Thirteenth Sunday - 2020

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. "Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple—truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward." Matt. 10:37-42

If ever there was someone who wanted to put you to the test about your Christian faith, today's gospel text would make a perfect weapon. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate their father and mother, spouse and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even their life itself, cannot be my disciple.” So your Jesus wants you to hate your family – it says so right here. Now if you reply by saying that Jesus didn’t really say that or mean that, you create a whole lot of trouble for yourself. Would that not be true of anything the gospels quote Jesus as saying? Perhaps a little parable might help us here. Suppose you belonged to a family of a non-Christian religion. Your father is a strong, devote believer and he strictly demands that you follow this same religion and all its beliefs and practices. One day you come and announce that you are going to become a Catholic; you believe that Jesus is the son of God and that the Catholic Church is the true way to follow Christ. Your father tells you that if you do this, he will disown you, strip you of your inheritance and nothing more to do with you. And so you leave. In other words it is all or nothing. In today's society, the worst thing you can do is promote hate. Hate crimes are of the worst kind of evil. Here Jesus is using hyperbole; which is an exaggerated statement or claim not meant to be taken literally. Like when Jesus said “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell.” Mk. 9:43 Jesus is not teaching hate, but he is teaching unconditional love. To be his disciple Jesus wants our whole heart, our whole soul, our whole mind with all our strength. The problem we face in the Church today is mediocrity – "I like some of the things the Church teaches but certainly not everything". In Matthew’s account of this issue Jesus is warning that to follow Him unconditionally will have its challenges.  “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves his father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me; and anyone who does not take up his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. Mtt. 10:36 Jesus wants our whole heart - first and above all. Half-hearted faith will never last in today's world. It slowly drains away until it is all gone. The choice is now in our hands. Dr. Brant Pitre has an excellent commentary on today's gospel passage. Go To: . . . LINK . . .

Twelfth Sunday - 2020

Commentary on Today's Scriptures

12th Sunday of the Year

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Corpus Christi - 2020

From a work by Saint Thomas Aquinas, priest O precious and wonderful banquet! Since it was the will of God’s only-begotten Son that men should share in his divinity, he assumed our nature in order that by becoming man he might make men gods. Moreover, when he took our flesh he dedicated the whole of its substance to our salvation. He offered his body to God the Father on the altar of the cross as a sacrifice for our reconciliation. He shed his blood for our ransom and purification, so that we might be redeemed from our wretched state of bondage and cleansed from all sin. But to ensure that the memory of so great a gift would abide with us for ever, he left his body as food and his blood as drink for the faithful to consume in the form of bread and wine. O precious and wonderful banquet, that brings us salvation and contains all sweetness! Could anything be of more intrinsic value? Under the old law it was the flesh of calves and goats that was offered, but here Christ himself, the true God, is set before us as our food. What could be more wonderful than this? No other sacrament has greater healing power; through it sins are purged away, virtues are increased, and the soul is enriched with an abundance of every spiritual gift. It is offered in the Church for the living and the dead, so that what was instituted for the salvation of all may be for the benefit of all. Yet, in the end, no one can fully express the sweetness of this sacrament, in which spiritual delight is tasted at its very source, and in which we renew the memory of that surpassing love for us which Christ revealed in his passion. It was to impress the vastness of this love more firmly upon the hearts of the faithful that our Lord instituted this sacrament at the Last Supper. As he was on the point of leaving the world to go to the Father, after celebrating the Passover with his disciples, he left it as a perpetual memorial of his passion. It was the fulfillment of ancient figures and the greatest of all his miracles, while for those who were to experience the sorrow of his departure, it was destined to be a unique and abiding consolation.  From the Office of Readings For Corpus Christi

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Trinity Sunday - 2020

"For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” You may have notice from time to time, while watching TV, usually a live event where a crowd is gathered, someone in the back ground holding up a sign with this written on it, just these numbers,  "3:16". If you have not made the connection - it refers to this text of scripture, which is chosen as the gospel reading for this feast of the Most Holy Trinity. Clearly, someone, at a grass roots level, is taking advantage of the TV exposure to evangelize. One might wonder how effective this effort might be, but if you google just the numbers "3:16" you are taken immediately to the bible passage. No doubt there are those who consider this as an unwelcome intrusion of another's religious belief into an nonreligious public event. In other words, "... didn't ask, not interested, keep your religion to yourself". But by virtue of our baptism, we as Catholics have a mandate and responsibility to be Evangelists. Pope John Paul II, in 1983, first exhorted the Church to undertake the mission of a New Evangelization in his encyclical, Redemptoris Missio. The Holy Father, described three situations requiring three unique approaches to Evangelization: 1.       Evangelization to the nations: This is a situation where “Christ and his Gospel are not known.” 2.       Evangelization of Christian communities: This is the ongoing evangelization of those “fervent in the faith.” 3.       New Evangelization: “where entire groups of the baptized have lost a living sense of the faith, or even no longer consider themselves members of the Church, and live a life far removed from Christ and his Gospel. In this case what is needed is a ‘new evangelization’ or a ‘re-evangelization.’” The new evangelization pertains to a very specific group of people: fallen-away Christians. For most Catholics in the western world, we see the need for this type of evangelization all around us. Everyone knows someone who was once baptized but who no longer practices the faith. In 2010, Pope Emeritus Benedict established The Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization which gave direction to this mission of New Evangelization, which continues to be our calling in the church today. Matthew ends his gospel account with these words of Jesus, "Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.” Mtt 28:19 So just how are we to evangelize today? A couple of years ago, Archbishop Richard Smith, bishop of the diocese of Edmonton and former president of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, gave a talk on the new evangelization. In his talk, Bishop Smith pointed out that by virtue of our baptism we are all commissioned to be evangelists. He then went on to explore the way evangelizing works. It has two main components, WORD and SIGN, and both are necessary together. Word alone cannot convey the full message of the Good News, because people may not take from the words we use the same meaning that we intend to communicate. Bishop Smith gave this example. ·         When we use the word joy people often hear pleasure, ·         truth is heard as opinion, (we hear a lot about “alternate facts” these days), ·         conscience is heard as feeling, (morality comes from the way you feel), ·         justice is heard as vengeance. But when our words are accompanied by a corresponding sign, gesture, personal witness, then what we mean to say is made clear. Remember, one who says one thing and does another is called a hypocrite  This was first laid out for us by St. Peter when he says, "Always be ready to give an explanation to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope, but do it with gentleness and reverence." 1 Pt. 3:15. First, people must see it in your life, then your words will have a convincing sign of reference to endorse them. Everyone is entitled to their opinion these days and words are flying like a sand storm. What is lacking is signs of truth to accompany them. The true evangelist must be both sign and word.

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