What’s your favorite feast? Thanksgiving? Many people say Christmas, especially if they are into “receiving” . Others are for Easter because of the wardrobe boost. Celebrating the Lord’s birth and resurrection provides us with wonderful religious experiences, but I’m holding out for the third most important feast in the life of the Church- Pentecost.  This coming Sunday, we will be wearing red to celebrate Pentecost, rejoicing that the Spirit of God flowed into the lives of the frightened followers of Jesus to give them a clear understanding of what it was that they had been called to do. Those followers were essentially confused cowards before Pentecost, and following that dramatic event they became courageous men and women prepared even to die as witnesses to Jesus.

This celebration is one day per year, but we ought to be prepared and look for opportunities to witness on a daily basis what we believe about the carpenter from Nazareth. You do not have to be in church to witness! Witness simply means to share the message of God’s love with all our very human brothers and sisters. This does not always require trips to third world countries by the way-you can do it right here in your own stomping grounds, by visiting with your lonely neighbor or reaching out to a frustrated coworker. Every day provides opportunities to be kind and thoughtful to those around us. His Spirit is challenging us!

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The purpose of the Church is to reach out and draw all of its members to communion with God through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The Church does this by presenting age after age the message of Jesus and also joins us with Jesus through our sacramental life. In carrying out this mission, it tries to convey to the entire world a message based on truth and love, a message that has tremendous implications for justice and fairness. These virtues are affected by the economic system present at any given moment.
For most of the last 2,000 years virtually the entire world’s economy was based on agriculture. That changed with the Industrial Revolution in the late 18th century bringing tremendous change to human life, including a vast increase in wealth and prosperity. But not everyone shared equally in these new developments. In the late 19th century, Pope Leo XIII saw that the Industrial Revolution and its later developments were inflicting tremendous pain and suffering on the poor workers in the urban centers of Europe and North America. He wrote his famous encyclical, Rerum Novarum which laid out a structure of responsibilities reminding employers of their responsibilities to be fair and just with their workers, and that those workers had the right to organize in order to defend their economic interests. In those days, that economy was mostly one of shops and small plants where workers and employers were often in face to face situations.
By the 1930’s, the world of the small plant by an individual or family gave way as nationwide industries developed and thus Pope Pius XI wrote the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno which built on the work of Leo XIII and dealt now with problems related to nation-wide economies.
After World War II with the decolonization of the people of Africa, the possibility of a one world economy expanded tremendously and as a result in 1963 that magnificent pope John XXIII wrote a document that had tremendous impact in the Church and on the world entitled Pacem in Terris, Peace on Earth. It dealt with this new worldwide economy many years before any of us were routinely referring to the reality of an integrated world economy. The document came out in 1963 and made a powerful impression on Church leaders all over world. Fifty years have passed since the encyclicals issued and in the next couple of days I will give you my opinion of the affect that it has had in this painful and agonizing half century.
 

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March 3rd, Third Sunday of Lent
All three of today’s scripture texts touch on the idea of suffering, human suffering, a subject that nearly everyone knows a great deal about because life on this planet is difficult. Every one of us has our faults and our weaknesses and, of course, God who created us knows all about them. Despite our weaknesses and sinfulness, we always have to remind ourselves that God still loves us. He loves us despite those weaknesses. Or maybe he loves us because of them?
One of the purposes of the holy season of Lent is to cause us to meditate on our failures and faults and to use our intelligence, our will, our faith, our determination to improve our life and, in so improving it, to deepen and strengthen our relationship with God.
We are almost in the middle of Lent. Let’s endeavor to ask ourselves honestly are we taking it seriously? Am I making any progress? Are our good intentions disappearing with the ashes that marked us at the beginning of Lent?
During this holy season, our minds should be on two tracks. One is efforts at our own spiritual renewal and the other in joyful appreciation of the beauty of spring. This beautiful weather is a symbolic reminder of the brightness and joy that comes from our awareness of God’s love for us.

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Believing Catholics know full well that God is acting in our lives. While bringing us into existence, he has given us an infinitely loving invitation to share his life for all eternity. We are very conscious of God’s closeness when we receive the Sacraments, especially the Holy Eucharist. There we are on Sunday morning. We have just returned to our pews and have received the bread of life. Jesus is here. Jesus is within us. He loves us and will sustain us in our faith.
That is true of the Eucharist. It is true of all of the Sacraments. Through baptism, we are made brothers and sisters of Jesus and adopted children of God the Father. With matrimony, we receive the grace necessary to sustain a holy and faith-filled marriage. The Sacraments spiritually parallel to our material lives. Our faith enables us to see that our Lord is always with us.
But God’s love and help is not limited to the Sacraments. With eyes of faith, we can see that we are sustained time and again throughout the day and always while our lives unfold of special gifts. An unexpected telephone call that clarifies our thinking on a particular issue, seeing a very ill friend on a trip to the hospital, looking at an suddenly stunning sunset in the western sky, these opportunities that make us conscious of God and his love for us are countless. However, we must be careful that we do not take them for granted. God loves us. God is with us. Our challenge is to respond knowingly and joyfully to the fact that he touches our lives day by day and sometimes minute by minute.
We are more conscious of God’s goodness to us when we are aware of his actions in our lives.

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Many years ago, I was attending a meeting in Washington, DC and the principal speaker was that famous New York senator, Patrick Moynihan. Moynihan had just left the Nixon cabinet where he had done some extraordinarily innovative and effective things for the Administration. One of the people attending the conference stood up and asked the senator, “What did you learn during your years in Washington?” Without batting an eye, Moynihan replied, “That everything is connected to everything!” I don’t remember the topic of his speech. I don’t remember anything else he said but I never forgot that sentence and I have never ceased to be amazed at how awesomely true it is.
From time to time, I like to touch upon the virtues in this space. They are almost limitless. We can categorize them any way we want. There is a sameness about all of them and it always comes down to doing good – doing good for ourselves, doing good for others.
Let’s think for a minute about everything being connected to everything. The virtue called trust means that you have the good quality and the facility in placing trust in people that deserve it and have earned it. You can’t really have trust like that unless you have good judgment and you are able to evaluate people honestly and effectively. Nor can you really trust a person unless in some sense you love them. So you can go on and one that when you begin to put virtues together you find that they interlock beautifully and meaningfully. If we live our lives marked out by those virtues, our very life itself becomes meaningful, lovely and happy.
Let us trust those we love and love those we trust.
 

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Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time
I think that many of us when we think about what it means to be a good Catholic or a committed Methodist often connect that with obeying the laws of the church – to avoid sin, to not do evil, to not hurt people, etc., etc. Those are good things to consider but when you take a look at the first and third readings today you will see that those are the EFFECTS of carrying out the law.
The natural law that comes from God is the same law that is repeated today in an excerpt from Saint Mark’s Gospel. It is extraordinarily simple and direct. The law is that we are to love our God, totally and completely and because of that love let it flow through us into the lives of those with whom we are sharing life. God’s law is all about love. If it tells us not to steal, not to lie, avoid sexual transgressions, etc., it is because those acts are failures in love. I think we should try and think about that for a moment. God wants each one of us to be consumed – CONSUMED – with a constant awareness of his infinite goodness and that each of us has been enriched in our existence because this infinite being loves each of us personally, totally and completely. Love begets love and if we can clearly keep in our minds the reality of God’s love, then we ought to respond in like manner.

What is a saint and what is the difference between a true saint and one of us who is just stumbling towards eternal life. It is the degree of burning love inside our hearts, so powerful that it sweeps aside this daily temptation and centers our minds and hearts on the source of our being, Almighty God. It is when we grasp this reality that life becomes constant joy and our lives, even when surrounded by terrible problems, are lived with confidence and hope.

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October 21st, Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Yesterday, I wrote about the magnificent heroism of Saints Isaac Jogues and John Brébeuf, French Jesuits who had the courage to come to the New World and work among the Indian tribes in what is today New York and Canada. Most of us don’t have the courage and generosity to do what these heroic men did but we all have the opportunity to make some type of contribution to the expansion of the Church. This Sunday is World Mission Sunday and we really need to question ourselves as to whether or not we have any real mission consciousness within us.

We have received the gift of the faith and through that faith we know about God’s infinite love for the whole human family. That love has manifested itself by Jesus of Nazareth coming among us to secure our redemption. If we truly believe that, if we really concentrate on that, then it seems to me that we ought to appreciate naturally this gift of faith and develop within ourselves the desire to share that gift. A little spiritual examination is effortless. Did I do anything last week to share my own knowledge and love for Jesus Christ? Did I do anything last month to help someone else develop a close relationship with our Savior? Do I think about the heroic men and women who are working in Nigeria, South Africa and the slums of New York City in order to bring the message of Jesus to the suffering poor of those areas? I ask this not to put a guilt trip on any one. I have to ask myself those same questions all the time because it is so easy to get taken up with my own problems and concerns.

We should joyfully and thankfully be conscious of the extraordinary missionary accomplishments over the last 2,000 years while at the same time endeavor to get a grasp of the task that is before us. We need missionaries – yes – thousands and thousands of them, but we need supporters – millions and millions – and we are there. Let’s be conscious of that challenge and respond with a commitment that is faith-filled, generous and brave.

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Forgiveness is one of the countless gifts given by God to the human condition. Life is difficult. Mistakes are made. Errors committed. Sinfulness happens. And much of this happens at home, with our families and the ones we love the most.
Forgiveness is the gift that allows us to get past these hurdles.
Let’s keep it simple, and If we want advice in this area, take it from Jesus, who said “Forgive, forgive, forgive.”

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The Lenten scripture readings are really wonderful. Oh, how these excerpts of God’s Word jump at us on the weekdays of Lent!

Today’s first reading is from the book of Leviticus. In it, Yahweh gives us Moses, and through Moses, his word is passed to God’s people. First of all, he presents a summary of the basic commandments, the dos and don’ts of how to live, and then he gets a little more detailed.

“You shall not defraud or rob your neighbor. You shall not withhold overnight the wages of your day laborer. You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block in front of the blind but you shall fear your God. Do not act dishonestly in rendering judgment. You shall not go about spreading slander nor shall you stand idly by when your neighbor’s life is at stake. You may have to reprove your fellowman. Do not incur sin because of him. Take no revenge, cherish no grudges. You shall love your neighbor as yourself for I am the Lord.”

All of us have work to do in Lent and thankfully we have the opportunity to carry out that work.

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On the weekend blog, I touched very briefly on Sunday’s excerpt from the book of Jonah and I began an all too brief introduction on a complicated issue – how to read the bible intelligently in order to get the maximum benefit from it. My point the other day was that while everyone knows about Jonah and the whale, very few of us know what really the purpose of the message is and what its meaning is.

We know nothing about the prophet Jonah but the majority of Scripture scholars date the book between the fourth and second centuries BC. It was written at a time in the post-exilic period; namely, after the Jews had returned from their enslavement in Babylon. It was an age when the Israelites were tempted to hope more for the destruction of their enemies than for their salvation. The author of this book conveys a message about the extent of the Lord’s mercy not just for the Jews, but for the whole human family. It is a message that God’s people needed at the time that it was written and it is a message that all of us need today. Jonah is a tremendous gift to us not just as a teaching tool, but as conveying an extraordinarily important component of the Christian message.

God loves the human family!

More later about Jonah.

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