2025 Jul 20 SUN: SIXTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Gn 18: 1-10a/ Ps 15: 2-3. 3-4. 5 (1a)/ Col 1: 24-28/ Lk 10: 38-42

We may have been confused last week by some words of St. Paul in this letter to the Colossians, and today he provides us with another puzzle.

He says, "In my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ for the sake of His body, the Church." And we have to ask, what could that possibly mean?

We understand and we teach consistently that the suffering, the passion of Jesus, His death, His resurrection, these things are sufficient for our salvation, that free gift we often talk about.

So what could Paul mean by this? It seems that he is thinking about the growth of the Church, and feeling a sense of solidarity, we might say, with all the people who will come into the Church, the People of God. As he makes his way around various communities along the Mediterranean Sea, he witnesses growth, and he knows that sufferings will have to take place as a result of this growth.

And we turn to the first reading today, and we have a demonstration of a quality to be expected in that world at that time. The quality -- the virtue -- of hospitality.

And we find this to be a somewhat strange story, because it's kind of disjointed. First it says that Abraham met the Lord, and then it says that there are three men before Abraham.

So this is rather confusing. As Christians, we have tended to look back on this incident of Genesis chapter 18, and we see here a foreshadowing of the revelation of God as Trinity, one God, three persons. And of course the Trinity was not revealed until the time of Jesus. So that is a thing that we as Christians can do when we reflect on the Old Testament, that there are things there that are pointing to the Christian revelation.

And so Abraham and Sarah exercise hospitality. Their world was a bit different from ours. And we can reflect and realize that you and I have time itself sort of chopped up into little pieces, because we are going here and there and meeting social responsibilities of various kinds.

Abraham's world was not like that. They had the time to pay attention to somebody who would just show up. They had traveled long distances themselves, and they knew that there were very, very few stops along the way for refreshment. 

So they exercised hospitality, and then comes the message: "By about this time next year, Sarah will have a son." And if we go on further in chapter 18 of Genesis, we find out that Sarah is listening and she's laughing. And later Abraham said, "You were laughing." And she replies, "No, I wasn't." So it's quite a thing, and an obvious thing to laugh about if you are past childbearing. But yes, they had their son, Isaac, and that name comes from a root meaning laughter. 

Hospitality is at work in the Gospel as well. And this time, Martha, the one offering the hospitality, is consumed with anger, not anger, with anxiety. Yeah, there's anger mixed in there too, definitely, as she thinks that Mary ought to be helping her. But what prevails in Martha is anxiety. And Jesus speaks to calm her.

"Martha, Martha, you are anxious and upset about many things. Only one thing is needed, and Mary has opened herself to that one thing necessary."

Every one of us knows that we have a lot of anxiety. This is kind of well an unorganized feeling, you might say. We know that we believe that much is expected from us, and we go about meeting various obligations, and we wonder whether we have met them all.

And so, like Martha, we can be filled with anxiety. I know I have been in such circumstances, and there is no contrast like the contrast between anxiety and peace.

And we know that our God wants peace for every one of us. And so, with Martha, we trust, we learn to know what really matters, what things are peripheral, so we can settle ourselves in great peace.

Remembering that we can have this gift because God does care for us as Jesus expressed it to Martha. You are anxious and worried about many things, and all you need is my peace.

2025 Jul 13 SUN: FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Dt 30: 10-14/ Ps 69: 14. 17. 30-31. 33-34. 36. 37 OR Ps 19: 8. 9. 10. 11/ Col 1: 15-20/ Lk 10: 25-37

We have all heard from teachers and other people that there is no such thing as a dumb question. No such thing as a stupid question.

We may find ourselves having to ask quite fundamental questions, for instance, if we're in an unfamiliar situation and we just have to get ourselves oriented. We have a case here of someone who is afraid that he has asked a dumb question.

This scholar of the law reminds me of the wealthy man that we also find in the Gospel who asks the same question. And it seems as if both of them want to figure out how to get this salvation thing sewn up, because it is such an inconvenient thing to have to be thinking about salvation all the time.

This man has to give himself credit, because when he answered Jesus' question about what is in the law, he took two laws that are in different books of the Torah and put them together. That is actually something to be proud of.

But after he receives that answer from Jesus, he feels embarrassed. He thinks, "I just asked him a dumb question." And so he had to justify himself by going deeper, and he latches on to that word "neighbor." He asks, "Who is my neighbor?" And Jesus definitely has an answer for him.

So we have this man who has been robbed, stripped, beaten up, and is in a terrible condition on the road. And then along comes what we could call a professional religious person.

And what does that professional religious person do? He says, "I didn't see that." And likewise, another, a Levite, likewise a priest, comes along, sees what has happened in the road. And he says, "I didn't see that." 

And then Jesus says that a third person comes along, and he is a Samaritan.

Now it's kind of strange. The origins of the division between Jews and Samaritans is rather obscure. But it may be somewhat like the situation of our own families, where maybe there's one branch of the family that we don't have anything to do with.

And someone might ask, "Why is that?" And the reply may come back, "I don't remember." But there was this split.

Well, the Samaritan who is looked down upon by the Jews acts with compassion. He is reading the law which is in his heart.

He's in an unexpected situation, but he knows that he has the time and he has the money to address this situation. And he is doing precisely what Moses is talking about. When Moses says, "The law is not up in the sky. The law is not across the sea. It is right here in your heart. You have only to carry it out."

So we have to think very deeply about the answer that Jesus gives to this scholar of the law. And it is interesting that this man cannot bring himself to say "the Samaritan." He says: "the one who treated him with mercy." And Jesus says, "Yes, that is what it means to be a neighbor." And he says, "I respond to the common humanity of all of us in spite of any barriers we may put up." 

In addition, we're beginning to read from St. Paul's letter to the Colossians, which begins with actually a hymn, a canticle, which describes Jesus as the firstborn of all creatures. That line has caused us a lot of trouble. It was especially troublesome in the very early Church. People read that line and said, "Oh, Jesus is not God. There was a time when he was not." But we corrected that mistaken notion.

In fact, it's been said that it's probably well to translate that line, the firstborn OVER all creation. And we remember that there is another line in there that echoes that line. It is the line, "He is the firstborn from the dead." It's good for us to keep those two lines of this canticle in our mind and in our heart, remembering that Jesus toward us has been the good Samaritan, responding to the sorry state, the state of sin that we find ourselves in. He has responded to us on the road and he has lifted us up.

2025 Jul 6 SUN: FOURTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
Is 66: 10-14c/ Ps 66: 1-3. 4-5. 6-7. 16. 20 (1)/ Gal 6: 14-18/ Lk 10: 1-12. 17-20

Our Scriptures begin today with an image from the prophet Isaiah of the most natural thing in the world: a mother feeding her child with her own milk. It is an image of comfort. And comfort is something that we all need. We turn then to the Gospel and it seems as if there's not much in the way of comfort. These 72 disciples are to go out on Jesus' command to proclaim the Kingdom of God in various towns. And Jesus himself seems to foresee, well, you're going in among wolves. That doesn't sound very comforting. They go in pairs and if we, if we reflect on this, we realize that if two people can get along with each other that would seem to be a proof of the integrity of what they are talking about.

And it happens that they come back rejoicing. They are proclaiming and in so many cases successfully proclaiming the Kingdom of God. Now that expression is something that we hear very often but we may not have a good grasp of it. We know the kingdom of the world. We know that our world operates according to many rules that need to be discarded. We proclaim the Kingdom of God to the extent that our own hearts are changed, to the extent that we bring God's peace and love into our own social situations. And in fact we are instruments of this kingdom. Our hearts have been changed and from those changed hearts we bring comfort to the world and we ourselves find comfort. So we must all live on behalf of the Kingdom of God and we must all be disciples like these 72. We take responsibility for bringing good news to a world which needs to be healed and comforted.

These 72 came back rejoicing. You and I, as we carry out our own discipleship, may find that the process is wearying; but we know that our God gives us the perseverance which is necessary for us to keep going. A perseverance which has a goal in mind: our own fullness of life. We hear today from St. Paul at the end of his letter to the Galatians and he is reflecting on the ways in which God has changed him and how he has found that he is to preach freedom to people across the world that he knows. And he is looking at his history of doing this and he says, I bear the brand marks of Jesus on my body. He is speaking about what can be seen. We have to look deeper and remember that, yes, with those brand marks in place there is also a heart which is overflowing and again saying I am here to give comfort to God's people.

2025 Jun 29 SUN: PETER AND PAUL, APS S
Vigil: Acts 3: 1-10/ Ps 19: 2-3. 4-5/ Gal 1: 11-20/ Jn 21: 15-19. Day: Acts 12: 1-11/ Ps 34: 2-3.4-5. 6-7. 8-9/ 2 Tm 4: 6-8. 17-18/ Mt 16: 13-19

When we think of Peter and Paul, we think of their leadership in the early Church. They did different things. They both found themselves in Rome, we believe somewhere between the years 64 and 67, and they were martyred while Nero was emperor. They had differing personalities and they did different things. And it is instructive for us to consider how they led the earliest believers in Jesus.

We see, of course, from the Acts of the Apostles that Peter spent a good deal of time in Jerusalem and the area surrounding it. And what we hear today from the Acts of the Apostles is the threat of death that he was under there. And in fact that passage from Acts 12 begins with the martyrdom of St. James, the brother of John. He was the first of the apostles to be put to death. And it appeared that Peter himself was going to be part of that deadly process. We read about how he was freed from prison in spite of all those guards and all those locks. The locks and the chains fell away and he felt like he was in a dream. And I think we can apply this to ourselves.

Peter did not have an instruction manual for how to lead the People of God. And I'm sure it has occurred to most, if not all of us, that as we carry out our work, it does end up being a case of on-the-job training. We find out for ourselves how to flourish in our chosen work. And we have to get used to that idea for all the dimensions of our life. There are things we feel called to do that we may not dare to do, but the Holy Spirit is giving us strength, giving us the grace to live authentic lives. And we know that that always comes at some risk to ourselves. But we do find ourselves affirmed as we carry out the commands of love and witness to justice for all people. In Peter's case, he became the first bishop of Rome, that is the first of the Popes. And it was with that leadership role that he was put to death. 

Paul had a different journey. He was far more educated than Peter was. He was zealous in persecuting the first Christians. But he met the risen Jesus on the road. He experienced conversion. And in fact, when we are engaged in on-the-job training, that is what is offered to us. Conversion, by which we know that we belong to God and to the God who became human out of love for us. And that truth has to work on us every day. Paul became, as we call him, the apostle to the nations. And he traveled around the Mediterranean world to various places. He founded churches, Corinth in Greece, for instance. And as we hear his words today, which we believe were written from prison in Rome, he says he has fought the good fight. Now this doesn't necessarily mean aggression in the sense that we think. He has fought the good fight by witnessing to the one who has completely changed his life.

And we seek to do the same thing. In our day, the bishops who have succeeded Peter and Paul are lifting up their voices on behalf of justice, especially for people who are poor and utterly vulnerable in our country. They are lifting up their voices. And this is something that Peter in particular had to learn.

To be a leader is not to say I have all the answers. To be a leader is to say I am carrying out a service for the people. And in fact, I do not have all the answers, but I can give witness to what I know is real, to what I know is necessary to live by. I know that the Redeemer of humanity laid down his life out of love for us. And we must ask ourselves every day, in order to be good leaders: Why has God loved us in this way? It is something that just stops us in our tracks. How is it that the Son of God, who did not need to go anywhere near our misery, how would he embrace our misery? Well, he has done so. He has given his life for us. And in submitting to death and to all that would seem to reduce us, in submitting he has been victorious over death. And we give thanks for this sort of leadership.

2025 Jun 22 SUN: THE BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST S
Gn 14: 18-20/ Ps 110: 1. 2. 3. 4/ 1 Cor 11: 23-26/ Optional Sequence Lauda, Sion/ Lk 9: 11b-17

This solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ was instituted in the 13th century. There were people at that time who said, "There needs to be a celebration of the Holy Eucharist which is apart from Holy Thursday." Apparently they had the idea that celebrating the Eucharist on Holy Thursday, the day it was instituted, made things too somber because Jesus' betrayal and arrest and condemnation and crucifixion immediately followed. 

Well, I don't think that we can separate the mystery of the Holy Eucharist from those events because Jesus was instituting the Eucharist so that, as Saint Paul says today, we can proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again. So we have from Saint Paul this most ancient account of what the earliest Christians did right away after the resurrection and after Pentecost, after the Pentecost event: they gathered together to celebrate the Lord's Supper. 

We also have today this very brief passage from the book of Genesis. There is a concept in Scripture study and it's called typology. In other words, when we examine the Old Testament we can discover things that seem to point to persons and things that happen in the New Testament; and probably the strongest example of typology is Melchizedek. We have to think about this figure who very quickly appears and then just as quickly disappears. He is described as the King of Salem or Jerusalem, so he can [also] be understood as king of righteousness.* That's what we get out of Melchizedek or from the name of Salem, Jerusalem, a king of peace, Shalom. He is described as the king of Salem or Jerusalem and this is more than a thousand years before David claimed Jerusalem as his city. We don't know the origins of Melchizedek and we don't know where he goes after this incident recorded for us in the 14th chapter of Genesis; and he offers bread and wine. So this is a very powerful image of Jesus himself, king of righteousness, king of peace, eternal high priest. These are the many things that we find in Melchizedek which point to Jesus himself. 

So then we come to the Gospel, and I believe that every one of us is always conscious of our need for food such that we will not wander out somewhere where we can't eat or drink. But this is exactly what the people following Jesus did, and I think that this is an indication to us that the people who were following Jesus were well aware of a hunger that went much deeper than the hunger for physical food. They considered all the woes and griefs of their life and they said, "I am in fact hungry for something deeper. I am hungry for my life to make sense and especially for interactions among people to make sense." And so we have this incident recorded. This is actually one of many in the four gospels of Jesus multiplying food. And we see that it is saying, "Yes, we have the deepest needs and hungers of them all. We hunger for life to make sense, for our relationships to make sense, and we find the fullness of sense, of peace, and of love." As Jesus says, "I will not simply feed you with loaves and fishes. I will feed you with myself."

*The "tzedek" of his name refers to righteousness.