Second Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 3:1 - 6

Once a long long time ago my older sister and I, who were about 9 and 12 respectively, pooled our meager funds to buy our younger sister, about two, a toy rocking horse for Christmas. We spoke a lot about how happy she would be. We anticipated squeals of glee and sheer bliss for our little sister. Finally one day when my mother was out on an errand and my sister and I were supposed to watch the baby, we couldn’t stand it any longer. We took the toy from its hiding place and sure enough, her eyes lit up, she squealed and laughed and mounted the horse and rocked away. We eventually took her off of it and put the toy away. She fussed a great deal and we calmed her down with a cookie. Our mother came home and we thought that was the end of it. But a few days later Mom wondered aloud why the baby sister was always going into my older sister’s room and whimpering in front of the closet, where we had hidden the rocking horse. That’s kind of what we do when we put up ornaments and play Christmas music during advent; we lose sight of what Advent and Christmas are all about.

I’m sure you remember Christmas as a child. Sometimes you kind of knew what Santa Claus was going to bring you. Other times you looked forward to the surprise your grandparents might get, which was in my case often the disappointment of some article of clothing, even though I always hoped for something more easily played with. But the anticipation was important. It made Christmas morning so much more delightful.

That’s part of the reason for Advent. It is not like Lent, a time of penance and fasting. Almost all the readings reflect instead anticipation. If we listen to them they speak of something wonderful that is going to happen. It will come as surely as Christmas morning comes, but it isn’t here yet We only need to wait a little longer. The prophet Baruch tells Jerusalem to throw off its garments of mourning and put on the splendor of glory of God. The apostle Paul prays that his readers be pure and blameless for the day of Jesus Christ. And Luke pins down the exact time and place that the coming of the Lord, predicted by Isaiah and other prophets, will happen.

You and I need to enter into this anticipation. We need to take time to think about the coming of the Lord, and whether we are prepared, and if not, what we can do about it. Isaiah talks about making crooked paths straight, knocking down mountains and filling valleys, smoothing out rough ways – making straight the way of the Lord. Preparing for Christmas is kind of a practice for the real thing – the coming of the Lord once and for all into our lives.

I think making crooked paths straight means that I try to destroy the delusions I have, that we all have, about our spiritual lives. We all have excuses, when we think about it, why we put off our spiritual growth. We haven’t got time, we get distracted, we really don’t need to go to confession because we haven’t really done anything terrible, and there are lots of worse people in the world. We believe Christ is present in the Eucharist, but that belief isn’t real enough to us to bring us to a few minutes of adoration before the blessed sacrament. We know the bible is the word of God, but except for the weekend masses, that’s about all the bible we care about. Tearing down mountains and filling up valleys, suggests to me that we need to find those parts of our lives where we are resisting the Spirit. If you go through a day and look back, you can always see times when you might have done things differently, more in keeping with living in the Spirit. Every day we have the opportunity to receive the fruits of the spirit, to exercise the beatitudes. When we fail to exercise kindness, when we allow anger to take over, when we allow things to deprive us of our joy, we are fighting the Spirit. Only by reflecting on our actual experience can we hope to tear down mountains and fill up valleys. One of the best ways to tear down mountains and fill valleys is to develop a habit of daily reflection; where did we respond to the Spirit? Where did we exercise the beatitudes? And smoothing out rough ways – what are we doing well? Where if someone looked at our life, would they suspect us of being a Christian? Well, lets do those things better. Lets take our strengths and make them stronger.

The purpose of advent is to prepare for the coming of the Lord. We are not really preparing for Christmas – that celebrates a day 2000 years ago. We are not preparing for the Second Coming; we don’t know when that will be or how, and it is the Church that must make the world ready for that. We are indeed the Church and we could ask how we could do this better, but that’s not the prime issue here. There is a coming of Christ for each of us, though. As certain as the sun rises in the morning, a day will come when Christ will come for me, and I will see once and for all how I am and how I should have been, and the closer these visions are to each other the happier I will be. And that is the real coming of Christ for which we are preparing.

My sister and I anticipated the joy our little sister would have on Christmas morning. Because we couldn’t wait, all we did was make her sad, and when Christmas came the rocking horse wasn’t a surprise anymore. So try to enter into that holy expectation, that time in the near future when we will each meet Jesus. What will he say? What will I say? Will he see that the good work he began in me at baptism has been completed? Or will I be sad because I have squandered the gifts he’s given me?

First Sunday of Advent, cycle C

Luke 21: 25-28; 34-36

Christians are supposed to be citizens of two worlds, and this time of year it seems very obvious. Here we are beginning the Advent season, and we are hearing about the Last Judgement and wearing penitential purple and many of us will use the season to take advantage of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. But it seems like society in general is ringing bells, wearing festive red and green, dreaming of acquiring more stuff and putting on six or seven pounds between now and New Years. As Christians we feel out of place; we have those images of the end of time when some of us will be frightened literally to death, and the Son of Man will descend from the heavens to judge us all.

Judgment. We talk about God being a just judge, and that frightens us a little bit; we hear in other parts of scripture that what has been concealed will be revealed, and that frightens me even more, to be frank, because there are things in my life that I would prefer not to be revealed except to my confessor. And sometimes in the middle of the night I worry that I haven’t done what God put me on the earth to do, and if the great saints were aware of their sinfulness to the point of flogging themselves and wearing hair shirts as penance, how do I stand a chance with my charmed life and my aversion to discomfort of any kind?

But God does not judge. We judge ourselves. God condemns no one, but we can put ourselves in hell. It’s that simple. With the Incarnation, God’s light and God’s truth come into the world. We can choose to live in darkness, we can choose falsehood. Saint Paul gives us a very clear picture of this. He says the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, is not the spirit of self-indulgence, sexual vice, jealousy, rivalry, antagonism, bad temper, quarrels, drunkenness or factionalism. When we cultivate these vices we can be sure that we are not living in God’s spirit. And we may not think we can cultivate vices, but we can. Whenever you exercise your bad temper, it’s easier the next time. When you have that extra piece of pie or that fourth Martini that you don’t need, you are cultivating self indulgence or drunkenness. And we are all guilty of cultivating vices, hopefully less so as we get older and wiser. Saint Paul tells us that the spirit of God is the spirit of charity, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, trustfulness, gentleness, and chastity; and when we cultivate these virtues, we are living in God’s spirit. We judge ourselves, we punish ourselves, we put ourselves in hell when we choose to live outside of God’s spirit. When we live in God’s spirit we find salvation.

So when you hear someone say, “How can an all good and all merciful God send anyone to hell for all eternity?” the answer is, he doesn’t. God shows his goodness and mercy by sending his Son to share our human condition, from being a single-celled zygote to a fetus to a newborn baby, to a teenager struggling with mental and physical changes, to a young man doing labor to earn enough to take care of his loved ones. His Son studies scripture and worships with the others in his village, some of whom seem to be hypocrites. His Son is hungry and thirsty, is pushed around by the authorities. His Son is condemned as a criminal and flogged and beaten and mocked; his Son is put to death. Some people say this is so that his Son, who is truly God and truly man, can pay the price for our sin that we never could pay. Some say that this is so because it is the only way the human race can satisfy the demands of God’s justice. But maybe the answer is in Jesus’ own words: "If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” If we keep his word and love him, we will be inhabited by God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and we will share in His resurrection from the dead.

It’s probably almost impossible for someone to become completely holy, completely one with God while on this earth. Maybe Mother Theresa, Maybe Padre Pio, maybe Pope John Paul II – but if you read biographies of them you learn that they had faults and vices.

Mother Theresa suffered from the feeling that God was absent, leading to doubt and pain. According to her letters to her confessor, she felt as though she had lost that intimate connection with God that she had enjoyed when she was young. Padre Pio was known to have a problem with temper, and he often used shocking language in letting people know what he thought. Pope John Paul II appointed Theodore McCarrick an archbishop and a cardinal when he was being counseled not to because of the rumors of McCarrick’s scandalous life. And I believe every saint whose life is realistically known to us had something about him or her that showed the effects of original sin. In other words, the more you study the saints the more you realize you could be one too. If you can be a saint and still have faults, I have a chance.

The Son of God lived among us and loves us; the Father loves the Son and raises him from the dead. And the Son constantly asks the Father to do the same for those he loves. So Jesus’ life and death makes up, in some way, for all those impediments to holiness that you and I have, and Mother Theresa and Padre Pio and Saint John Paul II had. The wonderful thing is that Jesus left us a Church that is a constant source of holiness and grace and the way he designed to share the love his Father and he have for each other, which is the Holy Spirit The Church is like an oasis in the desert, a place where the thirsty traveler can get water. And the Church never runs out; it is constantly being replenished by the Holy Spirit.

Its a good thing to remind ourselves during advent that there will be judgment; that we judge ourselves by how we live; but we can hold up our heads because God has given us everything we need to enter eternal life in the Church Jesus founded. So today give thanks for the Church and resolve to receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the weeks to come.

Feast of Christ the King, cycle B, 2018

John 18: 33 - 37

Many years ago when I was in my fellowship, the American Board of Internal Medicine offered the first board exam in my specialty, medical oncology. Since it was the first exam, we would be taking the exam with some of our teachers. When the exam was over, we were surprised to find that one of our favorite teachers had failed. His reason? Several of the questions had not caught up with the research. We all knew what answers the exam was looking for – if you read the latest textbooks, it was obvious. But my teacher’s answers were in keeping with the latest research. He could have answered the questions like the rest of us, but did not. He had more integrity, I guess, than the rest of us – or maybe he was just stubborn. In the long time since I've known him, he's always spoken exactly what he believes; he has passed up opportunities for advancement because he would have had to make compromises. He was one of the most authentic persons I've known.

The readings are interesting today. We have a reading from Daniel predicting the coming of the Jewish Messiah who will be given glory and power and come in the clouds. The reading from Revelation is similar; Jesus will come in the clouds and will rule over everything. The Psalm also describes a glorious king. And yet our Gospel reading shows Jesus bound in chains and standing before Pilate who will sentence him to death. I guess we can be forgiven for anticipating Jesus’ coming in glory. Most Christians today believe exactly what Daniel and Revelation prophecy – a time will come when Jesus will come in glory and establish his kingdom once and for all. And yet we are shown in today’s gospel that Jesus’ kingdom is not the kind of kingdom we imagine; he is the king over those who belong to the truth. And just what does that mean?

The Gospel of John is full of statements about truth. Jesus is full of grace and truth; if you follow his teaching, the truth will make you free; because he tells the truth you do not believe him; he is the way the truth and the life; he testifies to the truth; and after he is gone he will send the Spirit of truth to his followers. It seems as though truth is a big thing to Jesus.

I don’t think Jesus is talking about truth versus lies as in real news vs. fake news. He’s talking about the way he lives his life and by extension the way we should live our lives. The four Gospels are written from different points of view, but they all show someone who is authentic. We know Jesus is not afraid of what people think about him or even what they can do to hurt him. And we say, where does he get that? Is that from being the Son of God? But remember, Jesus is human in every way except for sin – that makes him perfectly human. And we all recognize that authenticity is a desirable quality in a human being. We admire people who don’t worry about appearances, people who aren’t afraid to speak their minds.

Authentic people also understand that while people can disagree over a lot of things there are certain things which are not negotiable – like gender, like the nature of marriage, like the prohibition against murder. Authentic people are willing to live and let live, providing certain lines are not crossed, lines that are written in our human nature. Jesus seems to have directed a lot of his attention to the very ones who were supposed to teach the people these things – the scribes and the Pharisees. He challenged them over and over again on what they were teaching; and he was a champion for the poor and the outcasts and the handicapped because authentic people recognize the human dignity in every person and grieve when some are living like animals or homeless or abused.

Authentic people recognize not only that they are fearfully and wonderfully made, that they are indeed made in the image and likeness of God, that they are so beloved by God that even if they sin terribly they will never be refused mercy and forgiveness – but they also recognize that they are completely dependent on God and that everything they have is a gift from God. Jesus spends whole nights in prayer as he goes about his ministry, and his prayer is not just asking for things – it is often acknowledging how God works. Remember when he said, “ I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed them to children.” Jesus prays prayers of thanksgiving and admiration for God’s work. And when Jesus works a miracle, he often reminds his followers that it is the person’s faith that accomplished the miracle. And faith, trust that God has one’s best interest at heart, is authenticity.

And people who live the truth feel a strong kinship with others who do so. I think that’s why Jesus chose Peter and probably the other apostles – because even though most of them were uneducated and worked as fishermen and carpenters, they were honest and spoke their minds. Every time we meet Peter, you can tell he’s saying exactly what he is thinking, except for the time he denied Christ – which he immediately regretted. And even that showed that he was trying to be authentic. When he failed, and we all do, he did not blame someone else or make excuses. But he also did not go off and hang himself like Judas. Presumption and despair are not part of authenticity.

We can see examples of human authenticity in most cultures and most religions. Mahatma Ghandi was authentic. So is the Dali Lama. But Christian authenticity is greater than this, precisely because the Christian is not becoming authentic by trial and error, but rather, by learning from the very model of authenticity, Jesus Christ.

So where should we go from here, on this, the last Sunday of Ordinary Time? How can we become more authentic? How can we belong to the truth? The best way and perhaps the only way is through the imitation of Jesus Christ. We can only imitate him if we get to know him. That requires a little work – we need to read the gospels and we need to pray for God’s help. Jesus came into the world to bear witness to the truth, and those who belong to the truth hear his voice. His kingdom is made up of people who struggle to live the truth, who work to be authentic human beings, who make it a project to get rid of all falsity and pretense and expose the living Christ that is our true self. Christian authenticity is the same thing as sainthood.

Thirty – third Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 13:24 - 32

Have you ever felt like the world is going to hell in a hand basket? It seems like our whole political system is coming apart. Where people used to disagree, they now go to great lengths to destroy the person they disagree with. The tensions between countries is rising as well and we fear another cold war or worse. And whatever we may think about climate change, we can’t escape the fact that we are dumping a garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute, and there is a patch of plastic the size of Texas floating around in the Pacific ocean. And it seems as though organized religion is dying out; certainly in much of Europe and increasingly in this country. For every convert to Catholicism, there are six and one half people who identify as “former Catholics”. And of those who identify as Catholic, about one third actually come to Mass once a week. Did I mention the clergy scandals? Are you depressed yet, because I could go on?

But I ran across an article the other day that said the year 536 AD was the worst year in human history. We know based on written records from England to the middle east that report months without sunshine, crop failure and starvation, and eventually plague, resulting in a massive dying off of the human population and the subsequent dark ages. And recently they’ve shown that what started all of this was a massive ongoing volcano explosion in Iceland which made clouds of ash that hid the sun for about three years. Apparently there was something similar going on in the South Pacific, so that the whole world was affected.

If you were to read the whole thirteenth chapter of Mark you would hear Jesus talking about wars and rumors of wars, brother against brother and father against son, earthquakes, famines, the rise of false prophets, the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, and persecution of Christians. There will be false Messiahs, the sun will be darkened, and things will be so bad that no one could survive if it were not for the sake of the elect, for whom the time will be shortened.

The first reading from Daniel is similar. It follows Chapter 11, which is a prediction of terrible things that are going to happen, when whole nations will be destroyed.

Daniel is writing at a low point in the history of Israel. Since the time of Solomon, the powerful and influential Jewish kingdom had first of all divided into two parts, then the Northern kingdom had been conquered and the people sent into exile, never to be heard from again; and finally the little remnant kingdom of Judea was treated the same way. Daniel has never seen his ancestral home.

And Mark is writing, we believe, to Christians at the time of Nero’s persecutions and the rise in persecution throughout the empire. Crucifixion was common, and Nero even burned Christians to light up the night. And it was a time when the split between Judaism and Christianity became permanent, the Jews blaming the Christians for drawing down the wrath of Rome and the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem.

And the messages of Daniel and Mark are similar – when it looks like everything is falling apart and the whole world seems to be against you, God will not fail you. The angel Michael, the protector of the Jewish people, will be sent to rescue them. And Jesus himself will return to save those who have kept the faith.

These so called apocalyptic writings are not really meant as predictions of the future except perhaps to tell us that we can’t control it. They are really written to remind their audience that turmoil and trouble in their respective worlds are in a way, reminders that God is in charge, that God has a plan, of which all these things are a part. They are being written to awaken hope.

We Christians receive the theological virtue of hope at Baptism. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says this:

“Hope answers the Christian's strong burning desires for happiness, a desire that God has implanted in every heart. It includes the inspirations that lead to his actions, making them pure of heart so they are oriented towards the Kingdom of God. It gives the Christian strength so he will not become discouraged. It supports the Christian when he feels deserted. Hope makes the Christian's heart shine in anticipation of eternal supreme blessedness. Encouraged by the virtue of hope, the Christian is preserved from self-concern, leading him to greater happiness that comes from charity.”

Theological virtues are given to us, but have to be practiced. As with Faith and Charity, when we cooperate with the Holy Spirit in exercising these virtues we grow in Holiness and closeness to God. How do we strengthen the virtue of hope? We remind ourselves that God is looking out for us. If I something terrible is happening, hope will remind me of this. If I am dying and we all will sooner or later, I can remember that my redeemer lives. The exercise of this virtue makes it become second nature, a habit of mind and heart. Hope springs from faith, which is the knowledge of God, His will, and His plan for us; and Hope leads to Charity, which grows out of the certainty that God will multiply our efforts and see to their success in building up His kingdom.

In the Epistle to the Hebrews, which we just read, the author is encouraging those to whom he is writing precisely to have this kind of hope. After reminding us that our high priest has actually saved us from our sins by his own offering of himself, the author will go on to say “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another.

One of the great sources of hope for a Catholic Christian is when we gather together every week to celebrate the Eucharist. We are reminded that we are not alone in our journey, that we have brothers and sisters accompanying us, and that most importantly Jesus himself comes to us week after week in Word and Sacrament.

So today would be a good day to begin let the Holy Spirit remind us of the reasons for our hope.

Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 12:38 - 44

My family has been very supportive of a college in Virginia. We like the idea that it doesn’t take federal money and therefore would have to comply with many rules that seem counterproductive to us. We like that it is really and truly Catholic, and teaches what the Church teaches. We’ve sent five of our six kids there, and we’ve been involved since it only had about a eighty students and four campus buildings to its present state where there are 570 students and 13 buildings. It’s a great school and part of a growing movement in this country. The college had a very nice chapel on the campus. However, recently the decision was made to raise money for a new, larger chapel for the growing student body. In the annual fund drive, we were asked to decide between contributing to the endowment fund, which helped defray student tuition, or to the fund for building the chapel.

Today we hear about the widow who deposits all she has in the treasury of the temple. Jesus remarks that she has given more than any of these others, because she has given from her need, while the others have given from their surplus. Is Jesus telling us to dip more deeply into our pockets on Sunday? Many times we interpret the story we’ve just heard in that way. The widow gave all she had, and in the eyes of God that was more than all those others had given. Sometimes in addition to reading this as an appeal for generosity, we even read it with a sense of guilt – it’s not likely that any of us will give up everything, will toss everything into the collection basket in the hopes that God will reward us. But I think that’s an important thing to recognize; when Jesus told the rich young man to sell all he had and give to the poor, he said, you will lay up treasures in heaven. Jesus says nothing of the kind here. We hear no more about the widow than that she gave everything she had.

But there is another way to look at this story. First, a widow was not just someone whose husband had died. They were “voiceless” in that society. No one spoke for them. Some of the prophets called on the people to be concerned about widows and orphans, but widows were not expected to speak up. In fact when Jesus tells the story of the persistent widow who kept bothering the judge, part of the shock of that story was that the widow was speaking up for herself. It just wasn’t done. And widows had no claim on what their husband left behind. That went to the children, or back to the parents. Widows had a very hard time, and in the early Christian community care of widows was a major concern. In fact, that’s why the apostles created deacons – to make sure the widows of the Gentiles andthe widows of the Jewish Christians were treated equally.

The second point is that the people dropping money in the treasury were not just being generous; they had to tithe. And the custom was to drop the money into large urns, and say out loud how much they had given and what they hoped it would be used for. This was recorded, and to be in good standing as a Jew meant that there was a record that you tithed.

The third point is that the teachers of the law, the scribes and the pharisees, were proud of their status in society. They did indeed wear clothing which set them apart from the people. Among Jews if you were a tradesman and you met a teacher of the law, you were the first to greet; the lesser deferred to the greater. And in the synagogues, the learned ones sat in the front facing the congregation – a sign of honor. And for a fee they would offer elaborate prayers in Hebrew, the sacred language, and who needed prayers more than a poor widow? That is how they devoured the houses of widows.

The widow has to pay something; everyone had to tithe. And she probably felt that it didn’t matter whether she had two pennies or no pennies, and maybe she dropped the two pennies into the treasury hoping that God would take care of her, or maybe it was an act of defiance, or maybe of despair. She knew, as well as Jesus knew, that her contribution would make literally no difference to anyone.

And that may be why the Church puts these two seemingly separate passages together. In the first case, Jesus is condemning the teachers of the law not only because of their pride and rich living, but because in order to maintain this life style they got their money from the most vulnerable. And Jesus looks with a broken heart at the widow, whose last pennies are going to support the teachers of the law – and nothing is being done about it.

We can read this story as a call to greater generosity – heaven knows we need to be reminded of this all the time. But we can also look at it as a call to take more responsibility for the way our gifts are used. We know there are charities where most of the money goes to pay the executive staff. There is no law against that. And when we see someone like certain megachurch leaders or television evangelists living a life that would be the envy of a king, we can’t help but wonder how many houses of widows they have devoured to support that life style.

And it’s true within our Church as well. And it’s always a dilemma; should we build another elaborate church or should we do something about the homeless people or the hungry people or the drug addicts or the students who will be the next generation of convinced, convicted Catholics? It’s a good thing to support teachers of the law, and help support seminarians, and honor God with beauty and wonderful monuments. The world needs to see that we Christians put God first. But when we decide where our charity is going, who has the greater claim? God, who doesn’t need anything we could possibly give him? Or God’s children, made in his image, whom he loves as much as he loves the Blessed Mother or any of the saints? When the woman poured expensive perfume over Jesus’ feet, and Judas objected, Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you, but the Son of Man you will not.” This same Jesus who told the parable of the rich man and Lazarus – the rich man who doesn’t even notice that there is a poor brother at his feet. It is a wonderful thing to be able to give to charity. It is sometimes very hard to decide where our gift will do the most good.

Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 12:28 – 34

There was a rabbi named Hillel who lived about the same time as Jesus. He taught in the temple of Jerusalem and is still highly regarded as an authority on the Jewish religion. The story goes that someone approached him and dared him to say the whole Jewish law while standing on one foot. Hillel took up the challenge and replied, “Do not do to someone else what you would not have done to you. That is the whole law. Now go and study it.” The Budda, Confucius, Lao Tse, and many other great religious leaders had this insight as well. So what is so special about the Jesus’ statement? After all, he simply puts the great command of Deuteronomy together with another commandment in Leviticus. The scribe who asked which commandment is the greatest gets back two commandments, it seems. And since Jesus says that these two commandments are the greatest, it is worth thinking about them.

One way to begin is at the end of the passage. It’s a good thing to love yourself. There are plenty of people who don’t – people who have unhealthy relationships with food, with alcohol, with tobacco, with drugs. People who ride motorcycles without helmets; people who juggle chain saws. And there are people that harm themselves because of depression or sometimes, a severe personality disorder. We are supposed to love ourselves. How do we do that? Well, in addition to avoiding damage to our selves, we love our bodies by trying to keep them healthy. We make it a point to learn about what foods to eat and what to avoid. If we love our minds, we are concerned about what we put into them. Pornography, hours of video gaming, Binge watching television, mindlessly surfing the internet are all ways to abuse our minds. And if we love our souls, we are concerned not only about sin but about things that bring us close to sin, and when we sin we get to the Sacrament of Penance as soon as we can. Love for oneself is not just a warm feeling.

Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as yourself”. In Luke’s gospel, this leads into the story of the good Samaritan. But we’ve just considered how we love ourselves, and that is how we love our neighbor. We do what we can so that they will have healthy bodies, healthy minds, and God willing, eternal happiness in heaven. The Church believes in the principle of subsidiarity. This means for our purposes that our love should translate into action especially with members of our family, our close friends; and then those we associate with at work, and so on. Perhaps the neighbor in Pakistan might be touched by a few dollars given to a charity. But those for whom we are most responsible are the ones for whom we should be making the most effort.

And finally, we work our way back to the first of the two great commandments. If we have loved ourselves, and loved our neighbor, we will have seen glimpses of God. We see God in the beauty of nature and in the marvelous achievements of arts and science. But we especially see God in other people; they are made in the image and likeness of God. Loving God with all our hearts has to do with wanting to be close to God, to enter into a deep relationship with Him. This is not something that just happens.

Loving God with our whole souls has to do with our wanting to do what God wants us to do, precisely because we want to have a relationship with Him. My soul is the part of me that sets goals, that places value on things, that decides where I will put my energy. Loving with my soul means that I will make it a priority to do what I understand He wants me to do.

Loving God with our whole minds means that we want to learn all we can about his nature, his laws, his actions in history. Sincere Jewish people consider the study of the Law as the highest pursuit of the intellect. We Catholics have a rich intellectual heritage as well, that too few of us know about. I wish every Catholic would make it a point to spend a few minutes every day reading some good spiritual literature. The more we know about God, the more we love Him.

Loving God with our whole strength means that we use what he has given us to serve him. If we see one of his children in need of something, we give it. If we come across someone who is on a bad path, we gently offer correction. We use our powers to carry out what we have learned about God.

And we find that the two great commandments are really one. Because loving God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength is really the greatest way we can love ourselves, because that is what we are made for. And in loving God with our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths leads us naturally and inevitably to loving our neighbor.

Jesus is different from the various religious leaders down through the ages who have given voice to different formulations of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule, love your neighbor as yourself, is empty and anemic without loving God with our whole hearts, souls, minds and strengths.

The two great commandments are really tied together, and if we set out to obey them we will be doing what we were meant to do, and that will lead us to our fulfillment as human beings.

So look around you for glimpses of God in yourself, in your neighbor, in beauty, in truth, in goodness. Don’t stop there; there is Someone behind all of this who invites you into a relationship, greater than any friendship, greater than any lover. Find out what He wants and make it your priority to do it. And study; the more you know about this God, this Lover of your soul, the more you will love Him. And carry out what you learn from your studying. Love is not just a warm feeling. Love is a plan of life, and as Jesus told us, “Where your treasure is, there your heart shall be.”

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle B

Mark 10:46 – 52

The story you just heard from the Gospel of Mark is also told in Matthew and Luke. There are differences; in Matthew Jesus comes across two blind men, neither of whom is named. In Luke, the blind man is encountered on the way to Jericho. But in all three cases, the next major event is to enter Jerusalem, where Jesus will be arrested, tried and crucified. But there are many details in Mark that aren’t in the other accounts. Only in Mark do we hear the name of the beggar, Bartimeaus. Mark was writing for a community of Christians living in Rome, suffering persecution, probably mostly of Jewish ancestry. Remember, when Mark was writing, there was no formal break between Christians and Jews. Jewish people in those days spoke Aramaic, which in the Eastern part of the Roman empire was a common language. In the western part of the empire Greek was the common language. It took a couple more centuries for Latin to replace Greek. You have to have this background to understand the name Bartimeaus. If your ears were tuned to Greek, it would sound like “Son of the honored one”. If tuned to Aramaic, it would sound like “Son of the despised one.” If you were Jewish living in Rome, you might immediately think of the whole story of the Hebrew people – once part of a rich and prominent independent kingdom under David and Solomon, now a little remnant ruled by the Romans, in a way as helpless and dependent as a blind beggar on the side of the road. So Mark wants the story to take on a larger dimension than a simple healing.

Bartimaeus may be blind, but he is not unaware. He hears people talking, and undoubtedly has heard about Jesus and his miraculous healing powers. And now there is a crowd passing through on their way to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and he hears Jesus is among them. If you are blind and helpless it’s best not to be assertive and call attention to yourself; you might get kicked or spit on, because everyone knew that blindness was a sign of God’s wrath. But Bartimaeus has a little courage, and calls out “Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” Scholars have pointed out that this is the first time in Mark’s gospel that Jesus is called “son of David.” To Jews, that referred to the expected Messiah. When Bartimaeus gathers his courage to call out to Jesus, God confirms through his voice that Jesus is the expected one. That’s an important point, because when we put our faith into action, we can expect that God will magnify our efforts, and lead us in directions we didn’t know we were going.

When Jesus hears Bartimaeus, he does not go to him. He tells his disciples to go get him. We never know why God does things the way he does. Jesus could have healed him from a distance. Jesus could have saved us without dying on the cross; Jesus being God could bring about the kingdom of Heaven here on earth with a wave of his hand. But here, as in most of God’s work he works through human beings. And perhaps Jesus is telling you and I to find Bartimaeus and bring him to Him. Because there are a lot of blind people in the world, many of whom are your friends and neighbors. Someone needs to make it their mission to bring them to Jesus. Because Jesus is the only way to the Father. If we love our fallen away friends and relatives, shouldn’t we have their salvation as a high priority?

In a dramatic sign of his faith, Bartimaeus casts aside his cloak. People didn’t have closets full of clothes in those days; especially blind beggars, and the cloak may have been what he sat on when he begged, what he threw around his shoulders when it got cold, what he covered himself with when he slept; in other words, it was his major possession. But unlike the rich young man we heard about two Sunday’s ago, Bartimaeus was able to give up his possessions to go to Jesus. In the olden days, Catholics used to fast and abstain at certain times of the year; we used to fast from midnight on when we wanted to receive Holy Communion. We were urged to tithe our possessions because in addition to the obligation to be charitable, all these things reminded us that we had to cultivate detachment from material goods if we wanted to make room for Christ in our lives.

And Jesus asks Baritmaeus, “What do you want me to do for you?” Last Sunday he asked that of James and John. You remember that he turned down their request to sit at his right and left hand when he came into his kingdom. They had made a self-serving request, based on desire for power, or fame. Bartimaeus prays from his deep need, his desire to be whole: L”Rabbi, that I may see!” That should be at the root of our prayers as well – that we may see. That we may see the person who is in need of our touch; that we may see where we can be most effective in bringing about God’s kingdom in our lives; that we may see what we need to do to create space in our souls for the presence of Jesus; and I’m sure you could think of many other areas where it would be wonderful if God would give us sight. And Jesus sees Bartimaeus faith and tells him that it is his faith that healed him.

So, like much of Mark’s gospel, there are several levels; Bartimeaus is a blind man, the son of someone named Timeaus, in need of healing. Bartimaeus is Israel, fallen far from it’s glory under David and Solomon, reduced to helplessness, in need of a Messiah, and the Messiah indeed comes to rescue Israel. And Bartimaueus is you and I, persons on the journey, persons who, if we call out, our Lord will give us the strength, often from those around us, to come to him; persons who always need the gift of sight so that we can follow Jesus through his Passion and death, and Resurrection, as Bartimaeus did.

I started my sermon by telling you one theory of why Mark names Bartimeaus. I think it’s a good theory and makes sense. But I have to leave you with another theory. Mark is not writing for the ages; he is writing for a community of Christians in a specific place and time. And Bartimaeus is well known to them. After all, he accompanied Christ, and like many of those first Christians, went out proclaiming the good news, and it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility that he might have been instrumental in establishing the Christian church in Rome). And Bartimaeus is living proof that Jesus is who he says he is. And you and I have been touched by the Saviour as well, and we need to proclaim that to the world.