Keep In Touch

 

Keep In Touch

Michaelangelo

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Does God actually speak to us—individually, personally?

                    Does he send angels to bring us his messages?

 

The Scriptures give many accounts of those Divine communications.

We have two of them today.

We hear that the Lord spoke to Nathan, with a message for David.

Assuring him that God would raise a new king from David's heirs.

God saying, I will be a father to him, and he shall be a son to me.

 

And then in our Gospel we hear the story of the Annunciation.

The coming fulfillment of that assurance made to David.

The angel Gabriel was sent from God … to Mary.

To tell her that God has chosen her to give birth to a holy child,

That promised Son of God.

Mary had a real conversation with Gabriel.

And in the end, she accepted God's call, saying—

May it be done to me according to your word.

 

In other Scripture passages angels bring messages from God

To Joseph in his dreams.

And God and his angels also talk with Abraham and Moses

And many other Bible characters.

 

But how about us ordinary non-biblical folks.

Does God talk to us too?

When we're awake?  When we're asleep?  Through his messengers?

 

Yes, he does.

We've all had—or will have— those experiences.

That inner voice speaking to us—guiding us.

We may have to question whose voice that really is.

It could sometimes just be our own voice.

It takes practice in listening.

But we can develop our ear for recognizing God's voice.

We can also test the message.

Is it consistent with what we know of God's law and God's goodness?

If not, we know it's not God's voice or God's message.

 

If we have any doubts that God does indeed speak to us,

Reflection on our own personal stories can help assure us.

My own story that’s most convincing to me,

Involves today's Annunciation Gospel.

The Annunciation is on March 25, nine months before Christmas.

 

On March 26, 1999 I was struggling to decide whether to apply

To the deacon program.

I’d completed the application and been carrying it around for days

In my briefcase.

If I didn’t mail it that day I'd have to wait another two years to apply.

 

In those days I was the server at the 8:00 daily Mass.

And as I walked to Church that morning I was thinking—praying:

God give me some guidance here.

Give me some message—some sign—

Let me know for sure if I should mail in this application.

 

Usually, I was the first one into the sacristy.

But that morning, as I entered, I was surprised to find a priest.

Just standing there in the nearly dark room.

Not Fr. Begg, who was scheduled, but a priest I didn't recognize.

I turned on the lights and we chatted a bit,

But didn't introduce ourselves.

We looked at the historic scenes painted on the sacristy windows.

One showed the two ships, the Ark and the Dove,

That brought the first Catholic settlers to Maryland.

The priest mentioned that the day before,

On the Feast of the Annunciation,

He had blessed the replicas of those ships in Baltimore Harbor.

 

Our lector came into the sacristy to help with setting up for the Mass.

Being more polite (or at least less preoccupied) than I was,

She said, Hello father, I'm Elsa.

He responded, Good morning, I'm Fr Keeler.

I went about setting up the altar.

When I came back to the sacristy, Fr Begg had arrived

And they were both vested.

The bells began to ring and we lined up to go out to the altar.

At that instant, Fr Keeler pulled a scarlet skullcap from his briefcase 

And set it on his head.

 

And I began thinking:

Ah, Fr Keeler is Cardinal Keeler from Baltimore—

And my mind began to debate whether this was the sign I'd asked for.

God sent a Cardinal to meet me for morning Mass.

But then again, I've served with Cardinals and Bishops before.

A Cardinal showing up today is certainly a surprise and uncommon, 

But it's not unheard of.

Maybe it's not a sign at all.

 

So I started the Mass right here at this bench.

Distracted, paying no attention.

Totally engrossed in my mental debate over whether Cardinal Keeler

Was my sign.

Suddenly I realized that Fr Begg was standing right in front of me, 

Starting his homily.

Evidently, I'd automatically stood up at the Alleluia—and it was now time to sit.

And it was well past time to tune-in to the Mass.

Fr Begg gave one of his famously brief-but-powerful homilies.

So brief, I can include it here—

(He was, by the way, totally unaware of my unmailed application.)

 

He said:  “Yesterday was the Feast of the Annunciation.

Last week we had the Feast of St Joseph, the patron of our parish.

And in a few weeks we'll have Good Friday.

The key figures in those holy days are Mary and Joseph and Jesus.

Besides being members of the Holy Family,

What did these three people have in common?

They all listened to God's call—and did what he called them to do.

When are you going to do what God is calling you to do?”

 

There it was—my indisputable sign.

Through Fr. Begg—messenger of God.

If I hadn’t snapped out of my mental debate, and started listening,

I could have missed it.

 

That story convinces me that God does speak to us personally.

What's your story?  

We can all find personal stories of God speaking to us.

Maybe more or less dramatically.

Whether through that voice of the Spirit within us,

Or through an external messenger.

 

In these final days of Advent, let's recall and reflect

On those times God has spoken to us personally, individually.

Maybe we didn't always realize that it was God speaking.

Maybe we dismissed some of His messages

As being just our own thoughts, or as being a mere coincidence.

 

Then let's strengthen our active two-way communication with God.

Perhaps starting with some formal prayer or some ad hoc petition,

But following that with some quiet listening.

Honing our ability to recognize His voice and His messages.

Building our confidence in that communication.

So that like Mary, and Joseph and Jesus,

When we do get a message, we will recognize it and act on it.

When are you going to do what God is calling you to do?

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Lk 1:26-38

  Read this Scripture @usccb.org 

Gifted and Talented

 

Photo by Etienne Girardet on Unsplash

 View the Homily (at 12:30)

Here we are again, already approaching the end of another year.

A year we’ll well remember for the rest of our lives.

(Although next year’s virus waves might actually be worse.)

 

Next Sunday will be the Feast of Christ the King.

The last Sunday of the liturgical year (a bit ahead of our secular year.)

So, recent Scripture readings have been focusing on the end times.

The Second Coming, the Last Judgement.

 

Last week we heard of the 5 wise and 5 foolish virgins.

The foolish ones neglectfully let their lamps go out,

And missed their chance to enter into the feast.

So we’re told to stay alert!  Be prepared! 

Because we know not when the Master will return.

 

Today Paul tells us we’re children of the light.

Because we see what’s coming – 

We know Jesus is coming again.

We know we don't know when he's coming.

We know to stay prepared.

 

And then we have Jesus’ story of the talents.

A talent was a unit of weight—a very heavy unit.

Scholars disagree on exactly how heavy,But probably around 75 pounds.

So just one talent of gold was a sizable fortune.

Today, it would be worth around $2 Million.

 

Jesus’ audience understood that He was using the talent figuratively,

To represent our immensely valuable and precious interior assets.

The same meaning our modern language has adopted from his story.

Talents are those personal qualities within ourselves.

Assets not earned, but given—entrusted—to us at birth.

Just as the Master entrusted that fortune of gold to his servants.

And like that Master, Jesus expects a return on those assets.

 

Each of us has been given a variety of talents.

More than five.

Some fairly common, some rather rare.

We’re called to use and develop all of them.

We may have special talents for communication—

Engaging with other people.

Or for understanding complex, abstract ideas, like higher math.

Or for critical thinking and analysis.

Or for physical endurance or coordination.

Those innate God-given talents enable us  

To care for ourselves and family, build a career, or do good works.

They might serve as our basis

For doing detailed research or engineering or scientific study.

For working with our hands or our minds or both.

We may have talents that can make us great athletes or entertainers.

Or doctors or managers or organizers.

Or tradesmen or teachers or farmers or housekeepers.

Or technicians or analysts.

Or poets, or good parents, or a hundred other things.

 

Our talents enable us to care for ourselves and our families.

But they’re not just for our own benefit.

They’re meant to be for the benefit of all those around us.

To be shared, as by that highly praised wife in our first reading today.

Devoting her many talents for the benefit of herself and her family.

But also using them to reach out to the poor and the needy.

 

Ultimately, our talents are meant to be used for God.

We are his hands and feet and voice in this physical world.

We’re the vehicles through which he goes to others, touches others.

 

This end-of-year is a good time to step back.

Ask ourselves, What are my talents?

Make a mental list or a written list.

Am I sharing all my talents?

Have I buried any?

Am I producing a return for my Master?

Or am I an unprofitable servant?

 

As we prepare for a new year,

With our list of talents in mind, or in hand.

We can first thank God for the gift of those talents.

And then commit that we won’t neglect any of them.

That we won’t let our lamps go out.

That we’ll stay alert—ready for that end time that is certainly coming.

Whether our personal end time or the whole world’s end time.

When we’ll stand facing Jesus and be asked for an accounting.

 

33rd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mt 25:14-30

  Read this Scripture @usccb.org 

 View the Homily (at 12:30)

Pampered Puppies

 

Photo by Andrew Lancaster on Unsplash

There are many types of prayer.

Prayers of petition are probably the most common.

The Our Father itself is primarily a list of petitions.

We’ve been taught to pray and to ask God for what we want.

We’ve learned that we don’t always get what we pray for.

At least not right away.

But we know God does listen to our prayers.

And that His ultimate plan for us,

Is to give us even more than we ever thought to ask for.

We already have a lot to be thankful for.

 

With that background and with that generosity in mind,

We might be taken aback by Jesus’ behavior in our Gospel today.

The Canaanite woman repeatedly begs for his help.

First, he completely ignores her, then he says he won’t help her.

That’s shocking enough.

But even more, he compares her and her people, the Gentiles, to dogs.

That would include all of us non-Jews.

“It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.”

 

No analogy is perfect.

But, though it stretches our modern-day bounds of political correctness,

Jesus did come up with a pretty good one.

The image he evoked clearly conveyed his message to the woman.

He was here to minister to the Jews—the children.

Not to the other nations—the dogs.

She immediately understood—and embraced—the image he’d created.

And she came right back at him with a quick, bold, clever retort.

“Even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.”

She may be the only person in the Gospels to top Jesus in a verbal exchange.

And her bold resolve has made her a model for persistence in prayer.

 

There are very serious matters involved in their encounter –  

For her, a desperate plea for healing.

For him, an attempt to hold to his mission,

T0 serving the Jews as God’s first chosen people.

Despite that gravity, there’s a touch of lightheartedness to their exchange.

And a sense of respect rather than malice or offense.

The woman calls him Lord and Son of David.

Jesus, who could read her heart, pushes her a bit.

But, in the end, he praises her for her great faith, and grants her request.

 

This was one of the few times Jesus directly ministered to a Gentile.

But those few instances began to open the door for the whole world.

As Isaiah foretold in our first reading,

The time would come when foreigners could join themselves to the Lord.

And after Jesus’ earthly ministry was completed, we hear

Paul, calling himself the Apostle to the Gentiles.

Announcing in his letter to the Romans, that that time had come.

God’s plan, by then, had moved forward to the next stage.

Jesus had raised us, as his sisters and brothers,

To the ranks of the children.

God would lavish His gifts and His mercy not only upon the Jews.

But upon all of us.

We were no longer the dogs in Jesus’ analogy.

. . .

 

And really, when you stop to think about it, especially in our culture,

Was it so bad to be compared to a dog?

The word Jesus used can also be interpreted as “puppy.”

That makes for an even fuzzier, friendlier analogy.

Dogs can’t come before the children, but they can be treasured.

They have some truly praiseworthy qualities.

Fr. Tom Hart, a scholar who’s been staying with us the past few weeks,

Pointed me to some saintly authority for that.

St Xanthias, one of the 3^rd Century Desert Fathers, said,

A dog is better than I am, for he has love and does not judge.

 

Today, on Capitol Hill, we love and pamper our dogs.

You see people walking their dogs at all hours of the day and night.

I used to walk my German Shepherd, Rosebud, late at night.

People who would probably never have stopped to talk to me,

Would stop to say hello to her.  

 

We’re funny about our dogs.

Many of us treat them as if they were our children.

In return they give us their complete and unconditional love and loyalty.

They happily accept us as their masters, and follow our commands.

It seems that there’s nothing they’d rather do than just be with us.

 

Even as an accustomed member of that Capitol Hill dog culture,

I was surprised, when I visited Paris.

It wasn’t uncommon to go into an upscale Parisian restaurant

And see people holding their little dogs on their laps.

Hand-feeding them at the table.

 

Again, no analogy is perfect.

But one comes to mind, at least for me,

When we look ahead to that ultimate gift—the Heavenly banquet.

Or when we look at what we already have in Communion at Mass.

We see that Jesus has indeed elevated us to the ranks of the children.

But we can also see that

We’re still very much like those pampered Parisian puppies.

Not scrambling for scraps on the floor.

But reclining at the table

Being hand-fed by our loving Master.

 

And all He asks in return is that we give Him our love and loyalty.

20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mt 15:21-28

  Read this Scripture @usccb.org 

View the Homily (at 13:55)

One Wheat

Try for a minute to imagine—if you can—

A land of wheat and weeds.

A world, a country, a society,

Seemingly split into two clear camps.

The only thing they can agree on is that 

There are indeed two distinct camps.

The weeds and the wheat.

Those who call themselves the wheat will quickly tell you—

The weeds are evil, they’re destroying the land.

Slightly less harsh wheat might allow that 

Some weeds aren’t truly evil.

They’re just misled—unthinking sheep, or zombies.

Or just hopelessly ignorant.

But, whether evil or merely stupid, the weeds have to go.

Is that a land any of us would want to live in?

Can you imagine any place worse than that?

Let me help.

Imagine that in addition to the deep division 

And tension and animosity,

And the urge to get rid of the weeds.

There’s also universal confusion.

It turns out that everyone is self-confident

That they are the wheat.

They and those like themselves are fine.

The others—the weeds—should be uprooted, destroyed.

Or at least banished or pushed out of the way.

As hard as all that may be to imagine today, in America.

The problem of weeds was something that

Jesus thought worth mentioning 2,000 years ago.

And his solution was to leave the weeds 

To grow along with the wheat.

There was too much risk that uprooting the weeds 

Would harm the wheat.

Some wheat might be mistaken for weeds.

Other wheat might be swept up with the weeds

Because of their close proximity.

In explaining his parable, Jesus says the good seed

Sown by the Son of Man—the wheat—

Are the children of the kingdom.

And the bad seed sown by the evil one—the weeds—

Are the children of the Devil.

But we can’t take that too literally.

The Devil can’t create souls, create children.

He can’t sow life.

Only God has that power.

So, all the children are children of God.

What the Devil can do is win over children 

And make them his own.

Transform them—deform them—turn them into weeds.

But his hold on them isn’t necessarily permanent.

Those weeds can transform again—reform—

To become wheat again.

And so, Jesus tells us to hold back our judgement.

To let him be the judge.

When we’re ready to label someone a weed,

Even if we’ve successfully put our prejudices aside,

There’s still a good chance we could be wrong.

And even if we’re right at that instant,

That particular weed might yet grow into wheat.

That’s not to say that there aren’t some people 

Doing truly evil things.

There are.

And we do have to protect ourselves and others from them.

But, we can’t just quickly lump others in with those weeds.

Especially not over mere disagreements.

Jesus also told us that 

A house divided against itself cannot stand.

So, we need to find a way 

For all of us self-confident wheat to reconcile.

It won’t be easy, divisions are deep.

There’s a lot of damage to repair.

I remember when my daughters were in grade school.

One of their teachers, Mrs Liardi,

Had an impressive way of addressing misbehavior.

When someone was doing something wrong

She would ask, usually in a loud voice:

Child of God, what are you doing?

Imagine how much better things could be

If all of us self-proclaimed wheat 

Could look at the supposed weeds

And give them that same recognition.

Reminding ourselves, and them, that 

We are all children of God.


More on Weeds 

16th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Mt 13:24-33

  Read this Scripture @usccb.org 

Photo by Warren Wong at Unsplash