Lent - Day Seven - It Was So Important That He Said It Twice!

Gospel	Matthew 6:7-15 ©

How to pray

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘In your prayers do not babble as the pagans do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard. Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him. So you should pray like this:

‘Our Father in heaven,

may your name be held holy,

your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as in heaven.

Give us today our daily bread.

And forgive us our debts, as we have forgiven those who are in debt to us.

And do not put us to the test,

but save us from the evil one.

‘Yes, if you forgive others their failings, your heavenly Father will forgive you yours; but if you do not forgive others, your Father will not forgive your failings either.’

We saw something strange in the desert today, dark rain clouds passed overhead, lightning sounded but the hot air from the desert floor ascending consumed the water before it could hit the ground. I am not even sure how this storm made it over the mountains,  On our side of the mountains, there is nothing but sun and sand like a never-ending beach but no water to sully the dry, lifeless, and hot sand. 

The day had been long and except for the ten or fifteen minutes of the "storm", the sun beat mercilessly down on us.  Every step was harder than the step before.  Everyone, except the Master, was on edge when we stopped to eat lunch. The meal was over and we were checking the camels, making sure that none of the bindings were chaffing and that the load remained balanced.   Two of my companions were checking Hercules who as usual was in a sour mood when it happened.  One of the men checked a strap by pulling on it and thus loosened it and immediately the whole load became unbalanced.  The Hercules, not a camel to suffer fools easily started to walk away and the whole load fell off the camel's back into the grit of the desert floor.  The man who had charge of the camel called the other a bloody fool and as men do he followed that up with curses, threats, and saber rattling and a description of the culprit's home life that was hard to believe.  The two began to fight. The Master came and after a moment He demanded that they stop.  Reluctantly, they separated.  One of the men had what looked to be a black eye and the other was bleeding from his nose and his upper lip. Hercules for his part was standing and peering at his masters and if a camel could chuckle, that is what he would be doing at this moment.  

The Master was not happy.  He told everyone to unload and set up the camp because we would go no further this day.  The Master walked off to be alone while what He commanded was completed.  When the camp was set, the Master came to where the fire would be built and summoned us and had us sit around as we would at night.  Except that doing this during the day was almost worse than walking through the sun.  We sat with the vain hope that our hats would protect us from the sun.  Once we were all assembled, with the two combatants separated on opposite ends of the circle, the Master joined us.  He stood near the center of the group and He looked at us with eyes that, for once, did not reveal the inner peace that dominated Him.  Rather, the eyes seemed to register concern for someone or something.  This look was as rare as a rainstorm in the desert. He stooped and picked up a handful of sand and examined it intently for a moment and then He addressed us. 

"Every man here volunteered to follow me on this journey.  Every one of you took on the responsibility for taking care of one another, looking out for the good and pushing away the bad.  What happened to us today is a symptom.  There is tension between us and that may interfere with our journey.  We are on our way to Jerusalem for reasons that have been explained to you already.  You need to keep the goal in mind and it seems we have lost that because of petty squabbling and now even fisticuffs.  The two who were fighting, arise and face one another. Now approach and each of you apologize to the other."

 One of the culprits refused.  The Master took it in stride, almost as if he expected this to happen.  He told them to sit down. He began walking around the circle and continued his talk.

"We pray a common prayer. We say "Our Father" which means that we are all brothers.  We are not strangers who pass each other in the night.  Look at the people around you.  When you get to heaven these faces and those of a million trillion others will be ones you see.  When you go to Church on Sunday, look at the people in the pews.  Among them are your companions in heaven.  Yes. the lady with the squealing baby, and yes, the man who is constantly playing with his smartphone, and even the family that arrives late to mass and leaves right after communion every week.  Besides your friends, besides the people you know and love, there will uncounted millions of people that will be brothers and sister to you.  But once again, let us look at our common prayer, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.  There! There it is!  Take heed of this sentence as you learn which is the hardest part of being one of my servants!  You must learn to forgive.  I was not kidding or exaggerating the need for you to forgive.  If you carry hate or bitterness in your heart for even one of your brothers or sisters, your entrance into heaven will be delayed or if your hate has hardened your heart so greatly, it may send you to be with the goats into everlasting torment. This fight that occurred today was minor and I know that it was caused by feelings of frustration and the uncomfortable heat we are dealing with during our journey.  But one bad word between friends can change the destiny of one or both of the brothers unless it is followed by an apology and a deeply felt need to right the wrong.  The devil looks for weakness. Imagine the dam at Aswan.  It is a marvel of human engineering.  But, all it takes is a small crack that is ignored by those whose job it is to tend the dam, and sooner or later, the dam will break and the loss of life will be great.  When you hate somebody, imagine if you will, that God's grace is in your soul protecting you and your brother insults you.  That is the crack in your dam and sooner or later the dam will burst, you will learn hate and your fate will be like that of the rich man who refused to feed Lazurus.   I say again, you must forgive those who hurt you.  In order to enter heaven, you must be a person of peace.  Now the two that were fighting, approach one another and settle this score at once." 

The two men walked towards one another.  One with his black eye showing beautifully against his tan skin and the other with a lip that seemed to be swollen twice as large as normal came together, embraced and when they dropped the embrace, each looked at the other, one pointing to a black eye and the other pointing to a split lip and they burst out laughing and took places next to one another in the circle.  The Master was pleased and he showed it with his warmest of smiles.  He left the circle and went to His tent. 

It Is God's Will

MARK 1: 40-45
A leper came to him and kneeling down begged  him and said,  "If you wish, you can make me clean."

Moved with pity, he stretched out his hand,
touched the leper, and said to him, 
"I do will it. Be made clean."
Leprosy left him immediately, and he was made clean.
Then, warning him sternly, he dismissed him at once.
Then he said to him, "See that you tell no one anything,
but go, show yourself to the priest
and offer for your cleansing what Moses prescribed;
that will be proof for them."
The man went away and began to publicize the whole matter.
He spread the report abroad
so that it was impossible for Jesus to enter a town openly.
He remained outside in deserted places,
and people kept coming to him from everywhere.

We have no idea what it meant to be a leper in the time of Jesus. First of all, many different skin conditions could be considered leprosy some of which were not.  The people of the time thought that leprosy was very contagious and so a person with a suspected case was cut off from his community. He was fated to live a life outside the family that loved him and he was forbidden to even come close to the temple or synagogue and that for an observant Jew was the worst thing about the condition, he was cut off from Yahweh's people.  Worse than that, the common belief was that he was being punished for some sin that he or one of his ancestors committed so he was not the target for any sympathy from the populace.  

The leper in our story had heard of Jesus and how he had been able to cure some people. It was hard for him but he presented himself to Jesus and prostrated himself and said that if Jesus would will him to be clean, he would be clean.  Jesus was moved with great pity and noted the man's humility and faith and told him that it was His will that he be cured. The man was immediately cured and Jesus asked him not to make a big deal about it and told him just to make the required thank offering at the temple as Moses had commanded but the man spread news of his cure far and wide. 

There is a terrible disease that is affecting a lot of people today.  It is not a pretty disease and it ravages those that have like no other plague ever seen by man on this earth. It is a killer disease and is one-hundred percent fatal to those who refuse treatment for it, and many do refuse because they think that they are healthy.  The disease is self-righteousness which is afflicting many of us.  We have lost the sense of sin in our lives.  Some of us delude ourselves in thinking that our life is one in which we have defeated sin and we are blameless before God and man.  This spiritual myopia is a quite curable if we want it to be cured.  All we need to do is to take the medicine that has been offered by Jesus. For us Catholics, we need to sit back and examine our conscience after asking the Holy Spirit to reveal our sins.  An honest review is the first step. Our leper friend knew he was a leper when he approached Jesus, we must know and acknowledge that we are sinners as we approach Him.  Then what?  Do we pray to Jesus asking for forgiveness?  Sure, why not?  But we must not stop at this point.  We must, with all humility, face our sins, face to face with Jesus and His Church in the sacrament of reconciliation.  It is here that we receive the forgiveness of Jesus for sure and forever. Here too we receive the wisdom on how to avoid committing sins again, and it is here that we prayerfully express our sorrow and receive the forgiveness of Christ and His Church.  Why do we need the forgiveness of His Church? This is because no sin is committed that does not affect the Body of Christ in some way, shape, or form.  We sin in community and the community forgives us and we heal the brokenness of our relationship with Christ and His community. 

Confession? Is this really necessary?  Verbalizing our faults will make us own them and let us see we are not as perfect as we had thought ourselves to be.  We will begin to see us as God sees us and because we have humbly expressed our sorrow and asked to be made clean, just like the leper, we will be welcomed back into the community and we will take our place as a follower of Christ. 

Sin can be forgiven in the confessional and that restores the relationship between us and God. What remains is the effect of sin on our soul.  The poor souls in Purgatory are saved by Christ's death on the cross and will attain heaven. What they are doing in Purgatory is removing the attachments to sin that may be left on the soul. They need our prayers.  Please pray for them today. So many are there who have no one to pray for them.  Say this prayer for them today:

According to tradition, St. Gertrude the Great was told by Our Lord that the following prayer, each time she piously recited it, would release 1,000 souls (or a vast number) from their suffering in purgatory:

“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.”

He Is Like A Refiner's Fire

Yes, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts.

But who will endure the day of his coming?

And who can stand when he appears?

For he is like the refiner's fire,

Do we really want this thing to happen? I mean Malachi tells us that the Lord is going to be like a refining fire.  You know, when you mine silver or gold a lot of things can contaminate the end product which makes it worth a lot less than it could be.  So the refiner builds a fire, not just any fire, but one that is so hot that it melts the gold or silver and burns away the imperfections in it. The end result is pure, uncontaminated, the best that it can be. 

I know that Protestants and even some Catholics do not believe that there is such a place as Purgatory. But this reading from Malachi, what else can it mean?  If we take the proposition that God is Holy and that nothing unclean or unholy can be around him, doesn't it make sense that He would put into place a way for the dross to be burned away so that his faithful child, one that died in His friendship, could prepare him or her self to be with Him in heaven?  But, did not the sacrificial death of Jesus redeem us fully and give us a ticket to enter the pearly gates?  Yes, Jesus died for our sins and they are all forgiven but what justice would there be, for example, if you were a thief and you stole and then you were "saved" and your sin was forgiven, the person you stole from would still be out the money unless you repaid him. 

Every sin we commit has two effects on our soul. In the case of a serious sin, also called mortal sin, it breaks the relationship between God and his child. In the case of a minor offense, called a venial sin, the relationship is not broken but there is an obstacle between Father and child.  The relationship is still there but there is, for lack of a better word, a bump that needs to be smoothed.  For us Catholics, we have the assurance that our sins are forgiven when we confess them and accept the mercy of God in the confessional.   The sin is forgiven for sure but the attachment to that sin, the temporal satisfaction required to remedy what we have done is still there.  We can satisfy this temporal satisfaction by prayer, fasting, giving alms while we live.  Now if we die and we have an unforgiven mortal sin on our soul, there is no hope for us, we will end up in hell with the devil.  If the mortal sin had been rectified in the sacrament of confession, but we never satisfied the temporal requirement to purge it from our soul, we will have to do so after death.  It is the same for venial sin.  The time for making up for temporal things is while we are on earth.  While we live we can sacrifice and do penance and satisfy the obligation.  Once we have died, we will need to go through the refiner's fire which we call Purgatory.   We ourselves will choose to go there for we will know that we are not ready for heaven.  Does this sound like a fairy tale?  Here is another example.  You and John were the best of friends, you went to school together and all through life you kept up your friendship.  One day you were called to John's bedside as he lay there dying.  He calls you close and confesses that in second grade he was the one that stole your pencil, the one with black lead on one side and red lead on the other.  He stole it because he wanted to annoy you. You cherished that pencil.  As he takes his last breath, you tell him how much you hate him for stealing that pencil.  Some years later, you die and you never gave up that hate for John for stealing your pencil.  John is now among the other saints in heaven in the presence of Almighty God.  If you were admitted to heaven with this hate on your soul, what would you do when you saw John for the first time in heaven.  Most likely you would at least have a bad thought or two about him and you would be causing hate to enter heaven and that is an impossibility.  What is God to do with you?  The sin is a minor matter and not worthy of hell, but He cannot admit you to heaven because you are attached to the sin and sin has no place in heaven.  God in His mercy allows you to choose to go to the refiner's fire, to have all of the dross burned out of your soul after which you will be allowed to enjoy heaven forever.   God is that merciful.   So, Purgatory is real because God's love for us and His desire for us to be with Him is real. 

Can you avoid Purgatory?  Sure you can and some of us do avoid Purgatory.  We can do this by living a worthy life, confessing our sins regularly and to do penance for them by sacrificing our time, talent, or treasure in doing some worthy cause.  You see, when you move out of yourself and see how others live, you can be more charitable and loving.  This will help you remove the residual stains on your soul.  God loves you so much that He sent His only Son to die for your sins.  He opened the doors of heaven for us so we can live in peace and security with Him forever. 

Who is to blame?

Where sin increased, grace overflowed all the more,  so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through justification for eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

A young boy was having trouble in school.  He just could not understand how numbers worked.  It wasn't that he was stupid, he just had a blind spot in his brain that made it hard for him to understand numbers and how they worked.  This was not his fault.  It was a built-in defect that he did not ask for nor did he do anything to cause it. His parents were not aware of the issue but his teacher saw that while the boy was pretty good at most subjects, he lagged behind the rest of the class when it came to mathematics.  The teacher contacted the parents and they agreed to get their son some help.  He was enrolled in an after-school program at a learning center that specialized in teaching people that had learning disabilities in mathematics.  The boy was not too happy that his after-school time was being eaten up by this extra tutoring in numbers.  The first few times either his father or mother brought him to the classes.  He went in and he actually tried to absorb what the tutor was telling him.  He started to improve a little bit at a time.  He was still very resentful that he could not use this time to visit with his friends and play video games with them.  After a few times, since the learning center was only a couple of blocks from home, his parents sent him to the class on his own.  The walk took him past his best friends house and one day his friend called to him and told him he had a new video game.  It was THE game that everyone wanted!  The boy was sorely tempted but the books under his arm pulled him away from his friend and he went to the learning center because that is what his parents expected him to do.  He was making excellent progress and starting to feel more comfortable with mathematics than he ever did before.  One day, he was on his way to tutoring when a couple of his friends were sitting with his best friend on the porch as he started to pass by.  They called out to him and invited him to play "the game."  He wanted to very much, but once again, he yielded to the wishes of his parents.  His conscience was leading him in the right direction.  About a week later, he was again passing his best friends house and this time there were more classmates there, all of them had come over to experience the video game of the century.  Today among the people on the porch was the class bully.  He saw the boy and started making fun of him, calling him a "sucker" and a "retard" and all of the other kids laughed and made fun of him.   Still, in spite of all of this peer pressure, the boy knew he had to go to tutoring because it was the right thing to do.  And so, hearing the taunts and laughter of his classmates fade as he walked away he felt good because he had done the right thing.  

All of us, man, woman, boy or girl have within us two opposing forces.  As sinful humans we can be persuaded to go our own way, to sin against God, with remarkable ease.  Just look at the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve were seduced by a snake and a piece of fruit,  But because we are sons and daughters of the Great King, beloved by Him, each of us just because of who we are, we have inside of us a cache of grace that we can call on when we are being tempted to go our own way.  Sometimes, the grace we have at our command is not enough.  Our Father sees that and he immediately sends us additional grace to help us to keep on the straight path. If we accept this help, we will continue on our journey without delay. 

But who is to blame here?  If the compulsion to sin is already inside us, isn't God to blame for that?  Afterall, he did create us in His own image.  To blame God for our tendency to sin would be like blaming the boy in our story for his mental allergy to the science of numbers.  When we are born, we have the sin of Adam and Eve on our souls.  It is washed away in baptism but deep within us we still want to taste the fruit, we still want to be as God.  This remnant of original sin colors our judgment and at times makes us go off on a wrong road.  Our Father does what He can and He does send us all of the graces we need to defeat the bully of sin, we just have to be open to the graces and be ready to embrace them and just to say "no" to the sin of the moment.  If we cooperate fully with God, if we are always open to His graces, we will never sin again. Please remember I said "if" we cooperate.  In the lives of each of us, we will fail at one time or another.  At these times we can imitate one of two people.  We can be Judas and commit spiritual suicide or we can be Peter who went out and wept bitterly and came back to receive the forgiveness of Christ.   The grace of God can defeat any temptation to sin, but when it does not because of our choice, God's mercy can and will forgive any sin we have committed if we own up to it, confess it humbly and make a firm commitment to avoid the sin in the future. 

Our brothers and sisters in purgatory need our help. Please pray for them today.  On the sidebar, please feel free to access that fact sheet I have published regarding Purgatory.  

There Is No Small Sin

"Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments

and teaches others to do so

will be called least in the Kingdom of heaven.

But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments

will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven."

When we think of Jesus we most often think of Him as kind, loving, gentle, and meek.  This is good because He is all of these things.  In today's Gospel reading we catch a glimpse of another facet of Jesus.  We see what I call Jesus the Prophet.  Today His words tell us that we are God's children and we are called to obey and he tells us that there are consequences when we disobey and commit sin. 

Sin happens anytime when we place our will above that of God's. Our Church wisely classifies sin into two types which are venial or less serious sin and a mortal sin which is a sin that does just what it says, it destroys the relationship between the person and God.  Praise God that all sin is forgivable through the sacrament of reconciliation which we can use to express our sorrow and receive assurance that we are truly forgiven for what we have done. 

While I agree that there are two types of sin and that every sin, no matter how grave can be forgiven, I want to talk a little about the nature of sin itself.  Father Larry told this story.  He was driving to work one day and a person cuts him off.  He lost his temper and mentioned things about the other driver's ancestry that would have amazed the driver had he been able to hear them.  This act of cussing out the man that offended him was, of course, a venial sin.  He did not know the person in the other car and he did not really mean the things he said so it was not a grave sin.  Now imagine the same circumstances but the other driver happened to be his mother.  He has the same reaction.  The sin would be greater because of the dignity of the person he was sinning against. 

This is why I say that there is no small sin. There are sins that are milder than some but every sin, no matter how small, no matter how venial, is an offense against God and it is no small thing. The wonderful thing about sin is that it always can be forgiven. God is always there with His arms outstretched waiting to hug us back into His family. 

So today, I challenge you to stop and think before you consider committing even the smallest sin and remember who it is you are offending.  I challenge you also if you haven't taken advantage of the Sacrament of  Reconciliation in a while, even if it has been years or decades, to consider swallowing your pride and approach the throne of grace to be received back into God's family.  Sometimes love does mean we have to say that we are sorry. 

Easter - We Are Risen !

When I was in High School, I was fortunate to have as my public speaking teacher a man by the name of Mr. Cassidy. He was the designer of the Ho-Hum Outline.  It was a guaranteed method of creating a speech that would keep your audience's attention.  One of the steps is Ho Hum, thus the clever name!  This step is to engage your listeners so as to get them to buy into the fact that you are worth listening to.  I mention him because I know if you've been to church either for the Easter Vigil last night or at one of the masses today you probably have heard the words, "Easter People." You probably heard how we are the Easter People and how Jesus rose from the dead.  But did you really consider what this means for you, personally? 

We all will die someday.  The thought of death is one we push out of our mind.  As a matter of fact, death is something that happens to someone else, not to me.  We go to a funeral and in America most often we gaze at the body of the guest of honor, we offer our condolences to the bereaved family.  Our next task is, if possible, to get the heck out of there as soon as possible. The body in the casket hits too close to home, we know that someday that we will be the one that is getting a grand send off.  That day is coming all too soon and we do not want to be reminded of it.  Personally, what I do not like about this death thing is the fact that when I am busy taking my last breaths, the world will be continuing without a thought about what is happening to me.  It is this continuance of routine that really offends me.  I can accept the fact that all of my "stuff" will pass either to another person or end up in a landfill somewhere, I have no problem with that.  I just think that while I am dying, should there be a family celebrating a birthday? Should another family be leaving on a Disney Cruise?  Should my neighbor treat the day as just another work day?  I know that this sounds very silly and self-centered, but hey, that is what is inside of me. 

The messy death of Jesus would have meant very little if that is where the story of Jesus ended. We know not only did it not end there but that His story is never ending. He took upon Himself all of our sins.  He turned our disobedience into obedience. He then did something that no other man had done.  He rose from the dead in a body that people could recognize.  The one who was dead was now alive.  Now, while Jesus was on the cross, the temple crew that was standing nearby mocked Him by saying, "He helped others, He cannot help Himself!"  On the third day, He proved them wrong by rising from the dead.  He stayed on earth another forty days.  He ate with the apostles.  He walked to Emmaus.  He forgave Peter.  He removed the doubt from doubting Thomas. Then he physically rose up to heaven and lives there at the right hand of God. 

What He did, we also will do.  On that Easter morning when the angel rolled away the stone he defeated the final enemy of the human race, death.  When we die, we will immediately be judged. We will choose our destiny, heaven, purgatory, or hell depending on how we lived our life here on earth.  Heaven will be a place of complete joy and happiness.  There will be no sorrow, not a bit of discord or hate.  We will recognize our family and our friends.  We will know people we did not know on earth.  We will be with the saints we prayed to and we will know t the complete love of God.  If we juge ourselves to be not ready we will choose to go to purgatory to prepare ourselves to be received by God. There will be intense joy and intense suffering in purgatory.  The suffering in purgatory will be the fact we are separated from God.  The intense joy will be the knowledge that we will soon be joining Him in heaven.  If we choose hell, I am afraid that there would be no turning back.  The fires of hell are forever and there is no hope of seeing God.  But then again, those that go there made their choice here in life when they turned their backs on God and lived according to their own desires.  The pains of hell are enhanced by the knowledge that the darkness of the loss of God is for eternity. 

The Rising of Jesus from the dead means that we too will rise from the grave.  We too will have a glorified body that will be assumed into heaven. On the last day, that which was subject to corruption will be restored.  The sea will give up her dead, graves will open and all of us will be finally judged and in our new, perfected, glorified bodies will be taken to heaven. 

This is what being an Easter People means.  Death, while still inevitable, looses its power over us and together we will join the angels and saints in heaven. Being an Easter People, we no longer fear death as for us, life is not ended, it is just changed.  Now, does that mean we should do everything possible to hasten our death? No of course not.  Each of us, man, woman, boy, or girl, have a mission on earth, a job that no one else in the universe can do and we have to do it.  Our life is a precious gift that was given to us by a loving and caring God.  All God asks of us is that we try, we may not always succeed.  I am in a choir at my church.  I have the devil of a time reading music, but our leader just asks that we try.  Over the years I have gotten better.  God asks us to try, to work to improving.  We will never be perfect and God knows this.  This is why He has provided us with the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Not so that we can sin with impunity but we can reflect and repent and come back into fellowship with Him when we see the error of our ways and He for His part will always welcome us back.  

Death, oh death, where is thy sting?  

Lent - Dodging The Stone Throwers

Monday's readings were about justice and judgment.  We have as our Old Testament story a tale that could have been ripped from today's Six O'clock News report.  Susanna was a beautiful girl. Two dirty old men, politicians who held the power of life and death over the people of Israel, fell madly in lust with her.  They waited until all of her servants had left the garden and the entered and closed the door so no one could see what was going on.  They then made her an offer that she could not refuse. They told her that she had to make horizontal hokey pokey with them or else they would accuse her of adultery, which of course, carried the death penalty.  She had been brought up to be a follower of the Law of Moses and she told them that she would rather die than to offend the Lord. Sure enough, they accused her of adultery and the crowd descended on her and was dragging her away to stone her.  Daniel yelled for them to stop and he said it was not right to execute a person without proof.  He proceeded to grill the two politicians, separately and got to the truth of the matter. The two old lecherous politicians got what the Law of Moses prescribed, they received the penalty they attempted to railroad Susanna into and were led away for execution.  

Our Gospel story is of the woman caught in adultery.  This woman was caught in the arms of her lover and righteous indignation infected the crowd.  I always thought it took two to play the game, so I wonder where the offending man was hiding.  Anyway, this all too human woman was being dragged out to meet the fate spelled out for those that committed this offense.  Those that were out to get Jesus saw a way to trap Him into saying something that they could use against Him.  They dragged the woman before Jesus and asked Him what should they do?  They pointed out that the Law of Moses specifies death to be the award for this offense.  

Now, Jesus was in a pickle here. If he said that she should be killed, He would have a hand in her death and all the talk about love, mercy, and forgiveness would sound like so much prattle. On the other hand, if He said to forgive her, well, then He is running counter to the Law of Moses and therefore would be proving Himself to be a charlatan and a fake. Jesus did not rush to judgment.  He bent down and started writing in the dust.  The suspense started to build.  His enemies thought that they had Him now!  He looked up from what he was doing and told them that the one that was without sin should cast the first stone.  He bent back down and continued scribbling in the dirt.  One by one, starting with the elders of the temple, they turned and walked away.    Soon, it was just Jesus and the woman, alone. He stood her up and asked her where her accusers went?  She told them they were all gone. Then Jesus smiled at the woman and told her to leave and to commit this sin no more.  He had given her the forgiveness of God.

What great parables these two stories are. In both we see the power of the law and the law being tempered by God's mercy. Susanna was saved because she put not offending God at the top of her list of things to do while the woman caught in adultery was saved from her sins by the direct action of the mercy of God.  Jesus did not gloss over her sin, rather, He made her confront it head on and deal with it but in the end, mercy triumphed over justice.

We live today in a time of mercy. Our Lord has announced through Sister Faustina that mercy is available to those that want it.  The gentle hand of God calls us to His side.  He wants us to tell Him what we need the most in our life. For me, I need His friendship and I need His forgiveness.  I am not the twenty-something kid that ran roughshod over his laws.  I grew a large crop of wild oats. As a Catholic, I have an opportunity to receive this forgiveness in the sacrament of confession. In this sacrament, we do not gloss over the symptoms of our illness.  We get straight to the point and through the priest acting in persona Christi, we receive the forgiveness of God and of His Church. 

If you haven't been to confession recently, think about going before we celebrate the joyous feast of Easter. If you go to confession often, make this one special. Pretend that you haven't been to confession in a while and spend some time making a full examination of your conscience.  Bring it all to Jesus.  Lay the burden down, it is too heavy for you to carry. Remember, today is the day of mercy. I do not mean to scare you but when Jesus comes, he will bring justice with Him.  

Better mercy today than justice tomorrow. 

Lent = Being Forgiven

`Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost and is found.'"

We all know the reading about the prodigal son.  We know that the father spends his time watching and waiting for his younger son to return.  We know how he is greeted and how he is treated.  Let's face it, the kid was a brat. He wanted what was his, all without working for it and he proceeded to lose it all. We know how he was treated once he returned,  This is a wonderful example of God's mercy, He will always take us back. But what about the older son? Let's put us in his position. Once his brother left, he was left to do all of the work. It was hot, hard, dirty work.  As the older son, you had to handle twice the workload while your brat brother was dancing with a hootchie coochie dancer and sipping cold drinks turning his liver into a hunk of wood.  But, you loved your father and you did what you had to to keep the place going.   Suddenly, this lowlife comes running home and instead of being thrown off of the place, your father welcomes him back and throws him a party.  What nerve!  You reveal your bratty side and refuse to welcome your brother back.  Your father, just as he had done for the older son, does not wait, he comes to you and tells you of his love and he affirms that although his brother is back, all that the father owns is his older sons.  He will have his reward for his loyalty.   It is now up to us to extend the olive branch to our brother and to reunite the household of the father. 

The young son and the elder son both were forgiven much. The younger for being absolutely stupid and the elder son for being so disrespectful to the father.  But the father, he showed both sons the way it was going to be in his household.  There would be no division.  He also affirmed the older son by confirming that all that he had was his.  He proved to be a loving and just father. 

Lent Day 10 - How To Be Like God!

Jesus said to his disciples:

"You have heard that it was said,

You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies,

and pray for those who persecute you,

that you may be children of your heavenly Father,

for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,

and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?

Do not the tax collectors do the same?

And if you greet your brothers and sisters only,

what is unusual about that?

Do not the pagans do the same?

So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Jesus does a whole lot more than to give us instructions in our reading today.  He describes God. Here is what God does for all of His People. 

• He loves those that persecute Him.
• He blesses his enemies.
• He allows the sun to rise on the bad and the good.
• He cares for His enemies. 

What Jesus is asking us to do is to be like God and do the things He does.  We already know that in order for us to be forgiven, we need to forgive. To forgive someone that has done us harm, or even great harm, is very hard for us to do.  I believe that it is possible to forgive even the most grievous injuries if we but take it a step at a time. To begin the process we should pray for the person that has offended us.  We should ask God to bless them every day and in every way. It will NOT be enough to pray for them just once. In most cases, multiple prayers will need to be sent to our Father and we will need to be receptive to the grace He sends us. Eventually, the ice in our heart will begin to melt and we will be able to begin to entertain the thought of forgiving the offender. It may take years for spring to appear in our heart but we should keep up the offensive and God's grace like a gentle spring rain will help melt away years of resentment and hurt.  When you forgive someone, do you have to tell them?  In a perfect world, it would be a good idea to mend the broken relationship.  Here, again, we have to evaluate the situation. Would contact with the other party be beneficial or would it just open up wounds that have scabbed over?  The important part is that you grant them a complete pardon for any wrongs committed against you from the day of their birth to the current day.  You release all claim to revenge and reboot the relationship, the later you can do at the very least in your heart and then later, when you think it is the time approach the person and offer an olive branch. The final step after forgiving is forgetting.  Jesus not only forgives our sins, He forgets them.  We must do the same.  Forgiveness is not something that you give and hold over the head of your adversary.  If you keep reminding someone that you forgave them, well, that means you really haven't. 

Is every offense against us forgivable? The hard answer is yes, This is because our Father in heaven has forgiven every offense we have ever committed against Him.  I heard a speaker one time tell a story about how once when someone cut him off in traffic he got red in the face, spitting mad, and uttered every obscenity he could think of against the man.  That was bad enough. He then said, what if the same thing happened and the offender was his mother and he uttered all of this graphic language at her? The offense would be greater because one's mother is a person of more dignity than a stranger. It is the same with God.  When we offend Him, we are offending the highest dignity that there is. What does God do for us?  We confess He forgives, He forgets. 

The last line of today's reading assigns us our task; "So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect."  Saint Francis of Assisi, at the end of his life, said this to his brothers; "Brothers, let us begin now, for until now, we have done nothing."  

  

Lent Day 3 - Sin and the gnashing of Teeth

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness;

in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my offense.

Thoroughly wash me from my guilt

and of my sin cleanse me.

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

For I acknowledge my offense,

and my sin is before me always:

"Against you only have I sinned,

and done what is evil in your sight."

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

For you are not pleased with sacrifices;

should I offer a burnt offering, you would not accept it.

My sacrifice, O God, is a contrite spirit;

a heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

R. A heart contrite and humbled, O God, you will not spurn.

Whatever happened to sin?  Do we sin anymore?  I don't think that we sin any less!  Sin has disappeared from our conscious thought and escapes our attention.  When I was a boy, my sins were always before my eyes,  This was because I was in the charge of God's most cherished employees, the Sisters of St. Joseph.  They made sure that we, meaning the boys in the class, were always aware of our sins. Oh, sometimes a girl would be caught doing something wrong, but it just was not in their nature to go against sister's wishes. Once in sixth grade, I had sinned most grievously.  I pointed out to sister that she had picked only her favorites for speaking parts in the class play.   Sister Margaret Jean was not one to suffer such brashness and insubordination quietly.  I guess that she turned her other cheek for some things and not for others.  I was quickly and efficiently dealt with.  She just about flew over to where I was standing, you never, ever, spoke to a sister while your butt was in contact with a chair.  She grabbed me and placed me out in the hall facing the wall.  Then for next several weeks, while the other kids went to practice her play, I got to stand in the hallway facing the wall until they came back.  The finishing touch, meant to put me in my place, was that she gave me a "D" in school spirit on my report card.  To show you how rare that was, it was once thought that to get a "D" in school spirit, you had to be caught with bottles of gasoline with rags stuck in the necks and a lighted match in hand ready to burn down the school.  Going against the "Teacher's Pet" system was almost as serious.

A sin of any type comes between God and us.  If you think of the punishment of the rebellious angels was when St. Michael, my patron saint, by the way, swept them from heaven into hell, the major part of their punishment was forever being unable to see God.  There was a barrier placed between them and God.  This barrier caused great sorrow.When we sin, we too create a barrier between us and God.  If we sin in a minor way the barrier is not total.  If we commit a major act of rebellion the wall we build shields us from the Face of God.  If we die with this wall in place, our choice becomes permanent and God will honor our choice to be without Him in eternity.  A preacher once was preaching about sin and hell and he yelled out, "And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth!" A voice of an old lady in the back of the church piped up and said, "But pastor, I don't have any teeth."  Without missing a beat the pastor replied, "Teeth will be provided !" 

I might be dead wrong about this but I think we have lost or sense of sin. In the olden days, especially during Lent, the lines at the confessionals were long.  Today, not so much.  I got myself in trouble on the Catholic Answers forum once.  I mentioned in a reply to another member's question that I thought the sacrament of confession was underused by Catholics today.  I was given a "major violation" and was told that it was none of my business if someone went to confession or not.  The self-righteous moderator missed the whole point of what I was saying.  I no longer participate in Catholic Answers forum because of this but my contention still is that the sacrament of penance is underused today.

Lent is a time to clean up the cobwebs that have gathered in our soul. But confessing to a priest, can't I go directly to God and ask for forgiveness?  Of course, you can and it is a brilliant first step. But the way Christ wants us to do it is to confess to Him through the priest who is acting in persona Christi. You see, sin is not a private matter between you and God.  We are all part of the Body of Christ and any sin, no matter how private, hurts the Body and needs to be healed. But, you say, "It's been years since I last went!"  So what? Mention that to your confessor and he will be even more gentle with you because he knows how hard this is for you.  Oh, the act of confession was never meant to be easy.  It is a very humbling experience to be in confession and to give voice to what God already knows.  Getting it out on the table is the first step in getting your imperfection healed.  Do not be afraid of seeing who you really are.  Remember, what we are is how God sees us and he sees us, imperfect as we are, and loves us anyway.  Whisper to God and listen for His reply.  His reply to you, the prodigal son or daughter, will always be, "I love you, welcome home!" 

Hate - Why it is No Good For You

This is a true story. My mother was a simple soul. She did have a habit of analyzing people a bit too much and spent a lot of time looking for happiness to ambush her from the outside. I don't think that she ever learned  that happiness radiates from the inside of a person, that it is a seed that needs careful nurturing and by taking care of it a life takes on a glow that nothing from the outside of it will have permanent effect. She was love by myself and my three younger siblings and as we grew she taught us many lessons in life. For example, through the dark days of fourth grade where it seemed I was always in trouble with the teacher, she told me to no matter what, hold my head high and be proud of who I was. I just want to give you an idea of the beauty that was inside of the soul of my mother Violet.  

She worked as an assistant in a doctor's office and part of her compensation package was medical care. One day she showed a growth that was on her shoulder to the doctor she worked with. The doctor took a quick look and prescribed an anointment. My mother carefully followed the doctors instructions and after about six months there was no improvement. She went to visit the doctor whom she worked for previously who was in retirement and he took one look at the growth and diagnosed it as cancer. She went to another doctor who removed the growth and believed he had gotten it all. But several months later at a check up it was discovered that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs and that her condition was terminal. 

The chemo would prolong her life and she was referred to a well known surgeon in the Chicago area and he said she possibly could get more time if she would allow him to operate. Mom scheduled the operation. It was scheduled for early afternoon and it was with shock that when we arrived at the hospital we found Mom on a gurney being taken to surgery! We thought we would have had some precious time to talk with her and comfort her but a cancelled surgery meant that they could take her early.  We did get to make her feel loved as the attendant pushed her into the elevator and we began the waiting game. The surgeon eventually came into the waiting room a smile on his face saying that everything had gone good and he removed as much of the growth as he could and he estimated from what he could see that she might have a year, maybe a little more, to live.  We went into see her and she was on a respirator, but alert and able to communicate by writing on a board that the nurses provided her with.  I lived a fair distance from the hospital so the second day post-op I took the day off from visiting and went to work. The next day something had changed. Mom was no longer able to respond. If we put the pen into her hand she would try to write but the pen would slip from her hand. As the day went on she became less and less responsive until at 7:11 P.M. she passed away.

The next few days we did the needful and arranged a funeral mass at St. Joseph and St. Anne Church and laid our mother to rest.  At the wake I was introduced to her employer, the doctor that cared so little that she allowed what could have been a fixable issue to become a terminal one.  I looked at her and thought that, "This bitch killed my mother."  My heart filled with hate but I softly thanked the woman for coming to the wake. 

After all of the excitement of the wake, funeral, and the funeral luncheon there was nothing but time left. Time to mourn, time to remember the sharing of our lives with our mother. For me there was also time to hate. Now I have to say I would not in any way, shape, or manner physically hurt anyone. But mentally I killed that vile woman doctor many times. I slipped into depression but I did not recognize it for what it was. My symptoms included lethargy, lack of interest in things around me. I would read the same books over and over again and for six months I never once reconciled my checking account. 

I was working in a travel agency that was about fifteen miles from my home. I took a route through a beautiful tony suburb called Lake Forest. For months I hardly noticed the beauty of the trees. At one point I passed a Catholic Church. It was my habit to make the sign of the cross as I passed the church for brick and mortar could not separate me from the Love Incarnate in the form of Bread that was in the tabernacle. Then one day as I passed that Church and once again followed what in my mind had become an empty ritual, it came to me that as a Christian man,I could not hate, it was foreign to me. In that moment of what I believe was Christ sent inspiration I forgave that doctor, I granted her a full and complete pardon. At that moment a great weight was lifted off of my shoulders. My soul began to feel joyful again. Surely I still missed my mother, but I knew that she was with God. The other benefit I could claim from this encounter was that from that moment on I could not hate anyone else. I had forgiven my mother's killer, what could you do to me that would be worse that killing her?  

There have been disappointments in life, where friends have failed me in major ways but I could not hold anger or resentment to them. I just had to forgive! 

So the lesson I learned, taught to me by the hand of God through His Son is that hate for any reason is self defeating. It closed the universe around you. You develop myopia of the soul and risk wasting vast amounts of time seeking revenge.  This is all at great cost to your body and your soul. 

Is there anyone in your life that you need to forgive?  I don't mean you have to eat lunch with them and invite them to join you on vacation! No, I mean just the simple act of granting them mercy and absolving them from the real debt that they owe you. You don't have to tell them if you don't want to. If they are a close relative, you may approach them in time and begin to reconstruct your relationship but that is not necessary to forgive the hurt that was done to you. I can give you an absolute guaranty that if you do this in your heart you will awaken parts of your soul that go dormant when you carry hate in your heart.  Forgive and forget? I don't think that it is possible to forget an evil that is done to you. It is part of our survival skill set. But forgiving that person who hurt you the most will set you free to live and love in the paradise that God has given us. 

Remember well the prayer we say daily, the Lord's Prayer, the prayer given to us by Jesus Himself. "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us..." Do you think he was kidding?  God is ready to forgive us every day we sin against Him. He will forgive us in the same measure that we have forgiven others. 

Thank you Pope Francis for declaring this the year of mercy. May we learn to be merciful to each other. 
    

Reconciliation With God and Man -

I went to confession this last Wednesday. 
My spirit always feels so much better and I feel so much more alive once experience this great gift of God's love for us. This sacrament seems to have fallen out of favor for some of my fellow Catholics and I feel sorry for them because they don't know what they are missing.  There are all sorts of reasons people do not go.  Let's talk about some of them and see how they stack up.

"I go straight to Jesus for forgiveness, I don't have to tell a priest my sins. Jesus forgives me." 

On the surface this sounds real good and is very convincing but it is not what Jesus has in mind for his followers. How do we know this? First of all Jesus gave the power to the Apostles to forgive sin. He said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me...and later "As the Father has sent me even so I send you, And when he said this he breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. If you retain the sins of any they are retained. (John 20: 21-23) We also read in Matthew, "Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. (Matt 18:18) 

That we are to confess verbally is clearly implied because how were the Apostles to know which sins they were going to forgive or not forgive unless they were told about them? 

What advantages are there in confessing aloud to a priest? The following has been harvested from an article on Catholic Answers. Click the link to read the whole article (LINK) 

1. First he seeks forgiveness the way Christ intended. 
2. By confessing to a priest, the Catholic learns a lesson in humility, which is avoided when one confesses through private prayer.
3. The Catholic receives sacramental graces that the non-Catholic does not get - through the sacrament of penance sins are forgiven and the graces are obtained. 
4.  The Catholic is assured his sins are forgiven and he does not have to rely on a subjective feeling.
5.  The Catholic can receive sound advice in avoiding sin in the future.

This assurance that I have been forgiven by God AND his Church which encompasses all believers, both those in full communion with the Church, my fellow Catholics and those brothers and sisters that are either not in communion with the Church but are brothers and sisters because of our common brother in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our savior. 

Some Catholics have not been to confession in years. Some not for 5, 10, 20 or even 30 years or longer. Being away from this great sacrament for so long causes a person to be greatly afraid as to what will happen to them if they tell a priest they have been away for so long. They envision hearing a gasp of horror from the priest and imagine hearing a long demeaning lecture.  

NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH!!!  

Don't you remember what scripture says that there is more rejoicing in heaven when one sinner repents than over 99 that did not have to repent?  Be honest with the priest, tell him how long you have been away, don't remember what to say? Father will help you. He will make it as easy for you as possible. The first step is yours. You have to go into that confession room, you have to take the first step.  After that it gets easy. The Holy Spirit brought you to this place, God already knows all of your sins, all you have to do is to face up to them and to confess them, be sorry for them, and try your best not to commit them again.  Don't be afraid, the Grace of God awaits you in confession. Take advantage of it. 

God bless you today and as we prepare to enter into Holy Week, remember God loves you more than you can imagine. He loves you just as you are and wants you to take advantage of the sacrament of confession and become closer and closer and closer to Him.  Peace! 

Feeding Frenzy

The past week all over America there was a feeding frenzy of sorts. You know what I mean of course, we all got caught up in it, the Powerball Lottery. Now I never play the lottery, except this time I did, yes this straight laced Catholic Christian boy plunked down four hard earned US of A greenback dollars for the privilege of dreaming and dreaming big!  For a couple of days I was thinking how I would outfit my new Gulf Stream jet and who I would invite for the initial ride. I thought what my parish would do with the ten percent of the winnings that they would get right off of the top.  I envisioned a five story PADS shelter. I would have funded research into finding cures for cancer.  I would have funded a food bank that would wipe out hunger in my state.  There would have been scholarships galore for those whose grades like mine were average or slightly above. I was planning to do so much good.  That is what my four dollars bought me as I joined the feeding frenzy that captured the minds of my fellow citizens.  I have to tell you that it was kind of fun and all in all was worth the four George Washington's I plunked down to the man of mid-eastern extraction behind the counter at the Peacock Mobil Station who pushed a button that caused a machine to spit out two lines of random numbers.  

Well, I am back in the real world again.  The next lottery drawing will come and go without capturing my attention. My dollar bills will stay comfortably inside my wallet until they are called upon to purchase some pedestrian need. But I take solace in the fact that although I cannot fund my large dreams, I can fund smaller ones. I can look out for opportunities to be kind, to be generous, to let the light of Christ shine through me. If I do this without expecting any reward or payback, my example may be what brings a sinner home like the prodigal son, home to God the Father who loves him without end. My example, my love expressed can be the difference between heaven and hell for someone I do not know. 

So yes, I proved my humanity and jumped into the middle of the feeding frenzy.  It was fun and it allowed me the opportunity to think once the announcement of where the winning tickets were sold and my town was not mentioned, that I was luckier than the winners because I have Christ in my life.

Peace to you today and may the light of Christ flood your soul. Act on your good intentions today. Spread a random act of kindness wherever you go.  God bless you and yours. 

The Convert-a-Catholic Challenge is still waiting it's first daring Protestant to take up the cause. Convince this cradle Catholic that the Catholic Church has got it all wrong and that your denomination has got it all right.  Chick to start the debate rolling.  Click here/

Catholic Resources for your use: 

Catechism of the Catholic Church   (Click Here)  don't live in ignorance. If you are going to criticize or even condemn her, use her own words against her.  This free resource tells what we believe in an easy to read format.

Catholics Come Home  (Click Here)  If you are a Catholic and have been away from the Church for awhile, well, we have missed you and consider this an invitation to come home. 

Headquarters - The Vatican - (Click Here)  Nose around at the Vatican. Get to know Pope Francis a little bit better. Find out the inside story right from the horse's mouth.