Keeping the Lord's Day with Burning Hearts

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF EASTER

23 April 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish

Acts 2:14, 22-33

1 Pt 1:17-21

Lk 24:13-35

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

In the Alleluia verse we just sang: “Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; make our hearts burn while you speak to us!” Alleluia! Alleluia!

Our Gospel today is about the appearance of Jesus, the Risen Christ, walking along the road to Emmaus with two disciples. It concludes: “So they set out at once and returned to Jerusalem where they found gathered together the Eleven and those with them who were saying, ‘The Lord has truly been raised and has appeared to Simon!’ Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.” The encounter with Jesus and not just discussion or academic study is what enabled these men to sort out the tragedy of Calvary and the confounding news of the empty Tomb. “Then the two recounted what had taken place on the way and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.”

       Traditional Catholic common wisdom teaches us that although it is good to know our faith chapter and verse, what is ultimately decisive is that we get out of bed on Sunday morning, every Sunday and Holy Day of Obligation, and move across the threshold to take our place at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

       One of the great puzzles of the Christian life is how we come to understand and personally embrace the conviction that being Catholic demands something of us, yes, something intellectual of us, but that we have to integrate that information learned in school or at catechism into our personal lives. For children, no one can substitute the role of parents in achieving that goal. Most people who fall away from the practice of the faith, who give no evidence of true belief, may have twelve years of Catholic school behind them or years of catechism classes. Most of them, when they abandon the practice of the faith, do not stomp away from the Church out of protest and shaking a fist in anger or disgust refuse to fulfill their obligations as Catholics. Rather the majority are those who just quietly drift away at some point after they leave their parents’ home. Confession even growing up at home never played a part in their lives, maybe the folks did not take them to Mass on Sunday, and then on their own they just stopped going to Sunday Mass all together.

       As I say, it could be that other than Catholic school, they had no witness to the faith at home from either parent or, as statistics claim, maybe their dads gave no witness of faith to the children and failed to support their moms’ efforts at raising the children Catholic. Miracles of grace do happen, but when they do they normally just underline how faith comes to be the center of our lives thanks to the witness of mom and dad.

       The Alleluia verse says, “Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us!” How do we come to understand the Scriptures and the importance of faith in our lives?

Obviously, being Catholic, being a true believer demands prayer and reflection on our part. At some point after the age of reason, we have to make the faith our own. There is a study element to the life of faith. The Gospel account of the discussion on the road to Emmaus is definitely part of what makes the basis for our profession of faith. Faith can’t really be an effortless or purely emotional thing. Nonetheless the point of our faith is not so much that we are always studying doctrine, although that is an essential part of what it means to be Catholic. The obligation to study our faith, to learn our prayers and our catechism is not so in a simply academic kind of way. Intellectual ability is not an essential requirement. A simple faith can be both beautiful and profound. Anyone can learn enough to come to the knowledge and love of Christ, because although what is taught about the Lord may be mysterious or maybe in some ways enigmatic, it is not an elitist thing. Even the simplest person can reach an appreciation of the love of God for us. If faith needs explanation, it is less for academic reasons and more for matters of the heart, matters of personal knowledge and love. The Missionaries of Africa (popularly known as the White Fathers) when they evangelized the former Belgian colonies of central Africa required four years of catechism and literacy before the baptism of adults. Knowledge is essential even if it was not enough to keep the genocide, Catholic neighbors slaughtering each other, from taking place in Rwanda. Rather, the issue for us when it comes to faith is that like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, we need help sorting out the person and message of Jesus Christ. On our own we just don’t quite get it. Obedience to the two great commandments, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself, demand some thinking through on our part, they don’t just come second nature, because they demand sacrifices of us, sometimes even heroic sacrifices of us.

       And he said to them, “Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

       We can no more drift through life, going with the flow, than did Jesus Christ. The Lord, in obedience to the will of the Father, offered Himself up for all of us on the Cross. He was lifted up in sacrifice upon the Cross for the sake of the salvation of the world. We have things to ponder and His loving witness to embrace. Continue in the glorious joy of Easter, allowing Christ to enlighten you and your family by His grace! Set your Sunday apart as the Lord’s Day to contemplate the Lord’s sacrifice and victory for our redemption!

       And he said to them, “Oh how foolish you are! How slow of heart to believe all that the prophets spoke! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”

“Lord Jesus, open the Scriptures to us; make our hearts burn while you speak to us!” Alleluia! Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Mercy - the Forgiveness of our Sins

 

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER

16 April 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish

(SUNDAY OF DIVINE MERCY)

Acts 2:42-47

1 Pt 1:3-9

Jn 20:19-31

Easter Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!

       From the texts assigned for the Liturgy of this Divine Mercy Sunday we read in the Acts of the Apostles:

       “And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

       Take two things from that short sentence! 1) Every day the Lord added to their number and 2) those who were being saved. This message delivered in the pages of the Acts of the Apostles seems somehow contrary to the way we experience Church in our day and time. Why is that? Firstly: Why don’t we (adult Catholics today) seem to expect the Church to grow in any significant way and certainly not every day as we read in Acts? Why do we seem to content ourselves with a Church that does not seem to grow at all, a Church that resigns itself maybe to counting infant baptisms and seems to have its hopes set on no more than the first confessions and first communions of our children.

I am not saying that Catholics today don’t want people to join the Church, but that we don’t seem to expect them to either. Last week here at Holy Spirit at the Easter Vigil we received 13 younger adults into the faith through Confirmation, one young man among them being baptized on that occasion. That was a lovely experience for all those young adults who received Confirmation and made their First Holy Communion. I could read on their faces and on the faces of their sponsors both joy and excitement. Among the people here in church at the Easter Vigil this unique event (far from an everyday occurrence in the Church) gave evidence of a steady and quiet joy in the congregation and for some of those present, like me, even a bit of a thrill. Easter triumph! Easter joy! What kind of joy? Why this joy? I suppose because at the Vigil we saw a very concrete hope for the future. We saw the Church really growing the way it is supposed to. Make no mistake! The nature of the Church is to grow. This is our history and our heritage. This must be what went on in the Acts of the Apostles. “And every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

       Slow down! Not so fast! Can we really expect things to happen in the Catholic Church today like back in Apostolic times? I think yes. To the extent that significant numbers are not being added to the Church in a constant kind of way is not good. If we are not growing, then we must be dying. The slow death of Catholicism is not a fate to which we should resign ourselves. We should be eager, we should be striving to draw people into Christ’s fold.

       St. Peter’s Letter (our Second Reading) puts it this way: “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” That is St. Peter teaching us too, and not just making a statement for the sake of spreading the Gospel back in Apostolic times. His message of salvation has lost nothing of its relevance and of its urgency for the people of our day as well. That is also basically the sense of the words of the Risen Lord in today’s Gospel to the doubting Thomas. St. Thomas professes his faith in the Resurrection after touching Jesus. He says, “My Lord and my God!” To which Jesus responds: “You believe in me, Thomas, because you have seen me, says the Lord; blessed are they who have not seen me, but still believe!”

       But what indeed is our role as ordinary Catholic people in the pews? How should we be going about living our Catholic faith today? In the Acts of the Apostles, in the Gospel accounts of the appearances of the Risen One, were the Apostles and the first deacons of the Church, like St. Stephen and St. Philipp, the only members of the Church called to spread the Good News? Not hardly! Is it necessary to embrace the fullness of Catholic faith if we are to save our souls? Obviously, yes! There can be no limited or second class faith. We must love and believe with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. None of us can be excused from embracing Catholic faith fully and without reserve. That requires of us that we get that message out to all whom we meet, to all whom we love. Why else are these accounts to be found in the Acts of the Apostles and why else did St. Peter write what he did? Our salvation is in Jesus Christ risen and victorious over sin and death. The Lord Jesus lives in His Church. “Although you have not seen him you love him; even though you do not see him now yet believe in him, you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, as you attain the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”

       This Second Sunday of Easter has all kinds of names. It is called Low Sunday in English, in Latin it is referred to as Dominica in Albis, because this was the Octave Day for the newly baptized adults to set aside the white garments they had been wearing since the Vigil of Easter. Pope St. John Paul II christened the Octave Day as Divine Mercy Sunday after the very special devotion to Christ’s infinite mercy propagated in recent times by St. Faustina. The devotion fits perfectly with the traditional Gospel passage which speaks not only of St. Thomas, but also recounts the institution of the Sacrament of Penance.

       “Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.’”

       Divine Mercy!

Easter Victory! Easter Triumph! Easter Joy! Christ once slain now lives forever! Alleluia! Alleluia!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

In His Light we see Light

 

Easter Sunday – 9 April 2023

Holy Spirit Parish

Acts 10:34a, 37-43

Col 3:1-4

Jn 20:1-9

Alleluia! Resurrexit sicut dixit!

Alleluia! He is risen as He said!

In our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles we heard about the commission from Jesus risen from the dead given to the Apostles. Even yet today after 2000 years, we as Church share their mission, we carry on that work first entrusted to them by the Lord Himself. So! Acts of the Apostles:

“He commissioned us to preach to the people and testify that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness, that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

“…that everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.”

       Obviously when it comes to grasping the Easter event, we have it easier than did the first disciples. For us, as we live the experience of Church, the surprise element which threw them off entirely is gone. Easter is an annual feast for which we can prepare. On this blessed Sunday, we have our Lenten preparation behind us for what the basic teaching about Jesus concerns, plus our annual big penance effort each year so as to have disposed well our hearts and minds for this great news. On this Easter Sunday, a moveable feast in the Church calendar, we can bask in the glorious light of Christ’s victory over sin and death. Unlike Mary Magdalene and the Apostles’ discovery of the empty tomb on this Sunday, Easter does not throw us into confusion or shock us. Despite the interplay of lunar and solar calendars, which move the date from year to year, it does not totally catch us off guard. Without being able to calculate the exact date on our own, we still know what to expect at this time of year.

The good news of the Resurrection cannot find us unprepared as were the first disciples. Our Gospel passage from St. John today ends with the word: “For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.” We understand the Scriptures. But we might still ask what makes us clearer in our understanding of the Resurrection than were Peter and John? In a sense you might say that we really may not understand the good news of the Resurrection as deeply and profoundly as did Peter and John. They knew Jesus intimately and were forced to confront the event. Despite our Lenten observance maybe we know Him less so. Can we say that out Lenten prayer and penance has brought us to the tomb to puzzle over the empty burial cloths as did they?

Be confident in the power and grace of faith in your own hearts and lives to move you to the boundless joy which can transform our world and our lives.

Alleluia! Resurrexit sicut dixit!

Alleluia! He is risen as He said!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Deacons of the Annunciata

 

ANNUNCIATION

OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY

25 March 2023

Ordination to the Diaconate

Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary

Laudetur Jesus Christus!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       You men have an ideal day for your ordination as deacons. I can think of two reasons in particular for saying that, both of them bound up intimately with the nature and importance of the Feast of the Annunciation. Both reasons have to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary, most assuredly. They also touch upon the instrumental role which you men will play in the work of salvation in our world. Granted for all of us here present, our role in this work was already set in the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation. The Church teaches that this work takes on a new character with your ever-growing share through the Sacrament of Holy Orders in Christ’s mission. As of today that share is a deacon’s work of proclamation, diakonia, and martyrion, which draws life and strength from the Sacrifice of Calvary. You have two reasons then for special rejoicing today!

        We’re taught that once upon a time in history, in the history of Christianity, the year started not on January 1, not on the 1^st Sunday of Advent, but on March 25^th, 9 months before Christmas and the Birth of the Savior. Famous words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux explain the importance of today’s feast as the starting point. The saint begs Mary to hesitate no longer but to say yes to the Archangel Gabriel, sent by God to ask her consent to bring about salvation through the Virgin Birth of our Redeemer and King. In the ancient liturgical rhythm of vigils and feasts it was only proper that the mysteries of the Lord’s Birth and of His Cross and Resurrection be preceded by greater vigils tied to the cosmic mystery of the earth’s return from the dead of winter to the life and hope of spring. Whether the spread of the Gospel to the southern hemisphere or other influences brought about the uncoupling of the two calendars (Church and State) or how the restriction of the vigil of Christmas to Advent came about, it all happened very subtly and very wisely. Nothing has been lost of St. Bernard’s cry on March 25^th to Mary to say yes to becoming the Mother of God, without taking anything away from Advent as it leads us well to the celebration of the Nativity. So your ordination today is fortuitous and suggests countless points of meditation on the new sharing in and through the Mother of God that you have in Christ’s work.

       Secondly on this Feast of the Annunciation, I would argue that a deacon’s proclamation of the Gospel (think of St. Philip the deacon, in the Acts of the Apostles), a deacon’s service to the Church (diakonia, think of St. Lawrence for the Church of Rome), and a deacon’s witness unto spilling his blood for Christ (think of St. Stephen, the protomartyr) are all cloaked in the mantle of the Blessed Mother and her whole-hearted yes to the Archangel Gabriel.

       For your time as deacons bind yourselves intimately to Mary! Place yourselves at her feet and learn from her! Learn from her message on behalf of her Son at Cana: “Do whatever He tells you!” Learn from her constant witness of obedience to the Will of the Father in service to her only beloved Son! Draw close to the mystery of her heart pierced through time and again unto the consummation of her sacrifice with His on Calvary!

       Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice! You men are intended to be deacons of the Annunciata!

       Nos cum Prole pia, Benedicat Virgo Maria!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

A Catholic Liturgy Classic of the Early 20th Century

 

Just recently (on a transatlantic flight) I had the joy of reading the 2022 enlarged reprint in English by Romanitas Press, Kansas City (4th edition, three previous by Herder) of the book by the French Benedictine monk, Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, O.S.B. “Catholic Liturgy: Its Fundamental Principles”, originally translated into English in 1924, from his work of 1920: “Liturgia: Ses Princips Fondamentaux”.

Don't mind if I simply recommend this work in all its parts. I read Chapter X The Divine Office with particular interest, for the good counsel it gives on praying the traditional Breviary. As an older man who has been praying the traditional Office for less than six years, it reassured me in the crisis to which I succumbed after previously reading advice by Pius Parsch suggesting the amount of Latin study which should go into a proper recitation of the psalms, not to mention the hymns of the Latin Breviary (Woe is me!).

Dom Gaspar is good all around, writing with balance and perspective, not to mention depth and eloquence. In this spirit, the monk's Chapter VII Holy Communion is unbeatable for description and analysis of the situation with the reform of the Communion fast, as it presented itself almost a 100 years ago. He helped me in particular to deal with a question posed to me by the Prior of the Benedictine Monastery in Norcia concerning an article he sent in reprint from a Sub Stack: "Ricostruire Montecassino. Dinamiche della pratica del digiuno eucaristico tra ricerca di Dio e ricerca di se'." posted by an anonymous author Clusinus on December 5, 2022.

Clusinus is right in contending that the present one hour fast before receiving Holy Communion is no fast at all, because of a Sunday, a lay person can leave the remainder of his double latte in the car and still have fasted an hour by Communion time, if he gets to church 15 minutes before Mass time and, as a good Catholic, sits toward the back. Clusinus despairs of any sort of restoration (whether of the three hours discipline of Pius XII or of an earlier practice of absolute fast from midnight before Communion). He argues from the reconstruction of the Abbey of Montecassino after its wartime destruction in a horrendous bombing during World War II. He maintains as do many others that the restoration of the historic monastery might have been accurate in most details but is spiritless. 

 I told the Prior of Norcia, that I agree with Clusinus that the old Communion fast is beyond restoration in the sense that fasting from everything including water from midnight on would provoke a scandal among the folks (accustomed to their water bottles, gum, and cough drops as they are) which would be hard to make salutary. Even so, for the sake of helping the cause of stirring up our faith in the Real Presence of Christ, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, some kind effort to make receiving Holy Communion more deliberate has to be made.

One of my own suggestions, proposed by me at Forty Hours Devotions I have preached and in discussions with priests would be a return to the use of the Communion Rail, with Communion received kneeling (for those who are able) and most especially on the tongue. Oddly enough my argument has much to do with the Communion fast. Many people might leave the double latte out in the car, but they forget to get rid of their chewing gum. In bygone days (maybe?) that meant sticking your gum on the underside of the seat of the pew before marching up to Communion. While some still do that, as is evidenced by the church cleaning crews with their spatulas scraping the evidence off from time to time, Communion in the hand enables some of these offenders to just tuck their gum back in their cheek (think about it!).

I bet Dom Gaspar never faced such questions, but sadly we do. Even more tragically they take their toll on genuine faith in Christ truly present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar.

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Christ our Light!

 

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT (Laetare)

19 March 2023, Holy Spirit Parish

1 Sm 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a

Eph 5:8-14

Jn 9:1-41

 

Praised be Jesus Christ!

       When you are in Year A like we are in 2023, of the 3 Year Cycle of the Lectionary, the Sunday Gospels are all quite long and this Sunday, recounting Jesus’ healing of the man born blind, is no exception. Today from John’s Gospel chapter 9, the Scribes and the Pharisees refuse to draw the same conclusion drawn in his own regard by the man whose sight was miraculously given to him by Jesus. Over the scorn of the leaders of the Jewish people and their denial of his testimony (clear evidence), the man boldly attests to the miracle worked for him. Jesus in His own words declares “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” God is at work in the world and unmistakably so by correcting an error or deficiency of nature. That happens with the clay Jesus made with His own saliva. It is not so much healing as it is reminiscent of the creation of man in Genesis, whom God formed to perfection from the clay of the earth. In their refusal to believe the man, the so-called leaders of the people show their utter blindness. The once born blind man is the one who sees clearly now and teaches us about the Christ, the long-promised Messiah come into the world.

As Jesus explained to His own disciples about the origin of this man’s blindness: “Neither he nor his parents sinned; it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him. We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

       “(I)t is so that the works of God might be made visible through him.” The man born blind is now whole and the Church would have us draw the necessary conclusion in terms of faith, making that clear in this Sunday’s second reading with a quote from the Letter to the Ephesians.

“Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the fruitless works of darkness; but everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.”

       You often hear talk about God’s mysterious ways. To say that they are mysterious is not to say that they are totally unsearchable. Things are, even matters of faith are evident with God. Godlessness, unbelief, and the mental reservations or a certain pretended sophistication which dismiss faith in God’s word are the tragedy. They are ultimately a refusal to accept God Who reveals Himself in Christ. Without Christ, without the Lord Jesus we dwell in darkness. In the last analysis the blindness of this world’s movers and shakers (I think they call them influencers today) is damnable and only to be pitied. Faithless or unbelieving people deserve our pity and should occasion our prayer that they not be lost for all eternity. “We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

       Even so, God’s ways are indeed mysterious. We can see that from the First Book of Samuel in the story of God’s choice of David to be the second king of Israel. In our Old Testament reading for this Laetare, the 4^th Sunday of Lent God gives the Prophet Samuel a real challenge. Without clearer instructions, old Samuel is sent to anoint a new king for Israel from among the numerous sons of Jesse of Bethlehem. “I have chosen my king from among his sons.” It was a political act on Samuel’s part to proceed to anoint a new king while the old one was still reigning. In taking this risk, Samuel was expressing God’s judgment against the reigning king Saul, who disobeyed God and hence lost God’s favor. The choice fell to David, the youngest of Jesse’s sons, whom his father had not even thought to bring home to the sacrificial feast from tending the flocks. We see clearly in this account that the all-surpassing power belongs to God; He and not the chosen king is the one to rule God’s people. God rules and He manifests His power by His choice of the shepherd boy. “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.”

       Over the years and especially today, if I personally have had to use any skills I might have learned as a Vatican diplomat then it is rare that I use them with foreign governments or political figures. The movers and shakers of this world are not really that. “The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I shall want.” God rules in Christ! The Jesus Who made the clay with His saliva makes all things new and whole.

Before my retirement, the biggest controversies or tensions my job has called me to try and work through were almost always Church internal, where Catholics are divided among themselves. The refusal of the Jewish authorities to listen to or accept the witness of the man born blind hits all too close to home when it comes not only to inner church conflicts but to what is most important in our world. “It is unheard of that anyone ever opened the eyes of a person born blind. If this man were not from God, he would not be able to do anything.”

       I am going to stop short of saying more and just urge you on this Laetare Sunday to rejoice, to rejoice in the power of Christ to save. Easter is very near! Through His Suffering and Death the Lord Jesus has made all things new. Our willfulness, our panic, our sleepless nights have more to do with darkness than they do with God. Give your life to Christ!

“We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day. Night is coming when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

       Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI

Lifegiving Water from His Side

 

THIRD SUNDAY OF LENT

March 12, 2023 – Holy Spirit Parish

Ex 17:3-7

Rom 5:1-2, 5-8

Jn 4:5-42

Praised be Jesus Christ!

        From the Book of Exodus today we have an account of a major crisis in Israel’s camp in the desert of Sinai provoked by a water shortage.

        “The place was called Massah and Meribah because the Israelites quarreled there and tested the Lord, saying, ‘Is the Lord in our midst or not? …Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?’”

        Throughout the Exodus account there are references to Israel bemoaning their misery in the desert (for lack of food and water above all, but basically just for being stuck in the middle of nowhere living under tents, with leaders like stuttering Moses and his brother Aaron, guides not of their own choosing). It should come as no surprise their crying out about their regret at ever having left their place of slavery in Egypt. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”

        In popular parlance from the more recent past one finds references to Catholics longing for the fleshpots of Egypt. This expression (longing for the fleshpots of Egypt) refers to anyone’s longing to return to the slavery of sin, choosing it over the freedom of the children of God. Faithfulness to God comes at a cost. Life under the Exodus cloud in the desert away from the land of slavery and for us today living as faithful Catholics implies making sacrifices; it requires self-denial and most likely even suffering. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”

        Israel’s crisis, their longing for the creature comforts of Egypt despite the indignity of slavery, has a corollary in the lives of a lot of Catholic people even yet today. People will tell you they consider themselves abandoned by God in their misfortune and question overall the benefits of religion. What good has it done for them they ask, to turn away from sin and to be faithful to God, faithful to the Church, when there’s no apparent gain in it for them at least not this side of death? More often than not faithfulness to Christ, renouncing sin, means depriving ourselves of all sorts of earthly goods with seemingly no immediate return.

One of the most common temptations or faults is to envy the rich, to bemoan our fate. But the so-called prosperity Gospel (that God materially favors His own) is not Catholic teaching; it is not even New Testament. This appears in glaring fashion in Jesus’ Gospel parable about the beggar Lazarus ignored and abandoned at the gate of the rich man’s house. In Luke’s Gospel, Jesus has Abraham responding to the rich man in hell. “He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames.’ But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’” [Luke 16:24-26. NRSV, Catholic Edition Bible (p. 2850). Catholic Bible Press. Kindle Edition.]

        As the saying goes, Heaven comes to those who wait. More to the point would be that our charity and personal sacrifices should be animated by a longing for the world to come. You cannot avoid choosing. In real life there is no form to fill out for life choices with a check box “undecided”. My heart, if it is not set on Christ’s Kingdom, is set on damnation. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”

There is more to it than the ultimate question of Heaven or Hell. There are daily choices big and small to be made. We choose Christ in the community of the Church; we have to join His people wandering about in the desert. No matter how clever, how smart, how noble we might be, we cannot blaze our own path to God and eternal happiness.

Not far from rejecting old habits of sin and in that sense refusing the indignity of a life of slavery, I am going to go out on a limb to state that the conflict between Moses and the people in the desert at Massah and Meribah reminds me of the push back which some very good priests get from their people when the priest dares to preach the fullness of Catholic truth. Adherence to Christ is an all or nothing proposition. Our temptation is to pick and choose from the list of duties placed on us by the Church under pain of sin, such as when Father insists on our obligation to get to Mass not only on Sundays but also on the six Holy Days of Obligation in the US Church calendar. This issue has more frequently to do with Catholic moral teaching. To be clear, to reject traditional Church teaching is not so much balking at old-time religion but rather a rejection of the newness of the Gospel. They refuse to live out the Gospel’s demands in the midst of contemporary society which is hard to distinguish from the paganism and superstition of old Greece and old Rome. “Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?”

        Through the figure of water provided by God, this reading from Exodus is linked with our Gospel from St. John about living water. Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well: “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

The only miracle Jesus worked at the well in Samaria was to tell the woman everything she had ever done. He did not give them a new and inexhaustible source of water to replace Jacob’s Well. The Lord called her and those who listened to Him because of her witness to come to faith in Him the source of living water. “If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans gives us the bottom line of our boast of our boundless joy arising from Christ’s sacrifice, in the Lord’s saving death upon the Cross out of love for the sake of our salvation. The Lord invites us to choose the road less traveled which passes by way of Calvary. In your Lenten prayer and reflection this week, ask the Lord to enlighten you and help you to step up to the challenge of the trek through the privations of the desert with God’s People by way of an intimate share in His Cross unto glory.

        Praised be Jesus Christ! Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled! O Sorrowful Mother, take us to your Son! Really!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI