Thoughts on the resurrection of the body

 

Memorial of Saint Cecilia, Virgin and Martyr

Luke 20:27–40

Friends, today’s Gospel reports a conversation Jesus had with some of the Sadducees, who held that there is no life after death. We could practically hear their speech on the lips of secularists today. But Jesus is having none of it. The dead shall indeed rise, he says. Otherwise, how could Moses have spoken of God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all of whom were long dead by Moses’s time? But their risen existence, though in continuity, even bodily continuity, with what has gone before, will be transformed, transfigured, raised up. Those who hold to the resurrection of the body are those who are most effective at working for justice and peace in this world. If you are a complete materialist and secularist, you hold that everything and everybody, in the end, just fades away. But if you believe in the resurrection of the body, then everything in this world is destined for redemption. Everything matters. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on Christ the King

Reflection for The Feast of Christ the King

As we come to the end of our liturgical year, this weekend we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. How does one sum up the “love story” that unfolds for us in this year-long journey? Our scripture readings present to us “the last word” about our God who has come to us and remains with us. “Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe:” a title, not of domination, royalty, or servitude, but of total love and service.

We do honor and revere Him (Our entrance antiphon proclaims, “How worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and divinity, and wisdom and strength and honor.”) Yet, through Jesus, God has bestowed on us these very gifts. “God has transferred us to the Kingdom of His beloved Son.” His reign is a total reversal of the roles we usually assign to royalty and servitude. His title is displayed for us on the cross: Jesus from Nazareth, King of the Jews. His power is displayed in his laying down his life for us. (St. Ignatius says that this is the greatest sign of God’s love for us.)

Centuries before the coming of Jesus, his ancestor David was chosen as a king: “Here we are, your bone and your flesh…and the Lord said to you: You shall shepherd my people.”

The Lamb of God reigns as our Shepherd. The words of this familiar hymn sum up in a beautiful way the One we celebrate and revere on this Solemnity:

The King of love my shepherd is whose goodness fails me never.

I nothing lack if I am his, and he is mine forever…

In death’s dark vale I fear no ill, with you, dear Lord, beside me.

Your rod and staff my comfort still, your cross before to guide me.

And so, through all the length of days Your goodness fails me never.

Good shepherd, may I sing your praise within your house forever.

Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on Christian living

 

Thirty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 19:11–28

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus uses images drawn from the world of business to instruct us in Christian living. And he especially likes the dynamic of investment, risk, and return as a model of the spiritual life. The reason is clear. God exists in gift form. Therefore, if you want his life in you, you have to learn to give it away. Think of the coins we read about today as everything that we’ve received from God—life, breath, being, powers, and so on. Because they come from God, they are meant to become gifts. If you cling to them in the manner of the third servant, they don’t grow; in fact, they wither away. Notice that the first two servants doubled their wealth precisely in the measure that they risked it. This means that the one who truly has the divine life knows how to make it a gift, and that in turn will make the original gift increase. And the opposite holds: “From the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.” This means that if you try to cling to the divine life, you will, in short order, lose it. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on mercy

 

Memorial of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, Religious

Luke 18:35–43

Friends, today in the Gospel passage, we see Jesus’s mercy toward the blind man as a hallmark of his ministry. Jesus comes as healer, savior, inaugurator of the kingdom. He is the embodiment of hope. Jesus wanted to connect human suffering to the very source of life and health. The energy of God pours through him to the needy. Now, I realize a question may be forming in your mind: “Well, why doesn’t he simply cure everyone then?” The answer is obviously wrapped up in the mystery of God’s will, but the important point is this: Jesus is healer in many senses, but ultimately in the sense that he heals us from sin and death, not only physical maladies. What appears historically in Jesus is an eschatological anticipation, a hint and foreshadowing of what is coming in God’s time and in God’s way.  Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on persistent prayer

 

Thirty-Second Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 18:1–8

Friends, in our Gospel today, Jesus tells his disciples “a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary”—the parable of the insistent and persistent widow. She keeps pressing her demand against the judge, and the judge—who is no saint—finally gives in to her persistence. When we rely on our own powers in the spiritual struggle against darkness, hatred, and division, we fail. But when we open ourselves to the infinite power of God and rely on the power of prayer, then the battle goes well. As the Lord says in the parable, “Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them?” We must channel a power that goes infinitely beyond ourselves if we are to be successful. God wants us to persist in asking for his power, his courage, and his strength. This biblical truth is repeated over and over in the Scriptures. Persistent prayer is the key to success in our spiritual combat.  Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on the "Final Days"

As we approach the end of our liturgical year our readings turn toward what we could refer to as the “the final days,” the completion of God’s creation. There is strong language describing the events that will take place, urgent statements about being prepared for the coming of these days. Down through the years some people have taken the language and the images literally—in a fundamentalist way. But the “end” has not come in those terms.

By and large, we do not live expecting the final reckoning to come anytime soon, and we try to make sense of the time in between the coming of Jesus and His final coming. We long for and eagerly await the redemption promised to us by God. (This redemption is primarily rescue from evil and the fulfillment of God’s desires for us and all of creation.)

Perhaps more than ever, as the human community we are aware of the global crisis in economic, social, and ecological terms. In view view of our own social and global situation, as well as our personal moral responsibility, Jesus summons us to conversion. But, in the end, his words to us in this week’s Gospel are words of promise and hope: the kingdom, the realm of God is within you, near you, and around you. “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

And so, as we await the fulfillment of God’s salvation for us, we might pray for the grace to redeem our time with eager service, and the grace to go forward in the light of God’s commands and God’s strength.

Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on joy

 

Joy Remains

From: Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety

What we have to start sensing is that in the spiritual life, joy is embracing sorrow and happiness, pain and pleasure. It is deeper, fuller. It is more. It is something that remains with us. It is something of God that is very profound. It is something we can experience even when we are in touch with very painful things in our lives. If there is anything the church wants to teach us it is that the joy of God can be with us always – in moments of sickness, in moments of health, in moments of success, in moments of failure, in moments of birth, in moments of death. The joy of God is never going to leave us.

“The precepts of the Lord are right, giving joy to the heart. The commands of the Lord are radiant, giving light to the eyes.”   - Psalm 19: 8

Thoughts on obedience

 

Memorial of Saint Martin of Tours, Bishop

Luke 17:7–10

Friends, today’s Gospel describes the obedience of a faithful servant. Our lives are not about us; they are about the King. We are built not for commanding others but for obedience. In the presence of the awesome lordliness of God—that mind and will whose grandeur we can barely fathom—we bow, we listen, we surrender. The Lord is the King, the one who commands, directs, and oversees, and who, accordingly, demands obedience. For a military tribe such as the ancient Hebrews, this term had, to be sure, an especially powerful resonance. The proper response to a king is obedience. The king commands, and the servant responds—simply, promptly, unhesitatingly. A courtier or a messenger might not understand the rationale for, or consequences of, what the king has told him to do, but he does it, trusting in the wisdom and power of the one who sends him. The word “obey” is derived from the Latin obedire, to listen attentively, to heed. In the presence of God the Lord, we his servants should listen, bending our ears and our wills to his word. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on money

 

Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 16:9–15

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus teaches us to approach wealth with wisdom. Let me quote a sermon of St. John Chrysostom on the right approach to money: “Those who love money are fierce in the pursuit of it, like wild animals pursuing their prey. They betray, cheat, or exploit their closest friend when there is gold and silver to be gained. They learn to make their consciences as numb as fingers on a cold day. Their eyes become blind to the suffering they cause, and their ears deaf to the cries of those whose lives are ruined by them.” Those are strong words, and they shook the people at the time who heard them. And they shake us today. But can you hear he’s speaking in the tones of Jesus? What’s the ground of all this for John Chrysostom? Why does he say it? It’s very clear. Because everything we have—our bodies, our life, our breath, our minds, our accomplishments, and, yes, our wealth—is a sheer gift given to us by a generous God, and, therefore, it ought never to be hoarded for our own purposes but always used for God’s purposes. Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on God's presence

This Sunday we are celebrating the feast of the Dedication of the Church of St. John Lateran. It might seem surprising that on a Sunday we would be celebrating a Church building. In fact, we are not simply celebrating this Church building. Our scripture readings lead us to see that we are celebrating the sacred presence and deep desire of God for all of us: “Behold God’s dwelling with the human race. God will dwell with them, and they will be God’s people.”

Our Opening Prayer for this feast makes clear the meaning of our celebration: “O God, who from living and chosen stones prepare an eternal dwelling for your majesty, increase in your Church the spirit of grace you have bestowed.” A building, then, (St. John Lateran is the oldest Church in Rome and the cathedral church of Pope Leo XIV) can be the symbol of meaning for a people, an expression of all that is true and good and beautiful, the ultimate hope and desire of God’s people.

Our Gospel passage on this feast has Jesus coming to Jerusalem near Passover time and visiting the Temple. He did not like what he saw—the core of faith had been co-opted into commodity transactions (“…stop making my Father’s house a marketplace.”) The Temple for him represented the presence and deep love of God for us. Each visit was a reminder of the hope and promise held out to all of humanity.

So, most importantly, what we celebrate this Sunday is that same reminder, found in a special way in the sacred places we revere, places where we find God’s presence, but also a reminder of the truth about ourselves: “You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you.” We can, indeed, give thanks for all the ways that God finds to keep us close and celebrating!



Len Kraus, S.J.

Thoughts on conversion

 

Thirty-First Week in Ordinary Time

Luke 14:25–33

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus says that a disciple must carry his own cross and follow him. All of us sinners tend to see the universe turning around our ego, our needs, our projects, our plans, and our likes and dislikes. True conversion—the metanoia that Jesus talks about—is so much more than moral reform, though it includes that. It has to do with a complete shift in consciousness, a whole new way of looking at one’s life. Jesus’s teaching must have been gut-wrenching to his first-century audience: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” His listeners knew what the cross meant: a death in utter agony, nakedness, and humiliation. They knew it in all of its awful power. If God is self-forgetting love even to the point of death, then we must be such love. The cross, in short, must become the very structure of the Christian life. This is just what Jesus shows on his terrible cross. And this is just what we, his followers, must imitate. Taking up the cross means not just being willing to suffer but being willing to suffer as he did, absorbing violence and hatred through our forgiveness and nonviolence.  Bishop Robert Barron

Thoughts on All Souls Day

 

The Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed (All Souls Day)

John 6:37–40

Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus talks about raising us on the last day. Our faith is that God will clothe the soul in a new and higher body, what Paul calls a “spiritual body.” Here we might rely on the musings of John Polkinghorne, the Christian physicist, who appreciates the soul as the “form” or pattern of the person. God remembers this “form” and then reconstitutes it at a higher level during the resurrection, much as the pattern of an article or a photograph could be preserved in a computer’s memory and then reproduced in a new way. Listen again to the words of Jesus in our Gospel today: “Everything that the Father gives me will come to me, and I will not reject anyone who comes to me.” As you pray for the souls of your beloved dead, take comfort in those words. They will be raised again.  Bishop Robert Barron Prayer for All Souls' Day ‌ Dear God of mercy, We pray this day for all souls, both known and unknown to us, who, although touched by death, have not yet entered your heavenly kingdom. Lord God, by the precious blood which Jesus, your divine son, shed upon the cross this day, deliver the souls in purgatory, particularly those souls nearest to us and for whom we should pray, that they may come quickly into your glory, to praise and bless you forever. Grant them eternal rest, oh Lord. Amen.

Thoughts on the Beatitudes

 

Solemnity of All Saints

Matthew 5:1–12a

Friends, our Gospel for today is one of the most beautiful and important in the New Testament: the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount, the eight Beatitudes. Why is it so important? Because it is the Son of God telling us how to be happy. It is the one who can’t be wrong telling us how to achieve that which each of us most basically wants. What could be more compelling? At the heart of Jesus’s program are these Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful” and “Blessed are the peacemakers.” These name the very heart of the spiritual program, for they name the ways that we participate most directly in the divine life. One of the most important words to describe God in the Old Testament is chesed (tender mercy). The New Testament version of this is found in the First Letter of John: God is agape (love). Everything else we say about God should be seen as an aspect of this chesed and this agape. Chesed is compassion; agape is willing the good of the other. Therefore, if you want to be happy, desire to be like God. Do it and you’ll be happy. Bishop Robert Barron