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Humility in Christ

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Humility is hard.  Jesus Christ frequently calls us to be humble, and it is hard.  In Sunday’s readings , Jesus is once again calling us all to be humble, especially in prayer before God.  Very often, we can find ourselves extolling our greatness before God and lamenting others’ faults.  The scriptures very clearly tell us that this is not the way to eternal life. In Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us with the parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee.  Both are praying in the temple, but each is praying in a radically different manner.  In this parable, the Pharisee is praying in the temple with eyes raised to heaven.  In reality, he is not so much praying as informing God of his own wonderful qualities and accomplishments while putting down someone he thinks unworthy, the tax collector.  In juxtaposition, the tax collector is truly praying by acknowledging his sinfulness and asking God for mercy.  Jesus tells his disciples that the tax collector, who humbled himself before Go
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Speak, Lord, Your Servant is Listening

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It has been quite some time since I made my last blog post.   I could list all kinds of excuses as to why I have not been writing, but they would not make a difference.   I simply just did not want to write, even though I felt a call to do so.   Then, I read the readings for this Sunday, and I knew that it was time to begin again. Sunday’s readings will be familiar to most people.   The Gospel is a passage that is often quoted, discussed, and read throughout the year.   We hear Jesus clearly exhorting the importance of following Him and placing His will ahead of our own desires.   It is a passage we all know but rarely live up to (or at least I don’t).   We know that God has a plan for each of us and continually calls us to follow the path he has charted for us.   However, actually following that path is not always easy or something we want to do in the moment. In the first reading, we hear the Lord telling Elijah who to call as his successor.   The Lord tells Elijah to “ano
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Trust in Christ

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We are well into Lent at this point, and if you are like me, you have hit some bumps in the road during this Lenten journey.  It is not always easy to keep up our Lenten promises.  I will be the first to admit that I sometimes find it very difficult to stick with the sacrifices I promised to make during Lent, and I have a feeling that I am not the only one in that situation.  However, we know from Sunday’s readings that the Lord is close to us in our struggles.  He hears our prayers and calls us to come back to Him. Coming back to God.  That is what Lent is about.  Lent is the time each year when God calls us back to Him.  He calls us to repentance.  He calls us to reorient our lives towards Him.  God knows that this is a radical call, and He is patient with us.  He knows that we will often fall and struggle.  As we hear in the first reading, God comes to us in our struggles and difficulties.  When the Israelites were being persecuted in Egypt, God revealed Himself to Moses and
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Repent and Believe in the Gospel

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                Today may be one of the busiest days of the year for churches, and it may be the one day of the year that many people even attend a church service.   Today begins our Lenten Fast in preparation for Easter.   Today we receive ashes on our foreheads as a reminder that we are sinners and are called to repentance.                 The ashes we receive today are not just a way to show off that you went to church.   These ashes say to the world, “I am a sinner, and I am in need of salvation!”   They are an outward symbol of our need for Christ’s mercy in our live.   They should also be an outward sign of our willingness to realign our heart to God.                 We hear the Prophet Joel in the first reading exhorting the people, “Even now, says the LORD, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and weeping, and mourning; Rend your hearts, not your garments, and return to the LORD, your God” (Joel 2: 12-13a).   These words should resound in our lives, too
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Humility and Mercy

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                While reading the Gospel for this Sunday , I could not help but think of a friend of mine.   Sh e made the dumb (brave) decision to pray for humility.   This is one prayer that the Lord always answers, and He answers it in ways we could not have imagined.                 For my friend, the Lord answered it by showing her what some of her friends and acquaintances say about her when she is not around.   Unfortunately, it was not things that build you up, rather it was pretty bleak.   Hearing that people you considered friends were talking poorly about you behind your back would deliver a big blow to anyone’s self-esteem.   My friend was no exception.                 Sunday’s Gospel shows us how to react to these situations.   Often times, our human instinct is to retaliate or get the person who wronged us back.   However, Jesus shows us a different way.   In St. Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tell us to, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who
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Gaudete et Exsultate! Rejoice and Be Glad!

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                “Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,” is the easiest way to summarize the first half of Sunday’s readings (Jer 17:7).   However, it leaves us wondering, “why?”   Why should we trust in the Lord?   Why should all of our hope rest in Him?   Thankfully, the Gospel Acclamation tells us why!   “Rejoice and be glad; your reward will be great in heaven!” (Lk 6:23).   If we trust fully in the Lord, we will be rewarded immensely in heaven.                 In the reading from the Prophet Jeremiah, the differences between the one who trusts in himself and the one who trusts in God is clearly laid out.   We hear that the man who trust in himself, in the world, is closed off from God.   His “… heart turns away from the Lord,” and he is focused not on God but on himself (Jer 17:5).   In drawing the image of a “barren bush in the desert,” we are shown that our true strength, our life, comes from God and not human desires (Jer 17:6).   For if we could sustain ourselves
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Readying Ourselves for the Desert

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I was very fortunate to be able to speak at Adore at St. Anne last night.  Adore is a monthly Holy Hour on the first Wednesday of the month at St. Anne.  It features a guest speaker, praise & worship music, Eucharistic Adoration, and Benediction.  I was asked to share some thoughts on getting ready for Lent.  Below is my talk.  I hope you enjoy. ________________ Readying Ourselves for the Desert                 If you’re like me, you can’t believe Lent is only a month away.   It seems like we just finished putting up the Christmas decorations and pulling out the green vestments for Mass.   Soon violet will dominate the sanctuary, and we will enter the desert of Lent in preparation for Easter.   Often times, we think of Lent as preparing ourselves for the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we forget that Lent is its own journey that needs its own preparation.   Thankfully, we’ve got a month to get ready for Lent.                 Lent b
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