Feast of the Dedication of Saint John Lateran Basilica, Cycle B - November 9, 2015

Feast of the Dedication of Saint John Lateran Basilica

November 9, 2015                  8:30am

As I said at the beginning of Mass, today we celebrate a church building – Saint John Lateran Basilica in Rome.

So our second reading that the Church selects for today interests me.

Paul speaks of us, of our bodies, as a building – a temple.

He says: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God?

“The temple of God, which you are, is holy.”

So our body is a temple of God.

It is created by God and is sacred.

A conclusion I see to this is that we need to treat our body with respect and be good stewards of it – taking appropriate care of it and not abusing it.

So, I am seeing a number of issues for us to be aware of and think about.

Do we eat appropriately and not overeat?

Do we try to keep our weight at an appropriate level?

Do we eat nutritious food and limit junk food?

If we drink alcohol, do we drink too much?

Do we smoke cigarettes or cigars or whatever?  Have we tried to stop?

Do we have an issue with substance abuse – with alcohol or drugs?

Do we exercise?  Do we exercise regularly?

Do we live chastely, in keeping with our vocation and state of life?

Do we respect our bodies by dressing well, appropriately and modestly?

Do we respect the bodies of others in our thoughts and words and actions?

Do we show respect for the bodies or cremated remains of those who have died?

So, Saint Paul’s statement and our belief that the human body is a temple, a temple of the Holy Spirit – that leads me to these thought on this day in honor of a Christian temple, Saint John Lateran Church.

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St. John Lateran Church. 1^st church erected here by Emperor Constantine in 4^th century. On land owned by Laterani family. Dedicated to St. John the Baptizer and Evangelist. Rebuilt in 1500s.  Called St. John Lateran. Is cathedral church of Archdiocese of Rome. Pope is bishop of Rome, so is Pope’s cathedral. Celebrate its dedication as a sign of unity with Holy Father and rest of Church.

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B - November 8, 2015

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Cycle B

November 8, 2015   4:00 and 6:00pm and 8:00am

Saint Margaret Parish, Bel Air

 

The Readings and Pope Francis

Today’s Scripture passages got me thinking about Pope Francis.  They call to my mind some of the themes he has been voicing in the past two and a half years. 

About Bishops and Priests

The first thing that jumps out to me in the gospel is Jesus putting down the scribes.

The scribes were the religious lawyers and theologians.  They wore distinctive robes as a sign of their status and people stood up when they entered a room.  

They were given seats of honor in the synagogue and other places.  But here, Jesus chides them for being too self-serving.

Well, Pope Francis on a number of occasions has addressed bishops and us priests.  He has cautioned us not to look upon our vocation as a career or in a self-serving way.

Francis doesn’t want us to be driven by goals of getting titles like Monsignor and things like that.  Instead, he calls us priests to a fuller and fuller personal relationship with Jesus. 

And Francis also has a wonderful way of expressing our role with the people whom we serve.  He says that sometimes we are to be before the people we serve, pointing out the way and keeping the vision alive. 

Then again, sometimes we are just to be with the people in an unassuming way.  And then again, sometimes we are to walk after them, letting them lead and making sure that no one gets left behind. 

For me, that is a wonderful image for my role as a priest and a pastor.

About the Poor

In another direction, today’s first reading lifts up a poor widowed woman.

She trusts in God and shares the last of her food with the prophet Elijah.  Then, Jesus in the gospel lifts up a poor widow who gives virtually her last pennies to the upkeep of the temple.

In a similar way, Pope Francis repeatedly calls our attention to the world’s poor.  He, as I guess we all know, was very committed to the poor in Argentina.

I think the current statistic is that 3 of the 7 billion people in the world live on $2.50 a day or less.  1 billion live on just $1.25 a day or less.

2.5 billion people lack adequate sanitation and 1.1 billion people lack basic water.  Right here in Harford County, this winter there will be 270 homeless persons each night.

Pope Francis says that when we are healthy and comfortable, it is easy to forget the sufferings and extreme need of others.  So he is trying to awaken especially the developed world to sensitivity to the poor. 

Francis sees this as a major moral issue.  He is trying to move us to work on personal, national and international levels to address this.

What Can We Do?

I suppose the question is: practically speaking, what can you and I do?  I have a couple of ideas that are not new but maybe they are helpful reminders.

On a local level, maybe we can bring some groceries with us to Mass – a box of cereal or a can of tuna fish or a jar of peanut butter.  Many of you already do this and all of this food is given to the Harford Food Bank.

Or maybe we could bake a casserole for Our Daily Bread in Baltimore or volunteer some time at the Homeless Shelter here in the county.  These could be good, local ways of caring for the poor.

On another level, maybe we could consume less.  Pope Francis in his recent encyclical on the environment expresses great concern about the over-consumption of the earth’s resources. 

He talks about how this ends up hurting those already living in poverty.  So maybe we resolve to be careful not to waste food and water.

Maybe we use more energy-efficient light bulbs and look for more energy-efficient products across the board.  These are some fairly doable, concrete ways we can respond to today’s readings and to Pope Francis’ exhortations. 

He calls us at least to reflect and pray and look seriously at these issues and our responses.

Friday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle B - November 6, 2015

Friday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

November 6, 2015                  8:30am and 11:00am Seniors

I think a short lesson about Scripture is helpful this morning.

There is a difference between an allegory and a parable.

Jesus’ story of the Sower and the Seed is called a parable, but is really an allegory.

In an allegory, every detail means something.

So, in that story of the Sower and the Seed, every detail meant something – the sower, the seed, and each type of soil on which the seed fell.

In a parable, there is only one point and the other details don’t mean anything.

So, in today’s story about the dishonest employee, Jesus’ one and only lesson is expressed in the last sentence:

“For the children of this world are more prudent in dealing with their own generation than the children of light.”

Jesus is not endorsing the dishonesty of this employee.

That and other points in the story are not his lesson.

The lesson is that he wants us to be as industrious and as enterprising and as prudent about the things of God as we and others are about other things.

So, use our time and opportunities well.

Use them well for reading Scripture and praying and growing closer to God.

And use them well for doing things that build up God’s kingdom on this earth, like caring for the poor and the sick or passing on our faith to children and youth.

Use our time and opportunities as best we can – in a prudent, enterprising, industrious way.

That is the one lesson of this parable.

Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time, Cycle B - November 3, 2015

Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

November 3, 2015                  8:30am

Did you ever wonder why the people in today’s gospel did not accept the invitation to the dinner?

The dinner, as you probably imagine, stands for the meal that Jesus offers.

For us, this meal consists of the Word of God and the Eucharist.

The people in the parable give work-related or family-related reasons for refusing the invitation.

But, as the passage itself says, they are not really reasons but “excuses.”

They just do not want to come. 

The question is: Why not?

Why do we formulate reasons or make excuses for not spending time with God in prayer, whether it is here in the church or chapel or at home?

I can think of two factors and maybe the first leads to the second.

The basic factor is that we just get taken up with doing things.

One author says that we have become human doings instead of human beings.

We think that if we are not doing something, we are wasting time.

We fear that if we are not needed to do something, we have no inner value.

And, of course, we don’t conceive of just being with God or praying as doing something and so we do not make time for it.

This leads to another factor.

If we have not really experienced the meal God offers, we haven’t given it a chance.

So we are not inclined to try it.

And the more we say no to the invitation to the dinner, the farther and farther we get away from it and the less and less we even think about it.

The only answer I can think of is to grab hold of our cultural need to be doing something all the time and realize how lacking this is.

And then, with that awareness, we might begin to make a little time for God.

And if we do that, if we try the first course of the dinner, my bet is that we will want the whole meal and start saying yes to the Lord’s invitation every Sunday and maybe even every day.

The Commemoration of all the Faithful Departed, Cycle B - November 2, 2015

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed

All Souls Day

November 2, 2015         8:30am

 

A Grave Marker

Some time ago, I read about a grave marker in a cemetery in Maine.

This marker goes back to the 1700’s.  The inscription on this marker, for a man who had died, is simple but it makes us think.

It says:

“We seem to give him back to thee,

Dear Lord who gave him to us,

Yet as thou who didst not lose him in giving,

So too, we have not lost him by his return to you.”

We Do Not Lose Them

They are consoling and even insightful words.

Today, All Souls Day, we recognize that we have given back to God some of our loved ones, much as God had given them to us.  So maybe we have given back to God our grandparents, our parents, your husband or wife, a brother or sister, a friend, a son or daughter, and on it goes.

The loss, the giving back to God has been painful.  It has left a void, a vacuum in our lives.

And yet, as persons of faith, we know that God did not lose us in giving us to our loved ones.  God has remained with us and we have remained close to God while we are here on earth.

In a similar way, we have given some of our loved ones back to God.  But, our faith tells us that we also have not lost them. 

They remain our loved ones and our relationship with them continues.  This is part of what we mean by our belief in the Communion of Saints.

The Communion of Saints

We believe that we can still help one another.

We know that we have the potential here on earth to bring joy or sadness to one another.  So, we can affect one another spiritually here on earth.

We believe that we can also affect one another spiritually after one of us has gone back to God.  So today, we pray for our loved ones who have died.

We pray for their peace and happiness with God.  We ask the Lord to wrap them in his love.

And, besides that, we also pray to our loved ones.  They are with the Lord as all saints are with the Lord.

And so, we ask their intercession for us.  We ask their help in whatever special need we may now have in our earthly journey.

So, yes, we have given these loved ones back to God.  But, in this way, just as God did not lose our loved ones in giving them to us, we have not lost them in giving them back to God.