Month: October 2015

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

by

The story of Martha and Mary in today’s Gospel helps us take stock of our prayer life. Martha through serving the Lord is making her life a prayer; she’s busy, but she is doing it for him. The first step in any prayer life is the desire to know and to serve the Lord. Even when we’re busy we can remind ourselves that everything we do should be with Our Lord in mind. At the same time, Martha’s prayer life is a little tainted with activism: focusing on doing so much that she loses sight of why she is doing it. This is proved when she comes to Our Lord to complain and judge her sister: a lack of charity is a symptom of a lack of prayer life.

Our Lord is well aware of this, which is why he presents Martha her sister as an example of contemplative prayer: Mary just sits at the Lord’s feet, apparently “doing” nothing, but she is loving the Lord. Everyone needs this kind of prayer too: prayer no much of reciting words or doing things as simply “sitting” in the Lord’s presence and listening to whatever he has to say, or simply just being there and loving him while he loves us. This prayer can be difficult, so sometimes we need material for our conversation with him, such as a passage from Sacred Scripture, but that is the food for our conversation with him.

Try taking ten minutes today from your schedule to just sit down in a quiet place (at home, in a church, etc.) and simply recollect yourself and speak with Our Lord heart to heart. He will speak if you listen. It will help you more like Martha and like Mary in a good way.

Readings: Jonah 3:1–10; Psalm 130:1b–4b, 7–8; Luke 10:38–42.

27th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

by

In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches us, through the story of the Good Samaritan, that compassion should be the driving force behind all our actions, a compassion that cuts through enmities, cultural differences , and feuds. Samaritans and Jews were at odds with each other: the Jews considered them culturally and cultually corrupted. The Samaritans defended their Old Testament roots and believed that Jerusalem was an upstart of the southern part of Palestine trying to claim an importance it didn’t merit. How many cultures at odds with each other can we think of throughout history and even today?

When Our Lord tells the scribe in today’s Gospel that a Samaritan was a neighbor for showing more compassion to a man robbed and left for dead than two socially important Jews, he was using a shocking example for his listeners, who considered themselves superior to the Samaritans. The priest and the Levite made ritual propriety a priority: if the beaten man was dead they would have been ritually contaminated and unable to participate in Temple worship if they’d drawn near him. It didn’t make them question their ritual propriety–were they really loving God if they weren’t loving man? The Samaritan didn’t have to do any legal or mental gymnastics: he was overwhelmed with pity for what he saw, and didn’t just drop the poor man off at a hospital, but cared for him and provided for him, resolving to follow up until he was sure that he was okay. That’s the commitment and concern of a neighbor. Our Lord teaches us today that neighbors are not only our “buddies,” but anyone who is in need, whether there is good or bad blood between us.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to foster in us the compassion that moves us to be good neighbors to everyone.

Readings: Jonah 1:1–2:2, 2:11; Jonah 2:3–5, 8; Luke 10:25–37.

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

by

In today’s Gospel Our Lord teaches the indissolubility of marriage as something in God’s plan from the beginning. In the Old Testament and the New, when a man and a woman come together in marriage they become “one flesh”: each becomes a part of the other. Eve is fashioned from the side of Adam to teach this profound mystery where a man and a woman come together in a love of total mutual self-giving that reflects the inter-Personal love within the Most Holy Trinity: when Adam sees Eve for the first time he recognizes a part of himself, someone without which he would be incomplete, someone who was missing in his life.

For those called to marriage God has blessed two people with someone out there with whom they can be complete, be whole. He respects their freedom to enter into the marriage covenant with each other, and, for believers, promises to help them with the spiritual graces of the sacrament of matrimony. It is a big step not to be taken light, requiring preparation, but when that step is taken it will be a life-changing blessing for them and for everyone they love. Their parents wish them well as they start their new life together and, God-willing, become parents themselves. The beauty of marital love is why marriages in difficulty are so dramatic and tragic: something that is now “one flesh” is trying to pull itself apart. In the difficult moments it is important to remember not just the emotions of first love, but the fact that God has joined man and woman, and God will help them remain united; they just have to keep striving to seek each other’s good.

Let’s thank God today for the blessing of many happy marriages and families, and also ask him to strengthen and help marriages that are in difficulty.

Readings: Genesis 2:18–24; Psalm 128:1–6; Hebrews 2:9–11; Mark 10:2–16.

26th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

by

In the first part of today’s Gospel the Seventy-Two who were sent out by Our Lord return exuberant about the power over demons that comes from invoking Jesus’ name and authority. Our Lord tells them various incredible things are within their power, but all in the context of power over the Evil One and the fallen angels, who have often been associated with serpents for their venomous modus operandi. This spiritual power wielded by the Devil and the fallen angels is a power that is often more pervasive and threatening than the material manifestations of power it may produce in those who are dominated by it. Evil simply cannot harm those who remain united to Christ: his power frees us from the Evil One.

At the same time, Our Lord reminds them that the most important reason to be exuberant is not for reasons of power and protection against dark forces, but because those dark forces cannot conquer them as long as they follow Christ and act in his name. The path to Heaven is open to them if they continue to follow Jesus, who will reopen it with his sacrifice on the cross, a sacrifice more powerful than all the evil that was thrown on him during his Passion and Death. On the cross we see how truly powerless evil is, in the end, over God.

Let’s pray today with a spirit of gratitude that line Our Lord taught us to pray: “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Readings: Baruch 4:5–12, 27–29; Psalm 69:33–37; Luke 10:17–24.

The Guardian Angels

by

Many people imagine a world of superheroes that watch over them, often unawares, defending them from danger and evil, but don’t realize that someone is already always watching over them, unseen: their guardian angel. In today’s Gospel Our Lord describes children as having an angel because they’re so precious to God. We’re all precious to God, and he gives each one of us an angel to watch over us.

Your guardian angel has watched over you since before you were born. It is watching over you right now. Have you ever spoken to it? Asked for its intercession? Imagine the day when, God-willing, you meet your guardian angel face to face in Heaven.

Let’s try to give our guardian angel today as much of a day off as possible by staying out of trouble.

Readings: Matthew 18:1–5, 10.