Sunday

19th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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Today’s Gospel ends with a warning, but it doesn’t begin with one. Our Lord is inviting us today to be magnanimous in our service, not miserly and calculating. Our Lord encourages us today by reminding us that the Kingdom is ours: he describes the moment when the master actually waits on the servants because they’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty and he is so pleased with them. Our Lord wants to give us all we need and more. The key is to be a faithful and prudent servant. We have to remember that we’re not the owner; we’re stewards entrusted with something that doesn’t belong to us, and we have to account for our stewardship.

We can never forget that we’re servants and stewards. We don’t control it all: flat tires, food poisoning, bad weather remind us that not everything is under our sway. We don’t own it all: even when we have the latest iPod there’s always a better model on the way, a newer car, but also a new and unpaid bill. Our Lord teaches us today that true freedom comes from letting go. The Kingdom is true freedom, if we seek it first, everything else will work out, because our treasure, the treasure for ourselves and those we love, is in Heaven.

Let’s resolve to be faithful and happy servants today, because Our Lord’s servants become his friends, and he promises those friends a joy that no one will take from them. Ask Our Lord today to help you see where your heart lies so that you can keep it fixed on the treasure that never fades.

Readings: Wisdom 18:6–9; Psalm 33:1, 12, 18–19, 20–22; Hebrews 11:1–2, 8–19; Luke 12:32–48. See also 29th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday and Wednesday.

18th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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In today’s First Reading the meaning is questioned of striving to accumulate property when, in the end, all the time, effort, and worry that he invests in it will not keep it in his possession forever. Ecclesiastes asked the question, but Paul in today’s Second Reading gives us an answer: to set our sights and work for what is truly important: Heaven. The things for which we strive here below, including our own health, are not going to last. Wealth here below is gone the minute we’re six feet underground.

Our Lord explains today in the parable of the rich man deciding to start early retirement what is the flaw in that logic: the only treasure we truly have, and we don’t know how much, is time. Some live long lives, some lives are tragically cut short, but every life is an opportunity to invest in the treasure that truly lasts: love for God. Love is the only thing that matters to God, not our net worth according to the balance sheets of this world.

Ask Our Lord to help you do an “audit” today of what you are working for in order to invest in the future that truly matters.

Readings: Ecclesiastes 1:2, 2:21–23; Psalm 90:3–6, 12–13; Colossians 3:1–5, 9–11; Luke 12:13–21. See also 29th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday.

17th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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In today’s First Reading Abraham gives us an example of perseverance in prayer and teaches us how we should pray. It should not be a vending machine attitude, but one that seeks to understand God instead: “Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty?” It should be persistent, but respectful. As in the Gospel, Hallowed be the Name of Our Father in Heaven. Not making demands. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Abraham seeks to understand more and more the depth of God’s justice: 50 just souls, 45, 30, etc. Not haggling or making deals. In the end his prayer is heard, and God does justice for even fewer than Abraham dared to ask.

Our Lord teaches us his prayer in today’s Gospel to help us remember how to pray and for what we should pray. When we pray we must always seek to know God more deeply. Jesus, especially on the Cross, continues that conversation with God that Abraham had so long ago by showing us how far God in his justice and mercy is willing to go for us. We try to be the happy beneficiaries of Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians: “… that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge” (Eph 3:17-19). As  we go deeper in prayer, we come to understand that God is a God of justice, but one of love and mercy as well. So we strive to be just, and to show mercy as a way of expressing our appreciation for the mercy shown to us every day.

Often it is that perseverance in prayer that helps us understand ourselves and our motivations for which we are praying.  Our Lord gives the example of the friend showing up in the middle of the night and nagging for some bread to feed a friend who has come late from a journey. The friend at the doorstep was not just persisting for himself. He was persisting on behalf of someone else. Our prayer must be for others as well as for ourselves. Jesus tells us that the friend in bed does it due to the persistence: he does it to get his friend off his porch. He gives that example to show how much more God answers our prayers when we persist, because we can ask a million times and God never stops loving us. He always listens to our prayers.

We pray for what we want, and God in the end always gives us what we really need, even when it is not necessarily what we wanted. When that becomes hard to accept, the recipe for accepting and thanking God is to see how others have benefited as well from us not getting exactly what we want. Many times when we see the needs of others we realize that those things we thought we couldn’t live without are not that important after all. At other times we pray for the right things in the right way, but our prayers don’t seem to be answered. In those moments we have to ask God to help us see the bigger picture: someone out there needs the suffering we endure when our prayers are not answered, and God does reward us in those moments.

I invite you to make the resolution today in a moment of silence to ask the Holy Spirit to help you identify the one intention that is nearest and dearest to your heart. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you explore your motivations for asking for that intention, and don’t be afraid to change it if that is what God is calling you to do and you know it will benefit others. Remember that Jesus teaches us that everyone who asks will receive, and everyone who seeks will find. When we keep that in mind, we will always persevere in our prayer.

Readings: Genesis 18:20–32; Psalm 138:1–3, 6–8; Colossians 2:12–14; Luke 11:1–13. See also First Week of Lent, Tuesday and Thursday; 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday; and 11th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday.

16th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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Today’s readings remind us that contemplation and hospitality are like love and service: they go hand in hand and they enrich one another. In today’s readings it seems one person might be getting the brunt of the grunt work (Sarah and Martha), but when it is understood from the perspective of communion, a perspective Paul reminds us of in today’s Second Reading, we know that whether we are in a moment of contemplation or hospitality, love or service, we are benefiting the whole Mystical Body of Christ.

Abraham in today’s First Reading had a special encounter with the Lord. He’d been told to wander to new lands as a nomad with the promise of a land and children of his own. Sarah had been there every step of the way for years. Now the Lord, in the three mysterious visitors, promises that Sarah will bear a son. Sarah receives the blessing, a blessing for her and her husband, that both had been striving for in different ways. Mary in today’s Gospel seems to have left her sister Martha in the lurch, sitting at Our Lord’s feet, and Martha is not shy about bringing that up to Our Lord. Our Lord reminds her that everyone has a part to play, be it love and contemplation or hospitality and service. In the end, both Mary and Martha would be blessed when Our Lord raises their brother Lazarus from the dead thanks to their love and faith.

We all are tempted from time to time of being envious of what others are doing when our part seems burdensome or unfair. Paul in today’s Second Reading speaks of making up for what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of his Body, the Church. Some always have the tougher part; be consoled by knowing that doing your part, easy or hard, will result in blessings for you and for the entire Body.

Readings: Genesis 18:1–10a; Psalm 15:2–5; Colossians 1:24–28; Luke 10:38–42. See also St. Martha and 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Tuesday.

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15th Week in Ordinary Time, Sunday, Cycle C

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In today’s First Reading Moses, as part of his parting words to the Israelites, encourages them to see that what the Lord expects of them is not hard to know or achieve: it is turning to God with all their heart and soul. The Lord has made this even easier by sending us his Son, the image of the invisible God, as Paul describes in today’s Second Reading. Through the Son we are aided in turning to God with all our heart and soul; he not only leads by example, but empowers our charity through his act of love on the Cross.

In today’s Gospel the scribe shows wisdom in seeing that love for God and for neighbor are the path to fulfillment in life. He just wants to know one point of fine print: who should we consider our neighbor? The answer is not hard: everyone is our neighbor, as the parable of the Good Samaritan demonstrates. The man waylaid on the way to Jericho was heading from a “good part of town” to a “bad one” (Jericho often symbolized turning your back on Jerusalem and heading into sin); anyone could have rationalized that when you head to a bad part of town you deserve what you get. The Samaritan was overcome with compassion at the sight of his neighbor bleeding and half dead alongside the road.

In Luke’s Gospel the scribe asks in the context of asking what he needs to do in order to inherit eternal life. That Samaritan’s goodness and compassion, by extension, despite all the bad blood between Jews and Samaritans, won him eternal life. It’s not complicated. We make it complicated. Strive to love God and every neighbor and you will accomplish something in life and achieve everything truly worthwhile.

Readings: Deuteronomy 30:10–14; Psalm 69:14, 17, 30–31, 33–34, 36, 37; Colossians 1:15–20; Luke 10:25–37. See also 3rd Week of Lent,Friday,  9th Week in Ordinary Time, Thursday and 20th Week in Ordinary Time, Friday, and 27th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday.