Cycle C

14th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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Today’s readings are such a big sell for welcoming the Gospel when it is preached to us that we have to scratch our heads at why anyone would not accept it. The benefits are described as the peace and security you felt as a child on your mother’s lap (First Reading), joy (Second Reading), healing from illness (Gospel), liberation from the power of evil (Gospel), and our names being written in Heaven (Gospel).

It’s Paul who presents reveals the “fine print” of the arrangement: we have to be crucified to the world, and the world crucified to us. Our Lord in today’s Gospel describes the fate of those rejecting his disciples as worse than that of Sodom, which was the epitome of debauchery and depravity. It’s not easy to become crucified to the things of this world; it means not letting them have sway over us or they’ll only lead to our destruction. In faith and hope we have of focus on the benefits of welcoming Christ, following him, and making him known.

Let’s not only welcome Our Lord’s disciples into our world and our life, but become his disciples as well. The laborers are few.

Readings: Isaiah 66:10–14c; Psalm 66:1–7, 16, 20; Galatians 6:14–18; Luke 10:1–12, 17–20. See also Tuesday, Wednesday ,and Thursday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time; 15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B; Thursday and Saturday of the 26th Week in Ordinary time, and 1st Week of Advent, Saturday.

13th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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A superficial reading of today’s First Reading and Gospel may give us the impression that Elijah is easier on his disciple than Our Lord is with his, but the Second Reading can shed a little light on the apparent difference. Paul reminds us in the Second Reading that life is a battle between the flesh and the Spirit; the Christian life presents a new way of living, living in a way that you are not enslaved to things and situations, but alive in the Spirit and focused on the spiritual goal. Even good things, if sought for the wrong reasons, can oppose a life of the Spirit.

A common denominator in today’s First Reading and Gospel is that the disciple asks to do something before following his master. The subtle difference is that, unlike Elijah, Our Lord can always read hearts and see whether that heart is speaking from the flesh or from the Spirit. Elisha is “liquidating his assets” and doing one last gesture of love for his family before departing; the hearts of disciples in today’s Gospel are only known to Our Lord, and it is in his response to them that we see a potential conflict between Spirit and flesh that he is trying to help them address.

The first disciple in today’s Gospel perhaps doesn’t understand that following Our Lord is a something lifelong: he’s not just headed to the Rabbi’s house instead of his own, he is committed to permanently follow Jesus, just as every Christian is called to do. The second wants to attend to important family business, but sometimes following Our Lord requires sacrifice and self-denial: in telling the dead to bury their dead Our Lord perhaps is telling him too that the family business he is concerned about can already be attended to by another member of his family. The last potential disciple wants to go home and say goodbye first: Our Lord sees something in that request that would put flesh over Spirit. Perhaps the disciple would go home and stay there. Following Christ is the best thing we can do for ourselves and our family, and we must never lose sight of that.

Whatever path Our Lord calls us to walk, not just priesthood or consecrated life, it is a path where we follow him. Let’s ask him today to show us the path we should take and how we should take it.

Readings: 1 Kings 19:16b, 19–21; Psalm 16:1–2, 5, 7–11; Galatians 5:1, 13–18; Luke 9:51–62. See also 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year II and 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday.

12th Week of Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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The Church Fathers, contemplating the passage of John when the soldier pierced Our Lord’s side on the cross, see the blood and water flowing form his side as symbolizing the birth of the Church, the sacrament of the Eucharist, and the sacrament of Baptism. The Church is born through the sacraments of initiation. In today’s First Reading the prophet Zechariah speaks of the pierced one, and a fountain being opened to purify from sin and uncleanness. The pierced one is Christ, and the fountain of baptism flows from his Cross.

Paul in today’s Second Reading describes those who have believed in Christ and been baptized as clothed in Christ. Their ethnicity, social status, and sex are now clothed with something that puts an end to any enmity between them: they now share communion with God and with each other through Christ. The pierced one on the cross has become that fountain from which every reconciliation is achievable when hearts are open to it.

Christ’s suffering and death powers the cleansing waters of baptism. He washes all our sins away with his blood, if we let him. If we follow him in times of peace, let’s also take to heart his teaching in today’s Gospel to take up our own crosses every day in order to follow him.

Readings: Zechariah 12:10–11, 13:1; Psalm 63:2–6, 8–9; Galatians 3:26–29; Luke 9:18–24. See also Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Thursday after Ash Wednesday, 25th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, and 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.

11th Week of Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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In today’s Gospel Jesus teaches us that there is a big difference between letting someone into your your home and letting them into your heart. To learn this lesson we must consider the outlook of Simon the Pharisee and his other invited guests. Pharisee literally meant “separated one.” The people admired the Pharisees because they observed many ritual and moral rules—hundreds—to be ritually and morally pure: prayers, ritual washings, dietary laws, a code of conduct, studies, etc.. That gave them a great prestige in Jewish society because separated meant untainted, uncorrupted. With this attitude it is likely that Simon invited Jesus seeing it as doing Jesus a favor. He was probably checking out this “prophet” whom everyone was talking about. If we measure the signs of hospitality that Jesus says Simon didn’t do—they weren’t required—it shows Jesus was a guest, but not a special guest in Simon’s eyes.

When the sinful woman arrived uninvited upon hearing Jesus was in town, for Simon it was a cut and dry case, from his perspective: prophets and sinners do not mix. Being righteous before God meant separating yourself from sinners, avoiding them, looking down on them. Sinners were contagious. Anyone righteous before God would spot that a mile away. Simon had heard a lot about this woman too: we don’t know what she did, but she must have been a notorious sinner if even the Pharisees had heard of her. If Simon was looking for proof to “flunk” Jesus on his test of being a prophet, this was it: “If this man were a prophet, he would know who and what sort of woman this is who is touching him,that she is a sinner.” If Jesus didn’t know the woman, if he were a prophet, God would have told Him she was sinner and a source of ritual impurity at least, moral corruption at worst.

But Jesus read Simon’s heart, the hearts of the invited guests, the heart of the uninvited guest, and taught them that letting some into your home and letting them into your heart are two different things. The list of signs of hospitality Jesus told Simon about were not hospitality that was expected for a guest, but signs that showed how much the guest meant to the host. They were signs of esteem, appreciation, love. The sinful woman didn’t just try inviting Jesus over. Given her reputation, she probably thought he wouldn’t have accepted, being a righteous man. But it wasn’t just about fear of humiliation, or she wouldn’t have gone and walked into a house full of Pharisees who knew she was a sinner and probably would have beaten her and thrown her out. But she sought something the law by itself couldn’t give: forgiveness. St. Paul in the Second Reading today speaks of it as justification: becoming “just” before God, becoming righteous before God, is not about doing the works of the law alone: on their own they are worthless. It takes faith in Jesus to make us righteous before God.

Jesus didn’t deny that the woman had not only sinned, but committed “many” sins, so she went to him and showed that she appreciated what Jesus was giving her: forgiveness. Some have considered the Second Reading as a pretext for not worrying about being religiously observant, but what God is saying is that the “law”: the works you do, the code of conduct you follow, should be the way you show Jesus that you have let him into your heart, a way to show appreciation for not only creating you, but redeeming you. The Pharisees had forgotten about forgiveness, and God, in the Person of his Son, had to remind them that what God wanted was “mercy and not sacrifice.” They had used religious works for themselves, and to build up prestige, but also as a distance between them and God in their hearts. But forgiveness is shown by love. The more forgiveness, the more love. The Pharisees didn’t love much because they hadn’t been forgiven much. They were religious, they were observant of what they though God expected of them. And the ones who were hypocrites, whose hearts were far from God, showed hate for Jesus instead of love. All the way to Calvary. To see someone minister forgiveness on this earth was shocking to the Pharisees, which is why they murmured at Jesus’ words. God alone could forgive sins. If they had faith, they would have at least seen Jesus as the Messiah whom God sent to liberate people from their sins. And their faith would have grown to see Jesus was God, and resolved their difficulty. Jesus never stops inviting souls to come to His hearts not only to receive love and forgiveness, but to learn love a forgiveness as well.

Faith and love lead us to not only to go to where Jesus is, but to follow him. The Gospel tells us that the women who followed Jesus and the Twelve and supported them in their ministry had also let Jesus into their hearts in order to be healed. Their faith and love for Jesus grew, and was translated into good works. Love and forgiveness from Jesus becomes love and forgiveness for others. This is the best way to follow him. When we let Jesus into our hearts, not just into a corner of our house like maybe a salesman we’re trying to be polite to but hoping he’ll making his sales pitch and leave, we are transformed by his grace.

Ask Our Lord for the grace to see how much Simon is in you and how much of the follower who wants and shows forgiveness and love. Have you let Jesus into your heart completely or just a corner?

Readings: 2 Samuel 12:7–10, 13; Psalm 32:1–2, 5, 7, 11; Galatians 2:16, 19–21; Luke 7:36–8:3. See also 24th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday and 3rd Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday.

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Cycle C

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In today’s Gospel today Our Lord reminds us that he doesn’t want to leave even one soul unturned. He encourages us to go out from the ninety-nine sheep even to find one lost sheep. When someone is conducting a search, as the expression goes, they leave no stone unturned. Our Lord is telling us that we must leave no soul unturned. The word “conversion” literally means, in the original Latin, “turning around.” Every soul that turns back to him causes a celebration in Heaven, because, as Our Lord describes it in the words of the Prodigal Son’s father: “your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

The First Reading reminds us that this is so important to God that he personally takes charge of leaving no soul unturned. The first part of the prophecy of Ezekiel laments that the shepherds of Israel (the kings), had watched over their stomachs more than their flocks, so the Lord takes charge. A little later in this prophecy the Lord says, “I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I, the LORD, have spoken.” When we put this into New Testament language, we are talking about a Father and Son operation. The Holy Spirit is involved too, inspiring Ezekiel, and pouring God’s love into our hearts, as the Second Reading reminds us today.

The Second Reading also reminds us that there is only one motivation for being our shepherd and laying down his life for us: love. The hired hands run for it when the wolves start showing up. Vigilantes leave no stone unturned and take personal charge of justice when they search for a criminal, but Our Lord does something incredible with the “criminal” instead: he dies for that criminal to be reconciled to God. He takes the penalty, the scourges, the death sentence. If the sheep is far away from the flock, Jesus throws himself right into the jaws of the wolf so that someday that sheep may live. If a soul doesn’t turn after that, nothing will turn it.

The Song of Songs reminds us, “love is strong as death, … Its flashes are flashes of fire, a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. If a man offered for love all the wealth of his house, it would be utterly scorned” (Songs 8:6-7). You cannot put a price on love—no paycheck, no bounty. Knowing this makes the words of the Psalm our own: The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want. Even if we have a part in helping lead sheep back to the head Shepherd, we remain sheep and he remains our Shepherd. That should fill us with gratitude and trust in him. Even when we walk in the dark valley filled with fear of evil. We must lead others to him, and let ourselves be led by him in everything we do. Conversion is a life-long process for us all. Jesus doesn’t just come running by to give us directions when we’re lost and then speed off to the next lost sheep. He gathers us together and leads us to rest and greener pastures and through those dark valleys, so we have to let him continue to turn our souls toward him. Let’s help him leave no soul unturned.

Readings: Ezekiel 34:11–16; Psalm 23:1–6; Second Reading Romans 5:5b–11; Luke 15:3–7. See also 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday and Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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