19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C - August 11, 2019

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

August 11, 2019

St. Mary Parish, Pylesville 4pm

Saint Matthew Parish, Baltimore11am

“Now that’s faith”

There’s a story that one day one of our Catholic Sisters was driving to the home of a person who was sick.

This Sister was a nurse and she was doing a home-health-care visit. She was driving through the streets of the town and to her dismay, her car ran out of gas.

Fortunately, the gas station that she often went to was just one block away. Unfortunately, the station had no gas can to lend the Sister.

But then Sister got an idea. She had a brand-new bedpan in the trunk of her car.

The gas station attendant knew her and trusted her and let her fill the bedpan with gasoline. Sister carefully carried it back to the car and started pouring the gasoline into the tank.

As she was doing this, a car slowed down to a stop and the driver was just staring at the Sister pouring from the bedpan into the gas tank. He called out through the passenger window, “Now that’s what I call real faith.”

Abraham’s Faith and Life 

This theme of faith emerges in our second reading today.

The author extols the faith of Abraham. This Old Testament patriarch was probably illiterate, but he believed firmly in God.

God called him to leave the only land that he knew and journey to a foreign country. Abraham, because of his faith, did what God asked.

God promised Abraham that he and Sarah, in spite of being older, would have a son. Abraham, with his faith, trusted God and eventually rejoiced in the birth of his son Isaac.

God told Abraham that his “descendants would be as numerous as the stars of the sky and the sands on the seashore.”Abraham had faith and so it happened.

Abraham basically had only one article of faith – he believed in God and trusted in God’s power. And that one article of faith dominated his life and determined what he did.

We have many articles of faith – the basics are contained in our Creed or Profession of Faith. Like Abraham, we are to allow them to dominate our lives and determine how we live.

  

Our Faith and Life 

For example, to believe in a Creator is to know that God abides in everything and in every person. To believe in the Father is to understand that God is a loving parent and that we have a home with God.

To believe that God became human is to know that there is a closeness, even a oneness between God and us. It is to understand that God and we can walk life together.

To believe that the Son of God suffered and died is to know that God’s love for us is unconditional. It is to understand that we are worthy and worthwhile and valuable in God’s eyes. 

To believe that Jesus rose from the dead is to know that nothing in life is hopeless. It is to understand, as the gospel says, that nothing is impossible with God. 

To believe in the Holy Spirit is to know that God lives within each of us and is the core of our identity. To believe in sacraments is to understand that God comes to us right now through ordinary things like bread and wine.

To believe in the Church is to know that God has formed us into a people, a community. It is to understand that we are to figure out how to love one another regardless of religious or racial or ethnic or cultural or national differences.

To believe in the communion of saints is to know that our community of life continues even beyond physical death. And to believe in the forgiveness of sins is to understand that no mistake is fatal in God’s eyes. 

Conclusion

They are our basic articles of faith.

They can have a profound, positive impact on our lives if we just allow them to do that. And, by the way, that’s no bedpan story – i

Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle C - August 5, 2019

Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

August 5, 2019    11:00am

Retreat and Conference Center at Bon Secours 

Several days this week, our first reading is from the Book of Numbers.

It is one of the books from the Hebrew Scriptures that might seem far from our experience.

Yet, it does speak to us.

The book is about the Israelites wandering in the wilderness before entering the promised Land.

Today we see them as a crowd of grumpy people.

They are bored, angry, and resentful. 

They grumble and complain.

In this passage, the issue is that they want better food and more variety.

Now doesn’t that sound like us, certainly not here at Bon Secours, but maybe at some points in our lives – like when I was in the seminary!

Maybe the truth is that, for all of us, life is at times difficult, boring, dreary, and full of anxiety and worry.

What today’s passages, taken together, call us to realize is that God is among us.

The heart of God is shown in Jesus who had compassion and empathy for the people who followed him to an out-of-the-way place.

Sometimes going through life can be a beautiful and exhilarating experience.

But at other times we feel like the Israelites: bored, resentful, and grumpy.

Sometimes we want something more dramatic than the Eucharist to show us God’s presence.

But, usually, God is with us and helps us in much more simple ways: 

in our meals with others, through our conversations with encouraging persons, in some words of wisdom or inspiration that we might read.

The Eucharist reminds us to look for God in the life we are living right now, in this place, and with these people.       

That will keep our grumpiness in check!

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C - August 4, 2019

18^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle C

August 4, 2019    

Viktor Frankl’s Insight

I am sure that some of us have heard of the famous psychiatrist named Viktor Frankl.

Viktor Frankl died in 1997 and was a survivor of a Nazi concentration camp.  He has some wonderful insights in his writings.

For example, Frankl tells a story about a woman named Alice who works for a cleaning service.  She cleans the central offices of a large corporation.

Alice wears blue jeans and a Marlboro cigarette tee-shirt to work.  The executive of this corporation – let’s call him Millionaire Mike – wears a dark business suit with a white shirt and gold cuff links.

Alice vacuums carpets and cleans toilets. Millionaire Mike directs his multi-million-dollar corporation.

Alice works evenings.  Millionaire Mike works days and evenings to keep up with the pace of business and the social life that this demands.

Alice works to send her son to a state university. Millionaire Mike works to make more money for people who are already wealthy, like himself.

Alice finds her work bearable and light, but Millionaire Mike finds his work stressful and draining.  Every evening they pass each other in the hallway of the office building and they are puzzled.

Alice wonders, “Why does he look so preoccupied when he makes so much money and lives so comfortably?”  Millionaire Mike wonders, “Why is she always cheerful when she has to do this demeaning work?”

Viktor Frankl says that the difference between the two of them lies in their goals.  Alice, the cleaning woman has the goal of educating her son, while Mike, the executive has no real goal beyond making large profits. 

Need and Greed

Frankl’s story and his observations help us to appreciate God’s Word today.

In the gospel parable, Jesus is not condemning us for working to meet our family’s needs and to maintain a reasonable lifestyle. But he is saying that greed is a problem.

Greed means that we feel that we never have enough and we always want more.  The challenge is to tell the difference between need and greed.

When are our needs satisfied and where do our needs stop and does greed begin?  The Scripture readings offer two guiding principles to prevent need from becoming greed.

1.   Look to Others 

First, we must look beyond ourselves to others.

The rich man in the gospel is totally focused on himself.  Notice that the words of his conversation are all “me” words.

“What shall I do?  Iwill tear down mybarns and build larger ones.  All mygrain and mygoods will go there.  Then Ican relax and Iwill have security for the rest of mylife.”

This man thinks that satisfaction and happiness are found in himself and in material security.  He is very much like the corporate executive in the story.

He totally misses the higher value of living for someone else and sharing what we have with others, as the cleaning woman is doing.  Because he does not look beyond himself to others, need has turned into greed.

2.   Look to God 

A second guiding principle to keep our need from becoming greed is to look beyond this world to God.

In today’s second reading, Saint Paul tells us “to seek the things that are above.  Set your minds on things that are above.”

If we look beyond this world, we will be in touch with God who satisfies us like nothing else can.  We will be in touch with the One who can satisfy our deepest longings – for affirmation and love and belonging.

We will then live more and more for the Lord who is our final goal in life.  As the gospel says, we will realize that “our life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.”

Conclusion 

So, Jesus does not condemn some financial security or comforts or possessions.  

But he cautions us to 1) look beyond ourselves to others and 2) look beyond this world to God.  If we do this, we will probably not get carried away and allow our need to turn into greed.