The Stuff of Heaven vs The Stuff of Earth

Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?  

Should we pay or should we not pay?"
Knowing their hypocrisy he said to them,
"Why are you testing me?
Bring me a denarius to look at."
They brought one to him and he said to them,
"Whose image and inscription is this?"
They replied to him, "Caesar's."
So Jesus said to them,
"Repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God."
They were utterly amazed at him.

In our Gospel passage today they try to trip up Jesus.  It was a clever ruse indeed.  They asked Jesus if they should pay taxes or not.  If Jesus answered "No," that would be an offense against Caesar and one that most likely carried the death penalty.  If Jesus answered "Yes" then he would alienate his followers who hated the Roman occupiers of Israel.  

You know, the Romans may have been pagans and they may have over indulged in the passions of the flesh, but they were pretty skilled at governing the populations in the lands that they conquered.  In Israel at this time, special coins were minted that did not have the head of Caesar on them.  The head of a man on a coin was considered a graven image and the Jews would be forbidden to use the coins or even touch them.  So it was kind of strange how when Jesus called for a coin that they found one with the head of Caesar on it.  The fact that a Pharisee had one on them showed how deep their hypocrisy went.  Jesus defused the situation by telling his audience to give to Caesar what belonged to Caesar and to God the things that belonged to God.  This clever response astonished his listeners and like the devil in the desert did, they went their way to wait for another opportunity. 

We humans, place a lot of value on what we can see, what we can touch, what we can smell, what we can taste.  It kind of makes sense because it is all we know.  Yesterday, my wife and I went to the local supermarket to purchase a few things.  We pulled into our parking spot and noticed across from our Kia Soul was a large white sedan.  From a distance the logo looked like it was a Chrysler, you know wings with a symbol inside.  But this was not like any Chrysler I had ever seen in my life.  It had the look of strength, power, money.  A closer inspection showed that inside the symbol was the letter "B" as in Bentley!  I had never seen one in the wild before, only in magazines.  The Bently sat there in mute regal majesty next to an old Buick with the start of rust near the bottom of the doors that had once been the pride of both the owner and the finance company.  I wonder if the owner of the Bentley was aware that one day his beautiful car would also begin to rust and become worn out?  We, humans, get confused over the value of things, don't we?  Personally, I think paying a quarter of a million dollars for an automobile is crazy.  I also think that outward signs of wealth and prosperity will serve as their own reward when we close our eyes in death and find ourselves standing before the Lord.  I am not judging the person who purchased the Bentley, that is not my place.  For all I know he (or she) gives freely to the poor and could serve as a great example to me of how to be charitable.  I just have to point out that both the shiny new Bently and the rusting Buick were at the same food store buying food so the Bentley was just a method of moving from one place to the other, just as it was for the rust bucket, Buick. 

Bentley, Buick, KIA Soul, it does not really matter.  What matters is that we do as Christ tells us to do.  Give to Caesar the things that are Caesars and to God the things that belong to God.  Jesus told us to love one another as He loved us.  He went to the Cross for us, and that is a lot of love.  God Bless 

Pentecost and Chef Boy Ar Dee

The apostles were told by Jesus to go to Jerusalem and to wait.  They were more than happy to comply with this direction because it was not safe for them to be out and about on the street.  The Temple Gang, still feeling their oats from their victory in getting Jesus crucified, wanted a chance to scatter the disciples of the so-called Messiah to the four corners of the earth. So Peter and the rest of the gang happily went back to the Upper Room and the scriptures say that they spent the time praying.  They probably were praying to be spared from being discovered by the Jews.  They also prayed that the lock on the door held and that no one had seen them steal back to the Upper Room.   When they were not praying, they filled the time discussing recent events and the words of Jesus and there probably was some discussion as to the meaning of the parables Jesus taught them.  They waited and continued to wait, happy that they could not hear a hostile crowd gathering outside their door.  In short, they appeared to be a pathetic gang of losers that would be very happy to just fade out of the public's memory. Then suddenly, everything changed.  There was the sound of a mighty wind and the Holy Spirit descended upon them and now they could not open the door fast enough to get out of the Upper Room.  They almost tore the door off of its hinges in their effort to get outside.  When they were outside, the fruits of the Spirit became manifest.  They threw caution to the wind and were not able to stop telling the crowd about Jesus and the good news that sin and death had been defeated.  More than that, there were people from everywhere, from all of the civilized areas of the world.  Not since the attempt to build the great tower of Babel had there been so many people, speaking so many different languages in one place. Everyone that was there heard the Good News, the Gospel, being proclaimed to them, each of them in his or her own language. Those losers, those timid and frightened bunch of rag-tag followers of Jesus had now lost all of their fear and boldly taught in the Holy Name of Jesus. They would NOT be silent!  The Apostles claimed their first converts that day and the Catholic Church was truly born and was visibly under the protection of the Holy Spirit as Jesus, the Son of God, had promised. 

It's an amazing story, the Holy Spirit infusing His gifts into the eleven like that!  What is even more amazing is that we have all been drenched in the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the very same gifts that were infused into the Apostles were infused into us when we received the Sacrament of Confirmation.  If that is the case then why didn't we react as the Apostles did on that Pentecost Sunday? The reason, I believe, is that such a display was not needed when the bishop laid his hands on us.  We received the very same gifts that the Apostles did and they are as much a part of us as the very blood that circulates oxygen throughout our body through our veins. 

When I received the sacrament of Confirmation, I have to tell you that the only thing I felt at that moment was hunger, not a hunger for the Word of God mind you, a hunger for the pizza I knew was going to be waiting for me at home once this ceremony was over. It was a Chef Boy Ar Dee pizza kit that I made by myself.  Please keep in mind that this was prior to the opening of Falco's Pizzeria, the Cathedral of Pizza in Brighton Park on the southwest side of Chicago where I grew up,  

and even today a stop on the All-Chicago Gluttony Club Tour, although your attire should now include a bulletproof vest and if possible you should hire armed security guards to accompany you. So I was ignorant as to what pizza was supposed to look and taste like but the homemade treat filled us up and living in ignorance kept us satisfied. It was truly a memorable night.  To be very honest on this Thursday night I felt no different than I did at the close of Wednesday night.  Does that mean that the Gifts of the Spirit have passed me over?  Did the bishop make a mistake when he laid his hands on me? Did he not slap me hard enough? (That used to be a feature of the ceremony - a slap to ready you to be a soldier of Christ - this is not done anymore.)  I did receive the Gifts, the bishop did not make a mistake. The simple fact is the reception of a sacrament does not depend on the emotions it may or may not stir up. When I go to communion, for example, sometimes I feel the True Presence and other times I do not.  I still know intellectually that Jesus is present and my prayers are no less fervent because I know what I know. That is the genius of the Sacraments, they work as designed no matter how the person receiving them feels.  

But, where is the evidence that I received the Gifts of the Holy Spirit?  I barely speak English well much less any other language so I don't have the gift of tongues.  I can go on and prove negatively that I do not have evidence that I received anything like the gifts that the Apostles received, except, that I did receive them. Our pastor, Father Joe, in his homily pointed out that we use these gifts all of the time.  He pointed out that perhaps one time when you were more patient with someone that you normally had no patience with, well, that was one of the gifts of the Spirit that you were calling upon. In daily life. these gifts express themselves in many different ways which we sometimes do not recognize.  The gifts are there to be called upon when needed.  I cannot imagine, for example, those poor Christians in Iraq that were offered a choice between giving up Christ in favor of Islam, and to a soul, they refused to betray Christ and they were shot by the radical thugs whose god is not the same God of decent Christians and Muslims.  The Spirit was present in these people and gave them Courage.  So it is with us.  The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are there in each of us who have been confirmed in Christ and they are at the ready when we need them. 

The fact that they are there and we don't recognize them makes me wonder what we Catholics COULD do if we used these gifts like the Apostles did on the birthday of the Church so long ago?  We could make this world different if we wanted to and if we depended upon the Holy Spirit to help us as Jesus intended. If we truly used the gifts of the Holy Spirit, what a wonderful world we COULD have.  God bless.   

Praise and Glory to the Sacred Heart of Jesus

June is the month when we honor The Sacred Heart of Jesus.  When I was in Saint Bridget's School way back in the year 1959 I won an award.  I do not remember why I won it, but it was very special indeed. It was an 8 1/2 by 11 picture of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  It was a beautiful picture and you could look at it and see the love that Jesus had for you in the eyes.  No one ever really explained the picture to me but I remember being very impressed with it none-the-less. Since that moment, the Sacred Heart of Jesus has formed an integral part of my spiritual life.  His Heart beats with love and mercy each of us.  Not just for the Catholics, but for all of humanity.  Jesus is so much in love with us that He wanted to use the symbolism of His heart, which we traditionally consider the place where the soul resides, to express how He is on fire with love and mercy for all who desire it.  Is it idolatrous to have a devotion to a body part or the representation of one even if it is of Jesus?  The unlearned would think so.  But, in their ignorance, they forget that we are not honoring an actual heart, but rather, the love and mercy that radiates from the very soul of Jesus Christ, the Son of God and our Savior.  In order to honor the Sacred Heart, we are asked to make an effort to go to Mass on the first Friday of every month and to receive communion. Jesus communicated His desire for this practice to St. Margaret Mary and He makes these promises to those that do this in honor of His Sacred Heart.:

I will give them all the graces necessary for their state of life.

I will give peace in their families.

I will console them in all their troubles.

I will be their refuge in life and especially in death.

I will abundantly bless all their undertakings.

Sinners shall find in my Heart the source and infinite ocean of mercy.

Tepid souls shall become fervent.

Fervent souls shall rise speedily to great perfection.

I will bless those places wherein the image of My Sacred Heart shall be exposed and venerated.

I will give to priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts.

Persons who propagate this devotion shall have their names eternally written in my Heart.

In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.

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.  

Feast of the Visitation

And Mary said:

"My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

Brother Michael the Lessor TOR
He had a dream...
October 1976 - Feast of St. Francis

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed: 

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever."

Mary remained with her about three months

and then returned to her home.

Those that know me, know that Michael the Lesser is a fugitive from the monastery.  That's me in the picture above, mugging for the camera.  I was Brother Michael TOR.  I still own the cord that's around my waist and the crucifix, which was a gift to me from Brother Ambrose who was my boss at the mission goods store where I was assigned to work, hangs on the wall in my living room.  Those were two years that I would not trade for anything. They were hard years in a way because you were living in a small community and little petty things tended to grow in importance and little annoyances became major issues.  But, for the most part, it was a good life. I remember one day I was cleaning the sacristy and took a couple of old rugs out to beat.  As I came out of the house onto the back porch, I saw the sun glowing through the trees in the and in the distance I heard a crow cawing and it was a moment in my life where everything was in line, everything was perfect, and those moments, I have learned, come few and far between.  

As brothers, we said the daily office. In the morning was Lauds, and if you ever wanted to know what a cacophony sounded like, come and listen to twenty-four late teen and early twenty-something men try to chant in the morning.  After dinner was Vespers and the best hour of the day was Compline or as it was sometimes called, night prayer.  There was a rhythm to the day and it was punctuated by these times of prayer.  What used to annoy almost all of us is that Compline started promptly at ten o'clock, the same time that the news began.  Father Pat could give a rat's patoot about that, we never started Compline late.  

But, it is Vespers that I want to mention today.  Part of Vespers is the Canticle of Mary which is the reading at Mass today. For two years my evening featured this beautiful prayer that was said by our Blessed Mother when she visited her cousin, Elizabeth.  I got to really, really love this part of our daily public prayer.  If you read through the prayer you will begin to understand who Mary is.  Protestants say that we worship Mary.  Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.  Mary would not approve of our worshiping her.  She always points the way to Jesus.  She had just been chosen to be the very Mother of God and she does not puff herself up with pride, no, she begins her prayer with the words, "My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord."  She at once shows her great humility.  Mary speaks very little in Scripture, but when she speaks, she points the way to God. 

On this great feast day, my fondest hope is that I can imitate Mary in her great humility.  There never has been anyone who could claim to have any greater honor.  The old Ark of the Covenant has been replaced by the new and the tabernacle of Israel was now a virgin mother who carried inside her who would be the very Bread of Life for us. 

There are those that think that our prayers to Mary somehow diminishes Jesus.  Nothing can be further from the truth. Mary brings our prayers to her Son.  She pleads for us to get another chance.  To us, she always points to her Divine Son and she is quoted as saying, "Do whatever he tells you to do."

In all things, we are called to imitate Christ.  We are to imitate His love for the poor, for those who are in distress and we are to imitate Him in loving His mother.  Scott Hahn, a convert to Roman Catholicism, says that if we admit that Jesus lived a perfect, sin-free life, then we have to admit that He never even one of the ten commandments.  He goes on to say that if this is true then Jesus honored His father and His mother perfectly.  Further, if we are adopted sons and daughters of God, then our spiritual mother is the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We, in imitation of Christ, give her the same honor that her Son gives to her.  Honoring Mary, therefore, takes nothing away from God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Spirit. So, if you have a problem with honoring Mary, please talk to Jesus, He is the one who started it!  

Hail Mary, full of grace. The Lord is with thee.  Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. (1)   Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now, and at the hour of our death. Amen. 

Footnotes
(1) These are the words of the Angel Gabriel to the Blessed Virgin Mary when she agreed to become the Mother of God.  It forms the first half of the prayer called "The Hail Mary"

Forgotten ?

I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me,

because they are yours, and everything of mine is yours

and everything of yours is mine,

and I have been glorified in them.

The prayer of Jesus at the Last Supper, for me, is one of the most powerful passages in scripture. In reality, we are made privy to an intimate conversation between Jesus and The Father.  Jesus in this prayer is reporting on His mission to God's people.  He prays in that moment for the assembled Apostles, but he is also praying for you and I as well.  

On the day we were Baptised there was imprinted on our soul the mark that forever makes us the property of God our heavenly Father.  His ownership of us is real and he has the right to compel us to obey He instead gives us the choice to love Him as Father and to obey Him and accept our role as His adopted children and to become his ambassador or if we choose, we can go our own way.  The choice is ours. 

The right to choose is fraught with danger.  When we go our own way we are like ships whose rudder is not connected to the wheel and is subject to the whims of the current and wind.  The current and wind may take us in pleasant directions, at least for awhile. But, eventually, we will be cast upon a reef, our keel will be broken and our ship, as sturdy as it was, will fall victim to the ravages and perils of the sea and as for us, we will taste the saltiness of the sea as it closes in over our head.  As we founder, we still have the ability to cry our for help to the Father that loves us, and He will respond.  But, by this time, our stubborn pride that got us into this mess in the first place, may still our voice as our accumulated errors cause us to continue to depend only on ourselves. 

It is God's will that all of us be saved.  But it is also God's will that we come to Him, not as slaves compelled by law, but more like a young girl who is delighted to see her daddie come home from work.  She immediately drops what she is doing and runs to him and lets him know she loves him.  

God does not expect too much of us. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He loves us as we are right now and He will love us as we mature and grow into spiritual adulthood. God knows that not everyone can be a St. Francis of Assisi, forsaking the stuff of earth completely and living a life totally dedicated to poverty, chastity, and obedience.  But he does now we can treat everyone we meet as if we do possess those virtues.  He realizes that Mother Teresa was a special being who was open one-hundred percent to taking care of the poorest of the poor and that not everyone can do that.  But he does know it is possible for each of us to care for those less fortunate and to share the bounty and riches He has placed into our care.  

In short, we are all, repeat all, called to be saints.  We should not aim to arrive at  Purgatory at life's end, no, we should aim for heaven, aim as high as we can by sharing the Love we have received with those who need it most.  There is no one that is poorer than one who lives without God.  We may not be erudite enough to preach to the masses but we can certainly preach to one person, silently, by showing them the joy we have in serving them tenderly because it is the will of our Father and we live to do His will. 

The Reach of The Catholic Church

The Catholic Church is the one institution that has had the most impact on this world, bare none.  No other organization has lived through so many different world orders.  Many different world orders have seen their sunrise, their flourishing, and their sunset. The Church has been there and has witnessed it all. 

The Catholic Church has been a beacon through many tough periods in history. During the Dark Ages, she kept the light of human knowledge burning through her monasteries and learned monks. She formed the first institutions of higher learning, gave birth to what we call the modern hospital, and through it all she has always taught the truth of the Gospel without change and without bowing to the wisdom of the current trends in secular thought. For the Church, the truth that Christ taught, the truth that the Holy Spirit infused into the Church, the truth that the apostle passed down from the beginning remains the truth that is taught today. She has been a faithful steward of and protector of the Deposit of Faith. 

The Catholic Church alone bears the marks of what the true church should be.  She is one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic.  She seeks to unite all under One Body and One Blood. The denominations by their very nature only serve to weaken the unity that Jesus Himself called for at the Last Supper.  When Martin Luther, filled with sinful pride, to an ax to the root of the one, singular, holy church that Christ founded he began a process that continues until today, the removal of pebbles from the Rock that is the foundation of the Church.  The Church is in no danger of falling as Jesus promised that the gates of hell will not prevail against her.  So despite the miasma of a multitude of "truths" being taught in the name of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church remains today as it was in the beginning, the organization that keeps alive the true teachings of Jesus Christ on earth.  

The Catholic Church reaches deeply into modern society.  She is the voice that will not allow the conscience of man to fall asleep. She is hated by those who would rather give vent to the evil in their hearts.  She is despised by those who want to live in the cold and silent darkness of sin and who perpetuate a culture of death.  

The Church through the centuries has been the first to dispense alms to the needy, to victims of famine, and disease.  She is the only organization who waits for opportunities to be of service. In her charity, she does not ask a man's religion nor does she weigh his wallet.  Where there is a need she gives. 

She is the very Bride of Christ but those that hate her describe her as the whore of Babylon because their eyes are blinded to the good fruit the Catholic Church has brought forth through the centuries. Instead, she is accused of killing more people than were alive at the time of the Inquisitions, while the truth is that few perished because of these courts and many more were brought to salvation.  In our own times, she was accused of working hand in glove with the Nazi government and keeping a sinful silence at the plight of the Jewish people at the hands of Hitler.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Pope Pius, at the end of the war, received and thanks from many Jewish leaders for the people he saved by hiding them in monasteries and in Vatican City itself.  

The Roman Catholic Church is the Church that Christ founded. As such, she is the vehicle of salvation for mankind.  Other denominations cannot say this about themselves.  The fact remains that the very Bible that these denominations, was pulled together under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.  The Church decided upon the Canon of Scripture that served everyone for fifteen-hundred years until the reformers led by the arch-criminal Luther removed from the Sacred Pages whole books that did not fit into their novel and unbiblical views of salvation. 

The Roman Catholic Church, the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic organization was firmly built by Christ on the rock that was Peter.  The current Pope can trace his lineage back in an unbroken line to Peter.  Never in two-thousand years has even one Pope taught error from the Chair of Peter and there have been some very bad popes indeed!  In spite of the fact that there were some popes who had only their own pockets in mind, even they did not endanger the purity of God's truth by teaching error. Quite the contrary, the evil popes taught nothing as they lined their pockets and ran roughshod over the commandments of God.  The fact remains that the good popes have outnumbered the bad ones by a vast majority.  It should be noted that the Pope is protected from teaching error, but he is not protected from committing sin. Those that state that the Catholic Church cannot be the church of God because these bad popes ruled forget that these men were just that, men, able to commit acts of great turpitude such as the evil popes did or committing acts of great holiness as the saintly ones did. 

So, reject the Catholic Church at your peril. The Church believes that everyone who calls Jesus "Lord" is a fellow Christian even if they are not in full communion with the Church and they can and will attain heaven if they lead holy lives for God sees no difference in Gentile or Jew, man or woman, slave or free.  However, he has given His Church great tools and powers in the Treasury of Faith to ensure that we come to be with Him in heaven.  The way to heaven is a narrow and sometimes steep road.  The Church provides places in which to place your feet and stepping stones to help ease the journey.  The Church will bring you to the Valley of Peace, where pain no longer exists and we will once again be one flock with one Shepherd who is the Lord.