Tuesday 27th October 2020, 30th Week in Ordinary Time.

The “measure of God” (parable of the mustard seed)

Today, we are, maybe, facing a new and different kind of epoch in the Church’s history, where Christianity will again be characterized more by the mustard seed, where it will exist in small, insignificant groups that nonetheless live an intensive struggle against evil and bring the good into the world, that let God in.

God’s ways never lead immediately to measurable successes and this can be seen by watching how Jesus Christ ended up on the Cross: statistics is not one of God’s measurements. In spite of that, something essential and crucial happens with the mustard seeds and the yeast, even though the disciples could not see it then. Quantitative measures of successes must be completely disregarded.

—We are not a business operation that can look at the numbers to measure whether “we are selling more”. O Lord, I would like to provide you with the service of my life and put it in your hands. And You shall add the “benefit”, when and as you desire.

Monday 26th October 2020, 30th Week in Ordinary Time.

The creation is oriented to the “Sabbath”

Today, the Pharisees appear —once more— lost in the ritualistic casuistry of the “Sabbath rest”, without capturing its wonderful background: the “Bible” —the Old Testament— should be read in a new way. God created the universe to enter into a story of love with mankind. The creation is intended as a sign for the Covenant.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the creation is oriented to the “Sabbath”, towards the day when man and the whole creation share in God’s freedom. in His rest and in His peace. The Sabbath is a vision of freedom: slave and master are the same on that day, because all relationships of subordination must “rest”. On that day God and man are situated in the same level and they speak “thy” to “thy”.

The Greatest Commandment

October 25, 2020
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A

Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Matthew 22:36

This question was posed by one of the scholars of the law in an attempt to test Jesus. It’s clear, from the context of this passage, that the relationship between Jesus and the religious leaders of His time was beginning to become contentious. They were beginning to test Him and were even trying to trap Him. However, Jesus continued to silence them with His words of wisdom.

In response to the question above, Jesus silences this scholar of the law by giving the perfect answer. He says, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-39).

With this statement, Jesus gives a complete summary of the moral law found in the Ten Commandments. The first three Commandments reveal that we must love God above all and with all our might. The last six Commandments reveal that we must love our neighbor. The moral law of God is as simple as fulfilling these two more general commandments.

But is it all that simple? Well, the answer is both “Yes” and “No.” It’s simple in the sense that God’s will is not typically complex and difficult to comprehend. Love is spelled out clearly in the Gospels and we are called to embrace a radical life of true love and charity.

However, it can be considered difficult in that we are not only called to love, we are called to love with all our being. We must give of ourselves completely and without reserve. This is radical and requires that we hold nothing back.

Reflect, today, upon the simple call to love God and your neighbor with all that you are. Reflect, especially, upon that word “all.” As you do, you will most certainly become aware of ways in which you fail to give everything. As you see your failure, recommit in hope to the glorious path of making a total gift of yourself to God and others.

You don’t understand the present times. And why do you not judge for yourselves what is fit?

Today, Jesus is asking us to look up and watch the skies. This morning, after three days of continuous rain, the sky has appeared clear and radiant, in one of the most splendid days of this Fall. By and by, now that the weathermen are like family members, we become more conversant with weather changes. But, on the other hand, we find many more difficulties to understand the changing times in which we live: «You understand the signs of the earth and the sky, but you don’t understand the present times» (Lk 12:56). Amongst those listening to Jesus, many let go a unique chance in the history of Mankind. They could not identify the Son of God in Jesus. They didn’t know the time, the hour of salvation.

The II Vatican Council, in the Constitution Gaudium et spes (n. 4), updates today’s Gospel: «In every age, the church carries the responsibility of reading the signs of the times and of interpreting them in the light of the Gospel (…) We must be aware of and understand the aspirations, the yearnings, and the often dramatic features of the world in which we live».

When we are making history, it is not too difficult to point out at the occasions lost by the Church for not having discovered the time in which we were living. But, Lord: what occasions are we perhaps wasting now for not being able to read the signs of the times, or what is tantamount, for not being able to live and throw light upon today’s problems with the light shed by the Gospel? Today, Jesus reminds us once more:«And why do you not judge for yourselves what is fit?» (Lk 12:57).

We are not living in a world of wickedness, though there may be plenty of it. But God has not forsaken his world. As St. John of the Cross reminds us, we live in a world, which the very God treaded on and made beautiful. Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta saw the signs of the times, and the times have understood Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Let her invigorate us. Let us keep on looking upwards without losing sight of our earth.

Thursday 22nd October 2020, 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Pope St John Paul II (1920 – 2005).

Jesus Christ’s “chariot of fire” (God calls man)

Today, we remember that our being in this world is not to live out of nothing and toward nothing, but our life has been required from the outset by an infinite love: all this can be noticed in Jesus Christ’s “chariot of fire”. We discover His joy when we let ourselves be burnt by the message of the Lord.

The answer to God’s call requires that we have the courage of being near the fire that has come to set the Earth on fire. In our “Yes” to this adherence the courage of being kindled by the fire of Jesus Christ’s Passion, which is, at the same time, the saving fire of the Holy Spirit is also included. This is the core of the call: that we must be prepared to be kindled by He whose heart burns by the strength of his Word.

—Divine spirit; kindle in me the fire of your love so that I can also be fire on this earth, the fire of life, of hope and of love.

Saint John Paul II (1920-2005)

Karol Józef Wojtyła was born in 1920 in Wadowice, Poland. After his ordination to the priesthood and theological studies in Rome, he returned to his homeland and resumed various pastoral and academic tasks. He became first auxiliary bishop and, in 1964, Archbishop of Kraków and took part in the Second Vatican Council. On 16 October 1978 he was elected pope and took the name John Paul II. His exceptional apostolic zeal, particularly for families, young people and the sick, led him to numerous pastoral visits throughout the world. Among the many fruits which he has left as a heritage to the Church are above all his rich Magisterium and the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church as well as the Code of Canon Law for the Latin Church and for the Eastern Churches. In Rome on 2 April 2005, the eve of the Second Sunday of Easter (or of Divine Mercy), he departed peacefully in the Lord. He was canonized by Pope Francis on 27 April, the Second Sunday of Easter 2014.

A Habit of Prayer

October 21, 2020
Wednesday of the Twenty-Ninth Week in Ordinary Time

Jesus said to his disciples: “Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.” Luke 12:39-40

This Scripture offers us an invitation. It can be said that Jesus comes to us at an unexpected hour in two ways.

First, we know that He will return one day in glory to judge the living and the dead. His Second Coming is real and we should be aware of the fact that it could happen at any time. Sure, it may not happen for many years, or even for many hundreds of years, but it will happen. There will be one moment when the world as it is will end and the new order will be established. Ideally, we live each and every day in anticipation of that day and that moment. We must live in such a way that we are always ready for that end.

Second, we must realize that Jesus does come to us, continually, by grace. Traditionally, we speak of His two comings:
1) His Incarnation, and
2) His return in glory. But there is a third coming we can speak of which is His coming by grace into our lives. And this coming is quite real and should be something to which we are continually attentive. His coming by grace requires that we be continually “prepared” to meet Him. If we are not prepared, we can be certain we will miss Him. How do we prepare for this coming by grace? We prepare first and foremost by fostering a daily habit of interior prayer. An interior habit of prayer means we are, in a sense, always praying. It means that no matter what we do each and every day, our minds and hearts are always turned toward God. It’s like breathing. We always do it and do it without even thinking about it. Prayer must become just as much of a habit as breathing. It must be central to who we are and how we live.

Reflect, today, upon your life of prayer. Know that the moments you dedicate exclusively to prayer each day are essential to your holiness and relationship with God. And know that those moments must help to build a habit of always being attentive to God. Being prepared this way will allow you to meet Christ at every moment that He comes to you by grace.

Tuesday 20th October 2020, 29th Week in Ordinary Time

Economy and ethics: moral imperatives of the economic activity

Today, we should ask ourselves if in an economic crisis the most serious side is the “deficit of employment” (high “unemployment rate”) or rather the “deficit of work” (falling asleep at work with decreasing professional quality). Answer: the deficit of professional responsibility (at various professional and political levels) is one of the leading causes of the economic stagnation. And the cure lies in the ethical growth, since economic activity is profoundly moral.

Economic reversals are not alien to the moral crisis (“moral underdevelopment”): the lack of moderation and parsimony restrain investment capacity; laziness, passivity and corruption in the professional work are a deadly cancer for the productivity and the creative innovation…

  • God entrusted man with the Creation so that he may administer it. We are all – at one level or another – administrators of the “Garden of Eden” (that we must preserve and cultivate). Therefore Jesus’ admonition is not negligible: keep awake!, work well!, manage efficiently the work of the Father!

The opening line of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical Fides et Ratio (Faith and Reason) may be the most poetic of any papal document:

“Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves.”

The Holy Father wrote these words two decades ago to combat the prevailing assumption that faith is incompatible with reason. In the years since, Fides et Ratio has only become more important as our civilization’s relationship with truth has further degraded.

Truth: that, really, is what Fides et Ratio is about—not just the encyclical but the human faculties of faith and reason God didn’t give us these capacities so that we could have faith in conspiracy theories or so that we could think up cleverer and cleverer ways to get rich. He gave them to us, like He gave everything else to us, so that we can grow in relationship with Him—specifically, in the case of faith and reason, by pursuing the truth about Him.

There is one God, and there is one truth about Him and the universe He created. It simply can’t be, therefore, that our natural capacities for faith and reason, when rightly ordered, could lead us to contradictory conclusions. Our civilizational crisis of faith and reason is, fundamentally, a crisis of truth—a despair that we could ever really know the deepest truths about who and why we are.

Sunday 18th October 2020, 29th Week in Ordinary Time is Mission Sunday.

“Return to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s”

Today, the Gospel presents to our consideration a “famous” assertion from Jesus Christ: «Return to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s» (Mt 22:21).

We would not be able to properly grasp the meaning of this sentence without bearing in mind the context which Jesus said it into: «The Pharisees went out and took counsel on how they could trap Jesus with his own words» (Mt 22:15) but «Jesus understood their evil intent» (v. 18). Thus, Jesus reply is a calculated one. When they heard it, the Pharisees were surprised, as they did not expect it. If Jesus’ answer would have clearly been against Caesar, they might had been able to denounce him; if, on the contrary, Jesus had been in favor of paying the taxes to Caesar, they would have left very pleased with their ruse. But, while not speaking against Caesar, Jesus has relativized his reply: we must return to God what is God’s, and God is the Lord of even the powers of this world.

As every other ruler, Caesar cannot exert an arbitrary power, because his power has been left to him in warrant; as the servants of the parable of the talents, that had to account to their Master for the use given to his money. In St. John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Pilatus: «You would have no power over me if it had not been given to you from above» (Jn 19:10). Jesus does not want to appear as a political agitator. He simply put things right.

Matthew 22:21 has, at times, been interpreted in the sense that Church should not “mix up in political life”, but mind only its salvific mission and faith. But this interpretation is totally false, because dealing with God’s matters does not mean to mind only the cult of the Church, but to be also concerned about men, who are God’s children, and about man’s justice. Pretending the Church does not move from the sacristy, while being deaf, blind and mute before the moral and human problems and abuses of our time, amounts to stealing from God what belongs to God. «Tolerance that only accepts God as a private opinion, but denies Him the public knowledge (…) is not tolerance, but hypocrisy» (Pope Benedict XVI).