Entrance to the Sanctuary Opened for Us

St. Paul reminds us in today's first reading, Hebrews 10: 19-25, that "through the Blood of Jesus we have confidence of entrance into the sanctuary by the new and living way he opened for us through the veil, that is,  his flesh, and since we have 'a great priest over the house of God,' let us approach with a sincere heart and in absolute trust, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water."

WOW! Jesus opened the door to the sanctuary of heaven for us by being obedient to the Father even unto death.Through His obedience, Jesus destroyed the evil of humankind's disobedience.  So on the cross when the good thief turned to Jesus and asked Him  to remember him when He returned to His heavenly Kingdom, Jesus said to him: "This day you will be with me in Paradise." Yes, the door to heaven was opened by Jesus' life, death and resurrection for the good thief and for you and me.  May we have the wisdom and the courage to recognize, as did the good thief, that we need Jesus' mercy.  With the good thief, l let us acknowledge our sinfulness and then ask for Jesus' mercy for ourselves and others on this journey of faith.

Mary's Immaculate Conception

Today the Catholic Church celebrate the feast of the Immaculate Conception--yes, we believe and the Catholic Church has proclaimed that Mary was free of sin from the moment of her conception!  Jesus took on humanity in  her pure body!

Mary was conceived without sin. You and I were redeemed from sin.  We open today's liturgy with a prayer of praise concerning the gift of salvation:  "I rejoice heartily in the Lord, in my God is the joy of my soul; for he has clothed me with a robe of salvation, and wrapped me in a mantle of justice, like a bride adorned with her jewels."  How generous is our God!  God's intent is that we are one with Him forever. Satan's intent is to bar us from eternal life with God. He began his pursuit of that goal in the Garden of Eden, where he tempted both Adam and Eve. Both fell to his lies of becoming like God and that the limits of not eating of a certain fruit were foolish.  God's instruction: "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil; when you eat from it you shall die."   Cunningly, Satan approached Eve and asked:  "Did God really say, 'You shall not eat from any of the trees in the garden?"  After placing that doubt in Eve's mind, Satan says: "You certainly will not die!  God knows well that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, who know good and evil.'  The woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eyes, and the tree was desirable for gaining wisdom, so she took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with  her, and he ate it." The rest of the story is history and Satan has been at work ever since, doing to us what he did to Adam and Eve and every day people get caught in Satan's trap!

Satan may be powerfully cunning, a liar who sets traps for us and gets us, many times, in our weakest spot, our desire to be a god, to be subject to no one, to rely totally on ourselves as "know-it-alls" who put our hands over our ears when someone tries to awaken us to the wrong in which we might be engaged.

God knows our vulnerabilities and that is why God clothes us with a "robe of salvation" and wraps us "in a mantle of justice."  Through Mary's intercession and by virtue of Jesus' death on the cross to save us from Satan's power, may you and I, now and forever, be cleansed of our sin and embrace salvation as it is offered to us over and over again, especially when, like Adam, we know our nakedness and hide from God, recognizing that we have fallen for Satan's lies!

"Behold, I come to do your will"

In today’s first reading, Heb. 10: 1-10, we read:  “First he [Jesus, Son of the Living God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity] says [to God the Father], Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in. These are offered according to the law. Then he [Jesus] says, Behold, I come to do your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. By this “will,”  we have been consecrated through the offering of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

In the Gospel, Jesus, indirectly,in stating that those who do the will of His Father are his mother, his brothers and sisters, praises his mother and brothers who are outside the house where Jesus is looking for him.

What an awesome God! What great love!  You and I, and all of creation, are consecrated to God once and for all by the sacrifice of Jesus, who offers His life and pours out His blood on the cross for our salvation.  Through Jesus’ obedience to the Father even onto death, we are placed on a path that leads to reconciliation with our God. We are on a course that leads to holiness, to oneness with the Father and the Son through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Love between the Father and the Son poured out upon us at the first Pentecost and all of the “Pentecosts” since that moment. God will allow nothing to throw us off course. His plan for our salvation will endure. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my word will not pass away” (Mk 13:31).

What a promise! I may stray, go off course, lose my way. Jesus doesn’t. He lives in me, having taken up His dwelling place in me when I was baptized and confirmed.  He continues to take up residence in me when I receive the Eucharist and “drink” at the Fountain of Living Waters, the Bible.  God is hidden in all of creation and in all of the events of my life and yours, the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the orderly and the chaotic.  His presence is veiled from the naked eye. Only through faith do we recognize God shining through the darkness of this world and making all things right with the Father.

Praise God!

A future full of hope

The Sunday Scriptures are quite awesome. In Isaiah, the prophet speaks about the mountain of the Lord, to which every human being on the face of the earth is invited to celebrate the gift of redemption. We are told that this is the Lord’s mountain, where, at His second coming,  the tears of all humankind will be wiped  away, the veil stripped away—blindness removed--the web enslaving every nation and all peoples  shattered.  The reproach leveled at any nation, any country, any culture, any religion, any person on the face of this earth will be removed.  The Lord comes with power to save  all of humanity from that which binds us, destroys us, deprives us of the peace, the joy, the love, the forgiveness, the fullness of life Jesus promises in the Gospels: “I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.”  God wants nothing less for us and Christ will not rest until He knows He’s accomplished the Father’s will, our freedom from Satan’s snares.  The robe of salvation, the wedding garment, purchased by the blood of Christ, is offered to each of us every day, every moment, in all of the circumstances of our lives. Will we accept this garment of grace? Will we wear it? Will this wedding garment become brighter and brighter, more beautiful and beautifying as each of us lives the Gospel of Christ? Or will we kill the messenger, reject the Message, and walk  back into the darkness, back into the web woven by pride and jealousy, by lust and covetousness, by hatred and fear, by deceit and envy? Will we allow ourselves to remain caught in Satan’s snares or accept the freedom Christ offers?

The Kingdom of God is in your midst: evil will be wiped out by a just God

Both of today’s readings (Joel  1: 13-15; 2: 1-2 and the Gospel of Luke 11: 15-26) speak about the presence of evil in the world and how God will/is dealing with it.   The prophet Joel prophesies that the day of the Lord is near and that it comes as ruin (to satanic forces and injustices, to that which destroys life: human traffickers, abortionists, murderers, adulterers, thieves, abusers, terrorists, perpetrators of war and all forms of evil in the world of our day).  Evil within every nation, every country, every household, every person will be confronted by an all-holy, just, compassionate,  forgiving God.  Everyone will have the opportunity to repent and believe in the Good News, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, and be transformed by grace.  In the Gospel, Jesus’ critics and stalkers accuse Him of casting out demons/evil by the power of Beelzebub, by evil itself, as though Satan would be working to throw himself out of human life when his goal is that we rebel against God as he did. Jesus’ response to his discreditors is: “If  I’m casting out Satan through Satan, by whom do your people cast them out; a house divided against itself will not prevail.” He then proclaims that the Kingdom of Heaven is in our midst as evidenced by demons being overcome and other signs of “Emmanual-with-us.”  Both readings are heralds of hope. Salvation is here.  Wickedness and evil will not triumph over grace.  The myriad faces of evil will be destroyed, as God, the just judge, comes to judge the world with justice. Those caught in Satan’s snares will be offered the chance to be free through a loving, redeeming, caring and generous God. Those who refuse the gift of salvation will be judged justly.  Justice will be served!

Happy Birthday, Mary--a woman who cooperated with God's plan of salvation

Today we celebrate the birthday of our Blessed  Mother. No ordinary birthday, to say the least.

Here is a woman who always said “yes” to God’s plan of salvation. Her “yes” was not an easy yes.  She risked her life when she said “yes” to the incarnation, to allowing God to use her womb to give human form to His Son, whom He was sending into the world to carry out His plan of redemption. He was not going to lose any part of His creation. His love for us was too great to let that happen. Yet, God has given each one of us a free will. We can say “yes” or “no” to our salvation and to what it takes to choose that which leads to eternal life with God, to eternal happiness, to eternal peace and, in the meantime, to peace with ourselves, with others and with God.

 Mary believed in God. She accepted His plan and did not ever thwart it. She sums it up at Cana when she said to the servants: “Do whatever He tells you.”  Do I do whatever God tells me? Do I even take time to inquire of God what His will is for me or do I just plow ahead each day doing my own thing? And when obstacles come—I don’t get my way—do I simply rant and rave, become quarrelsome instead of stepping back, taking time to reflect and pray about the situation that I am ranting about?