Month: October 2015

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord gazes upon the Rich Young Man with love before he asks something of him that he knew would be difficult. The Second Reading today reminds us how God’s word has the sharpness of a sword, and, we can add, the precision of a scalpel: it finds exactly where the tumor is, knows where to make the necessary incision that makes our delusions fall away, if we let him perform the operation. When the Rich Young Man tries to flatter Our Lord a little Jesus is quick to chide him about his motives for such praise, and direct his thoughts to God.

Our Lord doesn’t see himself offering the Rich Young Man in today’s Gospel pain and sacrifice; he is offering him the path to a deeper love for God in exchange for the love he’s already received and shown. He’s telling him that it doesn’t matter how rich he is, or whether he is good or bad; God’s love for him is constant. If success and moral living don’t help us grow in our love for God, they don’t go far enough; they will not satisfy us. If the Rich Young Man had taken today’s First Reading (which did exist in his time) and replace the expressions “prudence” and “Wisdom” with “the love of God,” everything would have snapped into clarity. The wisdom he was truly seeking from Jesus was an awareness of the love God had for him, in which every other good thing would pale. He may have seen Our Lord as asking a costly sacrifice, but Jesus was asking him to invest the fruits of his success and goodness into something greater and for something greater.

Our Lord looks upon us with love no matter what we do, but he also invites us to follow him, draw closer to him, and love him more. Many times we see that through a filter of losing something, sacrificing something. We too need to contemplate the words of today’s First Reading. The Wisdom of God is what we need; everything else is an investment in that for which we’re truly searching. Let’s respond as the disciples did today and learn from the example of the Rich Young Man.

Readings: Wisdom 7:7–11; Psalm 90:12–17; Hebrews 4:12–13; Mark 10:17–30. See also 8th Week of Ordinary Time, Monday, 8th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday, and 20th Week in Ordinary Time,Tuesday.

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27th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel the anonymous woman in the crowd is trying to put a finger on why Our Lord is so holy by praising the blessedness of her mother. If only she knew; Mary’s holiness, in addition to her own fidelity throughout her life, was thanks to the grace we know as the Immaculate Conception: it was in view of her son’s merits that she received the grace to be preserved free from all stain of original sin. It is thanks to her son that she is blessed, and, as she says in the Magnificat, she considers herself blessed from the moment she accepted God’s invitation to be her mother. God gets all the credit for her blessedness, which she put to good use in raising Jesus.

Our Lord, therefore, teaches them what the true source of his blessedness and his mother’s blessedness is: hearing the word of God and observing it. The Son came freely among us to save us because it was the will of the heavenly Father; he perfectly accomplished his Father’s will to our benefit. Mary at the Annunciation gave her fiat: that it be done to her according to God’s word. And for this fidelity and attentiveness to the word of God, all generations will call her blessed.

Jesus and Mary both present the path to us today for our blessedness, for a beatific happiness that comes from God alone: to hear and to keep the word of God in our lives. Let’s ask Our Lord to help us to listen to and to heed his Word; let’s ask Mary to help us in this as well through her example and her intercession.

Readings: Joel 4:12–21; Psalm 97:1–2, 5–6, 11–12; Luke 11:27–28.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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In today’s Gospel the crowds are starting to become suspicious about what really powers the miracles of Jesus. He’s just cast out a demon and the rumors spread that he himself is doing it because he’s in league with Beelzebub. He’s performed a sign, but they doubt whether it’s a sign from Heaven. Our Lord responds with common sense: why would Beelzebub help reduce the influence of his fellow demons by casting them out? That would be done from a position of weakness, not strength, because it would show a kingdom divided. He also questions why they are suspicious of his ability to drive out demons when they have others with this gift as well.

Defense of our souls, our “home” requires ongoing strength, not just a one-time assist from Our Lord. The enemy of our souls will always try to retake lost ground and make us worse than before. Any solider will tell you it’s not just a matter of taking the hill, but of holding onto it. Our Lord reminds us that he wants to help keep those enemies out of our soul, but it requires an ongoing “treaty” with him. On our own we’ll easily be overwhelmed and lose whatever he has helped us to gain.

Let’s ask Our Lord today not only to help us achieve the conquest of a holy life, but to hold onto the gains we’ve made and advance in holiness.

Readings: Joel 1:13–15, 2:1–2; Psalm 9:2–3, 6, 8–9, 16; Luke 11:15–26.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord explains the willingness and commitment of Our Heavenly Father toward us using the examples of friendship, persistence, and paternal love. A good friend knows that if he is in a fix he can count on his friends to help him out. The friend asking for bread today is passing along the opportunity to be a good friend: he welcomed a guest into his home in the middle of the night, and he needs help to provide for that guest. Yet even if his friend refused at first, his persistence would pay off: that shows the friend, even if inconvenienced, is a friend who’ll come through. It is the friendship that gives the confidence to ask, repeatedly if necessary.

God is our friend; we can ask him for whatever we need, and he’ll respond as a friend should. However, Our Lord reminds us today that our relationship with God goes even farther: he is Our Father, and no father would give his child misfortune instead of a blessing. In today’s First Reading the Israelites are lamenting among themselves that apparently that the wicked are prospering while and they are not being rewarded for being faithful to the covenant–they’re not praying to the Lord, but the Lord is listening. Through Malachi the Lord encourages them to persevere, just as a son working for something difficult who continues to press forward, trusting in his father. To persevere in their fidelity they must continue to have faith that the Lord cares for them as a Father.

Ask today and you will receive; maybe not on your timetable, maybe not as you’d have expected, but the Lord as friend and Father will provide for you what you truly need.

Readings: Malachi 3:13–20b; Psalm 1:1–4, 6; Luke 11:5–13.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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Today’s First Reading is the conclusion of the book of Jonah, who is a rare breed of prophet: a disgruntled one who carries out his mission grudgingly. As we’ve seen over the last few days’ readings, Jonah did not want to bear God’s message to the people of Nineveh, because there was bad blood between them and the Jews: it was the main city of Assyria, which eventually conquered and absorbed the Northern part of Israel into its empire. Jonah would prefer that such a menace be destroyed, but the Lord wants to give them a chance, and they take it when it is offered to them through Jonah’s warning.

Jonah bears a grudge against the Ninevites, and so he does his mission grudgingly. Ultimately in his prayer after seeing Nineveh’s repentance he tells the Lord that he resents the Lord’s compassion. At least he is maintaining communication with the Lord, who tries to show him the error of his judgment, but Jonah stalks off and sets up near the city to see if the Lord is going to destroy them or not: he still sets his hopes in something, but that something is not God’s will. He knows it’s not God’s will, but he doesn’t want to admit it. In the end Our Lord has to reach into Jonah’s narrow-minded and closed world to try and help him see the bigger picture: if the destruction of a little source of shade is so detestable to Jonah, shouldn’t the destruction of 120,000 people be even more detestable? The book of Jonah concludes with that thought, and we don’t know how Jonah reacted.

The Lord asks something of each one of us. If we’re listening, how are we trying to respond? Grudgingly? Our Lord is not shy about reaching into our narrow-minded and close world to draw us out into the bigger one. Let’s respond to Our Lord, and his plans, with generosity, casting aside all pettiness.

Readings: Jonah 4:1–11; Psalm 86:3–6, 9–10; Luke 11:1–4.