Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Petty jealousy is a pernicious thing. Paul experienced it, directed against him by those Jews who were jealous of Paul’s effective preaching and suspicious of the Christian Way. In their fear and jealousy, they appeal to Gallio, a Roman official, complaining that Paul stirred up the people to worship God contrary to the law. By this they did not mean that Paul and the others were worshipping in a way they didn’t like – although that was certainly true. What they were trying to do was get Paul and the others arrested for worshipping God at all, in violation of Roman law.
The Romans were a pagan people, with their own gods, and it was required that all citizens worshipped these gods and not the God of Israel or certainly Jesus Christ. Sometimes this was not enforced so rigorously, as was the case with Gallio. So those troublemakers among the Jews were guilty of it too. But these troublemakers were trying to get Gallio to enforce it against Paul and his followers, and not against themselves of course. Gallio sees through their very thinly veiled patriotism and throws them all out, turning a blind eye as they beat a synagogue official who was a supporter of Paul.
What a horrible mess, isn’t it? Neither those troublemakers nor Gallio were at all virtuous. The troublemakers weren’t so much concerned about the laws of the land as they were quibbling about following Jesus. And Gallio wasn’t so concerned about defending the Christians as much as he wanted them all to go away and leave him alone. Through it all, Paul was able to see the fulfillment of God’s promise in the vision he had: “Do not be afraid. Go on speaking, and do not be silent, for I am with you. No one will attack and harm you.” And that’s exactly what Paul did.
It is up to us to witness to our faith courageously too. We might face opposition, and even petty jealousy. But the message is too important to bury for fear of what might happen. We must trust that the Lord will preserve us too, in the same way he guarded Paul in his efforts to proclaim the Gospel.
Sphere: Related ContentThursday of the Fourth Week of Easter
Today’s readings
“Don’t shoot the messenger!” That’s our colloquial way of saying that the words we speak to someone come from someone else; they are not our ideas. Most of us have probably said that to someone at some time.
But that doesn’t work for we who are followers of Christ. Yes, we are messengers. The Greek word for messenger is “angeloi” from which we get our English word, “angel.” Angels are messengers sent by God to communicate something specific to humankind. We’ve seen the archangel Gabriel herald the coming of Christ to a young woman named Mary. A whole host of angels heralded the birth of the Savior to shepherds working in the fields. The letter to the Hebrews tells us not to neglect hospitality, for we may be entertaining angels. And Jesus tells us today, “whoever receives the one I send
receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me.”
We are all sent, brothers and sisters in Christ, to be messengers. We have received the Gospel and have been schooled in it through our participation in the Mass and our education in faith. We are not angels, because angels are a different species of creation than humankind, but we are in a sense angeloi, we are messengers who are sent by God to bring the Good News, the Gospel, to all those who need to hear it. And that would be every person God puts in our lives or in our path. We have to preach it every day, maybe not by standing on a soapbox, but definitely by our living of the message ourselves.
Just as St. Paul courageously preached the truth in the synagogue in today’s first reading, we have to be ready to courageously share our faith in whatever way God calls us, wherever God puts us, to whoever God gives us. The Psalmist has it right today, as always, when he says, “Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord!” Whether we have trained voices or not, we must always sing the praises of God who gives us everything we have and everything we could ever hope for. Singing those praises with our lives makes our message every bit as beautiful as the choirs of angels sang on that great first Christmas.
May our guardian angels show us the way to be angeloi for the glory of God!
Sphere: Related ContentThird Sunday of Easter
“You are witnesses of these things.”
That is what Jesus tells the disciples at the close of today’s Gospel reading. He is almost ready to ascend to the Father, and so he takes care to make sure that the disciples are ready for the mission. They are the ones who will have to testify to the death and resurrection of Christ, and to preach forgiveness of sins in his name to every person on earth.
And we can see that the disciples did indeed take up this mission. In the first reading from Acts, Peter speaks to the Jews and tells them what Christ suffered for all of us. He emphatically urges them to repent and to believe in the Gospel. In the second reading, John exhorts believers to follow the commandments and live the Gospel if they would testify to the love of God. You can’t say that you love God but not follow the commandments – that’s ridiculous – and so John exhorts all his hearers to become people of integrity and to witness with their lives.
“You are witnesses of these things.”
And so we are the hearers of the message now. We too, brothers and sisters in Christ, are witnesses of these things. We may not have seen the events unfold in front of us, but we have seen them in the Liturgy, and we believe that our celebration of the Liturgy is not some simple re-enactment of the events of our salvation, but in a very real sense is a participation in the death and resurrection of Christ in our own day.
We are the witnesses now. And people have to see us preaching with the way that we live our lives. We have to preach it by going to Mass faithfully, by keeping the commandments, by being people of integrity and fairness at our jobs or in our schools, by reaching out to those who are poor, needy and marginalized, by giving ourselves to others whenever, wherever, and however we can.
We are witnesses of these things. The question is, will others witness Christ in us?
Sphere: Related ContentFriday of the Second Week of Lent
Today’s readings
Jesus tells us today a parable about himself – he is the son whose inheritance the tenants wanted to steal. And that’s how the leaders of Judaism saw it in those days. If Jesus were out of the way, they’d still be able to “corner the market” on religious leadership, unchallenged by his Gospel. They’d have all the blessings of religious leadership all to themselves. Because no one likes a challenging messenger, the religious leaders no more than the parable tenants no more than Joseph’s brothers. But for those of us who stop to hear what they have to say, the blessing is more than we can imagine. Yes, they challenge us, but we never grow if we are not challenged. So the question is, who is the challenging messenger in our own lives, what is their message, and are we ready to hear it?
Sphere: Related ContentOur Lord Jesus Christ the King
You know, it’s always hard to proclaim this Gospel because I have to try to avoid looking to my left and right in order not to give the impression that this is the last judgment! But seriously, although I’ve heard this Gospel so many times, one thing has kind of leapt out at me this week as I’ve been thinking and praying about it. One detail I always have missed was that this was a judgment of the nations – it says, “all the nations will be assembled before him.”
This idea that we’ll all be judged together is a pretty consistent one in Catholic theology. The Church always teaches that we come to salvation together, or not at all. That’s why it’s important that we spread the Gospel. That’s why it’s important that we live the teachings of Christ. That’s why it’s important that we drag our children in to Mass every week, or that we invite the neighbor or friend from work to join us at the Eucharist. Our Salvation depends rather heavily on the salvation of everyone else, and that’s not just the Church’s job, that’s everyone’s job. The world has to see why salvation is important, and if that’s going to happen it’s going to happen by all of us living lives of integrity and joy and faith not just here in Church, but also in our jobs, schools and communities. Everyone has to see the gift that salvation is.
So the real significance of giving food to the hungry, shelter to the homeless, care to the stranger and all the rest is that their salvation, and ours too, depends on it. So on this last Sunday of the Church year, we have to look back and see how well we’ve done this. Have we been good witnesses of the Gospel? Have we lived it? We want to dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and we have to take as many people with us as we can.
Sphere: Related ContentFriday of the Twenty-fourth Week of Ordinary Time
Today we get a bit of a glimpse as to how Jesus’ day-to-day ministry worked. We can see three things in particular that characterize how things happened. First, he journeyed to proclaim the Good News. He met people where they were, and even sought them out. This shows us God’s relentless pursuit of the people he loves.
Second, he brought people with him. He travelled with the Twelve Apostles, some of the women he had cured of evil spirits and of illnesses, some particular women (Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna), and “many others.” All of these were drawn to Jesus for various reasons. We can assume they had all been given some gift: healing, a call to ministry, recognition of their worth – and all of them had responded by wanting to be near him. This models for us our response to God’s work in our lives.
And finally, those travelling with him provided for his ministry out of their resources. Some of the women were well-connected, especially Joanna, whose husband was a high official in the court of Herod Agrippa. So she would have had resources to help with the ministry as well as leisure to follow Jesus.
We can hardly visit this gospel reading, though, and not notice the meticulous mention of the women that were among his followers. In a day where a woman’s participation in anything of a public nature would be totally frowned upon, Jesus reached out to women, and brought them into his ministry. Certainly the Evangelist would never have mentioned it if it weren’t important to the Gospel itself.
We come here today for Mass, aware that our God seeks us out in little and big ways every single day. We too want to be close to him, and respond as did the Twelve, the women, and the “many others.” Our desire for God and our yearning for forgiveness are themselves God’s gift to us. Blessed are those who journey with Christ on the way.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday of the Twenty-first Week of Ordinary Time
Today we have readings urging us to pay attention. Paul tells the Thessalonians in our first reading today not to freak out if they hear about the second coming of Christ. Rather, they should be in the moment and live as they have been taught and formed in the Gospel which Paul preached to them. They need to pay attention to what is going on in front of them, to be attentive to what the Gospel calls them to do, and trust that if the Lord comes in glory, he will find them doing his will and gather them to himself. No need to scramble around in fear of what is to come.
Jesus today scolds the scribes and Pharisees, as he often does, about paying more attention to the minute bits of the law than they do to really doing God’s will. They are so caught up in the ritual cleansing of bowls and cups that they cannot attend to the purification of their own hearts. And that, Jesus tells them, is a complete disaster. Their blindness will eventually leave them out of salvation’s reach.
And so we too are called today to pay attention. We need to be attentive to the needs of those around us, to reach out to the oppressed and forgotten, to always be mindful of the poor – in short, we are to live the Gospel faithfully. We shouldn’t be caught up in details, nor should we be overly concerned about the Lord’s return. We can’t have our head in the clouds nor in the sand. We must be attentive to what’s in front of us, the opportunity to live the Gospel faithfully.
Sphere: Related ContentTuesday of the Sixth Week of Ordinary Time
One of the things I sometimes struggle with, and maybe some of you do too, is that I am often tempted to eat the wrong things. Somehow, if I’m watching TV or something, I get an urge to eat some kind of snack that is not only not very nutritious but also not all that satisfying. In the vast scheme of culinary delights, Doritos or potato chips of course don’t rank very high, yet somehow I find myself tempted by them all the time!
I think there’s a parallel to that in today’s Liturgy of the Word. Jesus knew the disciples could easily be tempted by the “leaven” of the Pharisees and of Herod. He meant the paltry doctrine they taught and the less-than-satisfying way of life they offered. They wanted people to take on a legalistic view of Scripture, living the Torah very literally but not very deeply. Instead, Jesus offered a much more satisfying bread: a life lived deeply rooted in the Gospel, a life that went beyond legalism in favor of diving head first into compassion, concern for the poor and vulnerable, and love for every person that crosses their paths.
The leaven Jesus was talking about had nothing to do with the bread for the journey that they forgot to bring. Instead, he offered a bread for the journey that was his very body and blood, his own self, giving his life for our salvation. That kind of bread is the only thing that is ultimately satisfying. It trumps the bread they forgot to bring, it trumps the so-called leaven of the Pharisees and Herod, it even trumps my Doritos and potato chips. Don’t settle for junk food that won’t give any nourishment when you can have the Bread of Life.
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St. Mark, Evangelist
Today's readings | Today's saint
We aren’t completely sure who St. Mark was. He might have been the first bishop of Alexandria, Egypt. Some scholars say he might have been the one described in chapter 14 of Mark’s Gospel, at the arrest of Jesus: “Now a young man followed him wearing nothing but a linen cloth about his body. They seized him, but he left the cloth behind and ran off naked.” But others question whether he ever saw Jesus in person at all. We know that he was a companion of Peter and Paul in the missionary journeys, and that he was the first to write about Jesus’ life. It is estimated that the Gospel of Mark was written around 60 or 70 AD, after the death of both Peter and Paul. As you might expect since this was the first Gospel written, it is used as a source for both Matthew and Luke’s Gospels.
Whoever Mark really was, I think the key idea for this feast today is that he was one who willingly embodied the command of Jesus that we have in today’s Gospel reading: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” His missionary work, and his work as the Evangelist testify to his passion for the Gospel and his efforts to see that the whole world came to believe in Jesus.
What we celebrate on his feast day, though, is that the work of that command is far from complete. There is so much of the world that has yet to hear of Jesus. Some of them are in far off lands, others are in our workplaces, schools, and communities. Because of that, it is imperative that we all continue the work of Mark and the other Evangelists. We are the ones who have to testify to the Gospel in word and in deed, witnessing to what we believe in everything that we say and do. Our life’s work is not complete until we are sure that those who know us also know the Lord in and through us.
“The favors of the LORD I will sing forever;” the Psalmist says today, “through all generations my mouth shall proclaim your faithfulness.” May we, like St. Mark, sing of the Lord’s goodness in every moment of our lives.
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