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

First Reading – Wisdom 2:12,17-20

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 53(54):3-6,8

Second Reading – James 3:16-4:3

Gospel Acclamation – John 8:12

Alternative Acclamation – 2 Thessalonians 2:14

The Gospel According to Mark 9:30-37 ©

 

(NJB)              

 

Listen!

 This reading is presented as a prophecy concerning the coming of Jesus. Though in reality, both Paul and the Gospel writers patterned much of their depiction of him on this image of the blameless man.

 Know this:

 It is good to be upright and moral, to walk humbly, to love justice and be merciful; it is good to live this way. Some find the good life easy to fulfill, even in the midst of tragedy and violence persecutions, in justice and moral depravity, some will remain committed to these beliefs and principles…to this way of life. Others find the just life hard, and will concoct excuses for their sinful ways, blaming others, offering justifications and deflections for the choices they made...some will even believe them.

 Be mindful!

 God loves the just person and the sinner both. God, the creator of the universe, God has a plan for each of them. God’s love is boundless and redounds to the benefit of all…every saint is a sinner and all sinners shall be sainted.

 Remember this:

 When you are in distress, God is with you. The eternal source of all that is, it is to God that we all return. We, together with our family and friends, the alien and the adversary, we are all on the same journey, returning to the divine—where there is no enmity. 

 Consider the wisdom of the apostle James, the brother of the Jesus. James tells us that we will know if the teaching is sound insofar as fosters peace, kindness, and thoughtfulness among in the community wherein it is taught. If the teaching promotes compassion and good works among the people, it is doing the work of God. Its soundness will be evinced not merely in the beauty of the spoken word, and the zeal for the mission of the Church, but in the fruit which our actions bear.

 Be mindful of the divisions which emerge within the Church, every breach of unity among the people represents a deviation from the way.

 Heal broken relationships with love and patience; do not petition God to solve the problems before you, rather pray for forgiveness, and be prepared to forgive those with whom and by whom you have been alienated.

 This is the way, and we all in it together. We are all moving inexorably toward God, the divine source of all being, no-one is barred from the way.

 Understand this!

 All people are created in the divine image, we carry a seed of the logos within us; all people have been chosen by God to receive the sanctifying spirit. This is the good news, the really good news as proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth, as Christians we are called upon to trust in this reality and share our faith in it by word and deed.

 Consider the Gospel reading for today; in it we see an unadulterated presentation of the way, as Jesus preached it, as he lived it and taught it.

 Jesus understood that his disciples struggled, as all people do, with social order and pride of place. They were obsessed with hierarchies, and privilege. He was repeatedly reminded them that leadership meant service, that we are closest to God when we are engaged in loving service.

 There is no place for pride, or arrogance in office, when you are walking in the way. There is no mystery here, it is simply the truth. The injunction that Jesus places on his disciples goes beyond the acceptance of children, it is includes all people, because we are all the children of God. Jesus commands his followers to treat everyone as if they were in the presence of God, because they are, the real presence of the divine resides in all of us. It is on account of this fundamental reality that we are to approach our service with one another in the spirit of humility, telling us over and over again, that the first must be last and the last must be first.

 Know this!

 Women cannot be relegated to the back of the Church; there are no outcasts in the God’s garden, even the leper is welcomed with a kiss. Through the way that Jesus lived his life, he showed us that everyone has to be treated with the same regard, cherished as children of God; from the lowest born to the highest rank, enemy and friend alike.

 This is the way.

First Reading – Wisdom 2:12,17-20

The Wicked Prepare to Ambush the Just Man

The godless say to themselves:

‘Let us lie in wait for the virtuous man, since he annoys us and opposes our way of life, reproaches us for our breaches of the law and accuses us of playing false to our upbringing.

‘Let us see if what he says is true, let us observe what kind of end he himself will have.

If the virtuous man is God’s son, God will take his part and rescue him from the clutches of his enemies.

Let us test him with cruelty and with torture, and thus explore this gentleness of his and put his endurance to the proof.

Let us condemn him to a shameful death since he will be looked after – we have his word for it.’

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 53(54):3-6,8

A Plea for Help

Before the feast of the Passover Jesus knew that his hour had come. He had always loved those who were his, and now he showed the full extent of his love.

Alleluia, alleluia!

God, by your name, save me.

  In your power, God, judge me.

God, listen to my prayer

  and turn your ear to the words of my mouth.

The proud have risen up against me,

  the strong seek to take my life.

  They do not keep God in their hearts.

But God helps me,

  and the Lord lifts up my soul.

Willingly I will sacrifice to you

  and proclaim your name, O God,

  proclaim your good name.

It has rescued me from all my troubles,

  and my eyes look down on my enemies.

Amen.

Alleluia!

 

Second Reading – James 3:16-4:3

The Wisdom that Comes from Above Makes for Peace

Wherever you find jealousy and ambition, you find disharmony, and wicked things of every kind being done; whereas the wisdom that comes down from above is essentially something pure; it also makes for peace, and is kindly and considerate; it is full of compassion and shows itself by doing good; nor is there any trace of partiality or hypocrisy in it. Peacemakers, when they work for peace, sow the seeds which will bear fruit in holiness.

  Where do these wars and battles between yourselves first start? Isn’t it precisely in the desires fighting inside your own selves? You want something and you haven’t got it; so you are prepared to kill. You have an ambition that you cannot satisfy; so you fight to get your way by force. Why you don’t have what you want is because you don’t pray for it; when you do pray and don’t get it, it is because you have not prayed properly, you have prayed for something to indulge your own desires.

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 8:12

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the light of the world, says the Lord;

anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – 2 Thessalonians 2:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

Through the Good News God called us

to share the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 9:30-37 ©

Anyone Who Welcomes One of these Little Children in My Name Welcomes Me

Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, ‘The Son of Man will be delivered into the hands of men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.

They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on the road?’ They said nothing because they had been arguing which of them was the greatest. So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.’ He then took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms round him, and said to them, ‘Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.’

 

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

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

First Reading – Isaiah 50:5-9

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 114(116):1-6,8-9

Second Reading - James 2:14-18

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:6

Alternative Acclamation – Galatians 6:14

The Gospel According to Mark 8:27-35 ©

 

(NJB)              

 

Listen!

Take comfort in the prophet’s courage, bear witness to the way.

Like Jesus, the authors of Isaiah understand the necessity of telling the truth, there is no justice without it, even though the reward for telling the truth is often condemnation from the people…who do not like to hear it, who do not want to believe that God loves their neighbor just as much as God loves them.

When people are afraid for their well-being, and anxious about the future, poor and rich alike, they do not want to share. They become resentful, jealous and miserly; the world has made them this way, and they will react with anger and violence to any little thing that comes along which threatens to upset their resentment filled lives, to challenge their jealousies and expose their miserliness.

This is the challenge that we face. Like Isaiah, you must open your ear and listen, we must listen with our hearts.

Speak of the divine in order to share the way of peace and blessing of God, never to condemn. Say to the people…do not fear, this is the way.

Remember.

God is not a king; when we call God, king, we risk the eventuality that we will kings will demand that we call them God. Such is the hubris of the ruling class; royals are rarely harbingers of peace, they are destroyers, and war, do not listen to their promises.

Tear down the Jerusalem of kings and fanatics, rebuild a Jerusalem of love and friendship, let that Jerusalem be seen by all the people’s of the world; this is what the prophet called us to do.  

Be mindful!

God, the creator of the universe is, God is the God of all creation. Nothing exists without God, not even death.

Know this:

The death of the body is not the death of self. God is present at every point of our lives. God was with us at the beginning, and within the eternal God there is no end.

Understand this.

Faith is not a thing that a person can possess, faith is a verb, it is an active principle, it is a way of life. Faith is vibrant, it has a frequency, it is sometimes week and at other times strong. Jesus taught that faith is not belief in a proposition, but rather trust in the providence of God, calling us to commit ourselves to the truth, and dedicate ourselves to the wellbeing of all of God’s children…which means everyone.

When the apostle speaks of being crucified to the world, he is talking about the strength of his faith, which has allowed him to forgo his desires for himself in the world, so that he can be a servant of the people; as Christians we are called to follow him.

Consider the Gospel reading for today, it provides to the reader with a profound message concerning the teaching authority of the church. This is a lesson that all Christians should be heedful of, especially in those moments when Christians, any Christian, presumes to understand the will of God and to speak with authority concerning it.

Look at Peter, the first Pope, the founder of the Church, a man who walked with Jesus, who spoke with him intimately; even Peter failed to understand the mission of Jesus and continued to fail Jesus right up until the moment of the crucifixion.

In fact, all of Jesus’ closest male disciples failed him, in the end, only a few of the women who followed him understood what it was that he was called to do.

In today’s reading we see have a record of Peter’s complete and total failure, he resists Jesus’ teaching to the point that Jesus is forced to rebuke him, naming him an enemy of the church.

Peter also rejected Jesus on the night he was captured, tried, and sentenced to death.

Nevertheless, in the light of these failures, which were so well known that they could not be scrubbed from the record, we are asked to believe that sometime after the crucixion, Peter came to understand the fullness of truth, that he came to understand Jesus mission, and that when he founded the church (which is itself pure mythology), that Peter was at-one with Christ.

We may accept the Church’s teaching on this matter, or we may consider the alternate, that the Church was founded by a man who was essentially opposed to the mission and teaching of Jesus. Whatever the case, the reading for today teaches us to be skeptical of authority, of kings and vicars…and rightly so.

First Reading – Isaiah 50:5-9

I Offered My Back to Those Who Struck Me

The Lord has opened my ear.

For my part, I made no resistance, neither did I turn away.

I offered my back to those who struck me, my cheeks to those who tore at my beard; I did not cover my face against insult and spittle.

The Lord comes to my help, so that I am untouched by the insults.

So, too, I set my face like flint; I know I shall not be shamed.

My vindicator is here at hand. Does anyone start proceedings against me?

Then let us go to court together.

Who thinks he has a case against me?

Let him approach me.

The Lord is coming to my help, who will dare to condemn me?

 

Responsorial Psalm – Psalm 114(116):1-6,8-9

Thanksgiving

Lord, keep my soul from death, my feet from stumbling.

Alleluia, alleluia!

I love the Lord, for he has heard

  the cry of my appeal;

because he has turned his ear to me as I call on him,

  day by day.

The ropes of death surrounded me,

  Hell held me tight,

I had found pain and tribulation –

  but I called on the Lord’s name:

  “O Lord, free my soul.”

The Lord is compassionate and just;

  our God takes pity on us.

The Lord cares for the simple –

  I was brought low, but he saved me.

Return, my soul, to your rest,

  for the Lord has looked after you;

he has rescued my spirit from death, my eyes from tears,

  he has saved my feet from stumbling.

I shall walk in the presence of the Lord

  in the land of the living.

Amen.

Lord, keep my soul from death, my feet from stumbling.

Alleluia

 

Second Reading - James 2:14-18

If Good Works Do Not Go with It, Faith is Quite Dead

Take the case, my brothers, of someone who has never done a single good act but claims that he has faith. Will that faith save him? If one of the brothers or one of the sisters is in need of clothes and has not enough food to live on, and one of you says to them, ‘I wish you well; keep yourself warm and eat plenty’, without giving them these bare necessities of life, then what good is that? Faith is like that: if good works do not go with it, it is quite dead.

  This is the way to talk to people of that kind: ‘You say you have faith and I have good deeds; I will prove to you that I have faith by showing you my good deeds – now you prove to me that you have faith without any good deeds to show.’

 

Gospel Acclamation – John 14:6

Alleluia, alleluia!

I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord; No one can come to the Father except through me.

Alleluia!

 

Alternative Acclamation – Galatians 6:14

Alleluia, alleluia!

The only thing I can boast about is the cross of our Lord, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world.

Alleluia!

 

The Gospel According to Mark 8:27-35 ©

The Son of Man is Destined to Suffer Grievously

Jesus and his disciples left for the villages round Caesarea Philippi. On the way he put this question to his disciples, ‘Who do people say I am?’ And they told him. ‘John the Baptist,’ they said ‘others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.’ ‘But you,’ he asked ‘who do you say I am?’ Peter spoke up and said to him, ‘You are the Christ.’ And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly. Then, taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him. But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, ‘Get behind me, Satan! Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.’

He called the people and his disciples to him and said, ‘If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me. For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.’

 

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

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.