Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - Celebrant

Genesis 3:9–15, 20
Ephesians 1:3–6, 11–12
Luke 1:26–38

You have to be steeped in mystery, in something beyond the everyday, beyond the flatness and dullness of everyday life, to grasp what we are celebrating today. You need to be a poet, a myth maker to envision the big picture that is placed before us on this feast. If you limit the story and Mary to the simply physical conception, you will be missing something. Or if you think that sin alone is the guiding theme, you will not be going far enough.

Mary finds herself in the center of mystery, the mystery of God who chooses who he wills and acts and speaks when he wills. How he does that, where he does that and with whom God interacts is and must be just beyond our human logic. But then our God is not bound by our logic or our will. From our point of view, his will is full or surprises.

Simply put Mary finds herself at the beginning. That is what we are remembering to day-beginning, conception. And our stories sweep us back to just beyond time to the garden to where it all began. And they bring that beginning forward to touch a young girl in Nazareth. Mary is bringing the beginning into the present ….There is something of a paradox here for us. We are in a season where we imagine our end, the end of the world, the cosmos. Where we speak of Christ coming to fulfill it all. And yet today we are almost thrown back to the beginning. Yet just this past Sunday, we also found ourselves at the beginning. We were back in the garden or the peaceable Kingdom where all was harmony, when there was no hurt, no enmity, no fear. And this vision, we are told, is what is coming. The beginning is echoed in what is to come. The end, what is coming, is profoundly linked to what was in the beginning.

If we look at the world around us or listen to the news, we slowly come to think that news can only be bad. The world is broken, human lives are shaped forever by suffering and death. Soon we are tempted to believe that is the way it is supposed to be. Today God comes along to remind us just what is the beginning of human life, of the human story. We hear the garden story about the serpent and the loss of obedience, the fracture of a relationship with God. True as that is, it is not the beginning of the story. The story begins not with sin but with grace. Today we hear that original sin is not so original; it is grace that is original.

When the angel breaks into Mary’s life, and artists and poets have done a good work in showing us what she might have been doing at that momentous arrival of a messenger from God, when the angel comes, he does not address the young woman by her name, Mary. The storyteller informs us of that. He addresses her with a new name, her original name. Hail, full of grace. That is Mary’s name. She has found favor with God, she is the chosen one, the one loved from the beginning. That is Mary’s identity—Grace, favor, loved one. She hears her real name. And hearing that name she can respond out of grace.

God identifies the endearing quality of humanity and his messenger dares to utter it: Grace, chosen, Favored, overshadowed. That is humanity at its origins. And that is where humanity is going. Surely a long journey ahead of us to believe and stand in that grace, that unconditional love of God. But that is who we are in our depths.

Mary stands at the beginning of letting humanity find itself again and walk to what is coming. The mystery that is before us is that God will restore us to bask in being touched by his love. In the core of her being Mary, full of grace, has found that point at which she is free of illusion and deception and has become poor enough in spirit that her spirit and God’s can converge. She has come to the immaculate, the pure within her and knows it as all from God. From there she speaks her yes.

In Mary’s yes, Paul tells us, it is possible for us to realize that we too are chosen, favored before the foundation of the world. Her yes becomes Christ. In him we, too, recover our beginnings, we too can know that it is grace that moves us, surrounds us and opens our eyes to see beyond sin, brokenness, and ever-present fear and look at love.

Once we realize that Mary has woken us up to the story of grace again, we can do nothing but be grateful and praise our God who surrounds us with graciousness and forgiveness. The beginning is not lost to us. Our roots are still there, given now in Christ. And with him we can complete the story and speak the poem that echoes in our hearts from before the foundation of the world. God’s story, God’s song that will never end: his grace, his love is without end. For that we were created.

Feast of Christ the King - 2022

2 Samuel 5:1–3
Colossians 1:12–20
Luke 23:35–43

Royalty was on view for all the world to see this past September. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom died quietly and peacefully. We were able to see the pageantry that accompanied her funeral. Safe to say there were thousands in attendance to accompany her last earthly journey and pay their respects. Honor guards of every kind marched solemnly; heads of state from around the world filled Westminster Abbey. The British carried out the rituals in a way only they could, and we all marveled. And the Queen herself at the heart of it all was properly remembered for her life of service to the nation rooted in her Christian faith. Service was her motto and what lay behind her crown. At her funeral we saw royalty at its best, at least as we humans can do it.

Today we are gathered for royalty as well. We gather for our King. And we gather as our King is dying. And it is in his dying that we come to learn what kingship means for us. There is pageantry here of a very different kind than what we saw in September. There are those in attendance at this death of the “King of the Jews” as the placard on the cross calls him. We might want to listen in on what these attendants at the death of our King are saying and doing.

The religious leaders of the people want the King to use his power. They want him to use his power on himself now that he is in this shameful and helpless position. He saved others, now let him save himself. He has God’s seal and authority, let him use it. The soldiers who saw him victorious over other powers push him to save himself because he is the King. What kind of a King is he if he cannot use his power to get himself out of a bad situation? After all, what is power and authority for if not to get yourself out of trouble first. Then one of the closest attendants, a condemned man hanging next to him cries out, save yourself and us too. He claims fellowship but he sees that power should be used to get out of death.

What kind of a King is this? He remains powerless, helpless in the face of death. What kind of a messenger of God is this who cannot take care of himself and use his power to his own advantage? All these people remember what Jesus did in his life, they were awed by his manner of Kingship: he shared food with the weakest members of the kingdom, he touched the leper, he let loose women touch him, he walked among the poor, and he fed them. He was the shepherd king who brought healing to all who approached him. He never refused a request for help. And now he should use this power for himself. He is being mocked for having power and yet choosing to be powerless. Or tempted to change compassion into power.

But there is an exception to this way of thinking. There is another person present who seems to see things differently. There is someone there who will not abuse Jesus or mock him in his powerless condition. There seems to be one person there who knows his own place. It is someone who knows their own place that can approach Jesus with the right word. This attendant at Jesus’ side is a criminal, a wrong doer. He is being punished justly for his crime. He deserves death and he accepts it. He does not ask to be saved from the fate assigned to him. He does not ask Jesus to exercise his kingship and give him a changed sentence, to get him off this instrument of torture and death. He does not beg or demand Jesus to fix up his present problem.

Is it that he understands kingship and kingdom in a different way? He sees that King Jesus is the true victim, the oppressed person. He sees Jesus as the innocent one, the non-criminal. Maybe he sees Jesus as the abused person whom society has put on the cross because it needed someone to mock, someone to goad, someone to be a failure. Maybe the criminal saw real injustice and he recognized it. He looked at Jesus and did not immediately think, I can use this man’s power to get myself free. He looked at Jesus and saw a king who was totally powerless. He saw the contradiction. He saw the contradiction and he saw beyond it.

From this strange king he asked only one thing. He only asked to be remembered. His request was that he not be forgotten. He didn’t say, get me out of this mess, and get me off this cross. He only asked to be remembered. There is a mystery here. A fellow criminal looks at this man Jesus and sees real Kingdom in his suffering, in his innocence, in his surrender. He looks at the powerless King and believes that in that powerlessness there is salvation. He believes that the King who will give himself up rather than defend with power must belong to a Kingdom that works differently from the one I am used to. It must be a Kingdom in which death is not the last word. It must be a Kingdom where even I who have betrayed my fellow human being and my God can be reconciled and live in peace.

So, the criminal who sees the Kingdom in Jesus asks for a very human thing: Remember me when you come into your Kingdom. Do not forget me. If this King would not remember him, then he would really be dead. In his strange faith this criminal realized that if he were to be remembered by a dying king, he would remain alive. Somehow if this King was wise enough to trust in a power greater than himself, a power that would work even in death, then this King knew that the cross was not an instrument of separation but a tool for bringing together. And the response of King Jesus? He reached out with the power of a promise and said: yes, today we will be together in paradise, the Garden of the King. Yes, you have seen correctly, the cross and my blood are the ways into the Kingdom. God has taken my side; he will stand by the innocent victim. And you, I will stand with you and together we will be in paradise.

Today at this altar we are about to remember our dying King and renew the covenant he made in his death. We are about to say yes— the cross and the blood are the symbols of our King. We are about to say again that the kingdom comes about by dying to the old and rising into the new. We are about to say again that the Kingdom comes only when you don’t cling to your own power but rather become powerless with King Jesus. Jesus the King made a covenant with his followers on the night before he died. It was a covenant sealed in his blood. It was the beginning of a covenant that would form a kingdom that would embrace all creation, all time and every person. At that last supper, our King shared what made him a king: being powerless for the sake of others.

We are about to remember what our King has done for us. And in that remembrance is the power of the Kingdom to bind us to God, God to us and we to one another. And in that remembrance is the power that overcomes death and leads to life. We are remembering because we have been and are being remembered.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul


33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB - celebrant

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

focus: In difficult times, we are called to put our trust in God and to live as disciples of Jesus.

During a pilgrimage to Israel years ago, I was quite impressed by a model of the ancient city of Jerusalem that was shown to us in a hotel called Holyland. It depicts what Jerusalem looked like at the time of Jesus. The most attractive structure is the temple which Jesus and his contemporaries saw in its impressive beauty.

In today’s gospel, Jesus speaks about the destruction of the temple and the whole city. Nothing will be left standing to admire of the temple, so he foretells. In fact, in 70 AD, Titus, the son of the Roman emperor Vespasian, destroyed the city. He did order, however, that one wall of the temple should be left for the Jews to wail at.This wall is still there.

Plus, Jesus adds a whole catalogue of disasters that are going to come. He warns against deceivers, people who pose as saving leaders and claim to know even the greatest of all secrets, namely when the world will end.
Jesus tells his hearers to avoid leaders who manipulate their fear! (2x) This is not so easy!

It’s even more difficult to follow Jesus’ advice not to be frightened by wars and nations fighting each other. At the time of Jesus, battles and wars were limited by the weapons available then. Today we have others at our disposal! Nuclear weapons, used by some irresponsible country or party, could bring about the final end of life on our planet.

Jesus goes on to mention earthquakes, plagues and famines. They still are so much part of human suffering, as we see now again with Hurricanes Ian and Nicole. We know that some of these disasters mean for numerous people the end of their earthly lives, even though they don’t signify yet the end of the world.

Jesus adds that his followers will be persecuted for their beliefs. In this suffering he sees an opportunity for courageous witness.

Finally, Jesus mentions betrayal. When people start taking their Christian faith seriously, they can partly or totally lose the support of their families and friends.

Jesus is trying to make faith face the reality of suffering in the world. He doesn’t avoid the questions arising from living as believers in a world, in which so much seems to contradict the existence of God.

Some good people lose their faith when they see the evil and suffering in our world. They cannot look into the eyes of a child starving in Haiti or Sudan and still praise God. They cannot witness the senseless suffering of so many and still believe in a God who cares.

They cannot see, either, that these questions are completely answered by the argument of “freedom of choice.”

Some bad things just happen, without being caused by anybody’s wrongdoing. There are no ready answers to these questions. They are our questions, too. There are times when all faith can do is endure.

Dear sisters and brothers in the faith, Jesus has no quick answers for our difficult questions, either. He just tells us, “By your perseverance you will secure your lives.”

“Do not be terrified,” Jesus encouraged once his disciples. This is also his message to us. You have nothing to fear … “Not a hair on your head will be destroyed.” When it comes to giving a testimony of your faith, “I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.” One source of strength for me is Holy Scripture. Reading it daily and praying with it can always restore my inner peace. Sometimes it takes a while until a find the word that God has ready for me; but I always find it.

It was clear to the early Christians, that in spite of all tribulations God’s kingdom, God’s definitive reign on earth, has irrevocably begun with Jesus Christ; God is still present and at work in spite of all that is happening. Praying with Holy Scripture helps me see that. I also find it helpful to review my day in the evening asking God to show me what I am grateful for today. This draws my attention to the gifts of God that I receive every single day.

We don’t know what is still ahead of us. But whatever may happen, we may trust that we and our world are in God’s loving hand and that nothing can separate us from Christ, the “Sun of justice” whose rays finally, and already now in the present, can heal us, again and again. AMEN

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB - celebrant

2 Maccabees 7:1–2, 9–14
2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:5
Luke 20:27–38

Do we remember the last line of the creed we say every Sunday? After saying “I believe” and “I confess,” the last statement of the creed is introduced by “I look forward.” “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” The creed does not reach a climax in another “I believe” statement. After expressing our faith in the Creator God, his gift of the Son and the Spirit, and confessing the Church, we now move into where we are at the moment. At the moment I look forward to the resurrection of the dead and the life to come. All of what I believe shapes my present position; it defines me and my existence. Precisely because I believe in the mystery of God who raised Christ to his right hand and from there sends out his Spirit to make a new community, I can now name what I look forward to: namely resurrection. I have professed my faith in Jesus’ resurrection—now I can say that I look forward to my own.

The Word of Scripture we have heard this morning is the grounding for the last creedal statement. It clarifies clearly what I look forward to: resurrection. It also makes certain that I am in no delusion about what resurrection might look like. The words of the creed aside, we could ask ourselves what do I look forward to, really? Do I look forward to anything? And if I do, does it direct my actions, my life, my hope in the present. The Maccabean brothers are very clear about what they looked forward to, what they expected. If I say that I look forward to the resurrection each Sunday at the Eucharist then it may challenge my expectations, my longings, my desires. I may look forward to many things, but are they in line with the mystery of the resurrection, with God’s powerful love to transform us and gift us with new being? Can I look forward to something that is beyond my control or some thing that is pure gift-life that does not end?

The brothers from the Maccabean times a few hundred years before Christ eloquently give voice to what it is they look forward to. And what they look forward to clearly influences the choices they make in the face of threats against their lives. In the gospel, Jesus’ interaction with the Sadducees should help us to understand what the resurrection looks like.

It is helpful to know who the Sadducees are who are challenging Jesus about resurrection. They were an aristocratic body of Jews confined to Jerusalem for the most part. You could say they were the power behind throne. Originally all priests, by Jesus’ day probably a mixed body. Two things characterized them: politically and socially they curried favor with the Roman occupying forces. The majority of people wanted the Romans out. The Sadducees did not want anyone to disturb the status quo. The Roman presence allowed them to keep their social status. Religiously, they confined their scriptures to what was written in the first five books of the Bible. This meant they did not value the prophets or the wisdom of the elders that had accumulated over the centuries and was written down. This meant that for them they did not believe in angels or the resurrection as these were not to be found in Torah or Pentateuch; they were a later development. They were rather conservative in their thinking and certainly did not think in terms of developing doctrine. Apparently Jesus had spoken in favor of resurrection and they responded with an absurd argument against it. Jesus does not join them in their sarcasm but merely states that they have missed the point about resurrection. They simply do not understand it.

What was the problem? While mocking the idea of resurrection they thought of it in terms of this life: whose wife will the woman be if she married all seven? Jesus makes it clear that resurrection brings about a whole new order: a new order with regard to our bodies and then to our relationships. There is no marriage as there is no need of procreation or passing on the family name since there is no more death. All are alive.

We cannot but think of resurrection in terms of this world and this life. It is true that this life is all we know and it is inevitable that what we look forward to is somehow determined by present bodily experience. But Jesus doesn’t want resurrection to be determined by this life alone. It is far greater than that simply because the creator God has no limits. And yet resurrection is linked to this life; it is our dead bodies that rise but as a new creation. Recognizable but not the same; a new order of existence is working in the resurrection.

Jesus clashed with the Sadducees because he took the future out of their hands, out of our hands and gave it back to God for whom all things are alive. A resurrection, a future, left in our hands would hardly reflect the newness and transformation it demands. We tend to control, to manipulate and administer. Resurrection is not about some spark of life continuing on after we die; it is not about re-incarnation, the same life on earth with a better chance to make it work; it is not about resuscitation of dead bodies. Resurrection is about God breathing new life into what has grown old, tired and worn out. It has to be God’s work for he began it all, the universe, my unique being. He can and will make it all new.

Wherein lies the hope of the future. The hope says Jesus lies in the covenant. God covenanted, entered into a relationship, with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, the prophets, the people of Israel. He covenanted with his Son, Jesus. Once God enters into a relationship, he does not let go. He is faithful, he is alive and so are those he has drawn into covenant with him. We who are in Jesus are in that living covenant, that relationship. We are alive for God in Christ Jesus, always alive in God.

Let us come back to the last line of the creed: It is challenging and even dangerous. What am I looking forward to? Have I grown comfortable with what is present? So comfortable that I am concerned only with making this life better on my terms? Have I so planned the future that I control everything about it? If so, then it might be a dead end. Do I determine the parameters of my relationships? Do I want he future to look what I think the present should be? Or is there in my expectations room for a surprise, for imagination, for what scripture calls the impossible? For us, the surprise that God offers is called resurrection—life in the heart of death.

Saying that I look forward to the resurrection of the dead is saying that I am allowing God to be the mysterious life force that shapes what I might call a dead end. It is saying that there is more here than I can imagine. If I look forward to resurrection from the dead, then my life here and now must be different. The life I am living is life with the God of the burning bush; it is a fire that burns yet does not destroy as Moses discovered. So, God’s burning love purifies all that it touches now until it is totally transformed in the resurrection to reflect the glory and beauty of the Creator who made it in his own image and likeness. Surely I can spend my days looking forward in hope to that transformation. And in so doing live with courage and strength and boldness. Surely, I can look forward to a life in which my love, our love now is crowned with a joy, intimacy and beauty that is beyond our wildest dreams. For those who love, God prepared the impossible, the unthinkable. That is where our creed ends, but that is where we begin to come alive.

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB - celebrant

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

Last week I visited the Arbor Day Farm in Nebraska City. In addition to the fruit trees, there is also an area with forest trees that you can climb over rope bridges. A wonderful facility for children. Some grandparents and their grandchildren were there. Adults can climb the trees too. Some treetops have been provided with stairs so that you can climb up and get an overview of the forest. Birds can also be seen from above, or if you're lucky, animals jumping around on the forest floor below.

In the gospel today, we heard about Zacchaeus climbing a sycamore tree so that he could see Jesus when he came to the city of Jericho. Well, the reason Luke gives was because he was small in stature. But Luke also writes that he was rich.

Today, to imagine who Zacchaeus was, you would have to compare him to a secretary of finance. And then you realize that it seems ridiculous for such a high official to climb a tree.

But the Sycamore tree is an evergreen tree. It does not lose its leaves and thus offers a natural protection against looks. At least from a distance you cannot look into the tree and see who is sitting in the tree. Just like in the "Arbor day farm", where you can watch the forest animals under the cover of the leaves.

Therefore, Zacchaeus went under the protection of the tree, firstly, so that people would not see him and laugh and secondly, so that he would not have to be ashamed before Jesus because he is rich and probably also gained this wealth because of corruption. He knows he's a sinner.

But when Jesus comes by, he can look up into the tree and see him sitting there. Herod's chief tax collector. “What is Zacchaeus doing in the tree?” Jesus must have thought. "Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house."

Zacchaeus comes down from the tree and the people notice and complain that Jesus is going to be with a sinner.

Jesus doesn't need to say more as he already said, and Zacchaeus admits immediately his sins in the presence of the Lord and promises to give a portion of his wealth to the poor. And Jesus states: "Today salvation has come to this house". Full stop!

We too sometimes climb a tower or a viewing platform to get a better view of things. Especially on vacation. On the other hand, this also gives us a distance from everyday life. When we look down from above everything looks smaller, the people, but also the problems or worries we have. It can also be a suppression that you don't want to acknowledge your problems and would rather flee than work on them. (But at the latest when we descend again, the problems will be back.)

On the other side when we talk about other people, we generalize as well as the people in the gospel! We don't look at that person as an individual who also has problems and worries. We have prejudices.

When the crowd that greets Jesus in the Gospel sees Zacchaeus, they get angry because they say, "That's a sinner!" They look at Zacchaeus from a distance. They don't look at him as a person, as someone who is "a descendant of Abraham."

Jesus, on the other hand, approaches him and speaks to him personally. Zacchaeus opens up himself to the Lord and in the presence of the Lord he can speak without fear whatever oppresses his heart, can confess his sins to him. And even more: he will give the money he took to the poor! This is repentance!

Isn't it wonderful to see that Zacchaeus no longer needs the protection of the leaves when he is in the presence of the Lord? Sometimes we feel as well that we need protection around us like a second skin to hide our real self.

We once had a conference with young people who didn't know each other. It was cold and the room wasn't heated yet. The young people still wore their jackets. The room was getting warm, but the young people didn't take off their jackets. Only when we got to know each other better after a few hours they did take off their jackets because they no longer needed them to protect themselves from each other. They were no longer afraid of each other.

Likewise, Zacchaeus was able to free himself from his protective skin and climb down from the tree. It is interesting that Adam and Eve covered themselves with leaves from the fig tree when God called them after eating the forbidden fruit. Sycamore tree is a species of fig tree. Zacchaeus also put himself under the protection of the fig tree when God came into town because he knew he had sinned. He can now discard this protection.

In God's presence everyone can be who he is. Before we now celebrate the Holy Eucharist, we too are invited to take off this hard protective skin that we have built up around us, so that we may be open to God, who wants to meet us in the bread and in the wine and who accepts us as we are.

Amen.

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB - celebrant

Lk 17:11-19 2 Kg 5:14-17 2 Tm 2:8-13

focus: The complete cure for body and soul was experienced by the man who came back and gave thanks to God.

function: Gratitude can have a healing effect on us, too.

In East Africa, when you arrive after a journey, people will often say to you in Swahili, “Pole kwa safari,” “I am sorry that you had to travel.” This preserves the notion that traveling in the past was often strenuous and dangerous.

Here is a true story from our country, from the 19th century.  Two settlers of the American West lived far away from each other but wanted to meet.  They decided on a certain time and a certain place for getting together.  Both had to ride on horseback for days in order to reach this location, partly through uninhabited territory.  As they finally arrived at the destination and found each other, the one said: “Let me tell you what happened on my trip.

I almost wouldn’t have made it here.  On the way suddenly my horse shied and threw me off. Thanks be to God, I was unharmed.  Then, as I got up, I was seized with terror:  For only a few steps ahead of me there was a deep gorge. I almost would have fallen into it.  Immediately I knelt down and thanked God for rescuing me in such a wonderful way from certain death.”

The other man was silent for a moment.  Then he responded, “Listening to you, I feel that I experienced God’s help at least as miraculously as you did.  My horse didn’t throw me off on the way here.  It carried me calmly and securely without any accident.  I didn’t find myself in any major danger!  If I only consider of what could have happened to me!

Both settlers were profoundly grateful that they had reached their destination safe and sound.

Gratitude is also the topic of today’s gospel and of today’s first reading.  In the gospel, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, the place of his suffering and death.  In a village, ten lepers approach him, or more exactly, people with a disease of their skin.  In ancient Jewish society, such people were regarded as unclean and infectious.  Therefore they were excluded from worship in the temple, and in general, from any human contact. They were social outcasts. It’s surprising that they entered the village. This was forbidden! Their desire to meet Jesus must have been very strong. They show their faith and trust in him also by addressing Him as “Master” and by asking him for help. Jesus sends them off to the priests. There they could, being cured, be accepted back into communion with other people. And, indeed, the men are being freed from their malady on the way.

It’s understandable that they then hasten to the temple in order to have their healing approved. Nevertheless, one man returns first to Jesus, the source of the cure; he praises and thanks God, and throws himself on the ground in veneration of Jesus. Jesus’ comment is: “Stand up and go; your faith has saved you.”  The man who returned and gave thanks experienced healing and salvation.

A parallel to this story is the healing of the Syrian Naaman by the prophet Elisha.  Naaman returns, expressing his gratitude to Elisha, who in turn gives all the credit to God.

A person can easily imagine that those settlers in our story of the beginning were grateful for having arrived safely at their journey’s destination.  Yes, traveling in those days was much riskier and more incalculable than today.  Perhaps people experienced God’s providence more frequently and more intensely in those days because they were more regularly in touch with the dangers of traveling, with the forces of nature, with illnesses, etc.

At any rate, gratitude is also an important attitude for us.  Our life’s journey has its risks and dangers, too.  We also have reason to be grateful for so much protection and help that we’ve received on the way, and for so many other things in our life that we wouldn’t have been able to give to ourselves.  It’s like the one leper and like Naaman, to give thanks.  It is good, like Elisha, to give credit for what we’ve received to God.

Brothers, sisters! In the gospel, the complete cure for body and soul was experienced by the man who came back and gave thanks to God.  Gratitude heals and saves us, too.

Benedictine Bro. David Steidl-Rast wrote a book titled, Gratefulness--the Heart of Prayer, in which he speaks about the connection between ‘thinking’ and ‘thanking.’  It has become a regular practice for me, in the evening, as part of my review of the day, to ask myself, What am I grateful for today? What am I most grateful for? Usually, a couple of things occur to me. I recall them all and give thanks to God.  Sometimes a nice conversation comes to my mind, or the sunshine, the colorful leaves of fall, an insight that I gained while praying with Holy Scripture, the good taste of a meal … It’s necessary to think back to these gifts in order for me to be able to be thankful for them.  Only in this way they truly become part of my life.

“We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day,” Henry Nouwen once wrote.  Choosing to be grateful daily is choosing to become a joyful person.  Gratefulness has its effect in our prayer and on our lives.  It helps us to receive the healing, the wholeness, and the salvation that Jesus wants to bring also to us.

    ~Fr. Thomas Leitner, OSB

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

Fr. Anastasius Reiser, OSB - celebrant

Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,

In the gospel today, Jesus is talking to his disciples about faith. They were asking him: “increase our faith!”
Several people talked to me in these days, that the situation of life is going worse. And that they are about to lose their faith because of the problem of these days. There is the inflation; everything you need to buy, is more expensive as it was before. There is the war in Ukraine, where the Russians playing around with nuclear weapons and threatens the world with unnecessary demonstration of might and power. There is a change in the climate systems around all parts of the world, in which we can see, that systems of rain and dry season are changing in a way the people didn’t experienced before. These things, and of course other personal problems, bring people to that point of questioning their faith. But ARE these reasons to question our faith?

Back to the apostles: I think, they had similar questions of life, that we have today as well. The apostles were not yet Saints. They were still disciples, that means students, who are still learners. The faith of the apostles had to increase. Even when we remember the situation of Jesus on the cross. The disciples ran away. Only the women remained at the cross. Until the third day when Jesus himself came into the house of the disciples. And then they got the Holy Spirit as a gift to INCREASE their faith. And from that moment on they could be called APOSTLES! What means: To be sent! And you can only send someone in pastoral work who has faith!

The image of the mustard seed which Jesus uses to explain how big he thinks the faith could grow, is an image for to explain how the faith can grow. It doesn’t say something about the faith of the disciples. The disciples left already everything for Jesus and that is a faith which is beyond all the faith the normal people had at this time. So there was already a big faith in the disciples.

But it is interesting to look to that image of a small seed which becomes a big tree. Every gardener had that experience in May when she or he plants small seeds in the soil and big plants come out of it. It’s amazing how fast small seeds are developing during the first month. To get the harvest of fruits during the summer. And even later, may be now in October or November, when you have to clean up the garden and make it ready for winter. Than you recognize how big small seed can become.

It was yesterday, October 1st. We celebrated in the church the feast day of St. Therese of Lisieux, or as we call her: Therese, the little flower. She was a Saint which we can call a small seed, a small flower, who became a big tree in the Carmelite Order. Her faith was already so big, that no one could stop her to enter religious life. Even the Pope Leo XIII had to admit that something is going on with that child and encouraged her to continue her way with God. The permission to enter the Carmelites Sisters she got from the local Bishop. Because they saw in that little child Therese the seek which could become a big tree in faith.

And when we have a closer look to the biography of St. Therese, then we see: It’s all about love. The love to God was leading her the way she had to go. Love is also for our human life something special. It is in the beginning something very small. After a while when it is growing it can become like a tree that a whole family can live under when people get married. Do you know what is the difference between those Saints like Therese and the disciples? And of course, of those people who have their sorrows of every day? The difference is that the small seed in the hand of the gardener has no problem to be a small seed! It doesn’t matter to the seed, that it is very small in the beginning.

That brings us to the second part of the gospel today. To become a servant and to do what has to be done. And not to ask for any payment, reward or compensation. To do, what has to be done.

In Philippians 2 the apostle Paul writes about Jesus: Have among yourselves the same attitude that is also yours in Christ Jesus, 6 Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. 7 Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, 8 he humbled himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. 9 Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

That is the new life! The little flower which became in the form of the cross the tree of life! Jesus was sent by his father, went into the obedience and followed the path he HAD to go. Like the seed he had no problem to be the seed. He was thrown into the reality of life of his days. He grew and became a man. Without fear – because it was his destiny to say the truth – he spoke to the authorities, to the poor and the sick. And he didn’t ask who he was, or what he was. John 18:37 “So Pilate said to him, ‘Then you are a king?’ Jesus answered, ‘You say I am a king. For this I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.’”

Jesus is talking to the disciples as a group! “If you have faith the size of a mustard seed…” It means he likes to increase the faith of the disciples as a group! (It’s the “you to many, not only a “you” to one person.) If we face problems together it would strengthen us. Because we are able to share the problems with other people. Look to the people of the Ukraine. They feel a solidarity among them they haven’t had before the war. There is a political will among the people to oppose the Russian aggressor. The individual person may be afraid in front of this big and powerful enemy. But the people as a group feel strength and solidarity.

And that is the second difference between us and the Saints: We are lost in individual problems and are not connected to our brothers and sisters who could support us. The faith IN the church – not the big church around the world, more the faith in the local church here in Schuyler, or in our community – that would be the support which would increase our faith. That is a faith which pushes back the aggressor Russia out of Ukraine. That is the faith which supports us in our daily questions of our life, in which every one of us would be too small to solve it. But as a group we are able to manage it.

And in this way, I understand to increase our faith. From a small seed to a big tree. We together as a group are called to follow Christ. The disciples as a group, we as Christians in Parish and Community. No one is alone, no one is too small. God has a plan with us in the communion WITHIN other people, so that everyone gets support of others and will arrive in the Kingdom of Heaven. So let us support each other and help each other. Amen.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time - 2022

 1 Timothy 6:11-16
Luke 16:19–31

The Word we have just heard is really a continuation of the Word from last Sunday. The theme is wealth and money and what place it has in the Kingdom. We hear again  today from the 8th century prophet Amos and Luke simply continues Jesus’ message about mammon with another striking, clear parable about a rich man and a poor man.

When Luke presents the Gospel of the Lord, he picks up on images that contrast. This leads to the longstanding biblical theme of reversal. That is God’s reversal of human expectations, customs and practices. We hear it in simple phrases like “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” God chooses whom he wills. Our task is to listen carefully and get in line with it.

The parable of the rich man and Lazarus is based on contrasts that end in reversal. Note from the very beginning that the rich man is not given a name, but the poor man is. How true. We talk about street people or the bag lady. Do we ever hear their names? But you can be sure that the wealthy are known by name. So, the first contrast. Then there is the clothing. The rich man’s clothing is given in detail. It is purple. This is a luxury item. Getting this dye for the purple would involve an import item. His undergarments are made of fine linen bleached white. You can tell that he did not frequent the secondhand clothing store, Dollar General or Walmart. Men’s designer clothes for him, Gucci shoes and a Rolex watch. The only thing about the poor man’s clothing is that he is covered, “covered with sores” that is. He has open wounds but not leprosy.

Another contrast is the food. The rich man dines sumptuously each day. We know that there is plenty to go around because left over scraps are thrown on the floor for whoever, the servants. It is Amos who fills in the meal scene for us with his description of stall-fattened lambs and calves, wine in abundance, music and the cosmetics needed to impress and smell sweet. This sumptuous dining, we are told is every day! A picture of luxury. The poor man, he cannot even get to the table. And as for food, it seems the street dogs are taking him for food by licking his open sores. These are feral dogs roaming the streets, not cute loveable puppies. Dogs were not pets in the Middle East culture. So, food for the poor man remains only a desire, a wish not a reality. It is beyond him as he is outside. It would seem that the rich man does not even know of Lazarus’ existence.

Now comes a transition where the contrasts move to reversal. There is one thing both the unnamed rich man and Lazarus have in common: they both die. But here we must take note: the rich man is simply buried, no further ado. But Lazarus is carried by angels to the bosom of Abraham. Abraham is also someone they both have in common. For Lazarus, Abraham is now his host. The bosom of Abraham is an image for being at table in the Kingdom with the patriarchs. Abraham in the Hebrew tradition was the epitome of hospitality. He would never allow anyone to pass by without inviting them in and sharing food with him. So strong is this image that tradition places Abraham as the host at the heavenly table. It is there that Lazarus can be found….the man of sores sits with the patriarch himself. The hint is that he is reclining not at the end of the table but directly opposite Abraham…the position of honor. Now the rich man is at no table and instead is in torment in flames….

Since the rich man and Lazarus have Abraham in common, a dialogue begins with Father Abraham. The rich man wants a drop of water. Contrast the poor man who would have liked just a scrap on the floor! But notice two things, the rich man now seems to know the name of Lazarus and he wants him to be an errand boy. So the rich man cannot be said to be ignorant of the poor man. He just ignored him, did not bother to go to is gate to welcome. The rich man lived in his own world.

Abraham now makes clear the great reversal. You were blessed before and Lazarus not; now he is being comforted, wined and dined we might say, and you are suffering thirst. Implication: you did not share your blessing before and now you want the poor man to share his blessing!

The rich man does not get it. He wants to make sure his brothers don’t get the same fate. Send Lazarus to warn them, Lazarus is not a messenger boy. The rich man is still not admitting Lazarus. In reality he is thinking of looking after his own; blood matters. He somehow has forgotten that he is not the only son of Abraham. The poor man is also Abraham’s son. The rich man limited who truly belonged to the family of Abraham and hence deserved attention when life was hard for them.

Abraham’s answer is clear. They are not getting any special messenger to wake them up. You don’t need a big show from the dead to tell you what to do. You have Moses and the prophets. There you will hear what your responsibility is to the poor and less fortunate. There you will read how the God of the covenant looks out for the needy and lost, the forgotten…those pushed aside. The psalm we sang makes that clear.

It seems that Amos hits the nail on the head as to what is happening here. Woe to the complacent! That is the underlying issue. Wealth and luxury has made you indifferent to other members of the covenant family, of the children of God, of those created in God’s image. You no longer see those lying at your doors. You care nothing that wealth has blinded you to the collapse of society.

The Prophet, to whom Jesus refers us today, and Jesus’ own vivid, clear parable make us open our eyes to see the implications of our economic system, our consumer society, our putting personal pleasure first. Amos and Jesus both challenge us to our complacency regarding our planet earth, our poor and indigent and the systems that have brought us to where we are today in a fragile world, whether it be war, again, the disparity of wealth throughout the world and the lack of understanding our relationship with nature.  The irony is: the mandate to action doesn’t require something dramatic or even new. The call to open our eyes has been there since long ago in our own Judeo-Christian tradition.

The choice is complacency and indifference or being motivated to act in accord with the Kingdom of God. Our God keeps faith with those who are oppressed and bowed down. In the end, they will be in the bosom of Abraham. Does the life you and I are living lead to complacency or to a hand offering our blessings to all members of both the new and old covenant and beyond?

~Prior, Fr. Joel Macul, OSB

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