Easter Vigil - 2021

Romans 6:3–11
Mark 16:1–7

The Sabbath is over. The day of rest has been dutifully observed. We, too, have kept watch; we have observed the Sabbath, completing it by pondering again the stories, the images, the poetry that speak of God’s creative power. We have heard of his desire to set us free and above all, of his love that is everlasting. We have heard again of his love that calls the stars by name and call us too out of darkness into his wonderful light.

We need this Sabbath, this rest, the time to remember, to hear again about God’s choice of us. We need it, too, like the women we meet walking to the tomb with burial spices. We need to mourn our losses; we need time to admit that the death of Jesus has changed something but we are not quite sure what. Maybe we have not made the connection yet between his death and our need to die to self. But the Sabbath is over. It is back to practicalities, to taking care of the matter at hand. It is time to shop for what is needed, for our task now of caring for the dead; time to buy, something we are very familiar with. And as we walk along, the next practical question is who is going to roll away the stone? We women can only do so much. But there is no one else around. The men have done their thing.

And yet the question, “Who will roll away the stone?” is a real one. On one level, it means how can we get on with courting death. How can we take care of the next victim of violence, deceit and false testimony? How can we lay to rest the next victim of human atrocity? We humans are good at finding someone or something to blame and then making sure we get rid of it. We dread owning our own frailty and weakness, our simple mistakes, our major faults. The women are simply doing what they did in Galilee, ministering to Jesus, even when he is a dead corpse. Nothing seems to have changed. We just carry on.

But when the women look up from their questioning, something has changed. The question as to who will roll back the stone has been answered. “God will.” God will roll it back because God wants death to change. God will open up the tomb because his Son has been placed there and that dead Son needs to live. Suddenly rolling away the stone is more than a practical necessity; rolling away the stone allows the women to enter not to find death but to find a young man clothed in white letting them know that death is over and gone.

The women are amazed. They came to continue the story of death. Instead, they find the morning sun shining in the place, the body gone and a messenger in white telling them this is not where you need to be! In so many words, you are in the wrong place! Your crucified friend is not here, just as he told you. Remember!

The women are shocked, amazed! At what? That there is another story being told here. It is a story of love and fidelity of a Father for his Son. It is a story about freeing humanity from taking its own life, from self-destructive behavior. Jesus has been telling a story about giving up one’s life out of love for another, for us. His was not a cold death, now to be packaged up like other deaths. His death was for us. He entered the grasp of death, its depths in the tomb, trusting in love. And doing it so that we might look up and see that what we thought was the end, is really a place of light and a message to continue on the journey where you will see him.

The Father’s love does not let things be; his love rolls back what blocks us from seeing light and hearing good news. His love is about restoring an original peace, a wholeness where life is the beginning and the end. His love is about giving us a new heart, a new spirit. It makes no difference where we are on the road of life: the hopeful end of a pandemic where we know in our hearts that life will not be the same; an acceptance of my own fragility of body and mind; a loss that seems to go on forever…God is rolling back the stone so we can see that his love is what holds the world and humanity together.

The women are right. They have to get into the tomb. Yes, they have to die with Jesus. Paul puts it clearly: we have to die with Christ and be buried with him. This is the only way to life. Baptism is our dying and being buried and the beginning of our rising to live for this mysterious God. It is not a one time process; it is a daily process as we live our time on earth.

Baptism is the beginning of the journey. What journey? The messenger in the tomb tells us: He is going before you to Galilee. He went before you to Jerusalem and you followed him. You watched and followed him to the tomb. But you cannot remain in Jerusalem the place of death, you must go where you experienced how he loved, lived, prayed healed and broke bread with you. When you do that, you will see him.

It is hard work, dying, being buried and beginning to rise. But someone has rolled back the stone so that we can make that journey into new life. That someone who worked so light could enter is the Father. And the new life that lies ahead is his Son, going on ahead of us still. Yes, he is risen, alleluia. He is not in death and neither are you as you go on to Galilee. Be amazed but get moving. There is much energy released on this day for the stone has been rolled back.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Holy Thursday - Mass of the Lord's Supper

Joh 13:1-15
Ex 12:1-8, 11-14 1
Cor 11: 23-26

focus: On Holy Thursday we commemorate the first Eucharist in the Cenacle.

function: And we hear the Lord’s call to each one of us to humbly serve our brothers and sisters in our everyday life.

During the last couple of years, I got to know the Jewish religion a bit better, among other things through an encounter with Rabbi Teri at South Street Temple in Lincoln, through study, spiritual reading, and the Tri-Faith initiative in Omaha. Thus, my mind was especially with our Jewish sisters and brothers Last Saturday, when the weeklong Jewish Passover celebration began with the nightly Seder meal. As part of the rite, the youngest child or family member asks what the meaning is of this night. Then the head of the family, usually the father, tells the story of the wonderful Exodus from Egypt. Today “the Lord brought us from bondage to freedom, from sorrow to gladness, from mourning to a festival day, from darkness to great light, from servitude to redemption” (Mishna). Today: What is remembered and told becomes a present event. For those who hear about God’s deeds thousands of years ago and who celebrate them with praise, redemption from slavery become a present reality.

Tonight’s first reading is the description of the people of Israel’s first Passover meal in Egypt. The blood of the sacrificed lambs marks the homes of the Israelites—and so they are being spared from the tenth and worst plague which is to come upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians: the death of the firstborn. After this, Pharaoh will let the people of Israel go from bondage into freedom.

One way for us of receiving this Biblical message is to get in touch with our own desire for greater freedom, for liberation from those patterns of thinking and behavior in our life that keep us from being free. We can look back once again on the forty days of Lent: Have our Lenten practices helped us toward greater freedom? Whatever the answer, we can hold out our desire for freedom to God, who can fulfill and who wants to fulfill our deepest longings!

This night is very special for us as Christians. We celebrate the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Our second reading and the gospel take us into the night of Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples. St. Paul tells us about Jesus’ gift to us: "This is my body that is for you,” Jesus says. With this he summarizes his whole ministry. It was all about self-giving. And we hear about Jesus’ summons, “Do this in remembrance of me.” Whenever we celebrate the Eucharist we act on this word and the Last Supper becomes present to us. Whenever we do this, St. Paul writes, we “proclaim the death of the Lord.”

He gave his life to set us free. Jesus’ salvific death invites us to self-giving. At offertory time, we place our life, whatever is going on with us right now, on the paten, together with the host, and it is being transform with it. The action of Jesus is meant to become and can become our action. Through our own self- offering, through our dying to self, we imitate Jesus and conform our lives to his.

Paul adds: We shall do this “until he comes.” One day, Jesus will come again in glory. Until then, whenever we gather for the Eucharist, we already receive in this sacrament a foretaste of the joyful banquet with him in heaven.

John's gospel has a different account of the Last Supper. John does not relate Jesus’ words of institution at all. Instead, Jesus washes his disciples' feet. With this ritual Jesus shows us how he gives us his body and allows his blood to be poured out for us. By his action, Jesus says: I am a servant to you and to all. You can become like this, too: “Love one another as I have loved you!”

Dear sisters and brothers, on Holy Thursday we commemorate the first Eucharist in the Cenacle; it becomes present to us. And we hear the Lord’s mandate to each one of us to humbly serve our brothers and sisters in our everyday life.

We are invited today to enter into this scene in our imagination: Reclining at table with Jesus, looking at him, listening to him. He teaches us. He feeds us with himself. He strengthens us and gives us life. Then we see how he puts on an apron and starts washing everyone’s feet. Like Peter, I feel resistance. I realize: I have to let Jesus wash my feet. I need to "name" the part of my life, the part of myself that I need to surrender to the Lord to be embraced and loved, washed and healed.

As we celebrate the Eucharist tonight, we can participate in it with new gratitude, for the gift that Jesus is for us. The word ‘Eucharist’ means ‘thanksgiving’. This gratitude will be the seed for our own loving according to his example, ,it will be the starting point for us reaching out to those who need liberation and a new experience of that dignity which God has given to all of us and which people felt anew in Jesus presence. AMEN.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

Annunciation of the Lord

Isaiah 7:10–14; 8:10
Hebrews 10:4–10
Luke 1:26–38

Luke introduces Mary without any prehistory. There is no family origins or genealogy. She is just there. She is alone; there is no one around. We can say that she is in an in-between state, she is single and betrothed, not quite belonging to her family, not yet living with her husband. We know she is living in a small town, inconsequential historically. What good can come from Nazareth another gospel writer puts it. There is really only one thing that Luke tells us about Mary. We hear it from the angel: “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you!” But that one thing says everything. Mary is already favored by God; Mary is already in relationship with the God of the covenant, the God of promises, the God of the creative Word. It is clear Mary is not aware of full meaning this relationship. She is troubled by the announcement of her identity. She ponders it. She hears is loved by God, for that is what ‘full of grace means.’

God finds raw material, so to speak, to love and work with, beyond our knowing it. It is true: given Mary’s response to the angel’s word, she has been living within the framework of a God who is alive for her. Perhaps without much reflection. But there is a space within her where God wishes to build his name in human flesh. God has found that space, that womb in this girl from Nazareth.

God recognizes the good in Mary. He favors it as the place to culminate the work he began with creation. But this good and wonderful heart will not be forced. The Word comes but it is clear that humanity must receive it in order for the Word be clothed like one of us. The Word needs a response in order for it to happen. God finds the sacred space within Mary, God sees the grace and the readiness, but Mary, but we, must say, “Let it be done according to your Word.”

Annunciations happen in our lives. Someone recognizes the goodness within us. Most of us pull back, perhaps in disbelief. Someone has spoken a word to us and we allowed ourselves, like Mary, to ponder it. We stopped and let that word work in us. We let the Spirit begin the process of doing something wonderful and new. It might be that if, we did not have an annunciation, a word spoken to us, we might not be in the place where we are now. Our journey in the flesh would look different. But someone saw grace in us and called it into action. Perhaps that person was like Gabriel, only around for a short time and then departed. But they spoke and we allowed the Spirit to work in our lives.

This is a feast of Word, Spirit and grace. The Word continues to speak to us today, to land on the grace we carry and find a home in our hearts. This is because a long time ago a young girl acknowledged her identity and opened herself to the Spirit’s work of doing something new. What that new thing is the son of Mary we name Jesus—God among us.
There is this place within us—call it heart—where there is an openness. God can work, we can conceive. Mary could think of how it was impossible for the word God spoke would happen. She spoke obstacles. The angel spoke of the Holy Spirit. The angel reminded her that the impossible could be done through the Spirit’s power. We humans are good at pointing out the obstacles. But it is within those obstacles that the Spirit seeks to use the flesh. Grace has no barriers. We hold flesh and Spirit apart, impossible to touch. But God says ‘yes’ today to our flesh. I send a Son so that you too can say yes to the grace already within you. He will take your flesh, your seeming impossible, and make of it a new creation.

Let us not be afraid to name the annunciations spoken to us, annunciations that recognize the grace which was poured on us once at baptism when Word and Spirit changed our lives forever. The incarnation is still happening; the Word is still longing to make a home in our hearts. Mary gives evidence that the Word does come breaking into our lives. Mary testifies also as to what a response looks like: “May it be done to me according to your word.” Her Son will say the same before the Father. And when he does, we will know that Mary has borne God’s Son.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Memorial of the Death of St. Benedict

Genesis: 12: 1–4a
Philippians 4:4–9
John 17: 20–26

Today we celebrate the passing of St. Benedict from this world to the Father. It his is death we celebrate today. It is observed in Benedictine monasteries close to the spring equinox. Just as the seasons change from one to another, so does Benedict pass, transit from this world to the heavenly world. When it comes to remembering a death, there is sometimes a tradition of giving a eulogy about the deceased person. This simply means giving a good word about the person. Rhetorically it often gets expanded into praising the life the man. If you read some medieval sermons for this feast of the transitus, this is often what they sound like. And as time went on, they would sing the praises of the Benedictine Order and what it has contributed to the culture of Europe. This theme is still operative today. Now the question is asked what can Benedict say to a very different culture than the one his monks once left behind. And beyond Europe, we have more and more literature on how Benedict and his Rule can affect the ordinary person.

At first hearing the Word we have just heard doesn’t seem to have much to do with death but there is some hint of a passage from this world to the next in Paul and with Jesus. But the Word can point us in a direction that our thoughts and feelings might take as Benedict moves along the carpet lined with lights from this world to heaven.

Abraham. When we listen to his call, we easily think of our vocation. We reflect on the fact that none of us are living in our home town or for some even in our home country. We have all left the family and place we are familiar with. And following that call was not necessarily easy, just as it was not easy for Abraham. But Abraham’s call had more than a ‘leaving behind’ as part of it. There was also a blessing attached to it. And it was not a blessing that he would live to see. God asks him to move but he also gives him his word and makes a promise. He will be blessed and he will become a blessing for others. This speaks to us Benedictines as much as a vocation call. The name Benedict translates as simply “One who is Blessed.”

Benedict passes from this world to the Father today. But he has left a blessing behind him. If we count the 1500+ years his way of life has been carried out, then he is surely a happy man to have so many sons and daughters who have lived in the light of his blessing. We can pause to consider the significance of that. We here in this day and age, from several places on earth that Benedict did not even know about, have been touched by his way of life. Surely he is a happy man for that. But we might ask ourselves, just how have I been blessed in knowing this man and in knowing his way of following the Gospel. Can each of us begin to name the blessing Benedict has bequeathed to us through his life and through his Rule? Is it a way of prayer, a way of prayer founded in God’s word? Is it perhaps the gift of balance in our lives that comes about by following the rhythm of common prayer, work, reading day in and day out? Is it the virtue of patience that has grown in us as we learned to live next to someone of different temperament or style or culture than me? Have I come to know peace in my life because I have been faithful to all that Benedict calls us to? Can I recognize the blessing of wholeness that has come to me by walking the road of humility? Can I say that there is less fear in my life now that my heart has expanded in love? Is there less rigidity and defense and more openness and selflessness. Listening to the call of Abraham is only a part of the Abraham story; the other half is that Abraham is to be a blessing. Abraham’s vocation was to become a blessing. Surely today when we remember the passing of Benedict, we can ponder the blessing and blessings that have come to us by being a disciple in Benedict’s school of the Lord’s service. And the blessing this way of life can give even in our world today.

Paul. Paul speaks a word to the Philippians and Benedict speaks a word to his followers. Paul wishes joy and peace for his community. Benedict’s invitation in his prologue is precisely to those people who are looking also for peace. Benedict has a word and a plan for those whose hearts are looking for wholeness and a rich life. He asks us to seek peace and pursue it. Run after this peace. Run after this blessing that God wishes to give us and does so in abundance at the resurrection of Christ.

Paul asks his community to imitate him, do what he taught, to follow his example. As Benedict passes today from this world to the Father, he also encourages us to do all the things we have learned from him and were taught by him. What he taught and what we can learn is found in the Rule. But if we are to follow him, then we best do that by giving flesh to the Rule, making it come alive. Of course we make a vow to follow the Rule. And we listen to it each day. But all this is to say that we are to be conscious daily of what Benedict is teaching us. Benedict may pass into the glory of his Master. But Benedict lives to the degree that we find the way to God and a way of serving the Lord Jesus in the word of the Rule. Keep on doing what you have learned, received and heard in me, Paul tells his community at Philippi. Benedict passes to the Father but leaves a gift in his Rule. The Rule is perhaps the great blessing that Benedict leaves behind. When we follow it, he says we too will become blessed, we will become free.

Lastly, we hear Jesus praying. Perhaps Jesus’ words are similar to the words of prayer that St. Gregory tells us were on the lips of Benedict in his dying moments. Listening to Jesus we are invited to hear in them what St. Benedict prayed for his own community. What Benedict wishes for us is a place in the great communion that flows between Father and Son. It is a communion that now includes those who believe in the Son. The communion of love that flows between the Father and the Son is expanded to all those for whom the Son lived and died.

What is at the center of St. Benedict’s way of life is Christ. At the heart of the community is the living Christ. We come to the monastery to live in a community with Christ as the center. We come to accept what Jesus continues to offer, a relationship with him and the Father. At the heart of the community is the great blessing. It is the blessing that the Father loves Jesus and is faithful to him until the end. Jesus in his turn loves us and is faithful to us also. And we live in that love. Our stability, that Benedictine hallmark, is to remain in that love. And our living in that love becomes a blessing to the world around us. To the degree that we live out of the blessing, to that degree do we experience peace. To that same degree do the followers of St. Benedict become a blessing wherever they may be found.

We give thanks today for God’s blessing, St. Benedict, who has given us a way to life that leads to the heart of Love, the source of all blessing.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macu, OSB

5th Sunday of Lent - 2021

Jeremiah 31:31–34
Hebrews 5:7–10
John 12:20–33 

“Sir, we would like to see Jesus.” It sounds like a simple request, right? One goes to a clinic and say I would like to see Dr. so and so. One would think that a simple answer would suffice, like OK, or when, etc. But Jesus’ response seems like a disconnect. On the surface it looks like it is no response at all. But in reality the request, ‘Sir, we would like to see Jesus,’ opens up a new dimension as to who Jesus is. For Jesus such a request signals something  beyond him, as it were. The request does not come from one of his own; it comes from beyond his people, from the Greeks, from the outside world. In reality, Jesus takes it as sign that his God and Father has begun something new in this simple request. Jesus responds first by announcing that a change is taking place. The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Jesus knows that he is entering the final stage of his presence in the world.

So what does Jesus want the Greeks to see? Who is the person that Jesus wants the Greeks to see, what kind of person is he? To answer the question of the Greeks, Jesus offers us an image of himself and an image of what it means for outsiders to be asking for him. He chooses an agricultural image, that of a grain of wheat. This grain must fall to the ground and die. The image that Jesus offers the Greeks is an image of himself as a dying man. But then that is what happens to a grain of wheat. To be what it is supposed to be, it must die. So Jesus comes to the realization that if his life to have any meaning, then it means that he must die like a grain of wheat. The question of the Greeks brings forth the understanding that he cannot remain alone, he cannot remain single, he cannot remain one belonging to his own people. No, he must die like a wheat grain so that he produces fruit. The grain of wheat must produce many grains. From being one, he must become many. He cannot be for himself alone, he must be for others. To bear fruit is to die, to let go of himself so that he can bear the fruit of a community that encompasses more than just his own.

The coming of the Greeks provokes Jesus into his hour, into the crisis of shedding his enclosed world of self and allowing it to break open so that he can call others into being. His dying is essential if his task is to call humanity to fruitfulness, to community, to solidarity. He seems to be aware that dying on the cross is becoming visibly lifted up so that others can see and come to him. His singleness and uniqueness is bearing fruit in a drawing of humanity toward the Father through him. But the only way to bring humanity together is to die, to surrender, to let go. Jesus can only answer the request of the Greeks if he dies. But only then will he also be true to himself. That is what his hour challenges him to.

Those who come to see him must understand that they must also make the same journey as he. They want to see Jesus, and the Jesus they will see is a Jesus who gives himself up to death out of love for his Father. If the Greeks, the outsiders, want any part with him, they must do the same. All who follow Jesus must do the same. In his Semitic way of putting it, they must hate their life in this world, to gain authentic life. If you love your life you will lose it. This is a way of saying that if you remain loyal to this world’s way of thinking and seeing, then you are really choosing an alternative that will bear no fruit. But if you choose the dying model, like the grain of wheat, they you will have an authentic life. For those of us who take seeing Jesus seriously, it will mean dying in some form or other. Ours is culture that does want to consider death as the avenue to life and growth. But if you have invested in Jesus, then there is no other way. Dying in this case covers all aspects of life in this world. Death to self-preoccupation, to our so-called independence and isolation, death to wanting things my way and only my way. My loyalty, my love must be directed to another: to neighbor, to Jesus, to the Father?  Then my self will bear fruit.

This kind of dying is not easy. We do not let go of illusions easily. Jesus struggled with giving up his life. The Letter to the Hebrew speaks of ‘loud cries and tears’. Jesus says he is troubled. He asks himself, maybe I should pull out of this dying, save myself the trouble of living for others. In the end he moves toward acceptance of the hour. “No, I will not ask to be saved from dying. It is for this that I came!” And just where does Jesus find the strength to enter into this unknown world of letting go? He finds it in his relationship to the Father. He remains loyal to the Father. And the Father remains loyal to him. I will glorify you, I will honor and respect you. For when you embrace dying out of love, then you are my Son, you honor and reveal my love for the world.

When Jesus dies, the single grain that he is becomes many grains. It produces the fruit of a new community, a community that can hold both his people and the Greeks. Lifted up Jesus begins to pull together what is scattered and weave it into a new whole. The old order wants to divide, separate and cause discord. The new community wants to pull the diversity into a new form of unity, a unity that the prophet sees as being written on our hearts. The fruit of Jesus dying is a new humanity that is led from within its heart. Those who see Jesus and serve him then become part of the coming together that the love released in his dying brings about.

In our Eucharist today, Jesus is lifted up. And this love raised on high is the signal that we, too, need not be afraid of dying to self and coming alive in the life that is God’s. A new covenant is being celebrated here at the altar, a covenant formed out love poured forth on the cross. For those of us who want to see Jesus, it is in becoming part of the covenant sealed in his blood, that we will see him and will preserve our human life for eternal life.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

 

4th Sunday of Lent-2021

Joh 3:14-21
2 Chr 36:14-17.19-23
Eph 2:4-10

focus: We, too, like Nicodemus, are called upon to look to Jesus, and to put our trust in him who is also for us the source of life, yes, of life to the full.

I am always impressed when I visit the campus of Boys Town in Omaha. “There is no such thing as a bad boy; there is only bad environment, bad training, bad example, bad thinking.” This was, as we know, the conviction of the Servant of God, Fr. Edward Flanagan, the founder of Boys Town. He lived according to this conviction. Thousands of boys, homeless or delinquent or both, found a father in him, somebody who cares, somebody who gave them love, education and good training.

Fr. Flanagan’s work with troubled and abandoned youths, began in 1917 in a rented house in Omaha with five boys who needed a home. Now Boys Town helps more than 1.6 million people each year through its main campus,it’s national research hospital in Omaha, its national hotline
and at various locations around the country.

It made no difference to Fr. Flanagan whether a boy was Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or had no religion at all. He taught all of them to pray, but gave each one the freedom to pray in his own way. The color of a person’s skin didn’t matter to Fr. Flanagan, either. One African American commentator wrote after his death in 1948, “America was founded upon the philosophy that everyone deserved his chance to contribute his talents to make this country great. But America has yet to learn by the example of this humble disciple of Christ [Fr Flanagan,] that the phrase ‘all people’ truly includes the white, the brown and the black.” Fr. Flanagan made visible in an eminent way, as did Jesus himself, the love of God for every human being.

God’s love and mercy shine through all the Scripture texts of this Sunday. The situation of the Israelites in the Babylonian exile seemed hopeless. They couldn’t be joyous, as our responsorial psalm says. However, God took the initiative and inspired the Persian King Cyrus to give them their freedom. They were able to return to their land; and Cyrus even supported the rebuilding of their temple in Jerusalem.

John’s Gospel proclaims the good news of God’s love who even gave up his only begotten Son in order for us to be saved.

By grace and by God, who is rich in mercy, we have been saved through faith, the Letter to the Ephesians tells us. We have a share in Christ’s resurrection and, even now, in his heavenly glory. That’s why the Laetare Sunday has this joyful quality.

On today’s Sunday, we have moved into the second part of Lent. During the first weeks of Lent, the readings at Mass called us to penance and conversion, to forgiveness and love of enemies,
to prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The emphasis was on our doing.

Now, starting today, the readings of the Lectionary are about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the healer and life-giver, the one who gives life through his confrontation with death. The emphasis is on the work of God, who guides his people, who is rich in mercy, and who sent his son into the world, not to condemn it, but that it might be saved though him. The focus is on our salvation and our redemption.

God loves each one of us as if you, and you, and I were the only persons in the universe. In Jesus Christ, this love has reached into the deepest depths of earthly sickness and desolation.

My brothers and sisters, we, too, like Nicodemus, whom we meet in today’s gospel, are called upon to actively convert to Jesus, to gradually conform the ways of our lives to his. And, even more fundamentally, we are called upon to look to Jesus, and to receive from him God’s mercy, and life, life to the full.

An expression of our active conversion, of our coming toward the light this Lent could be, if we haven’t made it yet, a good confession. The examination of our conscience helps us to become aware of those areas in our lives that need improvement and a new beginning. The celebration of the sacrament itself assures us of God’s forgiveness and of God’s continued and never ending love for us.

And we can ask ourselves: What would be a way for us to show something of God’s love and mercy, that we have received to others? Is it time for us to reach out to a person with whom we are not reconciled? Is there something special we can do, inspired by Fr. Flanagan’s ideals, for our children or grandchildren in order to show them our love and care?

A spiritual exercise that leads us well into Lent’s second part could be to sit in front of a crucifix today or this week in our room, in our house, or in church and to look at it with great trust and with hope. What the apostle Paul says is true: Because of his great love for us [God] brought us to life with Christ when we were dead in sin. By his grace we have been saved.

~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB


Ash Wednesday - Holy Mass

Joel 2:12-18
2 Corinthians 5:20-6:2
Matthew 6:1-6, 16-18

Just this past Sunday was Valentine’s Day. The ubiquitous symbol of this day is the heart. We usually find it in red everywhere. The element of heart that was symbolized on this day was love, love in its relational and affective, feeling mode.

Today, the heart is back. For what we are all about in Lent is the heart. If we need a greeting card to open this season, the prophet Joel leads with the word heart. He is echoing God’s words: “Return to me with your whole heart…rend your hearts and not your garments and return to me, your Lord and God.” Now the heart translates as something more than amorous feelings, the glow of being in love, as we say. To come back to someone carrying your heart, to stand before God with a heart that is broken and torn speaks of wanting to renew a relationship that has moved away from self-giving, sacrifice and looking out for the other. The call the prophet speaks is a call to look closely at our motivations for acting and speaking. The call is about checking out our attitudes and assumptions. The heart for this season of Lent is the heart that lies behind everything we say our do. “Return to me with your whole heart.” For it is the heart that governs all our relationships and all our plans.

The implication in the prophetic call to return and in St. Paul’s strong command to be reconciled is that something is not well in this human heart of ours. Say what we like, all is not right in depths of the human spirit. If it were, then we would not have this season that commands us to return with the whole heart. It seems that we have been acting with less than the whole. We have perhaps been acting in a manner that is less than fully human. It would seem that we have become careless and hard, otherwise there would be no need to ask us to soften it. No doubt what is meant is that our heart has ceased being other centered, it is no longer focused toward and on someone. It has become turned in on itself. In biblical terms, it has become hard and stubborn. It is no longer committed to the original relationship that binds us to God and through God to each other. A human heart at its core is other centered. In this way, it reflects the heart of God that is always other centered. God’s heart, he says today, is gracious and merciful, slow to anger; its richness, its wholeness lies in kindness.

So this is the season for acknowledging our hearts. It is the season for a deep recognition of the state of our real selves. It is the time to recognize the primary relationships that are found and are interwoven in the heart: the relationship to God, to fellow human beings and finally to ourselves and the environment we live in, to creation. But the heart is not something we see. It is invisible. It is of the spirit. How do we know something is happening there? How do we know that changes are taking place there? We have no choice but to look at what is coming forth from the heart. We have no choice but to look on the outside.

Certain things we do and say are able to show what is happening in the heart. If we fast, we let go of control and keeping for ourselves what is necessary for life. If we pray, we acknowledge our humanity and our solidarity with others in the human family. If we give alms, we are sharing our material goods or wealth. These are external signs that speak about what is happening inside, in the heart. If we bow our heads to receive ashes, we are at least admitting that we have something to grieve for, that something within us needs healing. When we accept the ashes, we accept death.; we acknowledge that we are limited. We need these external signs. By doing them the heart should be activated.

In the end, the restoration of the relationships is not a matter of fixing up things on the outside. It is a matter of something deeply personal, deeply spiritual. It is something which affects our whole attitude in life. It is not a matter of impressing anybody. It is as Jesus says, a matter of being before your Father in secret. This is the gospel way of saying it is being with your heart before God. What matters is that you and I are walking in the way the Father asks us to. Really, Lenten activity is get us to admit that God alone gives us honor, dignity and recognition. The Lenten work, whether it is fasting, prayer or almsgiving, doesn’t make anything happen on God’s part. But it can very well make us more aware of where our heart should be and consequently where our interests should lie….There is real physical hunger on this earth. Some brothers and sisters don’t get their share of daily bread. Fasting makes us ponder the mystery of why? Some people have deep longings that they think can be satisfied with more of the goods of this world. Fasting reminds us that human hearts are only satisfied by God alone. Many people are overwhelmed by suffering but have forgotten how to cry. Praying reminds us that before God all words are possible and can be heard. Tears and groans don’t fall on deaf ears but are gathered up till they stir compassion in the heart of God. We look around us and we see the inequality of this world’s goods, between north and south, rich and poor. Divesting ourselves of something concrete and material is a way of reminding ourselves that to have and to possess means holding all things in trust and for sharing. The earth is not ours to own. It is ours to care for; it is a precious gift.

The symbol for Lent is the human heart. It once again becomes a heart in process, a heart in the making, a heart in transformation. It is a heart being softened, a heart being awakened, a heart being torn. It is a heart, which began as less than whole, but in these days is becoming whole once again. It is a heart that had broken its commitment but in these days is breaking faithlessness and moving again toward fidelity and new love. It is becoming a heart shaped by our master and Lord who showed us how to rend it so that love pours out.

In a few moments, we will willingly receive ashes. They look useless; they look as though they should be thrown out. But like the dust and earth they symbolize, out of them will come new life, out of them will come a new light and fire that will burn and glow and never go out or grow cold.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

A Lenten Reflection by Bro. Tobias, OSB

Lenten Reflection

The monks of Christ the King Priory – Benedictine Mission House and St. Benedict Center in Schuyler, extend prayerful good wishes as we start our Lenten journey today.

Over the years, you certainly have heard many sermons on the values of prayer, fasting and alms giving that Jesus recommends to his disciples and followers. The words, of Jesus recorded in chapter 6 in the Gospel of Mathew, are familiar and yet a challenge for each Christian as we start the observance of Lent.

Benedictines have the custom of listening daily to a section of the Rule of St. Benedict. Chapter 49 is dedicated to the Observance of Lent. Even though I hear this chapter three times in the course of a year, and again on Ash Wednesday as part of a spiritual conference, one phrase strikes me in particular: …look forward to holy Easter with joy and spiritual longing.

I am standing here in front of the Passion Wall in our chapel, created by renowned artist Lore Friedrich-Gronau who for many years was artist in residence at our monastery in Germany.

The images of the Passion Wall reflect the last days of Jesus, especially this agony in the garden, the trial before Pilate, the way to Golgotha, the Crucifixion and finally the empty tomb with the angel declaring that He is risen.

I invite you to take time for reflection on the saving mysteries recorded in the Gospel accounts. During this time of pandemic not everyone can go to a church and walk the Stations of the Cross. The website pages of the monastery and retreat house have versions of our outdoor stations and reflections that may be helpful for your Lenten journey.

Most of all: whatever you do, do it in the spirit of charity and pray with us for peace in our world, and let us look forward with joy to holy Easter.

Blessings!

~Br. Tobias, OSB


6th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Leviticus 13:1–2, 44–46
1 Corinthians 10:31–11:1
Mark 1:40–45

Last Sunday when we met we found that the whole town was gathered at the door. The community had brought all who were sick or were possessed. Jesus was busy healing and exorcising. This Sunday we find out there was one category of sick that was not in that group. The reading from Leviticus makes it clear that anyone with leprosy would not be in a crowd. In fact such a person had to live apart from anyone and live outside the town. We would say they have to be in forced isolation.

The word leprosy as we find it in the first reading and the gospel has a wider meaning than what we now call Hansen’s disease. That disease was most likely not known at the time of Jesus. Our texts refer to any kind of skin disease, with its broken skin and oozing pus, contagious or not. A person with a skin disease was not just sick, they were ritually unclean. They could not touch anyone, and anyone who touched them would automatically become unclean and have to also isolate for a time. While we might not be talking Hansen’s disease, the effects were the same: social isolation that meant religious isolation. Just think of the stories of lepers being isolated well into the 20th century.…We only need to recall the stories of St. Damian de Veuster and St. Marianne Cope on an Hawaiian island, banished and isolated. And closer to home in Nebraska, we only have to recall Fr. Flanagan reaching out to the street boys of Omaha, rejected by many as beyond the pale, and he being faulted for finding good in them.…The stigma of leprosy was public; you went around crying “unclean, unclean.” In effect you had to tell people to stay away. You can imagine the shame in that.

Now this week someone with a skin disease breaks rank so to speak and approaches Jesus. He should not be approaching anyone. He does not say please cure me, heal me, restore my sight. No, he asks Jesus to make him clean. It is not just a physical cure he is asking for. In response, Jesus does not tell him to stay away. In fact, now Jesus breaks rank. Jesus breaks the law, Jesus breaks the tradition. He does not drive him away. In fact he does the opposite; he stretches out his hand towards him and touches him. And with the power of his word the man is made clean. Jesus breaks boundaries: physical, religious and social. He does so consciously and deliberately.

The leper approaches Jesus as a man of power. You are able, you have the power, to make me clean. The leper knows what Jesus can do. He appeals to what Jesus wants to do. Jesus sees the leprosy; Jesus hears the question directed not to his power but to his desire, his will. What do you want to do with your power begs the leper. What does your heart want? The answer comes quickly. We hear that Jesus is moved with pity. The hand is stretched out and it touches the unclean skin of the leper. And the words express what Jesus wants; he wants to make him clean, he wants to restore him to his community. When he makes this leper clean then he is also making the community whole again. Someone isolated is brought back into the living pulse of the community.

Jesus holds divine power. The demons already know that he is the Son of God. Jesus tells them to keep quiet. The leper knows that it is not just a physical cure he needs; he can only be cleansed by God. Only God can make him clean and restore relationships within the community. The leper appeals to what God desires. Isolated he may be but the leper begs for God to be true to himself, to be true to what his power is really for. He appeals to the God of mercy and compassion, the one slow to anger and abiding in kindness. Jesus hears that appeal. The story says he is moved with pity. It may not be the best word to describe Jesus reaction. He is not feeling sorry for the leper. The word means something like moved in his gut. It expresses a movement in the deepest part of Jesus. And we see that movement when the hand is stretched out and the leper touched. That is the compassion of God. To touch the untouchable, to say yes to the shame of another’s isolation and marginalization.

This Gospel story is divided almost evenly between the leper and Jesus. And it ends not with the leper but with Jesus. There is irony here. If Jesus touches the leper, then according to the Law, the religious system, he becomes unclean. Jesus takes on himself the shame, the isolation, the stigma of the leper. Jesus sends the leper to the priests for affirmation of his healing. But now Jesus cannot go into the towns. He has to remain outside, like the leper, in deserted places. Jesus has broken the acceptable boundaries. So he will be on the edge. He may be popular and draw a crowd but he has sent a message as to who he is and to what his Father wants.

The leper becomes an evangelist, proclaiming that God is with his people. But Jesus is not finished yet. Jesus has a journey to make and a baptism to undergo. Jesus’ identification with the outcast, with broken and sinful humanity is still in progress. It will only be completed outside the city of Jerusalem. There he will die, alone and abandoned by his followers, his close community. There he will carry our pain and suffer our infirmities to the end. There he will reach out and touch our death spreading his arms on the cross. What he began in Galilee by stretching out his hand to touch the untouchable will finally be completed. For us humans death is the untouchable, that from which we draw back. Jesus will not draw back.

We who are in Christ, what about us? We were washed clean in baptism. We share in Christ’s power to do good. The question is can we join Christ in wanting to do that. It will mean crossing boundaries. It might mean using power to benefit not a few of our choosing but the many that God is seeking to make clean and restore to communion in his family. Who are those today that others or even we treat as outcasts as unworthy, as those who do not fit it or we say should not fit in? For them Jesus is seen as moved with compassion.

At the Eucharist we recall the death of Christ, a death moved by love. He stretches out his hand to feed us with the power of that love. Dare we take it in hand so that we can stretch out our hand for the acceptance, understanding and healing of others? The power of love that moves us when Jesus touches our hand will find its expression in whom we touch.

~ Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Baptism of our Lord

Isaiah 55:1–11
1 John 5:1–9
Mark 1:7-11

Perhaps you do not remember. Six weeks ago, we began the Advent-Christmas cycle with a reading from Isaiah. His lament became our longing, “Oh, that today you would rend the heavens and come down” (Is 64:19). Here we are at the end of the Christmas season. We are at the end of a season of epiphanies. Today, Mark tells us God is doing just that, answering our cry and coming to our aid: the heavens are being torn open. And from that torn opening comes down the Spirit. The same Spirit that was present at the creation of the world has once again come down upon someone dripping with the water, the same water that was there at the beginning. It is the same Spirit that came down on the prophet and anointed him to be a bearer of Good News, to bring release to those in bondage, to comfort those in mourning and bring gladness and a time of grace and favor. That tear in the heavens was not silent, for from that opening a voice was heard. It is a voice that affirms identity and at the same time gives a mission. “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”
What Mary and Joseph and even the shepherds at Bethlehem heard about Mary’s child before Christmas and on Christmas, Jesus now hears for himself. He is Son of the Father, he is Messiah, he is a chosen servant, and he is David’s heir. All the words that the voice from the heavens speak have accumulated meaning over Israel’s history. Now all that meaning and purpose are laid on Jesus. The Spirit enters him who was conceived by the same Spirit. In Mark’s gospel, this scene is presented as a very personal one. Only Jesus sees and hears all this about himself. Mark does this because he does not have his story begin earlier on like Matthew, Luke or John where all this is revealed to the characters and us the listener.

I dare say that none of us heard any voices at our baptism, probably because most of us were infants. But I heard no stories about it from my parents or godparents. Even adults do not hear the voice of the Father at their baptism. And yet, hidden in that baptism with its water, its anointing, its clothing and its passing on of the Paschal light something profound does happen to us also. For baptism expands our human genealogy and literally plunges us into the genealogy of God as it were. When, like Jesus, we come up out of the water we come up with our full identity. Be have been born anew by the Spirit of God. We have been adopted by the Father and are now his children. Our primary relationship is not limited to the fleshly but also to the Spirit and the Father.
We heard John say I baptize with water; but the coming one, Jesus, will baptize with the Holy Spirit. His baptism will restore your true identity. You will find yourself in a relationship with Father, Son and Spirit, a Trinity.

Today’s feast is in reality the climax of the Advent-Christmas season. This season is about the appearance of God. It is about God entering into our human history; it is a response to our longing for nearness to God and our need to be shown how to live humanly. So in the Christmas season we have been celebrating appearances. Not just of a baby or a star, but of God in our flesh. Today when Jesus does that humble act of letting John baptize him in water, all heaven literally breaks loose. In a simple washing, heaven and earth come together and earth sees and hears Father, Son and Spirit. Christmastide does not go out in a whimper with tossed tinsel, not with us who belong to Christ. It goes out with the full manifestation of the God we dare to call a Trinity. Today is really Trinity Sunday. This is heart of our feast.

But the feast does not leave us out. That humble act of going into the water places us in the family of the Trinity as it were. In our baptism, we are adopted by God, not as second class citizens, but as truly “begotten” as St. John puts it in his letter today. Entering into the life of Jesus Christ is to be begotten by God he says. As we hear of Jesus being named the Father’s Son, so each of us who experienced the water, is affirmed again as belonging to God in a most intimate and even inexpressible way. John makes it clear: we are not bystanders to Jesus baptism; we are sharers in his begetting. God continues the process of begetting in the human family. Our begetting, like that of Jesus, is one born out of love: my beloved, the one in whom I am well pleased.

This is a cosmic feast. Cosmic in the sense that the heavens are affected and the waters are affected. God touches them both and they become revealers of relationships. The waters of our baptism carry the power of bringing to birth ourselves. It is the place of begetting. We open this Christmas season with the birth of God’s child; we close it with the revelation that we too can be begotten as children of God. God sent his Son out of love; now the Father shares that love with us and calls us to step forward to walk with his Son on the journey of new life.

Our Triune God is not an abstract statement of belief. No, you and I can see it and be in it each time we are nurturing a relationship to one another, to a brother or sister who like ourselves is a child of God, precious enough to die for (this is what John means when he says Jesus came in blood). Our Triune God has a face and flesh in each one of us. Let us walk gently and peacefully with one another—let us walk in the Spirit who today filled Jesus and, on our baptismal day, filled us too.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul

© 2025 Christ the King Priory   •   1123 Road I, Schuyler, NE 68661    •   402.352.2177