Monday, October 5, 2015

Monday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

(Jonah 1:1-2:2.11; Luke 10:25-37)

A few years ago a leading Catholic university removed the crucifixes from its classrooms.  Having a multi-ethnic student body, the university administration reasoned that the crucifixes might offend students of other religious traditions.  One Muslim student, however, was bothered by the removal.  After all, he asked, what kind of guest would he be if he could not respect the symbols and artifacts of his hosts’ religion?  Eventually after a public outcry, the crucifixes returned to the classrooms.

The Book of the Prophet Jonah similarly testifies to people from other religious traditions showing greater sensibility to God than the Jewish prophet.  Jonah, the Jew, is disgusted with the Lord for his parallel love of other peoples.  He flees when God commands him to preach in the city of Nineveh, Israel’s captors.  In his flight the heathen sailors on the ship that transports Jonah show more regard for the Lord than he.  They pray to God for help and shudder to think that their act of appeasement may not please God.

We find Jesus making a similar point in the gospel.  He describes the Samaritan who comes to the aid of the dying stranger as giving God greater witness than the priest and Levite who would not touch him.  We are wise to recognize the Holy Spirit working among different peoples and religions just as surely as it lavishes graces upon us.

Friday, October 2, 2015

Memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels

(Baruch 1:15-22; Matthew 18:1-5.10)

We should not understand the gospel today to mean that only children have guardian angels.  Jesus’ vision is more inclusive than that.  Each of us is protected by angels through God’s mercy.  This truth is evidenced in the whole passage of which today’s reading forms the beginning and middle.  

Jesus warns his disciples that they are to look after weak Christians who stray from the faith.  In a recent novel a young pastor gets wind that a new member of his congregation is having an adulterous affair.  He goes to investigate one evening and sees a woman leaving the man’s apartment.  Not waiting to investigate further, the pastor confronts his parishioner.  He tells the adulterer to stay away from Sunday worship until he has chosen definitively for the Lord.  The man knows what he must do and ends the affair. 

When errant Christians stop praying or when they choose pleasure over doing God’s will, we are to assist their return to righteousness.  Sometimes it will be counter-productive to confront sinners, but we must at least pray for them.  Jesus makes clear that if his disciples fail to intervene in such a matter, they will face dire consequences since weak Christians also have angels in direct communication with God.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Memorial of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus

(Nehemiah 8:1-4a.5-6.7-12b; Luke 10:1-12)

Lalia Ilivia Jones, a ninety-seven year-old African-American woman, died on August 24 at the Dominican Monastery in Marbury, Alabama.  She had entered the monastery seventy years ago, only a year after being accepted into the Church.  However, her biographer points out, Lalia Jones had converted to the Catholic faith at age six after witnessing a Catholic Mass.   Sr. Mary of the Rosary, as she was called, desired to serve God “like the Little Flower.” It is the Little Flower, St. Therese of Lisieux, whose feast we celebrate today.

St. Therese is one of the most popular saints in history.  Yet she hardly left the little town in which she was raised and where her convent was located.  Although she had some aspiration to be a missionary, she realized that her vocation was as a contemplative.  But she never abandoned the missionary ideal.  She prayed fervently for missionaries and has been declared their co-patron. 

In today’s gospel Jesus sends seventy-two disciples on an apostolic mission.  He also directs them to pray that God will send multiple workers into the fields of souls.  This is the same prayer that Sr. Mary of the Rosary and St. Therese of Lisieux took up.  Now it is felt sure that their prayer is being continued face to face with the master of the harvest.

Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Memorial of St. Jerome, priest

(Nehemiah 2:1-8; Luke 9:57-62)

Howsoever modern times may have diluted the Catholic faith, they have made the choice to follow Christ as a religious or priest more radical.  It is said that when families were large and incomes were small, Catholic parents would almost designate one or two children as nuns and/or priests.  Now in contrast, when the average family has only one, two, or possibly three children, parents want to assure themselves of grandchildren.  They no longer promote vocations as much as they indicate to their children that they are hoping to have grandchildren.  In some cases a young person has to almost turn her or his back on the family to enter a seminary or convent.

This gospel passage today provokes this kind of radicalness as it deals with the difficulty of discipleship.  Jesus’ followers are called to sleep under the stars, to be absent from their homes when parents die, and indeed to leave aside totally family concerns.  However, a problem emerges.  Christian discipleship extends far beyond religious life and the priesthood.  Both married and single persons are called to follow Christ with the same kind of radicalness that we find in the gospel. 

Married couples who adhere to Church teaching on artificial contraception certainly swim against the tide of convention and ease.  Single persons who dedicate their lives to caring for others – be they young students or aged parents – while adhering to Catholic moral norms certainly will find struggle part of the package.  The key to Christian discipleship is letting go of personal desires to live as Jesus want us to.  This takes radical commitment in any time or place.  We can accomplish it with joy only by accepting God’s infinitely more radical love.

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, archangels

(Revelation 12:7-12ab; John 1:47-51)

In Shakespeare’s famous play, Hamlet is alone when his father’s ghost reveals how he was murdered.  Then Hamlet’s friends arrive asking what just happened.  Before he tells them, Hamlet demands an oath of secrecy.  At this point the voice of the ghost chimes in to underscore the need of secrecy.   Hearing the voice but seeing nothing, Hamlet’s companion exclaims, “...this is wondrous strange,” to which Hamlet counters, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

Like Horatio says of the ghost’s voice, many people find the doctrine of angels “wondrous strange.”  Believing that only what they can see and hear actually exists, they doubt the reality of angels.  To paraphrase Hamlet, angels are not parts of their philosophy.  But we Catholics, who accept a spiritual order of reality, forthrightly admit the reality of angels.  As Scripture attests in numerous places, angels exist as God’s attendants carrying out His commands.

The stories of the three archangels further reveal how angels extend God’s mercy.  Michael wages war against Satan to free humans from tyranny; Gabriel announces the coming of mercy incarnate, Jesus Christ; and Raphael leads Tobias from peril to peace.  We should happily admit that God sends angels as means for reaching our eternal destiny.