FrNikola

St. Martha

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In today’s Gospel the story of Martha reminds us that faith is not just an action; it is a journey, and that journey can take us to unexpected and unimaginable places. Sometimes we can fall into the trap of a faith that is fixed on a specific desired outcome: I believe, and I want this to happen. Faith has to always be exercised with a spirit of openness to the will of God: there are certain outcomes we’d like, but God is free to act as he chooses and in a way we may not expect.

Martha today shows a faith that is open to whatever Our Lord can do. When Jesus reminds her that her brother Lazarus will rise, she thinks Our Lord is consoling her with the Jewish belief in a resurrection at the end of time. She had placed her faith in Jesus coming and healing Lazarus before his death, but she also believed Our Lord could ask anything from God. She didn’t imagine that “anything” would be raising Lazarus from the dead then and there, after he’d been in the grave for three days. Imagine her surprise and delight when Our Lord ordered the tomb to be opened and called Lazarus out. Her faith led her to something unexpected and unimaginable: her dead brother restored to her, alive and healthy.

Faith is not just an action; it is a journey. Let’s ask Our Lord to help us always to ask for what we need, but also to go from there along whatever path of faith he reveals to us.

Readings: John 11:19–27.

17th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday

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In order to understand the parable being explained in today’s Gospel (the parable is presented in Matthew 13:24–30, just after the parable of the sower), of weeds being sown by an enemy among someone’s wheat crop, it’s important to understand that a certain kind of weed, the bearded darnel, looked very similar to the wheat sown in the time of Our Lord in Palestine and could be mistaken for wheat. Therefore the man in the parable decides to wait until harvest time to separate them when it’s more easy to distinguish them.

With the parable of the sower that we considered a few days ago we saw some potential obstacles to God’s word bearing fruit in our lives. If we let his word take root in us, we become those wheat stalks in today’s parable that grow and bear fruit. Sadly the Devil, the fallen angels who rebelled with him, and sinful people tempt and corrupt others, and those who succumb to it are like the weeds explained in today’s parable: they grow by feeding off of others and choking those trying to grow around them, and, in the end, their lives are fruitless. Perhaps some of them don’t even realize until the end that they’ve lived their lives as weeds, not as wheat, and some evils can appear to be good. Our Lord teaches us today that evil is present and active in the world, sometimes not easily detected, and it will not be definitively overcome until he returns in glory. In the meanwhile, we must persevere in hope and virtue and not become discouraged when it seems evil is widespread and winning.

Let’s pray today for the conversion of all those “weeds” in the world today, for the courage to persevere in the face of evil, and for the wisdom to tell between the weeds and the wheat in our world.

Readings: Exodus 33:7–11, 34:5b–9, 28; Psalm 103:6–13; Matthew 13:36–43.

17th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday

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In today’s Gospel one of the images Our Lord uses to describe the Kingdom of heaven is a women mixing yeast with flower to make sure the whole batch is  leavened. As bakers know, if there’s not yeast, the bread does not rise. In some recipes when the yeast is not mixed well with the flour the result is something tough and chewy. Wherever Christianity is found we know the Kingdom of God is very active, provided those believers are living their faith. Christianity has spread throughout history and had a great influence on Western and Eastern culture, independently of the spiritual benefits it has brought. It may not be always identified with society, but it elevates society and culture, much like that leaven helps the bread to rise, but also needs to spread out in order to be effective. God-willing it will help society and culture to “rise”all the way to the Resurrection.

The benefits of the Kingdom of God go beyond benefiting believers spiritually even today: good things happen as a result of good spiritual things happening, even among non-believers. When secularizing trends attempt to relegate Christianity to individuals almost in the privacy of their own home, that leaven is staying clumped together and not really helping society to its full potential. As Christians we are called to go everywhere and proclaim the Gospel; by doing so we are spreading the “leaven” throughout society that helps all of society to “rise,” spiritually and culturally.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to show us how to be better leaven in our social and cultural circles, and ask him to help us have to courage to take the Gospel out into the streets and into the world in which we live.

Readings: Exodus 32:15–24, 30–34; Psalm 106:19–23; Matthew 13:31–35. See also 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

17th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s readings Our Lord reminds us that disciples know they always have something to learn and to pass along the people that they help. Christians never stop being disciples; Our Lord always has something to teach us. In the First Reading Elisha (who was the disciple of the prophet Elijah) learned from his master in the miracle of the multiplication: Elijah once asked a widow for the last bread she had to feed herself and her son (1 Kings 17:8–16), and when she explained her situation Elijah told her the Lord had promised to provide for them all, and so it came to be. Elisha in today’s Gospel was doing something similar, but because the Lord promised to help him, just as the Lord had helped Elijah and the widow, he knew to encourage his servant to begin handing out the bread, and the miracle happened.

The disciples in today’s Gospel are a little more proactive: they know from Our Lord’s question that he wants to feed the people who came to see him and it seems he’s asking them to make it happen. Phillip sees it as impossible even if they had enough money to feed them, due to the size of the crowd. Andrew at least starts asking around, but the resources come up short. They lost sight of the fact that Jesus said “we”: when we feel Our Lord is asking something difficult or impossible, we have to remember that, like in today’s Gospel, he will be with us and help us. We just have to take it one step at a time, even when sometimes it seems difficult or impossible. In the end, through taking things step by step, they helped Our Lord to make the miracle happen.

Have you felt in your heart that Our Lord has been asking you to try to do something difficult or impossible? Don’t think of the end game; ask him to teach you what first step he wants you to take, and then keep taking things one step at a time. You’ll be surprised how much you accomplish working with him.

Readings: 2 Kings 4:42–44; Psalm 145:10–11, 15–18; Ephesians 4:1–6; John 6:1–15.

 

St. James the Apostle

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Today we celebrate the feast of St. James the Apostles, the brother of St. John the Evangelist, one of the Lord’s closest disciples, and the first Apostle to follow Our Lord all the way to martyrdom and beyond. Today’s Gospel reminds us of the moment when James and John sought power and glory alongside Our Lord, and he prepared them for a power and glory that would be nothing like this world had ever seen. When Jesus sounded them out about whether they were willing to drink the same chalice as him, maybe they didn’t know what they were getting into, but they did know that they wanted to follow Our Lord wherever and however he chose. What went through their minds after his Passion? John was there, James was who knows where.

The Acts of the Apostles tell us that James was beheaded on Herod’s orders (see Acts 12:1-4) to score political points with the Jewish authorities. As James went to his death, was he thinking of that “chalice” Our Lord had mentioned? Was he thinking of the teaching Jesus had imparted to all the Apostles when they were incensed about Jame’s and John’s ambition: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and the great ones make their authority over them felt. But it shall not be so among you…”? James was at the mercy of a ruler who was the antithesis of how Jesus taught them to be, and acting exactly as Jesus had warned against. He knew how he had to respond: “to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.” His witness to the point of martyrdom echoed, and will continue to echo, throughout history and into eternity.

Are we afraid of having to even sip from Our Lord’s “chalice?” Are we prepared to follow him no matter what? We are called to take up our cross every day, big or small, and follow Christ, not just to suffer something for him and for others, but to give witness that death and suffering don’t have the last word. Let’s ask St. James today to help us sip from Our Lord’s “chalice” and persevere in the path he traces out for us, no matter what crosses it may entail.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 4:7–15; Psalm 126:1b–6; Matthew 20:20–28.