OT 22 [C]: Sir 3:17-18, 20, 28-29; Heb 12:18-19, 22-24a; Lk 14:1, 7-14

An old story is told about someone searching for the meaning of life who wanders into the hut of a holy hermit in a forest. The hermit offers his guest tea and keeps pouring tea into the cup until it is overflowing. The guest watched the overflow until he could no longer restrain himself. “Stop! The cup is full. No more will go in.” And then the hermit replied, “Like this cup, you are full of your own opinions, preconceptions, and ideas. How can I teach you unless you first empty your cup?” — That is a wonderful story about humility, which is esteemed by many religious traditions. Dante in ‘The Divine Comedy’ thought of humility as the most important virtue. Humility is radical dependence upon and trust in God. 

One of the most important laws in Christ's Kingdom is the law of humility. This law says that "everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and everyone who humbles himself will be exalted". In other words, greatness in his Kingdom comes not from outdoing other people, outperforming them, and out-distancing them. Greatness in Christ's eyes comes from serving other people, from elevating them, helping them advance, and keeping oneself in the background.

In his very first sermon, Jesus had taught the same law with different words: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." It's the same law stated so directly in today's First Reading: "conduct your affairs with humility, and you will be loved.. Humble yourself... and you will find favor with God." This law goes directly against everything this fallen world teaches us. It's extremely hard for us to swallow, which is why Jesus explained it by using this unambiguous parable.

This law is so fundamental, that Jesus also taught it to us by living it out in an extreme way: through his passion and death. Jesus, the Lord of heaven, came to earth and purposefully took the lowest place possible - that of a condemned criminal. He freely took on the most humiliating form of death - crucifixion. He allowed himself to be stripped of every honor.

In the parable, we heard Jesus talking about where the guests should sit at the table when invited somewhere. As a general rule in a fixed system, the most distinguished guest sits at the right hand of the host where he receives the highest honour. The second most important guest sits at the left side of the host, and so on. He used this example of good manners at the table to draw attention to how honour is accredited in the Kingdom of God.

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector is a great example that Jesus has given. This parable explains the power of humility as seen in our prayers. In the parable, Jesus talks about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 

The Pharisee began thanking God for “not being like other people”. He thanked God for not being one of the sinners and even added that he fasts twice a week and gave tenths of everything he receives. Now, the tax collector stood far away. He could not even look to heaven as he beat his breast and asked the Lord to have mercy on him, a sinner. The parable then ends with Jesus saying that those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

It is important to stay humble because having humility not only helps us develop a more kind approach to interacting with others but it also influences how we perceive ourselves and the world around us. Humility helps one extend more compassion and empathy to others.  Humility offers the opportunity to become less self-involved and more attuned with the feelings of others.

It is relatively easy to be humble when we are at the bottom of the tree, as it were: new in a job, or very junior. The more senior we get, the more likely that we become proud. 

A key quality of humility is to value others and enable them to be heard. Spending time listening to others, and drawing out their feelings and values, enabling them to express themselves, is a very powerful way to start to understand this.

Secondly, be grateful for what we have. In other words, take the time to ‘count your blessings’, and be thankful for them. It is easy to get sucked into a negative spiral of wanting more. Taking time to stop, and remember what we have to be grateful for, is a good way to cultivate a more humble and positive frame of mind.

The Proverb says that the Lord detests everyone with a proud heart and that they will be punished. Pride is very offensive in the Eyes of God. With humility, we learn that this is the truth and that we should put ourselves before Him. Not being humble is basically like declaring that we are no longer in need of God’s guidance, and that is offensive to the Lord.

In washing the feet of His disciples Jesus set the greatest example of humility. Jesus set the bar for being humble. Our aim is to be like Jesus. So, if Jesus set the standard for humility, we should lower our level of pride to attain this. The Grace of God is like a waterfall; the water never flows upward to the skies. Instead, it flows and hits the ground in a downward motion. Therefore, those who are blessed are those who are humble.

As we prepare to receive the gift of gifts, the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ, we ask him to give us the joy seeing ourselves as he sees us, and to make us truly humble of heart. Jesus meek and humble of heart make my heart like yours.

 XXI-O.T. Is. 66:18-21; Heb. 12:5-7, 11-13; Lk. 13:22-30

As he continues his fateful journey to Jerusalem, Jesus answers the question as to how many will be saved by answering how to enter into salvation and how urgent it is to strive now, before the Master closes the door. Jesus also admonishes his followers to concentrate on their own salvation instead of worrying about the salvation of others.

We don't know who the questioner was. It was someone who believed in eternal life. He was wondering if it was as hard to attain it as the prevailing view was. In our culture, the prevailing view is just the opposite.  It says that most people are nice guys, so most people will get to heaven. But what does Jesus say? He doesn't give a direct answer. He doesn't say, "Only a few will be saved," as the Pharisees taught. Neither does he say, "Many will be saved," as today's popular culture teaches. Instead, he changes the focus from general statistics to the individual. He looks at his questioner and says, "Strive to enter by the narrow gate." Then he tells a parable that reinforces this emphasis on individual responsibility (as opposed to general appearances) by showing that on Judgment Day there will be a lot of surprises - the first will be last, and the last will be first. We cannot take our friendship with Christ for granted. We have to consciously and continually strive to enter by the narrow gate.

Jesus is inviting us to break out of our comfort zones and start striving to follow him more closely. It's a real relationship that needs attention and effort. He invites us to strive more intelligently or energetically. Daily prayer and frequent confession are essential aspects of striving to enter through the narrow gate.

We cannot strive with all our strength to follow Christ if we do not know Christ.  It is not enough to have a superficial knowledge of Christ - like the people who said, "We ate and drank in your company and you taught in our streets." Rather, we have to have a living, lasting, growing friendship with Christ. That is what we were created for, and that is what will lead us to true life.

And since friendship always involves effort, self-sacrifice, and the investment of time and energy, the same thing goes for our friendship with Christ. Salvation comes from actually following him, from striving to know him better and live out his teaching. This is what Jesus means by "the narrow gate" that leads to salvation. To get through a narrow gate you have to leave behind all your excess baggage - you have to go through it on purpose.

It is possible to be labeled a Christian on the outside without really making an effort to follow the Christian way in our hearts. It is possible to come to Mass, to be involved with parish activities, and still never really enter into a committed, life-changing, personal relationship with Christ. Jesus knows that going through the motions isn't enough; we need to let his grace change our lives.

 

A few ways to start striving to know Christ better are: weekly Eucharistic adoration, joining Bible studies, renewing your prayer life, reading a good book on Christ, meditating on the mysteries of the rosaries etc... Jesus is eager to help us through the narrow gate, but he can't do his part unless we also strive to do our part.

The Letter to the Hebrews reminds us: "do not disdain the discipline of the Lord or lose heart when reproved by him; for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines..." In other words, every trial and tribulation that comes our way in life is either sent or permitted by God for our benefit. Nothing is outside of his wise and loving plan. And the main focus of that plan is to restore us to the fullness of life that sin has disrupted.

 

When God sends or permits trials, we often react by rebelling. In the spiritual life, we are like children who don't appreciate the value of discipline. So when following Christ's path becomes uncomfortable, when his gate becomes too narrow, we start looking around for shortcuts. We think to ourselves, “Jesus promises lasting happiness, but it seems so far away!" And then we think about the people around us, and the people on television and in the movies. They seem to be enjoying themselves so much. They don't follow Christ's teaching, but they seem to be doing just fine. And that's when we start to compromise in our moral lives. We cut corners on Church teaching in little ways that no one will notice. We make little exceptions. After all, we tell ourselves, everyone else is doing it. And so we step off the straight path traced out by the Ten Commandments and the Catechism - that sure and dependable path that our conscience always points too. We prefer the winding "shortcut".

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Until it suddenly stopped making any progress and looked like it was stuck.

So the man decided to help the butterfly. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily, although it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings.

The man didn’t think anything of it and sat there waiting for the wings to enlarge to support the butterfly. But that didn’t happen. The butterfly spent the rest of its life unable to fly, crawling around with tiny wings and a swollen body.

Our struggles in life develop our strengths. Without struggles, we never grow and never get stronger, so it’s important for us to tackle challenges on our own, and not be relying on help from others. When we accept these challenges and grow we will be able to say with Robert Frost,

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OT XX [C] Jer 38:4-6, 8-10; Heb 12:1-4; Lk 12: 49-53 

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.

There is a story that took place in Russia in 1905 and the plot centers around a man named Tevye, the father of a poor Jewish family. He has five daughters but no son. His eldest daughter marries a tailor who was not chosen for her by the traditional matchmaker. After a struggle with his conscience Teyve accepts the marriage. His next daughter marries a college student who has broken with many Jewish traditions. After another struggle with his conscience, Teyve accepts this marriage too. Finally, his third daughter, Chava, marries a non-Jew, a young Russian soldier. When Golde, Teyve’s wife breaks the news to him, Teyve, says, “Chava is dead to us! We must forget her.” Alone, Teyve, sings a beautiful song called “Chavalah”. In it he pours out his heart to God. He can’t understand why Chava did what she did. At that moment Chava appears and pleads with Teyve to accept her and her husband. Teyve looks up to heaven and says: “How can I accept them? Can I deny everything I believe in? On the other hand, can I deny my own child? (But if I deny everything I believe in, if I try to bend that far, I will break). No Chava!”  — When Jesus invited people to follow him, he realized what he was asking.

At least 75% of the Christian families, I believe, going through this kind of situations, torn between love and faith. What will you choose? Can you strike a balance without losing both? Both the first reading and the gospel speak with such situations.

Jeremiah in the first reading lived at a tumultuous time in Israel's history, right around 600 BC. The northern half of Israel had recently been conquered by Assyria, but the small, southern part of the country, Judah, where Jerusalem was located and where Jeremiah lived, was still free when Jeremiah was born. But it was located right between two powerful empires that were trying to conquer the whole area: Egypt in the south and Babylon in the north. Jeremiah's mission in life was to be a prophet, to constantly remind the people and rulers of Judah to trust in God.

If they obeyed God's commandments and instructions, God would protect them. Unfortunately, neither the leaders nor the people wanted to hear that. Instead, they wanted to take matters into their own hands, fight their own battles, and arrange their own peace treaties. The one thing they didn't want to do was to depend on and obey God.

Every time the King of Judah asked Jeremiah for guidance, Jeremiah would pray, receive instructions, and inform the King - and then the King would do the exact opposite. And then God would ask Jeremiah to issue warnings, calling the people to repentance. But they wouldn't repent. So, eventually Judah was conquered by Babylon, Jerusalem was obliterated, and the Jews were taken into exile. Through it all, Jeremiah was the despised scapegoat. They spread lies about him, mocked him, burned his writings, and finally put him in prison. When even that didn't silence him, they threw him down a well so he would starve to death. Why? Simply because he was being faithful to what God was asking of him.

Yes, choosing to follow Christ in a fallen world has consequences, and God wants us to be ready for them. Being a Christ's friend means more than simply praying and receiving the sacraments - although those are essential. It also means FOLLOWING him. It means daily listening for his call and obeying it when it comes. That's the tough part. Because, obeying Christ means, going against the grain of this fallen world. It brings us into conflict with social trends, other people's desires, and even of our own sin-struck nature. Even though Christ did come to establish peace between God and man, that peace causes a division between those who accept it and those who reject it. In this way he becomes a sign of contradiction.

The division which Jesus speaks of here has several features. History has borne testimony to the fact that the gospel divides men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children, for faith in Christ requires ultimate allegiance to Him. Not even family ties should hold us back from following him.

The loyalty to Christ has to take precedence over the dearest loyalties of this earth. Belief in Jesus and commitment to him cause fires of arguments to erupt between believers and non-believers in the same family or community, resulting in the division of families and conflict in society.  Standing up for what is right and working for justice and truth are higher aims than unity, and working for those aims will sometimes cause division.  Hence, Christians today may cause division and rouse opposition because they share, through their Baptism, the prophetic charism of speaking God’s word, no matter how unpopular, and of giving a voice to those who have no one to speak for them.  C.S. Lewis once said that the Gospel was concerned to create “new people” not just “nice people.” If our individual and communal living of the Good News casts no fire and causes no division, then perhaps we are practicing “inoffensive Christianity.”

The polarization that began from the time of Jesus has been continued throughout the centuries. It will never end. Jesus’ words speak of the inevitable consequence of his message. Divisions are foreseen, and divisions and conflicts have been a constant reality because the Christian gospel makes great demands. The challenge is to continue to speak the truth with love in spite of opposition.

Jesus has come to “bring fire to the earth” because some things that exist in our world have to be destroyed in order for something new, beautiful, and life-giving to emerge. And that is the mission of the church and each one of us, to keep the fire of Christ burning alive to burn down the sin of the world and in ourselves and create a new world loyal to Christ, the truth.  

 

 

 

 

OT XIX [C] Wis 18:6-9; Heb 11:1-2, 8-19; Lk 12: 32-48

The Gospel today invites us to trust God and cast out all fear. Jesus said to his disciples, Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

A person’s heart is tied to what he values most in life. People will inevitably reveal what they value most by their actions. Some people may value money more than anything and will go to great lengths to secure and gain more riches. For many people, their success or family is the most valued treasure of their lives, which is revealed in how they spend their time and energy. Therefore, Jesus’ statement that “where your treasure is there your heart is also” means that what a person values and loves the most in life will influence how they live.

Someone said, if I looked at your spending for five minutes, I could tell where your priorities lie because people go to where their time and money go. For example, health-conscious people spend time and money on being healthy. Fashionable people spend time and money researching the latest fashion trends and shopping. The most fascinating thing is that many of us are misaligned in our priorities and where we allocate our money.

A person with a heart set on worldly pleasures and riches will live in pursuit of earthly treasure while the person who values Christ above all else will stay focused on eternity and store up treasures in Heaven.

COVID has taught us that life can change within the blink of an eye. Those things that we have devoted endless hours into building and attaining can be stripped away from us within an instant. We can do everything we can to create a type of security in life, but the truth is, everything in this life is temporary. 

We work endless hours in an attempt to build financial security. We expect our relationships to fulfill our deepest longings for love and adoration. These things are certainly not wrong in themselves. But it’s healthy, every now and then, to stop and reflect on our motives. 

Our outlook on life changes when we realize the true mission in life and, that will determine how we use our time. In the business world, people say "time is money", because they know that time is a limited resource. We don't have an unlimited amount of time in which we can fulfill the mission God has given us.

For us, then, "time is Kingdom". One thing that will help us to use our time well, to be responsible and not lazy servants of our King, is budgeting the amount of time we spend entertaining ourselves. We need a certain amount of relaxation and recreation in order to keep balance in life. They are a means to an end. But our society tends to treat pleasure, fun, and entertainment not as means, but as the goal of life. That attitude opens the door to over-indulgence in entertainment - to wasting this precious resource of time. Since we live in this society, we are vulnerable to that temptation. We can keep the proper balance by having  enough self-discipline to budget how much time we spend on entertainment. Whether it's TV, cell phones, music, video games, movies, web surfing, jogging, or whatever - we all need to find a healthy way to relax. But as Christians, our mission comes first. It's up to us to be responsible stewards of our time, and plan ahead.

Living our mission and being responsible stewards of the many gifts we have received from God has  practical repercussions. It means that being a Christian affects our life decisions. Knowing that we are members of Christ's household, and that our first priority in life is to follow him, sheds light on every significant decision we have to make.

For example, when young Catholics are deciding where to go to college, the Catholic presence on campus should be a factor - not the only factor, but if our primary mission in life is to be faithful followers of Christ, it should at least be a factor. This is also why the Church constantly encourages her children to marry someone who shares the same faith. 

Marriage is a sacrament. It is meant to bring the spouses and children closer to Christ as it brings them closer to each other. When the husband and wife don't share the same faith, it makes that mission much harder to fulfill.

Career decisions can also be enlightened by this criterion. If we know that in God's eyes what matters most is that we are faithful to him and to our mission in the Church, our criteria for career success will be different than society's generic criteria.

Staying aware of our identity and mission even helps us decide where to go on vacation: we will do our best to choose a place where we can at least get to Sunday Mass.

As we continue with this Mass, let's ask ourselves what decisions we are facing or will be facing this week. And as Christ comes to us once again in Holy Communion, let's speak with him about them, and ask him to give us the light and strength we need to be faithful and prudent stewards of his gifts.