Reflections on the Sunday Readings for 11/2/08 by Deacon Claude

You can find all the readings for this Sunday at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/110208.shtml

The souls of the just are in the hand of God,

and no torment shall touch them.

(Wisdom 3:1)

My mother died just over a month ago. She was almost ninety-three. She lived a long life, that by some people’s standards, was a hard life. Yes, she suffered much physical pain and she lived through multiple human tragedies. But that is not what I will remember her for.

Her utter, complete trust in God is her legacy. It was expressed in so many ways that I am sure will only be understood with the passing of time. She had a level of understanding and care for the poor that knew no bounds. Perhaps it was her living through the Great Depression which gave her some of that insight. Whatever it was, it did not make her bitter; it merely gave her a point of reference to live her life by.

Our Scripture readings on this Feast of All Souls calls us to trust and be faithful. They call us to accept the world’s beatings and defeats as minor. They speak of the hope which is ours, to get us through the hard stuff, to be united with Christ’s resurrection through our Baptism. And that we who have died with Christ will also live with him.

She was a great mom. She provided a smile and encouragement when it seemed the world could provide only scorn. She baked a chocolate cake that could take most of the day’s cares away. But most of all, she had a tear for our sorrows, a tear for our joys and a tear of just being so proud of us that you could feel that God was on your side, no matter what.

This Feast gives us the opportunity to give thanks to God for those who have profoundly touched our lives through their example of faithfulness. It bids us to be strengthened in our own faithfulness. And it urges us to help faith grow in others. There may be sadness in remembering the dead, but the sadness is really a way of paying tribute to the persons who have helped us realize God among us and within us. THANKS, MOM.

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Reflection on the Sunday Readings for 10/26/08 by Dawn

You can find all the readings for this Sunday at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/102608.shtml

You shall love the Lord, your God,

with all your heart, with all your soul,

and with all your mind.

This is the greatest and the first commandment.

The second is like it:

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

(Matthew 22:37-39)

Life sure would be a lot easier if Jesus told us that we needed to love only the people we want to, instead of saying that we needed to love our neighbor as our self. Loving is not always easy: people rarely live up to our expectation; even our best friends sometimes let us down; and sometimes people are just mean.

I guess God could say the same about us: we rarely are the person that God created us to be; we are constantly sinning and falling short; and often we're just plain mean. I'm pretty sure that if I were in Jesus' place I would say something like: "You want me to die for these people?". Yet God is so awesome that in the midst of our failings He continues to love us. He probably isn't happy with some of the choices we've made, but no matter how horrible they were, He's waiting with open arms to welcome us back. All we need to do is to turn back to him and ask for forgiveness.

It's a huge challenge to love our neighbor. Our "neighbor" includes those who cheat in school, those who cut us off in traffic, the one who profits off our misfortune... We're called to love all of them. Even when our neighbor doesn't love us, we need to be there to love them. What prejudices block God’s love from flowing out from you to others?


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Reflection on the Sunday Readings for 10/19/08 by Dawn

You can find all the readings for this Sunday at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/101908.shtml

...[Jesus] said to them,
"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God."
(Matthew 22:21)

What an appropriate time to hear a reading about taxes! It is definitely a hot topic - from politicians purporting various tax plans, to the government settling on a tax "bail out" plan. Everyone's been hearing about taxes. But what is Jesus saying in this passage? The Pharisees have been plotting on how they could trap Jesus. They wanted Jesus either to say it wasn't lawful to pay the tax, which would upset the Romans, or for him to say the Torah said it was lawful to pay taxes, which would upset the nationalists who hated the Romans. Instead, Jesus turns the tables around. Pointing out that it is Caesar's head on the coin, Jesus tells them to give to "Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God." How straight forward, an answer the Pharisees would never have expected him to give.

In today's world what exactly, though, is the dividing line between what is Caesar's and what is God's? Well, I guess the things that belong to Caesar have his image on them - things like taxes. But what is it that I'm supposed to give to God? In next week's Gospel someone asks Jesus what the greatest commandment is, and Jesus answers: "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37). If that is how we are supposed to love God, it seems to me that everything I do should be offered to God. From what I do in life, to how I spend my free time, to where I spend my money. This doesn't mean that I need to spend every waking moment in church, on my knees, but it does mean that I need to examine what I do with my life and live in a way that reflects that commandment. Hmmm... I suppose that if I look at it that way, living a life that reflects loving God with my heart, soul and mind will have God's image on it. I would be giving to Ceaser that which has his image and to God that which has His image on it.

How and what are you giving to God?


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Reflection on the Sunday Readings for 10/12/08 by Dawn

You can find all the readings for this Sunday at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/101208.shtml

Then he said to his servants,
'The feast is ready, but those who were invited were not worthy to come.
Go out, therefore, into the main roads
and invite to the feast whomever you find.’
The servants went out into the streets and gathered all they found,
bad and good alike, and the hall was filled with guests.
(Matthew 22:8-10)

I love this part of this week's Gospel parable. Jesus is telling the crowd about a king who had a son who was getting married. The king invited a bunch of guests, but they didn't show up. So he sends his servants out into the streets to invite anyone they find - "the bad and good alike" - and they all show up for this wedding reception. I like this passage because it's not just the really good people that are invited - it was everyone. The wedding feast that Jesus is talking about here is really Heaven. It's not just the really, really good people who are invited to go to Heaven, we're all invited to go - the good and the bad.

Lots of the time people think that they don't deserve to come to church because they've done something so horrible that God could never forgive them. Nothing could be further from the truth - there is nothing that God does not want to or can not forgive. That reminds me of a homily Fr Mark Brewer once gave in which he said if there were sin detectors at the doors of church, only letting the sin-free inside, the church would be empty. It's just like this parable - the good and the bad alike were invited to come, and the good and bad showed up - just like Sunday morning.

So often I feel I just don't have it all together. That God won't love me until I'm a better person. But that's not true. God could not possibly love me (and you) any more than He does at this precise moment in time. Now this doesn't give me a "get out of jail free" card. If I want to be at the banquet feast in Heaven, I need to be striving to live in right-relationship with God, but that doesn't mean I have to be perfect. We all sin, but thankfully we have a forgiving God who welcomes us back every time we ask for forgiveness.



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Reflection on the Sunday Readings for 10/5/08 by Dawn

You can find all the readings for this Sunday at: http://www.usccb.org/nab/100508.shtml

Jesus said to them, "Did you never read in the Scriptures:
The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
by the Lord has this been done,
and it is wonderful in our eyes?
(Matthew 21:42)

In today's Gospel Jesus is talking to the chief priests and elders, the very same people who want to get rid of him, when He quotes what would be to them, a very well known Psalm: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalm 118:22-23). In this passage the word cornerstone can be translated as keystone. I'm not sure if you are a builder, but in the event you are not, let me give you an explanation of what a keystone is. A keystone is a central wedge-shaped stone of an arch that locks its parts together.
Think of a Roman Archway. Two columns of carefully selected stones are built, edging towards each other. Close to where they will meet, a triangular-ish shaped stone is placed in the middle and balances the two sides of the arches against each other. The triangular-ish shaped stone is the keystone. If you removed that stone, the entire archway would fall down.

This is how I think of Jesus in my life. From one perspective, he seems to be just another stone in the building - made of the same stuff as the rest of me. Yet, He is more central than any other "stone". If He is removed, the entire building (me!) will collapse.

To get back to the passage, Jesus refers to himself as a stone that was rejected by the builders. If you think of it in literal terms - someone building an archway is delivered a load of stones and discovers one that doesn't look like the others, being inexperienced, he decides it is useless and discards it. Jesus was different, He didn't fit the image that people had of a king coming to save the Jewish people, so the leaders of the day set him aside, wanted to discard him. I wonder how many times in our lives we come across God and decide that it doesn't look like He will fit, so we set him to the side, or discard him - in our family, in our choice of vocation, or over scheduling our lives.

Before placing the keystone/cornerstone that is Jesus in our lives we may feel that the stone is the wrong shape, wrong color, too difficult or too demanding. The fact is we will never know how it actually fits until we put the stone in place. When we do we will find that allowing God to be the rock on which everything else rests is actually freeing. It is marvelous in our eyes.

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