Monthly Archives: April 2022

Spirit of Peace

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Dear Folks,

As we continue the Easter season, we reflect on how to be an Easter people. Our Gospel last Sunday has two parts: the giving of peace and the Holy Spirit for the sake of reconciliation and showing Thomas something to help him believe. My thought on this is how we as Christians should be reconcilers, and that will help people believe, Jesus said to Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen, but have believed (John 20:29).” This does not mean they believe without reason. People may not see the wounds of Christ, but if they see that our behavior is different from the general population because of our faith, then they will have grounds to believe that what we say about Jesus is real.

One of the ways we can strive to be different is being better reconcilers and peacemakers. There is a lot that can be said about how to do that (and I have tried on different occasions). Easter is a good time to talk about how peace can grow from being less concerned with our own desires and more concerned with pleasing God.

St. Paul teaches, “If then you were raised with Christ, seek what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Think of what is above not what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:1-3).”

If our desires are paramount, our desires will always get in the way of each other. “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 kill and envy, but you cannot obtain; you fight and wage war. You cannot possess because you do not ask. You ask but do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions (James 4:1-3).”

Even if we are fighting for God’s truth, against the forces of evil, we do it as people of faith. We can spend ourselves generously to build goodness without the desperation that comes from thinking it all depends on us. We remember people thinking they could save the world without God (I’m thinking of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao) who were sure they were building a better world and that they were so important that they should have no limitations. They killed millions because they thought the tradeoff was worth it. We do what we can do, careful to show that we love even those who oppose us, knowing that God Himself will bring about the victory. The greatness of our cause calls us to higher standards of behavior, not lower. Church people have done nasty stuff when they have forgotten that.

We remember that the ability to do this depends on the Holy Spirit. We are not just celebrating the great season of Easter (though that would be plenty in itself), but also preparing for the great feast of Pentecost. This is a time to reflect and consider how our relationship with the Holy Spirit is enabling us to live as an Easter people.

The gifts of the Holy Spirit (from Isaiah 11) are wisdom, understanding, knowledge, council, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. The traditional explanations of the first four tend to be a bit subtle, but I think they boil down to knowing that God is more important than anything else, understanding how that affects the way we look at life, and what is life is truly of value, seeing how it all connects, and knowing how to respond. Fortitude is the strength actually to do what we now know we should do (based on the first four). Piety is a sense of awe toward God and attentiveness to Him. Fear of the Lord is, of course, not about fear in the usual sense, but a deep desire to be pleasing to God and a deep horror of displeasing Him.

The fruits of the Holy Spirit (from Galatians 5) are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

As we prepare for Pentecost, we can pray regularly for the Holy Spirit to increase these attributes in us, that we may better live as an Easter people, may better be peacemakers, and may better be witnesses of the Gospel to the world.

Alleluia! Fr. Jim

Easter People

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Dear Folks,

This is Easter! This is actually when we should be singing, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” This is the celebration of Our Lord’s great victory over evil, and that makes all the difference. The Easter season will continue until Pentecost. How should we respond? I suggest:

1. Rejoice! (obviously). Even if you are going through a very hard time, we remember that the hard times come to an end, and the victory of Easter is forever.

According to our capacity at the time, we can look defiantly at what is dragging us down and say, “your days are numbered, and we will get the last laugh.” We read in Scripture, “Go, eat rich foods and drink sweet drinks, and allot portions to those who had nothing prepared; for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day, for rejoicing in the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10).” We can celebrate according to our capacity and show the world that just as we have done penance during Lent, now we party!

2. Get immersed in Acts of the Apostles. During the Easter season, the first reading is from Acts almost every day. It is the story of the Church in its beginnings and shows how to be an Easter people. If we follow those readings and reflect on them, it will give us a sense of what was their response to the Easter event and the Pentecost event. (You know you are allowed to read the daily Mass readings even if you don’t get to Mass that day?). As you go through Acts of the Apostles, I would encourage you to look for four things:

a. Telling the Gospel story

b. Working together as community

c. Worshipping God

d. Helping people in need.

I would suggest that those four things were how they made their mark on the world. Doing these four things, a small band of misfits changed the course of world history forever. I suggest if we grow in doing these four things, we can be as successful as they were. We have everything they had. We have the Gospel story, and we have the Holy Spirit working within us. During the Easter season, I’ll be unpacking more about how we might try to grow in these four things (actually, I plan to be doing that for the rest of my life, but one step at a time).

We remember that after the disciples encountered the Risen Jesus, the world was still a mess, and still very hostile to everything Jesus is about. Acts makes this clear. It also made clear that the Church had problems, and that it had flawed people in them from the beginning (that is made even more clear in the epistles). Despite that, a small band of misfits changed the course of world history forever. If we truly believe in the resurrection the problems in the Church now will not hold us back from doing wonderful things.

When people look back on this moment in history, what will they find? Let’s see how many reasons we can give them to know that we truly believed in the Gospel, that we believed in the power of the New Life that Jesus offers us.

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

True Gift of Self

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Dear Folks,

This is Holy Week, the height of our liturgical year. We try to put everything else aside to focus on this journey. We follow Jesus from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, His time in Jerusalem, His passion and death, and finally the resurrection.

All four Gospels tell the story of Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. This year we look at the Gospel of Luke, who, just before the entry tells the story of a king who returns to his kingdom to hold his servants accountable for their stewardship and destroy his enemies (Luke 19:11-27). This shows us how to view His time in Jerusalem. He will hold them accountable for their stewardship of God’s gifts.

The essence of the Gospel is the gift of self. Our Lord gave Himself completely, and that comes to its fullness in His sacrifice on the cross. We see here a contrast between those who truly give the gift of self with those who give a false gift or who refuse completely.

After His entry into Jerusalem, He weeps for it, saying that they lost their chance for peace and would be destroyed (Luke 19:41-44). This anticipates the talk on the destruction of the temple, coming persecution, and the coming of the kingdom (Luke 21:5-36). This suggests that if they had accepted His teaching, they could have avoided this catastrophe. We know that they tried a futile uprising and were destroyed. Centuries later, Christianity would conquer the Roman empire by evangelizing it. What would have happened if they tried that approach first thing? Unfortunately, so many people threw away the opportunity that God had given them. Their bad stewardship was being judged.

Then Jesus cleansed the temple. God had given them the great gift of temple so they could give themselves to Him in their worship, and they were using it for their own selfish purposes. Their bad stewardship was being judged.

The chief priests, the scribes and the elders attempt to pin Jesus down on His authority, but they won’t take a stand themselves (Luke 20:1-8). This isn’t going to work. We have all dealt with people who want to hold others accountable, but object to being held accountable themselves. We cannot claim to understand Christianity while staying safe. We have to put ourselves on the line, including the possibility that Christ will completely rework our lives,

including being publicly known for our positions. Anonymous criticism gets no respect. Again, that is not a true gift of self.

He tells the story of the tenant farmers who won’t make a return to the vineyard owner (Lk. 20:9-19), even killing his son. He is making clear that the chief priests, the scribes, and the elders of the people have not been good stewards of the great gifts they have been

given. Instead of giving their hearts, their minds, their wills and their strength to God (see Deuteronomy 6:4-5), they kept their hearts for themselves and used God for their own purposes.

We contrast this with two stories just before and near the end of this section. Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10) received an unexpected opportunity in the visit of Jesus and used it to turn his life completely around. An unnamed widow (Luke 21:1-4) was given very little to work with, but responded with all her heart and all her self. These are praised for their stewardship.

I recently rewatched the 2019 movie “Midway.” The battle of Midway was one of the most critical battles of World War II, and it is very inspiring to see so many people who made such great and brave sacrifices for the sake of the war effort. They wanted to live, to be safe, and to be with their families, but they knew how much their work mattered. During this holy week, I suggest we reflect on how we have responded to God, how might He be calling us to respond, and how well do we believe that our response to God matters?

Blessings,

Fr. Jim

Flesh and Spirit

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Dear Folks,

Looking at the cycle A readings, today we come to the story of the raising of Lazarus, which is about the middle of the Gospel of John, and the last and greatest of His signs (John does not talk about “miracles” but rather “signs”).

There is a big difference from mere physical survival and the fullness of life. “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).”

Our second reading from Romans 8 says, “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh; on the contrary, you are in the spirit, if only the spirit of God dwells in you. Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him (Romans 8:8-10).” It is worth reading a bit of what came before: “…so the righteous decree of the law might be fulfilled in us, who live not according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For those who live according to the flesh are concerned with the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit with the things of the spirit. The concern of the flesh is death, but the concern of the spirit is life and peace (Romans 8:4-6).”

It is crucial to understand that when talking about “flesh” and “spirit” the Bible is not saying the body is evil or unimportant. It is talking about an attitude, an approach to life. To live according to the flesh is to be ruled by our lesser desires, and to live according to the spirit is to live according to the truth of God, which can only be done with God’s grace. St. Paul famously taught: “Now the works of the flesh are obvious: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, rivalry, jealousy, outbursts of fury, acts of selfishness, dissensions, factions, occasions of envy, drinking bouts, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In contrast the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law (Galatians 5:19-23).”

To live according to the flesh is to be ruled by our desires as animals are. For animals, of course, it is fitting. They are engaged in a fight for survival that always ends in defeat. We were made for more, and to settle for the desires of the flesh is to make of our lives a grotesque caricature of what God made us to be. A violent rage and desire for revenge are grotesque caricatures of the desire to build peace and justice. Greed is a grotesque caricature of the desire to build things of benefit to others, enjoy the fruits of our labors, and have some security for the future. Lust is a grotesque caricature of the free, total, faithful and fruitful relationships to which God calls us. Pride is a grotesque caricature of the desire to celebrate and rejoice in the person that God has made us. To live according to the flesh is merely survival. To live according to the spirit is the fullness of life.

The raising of Lazarus was a teaching moment, a foreshadowing of the resurrection to come. Lazarus was resuscitated with his body like it was before, not the resurrection body that Jesus would have on Easter. While Jesus could pop into locked rooms with no problem, Lazarus still had to be untied from his wrappings (John 11:44). Today is to sharpen our appetite for Easter. St. Paul said, “If you were raised with Christ, see what is above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God (Colossians 3:1). Christians are already participating in eternal life, and we are called to live accordingly. In heaven of course, that life reaches its fullness. That will be good. Very, very good.

Blessings,

Fr Jim