Nineveh

The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying:

"Set out for the great city of Nineveh,

and announce to it the message that I will tell you."

So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,

according to the LORD'S bidding.

Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;

it took three days to go through it.

Jonah began his journey through the city,

and had gone but a single day's walk announcing,

"Forty days more and Nineveh shall be destroyed, "

when the people of Nineveh believed God;

they proclaimed a fast

and all of them, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw by their actions how they turned from their evil way,

he repented of the evil that he had threatened to do to them;

he did not carry it out.

To say that Nineveh was a great city would be to damn it with faint praise.  Our author states that it took three days to go through the city.  Modern excavations of where Nineveh used to be, right across the river from modern-day Mosul, has been described as being a rectangular city more or less seven and a half miles on a side, which would mean it would contain an area of about fifty-six square miles. While Nineveh was certainly a large city, to put it in perspective, New York City occupies three-hundred and six square miles.Nineveh had all of the things a capital city should have including fortress-like walls, moats, and defensive parapets, along with a water system that piped water from the mountains into the city. All in all, it was quite an impressive place, a fitting home for the empire that had conquered much of the known world, including Egypt.  

Let's talk about Jonah for a moment. He was a prophet of Yahweh, a reluctant one when it came to his mission to the Ninevites.  Recall how when God first called Him he said that he would not go and left town on the first boat out.  Well, there came a terrible storm and the sailors received word that if the threw Jonah off of the boat, the storm would end.  At first, they refused to do this. But as the storm raged, in fear for their lives, over the side went our hero, Johah, who was picked up by a whale (although we assume that he was swallowed by a whale, the word used in the original language simply means "big fish) and while rescued from the sea, he had to spend three days in the stomach of this whale.  That must have been somewhat unpleasant. The fish regurgitated him and spat him out onto land and Jonah decided to do what God instructed him to do.    

So Jonah arrives at the large, glittering city which was full of wonders and wealth.  He goes up one street and then another announcing that in forty days Nineveh would be destroyed by God. Jonah was less than enthusiastic about the whole thing but after the first day the king had heard of Jonah's proclamation and believed and a fast is proclaimed, everyone, from the greatest to the youngest participates and all don sackcloth, which is roughly woven cloth made out of either hemp, if you are lucky, or goat hair, if you are not.  It was used as a sign of submission and repentance by the ancients.  God saw how the Ninevites repented of their sin and He decided not to destroy them.  This ticked Jonah off to no end. But you can read the Bible to see what happened next for yourself.  Jonah is often thought of as a sort of Jesus because he was rejected by the people (thrown off the ship) and was buried, (spending three days in the whale's belly) and then rising again when the fish deposited him without much ceremony on dry land. 

Can you imagine a disheveled man, smelling of fish, coming to your town today, thumping and waving his Bible wildly as he shouted that your city would be destroyed in forty days, what kind of reception he would get? He would be ignored and mocked. Is it possible that God has sent his prophets into modern cities?  I don't know but what I do know is that our modern society should really take a look at what happened to the rich, beautiful, fortress town of Nineveh.  It is being excavated by archeologists.  The town and the empire that it represented eventually fell, conquered by others, sacked and the treasure it contained was packed up and carted away to another great city with another great king with an invincible army.  We know this because we are excavating that city too! 

Nothing is forever on this globe we call home.  Great nations and empires come and go.  Some last longer than others, but eventually they come to an end.  So the next time you hear somebody who suggests that you repent, why not do the safe thing and examine your conscience and repent of the things that draw you away from God.  None of us are perfect and God has given us the sacrament of confession to make sure that He and we always remain the closest of friends. 

The thought that everyone we know who has passed away has gone to heaven is very comforting for us.  We loved these people when they lived and do not want to think about them suffering after death.  Some of us do go to Purgatory and once there, we can only be helped by the intercessory prayer of others. Don't limit your love to the graveside, extend it and pray for those you have lost to death by name. If they are already in heaven, your prayers will be applied to another soul and they will be forever grateful.  Below is a prayer that can rescue many souls at once, say this prayer once a day at least. 

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.”

  

Jesus and Mental Illness

Mark 3:20-21

Jesus came with his disciples into the house. Again the crowd gathered, making it impossible for them even to eat. When his relatives heard of this they set out to seize him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” 

Okay, I will admit it, some passages are easier to write about than others. Mark 3:20-21 is not one of those easy passages. The Church is not having any mercy on people like me that want to expound on what is being said in the Gospel when they give me the passage where the relatives of Jesus, they don't say who, are calling Him insane. What do we make of this?  Two things come to mind, misunderstanding and mental illness.  Let's touch briefly on both of these subjects. 

First, mental illness is something that carries with it a stigma that follows a person around for their whole life. I remember back in the 1970's, there was a senator that was being considered to be nominated for vice president.  He was a good candidate, well respected, and almost a shoe in except when it was revealed that he suffered from depression.  He was dropped from consideration. 

There was a Catholic man that I knew that once said that there is no way a Christian should ever be depressed, that if they were a real Christian the joy of having Jesus in your life would conquer all.  What a load of dingo's kidneys. We do not blame a person with cancer who has been cured, there is no stigma in being one whose body at one time had turned against itself and had received healing through the medical profession. As a matter of fact, we make a big deal over the fact that they are survivors, and we should, it is a great thing to best a killer disease.  But, let a person have an imbalance of serotonin in their brain and a case of depression that is cured by taking an antidepressant and the whispers behind their back will always be there.

Heaven help someone if they are bipolar!  Their disease is hard enough to treat without attaching a stigma to them.  Our society has little time and little mercy for the mentally ill.  In former years there were hospitals that would treat people with mental illness but today, our insurance company driven medical care system has forced these care centers to close because they will not pay for patient's care.  Please, pray for those who are suffering mental illness.  If you've never been depressed, you cannot imagine the dark hole that your life becomes and you feel ashamed and alone.  That loneliness, the friendlessness, the dark hole makes everyday life a terror and no one understands.  

Be a cool drink of water for someone with mental issues and even if you cannot draw them out of their hole, at least do not dig it any deeper.  A gentle word, a smile, a sincere offer to help, and understanding if the person is not ready for your helping hand, that is what we need here.  In other words, bring the Christian in you out to help those in such desperate need. 

It goes without saying that Jesus was not insane.  As a matter of fact, out of the billions of people that have lived on this earth, he is the poster boy for sanity.  His message was to love one another as God has loved you.  He cured the sick, drove out demons and his talent were on call during all hours of the day and night.  He must have looked a little bit haggard on this day for members of His family to call Him crazy.  He was misunderstood and if it happened to Him, it will happen to us in our Christian ministry.  Our devotion may seem strange to people.  Our beliefs may go against what is popular in the culture of death that we live in.  We must not let these misunderstandings get us down.  We have a message that the world needs to hear and we must speak it with great sincerity, great love, and most of all great confidence.  You must also remember that you are nothing more than a seed planter.  God will nurture what grows, perhaps using you, perhaps using other people.  Just spread the seed and watch as it grows, that is all you need to do, 

Purgatory can be likened to the mud-room before heaven.  We prepare ourselves to enter heaven by cleaning up attachments to things that don't belong in heaven. Please pray for the poor souls today. Thank you! 

The Twelve - Eleven and One Clinker

Mark 3: 13 - 19                                                      Jesus went up the mountain and summoned those    

whom he wanted and they came to him. 
He appointed Twelve, whom he also named Apostles,
that they might be with him
and he might send them forth to preach 
and to have authority to drive out demons:
He appointed the Twelve:
Simon, whom he named Peter; 
James, son of Zebedee, 
and John the brother of James, whom he named Boanerges, that is, sons of thunder;
Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew,
Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus; 
Thaddeus, Simon the Cananean,
and Judas Iscariot who betrayed him.  

He called twelve very every-day, ordinary, and simple men to be His apostles.   They were rough around the edges, mostly fisherman, but there were a tax collector and an accountant among them as well.  To a man, they left what they did and what they were before to follow a person whom they believed was the Messiah.  Now, what their idea of what a Messiah was supposed to be was in a great measure different than what Jesus knew it was going to be.  He would have to train these men and show them the way that led to heaven.  There would be times when they would doubt, and He would have to assure them.  There would be the odd occasion where they would clamor to be first and He would have patiently show them how it was better to be last.  They would wait to be served and He would teach them to serve.  In short, Jesus started with a gang that needed a lot of work and He spent His time molding them into the men He needed them to be.  He even picked one that would betray Him! 

The story does sound familiar, doesn't it?  It sounds like the story of every one of us.  We are all called to be disciples of Jesus and we, like the twelve, start off as rough and tumble followers with a lot of enthusiasm but not a whole lot more.  So, Jesus uses life and those around us to teach us that it is better to serve than to be served and it better to be last than to clamor to be first.  He had people write it all down for us and He gave us the Church to help us get it right.  So, right now, I don't know where you are at on your spiritual journey with Jesus, but I do know that you are a work in progress and that he is taking an awful lot of time and trouble with you even if you don't see care and concern all of the time.  The secret, I guess, is to quiet your spirit and listen with the ears of your heart to what He is telling you through the circumstances of your life. Every day there is a lesson for you to master.  Every day you are called to display the characteristics of a Christian man or woman.  Remember, that He is there, He is working with you and He will not abandon you. Be one with Him and call on Him every chance you get. 

Listen up:  We like to think that every person who dies goes immediately to heaven. While that can and does happen, it must be a rare event indeed.  In heaven, there is no discord, no lack of love, no sin, no attachment to things of this earth, no anger taken to the grave.  It is a comforting thought to think of our friends and relatives in heaven but what if they really are in Purgatory?  If they are there, they need our prayers desperately.  You loved them in life, love them into the afterlife as well by giving them what they need the most. 

They will be forever grateful. 

Rockstar !

Mark 3: 7-12                                          
Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.
A large number of people followed from Galilee and from Judea.
Hearing what he was doing, 
a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, 
from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, 
and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.
He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, 
so that they would not crush him.
He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases
were pressing upon him to touch him.
And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him 
and shout, "You are the Son of God."
He warned them sternly not to make him known.

Well, it looks like Jesus had attained what we would call in our time, "Rockstar Status." People are coming from all over the place to see Him.  Word has gotten around that He is a great healer and people wanted what He was giving out.  He was getting so popular that he had to have his apostles prepare a way for Him to escape. Had He the stamina, Jesus could have worked at curing people and exorcising demons twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week!  His popularity was going viral.  

But what were the people actually coming for?  Were they coming because that they heard that this man speaks wisdom and appears to be anointed by God and has some good things to say?  No, some were coming to see the magician Jesus, you know, the one that cleans lepers and drives out demons, now that is a roadshow worth going to!  Others were the people with the diseases and the demons, coming because they heard that their issue could be cured in just a minute if they could get close to Jesus.  Others were coming because they had the day off and wanted to do something with it and a Galilean wonder-worker fit the bill, let's bring lunch and make a day of it! 

The only ones that knew absolutely who Jesus was and why He was there were the demons that he expelled.  They knew He was the Son of God and they were not afraid to say so. Jesus, on the other hand, had no desire for His true identity to be broadcast by these tools of the devil so he silenced them.  His mission was to the people of God, to bring the good news that God loved them and that He sent His only Son as their Messiah.  But who cares about a messiah when you can be made clean and get back to earning money so you could buy bread for your family.  Or why bother with something nebulous like a messiah which had been promised for thousands of years.  What was the likelihood that after all of these years that one would arrive now?  Get yours while the getting was good.

His apostles must have been struck with awe as they saw all of the people streaming to their leader.  At least one of them, a man from Iscariot named Judas, was thinking about how much money could be made if they only had a basket or hat to pass.  Even His apostles did not get what the real purpose of Christ on earth was all about yet. 

Jesus was here to assure us that we were loved way beyond what we could understand and that God the Father was keeping His promise to patch things up with His wayward children.  But first, Jesus would have to grow beyond rock star status and the people would have to start listening with the ears that were connected to their hearts  Eventually they would come to see what Jesus was and what He was about and on that day they would crucify Him and only then would they learn the greatest lesson that He had to teach, that the power of sin and death was no more.

We cannot assume that everyone that dies goes straight to heaven,  To do so so is a comfort for us but not of any value for them.  The Poor Souls await our prayers.  Please pray for them by name today.

Sabbath Law

As Jesus was passing through a field of grain on the sabbath,                  

his disciples began to make a path while picking the heads of grain.  
At this, the Pharisees said to him,
"Look, why are they doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath?"
He said to them,
"Have you never read what David did
when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry?
How he went into the house of God when Abiathar was high priest
and ate the bread of offering that only the priests could lawfully eat,
and shared it with his companions?"
Then he said to them,
"The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.
That is why the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath."

Imagine that, what gall, hungry men plucking and eating grain on the Sabbath!  Don't they know that this is not permitted, that they are supposed to rest?  What about this walking business?  That certainly is not permitted on the Sabbath!  The Pharisees were on hand to point this out to Jesus. He, for his part, went back into history and reminded the listeners of how hungry men took the bread intended for the priests and that was okay.  Then, He came to the heart of the matter and said what His disciples were doing was lawful because He was Lord of the Sabbath and that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. 

The first century Jews had lost track of what the Sabbath was all about. It was about rest and relaxation to restore the body and soul for the work week ahead.  The Jews did believe in resting on the Sabbath but as is typical of man, why not take something simple and make it complex as possible?  To this simple command of resting one day in seven, we humans piled on the complications, such as making limits as to how far one could walk on the Sabbath, once you got to that point you had to stop until the Sabbath was over and rest.  There were laws that regulated everything about the Sabbath all splitting hairs over and over again.  Jesus knew what the Sabbath was for and it wasn't that man was made to serve the Sabbath but it was the Sabbath that was to be a servant to man. Jesus, being God, knew what the commandment to keep the Sabbath holy meant and simply informed the on-lookers that "The Son of Man was the lord of the Sabbath."  

I remember in my youth, a very long time ago to be sure, that most stores were closed on Sunday as were most other places of business, although there were some exceptions.  Stores like Walgreens and Rexall were open so you could get your medications filled.  If the drug store had a liquor department a sign told you that you were not able to purchase intoxicants on the Sabbath before noon. So, Sunday was seen as a day of rest to be spent doing things that brought serenity back into your life.   Today, of course, we see Sunday as just another day.  There are no "blue laws" in effect, our society does not recognize the Sabbath.  Even in the Christian community, many Protestant denominations do not have any belief that there is an obligation to come together once a week and worship, members are free to come or not, it does not matter.  Some people are twice a year Christians, Easter and Christmas being the days that they attend.  For Catholics worshipping on Sunday is obligatory and those that do not attend mass commit a grave sin.  The Church knows how important this weekly gathering is and so makes this fact clear to her members. 

Catholics have a legal obligation to go to Church. The rule is there for those that require them to force their attendance.  But, if we really think what the mass is, there would be no need to have any rule and every church would be full at every mass.  We are fed at Mass with the Word of God in the written word, spoken word and in the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Eucharist. 

Think of it.  At every Mass, Jesus appears in person in the guise of what appears to be bread and wine.  We are there and we can take the God of the universe into ourselves as heavenly food and for a time Creator and creature are joined to each other and each creature is united in this communion with all other members of the Church.  How can we imagine staying away?  Yes, the Sabbath was made for man as Jesus says and worshipping together is the prime way we should celebrate it.  We need a spiritual oasis in our busy lives and in the Catholic Church, heaven comes to earth and God and man become one and we can be no closer to God this side of heaven. 

The truth is that not everyone goes directly to heaven. Some of us need to prepare ourselves by divesting attachments to sin and to the things of this world and chose Purgatory. You may, in fact, have relatives or friends there that need your prayers to help them get out of Purgatory and into heaven.  Praying for the dead is one of the Spiritual Acts of Mercy. Please pray for your friends and relatives by name.  If they are in fact already in heaven, your prayers will go to another deserving soul. Remember, As they are today you might someday be. 

The Wedding Feast and Wineskins

The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast.                  

People came to Jesus and objected,
"Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,
but your disciples do not fast?"
Jesus answered them,
"Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?
As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast.
But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
and then they will fast on that day.
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."
Mark 2: 18-22

The Pharisees were accustomed to fast twice a week and they saw that Jesus and his disciples did not follow this tradition and they wanted to know why.  Jesus said that you do not fast at a wedding party and while He was here there was no reason to fast.  He did say that once He was gone, then there would be time for fasting.  He also said that you don't use a new piece of cloth to repair an old garment.  The new cloth would shrink the first time you washed it and the hole would be made larger.  Similarly, you do not put new wine into old wineskins because the old skins were used up, they were brittle and would burst. 

The teachings of Jesus would not fit well with the teaching of the Pharisees.  Jesus was not here to patch up the old but to teach a new way of worship.  The old wineskins held the sacrifice of animals to appease an angry God but Jesus' teaching was to show us a new view of the Father, a loving and merciful God who wanted His children to be with Him and He was willing to do anything to make this happen, even sending His only Son to earth.  This new wine would never fit into the old wineskin and it would cause it to burst. 

We are so very blessed.  Even the learned of that ancient time served a God that they did not understand.  We have been given the whole truth about the love of God and we have been taught His ways.  We have been given the very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament to keep us spiritually sustained on our journey. The Hebrews of ancient time were certainly the apple of God's eye and very dear to Him, but today, the whole world is loved by God and the whole world is invited to be His adopted son or daughter and to share with Him the pleasures and beauty of heaven together with His Son.  What a wonderful thing it is to be a Christian and double that wonder and joy if you happen to be a Catholic Christian with access to the whole truth of the Gospel message. 

Purgatory is a place filled with Joy and Pain.  The people there need our prayers for they cannot help themselves.  Please remember to pray for them.  It will take you just a minute but it will mean so much for them.  Pray the prayer of St. Gertrude the Great: 

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.”

Come and See

John was standing with two of his disciples,

and as he watched Jesus walk by, he said,

"Behold, the Lamb of God."

The two disciples heard what he said and followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following him and said to them, "What are you looking for?"

They said to him, "Rabbi" — which translated means Teacher —, "where are you staying?" He said to them, "Come, and you will see." So they went and saw where Jesus was staying, and they stayed with him that day.

It was about four in the afternoon. Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the two who heard John and followed Jesus. He first found his own brother Simon and told him, "We have found the Messiah" — which is translated Christ —.  hen he brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said, "You are Simon the son of John; you will be called Cephas" — which is translated, Peter.

Sometimes, nuances get lost when you translate from one language to another and this happens twice in this passage from John (John 1: 35 - 42).  At the very beginning, we see that two of the soon to be apostles were actually working with and following John the Baptist.  John knew who Jesus was and when he saw his cousin pass he did what was probably very hard for him to do, he pointed out Jesus and told his two loyal followers that passing right in front of them was the Lamb of God, which the two would have understood as the Messiah.  Who had need of John the Baptist when the actual Messiah was passing by. They caught up with Jesus and He turned around and asked them what they were looking for, The two do not seem to answer the question directly because they ask Him, "Where are you staying."  In the Aramaic language, the words used to convey their thoughts say a bit more than what is apparently said.  We would translate what they have said as, "What manner of a man are you? What do you believe."  The answer makes perfect sense in either case because they are invited to "come and see." 

Many of us were born into the faith and we were taught from an early age who Jesus was and what he was about. As children, we accepted what was told to us because what we heard came from trusted sources such as parents and teachers.  Each of us, one day, had to finally make what we heard our own and either accept as adults what we had learned about Jesus or reject the teachings as flights of fancy. If you are reading this, most likely, you decided that following Jesus was the way to go.  Good choice! 

When we accepted Jesus and His teachings, we had received teachings that were born in ancient times and had developed into the doctrine taught by the Church and guaranteed to be true by the Holy Spirit that we have today.  It was not so for the soon to be apostles. Galilee as Pilate says in Jesus Christ Superstar "produced messiahs by the sack full."  One by one they would appear only to prove themselves to be deluded by mental disease or defect or malignant con men looking to score some much-needed money from the fools of the region. John the Baptist sent his two best men away to follow Jesus. John was the catalyst that propelled them and was a source that had much credibility with the two and so they left the Baptist to walk with Jesus. Andrew for his part brought Peter to Jesus. Peter accepted Andrew as a trusted source and therefore, Peter too threw in his lot to follow Jesus. 

We too have a trusted source that started us on our way to trust Jesus and we too have a duty to bring others to Christ. Our evangelization of others can take many forms.  We do not have to gather up our Bible and thump it loudly while standing on a street corner shouting out the Gospel truth.  We could do this but such people are regarded with suspicion by their intended audience and I suspect that their attempt at being fishers of men do not meet with many victories.  I believe that we can convert more people using the oldest technique in the world and that is loving the crowd into the realization that Jesus is Lord.  

How though do we go about this?  We use gentle voices and loving hearts and we treat others just as we would want to be treated ourselves. Attraction is a better motivator that compulsion.   So this week, be an example of compassion, love, and patience to those around you.  Attract people to you so that they might see Jesus in you and wonder why you glow with such happiness. 

God bless you and please remember the poor souls in purgatory.