Wednesday

8th Week of Ordinary Time, Wednesday, Year II

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In today’s First Reading Peter reminds us all that we have been ransomed from a pointless life by the blood of Christ. It became pointless because after the Original Sin of Adam and Eve our lives became “futile”: there was no way we could escape death or sin on our own, and this evil held us captive with no one to pay for our release. The price was too high for any reasonable person: it was a ransom of not just blood, but death, and not just any death, but the death of someone worthy to make proper expiation.

That someone was Our Lord. He became man and paid our ransom. What we received through an outpouring of water and an invocation of the Trinity at Baptism gave us not only a new lease on life, but a new life. We’ve not only been rescued, but reborn. In today’s Gospel Our Lord warns the disciples about what is about to happen (his Passion), but some of them are still thinking of potential glory and not of the cross that it takes to get there. We’ve died in Christ, and now we need to live by not making the same mistake.

There’s no glory that compares to a new life. Let’s live a life worthy of the price Our Lord paid for it to be holy and happy.

Readings: 1 Peter 1:18–25; Psalm 147:12–15, 19–20; Mark 10:32–45. See also 8th Week in Ordinary Time, Wednesday, Year I,  St. James the Apostle, 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B, and 2nd Week of Lent, Wednesday.

7th Week of Ordinary Time, Wednesday, Year II

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James in today’s First Reading reminds us that career planning can only get us so far, because we really never know what the future holds. We can plan the perfect college degree, the perfect career, only to suddenly fall head over heels in love and start a family, be struck down by cancer or an accident requiring extended treatment, discover a vocation to the priesthood or consecrated life, or lose your job. Many people throughout the world today don’t even have a level of what we’d call normal stability, living in a broken family, poverty, or persecution and can’t even guess what the future holds for them.

Every good thing in our life is a gift from the Lord, and, as Job teaches us, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away (see Job 1:21-22). That’s not a truth to live in fear if we practice faith, hope, and love. God wills the good and helps us achieve it, but we can also help him achieve good as well by asking him what would please him. That’s why whenever we make plans we must be open to God’s will, knowing that he is a loving Father who has his children’s best interest in mind. Being in a Fortune 500 company or in a hospital bed suffering through chemotherapy are both opportunities to help others through our talents and our sacrifices.

Spend some time in prayer today considering the expression, “God laughs at man’s plans”; is there anything you’re planning for life that God may think is a joke? Ask him.

Readings: James 4:13–17; Psalm 49:2–3, 6–11; Mark 9:38–40. See also 26th Week in Ordinary Time, Monday.

7th Week of Easter, Wednesday (2)

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In today’s First Reading Paul, bidding farewell to the presbyters of Ephesus, charges them with watching over the Lord’s flock and themselves. Our Lord in today’s Gospel prays that his disciples share a profound unity, a unity reflecting the profound unity of the Most Holy Trinity.  Paul encourages the presbyters to remember that it is better to give than to receive; the “wolves” who will menace the flock are looking after their own interests, not the poor sheep who falls into their clutches.

However, as Paul warns, the unity of the Church is threatened by internal factors as well; some teaching perverse doctrines will lure people away. It is due to both these types of threats that Our Lord entrusted the apostles and their successors with watching over the unity of the flock.  They are expected to preside over the Church in a spirit of service and of charity. The wounds and obstacles to Christian unity even today are caused by false teachers and people pursuing their own interests at the expense of the Church’s.

Let’s pray today for shepherds who know how to drive off the wolves and false teachers. Let’s also pray for reconciliation and unity among all Christians so that we can be one as Our Lord has prayed for in today’s Gospel.

Readings: Acts 20:28–38; Psalm 68:29–30, 33–36b; John 17:11b–19. See also 7th Week of Easter, Wednesday and 7th Week of Easter, Sunday.

6th Week of Easter, Wednesday (2)

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Paul in today’s First Reading has gotten one of the biggest missionary opportunities of his lifetime: preaching the Gospel in the Areopagus, the famed public square of the city of Athens where the learned gathered to hear philosophy and great ideas. Athens was at the heart of Greek culture and if Paul had success here in evangelization, it could ensure a much wider audience for the Gospel message, a much as getting “rave reviews” or “media attention” would do today in cities known to be nexus for culture such as New York, London, Berlin, etc.

Athenians prided themselves on being very rational regarding matters of religion; at one point they even dismissed their pantheon of gods whose myths were part of their upbringing. It was fashionable to be skeptical of them, yet they didn’t push it too far, which is why, as Paul notes today, they had many altars to many gods, not seeking to offend any one of them, just in case he, she, or it really was real. Rationalism and superstition sometimes go hand in hand, because the more we stoke our reason, to more something inside us gives us that nagging feeling that there’s something beyond our reasons, calling to us.

As Paul notes, they even had an altar dedicated to an unknown god, and Paul makes that an opportunity to not only introduce them to the God of which they’re ignorant, but to understand that he goes way beyond any gods they had conceived. Even as Paul, in his discourse, rationally discards the falsity of idol worship, he tries to connect the God of which he preaches to the God that rationally they were seeking. The thought of the resurrection of the dead, however, proves too irrational for most of them. As a result, we don’t have a Letter to the Athenians among Paul’s letters; the shift from rationality to testimony was too much for them. Eventually, however, Greek culture would become an incredible vehicle for transmitting the Gospel, greatly influencing all the Eastern Churches, so Paul’s work was not in vain.

There are many Areopagi in the world today, under different management, moved to new locations, where people are seeking the answers to life’s questions and don’t know that the answer is God, much less Christ. Like Paul, let’s try meeting them halfway along the rational road and bring them to meet the Risen Christ, the answer to life’s meaning that they’re seeking.

Readings: Acts 17:15, 22–18:1; Psalm 148:1–2, 11–14; John 16:12–15. See 6th Week of Easter, Wednesday.

5th Week of Easter, Wednesday (2)

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We are branches that depend on the main vine in order to grow and have life, as Our Lord teaches us in today’s Gospel. The First Reading teaches us how we abide in the vine, how we stay connected to the true vine, Our Lord. Another way of understanding how we abide in the vine is being in communion with God and with each other. The Church over the centuries has considered how that communion is seen under three aspects: communion in worship, communion in doctrine, and communion under the same governance.

In today’s First Reading there’s a doubt regarding how the Church should maintain her communion with the Lord and with each other. Some are saying that circumcision and following Mosaic laws, customs for the Jews, are required for salvation. The Gentiles, however, never had these customs, and Paul and Barnabas insist that they are not necessary for salvation (this topic comes up in many of Paul’s letters; Galatians, for example). Therefore a dispute has arisen in the area of worship and doctrine and the Church convokes its first council, the Council of Jerusalem, in order to resolve it and determine what Our Lord really does ask of his disciples in order to abide in him, the true vine. We’ll see the outcome in tomorrow’s reading.

Even today our bishops, in communion with the Holy Father, gather to discuss pressing issues, in synods and in meetings of Bishop’s Conferences, and watch over and foster communion so that the whole Church abides in Christ. Let’s pray for our bishops to be open to whatever the Holy Spirit instructs them for the good of the Church and of the world. That is how we’ll abide in the true vine, grow, and bear much fruit.

Readings: Acts 15:1–6; Psalm 122:1–5; John 15:1–8. See also 5th Week of Easter, Wednesday and Fifth Sunday of Easter.