Ordinary Time

Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Cycle A

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As today’s First Reading reminds us, the Lord didn’t choose us to be his People because we were numerous or talented; he chose us because he loved us. Salvation history is a history of God loving his Beloved and wooing her back when she strayed, not with flower and candies, but with loyalty, dedication, and sacrifice. We have all strayed, but that has not diminished the love Our Lord has for us one bit.

All he expects in return, as John reminds us in today’s Second Reading, is that we love one another. Love, like a flame, is meant to ignite hearts and spread, and that is what Our Lord ardently desires: not only that our hearts are aflame out of love for him, but that we spread his love as well after making it our own. The Holy Spirit ignites our hearts with the love of God, beyond any selfish or limited love.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord invites us once again to take up the burdens of love and remind ourselves that the secret to shouldering those burdens is to be, like him, meek and humble of heart. Meekness and humility of heart are what show the dividing line between a selfless love and a selfish one. When we contemplate the Lord’s Passion, and the meekness and humility of heart with which he faced it, we should have no fear about shouldering our own crosses out of love.

Heart of Jesus, burning with love for us, inflame our hearts with love for you.

Readings: Deuteronomy 7:6–11; Psalm 103:1–4, 8, 10; 1 John 4:7–16; Matthew 11:25–30. See also Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Cycle C and Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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10th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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Paul reminds us in today’s First Reading that with the Incarnation of Christ our humanity, as fragile and weak as it is, has been entrusted with a true treasure: the grace of God. When we consider the strength and glory of Our Lord, we see how fragile his humanity is, yet Paul reminds us, as Our Lord has shown us, that we may be down at times, but never defeated.

Paul, in imitation of Christ, “dies” each day so that we may live. Our mortality is our fragility, but we know, in the end, that death will not have the last word.

We shouldn’t be discouraged when living the demands of Christianity. Christians have accomplished the most not at the high points of their lives, but at the low ones, just as Our Lord did on the Cross.

Readings: 2 Corinthians 4:7–15; Psalm 116:10–11, 15–18; Matthew 5:27–32. See also 10th Week of Ordinary Time, Friday, Year II.

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Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Cycle A

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Easter ended last Sunday with Pentecost, and this week we have returned to Ordinary time. Today we cap off these first few Ordinary days by going back to the beginning, when everything created started, even history itself: to the Most Holy Trinity. We know God has no beginning or end; he even created beginnings when, as the first words of the Bible in Genesis remind us, he said, “let there be light.” Even now he is always with us, no matter where we are or what we’re doing. We being every prayer reminding ourselves of his presence by making the Sign of the Cross and invoking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

In today’s First Reading Moses implores the Lord to remain with him and his people no matter how stubborn they have been or will be. The Golden Calf incident has just happened in today’s First Reading: the people had made a covenant with the Lord at Sinai and broke it by worshiping a golden calf. Moses, upon coming down from Mt. Sinai and seeing what they’d done, smashed the tablets containing the Ten Commandments (first and only edition) in anger at what the people of Israel had done, rightfully disgusted with them. Moses had the repentant regroup with him to show their return to the Lord, and those who didn’t perished. Even then, Moses was unsure whether the Lord would ever be with them again.

In today’s reading he goes up the mountain to see the Lord’s glory. The Lord promised to take the new tablets he’d made and “reprint” the Ten Commandments again, a sign that the covenant with his people would stand. When Moses beholds the Lord’s glory he sees the Lord for how he truly is: “a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in kindness and fidelity.” He knows neither he nor the people of Israel are entitled to have the Lord be with them, yet he also knows, in faith, that the Lord will remain with him due to his sure goodness and mercy.

In today’s Second Reading Paul expresses the hope that we now express at the beginning of every celebration of the Eucharist: that the Lord remain with us all. In the First Reading it was through Moses that the people reconciled with the Lord and renewed their willingness to be faithful to the covenant they had struck with him at Mt. Sinai. In every celebration of the Eucharist the celebrant, invoking the Most Holy Trinity, greets the faithful by expressing his desire that the “communion of the Holy Spirit” be with them all, using the same words of Paul: “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” Along with this communion we pray for the grace of Christ and the love of God, because we know if those things are not present, neither is the communion of the Holy Spirit. Woven in this desire we see every Person of the Most Holy Trinity involved: it begins with the love of God the Father, even before creation, it is restored after we’ve broken it through the grace of God the Son, and it is sustained and fortified through God the Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord reminds us that God never distances himself from us; we distance ourselves from him. Despite this, he comes in his Son to help us draw close to him again. God is always present to his creatures, including us, in an existential way: he sustains us in existence every moment. If he were to ever stop thinking about us we’d cease to exist. He never stops thinking about us. We distance ourselves from God in our hearts, and he always tries to close the gap, even though he respects our decision to distance ourselves from him. The Father sent the Son into the world to reveal to us that we had distanced ourselves from him and to give us a way to close the gap. The Son doesn’t condemn us. The distance speaks for itself. Through faith in the Son we close the gap and enable the Lord to be with us not only existentially, but in our hearts.

The Sign of the Cross reminds us that we should do everything in the name of the Most Holy Trinity. Let’s make the Sign of the Cross this week like we mean it: by making it a real invocation of the Triune God who loves us. If you weren’t planning on making the Sign of the Cross anytime this week it means you weren’t planning to pray at all, at least not in a Trinitary way. Bad sign. Try starting and ending each day this week by praying the Sign of the Cross. You’ll be amazed how it changes your perspective on how you should live your day.

Readings: Exodus 34:4b–6, 8–9; Daniel 3:52–55; 2 Corinthians 13:11–13; John 3:16–18.

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8th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

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Today’s readings remind us that God has not only created us, but he wants to help us to grow and to thrive in a way that he has envisioned for us. This concern and care of God for his creation, big and small, is called divine Providence, and we, as creatures gifted with freedom and responsibility, can not only benefit from God’s Providence, but also help him usher creation toward the perfection that he desires for all his creatures, big and small.

In today’s First Reading we’re reminded that God’s care and concern for us goes beyond the care and concern of the creature who represents one of the greatest blessings of Providence in our lives: our mothers. Mother’s Day is rightly one of the biggest days we celebrate, sometimes overshadowing even Father’s Day. The bond between mother and child is so strong that newborn children need physical contact with their mothers in order to ensure later development. Every one of us spent our first years of life defenseless and completely dependent on our mother. Yet God’s love and concern goes beyond even the maternal: he enabled us to exist and sustains us in our existence. He created us, and our parents wouldn’t have been able to bring us unto the world without him. He wants our happiness as much as our parents and, as Isaiah reminds us, even if our parents were to forget us, God will never forget.

In today’s Second Reading Paul reminds us that our belief in Providence and our efforts to help it along will be judged by God. Paul describes himself as a servant of Christ and a steward of God’s mysteries. A servant is not an owner, and despite our mortgages and deeds and pink slips we’re ultimately accountable to the Owner-in-chief regarding how we’ve used the possessions with which he has blessed us. A steward is entrusted with the care of something and trust is essential in a steward. God wants us to cooperate in his plan of Divine Providence: “God is the sovereign master of his plan. But to carry it out he also makes use of his creatures’ cooperation. This use is not a sign of weakness, but rather a token of almighty God’s greatness and goodness. For God grants his creatures not only their existence, but also the dignity of acting on their own, of being causes and principles for each other, and thus of cooperating in the accomplishment of his plan” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 306).

In today’s Gospel Our Lord directs our attention to the signs of God’s Providence in the present in order to not worry about the future. He could have provided for the oxygen we need to breathe by creating lots of molds and fungi, ugly green splotches, but instead he created magnificent trees, flowers and meadows that receive the sun and rain they need to grow and fulfill their purpose in the grand scheme of things in a beautiful way. Thinking about the future can be a source of anxiety and uncertainty if we lose sight of the signs around us every day of how God has created all things to be good and arranges them to help them achieve good ends and often in a beautiful way. He knows what we need before we even ask. He has also traced out a path to goodness and beauty for our lives, but, unlike plants and animals, he has given us the gift of freedom and responsibility for our actions. We can work with him to help goodness and beauty grow and endure in a lasting way: not just the necessary needs of life that people sometimes worry about too much, but the sum of all noble dreams and aspirations in God’s loving and saving plan that he calls his Kingdom. Goodness and beauty for humanity are justice and love for all who choose to welcome them and strive for them in their lives.

Let’s ask Our Lord today to help us get with the program. His program.

Readings: Isaiah 49:14–15; Psalm 62:2–3, 6–9; 1 Corinthians 4:1–5; Matthew 6:24–34. See also 11th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday.

7th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year I

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Everyone has a moment where they question the purpose of life, often a moment of depression or discouragement. Sirach today presents a list of wonders from the Lord today in the First Reading that helps us see our life as one big gift basket:

The gift of life. Our Lord created us, and he was not obliged to create us. As the most reasonable being ever, he had some idea in mind when he created us, which means we have some purpose in life to discover and enjoy.

The gift of being made in God’s image. God is pretty amazing, and he decided to make us like him. We’re a work of art depicting something wonderful.

The gift of time. We’re not living on borrowed time, but gifted time. Life is full of milestones, and we all have a deadline. Deadlines can make us amazingly productive, and the big deadline at the end of our earthly life will be the biggest milestone of all: it catapults us from here to eternity. Time is a gift, and each moment is a treasure.

The gift of his creations. The Lord has blessed us with all sorts of things in order to live, to grow, and to be happy. He’s given us so many choices of pets, but also many choices of menu. He’s given us wool sweaters, guide dogs, and hamburgers with all the trimmings.

The gift of understanding and creativity. He’s given us scientific knowledge that amazes us, movies, novels, paintings, and sculptures. He’s given us great things to discover and to share with others. He’d made us creative like him, and also made us inquisitive so that we seek him through his creatures and always strive to unravel mysteries.

The gift of knowledge beyond our immediate perceptions. We know, thanks to him, that there is a whole spiritual world underpinning our material one and also going beyond it. A world that makes life more than just a rat race of eat, sleep, strive, die. A world beyond the ordinary happenings of everyday life and any one life.

The gift of wisdom regarding good and evil. He’s given us a conscience to learn and to know right from wrong, not just because of the satisfaction or guilt it might bring, but as a path to true growth and happiness. He’s given us freedom to choose, but also the responsibility to choose wisely, the rewards that come from living a good life, and the consequences of living a bad one.

The gift of knowing and respecting God. He’s revealed himself to us, as we know from the first chapters of Genesis, and he’s shown us throughout history that he is amazing, loving, and worthy of our respect.

The gift of a relationship and covenant with him. He’s made the deal of a lifetime with us that he never rescinds. He never shortchanges us, and he shows us how to live a worthy life. He also warns us about living an unworthy life, and, like a loving Father, is always watching over us to keep us out of trouble.

The gift of a relationship and covenant with others. He’s also given us others like us so that we never need to be alone. He’s given us the gift of family, friends, society, and culture so that we can love and enrich one another. In the Gospel today we’re reminded about the gift of children, who teach us simplicity in striving for the Kingdom of God and the joy and purity of innocence.

Take stock of your gift basket today and give thanks to God. You’ll find at least one gift that makes your life worth living.

Readings: Sirach 17:1–15; Psalm 103:13–18; Mark 10:13–16. See also 19th Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday, Year II and 19th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday.