Election Day Vespers
Reading: James 3:13-18
I love the letter of St. James. It’s a letter of practical faith, and many of its passages give us a strong reality check to be sure that we are practicing our faith as the Lord intends. Today’s reading gives us a little gem of discernment. We might ask ourselves, how can we distinguish true, holy wisdom from the so-called “wisdom” of this world? And St. James is very clear. Is that wisdom laden with bitter jealousy and selfish ambition? Well, if it is, then it’s probably earthly and definitely worthless. But is it full of spiritual fruits: is it “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity?” Well, if it’s this kind of wisdom, then it’s right, then it’s holy wisdom from above.
Whenever we have an election, I am struck by how much bitter jealousy and selfish ambition creep in. Debates aren’t so much about sharing the candidates’ ideas of how to make our society better, but instead about tearing each other apart, muckraking and backbiting. They’re full of bitter jealousy and selfish ambition. Maybe it’s even impossible for a Christian to run for public office if this is where they need to go in campaigning. This year, all the candidates have engaged in this shameful behavior, and quite frankly, it makes me sad.
But, then again, that’s why we are here tonight, right? We are here because it’s up to us to bring about a society that is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.” Our politicians are only going to do that kind of thing if we insist on it, and as baptized believers, it is up to us to insist on a society built strongly upon spirit-filled and spirit-led virtues.
It’s important that we realize that as our country comes to a decision tonight, we still have a long way to go. It might be tempting to cast our vote and then feel like we’ve done what we’re called to do and can wash our hands of anything that happens. But our Church does not give us permission to do this. Our Church refuses to let us say “hey don’t blame me, I didn’t vote for him (or her).” Instead, we are called to be agents for change in our time and place by praying for our elected officials, even if they weren’t the ones we voted for, and by witnessing to our values so that they might do the right thing for our society.
We want to have a society where the most vulnerable are always taken care of. We absolutely want a nation that respects life at all ages and all stages, and we have to insist on that as a matter of utmost importance. We want to be a people that is mindful of the poor, that advocates for the marginalized, that cares for God’s creation. We want the whole package of justice and peace, and not one of the candidates running for office today can promise us that. Not packaged as they are, at any rate. And so it is up to us to continue to demand from them the right choices.
We have to be able to write to our nation’s leaders: presidents, congressmen, senators and everyone else. We have some brochures available on the table outside today. They are written by our diocese and provide instructions on how you can do that. What if we made it our new year’s resolution to write a politician once a month and insist that they vote to end abortion and euthanasia and protect life at all ages and stages every time it comes up for a vote, and not just when it’s politically convenient? What if we wrote also asking for an end to the death penalty in a nation that should be able to do a better job of protecting its citizens without using that horrible option? What if we insisted in our letters that they defend the poor every time they have the occasion to do so, knowing that our God loves the poor in a special way? What if we wrote and told them that care for God’s creation isn’t just a political fad, but a commandment of our God?
What would happen if we would all write a letter to one elected official just once a month, asking them to vote as the Church teaches, and promising to pray for them in their work? Could we not then be contributing to a society that is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity?” I sure think we could make a huge difference that way. Because however things turn out tonight, we are still going to have a long way to go before we have before us a nation that follows the Gospel of Life and our God’s call to protect the poor. And we cannot, must not wash our hands of things and say we’ve done what we could just because we voted. We have to be faithful citizens not just today, but in all the days ahead. May God bless our country and bless us all in our vocation of building the Kingdom of God.
Sphere: Related ContentTwenty-seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time: Respecting Life
Today, I’d like to share a bit more of a sermon than a homily, reflecting more on a specific topic than on the readings themselves. I do this because today is respect life Sunday, and this is of course an election year, so I think it’s important to be aware of what the Church teaches on this very important issue.
I would begin this reflection with these words from today’s second reading, “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.” This is one of my favorite pieces of Scripture because it’s a call to refocus ourselves. We can be so distracted by things that seem good that really aren’t all that good, things that seem important that are really just sweating the small stuff, and God would have us look instead at what is lovely, gracious, excellent and worthy of praise – in short, God would have us reflect on what he has created and know that this is the greatest gift, the most important thing we could be busied about.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us: “The dignity of man rests above all on the fact that he is called to communion with God. This invitation to converse with God is addressed to man as soon as he comes into being. For if man exists, it is because God has created him through love, and through love continues to hold him in existence. He cannot live fully according to truth unless he freely acknowledges that love and entrusts himself to his creator.” (CCC, 27; cf. Gaudium et Spes 19.1) Life is the greatest good we have because it is God who created life, every life, from the tiniest embryo to the elderly person in the final stages of life. We reverence life, respect life, reaffirm life, because human life is the best thing there is on this whole big earth, the most magnificent of all God’s wonderful creation.
The issues that present themselves under the heading of respecting life are many. We are called to put aside racism and stereotyping, to reach out to the homeless, to advocate for affordable health care for all people, to put an end to abortion, capital punishment, war, terrorism and genocide, to recognize that euthanasia is not the same thing as mercy, to promote the strength of family life and the education of all young people, to provide food for those who hunger. We Catholics must accept the totality of the Church’s teaching of respecting life, or we can never hope for a world that is beautiful or grace filled.
Because next month we will elect those who will govern us in the years again, and especially a president and vice president, the Respect Life issue becomes all the more important. We earnestly desire that our nation would be known for the way it respects human rights and promotes the dignity of all people from conception to natural death. And so it is particularly important for us to evaluate candidates based on their respect for life. There are so many issues of importance in this and every election, but the Church teaches that none of them is more important than life itself. In their document, Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the bishops of the United states speak of the preeminence of life issues: “These are not optional concerns which can be dismissed. Catholics are urged to seriously consider Church teaching on these issues. Although choices about how best to respond to these and other compelling threats to human life and dignity are matters for principled debate and decision, this does not make them optional concerns or permit Catholics to dismiss or ignore Church teaching on these important issues.” (FCFC, 29) And so it is important for us to keep in mind that however important issues like the economy may be – and that is a big one this year, of course – still, we must remember that the way we treat human life defines us as a people and a nation.
So who do you vote for? Can you vote for a pro-choice candidate? What if a pro-life candidate does not encompass all of the Church’s teachings on the sanctity of life? What if you feel a pro-life candidate is seriously deficient in other areas, do you still have to vote for them? These are serious questions that require well-considered answers, and I’m going to do you the rather dubious favor of not answering them directly. That’s what we do in the Church! Rather, I am going to give you the most important answer you could have, and that is that you must form your consciences.
Conscience isn’t the same thing as doing whatever you think is best. We Catholics are called for form our consciences, to expose them to the light of Scripture and the Church’s teachings, to mold them in prayer and discernment, and to act in the way that God is calling us. And so we have about a month to go before the election. It is important for us to take this time to learn about Catholic teaching. Our bulletin and website have wonderful information, and we are presenting an information night on Thursday, October 16 – those are all good ways to inform your consciences. We will also gather for prayer here on election day, with Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from early morning until 9:00, with Evening Prayer at 7:15 to pray for the newly-elected.
I’ll just tell you that I still am not completely sure who will get my vote. My research and discernment is ongoing, and this year’s election represents a pretty difficult choice. It would be easy if the Church would just tell us who to vote for, but that’s not how it works. Frankly, who would want to be in a church that did that? No, the Church never says who we should vote for, but the Church does have the responsibility of helping us to form our consciences so that we can vote responsibly. And so this Respect Life month is an opportunity to do just that, to inform ourselves so that we can know the importance of life, and to uphold it in all of our decisions. St. Paul speaks in our second reading of this important discernment process:
Have no anxiety at all, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
make your requests known to God.
Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding
will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Our participation in the political process is not optional; the bishops teach us that our baptism calls us to participate in order to build up our world in the love of Christ. Our responsibility to uphold the life of every person from conception to natural death is not optional; we are called to be a people who promote the respect and dignity of every human life. May the Holy Spirit guide us this election year to form a world where life is sacred and human dignity is upheld. May we become that people who Jesus tells us in the Gospel will receive the Kingdom of God and produce its fruit.
Sphere: Related Content9-11
Seven years ago today, I sat in my room at seminary waiting for my first class to begin. My classmates were already in their first classes; I had that class in college, so I didn’t have to take it again in seminary. While I waited for class to begin, I flipped on the morning news, and just caught the end of something about a plane colliding with one of the towers of the World Trade Center. I tried to get more information on the internet, but Yahoo news was running slow because of all the people trying to find out what happened. Later, as I watched on television, I learned of the tragic events of four plane crashes that day and the thousands of lives that were lost. Our world, in those tragic hours, was changed forever.
And so today, it can be very hard to hear the words Jesus speaks in our Gospel:
Love your enemies,
do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you,
pray for those who mistreat you.
To the person who strikes you on one cheek,
offer the other one as well,
and from the person who takes your cloak,
do not withhold even your tunic.
Quite frankly, sinful man that I am, I am not even sure how to do that, or do it well. I do know that God has done that for us time and time again. Sin makes us God’s enemies, and yet he loved us enough to send his only Son for the forgiveness of our sins. But we know too, that Jesus never said anything he didn’t mean, and so this teaching applies to us in our grief and our outrage just as much as it ever did. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”
So I think we have to look at ourselves. Have we been sources of peace or sources of anger, hate and violence? And I don’t even mean that on any grand scale. Maybe we’ve just been jealous in petty ways, or have held on to the occasional grudge. Maybe we have decided not to call the relative whose phone only seems to accept incoming calls. Maybe we have sent a nasty email without stopping to consider it for any due time. Maybe we have made or laughed at a racial joke, or have decided not to confront a person who uses racial slurs. To whatever extent we have not been peaceful, we have added to the hatred and evil of which our world is already full.
I think we have to take seriously Jesus’ words today:
Stop judging and you will not be judged.
Stop condemning and you will not be condemned.
Forgive and you will be forgiven.
We are offering this Mass today as a Mass of reconciliation. We pray for ourselves, that we might be more forgiving, for our world that it might be more peaceful, for our enemies and ourselves that we might come to know each other as children of God. I offer today the prayer that Pope Benedict offered earlier this year at Ground Zero:
God of peace, bring your peace to our violent world:
peace in the hearts of all men and women
and peace among the nations of the earth.
Turn to your way of love
those whose hearts and minds
are consumed with hatred.
God of understanding,
overwhelmed by the magnitude of this tragedy,
we seek your light and guidance
as we confront such terrible events.
Grant that those whose lives were spared
may live so that the lives lost …
may not have been lost in vain.
Comfort and console us,
strengthen us in hope,
and give us the wisdom and courage
to work tirelessly for a world
where true peace and love reign
among nations and in the hearts of all.
Amen.
Sphere: Related ContentTwenty-third Sunday of Ordinary Time
In my family, it was generally always understood that you didn’t discuss politics. That was simply not done in polite company, and it ran contrary to the idea of keeping peace at all costs. So getting involved in politics and preaching about it was never something I was interested in doing. Indeed, whenever something political was preached at church when I was growing up, it was generally badly done, so I never even came away with a good idea of how to do it faithfully.
Nevertheless, our readings today make it clear that the preacher doesn’t get to decide what words he should preach. That is the Lord’s decision, and all the preacher can do is go along with it. The prophet Ezekiel makes it quite clear today that if I choose not to preach on any given topic, and because of that someone falls into sin, the responsibility is mine. The task of the preacher, like the prophet, is a difficult one sometimes, and sometimes it means you have to stretch yourself and do something, or rather say something, that you wouldn’t normally choose to do.
Today’s Gospel makes it a bit more palatable today, though. Jesus tells us that when we gather together, we can rely on his abiding presence to take us through what we need to accomplish: “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” And so, here I find myself, in the midst of an election year, called upon to say some things that strike me as a bit political. And that’s difficult for me, but I’ll do it anyway, because I know that it’s important.
Before I launch into this, let me set a couple of ground rules and make them absolutely clear. First, I will never tell you who to vote for. I won’t even hint at who I’m going to vote for (which won’t be too hard a secret to keep because I’m still not sure myself). Second, I will only tell you what the Church teaches. That’s my only responsibility and indeed my only option, if we are to hear what Ezekiel says today. And third, if you disagree with me, I hope that you’ll take your inspiration from today’s Gospel and speak to me privately about it, rather than put anonymous notes on people’s cars next weekend.
Over the past week, a question came up about the election. It went something along the lines of if you vote for candidate X, can you still go to Holy Communion? This question comes up a lot at election time, and generally revolves around one voting for a candidate who is known not to be pro-life, or at least is known not to be against abortion. So this is a good question, and it really does kick off a good discussion about Catholics voting in an election year.
First, let’s talk about Communion. The word communion of its very nature means being united together. So we who receive the Sacred Body and Blood of our Lord come to the altar together, united in our faith in Christ Jesus, and receive the Sacrament of our Salvation. That’s what it’s all about, and because of the whole idea of unity, that’s why we don’t allow non-Catholics to receive Communion: if we are not united in communion, we can’t celebrate Communion together. So, in order to receive Communion, one needs to be in unity with the Church. Sin destroys that union, so those who are aware of grave sin that has not been confessed must not receive Holy Communion. You can find that at number 1415 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Now, certain issues are always gravely sinful and morally repugnant and we must never take part in them. We call these issues “intrinsically evil.” One of the most obvious of these issues is abortion. Human life is to be defended from conception to natural death, and anything contrary to that is completely unacceptable. So, if one were to participate in an abortion – by having one, or encouraging someone to have one, or performing one, or making one possible – that person should absolutely not come to Holy Communion until it has been taken care of in the Sacrament of Penance.
So the question is, does voting for a pro-choice candidate constitute a participation in abortion? And true to form, the Church says, “maybe, maybe not.” In the document Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, the United States Catholic Bishops explain it this way: “A Catholic cannot vote for a candidate who takes a position in favor of an intrinsic evil, such as abortion or racism, if the voter’s intent is to support that position. In such cases a Catholic would be guilty of formal cooperation in grave evil. At the same time, a voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity” (FCfFC, 34).
See, the key here is “human life and dignity.” The Church calls us to protect life from conception to natural death, so that means we are on for every single life issue. This is truly the most important issue, and cannot be taken as one issue among many (FCfFC, 21). We must seek out the candidate who supports all of life, which means, that candidate must be against abortion, racism, and euthanasia. He or she must also follow the Church’s teaching on just war, put an end to capital punishment, and work to end all kinds of violence. As the bishops teach: “The direct and intentional destruction of innocent human life from the moment of conception until natural death is always wrong and is not just one issue among many. It must always be opposed” (ibid.).
Now, the question is, where do we find that candidate? I haven’t decided yet who to vote for, because I don’t know who that candidate is. And I am pretty sure we’ll never find that candidate, at least not this side of the Kingdom of God! So the task before us as voters is to do the best we can. And here is how we do that:
First, we must form our consciences by learning what the Church teaches. Toward that end, St. Raphael will provide a voter information night exploring the document I have just quoted in much more detail. We’re doing that on Thursday, October 16th, and I hope you can be there. Another thing you can do is to educate yourself. I would suggest the website faithfulcitizenship.org which is provided by the US Catholic Bishops, and it’s a very good place to start.
Second, we must pray. Prayer is the center of discernment. Ask for the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with the grace necessary to elect candidates who will take our nation forward and make us known as a country that always protects human life.
Third, we must vote. The Church says that our participation in the political process is mandatory. Listen to the bishops again: “In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation. This obligation is rooted in our baptismal commitment to follow Jesus Christ and to bear Christian witness in all we do” (FCfFC, 13). So if you haven’t yet registered to vote, get out two forms of identification and register after Mass today. Then vote on November 4th.
Finally, we must support our elected officials with encouragement and prayer. Our responsibility does not end when we leave the voting booth. If the person we have elected does not espouse our views, we need to write to them and express our convictions. And we need to pray that their hearts would be changed. As our Church’s Liturgy teaches us, our goal is to help God create a “kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace” (Mass for Christ the King).
As St. Paul teaches us today, all of the rules of the Church can be summed up in just one commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That means we must love enough to protect human life. That means we must love enough to vote with decisions made by well-formed consciences. That means we must love enough to never neglect our responsibility to be faithful citizens.
I know I haven’t made your decision any easier; in some ways maybe it’s harder now. But I hope you’re now aware of the principles of faithful participation in the political process. And I hope you now have the desire to form your consciences to vote in the way the Lord leads you.
Sphere: Related ContentLabor Day
Today’s readings: Genesis 1:26-31; Genesis 2:1-3; Psalm 90; Matthew 25:14-30
“Well done, good and faithful servant. Come share in your Master’s joy.” These are the words that we all want to hear one day, on that great day, the judgment day, when God gathers us all in to bring us to the reward for which he created us. This parable is Biblical evidence that just accepting the faith and having a relationship with Jesus aren’t enough for salvation. We have to work with God, using the talents he has given us, to help God create that “kingdom of truth and life, a kingdom of holiness and grace, a kingdom of justice, love, and peace” (Mass for Christ the King).
And so, like the man who received one talent, we cannot go hiding our talents away hoping that our Lord will ignore our fear and poor self-image. We have to be willing to invest our talents in the work of creation, doubling what we have been given, and bringing it back to the Lord.
So many people say, when they are asked to do some special project or take a place on a ministry “Oh, I could never do that. That’s for people with way more talent than I have.” I have two things to say about that. First, they might be right. Maybe they don’t have the ability, all by themselves, to do what God is calling them to do. But God never said they had to do it by themselves, did he? God can provide infinitely what we lack. Second, this kind of false humility isn’t praiseworthy. It is almost like spitting your talent out of your mouth, back at God, and saying, “God, what you have created is nothing.” God forbid that we should ever say that to the one who made us!
And so, on this Labor Day, we are asked to pause in the busy-ness of life and look at what God has created, and the talents he has given us. The Church teaches that our work is to be an active participation in God’s ongoing work of creation. Our work must build up the world in beauty and splendor, carefully using but protecting the rich gifts of the earth, caring for and loving the poor as God himself loves them, and making the world a better place than we found it. That is the nature of the talents with which we have been entrusted, and we must busy ourselves making good use of them, because we don’t know when our Lord will return in glory to gather everything and everyone back to himself.
Today we are commanded to “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and all the living things that move on the earth.” We take up that call anew on this Labor Day, praising God for the goodness of creation and the blessing of our talents, and resolving to use all of that for his greater honor and glory. The Prayer after Communion sums up what we ask for on this day: “By doing the work you have entrusted to us, may we sustain our life on earth and build up your kingdom in faith.” Amen!
Sphere: Related ContentFr. Pat’s Iced Coffee
Coffee Concentrate
1/2 pound Just Coffee Ice Coffee Blend, medium ground (buy it after Mass, first Sundays!)
5 cups water
Mix in a bowl, and let steep at room temperature, 12 hours. Pour through a coffee filter and store in refrigerator, up to 2 weeks.
Fr. Pat's Iced Coffee
1 cup coffee concentrate, recipe above
1 1/2 cups cold water
1 cup milk (whatever kind you like)
1/2 cup French Vanilla coffee creamer (or whatever flavor you like)
Mix together in a pitcher, pour over ice. Relax and enjoy, knowing that you are also helping small coffee grower cooperatives in developing nations to have a just standard of living. Offer a prayer of thanks for their loving efforts to produce superior coffee that is organic and sustainable.
More information about fair trade products and Catholic social teaching.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday of the Tenth Week of Ordinary Time
Sometimes the Gospel just makes good common sense. Today, the Gospel expands on the Golden Rule, something we should all have learned when we were very little. As my grandmother used to say, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all. But actually what Jesus is telling us today goes a bit deeper even than that. Jesus equates the hatred in our hearts with outright murder. The Catechism of the Catholic Church takes up this theme from this very Gospel reading: “Deliberate hatred is contrary to charity. Hatred of the neighbor is a sin when one deliberately wishes him evil. Hatred of the neighbor is a grave sin when one deliberately desires him grave harm. ‘But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven.’” (CCC, 2303)
Today might be a good time for us to examine our consciences for sins against the fifth commandment. Jesus says that these include murder and abortion, certainly. But also hatred, vengeance and anger. This might be a good time for us to call to mind those we have yet to forgive, and to pray for the grace to forgive them. Or at least the grace to want to forgive them. This might be a good time for us to look deep within us and ferret out any traces of racism, which is simply hatred directed at a certain group or race. Casual racist jokes and stereotyping are evidence of a hatred that may be buried deep within us that comes out in inappropriate ways. Today’s Gospel even hints that gossip, backbiting, and sarcasm directed at a brother or sister in Christ is an attitude that detracts from the dignity of another’s life and has no place in the heart or mind of the disciple.
“I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven,” Jesus says to us today. Our witness to the life and dignity of the human person must be absolutely above reproach, or our witness for life is a sham. And worse than that, we will have opted out of the Kingdom of heaven.
Sphere: Related ContentMemorial Day
Today's readings: Isaiah 32:15-18, Matthew 5:1-12a
One of the effects of a presidential election for me, is taking a long hard look at who we hold up as our leaders or our heroes. In some ways, a presidential election is a celebration of whoever is the least objectionable candidate, because in this day and age, it’s hard to get good people to run for office. And who could blame them? It’s so hard for candidates to deal with all that public scrutiny, the months of campaigning, the financial outlay. It seems sometimes that those willing to go through all of that aren’t exactly the cream of the crop. But apply that to any other field of interest. What about our sports heroes, or entertainers? How many of them turn out to be flawed in many ways? The people we want to hold up as heroes are very often not very heroic.
But today is a day to celebrate true heroes. People who have given their lives for peace, justice, and righteousness. The beatitudes that we just heard in the Gospel proclaim them blessed: blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, blessed are the peacemakers, blessed are they that are persecuted for the sake of righteousness. We have heard these before, but it’s so important that we hear that these people are blessed, these people are true heroes because of what they sacrifice and stand for and fight for.
I am hardly the person who is going to glorify warfare. I think our Church’s teachings counsel that war is not the way to peace and that developed societies like ours can and must use our resources to seek other ways to solve problems. But I certainly acknowledge that there are and have been times in our nation’s history that have called on people to fight for our freedoms and to fight for justice. Today we honor their memory with immense gratitude, because without their sacrifice we might not enjoy the blessings we have today.
Those who have been part of our lives, and the life of our country, who have been people of faith and integrity are the heroes that God has given us. These are the ones who have been poor in spirit, who have mourned, who have been meek, hungry and thirsty for righteousness, merciful, peacemaking, and all the rest. If we would honor them on this Memorial Day, we should believe as they have believed, we should live as they have lived, and we should rejoice that their memory points us to our Savior, Jesus Christ, who is our hope of eternal life.
Sphere: Related Content
St. Joseph the Worker
In his encyclical, Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II said, echoing the sentiments of the Second Vatican Council, “The word of God's revelation is profoundly marked by the fundamental truth that man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator and that, within the limits of his own human capabilities, man in a sense continues to develop that activity, and perfects it as he advances further and further in the discovery of the resources and values contained in the whole of creation.” (25)
The Christian idea of work is that through the toil of work, the Christian joins him or herself to the cross of Christ, and through the effects of work, the Christian participates in the creative activity of our Creator God. Today we celebrate the feast day for all Christian workers, the feast of St. Joseph the Worker. This feast recalls that Jesus himself was a worker, schooled in the drudgeries and the joys of the vocation of carpentry by his father, St. Joseph.
In today’s first reading, St. Paul is no stranger to work either. He stays with Priscilla and Aquila, practicing the trade of tentmaking. In other places, St. Paul elevates human labor to a virtue, demanding that those who do not work should not eat, and decrying the activity of those who are idle, and busybodies. If work is a share in the activity of the creator and a share in the cross of Christ, who would ever think to turn away from it?
Sometimes, it is true, our work is far from blessed. I’ve been there. There is, of course, a responsibility of the employer to provide a workplace that upholds human dignity. But often work seems less than redemptive. To that, Pope John Paul said, “Sweat and toil, which work necessarily involves the present condition of the human race, present the Christian and everyone who is called to follow Christ with the possibility of sharing lovingly in the work that Christ came to do. This work of salvation came about through suffering and death on a Cross. By enduring the toil of work in union with Christ crucified for us, man in a way collaborates with the Son of God for the redemption of humanity. He shows himself a true disciple of Christ by carrying the cross in his turn every day in the activity that he is called upon to perform.” (Laborem Exercens, 27)
And so we all forge ahead in our daily work, whether that be as a carpenter, a tentmaker, a homemaker, a mother or father, a laborer, a white collar worker, or whatever it may be. We forge ahead with the joy of bringing all the world to redemption through creation, through the cross and Resurrection of Christ, and through our daily work. Let us pray.
Heavenly Father,
maker of heaven and earth,
we praise you for your glory.
Bless + us as we continue to do our work,
and bless all that we do for you.
Help us to carry out all our activities
for your honor and glory
and for the salvation of your people.
Guide us in all we do,
and help us build your kingdom
and come to our reward.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
Sphere: Related ContentThe Anniversary of Roe v. Wade
“Not as man sees does God see,
because he sees the appearance
but the LORD looks into the heart.”
This instruction to Samuel is both a good thing and a bad thing for us, I think. It’s good because it’s nice to know that there is One who does not judge us on what we look like or how we dress or what we do for a living, but rather on what is in our heart. It’s bad, because there is One who looks into our hearts and sees everything.
How easy it can be for us to judge people. We want to quickly put people into categories and then almost write them off. But today’s first reading reminds us that we need to be careful about making judgments because we have not been given the gift of the big picture. Only God can see into people’s hearts, only God knows who people really are and can judge with authenticity.
Today is the anniversary of the tragic Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion in our country. Since then, our society has tumbled down the slippery slope of devaluing life and we are seeing the rotten fruits of it all over. War, violence, hatred, lack of concern for the poor and needy, lack of respect for the elderly and terminally ill, all of these things are symptoms of the culture of death that surrounds us. Far from liberating women and giving them choice over the use of their bodies, the legalization of abortion has driven many women to have an abortion simply because they thought that was their only option or because it was more convenient for family or the father.
But the Lord looks into our hearts and knows what’s really there. We cannot claim to be Pro Life if we are in fact only anti-abortion. Our claim to righteousness has to be based on more than never having had the disastrous occasion of having to choose to participate in an abortion, or it’s not really righteousness at all. If we pray to end abortion and then do not attend to our obligation to the poor, or if we choose to support the death penalty, or if we engage in racial bigotry, then we are not in fact Pro Life. Every life, every life, every life is sacred, no matter what we may think of it. Because God sees into the heart. And more important that that, God created that heart.
And I say all this not because I don’t think that abortion is a disaster: it certainly is. I say this because it’s way too easy for us to oppose abortion and then call ourselves Pro Life and then go out and violate life in some other circumstance. We must be very careful of doing that, because God sees into our hearts too.
This year we will have the opportunity and the obligation to vote for a president and other leaders who will govern our country in the years ahead. We will all have to be careful about selecting a candidate who is Pro Life, which for the Church means not just anti-abortion, but also a person who supports life at every stage from conception to natural death. I would go so far as to guarantee you that there is not one candidate out there who fits the bill entirely. All we can do is select the best person, and pray for a continuing change of heart, a continuing conversion in their lives.
And maybe that conversion needs to start in our own life. Because other people will see in us whatever they’re going to notice. But God - God sees into our hearts.
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