Come, Follow Me!

Imagine living during the time that Jesus was involved in active ministry. Imagine also that He sees you fishing and or mending your nets in preparation for a future expedition or whatever your job is.  He calls out to you: "Come, follow me and I will make you a fisher of people." You've never seen this man before and He asks you to abandon your business and follow Him. Who is He, you wonder momentarily but you leave your business, your coworkers, your family's ways and follow Him for a lifetime as a married person, a religious, a priest, a single person.  You listen to One who speaks with authority, to One who heals all who are brought to Him, does not turn the sick or the weak or the vulnerable away and asks the same of you and me. He raises the dead, gives sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf and invites you to treat these people kindly, that is, in a way that fosters healing, physical or spiritual.  He also casts out demons from ranting and raving demoniacs, not afraid to interact with them. He asks the same of you and me.  He gently and lovingly touches lepers and others deformed by their physical or psychological ailments and asks the same of you and me. His teachings and actions are strange: turn the other cheek, forgive sinners, do not throw stones at persons caught in adultery (or any other sin, for that matter),  do good to those who hate you, wash each others' feet, welcome children, include women--in fact, Jesus chooses a woman to be the first to see Him after His resurrection and sends her to be the first to announce the good news. He does not treat women as inferior to men. Yes, Jesus shows us a new way that was not popular in His time or ours!

Come, follow me! Are you/am I willing to follow the Lord when He invites me to do so?

Confidence in Oneself

In the Gospel of today, John 17: 1-11a, Jesus says to His Father:  “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you….I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do. Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.”  Jesus is about to be arrested, condemned to death, scourged, crowned with thorns in mockery of His Kingship, and crucified.  Three days later, death having no power over the Son of God, Jesus is risen—glorified, with the Father,  with the glory that He had with the Father before the world was created.

Like Jesus, Paul, in the liturgy’s first reading, Acts 20: 17-27, is looking back on his life as well and is about to go to Jerusalem, where, like Jesus, he faces hardships and imprisonment.  Paul can testify that, like Jesus, he “did not shrink from telling you what was for your benefit, or from teaching you in public or in your homes. I earnestly bore witness for both Jews and Greeks to repentance before God and to faith in our Lord Jesus.”

You and I have also been sent here to accomplish a task, a mission, given to us by the Father through the Holy Spirit, the Advocate sent to us by Jesus.  Like Paul and Jesus, as we bring our wills into harmony with God’s will for us, as we give glory to God by  the Gospel values we embrace,  we will meet hardship, be mocked and ridiculed. We will, from time to time,  be rejected on account of our beliefs in the Lord God, in Christ Jesus.  Disappointments, frustration, pain   are part of anyone’s faith journey.  At the end of our lives, hopefully, like Paul and Jesus,  if we have striven to give glory to God by our lives, if we have come to know the Father, the only true God, and the one whom the Father sent, Jesus Christ (cf John 17: 3),  we can confidently look forward to being glorified with our Father in heaven. 

At the end of this day, will I be able to say, as Jesus did, "Father, I have accomplished the work you gave me to do?"

Standing Up for What I Believe

In the first reading of today’s liturgy,  Daniel 1: 1-6, 8-20, we  are given an example of four young men standing up to evil. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon had “laid siege to Jerusalem. Sacred vessels of the temple of God were carried off “to the land of Shinar, and placed…in the temple treasure of [the king’s] god.”   The king asked that the brightest, the most handsome, the most prudent in judgment, those of royal blood and of the nobility, young men without any defect among the Chosen People be brought to him. Over a span of three years, they would be trained, taught the language and the literature of the Chaldeans, and then  be tested in terms of their knowledge, wisdom and prudence.  If they passed the test, they would enter into the king’s service.   Among those chosen for this three years’ training were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.  They were resolved, however,  not to defile themselves with the king’s food or wine, “so they begged the chief chamberlain to spared them this defilement” and, for ten days, serve them only vegetables.  The king’s servant was afraid that they would be weakened by not eating the meat and drinking the wine that others were served during this training period and that his very life would be taken from him as a result.  These four young men, however, after ten days of eating only vegetables,  were in fact stronger than all the others who accepted the king’s meal.  Thus, for the three years of training, they were allowed to follow their conscience and observe the Mosaic Law.  “To these four young men God gave knowledge and proficiency in all literature and science, and to Daniel the understanding of all visions and dreams.” They passed the king’s test with flying colors. The king “found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom” and they were admitted into the king’s service.

This past week I attended the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis, IN, where 25,000 teenagers were not afraid to proclaim to the world “I am a Catholic.” Like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who proclaimed to be followers of the Mosaic Law and refused the king's orders, these young people stood up for what they believe.  They were not afraid to let the world know that they were signed for Christ in their baptism, sealed by the Spirit in their confirmation and delivered by Christ on the cross.  They publically  chose Christ and rejected idolatrous worship of other gods.

When I am faced with “worshipping the idols of my day,” when I am tempted to follow my will over and against God's will for me,  how loyal am I to Christ? Or do I, in the face of the temptations to defile myself, abandon my faith?

Choose life, not death

In today's first reading, Dt. 30:15-20, Moses challenges the people to choose life, not death, to choose a blessing, not a curse.  Every day  we face the same challenge to choose to be one with God or with the world around us, to follow God's will or our own, as did Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the people building the Tower of Babel, as did the Chosen People in erecting a golden calf.  God's way leads to blessings; the ways of the world lead to chaos, to feeling enslaved, unfree, disgusted with ourselves, and in some instances cursed.  The Israelites, about to enter the Promised Land, had the choice of following Yahweh, the one true God, keeping His commandments, or following the ways of the pagan nations around them, engaging in the worship of idols of the pagan country they were entering.  The world of today lures us, as well, into its  idolatrous ways, promising us happiness if ____, security if____, love if____, knowledge if____, wisdom if_____.  "Be politically correct," is the latest bait.  Many fall hook, line and sinker into this world's  pit of lies, embracing such idols as pleasure, sex, consumerism, unbridled freedom, individualism, power and control over others, the use of violence to get what we want, and so on. 

How easy to be misled! Jesus says: "Take up your cross and follow me" by listening to the directions of the Holy Spirit communicating to you in the depths of your heart. "Remember," God says to us, "I have planted My Law on your hearts" (cf Jer 31:33 and Heb. 8:10).  Jesus says to us:  "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Believe in Me and you shall be saved" (cf Jn 14:6 and Acts 16:31)  from falling hook, line and sinker into the pit of lies proclaimed by adherents of worldly wisdom.

What choice am I making?

Following Christ

Today we celebrate the feast of St. Matthew, a tax collector and a very wealthy man, called to ministry with Jesus.  Tax collectors were despised in the Jewish culture. They  were considered sinners in that they cheated the people in their payment of taxes to the Romans.  Jesus spotted Matthew at his tax collecting post and said to Him: “Follow me”(Mt. 9: 9-13).  Matthew immediately left his lucrative business and became a disciple of Jesus.  That, too, abhorred the people. “What was Jesus thinking anyway? Does He not know who this man is?” were probably thoughts that crowded into people’s minds.

 Despised by others but not by the Lord, Matthew began a journey that day that changed his life. He became so immersed in the teachings and life of the Lord Jesus that he stayed with Jesus throughout His public life. Following Jesus’ death and resurrection and the Pentecost experience, Matthew spread the Good News of the coming of the Kingdom here on earth. Matthew gave his life and accepted martyrdom for the faith.

 

You and I may be despised by another or by others but not by the Lord ever!   As Paul says in the first reading of today's liturgy,  Eph 4: 1-7, 11-13, we, God's holy ones--yes, holy, though sinners--are equipped "for the work of ministry, for building up the Body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of faith and knolwedge of the Son of God, to mature [personhood]. to the extent of the full stature of Christ." That is God's guarantee and our hope in Christ Jesus!  What an awesome God!

THE SISTERS OF THE SORROWFUL MOTHER

STORY TOLD WITH PICTURES

We were founded on February 16, 1883 by Mother Frances Streitel.   Mother Frances was passionate about following the holy will of God in every detail of her life.  The Lord tested her resolve in that He called her to found a new religious community that would be a transformative presence in the world, addressing the fundamental social evils that existed in the world of her time by uniting action and contemplation, by living a life of strict poverty, humility, and filial obedience—the obedience that Jesus modeled in accepting death, even death on the cross. Her journey along this road to perfection, of imitating the holiness and compassion of God, began, for her, already as a child. Her mother taught her to share with the poor, to whom her mother distributed food. As a little child, Mother Frances, known then as Amalia,  gave her desserts to the poor and went without the sweets so many of us crave!

 

 

 

Already as a child Mother Frances was taught to be compassionate to others as God is compassionate.  That very characteristic of holiness underlies the charism of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother and is an ideal to which her daughters strive.  Which ideals/values of your childhood continue to guide you along the everlasting way?