Taking up Your Cross

Reflections on the scripture readings for the 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time. Scripture can be found at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/083114.cfm

A nun was explaining the Stations of the Cross to her class. When they got to the fourth station where Jesus, on the road to Calvary, meets his mother, the nun explained that, even though they could not talk to each other, mother and son simply used their eyes. "What do you think they said to each other?" she asked the pupils. The students gave many different answers. One child suggested that she said, "This is unfair." Another child suggested that she said, "Why me?" Finally, a sickly little girl raised her hand, got up and said, "Sister, I know what the Blessed Mother told Jesus. She said to him, "Keep on going, Jesus!" Why would a mother encourage her only son on the way to crucifixion to keep on going? Because a mother understands the Christian principle of "no cross, no crown."

The gospel of Christ is a coin with two sides: the cross and the crown. If we try to embrace the glorious side and reject the suffering side, we falsify the gospel. The same Jesus who said "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28) also said, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." (Matthew 16:24-25)

Following God and choosing to do His will is never easy. Jeremiah in our first reading found this out the hard way. He had to endure real hardship. In the verses just before the selection we read for today, a priest of Jerusalem temple had Jeremiah confined to the stocks. Those hearing the words of Jeremiah did not like much of his warnings that the kingdom will collapse. They regarded Jeremiah's words as treasonous and demoralizing. They could not see that Jeremiah was speaking for the true King of Israel; therefore his words were anything but treasonous. Though Jeremiah sounds frustrated in this reading, he comes to realize that he had to speak the word of God, even if it led to personal discomfort.

In the gospel for today, our Lord is teaching us the importance of carrying our crosses, in imitation of Him. We can't escape the crosses that God places in our lives. What we need to do is to move beyond anger with ourselves or depression, so that we can arrive at where the cross is meant to lead us all the time - grace.

Place your trust in God and ask him to carry the cross with you. The crucified, glorified Jesus comes to us in the Eucharist. It is here especially that we can receive the grace, the strength, to carry our cross. It is here that we grow in faith, hope, and love. The cross will lead us to new life in Christ.

Praise be Jesus Christ, now and forever!

St. Monica

Today the Church commemorates the mother of St. Augustine, St. Monica. In a biography of her it says, "She was born at Thagaste in Africa of a Christian family. She was married young, to Patricius, and among her children was Augustine. He had a brilliant intellect and uncertain morals and his wayward spiritual career saw him at one time a Manichee and then a Neoplatonist."

Monica is an example of what it truly means to be a Christian in the world, a follower of Christ. Her husband was an "unbeliever" and her children were not much better. Augustine, though being brought up a Christian, left his Christian faith behind to lead a life full of self absorption and selfishness. He lived with a woman without being married, had a child with her, a son, named, Adeodatus. He had a successful legal and academic career. But this was all leaving him feeling empty and unsatisfied. The prayers of Monica were starting to work.

As a result of her prayers, he returned to the Church and devoted his whole life to the knowledge and love of God. This was all thanks to the prayers of his mother, Monica. In her words to him, just before she passed from this world to the next, she said to Augustine, "For my part, my son, I no longer find pleasure in anything that this life holds. What I am doing here still, or why I am still here, I do not know, for worldly hope has withered away for me. One thing only there was for which I desired to linger in this life: to see you a Catholic Christian before I died. And my God has granted this to me more lavishly than I could have hoped, letting me see even you spurning earthly happiness to be his servant. What am I still doing here?”

As a result of her constant prayers and concern for Augustine, and his eventual conversion to the Catholic faith, she is considered to be the patron saint of mothers. Once converted, he is quoted as saying to God, "Late have I loved you, Beauty so ancient and so new, late have I loved you!" What beautiful words!

I use Monica as an example in my daily prayers to God. Not only do I pray for my own concerns and service to God as a deacon, I pray to God for my children. I pray that God guides them, as He once guided Augustine, through the prayers of Monica.

We are all called to pray as Monica did for those people in our lives that need to have God in the center of all they do. They can be our children, spouses, relatives, or friends. We are to pray for them to come to know God and to be in relationship with Jesus. Use Monica as an example to pray for those in your life that need God's love and care.

Praise be Jesus Christ now and forever!

Assumption vs: Ascension

Assumption vs: Ascension

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.” Luke 1:46-47

Every year on August 15th the Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven. The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us in paragraph 966 "Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death." In the Orthodox Church it’s called The Feast of the Dormition of Our Most Holy Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. The Feast commemorates the repose (dormition and in the Greek kimisis) or "falling-asleep" of the Mother of Jesus Christ, our Lord. The Feast also commemorates the translation or assumption into heaven of the body of the Theotokos.

Our Lady’s whole life was centered on doing the Will of God. His Will was central in all she did. Look at how she responded to God, through the Angel Gabriel, “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38)
As a result of whom she is and how she lived her life, God chose to take her up to heaven, body and soul. Whether she “fell asleep” and was taken up to heaven, as the Orthodox teach, or was just taken up to heaven as we so often see depicted in artwork, surrounded by angels, on a cloud, she was taken up to heaven by the power of God. Not by her own power. Further, we as Catholics are required to believe this. In 1854, with the Bull Ineffabilis, Pius IX solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. As a dogma, we, as Catholics are required to believe and accept it.

Regarding the Ascension of Our Lord, this occurred 40 days after He rose from the dead on Easter, and is the final act of our redemption that Christ began on Good Friday. On this day, the risen Christ, in the sight of His apostles, ascended bodily into Heaven (Luke 24:51; Mark 16:19; Acts 1:9-11). It was through His own power that He ascended into heaven. This is another central belief that we have as Catholics.

So, as you see, the difference between the Assumption of Our Lady and the Ascension of Our Lord is this: it was through the power of God that Mary was assumed into heaven, and it was through His own power that Jesus ascended into heaven.

Let us, like Mary, have God always in the center of all we do in our lives. Let us, like Mary, say, “Behold, I am the handmaid (servant) of the Lord.”