Month: June 2022

You will remember that just a few days ago, the Gospel for June 18 gave us that famous line from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Mt 6:24) It’s an easily understood concept. To put it in a more modern vernacular, “How can you expect to ‘get God’ if you’re busy trying to ‘get stuff’?”

Here we are, 2,000 years later, and the world basically runs on the accumulation of “stuff.” We invent stuff, develop stuff, manufacture stuff, grow stuff, buy stuff, sell stuff, collect stuff, service stuff, and dispose of stuff. Cars, electronics, household goods, food, baseball cards, stocks and bonds, money — it’s all stuff, and the emphasis on acquiring it is getting in the way of what we’re really here for: to know, love and serve God in this world so that we can be with him in the next.

The Church in its wisdom ups the ante with today’s Gospel, where Luke tells us about Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem, where he will suffer, die and rise — all for us, by the way. It’s not the simple “God or stuff” dichotomy. These are real “punch in the stomach” examples today.

When Jesus tells someone, “Follow me,” the reply is “Lord, let me go first and bury my father.” The Lord’s reply is blunt: “Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”

Another person thinks he has it figured out: “I will follow you Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.” See, Jesus? I’m leaving them behind for you. Again, Jesus pushes for more: “No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Even in requests that seem reasonable to us, Jesus sees the truth. And that truth is this: God first. Always, always, God first. There can be no compromise. Look at it this way: Your father died and must be buried. What if, in your love for and belief in God, you commend your father to God’s mercy, you pray for his soul, you realize that God created him, gave him his life, and knew the moment when it had to end. You thank God for what your father taught you, and you ask God for mercy for yourself, as well. 

What if, instead of saying goodbye to your family before following Jesus, you bring your family with you? You teach them of God’s greatness, His love, mercy and justice, His only begotten Son who became man, taught us, healed us, suffered for us, died for us, rose again, gave His very self to us in the Eucharist. What if you prayed for them, and asked God to help you guide them to communion with Him?

That plow Jesus talks about is the course of your life. If you’re looking back to what was, you’re going to have a pretty crooked row. If you keep your focus up front — on God, your life’s goal — putting Him first and foremost, the plowing might not be any easier, but it will be heading in the only right direction — straight to God, your ultimate joy.

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Catholics use a lot of language that is particular to us, for many reasons – it may come from Latin or Greek or theology or the ancient Church, and has been passed on and continually used. Some examples are words like “pope,” “eucharist,” “devotion,” “communion,” “benediction,” etc. These words, like non-Church words, can be used so much that we might forget to think about what they actually mean.

“Immaculate” is one of those words. We use it to describe both Mary’s origin and the state of her being: the Immaculate Conception and the Immaculate Heart. What does this mean? The word literally means “without spot/stain.” She was born without the stain of Original Sin, and she preserved her absolute “spotlessness” throughout her entire life, something 100% of us are not able to do!

In every situation of her life, in every moment, she chose God instead of herself. She understood her absolute dependence on God for everything and she lovingly trusted in God for everything.

Was she tempted? Yes. But she never succumbed to sin.

Did she suffer? Yes. Deeply. But she knew how to suffer fruitfully.

At the Annunciation, the angel calls her “full of grace.” Full, because there was no selfishness or sin taking up space where grace could abide. He says, “the Lord is with you,” because she opened herself fully to Him always and invited Him into every moment of the day, every thought, word, and act. This young girl’s response to the angel’s invitation is the profound response of a soul who knows her position in the universe and in the Heart of God clearly: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me as you have said.” It is the confident response of an immaculate heart that trusts, a free heart that can make a way for the Word to become Flesh, a bold heart that can stand at the pivot of history and change humanity’s course, a generous heart that can say YES to God in a new way and begin to unravel all the NO.

This Immaculate Heart never wavered from that YES, through uncertainty and danger, poverty and loss, maternal bonding and letting go, all the way to the Cross and beyond. And this Immaculate Heart was a steady beacon for the early Church, from the tomb to the ascension, through the prayerful waiting for the Spirit at Pentecost, to the missionary preaching and sacraments. And when her work here was done, God lifted her to Himself, body and soul, to be near her Son eternally.

The Church situates this Memorial the day after the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart of Jesus to help us see the closeness – the communion – of these Two Hearts, of Mother and Son. In Heaven, there are two human hearts beating as one before the Father, and they beat with love for you and for me.

Mary, help us to love as you love, and to give a ready YES to God!

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