Homily - Epiphany

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Isaiah 60:1–6
Ephesians 3:2–3a, 5–6
Matthew 2:1–12

There is much movement in today’s feast. People are on the move. Isaiah has a vision of nations and kings moving toward Jerusalem. Then, he sees that the kings are not coming empty handed. There are animals with them. These animals are loaded with gifts, with the wealth. The camels are carrying precious commodities like gold and frankincense. In the gospel we find magi moving from East to West. They are following a star. That star in turn also moves. The story says it finally comes to rest over the place where a child is living. It is as though the star is leading and directing the movement of the Magi. We only hear of the end of journey in the gospel. We hear of the last few days when the star seems to disappear for a while. The Magi have to consult other resources to find out exactly where the last step of the journey needs to go. Other people in the story seem interested in joining the Magi on their last leg. It seems that their desire is a false one. The Magi are excited about what they will find at the end of the journey. They seem to know something about the aim of their journey. The King wants to make the journey too, but his goal is not delight in the star or the search for someone wonderful. He is motivated by fear and a sense of loosing all he has. He feels threatened. His journey will end in destruction and violence.

Epiphany evokes movement. People move from the sea to the Jerusalem, from distant nations they come to fill this city. Magi too come from East to West to Jerusalem. There they find they have still a few more miles go, in a southerly direction to the true city of David, Bethlehem. But there is also another movement in the feast of the Epiphany. It is a movement into a relationship. It is a movement from being far away to being close, from being at a distance from the city to being in her heart. The Jerusalem that is shining brightly is a Jerusalem that recognizes herself as mother. And being mother is primarily about relationship. The peoples moving toward her are her sons and daughters. She is a woman ready to welcome her own children into her bosom as it were. The activity is the activity of recognizing to whom you belong, where is truly home and who is brother and sister with you. The light shining on Jerusalem is a light of recognition for herself. She is told to wake up, get up and see what is happening to her. She is clearly being summoned to acknowledge her own position and role as the one where other nations will find a true home. She is asked to recognize her treasure. Her shining gold is a wealth that attracts others, not as strangers who might tolerate one another but as her own children, as people to whom she has deep bonds of connection. Her treasure is those who belong to her.

In the gospel, Jesus is recognized for who he is by the Magi from a strange place in the East. They find the child, not isolated, but with his mother, a child in relationship to humanity. There is no doubt that the treasure Israel has is a light that summons people from distant lands. Israel’s treasure is the Messiah. The Scriptures are clear about that. The Magi come to honor and profess their loyalty and service to him whom the Scriptures talk about. …King Herod’s tragedy is that he refuses to recognize the treasure; he doesn’t even know where it is anymore. If the treasure is in his midst, it means he too will have to become involved in movement toward it. The tragedy is that he will not make the journey of a few miles while others will travel for long distances. He will not venture into the movement that Epiphany seems to demand. He will not dare that relationship with this child-king that would give him his true identity.

Epiphany is about gathering and coming together. Epiphany is about recognizing the true center that binds and holds us all together. Epiphany means a light that shines in our hearts so that we see beyond the confines of our narrow mind, our limited national boundaries, our own interests. Like the star it leads us away from the familiar to what at first seems strange but in the end is deeply familiar. Epiphany means movement beyond our own kind to a sight that includes all as my own kind. Epiphany translates into a powerful message that the one city Jerusalem holds a gift for the whole world; the one child born in Bethlehem is a leader for all peoples.

For all the movement in the story of today’s celebration, we don’t hear anything about the movement’s resolution in settling down or making a home. Only the star rests. Instead the home that is to be made is the home found in the new relationships that Jerusalem and the child of Bethlehem call us to. The home is to be found in the connections and bonds that are set up. Home is in the realization of a new world of interrelationships and interconnections. St. Paul says it clearly: the outsider is as much an heir to promise and identity as is the first child. There is only one body and it is not exclusive but is open to all. The child of Bethlehem makes it possible for a true humanity to come into being. We humans like to divide and separate. But the Epiphany is that diversity and richness of culture can be woven into a unity through the child in the house in Bethlehem. That child becomes the new light that shines in the fragmentation of humanity.

The home that must be made today is a home in the heart. It is there that the mother feels the joy at seeing her children. It is from the heart that a person begins to radiate when he or she realizes the depth and breadth of his or her relationship to others through Christ. It is in the heart that we feel the joy, as did the Magi, of finally finding Christ as the true leader of the world, as the teacher who can guide us into ways of peace and justice.

There is no settling down in Jerusalem or Bethlehem. We don’t live with the child and his mother. We have to be like the Magi going back to our own country. Go back to the place where we come from, but forever changed. We go back to be the light born of new relationships that sees beyond the dark clouds that threaten to tear the world asunder. We return and not the same way. Life is different once we have become an heir with Christ in his relationship with the Father. We leave this place, this crib; we return to where we came from so that the gathering begun here with the Word in the Scripture and the journey of the Magi may happen through our presence wherever we may be on our own pilgrimage on earth.

~Fr. Joel


Christmas Day - 2019

Fr. Thomas Leitner celebrated the Christmas Day Mass. Click for a video of the entire celebration. The text of his homily is below:

Joh 1:1-18
Is 52:7-10
Heb 1:1-6

Focus: Since the first Christmas, the great God is present and real, ‘incarnated,’ in our world, even and especially at places where we would hardly expect it. Humility and patience help us to realize this.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord,

Here is a story that I would ask you to hear with the ears of your heart: As Josef and Mary were on their way to Bethlehem, an angel convened the animals in order to select a few who were supposed to help the Holy Family in the stable.

First, of course, the lion volunteered: “Only a king is worthy to serve the Lord of the world,” he roared.“I will tear to pieces anyone who gets too close to the child.” “You are too fierce,” the angel said.

Then the fox came sneaking along. With an innocent looking face he remarked,
“I will take care of them well. For the divine child I will procure the sweetest honey and for the young mother I will steal a chicken every morning.” “You are too sly,” the angel decided.

Now the peacock stalked along. He unfolded his wheel and his tail feathers shone brilliantly. I will adorn that poor stable more magnificently than Solomon adorned his temple. “You are too conceited,” the angel said. Many more animals came and praised their crafts and skills. In vain.

Finally, the strict angel looked around one more time and saw ox and ass serving outside on the field of a farmer. The angel called them, too. “What do you have to offer?” “Nothing,” the ass said, and sadly lowered his ears. “We have learned nothing, aside from humility and patience.” Because everything else earned only more beatings for us!” The ox shyly added, “But perhaps we could chase away the flies every now and then with our tails!” The angel replied, “You are the right ones!”

Today’s gospel expresses more profoundly than those of the other three Christmas masses the mystery of this feast: “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The eternal Creator God—today we would add: The One through whom the galaxies came into being—has taken on a human form. The Divine Word through whom the world has been created, though whom all things came to be, has been born in time. The only Son of God has descended from the Father’s side and now lays as an infant in the stable of Bethlehem. And He is the light for the human race, the light that wants to shine in every darkness!

Today’s second reading tells us that Christ is the fullness of God’s revelation.
God had spoken before in partial and various ways through prophets for centuries. Now God has spoken through the Son. Everything that was said before receives its fuller meaning through Him. He, in his ministry here on earth, is the refulgence of God’s glory.

Our first reading fits so well into this liturgy because it makes it clear that the coming of the Messiah, who will make known God’s salvation for the whole world, who will bring comfort to those who suffer, is a very joyful event, is glad tidings, good news and worth to be announced everywhere!

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, Since the first Christmas, our great God is present, real, and ‘incarnate,’ enfleshed, in our world, even and especially also at places where we would hardly expect it. In one Christmas letter, a friend of mine pointed out that we need the following keys in order to understand this mystery more in its depth:

We need the key of silence. We need to have a quiet moment of sitting down in front of a nativity set, a moment, in which we can receive what has happened at the first Christmas, the Divine Light, deeply into our hearts.

Secondly, we need the key of right listening. We need to hear God’s word with our hearts, because in Bethlehem God has opened God’s heart to us human beings.

Thirdly, we need the key of setting out. The shepherds and the wise men set out
and went to Bethlehem. God wants us to set out, too, and to seek and to find God in our everyday life, in events and in people, even where His presence isn’t obvious to us at first sight!

Fourthly, we need the key of adoration, of loving marveling about our God who took on our human nature in order for us to share in God’s own nature, as Pope St. Leo the Great put it in his famous Christmas sermon, which we heard at the vigil last night. “Do not forget, Pope Leo says, that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God's kingdom … Christian, remember your dignity … Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not live below your dignity.” A stance of adoration is necessary in the sight of this divine gift.

I would add a fifth and final key for opening the door to the mystery of the Holy Night: humility and trusting patience. Everything begins with humility, St. Teresa of Avila said. Our great deeds or qualities cannot buy us access to this mystery, however, we gain it realizing that everything is gift, that only empty hands can be filled. As we use this key, we are in a way similar to those animals who were selected as company for the holy family, the ox and the ass. As our nativity in this chapel was set up during the last couple of days, the ox and the ass fittingly arrived first in the stable.

St. Hildegard of Bingen once said, “God’s Son became a human being so that humans would have their home in God.” This is what we celebrate today. This is our truth.

~ Fr. Thomas Leitner

Homily - 2nd Sunday of Advent-2019

Isaiah 11:1–10
Romans 15:4–9
Matthew 3:1–12

A stump! It all begins with a stump. Those burnt stumps left over after the California wildfires of this season. That stump that is left after the axe has done the work and cleared out the trees that bear no fruit as John the Baptist has just announced. But it is out of a stump that God will work newness. Out of a stump God will raise up a shoot and a bud. In the midst of great loss and devastation, when life has been squashed and lays dormant, God can and will breath his breath, his Spirit. If it is leadership that has become defunct, and the stump in Israel was dysfunctional leadership, then God will send his Spirit to endow new leadership.

We may only see a stump, something that has no life, something that has been cut down and whose life is over. But our God can see more and our God can breathe over what looks lost and restore it to life. And when God breathes his Spirit on leadership, we find that the new leader is all about justice and faithfulness toward the vulnerable, the weak, and the poor; those who have no one to defend them. This leader will have justice around his waist and carry faithfulness on his hip. This is what God-sent leadership is all about–restoring a community that has been burnt over so to speak; a community that has experienced power over service and consumerism over sharing of wealth.

We can shake our heads at such idealism in a leader. We can say the prophet is a bit out of touch with the harsh reality of our lives. Or how can this stump of our existence actually produce such a quality person? For us it is impossible, but God can do such a thing….and our prophet-poet has not come to the end of his poem once justice is operative again in the community….Once there is a restoration of members of the community, the prophet’s vision continues. Now there is a transformation of the natural world as well. Something new is happening there also. Old enmities, old appetites in the food chain, assumptions about the survival of the fittest–all this is turned upside down. Upside down according to our logic. But then our logic, our control, our way of keeping things in order is not necessarily that of God’s. The “peaceable kingdom,” as the vision of the calf and the young lion eating together portrays, is not just something romantic. It is the world and its habitants as it mirrors God’s view of what apparent opposites can be. If we shake our heads and say it cannot be, then perhaps we have stepped out of the poem, out of the vision and returned to the crowd on the banks of the Jordan. The crowd that hears John’s words calling out “think again, think new” –metanoia. But God and his prophets say, step into the way the Spirit filled One is laying out for you and you will enter into a new world. Turn around and know your roots in God, in the harmony of the original creation. Draw on the power and strength of service, respect, intimacy and love that are found in your roots in the garden, among its trees and in the conversation with the one who walked with you there.

Paul speaks plainly of what the Spirit filled anointed Son of the stump Jesse can accomplish in those who believe in. Being baptized in the Spirit one can live in a renewed community where you and I can think in harmony with one another, where with one accord we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul appeals to the community as a body making music together, each voice distinct and with its own color and tone but yet making harmony so that it is one–and singing in recognition of the Father who brought forth new life from a stump.

The vision of an animal world living in harmony is echoed in the human community now gathered around the one John will announce. The poet-prophet opens his description of a new kingdom by saying the wolf will be the guest of the lamb….hospitality is being exercised here. There is a welcome between the creatures we know to be enemies. There is a sharing of life style and above all there is a sharing of food, a sure sign of hospitality. Opposites live with one another in peace for opposition is not the norm but profound respect and a willingness to make harmony work.

But what does Paul tell the Christians, what conclusion does he reach for those who are in Christ: welcome one another. Minister to one another; serve one another for that is the way the Son of Jesse was among you. Do that Paul says and you will be wearing the waistband of justice, truthfulness and faithfulness with which God clothed his Son. What is the key to the vision of the prophet, what was at the heart of Paul’s words to the Christians in Rome? Hospitality, welcome: know that you are a guest and know how to be a host. In that way there will be harmony among you.

Advent is about getting in touch with the vision of God. It is a vision shared in the poetry of the prophet. It was a vision that entered the reality of our world in the One who came to us out of Jesse’s line. Now that it has entered our world, it falls to us to change, to fall into the way that the Jesse’s son and the Father’s Son has shown us—a way that in the end will be a way of peace, harmony, accord and hospitality that welcomes all, even seeming opposites.
~Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

The Abbot Visits

Abbot Michael Reepen of Münsterschwarzach Abbey, Germany, is visiting Christ the King Priory from December 4 to 9. The abbey is the motherhouse of the priory which in turn is dependent on it. Abbot Michael is paying a pastoral visit to his monks here. He takes time to meet with each member of the community and listen to the community as a whole. There are other monks from the abbey in various programs in the USA and he will visit them also. In this way Abbot Michael can provide spiritual guidance and encouragement for all his monks in the USA.

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Homily - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time -2019

Lk 21:5-19
Mal 3:19-20a
Thess 3:7-12

Focus: Faced with suffering and the impermanence of all earthly things, we are called upon to put our trust in God and to live as disciples of Jesus.

Dear sisters and brothers in the Lord, 0. a. Here is a short version of a story/poem that a retreatant shared with me this weekend: An elderly man went into a church every day at noon and knelt down at the tabernacle for a little while. Then he left again. Finally the sacristan who had noticed this asked him what he was doing. He said, he worked at a factory and took his lunch break. Visiting his Lord he speaks to him thus:


“I just came again to tell you, Lord, how happy I’ve been, since we found each other’s friendship and you took away my sin. Don’t know much of how to pray, but I think about you every day. So, Jesus, this is Ben checking in.” The sacristan’s heart was touched and he started to pray in similar words.


After a while, the old man suddenly stayed away. The sacristan inquired with the factory about Ben and found out that he was sick and in the hospital. Visiting the hospital, the sacristan learned from the staff that Ben had had a good influence
on the other patients. His smile and his joy were contagious. Now he was near death. No family had come to visit him, but Ben said, that’s okay.

HE comes here, Ben said, Jesus, his Lord: Every day at noon, a dear friend of mine, you see. He sits right down, takes my hand, leans over and says to me:

“I just came again to tell you, Ben, how happy i have been, since we found this friendship, and i took away your sin. Always love to hear you pray, I think about you each day. And so, Ben, this is Jesus, just checking in today.” Ben peacefully died soon thereafter.

Cultivating his relationship with Jesus in prayer every day and picturing Him close to him even in his illness, had helped Ben. Therefore, he was peaceful, serene, even joyful at the end of his life, on the day and in the hour of his death.

Today’s Scripture readings point us to the end of the world. In the gospel, Jesus predicts the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. To Jesus’ contemporaries, it was hardly conceivable that this magnificent building could fall down and be destroyed one day. In the year 70 AD though, this prediction came true, as the Romans conquered and sacked Jerusalem.Plus, Jesus speaks about wars, earthquakes and famines.

All this won’t be the end yet, he says. Such events, which occur at all times, can be very frightening and bring great suffering. There are many examples. We only have to think of the terrible wars in Syria and Ukraine, which cost so many human lives, or of devastating Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and Florida. Events like this call us to charity and to sharing our resources; And they are signs for us: they serve as reminders that everything in this world is transitory. Nothing on this earth will stay forever.

Our own death will be the end of earthly things for every one of us. Throughout our lifetime, God prepares us for this moment. In our lives, there are little worlds ending all the time: there is end of childhood, the end of education, the end of midlife’ vitality, retirement, etc. The courage and readiness with which we deal with these endings will prepare us for our life’s final ending.

It’s also true that every time we love unselfishly, we die a little bit to our own precious plans and preferences. If we die daily in these small ways, we will have less difficulty with the final dying // when our plans are once again revised and we hold out our lives, once and for all, to a merciful and loving God.

My sisters and brothers in the Lord, faced with the impermanence of all earthly things, we are called upon to letting go on a daily basis—with great trust in God.

The big disasters, but also the suffering of individual people around us, are an invitation to us to help in whichever way we can and to make something visible of the sun of justice with its healing rays, which God so desires for all people to experience.

When things become difficult in our lives, when we are confronted with losses, especially then also the Eucharist is helpful for us. In it, Jesus takes us along on his way. In his death, he practiced letting go in the most radical manner and surrendered himself totally to his loving heavenly Father whom he called Abba, daddy.

In the Eucharist, we are invited to present with the gifts of bread and wine our life to God, with all the sorrows, worries and struggles. As God transforms bread and wine, so he can transform us. If we hand over everything to God in this way, Jesus’ words from the gospel will come true for us, “You have nothing to fear …”

The man in our story, Ben, had found a good way to pray. Entering into Jesus’ presence in such a way on a daily basis can help us, too, to know that we are not alone while in this world, and that He has prepared what eye has not seen and ear has not heard
for those who love him in heaven, where He one day will offer us His loving embrace.

AMEN.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

All Saints' Day Homily

Revelation 7:2–4, 9–14
1 John 3:1–3
Matthew 5:1–12a

The main motif for our celebration today is found in the title for the solemnity: “All Saints” with the accent on the first word “all.” The phrase “all of the saints” is repeated in each of the three official prayers that mark our liturgy beginning with the opening collect. We are perhaps a bit prejudiced to the second of the two words, namely “saints.” And so we start looking for models of holiness. But the liturgical texts and the scriptural readings are not so skewed. “All” is also an operative word today.

This comes to us clearly in the visions of John the seer. The seer doesn’t just see saints, he sees numbers. He sees the numbers of those marked by the seal of the living God. The number 12 is at the root of his first vision. He sees the number 12 squared and then multiplied by 1000. All of this means simply that he is not really able to count the numbers. But he is deeply impressed by these numbers. What he is seeing is the Israelite community symbolized by 12, the number of tribes. He sees the whole community of Israel in vast numbers. He sees them all and sees them marked as belonging to the living God. He sees that those who belong to God are saved. He sees all the holy ones, the saints of Israel, restored. You have to be a visionary to be able to see the whole community.

His second vision is also about numbers and this time, he says they are beyond counting. But he sees them and sees that all of them come from every nation, race, people and tongue. What does he see, then? He obviously is having a vision of all of humanity gathered before God and the Lamb. It is this vast multitude of a diverse humanity that he is trying to describe. He is trying to say he is seeing all who have been touched by the blood of the Lamb.

John the seer is giving us two visions to help us think in terms of all–the whole community, the whole of humanity touched by the life and death of the Lamb. We find it hard to see all, to see the whole. It is easier to see one, to see the individual face. It is true each one in the all is an individual with a face and a story. But today is about the crowd, the masses, the whole lot of Israelites and Jews and those of humanity for whom faith in Christ has brought about a new existence.

Today we have to step back a bit from individual holy people we may have met as exemplary and courageous in faith they may have been. Today we have to imagine ourselves as standing with all kinds of people, in all kinds of dress, who eat all kinds of food and speak languages beyond comprehension….today we are asked to see ourselves with them standing before the throne and acknowledging with them that we aer saved only by God and the blood of the Lamb. The only part of their story we need to know is that in Christ they took on a new life and remained faithful to it.

Today we remember that we are part of something much, much larger than we can imagine, see or touch. We are part of a community of men and women that stretches back in time to Moses and the garden. Members of a community that will stretch forward to a moment when we will be so transformed that like the seer John we will actually see all as God and the Lamb see all. That is our goal. We will be part of a universality reconciled to God by the blood of the Lamb. Oh blessed day, when we can see all the saints…

~ Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Homily - 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2019

Our Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB, presided at Holy Mass this morning. His homily is below:

Amos 8:4-7
I Timothy 2:1-8
Luke 16:1-13

The prophets in Israel were not people to be messed with. And Amos was one of those prophets you would rather not see walking in the streets of your city. It was not because prophets were walking around predicting the future that made people uncomfortable. It had more to do with the fact that they spoke out loud what was really going on in the present. The prophets told it like it was and they didn’t mince words. Amos must have frequented the market place and the shops. He could see beyond the pleasant smiles of the sales person. He heard the conversation in the back room. He listened to business people talking about when the Sabbath and the New Moon feast will be over so that they could get on with making another dollar. It might sound like a conversation leading up to a rationalization for keeping shops open on Sunday. It is not a mater of convenience; it is a matter of finding another way to make more money.

In 8th century BC Israel, Amos knew very well what was happening in the economic and social life of the country. And his word, or rather God’s word he spoke, is directed against it. The system set out to make the landowner wealthier but at the expense of the poor and those in need. More money was to be had, at someone else’s expense. From Amos’ point of view the system in Israel developed to the point where it was not longer a reflection of the covenant that God has made with his people. The economic system had shifted and become a sin against the commandments and covenant.

The Word today clearly makes us stick our nose into the reality of money, wealth and possessions. The Word is concerned about how money and wealth are made, or accumulated. And the Word is equally concerned about what to do with it. Money is not something that can be avoided. It is part of human life; the exchange of goods and services is part of everyday life. But there is a value to money and wealth more than the numbers on the bills, coins and stock certificates. The value comes from the position we give it in relation to the whole of life. If we live in a society that deems having and possessing as a high value, as a reason for living and working, then all our energy will be focused on finding better ways of getting, having, possessing and consuming. Money and wealth are something to be fought for. In the struggle to acquire, we slowly lose sight of the methods of how the things are gotten. If convenience and speed are objects worth pursuing, then we will invest much to make that happen. But probably we will lose sight of how it is we are able to have so much at our fingertips when we want it. Amos had a clear vision of things; he saw very well how some people in Israel were getting richer. And he saw quite clearly that it was the poor, the needy, the immigrant, the common laborer who were being taken advantage of.

What is disturbing about the prophet Amos, as is the case with all prophets, is that what he sees God sees. Better perhaps is that he follows where God is looking. As a true prophet, his response is really God’s response, God’s word to what he sees happening in the economic-social arrangement of the day. What is disturbing is that when God sees, then the prophet makes sure we see who and what God sees. God sees those who are affected by the business deals, namely, the poor. And in his seeing, God makes it clear on whose side he stands: the side of the needy, the lowly, the poor. The final words of the oracle today should pierce our heart and consciences: “Never will I forget a thing they have done.”
If our God remembers, then he remembers the victim of other people’s greed and selfishness, the exploited. He remembers if a land is raped to make someone else rich. We are called upon today to hear the Word of God through Amos so that we do not forget where our God stands. Not only does he stand with the poor, but he stands with them because they have become the victims of injustice, of an imbalance in human relationships, and imbalance between human beings and the earth, the common home of all that lives. God sees and understands what the poor see and experience. Those living by the covenant of God, namely you and I, are meant to find ourselves seeing with the eyes of God. And since we are in relationship with God, we are called upon to become part of restoration of the use of this world’s goods and wealth. Jesus and the Kingdom are precisely how God remembers the exploited.

Jesus tells a parable today that is strange by all accounts. A manager or steward who decides to reduce his master’s debts actually gets commended for his cleverness in spite of the fact that he was caught squandering the master’s property. The question inevitable arises is Jesus condoning playing around with someone else’s property? Thinking about that doesn’t get too far. Jesus is not above using shady characters or less than likeable people and situations to speak about God and his Kingdom. It is Jesus’ power as a story teller that he can use the most human situations, filled with ambiguity and even bad ethics, to make us sit up and take a look at how God works.

What comes across clearly is that the steward-manager finds himself in a crisis. His squandering of the property of someone else has caught up with him. He is being fired. He must now take the consequences. And the consequences, we hear him say, are not at all appealing. The crisis he finds himself in forces him to take action. Admittedly, it is a self-serving action, but he wakes up to the situation and responds. He is commended in the parable for being astute enough to act in way that involves relationships rather that possessing.

Crises often make us act. We often come to find resources that we did not know were there all along. Amos and Jesus are speaking out of a crisis. The crisis is not money or wealth per se. The crisis is that something has been forgotten. Wealth and money are subordinate to primary relationships. And primary relationships are founded not on possessing or gaining but on being responsible for what is gift in the first place. The network of human relationships is a treasure, a treasure initiated by God. The relationship with the earth itself is grounded on responsibility. It is ours to care for, not exploit at the expense of others.

If we are children of light, as Jesus says, then we should see a crisis when the covenant between God and humanity, humanity and the world is cracking and becoming loose. The way to restore the fracture, the broken relationships will be through the new covenant in Jesus, the one mediator, the one who can hold all things and people together. It is he who can teach us how to live with others in a way that enhances human dignity, that treats others as neighbors and not objects to be exploited or commodities to be bartered away. He can teach us that wealth is a blessing to be shared and not hoarded. He can teach us that who we are and what we have is a gift to be nurtured and loved. Our way of life is not one of taking but one of giving thanks and of blessing the one from whom all good things come.

Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB



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