We sang this responsorial Psalm this weekend and I have always found it to be quite beautiful. Truthfully, I don't know what Psalm it is from or if it is even from a Psalm.
It speaks beautifully of the Word of God. It proclaims that the Words of the Lord are spirit and life. They are richer than gold and stronger than death.
The Words of God are immeasurably rich and deep. The vastness of their meaning takes our soul a lifetime to begin to understand. The Word of God is the nourishment for our hungry and thirsty souls.
We need to allow the Word to penetrate, to satiate, to imbue, to transform and to embody our very being. Indeed, every key to the mysteries of life, creation, love and God are in His Words - may we listen, meditate, contemplate and be renewed in His Word so that, indeed, His Words will be for us spirit and life.
How deep are your designs? We can only begin to know by diving into the depths of His Word.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
I'm still here
I haven't written for about two weeks - not a pattern I want to get into.
I found myself to be getting distracted and forgetful about things. For instance, just this past week, I forgot about 3 papers till either hours before they were due or the night before. I used to be very good at never writing any dates down and remembering every assignment and test date, but with having my mind in two places - school and parish - I am finding I have to get my act together.
My internet usage has been gradually changing. I have noticed that I am less drawn to Facebook lately and more committed to writing and following blogs and communicating on Twitter. I find these two portals to be appealing and quite fun. I don't know if I am losing interest with Facebook or if it just spreads me too thin - it is something I will have to see as time goes on.
I think it is important for everyone who has access to multimedia and social networking tools to communicate the message of God's love, beauty and truth in all its facets so that we all play a role in evangelizing the world and giving the millions of internet users access to resources, sites and thoughts on the faith that we profess and the God whom we love.
I am by no means an expert in any of these tools nor the most eloquent of internet orators, but I want to share what I can so that hopefully my little contribution to the vast resources made available to us on the internet can help one person or strike a chord in someone's heart. Only God knows the power and impact our lives and words have on others - it is our duty to serve and plant the seeds - let God worry about the harvest it produces.
I think Blessed Pope John XXIII puts it clearly: "I’ve done the best I could in your service this day, Oh Lord. I’m going to bed. It’s your Church. Take care of it!"
I found myself to be getting distracted and forgetful about things. For instance, just this past week, I forgot about 3 papers till either hours before they were due or the night before. I used to be very good at never writing any dates down and remembering every assignment and test date, but with having my mind in two places - school and parish - I am finding I have to get my act together.
My internet usage has been gradually changing. I have noticed that I am less drawn to Facebook lately and more committed to writing and following blogs and communicating on Twitter. I find these two portals to be appealing and quite fun. I don't know if I am losing interest with Facebook or if it just spreads me too thin - it is something I will have to see as time goes on.
I think it is important for everyone who has access to multimedia and social networking tools to communicate the message of God's love, beauty and truth in all its facets so that we all play a role in evangelizing the world and giving the millions of internet users access to resources, sites and thoughts on the faith that we profess and the God whom we love.
I am by no means an expert in any of these tools nor the most eloquent of internet orators, but I want to share what I can so that hopefully my little contribution to the vast resources made available to us on the internet can help one person or strike a chord in someone's heart. Only God knows the power and impact our lives and words have on others - it is our duty to serve and plant the seeds - let God worry about the harvest it produces.
I think Blessed Pope John XXIII puts it clearly: "I’ve done the best I could in your service this day, Oh Lord. I’m going to bed. It’s your Church. Take care of it!"
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Seminarian to Deacon
On the last evening of my fall break this past week I had to opportunity to visit St Mark seminary where I was for my first years of formation. Those years were a time of incredible growth in all areas of my life and where I really was able to hone in on God calling me to the priesthood.
It is not a big and sprawling seminary, at most in my time I think we had about 14 guys, so community life was great and you could get to know your brother seminarians well. Looking back on those years, I realize that I miss the community life and the formation program - I wish every seminarian could experience life in a small minor seminary like it. Being in major seminary now for almost 4 years, I realize how much of an impact it had on me and how well it formed me and prepared me for, not only theology, but for my current ministry as a deacon. The God I know and love and desire to share with others I really got to know in my time there.
I had the opportunity to deacon at mass and join them for dinner before I got on the road to come back to school. It was the strangest feeling and experience to be a deacon in the chapel where I spent hundreds of hours in prayer and mass as a young seminarian and now visiting - vested and proclaiming the gospel - as a deacon! I was ordained a deacon in that chapel back in April - it is an icon and anchor of my vocation.
In talking with the guys after mass, I saw in them that same wonder and awe that I had about major seminary and how I would be preparing myself for ordination to the diaconate and, now as I inch closer, priesthood. It sparked in me a desire to reflect upon that myself and what advice would I give to the men moving ever closer to laying their lives down for God and His people.
First, I would say that you have to fall in love with God. This is sort of a pious cliche, but it is essential. For someone getting ready to move on to major seminary or is getting close to ordination, it is important to remember that you need to stop re-introducing yourself to God and come to know Him - thus love Him. I know this from my own spiritual journey that I would, for years, re-introduce myself every time I sat down to pray and act as if this was the first time I ever communicated with Christ or assumed that He knew nothing about me. You need to become familiar with Him and let Him be familiar with you - this is, for me, the only way to fall in love with God.
Secondly, you need to become comfortable with and know yourself. If you do not know yourself - your triggers, strengths, weaknesses, sins, wounds, joys and everything else - then you are setting yourself up for a hard road ahead. Your spiritual life, your ability to freely embrace celibacy and your ability to love others is going to be hindered if you do not know who you are. You cannot give yourself over to Christ and those whom you are called to serve if you don't know what you are giving them. Knowing yourself allows you to grow wholly and maturely.
A third and last point I want to make is that you need to have a sense of humor and a good worldview. Rigidity and stoicism is not the best approach to giving your life over to loving and serving God. We need to be people who see the world for what it is, who can see the greater plan of God at work, who can experience God in all of creation and who can be someone who people look to for God's love - We need to be that which the world often deprives us of. We need to be people of God and people of Love. When we seek to truly embody that then we become the most effective. I think we can easily isolate and push people away from God if we are not real.
These thoughts are perhaps too general, but they are true and essential. Yes we need to study and do our work, but that knowledge wont mean much if we haven't worked on improving ourselves and our relationships with others and with Christ. The kernel of it all is Love, let love be your guide.
It is not a big and sprawling seminary, at most in my time I think we had about 14 guys, so community life was great and you could get to know your brother seminarians well. Looking back on those years, I realize that I miss the community life and the formation program - I wish every seminarian could experience life in a small minor seminary like it. Being in major seminary now for almost 4 years, I realize how much of an impact it had on me and how well it formed me and prepared me for, not only theology, but for my current ministry as a deacon. The God I know and love and desire to share with others I really got to know in my time there.
I had the opportunity to deacon at mass and join them for dinner before I got on the road to come back to school. It was the strangest feeling and experience to be a deacon in the chapel where I spent hundreds of hours in prayer and mass as a young seminarian and now visiting - vested and proclaiming the gospel - as a deacon! I was ordained a deacon in that chapel back in April - it is an icon and anchor of my vocation.
In talking with the guys after mass, I saw in them that same wonder and awe that I had about major seminary and how I would be preparing myself for ordination to the diaconate and, now as I inch closer, priesthood. It sparked in me a desire to reflect upon that myself and what advice would I give to the men moving ever closer to laying their lives down for God and His people.
First, I would say that you have to fall in love with God. This is sort of a pious cliche, but it is essential. For someone getting ready to move on to major seminary or is getting close to ordination, it is important to remember that you need to stop re-introducing yourself to God and come to know Him - thus love Him. I know this from my own spiritual journey that I would, for years, re-introduce myself every time I sat down to pray and act as if this was the first time I ever communicated with Christ or assumed that He knew nothing about me. You need to become familiar with Him and let Him be familiar with you - this is, for me, the only way to fall in love with God.
Secondly, you need to become comfortable with and know yourself. If you do not know yourself - your triggers, strengths, weaknesses, sins, wounds, joys and everything else - then you are setting yourself up for a hard road ahead. Your spiritual life, your ability to freely embrace celibacy and your ability to love others is going to be hindered if you do not know who you are. You cannot give yourself over to Christ and those whom you are called to serve if you don't know what you are giving them. Knowing yourself allows you to grow wholly and maturely.
A third and last point I want to make is that you need to have a sense of humor and a good worldview. Rigidity and stoicism is not the best approach to giving your life over to loving and serving God. We need to be people who see the world for what it is, who can see the greater plan of God at work, who can experience God in all of creation and who can be someone who people look to for God's love - We need to be that which the world often deprives us of. We need to be people of God and people of Love. When we seek to truly embody that then we become the most effective. I think we can easily isolate and push people away from God if we are not real.
These thoughts are perhaps too general, but they are true and essential. Yes we need to study and do our work, but that knowledge wont mean much if we haven't worked on improving ourselves and our relationships with others and with Christ. The kernel of it all is Love, let love be your guide.
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
A scout is reverent
I am trying to get back into the regular routine and groove of seminary and school life after coming off of a good two week practicum in the parish and shortly followed by a great fall break.
This past Sunday I had the privileged of being asked to speak at the Eagle Court of Honor of a young man in my parish on the relationship of Faith and Scouting. I am an Eagle Scout myself and Scouting has been a major influence in my life, so naturally I was excited to speak at the biggest event in this scout's life in scouting.
I truthfully had little direction, only the phrase Faith and Scouting, and was admittedly quite nervous to do this. But, I came up wit something and I would like to share some of the thoughts I shared with the scouts and those there.
Scouting has had a tremendous impact on my life. It was through scouting that I came to have a greater appreciation and knowledge of my faith. Scouts do not meet weekly and camp monthly to talk and debate theology- not at all- but they come together to learn, grow, mature and be strengthened as young men seeking to live and good virtuous lives. In this environment with others who share your faith in God, you have the potential to become an extraordinary young man.
Scouting offers us a lot of opportunities to learn skills and talents of all kinds. These things are great in and of themselves for we all desire and need to know as many skills and talents as we can. But, if this is all scouting is, then it is awfully pointless for we can learn 'things' anywhere - scouting fails to be unique.
We need to look deeper into Scouting to find it's value. We need to look at the Scout Law. The Scout Law offers us a litany of 12 virtues that the scout is supposed to be. These virtues drive us to make ourselves better men and the world a better place. Again, this is a great and wonderful thing. But, if we are making ourselves and the world better just for the sake of making them better, what it the point?
There is yet another level of depth that we need to get down to to understand Scouting at its core. The last point of the Scout Law - a Scout is Reverent - is where everything lies. A scout needs to develop, maintain, work at, seek and desire a relationship with God. A scout needs to make himself a better man and make his world a better place because that is the will of God and only then can God be known through him and in the world he seeks to serve. Only with God does scouting make any sense and does it have any true meaning and uniqueness.
Scouting has at its core - as the pearl of its existence - God. Everything else we do as scouts is done around that core, that pearl. Only God adds ultimate meaning to scouting.
As an Eagle Scout, you are called upon to live all of this everyday. God needs to be at the core of your very being and you live a virtuous life in honor of your relationship with God. Our skills, talents and knowledge that we gain in scouting only adds to this.
Scouting helped me to see God as the center of my life. Scouting helped me to hear God's call and allowed for me to answer it - it has changed my life forever! When we allow God to be at the center of our lives and everything we do in life, then our lives are transformed and we become the men Scouting asks us to be.
This past Sunday I had the privileged of being asked to speak at the Eagle Court of Honor of a young man in my parish on the relationship of Faith and Scouting. I am an Eagle Scout myself and Scouting has been a major influence in my life, so naturally I was excited to speak at the biggest event in this scout's life in scouting.
I truthfully had little direction, only the phrase Faith and Scouting, and was admittedly quite nervous to do this. But, I came up wit something and I would like to share some of the thoughts I shared with the scouts and those there.
Scouting has had a tremendous impact on my life. It was through scouting that I came to have a greater appreciation and knowledge of my faith. Scouts do not meet weekly and camp monthly to talk and debate theology- not at all- but they come together to learn, grow, mature and be strengthened as young men seeking to live and good virtuous lives. In this environment with others who share your faith in God, you have the potential to become an extraordinary young man.
Scouting offers us a lot of opportunities to learn skills and talents of all kinds. These things are great in and of themselves for we all desire and need to know as many skills and talents as we can. But, if this is all scouting is, then it is awfully pointless for we can learn 'things' anywhere - scouting fails to be unique.
We need to look deeper into Scouting to find it's value. We need to look at the Scout Law. The Scout Law offers us a litany of 12 virtues that the scout is supposed to be. These virtues drive us to make ourselves better men and the world a better place. Again, this is a great and wonderful thing. But, if we are making ourselves and the world better just for the sake of making them better, what it the point?
There is yet another level of depth that we need to get down to to understand Scouting at its core. The last point of the Scout Law - a Scout is Reverent - is where everything lies. A scout needs to develop, maintain, work at, seek and desire a relationship with God. A scout needs to make himself a better man and make his world a better place because that is the will of God and only then can God be known through him and in the world he seeks to serve. Only with God does scouting make any sense and does it have any true meaning and uniqueness.
Scouting has at its core - as the pearl of its existence - God. Everything else we do as scouts is done around that core, that pearl. Only God adds ultimate meaning to scouting.
As an Eagle Scout, you are called upon to live all of this everyday. God needs to be at the core of your very being and you live a virtuous life in honor of your relationship with God. Our skills, talents and knowledge that we gain in scouting only adds to this.
Scouting helped me to see God as the center of my life. Scouting helped me to hear God's call and allowed for me to answer it - it has changed my life forever! When we allow God to be at the center of our lives and everything we do in life, then our lives are transformed and we become the men Scouting asks us to be.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
28th Sunday, Ordinary Time
The Kingdom of Heaven is like a Wedding Feast !
In my reflection on the scripture and in preparation for my homily, I kept asking myself the question 'How do I say yes to my invitation to the feast?'.
The Gospel is making quite clear that God has invited us to something wonderful. God, the King, is inviting us to the Wedding of the Lamb, the marriage between the Christ and the Church, the apex of our very existence!
But, how do we respond to this? What does this mean for us?
In addition to asking myself those questions, my mind kept wandering to Steve Jobs and everything I have read and heard about him this week and over the years. A video that became viral this week was a commencement speech he had delivered, at Stanford, in 2005. This speech, as with almost all speeches of this kind, contained the ubiquitous theme of reach for the stars and follow your dreams - but he also touched upon something so basic that it was profound.
Steve Jobs talked about death.
He spoke of his, then, short bout with cancer and how it brought death into a whole new context for him. Here are a few words from the speech:
Though Steve Jobs was not speaking in terms of today's Gospel text, he was speaking to a truth and reality that puts this text into a very real context for us.
We were made to be eternal and to dwell with God, in the Kingdom of Heaven, for all eternity. Our life in this world is finite and minute; we are not meant to dwell here in this realm forever. In order to understand the Kingdom of Heaven and respond to it rightly, we have to - just as Steve Jobs mentioned - remember that we are all going to die. We are all going to die and leave this world and, if we responded to the invitation - will enter the eternal Feast.
In order to respond to the King, we need to admit to ourselves and accept the reality of the situation: In order to live eternally in the Kingdom of Heaven, I have to die.
We need to keep death before us everyday and remember that we were made not for eternity in this world, but to return to the God. Only when we live with this reality everyday can we begin to realize that answering the invitation of the King is to live our lives accordingly. We live our lives doing the good and what matters. We live our lives loving our selves, family, friends, enemies and God as we ought. We live our lives with less anger, jealousy, laziness and cruelty.
We live our lives with less sin!
Sin is what is going to keep us from entering this extraordinary feast that our King has prepared for us. Sin is the way we say no this royal invitation.
It sounds too simple, because it is simple. Just as Steve Jobs spoke of something as simple as death to being to key to living our lives as they were meant to be lived, so too is Christ speaking of something as simple as sin as being the way of rejecting the invitation to the Wedding Feast.
We can't eliminate sin completely from our lives; we are fallen human beings and only Our Mother has been without sin. Despite this, we still need to strive to live good and holy lives. Sin must not define us and enslave us - let it be something we struggle with and not indulge. It is this constant effort in our daily lives, driven by a desire to enter the Kingdom, that will incite the King to open the doors of the palace and seat us at the banquet table.
Let not death be a reminder of sadness and pain, but a reminder that we have a limited time to prepare for the Feast.
This is the entire speech given by Steve Jobs
In my reflection on the scripture and in preparation for my homily, I kept asking myself the question 'How do I say yes to my invitation to the feast?'.
The Gospel is making quite clear that God has invited us to something wonderful. God, the King, is inviting us to the Wedding of the Lamb, the marriage between the Christ and the Church, the apex of our very existence!
But, how do we respond to this? What does this mean for us?
In addition to asking myself those questions, my mind kept wandering to Steve Jobs and everything I have read and heard about him this week and over the years. A video that became viral this week was a commencement speech he had delivered, at Stanford, in 2005. This speech, as with almost all speeches of this kind, contained the ubiquitous theme of reach for the stars and follow your dreams - but he also touched upon something so basic that it was profound.
Steve Jobs talked about death.
He spoke of his, then, short bout with cancer and how it brought death into a whole new context for him. Here are a few words from the speech:
Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
This was the closest I’ve been to facing death, and I hope it’s the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:
No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.How do we respond to the invitation of the King?
Though Steve Jobs was not speaking in terms of today's Gospel text, he was speaking to a truth and reality that puts this text into a very real context for us.
We were made to be eternal and to dwell with God, in the Kingdom of Heaven, for all eternity. Our life in this world is finite and minute; we are not meant to dwell here in this realm forever. In order to understand the Kingdom of Heaven and respond to it rightly, we have to - just as Steve Jobs mentioned - remember that we are all going to die. We are all going to die and leave this world and, if we responded to the invitation - will enter the eternal Feast.
In order to respond to the King, we need to admit to ourselves and accept the reality of the situation: In order to live eternally in the Kingdom of Heaven, I have to die.
We need to keep death before us everyday and remember that we were made not for eternity in this world, but to return to the God. Only when we live with this reality everyday can we begin to realize that answering the invitation of the King is to live our lives accordingly. We live our lives doing the good and what matters. We live our lives loving our selves, family, friends, enemies and God as we ought. We live our lives with less anger, jealousy, laziness and cruelty.
We live our lives with less sin!
Sin is what is going to keep us from entering this extraordinary feast that our King has prepared for us. Sin is the way we say no this royal invitation.
It sounds too simple, because it is simple. Just as Steve Jobs spoke of something as simple as death to being to key to living our lives as they were meant to be lived, so too is Christ speaking of something as simple as sin as being the way of rejecting the invitation to the Wedding Feast.
We can't eliminate sin completely from our lives; we are fallen human beings and only Our Mother has been without sin. Despite this, we still need to strive to live good and holy lives. Sin must not define us and enslave us - let it be something we struggle with and not indulge. It is this constant effort in our daily lives, driven by a desire to enter the Kingdom, that will incite the King to open the doors of the palace and seat us at the banquet table.
Let not death be a reminder of sadness and pain, but a reminder that we have a limited time to prepare for the Feast.
This is the entire speech given by Steve Jobs
Friday, October 7, 2011
Our Lady of the Rosary
Made popular by Kenny Rogers and Wynonna Judd, the song 'Mary Did You Know' captures the unique and beautiful relationship between Mary and Jesus. My favorite line from that song is: "When you kissed your little baby, you've kissed the face of God"- what an amazing line to meditate upon.
Today, as we celebrate Our Lady of the Rosary, we give honor to our Blessed Mother whom we pray to for two reasons while praying the rosary.
First, we pray to her to intercede on our behalf. She, a mother who loved and cared for her Son on this earth, knows the pains and fear that we all encounter in life. Mary knows that we need the care, protection, intercession and love of a mother - all of us need her. In praying the rosary, we are asking for her to pray for us. We are asking her, in the presence of her son Jesus, to help us in all that we have to encounter and go through in life. Every storm, trial, fear, pain and hardship is made lighter and bearable with the love and care of our Mother.
Secondly, we are pray the mysteries of the rosary. These are human events that played out in the life of Christ with Mary by His side. But, these are also Divine events. God; in all His majesty, depth, wisdom and love; is working through these human events to bring about His will and to make Himself known. Yes these are human events, but they are also Divine events. In praying the rosary, we are asking Mary - who know Christ as fully human and divine - to help us explore and enter more deeply into the divine realities of these events. To know God more, we need to see him in earthly and human events for He truly does work through them. Our Mother helps us see the deeper truths and realities in life; she helps us see God.
The rosary, certainly for me, is an encounter with both God and His mother Mary. It is seeking and speaking to she who knows Christ and loves Christ like no other human has ever had or will. She loves so perfectly and completely and that love is what we seek. In praying the rosary, we ask her to be with us and pray for us in everything life gives us. We also pray the rosary to ask her - who kissed the very face of God - to help us to enter into the depth and love of God.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Saint Bruno
I found this to be a beautifully written poetic biography on the life of St Bruno.
6 October 1101, Sunday, at the Hermitage of Santa Maria della Torre in Calabria, Italy there were some monks, and in the midst of them a man laid down. Tears were in their eyes and choking cries in their voices. The guide of their souls, their father . . . had reached the time of his birth into eternity. This man is you, Bruno. In this instant, your whole life, more than seventy years, is in your heart, the final offering to the Father.
Eleven more years, eleven years of hard work and asceticism, eleven years of light and joy in praise, here, in this rich land of monks and hermits, whose history is blessed with their presence. And so, that your joy may be complete, Bruno, one day found the happiness of a visit: Landuin, who brings with him the love of your first sons, and their fidelity. ‘O Bonitas! O Bonitas’! -- so as to accept this friend of yours in this land that fills your heart, with an embrace and a gaze.
The autumn of life nears the end and your eyes rise towards eternity. Two years have passed since Urban II left this world; a year later, on his return journey, Landuin dies professing the faith in the prisons of the antipope; three months before that, in June, Ruggero died. Bruno, heaven calls you. Now . . .
The Carthusians, founded by St Bruno and documented in the film 'Into Great Silence', are called to serve the Church by giving themselves completely to an intensely intimate relationship with God, asceticism and through constant prayer in an environment of solitude.
It is a life that interests and attracts me - a life I seriously prayed about - but I know I am not called to it, but I admire them greatly.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
40 Hours
A tradition in many parishes is the 40 Hours celebration that falls on or near the feast day of the parish. Many senior priests tell stories of the days when these would be true 40 hour celebrations that would be 3 days of Eucharistic adoration, a nightly homily / talk by a guest priest and three nights of dinners and parties for neighboring priests. In the days when the rectories were crowded residences, there would be gatherings of dozens of priests flooding into the rectories to play cards, eat,socialize, laugh, tell stories, pick on each other and just have fun! Nowadays, many priests try to maintain this tradition but in a smaller capacity. Most parishes that host these now only have them one night and only consists of socializing and dinner for the priests followed by benediction with the parish. These are nice and fun gatherings - it is the only time guys seem to get together.
Tonight, my parish held their 40 Hours celebration. It was a great time with 17 other priests that came over to the rectory. I knew them all, so it was great to be able to comfortably interact and talk with them. The priests in the area are great guys and it is wonderful to be able to hang out with them and see gather with them in a setting I rarely get to. About a half dozen ladies from the parish were in our kitchen all day preparing the delicious food and served us 4 courses; it was a great meal!
I presided over the Benediction - it was my first time doing this. It was a nice little service. What is characteristic of these 40 Hours benedictions is the Eucharistic procession around the church with the servers and all the priests and deacons vested followed by the Eucharist. Our 4th degree Knights were also here tonight and they added their signature presence.
It is not a heavily attended event in the parish. I think I recognize some reasons why it isn't and one reason is the very little talk and advertisement it receives. It was in the bulletin and that is about the extent to which it was publicized. This shows me for sure the importance of developing good parish communication from the pastor and also from all other resources they can utilize.
I definitely beleive that one reason people do not come to church or events like this at church is simply because they were not asked or told about it! I am certain that the simple sentence of "Tuesday evening is the 40 Hours benediction, please come to celebrate our parish" would have doubled the attendance... but this is for another discussion
It was a great evening of priestly (and transitional deacon) fraternity, good food and prayer
St Francis, please continue to pray for all of us
Saturday, October 1, 2011
27th Sunday, Ordinary Time
Some thoughts...
The First Reading is the background and context for Jesus' parable of the vineyard and the tenants
Isaiah tells a story of his friend who had a vineyard and, after doing everything right, the crops were rotten
- God is that friend and we are the crops that were rotten
- God has done everything for us, yet we reject Him and sin
- We are deserving of being destroyed like the friend threatened to do
- Yet, we are not!
The parable is of a vineyard whose tenants turn against the landowner and refuses to pay the share of the crops. They end up killing the landowner's servants and even his own son!
- God is that landowner and we are the tenants
- He gave us the vineyard to tend to and, rightly so, expects us to act accordingly
- We have, though, rejected His prophets, witnesses and even killed His only Son, Jesus!
We are the harvest in Isaiah's story and the tenants in Jesus' parable, in both instances we fail.
God has labored to bring about a ripe and abundant harvest. He desires us to be good, juicy and delicious fruit - He has done everything and given us everything to ensure that - but we sin.
Sin and every act against the God who loves us spoils the fruit God desires. We know what needs done, God gives us every faculty and resource that we need - but we bear rotten fruit.
God has offered us the vineyard to take care of and to work on so that we can bring about an abundant harvest and give back to the landowner. We, instead, turn against him and viciously and greedily kill everyone who comes in his name - even his own son!
The message of today's scripture is one of persistence. God is persistent with us. We have, throughout our whole history, been in a back and forth struggle with God. We are with Him and then we are against Him. We love Him and then we hate Him. We obey Him and then we disobey Him. He is our love and then He is our enemy.
We go back and forth all the time in this extraordinary relationship with our God, but God does not!
God is never against us, never hates us and never our enemy - He is always the one who gives Himself wholly and completely while always desiring us to be and bear ripe and abundant fruit.
This, though, does not mean we are saved by default. No, though He is Love, He is does guarantee salvation no matter what - this is the point to remember! Though the landowner desired nothing more than a delicious harvest, though the friend did everything he could to ensure a fruitful harvest - sin prohibited both!
God can only desire and make available every grace and blessing that we need - we are the ones that have to accept them and put them to use to ensure the harvest is ripe and the fruit delicious.
Ultimately it is our choice; are we going to allow ourselves to be the fruit God has desired or are we going to allow ourselves to become rotten?
Are we going to give God what is His and care for His vineyard, or is greed and sin going to corrupt us so much that we kill and destroy everything and everyone that comes and speaks in His name?
God desires...God plants...We accept or We reject
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