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

Mix It Up

What is the Kingdom of God like?

We could spend a lot of time meditating on that.

We should spend a lot of time meditating on that.

We know a lot about the Kingdom of God.

But not everything.

And we don’t always have a clear picture of it in the front of our minds.

We know that the Kingdom of God is here today—here on earth.

Jesus established it when he came here two thousand yeas ago.

A Kingdom without borders, but a true state, a true community.

A state where we can choose to take up residence.

A state of being, a state of mind, a spiritual state.

A state populated by many others—passed and present—known and unknown,

Who welcome us into community with them.

In our Gospel today, Jesus stresses two aspects of the Kingdom.

Its dramatic growth and the sustenance it provides.

It’s like a tiny mustard seed that grows into a bush that’s billions of times its original size.

A bush that is home and shelter to those who come to dwell within it.

The Kingdom is also like the yeast that mixes in with the surrounding wheat flour to transform it.

It makes the dough expand and rise up and as one bread, one body.

Indeed, the Kingdom has grown immensely since its establishment.

From an initial handful, to a few thousand at the time of Jesus’ resurrection,

To many billions throughout the years leading up to today.

That growth has come through the grace and action of God.

First by Jesus himself coming to gather the nations into the peace of God’s Kingdom.

And then by citizens of the Kingdom mixing with and raising up the surrounding populations.

We Christians, especially we Catholics, are blessed with the faith God has given us.

The truth He has revealed to us.

The Good News that Jesus came to save the world.

The Good News that God is the loving Father of all mankind.

That he loves all His children, and wants all of them to enter into His Kingdom.

We are today’s earthly contingent of the Kingdom of God.

We’re blessed with our citizenship and with the shelter of the Kingdom.

And we’re charged with the task of finishing the work Jesus began.

The work of gathering the nations into God’s one Kingdom.

Using the talents we’ve been given to spread the Good News.

By word and act and example.

We’re today’s yeast.

To paraphrase Pope Francis,

Let’s get out there and mix it up.

Tuesday, 30th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 13:18-21           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Master/Servant

Today, Jesus gives us a lesson on how to be good, faithful servants.

Anticipating the Master’s needs.

Vigilant, and always ready and eager to attend to the Master’s needs.

The lesson immediately calls to mind our servant-master relationship with God.

Jesus came to us as a brother, but we know that he came also as our Master.

That he’s with us still today in word and sacrament and spirit.

And that he’ll come again at the end.

To all of us at the end of time.

And to each of us at the end of our individual time on earth.

He tells us to be ready for his return.

Always ready, because he may come when we least expect him.

The way to be always ready is to be always his good and loyal servants.

Following the commands and guidance he’s given us.

And he promises to give us a great reward for our service.

He’ll sit us at table and proceed to wait on us.

So, this isn’t only a lesson on being a good servant.

It’s also a lesson on being a good master.

The good master appreciates and rewards the good servant.

Even to the point of switching positions with the servant.

And isn’t that how it is in this life?

There’s mutuality in the master-servant relationship.

Both give something and both receive something.

But the master has the power and authority.

And the servant obeys and attends to the master’s needs.

In our relationship with God, He has the power and authority, we’re always the servant.

Even though he treats us as a child, or a brother or sister.

But in our relationships with others, we’re sometimes the master and sometimes the servant.

Parents are the masters and their children are the servants.

But those children grow up to be masters of their own children.

In the workplace, we’re masters of some and servants of others.

And sometimes those roles shift between the same individuals.

We can have a situational rather than fixed status.

I knew a court manager who was also a Lieutenant in the Army reserves.

And his court deputy would become his commanding officer when they had reserve duty.

We can be both master and servant to someone who is both master and servant to us.

The master-servant relationships can begin to sound pretty complicated.

But Jesus told us how to keep it simple.

Be a servant to all—even when we find ourselves in a master’s role.

And that’s really just a corollary of his two simple, great commandments.

Love God with all your heart soul and mind.

And love your neighbor as yourself.

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 12:35-38           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Unity

The other day I was surfing the web for an update on the debt limit standoff.

And I came across some results from an Internet survey.

It had been conducted by NBC and Esquire Magazine.

To determine just how divided the American people are.

It probably wasn’t the most expertly crafted or analyzed survey.

But the answers enabled them to plug each respondent into one of eight categories.

Starting from far left-wing and moving to far right-wing—

The somewhat colorfully-named categories were:

   The Bleeding Hearts

   The Gospel Left

   The Minivan Moderates

   The MBA Middle

   The Pick-up Populists

   The #WhateverMan

   The Righteous Right

   The Talk Radio Heads

They found that 51% fell into the middle four of those eight categories.

And they dubbed those groups the New American Center.

Even though they’d already done their analysis, you could still take the survey.

I did and, as expected, I fell within those center regions.

What I didn’t expect from that type of survey was so many questions about my prayer life.

How important is faith to you?

Do you pray and reflect on your faith regularly?

Did you go to church last weekend?

Do you pray often, daily, seldom or never?

In our Gospel passage today, Jesus tells us that it’s necessary to pray always.

Without becoming weary.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, he says we must pray without ceasing.

The survey folks didn’t think to provide a selection for that level of prayer.

What does it mean to pray always; to pray without ceasing?

It could be taken most literally—

At every instant have a prayer on our lips or in the front of our mind.

But that would be impossible, even for the cloistered monks and nuns.

We all have to sleep and eat and work.

And at least at some times give full attention to the world we’re in.

Praying always could mean—always have a prayer in our heart.

Cultivate a relationship so close and constant with God that we’re always conscious of Him.

That everything we do is with an attention and dedication to God.

In a sense then, our every act and every thought becomes a prayer.

A communication with God.

Some people do achieve that near perfect level of being a contemplative in action.

But that level of perfection may seem out of reach to many of us.

Still, that unity with God is a worthy goal for all of us.

The necessity of praying always and without ceasing could simply require—

Praying regularly, repeatedly and consistently.

In fact today’s parable supports that interpretation.

The widow doesn’t plead with the judge every waking moment.

But she does keep coming to him, persistently and consistently over a long period of time.

There are many types of prayer and ways of praying.

One acronym for the major categories of prayer is PACT—our PACT with God.

Prayers of: Petition, Adoration, Contrition and Thanksgiving.

All of these can be rote recitations of prayers we’ve learned over the years.

Or ad hoc conversational prayers that simply flow from within as we talk with God.

As we compose our own thoughts and words, and listen for God’s words.

They can be private or public, solo or group.

We can pray directly to Jesus, or to God, or to Father, Son, or Spirit. 

We can even petition the saints and the angels to intercede for us.

We pray all of those types of prayers often—they’re all in the Mass.

We can make analysis of our prayer life as simple or complex as we want.

It can be as structured or unstructured as we choose.

We’re all familiar with the rote prayers—and they have great value.

But the ad hoc conversational prayers are often the ones that take us deeper.

Deeper into our own very personal relationship with God.

We all make ad hoc prayers of petition when we desperately want something.

There’s nothing like a true crisis to spur us into fervent prayer.

And surely we make an ad hoc prayer of thanksgiving if we get what we asked for.

If we cultivate our relationship with God through conversation,

We may well touch on all those types of prayer in any single conversation.

One commentary I read regarding today’s Gospel passage said:

Luke sees prayer as the manifestation of our relationship with God.

Those who pray have one.

Those who don’t, don’t.

This Mission Sunday would be a good time to commit to becoming fully evangelized.

Maybe then, others might be evangelized through us.

And the best way to become fully evangelized is to 1et God Himself complete the job.

We cooperate with Him when we build-up our relationship, through prayer.

Our personal cooperation can ensure a positive answer to that question of today’s Gospel.

When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

That NBC-Esquire survey popped up as an unlikely reminder of the necessity of prayer.

And it did a pretty good job of phrasing the important questions.

Tweaking them just a bit, they become something we might ponder from time-to-time:

Do I pray and reflect on my faith regularly?

Do I pray enough?

How important to me is my faith?

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lk 18:1-8           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

National Alms

But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.

According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, almsgiving is:

Any material favor done to assist the needy, and prompted by charity,

According to Wikipedia, it involves giving materially to another as an act of virtue.

The key element of almsgiving is the attitude and motive of the giver.

It has to be prompted by charity, an act of virtue.

Those definitions are in keeping with what we’ve been told by Jesus.

And by the Jewish prophets before him, and the Church scholars after him.

They’ve all said that almsgiving is necessary—for the sake of the giver.

The Twelfth Century Jewish Scholar, Maimonides (my-MON-i-deez),

defined eight ascending levels of virtue in almsgiving:

  1- Giving begrudgingly

  2- Giving less than you should, but giving it cheerfully

  3- Giving after being asked

  4- Giving before being asked

  5- Giving when you don’t know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient knows yours

  6- Giving when you know the recipient’s identity, but the recipient doesn’t know yours

  7- Giving when neither party knows the other

  8- Giving so that the recipient may become self reliant

Today, we and the world watch as Congress battles over our national budget.

A battle where many of the arguments concern government programs to assist the needy.

In that role, our modern welfare state might be seen as interfering with our almsgiving.

It requires us to contribute taxes and other payments for programs that help the needy.

Depriving us of some of our opportunities for more direct, free will, acts of charity.

Depriving us of some of our resources for more direct, free will, acts of charity.

So our government does interfere with the free will aspect of those contributions.

But at the same time, it could help us move up the ascending levels of virtue.

We reach at least the level of unidentified giver and receiver.

And sometimes even that top level of enabling the recipient’s self reliance.

As imperfect as our welfare state may be.

As inefficient, poorly administered, or abused as some program might be.

All can still benefit today, while we try to improve those programs for tomorrow.

As we’re told, the key element in our almsgiving is our motive and attitude.

So, we can internally decide to treat our government payment as a cheerful free will contribution.

A contribution toward the ideal ends that the supported programs might achieve.

With that spirit, that awareness, that intent—our payments can take on a dual nature.

Even though required by law,

They can become part of our interior-cleansing, spirit-building almsgiving.

Alms to help unidentified, needy individuals become more self reliant.

Alms for the general benefit of ourselves and our society as a whole.

Tuesday, 28th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 11:37-41           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Hospitality

Tomorrow, my wife and I have a guest coming to visit.

A friend from France who we haven’t seen in a number of years.

He has only a few free hours to visit.

We could have him over to our house for dinner.

But we just got back last night from a trip ourselves.

And we’re a little behind in our work and housework and other commitments.

For the dinner, we’d need to get some grocery shopping done.

Plan a meal and prepare it.

Nothing unusual or especially difficult to accomplish.

But, as we all know, even small added tasks can add pressure on our schedules.

Fortunately, we have an easy solution.

We can just go to dinner at a restaurant.

The cooks and waiters will take care of all the planning, preparing and serving.

And we can spend all of our visit time talking with our friend.

Catching each other up on what’s happened over the past years.

Listening to each other’s plans for the future.

Good food can add to the enjoyment.

But the meal isn’t the reason we’re getting together.

We’re getting together to talk to each other.

In today’s Gospel, Martha has a friend coming to her home.

Jesus is visiting her and her sister Mary and her brother Lazarus.

Hospitality is of utmost importance in their culture.

And Martha wants everything to be perfect.

There’s a lot of preparation, a lot of serving, a lot to do and a lot to worry about.

Unfortunately for Martha, there’s no convenient restaurant in Bethany.

And she doesn’t have servants or anyone else to help her—except Mary and Lazarus.

Lazarus wouldn’t be expected to clean and cook and serve—so that leaves just Mary.

But when the time comes, Mary’s not helping.

She’s just sitting at his feet, listening to Jesus.

Poor Martha gets so frustrated she complains to Jesus, thinking he’ll scold Mary.

But instead he reminds Martha of that most crucial element of true hospitality.

And that is, attention to the guest.

Not just attention to the décor, the ambience and the guest’s food and physical comfort.

Those are indeed worthy elements of hospitality.

But even more important is direct attention to the guest.

And more still, in the case of a guest with a message to deliver, attention to that message.

Jesus, with his Spirit dwelling within us, is on-hand to visit with us anytime, 24/7/366.

As often or seldom as we like, at any instant of our choosing, 

We can show him our hospitality.

Tuesday, 27th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 10:38-42           Read this Scripture @usccb.org

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!

Today we kick off Fiscal Year 2014.

Most federal employees have extra free time to celebrate.

But they aren’t in a festive mood.

None of us are.

Every week of government shutdown could cost our struggling economy $10 Billion.

That’s not good for any of us.

And it will translate into real suffering for many.

So how did this mess happen?

It’s one of the endless examples of our human brokenness.

Our stubbornness, blindness, ignorance, jealousy, greed and pride—to name a few breaks.

Our willingness to inflict harm on others, even at the cost of hurting ourselves.

A brokenness that goes all the way back to a jealous Cain killing his brother Abel.

A brokenness that we see in the brothers James and John in today’s Gospel.

They’re ready to jump straight to the nuclear option.

The Samaritans are holding to their old animosity toward the Jews.

They’re disrespectful, they’re unwelcoming.

So John and James want to call down fire from heaven to consume them!

Jesus had to rebuke them for their extremism.

In our penitential rite this morning we prayed:

You came to reconcile us to one another and to the Father. 

You heal the wounds of sin and division. 

You intercede for us with our Father. 

Jesus came not only to reconcile us to God, but also to each other.

He’s given us the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves.

He’s given us his example of forgiveness and mercy.

And yet, we find it too difficult to cooperate, to compromise, to get along.

Our budget spats are truly damaging to our opponents and ourselves.

Coming conflicts over the debt ceiling threaten to severely damage the world economy.

The evil of political/ideological budget disputes pales in comparison to other evils today.

The hatred, violence, torture and killing in Nairobi and Syria and so many other places.

But all those evils stem from the same root—our failure to get along.

No society, no generation before us, has succeeded at following Jesus’ example.

Now it’s our turn to try.

And we need to be the ones to set the example for our wider society.

It’s a daunting task.

But we can start with small steps and hope that we’ll grow into the role.

And that others will join us.

When we’re ready to unleash a response to or about those who disagree with us,

Let’s bite our critical tongue.

Let’s join our typing, texting fingers and thumbs into folded hands.

Until we can express ourselves in a kindler, gentler manner.

One that might help our society move toward reconciliation. 

Tuesday, 26th Week in Ordinary Time

Lk 9:51-56           Read this Scripture @usccb.org