Observation - September 9th, 2024, Monday

it is bright outside

the cicadas are humming

autumn approaches, green 

leaves, curling

            in shades of rust and gold

A Homily – The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading - Isaiah 35:4-7

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 145(146):7-10

Second Reading – James 2:1-5

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 3:9, John 6:68

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 4:23

The Gospel According to Mark 7:31-37 ©

                        

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 This reading from the school of Isaiah is a prayer of hope. It is a prayer for healing and restoration, it is a prayer for salvation…not in this life, this is not a prayer for this world. It is a prayer for deliverance to the world, beyond.

 Isaiah believes that at the end of all things we shall witness the whole of creation in rapt exultation of the divine, in that place we will not be concerned with ephemeral things.

 In the next world we will face our fears and watch them disappear, like tears on the cheek, or dew in the morning.

 Isaiah calls us to have faith, courage and patience while we wait.

 Do not pray for vengeance, or retribution to be visited on your enemies; remember that they are God’s children as well. Pray for your enemies, and all those who persecute you, forgive those who have hurt you, and ask for their forgiveness at the same time.

 This is a prayer for healing, allow the recitation of this prayer to foster the desire in your heart to see everyone healed, and in that moment you will experience the joy that awaits us all…you will find it in the love of God.

 Praise God, the creator of the universe. Praise the author of our salvation with song.

 Do not place your hope in princes and kings, the divine has no pretensions to royalty…that is a human thing.

 Our time of Earth is brief, like a flash in the night; we are born, we breathe and we are gone.

 Be mindful.

 The earth itself will not survive the sun.

 Happy are those who assist God in the work of mercy and justice. Lift the oppressed wherever they are; feed the hungry, free the prisoner, teach the ignorant. Advocate for those who need an advocate, care for those who cannot care for themselves. Treat all people with the respect regardless of class, wealth, rank or station. Find those who are lost in their wickedness…and bring them home.

 Remember this!

 The first shall be last, and the last shall be first.

 If you have been elected by your people to guide them, if they have granted you this power…do not misuse it; you will be tempted, that is certain, but do not let the words of James indict you, do not allow corruption to take hold inside you, and grow like mold in your midst.

 Know this:

 The reward for your service is peace, it is peace in this life, in the knowledge that you have lived well, acted justly and done good.

 God has prepared you for eternity, but eternal life is not a reward for your faith and service, it is a gift-given freely, our faith and service are how we show our thanks. For the salvation we have already received.

 Be wary of the scriptures, especially when the authors are attempting to fit their narrative into a picture that makes it look as if Jesus is fulfilling a prediction made by a prophet from past ages.

 Even if a prediction was made, and even if Jesus did the thing that was predicted, it is a false to suggest that Jesus’ actions were in fulfillment of it; we know this because God made the universe (as us in it) free; the future is not predetermined, it never has been and it never will be.

 The prophets only speak of the future for two reasons:

 1.     To warn of danger

 2.     To engender hope

There is no other purpose and there is no predictive power augurs and omens.

The words of a prophet are always addressed to the people in their own time, in their own place. Prophecy is never meant to guide the lives of future generations, except in cases when the prophet is addressing an issue of universal truth, such as the nature of justice, which is itself unchanging.

Know this.

The Gospel writers were propagandists. They fabricated many of the details of Jesus’ life to suit their understanding of who Jesus was, why his mission was necessary, and what his life and death meant for the early church.

Consider the Gospel reading for today, which gives us an example of Jesus’ healing power. The narrative constructed in such a way as to have the reader believe that what is important is the story of Jesus’ power, that he is able to make the deaf hear and the dumb speak. This is understandable, because the people wanted to believe that these kinds of miracles did in fact occur, they hungered for such stories, in this they are no different from our own generation.

The writers of Mark told the same stories that were circulating among the believers, they were compelled to make Jesus’ ministry a tale of wonder-working, and yet they were able to work a caveat into the story by expressing the notion that Jesus did not want his healings to be publicized…miracles were not the thing he wanted to be known for.

Mark’s Gospel, the earliest of the four, is replete with these admonishments to secrecy. The message they were sending is this; faith should not be based on stories of the supernatural. Myths and fables, while they be used for instruction, do not strengthen the Church.

Be mindful.

To have faith is to trust; faith in God is trust in the unseen.

This is the way.

First Reading - Isaiah 35:4-7

The Blind Shall See, the Deaf Hear, the Dumb Sing for Joy

Say to all faint hearts, ‘Courage! Do not be afraid.

Look, your God is coming, vengeance is coming, the retribution of God; he is coming to save you.’

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, the ears of the deaf unsealed, then the lame shall leap like a deer and the tongues of the dumb sing for joy; for water gushes in the desert, streams in the wasteland, the scorched earth becomes a lake, the parched land springs of water.

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 145(146):7-10

The Blessedness of Those Who Hope in the Lord

I will praise my God all my days.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Praise the Lord, my soul.

  I will praise the Lord all my life,

  make music to my God as long as I exist.

Do not trust in princes to save you,

  they are only sons of men.

One day their breath will leave them, they will return to the ground;

  on that day perish all their plans.

Happy the one whose help is the God of Jacob,

  whose hope is in the Lord his God,

who made heaven and earth and all that is in them,

  who keeps faith for ever,

  who gives justice to the oppressed,

  who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord frees prisoners,

  he gives light to the blind,

  he raises the fallen.

The Lord loves the upright, cares for strangers,

  sustains orphans and widows;

  but the wicked he sends astray.

The Lord will reign for all ages,

  your God, O Zion, from generation to generation.

Amen.

I will praise my God all my days.

Alleluia, alleluia!

 

Second Reading – James 2:1-5

God Chose the Poor According to the World to Be Rich in Faith

My brothers, do not try to combine faith in Jesus Christ, our glorified Lord, with the making of distinctions between classes of people. Now suppose a man comes into your synagogue, beautifully dressed and with a gold ring on, and at the same time a poor man comes in, in shabby clothes, and you take notice of the well-dressed man, and say, ‘Come this way to the best seats’; then you tell the poor man, ‘Stand over there’ or ‘You can sit on the floor by my foot-rest.’ Can’t you see that you have used two different standards in your mind, and turned yourselves into judges, and corrupt judges at that?

  Listen, my dear brothers: it was those who are poor according to the world that God chose, to be rich in faith and to be the heirs to the kingdom which he promised to those who love him.

 

Gospel Acclamation – Isaiah 3:9, John 6:68

Alleluia, alleluia!

Speak, Lord, your servant is listening: you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Matthew 4:23

Alleluia, alleluia!

Jesus proclaimed the Good News of the kingdom and cured all kinds of sickness among the people.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 7:31-37 ©

‘He Makes the Deaf Hear and the Dumb Speak'

Returning from the district of Tyre, Jesus went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, right through the Decapolis region. And they brought him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they asked him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, put his fingers into the man’s ears and touched his tongue with spittle. Then looking up to heaven he sighed; and he said to him, ‘Ephphatha’, that is, ‘Be opened.’ And his ears were opened, and the ligament of his tongue was loosened and he spoke clearly. And Jesus ordered them to tell no one about it, but the more he insisted, the more widely they published it. Their admiration was unbounded. ‘He has done all things well,’ they said ‘he makes the deaf hear and the dumb speak.’

 

A Homily – The Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

The Patron Saint of Doubters, Mother Theresa of Calcutta

Sometimes I get ahead of myself…I think we all do at times. We project what we want to see over and against the reality of what is, just as I do in the title of this piece, Mother Theresa of Calcutta, Patron Saint of Doubters.

So let me be clear, that title belongs to someone else, the Church has named her Patron Saint of World Catholic Youth Day, and that is fair: the wise mother inspired many young people through her life of austerity and selflessness; she inspired many of us to good things, to want to be good people, to emulate her in that way…but this office hardly gets to the core of who she was.

Theresa of Calcutta was a tiny woman, but she was strong. She inspired people through the strength of her commitment to her ideals, despite the painful realities she experienced and despite her understanding that the suffering she sought to ease would continue here on earth as long as the world endures.

Like the wise mother we must pray for strength, wisdom, understanding and perseverance.

We must be like the wise mother and pray for these things without the expectation that God will deliver them.

 Like the wise mother we pray, because the act of prayer fortifies us, each and every day.

Theresa of Calcutta was beatified for her life-long commitment to the good, in service to the poor, and for exemplifying patience and endurance while she was engaged in her work.

If the rest of us were able to approximate a small degree of her commitment to justice, mercy and  and compassion, to give a small part of ourselves over to humble task of healing of the world…the world might stop spinning in its spiral of violence, and in that moment we might see a glimmer of the divine.

It is right and good to praise God in pray, because God is the first source and center of a mysterious and miraculous creation, it is beyond the scope of human comprehension; praise the divine for forming it.

While it is right and good to praise God, it is not a sin to doubt God’s purpose in the world.

Theresa taught us this as well; she taught that doubt is a natural movement within the beating heart of every person, especially of those who lovingly confront the pain and suffering we encounter in the world.

It is not sinful to doubt God or God’s purpose in the world, neither is it sinful to doubt the traditions of the Church, its doctrines and decrees and decretals. Far from being sinful, or emblematic of a disordered heart, far from being a sign of disobedience, it is normal and good.

The wise mother taught us this, and so let us be clear about a few things:

God has no enemies.

God does not grant victory.

In God, within whom all things exist…there is no conflict or division.

We do not exhibit God’s justice through our work as human beings, it is human justice. Our forms of justice only approximate divine justice when it is expressed in humility, when we demonstrate mercy and compassion…it is then that we may call the justice we deliver good.

The wise mother taught us to aspire to this, even in the midst of misery and despair.

Pope Francis, canonized Mother Theresa on September the 4^th, 2016, on the 23^rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, her feast was celebrated for the first time, and from that day forward, on the 5^th of September, which is today.

Christians of every stripe, and non-Christians alike, remember Saint Theresa of Calcutta for her desire to embrace all people, no matter how flawed or marginalized they might be, and all people will remember this brilliant woman, servant and sister, this theologian. We will remember her for her brilliance which grows even greater in her afterlife.

Let me say this:

God chose her from the beginning to receive the sanctifying spirit, just as God chooses all of us; God created her in the divine image, placing within her a seed of the eternal Word to enliven her. God made her this way, in the same way that God makes everyone, but what made the sainted mother different from most of the rest of us was that she saw the truth of it clearly, and in seeing it she understood her purpose in the world.

She heard the call, and she answered it.

The wise mother was able to see the divine image in those she bent down to serve, she saw the face of God in the poor and the sick, in the blind and the leper, she saw God suffering in them and she responded with the love God asked her to bear…the same love God asks all of us to bear.

Theresa listened.  

The wise mother is famous for her service and her impressive life, famous for the inspiration she gave to millions upon millions of people, but when I reflect on the life of Saint Theresa of Calcutta, it is her memoirs, published after her death, which had the greatest impact on me.

Theresa struggled, like all of us do, with the sense that God had abandoned her; she even felt at times as if God had abandoned the world. She managed to do the good works she did, to serve the Church and all its members, to fulfill her commitment to her order and lead them; to make of her life a daily sacrifice even in the midst of her own profound doubt and great personal anguish; she experienced the suffering of other’s…she shared it with them.

Theresa lived with a deep-felt sense of alienation from God, and yet the wise mother persevered in goodness even in the face of abandonment; she acknowledged the pain that she brought to others, even as she tried to serve them; she confessed her faults and asked forgiveness, and for her humility her order asked her to lead them.

Theresa bore witness to the suffering of the world, she held God accountable for it in her heart, and yet she still followed her calling, despite her indictment of the divine, and that is why she will be known as the Patron Saint of Doubters.

Labor Day

Today is Labor Day, our great national holiday, a day set aside for the American worker, a day to celebrate the ordinary citizen, the men and women whose blood, sweat and tears sustain this country.

 Today is the day to honor laborers, it is a day to honor work. Today is meant to be a day of rest, a day of repose and respite.

 This year as with last year we have record-low unemployment, our work-force participation at an all-time high. Workers are seeing increases in wages, and so manufacturers are gouging, inflation is high, and the banks are taking their cut in the form of higher interest rates.

 When it comes to their real-wages the American worker has seen this cycle before: two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward and two steps back.  

 I spent most of my life working in the hospitality sector. Now I am employed by a food distribution company. I am in customer service, sales-support, my clients are mostly restaurants to whom we sell gourmet food; a lifetime of working in restaurants has given me the product knowledge to manage our catalog of goods.

 I work mid-shift, and partly from home. It is the first regular job I have ever had, my first foray in a normal corporate environment, there are benefits and there is HR.

 I have found it strange to find myself in this role, in this place…so late in life.

 Understand this!

 The American worker needs more guarantees than annual holiday in their name. We need a fundamental reorganization of the social-safety net; we need national healthcare, a single-payer-system, health benefits should be guaranteed by the state, not negotiated through labor contracts that ultimately deflate the worker’s actual wage.

 These costs should be removed from the balance sheet of the employers, so that the costs of labor are clear and predictable and not entangled with the machinations of pharmaceutical companies, medical device companies, insurance providers and phony non-profits like hospitals.

 We need education reforms: we need to return the tools of critical thinking and logic to the classroom; we need to teach language arts and arithmetic, music and culture and civics in the public-school curriculum; we need industrial arts and mechanics.

We need to support the American citizen in order to enable them to reach their greatest potential, so that we may all get there together; the more the worker succeeds, the more America prospers.

 We need housing reform, and we need it now; we need affordable housing for every family, and the security of knowing our fellow citizens: our sisters and brothers, our daughters and sons, our mothers and fathers are not living in the street.

 The American worker needs these things, and the investor class needs to give it up, if they are unwilling to reinvest in their workforce, facilities and equipment, ten we should take their profits from them in the form of higher taxation.

 Happy Labor Day!

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien – Author, Poet, Her

I learned how to read novels by reading J. R. R. Tolkien.

My mother had a beautiful edition of The Hobbit on one of our many bookshelves. It was the hardbound edition, that came in a green, it was embossed with gold leaf and had gilt pages. There were lovely illustrations inside, with maps drawn by the author himself.

I pulled it off the shelf and read it when I was in the third grade; when I was finished I began reading it again, and I also The Lord of the Rings, followed by the Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales that had been edited and published by his son Christopher after his death. I read these volumes many times over: eight, nine, ten times over…into my early thirties.

Reading and re-reading Tolkien put the idea in my head that I wanted to be a writer. Reading his work over and over again gave me a deep appreciation for the care and craft he put into the construction of his fantasy world.

I remember a sensation I had on my third time through the Silmarillion; I believe I was in the seventh grade at that time. My comprehensive reading list had expanded considerably by that time, to include more than fantasy and science fiction; I read other literary classics, poetry, history and mythology as well as scripture. In addition to these I had begun to read reference materials related to Middle Earth, and through those readings I experienced a heightened sense of understanding of the story being narrated; my vocabulary had expanded and I had become a better reader, making it so that I was able to comprehend more of the material I was engaged with. The picture was filling; I was able to grasp more of the world that Tolkien had created; it was coming to life for me in new and different…more fulsome way.

I even read a biography of the great man himself, which was probably the first piece of non-fiction I ever read (other than histories that had been so mythologized that they felt like fiction).

I found the reference materials compiled by other authors about Tolkien and Middle Earth to be fascinating: The Tolkien Companion, the New Tolkien Companion, along with various encyclopedias, bestiaries and anthologies depicting the arms and armor of this fantasy world.

I added his smaller—lesser known works to the corpus of material I consumed. While still in the seventh grade I read Sir Gawain and the Green Knight which resonated with my another of my reading interests, Arthurian Lore, and through Tolkien’s Beowulf, I was introduced in a literary way to the Viking sagas.

Through Tolkien I came to have an early appreciation for the power of myth, as well as their malleability, and the potential we have as creative beings to fashion our own myths and communicate them to the broader world.

Through his writing Tolkien dramatized the basic conflicts he saw at work in our civilization, conflicts between the bucolic and pastoral life (which is where his heart was), with the forces of industry that seemed to be destroying the planet (even in his day he saw this happening), as well as the disasters of modern warfare and the suffering they visit on the world, which he experienced first-hand while serving as a signal man in World War I.

In my opinion the collected stories of Middle Earth do what all great literature does, they represent a social critique in the twentieth century more relevant to the human race ever.

We would be wise to be mindful of it.

 

A Homily – The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)

First Reading – Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 14(15):2-5

Second Reading – James 1:17-18,21-22,27

Gospel Acclamation – John 6:63,68

Alternative Acclamation – James 1:18

The Gospel According to Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 ©     

 

(NJB)

 

Listen!

 God, the creator of the universe, God does not distribute lands among the people, neither does God play favorites among the tribes and nations. Our laws, as we have them, including the laws we find in various religious texts, are not the laws of God, they are the laws of human beings.

 God is not the law giver, God is not a king or emperor, God is not a God of battles, anything predicated on such notions should be rejected.

 Know this.

 God dwells in the heart of every person, and where God is present, God is present fully. At the end of all things, all of God’s children will have returned to the divine. God forgets no-one and God loves us all, each and every one of us…even the worst of us, and while a just life is its own reward, both the just and the unjust are loved by God.

 Remember.

 The quest for primacy of place should never be the impetus for an expression of faith. Love is the law of God; therefore love God with all your strength, and all your heart, and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.

 This is the way.

 Serve God through the service you provide to your neighbors, your mother and father, your sisters and brothers, even the stranger among you...including your adversary.

 Love is the law.

 Consider what John has to say about Peter:

 He shares with us Peter’s thoughts, and he would have us believe that he follows Jesus because Jesus has the secret message that grants passage to its holder, to the path that leads to eternal life. John wants us to believe that this is the purpose of the gospel, acquiring the secret, and that if we acquire it and believe it---that Jesus is the “Holy One of God” we will hold the key and subsequently receive the gift of eternal life.

 John asks us to believe that God (the Father) parcels out access to Jesus (the Son), and the Spirit of truth, which leads to the reality of life everlasting, that God regulates who will and who will not be granted access, admitting some while refusing others.

 This scheme is false, it is emblematic of the con-artist’s faith, not a teacher of the way.

 This is the Gospel:

 God loves you and you are saved already. You are not saved for anything that you have done, you did not earn it; you are saved because God loves you and for no other reason.

 It is as simple as this.

 You are not saved on account of some choice you make, just as you did not choose to be born. You were born, and God loves you and you are saved because of this.

 The promise of salvation is not that you will be spared from suffering and torment in hell, or that when you are judged God will forgive you.

 God has already forgiven you, God accepted you from the moment you came into being, at that moment your status as a child of God was fixed, and your destiny certain. God has prepared you, and everyone for eternal life.

 Believe it!

 Let the goodness of the divine promise flow through you, start living this life as if it were true.

 This is the way.

 We are not called to believe in the idea that Jesus is this or that, the Holy One of God, we are called to act on the principles of his faith, to live lives of charity and service to each other.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today; it speaks to us of the challenges we face in our time, by telling us something of the challenges the Gospel writers faced in their own time. It speaks to us of a perennial problem in the Church, such as the hypocrisy of leadership.

 The hierarchy today; priests and pastors, bishops and cardinals, are often more concerned with outward expressions of piety, with measureable matters of ritual purity, with creeds and codes, canons and confessions, with the formulae of belief, rather than the living faith. This is a problem that has plagued the Church from its inception.

  Jesus cared about the living faith, he cared about the real lives of real people. Everything Jesus did in his ministry was subordinated to that…all the way to his arrest, torture, conviction and murder.

 We are called on to do the same, though not all of us are called to the same bitter end. Jesus calls us to share his perspective and approach the world with the same spirit of love.

 Remember!

 Each and every one of us is a child of God, and God is present in the heart of all of God’s children; in this way God is already present to God’s people. It may be the case that the rituals the Church has organized for purification (symbolic though they are), may have some social value. However, if they are used to teach people that without the ritual a person is unworthy of the presence of God, then these performances are merely false teachings and must be rejected by the people. 

 

First Reading – Deuteronomy 4:1-2,6-8

Observe these Laws and Customs, that You May Have Life

Moses said to the people: ‘Now, Israel, take notice of the laws and customs that I teach you today, and observe them, that you may have life and may enter and take possession of the land that the Lord the God of your fathers is giving you. You must add nothing to what I command you, and take nothing from it, but keep the commandments of the Lord your God just as I lay them down for you. Keep them, observe them, and they will demonstrate to the peoples your wisdom and understanding. When they come to know of all these laws they will exclaim, “No other people is as wise and prudent as this great nation.” And indeed, what great nation is there that has its gods so near as the Lord our God is to us whenever we call to him? And what great nation is there that has laws and customs to match this whole Law that I put before you today?’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 14(15):2-5

Who is Worthy to Face the Lord?

Neither overcome by toil, nor to be overcome by death, this great man did not fear to die, nor was he unwilling to live.

Alleluia, alleluia!

Lord, who will live in your tent?

  Who will dwell on your holy mountain?

Whoever comes there without stain,

  acts rightly, speaks truth in his heart.

Whoever does not speak deceitfully,

  or do harm to his neighbour, or slander him.

Whoever despises the evil-doer,

  but reveres those who fear the Lord.

Whoever swears and keeps his word, come what may

 – lends his money without usury –

  takes no bribe to condemn the innocent.

Whoever lives like this

  will stand firm for ever.

Amen.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading – James 1:17-18,21-22,27

Accept and Submit to the Word

It is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from the Father of all light; with him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change. By his own choice he made us his children by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he had created.

  Accept and submit to the word which has been planted in you and can save your souls. But you must do what the word tells you, and not just listen to it and deceive yourselves.

  Pure, unspoilt religion, in the eyes of God our Father is this: coming to the help of orphans and widows when they need it, and keeping oneself uncontaminated by the world.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 6:63,68

Alleluia, alleluia!

Your words are spirit, Lord, and they are life; you have the message of eternal life.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – James 1:18

Alleluia, alleluia!

By his own choice the Father made us his children by the message of the truth, so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all that he created.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 ©

You Put Aside the Commandment of God, to Cling to Human Traditions

The Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered round Jesus, and they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with unclean hands, that is, without washing them. For the Pharisees, and the Jews in general, follow the tradition of the elders and never eat without washing their arms as far as the elbow; and on returning from the market place they never eat without first sprinkling themselves. There are also many other observances which have been handed down to them concerning the washing of cups and pots and bronze dishes. So these Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’

 He answered, ‘It was of you hypocrites that Isaiah so rightly prophesied in this passage of scripture:

This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. The worship they offer me is worthless, the doctrines they teach are only human regulations.

You put aside the commandment of God to cling to human traditions.’ He called the people to him again and said, ‘Listen to me, all of you, and understand. Nothing that goes into a man from outside can make him unclean; it is the things that come out of a man that make him unclean. For it is from within, from men’s hearts, that evil intentions emerge: fornication, theft, murder, adultery, avarice, malice, deceit, indecency, envy, slander, pride, folly. All these evil things come from within and make a man unclean.’

 

A Homily – The Twenty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B)