Ordinary Time

24th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord laments that the public square in his time had been reduced to two polarized parties whining at each other: the ascetic, traditional types, who saw life as an extended funeral, and the hedonistic, progressive types, who saw life as a party. Each party had some valid points, but each also sought simply to absorb the other into its own way of thinking and feeling and to ignore any merits it may have had. When John the Baptist and Our Lord enter the public square, the parties try to do the same thing to them. Our Lord reminds them that the true goal is to seek wisdom: they are receiving John and him as if they were other children on the same level who should just get with one program or another.

The world today works very similarly: people want us to think, to feel, to act in a certain way, to either spend all our time making waves and partying, or to stay quiet and just suffer through life like everyone else trying to make a living. Wisdom, as Our Lord describes today, is recognized by all as something not worthy of criticism: it goes beyond opinion to the question of a truly fulfilling way of life. There is wisdom in moments of joy and moments of duty, but neither can be excluded. Wisdom keeps the bigger picture always in mind, and based on it we know that there are moments of feast and of famine in life. Jesus is the Wisdom of God, and he seeks to help us to break out of lifestyle stalemates and to embrace life, with its lights and shadows, in all its fullness and truth.

Let’s pray today for the Wisdom that breaks us out of any ruts or stalemates in which our lives are stuck.

Readings: 1 Timothy 3:14–16; Psalm 111:1–6; Luke 7:31–35.

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

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In today’s First Reading, part of Isaiah’s prophecy of the Suffering Servant, Our Lord reminds us that sometimes he needs to open our ears, just like he did for Peter in today’s Gospel. Listening and hearing are two different things. Hearing just means something within earshot is buzzing in our ears. Listening means cocking our head, trying to get our ear a little closer, trying to understand what we’re hearing. Hearing is something passive—the noise just pops into your ears. Listening is something active—it requires a decision on our part. We’ve all received our faith as a gift—by revealing himself to us, the Lord has opened our ears to hear and listen to his Word. Sometimes we can take that for granted, and if we don’t put it into action, soon we stop listening to God’s Word in our lives, and instead it is just some more noise in our ears.

In today’s Gospel Our Lord gives the disciples a pop quiz to see how much they’re listening. At first the disciples think he is just asking them about what the crowd thinks about him. But then he turns the tables on them: who do they say that he is? They pass the first part of the quiz: the disciples have taken a step closer to Our Lord, they’ve been active, they’ve been listening. The crowd doesn’t need to do much more than be there; they’ve “heard” things about Jesus, they’re curious, but they haven’t tried to draw closer to him yet. The second part of the quiz doesn’t turn out so well. Peter couldn’t imagine that Jesus could do anything other than become a great military and political ruler. He was hearing, but he still needed to do a little more listening to Our Lord, who was trying to teach them that the Messiah and the Suffering Servant of Isaiah were one and the same. After Our Lord had seen his disciples believe he was the Messiah, he opened his heart to them, and St. Peter spoke a little for all of them and basically said the Messiah shouldn’t act like Jesus said he would. The disciples failed the second part of the quiz. God had opened their ears, like the Suffering Servant in the First Reading, but, unlike the First Reading, they were rebelling about what they were hearing. And Jesus knew that this lesson, the lesson of the cross, was the most important lesson of Christian life.

The disciples learned the lesson eventually, and passed it along to us. Let’s ask Our Lord to help us when that voice whispers in our ears and tells us the cross is not necessary, and cast it out as decisively as he helped St. Peter.

Readings: Isaiah 50:5–9a; Psalm 116:1–6, 8–9; James 2:14–18; Mark 8:27–35.

23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Saturday

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In today’s Gospel Our Lord warns us that being a “bad boy,” despite how culture today paints it, is never a good thing. If someone recognizes something to be evil, they avoid it; that is Ethics 101. That is why evil often tries to masquerade as good, to appear glamorous. God has created everything good, but if we use his creation for the purposes for which it was not intended, we can do evil, and it will surface sooner or later. Our Lord teaches us not to judge people, but he does teach us to judge actions: evil people do evil things, just as good people do good things. Even when someone does evil we recognize it as something good that has been corrupted or turned into something corrupting.

Our Lord teaches us what to do in the second part of today’s Gospel in order to determine what’s truly good and unmask what’s truly evil when it is hard to tell. First, if someone pays lip service to Our Lord and doesn’t truly do his will and seek to follow him, that is hypocrisy, and that is evil. We have to pray for people to know Our Lord and follow him with all their heart. Second, evil people may seem to build their lives on solid ground, but the path of evil is a path to destruction: it is building on a shaky foundation that will not stand the test of time, and is actually abandoning the one path that matters. Our Lord’s victory on the cross showed how solid a foundation his life was based upon. He will show us the  sure path and a solid foundation for our lives if we let him.

Let’s pray today for the conversion of sinners and for the insight to build our lives on Our Lord as a solid foundation.

Readings: 1 Timothy 1:15–17; Psalm 113:1b–7; Luke 6:43–49.

23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Friday

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If a blind man were to offer to help you cross the street you would either charitably decline, think he was crazy, or maybe convince yourself he had super powers. We live in a society where people seek the virtuous thing to do, the logical thing to do, or the craziest thing to do, and are willing to get advice from or give advice to anyone. People can supposedly all follow a truth that doesn’t need to agree with the truth of others, and, as a result, a lot of people with partial views stumble around in the dark when they should all be seeking profounder truths.

Our Lord in today’s Gospel reminds us that we must try to see and live clearly before helping others, or it will be a case of the blind leading the blind. We have to invest time, prayer, and reflection to determine the solid foundation on which to live and to be guided. We can’t just invent this on our own: we need help from Our Lord, and we need help from solid people and solid traditions. As St. Paul recalls in the First Reading, out of his ignorance and disbelief he became a persecutor and lead others to join him in his quest. Our Lord dramatically intervened in his case to help him see how blind he really was.

Let’s pray today for everyone to receive the grace to see clearly and live clearly in order to find the best role models and be the best role models for others.

Readings: 1 Timothy 1:1–2, 12–14; Psalm 16:1b–2a, 5, 7–8, 11; Luke 6:39–42.

23rd Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday

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Today’s society is plagued by ways of losing your temper, inspired by the principle of “don’t get mad, get even”: people go postal, get road rage, drop f-bombs, go ballistic, send flame mails, and are branded as trolls online. Our Lord in today’s Gospel tells us the Christian response to people who get on our nerves: “don’t get mad, get praying,” talk to your manager if you’ve got a problem, keep driving calmly and forgive the guy who’s tailgating you, watch your mouth, take a walk and cool off, send that e-mail draft or destructo-comment to the trash unpublished. In biblical language that is translated in terms of “compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another,” as St. Paul teaches in the First Reading today.

In today’s edgy, thin-skinned, irritable society that is a tall order. It’s not something we can accomplish overnight, but the best way to help us reconquer these virtues again is to contemplate Christ crucified when we think we’re about to blow. Our Lord didn’t just preach this in today’s Gospel; he lived it. None of us have been mistreated as badly as him and he bore with it all and forgave everyone who sought it (even desired to forgive those who didn’t). Contemplation is not simply remembering; it is seeing the scene in your mind, with Christ, and not just once. It is through contemplation and grace that we achieve the recollection to help us keep from losing control, and in contemplating Christ crucified little by little we realize how beautiful charity toward others and despite others is, and how petty we can often be.

If feel like you’re going to blow today, find a Crucifix and ask Our Lord for the grace to handle that situation as he would: with endurance and forgiveness.

Readings: Colossians 3:12–17; Psalm 150:1b–6; Luke 6:27–38.