Monthly Archives: July 2022

What Really Matters

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Dear Folks,
What is truly important? Much talk in our society now presumes that what is most important is getting what we desire at the moment, and we decide our own values arbitrarily. Christianity teaches that we need to learn what is valuable and be transformed to grow in appreciation of it. The problem is that in our sinful state, our desires can often lead us astray. What is bad can often look like something really, really good. We can lock ourselves into a lesser form of life than what God has for us, and it can easily betray us. Daniel Mattson was talking to a priests’ gathering and spoke of his old life saying, “I was as happy as I knew how to be.” And then he traded that for life according to God’s plan, and is very, very glad he did. What God has for us is always more than what the world can give us, though it may carry greater challenges. Mattson also told the story of a class that went to a planetarium and the show included pictures of stars on the ceiling rotating. Everyone felt like the room was spinning, but it was really standing still. The instructor said, “Your feelings are important, but they don’t always tell you the truth.”
The Scriptures talk about the danger of valuing the wrong things and learning what is truly important. “How long, O people will you be hard of heart? Why do you love what is worthless, chase after lies (Psalm 4:3)?” “Who may go up the mountain of the Lord? Who can stand in his holy place? The clean of hand and pure of heart, who has not given his soul to useless things, what is vain (Psalm 24:3-4).” “And this is my prayer: that your love may increase ever more and more in knowledge and every kind of perception, to discern what is of value, so that you may be pure and blameless for the day of Christ (Philippians 9- 10).”
Many people have a hard time with Catholic teaching because they try to fit pieces of Christian belief and practice into the framework of the world’s life vision. It’s like trying to put pieces from one puzzle into another puzzle. They don’t fit. According to “From Christendom to Apostolic Mission” by University of Mary, “Christians don’t see some things differently than others: they see everything differently in the light of the extraordinary drama they have come to understand.” Unfortunately, many Catholics have been taught bits of doctrine and practice, but not the larger framework (Jeff Cavins calls this “a heap of Catholicism”).
In the Catholic vision, everything is connected to everything else. God created the universe, and made it good, but it is not the greatest good. He made the human race in His image and likeness and made us male and female for a reason. We are made to be a part of something greater than ourselves, to give ourselves in love, to spend ourselves for something greater than ourselves according to the way we were created. We are called to respect the life and dignity of every human being. We are called to family, community, and participation. We are called to meaningful work. We are called to use things that pass away to help us seek things that are eternal. The more we learn about this vision, the more Catholic teaching makes sense, and everything fits together. Then “we may no longer be infants, tossed by waves and swept along by every wind of teaching arising from human trickery, from their cunning in the interests of deceitful scheming (see Ephesians 4:14).”
Blessings,
Fr. Jim

Praying the Eucharistic Prayer

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Dear Folks,

Our readings today talk about the power of prayer. We know that praying better is not about building technique to be able to manipulate God (an unworthy enterprise that always fails

anyway), but about bringing more and more of ourselves to God, that we may be all His. Part of that is understanding and being more conscious of what we are praying. The Mass, of course, is

our central prayer, and it is good to understand it more and more. Today I’m going to unpack the third Eucharistic prayer. We pray it very often, but perhaps most people don’t give a lot of thought to what we are really saying.

The liturgy of the Eucharist begins with gathering and bringing forward the gifts which represent all we have done with what God has given us. As the bread and wine are placed on the altar, we

intentionally offer ourselves with them, that we may be consecrated.

We pray the prayer over the gifts, then there is the preface, with praises God for His gifts to us. Then comes the Holy, Holy, the hymn with which we unite with the heavenly liturgy (see Isaiah

6 and Revelation 4).

Then we start the Eucharistic prayer proper, and number three begins with praising God for His holiness and the work of creation, and then says how creation is meant to praise Him. God

gathers us to Himself so that “from the rising of the sun to its setting a pure sacrifice may be offered to your name (see Malachi 1:11).”

Then we ask for the Holy Spirit to “graciously make holy these gifts we have brought to you for consecration, that they may become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is called the “epiclesis” the calling upon, and it is worthy of extra note.

Then we get to the words of institution, recounting what Jesus said and did at the Last Supper, giving Himself sacramentally as He would give Himself on the Cross. This is worthy of extra

special note, and we respond to the moment with proclaiming the mystery of faith.

Next, we speak of celebrating the memorial of the pascal mystery by which we are saved. We remember that in the Bible, remembering means something stronger than we are used to:

making a past event present and effective. (If you read Genesis 8:1; 1Samuel 1:19; Jeremiah 31:34; Luke 1:54 and 72 in that light, I think it will make sense). And we gratefully offer “this holy and living sacrifice.” Jesus died once and will never die again, but His sacrifice has an eternal power, and He allows us to unite ourselves to that sacrifice that we “make become one body, one spirit in Christ.” As we asked for the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into

the body and blood of Christ, so we ask the Holy Spirit to transform us into the body of Christ (see 1 Corinthians 12; Romans 12; and Ephesians 4:1-16). We seek to be ever more perfectly the Body of Christ, and the body that is offered to the Father (see John 17: 20-21; and perhaps 1Corinthians 15:25-28). We ask, “May he make of us an eternal offering to you so that we may obtain an inheritance with your elect” and we mention the saints. Heaven is receiving God’s love and loving Him in return brought to infinity, and that is being an eternal offering to Him. “May this Sacrifice of our reconciliation, we pray, O Lord, advance the peace and salvation of

all the world,” and we pray that the power of Jesus’ Sacrifice continue to transform the people of the world, both those gathered and those scattered throughout the world. Then we pray for those

who have died. Finally comes the doxology: “Through him, and with him, and in him, O God, almighty Father, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, for ever and ever.”

Responding with the Great Amen, the people join in saying the whole prayer. We offer all to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit.

This is our faith: God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, gathers a sinful people to Himself by the power of Jesus’ sacrifice, and makes us a part of that union of self-gift, which is heaven

for all eternity, and we want everyone to share in it. To quote an old beer commercial, “It doesn’t get any better than this.”

Blessings

Fr. Jim

Being with and doing for

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Dear Folks,

The essence of religion is a love relationship with God. Every love relationship (or any kind of friendship) has two aspects: first, being with our beloved for the sake of being with our beloved and second, doing things to please our beloved (someone called it “being with and doing for”).

In our story of Martha and Mary, Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus listening while Martha is busy with the tasks of hospitality. Martha wants Mary to help with tasks, and Jesus said that only one thing is required, that Mary has chosen “the better part”. It may seem that Jesus is rejecting the “doing for” as unimportant and “being with” is the better choice. However, anyone who says “all I have to do is have my prayer time and then I don’t have to act on my faith in any way” had better slow down and take a breath. The Gospels don’t let us get off that easily. We just finished reading the story of the Good Samaritan which was definitely a call to action. The Gospel of Luke is especially strong on acts of mercy toward others.

However, we remember that Christianity is not just a to-do list, but a love relationship, so it starts with paying attention to the person.

“Set me as a seal on your heart, as a seal upon your arm; For Love is strong as Death, longing is fierce as Sheol. Its arrows are arrows of fire, flames of the divine. Deep waters cannot quench love, nor rivers sweep it away. Were one to offer all the wealth of his house for love, he would be utterly despised (Song of Songs 8:6-7).”

Consider all the tasks your loved ones do for you as expressions of their love. If you had enough money, you could probably find people you could pay to do all those tasks, but it wouldn’t be the same. Someone could bake you cookies using your grandmother’s recipe, and serve them to you warm out of the oven, but it wouldn’t be the same as your grandmother doing it out of love. You could probably find people, if you paid them enough, to tell you continuously that they loved you and admired you and you were precious to them, but you know that if you stopped paying them, they would walk out the door and never look back. A love relationship is unique in all reality. That is what God is offering us. That is what God is seeking from us. He doesn’t need our love, but we need to love Him.

Martha was doing tasks, and that was good. Mary was focused on Jesus Himself. Starting with Jesus, she would never neglect tasks that really needed to be done. In fact, one of the key measures of our prayer life is how our behavior is changing. If our prayer is really opening our hearts and minds to God, we will show an increase in the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22-23).

Let us not presume that by our own power we can become good people and make a better world. If we want a better world, we start by attending more closely to Jesus.

Blessings,

Fr Jim

Focus on Love

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Dear Folks,

The essence of the Gospel is the gift of self. The Lord gave Himself completely for us, not withholding the last drop of His blood. By His Pascal Mystery, He empowers and invites us to receive that gift, and to give ourselves to Him in return. In this exchange of love is the fullness of life, the fullness of freedom, and the fullness of joy.

There are two problems. One, we are free simply to refuse. We can choose to live for ourselves and our desires alone. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it (Matthew 16:25; see Luke 17:33 and John 12:25).” The other problem is more insidious and more dangerous. It is the false gift of self. It allows us to tell others (and often ourselves) that we are really committing ourselves, but the reality is different.

We all know about people who claim to be your friend when it is convenient for them but ignore you when it is not. Sometimes people make a commitment and either never intended to keep it or change their minds when they find out it will be harder than they thought.

This can take many forms. In the Scriptures, there is a continual problem of false gifts to God. God teaches His people how to be in relationship to Him (in the Old Testament this is embodied in the Torah, and in the New Testament it is embodied in Jesus). People keep trying to make it something less. Isaiah 1 and Psalm 50 are about those who offer ritual sacrifices but do not follow God’s teaching, as if they could just buy Him off and continue to do what they wanted. The scribes and Pharisees in the Gospels were classic examples of those who went through the motions, but their hearts and minds did not belong to God, and they refused to be corrected.

The Scriptures make an analogy between our relationship with God and the relationship between husband and wife. The book of Hosea, Ezekiel 13 and 23, and other texts compare idolatry with adultery. God made sex as the ultimate gift of self between husband and wife and the power to generate life. People keep trying to make it something less, and that has caused serious harm to people’s lives, to families, and to society as a whole. People are exploited, children are neglected or considered disposable, and people lose the power to connect on a deep level. To use it as a toy, a sport, or a casual interaction harms the people involved. All of Catholic sexual morality is to preserve its power as authentic gift of self.

Some do charitable work but are less concerned about what will really help people than about feeling good about themselves or having other people praise them.

This Sunday we read the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:29-37). This story, unique to Luke, is a story about authentic charitable work. It involved an emergency, and someone who helped with nothing to gain for himself. His friends would never praise him for helping a Jew, in fact, they would probably sneer in disgust (such was the hatred between Jews and Samaritans). The man he helped would probably be angry he was helped by a Samaritan, and there could not be expectation of gratitude from him. He took a risk stopping in a dangerous place, used his own resources, and now had to walk instead of ride. He even left himself open to extra cost. He probably even had to deal with a feeling of disgust himself for this victim.

We remember that Jesus Himself is the perfect model of selfless love. He was already on the highest throne in heaven, and had nothing to gain by saving us, but He did at great cost to himself. This is the challenge He gives us today.

Blessings,

Fr Jim

Call to Adapt

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Dear Folks,

Jesus said, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few.” I have found that many Catholics see themselves primarily as customers in church, while others see themselves as

co-workers in mission. Jesus instructs us to pray for more laborers.

I don’t think people reject Christianity because their current lives are so joyful and fulfilled.

I keep hearing about how people are less contented and less happy nowadays, and more filled with fear, anger, and resentment. We see a lot of this around us. Many people can’t cope with not getting their way, in fact, we see so many cases nowadays of people going

ballistic when things don’t go the way they should. This suggests their happiness and their hope are very fragile.

Our first reading is a call to rejoice and exult. We remember that when we are inviting people to the faith, or inviting them deeper into the faith, we are not telling them they have to give up the good life for a lesser existence out of fear of divine retribution, but rather to a more abundant, more free, more wonderful life.

Consider Jesus sending out the 72 to proclaim the Kingdom with “no money bag, no sack, and no sandals…(Luke 10:4).” We notice that Jesus had recently sent out the 12, also without the usual travel supplies (Luke 9:1-6). We know that the disciples usually had

some funds, with the common money bag in the care of someone they trusted completely (John 13:9). This was an exercise in doing things the hard way. I am reminded of the boy scout exercise where the scout was sent out to spend the night alone in the woods with a pocketknife, two raw hot dogs, and two matches. It was training in dealing with difficult circumstances. Robert Lewis Stevenson once said, “Life is not about holding good cards. It is about playing a bad hand well.”

The more we grow as disciples, the more we are ready to adapt to circumstances we would not have chosen. Jesus makes us resilient. Knowing that the victory has been won, and if we do not lose faith, we will share in the victory, helps us see bad news in perspective. The bad circumstances are temporary, but the Kingdom is forever. St. Paul teaches the Philippians that we can rejoice even in bad times and harsh circumstances. When things go badly, we can always ask two questions: “God, what do you want me to

learn from this?” and “God, how do you want me to serve the Kingdom in this circumstance?” We don’t need to lose our tempers or get nasty, but patiently keep working to make things better.

If we want people to believe that we have something special, then we have to be different from most people. If people notice that we are continually telling the joyful truth of the Good News and striving to serve in both good times and in bad, that might cause some to ask: “What do they have that makes them like that? I’d like to learn more.”

Blessings,

Fr Jim