We Proclaim Christ Crucified

 

The Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

In our readings for today we hear from St. Paul in his letter to the Corinthians and from the Gospel of Matthew about two things we need to be: followers of Jesus Christ and to be God centered people.

In the first reading from St. Paul, we hear Paul talk about the challenges of being a follower of Christ. Most people do not understand why we follow Jesus. All they see is someone who was crucified on the cross on Good Friday more than 2,000 years ago. Paul says, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing…” These are people who have rejected belief in God and are living out their lives with no thought of finding salvation in Jesus Christ. They are centered on themselves and have no concern for anyone else. They feel that it’s foolish to believe in the Lord and to believe that he not only died on Good Friday but rose on Easter Sunday. To them it’s a “stumbling block” and “foolishness.” They continue to live out their lives rejecting salvation from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the gospel we hear of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. The wise virgins were always ready for the “Bridegroom” and focused on when it was time for him to call them to the banquet. The foolish ones were too distracted by other things rather than on being ready for when the Lord comes to call them to the banquet. Do we live our lives focused on being ready for the time when we meet the Lord at the banquet in heaven? Or do we just live out our lives by ignoring the eventual time when we will meet the Lord face to face?

As followers of Jesus Christ, we need to always live out our lives as God centered Christians by receiving our Lord in the Eucharist often and by the regular use of confession when we fall short of our call to love God and to love our neighbor.

The people in our lives may think we’re foolish for our faith in the salvation that comes from Jesus Christ. But we are always to remain focused on the Lord in our lives and pray for the conversion of those we hold dear in our lives that they, too, may turn to the Lord to seek salvation and forgiveness of their sins.

XXI Sunday of Ord. Time

  

Today we have a recurring guest blogger:  Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, pastor of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org) 

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB

Submission to the blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella for XXI Sunday of Ord. Time

© All Rights Reserved personally by Rev. Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, August 21, 2024 ©

 

            As a pastor, I know well the temptation to water down the hard truths of the Gospel in my preaching and teaching to keep people coming to Mass and our other rites and further to sustain our parish practically and prayerfully.  I can only imagine how this temptation besets my fellow pastors as we all try to keep our parishes going in body and soul whilst the Catholic Church and other faith communities are still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and even worse, from the blithe disregard of the needs of the human soul as well as our constitutional rights to the free exercise of religion, freedom of assembly, and free speech by various public authorities, leaders of public opinion, and corporate bigwigs – among others - as they mismanaged the pandemic and its aftermath.  Luke 12:48.

 

            I wonder if Our Lord Jesus was tempted to some linguistic sleight of hand regarding His assertions of His Real Presence in the Eucharist, per John 6, the source of our Gospel readings in the Ordinary Form these last five weeks and concluding today in Jn 6:60-69.  Although we Roman Catholic priests promise celibacy before receiving Holy Orders, that does not mean that we let go of wanting to love or wanting to be loved (and liked), including by our parishioners.  As almost all His followers deserted Jesus in John 6, I can imagine the heaviness in Our Lord’s question to St. Peter and the other Apostles, “Do you want to leave?”  Heaviness, I dare to imagine.  But He did not change His teachings. 

 

            Consider St. Peter’s response in Jn 6:68, “Master, to Whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”  What a choice His Eminence, Cardinal Dolan, made when he chose “Ad quem ibimus” (Latin for “To whom shall we go?”) as his episcopal motto!  Our Lord not only probes the faith of the Apostles in Jn 6 but also asks how much faith will be on Earth when He returns.  Cf. Luke 18:8 (“However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on Earth?”).  When encountering the preaching and teaching of the hard truths of the Gospel, especially on the controversies of today, and not getting hung up on how - or for how long - the message is made, may we strive to answer Our Lord’s question made to you and me while the Gospel today is proclaimed or sung at Mass, as St. Peter replied in Jn 6:68.  May Our Lord’s questions meet your response and mine that Jesus will find your living faith (and mine), even if that entails trial and tribulation on Earth, so that we may attain holiness in this life and then our eternal salvation.

Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?

 

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

In our gospel for today, we hear the very familiar “golden rule” from the Lord: Love of God with your whole heart, soul and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37)

It doesn’t get any more basic than that: we, who call ourselves Christian, are called to love. To love God and to love neighbor. It’s not always an easy rule to follow, but if we are to be followers of Jesus Christ, follow it we must.

The Lord concludes in today’s gospel, “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” (Matthew 23:40) How much clearer can we get?

Central in our faith in Jesus Christ, we need to give God all glory, honor and love. We are called to have God as the center of who we are. We are to make time during our days to pray and give thanks to the Lord God to show that we indeed love Him as our Creator. We show Him this by our daily time in prayer. From the time we wake in the morning to the time we end our day; we are to remember that our time here in this life is a precious gift from God. We should make time every day to pray and give thanksgiving to God for this gift of life. Even if it at short periods of time throughout the day, we should take time to read scripture and to give thanks and glory to God. Even during the busiest times of day, by just taking a moment to say, “Thank you, Lord, for being with me throughout this day” we are showing God the love that we have for him.

The second part of this golden rule is the hardest: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:39) First, we need to have a healthy love for ourselves. We can’t truly love others if we don’t have that healthy love of ourselves.

Further, it’s not always easy to love those around us as God expects us to. We need to remember that all people are made in the image of God and are loved by God. We, in turn, are to love them as we love ourselves. That’s not always easy, and there may be times when we need to distance ourselves from these people that we find it hard to get along with. It’s okay to keep our distance from them to protect our own spiritual & emotional wellbeing, but we are called to love them and to pray for them and their welfare.

As we go through our days, let us always try to love God with our whole minds, heart and soul, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. And when we fall short of these goals, let us turn back to God to seek forgiveness for the times we fall short.

 

Ep 41 An Intentional Crisis

Amen, I say to you, it will be hard for one who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven.

Scripture for today's reflection can be found at Memorial of Saint Bernard, Abbot and Doctor of the Church | USCCB

In our gospel for today the Lord is teaching us about the trust we need to have in God and to always place God as central to who we are and how we are to live our lives. Wealth and money should never become more important than our relationship to God. Wealth and money are just tools for us to get by in our day-to-day existence, but we are never to make it into an idol. 

Our Lord is teaching that it's difficult for someone who is rich to enter the Kingdom of heaven because his/her main concern is the wealth and making sure that it provides the security they need to live a comfortable life. In realty, it's God that can give us that security and peace of mind. All we need to do is trust in the Lord.

Further, the Lord goes on to say, "And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands for the sake of my name will receive a hundred times more and will inherit eternal life." (Matthew 19:29) What I think the Lord is teaching is that we are to use our financial wealth (whether we have a lot or a little) wisely. Be prudent in our finances, but also be willing to share it with either the church or other charities that may be in need of financial help. In turn the Lord will grant you peace and security. But you are never to make the financial wealth more important than your relationship with God and with neighbor.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”

 

I submitted to my Lay Carmelite Chapter's newsletter a reflection on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and wanted to share it here.

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” (Luke 1:46)

August 15 is the day that Catholics have long celebrated what is called the Dormition (falling asleep) or Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The Feast of the Assumption celebrates both the happy departure of Mary from this life by her natural death, and her assumption bodily into heaven.

Venerable Pope Pius XII confirmed this belief about the Virgin Mary as the perennial teaching of the Church when he defined it formally as a dogma of Catholic faith in 1950, invoking papal infallibility to proclaim, “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.” As a result of this dogma, as Catholics, we are expected to believe and to accept this teaching of the Church.

Most people outside of the Church assume that we, as Catholics adore and worship Mary as God. We don’t worship her, because worship is only reserved for God. But we do venerate Mary as Mother of God. The nature of Jesus is “true God and true Man.” Mary is not only the mother of the human part of Jesus, but of him entirely. Thus the title of “Mother of God.”

As we look at the Gospel from Luke, chapter one we hear of Mary saying “yes” in becoming the Mother of the Savior. Then, when she finds out her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, was pregnant with John the Baptist, she rushed to help her cousin during her time of need.

We, as Lay Carmelites, are called to imitate Mary in every way. Mary said yes to what God was asking her to do: to be the mother of the Lord. What is God calling us to do to bring Christ into the world?

All of us are called to serve God in different ways. Not as spectacular as Mary, but we are, like Mary, to be “Christ-bearers” when we go into the world. First, at Mass we receive our Lord: body, blood, soul and divinity, in the Eucharist. Then, we are to leave Church, carrying Christ into the world, to serve those in our lives in the same way that Mary served Elizabeth. It’s in the simple ways that we bring Christ into the world, whether it’s loving and taking care of our family, or by showing love and respect towards those we may work with or encounter in our day-to-day existence. We are to show the love of Christ to all we meet.

As we go on with our lives each day, let us, like Mary say, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

What God has together, man must not separate

 

The scripture reading for this reflection can be found at Friday of the Nineteenth Week in Ordinary Time | USCCB

In our gospel for today we see once again how the Pharisees are trying to trap Jesus to prove that he's preaching and teaching against the law of Moses. They feel threatened by him because people are being drawn to him due to his teachings on the love and forgiveness of God. The Pharisees are more interested in protecting their way of life and their control the people that come to the temple.

In today's Gospel Jesus teaches very clearly that marriage is between a man and a woman and that the two, once married, become as one. The Pharisees were looking at it in a very selfish way. They twisted the law so that the man has all the rights, and the woman is left in the cold with nothing. 

They ask Jesus, if marriage is forever, "why did Moses command that the man give the woman a bill of divorce and dismiss her?"(Matthew 19:7) Jesus responds, "Because of the hardness of your hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives." (Matthew 19:8) Jesus would go on to teach that "whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery." (Matthew 19:9)

The teachings on marriage that we hear in today's Gospel helps us to understand the importance of the sacrament of Marriage. Marriage is meant to be until death do you part, in good times and in bad times in sickness and in health. That's why the Church is careful in helping couples prepare for the sacrament of marriage. The Church encourages couples to go through pre-Cana. It is during pre-Cana that the church teaches that there needs to be love between the man and woman, and God needs to be in the center of the relationship, both during the courtship and during the marriage. Evey marriage needs to be God-centered. A couple should never rush into the marriage, but rather be patient in their time together before the marriage happens. 

One thing the Lord points out is "unless the marriage is unlawful." What does that mean? Well, there are times when people rush into a marriage for all the wrong reasons. Whatever those reason may be, the couple may not have made a clear and good decision to be married. They may have felt pressured into getting married, when in reality they may have felt it was the wrong thing to do. These are the examples of an "unlawful" marriage and may be a reasonable cause for an annulment. 

Let us pray for all married couples to better understand that their marriage is to be centered on their love for one another and on God. With God in the center of their relationship, things will always work out.

And be kind to one another...

 

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB

In the readings for this Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary time we have so much to meditate upon in our relationship with God. 

In the first reading from 1 Kings 19, we hear of Elijah journeying into the desert, feeling depressed, praying for death. "This is enough, O Lord! Take my life, for I am no better than my fathers." (1 Kings 19:4) Then the angel came to him, not once, but twice, fed him, nourished him with water, and Elijah was healed and able to continue in his service of God. This is an example of how God is with each one of us. When we think we are at our wits end, God is there to heal us in whatever way we may need healing.

In the Gospel from John chapter 6, we hear the continuation of the Bread of Life discourse. We hear the words of Jesus, "I am the living bread come down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world." (John 6:51) In this teaching from the Lord, he very clearly is teaching about the Holy Eucharist that we receive at every mass. In Holy Communion, we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. We are being nourished by this Bread from Heaven.

What I would like to reflect on now is something that I feel we tend to forget. Paul to the Ephesians says, "All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice." (Ephesians 4:31) With all that is going on, not only here in the political scene that we're facing as we approach the elections in November, but also in the Middle East, there is no love or understanding at all taking place. Instead, it's all that Paul is describing. Until EVERYONE learns to get rid of all these things Paul mentions, we will never have peace in this world.

And what does Paul ask us to do? He says, "And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ." (Ephesians 4:32) That's a pretty tough thing to do, isn't it? We all have people in our lives that have hurt us that we want nothing to do with. So, it's hard to be kind and compassionate to these people that have hurt us so. But that is what the Lord, through St. Paul is calling us to do. Kindness, compassion and forgiveness, whether in our own families, or towards others who may be different from us is our calling from God. Hatred towards anyone is always wrong. We're all made in the image of God and, as a result, we need to the love those people that God has placed into our lives.

If you find it hard to do as Paul suggests, maybe the best thing to do is to pray for those we find it hard to forgive and love.  And we should pray for ourselves that we can learn to be as forgiving and loving as God wants us to be towards everyone.

XVIII Sunday of Ordinary Time

Today we have a recurring guest blogger:  Fr. Arthur F. Rojas, pastor of PRESENTATION OF THE B.V.M CHURCH, PORT EWEN AND SACRED HEART CHURCH, ESOPUS. For more information on this parish, check out their website at Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary & Sacred Heart Churches - Port Ewen - Esopus, NY (presentationsacredheart.org) 

Submission to the Blog of Dcn. Thomas Tortorella for Aug. 4, 2024 (XVIII Sunday of Ordinary Time).  (c) All Rights Reserved personally by Fr. Arthur F. Rojas (c)

Scripture readings for this reflection can be found at Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time | USCCB

      With so much that has happened in America and abroad recently and the Gospel reading coming from John 6 (a.k.a. Bread of Life Discourse to the scholars of Sacred Scripture) on the Sundays of August this year in the Ordinary Form, the second reading of today (Eph 4:17, 20-24) enjoins us to respond to having "learned Christ," Who is present in the Blessed Eucharist, by eschewing pagan and anti-Christian mentalities as part of changing the course of our daily lives.  When I invited our parishioners and neighbors of good will to take part in our Day of Reparation at Sacred Heart Church on July 31st, partly in response to the mockery of the Last Supper at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games at Paris, France and partly to build on the National Eucharistic Congress that just ended at Indianapolis, Indiana, amidst various positive and perceptive responses received, alas there was one reply in which the author appeared to have been persuaded by the media spin of certain persons to cast the event as a Dionysian re-enactment instead of what at least one person involved admitted to concerning the Last Supper and Christianity itself.  (“Lesbian in center of blasphemous Olympics ceremony says she portrayed ‘Olympic Jesus’” by Clare Marie Merkowsky, July 30, 2024, www.lifesitenews.com, accessed July 31, 2024).  Thus, our day of reparation was “unnecessary,” according to that person.  Kyrie eleison!

 

            Between what the French bishops and American prelates such as (Arch)Bishops Salvatore Cordileone, Robert Barron, and Andrew Cozzens had commented as well as remarks from Muslims such as Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei regarding the event at Paris, compared to the special pleading by elements of the mass media to contain the international indignation, praise God for those parishioners and others of good will who attended Sacred Heart Church on July 31st for the most necessary effort of reparation and intercession before the Eucharistic presence of the Lord Jesus in our tabernacle.  The Real Presence of Christ in that tabernacle was confected at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, of which the first Mass was the same Last Supper mocked at Paris by agents of today’s Jacobins.  As someone who in childhood and youth watched Olympiad after Olympiad on television with my family, this event at Paris seals for me the transformation of the Olympic Games to something far apart from family-friendly fare for the eyes and ears.  With the state of the Olympics today, of which this blasphemy is only one Woke symptom, why would “one nation under God” (Pledge of Allegiance) willingly participate or support such an endeavor?