly appointed leaders.

And a prominent speaker there gave the group his three key rules for government executives.

(Or executives in any large institution.)

  - Show up at work.

  - Keep your hands out of the till.

  - And keep your hands off the employees.

No lofty talk of dedication, commitment, excellence or achievement.

Just a warning to meet the barest minimum obligations.

My friend says he was shocked and appalled at what he heard.

But now, thirty years later, he gives that old seminar speaker some credit.

My friend says he’s seen a number of executive ousted in the last thirty years.

And all were for violation of one of those three embarrassingly-low standards.

Meeting the bare minimum service level may be enough to avoid total failure.

But surely we aspire to higher performance in our own roles and relationships.

And especially in our one most important relationship.

The one we hear about in today’s Gospel.

Our master/servant relationship with God.

Jesus tells us, 

Don’t expect thanks for doing just the absolute minimum.

You’re obliged to do at least that much.

You’re an unprofitable servant if that’s all you do.

So how can we go beyond the minimum in our master/servant relationship with God?

What service does he want from us?

He wants us to show real dedication and commitment; pursue real excellence and achievement.

And to bring that servant spirit not only to our direct relationship with him.

But to all the many roles and relationships of our lives.

Tuesday, 32nd Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 17:7-10           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Fix It Up

Jesus has accepted an invitation to a Sabbath meal with the leading Pharisees.

There’s already tension between them.

They’re scrutinizing his sermons and his actions with the crowds, and he knows it.

In yesterday’s Gospel, he started the dinner with a lesson on dinner invitations.

He told them they shouldn’t invite powerful people who might repay them with worldly favors.

But rather, invite the poor, the crippled, the blind and the outcast.

If they would do that, they would be rewarded in Heaven.

That’s the setting of today’s Gospel passage.

And that explains the harsh response Jesus gives to the Pharisee’s seemingly innocent comment:

Blessed is the one who will dine in the Kingdom of God.

The Pharisee’s comment showed that he still didn’t get it.

Jesus had just finished describing the kind of actions that lead toward a Heavenly reward.

He had just finished suggesting that they needed to change their ways.

And this Pharisee responds with his overconfident, highly presumptuous statement.

In effect saying,

We already know who’s going to Heaven, it’s us holy and privileged Pharisees.

And so, Jesus spells it out for them in a parable.

A generous host honored some special guests with an invitation to the great feast.

The Heavenly banquet.

But those invited guests failed to appreciate the invitation.

They placed a higher priority on tending to their wealth and other worldly matters.

They insulted the host by declining his generous invitation.

They took the host for granted.

They were presumptuous—self-assured of their worthiness of the host’s favor.

But Jesus’ parable said they were wrong.

They were forfeiting their invitations.

They were forfeiting their special status with the host.

The parable was both a condemnation and a warning for the listeners.

A call to examine their special relationship with God and to do their part in maintaining it.

Those Pharisees recognized the parable was aimed at them, and they were moved to action.

The action they chose was to begin plotting how to get rid of Jesus.

We can be a lot like the Pharisees.

We too can be the presumptuous, unappreciative, insulting invited guests of the parable.

And when we recognize that the parable is aimed at us, we too should be moved to action.

But we know a lot more about Jesus than the Pharisees knew.

We know who needs to do what to fix the problem.

Tuesday, 31st Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 14:15-24           Read this Scripture @usccb.org