Giving All with Love

I became an uncle at the ripe age of seven and so I wasn't much older than my nieces and nephews.  Sometimes when I played with them and had a toy of theirs, they would grab for it even if their own hands were filled with toys.  They had to let go of one in order to have the one they wanted, the one that I had.

I thought of that in the light of today's Mass readings which teach us that it is only the empty hand that can receive.  Or as the Peace Prayer attributed to St. Francis of Assisi goes: "It is in giving that we receive."

Our first reading (1 Kings 17: 10-16) tells the story of how a non-Jewish widow helped the great prophet of Israel, Elijah.  She was dirt poor.  She had only a hungry child and a little oil and flour.  There was no "safety net" in her society.  A terrible drought had ravaged the land.  She was about to prepare a final meal when Elijah came along and asked her for water and food.  Something about the prophet moved her to give away part of her food.  She could have held on to it, not shared, and then, it would indeed have been her last meal.  But her charity to the wandering Jewish prophet opened the way for God's power to perform a miracle.  The jug of oil did not run dry and the jar of flour did not go empty for an entire year.

In the gospel (Mark 12: 38-44) we see another widow.  We see her in contrast to religious leaders and wealthy people who make a show of putting large amounts of money into the temple treasury.  Ashamed of how little she has to give, she tries to put two small coins into the treasury hoping no one will notice her meager offering.  But Jesus notices and praises her.  The others gave vast sums from their surplus, from what they could afford to give and not experience any threat to their lifestyle.  She gave sacrificially, from what she could not afford to give.  They gave for show, to win the attention and admiration of the crowd.  She gave for one simple reason--for love of God.

Perhaps Jesus saw in her a reflection of himself.

Like her, Jesus did not hold back.  He gave all.  He gave his very life, sacrificing it on a cross.  And he continues to give all.

Every celebration of Mass makes present that total offering of Jesus on the cross.  As the second reading (Hebrews 9: 24-28) says, he gave "once for all."  He does not need to die again and again.  But in a mysterious and miraculous way he makes that "once for all" offering of himself present in every celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  And after making this offering present to us, he gives himself totally to us--body and blood, soul and divinity--in Holy Communion.  He holds nothing back but gives himself totally to each one who receives him in the Eucharist.  This gift of himself, which we receive with open hands and hearts, gives us the ability to love as he loved.

How can we give all to God?  Let me make a few practical suggestions.

First, at every Mass, as the bread and wine are placed on the altar and then lifted up as the Body and Blood of Christ, we place ourselves on the altar and join ourselves to Jesus' perfect offering of himself to the Father.  It is important to be aware of this, to consciously unite ourselves to Jesus' offering as he is lifted up and makes his total, self-sacrificing offering of himself present to us.  It's also important to have an intention for which we are praying as we join our offering to that of Jesus.

Second, we are called to live, in our daily lives, the offering we make with Jesus at Mass.  This is where a Daily or Morning Offering Prayer can help us.  It can be as simple as waking up and, before getting out of bed, thanking God for another day and offering that day to God.  We can tell God in our own words that we want to offer every thought, word, and deed of the day; every breath and beat of our hearts; every prayer, work, joy, and suffering of the day in union with his total offering on the cross and at Mass.  Then, during the day, especially when we encounter something challenging and difficult, something frustrating and painful, something we would rather not have to face or do, we can renew the offering, telling God that we are going to do this thing we have to do out of love for God and neighbor, as an act of love and for the salvation of every human soul.

Those things that we offer to God may seem very small in comparison to great acts of love for God, like martyrdom.  They may seem very insignificant.  But remember the two widows.  The widow of Zarephath offered the little she had and her charity led to a miracle.  And Jesus said the widow in the temple gave the most because she gave her all out of love.  What matters to Jesus is not the amount, but the love that motivates the giving.

Tom Burnett's Offering

In the Gospel at Mass today (Mark 8: 27-35) Jesus asks his disciples what people are thinking and saying about him.  "Who do people say I am?"  People think he is the reincarnation of John the Baptist or Elijah or another of the prophets of old.  Then Jesus asks, "but who do you say that I am?"  Peter gets it right.  Having spent some time with Jesus, he can rely on his own experience and not on what others say about him.  He answers correctly: "You are the Christ."  You are the Anointed One of God, the Messiah.

But then Peter gets it wrong.  As Jesus teaches the disciples that "the Son of Man must suffer greatly, and be rejected by" the leaders, "and be killed, and rise after three days," Peter "rebukes" Jesus.  This must never happen to you!  Jesus in turn "rebukes" Peter, calling him "Satan," the tempter who tries to prevent humanity from following God's will. 

Peter and the disciples think that the Messiah will exhibit great military might and overcome the oppression of the hated Roman occupying force.  Jesus teaches that instead the Messiah will fulfill the prophecies of Isaiah, one of which we have in our first reading from chapter 50, in which the Anointed One of God will save through suffering. 

We too are called to know Jesus and not simply know about him.  This knowledge comes from a personal relationship with him.  How do we find that today, so many years after Jesus walked this earth with his disciples?  First, we encounter Jesus in the Scriptures.  There we not only read about Jesus but we meet him.  He speaks to us.  We encounter him in an intimate way in the Eucharist where Jesus renews his total offering of himself for our salvation and gives himself to us in a holy communion.  And we encounter Jesus in the Church, the Body of Christ.  We meet him in one another.

We too are "anointed ones of God."  At baptism we became part of the Messiah's Body, the Body of the Christ and we were anointed.  We became "Christians" or anointed ones through the sacred chrism which we received.  We are anointed as Jesus was and so we share in the work of the Messiah who came not to save Israel from the Romans but to save humanity from sin and from death.  Being Christians does not mean that we will be free from suffering.  Instead, through our own sufferings and daily crosses we will work with Jesus to free the world from sin. 

Last week we celebrated the anniversary of the events of September 11, 2001 when terrorists commandeered four planes.  Three of them hit their targets--the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.  One did not; because of the heroes on board it crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

Some years ago I spoke about these events at a retreat and after my talk a man named Vince came and
told me that his college roommate was Tom Burnett, one of those heroes.  When Vince went to the memorial service for Tom back in his hometown of Bloomington, MN, he thought at first that he had the wrong person.  The man described by those who offered eulogies was someone who went to Mass every day.  The "Tom Burnett" Vince remembered was someone who had drifted away from the practice of the faith. 

After the service Vince introduced himself to Tom's widow Deena and asked what had happened in the years since he had last seen Tom.  Deena explained that Tom had returned to the practice of his faith. She said that several years before his death he had stopped coming home for lunch.  His job, at a medical technology company in California, was close to where he lived and he used to come home for lunch.  When he stopped coming home for lunch, Deena thought he was just putting in longer hours.  Six months before his death he told Deena that he had been going to daily Mass at a local church.  He explained that he felt God was calling him to do something but he didn't know what.  He figured that if he went to Mass and prayed he would receive an answer.  He had a growing sense that he was going to do something big that would impact a lot of people.  And, Deena told Vince, he knew one more thing: it had something to do with the White House.

You can just imagine this ordinary guy having a sense that God was calling him to something that he hadn't planned.  And that it had something to do with the White House.  Imagine him thinking: "I plans to go into politics, much less run for president.  What's my life got to do with the White House?"

On September 11, 2001, thousands of feet above the earth, Tom Burnett knew what his life had to do with the White House.  He knew where that plane was headed.  He and the others acted, sacrificing themselves so that a greater tragedy would not occur.  They couldn't get control of the plane but they were able to crash it in a field near Shanksville, PA.

What Tom and the others did was heroic. 

As Christians we are all called to be heroic--to sacrifice ourselves, like the Messiah, like Tom, for the good of others.  When children put aside their own desires to obey their parents, they are being heroic.  When parents love their children in difficult circumstances, they're being heroic.  When grandparents care for grandchildren because the parents are not there for them, they are heroes.  When spouses care for their husbands and wives afflicted with Alzheimer's, they are loving heroically. 

Where do we get the understanding, the courage, and the strength to be heroes?  Where Tom Burnett did.  From the Word and Sacrament, from the encounter with Jesus, that is available every Sunday, in fact, every day. 

Happy Birthday, John!

Usually the Church celebrates a feast on the death date of a saint.  That is their "birthday" into heaven.  But for three people we also celebrate their earthly births--Jesus (on Christmas Day), the Blessed Virgin Mary (on September 8, nine months after a celebration of her Immaculate Conception), and John the Baptist (today, June 24).  Three months ago we celebrated the Annunciation when the Angel Gabriel told Mary that she would conceive and that her kinswoman Elizabeth was sixth months pregnant with a son, the one who has come to be known as St. John the Baptist.

You and I celebrate the days on which we were born and we also, at the end of our lives, are remembered and prayed for by our friends and relatives.  In between those dates--our birth and our death--we live our earthly lives.  John the Baptist is a great example for how to live those days.

What is the most important lesson that we can learn from John?  Humility.  In the second reading at Mass today (Acts 13: 22-26), in a speech of St. Paul, we hear how John told the many people who had come to follow him that he was not the Messiah, the Anointed One.  In fact, he said, he was even lower than the Messiah's servant: "Behold, one is coming after me; I am not worthy to unfasten the sandals of his feet."

Yet our first reading (Isaiah 49: 1-6), in words that the Church applies to John the Baptist, says that "it is too little for you to be my servant.... I will make you a light to the nations...."  That sounds pretty glorious.  However, light is humble.  We don't turn a light on and then focus our attention on it.  Light is not there to be stared at. It does not draw attention to itself.  Rather, it humbly enlightens a place so that one can find one's way in the dark.

We too are called to be light for others, not to draw attention to ourselves but to help others find their way through the darkness of the world.

There is an expression: "to make a name for oneself."  Those who try to make a name for themselves want to become famous so that many people will recognize their name.  They want to draw attention to themselves.

John the Baptist did not try to make a name for himself.  He was given a name by God.  He should have been called "Zechariah," after his father.  But on the day of his circumcision, his parents made it clear that in obedience to God's will, which came to them through the Angel Gabriel, their son was to be named "John."  It's a name that means "God is gracious."  John's identity was to show the graciousness of God who sent the Son to live our life, suffer with and for us, and even share in our death so that we could share in his resurrection.  John prepared the way for the One who embodied the graciousness of God, the goodness and generosity of God.  John pointed to Jesus, the Incarnation of God's graciousness.

You and I were also given a name by God.  It wasn't the name our parents chose for us but the name that we received when we were baptized and joined to the Body of Christ.  We were named "Christian."  We became "other Christs."  The name "Christ" means "Anointed One."  At baptism we were anointed with the Sacred Chrism which is used to consecrate the altar and four walls of new churches, setting that space apart for the sacred purpose of worship.  When I was ordained, the bishop anointed my hands with Sacred Chrism, consecrating them for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.  And when we were baptized and then confirmed, our foreheads were anointed with that same Sacred Chrism, consecrating each of us for the sacred purpose of offering worship to God.

We do that when we celebrate Mass and offer the perfect worship, joining ourselves to the perfect offering of Jesus as he renews his greatest act of love for the Father and for us.  But our worship doesn't end there.  We go forth and continue our worship in our daily lives, offering every thought, word, and deed, every prayer, work, joy, and suffering to God as an act of love and for the salvation of souls.  Our Daily Offering prayer helps us remember to offer the worship of daily life for which we have been anointed.

Like John, we are now called to live up to our name--Christian.  We are called to be true to the anointing and name that we received at baptism.  We are called not to make a name for ourselves but to make the Name of Jesus known and glorified.  For it is in this Name alone that the world has come to know salvation.

Doing Greater Works as We Climb

In the Gospel for the Fifth Sunday of Easter, Cycle A (John 14: 1-12), we see Jesus at the Last Supper getting impatient with his apostles.  He has been with them for several years.  He is giving them his final discourse and they clearly do not know him.  In response to Philip who asks Jesus to show them the Father, Jesus says: “Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.  How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?”

Right before this Jesus had declared: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him.”

Jesus, fully divine, is the truth about who God is.  God is love, a love that is willing to give all for the good of humanity.  Jesus, fully human, is also the truth about what humanity is meant to be.  Jesus is the way to live.  Following Jesus and the trail to heaven that he has blazed, we will come to the eternal life for which we were made.

In his Ascension Day homily in 2013, Pope Francis compared Jesus to a mountain-climbing guide: “In Christ, true God and true man, our humanity was taken to God. Christ opened the path to us. He is like a roped guide climbing a mountain who, on reaching the summit, pulls us up to him and leads us to God. If we entrust our life to him, if we let ourselves be guided by him, we are certain to be in safe hands, in the hands of our Savior, of our Advocate.”

Jesus is not only ahead of us on our journey through life, having arrived at life’s goal, he is with us.  He is present in the Eucharist.  He is present in his Body, in our brothers and sisters.

This latter presence is what some of the early Christians missed.  The first reading (Acts 6: 1-7) shows that the early Church wasn’t always the idyllic picture of harmony that is painted in earlier chapters of Acts (see 2: 42-47 and 4: 32-35).  There was racism and division.  The Greek-speaking Christians were being neglected by the Jewish Christians.  In response, a new ministry developed to care for the poor. 

But without a change of heart that leads one to see in every person a brother or sister in Christ, new ministries are not enough.  A deeper vision of unity is required.

The second reading (1 Peter 2: 4-9) provides that.  The Church is a “spiritual house” that has Jesus as its cornerstone.  Members of the Body of Christ are “living stones.”  We are “a holy priesthood,” “a royal priesthood.”  Through baptism we share in the priesthood of Jesus who replaced the old animal and grain sacrifices before him with his one perfect offering of himself on the cross.  This offering is made present every time we celebrate Mass.  There we offer the “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God.”  We offer ourselves with Christ for the salvation of the world.  Then we go forth from Mass to live the “spiritual sacrifices” in our daily lives.  

This is the spirituality of offering that is at the heart of the Apostleship of Prayer.  We begin each day offering ourselves—all our prayers, works, joys, and sufferings; all our thoughts, words, and deeds; every breath and every heartbeat.  This offering of our day to God with Jesus is very important and can work wonders.

Jesus promised this when he said in the Gospel: “Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones that these, because I am going to the Father.” 

Really?  Do I believe that we can do greater works than the ones Jesus did during his earthly life?

Three events of the last one hundred years should convince us that our faith-filled prayers can work wonders.  All three are connected with the Blessed Virgin Mary’s appearances at Fatima, Portugal in 1917.

First, there is the story of Jesuit Father Hubert Schiffer about whom I wrote August6, 2016.  He and several other Jesuits, living near the epicenter of the first atomic bomb, survived and lived for several more decades.  A Defense Department expert could not find any physical reason for their survival.  He concluded that a power greater than that of an atomic bomb protected them from harm.  According to Father Schiffer, “we believe that we survived because we were living the Message of Fatima. We lived and prayed the Rosary daily in that home.”

In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down and I’m convinced that prayer was behind its destruction.  See my blog post of October 3, 2016 for a photo of a section of the wall that can be seen at Fatima.

Lastly, on October 13, 1991, a movie about Fatima was shown on Soviet television.  The movie was repeated on November 7, the anniversary of the Russian Revolution.  On Christmas Day, the flag of the U.S.S.R. at the Kremlin was lowered for the last time.  The Soviet Union broke apart and Communism ended its stranglehold on that part of the world.  Since then, 29,000 churches have been built or reopened, the number of monasteries has grown from 15 to 788, the 500 theological seminaries are full, and the Russian government spends over $100 million a year for the restoration of churches. 

I believe these are miracles wrought by prayer. 

But wars and conflicts continue.  The threat of nuclear war remains and has perhaps intensified.  The Message of Fatima is as essential as ever—prayer and sacrifice for the conversion of sinners.  When he visited Fatima a year after the assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square, Pope John Paul II said: “In the light of a mother’s love we understand the whole message of the Lady of Fatima. The greatest obstacle to man’s journey towards God is sin, perseverance in sin, and, finally denial of God.  The deliberate blotting out of God from the world of human thought. The detachment from him of the whole of man’s earthly activity. The rejection of God by man.  Can the Mother, who with all the power of her love nurtured in the Holy Spirit, who desires everyone’s salvation, keep silence about what undermines the very basis of their salvation?  No, she cannot.”

Nor can we keep silence.  We pray and we offer our lives, one day at a time, for peace in the world and the salvation of all.

On the Streets and in the Cold

While it's very mild (59 degrees F) today in Springfield, IL where I am helping with a retreat for seminarians from Kenrick Seminary in St. Louis, the U.S. has experienced some very cold weather recently.  Perhaps not as cold as Russia where the high temperature the other day was minus 18 F; nevertheless, one member of the Pope's Worldwide Prayer Network in Arkansas was not happy as I offered to share Wisconsin's cold with him.  And it's been unseasonably cold in Italy where the temperatures dipped below freezing.

With the cold and how it affects people who are homeless in mind, Pope Francis, in his first urgent monthly prayer intention, asked us to join him in praying for them.  At the end of his Angelus Message on Sunday, January 8, he reminded the world of his monthly prayer intentions and he invited all “to join the Pope’s Worldwide Prayer Network which spreads, even through social networks, the prayer intentions that I propose every month to the whole Church.”  He said that in this way “we carry on the apostolate of prayer” and foster “communion.”

Then he went on to offer his first urgent intention, saying, “In these days of such great cold I am thinking, and I invite you to think, of all the people living on the streets, hit by the cold and by the indifference of others. Unfortunately, some have not survived. We pray for them and ask the Lord to warm the hearts of others to help them.”

Throughout his service as pope, the Holy Father has confronted "the culture of indifference."  He has challenged all people to open their hearts to suffering humanity everywhere, but especially right in front of us--in our families, in our parishes, and on our streets.

One way that we can keep those who are suffering from the cold in mind and pray for them in a powerful way is to "offer it up."  I thought of this on Sunday when I stopped for gas on my way from Milwaukee to Springfield.  The temperatures were hovering around 20 but the wind made it feel like single digits.  My initial reaction upon leaving the warmth of my car was to complain, but that negative attitude quickly changed when I remembered the Holy Father's urgent intention for this month.  There are some people for whom the cold and wind are not a minor inconvenience or pain but a grave suffering and threat of death.  I allowed my own minor pain to remind me of them and to pray for them.

As Pope Francis reminded us in "The Joy of the Gospel" (#279): "No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted.  All of these encircle our world like a vital force."

Bl. Rupert Mayer, S.J.

November 3 is the feast of St. Martin de Porres but it is also the day when many Catholics remember the Jesuit priest, Blessed Rupert Mayer.  He was born in Germany in 1876 and entered the Society of Jesus in 1900, one year after his ordination.  He served as a chaplain in the German army during World War I and was the first chaplain to be awarded the Iron Cross for bravery.  His service in the military ended when his left leg was shattered in a grenade attack and had to be amputated.

After the war Fr. Mayer went to Munich where he served the poor and started two Sunday Masses for travelers at the main railroad terminal.  When Hitler rose to power Fr. Mayer spoke out against Nazism and in 1937 was ordered by the Gestapo to stop speaking in public.  He continued preaching in church and was arrested three times.  In 1939 he was sent to the Sachsenhausen concentation camp near Berlin.

As the health of the popular sixty-three year old Jesuit war hero began to deteriorate the camp officials, afraid that he would die and be declared a martyr, sent him to a Benedictine monastery.  When World War II ended he returned to Munich and his pastoral work. 

On November 1, 1945, while celebrating Mass and in the middle of his homily about how Christians are called to imitate the saints, Fr. Mayer collapsed and died.  Pope St. John Paul II beatified him in 1983.

Blessed Rupert Mayer is an example of one who lived a daily offering of himself out of love for God and his brothers and sisters.  His favorite prayer has been made into a song by the Catholic Filipino group Bukas Palad.  The lyrics are:

Lord, what You will let it be so 

Where You will there we will go
What is Your will help us to know 

Lord, when You will the time is right
In You there's joy in strife
For Your will I'll give my life

To ease Your burden brings no pain
To forego all for You is gain
As long as I in You remain

REFRAIN:
Because You will it, it is best
Because You will it, we are blest
Till in Your hands our hearts find rest
Till in Your hands our hearts find rest

The Wedding Feast of Cana

On February 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, we celebrate the annual World Day of the Sick.  It’s a day on which we pray in a special way for those who carry the cross of illness and for those who care for them.  Each year the Holy Father writes a message for the occasion and this year he reflected on the Wedding Feast of Cana.

He said that the “wedding feast of Cana is an image of the Church: at the center there is Jesus who in his mercy performs a sign.”  The miracle or sign reveals Jesus’ divine power and anticipates the heavenly wedding feast where union with God will be consummated.

Human beings, made in the image and likeness of God who is a Trinity of Persons, are made by Love itself and for Love. We are created for union with God and the Communion of Saints. This union and communion begin here on earth at the Eucharist where the Son of God unites himself to us.  It is a marriage in which the two, Jesus and each individual, become one flesh. Joined to Jesus, we are also united to one another in the one Body of Christ. 

Jesus made this possible when he took flesh.  Early theologians spoke of the marriage of humanity and divinity—two natures—in the one person—Jesus. The fruit of this marriage is eternal life.  Jesus made a total gift of himself on the cross and he anticipated this gift at the Last Supper when he said “This is my Body given for you. Take and eat.”  It is as though he said: “Make me one with you.  Become one with me.” 

Knowing such love, this total gift of self, the natural response is to want to give a gift in return. The only gift that can come close to Jesus’ gift to us is a total gift of ourselves. The best gift we can give to him is the precious gift of time.  We live in time.  It represents our earthly existence. When we run out of time, that’s the end of our life on earth.  

In the Daily Offering we give God the gift of time, the gift of our lives. Every moment is made a gift, even our recreation and our sleep.  We do those for our health, to take care of God’s gift of life.  We can, as St. Paul put it, “do everything for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10: 31). 

What we offer God may seem small, insignificant.  Not for God.  Jesus invited the apostles to help him and he invites us.  He wants our help no matter how small it seems because in his hands what is small becomes great.  This is a typical pattern for Jesus.  In his hands, five loaves and two fish feed thousands.  Water becomes an abundance of the finest wine. 

In his Message for the 2016 World Day of the Sick, Pope Francis reminds us that our lives are significant to Jesus and that the “toil and sufferings like the water which filled the jars at the wedding feast of Cana,” by being offered to God, can “help God to perform his miracles.” 

Here is the pertinent passage:   “He could have made the wine appear directly in the jars. But he wants to rely upon human cooperation, and so he asks the servants to fill them with water. How wonderful and pleasing to God it is to be servants of others! This more than anything else makes us like Jesus, who ‘did not come to be served but to serve’ (Mark 10: 45). These unnamed people in the Gospel teach us a great deal. Not only do they obey, but they obey generously: they fill the jars to the brim.  … On this World Day of the Sick let us ask Jesus in his mercy, through the intercession of Mary, his Mother and ours, to grant to all of us this same readiness to be serve those in need, and, in particular, our infirm brothers and sisters. At times this service can be tiring and burdensome, yet we are certain that the Lord will surely turn our human efforts into something divine. We too can be hands, arms and hearts which help God to perform his miracles, so often hidden. We too, whether healthy or sick, can offer up our toil and sufferings like the water which filled the jars at the wedding feast of Cana and was turned into the finest wine. … If we can learn to obey the words of Mary, who says: ‘Do whatever he tells you’, Jesus will always change the water of our lives into precious wine.” [Emphasis added]

The Priesthood of the Baptized

Today is the feast of St. Peter Chrysologus, a bishop and doctor of the Church whose preaching was so inspired that he was called "Golden Word." He only lived about fifty years, but the 183 sermons of his that we have continue to speak to us over 1500 years after his death. In one of them, he reflects on St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 12: 1: “I urge you, therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship.”  These words are at the heart of what we strive to do in the Apostleship of Prayer: to live a Eucharistic life, a life in which we offer ourselves one day at a time with Jesus who offers himself to the Father for the salvation of the world.  The following is from Homily 108 of St. Peter Chrysologus:

How marvelous is the priesthood of the Christian, for he is both the victim that is offered on his own behalf, and the priest who makes the offering.  He does not need to go beyond himself to seek what he is to immolate to God: with himself and in himself he brings the sacrifice he is to offer God for himself.  The victim remains and the priest remains, always one and the same.  Immolated, the victim still lives: the priest who immolates cannot kill.  Truly it is an amazing sacrifice in which a body is offered without being slain and blood is offered without being shed.

Paul says: “I appeal to you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a sacrifice, living and holy.”  The prophet said the same thing: “Sacrifices and offering you did not desire, but you have prepared a body for me.”  Each of us is called to be both a sacrifice to God and his priest.  Do not forfeit what divine authority confers on you.  Put on the garment of holiness, gird yourself with the belt of chastity.  Let Christ be your helmet, let the cross on your forehead be your unfailing protection.  Your breastplate should be the knowledge of God that he himself has given you.  Keep burning continually the sweet smelling incense of prayer.  Take up the sword of the Spirit.  Let your heart be an altar.  Then, with full confidence in God, present your body for sacrifice.  God desires not death, but faith; God thirsts not for blood, but for self-surrender; God is appeased not by slaughter, but by the offering of your free will.

A Corpus Christi Homily

At the Last Supper, Jesus faced three dilemmas and offered one solution.  The dilemmas were the result of his love.

The greatest act of love for another is to die for that person.  At the Last Supper Jesus told his apostles, "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (John 15: 13). Yet Jesus laid down his life not only for his friends but for his enemies. As St. Paul put it: "For Christ, while we were still helpless, yet died at the appointed time for the ungodly. Indeed, only with difficulty does one die for a just person, though perhaps for a good person one might even find courage to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5: 6-8).

Jesus wanted to prove his love for all people of all time and he wanted everyone to experience that love.  But he could only die once. How could he make that act of sacrificial love present everywhere and always?

He said: "This is my body, which will be given up for you; do this in memory of me" (Luke 22: 19).

He created a New Passover to go with the New Covenant.  This Memorial Meal makes present the very event it commemorates.  Now people of all time, and not just those who stood under the cross at Good Friday, can be present as Jesus offers himself up for their salvation.  He does not die again but he makes his life-giving death and resurrection present through the the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The second dilemma of love is this: when you love someone you want to be always near that person.  But Jesus had to go. He said: "I tell you the truth, it is better for you that I go. For if I do not go, the Advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you" (John 16: 7). Jesus must leave this world in order to send the Holy Spirit.  But he wants to stay close to his followers and he even promised that he would not leave them orphans, that he would return (see John 14: 18). He promised "I am with you always, until the end of the age" (Matthew 28: 20). How can he go and also stay?

"This is my body."  He remains close to us in the Eucharist, the Blessed Sacrament.

Thirdly, love desires not only to be close but to be one with the beloved. Love desires union.  How can Jesus unite himself to the apostles and then to Christians of all time?

"This is my body. Take and eat."  Jesus comes to us in a form in which we can receive him. He unites himself to us in Holy Communion where the two become one.

That is the gift which we celebrate today.

This has two very practical implications.

First, we who receive the Eucharist are one with Christ and are transformed by our union. In his homily at the closing Mass for World Youth Day 2005, Pope Benedict XVI said: "The Body and Blood of Christ are given to us so that we ourselves will be transformed in our turn. We are to become the Body of Christ, his own Flesh and Blood."  Through a Holy Communion we are parts of the Body of Christ, "his own Flesh and Blood" in the world today.  This confirms Jesus' teaching in a parable about the Last Judgment in Matthew 25. Whatever we do to or for one of his least brothers or sisters, we do to or for Jesus.  Whatever we fail to do for one of his and our least brothers and sisters, we fail to do for Jesus.

Second, the sacrificial offering of Jesus replaced all the animal and grain offerings that preceded him. His was the one perfect sacrifice that took away the sins of the world and reconciled humanity with God and one another.  Now we, as members of his Body, join him in making that perfect offering as we celebrate Mass.  Then we go forth from Mass to live the offering we have made with Christ.  In the words of St. Paul, we offer our bodies "as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12: 1).

We thank God for the gift of the Body and Blood of his Son Jesus. We adore Jesus present in the Eucharist. We open ourselves to the grace of the loving union in which the two become one flesh. And we return love for love by offering ourselves every day as we pray the Daily Offering.

The Daily Offering, prayed and lived, is the best response to Jesus' gift of himself to and for us.

Annunciation

I celebrated Mass this morning for the 600 students and faculty of St. Anthony's High School in Milwaukee.  I found it a good opportunity to preach about a very special woman and to encourage the young people to see themselves as loved and chosen by God.

The feast of the Annunciation could also be called the feast of the Conception of Jesus, Only nine more shopping months until Christmas!

We honor Mary today because she said "yes" to God.  No Mary, no Jesus.  It's as simple as that.  In order for the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity to become human, a very special woman was called to be his mother.  This is why we honor Mary.  It was God's plan to save the world through her.  Through her the Son of God took flesh, lived our life, suffered and died and rose from the dead. All to save humanity.  This was Mary's glorious destiny--to be the Mother of God.  This is why we use the words of Luke's Gospel every time we pray the "Hail Mary."

When Mary told the angel Gabriel, "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word," Jesus was conceived in her womb through the power of the Holy Spirit.  With Mary's "yes" to God, Jesus was conceived and began to develop cell by cell.  Within three weeks the first physical organ of God-in-the-flesh appeared--his heart.

If you think about, every conception of a new life involves God's intervention.  It takes more than a sperm and an egg to create a new human life.  God is present instilling an immortal soul into the new life developing in a mother's womb.  In this way, every human life is special and, because its beginning involves God's intervention, you could say, "miraculous."

St. John Paul II once said that "each person is unique, precious, and unrepeatable."  There never was another you. Among the billions of people today there isn't another you nor will there ever be.  You are precious to God.  You give God a love and a joy that no other human being can give God because of who you are.

Shortly after he was elected, Pope Benedict XVI said: "We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God."  And God didn't just think of you some nine months and a couple hours before you were conceived. Since the thoughts of God are eternal, God had you in mind from all eternity.

Pope Benedict continued: "Each of us is willed."  God wanted you to exist.  Sometimes people tell me, "I'm an accident.  I'm a mistake.  My parents didn't plan on having me. In fact, they were pregnant with me before they got married and the only reason they got married is because they were pregnant with me.  They shouldn't have gotten married because it didn't work out and they were miserable together. I'm not only a mistake, I'm a bad mistake who made life miserable for my parents."  No, no one is a mistake or an accident in God's eyes.  Because God was present instilling an immortal soul, the principle of life for human beings, God willed or intended that person's conception. No matter what the circumstances of one's conception, God was present willing that person into existence.

"Each of us is loved," the pope went on to say.  Our experience of human love is finite, conditional. We put limits on our love and we tend to think of God's love that way.  But God is infinite and loves you as though you were the only person in the world. St. Francis de Sales once used the example of the sun which shines on the individual flowers of a garden.  Shining on one doesn't mean there is less sunshine for the others.  The sun shines on each flower as though it were the only flower in the garden. If that's true for a creature, the sun, then it is even more true for the Creator of the sun, God, who shines with his love on all the human flowers in the world with equal intensity.

And Pope Benedict said, "each of us is necessary."  You are essential to God's plan just the way Mary was.  Ask yourself, "What is God's plan, God's desire for me?  How is God calling me to bring his love come into the world?"

Shortly after his election Pope Francis said, "For God, we are not numbers, we are important, indeed we are the most important thing to him.... We are what is closest to his heart."

You are so important, that God took flesh, as we celebrate today.  Moreover, in order to save you, that flesh was nailed to a cross and died, as we will celebrate on Good Friday.  But that flesh rose never to die again, as we will celebrate on Easter.  It was all made possible by that special woman, Mary.  As we honor her today, let's thank God for our life and make an offering, asking that God's will may be done in our life as well.

The Triumph of Our Crosses

On September 14 we celebrated the Exaltation or Triumph of the Holy Cross.  I gave the following homily to a group at the Sacred Heart Retreat House in Alhambra, CA.

We are celebrating a great mystery today. It's the mystery of how God saved the world from sin and death.

In the first reading (Numbers 21: 4b-9) we heard of a paradox: how a serpent, the source of death, was lifted up and became a source of healing.

This prefigured Jesus who took upon himself sin and death, was lifted up on the cross, and became the source of ultimate healing.  The cross--an instrument of death--became the instrument of life. The sign of failure and utter defeat became the sign of victory.

In the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches there is a beautiful hymn that is sung over and over again at Easter: "Christ trampled down death by death."

Who would have thought it?  Not Satan who was behind the crucifixion and who thought he had won but was defeated.

Now it's our turn.  Jesus told us to pick up our crosses and to follow him.  We are to pick up the daily hardships, sufferings, and frustrations--all those things that call for sacrifice--and unite them to the cross of Jesus. By following him in this way we follow him to victory.

The Bishops at the end of the Second Vatican Council had a series of messages for various groups of people including the poor, the sick, and the suffering. To them they said:

All of you who feel heavily the weight of the cross, you who are poor and abandoned, you who weep, you who are persecuted for justice, you who are ignored, you the unknown victims of suffering, take courage. You are the preferred children of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hope, happiness and life. You are the brothers of the suffering Christ, and with Him, if you wish, you are saving the world.

This is the Christian science of suffering, the only one which gives peace. Know that you are not alone, separated, abandoned or useless. You have been called by Christ and are His living and transparent image. In His name, the council salutes you lovingly, thanks you, assures you of the friendship and assistance of the Church, and blesses you.

Of course Jesus is the one Savior of the world. He won salvation through his death and resurrection. But not everyone knows of this victory nor has accepted it. Now each one of us plays a role in the ongoing work of salvation.

Christ won the victory. It may not seem like it, but victory is assured. Evil will not win in the end, just as it did not win when Jesus was crucified.  Have hope! You too will triumph with Christ if you join your crosses to his.

Our human tendency is to want to see tangible results, to know that our prayers and sacrifices--all the sufferings we offer up--are making a difference.  Pope Francis addressed this in his Apostolic Exhortation "The Joy of the Gospel" (#278-9) and he offered a word of hope:

Faith also means believing in God, believing that he truly loves us, that he is alive, that he is mysteriously capable of intervening, that he does not abandon us and that he brings good out of evil by his power and his infinite creativity. It means believing that he marches triumphantly in history with those who “are called and chosen and faithful” (Rev 17:14). ...

Because we do not always see these seeds growing, we need an interior certainty, a conviction that God is able to act in every situation, even amid apparent setbacks.... It involves knowing with certitude that all those who entrust themselves to God in love will bear good fruit (cf. Jn 15:5). This fruitfulness is often invisible, elusive and unquantifiable. We can know quite well that our lives will be fruitful, without claiming to know how, or where, or when. We may be sure that none of our acts of love will be lost, nor any of our acts of sincere concern for others. No single act of love for God will be lost, no generous effort is meaningless, no painful endurance is wasted. All of these encircle our world like a vital force. Sometimes it seems that our work is fruitless, but mission is not like a business transaction or investment, or even a humanitarian activity. It is not a show where we count how many people come as a result of our publicity; it is something much deeper, which escapes all measurement. It may be that the Lord uses our sacrifices to shower blessings in another part of the world which we will never visit. The Holy Spirit works as he wills, when he wills and where he wills; we entrust ourselves without pretending to see striking results. We know only that our commitment is necessary. Let us learn to rest in the tenderness of the arms of the Father....

The theme of our retreat this weekend has been the question of Jesus, "Who do you say that I am?" Our answer today is, "You are the winner!"  You are the one who defeated sin and death with a cross. You are the one who now invites each of us to be a winner.

St. Joan of Arc and St. Therese of Lisieux

It’s the feast of St. Joan of Arc who was burned at the stake on this day in 1431 when she was 19 years old.  She was a favorite saint of St. Therese of Lisieux who is one of the patron saints of the Apostleship of Prayer in which she enrolled when she was 12. 

In a letter to a missionary priest, St. Therese wrote : “In my childhood, I dreamed of combating in the battlefield. When I began to learn the history of France, I was enchanted with the deeds of Joan of Arc; I felt in my heart a desire and courage to imitate them.”

On January 21, 1894, Therese played the leading role in a play she had written about St. Joan of Arc. Her sister Celine photographed her posing as the saint in prison.  Then, just six days later, Pope Leo XIII officially opened the cause for Joan’s beatification.  In May of that year, Therese wrote a poem entitled “Canticle to Obtain the Canonization of the Venerable Joan of Arc.”  It contains these lines:

7. It is not Joan's victories
We wish to celebrate this day.
My God, we know her true glories
Are her virtues, her love.

8. By fighting, Joan saved France.
But her great virtues
Had to be marked with the seal of suffering,
With the divine seal of Jesus her Spouse!

10. Joan, you are our only hope.
From high in the Heavens, deign to hear our voices.
Come down to us, come convert France.
Come save her a second time.

12. Sweet martyr, our monasteries are yours.
You know well that virgins are your sisters,
And like you the object of their prayers
Is to see God reign in every heart.

4 Refrain
To save souls
Is their desire.
Ah! Give them your fire
Of apostle and martyr!

In April, 1897 St. Therese’s tuberculosis had progressed to the point that she became seriously ill and in July she was moved from her room to the community’s infirmary. In May she wrote the poem “To Joan of Arc” in which she speaks of the value of suffering:

When the Lord God of hosts gave you the victory,
You drove out the foreigner and had the king crowned.
Joan, your name became renowned in history.
Our greatest conquerors paled before you.

But that was only a fleeting glory.
Your name needed a Saint's halo.
So the Beloved offered you His bitter cup,
And, like Him, you were spurned by men.

At the bottom of a black dungeon, laden with heavy chains,
The cruel foreigner filled you with grief.
Not one of your friends took part in your pain.
Not one came forward to wipe your tears.

Joan, in your dark prison you seem to me
More radiant, more beautiful than at your King's coronation.
This heavenly reflection of eternal glory,
Who then brought it upon you? It was betrayal.

Ah! If the God of love in this valley of tears
Had not come to seek betrayal and death,
Suffering would hold no attraction for us.
Now we love it; it is our treasure.

Because Jesus suffered and then entered into glory, those who suffer can be configured more closely to him. Their sufferings, united to the Cross, can be a powerful prayerful offering that helps in the ongoing work of the salvation of souls so that they will, as St. Therese wrote, “see God reign in every heart.”

A Community that Attracts

The word "advent" comes from the Latin word for "coming." During this season we prepare to remember and to celebrate Christ's first coming in Bethlehem. But Advent is also a time to prepare for Christ's second coming. We believe Jesus Christ will come again to judge the living and the dead. I suspect that most if not all of us won't be living on earth when that happens. So our Advent preparation for the second coming of Christ can also be seen in light of his coming for us at the end of our earthly lives.  Advent is a time to focus on our readiness to meet the Lord and to give ourselves to him.

This is counter-cultural. Most people want to focus on the here and now.  They don't want to think about meeting the Lord at the end of their lives or at the end of the world. They view Jesus in the same striking way that he seems to refer to himself in the Gospel today (Matthew 24: 37-44) where he speaks of a thief who comes when least expected.  Perhaps we are all tempted to think of him that way. We're tempted to be possessive, to think of our lives as our own, as belonging to us. But the reality is that we are not our own. We belong to God. Advent is a good time to remember that and to practice surrendering our lives to the Lord so that we'll be ready when he comes for us.

Our first reading (Isaiah 2: 1-5) presents a vision of peace and harmony. We will see similar readings throughout Advent. They capture a universal desire, a longing on the part of every person for a better world, a place where people live at peace with one another. 

The Church is meant to embody that vision right now. Our communities are to incarnate the vision of peace that Isaiah saw. In that way they will attract and draw people to Christ.

This is a major theme in Pope Francis' recently issued Apostolic Exhortation "Evangelii Gaudium"--"The Joy of the Gospel." 

Pope Francis writes: "The joy of the Gospel is for all people: no one can be excluded" (#23).  Deep down, all people desire to dwell, in Isaiah's words, on "the mountain of the Lord's house." And "Christians have the duty to proclaim the Gospel without excluding anyone. Instead of seeming to impose new obligations, they should appear as people who wish to share their joy, who point to the horizon of beauty and who invite others to a delicious banquet. It is not by proselytizing that the Church grows, but 'by attraction'" (#14). 

As both individuals and as a community, Christians are "to share their joy," "point to the horizon of beauty" that Isaiah described, and "invite others to a delicious banquet"--the wedding feast of heaven. Our actions, the witness of our lives, speak louder than our words. Our example will attract people who long for the harmony that God promises.

In section #92, Pope Francis writes about the community of the Church as "a mystical fraternity, a contemplative fraternity."  This is because harmony is not something that can achieved on our own. It only comes from union with God. He writes: "It is a fraternal love capable of seeing the sacred grandeur of our neighbor, of finding God in every human being, of tolerating the nuisances of life in common by clinging to the love of God, of opening the heart to divine love and seeking the happiness of others just as their heavenly Father does."  Only a deeper relationship with the Lord will help us to see as God sees: to see "the sacred grandeur of our neighbor" and to "find God in every human being." Such seeing will help us negotiate the inevitable "nuisances of life in common." Such prayer--by which we cling "to the love of God" and open our hearts "to divine love" which empowers us to love as God loves--will help us to embody the harmony of "the mountain of the Lord's house."

Christians' individual acts of love which seek "the happiness of others just as their heavenly Father does" are powerful, but even more powerful is the witness of a loving community. The Church and our parishes are called to that. Pope Francis continues: "Here and now ... the Lord's disciples are called to live as a community which is the salt of the earth and the light of the world (cf. Mt 5: 13-16). We are called to bear witness to a constantly new way of living together in fidelity to the Gospel. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of community!"

In St. Paul's words from the second reading (Romans 13: 11-14), we are to "put on the Lord Jesus Christ."  Or, as the Sisters of the Visitation say in their motto, "Live Jesus."  We are to live in union with him, to have his mind and heart, his way of thinking. We are to see as he sees and act as he would act.  St. John the Baptist once said "He must increase. I must decrease" (John 3: 30). We must die to ourselves in order to live for Christ. And not only for him, but with him and in union with him. More and more, each day of Advent and each day of our lives, may we be able to say, as St. Paul said "I live, no longer I, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2: 20).

Practically speaking, this is what our daily offering prayer is designed to do. We offer each day and ourselves to God. We surrender our egos and our bodies. We give to God every thought, word, and deed; every prayer, work, joy, and suffering; every breath and every heart beat. Praying and living this, we will "put on the Lord Jesus Christ" and community will form. The Kingdom of God will break into our world and take root. People will be drawn to Christ through his Church. And each of us will be ready for the final surrender when we will meet the Lord. As the peace prayer attributed to St. Francis goes, "it is in giving that we receive."  Giving all, we will be ready to receive all. 

The Mystery of the Cross

On Saturday I was on Chambers Island in the middle of Green Bay, not the city but the body of water that forms part of Lake Michigan. I was at Holy Name Retreat House leading a retreat for the Catholic men's group called Esto Vir.  In my homily for the Feast of the Exaltation or Triumph of the Cross I said the following:

Our faith is based on a paradox: the very source of death has become the source of healing and life.  This is the cross.

In the first centuries of Christianity the most common image of Jesus was that of the Good Shepherd. There was a reluctance to show Jesus on the cross. This was too shameful. Yet it is the proof of God's love.

As our gospel today states: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him" (John 3: 16-17).

How did God save the world? Not with physical power. Not with an army of angels that would force people to follow God's will. Not with a destructive flood like the one that wiped out evil at the time of Noah.

God saved the world with weakness. With a helpless baby born in a stable who would grow to suffer and to die. With a flood of blood and water that gushed forth from the Heart of his Son when he was pierced on the cross. With spiritual power, the power of love.

In 2005 at World Youth Day in Cologne in his homily at the closing Mass, Pope Benedict said that at the Last Supper Jesus anticipated what he was going to do on the next day. He accepted it into his Heart. And in doing so, an act of violence was transformed into the greatest act of the love the world has ever known. Death was transformed into life. Bread and wine were transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. 

St. Thomas Aquinas called what happened at the Last Supper the greatest miracle of Jesus. Greater than healing the sick, feeding the 5,000, calming the storm, or raising the dead.

Pope Benedict went on to say that the transformation must not stop there with the bread and wine becoming the Body and Blood of Christ. He said that the change must now gather momentum and transform those who receive the Body and Blood of Christ so that they will transform the world.

Now we are to love as Jesus loved. We are to not only wear a cross but join our lives to it. We are to offer ourselves as Jesus did when he offered himself to the Father for the salvation of the world, something that he makes present every time the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is celebrated. We are, in the words of St. Paul, to offer our bodies, our selves "as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God" (Romans 12: 1). 

Pope Francis, in his sermon at the Vigil for Peace in Syria that was celebrated in St. Peter's Square and around the world on September 7, called us to look to the cross so that our world might find peace.  He said:

"When man thinks only of himself, of his own interests and places himself in the center, when he permits himself to be captivated by the idols of dominion and power, when he puts himself in God’s place, then all relationships are broken and everything is ruined; then the door opens to violence, indifference, and conflict. ... We have perfected our weapons, our conscience has fallen asleep, and we have sharpened our ideas to justify ourselves. As if it were normal, we continue to sow destruction, pain, death! Violence and war lead only to death, they speak of death! Violence and war are the language of death!

"And at this point I ask myself: Is it possible to walk the path of peace? Can we get out of this spiral of sorrow and death? Can we learn once again to walk and live in the ways of peace? Invoking the help of God, under the maternal gaze of the ... Queen of Peace, I say: Yes, it is possible for everyone! From every corner of the world tonight, I would like to hear us cry out: Yes, it is possible for everyone! Or even better, I would like for each one of us, from the least to the greatest, including those called to govern nations, to respond: Yes, we want it! My Christian faith urges me to look to the Cross. How I wish that all men and women of good will would look to the Cross if only for a moment! There, we can see God’s reply: violence is not answered with violence, death is not answered with the language of death. In the silence of the Cross, the uproar of weapons ceases and the language of reconciliation, forgiveness, dialogue, and peace is spoken."

Our Participation in the Work of Salvation

When I was growing up, if something bad happened and I cried or moped, the Sisters in my grade school would say three words. No, not "get over it," but, "offer it up."  The origin of this practice can be found in the first reading at Mass today (Colossians 1:24-2:3).

St. Paul called himself "a minister in accordance with God's stewardship." He is minister of the Gospel which had been given to him to build up the Church. He was minister of "the mystery of God." What is that mystery?

God is Love. This Love is not so much a noun as a verb, not so much a feeling as action. St. Ignatius wrote that love shows itself better in deeds than in words. It is active. The very nature of God is active love. God has revealed Himself as a Trinity, a Communion of Divine Persons.

This great mystery of the Christian faith--that God is Love, that God is a Trinity of Persons, Three and One--includes humanity.  It is the nature of love to share. God, as it were, goes out of Himself to share existence and life and love with other beings which He has created.  God pours Himself into creation. God loves and in loving desires a return of love that resembles the love between the Father and the Son.  It is to this mystery that Paul has dedicated his life.

Just as the Three Persons of the Trinity are three and one, so God desires union with all creation. God wants to bring all into one. This is the great mystery which Paul writes about elsewhere: "that God may be all in all" (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Our union with God begins at Baptism and is strengthened with each Eucharist.  Through Baptism we are joined to the Body of Christ and in the Eucharist Jesus unites His flesh and blood with ours. This is the mystery Paul writes about in our first reading: "this mystery among the Gentiles; it is Christ in you...."

Now we can understand the meaning of the first verses of today's reading: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the affliction of Christ on behalf of his Body, which is the Church...."  Nothing was lacking in the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus. It was sufficient to save the world. But many in the world have not heard this good news and many have rejected it. The world has not accepted the salvation that Christ won for us on the cross.

But we are one with Christ. He is the Head and we are Body. We now play a role in the ongoing salvation of the world, in helping the world to accept the salvation Christ won for us.  The one thing lacking in the sufferings of Christ is our own participation in them. What the Head has done the Body must also do. This doesn't mean we have to go out looking for suffering. It will come our way at one time or another. When it comes we have a choice: to complain and grow bitter or to turn that suffering into a powerful prayer and act of love by uniting it to the cross of Jesus. 

What motivates us to do this, to offer up our suffering? The same thing that motivated St. Paul. In 2 Corinthians 5:14 Paul writes that "the love of Christ impels us." The knowledge of the love of Jesus urges us on; it motivates us to join Him in the work of salvation. One with Jesus, we share His love for those for whom He suffered, died, and rose. 

The love that was within His Heart motivated Jesus to act without delay. In today's Gospel (Luke 6:6-11) there is a story of how Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the sabbath.  In a similar story, a synagogue official complained: "There are six days when work should be done. Come on those days to be cured, not on the sabbath day" (Luke 13:14). But Jesus can't wait to heal the afflicted. His love urges Him to act sooner rather than later. 

I'm reminded of what Blessed Antonio Rosmini wrote as a young priest in his personal Rules of Conduct: "To never refuse charitable services toward one's neighbor when divine Providence would offer and present them to me." 

I'm reminded as well of the saint whom we honor today, Peter Claver. The love of Christ urged him to not delay in responding to the needs of the African slaves as they arrived at the port of Cartagena in Colombia. Another Jesuit saint, a brother, St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, taught him about prayer and the love of God. This knowledge motivated Peter to become a missionary, but not in a way he imagined. Inspired by the example of another Jesuit who served the slaves, he gave his life for them. He made a vow to be a slave of the African slaves forever. As the slave ships arrived he ventured into their holds to care for the sick saying that they must first be shown the love of God before they were told of it. 

And so too for us. The love of Christ urges us on as well. It motivates us to lose no opportunity that comes our way to offer up our suffering for the spread of the Gospel and the salvation of all. 

Some Labor Day Thoughts

The last of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises is called "The Contemplation to Attain the Love of God." One of his "points" is:

"This is to consider how God works and labors for me in all creatures upon the face of the earth, that is, He conducts Himself as one who labors. Thus, in the heavens, in the elements, the plants, the fruits, the cattle, etc. He gives being, conserves them, confers life and sensation, etc. Then I will reflect on myself."

Figuratively speaking, according to Genesis, God worked for six days in creating the world and then rested. Humanity is made in God's image and likeness and so we are made to work and labor with God for the good of creation.  We are stewards of God's creation.  God cares for creation through us. 

The Gospel at Mass today (Luke 4: 16-30) is what many have called Jesus' "Inaugural Address" in which he announces his plan of action as he begins his active ministry after his "hidden life" of work at home and with his foster father Joseph.  But the people who hear him do not have the eyes of faith and so they reject him and his words. They cannot see how God will accomplish the great works promised by the prophet Isaiah through Jesus. 

We are called to have eyes of faith. One of the goals of the Apostleship of Prayer and the Daily Offering is to offer our daily work to God. Such an offering will, with time, help us to see our work with eyes of faith. By offering our work each day and then reflecting upon the daily work that has been offered, our eyes become more sensitive to seeing God at work through us.  In that way, more and more, our daily work will play a hidden or sometimes more explicit role in the work of preparing creation to receive Jesus in his second coming.

The first Mass reading today (1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18) speaks of that second coming when Jesus will raise all people to new life in the Kingdom of God.  Our lives are meant to prepare the world for that day.  Our work plays a role in that preparation. 

In the Our Father we pray "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done."  When we follow God's will by making an offering of our day with its work, we are allowing the Kingdom of God to break into our lives and the lives of those around us.  Little by little Christ reigns in us and over us. As he reigns, God's work is accomplished in us and through us.  May we have the eyes of faith to see and believe this!

Declaration of Dependence

Abraham was a man of great faith and it didn’t come easily to him. He grew in faith through the exercise of this virtue. He reached the pinnacle of faith when God called him to sacrifice his son Isaac.  Recall all that happened before this.

 God made a covenant with Abraham, promising that he would become the father of many people, so many that the stars in the heavens would be outnumbered by them. Yet Abraham was old and without a child, without an heir. When he was 86 he decided to take matters into his own hands. He followed the advice of his wife Sarah and had a son through her maidservant Hagar. Though he had a son whom he named Ishmael, things didn’t work out. A rift developed between Sarah and Hagar. Things usually don’t work out when we don’t trust God, when we take matters into our own hands and make a declaration of independence from God.

 Thirteen years passed and God spoke once more to Abraham, renewing the promise. Abraham laughed at the thought that he, now 99 years old, and his elderly wife Sarah would have a son. But they did. God fulfilled the promise and told Abraham to name his son Isaac, a name which means “Laughter.”

 Some more years passed and Abraham was called to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, his only hope of being the father of a great nation. This “test” deepened Abraham’s faith even more. He was ready to make the sacrifice. He didn’t take matters into his own hands. He didn’t declare his independence from God. His faith in God’s providence and plan reached the high point that has led to Abraham being called the father of faith. 

 God stopped Abraham and provided a lamb instead of the son for a sacrifice.

 During this Year of Faith we are called to deepen our faith. The world is not lacking in faith, but it’s a faith that is in the wrong things. It’s faith in science and technology, in human ingenuity and human good will, and not in God. We are challenged to place all our faith in God as Abraham did. Our faith, our declaration of dependence upon God alone, will open the way for God to act in our lives and in the world.

 At Mass we celebrate the ultimate faith—the faith of Jesus. We remember the pinnacle of Jesus’ faith when He offered Himself on the cross, trusting that, in the words of the Eastern Liturgy, He would “trample down death by death.” Jesus placed Himself totally in the hands of the Father, trusting that through His sacrificial death humanity would be saved and death itself would be overcome. 

 The story of Abraham and Isaac foreshadows the Passion and Death of Jesus. God did what Abraham in the end did not have to do. The Father provided a Lamb who would be the Sacrifice that would replace all other sacrifices. The only Son of God is the Lamb that was sacrificed to reconcile humanity and God. 

 Now we, members of the Body of Christ and joined to the Lamb of God, are called and empowered to make of ourselves, in the words of St. Paul to the Romans (12:1), “a living sacrifice.”  This is the Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer. One day at a time we make an offering of our lives in a prayer, then strive to live that offering throughout the day, and finally examine the offering we’ve made at the end of the day.  Doing this we declare our dependence on God and find true freedom.

Plowing Our Way to Heaven

The first reading (1 Kings 19:16b, 19-21) and the gospel (Luke 9:51-62) for today, the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C, refer to plowing. The prophet Elijah encounters his successor Elisha while he is plowing. He calls him to follow him by throwing his cloak over him.  In the gospel Jesus declares: "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."

One lesson that we can take from these readings is that God comes to us not only in church or when we are praying but when we are working, in fact, God is there always. The call to follow God's will is always there.

The words of Jesus in the gospel are quite shocking. It sounds as though Jesus is saying that family life with its responsibilities is not important. These sayings of Jesus, like His parables, are meant to shock us out of complacency and to make us think.  Jesus is saying that following Him is a matter of urgency. It should not be delayed or put off.  I don't think He is saying that family life is less important than following Him because it is within family life that He is to be found, just as the will of God was found by Elisha while he was at work plowing. 

The closest I've come to plowing is cutting the grass of a football field in western South Dakota.  I learned quickly that if I wanted to cut a straight line I needed to look, not down at the mower or my feet but up and ahead, at some point at the end of the field. Looking up and ahead, I was able to cut a straight path. 

The same lesson is true for life. As we plow along on our earthly journey, it's important to keep our eyes on our goal, on the end for which we were created, and on Jesus, the One who has already made a path for us to follow. It is urgent for us to not lose track of where we are going, to not get distracted by what's around us, and to not get off the path. 

What can help us to not get off track is to make a daily offering of our lives and to periodically remind ourselves of that offering throughout the day.  God is to be found everywhere and at all times. Every moment, even our naps and sleep, can be precious when offered to God in accordance with His will.  The urgency of Jesus in today's gospel tells us "Don't lose a minute."

I'm reminded of something that Cardinal Nguyen Van Thuan wrote the day after Saigon fell to the Communists and he was in prison:

"I am in prison. If I am waiting for the opportune moment to do something truly great, how many times in my life will similar occasions present themselves? No, I will seize the occasions that every day presents, to fulfill ordinary actions in an extraordinary way. Jesus, I will not wait, I will live the present moment, filling it to the brim with love. A straight line is made of millions of tiny points united to each other. My life too is made of millions of seconds and minutes united to each other. I will  perfectly arrange every single point, and the line will be straight. I will live perfectly every minute, and my life will be holy. Like you, Jesus, who always did what was pleasing to your Father. Every minute I want to tell you: Jesus I love you."

Guard of Honor

I first heard about the Guard of Honor several years ago when I gave a retreat to the Visitation Sisters in Brooklyn, NY.  I saw a dial with twelve hours in which people's names or initials could be written.  Subsequently a Sister at the Visitation Monastery in Tyringham, MA sent me some materials about the Guard and wondered how we might collaborate in promoting devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  I wasn't sure.

The Guard is exactly 150 years old, having been founded in a Visitation Monastery in France by Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart Bernaud. She wanted, in the words of one of the Guard's brochures, "to find a way in which ordinary people could draw closer to Christ's Heart even while immersed in their everday activities. She had the inspiration that each person, in whatever walk of life, could dedicate one hour to the Sacred Heart of Jesus each day while engaged in their regular duties.  In this way ordinary actions could be sanctified and a gift of love made to the Heart of Christ."

This sounds very much like the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer in which one's entire day is offered to God with the Morning Offering.  And so I resisted.  Why offer one hour when you can offer twenty-four hours? 

My question has been resolved and today, the Feast of the Sacred Heart in the year 2013, I have joined the Guard of Honor here at the Visitation Monastery in Toledo, OH.  I have promised to offer the hour of 7 to 8 every morning.

What changed my mind?  Ultimately it was the grace of the Novena which I have been giving here and which culminates today.  While I will continue to make my Morning Offering and strive to offer all the prayers, works, joys and sufferings of my day, and every thought, word, and deed with every breath I take and every beat of my heart, I will focus particularly on the offering of the 7 AM hour.  I will try to live that hour  with a deeper and more conscious love for Jesus even in the midst of my usual activities, whether it be praying my breviary, celebrating Mass, eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, or driving to work.  In this way, I hope to inspire a more conscious love for Jesus throughout the rest of my day.  I hope the "Hour of Presence," as it is also called, will help me to better live my Daily Offering.

As I prayed about this during the past week, I wondered which hour I should pick.  I thought about the 3 o'clock hour, the Hour of Mercy, but one of the Sisters told me that this is a very popular hour. With what one might call "Jesuit practicality," I chose an hour that would be easier for me to remember. 

More information about the Guard of Honor can be found at the Mobile, AL Visitation Monastery's website and also at Dom Mark Kirby's "Vultus Christi" site.

Divine Mercy and the Apostleship of Prayer

I spoke at the Mercy Sunday Prayer Service which the West Allis, WI parish, Mary Queen of Heaven, held this afternoon.  I basically recycled the talk that I gave last year at Marytown, but in giving it this year I was struck by the close connection between Divine Mercy devotion and the spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer.  Both are Eucharistic.

When we participate in the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we share in the priesthood of Jesus Christ by offering him to the Father. As members of the Body of Christ, we are united to this offering and so we offer ourselves with Jesus to the Father.  Then, as we leave Mass and go out into the world, we live the offering we have made.  This is what St. Paul means in Romans 12:1 when he writes: "I urge you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship."  In the Eucharistic spirituality of the Apostleship of Prayer we renew that offering every morning as we begin the day, try to consciously live that offering throughout the day, and then, in the evening, examine the day which we have just offered to God.

The prayers of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy are also a way that we live a Eucharistic life by making an offering of ourselves with Jesus.  At the beginning of each decade of the Chaplet we pray: "Eternal Father, I offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Your Dearly Beloved Son, Our Lord, Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world."  With these words our hearts are united with the Mass which is being celebrated somewhere in the world at any given moment. We are renewing the offering of ourselves with Jesus that we make at every Mass.  And with the prayer that follows, we remember, as we do at Mass, the suffering and death of Jesus by which the world is saved: "For the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world." 

This is far from an individualistic devotion or spirituality.  Eucharistic spirituality, by joining us in a deeper way to Christ, focuses our attention outside ourselves to a world desperately in need of mercy.  We pray for ourselves because we are sinners in need of mercy, but we pray as well for the entire world for which Jesus suffered, died, and rose.  Divine Mercy devotions are not in competition with the Eucharist or with Sacred Heart devotions.  They are another and very beautiful way in which we can make an offering of ourselves with Jesus for this intention: that every person may come to know the love of God revealed in Jesus, accept his mercy, and be saved.