The Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
4 November 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Deuteronomy 6, 2-6 + Psalm 18 + Hebrews 7, 23-28 + Mark 12, 28-34

Every now and then I have to tell myself that I am living in a remarkable, unique and special time in human history. I do that to keep from getting negative and discouraged. I convince myself that I am witnessing and living in an age that will fascinate historians for a long time. So, I keep on going through terrible times in our church, and troubling and divisive times in our nation. Then election time rolls around, and I am relieved because in two more days I’ll be able to watch TV again without all those assaulting and insulting political commercials. One of the things that pushes my panic button is that suggestion that we ask ourselves, “Am I better off today than I was four years ago?” My first instinct is to yell, “No way. My joints ache, my eye sight is less, I move more slowly, nap longer, and my hair is gone.”

What really gets to me about that question is how it appeals to personal selfishness. Why not ask if society is better off today than it was then? Nobody seems to want to go there. Somehow being better off has something to do with what you drive, where you live, and how often and where you can go out to eat, and what you wear when you do. Into this question steps a Scribe who respectfully gets into an interesting discussion with Jesus that gives us plenty to wonder about. From their discussion it becomes clear that the measure of our Love of God is determined by our love of our neighbor. In other words, if there is someone you can’t or have not felt some love for, there is some good reason to question how much you really do love God, and we can’t go watering this down by fooling around with the meaning of “love”. No matter what, love has to do with feelings. It seems to me that there are three possibilities: good feelings, bad feelings, or indifference. Only one of them works.

You can’t read much of the Scriptures without getting the idea that God is deeply concerned about the way we treat one another. Our faith and our vocation as disciples is to love, and when we do we will allow ourselves to feel another’s pain. We feel great by doing good, more so than by doing well materially or financially, because it is in our nature as God’s image. Generosity brings rewards, and joy springs up in us when we do something good for another. When we refuse or look the other way, a strange sadness comes over us.

Maimonides was a famous Jewish teacher in Spain in the 12^th century. He outlined eight steps or degrees in what he called the ladder of charity.

The first and lowest degree is to give, but with reluctance. It is a gift of the hand, not of the heart.

The second is to give cheerfully, but not in proportion to the distress of the sufferer.

The third is to give cheerfully and in proportion to the need, but not until we are asked.

The fourth is to give cheerfully, proportionately and even unasked, but to put it into the poor man’s hand causing him shame.

The fifth is to give in such a way that the needy may receive the alms and know their benefactor, without the benefactor know them.

The sixth is to know the recipients of our charity, while remaining unknown to them.

The seventh is to bestow charity in such a way that the benefactor does not know the recipient, or the recipient the benefactor.

Finally, the finest way of all is to anticipate charity by preventing poverty. This can be done by giving a gift or a loan of money to enable another to get back on their feet, or by teaching them a trade, so that they can earn an honest living and be forced to the dreadful alternative of holding out his hand for charity.

Mark Twain once said: “One of the nicest things that can happen to a person is to do good by stealth and be found out by accident.” I

The Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL
Revelations 7, 2-4, 9-14 + Psalm 24 + 1 John 3, 1-3 + Matthew 5, 1-12

We should gather here today with the memory of saints we have known in our lives. This day is not about Francis or Clare of Assisi, the Apostles, or the Martyrs whose faith and courage made them heroic in suffering. This day is about people we have known in our lifetime, people who challenge us, or maybe even shame us into living a good, holy, faith filled life. These are people who imitated Christ, and they remind us of what life is about. They have in the past and still their memory inspires us. Beyond the grave they still guide us. They are teachers, friends, family members, public servants, or maybe neighbors. We remember them today because of what they have called us to become with the sure hope that they like the people we sang of in the Psalm today now see God face to face.

We gather here to celebrate our confident hope that ordinary people are standing by the side of Francis and Clare, the Apostles Peter and Andrew, Agnes, Ann, Mary and Joseph. This day of All Saints invites us to ponder our ultimate purpose and what we hope to accomplish in life and why. This holy day is about holy people, and we ought to live with the hope that someday someone will remember us on this day. The people I am calling to mind were not particularly pious, but they were very good. Piety is not a substitute for goodness. Perhaps there can be goodness without holiness, but I’m quite sure that there is no holiness without goodness. All of us have that capacity for goodness.

In the end, love is what it’s all about. A loving person is always holy person. To be a saint is to be a witness to love. There is no higher vocation than this. St John of the Cross gave us this great thought: “In the evening of our lives we will be examined on love.” It hardly matters whether we have been successful in school or some career. It certainly does not matter how much money we have made or how many prayers we’ve said or novenas we have made. In the end it will probably not matter how many times we have been to Mass or failed to go. We are going to be examined on love. All the prayers, the Masses, the generosity of our lives and what we choose to do with what we have will simply be a manifestation of that love, because we always gather here because of love.

It is the lovers that we remember today: the people whose love for God and who were loved by God and managed to love us even when there was every reason not to. These are the Saints we honor today. Remember them now, and in your mind speak their names.

The Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
28 October 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Jeremiah 31, 7-9 + Psalm 126 + Hebrews 5, 1-6 + Mark 10, 46-52

This is the last miracle in Mark’s Gospel, and the second time Jesus cures a someone blind. These two cure stories are like bookends beginning and concluding the section in which Jesus attempts to get his disciples to understand who he is in light of the upcoming passion. The first time Jesus seems to have trouble. He must touch the man’s eyes twice before he could see clearly. This time there is no touch at all, just faith that brings blind Bartimaeus into the company of followers. Bartimaeus wanted precisely what the disciples were avoiding: to see things clearly. It was the request Jesus had been wanting to hear and longing to grant, but his closest companions never ask for that. All they ask for is to have a place of honor in the Kingdom they imagine Jesus will begin.

Bartimaeus stands among us today as a model disciple suggesting that we might best get the attention of Jesus by asking for the right things. Asking for mercy and asking to see more clearly moves Jesus to invite us to draw near. There is in us all a kind of blindness that keeps us from seeing clearly as God sees. We sometimes cling to our old ways; to the prejudice and judgements we have made about others, to old hurts and offenses like blind Bartimaeus had clung to his cloak. For him, it was his security. Perhaps his only possession. Yet, at the call of Jesus he throws it aside in a gesture of hope and confidence in this one he has called: “Son of David”. His use of that title for Jesus is the first time it is spoken in Mark’s Gospel. Until now, Jesus has been “Son of Man.” The secret Jesus has been keeping and insisting on is about to be revealed in Jerusalem where the welcoming crowds will also cry out their “Hosanna to the Son of David.”  Bartimaeus who is blind is the first to proclaim Jesus as the one Israel longed and waited for who lift up the poor.

Now one who has been sitting at the side of the road gets up, and Mark tells us that he begins to follow the way. This does not necessarily mean that he followed Jesus on to Jerusalem, but rather than going his own way, he followed the way of discipleship. So many in this world are just sitting by the side of the road waiting. Maybe it’s time to get up, because the Lord is calling us all. If we can just manage to take up the cry of Bartimaeus for mercy, ask to see as God sees, and cast off the cloak of our past, we have every reason to hear with great joy the best news, “Take courage. Jesus is calling for you.”

The Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time
21 October 2018 at St. Peter the Apostle & St. William Churches in Naples, Fl
Isaiah 53, 10-11 + Psalm 33 + Hebrews 4, 14-16 + Mark 10, 35-45

There is something interesting going on here that takes a little thought and reflection to get straight, but it is really the essence of what Mark is leading us to discover. Simply put: once we know who Jesus is, then we know who we are. To put it another way, once we know what Jesus is, then we know what we are.

This all unfolds in a situation that is too real, too human, and too hard to miss. Those disciples have not yet, even after all this time with Jesus, come to grips with who he is and what he is. Therefore, they have no idea who they are much less what they are. With what can only be called, “Divine Patience”, Jesus goes at it again trying to explain to them what he is doing and what is about to happen. With what can only be described as a chronic hearing impediment, they don’t listen, and they go on blissfully planning a future that could not be more opposite from the future Jesus is putting before them as his option.

The disciples are anticipating and planning for the great and mighty Kingdom they expect from the Messiah. He is telling them he is going to suffer at the hands of the Scribes, Pharisees and the Chief Priest. He tells them he will die which to them must mean they will be on their own. They choose to be deaf to that kind of talk. It does not fit their expectations and what they think they need; so, they go on with their ambitions and lofty expectations. There is a dis-connect here that leaves them ignorant of who and what they are as his disciples. Because they have missed interpreted the signs and wonders he works, they think he is going to be “Jesus fixer”, “Jesus, The Almighty” who will restore Israel to its former glory, and therefore, they will be the privileged and powerful who will feast on the bounty of this reign, and claim a share in this glory.

There is no such Messiah here in Jesus. His Kingdom is not of this world. His mission in this world is simply to live with us, live like us, and even die like we us so that we can rise as he does when called by the Father. He reaches out, seeks out, and embraces those forgotten and left out of life, the sick, the sinner, the lost, the confused, and the doubtful. It is the privilege of our faith in this age to look at this situation and know better without judgement on the poor disciples. Eventually by the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit, they came around and discovered who they were as his disciples and what they were to become.

Finally, with the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, we can discover who we are as Disciples of Jesus Christ. When we know who and what Jesus is, we know who and what we are as Children of God and Servants willing to sacrifice and serve everyone in need. Ambition and power, prestige and privilege have no place among us. Disciples of the real Messiah go about his work looking for the lost, the marginalized, the forgotten, the avoided. Like the Messiah who has come, we can eat with the sinners and saints. We can make welcome those who are different, because we too are different in a greedy, self-centered, power-hungry world. Embracing the full and real identity of Jesus Christ defines who we are and what this world can expect of us. We shall never abandon or ignore the needs of another. We shall stand with them, suffer with them, and wait with them until the Father calls us all to the fullness of everlasting life. We will do this because we know who we are. Let us learn the lesson Mark puts before us today. The Messiah did not come among us to find us work, fix our families, or cure our illnesses and put an end to suffering and death. He came to be with us through these trials and miseries. His disciples, you and me, are witnesses to this truth by the way we care for, support, help, and comfort one another. In this, we shall fulfill the Father’s Will and find everlasting life.

The Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time
14 October 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Wisdom 7, 7-11 + Psalm 90 + Hebrews 4, 12-13 + Mark 10, 17-30

Two men appear in the verses of Mark’s Gospel we have just proclaimed; one at the beginning another at the end. One of them has no name, and the other is called, Peter. They are both men who have been looked at love. In the case of the first man, it is the only time in all the Gospels that Jesus is said to have looked with love on an individual. It is the gaze of divine love that should have completely overcome this man and moved him to give up everything at that moment. Yet, it does not happen. The reason why is worth our thought and some reflection. We could learn from him. In the case of Peter, the Gospel doesn’t ever say that he was looked at with love, but we can only hope that this was what Peter saw as he sat there in the courtyard of the High Priest when a cock crowed the third times. The Gospel tells us that Jesus turned and looked at him. Why would we think that look would have been anything other than the look of love? Unless our lesser selves imagine a look of reproach, like, “I told you so”, or a “how could you?” We know what that looks like don’t we? We also know how to give look, but that is not what he saw.

That man with no name could easily be us. He seems to have been so preoccupied with his own thoughts, that he does not notice how Jesus looks at him, and that’s a shame. The story might have ended up differently had he just looked up into that loving gaze. But no, he has too many possessions to look after. In reality, they possess him. He can’t imagine his life without them. What Jesus asks of him is not just to help the poor, but to become poor. Judging from his question, that man thinks that there is something he can do to gain eternal life, and here we see the difference between him and Peter. Having given up everything, Peter and his companions begin to discover that this “eternal life” is a free gift given by the loving Father to those who do not deserve it. At the moment of his greatest shame and sorrow, Peter looks at the face of the friend and master he has just denied and he sees the look of love.

Jesus demands the best of us. That is what he asked of that man and of Peter and the Twelve. The challenge: “If you want to be perfect” is issued to all of us as well. However, the thing we might be called upon to sacrifice in order to take up that challenge could vary for each of us. We have to look into our own hearts to see what it is that we would have to give up in order to respond. Our presence here this final Sunday of our adventure around the Pacific brings us face to face with great questions. We are reminded like the nameless man and Peter that we are invited to come along with Jesus, that life is a pilgrimage to God’s eternal kingdom.

On Thursday, we shall disembark the Eurodam, and as you go, take a look at the luggage 1900 people have hauled all the way to Vancouver. I never fail to be stunned by all that stuff, and I look at my own and wonder if I really needed it all. To accept the invitation of Jesus means we must travel lightly and remember that salvation is always what God accomplishes in spite of us. Eternal life is not something we can earn, buy, or accomplish on our own. Those who trust in themselves and their possessions have it all wrong. Only those who trust in the saving power and redeeming love of God can enter freely into salvation. What he asks is sacrifice. It is the sign language of love. What Jesus knows is that there is no point in forcing people to make sacrifices. If you take things from people, they are impoverished; but if you can get them to give them up, they are enriched. With these men before us today, we have a choice to make and a model to follow. One leads to sadness. The other leads to the joy of forgiveness and eternal life.

The Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
 7 October 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Genesis 2, 18-24 + Psalm 128 + Hebrews 2, 9-11 + Mark 10, 2-16

As much as some might and in spite of how many have tried to make it so, these verses are not about marriage as we know it. To make it so is to focus on the example rather than the issue. It would be like getting all interested in the waves out there rather than the wind that causes them. What is at stake here is what it means for all of us to be made in the image of God; men, women and children. What is questioned here is whether or not a man is more important than a woman, and whether or not adults are more important than children. To get their attention, and to return the challenge of those Pharisees who come looking for a way to trap him, Jesus out smarts them with their own scriptures, and proposes something so startling and so unheard of, that they are left in confusion.

In their system of values, it was OK for a man to commit adultery. It was not OK for a woman to do so. In their system of values, a husband could get rid of a wife he no longer found helpful or productive, but not so for the woman. If she had a husband who was useless and slept around, she was stuck where she was. Moses thought that was so unfair, that he required a “Bill of divorce” from the man so that the woman would be free to be taken in marriage by someone else. And that was because men had become so hard-hearted that they were leaving the first wife with nowhere to go. Then in the second part of this episode, Jesus reacts very strongly to the behavior and attitude of the disciples toward children. It’s as though those children were not worthy to touch or be embraced by Jesus. The disciples seem to think that the Blessing of Jesus was just for adults.

So, this is not about marriage at all. It is about equality and worthiness in the sight of God. It is about affirming the fact that God made us all, and in God’s sight no one is more important, more blessed, or worthier than anyone else. In this conversation with the Pharisees, Jesus goes far beyond the question of divorce to teach about the meaning of human relationships in general. When he speaks to the disciples in private, he reinterpreted the legal explanations of the day by treating men and women as equals before the law. This really shook up everyone, and it was something totally new to their thinking. We are hardly finished working out that matter of equality today.

Behind the reflection of Jesus on marriage lies the question of all human relations which is why Mark follows up with the story of the children. Just as the Pharisees debated what could be done with a troublesome woman, the disciples did not want children bothering their master. Of course, all of this was a threat to the assumed prestige of the disciples when Jesus seemed to prefer the unimportant or disreputable to company with them. Like the Pharisees who debated the right to divorce, the disciples’ treatment of the children demonstrated their willingness to make distinctions between important people like themselves and those who could simply be dismissed.

Jesus would have none of that. With all of us made in the image and likeness of God, an offense against one of the least is equal to an offense against whoever is considered the greatest. Isn’t it fun to close this complicated Gospel with the image of Jesus tackled by a throng of kids? Perhaps when we lose all the inhibitions adulthood seems to impose on us, and find a way to get around all the rules and regulations that make some more important than others, we will all know the embrace, the blessing, and the love of God poured out through Jesus Christ.

The Twenty-sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time
30 September 2018 on board the MS Eurodam
Numbers 11, 25-29 + Psalm 19 + James 5, 1-6 + Mark 9, 38-43, 45,47-48

That apostle, John and his friends, have a big problem. They think that somehow this power or authority to cast out demons belongs to them. Now let’s be clear about this, the casting out of demons really refers to healing or helping since in those days, demons were behind everything that was bad. We must not be distracted by thoughts of wild or dramatic exorcisms. The issue here is power and authority.

John and his fellow disciples have to learn that Jesus is the only source of power, and that anything they accomplish is done by the power of Jesus Christ, not by their own skills or their own initiative. There can be no exclusive claim when it comes to doing good in the name of Jesus. In his response, Jesus is widening the outlook of his disciples, who seem tempted to seal themselves off as a closed group and maintain a spirit of jealousy over what they consider to be the exclusive prerogative of the community. When it comes to service and the care of others in need, there is no special group who have the rights to respond, neither is there any competition about who can do the most or do it best. There is only the power of Jesus Christ exercised in faith and motivated by the Gospel which has been handed on to everyone.

Competition is bad enough when it nurtures the “look what I did” attitude. There is another down side to be avoided here which is that “it’s not my job” attitude. When someone or some group rises up with an exclusive claim, others fail to respond thinking, “It’s not my job.” Then, nothing happens.

You have to wonder if the disciples were threatened by the gifts or achievements of someone else. If so, they have a long way to go before they realize that God’s gifts are freely given to everyone. Our responsibility is to welcome those gifts where ever they appear. In the end, we have to ask ourselves what difference it makes who does something good? When there is a need, there is no excuse for looking the other way or thinking, “let someone else take care of it.” Neither is there any reason to think with some unjustified smugness that we could have done it better. If we could have, why didn’t we? Why did we wait for someone else to do it?

In the next two weeks as we live together on this ship, there will more opportunities for doing good deeds than we can imagine. Stay alert for them, and do not assume someone else will do them, but if they do, recognition, a thank you or a compliment, would the disciple’s response rather than a complaint. Deeds, suggests this gospel, do not have to be big in order to be of help and comfort to the person for whom they are done. They just have to have a certain quality. That quality is warmth. All deeds which come from the heart have this warmth.

The Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
 23 September 2018 at Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL
Wisdom 2,12, 17-20 + Psalm 54 + James 3, 16–4,3 + Mark 9, 30-37

The crowds are gone now. The journey through Galilee to Jerusalem has begun, and instead of being followed by multitudes and surrounded by the needy and afflicted, it is only the disciples now being privately instructed, and Mark puts us right among them. Jesus wants to prepare us for what is ahead; but, it is not just about what lies ahead for Jesus. Is about what lies ahead for disciples. This time Mark has Jesus speaking in the present tense about being handed over. All other references to his Passion and Death were in the future. This time it is different. In other words, “The Son of Man is being handed over, not “will be handed over.” This is something happening right now. Reflecting on this business of “being handed over” leads us deeper into the mystery of the Incarnation and what God is doing by “handing over” his son to this world.

Thought of in the light of the Incarnation, it becomes clear that Jesus is no helpless victim. He is participating out of obedience in God’s act of redemption and saving love. God’s son is being handed over to us right here and right now. Knowing what is to come, Jesus could have stopped it, gone somewhere else, avoided the confrontation, and he would have never chosen Peter and Judas who both betray him, and by moving into the present tense, he proposes that Peter and Judas are not the only ones. We had better count ourselves with them as well. In spite of that, the handing over continues.

The disciples always want to avoid what he speaks of. It’s understandable in some sense. No one wants to be misunderstood, persecuted, judged unjustly, or abandoned by one’s friends at the greatest time of need. No one wants to be vulnerable enough to be stripped and ridiculed. So, there is no surprise in the reaction of the disciples. Earlier, Peter even says: “Never”, and he is rebuked. Today however, they are silent, which actually prefigures their response to his Passion, because when Jesus is handed over to the Chief Priests and Scribes, they are silent again. Not a single voice is raised in his defense. All he gets is Silence. Silence will not do. As disciples, we do not pick and choose what we are called to be, nor what we are sent out to do, but the desire and struggle to do so continues. When words fail, Jesus shifts to action, wraps a towel around his waist and washes feet. On the floor with water and towel is where disciples of Jesus are meant to be not picking the best place up at the table. To start thinking in terms of who is first or who sits where misses the message, and it breaks our fundamental solidarity with our neighbor.

There is no privilege in discipleship. There is no glory or honor for disciples in this world. There is only responsibility and duty to fulfill the mission of Jesus Christ. Like Jesus, we are being “handed over” day after day. Just as the Father handed over his son into human nature, disciples are handed over becoming one with the world’s most vulnerable, helpless, poor, and outcast. When we give up thinking about ourselves and embrace what and who has been handed over to us, there will come that day when we will be raised up and lifted up in victory with Jesus Christ, and the will of God will be accomplished.

The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
16 September 2018
At Saint Peter the Apostle and St. Willian Churches in Naples, FL
Isaiah 50, 4-9 + Psalm 116 + James 2, 14-18 + Mark 8, 27-35

To believe that Jesus is the Messiah is not the same thing as understanding what it means to be the Messiah, and that is what unfolds in these verses today. From now until the end of Mark’s Gospel, the focus will be an instruction in which Jesus will reveal the mystery of his vocation to be a suffering Messiah who will lay down his life for his people, and the disciple’s vocation to follow him. As Mark sets up this last part of the Gospel, it becomes a journey to Jerusalem. Now there is a change of places. Until now, Jesus was in Galilee, but now he heads to Jerusalem knowing what lies ahead. That journey to Jerusalem would be long and hard, and even when they reached the climax of the cross, the disciples still did not comprehend the message of Jesus or understand what the Messiah had come to do. In the structure of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus will tell them three times what is coming, and three times they fail to understand. Finally, there is the healing of blind man, and it prefigures the coming “sight” of the disciples who will finally be able to see what he means and what he asks.

We sit here in this church again just like those earlier disciples sat in an upper room. It’s as though no matter what he says and what he does, we still fail to understand what this Messiah has come to do and what he has become by his presence among us. Too often like those earlier disciples, we want a Messiah who will rescue us, do what we ask, give us what we want, and respond on our timetable. When that does not happen, because that is not what this Messiah is all about, some leave. Disappointments or tragedies strike, and failing to grasp the deepest meaning of the Incarnation, the coming of the Messiah, some give up in anger and walk away. They may well have believed that Jesus is the Messiah, the one sent to save, but they do not understand what it means to have that Messiah among us.

This why the cross is so important to us, so revealing to us and so precious, because it leads us deeply into the wonder of discovery, the awesome mystery of a God who has chosen to suffer with us, to know betrayal and denial, to know what it means to be abandoned, to be unjustly condemned and humiliated.  We have to get to Jerusalem with Jesus to understand his Messianic work which is not to excuse us from life and all that life can throw at us, but to go with us through every trial to that ultimate day of deliverance, Easter. The Messiah we have all been given is not some comic book hero who sweeps down and makes everything perfect. That is what Peter and his friends were expecting. The Messiah we have all been given is one who looks like us, feels the way we do, suffers what we suffer, and dies like us. Yet, he remains faithful and obedient to the Father. That obedience does not imply that God ordered him to be killed. It does imply that he kept listening and responding to the love God poured out into his heart.

Those first disciples who stayed, listened and watched. They had the love and faithfulness to remain on the road with him, and that was all that was necessary. It is no different for us. We stay, we listen, we watch all the way on the road always with him until the end which is really the beginning of all things new.

9/11 Liturgy at Saint Peter the Apostle Church, Naples, FL
  Revelation 21, 1-7 + Matthew 5, 1-12

This assembly in a house of prayer is much more than a memorial about a horrible event in the past. If we were to gather here to memorialize horrible historical events, we would never be able to leave. We would commemorate assassinations, bombings, hijackings, riots, genocide, school shootings, and way more besides. This day and our assembly cannot be just about the past. A cross made from the debris of the Twin Towers and piece of stone from the Pentagon lie here before us to say without words what hatred can do. Yet, we place them before an altar which speaks wordlessly about what sacrificial love can do. One is a reminder of hatred expressed in death and destruction. The other is reminder of love expressed in sacrifice and salvation. Think of it this way. People motivated by hatred destroy and kill. People motivated by love buildup and save. Some believe that they have a right to kill people because they disagree with them, while others believe it is worth suffering or sacrificing one’s own life to preserve the right to disagree.

The Gospel we just proclaimed takes place on a hill, says Matthew. On that hill the core principles that shape the lives of those who give life rather than take life are put before us. Being poor in spirit has nothing to do with economics. It is the characteristic of a people who rely on God alone knowing that without God they can do nothing. The meek are not weak. This is about strength under control and power being used with wise restraint. The sorrow that comes from mourning can also stir up our hope because it can show us the essential kindness of our fellow human beings who will pour out everything to comfort and help those who are hurting. This mercy put before us is way more than feeling sorry for someone or having pity. Mercy is about the ability to get into another’s skin, to walk in their shoes. It is a kind of sympathy that comes from a deliberate identification with another person seeing what they see and feeling what they feel. That’s mercy. It is real understanding. Nutrition is not the point of feeding the hungry. It is a desire to satisfy the deepest of human needs which is always the comfort of presence and respect. The Pure of Heart are simply people whose lives are not mixed up or conflicted by many motives. They don’t do good to be admired. They do good because they are, and they know that the basis of human peace is peace with God that comes with Justice. All of this is given credibility in the end by action. It is always what we do that gives credibility to what we say. So, Jesus speaks on a hill, then he does something on another hill. He lays down his life. He suffers and He saves.

The point of our assembly here today must be the future, not just the past. In the face of destruction and even death, people who live and who are “Beatitude” or people who are a Blessing, are people of hope never revenge. They are people of respect, patience, and tolerance confident that all will be well in the Kingdom of God. They are people like you responders inspired by the sacrifice of those we remember today. By your service and sacrifice, we are moving in the right direction, toward the Kingdom of Heaven every time there is sacrifice to save another.