Category Archives: Sunday Reflections

A different kind of king, a different kind of throne

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“…How does Jesus enter into Jerusalem? The crowd acclaims him King. And he does not oppose this, he does not silence them (cf. Luke 19:39-40). But what kind of King is Jesus? Let us see: he rides a colt, he does not have a court that follows him, he is not surrounded by an army that would symbolize power. Those who welcome him are humble, simple people, who have the sense to see in Jesus something more; they have that sense of faith, which says: this is the Savior. Jesus does not enter the Holy City to receive the honors reserved for earthly kings, to those who have power, to those who dominate; he enters to be beaten, insulted and reviled, as Isaiah foretold in the first reading (cf. Isaiah 50:6); he enters to receive a crown of thorns, a reed, a purple cloak, his royalty will be an object of scorn; he enters to climb Calvary, carrying a tree. And this is the second word: cross. Jesus enters Jerusalem to die on the cross. And it is exactly here that his being a king, as God, is manifested: the royal throne is the wood of the cross! I think of what Benedict XVI said to the cardinals: you are princes but of a crucified King. That is Jesus’ throne. Jesus takes it upon himself… Why the cross? Because Jesus takes upon himself evil, filth, the sin of the world, even our sin, the sins of all of us, and he washes them away with his blood, with mercy, with God’s love. Let us look around: how greatly does evil wound humanity! War, violence, economic conflicts that harm the weakest, desire for money, which no one can take with them, it must be left behind. My grandmother said to us children: the shroud that they bury you in won’t have pockets. Love of money, power, corruption, divisions, crimes against human life and against creation! And – we all know – there are our own sins: lack of love and respect for God, for our neighbor, for the whole of creation. And Jesus on the cross feels the whole weight of evil and with the power of God’s love conquers it, he defeats it in his resurrection.” –Pope Francis, Palm Sunday homily

(found online at: http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/pope-francis-palm-sunday-homily)

Presente! – Palm Sunday 24 March 2013

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My sisters and brothers in Christ, today is the celebration of Palm Sundpalm_crossesay–the entrance of our Lord Jesus into Jerusalem where he will be tried and executed through crucifixion.  But on that entrance, the people stood up and shouted, “The King of Glory Comes, Hallelujah!”

We too, sisters and brothers, must shout, for if we   do not, the very stones will condemn our silence with their praise of Jesus!  Imagine, the stones and the trees, the hills and valleys shouting out “Glory to God!”  It happens every day, but we are too deaf to hear.  100_0314And every day, we crucify one more valley, one more tree, one more lake for our lack of hearing their shouting.

Today is also the celebration of the passing of Oscar Romero, the martyred archbishop of El Salvador.  Why was he martyred?  Because he stood up and shouted out–these people are God’s people!  These people must too shine, for their lives, like our lives, shout out to the coming of the Kingdom!  But we do not hear their shouts, not do we hear the screams of their bodies, trodden under the feat of rampant capitalism and fevered nationalism.  Their cries join the cries of the earth–for they are the cries of the poor.

And Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem is the response: The Lord hears the cry of the poor!

Why do we not hear their cries?  Or do we hear them and ignore them?  Are we unwilling to stand with Romero and live a simple life of love of neighbor and the condemnation of violence in the name of profit?

I say to you, my brothers and sisters, the United States is a religious nation, and it’s religion is the idolism of money, fame, power–of materialism without spirit.  We are called to stand up and shout out against this idolism–”The King of Glory Comes! Hallelujah!”  For God is with us, my brothers and sisters.  He is here in your hearts.  Look to each other and see.  He is here in the lives of every beggar on the street, of every homeless child sleeping in a shelter tonight, of every starving mother working two jobs just to keep a roof over the heads of her children.

RomeroWe must rejoice at the coming of the Lord, and we too, we must lay our cloaks at the feet of Jesus in the poor who wonder our streets looking for someone to shout with them–

God is Love!

Neither do I condemn you — Sunday 17 March 2013

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day, my brothers and sisters!  May your day be filled with blessings from God, with friends, and with celebration of the great wonders the Lord God has wrought.

My sisters and brothers, imagine this woman, dragged before Jesus, thrown onto the ground.  YouWitch_Hunt‘ve seen similar images today– men and women crowding around her screaming and yelling, many already holding their stones, some held high, their faces twisted in anger.  She is crying, screaming, fearful, for she knows she is about to die.  She knows it, my brothers and sisters, for the crowd is yelling down at her for her lust.  Who knows why she committed the sin of adultery (and where is the man she committed it with–perhaps himself holding a stone?).

Then one by one, the crowd diminishes in the presence of Jesus’ silence.  The screaming lessens and then disappears.  Rocks are dropped, but nowhere near this poor woman.  Does she even notice through her own tears?  I would not.  I would only realize at some moment, perhaps cried out, that I am not dead yet, and then realize that no one is yelling, and then look up and see no one but Jesus.

10 Jesus again straightened up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’

11 ‘No one, sir,’ she replied. ‘Neither do I condemn you,’ said Jesus. ‘Go away, and from this moment sin no more.’

Go away and sin no more.  What mystical words, my brothers and sisters.  Condemnation is about holding on to the past. Forgiveness is about moving on to the future.  It is apt, I think, I hope, I pray, my brothers and sisters, that these sets of readings follow the election of Pope Francis.   He has chosen the name Francis, which no pope has chosen before.  And Francis was called to rebuild the Church in a time of turmoil.

Each of these readings is about rebuilding.

19 Look, I am doing something new, now it emerges; can you not see it? Yes, I am making a road in the desert and rivers in wastelands.

20 The wild animals will honour me, the jackals and the ostriches, for bestowing water in the desert and rivers on the wastelands for my people, my chosen one, to drink.

21 The people I have shaped for myself will broadcast my praises.

God has created something new for Israel: a new home freed from slavery. Is Francis a sign of God bringing something new to the Church?  Perhaps.  But Francis cannot rebuild the Church alone.  We too must join him.  We must insist on a Church of the poor.  A Church of the environment: “the wild animals will honor me. ”

Like Paul, we must proclaim

13 Brothers, I do not reckon myself as having taken hold of it; I can only say that forgetting all that lies behind me, and straining forward to what lies in front,

14 I am racing towards the finishing-point to win the prize of God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

Paul is not writing about progress.  He is not seeking the next tool to let humanity live in this desert we’ve created.  No.  Paul is seeking to leave behind his old self to journey toward the resurrection.  Christ has wiped our sins away through His death on the cross.  We are called to race toward Him through the work we do in this world.  A work filled with rebuilding the world toward hope and promise.

Pope Francis is showing us how: to leave behind the condemnation Church and to renew ourselves in Christ as a Church for the poor.

And so we return to that woman, cast down on the ground before Jesus.  We, the Church, are like the woman.  We have sinned against God by caring more zen-gardenfor rules than for people.  Yet, Jesus does not condemn us.  He simply asks us to sin no more.

Can we carry that cross?  Yes, forgiving others is a cross, and being forgiven for our sins is a cross that we bear.  We are not worthy of such forgiveness.  We are not worthy of reconciliation with God.  Yet, Jesus sits there, writing in the sand.  And the next time the wind blows, what He has written will blow away, just as our sins have been blown away by the water of baptism and the fire of confirmation.  But now, we must turn our eyes, our hands, and our hearts to rebuilding.

I cannot say, my brothers and sisters, what Pope Francis will be like.   I am hopeful that he will return us to a Church that focuses on love more than doctrine, that focuses on the poor more than reputation, that focuses on living love rather than speaking love.  He cannot do it alone.  And if he fails, we know that others have failed before him.

But the name Francis reminds us that every day people — people who arStFrancis2e not priests or nuns — can renew the Church and can live a life of love, a life of poverty, a life that is following Christ.  You and I, my sisters and brothers, must also take the name Francis.  Having a new pope is a sign to do so.  Having a new pope, though, is not a renewal of the Church or a rebuilding of the faith.  You and I: we are the renewers and the rebuilders through Christ Jesus and the love that we have for each other.

A Feast for Reconciliation: Sunday 10 March 2013

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reconciliation

Oh, my brothers and sisters!  What wonderful News we have to share today: the reconciliation of the sinful with God through Jesus Christ!  Praise the Lord, my sisters and brothers, for the Gospel is good news, and the whole of Sacred Scriptures is a message of love.

Need I say any more than this:

19 I mean, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not holding anyone’s faults against them, but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

20 So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were urging you through us, and in the name of Christ we appeal to you to be reconciled to God.

No, my sisters and brothers, St. Paul says it all in his letter to the Corinthians.  We are reconciled to God through Christ.  God did not hold our faults against us.  Neither may we hold faults against others.  No, we must preach reconciliation with God.  Our message is a message of love and peace, to be lived in uprightness in the Lord.

In the light of this passage, we must read what happened to Joshua and the Isralites at Gilgal.  God has wiped the “shame” of Egypt from them.  Egypt was not their sin, but they, like we, were shamed of the state that they held there.  But God cleanses them, just as cleanses us.  Through baptism, we are cleansed, and then we celebrate with the food brought from the land

And we all are familiar, my brothers and sisters, with the story of the prodigal son.  This son, greedy and lazy, begs his father for his inheritance and runs away with it, squandering it on all manner of things.  We too, my sisters and brothers, squprodigalsonander our inheritance.

One way we squander our inheritance is simple materialism.  How many TVs and radios do we have?  How many game systems?  How often do we work for money and pride and status?  Yes, my brothers and sisters, we squander our inheritance by investing our souls into material things and spiritual highs: drunken on our own arrogance.

But we also squander our inheritance every time we do not forgive.  We squander our inheritance whenever we refuse to live up to our own potential.  We squander our inheritance by denying that the Day of the Lord is here!  But if only we would realize our reconciliation with God, we would see the truth of our lives and we would feast: just as the prodigal son and his brother feasted with their father.

Thus, we must understand the situation that Jesus preaches against, my sisters and brothers.  The story of the prodigal son is the story of Israel and of our Church.  The Pharisees and Sadducees are condemning Jesus for feasting with the sinners and tax-collectors.  In His story, they are both sons.  The Pharisees and Sadducees live by the rules of God, but they do not live by His love.  So the Father must instruct them that they must love their brother, even if he was a sinner.  And in that instruction, we see that the Pharisees and Sadducees have become the prodigal son.  But they too, if they would only reconcile with God, could feast and share the inheritance that we all have from the Lord.

Our Church must also learn this lesson.  This week, the hierarchy will ponder the election of another pope.  We have lived too long with popes who condemn rather than celebrate our reconciliation with God through Christ Jesus.  We live too long with a Church hierarchy who is much like the Pharisees and Sadducees, my brothers

A Bishop With Gun

A Bishop With Gun

and sisters.  They do not heed the words of St. Paul, which I shall repeat again:

not holding anyone’s faults against them,

 

 

If our Church could only reconcile itself with God through Jesus, we can experience the new world that St. Paul tells us about:

17 So for anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation: the old order is gone and a new being is there to see.

So, I pray, my sisters, that you will be this new creation and help me to join you in it.  I pray my brothers, that you too will be this new creation.  I pray that together, we can let the light of this new creation shine on all; that we will, not only preach the reconciliation with God, but be that reconciliation.  And I pray that our new pope will serve this reconciliation and preach the new creation that is our inheritance.  To do any less is to squander it.main.feast

Doom and Gloom, or not– Sunday 3 March 2013

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Burning-Bush My sisters and brothers, the readings for this week are filled with dire warnings, with clouds hanging over us, and with a warning that if we do not repent, we shall meet the dire fate of others.

Moses, for the first time, sees Yahweh in the burning bush–the bush that is not consumed by the flame.  How does Yahweh identify Yahweh’s self?

‘I am he who is.’

and

“Yahweh, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.”

These identifiers tell us something important.  First, that God is, and second, that God relates to people.  Indeed, God relates to these identifiable people: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Of the mass of people who lived in the history of the world, God revealed God’s self to these people.  But something comes with that identification, with the claim to be the God of these people:

8 And I have come down to rescue them from the clutches of the Egyptians and bring them up out of that country, to a country rich and broad, to a country flowing with milk and honey, to the home of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites.

God hears the suffering of the people of this world, and it is because of that suffering that God reveals God’s self.  We should think upon the wonderful meaning of that relationship.  God identifies with a people and hears their suffering and wishes to relieve that suffering.  It was not because they kept the ways of God, or because they were kings, or because they knew the magic words.  No.  God came to those who suffer.  And God still comes to those who suffer.

I do not mean, of course, that God answers all of our prayers, or that God will touch each sick person and cure that person or release each prisoner.  Jesus came for that.  It was His mission, to proclaim liberty to all.  And we are called to be like-Christ.

Which leads us to the doom and gloom:

barren-fig-tree7 He said to his vinedresser, “For three years now I have been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and finding none. Cut it down: why should it be taking up the ground?”

In this parable, Jesus has us imagine someone frustrated that the tree he has planted has yielded no fruit.  Of course, you and I would be just like that person: we would want to cut down the tree and plant a new one.  But the tree keeper holds his hand:

8 “Sir,” the man replied, “leave it one more year and give me time to dig round it and manure it:

9 it may bear fruit next year; if not, then you can cut it down.” ‘

We, you and I, brothers and sisters, have been freed by God’s son, Jesus, to be the Good News for others.  Are we that Good News?  This question is the central question of our Lenten reflections.  Lent has nothing to do with giving up candy or chocolate or not eating meCandyBarsat on Fridays.  No, my brothers and sisters, Lent is about asking ourselves how we relate to others in this world.

See, my sister, when we give up that candy bar, we have done something that looks only at our individual self.  My brother, when we give up that beer during Lent, we focus only on our immediate desires.  Lent is a call to love others and to repent when we have not loved the other.  It is a call to turn toward out brothers and sisters and to give them the Good News.

Thus, we are offered a caution:

12 Everyone, no matter how firmly he thinks he is standing, must be careful he does not fall.

Our self-centeredness can lead us to believe in ourselves above anything else.  We may even believe that we have insight to God that others lack.  Or insight to truth.  Or insight into justice.  And when that belief in our self is so strong, we must be careful.

God does not call us to abandon every concern for our individual lives.  If God did, then God would never come to save the Israelites from the Egyptians.  God would never have sent Jesus to give us the Good News.  God would never call us to care for others. Yes, we are calledhomeless1 to die to our selves, because that self can become so strong that it is all that matters.  And so we give up candy and beer, or lunches out, or sex, and we think we have done something good.  But our Lenten call is to be like Jesus– to give ourselves to others.  Which means we must die to our own self-righteousness.  For self-righteousness heals no one.  We must die to the idea that we have the one path to God, the one path to truth, the one path to justice, for on a path alone, we will fall, and there will be no one there to heal us.

God is not the God of one person, or one people, or of the many.  God is the God of all.  And we are called, my brothers and sisters, to reach out to those who suffer, just as Yahweh reached out to the enslaved Israelites, just as Jesus reached out to the blind, the sick, and the sinner.

And to us!

Praise be God!

 

Faith and the Way of Christ, Sunday 24 February 2013

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Imagine yourself, taken out to a grove.  It is dark, but the air is fresh.  Thetent sounds of the night come to you–an owl hooting in the distance, wind blowing in the trees, crickets chirping.  You are lulled to sleep.

Then you wake up, and there before you, out of nowhere, is Jesus standing with the prophet Elijah and with Moses!  How glorious the three of them seem together, and you understand, briefly, the person you have been following: Jesus the Christ!  Then a vapor cloud rolls in, and when it is gone, you stand there with Jesus and your friend.  What would you think?  How would you even begin to put words together?

All you know, deep in your heart, are these words:

35 ‘This is my Son, the Chosen One. Listen to him.’

So you follow Jesus until He is abused, crucified, and buried.

Where is your faith now?

That is the question that Abram asks Yahweh in the first reading:

8 ‘Lord Yahweh,’ Abram replied, ‘how can I know that I shall possess it?’

So Yahweh has Abram prepare a sacrifice, and in the middle of the night, God burns the sacrifice and seals the pack with Abraturkey-sacrifice-feastm.  Our sacrifice is Jesus.  We take on faith that he is the Son of God, that He loves us, and that we will be made whole in Him.  Yet, how are we to know who to listen to in this world of many speakers and few listeners?  Paul gives us the answer:

17 Brothers, be united in imitating me. Keep your eyes fixed on those who act according to the example you have from me.

18 For there are so many people of whom I have often warned you, and now I warn you again with tears in my eyes, who behave like the enemies of Christ’s cross.

19 They are destined to be lost; their god is the stomach; they glory in what they should think shameful, since their minds are set on earthly things.

We must look only to the example of Christ’s life to find our own answers.  And then we look at those who follow His example.  Others we must guard ourselves against, not listening to them, but perhaps trying to reach out to them and convert them.  And what is Christ’s example:

The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 19 to proclaim a year of favour from the Lord.solidarity

If people speak of Good News to the afflicted, to those who have sin and who have suffered, then they follow Christ’s example.  If someone proclaims liberty to captives, opens the eyes of those who cannot see, and free those who are oppressed, then that person follows the example of Christ.  If someone speaks of favor from the Lord, then that person mirrors Christ.

But if they speak hatred, if they cannot speak of love to everyone, if charity does not mark their words and actions, and they spend their time crying hate on others, never lifting a hand to help the poor and the sick and the imprisoned, if they eschew the Gospel message of justice as if it has nothing to do with Life Eternal, then we must guard ourselves againcanada_10_13_04_church_sex_scandalst them.

And if, instead, lust fills them, they seek power and money and food.  They pervert the truth to hide those who are shameful, just as our bishops did to hide the pedophiles, then we know they have turned their back upon the word of Christ.

But we cannot — we must not — turn our own backs on the words of Christ!  We, my brothers and sisters, you and I, must speak out the Good News!  To turn our backs on Christ is to let the pedophiles and the patriarchs of injustice win.  No, we must stand firm in our resolve and call continually: Love is the way, Love is the way, Love is the way.

Jesus led us in this example.  When the Pharisees and Sadducees condemned Him for healing on the Sabbath, he saMarchid “The Sabbath was made for humankind, not humankind for the Sabbath.”  And when they asked Him why His disciples did not wash before dinner, He said that sin comes from within us, not from without.   We must seek the Truth, the Way, and the Life by following His example and loving all.

Praise the Lord, my sisters and brothers!

Temptation, Sunday 17 February 2013- 1st Sunday of Lent

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Good morning, my brothers and sisters!  We are now into our Lenten observance. Last week, I suggested that our Lord has sacrificed all for us; our task is to live in Him by doing what we love for Him, for others, and for ourselves.

3 Then the devil said to him, ‘If you are Son of God, tell this stone to turn into a loaf.’dark bread on white

Daily we are tempted.  Some times– most times– we are tempted for our daily needs.  We need bread, food and drink, and many other things.  In our world, these goods are held out for us if we only sell our soul to the machine of capitalism, to the silence our bosses require of us, to the commodities our government promises us instead of freedom.

6 ‘I will give you all this power and their splendour, for it has been handed over to me, for me to give it to anyone I choose.

7 Do homage, then, to me, and it shall all be yours.’

Daily we are tempted.  Some times we are tempted with power.  We have power over our children and our animals.  We have power over our spouses.  We can abuse that power and make ourselves feel meaningful in a world where we hurt.  We have sold our souls for the iMac and iPod, for the flat screen TV, and the dishwasher and the fast food.  All of our senses filled, we can still feel empty, and power subsumes that emptiness for a while.  Oh, I don’t mean by hitting, though that is one way we exercise power.  I mean by the harsh words we use and the way we deny our loved ones what they need– a kind word, a simple hAugustusCeaserug, a loving gesture.  Peace.

Our country is in lust with power over this world, and we watch doing nothing.  How much of our GDP is spent on the military, on conquering the world.  Only a small percentage of that could feed and clothe and house and give health care to the world.  But we lord it over others with stealth drones.

9 Then he led him to Jerusalem and set him on the parapet of the Temple. ‘If you are Son of God,’ he said to him, ‘throw yourself down from here,

Daily we are tempted to test the Lord God.  We beg God, if only you will heal my mother, I will change my ways.  If only the Fighting Irish win, I will give to the poor.  If only we can erase terror frmichael_archangelom the world, we will turn our money and energy to green energy.

We are not Jesus.  But we are called to bear witness to Jesus.  Every time we are tempted, we must resist by committing our hearts to the Lord.  And when we have committed those hearts, we speak the Gospel to others.  Not shouting, not with fists and anger, but with peaceful words, gently calling to others — help me resist this temptation, and I will do my best to help you my sister,  my brother.  Last week, we say Isaiah scream out that he was not worthy to prophesy because his lips were sinful, and the angel of the Lord touched hot coals to his lips.  We too, my brothers and sisters, are not worthy.  But God has chosen us; God has cleansed our lips through baptism and the fire of the Spirit.  We must preach the Gospel:

10 It is by believing with the heart that you are justified, and by making the declaration with your lips that you are saved.

Who?  Who is called to preach the Gospel?  Who is called to hear the Gospel?  Not the many, my friends.  No, not the many.

12 …the same Lord is the Lord of all, and his generosity is offered to all who appeal to him,

13 for all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

We are to give sacrifice this Lenten season, my brothers and sisters.  But that sacrifice is the fatted calf of consumerism!  Our true first fruits, my friends, IShopThereforeIAmare not these material things which hang like weights around our necks.  No, our first fruits are the words we speak when we preach the Gospel and ask forgiveness.  Our first fruits are the actions we do when we walk humbly with God, living justly and loving kindly.

May God bless us all over this Lenten season.

Sunday Reflections 10, February 2013

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8 When Simon Peter saw this he fell at the knees of Jesus saying, ‘Leave me, Lord; I am a sinful man.’

9 For he and all his companions were completely awestruck at the catch they had made;

10 so also were James and John, sons of Zebedee, who were Simon’s partners. But Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid; from now on it is people you will be catching.’

Our readings today concern the unworthiness of those called to carry the gospel message.  Isaiah sees the Lord and cries out that his lips are unclean.  An angel touches his lips with hot coals and cleanses him of sin.  Paul tells of his own unworthiness saying that it is grace, not he, that works for the Lord and preaches the Gospel.  And in the Gospel, we see one story of how Jesus called Peter, James and John to follow Him.  Peter, perhaps foretelling his denial of Christ later, says he is a sinful man.

Jesus’ response is simple: “Do not be afraid.”

My brothers and sisters, I say the same thing to you and to me now.  I am no one special; I commit my own sins, break the laws of God, and feel doubt in my heart almost on a daily basis.  How could we not when we look out in the world and see the evil that we do and that others do?

If the Gospel message is that we are called to liberty, then we must embrace Jesus’ words.  We cannot be afraid, though fear strikes our hearts and makes us want to shut our months and hide under the table when we see a violation of the Lord’s law.  We must speak out to those who deny life, who treat the poor with unkindness, who walk away from the homeless and deny their fellow brother and sister good health and good jobs.  We must speak out not fearing the repercussions.

But if we do speak out, we must do so as Jesus did: with love.  Unlike Jesus, we are filled with sin.  But our calling is to face that sin, recognize it, and try to find forgiveness for ourselves. For if we can forgive ourselves and ask that forgiveness of others, then we can forgive others as well.  Our task in preaching the Gospel is never to condemn but always to call patiently: what about your sister who lies crying in the alley selling her body for want of food?  what about your brother sick and homeless for want of work?

What about the Lord hanging on the Cross?

We approach lent, my brothers and sisters, a time of renewal. Yes, renewal my friends.  That renewal is often given with sacrifice, but what good our sacrifice when Christ has sacrificed all for us.  No, my brothers and sisters, if Lent is for anything, it is to heal ourselves through the Gospel message — to renew ourselves in the Lord by dedicating ourselves to living justly, loving kindly, and walking humbly with the Lord.

How do we do this?  By doing those things  that we love.  They, and they alone, lead us to God.

Love, and do what you will — Sunday 3 February 2013

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In the first and second readings, we see the value of love, and in the gospel passage, we see love cast out.

No doubt, many of us are familiar with the passage from First Corinthians chapter 13:1-13.  It is an ode to love.  Without love, nothing we do is worth anything and nothing can save us.  We see the faithful Jews sitting in the synagogue listening to Jesus, and they are so riled up, they take Him to the top of a mountain to throw Him off.  Their actions had no effect, for action without love is empty.

How often do you or I sit in our pews on Sunday filled with anger or even hate?

Maybe those around us are dressed in jeans and tee-shirts, and we don’t like that.  Or maybe someone’s child is noisy, and we wish they’d take that child outside.  There’s the old man who every Sunday during the petitions prays for the same thing, and his voice irritates us.  Or maybe the priest says something we don’t like.  Does he tell us to love God by giving what we have to the poor?  Or maybe that love should guide our social policy?  Or maybe he says nothing about the world at all and gives a lecture suited for a classroom?

Without love, our time at mass is meaningless.  We can only hope that receiving the Eucharist will break our stone hearts and open them to love.  Likewise, without love, the teachings of the Church and the magesterium fall like pebbles from the lips.

We must remember that when we do preach love we will be shunned.  I do not mean that we should relish being the object of someone’s hate.  No; it is no sign that we are right when others hate what we say.  All we can do is speak from love and with love.  And if others hate us for love, we must love them regardless.

For without love, their hate is meaningless.  And without love, our persecution is for nothing.