to an unknown god

Acts 17:15, 22-18:1

We encounter Paul trying to culturally adapt Christianity to the greek religiosity.  He tries to get fancy and creative by incorporating something they know and relating it to Christ.  

The unknown god rises to the front in hopes that the people might come out of the darkness and into the light, to stop worshiping the unknown and embrace what is most known. 

The greek word for unknown used in the reading entails two realities; it envisions an unknown reality because it has been forgotten.  

It is interesting to note that Paul uses this analogy to tie in with Christ.  For it is only in Christ that God is truly known.  In fact God goes to a great extent just be known; he embraces the cross, stretched upon the wooden beam, in hopes that people might at last come to know just what love will do to offer life to the other. 

The word, "unknown" and "forgotten" is the greek word form which we get the term "agnostic." 

People who claim to be agnostic do so though they stare Christ in the face.  We pray that they may be awaken from their forgetful slumber and come to know and thus come to love and no longer grope in the darkness and truly reach forth and touch the god who bears our flesh all the way to the Father.

feast of St. Catherine

Mt 11:25-30

Today we recall with jubilation what grace can do to a soul that is receptive.  How God can transform one into a beautiful instrument of his love on earth. 

Catherine of Sienna was this bit of divine beauty on earth, because of God's gift to her and her gift to God.

Saints are saints because they let God win the battle for their soul; they die again and again to self love and rise again and again in true love. 

Catherine exhorts us to remember, "there is no condition of the soul in which it ceases to be necessary for a man to put his own self-love to death."

For St. Catherine the foundation of  her whole life was in opposition to self-love, which she called the stone of self knowledge.  To paraphrase there are three stones that lead to purity of love:

1)consideration that she was created; her existence was a gift dependent on the magnanimity of God, his mercy and grace.

2)consideration of redemption, how through the generous bestowal of his blood for the life of the world, the world could taste redemption which was unmerited on man's part and rooted in fervent love.

3)consideration of her own sins, the many times she rejected the invitation of God in her life; though deserving damnation yet out of eternal goodness of God she remained with the opportunity to repent and begin anew.

From these three considerations there a rose a desire to seek the will of God fervently.  All that she encountered was seen as a gift to be given back, whether it was tribulation, trial, or joy.

  

remember

Jn 15:26-16:4

"I have told you this so that when their hour comes you may remember that I told you."

That you may remember.

We are a forgetful people.  We forget many things, often.  Not only are we forgetful, we have a tendency to remember all the wrong things. 

Our memory is certainly in need of renewal, restoration, renovation and so on.

When we speak of the Holy Spirit, we often think about the 7 gifts or the 9 fruits and we busy ourself with trying to figure them out or recognize their manifestations and what happens in the process is we get distracted and lose sight of what the primary gift of the Spirit is all about. 

The Gift of the Holy Spirit is about reminding us of what Jesus says and does (Jn 14).  The gifts and fruits are valid in so far as they conform us to Christ and move us to be as he is in life. 

May the gift of the Spirit strengthen and fortify our memory that it will not be short term or self-centered but reach all the way back to Christ and make present again and again the beauty of God in the face of Christ in the way we live.

commit to comfort, lose love

1 Peter 3:15-18; John 14:15-21 

I recently was asked a question that is perplexing.  Someone in passing posed this question, "Father, what if we are wrong?" 

What if we are wrong?  What if all this about God is false, made up, make believe, counterfeit? 

Then what? 

It is a good question.  It is a question that each us probably ask ourselves, often if not daily. What if we are wrong?

So what is the answer?

Simply put.  The answer is that the question has no merit.  We as followers, as disciples, as Christians, do not have to be right or wrong.  The burden of proof is not on us; the burden of proof is on God.  

Our Faith is not centered on us. Our Faith is not about what we created or imagined.  

As St. Peter reminds us, "the reason for our hope" is rooted in the reality that Faith and Religion is not man made, it is not about speculation, it is only about revelation. 

The reason of our hope finds merit in what God has revealed.  And for two thousands years this deposit of faith has been guarded, and passed down.  It has been preserved because it has been lived.

Our problem today is not one of faith; our problem is one of comfort and commitment. 

We want it to be comfortable or we rather not commit.  We are afraid to commit, to trust what God has revealed.  And the less we commit the more doubt we will have. 

We want to experience the power of faith with out the commitment of life. And we are left feeling empty.  we commit our life to comfort and we suffer the loss of love.

This is why Jesus says in the gospel, "whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me."

He is seeking commitment so that we might experience the true power of love.  The spirit, the comforter, is sent to help us look beyond our self to seek the comfort of eternity, thus be empowered, that our life might become an engine of divine love.

quitter

1 Pt 5:5-14; Mk 16:15-20

Feast of St. Mark

Today in the life of the church we celebrate the feasts of  Mark the evangelist, the writer of the Gospel of Mark.  

We know just a little about the evangelist.  We know that his home growing up was a central meeting place for Christian worship (Acts 12:12).  

Thus, we know that Mark grew up in a home that was filled with Christian worship and this reality gave him ample opportunity to hear the story of Christ from the mouths of Peter and Paul and the other Apostles.  

Having heard, he was then inspired; so much so he was sent on the missionary journey with Paul and Barnabas (Acts 13).  

However, Mark abandoned the journey and returned home.  Paul (Acts 15:37-40) initially was upset with Mark for leaving the missionary expedition, considered Mark to be a quitter on the faith, and refused to take him along on the next journey.  

Yet, being not discouraged, Mark persevered, and overcame his fear and is believed to be the founder of the Church in Alexandria; Paul, toward the end of his life (I Timothy) no longer looked upon Mark as a quitter but rather someone who was transformed and became a very useful servant. 

It is amazing what grace can do, when we do not give up.   Not only was Mark instrumental in spreading the faith in the early church, but he continues to be instrumental in spreading the faith today, through his heroic proclamation of the good news of Christ in the Gospel, we read still today.

Even quitters can be a lasting instrument of God's grace, given the opportunity.

St. Mark pray for us that though we desire to quit often on our Faith and and on Christ, we too may be inspired to pick up the slack and carry on the torch and banner of god's love for us in Christ.  

grace

Acts 15:7-21; Jn 15: 9-11

In todays opening prayer of the Mass, we are reminded what the gift of grace is about, "Father, in your love you have brought us from evil to good and from misery to happiness."

The gift of grace sets us free to embrace goodness and to let go of misery by delving deeply into the promise of Joy we encounter in Christ. 

St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles reminds us, as he reminded the early church, that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are saved through grace. 

Many Christians proclaim to be saved by faith and even faith alone.  But, the reality is, simply put, that faith and love and hope are fruits of grace.  It is the grace of God that saves us, faith, love, and hope are our response to that saving invitation. 

Grace is a word that encapsulates what God does for us, to us, in us, with us by means of Jesus. This includes everything that was a precursor to Christ as well, such as, circumcision and the ten commandments.  

Grace is God coming down to us and showing us how to live ad to love according to his standard; the ten commandments are grace for us.  Circumcision was grace for the Jewish people, it was an external sign that reminded them that God chose them.  

Jesus is the perfect manifestation of God's invitation, of God communicating himself and his goodness to us.     

We simply have to respond.  Grace is the invitation; our response in faith and love and hope is the RSVP with our life.  We cooperate with God's favor and choose to live differently.

We have all received grace upon grace in Christ, according to the Gospel of John.  The question for us is do we respond, do we actively embrace the favor of God and live differently, embracing all as a gift that enables us to share in the divine life.

Here we must set aside our expectations for we must always remember that the primary gift of grace to us and for us was Jesus suffering, dying, and rising. 

 Grace is always beyond our comprehension but yet it also always remains within our reach.  Reach forth and grab hold of Christ, especially in the sacraments, and live differently in grace, setting aside evil for good, misery for joy. 

This is grace, this is life, this is joy, this is the invitation placed before us in Christ.     

more

Jn 15:1-8

In today's gospel we encounter the metaphor of choice of Jesus, "I am the vine you are the branches."

Jesus speaks of the necessity of being pruned, where the dead nonproductive branches are removed so that the vibrant young sprouts can mature and bear fruit.

Jesus reminds us that he removes and prunes so that the vine can bear MORE fruit.  Jesus wants more.

What is this more.

The fact of the matter is that Jesus does not settle for less, only we do.  The more that he constantly is in search of must find its reflection in the words we say each day when we pray the words that Jesus taught us, "thy kingdom come."

These words must not be merely spoken from our lips but they must shape our lives; this is the more that Jesus seeks to prune forth from us.  Anything less is unworthy of us, unworthy of the one who gives us new life. 

We must be about more.  this is what it means to have zeal, to be zealous for God is certainly about being zealous for his kingdom. This zeal bears more.

It is time to let go of the dead branches and stop dragging them through our days and nights; it is time to stop using those dead branches as weapons that keep genuine love at arms length; it is time to surrender the less in our life and embrace the more of the kingdom and truly become part of that heavenly orchard producing more of what God wants and less of what we do. 

Simply put, be pruned by God's word and sacraments and allow yourself to be more.