11/4/2015 – Wednesday of 31st week in Ordinary Time – Romans 13:8-10

       We know that Jesus summed up God’s law in the commandments to love God and love our neighbor.  Paul sums up God’s law in the same manner in todays reading from his letter to the Romans. Living in God’s love will help bring us closer to God’s commandments.  However, we know that this is not always easy to do in practice.  I was chatting with some members of the RCIA class last night after our session had ended, and I commented to them that as a priest, it is not always so easy for me to apply God’s law to some of the situations I face in my ministry here at St James. That is what is so interesting for us as we learn about the saints, about how lived out a faithful life of discipleship in the gray areas of their lives.  

      As Catholics, Charles Borromeo might not be very well known to us, but he was an important missionary and prophet in our Church, just as St Paul was.  Borromeo lived in the era of the Protestant Reformation, a time when our Church was under great scrutiny and attack.  He was born into noble family in Milan, Italy, being related to the powerful Medici family.  When his uncle was elected as Pope Pius VI, Borromeo became the cardinal and administrator of the important Italian Archdiocese of Milan. He was named Bishop of Milan at a very young age, a position he could have used for his own benefit and power.  Yet, he lived out a life of service, being very influential in the Council of Trent and promoting the system of seminaries that we have today to educate our priests.  Charles Borromeo could have lived a life of great luxury and privilege, but he gave much of his wealth to charity, led a very simple life, and took out enormous debts in order to feed the victims of the plague in his city.  Like Charles Borromeo and St Paul, we are all called to lives of holiness in our own way.  May all of us be able to discern the ways to which God is calling us to live out our lives of faith as we live in the light of God’s love.

11/7/2012 – Wed of 31st week in ordinary time – Phil 2:12-18

         Paul was very connected to the communities to whom he wrote.  He felt a great sense of love, loyalty, and allegiance to them.  He writes to them to encourage them and to give them advice along their journey of faith.  He tells them today that they have been lights shining in the darkness of a perverse generation.  He asks them to persevere through obedience even when it is so difficult to do so.  It is hard being a light in the midst of so much darkness when the ways of man are calling out so strongly to lead us astray.  In many ways, I can see Paul writing this same sort of letter to us in our own modern world, since we are face with some of the same circumstances.  Paul advises the Philippians to work out their salvation with fear and trembling.  Fear in the Jewish mind meant to have respect and awe for God, to let God be God, and for them to be the dutiful servants and followers.  So often we want to become gods ourselves, don’t we?  We as human beings want to call the shots and don’t want to have to obey the rules.  This is the richness of Sacred Scripture – it can be so true for us today.  May we continue to follow the Lord in our words and actions, to obedient to him as his followers.