Party Plans

On a Sabbath, Jesus went to dine
at the home of one of the leading Pharisees.
He said to the host who invited him,
"When you hold a lunch or a dinner,
do not invite your friends or your brothers or sisters or your relatives or your wealthy neighbors,
in case they may invite you back and you have repayment.
Rather, when you hold a banquet,
invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind;
blessed indeed will you be because of their inability to repay you.
For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

I do not know what version of the movie it is, maybe you do, but Old Scrooge is speaking to the people collecting for charity and he askes if the workhouse is still in operation and they say that it is but they wish it was not so. He says a line that resonates with the meaning of our Gospel reading today. Scrooge says, "I want value for my charity."  When we give a party or a dinner, it is nice to contemplate a return invitation the next time our friend decides to throw a party or a dinner.  It is one of those things that we come to expect, almost as repayment. 

What Jesus is telling us is to take care of the needy, the poor, the sick and the suffering and we will receive our repayment, our reward in heaven. What we are being told is to open our eyes to the world around us. Look for ways to help those that need it most. Get out of your comfort zone and away from your familiar world and help those that need it. We will share our time, talent, and treasure with those that are in the same social status as we are.  We may even spend lavishly to impress people with our generosity.  Jesus says to us that it is good to be generous with the gifts He has bestowed on us but we should use these gifts to help others when we can and our return invitation, our repayment will come at the end of time when the Father shows us what the word lavish really means. 

Clare and Francis

  What profit would there be for one to        

 gain the whole world and forfeit his life?

There was no woman on earth that St. Francis loved more than Clare.  Spiritually they were bound as one by the love of poverty and dependence upon God for all things. Clare, for her part, loved only God more than Francis.  She abandoned the world and Francis himself cut her hair and presented her with the habit that she would wear along with many women of like spirituality that would take the same habit and form the order known as The Poor Clares.  Clare would reign as leader of this group who went shoeless and slept on the floor for forty-two years. This manner of living in a convent was quite different than the norm at the time.  Convents admitted two types of nuns into their order at the time, basically those from the upper class who would bring with them huge amounts of money as a dowry and those that could bring very little.  The two classes were treated very differently indeed.  The well-off would spend their time doing womanly, refined things while those from the lower classes did the menial chores of the house.  In the Poor Clares, all were equal, all depended upon God for their very lives.  It came to pass that the Saracens, we would call them Muslims or Moslems, were laying waste to Europe at the time.  They approached the Poor Clare convent and instead of fleeing for their lives, the Poor Clares stayed put and in prayer.  Clare retrieved the Eucharist from the chapel and stood at the gate of the convent and prayed for God to deliver them. She heard a voice saying to her, "I will always protect you."  The Saracens approached but when they saw Clare in the doorway holding the Eucharist, they felt an overpowering sense of fear and dread and fled in terror. 

Clare and Francis were separate societies of women and men who spent their life depending on God for everything.  They lived a life of work and prayer and by their example they showed God's love for the poor.  Today, we flee from poverty, we flee from anything that makes us the least bit uncomfortable.  We work hard to gain the things of this world, a fancy home, and car, rich food, pleasures and good times, and we congratulate ourselves like the rich man whose life was required by God that very night. 

While we may not be ready to do what Clare and Francis did, we can certainly live more simply and not be dazzled by the wonders of this world so much that our vision of what is to come is blinded.  Maybe we should learn to depend on less ourselves and more on Our Father. 

One Plus One Is One

And I have given them the glory you gave me,

so that they may be one, as we are one,

Here is a stumper for you, explain the Trinity.  Is our God actually three Gods?  Those of you of ancient times might remember the Baltimore Catechism's definition of who are God actually is.  Do you remember?  Well, the answer is that The Trinity is Three Divine Persons in one Divine Being. There, we got that figured out now don't we?  Or do we?   St. Patrick used to arrive at a village and the first thing (the story goes) he would do would be to find the meanest, strongest, bad boy living there and beat the tar out of him.  This got the citizens attention and then he took out a shamrock and used it to explain the Trinity, one plant, three leaves, all united.  Is that a true story? I don't know, but it sure is a good tale.  It makes one good point, that the Trinity is united, they are one even though they are separate and distinct.   The idea of three Divine Persons in One Divine Being is hard, no, impossible to get your hands around.  It is one of those things that we may never, in all eternity understand.  

The most important thing about the Trinity, as I said is that they are united, they are one.  Jesus prayed that all of His followers be of one mind but when we came to the fifteen-hundreds, we kind of messed that up now didn't we?  I am not going to get into a finger pointing session here because there was enough blame to go around.  Luther was too prideful and the Church didn't listen as well as she should have. 

Unity in our religions is something that we need to work towards.  The Catholic Church cannot move any closer to our separated Protestant brothers and sisters by changing doctrine that has remained unchanged since the Church was founded.  She can and should to try to attract her lost children back to her. We do not do that by pointing out the error of our brothers' ways and shaking our fingers at them. To do this would make us no better than old Jack Chick and his poison tracts. We must attract them by showing them what a real Christian community is like.  This is something that we have not been too good at since Luther banged a few nails into a church door.  

How do we do this?  We make the light of Christ brighter and brighter in our church communities that they cannot fail to see that we are different and that difference is the life of Christ in us shining out. We must open doors and windows.  We must be ready to be friendly and loving to those who might not really trust us because we bear the label Catholic.   The new evangelization is not new at all. It is something that we should have been doing all along.  You don't need to become a street preacher, you need not say even a word. You may let your actions do your talking for you.  What I suggest is that we take some time and look around and find a need and fill it.  Listen for the Lord to speak to you.  He is looking for men, women, and children to build his Church.  Enthusiasm will generate enthusiasm!   Love will generate love in return.  The hardest part is to start.  

That is all for today.  I hope I have given you something to think about.  God bless and don't be afraid to leave a comment.  

Is It Cool To Be Poor?

There are two groups of people that are opposed to one another in this world.  The two groups are the poor and the rich.  Defining these two groups can be slightly problematic.  What is poor for one person is considered rich for another. But for the purposes of this post we are going to consider the poor and the rich in the United States of America. 

In the U.S. there is a sharp divide between those that have and those that have not.  A janitor in a company will work for minimum wage while the CEO of the company will work for a couple of million dollars a year. If the janitor does a bad job or the company wants to "downsize" he or she is fired and sent away with little thought. In effect he is told, "good bye and good luck, keep warm and well fed." On the other hand if a CEO does a bad job, the board of directors suggests that maybe he should retire. So, he "retires" taking his golden parachute with him so that his life is not disrupted by the inconvenience of his forced retirement.  Here we have on the one side a man who will have to depend on social services, unemployment insurance, food stamps, and maybe relief money to keep his family fed, clothed, and sheltered.  On the other hand the CEO will take his family to Disneyland for a couple of weeks of fun in the sun before taking on the task of maybe getting another job, no hurry though. 

You could say that the work that the janitor does is not as important as the work the CEO does for the corporation.  This is obviously true. The more keys you carry around in the corporate world, the less important is your work. But the fact remains that in spite of the circumstances that the two men find themselves in, their basic needs are exactly the same.  Each of these men (or women) have to provide the basic things that a family needs. The difference is simply that the CEO is empowered to do these things without surrendering personal dignity while the janitor has to surrender his and prove to government mandarins that his worthy to be given some assistance while he is out of work. 

Pope Francis in a comment he delivered this week said that those that mistreat their employees by paying them so little while making themselves rich are leaches and their behavior is a mortal sin. Those are very strong words of warning indeed.  But we can look to the Bible to see that Jesus Himself gives us the very same warning in Luke 16:20 where Lazarus hoped for the scraps from the rich man's table and got nothing.  We read where Lazarus died and was carried to his reward in heaven with Abraham. We also read that the rich man died and was buried.  The rich man ended up in a place of torment and begged Abraham to send Lazarus with a drop of water for his tongue. Abraham told the rich man that he had received his reward in life and besides it was not possible to travel from heaven to hell as there was a vast chasm between them and you could not cross from one side to another. 

Also in Matthew we have the story of the goats and the sheep where the goats are taken away for eternal misery and punishment because they did not recognize Christ in those in need while the sheep did and helped those around them.  In Matthew 19:24 Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to gain heaven.  This is a curious thing to say.  When we think of a needle we thing of sewing and the little hole at the top where the thread goes.

 But that is not the eye of the needle that Jesus is speaking of. The eye of the needle is a gate in a wall that was put there to slow people down.  They would get there and then they would have to remove all of the freight they were carrying, lead the camel through, then bring the freight through. This gate made it very hard for an enemy to attack the city.  I have always thought that this is the way Jesus is telling us to not be so attached to material things because we cannot take them with us.  

So, is it better to be rich or to be poor?  I think that God loves the poor. But what makes a man poor is not what he has in the bank, it it what he has in his heart. A person that has access to fabulous wealth has access to all of the wonderful things of this earth. There are cars, electronics, jewelry, everything that you could want to make your life one of comfort and ease. Unfortunately the shininess and glitter can blind the owner to the plight of the world around him and he looses sight of the people in need.  On the other hand a poor person who depends on God not only will feel sympathy for his fellow paupers but with the right attitude will share what he has with those around him. 

Do you see here an irony?  A person rich in the goods of this world can make himself a pauper by sharing what he has with those less fortunate. For a rich person the attachment of the goods of this world is a danger.  If he does all he can to keep what he has in the end he looses everything.  Further a poor person that holds everything closely commits the same sin as the richest man on earth. The secret is to share what we have no matter what our state is in life. So being poor is not only cool, it is required. The things we have are not ours. We will leave them behind for others and they in turn will leave their riches behind for others.  In the end everything we have belongs to God, we are only entrusted with it and expected to use it for good. 

No one ever said following Jesus would be easy. Let's say for example you own a gas station.  You pay your employees minimum wage and they take their money and use it the best way that they can to make a life for their family.  Out of the money they get they have to provide shelter, food, medical care, schooling etc to their family. On minimum wage this is a very hard life. But say you are the owner of a gas station and you pay over the minimum wage and you provide medical insurance. Your gas station does not make as much profit as the one on the next corner but because you share what you have, you get more loyal employees and you store up for yourself treasure in heaven. 

So is it cool to be poor?  What are your thoughts? 

Ambition

Ambition can be a good thing. It can make the difference between being a drifter with a backpack and a person with a corner office and a decent job. Of course there can be ambitions that are not good for us to have. For example, the ruler of a country looks to expand his borders at the expense of his neighbor. 

For us Christians, we should have the ambition of doing what Jesus commanded us to do.  His command is simple, love one another as I have loved you. This command is a game changer and takes what it means to be a Christian to a whole higher level than any other religion the world has ever known. 

We are given many examples of what we should be doing by Jesus himself. Let's examine just a few of them: 

Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, always present in Heaven at the right hand of God the Father.  Jesus came to earth, humbling himself to take on the form of the creature he created.  This shows that he is most humble and most loving.  

Jesus obeyed his parents, the Bible first tells us this after he was found conversing with the doctors in the temple he went with them and was subject to them.  Also, at the request of his mother he started his public life early when he provided wine at a wedding. 

Jesus was content to work at a humble job during the years leading up to his public ministry. Jesus created the world yet he worked for his bread at the job of his earthly father, a carpenter. 

Jesus in all things conformed his will to the will of his Father. As a human in all things but sin, Jesus was tempted but he set his will aside and followed the will of the Father.  This led to the Cross and to death and the redeeming of all of us.

Jesus at the Last Supper showed us what we were to do. He, the God who created the universe took basin and towel and took on the role of the lowest servant in the household and washed the feet of his apostles. 

Jesus humbly accepted death on the cross. In the garden we see Jesus making the most human of prayers, one that each of us would have made and probably do make during the hard times of our life. "Father, take this cup away from me."  This is where most of us would stop. He added, "but not my will but yours."

So our ambition as Christians should be like our Master. We should be ready and willing to serve, to put our needs behind the needs of others.  It is this selfless giving that will attract people to give up their pagan ways and come home to God.  Jesus himself said that they would know his followers by the love that they showed. 

This week I am going to try and do at least one good turn to another in secret and thus try to be like my Lord and Savior and try to love others as He has loved us keeping ever in mind that he did not spare himself from the cross. 

Mother Teresa saw a man in the street  dirty, with sores, flies all about him. People were just passing him by. She immediately went to him and cradled him and began to pick the maggots off of his soars.  A man passing by said, "I wouldn't do that for a million dollars!"  Mother answered, "Neither would I."