God's Decrees Are Trustworthy

 In today's first reading, Romans 10: 9-18, St. Paul says to us: "No one who believes in him (Jesus) will be put to shame" and that "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."  I call upon your name, O Lord. Save me!  Save me from the snares that Satan sets for me: snares  that lead to imprudence, deceitfulness,  revengefulness, disgracefulness, disrespectfulness, impatience, stinginess,  pride, hatred, sloth, lust, covetousness, and unforgiveness!  Save me by giving me the gifts of prudence, honesty, forgiveness, mercy, respectfulness, patience, generosity, humility, detachment and love!

How often, Lord, do I  not encounter my humanity with its proneness to evil. Have pity on me, Lord. Help me, as Simon helped you to carry your cross to Calvary.  May I carry the cross, be nailed to the cross, suffer death on the cross and rise to new life, as You did on Calvary. Only by experiencing the  effects of sin and  dying to sin do I rise to holiness.  Through physical death I enter eternal life; through spiritual death to sin I enter a state of holiness here on earth!

And so we pray in today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 19:  "The decree of the Lord is trustworthy, giving wisdom to the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart," clothing the heart in holiness; "the command of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eye" to what is prudent, honest, generous, forgiving, respectful, loving and merciful!

Gabriel's Message to Mary and to Us

 Tomorrow is the First Sunday of Advent.  Let us enter Advent with Mary's attitude of reverence, humility, and surrender to the will of our God for us. Mary, our Mother who gave the Son of God his humanity, is told in Luke 1: 28 that she has found favor with God and that the Lord is with her.  The angel's message greatly troubles Mary. The angel says to Mary: "Do not be afraid, Mary."  Gabriel then goes on to say that Mary  "is to conceive in her womb and bear a son....[H]e will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."  A bit taken back, no doubt,  Mary asks: "How can this be, since I have no relations with a man?" And the angel explains that her conception of Jesus will be through the Holy Spirit:  "[T]he power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God."  She is then told that her elderly cousin is six month's pregnant, "for "nothing is impossible for God." Mary's response: "Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word," and she conceives Jesus, the Son of God, in her womb!

And the waiting period, Advent, begins!  May your Advent, and mine, also begin with Gabriel's visit to us, remind us that we, too, have found favor with God through Jesus Christ!

Consequences of the Choices One Makes

 In today's first reading, 1 Mac 6: 1-13,  King Antiochus'  determination to capture Persia and all its wealth in gold fails.  He ends up a defeated man, a man of sorrows, a dejected person. When all collapses, the king withdraws in sorrow and states of himself: "I now recall the evils I did in Jerusalem, when I carried away all the vessels of gold and silver that were in it, and for no cause gave ordered that the inhabitants of Judah be destroyed. I know that this is why these evils have overtaken me; and now I am dying , in bitter grief, in a foreign land."

There are consequences to every choice that we make.  Bad choices lead to bad results whereas right choices bring gladness to our hearts. We witness this truth every day in the news of the day. Persons who court evil, who make choices that lead to violence and death to any one person end up facing judges and juries and the anger of persons effected by their poor choices. And even if the outcome of these court hearings acquit a person unjustly, they still need to live with the fact that they got away with murder!    They live chained to the truth even when truth was thwarted in the courts.  

In our heart of hearts, you and I know when we have done evil, when we have wronged another person or persons, when our lives are lives of lies! We may fool ourselves for a while but ultimately we will come face to face with what is our truth, even if that first occurs in the afterlife!  We are who we are before God and no other!  Persons fleeing truth are highly vulnerable to addictive behaviors used to camouflage the truth, to escape reality. Such persons easily become trapped in  addictive behaviors: compulsive spending, gambling, eating, drinking, sexing and so on!  Like King Antiochus, we can become "sick with grief because [our evil] designs [fail] us!"

Lord, may I have the courage, the prudence, and the wisdom to embrace my truth!

Truth and Wisdom

 In today's responsorial psalm, Psalm 119, we pray:  "Your word, O Lord, endures forever; it is firm as the heavens. Through all generations your truth endures; you have established the earth, and it stands firm. According to your ordinances they still stand firm: all things serve you." 

What is God's truth that stands firm and through which all things serve God?  One, that all good things come from God and return to God; two, that God's being is in all and all in God; three, that God is for us and with us; and four, that all is made right in God--redeemed, justified and glorified for God and through God.  These truths may be difficult for us at times, especially when things do not turn out as we'd wish, when other people's decisions seem unreasonable or, in fact, are immoral and pose a threat to another's wellbeing. We may be asking ourselves the following questions: Where was God when my child was kidnapped? How could such evil be promulgated if God's will prevailed?  If God is God, why has my child abandoned the right path, gone astray, and/or engaged in behaviors that could easily lead to a treacherous outcomes? Why are gangs thriving and on and on!

How hard it is to live by faith under circumstances alluded to above! Yet, I know, and you know, that good will endure, not evil, that God detests evil and deceitful ways, thwarts the way of the wicked but protects the just! We also know that Wisdom, who is God, "can do all things and renews everything while herself perduring" (today's first reading, Wis 7: 22b-8:1).