Twenty-fifth Sunday of the Year - 2024

I had a bird feeder attached to my back fence. It was a delight to watch the parents feeding their babies perched on branches. But quickly they are grown, the free lunch is over and competition at the feeder becomes very aggressive – after all this is nature – the natural law for these little creatures is, “the survival of the fittest. St. Peter in his first letter, chapter two says this: “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and sojourners to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against the soul.” What does he mean calling us Aliens and Sojourners: he is not signifying absence from one’s native land, this image denotes rather our estrangement from this world during our earthly pilgrimage on earth. Earth is not our real home, we are only living here for a short time. The spiritual world in the heavens is our true home. The law of the survival of the fittest is not our way of living, something much higher is how we are to act while we spend these few years here on planet earth. That is why James writes today: Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?  You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask.  You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures. Jas. 4:1-3 This is acting like the sparrows at my bird feeder, not as spiritual people on our way back to the Father’s house. James continues: Adulterers! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore, whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, "God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Jas. 4:4-7 James is a strong antidote for those wish to water down the challenge of holiness found in the gospel. As we observe Jesus navigating through the gospels people keep saying, “Who is this? He is not like anyone we have ever known.” Jesus is trying to get us to understand who we really are – that we have a calling much higher than the creatures of this world. We must stop acting like the birds at the bird feeder.

Twenty-fourth Sunday - 2024

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” This gospel passage for this Twenty-fourth Sunday, contains two of the most important questions we may ever be ask to answer. We might characterize them in this way;  + the first is about religion ( “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” ) + the second is about faith (“But who do you say that I am?” ) Few questions receive more attention than questions about religion. What people say about religion can vary greatly:  > about God, is there a God or not? > if there is a God what is God like? > are there many gods? > why does God matter to us? > which religion has got it right? So many questions like these make up the discussion, or the debate, or the argument about religion. In places like the Middle East, religion and conflict seem to go hand in hand. Here in our country the question seems to have become more muted, deciding instead that it no long matters that much, or just keep it to yourself if you have an opinion about religion. In the gospels, we see Jesus very much engaged in the religion questions of the day, but his purpose is to get to the deeper question, the question of faith, for it is what you believe that shapes the way you conduct your life. It is one thing to form theories and have opinions about religion, it is quite another to embrace with certainty what you are convinced is true. St. Paul made it quite clear when he said, that if it is not a certain fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead, our whole faith structure collapses into nothing. (1Cor. 15:14) It is the official position of our liberal, democratic society not to have a definitive answer to the questions of religion. As long as we do not impose our beliefs on others, or deny them their rights granted them by law, we can practice what ever religious beliefs we have. It is our country's guarantee of religious freedom under the law. So question one asks, "... what are people saying about ...?" After exploring the question of religion, Jesus turns to the question of faith. Jesus has come into the world to bring together and form a communion of people over which he will be the head. ("I will build my church." ) The nature of this communion will be to have a real yet mystical union with Jesus as head and a true and fraternal union with one another. Their instruction will come, by way of revelation and inspiration by the Holy Spirit forming and guiding their minds and hearts. ( “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.”) Their purpose is to live holy lives and be a sign and example for all the world to follow. (Be holy as your heavenly Father is holy.) In this way the love of God was revealed to us: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might have life through him. In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and his love is brought to perfection in us. This is how we know that we remain in him and he in us, that he has given us of his Spirit. Moreover, we have seen and testify that the Father sent his Son as savior of the world. Whoever acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God remains in him and he in God. We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us. God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God and God in him. 1 John 4:8-16 The fact that in this county we have the freedom of religious belief and practice, which we respect, and see as a blessing, does not diminish the importance of the fundamental question: What do you believe - "who do you say I am?". And if your answer concerning Jesus is the same as Peter's, what is the state and condition of your "communion" in the Church that Jesus builds in the world?

Twenty-third Sunday - 2024

During this month of September the Second Reading in the Liturgy of the Word is taken from the Letter of St. James. James is referred to as James the Lesser; not a standard of importance but by the chronology of age, being the younger James, son of Alphaeus or Cleophas as mentioned in John. James was leader of the Church in Jerusalem and this letter is thought to have been written about AD 47. St. James wrote his Letter for the Jewish Christians outside Palestine, who, for the greater part, were poor and oppressed. St. James was moved to write his Letter as he witnessed that the first fervour of the Jewish Christians had grown cold, and a certain spirit of discouragement was developing amongst them. How appropriate for us to hear his words in our own time of declining fervour and faith in the Church. The Jewish Christians James is addressing had come into a beautiful new living faith through the gospel and the Gift of the Holy Spirit – some may have even heard or witnessed Jesus before his death on the Cross. Ignored at first by the people among whom they lived, now they were experiencing backlash, rejection, even persecution. Their social condition was becoming even worse than before they embraced the faith. Our challenges to the Faith today are also rooted in the cultural influence that surround us – the secularism of society – the injustice that divides people – the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer. Let us look for a moment at some of St. James’ words we will here in the next few Sundays. In chapter one, – “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world.” In chapter two, as we heard today - “Did not God choose those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom that he promised to those who love him?” Again in chapter two, next Sunday, one of James’ most powerful lessons – “Faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” Then, the following week from chapter three – “Where do the wars and where do the conflicts among you come from? Is it not from your passions that make war within your members? You covet but do not possess. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.” Lastly in chapter five – “Your wealth has rotted away, your clothes have become moth-eaten, your gold and silver have corroded, and that corrosion will be a testimony against you;” James does not hold back in his use of strong language, because of the urgency of his message. We need to hear the same kind of uncompromising straight talk today, lest we be swallowed up by the chaos around us. Our faith in Jesus is a treasure beyond price. Let nothing rob you of it.

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Twenty-second Sunday - 2024

Many of us spend so much time shining the outside of our cup - ensuring what we project to those around us is life in order. The important thing is what is inside of us - where is our heart? What is the state of our soul? Are we truly “clean” on the inside?  The Word Among Us had a nice perspective. "Sometimes we need cleaning up on the inside as well. We may exert all our energy in doing godly things, but we do them with the wrong attitude or disposition. For example, you might be serving the poor at a homeless shelter, but in your heart, you are judging how some of the people there got to such a low point. Or maybe you are attending daily Mass, but instead of listening to the readings, you find yourself criticizing the way the lector speaks. You don’t mean for these thoughts to rise up in you, but they sneak in anyway!”  Pope Francis has this wisdom for us to consider. "You Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. It is a concept, that Jesus “repeated many times in the Gospel”, offering certain people a clear warning: “Your interior is bad, it is not just, it is not free. You are slaves because you have not accepted the justice that comes from God”, which is the justice that Jesus gave us. It is an interior freedom, which leads to doing “good in secret, without sounding the trumpet”: indeed, “the way of true religion is the same way of Jesus: humility, humiliation”. And as Paul says to the Philippians, Jesus humiliates himself, empties himself. And, this is the only way to take selfishness, greed, arrogance, vanity and worldliness, away from us. Faced with this example we find instead the attitude of those whom Jesus reproaches: “people who follow the religion of makeup: the appearance, to appear, pretending to seem” a certain way “while inside...”. (…) Let us ask the Lord that we never tire of going down that path; that we never tire of rejecting this religion of appearances, this religion of seeming, of pretending.... We must instead be committed to proceed “quietly, doing good”, and doing so “freely as we have freely received our interior freedom”. May He guard this inner freedom for all of us. Let us ask for this grace.”  (Santa Marta, 11 October 2016)      By Dave Weber