Our psalm today proclaims that the Lord is kind and merciful, slow to anger, and rich in compassion. Fortunately for us, the Lord is indeed merciful and gracious. However, we need to remember that since we are made in the image of God, we too are called to be kind and merciful. We are bound together not only with God, but also with our brothers and sisters.
Our first reading from Sirach today adds to our understanding of God’s kindness and mercy, telling us that holding onto wrath and anger and refusing forgiveness is a spiritual contradiction for those who seek God’s mercy. Even though we know in our minds that wrath and anger are sinful and not good for us, we often hold onto them in our hearts, refusing to let go of them and move on. We do not realize how our anger can be like poison for us in our spiritual lives. It affects our emotions, our thoughts, and our dealing with others. It can rupture our relationship with God and with our neighbor. I remember when I lived in the missions in Ecuador, one of the ladies in the village came to our missions office, wanting to have a mass intention for that evening, telling the nun that the intention was to have the strong arm of God to come upon her husband & to punish him. She was having a strong disagreement with him, and all she could think about was getting vengeance and revenge. The nun tried to explain to her that this is not what mass intentions are for, and talked to her and tried to get her counseling to help her with the challenging family situations she was going through.
So many of us cannot put enmity aside. We defy the love and mercy of God by being angry with others. Perhaps we do so because of the hurt that we cannot let go of; the fear of being hurt again; our wounded pride; and a reluctance to recognize the seriousness of the wound that we have within us. Many in our world see forgiveness as weakness or vulnerability. In our faith, we are see forgiveness as the opposite of weakness, as a sign of spiritual courage and maturity and strength. This does not diminish our wounds that still have not healed or our past experiences that will always be a part of our story. We need to be honest with ourselves and honest with God. Most of all, forgiving is something we need to do for ourselves, so that we can free ourselves from things that are weighing us down and so that we can move on with our journey of faith. Sirach reminds us that if we are unwilling to forgive others and let go of our anger, we cannot ask God to forgive us our sins and our failings. As we are all made in God’s image, to be angry with our neighbor is to be angry with God.
One thing I have been trying to talk a lot about as a priest is the Eucharist and how the spirit of the Eucharist should always accompany us in the way we live out our faith each day. Hopefully that is a message you hear from me very strongly and very directly. We have instituted regular community adoration at our parish. We have instituted a 24-hour prayer room with a tabernacle and monstrance where you can spend quiet time with the Blessed sacrament. We have the first Friday and first Saturday devotions in our parish during the year, with the Mass and the Eucharist as important parts of that devotion. We all need to find time in our lives for the Eucharist and for living out the spirit of the Eucharist. In a book I have been reading by Thomas Merton, he states that in relationship to the Eucharist, that it is important for us to actively participate in the liturgy, to live out the spirit of the Eucharist in a life of charity, was is tied to our reflection of God being kind and merciful, and also finding time for adoration and meditation and contemplative prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.
Pope Francis in his document Evangelii Guadium, The Joy of the Gospel, wrote that although the Eucharist contains the fullness of our sacramental life, it is not to be seen as a prize for people who lead a perfect life, but rather a power medicine for us and nourishment for us in our weaknesses. Pope Francis sees the Church as a field hospital, offering the Eucharist to us in the midst of our human frailties, our weariness, and our sinfulness. We come the Eucharist striving toward the perfection to which God calls us, striving to be a better disciple of Christ. The Eucharist challenges us to be better in the midst of our temptations and daily faults. We should feel challenged by the Eucharist to live a life of discipleship worthy of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Speaking of the Eucharist, for the last several weeks at our 10:30 am mass at Holy Savior, we have been singing the Anima Christi prayer at the end of communion time. For a long time, many people associated the Anima Christi prayer with St Ignaitus of Loyola because it has a prominent place in his spiritual exercises, which were written in the 16th century. It was assumed that he was the author of this prayer. However, it appears that the Anima Christi prayer has its roots in the 13th century, written by an anonymous author. This prayer focuses on Christ's passion and wounds. Over time, this prayer became widely adopted as a meditation of thanksgiving immediately after receiving Holy Communion. That is what spurred me to ask Toni to sing this prayer during communion time, after I heard popular Catholic evangelizer and author Katie Prejean McGrady talk about how much she loves the Anima Christi prayer being sung at her parish in Lake Charles, Louisiana at the end of communion time and how she misses it when she visits other churches. I have put the Latin and English versions of the prayer in the bulletin this week for you to see.
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