Reflecting on Luke 21: 5-19

If you go to New York City sometime, try to get to the Lower East Side Tenement Museum.  The inhabitants of Little Italy, Chinatown, the Jewish communities, and thousands of others lived in the tenements high above the bustling saloons, clothing and jewelry stores on Orchard Street― a block that historians say was the most densely populated street in the world in the 1870s.

Listen to the babies crying.  Hear the music of the world’s languages as neighbors barter for the freshest tomatoes, or the best price for winter coats.  Get ready to sweat as you help Gerta Schneider cook schnitzel in her tiny kitchen in July.  Watch Mama Rogarshevsky light the Sabbath candles, and bow your head as Papa prays the Sabbath blessing.

They left large farms to live literally on top of one another in a crowded city.  Many escaped earthquakes, famines and plagues, or ominous pogroms that bode of the holocaust to come.  They came for a better life, and later generations found it.

Today, neighborhood carnicerias thrive next to Middle East grocery stores and Somali markets. These groups fled their homes also, where unstable nations rise against nations, and kingdoms against kingdoms.

We, too, live in a time of powerful earthquakes, famines and plagues. Hurricane Sandy came close to destroying in a day the very tenement neighborhood that housed millions of immigrants for three hundred years.

We Coloradans have our own flood narratives, too.  And Nebraskans have tornados.  And don’t even mention fires to Californians.  Is the world finally coming to an end?

Do not be terrified, says Jesus.  If we all work to heal our planet the God of all nations will secure our lives.

In what ways do you live by faith, not fear?

Reflecting on Luke 20: 27-38

What awaits us after death?  Will heaven be so radically different from earth that even the greatest joys of our existence here will fade to nothing once we are in the presence of the Beatific Vision?  That image of heaven makes me uneasy.

We cling to this life because it’s all we know.  Of course we hold close to the loves and friendships that make our lives so rich and full.  Why on earth would we willingly leave them for an eternity of the unknown?  The ancient author of the book of Ecclesiastes reflects on this in my favorite passage in all of scripture:  God has made everything beautiful in its time, and yet has set eternity in our hearts (3:11).

Yes.  We embrace and love this life, and yet we carry a deep intuition that this is not the end, that we are made for eternity, where every tear shall be undone, and death will be no more (Revelation 21:4).

I somehow sense that heaven will be more and more of all the things we built on earth.  As C.S. Lewis suggests in The Great Divorce, if we demand to cling to our resentments and pettiness and selfishness, heaven can’t give us more than what we consistently chose throughout our lives. We will flee from heaven because it’s too solid, too real, and too wonderful for us.

But, as the great John Kavanaugh, S.J. wrote:  Those who cast themselves into the arms of the living God, no matter what their shame or sorrow, will find what their hearts desired.

I choose to cast myself into those arms, and to trust in the God of the living.

What do you think heaven will be like?

Reflecting on Luke 19: 1-10

I think that we are all doing the best we can.  It’s tough out there.  We have to be great parents, attentive and available grandparents, debt-free, environmentally conscious, active parishioners, and avidly working on our fat-to-muscle ratio.

Outsiders might look at our rowdy kids and say, “Why doesn’t someone teach those parents how to discipline their kids?”  Others might say, in the car after the party, “I can’t believe they used paper plates when they could have just brought out their regular dishes and washed them later.  I thought they were supposed to be such environmentalists.”  Or, the worst, “She says she’s watching her cholesterol, but did you see that piece of cake she ate?”

Looking at us from the outside, it appears that we are hypocritical and lazy.  But the Incarnate Jesus, the one who dwells with us, isn’t looking from the outside.  He dwells within us, and breathes every breath with us.  He is with us during the endless sleepless nights we endure with our kids.  He is with us when we recycle the annoying cardboard boxes.  He is with us when we spend those lonely late-night hours working to get out of debt, or to face and recover from our addictions.

That’s what Zaccheus experienced when Jesus, who had talked so often about the dignity and worth of the poor, called this rich man down from the sycamore tree and invited himself over for dinner.  The Incarnate One knew he was doing the best he could, and Zaccheus, overjoyed at being held in the embrace of Love, did even better than his best for the rest of his life.

Whose belief in you has inspired you to be the best you can be?

Reflecting on Luke 18: 9-14

There is something very sacred about this story that Jesus tells today about the Pharisee and the tax collector.  But we must hold it close, and let its grace touch us.  To be able to consider that we might be the Pharisees, the ones who think (secretly, of course) that they are more deserving of God’s mercy than anyone else, is a grace just in itself.  We don’t think in terms of “sin” and “sinner” anymore, so to actually let that concept into our hearts can be healing already.

The surest and quickest passage to God’ mercy is to be profoundly aware of our need of it.  Try to remember a time when you were humbled by sin.  Maybe you were caught in a lie, or stopped while gossiping about someone.  Maybe one of the deadly sins has you in its vise, and the fruit of a lifetime of wrath, for example, finds you banging on the hood of somebody’s stalled car in front of you at rush hour.  Or maybe, like me, you routinely use about a thousand percent of your share of the world’s resources, and a traveling companion asks if that was really you taking that twenty-minute shower.

It is such a precious gift to be humbled, to admit our sin, to bow before God and say, “Lord, I thank you that I’ve finally been found out.  I thank you that the world now knows what you’ve known all along.  Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

It doesn’t feel good, but it changes us.  It nudges us a bit closer to heaven, where sinners are welcomed home every day.

How has the awareness of sin in your life changed you?

Reflecting on Luke 18: 1-18

Rembrandt, St. Jacob Praying, 1661

Somewhere, at this moment, someone in the world is praying for you.  I know.  I just saw it with my own eyes.

Recently my husband Ben and I found ourselves on the highest hill in Paris, cozily ensconced in the Sacre Coeur monastery for two days.  There we had the great joy of stepping out of our rooms and into the basilica, the breathtaking church built by the French in atonement for their part in the Franco-Prussian War.

Imagine the roar and rush of Paris.  Then imagine stepping into the basilica, where the Benedictine nuns and priests sing the psalms (in French, of course) by candlelight, at various time of the night and day, world without end.  Heaven.

Five days later we entered another piece of heaven when he got off the train in Lisieux, the home of St. Thérése.  Roses!  Millions of roses greet the pilgrims who have come to pray with the Carmelite community at the hermitage where St. Thérèse lived, and where she wrote Story of a Soul, the best-selling religious book of the twentieth century.

Here we prayed with the Carmelite sisters and postulants at all hours of the day and night.  And oh, the music of those French psalms wafting through the grille where St. Thérése and her cloistered community once prayed.  Heaven.

This is what I love about being Catholic: the sure and certain hope that we are never alone.  At this moment, a friend, a stranger, or a member of some religious community somewhere is praying for us.  Thank God that they never stop praying, for our help is from the Lord, who made heaven and earth.

Can we pray for you?  Go to the website and let us know.

Reflecting on Luke 17: 11-19

James Tissot, Healing of the Lepers at Capernaum, 1886-94

Will you do a spiritual exercise for me?  Be quiet for a moment, and try to recall the last time you were sick.  Maybe you had a bad cold. Think of that pounding headache, or the burning eyes, or the painful blowing of your red, red nose.  Remember the misery of having to go to work, or make dinner, or answer e-mails when your body was screaming for sleep.

And now, remember the morning when your cold was over.  You slept through the night.  Your head was clear.  You felt blessedly strong and full of energy.

Try to remember that delicious moment of delivery from illness.  The migraine gone.  The blood test negative.  The lump dissolved.  Live in that moment of gratitude now.

Imagine that poor Samaritan man who had contracted leprosy.  What huge floods of relief must have coursed through him to hold out his hand and see that he was cured!  Cured!  He could return to his family.  He could make a living for them once again.  He could hold his new baby, or maybe his grandchild.  Death and loneliness had circled ‘round him, but as he was traveling to show himself to the priest he realized that he was healed, and sorrow and sadness fled away.

If we could just live in that moment of gratitude every day we would break open every inch of distance we may feel from God.  Can you remember how it felt to be healed of an illness?  God lives right there, in the place where immense gratitude is stored.  Offer that memory back to God.  That’s where the heart of praise finds its endless source.

What memory do you have of being healed?

Reflecting on Habakkuk 1: 2-3; 2: 2-4

Do things ever really get better if we just wait, and trust God? That’s the promise of the reading from Habakkuk today.  In fact, the prophet wants us to have these words of comfort so much that he demands that the vision be written down on tablets in such large print that a courier can run with it and people can read it as he passes.

As I write this, the world is waiting to see if Syria actually turns over its arsenal of chemical weapons, some of which were used to kill a thousand people.  But of course Assad has already killed one hundred thousand people with the conventional weapons of shelling, gunfire, and torture.  Some of the victims of these atrocities cry out to the world, “We cry for help and you do not listen!  We cry out to you, ‘Violence!’, but you do not intervene.”   Others plead for the world to broker peace for them without firing another shot.

A few weeks ago the worldwide Church kept vigil for peace in Syria, and the fruits of that prayer were immediate.  John Kerry made a “gaffe from God”, and enemies began to speak to one another.

If the vision delays, wait for it. We wait, and never stop praying that Syria, the very cradle of Christianity, may once again be Ground Zero for the dramatic power of God. St. Paul was born there.  St. Matthew and St. Luke both wrote their gospels there.  Paul’s missionary journeys embarked from there.  We were first called “Christians” there.  Pray for peace in Syria.

The vision still has its time, and will not disappoint.

Is there someone you pray for all the time?

Reflecting on Luke 16: 19-31

We’re twenty-six weeks into Ordinary Time, and already I’m thinking about snow.  With the cool weather comes all the delicious smells and tastes and sights and sounds of fall.  It’s finally time for pumpkin bread and football games.  And that means that this liturgical year is beginning to wind down.

But before we start looking for the Advent candles, let’s reflect for a moment on the gospel―St. Luke’s gorgeous proclamation of good news for the poor ―that we’ve been hearing all year and will continue to hear for the next eight weeks.  Today’s story about the rich man (Dives) and the poor beggar Lazarus is a perfect example of Luke’s “business plan”.  His mission is that anyone who reads his gospel shall never again store up treasure for themselves while forgetting about those who have less.  He wants us all to be rich in what matters to God.  Eternity depends on it.

We’ve heard the great Lukan stories since last December.  The poor, unmarried virgin says be it done unto me according to your will, and the world is changed forever. Early in his public ministry Jesus’ very first words to a great crowd assembled on a plain are blessed are you who are poor, for the kingdom of God is yours.

The guy who builds bigger barns to store all his goods has his life demanded of him that very night.  The guest list for your big party should begin down at the homeless shelter and the school for the blind.  And Jesus, for whom there is no room at the inn for his birth, in death is buried in a tomb not his own.

Okay, Luke.  We’re listening.

Is there a Lazarus in your life?

Reflecting on Luke 16: 1-13

What a strange story.  The steward who cheats his employer makes friends by inviting other people to cheat him too, and then the employer praises him for being so crafty.  I want a boss like that.

Actually, I do have a boss like that.  Jesus Christ is the boss of me. He encourages me today to be endlessly cunning, wily, inventive, ingenious, and endlessly passionate about spending eternity with him.  Do whatever it takes to find me and draw near to me, and I will draw near to you.  Don’t die without my grace and love and presence.  Heaven will be a lot easier to enjoy if you start pursuing it right now.

So, how do we use all of our cunning to enter the kingdom of God?  Perhaps the first step is to notice those things that make us feel unsettled, unhappy, unloved, and undone.  None of that is kingdom material, so we have to find ways to detach from resentments, rage, the pain of disappointments, and the day-to-day coarsening of our hearts through exposure to parts of our present culture.

If we pay attention to what makes us truly happy that will surely bring us near to God, the creator of all joy.  Yesterday I found a lovely CD in my car that had been forgotten in the glove compartment for several years.  The minute I put it in the player the car was filled with beauty, and the grace that always accompanies it.  Note to self: listening to beautiful, prayerful music makes me happy.  That must be a God Thing.  Do that some more.

I think I’m getting the hang of this.

What ingenious ways can you find to bring more “God Things” into your life?

Reflecting on Luke 15:1-32

He came home, finally.  Yes, I saw him staggering towards the gate.  Even though I’ve spent all these months staring at the road, willing for him to appear in the distance,  I was too shocked to recognize him.  He’s lost so much weight he barely resembles the boy I love, the one I fed and cared for, the one I taught to ride a bike and jump off the high dive.  His mother didn’t drink coffee for nine months while she was pregnant with him so that he could have the best start in life.

We’d been searching for him, of course.  After he walked away from the rehab center we knew he’d go right back to the streets.    He found his dealer and went straight back to using.  He even admitted that he was the one who broke the window in the basement and stole the computer last winter.  The truth is, we were secretly relieved.  He remembered where he lived.

The kids are torn.  They were crying and hugging him and telling him how much they missed him.  But I know they’re really scared now.  It’s been a year of anxiety for all of us, wondering if he was dead in some crack house.  Now we all have to live with the tension of having him back.  He’s back in treatment and he really does seem like he’s beat it this time.

His older brother held back from hugging him.  There’s been a lot of betrayal there.  It’s going to take a lot of work to repair the damage.

Can you make the welcome home party on Saturday?

How do you reconcile today’s gospel with what we know about addiction?