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!

Grateful for being forgiven

Today's Gospel, Lk 7: 36-50, tells the story of Jesus' dining in the house of a Pharisee named Simon. Simon is putting on a dinner for the elite--a dinner in our day known as a black-tie dinner that is only open to invited guests who are expected to be wearing tuxedoes. In walks a woman Simon despises and says to himself in effect: How can Jesus allow this woman to anoint His feet, wash them with her tears and wipe them with her hair. Does He not know "what sort of woman she is" (Lk: 7: 39)? He also looks down upon Jesus and says in his heart: If this man is a prophet, He should know better than to allow this woman to come close to Him, much less touch Him (cf Luke 7:39:).

Our prayer, based on this Scripture passage, might go like this:

"Lord, You sent this morning's Word to transform my innermost being, as You tried, in today's Gospel, to open Simon's heart. Help me. Transform my self-righteousness into the humility of this woman who recognized her sinfulness and is grateful for Your gift of forgiveness. May I step down from my pedestal of looking down on people as the Pharisee looked down upon this woman. I, too, am a sinner. I belong prostrate before You beating my breast, not on the stage tooting my horn and certainly not judging others or excluding them from my company."

 

Proclamation of love

In today's first reading, 1 Cor: 31-13:13, St. Paul gives his brilliant expose` on love:

Love is patient.
Love is kind.
Love is not jealous.
Love is not pompous.
Love is not inflated.
Love is not rude.
Love does not seek its own interests.
Love is not quick-tempered.
Love does not brood over injuries.
Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing. Love rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never fails.

When God sends us a Word, it does not return to Him until it completes the task God sent it to do (cf. Is 55:11)! It is a Living Word that cuts to the marrow of our bones, purifying us of all that is not of God (cf. Heb 4:12).  God is at work in you and me, fulfilling Paul's message within our being.

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?



Revealing the Compassion of God

In today's Gospel, Luke 7: 1-10, we are given the story of the Roman centurion whose slave is seriously ill. He sends elders to ask Jesus to heal him, reminding Jesus that this dying man is deserving of divine intervention. He also tells Jesus that he is "not worthy that Jesus enter under his roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed."  The centurion shares his own experience with Jesus as a man with authority: I say "Come," "Do this," "Go," and my servants listen.  In effect, he is saying: Jesus, you have authority. Whatever you say will be done. As Master of the Universe, You do not need to be physically present to heal my servant. "Only say the  word..."

What faith! And the centurion is not even a Jew! Jesus is amazed and he tells the crowd: "...not even in Israel have I found such faith!"

Who am I in this story:  the slave who is seriously ill, the centurion asking for Jesus' intervention, the elders who bring the centurion's message to Jesus, those in whom Jesus finds no faith or a dwindling, smoldering, flickering faith with little or no life left in it?

Profound Sense of Union

In 1 Cor 10: 14-22, one of the recommended readings for the Feast of the Sorrowful Mother, which we celebrate today, Paul asks us:  "The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the Blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the Body of Christ? Because the loaf of bread is one, we, though many, are one Body for we all partake of the one loaf." 

The cup of blessing which we bless, we praise, of which we stand in awe, for which we are grateful: we are participants in that cup, in Jesus' Blood, His suffering and death.  It is through Jesus' shedding of His Blood that the world, that you and I, are/were redeemed, sanctified, made holy, made one with God and one another. All the blood shed in this world is Christ's Blood shed over and over again. Everything we suffer  and which Christ suffers by virtue of our dying and rising with Him in baptism, is transformed into a redeeming act. Why? because we are united with Christ by God's choice.  The potential of our behaviors/attitudes of being being purified  by what we suffer becomes a reality in Christ Jesus for those who believe. Jesus took our disobedience into His obedience, obedience even to death on the cross, making us one with Him and His Father for our salvation and that of the whole world.

Wow! "Take, Lord, receive; all is Yours now," we pray in a popular religious song.

Today we celebrate the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.  Our first reading, Num 21: 4b-9, is the story of the bronze serpent which Moses erected in the desert.  The Israelites had been complaining bitterly against God and Moses. In anger, God sent seraph serpents. Anyone bitten by these serpents died. The Israelites realized their sinfulness and acknowledged it before Moses.  Moses then interceded for them, molded a bronze statue of a seraph serpent. Anyone who gazed upon this serpent--a reminder of the sin of deceit and sensuality--and repented of their sin was saved. 

We, too, are saved. God sent His only begotten Son into the world, not to condemn it, but to save it.  Jesus was raised upon the cross, becoming sin for us, uniting our sinfulness with His sinlessness, reconciling us to God, making peace through the Cross.  All who look upon Jesus on the Cross, acknowledge and repent of their sinfulness are saved and are given the inheritance of eternal life with God in heaven. 

Am I willing to face the evil in my life? Am I willing to acknowledge my sinful behaviors and attitudes? Am I repentant?  Do I look upon Christ and believe in God's desire to save me, that is, to make me into the very holiness of God (cf 2 Cor 5: 21)?