Abbey-Roads2

From a homily sent to me by my Bruderhoff  buddy in New York:

A few years ago I viewed a public service advertisement on  television. Produced by an alcoholic rehabilitation group, it was intended to awaken people whose families had become dysfunctional because they were denying a self-evident fact, namely that someone in the family was an alcoholic and the unwillingness to acknowledge it was distorting, indeed ravaging, domestic life.

In the ad a family is relaxing in its living room. The father reclines in an easy chair perusing the newspaper.The mother sits on the couch sewing. A little girl watches TV. All of a sudden an elephant enters the living room and begins to upset things with almost every move. By the time the ad concludes, the family’s world has been turned upside-down. The father’s easy chair is tipped over, he is sprawled on the floor, his glasses are broken but he continues to try to read the newspaper. The mother lies on the couch underneath a busted lamp struggling to re-thread a needle and the little girl peeks around the elephant in order to watch a now crushed television set. However, in spite of this shattering breakdown in community life, no one is capable of speaking the plain truth: “There is an elephant in the room and it is ruining everything.” 

All continue to ignore the obvious. Like people myopically concerned with properly rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, everyone’s attention is entirely absorbed by incidental tasks which would be proper and right except for one terrible fact: there is an elephant in the room. This fact transforms these otherwise acceptable activities into dead-end escape routes from truth and reality. Said spiritually, good loses its goodness when it is permitted to become the agency by which evil is left unnamed and hence is allowed to engulf an ever greater area of life.

- From: “The Man Who Chose To See”

Girded loins and hearts burning ready… 

From the Sunday Angelus address:

Castelgandolfo, Aug 12, 2007 / 10:20 am (CNA).- Pope Benedict XVI has reminded the faithful to heed today’s Gospel reading by detaching themselves from material goods and instead preparing interiorly for Christ’s return.

Continuing on from last Sunday’s Gospel reading, which warned of attachment to worldly goods that are “for the most part illusory”, the Pope invited the faithful to instead direct themselves to “the heights of heaven”.   The believer, he added, “stays awake and keeps watch so as to be ready to welcome Jesus when he comes in all His glory”.

“Through examples found in daily life, the Lord exhorts his disciples to live with such an interior disposition, like the servants in the parable who await the return of their owner”, the Pope said, referring to today’s reading from Luke 12:37.  “We must therefore keep watch, praying and working for good”.  - Catholic News Agency

From the Summa Theologica:

“Some penances should be public and solemn for four reasons. First, so that a public sin may have a public remedy; secondly, because he who has committed a very grave crime deserves the greatest confusion even in this life; thirdly, in order that it may deter others; fourthly, that he may be an example of repentance, lest those should despair, who have committed grievous sins.” - St. Thomas Aquinas

Faithful, farsighted stewards. 

Perhaps one of the most admirable qualities of those folks whose faith is enlivened by the apparitions of Garabandal and Medjugorje is the depth of their spiritual preparedness and obvious devotion.  They have a renewed zeal for the Catholic faith, the liturgy, prayer and fasting, as well as works of charity.  Many vocations to priesthood and religious life have been realized in those who have been influenced by the events and messages of Medjugorje.

Today’s Gospel  speaks to us of the need for vigilance and preparedness for the Master’s return - something people who are touched by reports of apparitions are well aware of.  In many parish Churches, the shorter form of the Gospel will be read, missing the first paragraph of the reading destined for today.  (In a way it is too bad the entire chapter isn’t read - but it would be too much to digest in one reading.)

Fulfilling obligations.

In the part of the Gospel many people may not hear, Jesus begins by saying, “Do not live in fear, little flock.  It has pleased your Father to give you the kingdom.  Sell what you have and give alms.  Get purses for yourselves that do not wear out… wherever your treasure lies, there your heart will be.” - Like 12: 32-34  The rest of the Gospel continues to instruct us to be prepared for the Master’s return.

With all the commotion in church when Mass is over, after people have just received the Master in Holy Communion, I have to wonder if many even realized they just received the Lord’s Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity; the same Master whose return we are expected to be prepared for.  Sometimes I question if most people really believe any longer, if their attendance at Sunday Mass is anything more than a feel-good-about-doing-the-right-thing experience of fulfilling an obligation.

A ‘Passover’ mentality. 

It seems to me our faith and practice of the spiritual life should have the character of the Jewish observance of Passover.  Jesus says, “Let your belts be fastened around your waists and your lamps be burning ready.”  This images for me the Israelites on the eve of the Passover, while darkness surrounded their dwellings, and the world about them mocked their faith with jeering reproofs. 

The first reading from Wisdom reminds us of the faith and courage of our fathers in the first Passover, which foreshadowed the Lord’s Passover, memorialized in the Mass, as well as being an example for our own preparedness for Our Lord’s return - our final sharing in His Passover.  But I don’t think the average Sunday Catholic believes in all of that - much less understands it.

Spiritual sloth.

Most of us can become complacent in our faith.  We maybe say our daily prayers - when we have time, take an hour out of our week for Sunday Mass, and maybe give alms to the United Way or Catholic Charities, and we think we have done a great deal.  To be sure, being a Catholic isn’t that difficult when you consider all one has to do is keep the Commandments, attend Sunday and Holy Day Masses, perform one’s “Easter duty”, make a weekly donation in the collection plate, do something penitential on Fridys and during Lent, and so on.

Even the more devout who “do more”, can become complacent in their accomplishments.  Daily Mass and communion can become a habit.  We can receive Our Lord daily in communion  almost without realizing what a tremendous grace it is.  Unconscious that the Word we just listened to in the Gospel is “new” each day - the Spirit speaking to the Church, instructing, indeed warning us.  Leaving Mass, we go back to our daily lives that are filled with a variety of activities, comforts, luxuries, diversions and entertainments.  In other words, like the separation of Church and State, some of us segregate our religious life from our daily life.

Penance.

I think the life of the Christian is meant to be more than a perfunctory fulfillment of duties and obligations.  It seems to me, at least for myself, it really should have the character of a Passover; vigilance, seasoned with the bitter herbs of penance, guarded by a deep poverty of spirit, detached from all that distracts us from our heavenly goal.

But it requires a living faith - our loins girt and our hearts burning ready.  A faith like Abraham’s faith.  May the Blessed Virgin, Queen of prophets, obtain for all of us this holy faith, and the grace to be prepared for the Master’s return.

(Art: Jewish Passover.)