Jesus taught people about God, even in the face of death! This may be a strange way to begin a blog, but it is accurate, and at the same time thought provoking. Today’s Gospel, Matthew 14, 1-12, reads like a satanic modern day novel. It addresses the lust of Herod for Herodias, the wife of his brother, Philip. An evil oath made and a horrible promise kept. All of this happens because a young girl, Herodias’ daughter, dances before him. And then, it speaks of the beheading of John the Baptist, the cousin and friend of Jesus.
Why would Herod do something atrocious like this? To a man, that he quietly admired? That is one thought that screams out at us. Another thought is how did Jesus feel when He heard the news and the manner of John’s death? He was a man. He knew fear and sadness, just as you and I. John had reprimanded Herod, telling him that it was not lawful for him to lust after Herodias. For this John’s head was severed from his body to satisfy the wrath of the woman.
Jesus was preaching a revolution within people’s hearts and minds. He was advocating peace and love, not war and lust. He did not seek out wealth and riches. He could be found with the sick, the dying, the sinner, and the wretched of the earth. He was not addressing just one evil. He was overturning the lives of everyone. His call was for each person to review their lives, to see what it is, inside them that is preventing them from honoring their Father in heaven. Jesus knew that all mankind was suffering. It was suffering then; and it is suffering today. If John was beheaded, how much worse would Jesus’ own death be? “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” Yes, Jesus knew fear. He also knew, and preached with His own life, that good shall not bow down to evil.
He tells us, here in the 21st century that our lives must be lived in a manner that has concern for all. We cannot judge others. We must not. Each person that we see riding the bus, or the subway, each parent pushing a stroller, each service provider, every person that we pass by…all are struggling, are searching, all are wondering, “why me?” No one can point a finger. Not you. Not me. ALL are struggling. We don’t like this person. We don’t like that action. That person annoys us…we don’t know why… but that person annoys us. We allow our feelings, our anger, our frustrations, and our hurt to rule our lives. We should know better. We have been taught how we should live, and yet we do as we please. And Jesus, our Teacher, still says, “Come, follow Me.”
Tag Archive: Listening to Christ
When was the last time you didn’t have a care or worry in the world? Think back, when was it? It was a time when you didn’t worry about job, or salary; bills and debts did not exist; responsibilities and should’s and ought to’s were not part of your thought process. The last time I can remember I must have been five or six running down the street in North Philadelphia to see my playmates. How about you?
It is a shame since many times we put off thinking about God, praying to Him…because we have so many other things on our mind. I will start going back to Mass, soon, but not right now. I have so many things to do, so many thoughts in my head. Aren’t we really saying, “Mass isn’t the most important aspect of my life? God will understand, because He sees how busy I am?” What is more important than being united with our God? If we think this way, that God can take a back seat and wait, then maybe, we don’t really understand how important He is to our life. Period.
We amass all of these worries and concerns, and then parade them around in our mind as justifying reasons as to why we cannot go to Mass. They become the mechanism why we cannot see good in others, why we should not help those less fortunate. “I am too busy. I don’t feel comfortable around people like that. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.” And on it goes, our excuses build up and soon we actually believe these excuses to be real, to be formidable. So, when we say, “I will go back to Mass, as soon as these concerns are over…,” realize that the last time we were free of concerns was…when??
It is the nature of man, to worry, to fret. It is part of our life. It is almost innate in us. So there must be another way around this issue. Why must our worries be over before we speak to God? Why do all the items in our to-do list have to be checked off, before we can focus on our union with our God? They don’t have to be. It is us! We want order in our lives, so much that we are willing to put off the most important relationship for our lives. But of course, we don’t think of it as so, because … there are so many other things in our life that concern us.
At the end of chapter 11 of Matthew’s Gospel, verses 28-30 speak directly to this point. Jesus says, “Come to me, all you that labour, and are burdened, and I will refresh you. Take up my yoke upon you, and learn of me, because I am meek, and humble of heart: and you shall find rest to your souls. For my yoke is sweet and my burden light.” Don’t wait until the trials, and problems and money worries, and sicknesses and everything else that oppress us, end. Don’t wait. Run to Him; Seek Him out. Lay these burdens that are suffocating you, at His feet. “Lord, I can’t bear them any more. I am so troubled by all of this.” THIS IS your prayer. This is how you seek Him out. In two small sentences you present yourself, as you are. A person that is seeking, troubled, weighed down, and confused. There are no pretenses here. This is who I am right now, Lord. Help me. Don’t expect the troubles and problems to magically disappear. Don’t expect magic. Expect peace. Your prayer is for peace, not solutions. Solutions will solve one problem. Peace will be your strength in all of your battles. Christ, who loves you, who hears you, who has told you to do just so, will flood your mind and soul with peace. The problems may still be there, but they are no longer insurmountable. You have peace within. And in that peace, in that calm comes the realization that our life is truly meaningless without Jesus, without God in our lives. And with this realization, we know that all of life’s burdens are not mighty majestic mountains, but merely speed bumps that crop up from time to time.
The Gospel of today, (John 13, 1-15) recounts the washing of the Disciples feet. The last three verses, pretty much say it all what Jesus is teaching us. “You call me, Master, and Lord: and you say well, for so I am. If I then, being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet: you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.”
The foot is considered by many to be the most ignoble part of the body. It trudges heavily in the dust of the earth. Because of its distance from the hands, it is the hardest to clean. Its sole purpose is to take us from one place to another. Unlike the hand that creates and sculpts, or the tongue that sings and praises, or the eyes that see the wonders of the world, or the ear that hears the birds sing, the foot is our beast of burden. It takes us where we want to go.
To wash another’s foot, their lowliest part of the body, is to show that person that you hold them in higher regard than yourself. What is Jesus telling us, by washing His Disciples feet? This is not what we would call grand-standing. If we know Jesus, nothing He does is just for show. A message is being sent to them… and to us. If He is willing to wash our feet, to suffer and die for us, how are we to regard each other? Who among us is greater than Jesus? Later on in the chapter, Jesus tells them that He has given them a new commandment; they are to love one another as He has loved them.
The last Supper was truly a most memorable event. We are told to treat others with love and respect. We are told to love them as Jesus loves us. It is demonstrated to us to what lengths we should be willing to go for others, even to the extent of washing their feet. This is to let us realize that we cannot put on airs. We cannot look down on anyone, even those that have (in our opinion) made a mess of their lives. Again, we hear Christ’s words admonishing us that he, who is without sin, cast the first stone.
When will we get it? When will we understand that all of us are struggling, all of us have problems or pasts of which we are ashamed. We don’t want anyone to know how ugly we can be, how ugly we have been. Instead, we do everything in our power to appear “normal”, to have people look up to us. Beware of pride. It has taken down many before us. It is so subtle we don’t even realize that it has taken hold of us.
The people that we meet and greet are struggling like us. Don’t look at their clothes. Don’t be judgmental. Don’t wonder about their cleanliness. Look at their eyes. Their eyes are the windows to their soul. They are people, as lonely, as confused, as hurting as you. They are trying, like you, to understand where their lives are going, where it all fits in. Love them. Be kind to them. We are to love them, all of them, as Jesus has loved us.
God continuously works in our lives. We may see these times as coincidences or as something special. That decision He leaves to us. I believe, God has been working on my life, well… for all of my life. I will try to keep this short, but I cannot guarantee it, right now.
When I was in seventh or eighth grade, the nun teaching us spoke of a person living in Italy who was a member of the Capuchin religious community. His name was Padre Pio. This was the first time I had ever heard of the name, or of the man. I told my mother that I wanted to be a Capuchin priest. And, in her wisdom, she said something like, “Of course you can, but wait until you finish high school.” I exchanged letters with someone in Italy, I don’t know who. (Oh, how I wish I knew who it had been.) Teenage years came and I quickly forgot my desire of becoming a Capuchin priest.
My life ambled all over the place. Meandered might be a better expression. My immaturity moved me in so many directions, some very good, and some not so. I would like to say I was searching, but that would imply purposeful pursuit. It was more like a reed shaken by the wind.
Fast forwarding to the year 2008, three years ago, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Shortly before this time, Padre Pio again brushed my life. My son’s father-in-law also was diagnosed with cancer. It was through him that I again heard of Padre Pio. I can’t say I really began praying to him at that time, but it did serve to remind me of my first experiences and feelings towards this holy man. (Trying to keep this short, I urge you to click here on Padre Pio to read an earlier blog which describes Padre Pio’s impact on my operation to free me of cancer.
A brief synopsis would be: though the operation was a success a catheter bag would constantly fill up with crimson urine. This condition lasted for close to five weeks. It cleared up on the day I was supposed to go on a Padre Pio retreat. I was unable to go on the retreat because of this condition, so St. Pio came to me. God once again chose to forcefully touch my life and show me His goodness and desire for me to straighten out my life.
Yesterday was the third anniversary of my bladder operation. Last week. I went to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital for my six month checkup. The Cat scans, the chest x-rays, the blood work, all of which had been done for the checkup everything came out negative with no new cancer growth. Cathy and I were ecstatic over the findings and both felt a tremendous worry and burden lifted. When leaving the hospital garage, the first car that we see has the license plate: PDRE PIO. We looked at each other incredulously. How many thousands of cars go by that hospital every day? How many cars have that license plate? THAT car passes by that hospital, by us, as we emerge from the garage. That car might have even made a wrong turn at some point, and in so doing passes by us. God DOES care for us. He is in each and every one of our lives. He really is.
I have mentioned on many occasions in these blogs that all of us have our problems and struggles. To act like we don’t have these is an affront to our fellow man, ourselves and our God. His desire is for us to reach out to everyone. We must show everyone that He loves and is concerned about us. With God there is no coincidence. He is constantly with us, teaching us, guiding us and shaping our lives. He does not force. He merely presents us with choices, which we can lovingly accept or ignore. The choice is always ours.
There is a very human and warm Gospel passage-1 in today’s Mass. The mother of the sons of Zebedee, (James and John) asks Jesus that her two sons be allowed to sit at His right and left side. Isn’t this really a very natural and motherly trait, wanting the best for her children and willing to do anything to help them?
But, Jesus turns to them and tells them that they don’t realize what is necessary for them to do to accomplish what they are asking. “Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?” These words echo down through the ages to all of us. What are we willing to do, to tolerate, to endure for the prize? Very often we want the accolades, the notoriety, and the fame. We want our lives to be comfortable, not plagued with difficulties. We want to be recognized and seen as someone special. But what makes someone special? Jesus tells us bluntly, “…Whoever would be great among you must be your servant and whoever would be first among you must be your slave”.
Well there it is the formula that gains the prize. How simple is that? We cannot covet the accolades, the notoriety or the fame. This is not the way to the prize. This is not why Jesus came into this world, to teach us to strive for success and glory. How many times, how many ways does Jesus warn us with His words and Life, not to seek out the first position but the last? He goes on to tell them, “…that even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve.” (I think it rather humorous that the other Apostles became indignant at James and John. They probably wanted those prized positions for themselves??)
If we are honest with ourselves, if we view our lives without those rose colored glasses, we see how picky and trite we can be. We look at people who are different from us and … look away. The unwashed, the dirty, the people who wear their clothes differently than we would, the people who don’t act the way we think they should, all of these we look down our noses at. We judge them to be problems. But, we don’t judge our problems. Who are we that we can treat them with little or no concern? Are we not all struggling to live our lives with a sense of decency and goodness? Ahh.. There is the problem! We don’t judge ourselves. We don’t do any introspection of ourselves. We don’t critically look at our way of life. So, how can we possibly see that our lives are struggling to achieve decency and goodness, if we don’t look critically at our actions, our motives, and our judgments?
Jesus wants us to follow Him. He has shown us the way. But before we can make that first step along His path, we have to place our trust and love in Him. We must love Him enough; trust Him enough that we can face our weaknesses. It is only through Him that we gain the freedom to accept ourselves, with our failings. It is only through Him that we gain the courage to judge ourselves and see ourselves as we are. Then, and only then, in seeing our own frailty and knowing that He still loves us, do we realize that all the people that we meet, ALL of them are loved and struggling. What we do then is….
-1 (Matthew 20: 17 – 28)
What do we write...Right Now!
“The beauty of the moment”, “the music of now”… these are expressions that gently remind us to stop worrying about the past, to stop anticipating the future. The past is over. We can do nothing about it. We must move on. The things we worry about in the future exist only in our mind. They have not happened. Our fear portrays them as reality, when, in reality, they do not exist. God IS. He speaks to us in the now. He loves us in the now.
“Therefore I say to you, be not solicitous for your life, what you shall eat, nor for your body, what you shall put on…Behold the birds of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns: and your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you of much more value than they?” (Matt, 5:25-26) Christ tells us again and again how much God loves us. But, for some reason, we find it difficult to grasp. We believe it, but we don’t trust it. We say to ourselves, “Yes, God does love me. But I am not a fool, I need to do this, or do that.” No, we don’t.
What we need to do is trust an all-loving God. We have to realize that if He created us, had us in His mind, you and me, from all eternity, then this all-loving God will not abandon us. Brennan Manning, in his book, “Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin’s Path to God” states, “But faith in God without hope in his promises is tainted trust.” You can spend the rest of your life focusing on that one sentence. His premise is that mankind does not really trust God. To accomplish that trust… we must be ruthless in our pursuit of it.
To worry about the past, the future, even about the condition of our spiritual life is to rob us of the here and now. It is in this moment that we honor and praise and love God. In the next one, too, and the one after that. How difficult this is. So much is stealing our attention, is forcing us to think of what was done yesterday, and what we have to do tomorrow. Right now…if you are meant to be reading this, then focus on what is being said. “What happens after this”, I don’t know. It is YOUR moment.
How do we implement this moment to moment living? It just means that the next person you meet is to be treated, no… is to be acknowledged that he/she is the most important person in your life, right then. He/she requires and expects your full attention and concern. But, what if he is dirty? What if he is white, black, red, brown? What if he doesn’t meet my expectations? Jesus is in him or her; does He meet your expectations?
What if it isn’t a person, I meet? What if something happens which I don’t like, I don’t want? How do I see the beauty of the moment, there? Ask God, “What do you want me to learn from this?” Each moment is given us, by a loving God. IT IS YOUR MOMENT!
Whose Face Do You Put Here?
For the last three or four days, the phase “…the least of these…” has been running through my head. I know I just heard it somewhere, but I can’t remember where or when. I know that it is in reference to Jesus’ words about whatever we do for even the least of our brothers, we do to Him. So, I used the Concordance-1 to find the phrase in the Bible. There the king (Jesus) speaks to his subjects and tells them when he was hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or sick, or imprisoned they provided for his needs. And they asked him, when did we do this for you? His reply was, “…as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.”-2
The more I thought about this phrase, the more I was inclined to write about it here. Jesus cannot assert nor be any clearer on what we must do to follow Him. This one phrase sums up Christianity. If we really love Jesus, then we MUST love one another. He didn’t say it would be nice if we did. He didn’t say when we have the time to focus on someone else’s needs. He simply said, if we do these things for anyone else, we do them to Him. Not just kings, or our boss, or people we look up to, but we must be mindful and caring to everyone.
If this doesn’t thump our foreheads, and exclaim to us, “wake up”. Nothing does. He said, “I am the Way”. He is now pointing out the Way for us. I can write this, and you can read this, and we all can say, “yeah, ok” and continue to live our unchanging lives. We sometimes run around in circles, like a dog chasing his tail, trying to find out what we can be doing, to grow in our love for Christ. Well, He has told us. We can stop chasing our tails and start following His way of love. Love others as we love ourselves. Be mindful of others’ needs as we are mindful of our own.
When we see someone who causes us to tense up, to feel uneasy, (I am not talking about scared uneasy), to feel annoyance or disgust, we must realize we are looking at Jesus. If we start making excuses as to why it is right to tense up, to feel uneasy, to feel that annoyance or disgust then we are making excuses why it is ok to not love Christ.
To say this so bluntly, in such a matter-of-fact fashion is harsh. I know that, and so do you. We cannot expect to be perfect, nor arrive there any time in our lifetime. Perfection, sought by imperfect beings, is not possible. But small acts of kindness, of love, of concern, of awareness of other people’s needs, should be done by you and me. Maybe that sentence should read, “But small acts of kindness, of love, of concern, of awareness of everybody else’s needs, must be done by you and me.” We don’t have the luxury to pick and choose for whom we will care, or love. Jesus has the face of every person we meet and know.
So, there it is. We must love everybody. Do we start today? I doubt it very much. If we could love everybody, just by saying it, we would all be wearing haloes or there would be an “S” “t.” in front of our name. But, we can start trying today. We can start with just one person. When you reach the end of this article, close your eyes; think of the people who you find it difficult to get along with. Think about their lives, their suffering, and their problems. Realize that they are no different from you. They also have problems of which, you are totally unaware. See yourself in them. Don’t think of what you would do, if you were in their shoes. But rather, think of how you would feel, facing their problems. Would you be able to smile? Or Laugh? All of us are struggling in this world, while standing in holes that make it difficult for us to see out of. How good it is when someone extends their hand to assist a fellow human being out of their hole. See how the Christians love one another…
-1 http://www.drbo.org/
-2 Matt 25:40
