Behold, I am the Handmaid of the Lord

 

The scripture for this reflection can be found at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/122019.cfm

 

All this week we have been hearing in the gospel different narratives of the coming of Jesus into the world.

On Tuesday we heard the genealogy of Jesus Christ, who Matthew indicates is the son of David, the Son of Abraham. This genealogy starts with Abraham and ends with, “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.”

In Wednesday’s gospel we hear of the angel visiting Joseph in his sleep and telling him of Mary being pregnant. Since he assumed that Mary became pregnant by someone else, he was all set to divorce her quietly. But once the angel explained to him that it was through the power of the Holy Spirit, Joseph took Mary into his home and became the foster father of our Lord.

Yesterday, we heard of how Elizabeth became pregnant with John the Baptist, and how John’s father, Zachariah, couldn’t believe that his wife, Elizabeth, advanced in years, could possibly be pregnant. Due to his doubting the angel, he became mute until the day John was born.

Today, we have the beautiful story of the Annunciation, where the angel Gabriel comes to Mary and tells her that she’ll be the mother of the Savior. She was startled at first, but once it was explained to her how it was to come about, she gave her “Yes”: “May it be done to me according to your word.”

Both Joseph and Mary were open to God’s will in their lives. The gospel describes Joseph as a righteous man, meaning that he was attempting to live his life according to God’s will. As a result, he was blessed to be the foster father and protector of Jesus Christ.

Mary, upon reflecting on the angel’s words to her, was ready and willing to do God’s Will and bring our Savior into the world. As a result of her yes, salvation came into the world through Jesus Christ.

We are all called to imitate Joseph and Mary in our response to God. Both knew that things may become difficult in saying yes to God, but they trusted that God will be with them in all that will happen to them, good times and rough times. We are all called to bring Christ into the world and share our faith in Jesus Christ with those in our family or friends to help them know the love and peace that can only come from God.

Let us, like Mary, say, “Behold, I am the handmaid (servant) of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”

St. Nicholas

The Scripture readings for today can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/120619.cfm

 

You may remember a movie from a while back called “Miracle on 34^th Street” where the Macy’s Santa Claus was accused of being crazy for claiming to be the real Santa Claus. As the movie progressed there was a trial where there were people that were brought forward to testify one way or other of the true existence of Santa Claus. Eventually Santa won and it was conceded by the court that Sant was real.

Well, I didn’t need to see that movie to help me believe in the existence of Santa Claus. Today we celebrate the feast of St. Nicholas, of whom the legend Santa Claus was based. St. Nicholas was a 4^th century bishop of Myra in Asia Minor. He was most noted for his charity towards those in his area. There was a story where a father of three daughters did not have enough money for their dowry. The father was too proud to ask for charity for his girls, but this would result in their not getting married. St. Nicholas hearing of this went to their house under cover of night and threw a purse full of money through an open window. He did this for three nights, one for each girl, thus helping them to have a dowry to get married.

This is but one story of St. Nicholas’ generosity. His fame spread throughout Europe and Russia. The name Santa Claus evolved from Dutch traditions, where in Dutch he was called Sinterklaas, and later as time went on, he was called Santa Claus.

Through his generosity towards all he met, I’m sure St. Nicholas was very familiar with today’s gospel of the two blind men seeking sight. Central to their receiving their sight was the fact that they had faith in Jesus Christ. Once they received their sight, they shared their knowledge of Jesus Christ throughout the land. St. Nicholas, too, with his faith in Jesus Christ, and by his generosity towards those who were poor, spread the love of Jesus to all those he encountered.

During this time of Advent as we prepare for the birthday of Jesus in Bethlehem, let us be like St. Nicholas and share our faith in God with others through generosity and love.

Heaven & Earth

Scripture readings for the Friday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/112919.cfm

“Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Luke 29:33

As we come to the end of Ordinary time in the church year and approach Advent and the preparation of the Birth of Jesus on Christmas Day, we see in our readings talk of the end times and the final judgement of God.

In our first reading from Daniel we hear of Daniel’s visions of large beasts, all scary each in its own way. One is described as “terrifying, horrible, and of extraordinary strength…” (Daniel 7:7) This reading concludes with a description of what sounds like to be Jesus Christ, “One like a son of man coming, on the clouds of heaven.” (Daniel 7:13) It goes on to say that “His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not be taken away, his kingdom shall not be destroyed.” (Daniel 7:14)

Then our gospel finishes with our Lord saying, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” (Luke 21:33) The Lord is constantly present to us in all the events of our life, both in the good times and the bad times. We may despair that the Lord is not present when we are going through tough times. We may not feel His presence in those times when we are struggling with personnel problems and issues in our lives. We may feel scared and alone during these issues in our lives. But the Lord is ever present to us.

Like the fig tree Jesus is talking about in todays gospel, before the buds burst open, we think that the tree is dead. Also, like in our life when we have problems, we assume God is not present. But then the buds burst open and there’s life. We feel God’s presence and we receive peace and comfort when we find resolution to our problems. We need to be people of faith, hope and charity.  By trusting that the Lord will be present in all instances of our life, it is then we can know and understand that He is ever present.

Let us thank God for the great gift of faith that we have been given, the sacraments we have been given, and the faith community we have to support each other in our journey in our relationship with God.

Lord Jesus, help us to be faithful when there seems to be no reason to do so. Amen.

Relationship with God

The following reflection is based on the readings for the Friday of the 32nd Week in Ordinary Time and can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/111519.cfm

“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses it will save it.” Luke 17:33

In our gospel for today Jesus is talking about relationship with God, to always have God in the center of our life and to turn away from our sinful ways. He points out two familiar stories from the Old Testament: that of Noah and that of Lot. The people in Noah’s time and Lot’s time, like today, were self-absorbed in their lives and had turned away from God. In Noah’s day he warned them to turn from their selfish ways, but they continued eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage up to the day of the flood. They completely ignored the warnings of Noah to turn from their sinful ways and to turn to God. Same with the people in Sodom during the time of Lot. They were so involved in their sinful activities that they had no desire for God and so they continued to live out their sinful lives. As a result, both the people in Noah’s time and in Lot’s time, God punished them for their sinfulness.

Our Lord is encouraging us today to have him in the center of all we do. To turn away from whatever sins we may cling to and to turn to Him to seek forgiveness and healing.

Further, our lives can be so busy and full of worry about our family, children, friends, or even our finances. Listening to bad news on the TV news, worrying about our health, worrying about what can go wrong in our families. These are things that can bring us away from God.

Our Lord in today’s Gospel is telling us to let go of our sinfulness, worries and cares. This is the life that he wants us to lose, and by losing it and turning to the Lord we will save it in the sense that Jesus will bring us that peace and calm that can only come from him.

One way to let go of our sinfulness and worries is to turn to Our Lord in the sacrament of confession. By turning to God in the sacrament of confession, we are placing all our sinfulness, cares and worries in God’s hands and are receiving healing, peace and forgiveness.

Lord, help us to rest in your presence today. Help us to let go of fear and doubt and to trust in your love for us. Amen.

Prudent Children of Light

The scripture readings for the Friday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time can be found at http://usccb.org/bible/readings/110819.cfm


“And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently. For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light." Luke 16:8


In our gospel for today it sounds as if Our Lord is praising the dishonest steward for doing things that are dishonest and selfish. In the parable, we see someone that is self-centered and only worried about himself and trying to protect his way of life. He was first stealing from his master, and then when he discovered that he was to be let go, he further cheated his master out the profits due to him from those the steward dealt with.

What our Lord is really teaching us is that we can learn from the dishonest steward in how to conduct our affairs with God. The steward was prudent in the sense that he knew how to protect himself and to obtain a secure position once his master fires him.

We are to be prudent in our relationship with God in the same way he was with his master and with those he dealt with, but for godly reasons. This is to help us gain something far better than material wealth. We are to be prudent with God in order to gain heaven.


The ways we can be prudent with God is to first develop a deeper prayer life with Him. In addition to daily mass and the rosary, we should make time to read Holy Scripture in order to be open what God is trying to communicate to us. The best way to do this is by studying the scripture readings assigned for daily mass. By spending about 10 or 15 minutes daily reading the scriptures from Mass, we are allowing ourselves to be open to the voice of God and what he may wishing to tell us.


In addition to prayer and meditation, we are to take our faith in Jesus to others in our life: our family, friends and those we encounter daily. Like St. Paul in our first reading, we are to be a minister of Christ Jesus to all people we know and meet.


We can show them love and kindness, even to those we really don’t like. By showing love and kindness to those we truly don’t like, we are bringing the love of God to them. That is being a good and prudent steward of the love that God gives to us daily.
Whatever challenges you may face, know that Jesus will help you to respond with love. He loves those in your life as much as he loves you.

Lord Jesus, help us to see you in all people that we meet this day. Amen

“My Soul Proclaims the Greatness of the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior”

This past Sunday I did a Holy Hour for the Holy Name Society at Holy Rosary Church in the Bronx, New York. Following is the homily I gave that I wanted to share with you.

During this month of October Holy Mother Church commemorates the patronal feast of this beautiful parish: the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary. Holy Mother Church also commemorates October as Respect Life Month.

The feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated on October 7^th of each year, was instituted by Pope Pius V, originally known as Our Lady of Victory, but later changed to Our Lady of the Rosary by Pope Gregory XIII.

Our Lady is someone who was always open to doing the Holy Will of God. She can be best described as an active contemplative, always meditating on scripture and how it applied to her life. She was so open to scripture that when the Angel Gabriel approached her to be the mother of the Messiah, after some careful thought on the explanation the angel gave her as to what this means, she said “yes” and as a result changed the course of human history by being the mother of the savior: Jesus Christ. By her “yes” she was able to bring Christ into the world. She would then go visit her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, who was pregnant with John the Baptist, and bring her comfort and help in her time of need.

Elizabeth and the child in her womb, John the Baptist, were the first to realize that the child that Mary was carrying was someone special. Elizabeth said to Mary, “Most blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the infant in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.” (Luke1:41-45) Mary’s response was, “My soul proclaims the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior.”

Mary carrying Jesus in her womb and Elizabeth carrying John the Baptist in her womb are two examples of the sanctity of life from conception. In other parts of scripture, we hear of the fact that life in the womb from conception should be respected and protected. In Psalm 139 verse 13 we read “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” What beautiful words acknowledging that life begins at conception!

Yet we live in a society where the child’s life before birth is not respected. Instead we hear of the mother’s right to choose what to do with her body, forgetting that there’s another body in her starting from conception. Further, since the legalization of abortion through Roe v. Wade, we have seen our society become more violent.

St. Theresa of Calcutta once said, “I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself.”

How do we, as Catholics, bring about a greater understanding of respect for life from conception to natural death? First, we start with how we live as Catholics! We are called to love God with our whole mind, heart, and body, and to love our neighbor as our self. By loving God and loving our neighbor, we are showing respect for life in each person we meet. We are recognizing that everyone we meet is made in the image of God.

Next, we can show respect for life from conception to natural death. One way is that we can get involved with the pro-life movement through the Sisters of Life here in New York. They have plenty of opportunities for us to help women in crisis pregnancies. There are those women who turn to abortion because they feel they are caught in a situation where they have no other alternative. But the Sisters of Life are there to help the mothers make a choice for life, and to help them in that most difficult time in their lives. If we can’t volunteer, we can show financial support to the Sisters of Life who are carrying out this great work. There’s also an opportunity of praying outside of an abortion clinic with those who are there to pray for the mothers entering these clinics, ready to do something they will regret for the rest of their lives. By being present and praying for the mothers and for their children, you can save a life.

In January of each year there’s the Right to Life March in Washington, D.C. If you’re able, try to join this march to help send the message out that the killing of an innocent baby in its mother’s womb is wrong and needs to come to an end.

Being pro-life is also loving those who are at the end of their lives living alone in nursing homes, that have no one to visit them. These are lonely people who spent their lives taking care of their families, but find themselves living alone, being ignored by family and friends. By arranging to visit those in nursing homes that have no one to visit them is being pro-life. This way, we can respect the life of those who are near the end of their lives here in this world. As Mary visited her elderly cousin, Elizabeth, in her time of need, we should also visit those who are near the end of their lives to comfort and love them as well.

Get involved in whatever way you can, whether it’s through the pro-life movement or by spending time with a lonely elderly person in a nursing home. Then you can say, like Mary, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”

What About the Other 9?

Today we have a guest blogger, Arlene Muller. Arlene B. Muller, OSF, is a Professed Secular Franciscan, lector & Extraordinary Minister at St. Pancras Church, Member of St. Margaret's Choir, and Itinerant Speech/language Therapist.

The scripture readings for today's blog can be found at http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/101319.cfm

Whenever I read or listen to today's Gospel account of JESUS healing the 10 lepers, only one returning to thank Him, & JESUS' reaction, I wonder about the other 9 lepers.

When the 10 lepers stood apart from JESUS (since the laws concerning leprosy demanded distance) & begged for mercy, JESUS clearly instructed them to go & show themselves to the priest. The Jewish Law, especially the detailed prescriptions regarding leprosy outlined in the Book of Leviticus, required lepers who were healed to be declared healed by the priest before they were allowed to return to their families & the rest of society & to be no longer considered social outcasts. All 10 lepers began their journey to the priest out of obedience to JESUS, & making this journey required & demonstrated great faith on their part, because it would not have made sense for them to appear before the priest unless they believed they could show proof of  their having been healed by the time they arrived.

The one leper who returned to thank JESUS was a Samaritan. The Samaritans were commonly thought of as being a group of people who were a mixture of Jew & Gentile due to intermarriage, & so they were not as strictly attached to the Jewish Law. They worshipped God on their mountain instead of going to Jerusalem (see the account of JESUS' dialogue with the Samaritan Woman at the Well in John 4), & their laws & customs were different. The Jewish people were very strict in their observance of the Law of Moses & I would imagine that obedience was greatly emphasized in their upbringing. Centuries after the Babylonian exile the Jewish people were very aware of the consequences they had experienced as a people because of their disobedience to God's Law.

The difference between the Samaritan view of the Jewish Law & the Jewish view of the Jewish Law would probably have made it much easier for the Samaritan to be less fastidious about arriving promptly where the priest was located & thus it would probably have been easier for him to pause in his journey & to return to JESUS to thank Him.

I suppose many people reading this blog are "cradle Catholics" like myself, educated in the Catholic school system. My education in Catholic schools spanned the pre-Vatican II, mid-Vatican II & post Vatican II eras. My parents, aunts, uncles, and at least my maternal grandmother were all educated in the Catholic school system prior to Vatican II. Learning the value of obedience was an essential part of our formation, and I remember reading about the virtue of "right away obedience". When instructed to go on an errand we were encouraged to complete our errand and come back without unnecessary stops or delays along the way. In this way I can relate to the sense of urgency that faithful Jewish lepers might have felt in seeking to obey JESUS & the Jewish Law promptly and completely. I imagine that in their place I would have wanted to complete the assigned task before returning to seek out JESUS to thank Him.

Several years ago while on retreat I was taught what I considered a new insight into the intentions of the priest and the Levite who passed by the injured victim in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. If the victim had actually been dead instead of being half dead (which was hard to discern from their view on the road) and they had touched a dead body, they would have been made ritually unclean & unable to perform their service at the temple for a specified period of time. So it was not necessarily simply a lack of compassion on their part that caused them to fail to perform an act of charity by caring for the injured victim, but their strict observance of the Jewish Law & their vocation, which was not an issue for the Good Samaritan (although the Samaritan had to transcend cultural prejudice in order to treat the Jewish victim with compassion).

The question that haunts me whenever I hear or read the account of the 10 lepers is whether the other 9 lepers were merely very focused on obedience--if, like young Frederic in the Gilbert & Sullivan opera THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE they were "slaves of duty"--or whether they were, in fact, carelessly ungrateful. Would they have returned to seek out JESUS to thank Him IMMEDIATELY AFTER they had fulfilled their assignment of showing themselves to the priest & been declared cured? Or would they have merely returned to their lives, complacent, comfortable, forgetful & ungrateful? JESUS, since He is God, was and is able to read the hearts of every human being, so certainly He could read the hearts of all 10 lepers and understand their intentions. Was his annoyance at the return of only 1 leper merely His human reaction of hurt human feelings at a seeming lack of appreciation, especially on the part of his fellow Jews? Or did He, as God, recognize a lack of gratitude in the hearts of those who failed to return? Only God can read heart so only JESUS could tell us if the fault of the other 9 lepers was neglecting the prompt expression of gratitude due to over-conscientiousness or if they were, in fact, insufficiently grateful.

Obedience is still essential to us in our day, although as Christians we are not bound by most of the Jewish Law. Even in the Gospel of John JESUS equates love for Him with keeping His commandments. As Catholics we are supposed to abide by the commandments of God & His Church. From the account of the healing of the 10 lepers & the Parable of the Good Samaritan I would suggest that obedience is still vital to us today but there are two necessities of the Law of Love (the two greatest commandments) that should modify strict obedience: (1) expressing thanksgiving to God (like the Samaritan leper), and (2) acts of charity toward people in need (like the Good Samaritan).