Miracles Are All Around Us!

First reading	Acts 9:31-42 ©

The churches grew and were filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit

The churches throughout Judaea, Galilee, and Samaria were now left in peace, building themselves up, living in the fear of the Lord, and filled with the consolation of the Holy Spirit.

  Peter visited one place after another and eventually came to the saints living down in Lydda. There he found a man called Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years. Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ cures you: get up and fold up your sleeping mat.’ Aeneas got up immediately; everybody who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they were all converted to the Lord.

  At Jaffa, there was a woman disciple called Tabitha, or Dorcas in Greek, who never tired of doing good or giving in charity. But the time came when she got ill and died, and they washed her and laid her out in a room upstairs. Lydda is not far from Jaffa, so when the disciples heard that Peter was there, they sent two men with an urgent message for him, ‘Come and visit us as soon as possible.’

  Peter went back with them straight away, and on his arrival they took him to the upstairs room, where all the widows stood around him in tears, showing him tunics and other clothes Dorcas had made when she was with them. Peter sent them all out of the room and knelt down and prayed. Then he turned to the dead woman and said, ‘Tabitha, stand up.’ She opened her eyes, looked at Peter and sat up. Peter helped her to her feet, then he called in the saints and widows and showed them she was alive. The whole of Jaffa heard about it and many believed in the Lord.

Whenever there is an abundance of something we tend to take it for granted.  For example, we want to go somewhere in our car.  We get in and see that the gas gauge shows almost empty so we go to the gas station and fill up with gas.  We don't think about it, we just go and get it.  Go back a few years now to when the Arabs were angry because the U.S. was supporting Israel and they slowed down the amount of oil that they were sending us which meant that we could not make as much gasoline and that caused lines at the gas pumps.  We realized at that moment that we were being held hostage by OPEC.  Gasoline was now rationed.  Depending on your license number you could buy gasoline on even or odd numbered days.  On Sunday, all stations, nationwide, were closed. On the days you could drive you were mandated to save gasoline on the highway, we were limited to 55 miles per hour maximum.  This limit, which was pretty much ignored, was supposed to save gasoline.  So, you see that an abundance led to indifference and a shortage led to concern and conservation. 

Every day we can, if we look, see miracles around us. The issue is not the lack of miracles which requires much study and interpretation to see one but rather recognizing them as abundant and as gifts from our Father in heaven.  The very fact that you are drawing breath and able to see things around you is a miracle.  Life itself in all of its forms is a miracle.  The food we eat, the water we drink all came from the hand of God to sustain us. 

Our ancestors understood that their world was filled with miracles and they watched for them and thanked God for them daily.  A miracle is usually described as something that happened that did not have an explanation in nature.  Do you realize that using this definition we can consider electricity a miracle?  Sure, we know how to generate it, to distribute it, and to use it but scientists have never been able to define just what it is.  Electricity is, therefore, a miracle.  That would mean that everything that we use electric for is a miracle too!  Our smartphone could not exist without the humble electron so perhaps the smartphone is a miracle too.  

I hope you see my point. God has provided us with a wonderful world, full of miracles to help us live our lives in a better and more comfortable fashion.  It follows that when we take advantage of the miracles we find in the world that we should use them not only to enrich our lives but we should make it point to be a miracle for those in less fortunate circumstances than we are. 

You and I are walking miracles.  Inside of us is a soul that will never ever die.  We, humans, have the capacity to feel the joys and sorrows of other people.  We can empathize, which means we can share in the feelings of others.  When we do this we can reach into our resources and be of help to others.  Other occupants of this planet such as animal life normally cannot do this.

So today, think of yourself as a miracle, as the beloved of God the Father who has been so very generous to you in so many ways.  Before you eat or drink, think and thank God for what you are about to do, it is a miracle.  Before you start your labor for the day, think and thank God for you are about to do is a miracle.  And today resolve that you, an ambulating, talking miracle will not keep the joy of God's love to yourself.  Distribute miracles as you walk through life, it is why you are here! 

Lent - Day Twelve - Between Heaven And Earth

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH

Second reading Philippians 3:17-4:1 © Our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes Christ to transfigure us My brothers, be united in following my rule of life. Take as your models everybody who is already doing this and study them as you used to study us. I have told you often, and I repeat it today with tears, there are many who are behaving as the enemies of the cross of Christ. They are destined to be lost. They make foods into their god and they are proudest of something they ought to think shameful; the things they think important are earthly things. For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the savior we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which he can subdue the whole universe. So then, my brothers and dear friends, do not give way but remain faithful in the Lord. I miss you very much, dear friends; you are my joy and my crown. This morning we almost had a tragedy and it was just the luck of the Irish that kept it from happening.  One of the brothers whose turn it was to make breakfast started the fire which had gone out during the night.  He went over to the bag which held the cooking utensils and noticed that it had not been sealed properly the night before.  He opened it and reached in and got the coffee pot and the pot used for making cereal.  As was his custom he grabbed a towel and was going to dust the inside of the pot but something made him look inside it first.  Inside was one of the deserts most fearsome creatures, a deathstalker scorpion had taken up residence there during the night my companion was just inches away from getting what could be a lethal injection of the neurotoxin that this delightful desert creature uses to kill its prey.  The tiny beast was ready and willing to dispense a jolt of his special elixir but to his credit, the man holding the pot did not panic.  Instead, he went to the edge of camp and catapulted the creature out of the pot as hard as he could.  The little guy had an experience most deathstalkers do not receive, the experience of flight!  Now, in spite of the colorful name of this creature, death to a healthy human, while not unheard of, is unlikely if they are stung by this scorpion.  From what victims say it is not an act of mercy to survive the sting as the potent venom causes great pain.  Children and the elderly are most vulnerable but it is considered a medical emergency if you are stung by one of these and in our present situation, medical help and the antivenom that is required is so far away that any dying that the victim would be doing would be done by the time any help could arrive.  So it was on this cheery note that our day began and in our morning prayers, we thanked God that our friend was spared the agony of a sting from this scorpion. After breakfast, as usual, we broke camp but it took a bit longer because we were carefully checking to make sure that the little fella hadn't brought any friends of his own.  No other examples of this miniature death machine were found and as the sun rose above the horizon, we began our trek.  While walking today, I began thinking of death but not death itself with all of the pains that might be attached to it but rather what happens after death. Physically, once the blood stops pumping your body begins it's the journey back into the elements that it is made of.  Tissues break down and in no time the only thing left of bodies that are not specially embalmed such as the Egyptians of old will be our bones.  And years from now, even those bones will return to dust.  All that was "me" will be gone.  The flesh that I work so hard to keep animated, the brain that fuels my thoughts and emotions will be no more.  Yet, through this all, I survive not as a memory on a tombstone with a date of birth and date of death and if I were rich enough some clever saying to mark my time on earth. What will remain of me is any of the good that I accomplished.  My mark will not be a long obituary story nor a small death notice.  My mark will be the seeds of love I planted while I, a body and a soul, walked and talked on this earth.  My soul will be in heaven.  I will be next to those I love and those that love me and we will glorify God together in songs of worship and praise.   This reward, this new life after death is as certain as gravity and as we are counter-culture people, our ways will receive persecution for "forward thinking" men and women who only can see what is in front of them and who take no notice of God, His laws, and His rewards.  They will be furious when we point out that their way of life is contrary to the Word of God.  They will tell us to follow our God in our own way and to leave them alone.  If that was only possible.  They do not live and let live as they want us to do, they pursue through the rule of law to make their rights to sinful things the law of the land.  They will do all that they can to enforce their rights while limiting ours.  But these people who are the most pitiful creature on earth are the enemies of Christ and the Cross. They existed at the time of Christ, at the time of the early Church, at the time of the great revolt of the Protestants, and exist until today.  Our Church is built on rock and in spite of the scandals of the moment it will survive and thrive because Jesus said so.  Paul tells us that our real homeland is in heaven.  We cannot keep silent about this because God wants a bountiful harvest and wants as many as possible to join Him in the never-ending feast. So, stir up your spirit, gird your loins and announce the Good News by the way you live and by the people you love.

Don't Mess With Gabriel !

Do not be afraid, Zechariah,
because your prayer has been heard. 
Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son,
and you shall name him John. 
And you will have joy and gladness,
and many will rejoice at his birth,
for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. 
He will drink neither wine nor strong drink. 
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's womb, and he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God. He will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah to turn the hearts of fathers toward children and the disobedient to the understanding of the righteous,                to prepare a people fit for the Lord."  Then Zechariah said to the angel, "How shall I know this?  For I am an old man, and my wife is advanced in years."  And the angel said to him in reply, "I am Gabriel, who stand before God. I was sent to speak to you and to announce to you this good news. But now you will be speechless and unable to talk until the day these things take place, which will be fulfilled at their proper time." Meanwhile, the people were waiting for Zechariah and were amazed that he stayed so long in the sanctuary. But when he came out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He was gesturing to them but remained mute. Then, when his days of ministry were completed, he went home. 

Zechariah was of the priestly family and as such he was entitled, once in his lifetime, to enter the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem and to polish the huge bunch of grapes cast in gold that adorned the holiest place in the ancient world.  It was a task that would have filled him with awe and reverence and great joy.  The Holy of Holies was where God dwelled and he could be no closer to God than there.  As it happened his work was interrupted by Gabriel who was sent by God to announce to the elder priest that he and his older wife were now to have a child who would be the Elijah, the precursor for the Messiah that everyone was waiting for.  Instead of just saying, "Amen and okey-dokey" he questioned Gabriel, telling him, "Gabe, I am an old man and my wife is past childbearing years..."  Gabriel did not take kindly to his questioning so Zechariah was struck mute until after the child was born.  The angel left, Zechariah finished his work and came out of the Holy of Holies.  The people waiting for him were astonished at how long he was in there.   I guess the rules were, "In and Out." and to be as quick as you could.  They asked him, "Hey Zech, what gives, why did you take so long?"  But of course, he could not answer.  While his fellow priests did not know what happened, they knew it was something unusual, to say the least.  Zechariah, his work finished, went home and found that his wife was indeed now expecting a child.  He must have been astounded at the turn of events in his life but he was still unable to speak.  Don't mess with Gabriel! 

We humans often forget that God is not bound by the barriers of time and space.  He lives in all times and places, past, present, and future all at the same time. For God, those things we would consider impossible remain very possible for God.  As daughters and sons of the God of the universe, we should remember this in our daily life.  We can pray for a miracle if we need one and if this miracle will serve to help us make it to heaven, then it will be granted.  On the other hand, sometimes the miracle is that we receive the grace to accept the will of God as it has been shown to us.  One way or another you will always receive when you ask with a humble heart, but you have to be ready to accept what is given.  Open your heart to the wisdom of God and He will overfill it with the grace to be a faithful son or daughter, worthy of and destined to be a saint in heaven.  That is why we have this time on earth and why our Father will always help in the way that best serves his desire for us which is Heaven.  

As we clean and decorate our houses to receive the Christ Child, we should remember the poor souls in Purgatory.  We can play a big part in their early release.  Say this prayer, the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great for the holy souls.  Jesus promised her that every time this prayer is devoutly recited that one-thousand souls would be released from Purgatory.  Say this prayer today and rescue and make one-thousand eternal friends! 

“Eternal Father,
I offer You the most precious blood   
of thy Divine Son, Jesus,
in union with the Masses said
throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
for sinners everywhere,
for sinners in the universal Church,
for those in my own home,
and in my family. Amen

If You Can't See, Well then Climb a Tree!

At that time Jesus came to Jericho and intended to pass through the town.

Now a man there named Zacchaeus,

who was a chief tax collector and also a wealthy man, 

was seeking to see who Jesus was;

but he could not see him because of the crowd,

for he was short in stature. 

So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree in order to see Jesus,

who was about to pass that way.c

When he reached the place, Jesus looked up and said, 

"Zacchaeus, come down quickly,

for today I must stay at your house." 

And he came down quickly and received him with joy. 

When they saw this, they began to grumble, saying, 

"He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner." 

But Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord,

"Behold, half of my possessions, Lord, I shall give to the poor,

and if I have extorted anything from anyone

I shall repay it four times over."

And Jesus said to him,

"Today salvation has come to this house

because this man too is a descendant of Abraham. 

For the Son of Man has come to seek

and to save what was lost."

Today we read the story of Zacchaeus a man of some importance in the town of Jerricho.  The town of Jerricho was an important place because it was from this area that balsam was exported.  Balsam was used to make a rare perfume known as the Balm of Gilead. It was used by young women to attract eligible young men but it also was used to anoint the heads of some of the kings of Israel when the oil that was normally used was not available.  It was said that Jerricho was the only place one could get the genuine balsam.  The product was, therefore, considered very valuable and the Romans stationed a trusted tax-gatherer in this town so not one denarius of tax would escape the emperor's treasury.  The man that they put in place was Zacchaeus who is called a man of small stature.  To be blunt, he was short.  His name in Hebrew means "innocent" or "pure" which is kind of ironic since his chosen occupation was most certainly looked down upon by the people.  Israel could never get used to being subjects of another country.  The Romans were seen as invaders. The Romans for their part did their best to keep the situation calm in this small backwater of the empire, going even so far as to circulate coins that did not depict Caesar on them for the Jews would not even touch those coins as they believed that they were against the commandment of God.  The Romans even put local people in charge of collecting the taxes due to the empire.  They felt that payment would be made with less fuss if a local citizen was in charge of collecting the payment.  They told their collectors how was was due and it was the job of the collector to provide that amount of money to the treasury of Rome.  The people saw it just a bit differently.  They saw the tax collector as a collaborator of Rome, as a sinful man and he enjoyed only the company of other sinners.  Since they were not considered worthy of being friends and neighbors to their friends and neighbors, the tax collectors typically extracted more from the people then was actually due.  These extra funds, to which the Romans turned a blind eye, went to line the pockets of the tax-collectors and many of them were made very wealthy indeed. 

So, here we have Zacchaeus, a despised man who is very short.  He wanted to see Jesus but he could not because he was too short and I would imagine that the people lining the streets did their best to keep the hated puppet of Rome in the back of the line and for once not getting his way.  It must have been a bit of sport for the crowd to irritate the tax man in this manner.  Now, Zacchaeus could have handled this in two ways.  First, he could have just given up, cursing the day he was born a short man.  Second, which is the way he took, he could take his lemons and make lemonade with them!  He rushed ahead and climbed a tree, so great was his desire to see Jesus.  Jesus noticed him and told him that he meant to have dinner with him that day.  Can you imagine how Zacchaeus felt?  He must have been almost giddy with joy.  The people in the town hated him for what he did for a living but the Jesus would come and dine with him.  He made the arrangements and a lavish feast was prepared. In a moment of inspiration, he repented of his sin and told the Lord that he would give half of his possessions to the poor and repay those he had defrauded four-fold.  Jesus saw the goodness in this mans heart and told him that as of this day, salvation had entered the house of Zacchaeus.

What can we learn from this story?  I think that we should always be ready to do whatever is necessary to get closer to Jesus.  If we do this and if we repent of our sins He will come into our homes and stay with us.  No one is so evil that they cannot repent.  While life flows through our veins we are given the opportunity to do what is needed to be a friend of Jesus.  Climb the tree today, the view from the top is magnificent! 

Every Tear Will Be Wiped Away

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers and sisters,

about those who have fallen asleep,

so that you may not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 

For if we believe that Jesus died and rose,

so too will God, through Jesus,

bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 

Indeed, we tell you this, on the word of the Lord,

I have been present at both the deaths of my mother and my father.  They died eighteen years apart, my mother in nineteen-ninety and my father in two-thousand eight.  My mother died young, at age sixty-four and my father at eighty-seven years of age.  Both slipped from this world to the next without much trauma, they went peacefully.  In both cases, I cried but when my mother died I went into what I now know was depression.  My sorrow at the passing of my father was just as great as when my mother passed but I was older and was able to deal with it better.  Death will happen in all families.  Just as sure as there is a God that loves us, there is the certainty of death. 

I do not want to bust up your Sunday and bring you down to consider the ultimate facts of life and death.  I want to encourage you to remember that the death of one we loved is not an ending but rather it is a new beginning.  We are assured that we will meet those that we have loved in the afterlife and we will be together again. More than that, at the end of time, we will not be disembodied spirits but we will have our bodies back and they will no longer be subject to decay and disease. They will be resurrected bodies that will be recognizable as our own but endowed with miraculous powers.

Then there is where we will be. We cannot imagine what heaven will be like. It will be a place where love reigns and there will be no tears of sorrow ever again.  Sickness will be something that no longer exists.  The aches and pains we suffer today will forever be gone.  The light will forever be bright in heaven because it's source will be from the holiness of God.  The rich people of the planet earth live in great splendor here where rust and moth take their toll.  For us, there will be the mansion built by Jesus Himself for us and it will be grander and more beautiful than any dwelling place ever constructed on earth because it will be built just for us! 

Today, all around us, are people who are closer to death than we are.  Some are in hospital or hospice counting the days, hours, or minutes until their destiny is wrought.  Or they have received word from their doctor that there is nothing more to be done and that they should plan for the end.  There are those that are afraid and are holding on to what they know with grim determination and grasping at torturous medical procedures in the vain hope of prolonging their life.  There are those also who are but moments or even seconds away from their encounter with eternity and with God.  We have to pray for all of these people.  We have to pray that they are given the help they need to accept God's invitation to experience eternity to not hold foolishly to the things of time but to embrace the things of eternity.  Each of them is beloved by God and no matter what kind of life they have lived, they will all have a final chance to claim their birthright as a son or daughter of the Great King in that final moment.  For those who have lived their lives in a worthy manner who have loved God above all, the choice will be simple, sweet, joyful, and immediate. For those who are still attached to the world, who carry with them the burden of sin, forgiveness will there for the asking, but many will choose to remain mute before the great judge because their guilt, their sinfulness, their rejection of the graces that were sent them will be self-evident and they will move away from the light of Christ towards the everlasting darkness.  Others, who are aware that they are not yet ready to stand in heaven will choose to purify themselves in Purgatory.  There they will have the joy of knowing for certain that in the future they will experience the joy of heaven when they are cleansed of the effects of sin and from attachments to worldly things.  That joy will never be taken away from them.

So today, my friends, make it a point to pray for all of those among us who are at a point in their life where they approach a crossroads. Pray that all of them experience a peaceful and joyful death and that those among them that need to accept the final chance that God will give them.  It will be a tough choice to turn away from a life filled with hate for the Holy but it can be done.  And for our friends and relatives in Purgatory, pray for them too.  Remember, as they are, you might someday be. 

This Is What Being A Christian Is All About

Yesterday's readings defined for us what Church is. Today's readings define how we are to treat one another as members of this Church.  In the first reading for this Sunday, we are told to treat everyone with kindness, not to abuse immigrants, not to take advantage of widows and orphans and not to take advantage of others with the example of usury being given as one thing not to do.  God also tells us that if we abuse widows and orphans that His wrath will rise up and make our relatives widows and orphans.  In the Gospel reading, Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is.  He rightfully quotes the first commandment, we are commanded to love God and he quotes the second commandment, we are to love our neighbor not just a little bit, but as we love ourselves.  Jesus tells us that in these two commandments is the whole of the law of God. The eight remaining commandments tell us exactly how we are to execute the requirements that God has given us. 

It is not easy to perfectly follow the ten commandments.  The old testament Hebrews were always finding themselves at odds with one or another of the commands.  Their solution was to flesh out the commandments of God with more and more rules to follow.  They would split hairs and split them again. They had rules for everything.  For example, they had the rule that no one could walk further than two-thousand cubits on the Sabbath. That meant that you could walk about two-thirds of a mile.  The intent of this rule was two-fold.  First, it kept the Sabbath as a day of rest and secondly, it kept you close to the temple or synagogue so that you could spend your time wisely.  Even today in Israel the modern Jews can be very scrupulous when it comes to rest on the Sabbath.  Elevators stop on every floor of a high rise so they do not have to push a button for that is considered work.  Some families hire non-Jewish help for the Sabbath so that lights can be turned on or off for the act of making a spark would be considered work. 

Now that is how we humans are.  We have a tendency to take things that are simple and turn them into things that can be incredibly complex. That is okay, I guess, because some of the rules and regulations we have to follow, both religious and non-religious have to be fleshed out some so that what is expected at minimum is known to all.  But, if the truth is to be known, if we work on the first two commandments, if we truly set out sights on observing them as perfectly as we can, then the whole of the law of God will be observed because if we are doing all to love God and love our neighbor, we will not be doing the other things that the commandments forbid. Perhaps the law can be made even simpler as elsewhere in scripture it is written that we should do unto others what we would have them do unto us.   That is what being a follower of Jesus is all about.  What Jesus wants from us is to show the same love to others as He has shown to us.  He went to the cross as a victim, taking our place and paying our penalty.  We are to imitate Him and carry our cross and bear the burdens of others as best as we can. What we cannot carry on our own, He will help us carry.  

Who is Closest to Jesus?

"My mother and my brothers 

are those who hear the word of God and act on it."

What are we to make of this saying of Jesus?  He is informed that His mother and brothers can't get past the crowd to see Him.  He does not yell, "Make way for my mother and brothers to enter."  No, instead he says, ""My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."

Is He disrespecting His mother?  No, He is reminding us that we are as close as His mother to Him if we follow Him and if we pick up our cross daily and follow Him.  Following Christ makes us part of His family and that is what he is telling us today. 

PLEASE REMEMBER TO PRAY FOR THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY. THEY NEED YOUR HELP AND WILL NOT FORGET YOU IN YOUR TIME OF NEED. 

He's Gotta Be Kidding, Right?

Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.

The vengeful will suffer the LORD's vengeance, for he remembers their sins in detail.

Forgive your neighbor's injustice;

then when you pray, your own sins will be forgiven.

Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the LORD?

Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins?

If one who is but flesh cherishes wrath, who will forgive his sins?

remember your last days, set enmity aside;  remember death and decay, and cease from sin!   

Think of the commandments, hate not your neighbor; remember the Most High's covenant, and overlook faults.

                                                                                                                       

Oh My Goodness ! What I am to  make of this reading from the book of Sirach?  This spells out something that is quite hard for me to do and it spells it out in simple terms that even a two figure I.Q. person like me can understand!  God expects me to forgive and not to take vengeance against someone who hurt me!  There has to be a loophole somewhere.  I know, this is from the Old Testament, that's it! Forget about this, I am covered by the New Testament. What do you mean this subject is also covered in the New Testament?    

Peter approached Jesus and asked him,

"Lord, if my brother sins against me,

how often must I forgive?

As many as seven times?" 

Jesus answered, "I say to you, not seven times but seventy-seven times. 

That is why the kingdom of heaven may be likened to a king

who decided to settle accounts with his servants. 

When he began the accounting,

a debtor was brought before him who owed him a huge amount. 

Since he had no way of paying it back,

his master ordered him to be sold,

along with his wife, his children, and all his property,

in payment of the debt. 

At that, the servant fell down, did him homage, and said,

'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back in full.'

Moved with compassion the master of that servant

let him go and forgave him the loan. 

When that servant had left, he found one of his fellow servants

who owed him a much smaller amount. 

He seized him and started to choke him, demanding,

'Pay back what you owe.'

Falling to his knees, his fellow servant begged him,

'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.'

But he refused. 

Instead, he had the fellow servant put in prison

until he paid back the debt. 

Now when his fellow servants saw what had happened,

they were deeply disturbed, and went to their master

and reported the whole affair. 

His master summoned him and said to him, 'You wicked servant! 

I forgave you your entire debt because you begged me to. 

Should you not have had pity on your fellow servant,

as I had pity on you?'

Then in anger his master handed him over to the torturers

until he should pay back the whole debt. 

So will my heavenly Father do to you,

unless each of you forgives your brother from your heart."

Oh My Goodness !  It looks like I am trapped!  I am charged with forgiving my fellow servants if I am to expect God to forgive me.  How can I do this?  Doesn't God understand just how deeply I was hurt and how grave the offense against me was?   

As I have gone through life, I have acquired hurts and scars and painful endings.  Outside the person that the world sees appears to be as strong as steel but inside the hurts have accumulated and have become very heavy on my back. These things have affected me and my thoughts in ways that would astound and frighten the child of God that lives inside of me. This child of God can turn into a mean spirited brat child seeking only the self satisfaction that payback for the hurts afflicted on him which will lead me away from God and into sin.  

I am commanded by God to forgive those who have injured me. I am to release all of the negativity that we are carrying around in my soul.  God indeed knows how deep the hurts have penetrated my very soul.  He is also aware of the gravity of the offense committed against me and he still insists that I grant pardon to my fellow creatures.  If I do this He will not consider the gravity of the offenses I committed against Him.  He will forget the injuries I have heaped up against Him as I thoughtlessly have gone through life and He will cast memories of my sins so far away that they will be remembered no more.  

On the other hand, if I insist on my way, if I insist on attaining complete satisfaction from those who hurt me, then He will insist on in immediate payment in full when I stand before Him on my judgement day.  On that day I will stand before God naked and afraid and without the means to pay my debts to Him. He will deal with me as I dealt with my fellow humans on earth and hand me over to the torturers until I have paid the last penny of my debt. 

Friends, this is serious stuff. Your whole eternity hinges on how you love and how you forgive. Face the facts.  The sins committed against you pale compared to the sins you committed against God.  We must forgive in our hearts those that have done us wrong. 

  

THAT DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE TO GO BACK TO THAT PERSON  FOR ANOTHER HELPING OF THE OFFENSE.  It is not expected, for example, for a wife who has been beaten by a husband to return to him to make forgiveness complete. We just need to be like God to those who offend us and forgive and forget and leave vengeance to God's care. Clear your heart of all hate and resentment. Grant pardon even to those who don't deserve it. If you can't do it yourself then give it all to the Lord to handle for you. He is the expert, He will help you do this, and He will heal you and welcome you to be with Him forever in heaven. 

THE POOR SOULS IN PURGATORY WOULD BE FOREVER GRATEFUL TO YOU IF YOU OFFERED A PRAYER FOR THEM THIS DAY. PLEASE PRAY FOR MEMBERS OF YOUR FAMILY THAT MAY BE THERE AND PLEASE PRAY FOR THE SOUL THAT HAS BEEN THERE THE LONGEST AND HAS NO ONE TO PRAY FOR HIM OR HER.

What's behind the elevator's door is important

"A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and in his own ouse."

 And he did not work many mighty deeds there because of their lack of faith.

We take a lot for granted in this life.  For example, you have faith that when the elevator door opens for you to get in, that the elevator will actually be there and you will not be entering the shaft.  We have faith that the traffic signals are working as designed even though we can only see the ones pointed in our direction.  We have faith that our bank is not going to steal the money we have placed into our account and unless you were a customer of Wells Fargo, you were right to trust your bank.  We assume that things are as they are because they always had been that way before.  In other words, we believe in the evidence of our experience.  This works very well for us and makes life simpler.  Can you imagine what life would be like if you could not depend on these simple man made things?

In our reading today, Jesus is in His hometown and the people who were most familiar with Him and His family could not understand where He got the powers He had from.  They watched Him grow up and they knew His mom and dad and his relatives.  He was no one special when He lived among them. Their everyday experience of Jesus made them unable to have faith in Him and without faith, Jesus was unable to work many miracles among them.  Lack of faith will make us immune to much of what God wants to do for us. If we lack faith it follows that we lack trust and if we do not trust God, we trust ourselves more.  We have to abandon trust in ourselves and embrace trust in God.  If we open ourselves to God, there is no limit to what He can do to and for us.  

Be aware that it is not that God is unable to break through, it is because he is polite enough to allow us to have our way and is patient enough to wait until we are ready to the display the faith that comes from deep within our souls. 

DO YOU WANT TO MAKE A FOREVER FRIEND?  PRAY FOR THE POOR SOUL IN PURGATORY WHO HAS BEEN THERE THE LONGEST AND HAS NO ONE TO PRAY FOR HIM OR HER...YOU WILL BE GLAD YOU DID. 

Watermelon

"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;   
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest."

My Dad was a good man. He had two missions in life, the first was to take care of his family and the second was to tend his garden.  His garden was his pride and joy.  He grew beefsteak tomatoes the size of a clincher softball and his radishes were huge.  I love tomatoes, not so much the radishes. Every day during the summer he would come home from work and immediately go out to work in the garden.  One year, he had me and my two sisters plant some watermelon seeds in a patch of ground between the sidewalk and the neighbor's fence line, a space of about eight inches.  The three of us became gardeners for the rest of the summer.  We watered the little patch, made sure no weeds grew and carefully took care of the plants that would produce these wonderful watermelons.  It was getting close to the start of school. The parish carnivals had come and gone and still no watermelon.  We continued to tend the plants and one day, there they were, three watermelons had appeared where just that morning there had been only the promise of fruit in the future.  We were amazed.  Dad had us harvest the three melons, each just big enough for one child. Using a magic marker he placed our names on the melon and we carried our precious product to Mom who put them in the refrigerator to chill down.  The melons made a wonderful desert that day at dinner time.  

Our reading today is about the lack of workers tending the fields of our heavenly Father.  There was a time when a parish had three, four, or even five priests to take care of the local Catholic community.  I remember as a kid, going to Saturday confession and all four of the confessional boxes were in use. There was also a time when in a family if a boy or girl felt called to a Christian vocation, it was a matter of great pride for the family and they young people were encouraged to listen to the voice of the Lord.  

In contrast, I look at what happened to me when I announced that I felt a calling to the religious life.  My family let out a collective yawn and did not exactly encourage me.  Well, I went and tried religious life and as you know, after two years, I returned home.  I think back on those days, which were some of the richest and most joyous days of my life surpassed only by the day I married the lovely Mary my wife and partner in life. But, I wonder if I would have stayed had I received any encouragement from the home front?   This was in the 70's, a time when the Church was experiencing growing pains as we tried to unravel the wisdom that was Vatican II.  We still are working through that council.  

Today, some parishes are served by a single priest who divides his time among several parishes.  In parts of the United States deacons celebrate communion services on Sundays using communion consecrated by the priest that comes once a month.  People in these areas are dying without receiving the anointing of the sick or Viaticum.  We truly need more workers in the field. 

Some solutions are presented, for example, women priests is one thought.  The Church points out that both men and women have different jobs to do.  The role of the priest is reserved to the male of the species.  This is something that will not change.  We are told that we lack priests because of the rule of celibacy that they take on, that it is too hard for a man to live his life without the comfort of a woman to accompany him on the journey.  This is a discipline of the Church and it could be changed.  But, are the people in the pews ready to take on all it means to have a married clergy? A married clergy means that the priest will need to make a living wage so that he can take care of his family.  This would mean the weekly collections would have to go up so the parish could support a priest and his family.  The poor parishes would be at a disadvantage because they would not be able to afford to maintain a priest and his wife and a couple of children.  To be sure, there are already married priests in the Roman Catholic Church.  They have come over from Episcopal Churches, returning home to Rome.  They have been welcomed into the Church and have had their priesthood confirmed and they celebrate the Mass and the Sacraments as they enjoy the comfort of a family to accompany them.  

I do not know the answer to the lack of priests and religious in the Catholic world today. What I do know is that we have to encourage our young people to consider a religious vocation and we need to do it from an early age.  When I was growing up, there was no real talk in our home about the Church, we did not share family prayer and as a matter of fact, my father or mother did not go to church on Sunday, only us kids were sent to sit with our class at 9:15 AM mass. 

Jesus gives us the formula as to how to solve this crisis. He tells us to pray that the master of the harvest to send more workers out into the field, the harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  So, reserve just a little bit of your prayer time to pray for vocations.  Do you remember Mother Angelica on EWTN telling you to put her between your phone and electric bill, well when you pray put a prayer for our young people to answer the call of God between your prayers for Aunt Bertha and her bunions and Uncle Frank and his need for a job.  We need more priests, nuns, brothers, and deacons and we will get what we ask for and the harvest will be greater if we can encourage those with the call to listen to the voice of God as He calls them forth. 

Was He Kidding Or What?

Foreward:

There is no work as onerous as reinventing something that has already been invented, found to be useful and still does the job.  What follows is a reprise of a blog entry made several years ago on the Feast of Corpus Christi.  I was writing with passion that day and except for the addition of a comma here and an article there, I am reproducing it here.  Sometimes, and this is one of those occasions, I can't find anything to fix.  Praise to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  Corpus Christi 2017  Michael

For fifteen hundred years there was no conflict when it came to the Holy Eucharist.  The Church believed that it was the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ. Some of the "reformers" took issue with this, notably not the prototype heretic Luther who maintained that it was a sacramental union between Jesus and man.  Other reformers such as Calvin, Knox, and others believed it was only a symbolic memorial.

The Council of Trent at that time confirmed what everyone up until that time believed:

 Christ “instituted this Sacrament, in which He poured forth as it were the riches of divine love towards man” so that the Eucharist would be:

a remembrance, “to venerate His memory” and “show forth His death until He comes to judge the world.”

the “spiritual food of souls, whereby” He feeds and strengthens “those who live with His life.”

an “antidote, whereby we may be freed from daily faults [venial sins] and be preserved from mortal sins.”

a “pledge of our glory to come, and everlasting happiness”

a “symbol of that one body whereof He is the head, and to which He would fain have us as members be united by the closest bond of faith, hope, and charity…   Source: Laura McAlister

The Council of Trent like many councils was a reactionary council called to combat issues that came to because of the rebellion of Luther and the others.  Contrary to what some critics of the Church say the Council of Trent did not invent transubstantiation but rather codified what up until that time had been believed by everyone, everywhere.  I can see why today's Protestants would have trouble with the concepts codified by Trent.  The Council rightly defined the Eucharist as the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.  This position taken to its logical end proves the Catholic point and thus was bitterly contested by the "reformers."  But for the sake of this blog let us suspend the tenants of the Council of Trent and go to what the "reformers" claim is the only source of Christian Doctrine, the Bible itself.  Let us also restrict ourselves to what the founder of the Catholic Church, Jesus, Himself said about the Eucharist.  (Please supply quotation marks where you think they should go,,,)

While they were at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed and broke it, and gave to his disciples and said; Take and eat. This is My Body And taking the chalice, He gave thanks, and gave to them saying: Take and drink this.  For this is My Blood of the New Testament which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins.  (John 26: 26-28)

Amen, Amen, I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from Heaven, but my Father gives you the true Bread from Heaven.  For the Bread of God is that which comes down from Heaven and gives life to the world.

John 6:32, 33

I Am the Bread of life: He that comes to me shall not hunger and he that believes in Me shall never thirst.

John 6:35

I Am the Bread of Life. Your fathers did eat manna in the desert and are dead. This is the Bread which comes down from Heaven; that if any man eats of it, he may not die.  I Am the living bread which came down from Heaven.  If any man eats of this bread he shall live forever, and the Bread that I will give is my Flesh for the life of the world.

John 6: 48 - 52

Amen, Amen I say unto you: Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you.  He that eats my Flesh and drinks my Blood has everlasting life: and I will raise him up on the last day.

John 6: 54-55

For my Flesh is food indeed and my Blood is drink indeed.  He that eats my Flesh and drinks My Blood abides in Me and I in Him.  As the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eats me, the same shall live by Me. This is the Bread that came down from Heaven. Not as your Fathers did eat manna and are dead. He that eats this Bread, shall live for ever.

John 6:56-59

If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word and My Father will love him and We will come to him and will make Our abode with him.

John 14:23

From the above, we can see that Jesus considered the gift of His Body and Blood essential to salvation. The Doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is a hard thing for some people to believe. It was hard for the people in the time of Jesus.  In John chapter 6 verse 60 we read: " After hearing it, many of his followers said, 'This is intolerable language. How could anyone accept it?' Jesus does not say that He is only kidding, or what he said before should be taken as a symbol.  When he refuses to compromise or place a spin on what he said, the saddest moment of His life up until that time occurred because the people turned away and John says " After this, many of his disciples went away and accompanied him no more."  (John 6: 66) This too is what the "reformers" did or caused to happen among the poor souls that the clawed away from the Church.  They rejected the great gift of Jesus and just walked away, 

So, there you have it. The Blessed Sacrament is a gift that is misunderstood by some, laughed at by others, seen as a symbol, seen as a rite of passage, seen as something "you do."  The Blessed Sacrament is the union of Jesus and the recipient. You cannot get closer to God in this life than by receiving Him, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity into yourself.  If God can create the world in seven days from nothing, can He not also give us Himself in the form which appears to our senses as being bread and wine?  Does He not have the power and the will to do this?  If you say no then your God is too small.