Feast of St. Lawrence, deacon and martyr
(II Corinthians 9:6-10; John 12:2-26)
It has been noted how stories about the popular St. Lawrence have indicated a change in times. Fifty years ago, before the second Vatican Council, catechists would tell children that when St. Lawrence was being burned alive, he told his executioners when it was time to turn him over because he was already done on one side. Such morbid humor indicates a saint’s certain conviction that he is bound for glory. After Vatican II the favorite anecdote about St. Lawrence is his response to the demand of the emperor that he hand over the jewels of the Church of Rome. Upon receiving the order, Lawrence gathered together the poor of the city and brought them to the Roman prefect announcing, “These are the church’s treasures.”
The second Vatican Council has infused the Church with a sense of optimism toward the world. We no longer only yearn for a happy death but also to know, love, and serve Christ in one another. Even the poor have this aim and assist in this purpose. Obviously this pursuit of Christ in this world is not really a contemporary insight but has been with the Church since her foundation. However, we should be eager to embrace it as well as to seek eternity at our deaths.
Monday, August , 2010
Monday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Ezekiel 1:2-5.24-28c; Matthew 17:22-27)
Justice is the virtue by which we give to others their due. It is essential for harmonious social life. Love is the virtue by which we join ourselves spiritually if not physically to others. Family life would be inconceivable without it. Both virtues have natural and supernatural dimensions. Natural justice, for example, assures that we compensate properly those who work for us. Supernatural justice moves us to secure the rights of all people, whether or not we owe them anything personally. Pursuing supernatural justice, which is bestowed only through God’s grace, we merit everlasting life.
Parents, of course, love their children. Because they naturally identify their children’s welfare with their own, they make it a priority. Supernatural love moves people to identify with and to seek the good for God and others, beyond family and friends. We see supernatural love operative in the lives of the saints like Katherine Ann Drexel who spent her fortune and her life on the construction of missions for poor minorities in the United States.
The gospel today presents a negative instance of natural justice and a positive instance of supernatural love. Jesus instructs Peter that justice does not require him to pay the temple tax because he is the son of God for whom the temple was constructed. However, because supernatural love moves him not to give scandal to tax collectors, Jesus provides for the paying of the tax. In paying the tax voluntarily, Jesus demonstrates in a rather banal way that he is indeed of divine origin.
(Ezekiel 1:2-5.24-28c; Matthew 17:22-27)
Justice is the virtue by which we give to others their due. It is essential for harmonious social life. Love is the virtue by which we join ourselves spiritually if not physically to others. Family life would be inconceivable without it. Both virtues have natural and supernatural dimensions. Natural justice, for example, assures that we compensate properly those who work for us. Supernatural justice moves us to secure the rights of all people, whether or not we owe them anything personally. Pursuing supernatural justice, which is bestowed only through God’s grace, we merit everlasting life.
Parents, of course, love their children. Because they naturally identify their children’s welfare with their own, they make it a priority. Supernatural love moves people to identify with and to seek the good for God and others, beyond family and friends. We see supernatural love operative in the lives of the saints like Katherine Ann Drexel who spent her fortune and her life on the construction of missions for poor minorities in the United States.
The gospel today presents a negative instance of natural justice and a positive instance of supernatural love. Jesus instructs Peter that justice does not require him to pay the temple tax because he is the son of God for whom the temple was constructed. However, because supernatural love moves him not to give scandal to tax collectors, Jesus provides for the paying of the tax. In paying the tax voluntarily, Jesus demonstrates in a rather banal way that he is indeed of divine origin.
Friday, August 6, 2010
Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord
(Daniel 7:9-10.13-14; II Peter 1:16-19; Luke 9:28b-36)
Ted Kennedy wrote in his memoirs of an experience he had as a youth. His father, who was a successful businessman and diplomat, told him: “You can have a serious life or a non-serious life, Teddy; I’ll still love you whichever choice you make. But if you decide to have a non-serious life, I won’t have much time for you…. There are too many children here who are doing things that are interesting for me to do much with you.” Those words settled deep in the future senator’s brain and made a great difference in his life. With good reason we opposed Ted Kennedy’s position on abortion, but we admired him for his tireless support of the uninsured and undocumented.
Jesus’ prayer in the account of the Transfiguration today reminds us of the conversation between Ted Kennedy and his father. Dialoguing with the Father, Jesus becomes aware of the violent death with the glorious outcome that awaits him in Jerusalem. He does not shrink from it. Quite the contrary, he embraces it as his conversation with Moses and Elijah indicates. The first liberated the Israelites in Egypt; the second suffered to keep the people from idolatry. Like them, Jesus will liberate humankind from slavery to sin. His suffering will strengthen the people from idolizing pleasure, power, or possessions.
Each of us if we examine our lives closely has had experiences like Jesus’. That is, like Ted Kennedy, we have had a glimpse of the possibility of knowing God intimately by living a righteous life. We know that such a life requires effort and will not be free of pain. But we also know that God, who loves us more than we can imagine, will reward our effort abundantly.
(Daniel 7:9-10.13-14; II Peter 1:16-19; Luke 9:28b-36)
Ted Kennedy wrote in his memoirs of an experience he had as a youth. His father, who was a successful businessman and diplomat, told him: “You can have a serious life or a non-serious life, Teddy; I’ll still love you whichever choice you make. But if you decide to have a non-serious life, I won’t have much time for you…. There are too many children here who are doing things that are interesting for me to do much with you.” Those words settled deep in the future senator’s brain and made a great difference in his life. With good reason we opposed Ted Kennedy’s position on abortion, but we admired him for his tireless support of the uninsured and undocumented.
Jesus’ prayer in the account of the Transfiguration today reminds us of the conversation between Ted Kennedy and his father. Dialoguing with the Father, Jesus becomes aware of the violent death with the glorious outcome that awaits him in Jerusalem. He does not shrink from it. Quite the contrary, he embraces it as his conversation with Moses and Elijah indicates. The first liberated the Israelites in Egypt; the second suffered to keep the people from idolatry. Like them, Jesus will liberate humankind from slavery to sin. His suffering will strengthen the people from idolizing pleasure, power, or possessions.
Each of us if we examine our lives closely has had experiences like Jesus’. That is, like Ted Kennedy, we have had a glimpse of the possibility of knowing God intimately by living a righteous life. We know that such a life requires effort and will not be free of pain. But we also know that God, who loves us more than we can imagine, will reward our effort abundantly.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Thursday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
(Jeremiah 3:31-34; Matthew 16:13-23)
It has been seven months since the earthquake in Haiti killed approximately 300,000. Pictures now appear in our newspapers showing the tent cities in which 500,000 survivors are forced to reside. With all the misery these poor people have experienced, prospects are still grim for relief soon. The rainy season is beginning in earnest possibly bringing not only discomfort but also disease.
Haiti today is like the devastated Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time. Hope in the holy city is scant as the Babylonians have completely desecrated the Temple, killed thousands of people, and taken into captivity many other thousands as booty. “What good could possibly come of all this?” the prophet, a survivor, surely asks himself. But he does not remain in disillusion very long. He feels the Holy Spirit speaking inside him. Like a musical round that refuses to leave one’s consciousness repeating itself with words of consolation, the Spirit speaks. “I will write my law upon their hearts,” it says. The people will never stray forget God’s law again because it is indelibly engraved in them. Rather it will bring righteousness in individual lives and justice in society.
The law of which the prophet foretells and Jesus proclaims is none other than God’s Holy Spirit. Inscribed upon our hearts with Baptism, the Spirit prompts us to always do good, to avoid evil, and to love sincerely. It has a written counterpart in the Sermon on the Mount, but it is first and foremost spiritual, intractable, comforting even more than exacting.
(Jeremiah 3:31-34; Matthew 16:13-23)
It has been seven months since the earthquake in Haiti killed approximately 300,000. Pictures now appear in our newspapers showing the tent cities in which 500,000 survivors are forced to reside. With all the misery these poor people have experienced, prospects are still grim for relief soon. The rainy season is beginning in earnest possibly bringing not only discomfort but also disease.
Haiti today is like the devastated Jerusalem in Jeremiah’s time. Hope in the holy city is scant as the Babylonians have completely desecrated the Temple, killed thousands of people, and taken into captivity many other thousands as booty. “What good could possibly come of all this?” the prophet, a survivor, surely asks himself. But he does not remain in disillusion very long. He feels the Holy Spirit speaking inside him. Like a musical round that refuses to leave one’s consciousness repeating itself with words of consolation, the Spirit speaks. “I will write my law upon their hearts,” it says. The people will never stray forget God’s law again because it is indelibly engraved in them. Rather it will bring righteousness in individual lives and justice in society.
The law of which the prophet foretells and Jesus proclaims is none other than God’s Holy Spirit. Inscribed upon our hearts with Baptism, the Spirit prompts us to always do good, to avoid evil, and to love sincerely. It has a written counterpart in the Sermon on the Mount, but it is first and foremost spiritual, intractable, comforting even more than exacting.
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
Memorial of Saint John Vianney, priest
(Jeremiah 31:1-7; Matthew 15:21-28)
When finishing the annual Passover meal, Jews say together, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Probably even Jews living in Jerusalem express this hope. For Jews Jerusalem is not so much a place as it is a state of mind. It is shalom, peace, under God’s protection. It is the heavenly state.
Jeremiah’s prophecy in the first reading promises that the Jews will return to their land which certainly includes Jerusalem. In the desert, as the city of Babylon must have appeared to them, they would be liberated from their sins. Then the Lord will look after their safe return. Christians take a broader view of the prophecy. For us liberation comes through Christ’s death and resurrection which does not put us in Jerusalem so much as puts Jerusalem in each of us. This takes place by Christ imparting his Spirit to us so that we might live intimately with him.
Today the Church remembers a man who lived a rather ordinary life in a truly remarkable way. St. John Vianney was a parish priest in the French village of Ars. Yet he dedicated himself to the Lord in every respect and became known for wisdom as well as piety. People came from all over the country seeking his solace. It was as if all the glory of Jerusalem beamed in his soul.
(Jeremiah 31:1-7; Matthew 15:21-28)
When finishing the annual Passover meal, Jews say together, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Probably even Jews living in Jerusalem express this hope. For Jews Jerusalem is not so much a place as it is a state of mind. It is shalom, peace, under God’s protection. It is the heavenly state.
Jeremiah’s prophecy in the first reading promises that the Jews will return to their land which certainly includes Jerusalem. In the desert, as the city of Babylon must have appeared to them, they would be liberated from their sins. Then the Lord will look after their safe return. Christians take a broader view of the prophecy. For us liberation comes through Christ’s death and resurrection which does not put us in Jerusalem so much as puts Jerusalem in each of us. This takes place by Christ imparting his Spirit to us so that we might live intimately with him.
Today the Church remembers a man who lived a rather ordinary life in a truly remarkable way. St. John Vianney was a parish priest in the French village of Ars. Yet he dedicated himself to the Lord in every respect and became known for wisdom as well as piety. People came from all over the country seeking his solace. It was as if all the glory of Jerusalem beamed in his soul.
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