The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Genesis 3:9-15.20
Ephesians 1:3-6.11-12
Luke 1.26-38

You may have heard that some Catholics think the feast of the Immaculate Conception is honoring the conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb. That would be a misconception of the mystery before us. The misunderstanding may be reasonable as the Gospel for today even tells the story of Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb. But today we are honoring someone affected by the sinlessness of Jesus. We are honoring his Mother. And we are honoring her conception, her coming into existence in the flesh. We are recognizing her as “full of grace” as “highly favored” by God.

Another aspect of the feast that can lead to misunderstanding is the word “immaculate”. For most of us, immaculate has to do with getting things clean, and I mean clean—no dirt, no dust. We might get the impression that God has to clean up a human pathway so his Son could enter into the human world. We might think that everything and everyone around Mary is dirty, unclean, and sinful. We might even go so far as to say that the sexual activity by which Mary was conceived was sinful. And so God has to overcome that sinfulness by a sinless conception in Saint Anne. All that could be a distraction from what we are remembering and honoring today.

It might be helpful if we were to introduce a simple word like “origins”. The feast today is about Mary’s origins in God’s plan to save. We are honoring the woman who is part of God’s will and who says yes to that will. We are taking time today to honor the woman whose whole life is rooted in God. We are clearly proclaiming that this human being did not arise from anything but God’s love for humanity.

This is a feast that remembers and celebrates origins and foundations. It celebrates the original intention of human life as a life lived in communion with God. As much as we have grown accustomed to saying and singing Mary conceived without original sin, it is not feast about sin. It does not honor original sin. It is a feast about what lies before sin ever was. And before sin ever was, there was grace, favor, companionship, intimacy, presence and praise without end. Could we say that in honoring Mary, really we are honoring Eve, that first woman who could walk and talk with God in the garden freely and without shame? The angel greets Mary as one full of grace. He is not speaking as though he were bringing the grace to Mary or carrying a favor of relationship from God to her. He is in fact recognizing someone who has been that way all along, from the beginning.

Some people say the coming of God as a human being is a scandal. It is hard to accept that God would take on himself the human condition. Well, if that is a scandal, and it is from one point of view, then today’s feast is also a scandal. It goes against everything that we human beings experience. After all, we do experience the world as less than clean. We don’t live in an immaculate environment.  Whether that environment is the air, the water, or the soil. And we don’t live in harmony with one another. Human relationships are for the most part broken relationships or at best fragile. We live in a society that many say is characterized by consumerism, greed and selfishness. We can’t get beyond ourselves. We look out for ourselves first. The only will is our own will. And we have become very good at making sure that the dirtiness of others is properly exposed for cleaning.

But today’s feast is a scandal in that is puts in front of us the image of someone who is rooted and grounded in goodness, love, fidelity and commitment. And we say that is the way human beings are called to be. Not by accident, not because it would be better that way, but because we are that way from the beginning. It is not sin that is original but rather grace. Eve walked with God in the garden before she and Adam made a choice that changed the relationship. The scandal is that a young women known to us as Mary of Nazareth, another way of saying, an insignificant woman because she comes from an insignificant place, is actually blessed to live as we were created from the beginning. We are proclaiming today as good news that a human being has lived her life in such a way that she is in harmony with God. We are proclaiming that God’s creative power is stronger than any negative force no matter how ancient we may say it is.

All that we ever say of someone when we say they are blessed, favored, beloved by God, we are saying today of Mary. We do not acknowledge it reluctantly or grudgingly. We don ot acknowledge it and then remain envious. We acknowledge it as truly a gift given by God. We say with the angel: Greetings, Mary, you are blessed by God. To acknowledge Mary’s honor is also to say something about our place before God. Acknowledging Mary’s election is also to admit our own election. We too are “chosen before the foundation of the world” as Paul says. We too are chosen to be holy and to live in love before God. There is solidarity between Mary and ourselves. She models for us what we as a community are called to be. And in honoring her we begin to allow the favor she received to work in our own lives. We are called to be a community that is conscious of the fact that we belong to God, that he has chosen us. We are called to be a community that waits for his word that seeks to do his will. We are called to be a community that lives by a plan that is larger than ourselves. We are called to be a community that reflects God’s willingness to be involved in the ordinary affairs of life, in human flesh. We are called to be a community that praises God for adopting us into his family, into his people.

Mary is given to us again as the image of our way of being human. She is given to us as the servant/handmaid who waits on the word and who says yes to it. That is the core of being human: to wait on a word and then to live attuned to it. To live a life in response to that Word is to live freely. Put in other words, it is to live without sin. For sin, as the first story we heard today, is nothing more than refusal to live by the Word.

In Mary we are offered a picture of ourselves as living by the Word and surrendering to it. In Mary we are offered a picture of what we, too, are called to become. We are to become a Church honoring its origins in God since the foundation of the world. We are to become a Church gathering to praise God because he has been faithful to her through the work of his beloved son, Jesus Christ.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

2nd Sunday of Advent - 2021

Baruch 5:1–9
Philippians 1:4-6, 8-11
Luke 3:1-6

This is one of those rare Sundays in the year when the Gospel does not mention Jesus directly; it does not recount an incident from his life or one of his sayings. Jesus is absent in some way or at least is only in the background. Perhaps that is a clue about this season called Advent. It is not about someone here; it is about someone coming; it is the Advent of the Lord, to give this season its original and full title. It might do us well to be reminded that Jesus is not here. It is a central mystery of our faith that Jesus is still coming. And if he is coming, then he is not here.

Advent reminds us clearly of the fact that we are living in expectation of someone’s coming. This is not a fearful time. It is not an idle time, either. This time of waiting for Jesus is rather full—full of images of what is to come with Jesus; images of hope and fulfillment. At the same time, the Word of God is quite concrete about what we are to do as we wait in hope. And waiting in hope is a must of our lives as I see it. We can find two images in the word today that clue us in on this work even art of waiting.

First image: roadwork. Those of us who use HWY 30 have seen roadwork in progress for some time. It may not involve a filling in of valleys or leveling of hills. It does involve widening and changing the route, straightening maybe. Perhaps what stays with us the most about work on HWY 30 is the length of time it is taking. A good reminder of the long waiting period for the Lord to come.

The prophets Isaiah and John the Baptist make it clear that the roadwork is as much about our lives as it is any improvement and realignment of HWY 30. John goes around proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The roadwork of waiting is called repentance. Translate that word literally into English and it means a change of mind; it means a change of thinking, a change of the way I look at my life and the lives of others. As John understands it, the one who is coming is calling for a response to his coming even before he arrives. Something has to change. God’s expected arrival demands something radical. John’s baptismal ritual is a sign that I am willing to change, to put my life in harmony with what and who is coming. It seems that the change of attitude and behavior is focused on forgiveness. Forgiveness in two ways: I accept forgiveness from God—I am cleansed from my failure in my relationship with God and with others; my past is cleansed by the mercy of God. I don’t go into the water so that I can wash myself; I go into the water so that God can pour his mercy and Spirit over me. I go into the water because washing myself is an illusion. Real cleansing means submission to being washed by another.

An important element of my new heart, a new way, is that if I accept forgiveness, then I can forgive. I let go, I relax my expectations of what I expect from those who have hurt or injured me. The wrong they have done me might never be justified. But my holding on to the hurt is not the road to healing. Much roadwork is necessary here to move mountains in my heart so that it is leveled and the way forward is smooth. My heart has surely to be softened. The prophet John the Baptist was quite serious when he talked about the roadwork that would be needed to make way for new life. Road building is not done with half-measures: the valleys are filled in and the mountains leveled and the road is straight not crooked or winding… A repentance that leads to accepting forgiveness and offering forgiveness ourselves is radical. It goes to the roots of the resistance of my mountains. …..Preparation for the Lord’s coming involves that radical remaking of life’s road. It is key to the new life. We must remember that forgiveness is the hallmark of the one who is coming. Every Eucharist reminds us: my blood is poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins. In Luke’s gospel, the dying Jesus asks the Father to forgive those killing him because they just don’t know what they are doing.

A second image of what to do while waiting is offered to us by the first prophet we heard today, Baruch. We hear him is offering hope and comfort to exiles and to a bereaved Jerusalem. He asks Jerusalem to change her clothes. The image is that Jerusalem is wearing mourning clothes because she lost her children in exile….Now there is a promise that they are coming home. Look to the East!….something is happening there—time to change to a new outlook on things; time to change from mourning and lamenting to something new. This was difficult in Baruch’s day. I would say that it is equally difficult for us today given the situation of the world in our time.

The new clothes that the community is asked to wear reveal the change that is to come: now the clothes of the community are justice, peace and mercy. Some might put on new clothes for Christmas or receive a gift of some new clothing to celebrate the Lord’s coming. All well and good…But it seems that if we heed the prophet’s word: then what we really are to be putting on as a community is peace, mercy and justice. When these are our clothes, then truly the Lord will come because he will recognize his own. If we want to hasten the Lord’s coming, then we need to put on these clothes because they are attractive.

When we listen to Paul today, we hear him praying for his community in Philippi as they await the Day of Christ. And what does he pray for? He asks for love, knowledge, discernment, righteousness to be alive in them. These are the qualities he says that will make them blameless and pure when the Lord comes.

Advent is about making preparations because someone is coming: the preparations are as radical as road building or changing clothes. But the result of making preparations means a new heart, a change in behavior; it means living out the very qualities of the one who is coming: peace, justice, knowledge and discernment, mercy and a love that keeps on growing.

New clothes mean a new person, new identity, new dignity; road work means a new landscape. The clothes and the landscape are marked by deeply human qualities that reflect the divine in whose image we are all made: peace, justice, mercy, knowledge and love. Those who are putting on such clothes will know their Lord when he comes.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Thanksgiving Day - 2021

Sirach 50:22–24
1 Corinthians 1:3–9
Luke 17:11–19

The gospel today is a selection from the travel narrative of Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem passing through Samaria. Perhaps it is preserved for those of us on the journey of life with Jesus. It has something to say about journeying. The Thanksgiving Day in the US has something of the notion of journeying about it also. In the mists of the origins of the first thanksgiving, we find people called ‘pilgrims’. Though they themselves never used that name, it has become a popular designation. But a pilgrim is one on a journey. The English on the Mayflower saw themselves as journeying to a foreign land. They gave thanks for their safe arrival and the first fruits of the land.

The gospel story hints at how we might best journey. American Thanksgiving day is fundamentally a day to be the foreigner in the story, to be the Samaritan. All of us are in some way foreigners here. Our ancestors or we came here from some other place. And the land on which we now live was already home to others. What sets apart the foreigner in the gospel story is rather simple: he knew he was a foreigner. He was different from the others in that he did not take Jesus’ word and the healing for granted. We could ask the same question of the others that Jesus did. Why do they not give thanks? Maybe they took Jesus for granted; his healing powers were for them; it was their due, their right. Jesus was one of them. He did what he was supposed to do. The foreigner did not take Jesus for granted and so came to say thank you. He understood his restored condition as pure gift, a gift that needed to be acknowledged. Notice that in acknowledging his being cleansed Jesus continues to gift him with salvation, with freedom. It was his inner self that we healed and restored.

When one has an abundance of things, especially material things, it is easy to take them for granted. It is also easy to take some non-material things for granted like virtue and life values: such as liberty, reasonable security, the freedom to speak one mind without recrimination, the right to worship in one’s tradition. These can be taken for granted also. When that happens then gratitude slips almost out of sight. Complacency, forgetfulness even arrogance and entitlement take over. And at its worse, the material things are no longer gifts but things and people to be dominated over. And the values become turned in on oneself. Being grateful is more than saying words; it is an attitude, it is a way of life; it is an expression of humility: like the Samaritan who goes to his knees before Jesus, overwhelmed at what gift Jesus has offered him simply because he cried out.

The Thanksgiving tradition in the USA is permanently bound up with a meal. Thanksgiving means sharing food with others. Thanksgiving means communion. It is a day of being together, a day of recognizing bonds, bonds of love and caring. Thanksgiving is a time of solidarity with other human beings. It begins where we have experienced being loved and nurtured.

For us Christians Eucharist is our weekly Thanksgiving. And it too is about communion and bonds. Here we come before Jesus, the Master, the one who can tell us to stand up and get on with life—The Jesus who says that sharing in this meal is a share in freedom and hope. For us the Eucharist is a sign that our fellowship with Jesus is strong and clear. But our presence must be more than a take it for granted attitude like the nine in the gospel journey story. The Eucharist comes real because we realize, like the foreigner, how grace has worked in our lives, both materially and spiritually. Jesus is present because we are present to ourselves.

Thanksgiving Day with Eucharist is being bound together again by the food that Jesus offers. It is communion with him, as we understand that everything in our life is gift: relationships, the earth, the home, community, the universe and its galaxies. Thanksgiving is the moment to realize that we can take nothing for granted. All life is gift. And only with gratitude will we be able to continue our earthly pilgrimage when shadows darken the way, even the shadow of death. But then, it is precisely in the heart of that shadow that we celebrate Eucharist and take food for our journey. For with this Eucharistic food in us, we extend thanksgiving into the threads of our daily pilgrimage toward the Kingdom.

Let us give thanks….

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB


Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo

Romans 14:7–12
Luke 15:1–1

It is fortuitous that we have heard this passage from Romans during the first week of this month. This text is one of those suggested for proclamation at Masses for the Dead. Here we are having remembered all the Faithful Departed two days ago. Along with them, those departed whom we know and have loved and appreciated in a particular way for the witness they gave us. This remembering of the dead and the experience of dying we stay in touch with throughout this month.

In this regard, Paul makes two clear points today:

The first is Christological. Christ is the Lord because of his dying and rising. This means that the human experiences of living and dying come under his lordship. That goes for each of us as well as all of us as community. If Christ is lord, then who are we? It is understood that we are the servants of Christ. This servanthood to Christ carries with it the implication that we are not lords of ourselves or of others. If we take baptism seriously, then we realize that we are in a permanent relationship to Christ. We no longer stand alone; we are not the source of the power and energy in our lives or our death. It all comes from Christ. Baptism releases us from any self-centered focus, as though everything revolves around me or us. Instead, we live for someone, the Lord. The new life Christ brings is other centered. As Paul would say, it is in the Lord. We are not free agents with our own agenda. We belong to Christ and he sets the agenda, including the agenda of death. Now, we do not die for ourselves, we do not die alone. We do not die isolated. We die toward someone, toward the Lord, in the Lord. Death is no longer a separation, a pulling away. It is transformed to become our final yes to the lordship of Christ. We surrender to him. We might ask ourselves how do we look upon our own death? Do we subtly leave it out of any relationship to Christ, Christ who has filled it with meaning?

The second point draws out an implication of this: If Jesus is Lord of the whole spectrum of existence and he is Lord for all who are in him, then I cannot sit in judgment over my brothers and sisters. They are not mine to think bad thoughts about, to look down on, or to consider less. The Lordship of Christ relieves me of having to put others in categories. Judging the behavior of others who belong to the Lord does not belong to me. Their way of acknowledging Christ as Lord may not be mine, but that gives me no authority to determine their status or final outcome.

Judgment is often associated with death and usually negatively. It is often associated with punishment and hence fear. But judgment is really about accountability. I am a servant and I have been entrusted with something from the Lord. What have I done with that? And that something is about relationships in the community.

Accountability is not negative. It is an expression of maturity, of being an adult. And the judgment we will experience is simply whether we have been faithful and good servants in all matters of our lives, including my final days and my final breath. Christ is Lord of my last days as well as of my first days and my in-between days. We are always living for someone else. If we are not, then maybe we are outside the pale of the new humanity the risen Lord has brought.

Commemoration of All Souls

Wisdom 3:1–9
Romans 5:5–11
John 6:37–40

Sometimes when people are offering condolences upon hearing of a death, you hear them say, “Sorry for your loss!” That might be a word used when you really do not know the people involved. It at least offers recognition of the situation and feeling. Admittedly, there is on one level a certain ‘loss’ and with it a grieving over that loss. It would seem that even the color of this day would reflect a sense of losing something, a relationship. Yet, from our Christian perspective, understanding the death of a human being primarily as loss is a very limited view of death. It surely does not do justice to the story of Christ.
As we listen to Jesus speaking today, we find a different take on loss or losing someone. From Jesus’ perspective, which is the Father’s perspective, he has come to make it clear that loss is not an operating category for understanding life. The Father’s will is about saving not rejecting. The will of the one who sent me is that I should not lose anything of what he gave me. You and I and all the faithful departed are a gift from the Father to Jesus. His work is to bring us more closely into his life and presence. To understand death primarily as losing someone is to push death into the realm of “its over”, or the relationship is ended. Loss comes close to saying it is the end.

But our faith will not let us stand in that way of thinking for long. Instead of loss, our faith speaks of love and fidelity. Once brought into a relationship with Christ in baptism, that relationship is permanent. We are baptized into Christ’s death, which is his act of loving us to the end. We are baptized into Christ’s very love. That love of us who are weak and frail does not go away in Christ. The disciples thought they would lose Christ when he died. He had to spend an evening telling them that his death was a going into his Father’s love. And his entering into that love was a preparation for their own coming and entering fully into that relationship. So he basically told them not to cry for him. He was going through the door that would seal their relationship forever; eternal life, he called it. And he also made it clear that love is what is binding them altogether. And that love does not break. It is, as the wisdom lover puts it, stronger than death.
Today we remember all the faithful departed. Our family, confreres and benefactors among them, yes. But also all who came to know Christ. We remember them because we love them even now. Our remembrance of them is an assurance that they are not lost but rather they are now among the found. Yes, we are well aware that sin attracted them as it does us. But our belief in Christ also tells us that his love can and does envelop them. Our faith says that they had a share in some way in Christ. And he will not let them go. They may be departed from us but not into emptiness. They departed from us to enter into the space of love and peace that Jesus Christ went ahead to ready for them. Yes, they were frail and weak, but Christ’s love means forgiveness and hope.

Today is a remembrance of love at its best. Wisdom reminds us: “The faithful will abide with him in love. Because grace and mercy are with his holy ones.” Those abiding in love are not lost, not gone. They are alive in us through love; they are alive in God because he is faithful to what he has formed in his image.
~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Solemnity of All Saints

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

Today as we remember all the holy men and women before us, the Church gives us the gospel of the Beatitudes. We ought not to think that all those holy men and women who come to mind exhibited all these beatitudes. Perhaps they only revealed one of them. Maybe the ones we know were shining lights for one or two times in their lives. But when we remember them today, it is for that light, for the twinkling of goodness, humility and greatness that we once saw and experienced.
We use the word ‘saints’ to speak of the holy ones whose company we stand in awe of today. But Jesus uses a different word. Jesus speaks of blessedness, of being blessed. Blessed are the poor…This is to help us look at the notion of holiness from a different angle. Jesus invites us to see blessedness, to see how people are blessed. Jesus invites us to see that these lives are lives lived in God, grounded in God, in communion with him. In other words, in these areas of behavior God was being revealed in this person in this world.

When the blessed man or woman knows they are poor in their hearts but rich in God, then they are living in the world as God wished them to live, they are living in his Kingdom. When someone mourns because of sin, or loss or the experience of mortality, they are in effect accepting that these are not ultimate and this will lead to consolation. When someone is meek and does not resort to violence or bloodshed, they will live beyond the destruction and inherit the earth created by God. They will see the whole of creation. When the person seeks for a better world, this is not a waste of time. That new world will come. Their hope will not be in vain. When someone shows mercy, reaches out to accept, to hold, and ceases judgement and condemnation, then what they have given will come and envelop them. When you and I cling to God with our hearts, then we will be able to look around us and see God active in the world. To see God in the world, that is a sign of being blessed. When peace governs our approach to people and situations, people will wake up and know that we are related to God as his children. When being blessed means being persecuted because it threatens the ways of our world and our society, it means that we are in truth reflecting the ways of the Kingdom, an alternate way of living. Our life shows a goodness that challenges evil. (see John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: Feasts, Funerals and Weddings (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2004).
Being blessed means accepting my life as a gift. For blessings are above all gifts. A blessed person is someone beyond referring to themselves as central. Their “I” is known to come from God. They could say, it is not I who am doing this, it is God within me. What attracts us to them, or should, is the selflessness with which they approach people, the earth and human experience. Blessedness comes from seeing all as gift and responding to it as gift.

Today let us recall those we know or heard about who accepted themselves for who they were, who understood themselves as always in the hands of God. Let us for one day at least rejoice with them that they are in the home of the Father who was not afraid to call them his daughters and sons—the Father who clothes them and gives them a feast because they responded to his blessings and his hope for them.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2021

Deuteronomy 6:2–6
Hebrews 7:23–28
Mark 12:28b–34

Whenever Jesus is challenged, he goes back to basics. We heard this a few weeks ago when Jesus was challenged on the Jewish practice of divorce. He went back to Moses and Genesis. Jesus is not really challenged today. Indeed, the scribe and Jesus agree on the foundation of Israel’s faith, the community’s response and ground for the relationship with the one Lord. But, by Jesus time the Law had become complicated. There were 613 laws on the books. The question of which was important became legitimate. Which of these 613 are basic, are essential. With a detail of laws, it becomes difficult to know what really matters. So Jesus responds by going back to Moses. And he gives as a response what every devout Jew in Jesus’ day and in our day, too, says every morning and evening: “Shema, Israel. Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” Jesus takes the unity expressed here and brings forward another quote from the Law: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus takes two and brings them together as one. There is a relationship between the one God and the one humanity.

Love is the essence of the Law. Love is the center of a relationship with God. There is only one God; there is no compromise on this. One God created humans and world alike. One God made promises to the patriarchs and matriarchs. The same God brought the community out of Egypt. In other words, the one Lord saved the community from slavery. That one Lord will act again in his one Son, as we heard in the Letter to the Hebrews. And that One Lord will give us a concrete example of what it means to love with one’s whole being. The one Lord Jesus Christ will be faithful to his people and the human race by dying for us out of love for his one Father, the Lord of all.

Moses begins by saying, “Shema, Israel, Listen, O Israel….” He is asking the community to recall, to listen and hear the story of how God has loved them, how he has made them his own, how they have become his people. How he has spoken to them directly. Listen, listen to how God has shown his love, his faithfulness to you. Listen and see how he has walked with you and not abandoned you to death and evil forces. Listen and see that what he did in the past he continues to do now….

You cannot command anyone to love. You cannot force love. The actions related to love may be there but it will not be love. The heart will not be there in the actions. The heart is the place that gives birth to love. If the heart is not in the actions, then the love may appear so on the surface, but deep down it will not be a love that is in harmony with the one who creates and saves. Any person of faith will tell you that actions must have their roots from within. Love means commitment and fidelity; it has to do with totality of being. This total response to the one God and Lord begins with a listening heart. And that listening is seen in hearing the word coming to us about how we are loved first by our God. Even in our liturgy, before we give thanks over bread and wine, we must first sit and listen to the Word. We have to hear again how God is working and transforming our lives. We must hear how and where that transformation has appeared before and become permanent. We must be taught where that word needs to come alive in our hearts. When that word enters our hearts, then the words about a gracious love forming us from the foundation of the world can move our hearts to love in return.

We can love the one who has loved us. Love can respond to love. And is precisely that love responding with love that Moses and Jesus place before us. Love the one who has loved you into existence. Knowing and standing in that love will mean a response that is total: love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. Heart, soul, mind and strength each refer to parts of our human self. Each reflects an essential dimension of who we are. But notice that the response to love is not half-hearted, soulless or mindless or feeble. The command Jesus gives us says love with all you are—as the one Lord loves us totally, so we are to respond with our total selves.

The love of God is reflected in mercy, kindness, gentleness, patience, being slow to anger, forgiveness, long suffering, along with a profound awareness of those around you as the beneficiaries of that love. God is all that to us and for us. If we are in a relationship with him, then what else can we do but offer the same love back in return. Our relationship with God began with love: a word and hands that raised us from the earth…and a promise that even in death that word about us being beloved will still be there to raise us up into a life where love never fails.

This command, this word calling us to love remains essential in our day. In Jesus time, there were only 613 laws….a maze of words that had accumulated as the community had a variety of experiences over the years. How to assess what is the core the heart of it all, the scribe asks. It is no less so today. We live in a world that has had life experiences far beyond Moses or even Jesus could imagine. We have done much to make sense of it all, to find our way through it. But where is the key in our faith that can guide us? It would seem that love, love from God toward us, our love of God and love of neighbor, remains at the heart of how to approach life’s experiences with their new questions. It is the rock on which we can stand firm.

What do we do when dealing with the questions of our age: nuclear power, for instance, with its potential for good as well as evil? What about globalization, the awareness of how the world is interrelated. Is the relationship to be governed only by economic factors, devoid of a human face? What about technology? Does it serve us or does it rule us? Is it meant to estrange us by word and image? How do we live with developments in the area of sexuality? What and who will be with us as we walk through all this? How do we find our way through the maze of happenings in our days?

Listen, O people of God, shema! Love is what has called you forth. Now listen to it again and allow it to root in your heart. When love is abiding in our hearts, then our actions will flow from a source that comes from the One Lord and God. Shema, Israel: “The Lord, your God is a God gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in love and fidelity, continuing his love for a thousand generations and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.” “Shema, Israel. Listen, Israel: You love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength.”

If we need a model, it is to be found, we heard today, in Jesus, God’s beloved Son. He loved his Father to the end, despite all temptations not to be faithful to the Father’s command of love. Yes, he loved his own to the end; he died for them. And he left us this Eucharist as a sign of that love. By sharing in it, we are sharing in love that embraces all and holds all together. For that, we can only humbly give thanks and take of the food so that we, too, can love from our hearts.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Homily - Memorial of St. Jerome

Nehemiah 8:1–4a, 5–6, 7b–12
Luke 10:1–12

It is perhaps fortuitous that as we keep the memory of St. Jerome, a man closely bound to Scripture on many levels, we have in our first reading a description of a solemn Liturgy of the Word. The returning exiles to Jerusalem have completed the rebuilding of the temple. Now the time has come to rebuild the community as it were. This renewal of the community is done through the reading and listening of the Word of God, in this case the Torah or the teaching of Moses. It is a very interactive liturgy: The people respond to the presence of God coming through the reading by a prostration and acclaimations; the reading is explained so that it can be understood. The activity of listening touches the hearts in such a way that the community is brought to tears and weeps—pressumably from the realization that what they hear and how they have been living have not been aligned very well. The community has to be told that hearing the word of the Lord is also a joy and a time for thanksgiving. The word they have heard is also a rich food. Enjoy it!

St. Jerome was in many ways an Ezra for the people of God in the Greco-Roman world of his time. He translated the Scriptures into a language that people could understand. He was careful to translate the Hebrew Scriptures from Hebrew and not just Greek. Jerome was by nature and training a person of the word; he delighted in language and word. His conversion was not so much to Christianity but to a transfer his love of word from the classical humanities to focus on the rather rough language and grammar of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures and make it come alive for Christians in his day. And that he did, putting them into Latin. But Jerome’s love included explanation of the biblical text also. He took great pains to break open the word for pilgrims and his monastic communities in Bethlehem. He shared his love of the Word with great skill.

Seeing the people of Israel gathered before Ezra and remembering Jerome as  a lover of language and word, we might do well to ask ourselves where we stand in relation to the Word of God as well as our ordinary speech. In our opening prayer for this liturgy, we noted that Jerome was gifted with a “living and tender love for the Scriptures.” How alive and loving is our relationship with the word? In the same prayer we asked that it may be a fount of life for us. This can be so if we see the Word as alive and not only some letters printed on a page; it can be life for us if we treasure it and love it.

At the end of our proclamation of a reading from Scripture, we usually say “The Word of the Lord.” And we respond quickly enough with “Thanks be to God.” How are we at acknowledging that there is a presence when the word is being read? The word being proclaimed is Spirit-filled word. The Israelites of old prostrated themselves upon hearing the Word. What does our prostration look like in our hearts and our bodies? Do we drink from so many founts these days, that the font of the Word has become just one among many? When Luke presents Jesus proclaiming the word of Isaiah on that Sabbath in Nazareth, he reports that the community hung onto his gracious words. In Deuteronomy Moses, too, begged the people to cling to the Word of the Lord as it was life. If we love the word, we will cling to it as something we love and want to hear.

Remembering Jerome today is an invitation for us to awaken our love for the Word: as we hear it proclaimed in the Liturgy of the Word and as we encounter that word in the silence of our hearts in lectio. Hearing the response of the listening community by the Water Gate in Jerusalem challenges us to acknowledge whose presence comes among us in the Word proclaimed. And we are reminded that both tears and joy reflect movements of our heart upon hearing the Word. How strong are the movements of our hearts as we hear and read the Word? If the Word wants anything from us, it wants to nourish and feed us with this Word. May we be stirred again today so that it is true for us what Jeremiah says: when your word came, O Lord, I devoured it.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Homily - 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Numbers 11:25–29
James 5:1–6
Mark 9:38–43, 45, 47–48

The three texts we have just heard all offer us instruction on the way to live. To be more specific, they offer corrections on our behavior when it is not reflecting the way God thinks and the way Jesus has laid out for us.

We may wonder why Eldad and Medad were not present in the gathering when the spirit was bestowed on the 70 elders. Their names were on the list, yet the spirit came upon them in the camp. Joshua, part of the ‘in-group,’ wants Moses to stop them from prophesying because they were not with the group.
Joshua is the kind of person that wants things to go by the book. Things must go the way the leaders have determined. God’s gifts are given to those who follow instructions. God’s gifts can be received only if they follow the set and determined pattern. However, we find out that Moses, the leader of the community, does not see things that way. Moses knows who God is and how God works; he has had his experience of that. God is not bound by constrictions that would shrink his gifts. Moses asks Joshua to get in touch with his motives for objecting that the spirit came on those not with the group. He asks him, “Are you jealous?” Do you think you are defending me by pointing out something that looks out of order? We might hear Moses question addressed to us: why do you object when the Spirit manifests itself in a place, person or way that you are not familiar with? Do you think that only leaders and elders can have the Spirit? Are you applying your criteria to the Spirit? Remember the Spirit blows where it wills.

Moses looks at the real purpose of the spirit. The purpose of the spirit’s gift of prophesy was to assist in the community’s leadership. The Spirit’s presence was for the sake of the community and its peaceful growth. Moses would rather that the spirit be spread even further in the community so that folks could resolve difficulties and discern good ways to go. Moses has a vision of the whole. Joshua does not appear to be on that level of thinking. Is it that he wants to control and limit God’s power and presence? Is he afraid he will lose his position in the inner circle around Moses? …Why are we afraid of the Spirit’s movements in our own day? What prevents us from hearing the Spirit’s voice calling us into the future with God? Is it simply because it has not been done been done that way before? Or certain people only can exercise the responsibility of leadership in nurturing the community?

There is a similar situation in the gospel. A person who is not a member of the group of Jesus’ disciples is seen and heard casting out demons in Jesus’ name. You would think the disciples would be glad to hear that someone has been set free from the bonds of possession. You would think that if they were involved in proclaiming the Kingdom and doing its ministry of healing, they would be grateful that someone else has come to share in the power of love that believing in Jesus brings. You would think that if good were being done in the world and evil was being overcome, it does not really matter who is doing the good. The vision of God is being carried in Jesus’ name. The good that is being done flows from who Jesus is and what he desires. One wonders if the disciples think of themselves as a privileged group and only they can do the things that the privileged members of this group do and what Jesus does. Do they feel threatened because the power of Jesus is being carried forward by others than themselves?

Jesus addresses the disciples for their displaced idea of service to himself and the gospel. He makes it clear: they are not the only ones who carry Jesus name. There are others who bring the good news of the Kingdom.

It is easy to slip into the modality of thinking we are the only Christians and unless you are one of us, you are out of the picture. Jesus challenges such restrictions on our part. He challenges that way of thinking as actually opposed to the Gospel message and the Spirit’s ability to work everywhere. The Body of Christ is larger than the members we can see or know. Baptism in Christ brings those baptized into communion with the Lord and offers them a share in his power to do good and in his call to love.

Jesus demonstrates the performance of a deed in his name with a very simple example. Offering a cup of water to a thirsty person because you can see Christ’s image in them. The power to do good lies available to us whenever we see a need in others, whenever there is a lack of human dignity in another, whenever there is suffering of a fellow human being. The power to do good because of Christ is not limited to those in the know. Doing something good is the essence of Kingdom behavior.

Today is the 107th World Day of Migrants and Refugees begun in 1914 by Pope Benedict XIV to be observed by the Catholic Church. We are well aware of migrants in our country and at our borders. Our texts today offer us a perspective on the experience of migrants and refugees—migrants and asylum seekers are no strangers to us. Today there is no doubt that the effects of wealth, as St. James so vividly describes them, are behind the movements of many peoples: unjust wages, land monopoly, disregard for the vulnerable poor who can offer no resistance. The fact that the Spirit shows it face in its own way as it did with Moses reminds us of the rich variety and diversity among migrants. Each has their own gifts to bring to the human family. We have the opportunity to be enriched by their presence and their hope. Pope Francis in his message for this Day calls us to change our way of thinking so that “we no longer think in terms of ‘them’ and ‘those’ but only ‘us’”. In other words, let go of thinking “They’re not one of us!” It is time for remembering the human family as one and to see the gifts of the spirit poured out on all.

Pope Francis titled his message this year “Towards and ever wider ‘We’. Isn’t that what Moses and Jesus were trying to get across to their followers?

Perhaps a short poem by the American poet Edwin Markham (1852–1940) gives us a hint at a way towards inclusion and unity:

He drew a circle that shut me out
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle and took him In!

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

Becoming a “Goodfinder” - by Fr. Thomas Leitner

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Becoming a “Goodfinder:” All Things Work for Good for Those who Love God. (Romans 8:28)

One of the most encouraging books I ever read is the autobiography of Renée Bondi titled, The Last Dance, but Not the Last Song. At age 29, Renée had a beautiful singing voice and a thriving career as a music teacher. But then an accident shattered her spine and left her quadriplegic. Her life changed forever. Renée lost not only all use of her hands and legs, but also her singing voice — she could barely speak above a whisper. Renée is a woman of faith. She prayed, she exercised, she practiced and she received God’s gifts. Against all odds and all physicians’ prognosis, Renée’s voice was miraculously restored with a crystal clear sound. Today Renée is a national speaker and Christian singer who has given hope and a new perspective the tens of thousands of people.
At the end of her book she summarizes her amazing story pointing to the many, as she calls them, God-incidences that she has experienced in her life. So many people were present at the right time and with the right skills. Renée’s previous experiences as teacher and performer prepared her for what has become her calling now under very difficult circumstances. God is real and God is faithful, Renée Bondi says.

Renée tells her story in a very real way. She does not conceal her desperation, her rebellion and her anger. Yet overall it is clear that by nature, through patient practice and with the help of God’s grace Renée is a “goodfinder,” as John Powell puts it in his excellent volume, Happiness is an Inside Job. A “goodfinder” is a person who looks for and finds what is good in himself or herself, in others and in all situations of life, someone who looks at the upside of things. Looking at our personal situation we often have a choice between pointing out, “My glass is half full” and lamenting, “It is half empty!”

We are faced with a variety of challenges in our own lives, even though we may not have broken our neck as did Renée. However, a lot depends on our attitude, on our outlook. If I decide to be a goodfinder, I look to what is good in me, I set my sight on God’s many gifts to me. I say to myself: “From now on, I am going to be a friend to you. I am going to support and affirm you. I’m going to praise and appreciate you. I’m going to notice the good things in you.” As a goodfinder, I also look at what is good in others, I will go in search of the beauty that perhaps no one else has ever looked long enough or far enough to discover in them. As a goodfinder, I will try to find good in all situations of life. If I do so, I may realize that sometimes our biggest opportunities will come into our life as problems. The Ultimate Goodfinder is God, Who sent His Son into the world, not to judge or condemn it, but to love it into life (cf. John 3:16-17).

Here are some ideas for your reflection and prayer:

1. Journal about yourself, describing your own three best qualities.
2. Journal about another, describing the three best qualities of someone you don’t like.
3. Reframe a recent experience of crisis in your life: Recall the good things you learned from the experience. What did you learn from it? Describe the good results, the profit derived from it.
Renée Bondi puts over her life as a heading what St. Paul wrote to the Romans: “All things work for good for those who love God” (Romans 8:28). We can follow Renée’s example.

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Click here for some of Renee’s music.

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