Fig Tree and the Gardener

This Sunday we heard the parable of the barren fig tree as our Gospel reading. 

Okay, here is what I know about figs and fig trees. I know that Fig Newtons are a favorite cookie of mine and I know that cheap knock - offs of this tasty Nabisco treat feature more seeds than fruit.  Other than that I remember as a kid being kind of surprised that they grew on trees just as I was surprised about mustard growing on trees as well.  I could just imagine plastic containers of mustard raining down on some poor sod who was taking shelter under a mustard tree during a storm. But, lets return to the fig.

Back in the day of Jesus the one thing that the people of Israel had plenty of was figs. The Romans complained that at times during the year they would have to walk instep deep in fig juice. I am sure that is somewhat of an exaggeration. But figs were a staple food product and in our story we see a man going into his vineyard, fig trees often were planted in vineyards. The master of the house had a hankering for a nice juicy fig fresh from the tree. He walked over to the tree that he had lovingly planted three years ago and alas, no figs! 

He called his chief gardener over and told him to cut down the tree.  It had been nurtured for three years and was sapping the nutrients from the soil and giving nothing back. As a good businessman the boss saw no reason for this tree to remain.  The gardener interceded for the tree. He was not a businessman but he felt in his heart that he could coax fruit out of the stubborn tree. He thought that all it would take was a bit of tender loving care. You cam almost hear the conversation, the boss reasoning with the gardener and the gardener reasoning with the boss. In this case the gardener won. He would carefully tend the tree, work the soil around it, fertilize it and perhaps next season it would bear much fruit.  The boss walked away entrusting the fig tree to the care of the gardener. 

This story is often interpreted as God the Father getting upset that Israel had produced so little fruit in the time that Jesus had been teaching. The gardener is Jesus who is asking for more time to tend to Israel, fertilizing it with the Word of God, teaching it through example. And God the Father entrusted Israel to God the Son. 

I think we can bring it down a notch. Jesus works in our life through Word and Sacrament and is looking for us to bear fruit. There is a time limit we have, the time between birth and death, to do the work and bear the fruit that is expected of us. Each of us has a job to help bring the kingdom of God into fruition. The job is always something we have the talent, time, and treasure to complete. We may in fact need the help of Jesus the gardener at times and He will always be there lovingly tending to us and our needs.  It is the will of God that we succeed in our mission and it is only our timid nature, our fear that we will fail, that keeps us from success. Also, we cannot see with the eyes of eternity. Sometimes what appears to us as an abject failure is a success in disguise. The effects of our work for the kingdom are most often unseen. This is okay because we need to trust the gardener to do His job. The figs that later appear are none of our concern. He will distribute them as they are needed. 

Our job, therefore, is to be open to the graces that God provides. To not be timid or afraid at the job we are tasked with.  The work will be hard, we may not see results in our lifetime but in the end we will hear those words all of us long to hear; "Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Master. " 

May the light of Christ guide you this week and may you be led ever closer to the Gardener and his garden. 

Lent - The Season of fish sticks and beans

It seems just moments ago we were wishing each other the greetings appropriate to the holidays and now it seems that the season of Lent is knocking at the door.  Wednesday next is the day we call Ash Wednesday and marks the forty day period that the Church provides us to prepare for the Solemn Easter Tridium, the celebrations of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Easter vigil. For some of us this period of time is remarkable only due to the fact that we Catholics abstain from meat on Ash Wednesday and on  Friday's of Lent. The Church also mandates fasting on Ash Wednesday and on Good Friday.

Lent literally means "spring."  What does the word "spring" bring to mind?  To me it brings to mind the ground thawing out after a chilly winter and new growth breaking the soil and plants opening up their leaves to catch the warm rays of the sun.  It is a mystical season that restores life where once there had been no sign of it. So it is with our lives and the season of Lent. 

When I was a boy I hated the season of Lent. In our household it was the season of fish sticks. There is nothing nastier on God's green earth than fish sticks. It was also the season of giving up something, usually candy if you were a kid, and that was a painful thing to do. Remember too that back then no one told the kids that Sunday's are not counted in the forty days of lent and you could gouge yourself with all the candy you wanted on Sundays!  No, Sister Emerita and her fellow sisters kept that as a Canonical Secret so we kids would not get out of the habit of giving up candy. In our household my father was an agnostic so Lent was not really part of his year but he put up with the fish sticks and vegetarian beans that was the staple of Lenten Friday dinners. We kids tried to remain faithful to our promise to give up candy but it was hard.  Why even in the school I went to the lunch time candy table was set up so you could get your sugar fix that would last you until three o'clock. Sales were off a bit but some kids still bought candy and we were told not to judge them because it was just possible that they were doing something else for Lent.  This was hardly likely because we knew who was buying the stuff and Eddie McIntyre and Albert Winkler were hardly the holy type that would eat candy and then go home and beat themselves with rosebush canes! 

Lent also brought with it a shortened school day on Friday.  This was not greeted with glee by most of us.  School would let out at about two or so in the afternoon and we would adjourn next door to the church where we would undergo the Stations of the Cross. This entailed forty minutes of  standing, genuflecting, kneeling, listening as the fourteen stations of the cross were prayed.  For a young boy this was a tedious rite and personally I longed for the joys of math class to break this prayer marathon. Actually I understood the Stations of the Cross much better than I understood the New Math that the good sisters were teaching so that is how desperate I was. 

 Not everyone hated the Stations of the Cross.  Jackie Gleason (no not the TV and film star) who had perfect posture and never went around with his hands in his pockets as the nuns always reminded us, usually served as one of the altar boys that accompanied Father around the Church as walked with Jesus to Calvary.  I always thought that Jackie wanted to actually be crucified on those Friday's, as we got closer and closer to the Crucifixion you could almost see the stigmata appearing on the boy. The ritual finished usually about a quarter to three so the good sisters gave us the opportunity to kneel for fifteen minutes before we were marched out of church one row at a time, keeping silent until we felt the sun and cold Chicago air on our faces. Then all hell would break loose as the weekend had officially started! 

On Saturday, we went to confession.  There were four priests and all of them spent four hours or so hearing confessions. We did not do this as a class, but we saw all of our classmates waiting in line.  I wonder how bored the priests must have gotten with several hundred children confessing that they had disobeyed their parents or swore or something of that nature.  They probably rejoiced when they got an adult parishioner that confessed that he had committed adultery, murdered a bishop, and burnt down two schools!  

Then on Sunday morning we would all gather at the 9:00 AM children's mass and sit with our class for Sunday Mass.  When the time was right the ushers would pass the basket and our children's envelopes filled with part of our hard earned allowance, nickles or dimes, would go into the basket. On Monday morning the totals were posted for each class with the names (but not the amounts) of those kids who contributed.  If a name from your class was missing, it was assumed that they had skipped Mass and were in big trouble and should be very careful until they could confess their sloth next Saturday at confession. 

So we are once again coming into the Lenten season. My boss, who knows I am a Catholic asked me what I was giving up.  I told her that I was giving up nothing this year. I explained that I would be trying to do something special for Lent, something positive, something that will help others during this season in the Jubilee Year of Mercy.  

What I am going to do personally for my own spiritual growth will be to forsake some TV time to do some Bible or other spiritual reading and to do this daily.  I will resolve to eat less so as to share the hunger the needy feel every day of their life. I will resolve also to do something about that hunger by making donations to organizations that fight hunger. I resolve to be kinder, to swallow my pride and to turn my other cheek when I am insulted or ridiculed.  I will also resolve to be a better ambassador for Christ and His Holy Catholic Church.  I will engage in dialogue with those who write hateful things about the Church but I will not criticize them, I will just criticize their words. 

I want for myself this Lent to be something special, a time of growth for my soul.  I invite you whether you be Catholic or Protestant to do the same.  It really just requires that you keep your eyes open, your pride in check, and to be open to the Spirit working in your life.   

God Bless you and may the Crucified One light your way this day. 

 

Trusting In Jesus - His Mercy

My Jesus I Trust In You

We put our faith into many things over the course of our usual day. We trust that the others on the road will in fact obey the red light so we can enjoy using the green light.  We bury our noses and out attention into our smart phones and trust that when the elevator door opens that the elevator will certainly be there.  We trust that the doctor has a diploma and that he or she has prescribed the correct medicine.  We trust that the electrician has wired the house up properly and that we will not get electrocuted the first time we turn on the dishwasher. So you see that we place our faith into many things routinely every hour if every day.

Through Sister Faustina, a Polish nun who spoke to Jesus we are told to trust in the mercy of Jesus. We are being given an extraordinary time to accept the mercy of Jesus as the final sunset draws nearer every second.  Jesus loves you so much and He wants you to be happy with Him in heaven. He died for our sins, His Sacred Heart was pierced because of them. Mercy flows from His Sacred Heart and we need to accept it.  Each of us has to look at how we are living our lives and we have to give up those things that offend God. We have to turn to God now while there is still time to do so.  If we do not repent and accept the mercy of Jesus then we will have to accept His justice when he comes again. 

I myself am a poor sinner.  I do not mean that my sins can compare with some of the most offensive behaviors in the world today.  For example, I have not murdered anyone, I have not counseled any person to seek an abortion, I don't even read the horoscopes, since I believe in Christ and not in some goofy Greek and Roman gods. I have sinned in the past, I have repented in the past, and I have been forgiven in the past because I professed both my sorrow and my firm resolution to mend my ways. I've confessed my sins to my pastor who gave me absolution acting in persona Christi in accordance with Jesus' instructions in John 20:23, "Whose sins you forgive they are forgiven, whose sins you retain, they are retained." 

So, if this is the case, why am I crowing about trusting in Jesus? I believe that all sin, no matter what sin we are speaking about, has its origin in a basic lack of trust in the providence of God.  We set up false god's because we don't trust in Him to give us all of the good things that we need. The best example we find in the Bible is that of Adam and Eve, they had everything they needed.  Yet they did not trust God enough to stay away from what was not allowed. In our world today we touch enough forbidden fruit to make a snazzy fruit salad!  We kill children in the womb in the interest of making our own life easier.  Our families are but a shadow what they were in previous generations.  We do not take care of our children,  we put them in day-care and put their early nurturing into the hands of strangers because we are afraid that the sacrifice of caring for them will cost us too much financially and our lives will be less comfortable than they could be.  We do not honor our father and mother anymore but we send them to nursing homes where strangers care for them on a daily basis and we console ourselves that this was for their own good while it makes our life easier.  In previous generations parents would be cared for and loved in person by their sons and daughters.  We steal, we cheat, we look to take advantage of our neighbors, we envy and allow greed to control our lives.  I think you get the idea here. Each sin we commit or cause to come into being by omitting a good demonstrates a lack of trust in Jesus. 

We have to Trust in Jesus.  We have to repent and flee to Him for He wants us with Him. There is good news here.  THE MERCY OF JESUS IS GREATER BY AN INFINITE FACTOR COMPARED TO OUR SINS!  There is no need for a soul to choose hell over heaven.  Whatever we have done or failed to do we can throw ourselves on the mercy of Jesus and we will be forgiven. Think of some of the most terrible people on history.  Do you realize that in their last moment they may have converted in their heart and begged for forgiveness and thus became eligible to an eternity in heaven?  St. Stalin?  St. bin Laden?  don't laugh, while it is improbable you have to admit that it is possible. 

Every sin on our soul is important, those small white lies, stealing that box of paperclips, walking past the beggar, going to the game rather than to worship all these sins are important and if you don't think that they are, then simply look at a crucifix: 

Do you see the Man on the cross? He died for YOU in reparation for the sins you committed.  He died for perpetrators of the Holocaust, for the people ensnared in ISIS, for the child that disobeys his parents, for the young girl who had an abortion, for the man who stole the paperclips from his employer.  The arms of Jesus were stretched out on the cross for every human that ever lived and for every human that will live after our turn on earth is done.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus in an inexhaustible well of mercy that was and is being poured out on His children.  The nails were not needed because Jesus would have held himself on the Cross because of His great love for us, his children. 

The time to rely on the Divine Mercy is NOW.  If we refuse the Divine Mercy, committing the one sin that cannot be forgiven, the refusal of God's mercy, than be ready for eternal darkness, sorrow and suffering. But, if we accept the Divine Mercy, make a firm commitment to repent, now our sins will be forgiven and we will be shown to our place in Heaven next to others who will love God and be with Him forever. 

Challenge:  Remember my Protestant friends, I am waiting for you to tell me where the Catholic Church is wrong and why I should convert to your denomination.  So far, no one has been brave enough to take on the challenge.  I will take on all comers.  Bring your evidence that the Church is wrong and that Protestantism is the way to go.   I am waiting, ready and willing.   

The Body and Blood of Christ

Today is the feast of Corpus Christi, or in English, The Body of Christ.  I've already written about the Eucharist in a previous blog page but today is a special day and I have to take a moment and express my love for the Precious Body and Blood of Jesus that we receive in a real way in Holy Communion.  


The Catholic Church, in fact the whole world up until the 1500's acknowledged that Jesus was present in the Eucharist in a real way and that the Mass was where Christians would gather and unite with the Lord in a very intimate and special way.  


Where do we get the idea that Jesus is really present in the sacred species?  We get it from John who wrote down the very word of Jesus:

"I am the bread of life; whoever

comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will

never thirst."

Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say to you, unless

you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do

not have life within you.

 Whoever eats  my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal

life, and I will raise him on the last day.

 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.

 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me

and I in him.

The words of Jesus convey the necessity of eating His Body and drinking His Blood as a requirement for having His life within you, He could not have made it any clearer. 

The Christ of the Eucharist is the Resurrected, Triumphant Christ who will reign forever.  In greatest humility, I thank the Lord for becoming bread for me so that I might have his life within me.  At the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, when we Catholics sing that age old song;

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might,

Heaven and earth are full of your glory.

Hosanna in the highest.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Hosanna in the highest.

A veil is removed and we actually sing with the Angels and Saints as they glorify God, in effect, heaven comes to earth and we, through the Blessed Sacrament are One in Christ - we offer true worship, that is, worship in spirit and truth. 

Praise God from whom all blessing flow!