Thoughts on prayer

 

Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 11:1–13

Friends, our Gospel for today gives us an opportunity to reflect on the great prayer that Jesus taught us. Think how this prayer links us to all of the great figures in Christian history, from Peter and Paul to Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Francis of Assisi, John Henry Newman, G. K. Chesterton, John Paul II, and right up to the present day. A desire to pray is planted deep within us. It just means the desire to speak to God and to listen to him. Keep in mind that prayer is not designed to change God’s mind or to tell God something he doesn’t know. God isn’t like a big city boss or a reluctant pasha whom we have to persuade. He is rather the one who wants nothing other than to give us good things—though they might not always be what we want. Can you see how this prayer rightly orders us? We must put God’s holy name first; we must strive to do his will in all things and at all times; we must be strengthened by spiritual food or we will fall; we must be agents of forgiveness; we must be able to withstand the dark powers. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the Jesuits

On July 31, the Church will celebrate the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, a rather “big deal” for those whose lives have been shaped by Jesuits and their apostolic works, including, of course, White House Retreat. While its influence may often be subtle and even unnoticed, Jesuit (Ignatian) spirituality permeates the way in which our priests preach and teach, and the way in which our retreatants are invited to express themselves in prayer, in faith, and in service. 

 

Wanting deeply to please God, Ignatius strove to make his entire life a huge thank-you back to God. He did so by becoming a freer, more loving person, not fixated on his own perspective and desires, but sincerely committed to what he perceived to be God’s desires and hopes for humankind. Pleasing God by living according to God’s plans is what motivated Ignatius. And this is what allowed him to accept so many unexpected, and probably also undesired, twists and turns in his life. 

 

If Jesuit spirituality as a concept can sound a bit mysterious, there is nothing abstract about the actual Jesuits who have served White House Retreat over the course of its 103-year history.  Some have been bigger than life; some rather easily forgotten.  Each has had weaknesses as well as strengths.  At their best, all were propelled in ministry by the same holy desires that propelled the life of Ignatius of Loyola.  Key to their Jesuit vocation have been two hallmarks held in tension: a deep dedication to the work to which each has been assigned, combined with an ongoing availability, even at a moment’s notice, to take up a new assignment if that be the decision of the Jesuit provincial.

 

In your kindness, please pray for Jesuits, that we may be faithful to the vocation we have been given. And please pray that God will continue to call men to the Society of Jesus as priests and brothers, eager to serve God’s people in the manner of St. Ignatius.  A.M.D.G.

 

 

Fr. Frank Reale, SJ

Thoughts on love

 

A Greater Love than We Can Contain

Love, as Jesus reveals it to us, is a relationship between persons. The word “person” is a wonderful word. It comes from the Latin words per, which means “through” and sonare, which means “to sound.” A person is someone who is sounding through. What are we sounding through? We are sounding through a greater love than we ourselves can contain. When we say to somebody, “I love you,” that really means, “You are a window through which I can get a glimpse of the infinite love of God.”

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.”   - Matthew 5: 14 - 16

Thoughts on Martha and Mary

 

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 10:38–42

Friends, today’s Gospel is the account of Jesus’ visit with Martha and Mary. I have a different perspective from the standard view of balancing the active versus the contemplative life. In service of God’s way of ordering the world, Jesus allowed women into his inner circle. The story of Martha and Mary gives us a very interesting clue in this regard. Martha is in the space reserved for women: She is in the kitchen preparing the meal. But Mary is in the place reserved for men: She is sitting at the feet of the rabbi. It is the attitude of the disciple.  Luke, who told this story, was a companion of Paul, and his Gospel reflects many of Paul’s themes. In Galatians, Paul famously said, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free person, there is not male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” This was very radical stuff, for these were some of the most basic social divisions of the time, and each carried a clear evaluative weight. Free men were a lot better off than slaves, Jews had huge advantages over Greeks, and males were seen as superior to females. But not anymore, in light of the kingdom of God that Jesus announced. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on community

 

Building a New Community

We can love others because the “I” in our innermost self has heard the first love – which is God's unconditional, unlimited love. When we come together in relationships, we recognize that others are also loved with the first love. The first love incarnates in different ways in every person and calls us together to build a new home, a new community, a new dwelling place for God in this world.

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”   - Matthew 5: 46 - 48

More thoughts on evangelization

 

Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time

Matthew 10:7–15

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus sends the Twelve to evangelize the countryside. To evangelize is to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead. When this kerygma, this Paschal Mystery, is not at the heart of the project, Christian evangelization effectively disappears, devolving into a summons to bland religiosity or generic spirituality. When Jesus crucified and risen is not proclaimed, a beige and unthreatening Catholicism emerges, a thought system that is, at best, an echo of the environing culture. Peter Maurin, one of the founders of the Catholic Worker movement, said that the Church has taken its own dynamite and placed it in hermetically sealed containers and sat on the lid.  In a similar vein, Protestant theologian Stanley Hauerwas commented that the problem with Christianity is not that it is socially conservative or politically liberal but that “it is just too damned dull”! For both Maurin and Hauerwas, what leads to this attenuation is a refusal to preach the dangerous and unnerving news concerning Jesus risen from the dead. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on worship

 

God is Right Here

Worship is coming together as a community of God to claim the presence of Christ. So we listen to the readings, we break the bread, we share the cup, we sing songs. They are all gestures in which we remind each other that no matter what we are experiencing – whether it is joy or pain or suffering – God is there. The world around us is trying to pull us away from that. It wants to say that nothing is happening here so why don't you buy this or go here or find your happiness there? The worshipping community is saying God is right here with us….The worship life of the church over the year is bringing Christ back into the center of our lives and realizing that we as a body of people are representing the living Christ in our world.

"And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another…"    - Hebrews 10: 24, 25