15th sunday in ordinary time

Posted on by Cassie

The value that Jesus holds out to us in today’s gospel is the value of traveling lightly through life by living more simply.  It’s the value of not making too much of material things so that they get in the way of our reaching out to God in trust or to our neighbor in service.

When Jesus instructs us to travel lightly as we journey through life, He is not telling us that we have to get rid of our cars, empty our freezers,  clean out our closets or cut up our credit cards.   He is telling us not to let our material goods make us forget our dependence on God or harden our hearts to the poor.  He is urging us not to become selfish with what we have so that we become insensitive to the injustice and oppression that surround us.

In other words– we travel the safest in this life if we travel the lightest.  We gain more by giving than by getting.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell

 

14th sunday in ordinary time

Posted on by Cassie

In todays Gospel, Jesus speaks to His own town’s people, but they lack faith to listen to Him seriously.  They find Him too much for them, causing Jesus to say: “no prophet is without honor except
in his own house.”

Who are the prophets today? It is still the Lord Jesus Himself, the word Incarnate through His presence in the readings of Scripture.  He still speaks to us through the good news of the Gospel.  Through His presence in the sacraments He still touches us with His power and healing.

Jesus also speaks to us through such people as Bishop Desmond TuTu and Saint Teresa of Calcutta who speak to us about racism and care of the poor. He uses Charismatic people to inspire us to do noble deeds, even heroic deeds at times.

We should not be surprised at the people God picks to be His prophets.  Some of them we will like, others we will dislike. The important thing is to be sensitive to the message the Lord speaks through them about injustice and oppression, or about poverty and hunger.

We need to think about how we are responding to God’s prophets in our world. Sometimes we are stubborn of heart.  God sends prophets to us to speak about matters of supreme importance and we are too immersed in superfluous matters.  Prophets come asking ultimate questions about life and death, but we are too hung up on trivial questions.

No wonder there is so little peace, justice and happiness in our society. We shut our ears to what God is saying to us through His prophets.  No wonder Jesus can work no miracles through us. We find Him and His prophets too much for us. We lack faith.  May Jesus open our hearts to hear what His prophets are saying to us — sometimes to provoke and rebuke us, at other times to inspire and encourage us.  May He also increase our faith so that we can respond to His prophetic message and allow Him to work His miracles through us.

God Bless

Msgr. Powell

13th sunday in ordinary time

Posted on by Cassie

Today’s readings deal with the topic of death.  In Wisdom we are told: “God did not make death; He does not rejoice in the distraction of the living.  For He fashioned all things that they might exist.  He formed them to be imperishable.

In today’s Gospel story we hear that Jairus’ daughter is dead.  Undaunted by this report, Jesus goes and takes her hand and says: “Little girl, get up.”  She stands up immediately.

On the one hand, we note that these readings do not deny the destroying power of death.  But on the other hand, they also declare that in the end death will be defeated by life.

Implicit in these readings is a hint of the day of our own resurrection, when we too will get up from the sleep of death and our imperishable nature will be fully revealed.  Then will the saying of today’s Psalm 30 be true.  “Our mourning will be changed into dancing and we will forever give thanks to the Lord.”

Nevertheless, the thought of death still arouses a lot of dread in us and depresses us.  We need to think about how we deal with death personally.  Some of us try to escape death, at least for the moment.  We delude ourselves into thinking that we can defeat death, at least temporarily, by distracting ourselves with drugs, sex or excitement.

Some try to accept death philosophically.  They claim that death is not opposed to life, but is  essential for its growth and maturity.  The specter of death can make us live with greater urgency and intensity.

Then there are some of us who are able to face death with faith in Jesus Christ.  Ultimately it is our faith in the resurrection of the body that enables us to defeat death decisively.  Ours is a faith which allows us to read the gospel story about Jairus’ daughter not as a remembrance of a past historical happening, but as a proclamation and promise of our own rising from the dead by the hand of Jesus.

God Bless,

Msgr. Powell