Holy Ghost PNCC

The washing of feet, the kiss of greeting and the anointing of the head were customary signs of welcome shown to a guest at a meal in Jesus’ time. Such courtesies seem to have flown out of the window at the meal recorded in today’s Gospel. There the guests pushed forward for the places of honor and Jesus chided them for their bad manners.

To this heavenly meal, God will invite all who are lowly of heart and who acknowledge their need of salvation. They will receive the invitation, “My friend, move up higher.” Those who in their self-righteousness consider themselves entitled to the best places will, to their shame, have to take the lowest place. The parable echoes the first reading: “The greater you are, the more you should behave humbly,” for the Lord “accepts the homage of the humble.” It also echoes Mary’s Magnificat found earlier in St. Luke’s Gospel and heard at Evening Prayer each day: “He casts the mighty from their thrones and raises the lowly. He fills the starving with good things, sends the rich away empty.”

The overwhelming love of Christ urges us to be one with those who are in need, to embrace them as St. Francis embraced the leper, so that we may love in a selfless, practical way. They await our invitation so that together we may be at that heavenly banquet “when the virtuous rise again.”

Jesus is asked, “Will there be only a few saved?” The reply that He gives is unnerving: many will truly not all be successful. Jesus also goes on to say that people from all over the world, from many nations, will come and there will be places for them. In other words there are places in the kingdom of God for the many, not the few.

Jesus tells the disciples to try their best to enter by “the narrow door.” In the Greek of the New Testament, the word used for “try your best” actually means “to wrestle.” It involves struggle and effort. The question for each of us is: what do we need to wrestle with?

Today’s Gospel is ultimately not about exclusion but about inclusion – there is space in the kingdom for many, and that includes those we struggle to accept.

This is not easy; and that is why Jesus calls us to wrestle with it, wrestle with our conscience, with our prejudices, with our own arrogance and self-righteousness. When we cannot do this, we may find ourselves facing the closed door. We receive the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, on Sunday, so that we may be Christ’s body in our world during the rest of the week. As we receive the sacrament, we are called to act as Christ would act in out world.

Being the face of Christ to those we find most difficult to like or love is the narrow door through which all of us are being invited to pass.

There are plenty of people in our own neighborhood, in our own community, who need us to be the face of Christ. To love with the love we have already received ourselves.

The feast of Mary’s assumption into heaven is the fulfillment of this story of God emptying Himself to take on human form, to be we are, to see things through our eyes. Mary stands at the closure of the Old Testament and the threshold of the New, spelled out most clearly in the words of the Magnificat, when she thanks the Lord for all He has done for her.

We, the followers of Christ, the members of His Church, try to follow Mary in our pattern of life. We are called to marvel at what God’s goodness has done and to seek to make present that goodness in our lives. Generosity of heart, freedom from fear, reflection on the Lord’s word and thanksgiving for what He has done: not a bad list of virtues to make our own!

Jesus is encouraging His followers to be ready to move on at a moment’s notice: “See that you are dressed for action and have your lamps lit.” Jesus is saying that they cannot put their trust in the power of their possessions, for they are ultimately meaningless.

The kingdom of God is to be experienced fully at some future time. Just when is not known – and that is why we are called to be ready for it at every moment. The image that Jesus uses here of God is of master who, instead of demanding service, Himself puts on an apron and gets down to serving us, just as Jesus was to do at the Last Supper. Today’s Gospel begins with Jesus telling us that we need not to be afraid, for God’s kingdom is a gift to us.

How well Jesus knew our fearfulness of change, our aversion to risk – especially the older we get, or the more we feel we have to lose. We are faced with challenge all the time – in the world, in our families, in our health and even here in the Church. How do we react to these changes? Habit and routine are comfortable, and so is nostalgia. But they can also be deadening, preventing us from opening ourselves to the capacity to change. Or do we put our total trust in the one who has promised to lead us to a new land, a new relationship, a new set of circumstances?

Jesus calls us to rely on God, to trust in God, to look forward joyfully to what God gas in store. Why be fearful of such a future, or averse to the risks that may be required to get there?

Today’s Gospel can make for uncomfortable reading. Many of us have worked hard to earn what we have today. Yet the man in the parable is held up as an example of wasting time by building up his impressive stash of grain and goods. Is Jesus telling us we shouldn’t save up? Is he telling us we shouldn’t own any stuff at all?

Fortunately for us all, the answer is “no”. The man in the parable has decided to hold on to his great harvest. It is more than he needs, but he decides he will go to great lengths to hold on to it, even building new, bigger, barns. Having more than you need might make your life easier in the short term, but it will do your soul no good at all. Once he is dead, the man will have nothing. Our souls are made no better by having lots of money or lots of stuff. It is fine to have the things we need to live, but the Gospel teaches us to be wary of allowing our desire for wealth to be our driving force. In order to have something to take with us when we die, we are called to live lives that make us rich in God’s eyes, not rich in the eyes of the world.

Unlike the man with his barns full but his soul empty, Christians are called to a life of inner wealth. The saying goes, “You can’t take it with you when you go”, but the treasures that we find in Jesus are something that we can take with us all the way to heaven.

In honor of the Commemoration of St. Christopher, Fr. Robert blessed automobiles following High Holy Mass on Sunday, July 25th. Here are some pictures from this year’s blessing.

Today’s readings tell us that our God is an approachable God – both Father and friend. Even as the outraged Lord of the Old Testament prepared to punish Sodom and Gomorrah for the wickedness of their inhabitants, Abraham was able to negotiate with Him. And in today’s Gospel, Jesus suggests a way of praying that connects us with our Creator who is also our Friend. He introduces what we call the “Our Father”. We relate to God as a human family, rather than simply as individuals.

The Gospel also contains the parable of the friend at midnight. That friend is knocking at a neighbor’s door, seeking help to offer hospitality to a traveler who has just arrived at his home in need of food and shelter. Of course, there were no late-night supermarkets in those days, so borrowing from a friend was the only option. What seems to be so important in the story is the persistence shown by the man knocking on the door. Jesus is saying that if friends come through for us despite the inconveniences they face, how much more will God come through for us.

St. Luke, more than any other of the writers of the Gospels, tells us about the prayer life of Jesus. Jesus prayed often, regularly connecting with God the Father. So prayer is about connecting. Prayer is a way of connecting to God, enabling us to communicate – to listen and to speak. Jesus encourages us to speak freely with God and give voice to our longings. Prayer can at times be difficult, but even at difficult times it helps if we try to make more of a habit of daily prayer and develop our spiritual dimension. We could converse with God when waking up in the morning, when considering our state of health and the well-being of family and friends.

That famous teaching of Jesus on the “one thing necessary” was given at Bethany, at the house of Martha and Mary, in the Gospel we hear today. The two sisters, Martha and Mary, are two very different characters, with two very different temperaments. One is active, the other passive. One is busy doing; the other, seemingly not busy, listening. The scene that we stumble upon has a familiar ring to it.

When guests arrive at our house, we like to make busy and to attend to them. So Martha is very familiar to us. In her anger her sister, we recognize ourselves all too often. Dinners do not cook themselves, and laziness deserves to be scolded. But that is not the whole story.

Visitors like to be attended to, not left to sit by themselves in isolated splendor. Guests have come to visit us, not just to taste our food. Mary is doing a very important thing by sitting with her guest. Guests look forward to good conversation and good food, not either/or. That is why Jesus is so gentle with Martha in His response. He has great affection for her, and for her strengths, her practicality. But Mary’s sensitivity is equal to be prized.

“Martha, Martha,” Jesus says, “you worry and fret about so many things.” This statement is true of so much of human life. We live in a busy, overactive, noisy, never-sleeping world. Always on the go, always doing things. If our lives are made up of this constant activity, this ceaseless labor, then we have lost our soul, we have lost our spiritual life. There is one thing necessary if we are to live life well, and that is spiritual attention.

To be rejected for whatever reason always causes suffering to the one rejected. The Samaritan is Jesus’ parable would have known what it was like to be rejected. Samaria had been the ancient center of Israel. But the Samaritans were descended from immigrants who had settled in Samaria, and the Jewish people looked on them as heretics and rejected their claim to be true worshippers of the God of Israel. The conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well, as narrated in St. John’s Gospel, indicates the depth of the breach that divided Samaritans and Jews, for the woman was amazed that Jesus even spoke to her, let alone asked her for a drink of water.

When people are immovably hostile to one another, an act of kindness can work wonders. Those who might have been expected to help the man, one a representative of the religious leaders and the other an assistant in the Temple, decided not to get involved and avoided him. Only the Samaritan, the one who was rejected and hated, proved himself a neighbor by taking pity on the man and giving him practical help.

The parable not only answers the lawyer’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” It also reveals that God is greater than any prejudice or hatred and that true love can be found when least expected.

The Good Samaritan was a true neighbor because he acted unselfishly. The challenge for us is to act on the Lord’s words, “Go, and do the same yourself.”

Although St. Luke doesn’t tell us any of the name of the seventy-two whom Jesus sent out ahead of Him, they must have been an impressive body of people. They had such faith in Jesus’ word that they were prepared to do exactly what He asked them. They were to be trailblazers, seventy-two pioneers, all like John the Baptist, sent forth to prepare the way where Jesus Himself would follow. It was more like an endurance test, a survival exercise. Jesus gave them very clear and precise instructions. They could take no money; they could carry no luggage; they must even go without footwear. In short, they must rely totally on providence and on the generosity of those who might welcome them, staying with those who were open, moving on from those who were closed. To all, whether welcoming or not, they should announce the nearness of God’s kingdom.

Today’s Gospel teaches us that we are called to prepare the way for Christ by how we live and witness to our faith. It reminds us that sometimes material things can get in the way of following the Gospel.

We probably don’t need to abandon everything and walk around barefoot preaching the closeness of God’s kingdom. But it’s important to appreciate again the backbone, the bedrock, of God’s presence, which, even if we have little less, remains always with us as the source of our rejoicing.