Jesus is not asking us to practise Poverty. he is asking us to practice friendless.

Wednesday, 2/1/18

In telling his disciples to bring nothing for thier journeys, "no food, no money in their belts" he was not asking them to practice Poverty. No, he was telling them to throw themselves on the hospitality of strangers.

He had a similar motivation for sending them in pairs. It ties in with his saying, "In this will all  know that you are my disciples, that  you have love for one another."

A fellow missionary of mine in Korea refused eating what the people there eat. He gave in when a woman insisted he eat at least a single egg. When he agreed, the woman pulled out an egg she had hidden in her under garments. Then, pulling a spike from her hair bun, she poked a hole in the raw egg, telling my fastidious friend to suck on it.

Yesterday I made friends with the lady barber assigned me. She is called Cee Dee. Her two year-old is very inventive, He grandfather, up in the hills of Haiti, lived to be a hundred and thirteen. He was a genius at making friends with people.

We should build our lives on the Beatitudes the way Jews built theirs on the Ten Commandments.

Wednesday, 11/1/18

This Chapter 5 of Matthew's Gospel purposely echoes Chapter 24 of Exodus. There Moses went up the mountain where God had him gather around him the leaders of the the twelve tribes, before giving Moses the Ten Commandments carved on stone.  

There God inaugurated the Old Law, while in today's Gospel Jesus inaugurated the New Law. It was Our Lord's intention that we should build our religious lives around the Beatitudes the way the people of the Old Law built their religious lives around the Ten Commandments.

But something has gone wrong with us. We are still living in the Old Covenant. 

We all know the Ten Commandments, and we go to confession when we break any of them. But we ignore Our Lord's request that we be meek and hunger after justice.

Accompany Jesus for a day.

Tuesday, 1/30/18

You should come from that other side in the boat with Jesus, and as you pull close to shore, you take the opportunity to scan his kind face.

People from all over are coming down to meet him, and Jesus, standing full height speaks to one after another in the crowd. You see a man whom you know  worming his way through the crowd. 

As the man falls before Jesus, he pleads, "My daughter is at the point of death, come and lay your hands on her that she may get well and live.

As Jesus stepped down, the crowd  came together behind him. But working her way through the crowd, you see a woman you know to have been hemorrhaging for years. And as others recognize her you see them pull aside rater than have her uncleanness being transferred to them.

The last thing the woman would want would be to contaminate Jesus with her blood flow, but she was .so impressed by his person of Jesu,  that she felt that a ere touch of his garments would be powerful enough to put an end o her twelve years of hemorrhaging.

Getting a finger on the tail of his cloak, she felt full health racing through her body. But Jesus feeling power go out from him, turned to ask who touched him. Then, when she came forward, he said, "Daughter, your faith has saved you."

Outside a dying man's house the people would raise a terrible racket to prevent evil spirits from snatching the dying man's soul. After putting them out, Jesus took the girl by her hand, telling her to get up. Then he told the child'smother to gv her something to et.

We should see the Mass as a repetition of the Last Supper.

Monday, 1/29/18

The stories in today's readings are too complex for me to speak about, so let me get by with something about the Mass.

It seems to me that the sacrifice of the Mass begins with repeating Our Lord's Last Supper, while winding up with his death on the cross.

I mention this, because our Church underplays the importance of Our Lord's Last Supper by referring to the Mass simply as his death on the cross.

The Last Supper was acted out as a sacrifice in itself. It was a three-part sacrifice. Part One, had the Greek name of the Anamnesis, consisted of recalling the favors we have had from God.

The second part of the sacrifice, with the Greek name of the Epiclesis, called on God to  come down to be with us.

The third part, called the Eucharistia, was Greek for "The Pleasing Gift." It called on the host and guests to unite in giving their selves to God as one "Pleasing Gift."

Paul and Luke gave us the best accounts we have of what Jesus did at the Last Supper. Both use the same word, "Eucharistesas" to tell us that it was at the third part of the sacrifice, at the Eucharistia, that Jesus gave himself, asking us to join him as one Pleasing Gift of love and obedience to God.

However, our New Testaments in English, omit the word Eucharistesas from their brief accounts of the Last Supper. They lead us to see Holy Communion exclusively as our spiritual food, rather than as our part in Christ's Pleasing Gift of himself to God.