Red handed

Romans 8:12-17; Ps 68 Our GOd is the God of salvation; Luke 13:10-17

Tid bits form the scriptures this morning

"if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him." Romans 8

"God arises; his enemies are scattered." Psalm 68

"He laid hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God." Luke 13

In the gospel for today, Jesus is caught red handed. There is no doubt that he is guilty as charged. THe synagogue official saw it, every one in the synagogue saw it, and there was no getting out of it.

For 18 years This woman had been afflicted, bent over, stooped to the ground. JEsus reaches out to her and she is healed, set free from this infirmity that has hounded her, oppressed her, slowly sucked the life out of her.

On side note, the fact that that she was in the synagogue, suggest at least some what that she had not given up on God; she still held on to hope and faith in Him even in the midst of her trials and struggles and sickness. This alone is worth meditating on.

But Jesus does her a good turn. In fact, Jesus' heart is always prepared to do Good, regardless of the potential fall out. He lets no one stand in his way of doing Good.

The synagogue official raised a stink, arousing the crowd against Jesus for this act of goodness. The official just flat out missed the point.

And the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus let him know it. Jesus didn't back down. "Hypocrites!" comes forth from the lips of Jesus. Jesus isn't labeling or name calling he is simply pointing out the truth that is obvious to everyone but the official himself.

Sometimes we should walk away from a fight but there are others when we must stand fast and speak boldly, holding our ground, especially when it comes to defending the life of another.

This was one of those moments.

Today, be on the look out for these kind of moments. Be prepared to do good; be prepared to speak out against injustice. Be prepared to not back down. Be prepared to be caught red handed in goodness. Be prepared to stand erect and give glory to God.

Loves DNA

Article written by Fr Ron Rolheiser


Recently, in a theology class, I was asked this question: “Why is it that whenever we talk about love we soon end up talking about rules and commandments? Invariably we end up talking about what we can’t do! And it’s the same thing with faith: We begin talking about faith and then end up talking about dogma, creeds, and heresies. Why can’t we just talk about love and faith without immediately bringing in a bunch of ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’?”

Fair enough. A good question. This is not unlike the famous ecclesiological query of a century ago when a French theologian asked: “Jesus came preaching a kingdom, how did we end up with the church?” Where do commandments, creeds, dogmas, and structures come from?

First off, we should admit that, sadly, sometimes they come from the wrong places. Rules, laws, and dogmas too frequently come from administrative offices that are too concerned with their own power. As well, they come from fearful, jealous, and petty places inside of ourselves. Small wonder that they do not always serve love and faith very well. However, in their best expression they come from love and faith themselves, just as an oak tree comes from an acorn and a mature man or woman develops out of a single set of chromosomes. Love and faith, like an acorn or a set of chromosomes, carry a clear, determined DNA.

We see this with faith: Bernard Lonergan once said that faith is the brand of the first principles inside the human soul. Henri Nouwen, using a different language, said the same thing. For him, faith is the primal memory of the kiss of God in the soul, the dark remembrance of true first love, of having once, before conscious memory, been caressed by hands far gentler than our own. These are wonderful, helpful images for faith. Faith is a brand, a kiss. However once we begin to try to touch that kiss in any way—through words, imagination, or even through feeling—we find that not all expressions of what we think this kiss is are true to its DNA and that only certain things can grow out of that acorn. The thing itself—however inchoate, dark, and beyond our imagination—dictates the lines within which it can validly be taken. As soon as we try to give expression to the kiss of God in us we find that some things we say are true to that kiss and others are not and soon enough that makes for creeds, dogmas, and heresies. We see this right in the way our Christian creeds developed. Immediately after the resurrection, the earliest Christians had only a one-line creed: Jesus is Lord! That’s a powerful little acorn! It says it all. However, as they tried to un-package what that meant, while all the time remaining true to its DNA, they eventually ended up with a couple of lengthy creeds and a whole series of dogmas that were needed to challenge a number of false understandings along the way.

Love works the same way. It too is a brand inside of the heart, an acorn with a unique DNA. Love can grow legitimately only in certain directions. What is its DNA? At one level this is clear. Love, in order to be love, must contain gratitude, respect, selflessness, and a willingness to let the other be free. Selfishness, envy, taking-another-for-granted, disrespect, and violation of all kinds can never pass themselves off as love. They are its antithesis. All of this is already written into the acorn. Hence there are some non-negotiable “dos” and “don’ts” within love. These are not arbitrary, humanly-imposed, dictates that limit love, but are rather the inherent lines for health and growth written right into love’s DNA. Thus, love, like faith, necessarily ends up with a number of commandments, creeds, and dogmas.

Sometimes today we are too easily seduced by a naive concept of love and freedom. This naivete would have us believe that faith and love can exist without boundaries, that there is not within them a defined DNA that may not be violated. The belief here is that love and faith can mean whatever we want them to mean. But, as we know, something that means everything means nothing. Love that is potentially anything, that exists without any non-negotiable protective principles, can also then mean incest, rape, and murder. The same is true of faith. Faith without boundaries, without creed and dogma to specify it, can then just as easily mean racism, Nazism, and bigotry.

Why do we inevitably end up talking about creeds, dogmas, commandments, and boundaries? Because love and faith have a set DNA. Every acorn is meant to be a very specific kind of tree. So too with love and faith. Already in their nascent forms, as in any tiny seed, there is present a fairly complete script for health and growth. Good creeds, dogmas, and commandments simply lay out that script so that it can be consciously read.

Fr. Ron Rolheiser

forecast: cloud of concupiscence with 100% shower of grace

Romans 7:18-25; Ps 119 Lord, teach me your statues; Luke 12:54-59

we can’t change yesterday or forecast tomorrow. All we have is the present. How will you spend it?

Hear the words of St. Paul from todays reading, "The willing is ready at hand, but the doing the good is not... I discover the principle that when I want to do good, evil is at hand...I see in my members another principle at war with the law of my mind, taking me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members...Who will deliver me from this mortal body?"


Talk about a ominous forecast painted by the spiritual meteorologist, St. Paul.

It reminds of my little nephew. He is a first grader. He is is trouble a lot at school. His dad, my brother, sat him down and asked him why he is always getting into to trouble at school, and his response is classic St. Paul, "Daddy, I am a good boy but my mind tells me to do bad things."

Even at 7 years old, we experience what St. Paul speaks about and describes so well in this 7th chapter of Romans.

There is often a seemingly great chasm between what we ought to do and what we actually do. A sense of helplessness rise to overwhelm us in this endless struggle.

The theological term for this reality described by Paul is "Concupiscence" which is the inclination of fallen man to misuse free will in sinful and selfish ways. It manifest itself in a unremitting desire for pleasure, power, and possessions.

What is the answer?

St. Paul will go on to teach us in Romans 8, "You are in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you....If Christ is in you, although your bodies are dead because of sin, your spirits are alive because of righteousness...you have received the spirit of sonship. when we cry Abba! Father!It is the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order to be glorified with him."


Our resolutions are often inadequate but in faith through baptism, we have the resolution of christ flowing through our bodies. We do not struggle alone. Christ fights in us and with us. THis is our hope for glory.

THis is why it is so important that we remember our date of baptism and celebrate it annually. There in lies the hope for the journey. We do not go alone. Christ is alive in us. THis makes all the difference.

Though we may fail time and time again, if we cling to Christ then we shall always have the strength to rise anew and begin to move forward in the present moment. We shake off the dust of disappointment and frustration that clings us and we say boldly with St. Paul, "Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord."

turn up the heat

Romans 6:19-23; Ps 1 Blessed are they who hope in the Lord; Luke 12:49-53

Words form the gospel
"I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!"

Now certainly we understand fire. We have recent experience of the destructive force that a fire brings to community, how quickly it spreads and how quickly it gets out of hand.

Texas has had its experience, in particular Bastrop. Fire is madness when it is unleashed on the earth.

But it is also very productive. It is the fire that actually enriches the soil once it has passed. The fire releases nitrogen other important nutrients back into the soil, creating a more suitable environment for growth. Fire also brings with it rapid regeneration of growth. Thus a greater diversity of species enlivens the ecosystem. Fires also release seeds that enable species of plants to be spread.



Now imagine that kind of force and madness of faithfulness to God, faithfulness in discipleship.

What would the world be like if the fire of seeking God's will were blazing in each of us?

We would be madness on the world, not causing havoc but just the opposite, bringing order, enriching the soil around us and enabling regeneration.

Thus, is the reversal JEsus brings to the earth.


Do we burn and blaze or is our life just puttering along.

It is time to turn up the heat.

Secondly, the gospel mentions, Do you think I have come to establish peace? No, I tell you division. From now on a household of five will be divided, three against two and two against three; a father divided against his son, and a son against his father, a mother against her daughter and a daughter against her mother, a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."


Again the words of JEsus seem to be striking and shocking. Does he really mean division?

The meaning is simple and clear. Our attachment to the kingdom must be prior to any attachment or bond regardless of its nature whether it be parents, children, or spouse.

There is a lot of division in families already but it is not caused by the right motivation. Most division is caused by selfishness or greed or hormones.

But what would the world look like if we attached ourself first to the kingdom of God and let that became our driving force.
Division would happen and what a beautiful reality that would be.

How would the world look if we no longer forsook our faith or our faithfulness?

Our task is to make sure the divisions that happen are happening for the right reason.

Perhaps then the fire would truly blaze.

The greatest division however is within ourself. We must never forsake the kingdom for our own selfish desires.

As St. Paul tells us in the first reading, "But what profit did you get then from the things of which you are now ashamed? You have been freed form sin and are slaves of God, the benefit that leads to sanctification."

We must let the word of God in Christ divide us, cause division within us. Is this not what JEsus means when he ask us to deny ourselves, pick up the cross and follow him.

Only then do we bear the torch, only then do we set the world on fire.

Last Judgment: justice and mercy collide

Romans 6:12-18; Ps 124 Our help is in the name of the Lord; Luke 12:39-48


Words from Pope Benedict on this wednesday

"Faith in the Last Judgment is first and foremost hope...Only God can create justice. And faith gives us certainty that he does. The image of the Last Judgment is not primarily an image of terror, but an image of hope...It is an image that evokes responsibility, an image, therefore, of that fear of which St Hilary spoke when he said that all our fear has its place in love. GOd is justice and creates justice. This is our consolation and our hope. And in his justice there is also grace. This we know by turning our gaze to the crucified and risen Christ."


Words of Jesus from Luke 12"39-48

"Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come."


"The servant who knew his master's will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master's will shall be beaten only lightly."

"Much will be requires of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more."


Words from Plato

"Often when it is the king or some other monarch or potentate that he has to deal with, he finds there is no soundness in the soul whatever; he finds it scourged and scarred by the various acts of perjury and wrongdoing; it is twisted and warped by lies and vanity, and nothing is straight because truth has had no part in its development. Power, luxury, pride, and debauchery have left it so full of disproportion and ugliness that when he has inspected it he sends it straight to prison, where on its arrival it will undergo the appropriate punishment...

Sometimes though the eye of the judge lights on a different soul which has lived in purity and truth...then he is struck with admiration and sends him to the isles of the blessed."

Pope Benedict continues...

"With death, our life choices becomes definitive- our life stands before the judge. Our choice, which in the course of an entire life takes on a certain shape, can have a variety of forms. There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love...On the other hand there can be people who are utterly pure, completely permeated by God, and thus fully open to their neighbor-people for whom communion with God even now gives direction to their entire being and whose journey toward God only brings to fulfillment what they already are."

Which road are we on? Which shape or form is lour life beginning to take? Are we ready for the judgment that awaits us all?

Quote for today:
"When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures of emotion, creatutes bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity." Dale Carnegie

above a picture of St. Isaac Jogues and companions who were martyred in present day canada. Today is their feast day.

Words from St. Isaac Jogues after he returned from Paris after being rescued from the grip of torture, only to return to face martyrdom.

"Yes, I want what the Lord wants, even if it cost a 1000 lives. The tortures are great but still God is greater and immense."

Storyteller who lives the story of faith.

2 Timothy 4:10-17; Ps 145 Your friends make known, O Lord, the glorious splendor of your kingdom; Luke 10:1-9

Today we remember St. Luke the writer of 1/4 of the New Testament the gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.

Luke is a storyteller. His gospel contains some of the most moving stories of the encounter of God in history, especially the infant narrative of Christ, the annunciation narrative of the angel Gabriel to Mary, the unfolding of Christ in history as he reaches out and touches those who were considered unworthy of touch.

Luke paints a beautiful picture with his pen.

In the gospel we meet the Good Samaritan, the Rich fool and Lazarus who lets the dogs lick his wounds, the Shepherd who looks for the one lost sheep as he leaves behind the 99, the prodigal son who returns home. In the gospel of Luke, we encounter the great agony of JEsus where he sweats drops of blood and an angel is sent to console him. Luke informs us of the repentant thief who dies with Christ to whom paradise is offered.

The pen truly is mightier than the sword especially in the hands of St. Luke, the great storyteller of the Mercy of God in the flesh of JEsus Christ.

Of all that St. Luke writes, it is what St. Paul tells us that probably solidifies his character. As we read the first reading today, notice what St. PAul says about St. Luke, "Luke is the only one with me."

Luke is the only one with me. Luke not only writes a good story but he lives a better one. There he is a loyal friend standing with Paul who had been arrested and thrown in Jail.

Luke remains living out what he wrote about, the MErcy of God in fleshed in Jesus Christ.
Luke is the storyteller who lives the story of Faith.

Luke stood fast.

Then we go to the gospel of today written from the hand of St. Luke himself.

"Jesus appointed 72 disciples whom he sent ahead of him in pairs to every town and place he intended to visit."

JEsus sends the disciples to prepare the way for him. Thus, is our mission and task in life. Do we prepare the way for Christ?


"Say to them, The Kingdom of God is at hand for you." Here n lies the theme of St. Luke's writings, both the gospel as well as the Acts of the Apostles. Here in lies the theme of his life.

What about ours?

Ignatius of Antioch: rich in what matters to God

Romans 4:20-25; Ps blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; he has come to his people; Luke 12:13-21

Click here for a little theme song for this Monday morning

Ignatius was a bishop in the early church. He gave his life in 107 by being thrown to wild animals under the EMperor Trajan. On the way to Martyrdom he wrote several letter to several communities of Christians.

He spoke about many things but in particular was the gift of the Eucharist.

In the letter to the Smyrnaeans he identifies Heretics as those who "abstain from the EUcharist and from pryer, because they do not confess the EUcharist to be the flesh of our Savior JEsus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, in His goodness, raised up again. Those, who speak against this gift of GOd, incur death in the midst of their disputes. Yet it would be better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise."

He also spoke about the role of the Bishop, "Wherever the Bishop shall appear their let the assembly also be-just as, wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church. Apart from the Bishop, it is not lawful to Baptize or to celebrate an agape. But whatever he shall approve is pleasing to God, so that everything that is done may be secure and valid."

Just a few words from Ignatius of Antioch.

Now for the readings of the day.

St. Paul invites the Christians in Rome to believe in the promise. We are empowered by faith and we can give glory to God and thus are convinced that what God has promised he will be able to do.

Look again at the words St. Paul uses to describe Abraham as well us:

empowered by faith, give glory to God, convinced, God has promised, be able to do.

These are clear and precise and invigorating for us as we journey forth.

Are we empowered by faith? What in our live reveals that power full active in our life? What is driving us forth?

Examine your life today! Where is the semblance or evidence of your faith?

St. Ignatius was certainly empowered by faith as he was thrown to the wild animals. He was also empowered by faith has he clung to the reality of the Eucharist as the body and blood and soul and divinity of Christ, that gift from God's goodness.

He was empowered by faith as he trusted in the Role of the Bishop to gather the people.

As you enter into the world of wild things today, it is a jungle out there, don't lose sight of you faith it will empower you.

We think about all kinds of energy and energy crisis in our life: fossil fuels, natural gas, oil, going green, solar, wind power and the list goes on.

Faith surpasses all of those. We just have to engage it. Every day provides ample opportunity to be empowered by faith. The issue with faith is the more you use it the stronger it becomes.


This is what JEsus speaks of in the gospel with that one liner, "Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God."

Remember those commercials, "Got milk?"
St. Paul and JEsus ask "Got Faith?"