Bringing forth from our storerooms both new things and old.

Thursday, 8/1/13

  

Jesus said, “Every scribe who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both new things and old.”  

By one who “has been instructed in the kingdom” Jesus meant a person who by  being trained to live a God-like life is equipped to lead others to so live.

A full God-like life calls for a knowledge of the Bible and the catechism, but it also calls for knowing how to work and play and to appreciate what is worthwhile.

It seems to me that the Church made a good effort at that with our twelve-year seminary courses that took boys from grade school to ordination. Those courses stocked the storerooms of boys with the books of the Bible, with literature and math, along with lessons on working hard and being cheerful.

In a directive the diocese sent out last week Religion teachers were asked to follow approved text books. That is a fine directive. We do not want teachers filling the minds of their listeners with their own pet peeves and pet projects.

But teachers must be cautioned against treating the textbook lessons as material that can just be shelved on the minds of their listeners. 

Look at how Jesus talked to farmers about farming and to fishermen about fishing. He used what people were familiar with to lift their thoughts to similarities in the spiritual world.

So, to start with, a teacher must bring from his or her storeroom what is already a real part of the lives of his or her students. Then he must use those materials as clues for finding a new path into the world of spiritual mysteries.  

"Gazing at the Lord we are being transformed from glory to glory into his image."

Wednesday, 7/31/13

Moses hadn’t been aware of it, but in his forty days of conversing with God, his face had taken on a marvelous brightness. Then, when he came down from the mountain he scared the people away because of the inhuman radiance of his face. To get the people back, he secured a veil around his ears. St. Peter’s has a statue of Moses wearing a marble veil.

St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians described something similar that happens with those who spend hours alone with God. Their souls take on a radiance.

The Church name for that radiance is Sanctifying Grace. It is an interior transformation taken on by those who advance from stage to stage in holiness. It results in one becoming more and more like God.

What Paul said in Chapter Three of his Second Letter to the Corinthians is, “And we, gazing with unveiled faces on God are being transformed from glory to glory into his image.”  

During the Israelites' forty years in the desert God had his own tent moving about with theirs.

Tuesday, 7/30/13

When the Israelites fled from Egypt, instead of journeying straight to the Promised Land, they spent forty years, living in tents, wandering about in the desert. We are meant to take those forty years as standing for the lifetimes it takes for us to make our way to our Promised Land.

A surprising feature of their forty years of moving their tents about in the desert was that God had a tent of is own for moving about with them. A cloud, representing God’s glory settled above the tent; and when that cloud lifted, it moved as a pillar of light. Seeing that, the whole people folded their tents and followed the cloud.

Now, we find something similar to that in the Gospel according to John. If you take a copy of John’s Gospel, going over it verse by verse, you will see that it is modeled on the Old Testament’s story of the journey of the people from Egypt to the Promised Land. In it we find Jesus identifying himself with the pillar of light, with the bread from heaven, with rock from which water flowed.

That likeness of John’s Gospel to Exodus is present from John’s first chapter where Verse 14 says, “And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us, and we saw his glory.” Where we say “made his dwelling,” John in Greek wrote escanosen, which literally means “set up his tent.” And in writing “we saw his glory” John meant that something like a cloud of glory hovered invisibly over Jesus.

In our journey through the desert of life it is such a help to know that Jesus traveled the same route in his tent. He is always there, waiting for our visits. 

Compared to Martha, the Apostles were wishy-washy in their faith.

Monday, 7/29/13

Martha was sister to Lazarus and Mary. Luke and John in telling stories that highlighted her, were really showing us that good and strong women are everywhere the backbone of our Church. For my part, in looking back over what was accomplished in four parishes where I acted as pastor, it has been through stellar individual ladies from those places that good things have been done.

Even though Jesus stood up for a Mary who sat listening to him, the facts are that he depended on Martha to feed all those disciples. And, even though her brother Lazarus was part of the family, he saw it as Martha’s house.

Martha was the one who wrote to Jesus when Lazarus was sick. She was the first one to run out to meet him coming up the road.

She was no slouch in religious matters. She said her brother would not have died if Jesus and been there. She was convinced that Lazarus would rise, as she put it,  “in the resurrection on the last day.” And she said, “I have come to believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who is coming into he world.”  Compare to her, the Apostles were wishy-washy about their faith.

A few good people can save a doomed city.

Sunday, 7/28/13

 Pope John XXIII who died just fifty years ago said, “Some see only calamity and ruin in present society, but we disagree with those prophets of doom” Today’s readings support good Pope John’s message. The first reading tells us that just ten good people can save a city, and the Gospel says they can do it by prayer. Let’s look at that.

In the first reading, God had received word that the city of Sodom was as bad as any place could be. He told Abraham that if those reports were true he would destroy Sodom. Abraham, by pleading with him, got God to say that if there were even ten good men in that wicked city he would not destroy it. Since back then the presence of ten good men could save a wicked city, the Bible story is telling us that is equally true today. The city we live in today, for all its evil, can be saved if God can find ten good men and women here. Any volunteers?

Then, the Gospel tells us that it is by prayer that we can become the kind of people who keep our society from sinking. The kind of prayer that gets things done is prayer that puts us right in the Father’s presence. We needn’t use just the words Jesus suggested. We needn’t say, “Our Father who art in heaven.” What is needed is that we locate ourselves in God’s presence, blocking out everything else.

That done, we can then run our problems past God. Jesus promised that God’s Spirit would lead us to all truth. Significantly, Jesus said that the Spirit would then remind us of things that he, Jesus, had said.

The way that works is that after you have cleared yourself of all other attachments, and you have made your needs known to God, then from your own recollection of the Gospels, the right words of Jesus will pop into your mind to tell you what to do.

Today's first reading desribes the ceremony by which the Israelites entered the Old Covenant with God.

Saturday, 7/27/ 13

Our first reading today is a key Old Testament passage in that it describes the covenant ceremony by which the Israelites became God’s people.

A covenant is a contract, but it is more. A contract is a formal way of sealing the agreement parties make to exchange things of value. We sign a contract to give a fixed amount of money in exchange for an auto or a condo. In the super-contracts that we call covenants the parties exchange their very selves. In Matrimony that exchange is expressed when the parties say “We have,” in answer to the priest’s question, “Have you come here freely, without reservations to give yourselves to each other in marriage?”

In ancient times when knights gave themselves to their lords there was an added requirement that the underling conform himself to the model of the lord. He was required to wear the lord’s livery and to live by the lord’s laws. With the old name for a lord being a suzerain, the contract binding an inferior to his lord was called a suzerain covenant. At Sinai the Israelites entered into a suzerain covenant with God.

Setting up the covenant ceremony, Moses built an altar in front of Mt. Sinai. The altar was to represent God. Then, he had the young men slaughter young bulls, saving all the blood in big brass bolls.

Moses set the young men to weaving their way through the assembled nation, sprinkling blood on every individual, then pouring the residue from each bowl on God’s altar.

The Israelites believed that blood was life itself, so they felt that the invisible energy between the separated drops of blood united everyone there along with God in one living entity.

Since that was a suzerain covenant, it required that the lower party, the people, agree to keep the laws of the Lord. So, while the blood was being sprinkled, Moses called out each of the commandments, demanding that the people announce they were committing themselves to living by it.

The second big covenant, the New Covenant, came at the Last Supper when Jesus announced this was the New Covenant in his blood, demanding that his followers follow his command by loving one another as he had loved them.  

Today the Church gives us the Ten Commandments, telling us we can keeo them.

Friday, 7/26/13

Today we have the ten commandments as they were presented in the Book of Exodus, and a careful reading of them raises some questions.

First, does the Bible call them the ten commandments? And, the answer to that is “No.” The Bible calls them God’s “words.” Protestants list the prohibition against graven images as the Second Commandment, while Catholics make that part of the First; then, where Catholics take “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife” as their Ninth Commandment, Protestants make that part of the Tenth.”

This account from Exodus follows up the first Commandment with God saying he was jealous, and would inflict punishment on those who betray him down to the  fourth generation. But a thousand years later, in the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, God is quoted as saying he punishes no one for the sins of his parents.

To take God’s name in vain would literally mean taking it without need, but the Israelites put such a harsh interpretation on the prescription that although they printed the consonants of God’s name Yahweh, they never pronounced it, substituting instead  the word Adonai.

Although strict observers of the Sabbath rest see it as called for as our necessary way of honoring God, three chapters farther on in Exodus we read, “On the seventh day you must rest, that your ass and your oxen may also have rest, and that the son of your maidservant and the alien may be refreshed.” So, if you and your oxen rest on some other day it should be alright for you to work on the Sabbath.

 We will leave t at that for today.

St. James was ambitious, and that won him the crown of martyrdom.

 Thursday, 7/25/13

Today is the Feast of St. James, the brother of St. John, and the first of the Apostles to die, whereas his brother was the last.

We see them together in today’s Gospel, where their mother is asking a favor for them. She wants Jesus to name them the top men in his kingdom. We don’t know much else about St. James. All we know is that he was ambitious enough to ask his mother to help him get ahead.

Since the feast of James is also the feast day of every man and boy named James of Jimmy, I have sat here reviewing their stories, asking which of them were over ambitious.

Father James Corry who served us at St. Paul’s for twenty-three years wasn’t ambitious at all. When men were giving speeches at the end of banquets Jim was always clearing the tables and doing the dishes.

A priest named Jimmy was the rector of the major seminary I attended for six years. He liked studying and preparing classes, and when he was told he was to be the boss he said, “Oh damn!”

I had been in school with a priest named Jimmy who played all the angles for getting the top jobs. After getting to the top he failed, because he didn’t know how to show respect for the men working with him.

We should all be ambitious. We should be ambitious for attaining real friendship with God and with the people around us.

The seed in the parable could be God's word coming to us in pleas for help that we heed or ignore.

Wednesday, 7/24/13

We are all familiar with the parable of the sower who went out to sow his seed. Jesus explained that the seed stood for the word of God. But what did he mean by the word of God? What form does the word take? Is it the word of the Bible?

To take it as that and nothing more would restrict the meaning of the parable. For today let us take the word to be any cry for help that God puts in our way. It could take the form of a letter in the mail, or of a request from the pulpit, or of a suffering soul we pass on the street.  Let’s here take God’s word to us as being the sight of one of his children in need.

Our hearts are like the hard soil of the pathway when we push the plea aside as just another nuisance.

If our hearts are like the inch of soil covering a rock pan, we respond with the instant resolve to do something about the person’s need, but we don’t follow through with it.

If our hearts are like the thorny patch, our addictions and our selfishness don’t leave room in our hearts for the needs of others.

Let me tell a story about a man who was like that thorny soil. Father Murray was a fine preacher and a likable man, but one drink would turn him wild, so the bishop would no longer give him an assignment. The kind-hearted pastor at St. Joseph’s took him in, and Father Murray was staying sober. One Saturday evening my brother brought me to a gathering near St. Joseph’s, and a lady named Elizabeth came in with a story that had her very distraught.

She said, “I ducked into St. Joseph’s for confession, but the strange priest there said, ‘Confessions are over at 8:30.’ I told him I was sorry, but would he please hear my confession, and he said, ‘I told you. Confessions are over.’”

As Elizabeth talked I knew it was Father Murray, but Elizabeth went on, “I told him, ‘Father, your refusing me could cause me to lose  my soul.’ And that priest, he told me, ‘Lady, it’s not your soul I’m worried about.’”

If our hearts are like the good soil in Our Lord’s parable, the needs of others that we tend to will  produce benefits exponentially in our lives.

Our baptisms recall the Israelites trusting themselves to the waters of the Red Sea.

Tuesday, 7/23/13

The first readings this week are about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt. At first the pharaoh had let them pack up and leave, but after second thoughts, he sent his army to cut them down.

The Israelites, arrived at the Red Sea and looking back, saw the chariots bearing down on them. Like the expression goes, they were “between the devil and the deep blue sea.”  So, Moses told them that God wanted them to pick up their things, and to march into the sea. You can imagine how uninviting that must have been to a mob who had never learned to swim.

It was a test of faith. Would they trust God or not. Even though they were a grumbling crowd, they trusted God. They waded in, and God rewarded their trust, backing up the waters, making a path for them.

St. Paul would later refer to that happening by saying that they were baptized in the sea. The significance of Paul’s saying they were baptized in the sea is that by our baptisms we equivalently put our full trust in God.

Let me turn from theology to one of the old stories I like telling. In Korea a hundred and sixty yeas ago, adherence to a foreign religion was punishable by beheading. A young man named Andrew Kim slipped down to Shanghai where after five years he was smuggled back into Korea as a priest, and he was put ashore in a flimsy little boat, along with a French bishop and a French priest.

Fifty years ago a movie maker repeated that scene with a handsome Korean gent playing St. Andrew, with me playing the French priest, and my friend Father Jack Lynch, bearded up, playing the French bishop. Lynchy was shaking badly when we were slipping away from shore in the flimsy boat.

I can still hear him saying, “B-japers, Sull, I can’t swim!”

I image those Israelites were muttering their version of B-japers. If we knew all that was in store for us following God we would say B-japers at our baptisms.

Mary Magdalene stands for perceptive, loving hearts.

Monday, 7/22/13

Today we honor Mary Magdalene, and we must say we don’t know much about her life, we only know what she stands for in Christianity

About her life we know that she came from the town of Magdala, and Jesus, in passing through there, was credited to have driven seven devils from her. That was probably St. Luke’s way of saying that she was in bad shape morally. She is not to be confused with Mary, sister of Martha, who bathed the feet of Jesus the seek before his death.

The second, and only other appearance of Mary Magdalene was when she stood with Mary at the foot of the cross.

Mary’s importance lies in what she stood for in Christianity. Along with the Samaritan woman who first recognized Jesus as the Messiah, she stands for all the women who are perceptive and loving enough to go right to the heart of Jesus. Both women had shady pasts that did not hold back their powerful hearts.

Hospitality is recognizing others as God's dear children.

Sunday, 7/21/13

The readings today deal with our duty to be good hosts. Martha and Mary showed us two ways of being good hosts. Martha showed hospitality by preparing food for Jesus and for all the disciples who had come unexpected to her home. Mary showed hospitality by giving Jesus her complete attention. By saying that Mary’s way was the better of the two, Jesus was saying that often the kindest and most difficult thing for us is giving our complete attention to the concerns of others.

Before getting on to the Old Testament story of Abraham’s excessive hospitality we could look at an Old Testament tradition of being inhospitable. In Chapter Four of the Bible, Cain’s punishment for murdering his brother was that he was made a wandered on the earth. Cain protested, saying, “Anyone who sees me will kill me on sight.” That

 objection witnessed to a time when the safe thing to do was to kill any stranger on sight.

In teaching the Old Testament to Sixth Grade students I required them to list all the ways in which Abraham showed hospitality to the guests.

The first three ways involved being alert to their passing by, running to them, bowing.

The next three ways were seeing their stopping as a favor, giving water, offering rest.

The next three ways were offering food, by being fast, and having his wife make loads of bread.
Next, Abraham slaughtered a tender steer, gave them curds and milk, waited on them himself.

In our reading the story stops short, but the rest of the passage tells us that Abraham, reluctant at their leaving, walked on with them. We always feel good about it when someone we have visited with comes out to the car, and hangs on to the doorknob.

The most memorable bible verse on hospitality might be Hebrew’s 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for though it some have entertained angels.” 

Hospitality is recognizing others as God's dear children.

Sunday, 7/21/13

The readings today deal with our duty to be good hosts. Martha and Mary showed us two ways of being good hosts. Martha showed hospitality by preparing food for Jesus and for all the disciples who had come unexpected to her home. Mary showed hospitality by giving Jesus her complete attention. By saying that Mary’s way was the better of the two, Jesus was saying that often the kindest and most difficult thing for us is giving our complete attention to the concerns of others.

Before getting on to the Old Testament story of Abraham’s excessive hospitality we could look at an Old Testament tradition of being inhospitable. In Chapter Four of the Bible, Cain’s punishment for murdering his brother was that he was made a wandered on the earth. Cain protested, saying, “Anyone who sees me will kill me on sight.” That

 objection witnessed to a time when the safe thing to do was to kill any stranger on sight.

In teaching the Old Testament to Sixth Grade students I required them to list all the ways in which Abraham showed hospitality to the guests.

The first three ways involved being alert to their passing by, running to them, bowing.

The next three ways were seeing their stopping as a favor, giving water, offering rest.

The next three ways were offering food, by being fast, and having his wife make loads of bread. Next, Abraham slaughtered a tender steer, gave them curds and milk, waited on them himself.

In our reading the story stops short, but the rest of the passage tells us that Abraham, reluctant at their leaving, he walked on with them. We always feel good about it when someone we have visited with comes out to the car, and hangs on to the doorknob.

The most memorable bible verse on hospitality might be Hebrew’s 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers for though it some have entertained angels.” 

Jesus triumphed by meekly enduring all attacks at him.

Saturday, 7/20/13

There is almost a two-century time lapse between Chapter Thirty-Nine and Chapter Forty in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. Chapter Thirty-Nine has Isaiah, before the year 700 B.C., warning King Hezekiah that the Babylonians, a new people taking shape far east of there, would one day threaten the existence of Israel.

Chapter Forty picks up the history of the Israelites almost two centuries later. The kingdom of Babylon had risen and then fallen to the forces of Persia. In Chapter Forty of the Book of Isaiah the captive Israelites were freed to return to Jerusalem. The prophet speaking from Chapter Forty on left no name, and since his words had been carelessly bound up with those of Isaiah, we have come to call this unknown prophet Second-Isaiah.

Now, in careful study of the twenty pages of our Bibles given over to the prophesies of Second Isaiah, scholars have identified four songs imbedded in the account. They all deal with one who would be known as God’s Suffering Servant. Jewish people see the Suffering Servant as the personification of themselves, but Matthew, Mark, Luke and John told us that the songs of the Suffering Servants were all prophesies referring to Jesus.

In today’s Gospel Matthew quoted the first of the four Suffering Servant poems, saying that they referred to Jesus, who would save us not by shows of strength, but by meekly enduring, and triumphing over, all attacks on him.

God said the Passover was to be a perpetual institution, and it lives on in the Mass.

Friday, 7/19/13

In the final verse of the first reading God told the people that the Passover was to be a perpetual institution. Thirteen hundred years later Jesus celebrated the Passover with his disciples. And at that same night, he transformed the Passover into our Mass, so that at each Mass we celebrate the Passover.

Oddly, from the start the word Passover was applied in two distinct ways. In the first way, in verses ten and eleven of Exodus, Chapter Twelve, it described the Lord leading the people in passing over from slavery to the road to freedom, and ultimately into the Promised Land.

Then, in the next verse, verse thirteen, the name Passover is applied to death passing over those who are marked with the blood of the lamb.

Both those meanings of Passover are retained in the Mass. First, in the Mass we make a departure from sinfulness, letting Jesus lead us to the Promised Land. Then, secondly, his blood forces death to pass over, not harming us.    

Misfortune cannot hurt you if yoked with Jesus you learn to live with it.

Thursday, 7/18/13

Jesus told you to take his yoke upon you and learn from him.

For years I misunderstood those words. I saw a yoke to be a wooden harness placed over a beast’s shoulders to facilitate his pulling a carriage or a plow. I was partly right in that, a yoke is a wooden harness over the shoulders for facilitating pulling a plow or a carriage, but I was wrong in picturing it as fitting over just one beast’s shoulders.

The word yoke comes from an Indo-European word that means “to join as one.” The yoke Jesus spoke of is a double wooden harness. He is under one side of it, and he is asking you to get under the other side to pull with him.

He said it would be a learning experience for you. Throughout his life Jesus followed his Father’s wishes, conserving his strength by never fighting back. He asks you to learn to conserve your strength, by not fighting back.

One day fifty-five years ago I had a fine experience watching a solitary Korean farmer working his ox in a rice paddy. I had been taking a mountain path over foothills running down from the heights, when I stopped on a piney hillside to watch a man and his ox at work. At the end of a furrow that man would call out “Ee-ro” to tell the ox to turn right. It went on and on until supper time for both of them.

Their steady, effortless progress put me in mind of Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven.  He moved “with unhurrying chase, and unperturbed pace; deliberate speed, majestic instancy.”

Misfortune cannot hurt you if yoked with Jesus, you learn to live with it.

We can know the Father by coming to know the Son.

Wednesday, 7/17/13

Today’s readings turn our thoughts toward knowing God. Old paintings pictured heaven by showing God as a benign old man enthroned above, but even our little children know that God the Father had no human body. More than any other image, the burning bush that Moses approached in the first reading gives something like a true picture of God. While wrapped in raging flames the bush still plays host to its greenery and its flowering buds. In that way it echoes God’s ability to hold the fiery stars in one hand while cradling a child in the other.

Jesus, in the Gospel, said that he alone could make the Father known to us. That reminds me of a story about St. Justin before his conversion. As an accomplished scholar of Plato and Aristotle, he had come to believe in the one God. Then, walking on the beach one day around the year 100 A.D. he fell in with an old Christian. The old man teased him by saying, “By your philosopher’s robes I can see you know all about the one true God; but you do not actually know him, do you?

After Justin admitted that he had no actual contact with God, the old man introduced him to Christ and Christianity. Then, as a baptized Christian Justin came on a life of such contentment, that he opened a school in Rome for leading people to God through his Son.

Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him.”  That leaves us asking, “How might the Son reveal the Father to us? Does he somehow reveal the Father to us in the depth of our souls?"

The answer seems to be that we know the Father by knowing the Son. That comes across in Chapter 14 of John’s Gospel. When Philip said, “Show us the Father, and that will be enough for us;” Jesus answered, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.” My enclosing his divinity in a human form that our puny minds could grasp, Jesus was showing us as much of the Father as we could comprehend.  

We can avoid paying for our sins by rescuing another soul from disaster.

Tuesday, 7/16/13

The Gospel is a warning to people like us who have been given all the blessings, and yet have not been generous with God and his poor. The Gospel warns that we will be punished for our lazy ways.

The Responsorial Psalm pictures someone not enjoying the blessings we wallow in. Quite the contrary, beset by insurmountable troubles, that person's circumstances are similar to one who is sinking deeper and deeper into a swamp of troubles, finding nothing to hold on to. 

Such people, overwhelmed with problems, cry out to God for help. That could be an opening for us. We could atone for our ungrateful ways by becoming God’s agent for helping someone sunk in a swamp with no foothold.

If you are willing to look around for someone who is perishing, your willingness will discover the very soul who needs you. You might find you have needed that one as much as that one has needed you.we can avoid paying for our sins

Our Religion is funded on historical truth.

Monday, 7/15/13

The old Testament reading gives us the story of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. None of Egypt’s ancient records make any mention of the Israelites, but from the Bible account itself we can piece together the facts regarding their stay in Egypt. When Moses led the people out from Egypt the Book of Exodus tells us they had been there for four hundred years, and we can fit that in between historical events from 1700 to1300 B.C.

Around 1700 B.C. Egypt was conquered by a Semitic people called the Hyksos. They fitted in there, supplying their own pharaohs to Egypt for four hundred years. However, the Hyksos had once been neighbors of the Hebrews, speaking the same language; and they would have welcomed Moses and the Israelite to settle with them. Then, after  four hundred years that dynasty was  overthrown by a native Egyptian, Ramses I. It was his son, Ramses II, whom Exodus described as “knowing nothing of Joseph.” He it was who put them to hard work, building the cities of Pithom and Raamses.

That ancient history has no direct bearing on our spiritual life, but it grounds our religion in facts.  When we consider the other ancient religions, we find they were all founded on mythical gods. We can find confidence in knowing that our religion is based on solid facts.

Monday, 7/15/13

The old Testament reading gives us the story of the departure of the Israelites from Egypt. None of Egypt’s ancient records make any mention of the Israelites, but from the Bible account itself we can piece together the facts regarding their stay in Egypt. When Moses led the people out from Egypt the Book of Exodus tells us they had been there for four hundred years, and we can fit that in between historical events from 1700 to1300 B.C.

Around 1700 B.C. Egypt was conquered by a Semitic people called the Hyksos. They fitted in there, supplying their own pharaohs to Egypt for four hundred years. However, the Hyksos had once been neighbors of the Hebrews, speaking the same language; and they would have welcomed Moses and the Israelite to settle with them. Then, after  four hundred years that dynasty was  overthrown by a native Egyptian, Ramses I. It was his son, Ramses II, whom Exodus described as “knowing nothing of Joseph.” He it was who put them to hard work, building the cities of Pithom and Raamses.

That ancient history has no direct bearing on our spiritual life, but it grounds our religion in facts.  When we consider the other ancient religions, we find they were all founded on mythical gods. We can find confidence in knowing that our religion is based on solid facts.

From a good samaritan one in need receives friendship as well as assistance.

Sunday, 7/14/13

Today’s Gospel invites us to be good Samaritans. We should be alert  for  opportunities for helping those in need.

Yesterday I heard a funny story about Bishop Galione who was our bishop from 2001 to 2009, At home in Baltimore where beggars often knocked on his car window he always kept dollars in his left coat pocket for handing out. At one intersection a man knocked on his window. Bishop Galeone rolled down the window, gave the man a dollar, and rolled the window up again. But then, the man knocked on the window again, so Bishop rolled down the window, asking the man what he wanted; and the man said, “Might I have a smile with the dollar?”

Like the old saying, “The Lord loved a joyful giver.” I don’t know if that is in the Bible. If it isn’t it should be. By giving a smile with the dollar we are telling the one in need that we like being family with him or her.

I have often told the story of my stopping to help a man stranded on I-95 south of Daytona. I saw him standing next to U-Haul van, holding a five gallon gas can. I gave him a lift down to the next exit where he filled the can, and on the way back he told me his story.

He and his wife were Cubans, but they hadn’t met until they were teenagers in Miami. Married, they had three children, and were settled near Boston where he had a job, but no insurance. When his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer their parents in Miami offered to get her into reasonable health care if they and the kids could come back down.

So they sold what they could, bought tickets for his wife and children to fly down, while he packed belongings in a U-Haul. He was attempting to drive straight down the coast to Miami, but he was sleepy, and he had forgotten to watch the gas gauge.

I watched him pour the gas into the van, and I said goodbye. Then, he said, “I don’t have to ask who you are.”

Sometimes people guess that I am a priest even though I am wearing civies. So, I asked him, “Alright, who am I?

“Why,” he said, “You are the Good Samaritan.”  

God has concern for every sparrow that falls.

Saturday, 7/13/13

Jesus asked, “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin?”

Forgive me for reminiscing, but his question brings back a memory of mine, and I can’t resist speaking of it.

Fifty-five years ago when I was a missionary in South Korea I got around the country  on crowded busses. One of those long days, holding to the overhead strap, I was so  wedged into the standing crowd gaze was fixed on a man who had found a seat. I was struck by his neat attire: his trousers, jacket and vest had all been cleverly tailored from olive-drab army blankets.

I was struck as well by what he was holding inches out from his vest. With a straw strung through the nostrils in their beaks, he had four little dead birds he was taking to market.

I don’t know if they are still that way, but back then anyway Korean people had a day once a year when they honored their dead from generations back beyond mind. Gathering from all over that day, they would lay out a meal of exotic foods. Even though their ancestors could no longer eat, people gave them a banquet to mentally feed on, perhaps drawing some essence from the fine foods.

I guessed that the neat little man on the bus supported himself by catching rare game that might delight the departed at those strange banquets..  

For three centuries our Church forbade Catholics taking part in those meals for the dead, but it has come around to admiring people who remember their dead. Our Lord’s “two sparrows” along with that little man’s skewered birds reminds me that I must put my parents and siblings into my prayers.

Baptized into Christ, we share in his role as prophets.

Friday, 7/12/13

Jesus told the Apostles that when they were brought before judges the Spirit would give them the words to speak.

It seems to me that if the Spirit can speak to us in times of great stress, there must be a line of communication he can use at other times as well. God’s Spirit is always in our reach.

I like the priest’s prayer that follows the poring on of the water in our Baptism ceremony. It says that in being baptized into union with Christ, we are baptized in to sharing in his role as king, priest, and prophet.

By sharing in his priesthood all Christians share in the priesthood offering the Mass.

By sharing in his prophetic role we are armed to speak aloud what God says to us in the secret places of our hearts.

When we see people behaving in an evil way, and we cry out, “Stop, that is not right!” we are the prophets with the Spirit speaking through us.

When Jesus told his disciples to travel light, he was not asking them to practice poverty, he was asking them to make themselves at home with folks

Thursday, 7/11/13

In applying any Bible story to ourselves, we can push details aside, seeking out the core that applies to us. In my seminary days when we were lectured in Latin, the professor would say that Bible story will apply to us mutatus mutandi , which meant, “It applies to us when we have changed what must be changed.”

So, mutatus mutandi, today how do we implement the instruction against an extra tunic and not carrying silver in our belts? Some people see it as an instruction for us to practice poverty; but since Jesus went on to tell the disciples to stay in one house, and eat what was put before them, it looks like he wanted them to throw themselves on the hospitality of the people with whom they ministered.

More broadly understood, Jesus wanted them to mix with people. He wanted them  to become family with them. (Fifty-five years ago when I was ministering to impoverished victims of Korea’s war, I found eating my own kind of American food to be far pleasanter, but wiser priests told me I would remain a stranger until I ate with the people. I had to sit on the floor to eat the strange looking stuff.)

Then, what about Jesus telling disciples to knock the dust off their feet on leaving  inhospitable towns? Now, it sometimes helps to read Gospel commentaries written by people who knew all the customs. The commentaries tell us that in old Jerusalem the only time people were instructed to knock the dust off their sandals was when they were entering the temple. It was a variation of God telling Moses to remove his sandals before stepping on the holy ground around the burning bush.

When Our Lord’s disciples were leaving the inhospitable town what was it they were stepping out into? Where was it that they were not to traipse the dust of inhospitality? Well, it was the whole outside world.

So, what Jesus was telling his disciples was to waste no time with inhospitable people; and mutates mutandi, he is telling us not to hang out with mean-spirited people; rather, we should shake their dust off, and break away to enjoy Gods beautiful world.  

Was it right for Jesus to tell his disciples to avoid going to Samaritan towns?

Wednesday, 7/1/13

In teaching Matthew’s Gospel to Seventh Graders, I followed up every chapter by having each kid write his or her opinion about something in the chapter. After this Chapter Ten I asked for each kid’s opinion on whether or not it was right for Jesus to send his disciples to preach only to Jews, avoiding non-Jews.

Almost half of the students wrote that it was wrong for Jesus not to give the non-Jews a chance to hear the Gospel.

Half the kids said it was right for Jesus to send the disciples only to Jews. Their reason for saying that was that Jesus always did the right thing.

A few students even went a little farther in their answers. They said it was not the right time in God’s eyes.

They could have quoted Ecclesiastes, Chapter Three, saying, “There is a time for everything.”

Like, marriage is a good thing, but not for Seventh Graders. 

The fable about Jacob and the other-worldly being encourages us to struggle with God.

Tuesday, 7/9/13

Many people with the best of intentions take everything in the Bible as factual, but in doing so, they distort what God is telling them. The fact is that the Bible, in teaching us the truth uses many types of literature that do not lay out the facts. The Bible uses poems and parables; and in today’s first reading, it uses fables to get its point across.

Fables have at times used a twist that has an other-worldly creature working at carrying travelers across wild streams. St. Christopher was such a ferryman. In carrying the child Jesus across a stream he found him growing heavier, but on his life he struggled on keeping him safe. That was fable, not fact.

Fables can use a twist that allows one combatant to win a struggle if he can only get to know his combatant’s name. The fable of Rumplestiltskin revolves around that gimmick.

In today’s reading, Jacob came on a mysterious stranger guarding the ford of the Jabbok. They struggled all night, with it ending by the stranger, who would not reveal his name, gave Jacob the new name of Israel. Isra means “to struggle,” ad El means “God.”

Jacob was the founder of the whole race of the Israelites. They have remained a cantankerous people who will even fight with God.

The story’s message for us is that when we are kept awake by all kinds of worries, we should offer our problems up to God, and fight them out with him.

To the tune of “Glory, Glory, Halleluiah” from the “Battle Hymn of the Republic” I had my Sixth Graders singing. “Night time troubles when they’re on you, Night time troubles when they’re on you. Night time troubles when they’re on you, just fight them out with God.”