10/1/2013 – Therese of Lisieux – Tuesday of 26th week in Ordinary Time – Luke 9:51-56

     Jesus journey to the cross had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of twists and turns, on his way to the cross.  Many times, the towns and villages recognized him for his great miracles, for his healings and his proclamation of God’s Kingdom.  Today, we hear how a Samaritan village would not welcome him.  Our own journey’s can take us to unexpected places, can be full of welcomes and rejections.  The saint we celebrate today is Therese of Lisieux.  I remember once asking some of the prisoners to whom I ministered who their favorite saint was.  Without a blink of the eye, they answered Therese of Lisieux. And they are not alone.  Since she was canonized in 1925, she has been recognized by the faithful as one of the most popular saints of the modern era.   Therese died at the age of 24 of tuberculosis back in 1897, a cloistered Carmelite nun who entered the convent at the age of 15.   The prisoners I spoke of and many of the faithful relate to “the Little Way” that she describes in her autobiography, a humble, everyday approach to faith in which we see God’s presence in the ordinary moments of our daily lives, in both the joys and the sorrows that we experience each day.  The response in the psalm today is: “God is with us.”  Some people recognized the way God was with Jesus in a special way, some did not. Therese saw God with her both in good times and in bad.  May we lift up our day to the Lord, no matter where we are on our journey.

9/30/2013 – St Jerome – Monday of 26th week in Ordinary Time – Luke 9:46-50

       Wanting to be a servant of the Lord rather than wanting to be the greatest. Doing good works in the name of the Lord rather than just sitting around and being complacent.  These are two themes I see in the Gospel today. Having fervor and enthusiasm in our faith is an important part of living as a disciple of Christ.  St Jerome, a priest and doctor of the Church whom we celebrate today on his feast day, was known for his great passion and fervor for the faith.  Jerome, born in the late 4^th century, is known for his extensive theological writings and for his Latin translation of the Bible, known as the Vulgate.  In fact, Jerome spent the last 34 years of his life as a hermit in the desert near Bethlehem, devoted to his literary output.  Jerome’s love of Sacred Scripture is reflected in this quote – “Ignorance of the Scriptures is an ignorance of Christ.”  With the intercessions and prayers of St Jerome, may we grow in our love of Sacred Scripture.  May we grow to know the Jesus of the Gospels and the Jesus in the reality of our daily lives.  May we be fervent and enthusiastic in our faith in the context of our personalities and the gifts that God gives to us. 

Stick Insect - walking on my car this morning -

I saw this stick insect walking on the roof of my car this morning as I went to visit the sick at the hospice.  A friend of mine commented: "I hope he told you that you needed to wash your car!"  I guess I need to wash my car soon!!!

9/29/2013 - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Luke 16:19-31

      Last Friday, we celebrated the feast day of St Vincent DePaul.   He was a priest who was born in France more than 400 years ago.  But, even to this day, he is remembered for his compassion, his humility, and generosity, so much so that many Catholic parishes throughout the world have Societies of St Vincent DePaul that serve the poor and the needy.  St. Vincent de Paul taught that true charity does not only consist of distributing alms & giving out financial assistance, but rather of helping the poor feel the fullness of their human dignity and freedom.   He also taught that our good works must never be separated from our faith, but rather must flow out of our faith.  Thus, St Vincent DePaul counseled, that to be men and women of action and good works, we must also be men and women of prayer and deep spirituality.  He advises us: “You must have an inner life, everything must tend in that direction. If you lack this, you lack everything.”  St Vincent DePaul touched people’s lives by his witness of faith.  The way he empowered the laity, and his work with abandoned children, prisoners, victims of catastrophe and natural disaster, refugees, and the homebound was considered groundbreaking in its day, and has had a profound affect on how many charitable organizations and governmental agencies approach such issues today. 

      I was reminded of St Vincent DePaul when I heard today’s Gospel. Lazarus might be the type of person who would have gone to St Vincent DePaul for help.  In the Gospel, Lazarus was alone on the streets: hungry, homeless and sick.  There's a lot we don't know about Lazarus.  Was he was an alcoholic, a drug addict, or mentally ill?  Was he injured or too sick to work?  Was he down on his luck or had he been laid off from his job?  Had he recently been released from prison, or was he just not able to pull himself up by his bootstraps to find a better place in life?  

     We don't know those facts about Lazarus – ultimately, this doesn’t matter to the moral of the story.  We do know that Lazarus was poor, that he lived right outside the gate of a rich man who had wealth in abundance.  The rich man dined as if every day were a banquet; he wore clothing colored with a very expensive purple dye; he lived in a grand estate enclosed by a gate that was meant to keep people like Lazarus out of sight.  Lazarus was always at that gate – he was part of the rich man's daily scenery. Even though he was always present, Lazarus was invisible to the rich man who had more important and pressing matters on his agenda.

      By their very nature, Jesus' parables can take very shocking twists and turns – they're designed to wake us up out of our complacency, to show us how God's kingdom is so different from the ways of the world.  In eternal life, the rich man is in agony and torment, he is the one in need.  He wants Lazarus to bring him a cool drink to refresh him.  It never crosses his mind the times that he could have brought refreshment to Lazarus when both of them walked the earth. He could have thrown Lazarus scraps from his scrumptious meals, but never did. Maybe the rich man went to the synagogue each day, maybe he tried to be an observant Jew, but if he did not have charity and mercy in his heart and in the way he lived out his life, what did his faith really mean to him? 

      We can reach out to other people in a lot of ways.  The charitable work we do as a parish is an important part of who we are as Catholics. It seems like everyone is talking about the interview that Pope Francis gave to America magazine.  One of the most strident critics of the Catholic Church who writes for the New York Times praised Pope Francis for his humility, his meekness, and for his honesty in saying that sometimes he has been rash in his judgments, and that sometimes we in Church leadership need to listen to the wisdom of our flock.  The writer said for that someone to wear the miter of the Bishop of Rome and to not have the power go to his head is truly a revelation.  The rich man in the parable today showed arrogance and self-centeredness.  Pope Francis calls us back to the teachings of Jesus, to the values that St Vincent DePaul lived in his life, to have a heart for the poor and to be humble witnesses to the Gospel of Jesus by the way we live our lives.  The writer in the New York Times, Frank Bruni, heard Pope Francis invite people to follow Jesus, to become disciples of Christ with us in the Catholic Church.  Pope Francis invites people with quiet dignity and respect.  He does not command them or order them.  Hopefully we can allow follow these examples in the way we live out our lives.

9/26/2013 – Thursday of 25th week of Ordinary Time – Luke 9:7-9

      The people of Jesus’s day he a hard time figuring him out.  They compared him to the other prophets of Ancient Israel.  They judged him according to their preconceived ideas and their expectations.   It takes us a lifetime to figure out our own faith and our relationship with Jesus as well. 

We grow in our faith and in our relationship with God over time.  And we discover more about him in the reality of our daily lives as well.  I look at Pope Francis and how his words have touched so many different people.  It is through his compassion, his humility, his words of welcome to all to our faith.  In fact, I have seen in recent days how some of the harshest critics of the Church in the media have welcomed Pope Francis’ very compassionate approach to our faith.  The pope is very direct and honest in what he says; he in no way is abandoning the teachings of the Church, but is presenting them in very realistic, human, and compassionate terms.  To figure out Jesus, perhaps we need to look at him in different ways,  We need to continue to study him and grow in our relationship with him, to grow in our relationship with our brothers and sisters in the faith as well.  It is going to be interesting in the coming months to see what Pope Francis will be saying.  Our interactions and encounters with the person of Jesus who is at the heart of our faith will continue to grow and expand if we continue to stay engaged and if we continue to get to know him.

9/25/2013 – Wednesday of 25th week in Ordinary Time – Luke 9:1-6

      Jesus sends his disciples out to bring his Good News to the world.  We know that Jesus does not want them to take very much along with them on the journey.  I have shared with all of you stories from the pilgrimage of St James that I made to Spain back in 2003 and in the spring of last year.  Both times I hiked about 325 miles carrying a large backpack on my back with all that I needed for the weeks that I was over there.   Some pilgrims try to have discussions about what it means to be a “real pilgrim.”  I recently saw a cartoon showing a pilgrim with this huge backpack on his back as he encountered St James himself on the pilgrimage.  St James had only a staff and a cape and gourd in which he carried his water.  The pilgrim looked at St James and said:  “You are not a real pilgrim.  A real pilgrim would carry a backpack.”  We in the modern world accumulate so many things.  It seems like no matter how much we have, we want more.   Those things often become what’s most important to us in life.  That’s the point of the Gospel today.  We need to travel lightly in light so that we don’t make the material things of this world our idols, that we don’t let them take the place of God as the center of our lives.

9/27/2013 – St Vincent DePaul - Friday of 25th week in ordinary time- Luke 9:18-22

      “Who do you say that I am?”  This is a question Jesus says we are all going to have to answer.  We answer this question with words, but even more importantly, we answer this question with our actions and with the way we live our lives.

       St Vincent DePaul is the saint we celebrate today.  You may know his name from the St Vincent DePaul society that helps the poor, which was originally founded in Paris in the 19^th century, or from the university in Chicago that is named after him. St Vincent DePaul, the person, was a priest who was born in France in the late 16^th century.  While a priest, he was on a voyage on a ship that was captured by pirates.  He spent two years as a slave in Africa before his escape.  He founded an order of priests and an order of sisters. Yet what St Vincent DePaul is known most for is his charity and the way he reached out to the poor and the needy – to children, to the elderly, to many in all walks of life.  Though honored greatly in his lifetime, he still remained humble, sincere, and honest.  Vincent DePaul once said – “The works of God are not accomplished when we wish them, but whenever it pleases Him.”  We take reaching out to the poor for granted, but in the era in which Vincent DePaul lived, this was not always the case. 

       May we always live out our faith with the same courage that Vincent DePaul did, so that all will know whose disciples we are through our works and our actions. 

9/24/2013 – Tuesday of 25th week in Ordinary Time - Luke 8:19-21

     Jesus talks about a new family of faith that is formed amongst those who follow him.  And it is not those who claim him in name only, but those who hear the Word of God and who actively live out those words in their lives. When we think about people who live out their faith in extraordinary ways, we might think about the saints and in particular the martyrs who were willing to give up their lives for their faith.  Earlier this week, we celebrated the Martyrs of the Spanish Civil War, which included many nuns and priests who died from the faith at the hands of the Republican forces during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. In fact, next month, Pope Francis is going to beatify 522 more martyrs from this period in history in a special ceremony in Terragona, Spain.  While the saints are such wonderful examples of faith for us, we are all called to be disciples of Christ in the midst of the reality we face in our lives.  Living out the faith and being true brothers and sisters of Christ may entail different types of sacrifice and hardship.  That is the challenge before us each day – hearing the Word of God and applying it to the way we live our lives. 

9/29/2013 – Vigésimo sexto domingo del tiempo ordinario – Lucas 16:19-31

     Ahora, soy sacerdote, trabajando en las parroquias de Mississippi con el pueblo de Dios.  Pero, antes de ser sacerdote, yo trabajaba como misionero laico en la ciudad de Winnipeg en el país de Canadá, trabajando con las personas viviendo en las calles: los borrachos, los drogadictos,  las prostitutas, los indigentes, y las personas sin techo. Siempre, estas personas estaban luchando cada día para sobrevivir, especialmente en el invierno con la nieve y con mucho frío en Canadá. Yo les preguntaba: ¿Como pueden vivir en las calles durante el invierno?  Ellos me dijeron que a veces duermen abajo de los puente y de los pasos superiores de los caminos, en los carros abandonados, y en los vestíbulos de los edificios en el centro de la ciudad. Los cuentos de estas personas de las calles tocaban mi corazón, y me recuerdo sus caras y sus cuentos después de muchos años. 

     El Evangelio de hoy nos habla de un pobre, Lázaro, y de un rico sin nombre, habla de esta vida en la tierra y en la otra vida eterna. Los judíos ancianos pensaban que la prosperidad material era una señal muy concreta de la bendición de Dios. Los pobres eran malditos en esta vista del mundo.  Según ellos, los pobres no tenían la bendición de Dios.  

     El mensaje de Jesús se predica especialmente a los pobres y en ellos este mensaje tiene su profunda resonancia. No es que se descarte a los ricos del camino de la salvación ya que Jesús no les censura su riqueza sino la falta de compasión hacia los pobres. La falta de compasión sea en un rico o en un pobre es señal de un rechazo hacia el amor de Dios. En verdad, la compasión es uno de los caminos para llegar a la salvación.

      Para nosotros, los discípulos de Cristo, el tema de los pobres es central.  Sentirse pobre es reconocer que Dios tiene en nuestra vida la totalidad de nuestra salvación.  La llamada de Dios para nosotros es que no podemos confiar en lo que podemos acumular.  Todo es para ponerlo al servicio de nuestro prójimo,  para llegar juntos a una sociedad más justa y humana.

      Jesús no condena la riqueza en sí sino el uso que se hace de ella.  Jesús condena el egoísmo que nos impide llegar al camino de la solidaridad, especialmente la solidaridad con los pobres.  Quien está muy apegado a las riquezas del mundo no puede seguir en el camino del Reino de Dios.  Los pobres, los que son capaces de desprenderse de sus distintas riquezas y ponerlas al servicio de los demás, son los que están más disponibles a aceptar y vivir la fe.

      El Papa Francisco está hablando mucho en estos días sobre nuestra responsabilidad con nuestros hermanos, con la bienvenida que podemos darles y con la compasión y la misericordia que podemos expresar.   Si viviremos nuestra fe en su plenitud, necesitamos abrir nuestros corazones a esta realidad.