Reflection for the Solemnity of Christ the King 2023

“Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father. Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was…’” 

Welcome as we conclude this year’s Ordinary Sundays with this great Solemnity dedicated – as all things are – to Jesus Christ our King.

In some churches this Solemnity is dedicated to Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Kind of funny when one thinks about it, how we as His people add on levels of detail to Jesus’ Kingship, trying to make Him as big as He really is by adding more and more adjectives.

The real point is that we can never define Jesus’ Kingship well enough, nor should we try, but rather spend our time as we have throughout this Ordinary Time focused on listening to, obeying, and witnessing to Jesus the King by our very lives.

Jesus, our King, and only true ruler taught us to live His Father’s way of generosity. He has told us that we will be held accountable for living up to doing things His Father’s way. He calls us again and again to turn, repent, and get back on track.

We hear Ezekiel telling us about God’s help in getting us back to where we need to be: As a shepherd tends his flock when he finds himself among his scattered sheep, so will I tend my sheep. I will rescue them from every place where they were scattered. I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bind the injured, and heal the sick. 

Picture that, God among His scattered and wandering people. Immediately He sets to work in saving us. Well, that is what Jesus did.

Having been saved and reminded to stay awake, prepared for our Master’s return, with access to the many graces the Holy Spirit provides as He seeks, brings back, binds, and heals us, Jesus tells us what His return in judgment will be like.

In each instance He will judge how great our generosity has been. Welcoming, feeding, providing drink, clothing, visiting – all that stuff we do right here is our parish, but more important than that is the reason we do all those things. If it is just for points or to earn credits for heaven, we would be wrong. Rather, in each instance Jesus’ words must ring true – we are doing it for Him. We must see Him in each act of goodness and be Him to those we help. This must ring true – whatever you did you did for Me.

Reflection for the 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2023

“’What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? Or am I not free to do as I wish with my own money? Are you envious because I am generous?’”

Welcome as we continue our journey of study and commit ourselves to the work of following, witnessing to, and sharing Jesus.

Last Sunday we talked about celebration, and the many reasons we, who follow, witness to, and share Jesus have for celebrating.

We learned last week of the amazing generosity of God’s forgiveness. After Peter’s question related to accounting for forgiveness Jesus replies that forgiveness for those who follow Him is not a thing to be counted. Rather, our forgiveness must remain uncountable. We are not in Jesus’ gospel life as scorekeepers. The limitless forgiveness of our good and loving God is to be the forgiveness we are known by. 

Our reconciliation and salvation, our redemption all come from the uncountable gift of God’s only Son, and His self-giving to save us.

Imitating God’s uncountable forgiveness we can look at ourselves and each other differently, as freed people.

This Sunday we are once again reminded of God’s generosity.

Jesus’ well-known parable of the landowner and the workers covers several points again related to counting, and there is more to it than what is at face value.

The first workers are looking at the generosity of the landowner and admire it. Wow, this guy is so generous I can’t wait to see what I get. After all, these latecomers are not as good and deserving as I am. They lazed around all day, they’re bums. I’m a hard worker. They felt them less worthy than themselves (counting and judgment). When they get the same, they grumbled.

The early workers are grumbling not just because of the wage, but because of the generous redemption practiced by the landowner. All work was redeemed without counting the score or the before.

St. Paul reminds us to conduct [our]selves in a way worthy of the gospel of Christ. That, brothers and sisters, means that we must refrain from counting what others have or have not done, from looking at someone’s past, and from judgmentalism.

Some figure they are at the front of the line for God’s blessing based on history alone. Jesus tells us it is not so. Our generosity modeled on the Father’s in the now (the last thing) is what matters.

Reflection for the 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith.

“And then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds’ with great power and glory, and then he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.”

We are at the end of our Ordinary Time reflection on Strength of Faith. Our call to growth in strength of faith is unending – we need to work at it from minute-to-minute; that must not stop. Today we focus on what comes next. What is the outcome for those who are growing ever stronger in faith?

The concept of Christ’s return, the end of the ages, the final judgment is difficult for us. It may be in part because of what we do not know (especially the where and when). The bigger difficulty is our awareness that God’s justice must be satisfied, that we will have to stand before the whole world and be judged, our sins and failings laid bare. That freaks us out!

Of course, people have been playing on the final judgment for centuries. It ranges from freaky visions of the Blessed Mother appearing over tress and hills with dire warnings to certain people who tell us they have seen visions of the end – and we are all going to hell.

Human guilt is used as a powerful motivator to instill fear and to elicit, not necessarily change of behavior, but to engage in a sort of slavery to fear itself or to those who purvey fear. Unfortunately, some churches lead their members to a rollercoaster of fear and dread.

The life for those who are strong in faith is never one of fear and dread. Certainly, we are aware of our accountability before God. We sense our guilt, confess our sin, and resolve to re-enter the path of sanctification over-and-over. When we fall, we know that Jesus is there to lift us up and we do not take His mercy and helpful grace for granted.

The outcome for those who are strong in faith is right there in scripture: the angels [will] gather his elect from the four winds, from the end of the earth to the end of the sky.

Listen to the words of our prayers, the Propers of today’s Holy Mass. We hear words like incorruptible, delight, hope that lies beyond, eternal, and to “stand in peace and safety.” That is what awaits those strong in faith.

We see that the promise of our journey of growth in strength of faith is not fear but rather its opposite – confidence in victory. What Jesus Christ, our Lord, and very particularly our Savior has promised us will occur. We will be gathered in, we will undergo judgment, and we will rejoice in the heavenly kingdom. As Daniel heard, we will shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and shall be like the stars forever.

Reflection for the 11th Sunday in Ordinary Time 2021

Strength of Faith

Yet we are courageous, and we would rather leave the body and go home to the Lord. Therefore, we aspire to please him, whether we are at home or away.

Over the next twenty-six weeks we are going to focus on how we live out the Christian faith, how we can walk in Strength of Faith.

In the text of today’s Epistle, we hear Paul say that we aspire to please him [i.e., God], whether we are at home or away. Hearing that immediately took me back to the days of family vacations. At home or away.

The first family vacation I remember was to Florida, Coral Gables, and my Uncle Frank’s house. Both of our families had been touched by tragedy, the loss of my dad and Frank’s loss of his wife, his children’s mom. This was still a pretty fresh memory for all of us.

This time gave us some freedom from those thoughts. I recall each thing we did, the visit to the breach, the salt water of the ocean, shells, going to the Venetian Gardens and its beautiful pools, running away after taking a wedge out of the green on a very nice golf course (I think they’re still looking for me). Being with my cousins. Visiting Ma Easter, an in-law to Uncle Frank, a great, very funny, and vivacious southern woman. Going to the planetarium and seeing moon rocks.

Some of this was culture shock, most just plan fun, and parts even scary. Life is like that, and the overriding question is: How do we approach life? Paul was writing about how we are to live. He boils it down to living in the strength of faith.

The love of God encompasses everything. Grounded in God’s love through Christ’s grace and the Holy Spirit’s communion, we can be what we have been called to be; commending ourselves with confidence to everyone regardless of circumstances, regardless of where we are.

In fact, all that we do while we are in our bodies will be manifest before “the judgment seat of Christ” – the moment when Christ, coming in power, will judge all. This reference to Christ’s “judgment seat” and how we are to live is not a threat or something we should fear, but rather a promise and an expectation of the fullness of the kingdom for those who live in strength of faith.

Although we live in a world where tech savvy, wealth, power, and the call to constant conflict with neighbors seem to override and even wipe out thoughts of God’s steadfast love, justice, and righteousness, we can be confident that God, and we who live His way, will prevail in the end. 

Our “transformation” into Christ’s image takes place not in some otherworldly place, only at the end, but here and now in how we live. Here is where we need to live and act in strength of faith, to go the way of Christ when we feel the pull to conflict, greed, the need to repost criticisms, to finger-point, to REACT. God’s grace is sufficient power to overcome, to live in strength of faith and to be truly Christian.