Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 97

“Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me,
and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
and whoever does not take up his cross
and follow after me is not worthy of me.

Several years ago a woman spoke to me about her daughter who lived in a distant city. She had not heard from her in several years. She knew that some of her other children were in touch with this daughter and she was okay. But she would not talk to her mother.

The lady wondered what she should do about that. There seemed to be nothing that could be done. After we talked a while, this passage from today's Gospel came to my mind. "...whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me..."

I would not suggest it to anyone as my own advice. I'm not a parent and my family gets along famously. We've not had an experience of a daughter refusing to talk with her own mother. So I suggested the passage above, from this Sunday's gospel; perhaps it was God's word meant for her.

To my surprise, the lady accepted that teaching as directed to her heart. And she was comforted. She seemed to be a devout person but not especially scrupulous. Not one to quote scripture to strangers or anything like that.

It sounded like a very severe teaching. But for her it sounded like the voice of her Lord and Savior. If it was a word of rebuke, it could only be welcomed as that familiar, wonderful voice we all hear in prayer. I don’t know now how she understood these words, or what words she used to explain it to herself.

I do know that I have often thought about what they mean to me. I left my home in Kentucky to enter the seminary when I was thirteen. As a Franciscan I have travelled far from home and family; and accepted transfers and assignments without considering how close or far they were from Kentucky. My home has been in friaries, on the Gospel Road, in God's kingdom, in whatever nation or state I might reside. 

I do not suppose that by leaving home I satisfied all the demands of the Gospel, but my assignments and reassignments have been part of my response. I leave a piece of my heart everywhere, and yet my heart is full.

As a pastor, chaplain, and preacher I have not pretended to know what the Lord’s words mean to everyone who attends the Church or reads the Bible. I cannot say how anyone should live their life. That is far beyond my paygrade; but I am sure God's demand is uncompromising. It is also quite reasonable, for no human being stands alone against the universe. I am not the “master of my fate,” or the “captain of my soul,” as William Ernest Henley boasted.

Nor does anyone love or serve another human being with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. And yet we are meant to do that; we are custom built to be servants to a lord, slaves to a master, and sheep to a shepherd. Human beings instinctively look for something or someone to serve. We are designed as members of a human community and our identity can never stray from that endlessly complex relationship. Those who do not wait upon and worship God, inevitably find something -- a fearless leader (der Führer) an ideology, or a cause. Or we end up serving ourselves alone, worshipping the self, condemned like prisoners to solitary confinement because the self is not worthy of myself.

The Jewish philosopher, Emmanuel Levinas, quoting Dostoevski, said. “We are all responsible for all, for all men before all, and I more than all the others.” These philosophers, one a Jew; and the other, a Christian, saw that being a human being necessarily includes the purpose and mission of being for others. Levinas speaks of the command that every human face represents to the self. It is more than an irrational demand; it is a command that I must honor the dignity of everyone I meet. Because I cannot see my own face; I learn who I am and my purpose in life in the face of another.   

Someone might say, “But I didn’t ask to be born;” and that is true. But you are responsible for your being nonetheless, and your being owes a debt of gratitude to God and to others for being born, whether you accept that debt or not. It is the blessing and privilege no one can decline, though they might hate, ignore, dismiss, or deny it. Nor is my debt to others cancelled if no one is grateful for what I do for them. That’s on them, not me.

The saved are those who have embraced and welcomed the responsibility of being human. I fail often – I know and cannot deny that– but neither my responsibility nor God’s grace goes away. We  have these promises from God our Father, a promise which Jesus has renewed,

I am with you always, even to the end of the world. 

And. 

Whoever receives you receives me,

and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.

With that assurance, which comes as a commission, we live in this world knowing we are citizens of God’s kingdom, a kingdom which is to come, and everyone who receives us will be saved with us.

Memorial of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem

 Lectionary: 376

To what can I liken or compare you,
O daughter Jerusalem?
What example can I show you for your comfort,
virgin daughter Zion?
For great as the sea is your downfall;
who can heal you?

The Church often contemplates the virtue and blessings of Mary, the Mother of God, on Saturday; and it is well that the feast of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem should fall on Saturday this year. He promoted her title Mother of God when it was still inconceivable to many thoughtful Christian theologians and pastors. He also introduced his own Marian devotion to all future ages.  

Today's first reading is taken from the Book of Lamentations, which recounts the overwhelming grief of Jerusalem after Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian army had breached its wall, burned its buildings, and deported the citizens who had not been murdered. 

The Church has taken words from that tragic account to recall Mary's grief as she witnessed the crucifixion of her Son. Many Pietas describes that enormous sorrow. In the photo here, Mary's sorrow is represented in our shrine in Carey, Ohio -- the Basilica of Our Lady of Consolation -- above a corresponding statue of her Son lying in his tomb. Above her head are the words, "Behold and see whether there is any sorrow like unto my sorrow." (I've forgotten the exact phrasing; the reference is to Lamentation 1:12) 

The images and inscriptions of the pieta remind us of the holiness of grief. It is too precious to be wasted. But our secular society, so eager to celebrate joy, gladness, happiness, and giddiness, fears grief. 

"Laugh and the world laughs with you; grieve, and you grieve alone." People often avoid friends and acquaintances who have recently suffered a severe loss. They cross the street lest they run into them! Other demean grief, calling it a process, and you just have to work through it. 

But grief cannot be dismissed so easily. It is not a process, and we do not "get over it." Rather it is a gift that shows us how deeply we love, and roots in our hearts and souls run far deeper than we imagine. Love is painful -- sometimes more painful than we actually feel -- but if we knew how deep it goes and how painful we might avoid it altogether. 

Recalls Lord God's words to Eve, "...in pain you shall bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband...."
No sooner had Eve's second son been murdered than "she gave birth to a son whom she called Seth. “God has granted me another offspring in place of Abel,” she said, 'because Cain killed him.'” The mother of all the living would not forget her sons, but neither would she stop loving her foolish husband and giving him more children. 

Saint Augustine recalled the poor trade the Lord had offered to Mary from his cross. He told her, "Behold your son!" The Bishop of Hippo understood that she adopted all of us as her children; she became the Mother of all those who live in Christ. But what a poor exchange it was! She had lost her divine Son and received only sinners. 

But we know that she loves us with the same tender devotion she gave to her Jesus. There are no greater sacrifices than those we received when we had no choice. In her turn, Mary invites us to know him with her own passion. As he said, 

[For] whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Friday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 375

But some of the country’s poor, Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard,
left behind as vinedressers and farmers.

Yesterday and today the Church read passages from 2 Kings about the destruction of God's holy city, Jerusalem. Yesterday we heard,

"None were left among the people of the land except the poor."

What is left after an army has kidnapped every capable person, burned every building, pillaged every home, killed the livestock, and ravaged the fields? The poor have nothing but breathing space and hope that the armies will march somewhere else and not return. 

But they also have the Lord's Promise and the vitality of the earth. New life is never far away. I have watched grass sprout through sidewalks, and vines cling to walls. The ground shifts beneath the sidewalks, seeds invade the crack, and life returns. Meanwhile, vine tendrils patiently remove the mortar from brick walls, which eventually collapse. Untended water grows algae, weeds, and mosquitoes. Rain and sun erode stone walls; wind carries moisture into ravaged lands while birds plant them with seeds. 

We do not forget the rape of Jerusalem. It has suffered through many cycles of building and rebuilding, devastation and abandonment, war and peace, like every major city in the world. 

But the Word of the Lord endures forever. And because we obey the Lord's command, "Do this in memory of me!" we also survive every catastrophe. 

Thursday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 374

Many will say to me on that day,
‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?
Did we not drive out demons in your name?
Did we not do mighty deeds in your name?’
Then I will declare to them solemnly,
‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoers.’

Today's first reading from the Second Book of Kings recounts the fall of Jerusalem under the Babylonian army; historians place it in 597 BC. 

The tragedy seemed inevitable after Jehoiachin, the faithless king with his wicked mother Nehushta, began their reign. They may have observed all the rites of a divinely appointed heir of David but, as the psalmist (Ps 89) had predicted, he and his nation were severely punished:

I will establish his [David's] dynasty forever,

his throne as the days of the heavens.

If his descendants forsake my teaching,

do not follow my decrees,

If they fail to observe my statutes,

do not keep my commandments,

I will punish their crime with a rod

and their guilt with blows. 

But I will not take my mercy from him,
nor will I betray my bond of faithfulness.
I will not violate my covenant;
the promise of my lips I will not alter.
By my holiness I swore once for all: 

I will never be false to David.

As a child in a Catholic school, I was warned about the sin of presumption. We should be grateful we have been baptized and brought into the Church. We should practice our religion with its moral code and ritual observances, but we should never suppose we're automatically bound for heaven. "God owes you nothing!" was the subtext of every teaching. There is nothing automatic about God's love! The law of cause and effect is preempted by the sovereign authority of a personal God. 

We should suppose we are sinners. The teaching was supplemented by a friendlier message of the late 1960's and seventies: "We are beloved sinners." But never uprooted; we are sinners nonetheless. 

That's a hard teaching for a people that has learned to take for granted many entitlements and perquisites, with inherited safety nets and assured second chances. We need to be reminded that bad ideas, opinions, words, and actions have bad consequences. Someone will pay for our sins.

Our world and our Church is compromised by many Judases and antichrists whose lives have been given over to evil. That may not be apparent at first, but it emerges soon enough:

They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number. (1 John 2:19)

Anyone who is so “progressive” as not to remain in the teaching of the Christ does not have God; whoever remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. (2 John 1:9)

With the Sacrament of Penance Catholic invite and receive God's merciful rebuke. We want to hear his voice, and are delighted when we do hear it, even if it's stern reproval. There's hardly any other sign that is more reassuring! 

Solemnity of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist

 Lectionary: 587

It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you with regard to the things that have now been announced to you
by those who preached the Good News to you through the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels longed to look. (1 Peter 1:8-12) 

As the Church continued to reflect upon the Pascal Miracle of the Lord's life, death, and resurrection, Saint Peter remembered the long history of God speaking to his people through many prophets, sages, and teachers. Those blessed souls saw and heard promises of the Good News which would be announced by an angel to the Virgin Mary and by John the Baptist to the Jewish people. 

The Letter to the Hebrews, in chapter 11, also recalls the faith of the ancestors from Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham to...

Others (who) endured mockery, scourging, even chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, sawed in two, put to death at sword’s point; they went about in skins of sheep or goats, needy, afflicted, tormented.

The world was not worthy of them. They wandered about in deserts and on mountains, in caves and in crevices in the earth.

Yet all these, though approved because of their faith, did not receive what had been promised. God had foreseen something better for us, so that without us they should not be made perfect.

Our first Pope and the Writer of Hebrews reminded the Church of the debt we owe to many generations of faithful people, and insisted that their lives, hopes, and expectations would not be fulfilled if we forget what the Lord has done for us. 

Jesus, on the night before he died, said to his disciples, "Do this in memory of me." We have never forgotten that Man's dying wish. It has shaped our lives and left a deep mark on human history. We remember those words during every Mass; they sum up and encapsulate what has gone before: "Eat this" and "Drink this." 

Two millennia later, many millions of the Lord's disciples have been added to that list of forebears who "endured mockery, scourging, even chains and imprisonment...." Missionaries, pioneers, and settlers have abandoned their homelands and risked their lives in sea voyages to bring the Gospel to all nations. We find their cemeteries and thousands of churches wherever they went. Our ancestors, from their place in glory, see that their lives meant something because you and I believe as they believed.

I remember them when I say, "Do this in memory of me." And perhaps I am speaking for myself also. Who will remember Father Ken Bartsch, OFM Conv a hundred years from now? I don't suppose anyone will. 

But they will remember the Lord, Mary, the Apostles, martyrs, saints, and the thousand generations of faithful souls who have kept the faith.  And our descendants also will shed blood in their struggle against sin. 

And we will rest easy in our graves because they are still making the sacrifices we have made.

Tuesday of the Twelfth Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 372

“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many. 
How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life.
And those who find it are few."

Deeply entrenched in my 78th year, and facing eighty in the no-longer-distant future, I notice hills where there used to slopes, steps have been added to stairways, and chairs are harder to get out of. Mornings come sooner, as do the evenings. I haven't the least interest in TV after Wheel of Fortune. 

But some things don't change. It's still not easy to pay attention to long sermons and familiar prayers. The mind still wanders like a puppy dog in a field of high weeds. The gate that was very wide has narrowed; the road is more constricted, and there aren't as many choices as there used to be.

In today's Gospel the Lord urges us to enter through the narrow gate. A similar passage in Saint Luke's gospel urges us to strive to enter through the narrow gate. Clearly, we must strive. 

Take nothing for granted, he seems to say. There's no call for anxiety. Not that we don't worry; but it doesn't help. Worry wastes too much energy and takes too much time. Rather, we keep our fixed on him as on a light in a dark place. 

We find ways to make it work. We can still do for others as we would have them do for us, without throwing pearls to swine or giving what is holy to dogs. Perhaps it's become easier to see the difference. Trying to please others is wasted effort, and satisfies neither social norms nor God's law. Saying no to unrealistic demands should be easier by now, though pride still gets in the way. 

It's good to stop and ask, What am I striving to do, and is it really necessary? Especially when there's another striving that is far more important. 

You have faith in God; have faith also in me.

 

Optional Memorial of Saint John Fisher, Bishop and Saint Thomas More, Martyrs

 Lectionary: 371

And though the LORD warned Israel and Judah by every prophet and seer,

“Give up your evil ways and keep my commandments and statutes,
in accordance with the entire law which I enjoined on your fathers
and which I sent you by my servants the prophets,”

they did not listen, but were as stiff-necked as their fathers, who had not believed in the LORD, their God.

Historians could find many reasons why Judah and Israel did not listen to God when he spoke through faithful prophets and seers. There were always plenty of prophets and seers to choose from although very few spoke with God's authority. As we like to say when we make bad choices, "Many experts disagree with that considered opinion." 

Caught as they were between the larger forces of Persia, Assyria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, the kingdoms of Israel and Judah felt compelled to make treaties with one or the other of these empires, paying their tribute of money, men, and materiel for impoverished peace and relative stability. Their alliances, which they called covenants, invariably involved perpetual oaths of love and fidelity. Perpetual, in world politics, means next to nothing.

But God had made a true, everlasting covenant with the people, when the prophet Moses and the priest Aaron, sacrificed heifers, sprinkling the animal's blood on the altar, representing God, and the people, representing themselves and their children into perpetuity. And despite the rise and fall of many cities, nations, and empires, God has remained faithful even as the people experimented with other gods, which always failed. "The Word of the Lord endures forever." (Isaiah 40:8; 1 Peter 1:25)

That failure, of course, led to loss; and the Bible only occasionally remarks about them. They wandered off into history and were never heard from again. In the meanwhile, the faithful could say, "We've seen 'em come, and we've seen 'em go." 

That is just as true of many Christian sects and denominations as it was true of unfaithful Israelite cities. 

I recently heard a former Protestant minister, now a Catholic Evangelist, speak of the question the Holy Spirit forced upon him, "The Church of Acts 15, where is it today?" He had knocked about through several denominations before being ordained as a minister with international status in his particular tribe, when he suddenly realized his authority had not come from the Peter who presided over that first council. It was only an endorsement from associates, colleagues, and friends. 

His wife, in the meanwhile, was studying the life of Saint Francis. She saw that God told the young man to, "Rebuild my Church, which you see has fallen in ruin." He had not been directed to start another church. As Israel had demonstrated long before Christ, that experiment invariably fails. Jesus did not come to abolish the old covenant but to fulfill it. 

Today, we honor the martyrs Saint Thomas More and Saint John Fisher. They could not take part in the reforms of King Henry VIII, despite their loyalty to England. Nor could they endorse his flagrant, murderous adultery. 

We should pray for our nation which has endorsed many abominations, including gun rights, abortion, and gay marriage. Those decisions of all three branches of the federal government have split the nation into sanctimonious remnants who cannot speak to one another, and threaten to destroy the American experiment in democracy. 

Remembering the stories of Saints Thomas More and John Fisher, we must pray, fast, and demonstrate our fidelity to Jesus, who is the Covenant made flesh. He lives among us in the Most Blessed Sacrament and in the authority of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. We have seen nations rise and fall, and sects appear and disappear. 

We remain faithful by repenting and confessing our sins without blaming anyone else. We have no need to shred God's Church into remnants of saved and unsaved. And Our God remains faithful to those who repent and confess their sins. 

Twelfth Sunday in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 94

"Fear no one.
Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
What I say to you in the darkness, speak in the light;
what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops.

Everyone who has heard the story of Jesus, whether they believe in him or not, whether they like him or not, remember his fearlessness. Saint Mark recorded how he met opposition almost as soon as he began his ministry. If the crowds were in thrall of One who spoke with such authority, rebuked demons, and healed the sick, the authorities accused him of blasphemy and began to plot against him as soon as he appeared. Saint Luke says that when the time came to leave Galilee, he resolutely set his face for Jerusalem, knowing full well what would happen upon his arrival in the Holy City. He spoke of it several times but his bewildered disciples could not believe what they were hearing. Why would anyone so eagerly approach certain death? 

After his resurrection, we realized he was a man born to die. Now everyone is born to die; we know that. But it comes as a surprise to many of us, and a grave disappointment to all of us. We are, and should be, afraid of death; and yet Jesus was not because he had pondered the words of Isaiah, and his cryptic songs of the Suffering Servant : 

He was spurned and avoided by men,

a man of suffering, knowing pain,

Like one from whom you turn your face,

spurned, and we held him in no esteem.

We cannot know when he first heard those words. Perhaps he heard them as a child in the synagogue; or Joseph read them to him. Perhaps he listened to Jewish elders discuss what Isaiah meant, and who this Suffering Servant might be. Would he be a prophet like Moses or Elijah? Was he the anonyous author in Babylonian exile? Or maybe he was the Jewish people in general. 

But the boy Jesus heard Isaiah’s words about a suffering servant and knew in his bones what they meant: 

Yet it was our pain that he bore,

our sufferings he endured.

We thought of him as stricken,

struck down by God and afflicted,

But he was pierced for our sins,

crushed for our iniquity.

He bore the punishment that makes us whole,

by his wounds we were healed. 

He was not just a boy who thinks he will be a hero someday. Jesus had a preternatural knowledge, call it an intuition, an assurance in the Holy Spirit, that Isaiah was writing about him. If he told his Mother about it, she must have listened, remembered the Angel Gabriel, and wondered with him. 

The gospels begin with the Lord’s baptism.They give us prefaces about his origins and birth, but the real story begins with his baptism in the Jordan River, and the words Jesus heard and understood, “This is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.”

Saint Paul would call him the new Adam, Saint John would call him the Son of God, but there in the Jordan Jesus remembered Isaac, the beloved son of Abraham, and Sarah's first born son. He was the new Isaac. born to be sacrificed as an offering of peace, atonement, and the world's reconciliation to God. His sacrificial death would prove the Father’s love for the Earth and all its peoples, even as the near-death of Isaac had proven Abraham’s singleminded devotion to God. 

From the day of his baptism, Jesus would not fear death. In one of the Batman movies, the hero is told, “Any man who does not fear death, has no hope." But Jesus knew what he hoped for. He neither feared death nor defied it. Rather, by his obedience to the Father and his sacrifice on Calvary, he would destroy death forever. 

Death wants to tell us, “You have no hope.” And many people, having no faith in God, live in dread of dying. With their medicines, surgeries, therapies, health foods, purges, and fitness exercises, they would forestall death forever. But it is conquered only by those who fear the Lord.

The fear of the Lord is not like the fear of snakes or high places. Those fears come naturally without much education. But we have to learn the fear of the Lord. We teach it to our children and practice it daily with our reverence for God and the things of God. We practice that fear when we recognize the dignity of every human being. Just as we’re afraid to enter a Church without some sign of reverence like a genuflection, bow, or sign of the cross; we fear insulting weak, vulnerable, or helpless people because God favors them over the powerful, wealthy, and secure. 

The prophet Jeremiah had spoken of that Holy Fear:

I will give them one heart and one way, that they may fear me always, for their own good and the good of their children after them.

With them I will make an everlasting covenant, never to cease doing good to them; I will put fear of me in their hearts so that they never turn away from me. I will take delight in doing good to them: I will plant them firmly in this land, with all my heart and soul. Jeremiah 32: 39

Our fear of God is devotion to God. He comes to us in the humblest of forms – in the unpretentious appearance of a wafer of bread and a drop of wine. As Saint Francis said of the Most Blessed Sacrament, “Behold the humility of God!” We reconfirm out fear of God daily by, “psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in [our] hearts.” God comes to us also in the helplessness of the confused, bewildered, and the poor. 

In today’s gospel Jesus says, “Nothing is concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.” Those who fear God as Jesus does have no secrets, and nothing to be discovered by their enemies. Our enemies are God’s enemies and we know who must win that contest!

So we go about the business of speaking the truth, consoling those who mourn, feeding the hungry, and clothing the naked. We can do that and more because Those who fear God fear no one else. 

Saturday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 370

"No one can serve two masters.
He will either hate one and love the other,
or be devoted to one and despise the other.
You cannot serve God and mammon.

Karen Armstrong, in her book, The Great Transformation, describes the beginning of the world's several major religions, from Zorastrianism in the second milllennium before Christ to Islam in the 7th century AD. These several religions, including Buddhist and Tao, agree with the universal principle of Two Ways, good and evil. The wise spend their lives discussing and trying to discern the difference because it's not always obvious. 

However, the "Abrahamic" religions-- Jews, Christians, and Muslems -- go a step beyond the Two Ways because they recognize that God created all things and is not subject to any law or principle. God's will determines good and evil. Compliance with God's will is good, noncompliance is evil. 

In today's first reading, we learn of Joash, a weak king of Jerusalem who tried to do good but also tried to retain his authority by satisfying his powerful nobles. He failed catastrophically and his kingdom suffered for it. Caught in the dilemma between the God who gave him authority and the men who threatened to depose him, he chose wrongly. It's not an unfamiliar dilemma for anyone, whether king or peon; president or citizen. 

Jesus, by his life, death, and resurrection, shows us how our God favors his people despite the many hardships and trials we suffer and endure. His generosity is inexhaustible; we may rely on Him but He demands much of us and will not be taken for granted. 

Compromise with evil is never necessary or good. It's inexcusable because... 

If God so clothes the grass of the field,
which grows today and is thrown into the oven tomorrow,
will he not much more provide for you, O you of little faith?
So do not worry and say, 'What are we to eat?'
or 'What are we to drink?' or 'What are we to wear?'
All these things the pagans seek.
Your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things will be given you besides.

 

Friday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 369

Then Jehoiada made a covenant between the LORD as one party and the king and the people as the other,
by which they would be the LORD’s people;
and another covenant, between the king and the people.

We might wonder why the lectionary editors chose chapter 11 from the Second Book of Kings for our reflections on this mid-summer morning. It's certainly violent. Although we might not be surprised to hear of men getting killed in the Bible, we might be jolted by the summary execution of a queen. 

The Hebrew prophets who made it their job to criticize the kings of Israel didn't like most of David's sons, and they hated Queen Athaliah. The wicked kings played politics to promote their own interests. They lived lavishly, and favored their own sons and relatives while heavily taxing the people. They often drafted able-bodied men for the army, and attractive young women for their household servants. When tbey struggled for the survival of the Kingdom, they failed to rely on God as the true king of Israel. 

But the prophets approved of King Joash as he restored Solomon's ancient temple, the priesthood, and the proper worship of God. He tried to govern with mercy and justice; and he listened to the prophets as he dealt with allies and enemies of Israel. As today's scripture indicates, he renewed Israel's covenant with God,

Beginning the day the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles in the Upper Room in Jerusalem, Christian preachers, teachers, and theologians have searched the "Old Testament" for prophetic words and signs that would be fulfilled by the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Saint Paul said that Adam, the first man, was a type of Jesus, the Son of Man; and where Adam brought sin upon the earth, Jesus brought grace and favor. We call that science typology. 

And so I notice a few types in today's first reading: Under King Joash, the ancient covenant was restored. It fits the pattern of covenant restoration: Moses renewed the covenant with Abraham; and, as the Hebrews entered the Promised Land, Joshua renewed the covenant. Jeremiah would speak of a new covenant, and Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and established a new one with his own blood. Blood renews the covenant. 

Joash (found in Matthew 1 under the name Jehoash) was a Davidic King and an ancestor of Jesus. And so the story demonstrates God's providential guidance of David's lineage although, as often happens, he doesn't appear or make his presence obvious. 

Unfortunately, during my seminary years, typology as an important tool for studying the Bible, was often dismissed or ignored. I've learned since then to take it more seriously. With it we can see more clearly how our Providential God directs the history of Israel toward Salvation History.

Thursday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 368

‘Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name,
thy Kingdom come,
thy will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven....

As I take my place and sound my opinions in the marketplace of ideas, I hear many more ideas about what should be done, what should have been done, and what we should do now. (After it's all said and done, there's a lot more said than done.)

I hear of security, (meaning dominance over allies and potential enemies;) and sustainability, (meaning an illusive balance between conservation and waste). And many other ideas. I hear the president praised and damned for whatever he does.

And as I realize that whatever I hoped to see before I die will never happen no matter how long I live, I wonder what God's kingdom will be like. Certainly, I have no idea; and fewer ideas about it today than I had yesterday. I can't imagine a kingdom, democracy, oligarchy, or theocracy governed with mercy and justice. 

And so I say, "Thy kingdom come!" and let it go at that. And, for good measure, "Thy will be done." 

Revelation 12 describes the conquest of heaven when Saint Michael and his angelic battallians purged the everything in the universe except the Earth of all the principalities, powers, world rulers of this present darkness, and the evil spirits in the heavens. (Eph 6:12) with whom we struggle. 

And then I see spy satellites and more dangerous hardware launched into near-orbit around the earth. All Saint Michael's triumph, why are we repopulating the sky with our demons? He'll just have to do it again on that Great Day.

The Lord's Prayer is reassurance for us. We cannot imagine peace on earth; but we can hallow God's name, await his kingdom, and try to make peace with our neighbors before they haul us into court. 

Wednesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 367

"Take care not to perform righteous deeds
in order that people may see them; otherwise, you will have no recompense from your heavenly Father."

No one should suppose the Pharisees knew nothing of hypocrisy before Jesus scolded them for it. It's a very normal form of human interaction: we say we're sorry when we don't mean it, and the matter is dropped. We often "CYA" when dealing with picayune matters that might entail lawsuits and endless trouble. We're learning to appear neither woke nor politically correct, while doing both. 

The Great Revelation of Jesus was not that some people or certain types of people act hypocritically. If some people seem never to come out of their act, if they are always in character although that character seems patently false, we need not spend our lives trying to penetrate their armor. Perhaps that's really who they are; perhaps they have been deeply wounded....

Perhaps it's none of my business, anyway. I was not sent to save anyone; I have been sent to be one witness of the truth.

In today's Gospel, the Lord speaks of loving God by prayer, fasting, and charitable works. And we can be assured that God sees through every pretense, and that He appreciates our efforts even when they are not done in absolute sincerity. 

• Do I do pray in private to prove something to myself? 
• Am I fasting to lose weight or for the love of God? 
• Do I perform these good works because I love God, or because I am afraid of disappointing some people?

Nevermind, do them anyway. We can let God sort that out in his own time. Revelation comes from God, including the revelation of myself. He shows us who we are, who we're sent to be, and how well we are doing.

As Saint Paul says, we're not supposed to judge ourselves. ("Stop judging me! I don't even judge myself!) We don't need to worry about the judgment of others, but there's no need to be rude or offensive either. 

Rank hypocrisy, like that we see in King Herod, wants to control others. Terrified of the loss of control, it would manage their behavior as well as their thoughts and attitudes. It would destroy anyone it cannot control. It would love only those it has conquered, on its way to their destruction. 

The disciples of Jesus live under a different regime. Our judge is God, our standard is truth, our hope is deliverance from all pretense. And we wait patiently for that day. 

Tuesday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 366

...for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.

Anyone might complain about the Lord's common sense observations concerning sunshine and rain. The blessings of warmth, sunshine, and water fall wherever they fall without regard to anyone's virtue or wickedness. Likewise, droughts, floods, and searing heat can afflict anyone. 

But it's also true that the wealthy use due diligence before purchasing floodprone lowlands; and their irrigated lawns are green even in arid deserts. The poor scrape out a living in those lesser places where the wealthy cannot be bothered. 

Psalm 73 complains about that apparent injustice:  

...I was envious of the arrogant

when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

For they suffer no pain;

their bodies are healthy and sleek.

They are free of the burdens of life;

they are not afflicted like others.

Thus pride adorns them as a necklace;

violence clothes them as a robe.

Jesus, a homeless vagrant, recognized the privileges of wealth and their indifference to nature's vicissitudes . He had read the rest of the Psalm. The Divine Author reconsidered his attitude with verse 15:

Had I thought, “I will speak as they do,

I would have betrayed this generation of your children.

Anyone can see how removed the wealthy are from this generation of your children. They distance themselves from certain elements even of their own families. The foolish, reckless, heartbroken and helpless must keep far away; while the polished, poised, influential and elite are made right at home. Wicked wealth does not risk the careless associations of large churches where anyone can come in, take a place, smell, and sing off-key. 

To associate with the wealthy, one must "betray this generation of your children." Jesus, who cannot deny himself, cannot deny his kinship with with the disinherited and despised. 

Like Saint Francis who boasted toward the end of his life, "The Lord gave me brothers," Jesus invites everyone whom the Father gives him: 

Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves.

For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.

The Holy Spirit will not let us forget that Jesus and this generation of his children is our only wealth; he is our privilege and delight. All that other stuff is just stuff. 

 

Monday of the Eleventh Week in Ordinary Time

 Lectionary: 365

If anyone wants to go to law with you over your tunic,
hand him your cloak as well.
Should anyone press you into service for one mile,
go with him for two miles.
Give to the one who asks of you,
and do not turn your back on one who wants to borrow."

Recently, as I drove a familiar route through rural Indiana, I heard for the first time, a country hit, "My give-a-damn's busted." The singer, Jo Dee Messina, claims that she cannot be bothered with her ex's demands, expectations, and worries. She doesn't live to please others anymore. (However, I heard a male blues version that made reference to bar room fights.) 

We encounter a similar indifference when we read about martyred saints. They care about God's justice and mercy, and surrender concern for themselves to God's judgment. They might be mocked, scorned, and despised by the vast majority but their attention is fixed on the One they love more than anything or anyone in this world. 

They know a freedom which the world cannot imagine; a freedom which only disturbs the sleep of this world's governors. 

The Lord's teachings about giving your cloak and going the extra mile makes perfect sense to them. They've got more important things in their minds and hearts than time or property; matters which are pressing and immediate, like obedience to the Lord. Matters which the world might recognize but can put off till tomorrow. Concern for oneself, one's time, reputation, and possessions -- what are they? 

Christian saints and martyrs know the end is near. The purpose and goal of our life is obedience to the Love of God. It is always close, always at hand, and always demanding.