Thoughts on missions

Having returned last week to “Ordinary Time” and to St. Matthew’s Gospel as the source of our Sunday Mass readings, we find Jesus trying to prepare his disciples for the missions that they themselves will be called to assume. Specifically in the Gospel for this Sunday, Jesus prepares them for the rejection and hostility they can expect if they embrace the mission he gives them. In doing so, he addresses their anxieties and fears about human opposition on the part of those who already have rejected Jesus’ message with great hostility.

The Twelve were understandably anxious about being sent out to preach on their own.

In response, Jesus commands two simple things: fear no one, and preach boldly. Of course, these are familiar themes throughout early Christian literature. Bold speakers may inspire fascination, but in an explosive environment like that of Roman-occupied Palestine, such fearless speech must have struck the Twelve as more imprudent than inspiring! They, like we, however, could draw inspiration from Jeremiah the prophet, whose story we also hear in the Sunday readings. His preaching aroused hostility, so much so that at one point he was imprisoned, tortured and left to die in a muddy well; he was delivered each time. He never stopped preaching, and history proved his words to be correct.

Matthew was writing for Christians of every age. The fearless, risky speech of Jeremiah and Jesus is both an example and a command to Christians in all times and places. Jesus trusted in his heavenly Father and had confidence in the truth of his own message. His love was greater than the world’s hate. We need to trust the same message. Love conquers all. You and I preach it less in words than in deeds, recognizing that the “cost” of our witness is sometimes the same insofar as we encounter cynicism, defensiveness and misunderstanding, if not blatant hostility. And yet, whenever you and I make ordinary, daily choices of love in response to whatever circumstances and opportunities each day brings, no matter how seemingly small, we are acknowledging that Christ is alive and at work in the world. We are the disciples on whom God relies to continue the Son’s mission as history unfolds.


Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Platinum Birthday

 

Last week I celebrated my birthday and my wife informed me that I was turning 63 years old and I was born in 1963.  She said there should be some kind of special name for this type of birthday, since it is so rare.  In recent years we have heard about folks, mostly children, celebrating their Golden Birthdays.  Golden Birthdays are when you are the same age as the day of the month that you were born, so for example, if you were born on the 17th day of May and you are turning 17, then that is your Golden Birthday.  Well, my Golden Birthday was in 1975 and we didn't celebrate Golden Birthdays back then, at least not where I lived, but now it seems to be a fairly common thing.  Well, we decided to check with ChatGPT and we were informed that when you are the same age as the year that you were born, that is called a Platinum Birthday.  Well, there you have it!

Thoughts on the Sacred Heart of Jesus

Sacred Heart

Each year on the Friday following the feast of Corpus Christi, before returning to “Ordinary Time,” the Church celebrates the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Heart-language is powerful language. Simple phrases convey and capture meaning beyond verbal expression: a contrite heart, brave-hearted, with a heavy heart, heart- to-heart, a stony heart, a broken heart, cold-hearted, a divided heart, light-hearted, with one heart and mind, wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve, hard-hearted, a passionate heart; cross my heart; know by heart; give my heart; heart filled with…; aching heart; clean heart. It’s rather amazing how dependent we are on heart-language to convey a great variety of human emotions and experiences.

I don’t know why I came at a young age to be fascinated by the image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It probably has something to do with my high school days at St. Louis U. High, where the engaging Sacred Heart image was ubiquitous. Over the years, that familiar image, that devotion, has seeped more deeply into my own heart, shaping my devotional life and spirituality.

Perhaps on retreat at White House you have prayed before the Sacred Heart statue which resides to the south of Snyder Hall. Or, perhaps you are aware of other places, including in your own home, where the image has found a place of honor. It is not easy to precisely capture what the Sacred Heart image conveys. It does so “silently,” without words, not unlike the method through which my parents conveyed to their children their convictions about right and wrong, their experience of God, and their Catholic vision of life. But it does communicate. In the presence of the Sacred Heart, we know that we have a God who understands, who feels, who forgives, who speaks the words that we deeply long to hear, who loves with that kind of love that is all-encompassing and still relentlessly personal and unconditional.

It is that Jesus, that God, that I often address in prayer. Assessing the quality of my own heart, and recognizing how “mixed” it can be, I nonetheless want to offer it to a God who I trust will know exactly how to respond. Perhaps we can all beg for ourselves that same grace.


Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on forgiveness

 

Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle

Matthew 5:20–26

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commands us to be reconciled with one another. I want to say something about the role of forgiveness in repairing our broken relationships. When you are at worship and realize that you need to forgive someone (or be forgiven by someone), go and do it. Go get reconciled, then come back. It’s like a rule of physics. There is something hidden in the deep mystery of God, and I can’t fully explicate it. Somehow, if there is a lack of forgiveness in you, it blocks the movement of God in you. Perhaps it’s simply because God is love, and so whatever is opposed to love in us blocks the flow of God’s power and God’s life. One reason we do not forgive is that we feel that some injustice has been done to us, and we resent it. A good cure for this feeling is to kneel before the cross of Jesus. What do you see there? The innocent Son of God nailed to the cross—the ultimate injustice. What does he do? He forgives his persecutors. Meditate on that, and your sense of being treated unjustly will fade away. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on community

 

Community Keeps the Flame of Hope Alive

From: Finding My Way Home: Pathways to Life and the Spirit

Christian community is the place where we keep the flame of hope alive among us and take it seriously so that it can grow and become stronger in us. In this way we can live with courage, trusting that there is a spiritual power in us when we are together that allows us to live in this world without surrendering to the powerful forces constantly seducing us toward despair. That is how we dare to say that God is a God of love even when we see hatred all around us. That is why we can claim that God is a God of life even when we see death and destruction and agony all around us. We say it together. We affirm it in each other. Waiting together, nurturing what has already begun, expecting its fulfillment – that is the meaning of marriage, friendship, community, and the Christian life.

Reflection Question: When was the last time that you shared your burdens with others and what steps can you take to to seek out others to wait, listen, pray, and cultivate hope with?

When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Those present were Peter, John, James and Andrew; Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew; James son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot, and Judas son of James. They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers. - Acts 1: 13 - 14

Thoughts on the Feast of Corpus Christi

This weekend we celebrate the feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, often known simply by its Latin name, Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ.

It was only about two months ago, on Holy Thursday, that the Church celebrated the body and blood of Christ. It might seem odd to commemorate that gift again so soon, but this weekend’s celebration has a different character. Holy Thursday was solemn and focused our attention of Jesus’ death. Today’s solemnity is joyful and focuses us on the mission begun at Pentecost: to act as Christ did and share his love with the world.

As St. Paul suggests, this term can have two meanings: the Body of Christ which we share in the Eucharist, and the body of Christ that we form as a community of believers united with the Risen Christ.

This combination of meanings reminds us that the Eucharist is profoundly social. This Sunday’s reading from 1 Corinthians provides a concise but very rich statement about what we do when we celebrate the Eucharist as the people. Paul reminds the Corinthian Christians (and us) that as members of the body of Christ we constitute one body. It is a natural symbol and powerful image, reminding us of how all of its parts must work together and of how no part can be hurt without the whole body being hurt. Christ makes this body different. He comes first; he makes the body; his relationship to us forms us into the body of Christ. Our vertical relationship with Christ has as its necessary consequence our horizonal relationship with one another. In that social sense we are the body of Christ. As Paul states, as members of Christ’s body, we affirm our identity and unity when we receive the eucharistic body of Christ.

In this Sunday’s Gospel from John, Jesus identifies himself as the living bread that came down from heaven. When his disciples take in and become all that he is, the life forces he enfleshed continue to be offered for the life of the world. The interconnectedness of all persons and all life in the body of Christ is not an abstract concept; it is palpable and visible. Our participation in the Eucharist concretizes and energizes our relationship with Christ and with one another. As members of the body of Christ, we share in the body of Christ.

One final thought: Jesus’ body was a place of action. In his body, Jesus healed, fed, forgave, called and taught. Through Jesus’ body, humanity felt God’s love. John teaches us today how we too can, like Jesus, give God a body from which to act and a heart from which to love. Our love of Christ’s body should make of own bodies a place from which God can act in love, thus continuing the mission of Christ.


Fr. Frank Reale, S.J.

Thoughts on Jesus as Lord

 

Memorial of Saint Boniface, Bishop and Martyr

Mark 12:35–37

Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus quotes a psalm where David calls him Lord. It calls to mind a question: Do you also recognize Jesus as Lord?  Is Christ commanding your life in every detail? Is he the Lord of your family life? Of your recreational life? Of your professional life? Is he the Lord of every room in your house, including the bedroom? Does your sexuality belong to him? Do your friendships serve his purpose? Are you totally given over to him, under his lordship? When we surrender to the path of love that he has laid out for us, our lives become infinitely lighter, easier, and more joyful, for we are moving with the divine purpose. We will have moved out of what Paul calls the way of “the flesh” and into the way of “the Spirit.” Flesh refers here not to the body as such but to sin. When you are caught up in patterns of self-regard and self-protection, life becomes a burden, and you find yourself taking up the weapons of war all the time. But when you recognize Jesus as Lord, you can let all of that go. Bishop Robert Barron