Sacred Heart Parish Mission

October 10, 2005

Monday

Pilgrimage, Poverty, Joy, Humility

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

Introduction:

         At the fifty-first verse of Chapter 9 in the Gospel of Luke, something really important happens in the sequence of that Gospel providing us with a remarkable opportunity. From that point on until verse twenty-eight of Chapter 19 Luke gathers all the instructions of Jesus to his disciples into one grand sermon or “course on discipleship.” What it takes to be a follower of Jesus unfolds in these ten chapters in a clear and decisive sequence of discussions, events, and parables. This “Journey to Jerusalem” is where we go when we want to know what it takes and how to measure our readiness to be followers of Jesus Christ. In fact, the journey took longer than four days, and what is about to happen here will only be a first glance at the qualities or the virtues of disciples as Jesus would have it. Your own reading of those ten chapters over these next four days will be helpful and fill in much of what cannot be said and done here this week. It all begins with Chapter 9 verse 21: “Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he turned his face towards Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him.” Then it concludes as we shall on Thursday night at verse 28 of Chapter 19 with these words: “When he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” At that point, he must feel as though he has done and said all he can to prepare us for our lives together as his disciples. For those of us who remain, who have been called to fulfill his mission, the instructions given on this journey shape and form us to be worthy of our calling, of our gifts, and of this mission.

It is all set in the context of a pilgrimage, this “Journey to Jerusalem”, and that is what you have been invited to do this week: make a pilgrimage. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that in a formal way, but I have done so several times as both pilgrim and as leader. This week, I’ll be pilgrim with you once again, at the same time I will be leader for you pointing out the sights along the way, sharing with you their meaning, their purpose, and their power to accomplish what every pilgrimage does. Pilgrims and tourists are not the same thing. Tourists travel for rest and recreation. They go to look and wonder at the natural wonders of this earth or to sample another culture. On the other hand, pilgrims travel to fuel a spiritual quest. A sacred pilgrimage is a journey seeking answers to questions of meaning, purpose, and eternity. They do not seek fulfillment in things that will never satisfy. They seek what the heart desires most of all; God’s presence. Tourists seek entertainment and adventure. Pilgrims desire happiness and self awareness in communion with God. The tourist tries to figure out how to see as much as possible in the time permitted. The pilgrim wants to discover the highest good and figure out how to form habits that achieve the goal.

If any of us are going to be followers of Jesus, then we have to know how to follow. It means learning and using the discipline of trusting God’s plan for my life. That means believing that every detail about who I am and about my day was given to me by a God who loves me and whose vision of the world needs me. A pilgrimage then ultimately teaches us that the meaning of life is found not at the end of the journey but in the journey itself. What matters with a pilgrimage is not the destination, but what happens along the way: conversion brought about by a new experience of God. In that sense, life itself then is a pilgrimage toward God which leads the pilgrim to the heart of our faith, Jesus Christ, our Savior and source of all holiness. So, if you’ll come with me, we’re going on a pilgrimage this week; a symbolic journey into discipleship, into faith, into forgiveness and healing. Our map is the Lukan Journey Narrative. We’ll make some stops along the way each night to reflect upon the virtues of a true disciples; the habits of life, the attitudes, and the behavior that will ultimately bring us to the end of life’s journey, to “Jerusalem” as Luke and Jesus call it; to “heaven” as we better know it. So listen now to Luke, our guide along the way.

The Gospel Text is read.

“He called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey: neither staff, nor haversack, nor bread, nor money; and do not have a spare tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there; and when you leave let your departure be from there. As for those who do not welcome you, when you leave their towns shake the dust from your feet as evidence against them. So they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and healing everywhere. On their return the apostles gave him an account of all they had done. Then he took them with him and withdrew towards a town called Bethsaida where they could be by themselves. 

“Then it happened that the time drew near from him to be taken up, he turned his face towards Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. Seeing this, the disciples, James and John said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

“As they traveled along they met a man on the road who said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus answered, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another to whom he said, “Follow me, replied, “Let me go and bury my father and spread the news of the Kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, sir, but first let me go and say good-bye to my people at home.” Jesus said to him, “Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself would be visiting. And he said to them, “The harvest is rich but the laborers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to do his harvesting. Start off now, but look I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Take no purse with you, no haversack, no sandals. Salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, let your first words be, “Peace to this house!” And if a man of peace lives there, your peace will go and rest on him; if not, it will come back to you. Stay in the same house, taking what food and drink they have to offer, for the laborer deserves his wages; do not move from house to house. Whenever you go into town where they make you welcome, eat what is put before you. Cure those who are sick, and say, “The Kingdom of God is very near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not make you welcome, go out into its streets and say, “We wipe off the very dust of your town that clings to our feet, and leave it with you. Yet be sure of this: the kingdom of God is very near. I tell you, on the great Day it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town. Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.

“The seventy-two came back rejoicing. “Lord”, they said, “even the devils submit to us when we use your name. He said to them, “I watched Satan fall like lightening from heaven. Look, I have given you power to tread down serpents and scorpions and the whole strength of the enemy; nothing shall ever hurt you. Yet do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you; rejoice instead that your names are written in heaven.

“Now it happened that on a Sabbath day he had gone to share a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees; and they watched him closely. He then told the guests a parable. When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honor. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited, and the person who invited you both may come and say “Give up your place to this man.” And then to your embarrassment, you will have to go and take the lowest place. No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, “My friend, move up higher.” Then, everyone with you at the table will see you honored. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up.

“Then he said to the host, ”When you give a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbor, in case they invite you back and so repay you. ‘No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again. Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. None of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Psalm 34 as on Sunday 30 in Ordinary Time Cycle C

Preaching

         It is important to see and realize the difference between the two groups sent out by Jesus; the difference in their tasks and in their identity. It is also helpful to realize the similarities. The first group is sent out in place of Jesus. They are sent to do what he has done. The second group is sent out to prepare for Jesus. He is going to follow them. Both groups return to him and give an accounting of their mission. It is the first group he takes aside and begins to instruct along the way to Jerusalem. While we have something important to learn from both groups, it is the first group, “The Twelve” with which must identify. For we live in their tradition. We are the “apostolic” church that now continues to live and to be the mission of Jesus Christ. To be faithful to that mission, to be His presence to the world, and to be effective in our calling, there are some qualities that must be found in us, and the first of them is Poverty.

         These people called by Jesus are not asked to take on an extra task like working a second job. They are to make following Jesus everything; so completely that it reorders all other duties. It becomes who we are, “Christians”. It becomes how we must examine and order our lives. So, if we are parents, we are Christian parents. If we are husband or wife, we are Christian mother or wife. If we are child, then we are a child of God like Jesus was a child of God. If we are teacher, a doctor, a professional of any kind, we are a Christian teacher, or a Christian doctor. Belonging to Jesus is not a part time job or a temporary condition. It is an identity.

         In this first look at the virtues of a disciple, at the qualities that provide for this identity, Luke holds up Poverty, Joy, and Humility as the fundamental qualities of life for those who would follow Jesus. Our best and purest model of poverty is St. Francis. In the clarity of his thinking if not in the radical style of his life, Francis understood poverty. For him, and for that matter, all of us who set our sights on being followers and disciples of Jesus, Poverty is not a social problem. To get that right, we must understand that there are two different “poverties.” One is a life style chosen, the other is a life style imposed. One is a consequence of freedom, the other is a consequence of injustice. They are not the same. The first is always a virtue, not some ill to be solved, cured, and wiped away by laws and social programs. The poverty, which makes us uneasy, stirs our passion, and calls into question our economics, laws, and consumer culture is an issue of Justice. The Poverty which Jesus commends to his followers, is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. One is the consequence of injustice, the other is a consequence of a life style and a new way of relating to things and to others.

         In our quest for Justice, we have gotten a few things mixed up, not the least of them is a confusion of “justice” with “revenge”. We must be vigilant about allowing that confusion to motivate our decisions and behavior. Jesus rejects revenge entirely.

         There is a test of poverty. It has nothing to do with annual income. It has to do with what can be shared. If your car is too expensive to let someone use it; it is too expensive. If your computer is too delicate for anyone else to use, it is too delicate. If your sweater is too good for another to wear, it is too good. The point is not that you have a certain make and model of car, or computer, or designer sweater. That is irrelevant. If any of that separates you from your neighbor, it is a violation of poverty. This has nothing to do with what you may own, but the moment it becomes a problem, you are in gospel trouble. You see? It is not about justice, it is about poverty. It might be very “just” to say that someone does not have the ear to use your stereo because they do not share your same refined taste. It might be “just” to think that someone is too overweight to look good in your sweater. All of that may be true. But at that point, you are not poor you are simply true. The moment you start finding reasons for not sharing what you have, you are no longer living the virtue of poverty, which Jesus proposes is essential for those who would follow him. You may have good taste, You may have good sense. You may be law abiding, honest, and truthful, but you are not poor; and you are in trouble with the gospel.

         We are not called to be caseworkers. We are not called to be making distinctions about who should have what, who deserves what, and what will help someone and what will not. That is what social agencies do. God is poor. God shares the sun and the rain on good and bad alike. What is asked of us is compassion, which is an experience of poverty.

         Life today is very complicated, but the Gospel is not complicated for those who believe. Jesus still looks for some to follow him, to live in the mystery of poverty. It is not a life style that will take diluting, and it cannot be done part time. Faith in Jesus, like in the Gospel is not for Church, Sunday, or times of private prayer. It is for every day and every hour. It is everything. We do not take our lives and fit them into the Gospel. We take the Gospel and let it shape our lives, our priorities, our vision, and our relationships. Those who make the way of Jesus their own must be willing to do so first, fully, freely, and forever.

         Notice how Jesus sends out these people ahead of him: in pairs and with nothing. They are poor, but they are not alone. With nothing to worry about, nothing to lose, nothing to pack, carry, or slow them down, they are free, and that quality of freedom from worry and the possessive concerns that seems to weigh down the rich who’s stuff is too good to loan or share, is called: Joy.

         Notice that attitude in the disciples of these gospel verses. “They returned rejoicing. But lest we think that their joy has something to do with what they have done, Jesus goes on immediately to say: “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” It is who they are, not what they do that matters that makes them disciples, and fulfills their mission. Being task oriented as we have become in our culture, we often get the what mixed up with the who. It is then easy to begin to shape our identity by what we do rather than by who we are.

         Recently I was listening to a eulogy during which someone was speaking about the deceased. On and on it went about what the man had done, where he worked, who for, and for how long. Inside I was groaning because that was not who this was, that was what he did, and the man we were honoring was far more than where he worked which to me seemed totally insignificant since I never knew the man before he retired!

         We are forever selling ourselves to the tasks of life, measuring our worth or the worth of another by what we earn, where we work what we have accomplished, what we drive and how big our house is. This way of thinking is at odds with the Christian message, and it finds its way in our reflection and our thinking about who we are as disciples. In other words, we begin to think of discipleship as something we do, as something with very serious duties and responsibilities, and while that is an element, it is not all there is to it. When that become all there is, we are stuck, and discipleship is reduced to just another thing we are supposed to do, sort of like another job or chore added on to the rest of life.

         What we can discover from this tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel is another way of looking at one another and ourselves in the context of discipleship rather than in the context of consumer or producer. There is more to this calling than something we must do. Being a disciple is what we must become, and that happens first by what we are, not by what we do. It is important to realize that these people sent out by Jesus have no names. So we must not think that he is sending out Peter, James, and John – those “others”. Luke would have us understand that all are sent this way – on a mission of discipleship. All are given the divine command. What Christ wants is that others will see Him in us. “Then God said: “Let us make humankind in our own image. according to our likeness.” Our calling is to act in God’s behalf, to represent God until he comes in glory.

         But what does this world get? What kind of God do we represent – what is the image this world gets of God from us? It is a profound and a troubling question. A world that longs for a loving, forgiving, God of mercy too often gets a God of judgment, revenge, and punishment, a God of rules and laws. Is that the God we believe in, trust, and hope for? The poor world gets intolerance and impatience. Where is the God we pray to and ask for mercy with confident expectations? Why is it that others cannot find in us the image of the God we want for ourselves? I think it is because we don’t get the point – fail to understand discipleship and continue to reduce it to tasks, duties, and responsibilities. 

As disciples, we are called to be poor, and the consequence of that poverty when we have embraced it is Joy, because we are free of anxious concerns and worry about things that have nothing to do with who we are; that have nothing to do with the wonderful news that our names are written in heaven. This Joy that is the quality Luke insists Jesus would have in those who are his presence is not the same as “Happiness.” When any of us rip into a brightly colored and beautifully wrapped gift that comes as a surprise or at Christmas, when we open it and find something we have wanted and put off getting we are happy. But happiness comes and happiness goes. It is its nature. It is a response to pleasure. Not so with Joy. The virtue of Joy does not come and go. It has nothing to do with pleasure or satisfaction. It has to do with freedom and with faith.

Joy is what allows us to stand in the face of disappointment and not be put down. Joy is what allows us to open a gift and find the box empty, smile, and laugh. Joy is what sustains us in hope when there are no more presents to unwrap. Joy is the life of God in the heart of those who love. Joy is possible for those who know and believe that God loves them and that God’s gifts are without end.

         Finally, those schooled by Jesus are rooted in an ancient wisdom and tradition called: Humility which means knowing one’s rightful place in the reign of God. Humility is a companion of Poverty, just like Joy. In the ancient world, and still too much so in this world, guests would be seated according to their status or importance in society, and it was a highly stratified society where places at table carried great social weight. It was a serious matter if one judged their place incorrectly. Rank and Status were based upon comparisons with others. The Kingdom protocol that Jesus announces on the way to Jerusalem clearly marks a shift from the Mediterranean world’s custom of reciprocity and social standing.

         We live with the art of being politically correct which teaches that we should bend or skirt the truth in order to avoid conflict. We’ve learned the lesson that we establish our identity and measure our wroth and success by comparing ourselves with others. “The more you have the better you are.” The more power, you wield, the stronger you are; and the more control you have, the more successful you become. The radical and revolutionary character of the Kingdom of God sees wealth and possessions as gifts of God, not a privilege or right of status or family.

         The Humble find their sense of self and their identity in God, not in comparison with another like themselves. This humility leads one to service, not to power. The humble are free, free from fear and free from clinging to fame and fortune, which stifle depth and development.

         Part of this lesson for disciples is addressed to guests and part to hosts. In speaking to guests, Luke suggests that humility is not a matter of pretending that one is “not worthy? but rather facing the truth that all is gift, and the only proper attitude is to be grateful. The proud think they are worth more because of achievements, status, wealth, or power; all of which they may well have. Yet they miss the point: all these things they have are for the service of others – for no other purpose whatsoever. The tone of this story is drawn from the threat of the end time; and we are reminded that we take nothing from this life but our relationship. 

         In speaking to hosts, the message comes from a different perspective. Inviting the right people to dinner is crucial. For the host, humility calls for a guest list that includes the hungry. The people around the humble table are those who, in truth, need to be there. The host invites them, not because of what they can give to the host either by way of a return favor or by way of being looked upon as a “saint”; but rather the humble host knows the truth that what worldly possessions they may have are in their possessions not because they are better than anyone else, but because they have been chosen to be instruments of God’s love and where there is love, there is God.

         Poverty, Joy, Humility: three virtues of disciples. Without them we have no hope of getting to Jerusalem; without them we have no hope of completing the mission to which we are called.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn: “All you who are thirsty, come to the water.” #644 Ritual Song

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 11, 2005

Tuesday

Prudence, Watchfulness, Persistence

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

“Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple.

Indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying, “Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with the thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. 

Which one of you with a hundred sheep, if he lost one, would fail to leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the missing one till he found it? And when he fount it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbors saying to them, “Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep that was lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need of repentance.

Or again, what woman with ten drachmas would not, if she lost one, light a lamp and sweep out the house and search thoroughly till she found it? And then, when she had found it, call together her friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, I have found the drachma I lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.”

Then he said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.

When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch; so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled himself with the husks the pigs were eating but no one would let him have them. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s hired men have all the food they want and more, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men. So he left the place and went back to his father.

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. Then his son said: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we will celebrate by having a feast because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate. 

Then he told them about a judge in a certain town who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, “I want justice from you against my enemy!” For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and do me harm.”

Psalm 

Preaching

         At first we might think that Luke has Jesus talking about commitment and the consequent renouncing of all things, or that he’s inviting the disciple to take up a cross. However that may be, those ideas fail to dig beneath the words and get behind examples.  When you do that, you can begin to understand that we are being led into virtue as a quality of life rather than behavior. Remember, first discipleship is about being something, then, from that comes the doing of something. In fact, the very effort to get that straight in our minds is what it’s all about. The disciple is always asking: “What kind of person shall I be? rather than: “What shall I do?” The doing will take care of itself once the being is in place. So, from what Jesus has to say at this stop on the way to Jerusalem is that those who would be his disciples will be Prudent.

         Those of us schooled in any Christian spirituality will immediately recall those “Cardinal Virtues” we may have once learned: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. They come to us from the Book of Wisdom chapter 9, verse 7. “If one loves justice, the fruits of her works are virtues; for she teaches moderation and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful than these.” Ancient Greeks, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine and Bernard of Clairveaux all developed thought about these virtues as central to good moral living.

         When Jesus puts this ancient wisdom into his formation program for disciples, he suggests that his disciples will be people of action, not cautious, timid, frightened, mediocre, and inactive. These are not the qualities of Prudence. In fact, they are just the opposite. Prudence seeks the best way to do the right thing. The point is the DOING. It is a virtue of action, not of passive caution. Back in the 20 and 30s, a phenomenon of Christian action spread from Belgium and France to this country taking the form of what we called: “The Christian Family Movement”, or “CFM”. The heart of that program was simply the Virtue of Prudence reduced to three principals: “See, Judge, Act.” the passage of time may have left the CFM movement in the past, but not its wisdom. The obstacles to prudence are what Jesus confronts in his formation of disciples: procrastination, negligence, hesitation, inconsistency, rashness (like the people of the gospel we hear about tonight) and rationalization. These are all excuses for doing nothing or for doing the wrong thing.

         In terms of the Cardinal Virtues, Prudence is the first. Prudence enables one to avoid acting against justice because of greed or favorites. Prudence prevents one from acting against temperance by keeping good desires, like food or sex from running wild and taking control of our lives, or controlling wrong desires, like revenge. Prudence prevents one from acts against fortitude by finding a way between excessive fear and blind recklessness.

         We are called to be Prudent – which always means to be people of action: wise, accountable, reasonable, and responsible. The Prudent have a desire to discern. It is a serious issue for disciples of Jesus, this matter of Prudence. It guides and motivates the prophet. It always sees the big picture of life rather than just the little stuff. It is a way of living in relationship to others and to things that seeks the Will of God in all things. Prudent disciples know themselves, take time to reflect upon their experience, integrate and relate that experience to the experience of  others, to the Word of God, to the good of all, and to all the consequence of action. Prudent disciples ask questions, inquire, probe, wonder, and pray.

         They are also watchful. We hear of this in three wonderful parables. It is important to keep them together if we want to understand what the Jesus of Luke is teaching us about discipleship. We see it in the man who looks for the lost sheep. It is there in the woman who sweeps the house, and all the more obvious in the father who looks, waits, and watches for his son. The poor, joyful, humble, and prudent disciple is also watchful. Even when it makes no sense by the world’s values, the watch, the expectation, the hope, the wait, is never abandoned.

         That man looking for his lost sheep doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Never mind that to leave ninety-nine in danger and look for one opens him up for criticism and ridicule because the one that wanders is the one that always wanders. Never mind that he may have done it before. He goes off looking and watching to find. The woman looking for her coin is not concerned about anything except finding that coin. She goes about her business with single purpose, finding that coin. She would have swept anyway, but now she sweeps night and day to find that coin, uninterested in the fact that she had nine others just like it.

         The father is the focus of the third story, no matter what riches we may gain from reflection on the other characters. He is the focus of the story. He is the watchful one alert to his son’s return. He has not said to the rest of the household: “He’s always going to be that way, forget it.” He has not closed the door on the future, changed the locks on the house, nor cut off any hope of change, growth or reconciliation in himself, or the lost one. He is simply watchful, and because of it, he does not miss the chance he gets to have the party. I’ve wondered sometimes about that fatted calf. Was there always one being readied for a party, or was he living in watchful anticipation that it would be used for just this purpose?

         Watchful is the disciple of Jesus Christ. Never cutting off, never giving up hope, never living with that final and self-justifying attitude about another that says; “They’ll just always be that way.” “That’s the way they’ve always been, and they’re not going to change.” It’s like pulling down the garage door on hope, the ultimate conclusion and dismissal of hope. The disciple continues to be watchful and alert to any opportunity for finding anyone that is lost. No matter what others may say, not matter that others may come along to replace what has been lost. The disciple knows the loss and watches for the chance to seize and celebrate the return or reconciliation. What happened to us as a nation on 9-11, in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary, it really makes no difference who did it, and it takes no brains to know why. It is simply a matter of hate, which always drives people crazy. It makes no difference why. History will spend little time on that. What history will record and what matters most is what we do about it, and what we become because of it. It should come as no surprise to any living person that human beings are capable of great cruelty and evil, especially when driven by hatred, anger, and helplessness. Yet at the same time, great heroism and self-sacrifice out of love rises up in contrast. We can chose which behavior is more worthy of us as disciples of Jesus Christ. Rather than wondering “why”, perhaps we might wonder about what it is we are to become and therefore what we are to do consistent with our identity.

         In lives of the people of this gospel there is no effort to blame or punish the lamb or the son. There is one virtue that marks them all: Watchfulness. They look for and wait for the opportunity to restore the unity that is broken, and they never give up nor do anything to eliminate that opportunity. Always on the look-out, the disciple remains watchful and vigilant for every opportunity to extend the mercy of God and the embrace of God’s reign not only to those who are deserving, but to those some insist will never change, never be worthy, nor ever find their way home. For the celebration to begin, it takes two movements: one, the return and two the welcome. In neither case can there be a heart hardened by disappointment, anger, or stubbornness. For this grace we must pray, and in that effort, we find the lesson Jesus teaches about prayer as our final virtue this evening.

         Luke pulls a switch with this parable. I suspect that when Jesus used this parable, it was, like all his parables, about God, his “Father”. In which case, the point of the story was the judge, and the listener would been have drawn into a reflection upon the surprising figure who is moved by this persistent widow to provide the justice for which she pleads. Yet, when Luke tells the story it is not so clearly about the judge. In the context of the journey to Jerusalem the widow emerges as the story’s focus. She emerges as the prime figure for us in our reflection on the virtues tonight not because she is a widow, not because she is alone, not because she is woman, nor because she is an uneducated outcast without a name, wealth, land or power. But she emerges because, unlike others of her kind, she is persistent, constant, steady, and unbending in face of any obstacle. The virtue she offers disciples is the virtue of unrelenting hope. Again, it is not something you do, it is a virtue and a way of doing things. It means that prayer in the life of disciples is neither occasional nor convenient. It does not only rise up in time of trouble, but it is constant, steady, and persistently a part of every day and every moment.

         This kind of life, filled with prayer, is the clearest sign of faith. It is not about the “right” prayer, about devotions, or about the prayers of Christians, Jews, or Muslims. It is about a life style that is constantly prayerful, always lived in the presence of God, and seeing and relating all things to divine will and the divine presence. This kind of faith is not something taught in catechism or school, but something caught by attitude and example. It is the consequence of a God-centered life rooted in conviction and trust in a God who will never abandon or ignore those who entrust themselves to the divine power, care and mercy in prayer.

         It is because of the shift from self to God that perseverance in prayer becomes possible, because God who is utterly reliable, has pledged to hear prayers and has promised that those who ask receive, those who seek find and those who knock will find that no door shall be closed to them. In that kind of faith, persistent prayer becomes not only possible but a permanent practice in the life of the believer and disciple.

         The first witness to this truth is Jesus himself whose life is one of prayer that ultimately leads him through darkness, loneliness, death, and the grace to the ultimate victory of Justice. It can be no different then for his disciples. The judges of this world tell us “NO” and “GO AWAY”; but prayer in the style of this woman sustains our hope and renews the courage of all who cry for justice. If a corrupt and self-preserving judge will finally give way to the cry of that widow, how much easier will it be with a God of Mercy and Compassion?

         Poverty, Joy, Humility, Prudence, Watchfulness, and Persistence: the virtues of disciples, the gospel path to Jerusalem.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 12, 2005

Wednesday

Holiness and Prayer

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

“Two men went to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” this man, I tell you, went home again justified; the other did not. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, but anyone who humbles himself will be raised up. One of the rulers put this question to him, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not give false witness; Honor your father and your mother. He replied, I have kept all these since my earliest days. And when Jesus heard this he said, There is still one thing you lack. Sell everything you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. But when he head this he was overcome with sadness, for he was very rich.

         Jesus looked at him and said, How hard it is for those who have riches to make their way into the kingdom of God! Yes, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God. Those who were listening said, “In that case, who can be saved?” He replied, “Things that are impossible by human resources, are possible for God.”

Psalm

Preaching

It is not about Payer, Pharisees, nor Tax Collectors. When we start with that thinking, then we reveal that we think it’s about us. It isn’t. This is about God. It is about a God who forgives and justifies sinners. It is ultimately then about holiness. What is happening here on the road to Jerusalem is Luke’s effort to bring disciples to recognize that they are holy, and the point is that they are holy not by what they do, who they know, or where they are but simply because of who they are. Again, Luke is concerned with virtue, not behavior. This is a matter of attitude. 

There is nothing wrong with either prayer in this story. In fact, they are both reciting Psalms: the Pharisee is using Psalm 17 and the Tax Collector is using Psalm 34. The problem is not the prayer. The problem is the focus.  All the Pharisee can do is recite what he has done. His prayer is all about him. What the Tax Collector does is make God the center of his prayer. One has no room for God because he is so filled with his own accomplishments. The other acknowledges God as the source and ground of his life and hope. He is justified and holy, not the other one.

Disciples of Jesus Christ are a people who find holiness, not by what they do, 

but by the God who saves them, has mercy on them, and sees truth in their heart. What we hear in the parable is not just what these two men think of themselves. They also reveal what they think of God. The Pharisee regards God as something he deserves or earns: like stock in a corporation. It’s as though he is waiting for some special honor or privilege. The Tax Collector sees God as wholly other, as holiness, yet so in love with sinners like him that he could be pardoned. Disciples of Jesus Christ are a people justified and holy not because God owes them something, but because they have stood in truth before God and acknowledged their need and the inadequacy of their own deeds to save themselves. 

It is discomforting to recognize how much of the Pharisee there is in us, 

how quickly when sorrow comes we say: “Why has this happened to me? I go to Mass, I pray, I’m just and fair and good?  Why?” It’s a thinking that suggests that we have a right to expect favors, and if they don’t come, everything falls apart. 

This is not the disciple’s virtue. Disciples of Jesus Christ find holiness in the truth of their sinfulness and in God’s free gift to all who will come in that truth. 

It is not a matter of human achievement. In the new order Jesus came to inaugurate, it is the era of salvation and holiness experienced as a gift, not as a right. In such disciples then, righteousness is never about self, but always about the God who saves with mercy, forgiveness and love. As Disciples in formation then, we come humbly into this holy place acknowledging what God has done for us in spite of what we have failed to do, and we rejoice in what is promised to us and to all who seek and share mercy and forgiveness. We cling then to the hope that we shall go home today justified and give glory to God.

       In our search and hunger for holiness we run the constant risk of becoming religious freaks, idolatrous people who are caught up in success, comfort, luxury, prestige, promotions, and all that sort of thing. The culture of this stuff has reached into another generation, and we now have a whole population of privileged children that expect things to be perfect, immediate, bigger and better than ever before; and what’s worse is, they think they deserve it!

         But to them, and to us, the call comes again just as it always did, even to those wild fishermen who were tending the nets. The call of God is the call to the wild. The whole purpose of Christianity the purpose of discipleship is to teach us and dispose us to live wildly by sharing and participating in the wildness of God. That is why pious people are so bizarre. That is why dull, ordinary, moralistic, Christians make no sense. It takes imagination and a little wildness to throw in your lot with Jesus of Nazareth. That’s what was wrong with that rich young man who came up to Jesus and asked how to be perfect, and with the man who came up to be his follower, but had so much going on in his life, he needed time to get free. That rich young man had no imagination. He could not imagine living without all of his stuff. Give it away! Sell it? He couldn’t imagine that. He was comfortable and thought he ought to have more. The others were so busy: you know, the farm, the dead, his family, all that stuff —– he couldn’t imagine not having things all in order!  Well, God can……. it takes imagination and freedom to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

         In becoming, and that’s the issue — BECOMING — holiness happens. It’s a by-product, not something you do with a plan. We have confused holiness with morality, and we think that what we do makes us holy, when the truth is that it is us, the holy ones who make things holy. Yet, when we think that holiness is somehow a result of morality, we’ve got it all backwards; and we’re in denial of the truth that holiness leads to morality, not the other way around. Peter was a holy man, wild with God. Jumping out of that boat time and time again. (That took imagination!) Shooting off his mouth when he didn’t know what he was saying half the time, curing the lame, yet denying the Lord Jesus. The denial, his failure, his sin, did not take away his holiness, nor did it take him out of his role as leader of the apostolic community. It certainly seems to me that it’s the same for us. We are a holy people. We may sin, we may break the covenant, our promises, and even deny our relationship with one another but our holiness remains.

         More people die of an un-lived life than die from cancer, and it’s a much more dreadful kind of death. The one single characteristic of the disciples of Jesus that I recognize in the gospels is that they were not dull, uninteresting, and ordinary people. They were untutored, unschooled fishermen. They had been hanging around that wild desert man, John the Baptist, the greatest man of the Old Testament. His one great joy was to hear the voice of Christ. Once he heard it, it was all over. He lost his head! Our trouble is that we are pulled apart into a million different directions by puny pleasures, and we miss the infinite pleasure that would fill the whole heart. John refused to do that. John and those disciples were mystics – and those of us who are called to be disciples, Holy People, ought to be the same.

         REALIZED UNION WITH GOD – That’s mysticism. It’s our vocation. Everyone is called to be a mystic. That is someone who no longer knows God by hearsay, no longer by information, but by experience. That person is in touch with God and therefore with God’s world, and they are wild with that God and with that World. I would suggest that if anyone here is not well on the way to becoming a Mystic, they need more than a three day mission. Now I don’t mean a perfect mystic. I mean one who has begun to become a mystic. One who is immersed in the mystery, one who is engaged, who is enticed, who is enthralled, who is captivated by the living God.

         We’ve got to become mystics, and the important part of that is the becoming part. It is the human adventure – an ongoing process of becoming. It’s what makes humans different from everything else in creation. A rhinoceros has already, when recognized as a rhinoceros reached and archived the quintessence of rhinorocisity. That’s the difference. That never happens to human beings. If Francis lived a hundred years longer he would have become a hundred times more Franciscan. It’s true of us all. It goes on an on. There is nothing fixed, nothing static. The human adventure, this process of becoming, of entering into the Kingdom of God, of becoming eloquently, distinctively human goes on and on. That’s the beauty of it. If on earth we ever think we’re finished, we are. That’s how it is with your Baptism. You are a hundred times more Baptized, more Christian today than you were on the day of your baptism. It’s the same for me. I’m not a priest yet. There’s only one priest, Jesus Christ. I am becoming a priest. Every day, every hour, every effort, every mistake moves me a little more along the way to becoming more and more like Christ – “realized union with God” I’m not finished, and my only hope is that by the time I die, I’ll be enough like Christ that His Father will clam me as his own. It’s the same for you, those of you who are married. You are becoming one, one with each other, and by doing that in faith and in prayer, you become one with Christ who is the living, breathing heart of your marriage. You are becoming married. On the tenth anniversary of your lives together, you are more married than on the day of your wedding. On the fiftieth, you’re way more married. By that time, it’s probably hard for strangers to tell you apart as husband and wife. You don’t even need to talk anymore, you already know one another’s thoughts, and it’s not just because you are repeating yourself a lot by that time! It’s the same with Baptism. That’s the trouble with the fundamentalists around here. They think that once you’re dunked, you’re saved. Well, I’ve got news for them. I’m a lot more saved today than I was when I was baptized. The baptism of that baby back in 1942 just got things started – set me off in the direction of my life. Baptism, Marriage, Forgiveness, Holy Orders, all of these sacramental events and moments of our lives confirm what is already going on — our union with God. That’s mysticism! It is the essence of holiness. It is what we do, because it is in the end, what we are.

 

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn 

“

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 13, 2005

Thursday

Grateful and Repentant

Opening Hymn:

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

On his journey to Jerusalem Jesus passed along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. Keeping their distance, they raised their voices and said. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.! When he saw them, he responded, “God and show yourselves to the priest.” On their way there they were cured. One of them, realizing that he had been cured, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself on his face at the feet of Jesus and spoke his praises. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus took the occasion to say, “Were not all ten made whole? Where are the other nine? Was there no one to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?” He said to the man, “Stand up and go your way; your faith has been your salvation.” Then, upon entering Jericho, there was a man named Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector and a wealthy man. He was trying to see what Jesus was like, but being small of stature, was unable to do so because of the crowd. He first ran on in front then climbed a sycamore tree which was along Jesus’ route in order to see him. When Jesus came to the spot he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down. I mean to stay at your house today.” He quickly descended, and welcomed him with delight. When this was observed, everyone began to murmur, “He has gone to a sinner’s house as a guest.” Zacchaeus stood his ground and said to the Lord: “I give half my belongings, Lord, to the poor. If I have defrauded anyone in the least, I pay him back fourfold.” Jesus said to him; “Today salvation has come to this house, for this is what it means to be a son of Abraham. The Son of Man has come to search out and save what was lost.”

Psalm:

Preaching

Where there is faith, there is healing. That is the issue here. Where there is faith, there is healing. This healing is not limited to the “right” people, and it knows nothing of boarders and boundaries. Faith knows no boundaries. With Jesus Christ, there are no boarders, and with his disciples, there are no boundaries when it comes to service a share in healing grace. There are no boundaries when it comes to restoring those who have been excluded, but boundaries is not exactly what this is all about, and this first story, told on the way to Jerusalem, puts before us a contrast from which we may draw another of a disciple’s virtues.

Luke proposes here a distinction between the nine and the one: a distinction we might describe as physical healing and spiritual healing. Notice that the healing of physical infirmity did not bring salvation. Although the nine who did not return to Jesus were cured physically, there is no mention at all of their spiritual healing or “salvation.” On the other hand, the one who returns to Jesus, the one who acknowledges what God had done for him through Jesus Christ is the one who is saved by faith. Because of his gratitude, by which he gave evidence of his faith, this grateful leper was enabled to experience salvation beyond his physical cure.

It is the gratitude that Luke singles out as a virtue to be found in disciples of Jesus Christ. In Luke’s thought, the grateful recognition of God’s initiative that brings healing and salvation is the surest sign of faith. One’s faith is confirmed by the witness of Gratitude. Without it, there is no assurance of Salvation.

Faith for the disciple of Jesus is not a matter of rules kept nor prayers said. It is a matter of Gratitude in response to the initiative God has taken on our behalf. Disciples are Grateful, that’s all there is to it. They recognize what God has done for them. They return again and again to the feet of the master and “speak his praises.” as the Gospel describes it. This is a public recognition. Please take note. It is not something the leper does quietly in his heart or at home in his room. This “gratitude,” found in a disciple of Jesus, moves one to public recognition and acknowledgment of one’s gratitude. This is why we are here, in this public place rather than at home. The disciple of Jesus is grateful in an open, public say. The disciple of Jesus is found at the master’s feet giving praise and thanks. Gratitude, for a disciple of Jesus is a way of life, not a passing emotion. It is a life-changing conversion as public as a known leper throwing himself at the feet of Jesus Christ in a Samaritan town. We are not talking personal, private stuff here. Disciples formed on this pilgrimage to Jerusalem are a people who have known what it means to be accepted, included, healed, saved, and graced by a God who ignores all boundaries, and their gratitude is contagious.

We are at journey’s end, and we find ourselves right where we started which is the human story. We began in Paradise, and by God’s love, we end up in the paradise of heaven once again united in joy with the one who has been with us all along. As Jesus completes his journey to Jerusalem, the final encounter happens at the edge of Jerusalem, at Jericho, that place where Moses led a victorious people into the land they were promised. This who journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel has the most wonderful conclusion. This visit to the house of Zacchaeus was not a delay or a detour on his journey. This visit was and is the very purpose of the journey. “The Son of man came to seek and save what was lost.” Luke will get Jesus to Jerusalem in a couple of verses; but that city is not where Jesus is going. He is headed for our homes to stay with us, be with us, live with us, and die with us.

Zacchaeus stands before us in sharp contrast to that crowd who can’t quite see Jesus because they are too busy looking at and criticizing Zacchaeus. They have shut him out, and in their critique of his life, they have also shut out Jesus. Zacchaeus, unlike the crowd that can see Jesus, wants to see Jesus, and is willing to go to some inconvenience and take some risk to do so. Never mind his dignity, stature, or what he might look like in the eyes of others, he will see Jesus, and he will do whatever it takes; and Jesus sees him. You can almost see the two of them walking away from the whispering, accusing, blaming crowd who do not hear themselves called “Children of Abraham”, and will find no salvation in their homes. It is the crowd that is indicted by this story. They were so put off by their suppositions concerning Zacchaeus that they failed to “see” that in terms of the righteousness of God they were as “lost” as anyone, and were diverted from “seeing” Jesus and gladly welcoming him to their salvation.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus announces three times that salvation has come. First at the synagogue when his turn came and he rolled up the scroll, sat down, and said: “Today this message of salvation is being fulfilled (4:30)” It happened in Nazareth and it caused a riot. Then, he says it a second time in today’s passage in Jericho. He will say it one more time to a condemned dying thief hanging at his side (23:42). What it takes to experience this “salvation” is seen in these two who are outside the symbolic synagogue: Repentance. In Zacchaeus we see it best and understand what it means. The virtue as Luke explores it is not something Zacchaeus did, but something he became that brought other consequences. Luke’s Gospel of Grace is joined to Repentance, and this Repentance is not solely a transaction of the heart. It isn’t just feelings. Repentance bears fruit: this was made clear as early as the in the preaching of John the Baptist as soldiers and tax collectors came to him in repentance asking: “What shall we do?”

A life of repentance bears fruit, not only for the household of Zacchaeus, but also for the poor who will be beneficiaries of his conversion and, as well, those people who he may have defrauded. Repentance has more than personal effects. There is a domestic, social, and economic dimension as well. In Luke, salvation is not simply a matter of the soul. It touches the whole human family and the whole fabric of human life. In the great, soon-to-unfold story of Jesus and the cross, the presence of the Risen Christ makes noble and holy the home and the table of the faithful disciple. It happened in Jericho, it happened in Emmaus, and it can happen here if we will be his disciples.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Confessions Conclude the evening.

Fowler, Indiana

October 10, 2005

Monday

Pilgrimage, Poverty, Joy, Humility

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

Introduction:

         At the fifty-first verse of Chapter 9 in the Gospel of Luke, something really important happens in the sequence of that Gospel providing us with a remarkable opportunity. From that point on until verse twenty-eight of Chapter 19 Luke gathers all the instructions of Jesus to his disciples into one grand sermon or “course on discipleship.” What it takes to be a follower of Jesus unfolds in these ten chapters in a clear and decisive sequence of discussions, events, and parables. This “Journey to Jerusalem” is where we go when we want to know what it takes and how to measure our readiness to be followers of Jesus Christ. In fact, the journey took longer than four days, and what is about to happen here will only be a first glance at the qualities or the virtues of disciples as Jesus would have it. Your own reading of those ten chapters over these next four days will be helpful and fill in much of what cannot be said and done here this week. It all begins with Chapter 9 verse 21: “Now it happened that as the time drew near for him to be taken up, he turned his face towards Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him.” Then it concludes as we shall on Thursday night at verse 28 of Chapter 19 with these words: “When he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.” At that point, he must feel as though he has done and said all he can to prepare us for our lives together as his disciples. For those of us who remain, who have been called to fulfill his mission, the instructions given on this journey shape and form us to be worthy of our calling, of our gifts, and of this mission.

It is all set in the context of a pilgrimage, this “Journey to Jerusalem”, and that is what you have been invited to do this week: make a pilgrimage. I don’t know if you’ve ever done that in a formal way, but I have done so several times as both pilgrim and as leader. This week, I’ll be pilgrim with you once again, at the same time I will be leader for you pointing out the sights along the way, sharing with you their meaning, their purpose, and their power to accomplish what every pilgrimage does. Pilgrims and tourists are not the same thing. Tourists travel for rest and recreation. They go to look and wonder at the natural wonders of this earth or to sample another culture. On the other hand, pilgrims travel to fuel a spiritual quest. A sacred pilgrimage is a journey seeking answers to questions of meaning, purpose, and eternity. They do not seek fulfillment in things that will never satisfy. They seek what the heart desires most of all; God’s presence. Tourists seek entertainment and adventure. Pilgrims desire happiness and self awareness in communion with God. The tourist tries to figure out how to see as much as possible in the time permitted. The pilgrim wants to discover the highest good and figure out how to form habits that achieve the goal.

If any of us are going to be followers of Jesus, then we have to know how to follow. It means learning and using the discipline of trusting God’s plan for my life. That means believing that every detail about who I am and about my day was given to me by a God who loves me and whose vision of the world needs me. A pilgrimage then ultimately teaches us that the meaning of life is found not at the end of the journey but in the journey itself. What matters with a pilgrimage is not the destination, but what happens along the way: conversion brought about by a new experience of God. In that sense, life itself then is a pilgrimage toward God which leads the pilgrim to the heart of our faith, Jesus Christ, our Savior and source of all holiness. So, if you’ll come with me, we’re going on a pilgrimage this week; a symbolic journey into discipleship, into faith, into forgiveness and healing. Our map is the Lukan Journey Narrative. We’ll make some stops along the way each night to reflect upon the virtues of a true disciples; the habits of life, the attitudes, and the behavior that will ultimately bring us to the end of life’s journey, to “Jerusalem” as Luke and Jesus call it; to “heaven” as we better know it. So listen now to Luke, our guide along the way.

The Gospel Text is read.

“He called the twelve together and gave them power and authority over all devils and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal. He said to them, “Take nothing for the journey: neither staff, nor haversack, nor bread, nor money; and do not have a spare tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there; and when you leave let your departure be from there. As for those who do not welcome you, when you leave their towns shake the dust from your feet as evidence against them. So they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and healing everywhere. On their return the apostles gave him an account of all they had done. Then he took them with him and withdrew towards a town called Bethsaida where they could be by themselves. 

“Then it happened that the time drew near from him to be taken up, he turned his face towards Jerusalem and sent messengers ahead of him. These set out, and they went into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him, but the people would not receive him because he was making for Jerusalem. Seeing this, the disciples, James and John said, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to burn them up?” But he turned and rebuked them, and they went on to another village.

“As they traveled along they met a man on the road who said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go. Jesus answered, “Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’ Another to whom he said, “Follow me, replied, “Let me go and bury my father and spread the news of the Kingdom of God.” Another said, “I will follow you, sir, but first let me go and say good-bye to my people at home.” Jesus said to him, “Once the hand is laid on the plough, no one who looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him in pairs, to all the towns and places he himself would be visiting. And he said to them, “The harvest is rich but the laborers are few, so ask the Lord of the harvest to send laborers to do his harvesting. Start off now, but look I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Take no purse with you, no haversack, no sandals. Salute no one on the road. Whatever house you enter, let your first words be, “Peace to this house!” And if a man of peace lives there, your peace will go and rest on him; if not, it will come back to you. Stay in the same house, taking what food and drink they have to offer, for the laborer deserves his wages; do not move from house to house. Whenever you go into town where they make you welcome, eat what is put before you. Cure those who are sick, and say, “The Kingdom of God is very near to you.” But whenever you enter a town and they do not make you welcome, go out into its streets and say, “We wipe off the very dust of your town that clings to our feet, and leave it with you. Yet be sure of this: the kingdom of God is very near. I tell you, on the great Day it will be more bearable for Sodom than for that town. Anyone who listens to you listens to me; anyone who rejects you rejects me, and those who reject me reject the one who sent me.

“The seventy-two came back rejoicing. “Lord”, they said, “even the devils submit to us when we use your name. He said to them, “I watched Satan fall like lightening from heaven. Look, I have given you power to tread down serpents and scorpions and the whole strength of the enemy; nothing shall ever hurt you. Yet do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you; rejoice instead that your names are written in heaven.

“Now it happened that on a Sabbath day he had gone to share a meal in the house of one of the leading Pharisees; and they watched him closely. He then told the guests a parable. When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take your seat in the place of honor. A more distinguished person than you may have been invited, and the person who invited you both may come and say “Give up your place to this man.” And then to your embarrassment, you will have to go and take the lowest place. No; when you are a guest, make your way to the lowest place and sit there, so that, when your host comes, he may say, “My friend, move up higher.” Then, everyone with you at the table will see you honored. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be raised up.

“Then he said to the host, ”When you give a lunch or dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relations or rich neighbor, in case they invite you back and so repay you. ‘No; when you have a party, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, then you will be blessed, for they have no means to repay you and so you will be repaid when the upright rise again. Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. None of you can be my disciple without giving up all that he owns.”

The Gospel of the Lord.

Psalm 34 as on Sunday 30 in Ordinary Time Cycle C

Preaching

         It is important to see and realize the difference between the two groups sent out by Jesus; the difference in their tasks and in their identity. It is also helpful to realize the similarities. The first group is sent out in place of Jesus. They are sent to do what he has done. The second group is sent out to prepare for Jesus. He is going to follow them. Both groups return to him and give an accounting of their mission. It is the first group he takes aside and begins to instruct along the way to Jerusalem. While we have something important to learn from both groups, it is the first group, “The Twelve” with which must identify. For we live in their tradition. We are the “apostolic” church that now continues to live and to be the mission of Jesus Christ. To be faithful to that mission, to be His presence to the world, and to be effective in our calling, there are some qualities that must be found in us, and the first of them is Poverty.

         These people called by Jesus are not asked to take on an extra task like working a second job. They are to make following Jesus everything; so completely that it reorders all other duties. It becomes who we are, “Christians”. It becomes how we must examine and order our lives. So, if we are parents, we are Christian parents. If we are husband or wife, we are Christian mother or wife. If we are child, then we are a child of God like Jesus was a child of God. If we are teacher, a doctor, a professional of any kind, we are a Christian teacher, or a Christian doctor. Belonging to Jesus is not a part time job or a temporary condition. It is an identity.

         In this first look at the virtues of a disciple, at the qualities that provide for this identity, Luke holds up Poverty, Joy, and Humility as the fundamental qualities of life for those who would follow Jesus. Our best and purest model of poverty is St. Francis. In the clarity of his thinking if not in the radical style of his life, Francis understood poverty. For him, and for that matter, all of us who set our sights on being followers and disciples of Jesus, Poverty is not a social problem. To get that right, we must understand that there are two different “poverties.” One is a life style chosen, the other is a life style imposed. One is a consequence of freedom, the other is a consequence of injustice. They are not the same. The first is always a virtue, not some ill to be solved, cured, and wiped away by laws and social programs. The poverty, which makes us uneasy, stirs our passion, and calls into question our economics, laws, and consumer culture is an issue of Justice. The Poverty which Jesus commends to his followers, is a mystery to be lived, not a problem to be solved. One is the consequence of injustice, the other is a consequence of a life style and a new way of relating to things and to others.

         In our quest for Justice, we have gotten a few things mixed up, not the least of them is a confusion of “justice” with “revenge”. We must be vigilant about allowing that confusion to motivate our decisions and behavior. Jesus rejects revenge entirely.

         There is a test of poverty. It has nothing to do with annual income. It has to do with what can be shared. If your car is too expensive to let someone use it; it is too expensive. If your computer is too delicate for anyone else to use, it is too delicate. If your sweater is too good for another to wear, it is too good. The point is not that you have a certain make and model of car, or computer, or designer sweater. That is irrelevant. If any of that separates you from your neighbor, it is a violation of poverty. This has nothing to do with what you may own, but the moment it becomes a problem, you are in gospel trouble. You see? It is not about justice, it is about poverty. It might be very “just” to say that someone does not have the ear to use your stereo because they do not share your same refined taste. It might be “just” to think that someone is too overweight to look good in your sweater. All of that may be true. But at that point, you are not poor you are simply true. The moment you start finding reasons for not sharing what you have, you are no longer living the virtue of poverty, which Jesus proposes is essential for those who would follow him. You may have good taste, You may have good sense. You may be law abiding, honest, and truthful, but you are not poor; and you are in trouble with the gospel.

         We are not called to be caseworkers. We are not called to be making distinctions about who should have what, who deserves what, and what will help someone and what will not. That is what social agencies do. God is poor. God shares the sun and the rain on good and bad alike. What is asked of us is compassion, which is an experience of poverty.

         Life today is very complicated, but the Gospel is not complicated for those who believe. Jesus still looks for some to follow him, to live in the mystery of poverty. It is not a life style that will take diluting, and it cannot be done part time. Faith in Jesus, like in the Gospel is not for Church, Sunday, or times of private prayer. It is for every day and every hour. It is everything. We do not take our lives and fit them into the Gospel. We take the Gospel and let it shape our lives, our priorities, our vision, and our relationships. Those who make the way of Jesus their own must be willing to do so first, fully, freely, and forever.

         Notice how Jesus sends out these people ahead of him: in pairs and with nothing. They are poor, but they are not alone. With nothing to worry about, nothing to lose, nothing to pack, carry, or slow them down, they are free, and that quality of freedom from worry and the possessive concerns that seems to weigh down the rich who’s stuff is too good to loan or share, is called: Joy.

         Notice that attitude in the disciples of these gospel verses. “They returned rejoicing. But lest we think that their joy has something to do with what they have done, Jesus goes on immediately to say: “Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice because your names are written in heaven.” It is who they are, not what they do that matters that makes them disciples, and fulfills their mission. Being task oriented as we have become in our culture, we often get the what mixed up with the who. It is then easy to begin to shape our identity by what we do rather than by who we are.

         Recently I was listening to a eulogy during which someone was speaking about the deceased. On and on it went about what the man had done, where he worked, who for, and for how long. Inside I was groaning because that was not who this was, that was what he did, and the man we were honoring was far more than where he worked which to me seemed totally insignificant since I never knew the man before he retired!

         We are forever selling ourselves to the tasks of life, measuring our worth or the worth of another by what we earn, where we work what we have accomplished, what we drive and how big our house is. This way of thinking is at odds with the Christian message, and it finds its way in our reflection and our thinking about who we are as disciples. In other words, we begin to think of discipleship as something we do, as something with very serious duties and responsibilities, and while that is an element, it is not all there is to it. When that become all there is, we are stuck, and discipleship is reduced to just another thing we are supposed to do, sort of like another job or chore added on to the rest of life.

         What we can discover from this tenth chapter of Luke’s Gospel is another way of looking at one another and ourselves in the context of discipleship rather than in the context of consumer or producer. There is more to this calling than something we must do. Being a disciple is what we must become, and that happens first by what we are, not by what we do. It is important to realize that these people sent out by Jesus have no names. So we must not think that he is sending out Peter, James, and John – those “others”. Luke would have us understand that all are sent this way – on a mission of discipleship. All are given the divine command. What Christ wants is that others will see Him in us. “Then God said: “Let us make humankind in our own image. according to our likeness.” Our calling is to act in God’s behalf, to represent God until he comes in glory.

         But what does this world get? What kind of God do we represent – what is the image this world gets of God from us? It is a profound and a troubling question. A world that longs for a loving, forgiving, God of mercy too often gets a God of judgment, revenge, and punishment, a God of rules and laws. Is that the God we believe in, trust, and hope for? The poor world gets intolerance and impatience. Where is the God we pray to and ask for mercy with confident expectations? Why is it that others cannot find in us the image of the God we want for ourselves? I think it is because we don’t get the point – fail to understand discipleship and continue to reduce it to tasks, duties, and responsibilities. 

As disciples, we are called to be poor, and the consequence of that poverty when we have embraced it is Joy, because we are free of anxious concerns and worry about things that have nothing to do with who we are; that have nothing to do with the wonderful news that our names are written in heaven. This Joy that is the quality Luke insists Jesus would have in those who are his presence is not the same as “Happiness.” When any of us rip into a brightly colored and beautifully wrapped gift that comes as a surprise or at Christmas, when we open it and find something we have wanted and put off getting we are happy. But happiness comes and happiness goes. It is its nature. It is a response to pleasure. Not so with Joy. The virtue of Joy does not come and go. It has nothing to do with pleasure or satisfaction. It has to do with freedom and with faith.

Joy is what allows us to stand in the face of disappointment and not be put down. Joy is what allows us to open a gift and find the box empty, smile, and laugh. Joy is what sustains us in hope when there are no more presents to unwrap. Joy is the life of God in the heart of those who love. Joy is possible for those who know and believe that God loves them and that God’s gifts are without end.

         Finally, those schooled by Jesus are rooted in an ancient wisdom and tradition called: Humility which means knowing one’s rightful place in the reign of God. Humility is a companion of Poverty, just like Joy. In the ancient world, and still too much so in this world, guests would be seated according to their status or importance in society, and it was a highly stratified society where places at table carried great social weight. It was a serious matter if one judged their place incorrectly. Rank and Status were based upon comparisons with others. The Kingdom protocol that Jesus announces on the way to Jerusalem clearly marks a shift from the Mediterranean world’s custom of reciprocity and social standing.

         We live with the art of being politically correct which teaches that we should bend or skirt the truth in order to avoid conflict. We’ve learned the lesson that we establish our identity and measure our wroth and success by comparing ourselves with others. “The more you have the better you are.” The more power, you wield, the stronger you are; and the more control you have, the more successful you become. The radical and revolutionary character of the Kingdom of God sees wealth and possessions as gifts of God, not a privilege or right of status or family.

         The Humble find their sense of self and their identity in God, not in comparison with another like themselves. This humility leads one to service, not to power. The humble are free, free from fear and free from clinging to fame and fortune, which stifle depth and development.

         Part of this lesson for disciples is addressed to guests and part to hosts. In speaking to guests, Luke suggests that humility is not a matter of pretending that one is “not worthy? but rather facing the truth that all is gift, and the only proper attitude is to be grateful. The proud think they are worth more because of achievements, status, wealth, or power; all of which they may well have. Yet they miss the point: all these things they have are for the service of others – for no other purpose whatsoever. The tone of this story is drawn from the threat of the end time; and we are reminded that we take nothing from this life but our relationship. 

         In speaking to hosts, the message comes from a different perspective. Inviting the right people to dinner is crucial. For the host, humility calls for a guest list that includes the hungry. The people around the humble table are those who, in truth, need to be there. The host invites them, not because of what they can give to the host either by way of a return favor or by way of being looked upon as a “saint”; but rather the humble host knows the truth that what worldly possessions they may have are in their possessions not because they are better than anyone else, but because they have been chosen to be instruments of God’s love and where there is love, there is God.

         Poverty, Joy, Humility: three virtues of disciples. Without them we have no hope of getting to Jerusalem; without them we have no hope of completing the mission to which we are called.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn: “All you who are thirsty, come to the water.” #644 Ritual Song

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 11, 2005

Tuesday

Prudence, Watchfulness, Persistence

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

“Great crowds accompanied him on his way and he turned and spoke to them. Anyone who comes to me without hating father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, cannot be my disciple. No one who does not carry his cross and come after me can be my disciple.

Indeed, which of you here, intending to build a tower, would not first sit down and work out the cost to see if he had enough to complete it? Otherwise, if he laid the foundation and then found himself unable to finish the work, anyone who saw it would start making fun of him and saying, “Here is someone who started to build and was unable to finish.” Or again, what king marching to war against another king would not first sit down and consider whether with the thousand men he could stand up to the other who was advancing against him with twenty thousand? If not, then while the other king was still a long way off, he would send envoys to sue for peace. 

Which one of you with a hundred sheep, if he lost one, would fail to leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the missing one till he found it? And when he fount it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbors saying to them, “Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep that was lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repenting than over ninety-nine upright people who have no need of repentance.

Or again, what woman with ten drachmas would not, if she lost one, light a lamp and sweep out the house and search thoroughly till she found it? And then, when she had found it, call together her friends and neighbors, saying to them, “Rejoice with me, I have found the drachma I lost.” In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.”

Then he said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.

When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch; so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled himself with the husks the pigs were eating but no one would let him have them. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s hired men have all the food they want and more, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men. So he left the place and went back to his father.

While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. Then his son said: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we will celebrate by having a feast because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate. 

Then he told them about a judge in a certain town who had neither fear of God nor respect for anyone. In the same town there was also a widow who kept on coming to him and saying, “I want justice from you against my enemy!” For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Even though I have neither fear of God nor respect for any human person, I must give this widow her just rights since she keeps pestering me, or she will come and do me harm.”

Psalm 

Preaching

         At first we might think that Luke has Jesus talking about commitment and the consequent renouncing of all things, or that he’s inviting the disciple to take up a cross. However that may be, those ideas fail to dig beneath the words and get behind examples.  When you do that, you can begin to understand that we are being led into virtue as a quality of life rather than behavior. Remember, first discipleship is about being something, then, from that comes the doing of something. In fact, the very effort to get that straight in our minds is what it’s all about. The disciple is always asking: “What kind of person shall I be? rather than: “What shall I do?” The doing will take care of itself once the being is in place. So, from what Jesus has to say at this stop on the way to Jerusalem is that those who would be his disciples will be Prudent.

         Those of us schooled in any Christian spirituality will immediately recall those “Cardinal Virtues” we may have once learned: Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. They come to us from the Book of Wisdom chapter 9, verse 7. “If one loves justice, the fruits of her works are virtues; for she teaches moderation and prudence, justice and fortitude, and nothing in life is more useful than these.” Ancient Greeks, Thomas Aquinas, Augustine and Bernard of Clairveaux all developed thought about these virtues as central to good moral living.

         When Jesus puts this ancient wisdom into his formation program for disciples, he suggests that his disciples will be people of action, not cautious, timid, frightened, mediocre, and inactive. These are not the qualities of Prudence. In fact, they are just the opposite. Prudence seeks the best way to do the right thing. The point is the DOING. It is a virtue of action, not of passive caution. Back in the 20 and 30s, a phenomenon of Christian action spread from Belgium and France to this country taking the form of what we called: “The Christian Family Movement”, or “CFM”. The heart of that program was simply the Virtue of Prudence reduced to three principals: “See, Judge, Act.” the passage of time may have left the CFM movement in the past, but not its wisdom. The obstacles to prudence are what Jesus confronts in his formation of disciples: procrastination, negligence, hesitation, inconsistency, rashness (like the people of the gospel we hear about tonight) and rationalization. These are all excuses for doing nothing or for doing the wrong thing.

         In terms of the Cardinal Virtues, Prudence is the first. Prudence enables one to avoid acting against justice because of greed or favorites. Prudence prevents one from acting against temperance by keeping good desires, like food or sex from running wild and taking control of our lives, or controlling wrong desires, like revenge. Prudence prevents one from acts against fortitude by finding a way between excessive fear and blind recklessness.

         We are called to be Prudent – which always means to be people of action: wise, accountable, reasonable, and responsible. The Prudent have a desire to discern. It is a serious issue for disciples of Jesus, this matter of Prudence. It guides and motivates the prophet. It always sees the big picture of life rather than just the little stuff. It is a way of living in relationship to others and to things that seeks the Will of God in all things. Prudent disciples know themselves, take time to reflect upon their experience, integrate and relate that experience to the experience of  others, to the Word of God, to the good of all, and to all the consequence of action. Prudent disciples ask questions, inquire, probe, wonder, and pray.

         They are also watchful. We hear of this in three wonderful parables. It is important to keep them together if we want to understand what the Jesus of Luke is teaching us about discipleship. We see it in the man who looks for the lost sheep. It is there in the woman who sweeps the house, and all the more obvious in the father who looks, waits, and watches for his son. The poor, joyful, humble, and prudent disciple is also watchful. Even when it makes no sense by the world’s values, the watch, the expectation, the hope, the wait, is never abandoned.

         That man looking for his lost sheep doesn’t care what anyone else thinks. Never mind that to leave ninety-nine in danger and look for one opens him up for criticism and ridicule because the one that wanders is the one that always wanders. Never mind that he may have done it before. He goes off looking and watching to find. The woman looking for her coin is not concerned about anything except finding that coin. She goes about her business with single purpose, finding that coin. She would have swept anyway, but now she sweeps night and day to find that coin, uninterested in the fact that she had nine others just like it.

         The father is the focus of the third story, no matter what riches we may gain from reflection on the other characters. He is the focus of the story. He is the watchful one alert to his son’s return. He has not said to the rest of the household: “He’s always going to be that way, forget it.” He has not closed the door on the future, changed the locks on the house, nor cut off any hope of change, growth or reconciliation in himself, or the lost one. He is simply watchful, and because of it, he does not miss the chance he gets to have the party. I’ve wondered sometimes about that fatted calf. Was there always one being readied for a party, or was he living in watchful anticipation that it would be used for just this purpose?

         Watchful is the disciple of Jesus Christ. Never cutting off, never giving up hope, never living with that final and self-justifying attitude about another that says; “They’ll just always be that way.” “That’s the way they’ve always been, and they’re not going to change.” It’s like pulling down the garage door on hope, the ultimate conclusion and dismissal of hope. The disciple continues to be watchful and alert to any opportunity for finding anyone that is lost. No matter what others may say, not matter that others may come along to replace what has been lost. The disciple knows the loss and watches for the chance to seize and celebrate the return or reconciliation. What happened to us as a nation on 9-11, in spite of the rhetoric to the contrary, it really makes no difference who did it, and it takes no brains to know why. It is simply a matter of hate, which always drives people crazy. It makes no difference why. History will spend little time on that. What history will record and what matters most is what we do about it, and what we become because of it. It should come as no surprise to any living person that human beings are capable of great cruelty and evil, especially when driven by hatred, anger, and helplessness. Yet at the same time, great heroism and self-sacrifice out of love rises up in contrast. We can chose which behavior is more worthy of us as disciples of Jesus Christ. Rather than wondering “why”, perhaps we might wonder about what it is we are to become and therefore what we are to do consistent with our identity.

         In lives of the people of this gospel there is no effort to blame or punish the lamb or the son. There is one virtue that marks them all: Watchfulness. They look for and wait for the opportunity to restore the unity that is broken, and they never give up nor do anything to eliminate that opportunity. Always on the look-out, the disciple remains watchful and vigilant for every opportunity to extend the mercy of God and the embrace of God’s reign not only to those who are deserving, but to those some insist will never change, never be worthy, nor ever find their way home. For the celebration to begin, it takes two movements: one, the return and two the welcome. In neither case can there be a heart hardened by disappointment, anger, or stubbornness. For this grace we must pray, and in that effort, we find the lesson Jesus teaches about prayer as our final virtue this evening.

         Luke pulls a switch with this parable. I suspect that when Jesus used this parable, it was, like all his parables, about God, his “Father”. In which case, the point of the story was the judge, and the listener would been have drawn into a reflection upon the surprising figure who is moved by this persistent widow to provide the justice for which she pleads. Yet, when Luke tells the story it is not so clearly about the judge. In the context of the journey to Jerusalem the widow emerges as the story’s focus. She emerges as the prime figure for us in our reflection on the virtues tonight not because she is a widow, not because she is alone, not because she is woman, nor because she is an uneducated outcast without a name, wealth, land or power. But she emerges because, unlike others of her kind, she is persistent, constant, steady, and unbending in face of any obstacle. The virtue she offers disciples is the virtue of unrelenting hope. Again, it is not something you do, it is a virtue and a way of doing things. It means that prayer in the life of disciples is neither occasional nor convenient. It does not only rise up in time of trouble, but it is constant, steady, and persistently a part of every day and every moment.

         This kind of life, filled with prayer, is the clearest sign of faith. It is not about the “right” prayer, about devotions, or about the prayers of Christians, Jews, or Muslims. It is about a life style that is constantly prayerful, always lived in the presence of God, and seeing and relating all things to divine will and the divine presence. This kind of faith is not something taught in catechism or school, but something caught by attitude and example. It is the consequence of a God-centered life rooted in conviction and trust in a God who will never abandon or ignore those who entrust themselves to the divine power, care and mercy in prayer.

         It is because of the shift from self to God that perseverance in prayer becomes possible, because God who is utterly reliable, has pledged to hear prayers and has promised that those who ask receive, those who seek find and those who knock will find that no door shall be closed to them. In that kind of faith, persistent prayer becomes not only possible but a permanent practice in the life of the believer and disciple.

         The first witness to this truth is Jesus himself whose life is one of prayer that ultimately leads him through darkness, loneliness, death, and the grace to the ultimate victory of Justice. It can be no different then for his disciples. The judges of this world tell us “NO” and “GO AWAY”; but prayer in the style of this woman sustains our hope and renews the courage of all who cry for justice. If a corrupt and self-preserving judge will finally give way to the cry of that widow, how much easier will it be with a God of Mercy and Compassion?

         Poverty, Joy, Humility, Prudence, Watchfulness, and Persistence: the virtues of disciples, the gospel path to Jerusalem.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 12, 2005

Wednesday

Holiness and Prayer

Opening Hymn: 

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

“Two men went to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like everyone else, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” this man, I tell you, went home again justified; the other did not. For everyone who raises himself up will be humbled, but anyone who humbles himself will be raised up. One of the rulers put this question to him, “Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill; you shall not steal; you shall not give false witness; Honor your father and your mother. He replied, I have kept all these since my earliest days. And when Jesus heard this he said, There is still one thing you lack. Sell everything you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. But when he head this he was overcome with sadness, for he was very rich.

         Jesus looked at him and said, How hard it is for those who have riches to make their way into the kingdom of God! Yes, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for someone rich to enter the kingdom of God. Those who were listening said, “In that case, who can be saved?” He replied, “Things that are impossible by human resources, are possible for God.”

Psalm

Preaching

It is not about Payer, Pharisees, nor Tax Collectors. When we start with that thinking, then we reveal that we think it’s about us. It isn’t. This is about God. It is about a God who forgives and justifies sinners. It is ultimately then about holiness. What is happening here on the road to Jerusalem is Luke’s effort to bring disciples to recognize that they are holy, and the point is that they are holy not by what they do, who they know, or where they are but simply because of who they are. Again, Luke is concerned with virtue, not behavior. This is a matter of attitude. 

There is nothing wrong with either prayer in this story. In fact, they are both reciting Psalms: the Pharisee is using Psalm 17 and the Tax Collector is using Psalm 34. The problem is not the prayer. The problem is the focus.  All the Pharisee can do is recite what he has done. His prayer is all about him. What the Tax Collector does is make God the center of his prayer. One has no room for God because he is so filled with his own accomplishments. The other acknowledges God as the source and ground of his life and hope. He is justified and holy, not the other one.

Disciples of Jesus Christ are a people who find holiness, not by what they do, 

but by the God who saves them, has mercy on them, and sees truth in their heart. What we hear in the parable is not just what these two men think of themselves. They also reveal what they think of God. The Pharisee regards God as something he deserves or earns: like stock in a corporation. It’s as though he is waiting for some special honor or privilege. The Tax Collector sees God as wholly other, as holiness, yet so in love with sinners like him that he could be pardoned. Disciples of Jesus Christ are a people justified and holy not because God owes them something, but because they have stood in truth before God and acknowledged their need and the inadequacy of their own deeds to save themselves. 

It is discomforting to recognize how much of the Pharisee there is in us, 

how quickly when sorrow comes we say: “Why has this happened to me? I go to Mass, I pray, I’m just and fair and good?  Why?” It’s a thinking that suggests that we have a right to expect favors, and if they don’t come, everything falls apart. 

This is not the disciple’s virtue. Disciples of Jesus Christ find holiness in the truth of their sinfulness and in God’s free gift to all who will come in that truth. 

It is not a matter of human achievement. In the new order Jesus came to inaugurate, it is the era of salvation and holiness experienced as a gift, not as a right. In such disciples then, righteousness is never about self, but always about the God who saves with mercy, forgiveness and love. As Disciples in formation then, we come humbly into this holy place acknowledging what God has done for us in spite of what we have failed to do, and we rejoice in what is promised to us and to all who seek and share mercy and forgiveness. We cling then to the hope that we shall go home today justified and give glory to God.

       In our search and hunger for holiness we run the constant risk of becoming religious freaks, idolatrous people who are caught up in success, comfort, luxury, prestige, promotions, and all that sort of thing. The culture of this stuff has reached into another generation, and we now have a whole population of privileged children that expect things to be perfect, immediate, bigger and better than ever before; and what’s worse is, they think they deserve it!

         But to them, and to us, the call comes again just as it always did, even to those wild fishermen who were tending the nets. The call of God is the call to the wild. The whole purpose of Christianity the purpose of discipleship is to teach us and dispose us to live wildly by sharing and participating in the wildness of God. That is why pious people are so bizarre. That is why dull, ordinary, moralistic, Christians make no sense. It takes imagination and a little wildness to throw in your lot with Jesus of Nazareth. That’s what was wrong with that rich young man who came up to Jesus and asked how to be perfect, and with the man who came up to be his follower, but had so much going on in his life, he needed time to get free. That rich young man had no imagination. He could not imagine living without all of his stuff. Give it away! Sell it? He couldn’t imagine that. He was comfortable and thought he ought to have more. The others were so busy: you know, the farm, the dead, his family, all that stuff —– he couldn’t imagine not having things all in order!  Well, God can……. it takes imagination and freedom to become a disciple of Jesus Christ.

         In becoming, and that’s the issue — BECOMING — holiness happens. It’s a by-product, not something you do with a plan. We have confused holiness with morality, and we think that what we do makes us holy, when the truth is that it is us, the holy ones who make things holy. Yet, when we think that holiness is somehow a result of morality, we’ve got it all backwards; and we’re in denial of the truth that holiness leads to morality, not the other way around. Peter was a holy man, wild with God. Jumping out of that boat time and time again. (That took imagination!) Shooting off his mouth when he didn’t know what he was saying half the time, curing the lame, yet denying the Lord Jesus. The denial, his failure, his sin, did not take away his holiness, nor did it take him out of his role as leader of the apostolic community. It certainly seems to me that it’s the same for us. We are a holy people. We may sin, we may break the covenant, our promises, and even deny our relationship with one another but our holiness remains.

         More people die of an un-lived life than die from cancer, and it’s a much more dreadful kind of death. The one single characteristic of the disciples of Jesus that I recognize in the gospels is that they were not dull, uninteresting, and ordinary people. They were untutored, unschooled fishermen. They had been hanging around that wild desert man, John the Baptist, the greatest man of the Old Testament. His one great joy was to hear the voice of Christ. Once he heard it, it was all over. He lost his head! Our trouble is that we are pulled apart into a million different directions by puny pleasures, and we miss the infinite pleasure that would fill the whole heart. John refused to do that. John and those disciples were mystics – and those of us who are called to be disciples, Holy People, ought to be the same.

         REALIZED UNION WITH GOD – That’s mysticism. It’s our vocation. Everyone is called to be a mystic. That is someone who no longer knows God by hearsay, no longer by information, but by experience. That person is in touch with God and therefore with God’s world, and they are wild with that God and with that World. I would suggest that if anyone here is not well on the way to becoming a Mystic, they need more than a three day mission. Now I don’t mean a perfect mystic. I mean one who has begun to become a mystic. One who is immersed in the mystery, one who is engaged, who is enticed, who is enthralled, who is captivated by the living God.

         We’ve got to become mystics, and the important part of that is the becoming part. It is the human adventure – an ongoing process of becoming. It’s what makes humans different from everything else in creation. A rhinoceros has already, when recognized as a rhinoceros reached and archived the quintessence of rhinorocisity. That’s the difference. That never happens to human beings. If Francis lived a hundred years longer he would have become a hundred times more Franciscan. It’s true of us all. It goes on an on. There is nothing fixed, nothing static. The human adventure, this process of becoming, of entering into the Kingdom of God, of becoming eloquently, distinctively human goes on and on. That’s the beauty of it. If on earth we ever think we’re finished, we are. That’s how it is with your Baptism. You are a hundred times more Baptized, more Christian today than you were on the day of your baptism. It’s the same for me. I’m not a priest yet. There’s only one priest, Jesus Christ. I am becoming a priest. Every day, every hour, every effort, every mistake moves me a little more along the way to becoming more and more like Christ – “realized union with God” I’m not finished, and my only hope is that by the time I die, I’ll be enough like Christ that His Father will clam me as his own. It’s the same for you, those of you who are married. You are becoming one, one with each other, and by doing that in faith and in prayer, you become one with Christ who is the living, breathing heart of your marriage. You are becoming married. On the tenth anniversary of your lives together, you are more married than on the day of your wedding. On the fiftieth, you’re way more married. By that time, it’s probably hard for strangers to tell you apart as husband and wife. You don’t even need to talk anymore, you already know one another’s thoughts, and it’s not just because you are repeating yourself a lot by that time! It’s the same with Baptism. That’s the trouble with the fundamentalists around here. They think that once you’re dunked, you’re saved. Well, I’ve got news for them. I’m a lot more saved today than I was when I was baptized. The baptism of that baby back in 1942 just got things started – set me off in the direction of my life. Baptism, Marriage, Forgiveness, Holy Orders, all of these sacramental events and moments of our lives confirm what is already going on — our union with God. That’s mysticism! It is the essence of holiness. It is what we do, because it is in the end, what we are.

 

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Hymn 

“

Sacred Heart Parish Mission

Fowler, Indiana

October 13, 2005

Thursday

Grateful and Repentant

Opening Hymn:

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament

A reading of the Gospel text.

On his journey to Jerusalem Jesus passed along the borders of Samaria and Galilee. As he was entering a village, ten lepers met him. Keeping their distance, they raised their voices and said. “Jesus, Master, have pity on us.! When he saw them, he responded, “God and show yourselves to the priest.” On their way there they were cured. One of them, realizing that he had been cured, came back praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself on his face at the feet of Jesus and spoke his praises. This man was a Samaritan. Jesus took the occasion to say, “Were not all ten made whole? Where are the other nine? Was there no one to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?” He said to the man, “Stand up and go your way; your faith has been your salvation.” Then, upon entering Jericho, there was a man named Zacchaeus, the chief tax collector and a wealthy man. He was trying to see what Jesus was like, but being small of stature, was unable to do so because of the crowd. He first ran on in front then climbed a sycamore tree which was along Jesus’ route in order to see him. When Jesus came to the spot he looked up and said, “Zacchaeus, hurry down. I mean to stay at your house today.” He quickly descended, and welcomed him with delight. When this was observed, everyone began to murmur, “He has gone to a sinner’s house as a guest.” Zacchaeus stood his ground and said to the Lord: “I give half my belongings, Lord, to the poor. If I have defrauded anyone in the least, I pay him back fourfold.” Jesus said to him; “Today salvation has come to this house, for this is what it means to be a son of Abraham. The Son of Man has come to search out and save what was lost.”

Psalm:

Preaching

Where there is faith, there is healing. That is the issue here. Where there is faith, there is healing. This healing is not limited to the “right” people, and it knows nothing of boarders and boundaries. Faith knows no boundaries. With Jesus Christ, there are no boarders, and with his disciples, there are no boundaries when it comes to service a share in healing grace. There are no boundaries when it comes to restoring those who have been excluded, but boundaries is not exactly what this is all about, and this first story, told on the way to Jerusalem, puts before us a contrast from which we may draw another of a disciple’s virtues.

Luke proposes here a distinction between the nine and the one: a distinction we might describe as physical healing and spiritual healing. Notice that the healing of physical infirmity did not bring salvation. Although the nine who did not return to Jesus were cured physically, there is no mention at all of their spiritual healing or “salvation.” On the other hand, the one who returns to Jesus, the one who acknowledges what God had done for him through Jesus Christ is the one who is saved by faith. Because of his gratitude, by which he gave evidence of his faith, this grateful leper was enabled to experience salvation beyond his physical cure.

It is the gratitude that Luke singles out as a virtue to be found in disciples of Jesus Christ. In Luke’s thought, the grateful recognition of God’s initiative that brings healing and salvation is the surest sign of faith. One’s faith is confirmed by the witness of Gratitude. Without it, there is no assurance of Salvation.

Faith for the disciple of Jesus is not a matter of rules kept nor prayers said. It is a matter of Gratitude in response to the initiative God has taken on our behalf. Disciples are Grateful, that’s all there is to it. They recognize what God has done for them. They return again and again to the feet of the master and “speak his praises.” as the Gospel describes it. This is a public recognition. Please take note. It is not something the leper does quietly in his heart or at home in his room. This “gratitude,” found in a disciple of Jesus, moves one to public recognition and acknowledgment of one’s gratitude. This is why we are here, in this public place rather than at home. The disciple of Jesus is grateful in an open, public say. The disciple of Jesus is found at the master’s feet giving praise and thanks. Gratitude, for a disciple of Jesus is a way of life, not a passing emotion. It is a life-changing conversion as public as a known leper throwing himself at the feet of Jesus Christ in a Samaritan town. We are not talking personal, private stuff here. Disciples formed on this pilgrimage to Jerusalem are a people who have known what it means to be accepted, included, healed, saved, and graced by a God who ignores all boundaries, and their gratitude is contagious.

We are at journey’s end, and we find ourselves right where we started which is the human story. We began in Paradise, and by God’s love, we end up in the paradise of heaven once again united in joy with the one who has been with us all along. As Jesus completes his journey to Jerusalem, the final encounter happens at the edge of Jerusalem, at Jericho, that place where Moses led a victorious people into the land they were promised. This who journey to Jerusalem in Luke’s Gospel has the most wonderful conclusion. This visit to the house of Zacchaeus was not a delay or a detour on his journey. This visit was and is the very purpose of the journey. “The Son of man came to seek and save what was lost.” Luke will get Jesus to Jerusalem in a couple of verses; but that city is not where Jesus is going. He is headed for our homes to stay with us, be with us, live with us, and die with us.

Zacchaeus stands before us in sharp contrast to that crowd who can’t quite see Jesus because they are too busy looking at and criticizing Zacchaeus. They have shut him out, and in their critique of his life, they have also shut out Jesus. Zacchaeus, unlike the crowd that can see Jesus, wants to see Jesus, and is willing to go to some inconvenience and take some risk to do so. Never mind his dignity, stature, or what he might look like in the eyes of others, he will see Jesus, and he will do whatever it takes; and Jesus sees him. You can almost see the two of them walking away from the whispering, accusing, blaming crowd who do not hear themselves called “Children of Abraham”, and will find no salvation in their homes. It is the crowd that is indicted by this story. They were so put off by their suppositions concerning Zacchaeus that they failed to “see” that in terms of the righteousness of God they were as “lost” as anyone, and were diverted from “seeing” Jesus and gladly welcoming him to their salvation.

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus announces three times that salvation has come. First at the synagogue when his turn came and he rolled up the scroll, sat down, and said: “Today this message of salvation is being fulfilled (4:30)” It happened in Nazareth and it caused a riot. Then, he says it a second time in today’s passage in Jericho. He will say it one more time to a condemned dying thief hanging at his side (23:42). What it takes to experience this “salvation” is seen in these two who are outside the symbolic synagogue: Repentance. In Zacchaeus we see it best and understand what it means. The virtue as Luke explores it is not something Zacchaeus did, but something he became that brought other consequences. Luke’s Gospel of Grace is joined to Repentance, and this Repentance is not solely a transaction of the heart. It isn’t just feelings. Repentance bears fruit: this was made clear as early as the in the preaching of John the Baptist as soldiers and tax collectors came to him in repentance asking: “What shall we do?”

A life of repentance bears fruit, not only for the household of Zacchaeus, but also for the poor who will be beneficiaries of his conversion and, as well, those people who he may have defrauded. Repentance has more than personal effects. There is a domestic, social, and economic dimension as well. In Luke, salvation is not simply a matter of the soul. It touches the whole human family and the whole fabric of human life. In the great, soon-to-unfold story of Jesus and the cross, the presence of the Risen Christ makes noble and holy the home and the table of the faithful disciple. It happened in Jericho, it happened in Emmaus, and it can happen here if we will be his disciples.

Tantum Ergo

You have given them bread from heaven.

Having all sweetness within it.

Let us Pray:

Lord Jesus Christ, you gave us the Eucharist as the memorial of your suffering and death. May our worship of this sacrament of your body and blood, help us to experience the salvation you won for us, and the peace of the Kingdom, where you live with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.

Amen.

Benediction

Divine Praises

• Blessed be God
• Blessed be His Holy Name
• Blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man.
• Blessed be the name of Jesus.
• Blessed be his most sacred heart.
• Blessed be his most Precious Blood.
• Blessed be Jesus in the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar
• Blessed the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete.
• Blessed be the great Mother of God, Mary most holy.
• Blessed be her holy and Immaculate Conception.
• Blessed be her glorious Assumption.
• Blessed be the name of Mary, Virgin and Mother.
• Blessed be Saint Joseph, her most chaste spouse.
• Blessed be God in his angels and in his saints.

Repose the Sacrament

Confessions Conclude the evening.