Hope that Doesn't Disappoint

Third Sunday of Lent–First Scrutiny
    St. Paul says today in the second reading: “we boast in hope of the glory of God.  And hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”  We probably associate hope more with Advent.  Or maybe when we think of hope we think of campaign slogans.  But Lent helps us to focus on hope, the theological virtue that draws us to have confidence in our salvation.
    Most of the time we use hope merely to denote a wish: I hope I win the lottery; I hope that cop didn’t see me speeding; I hope the Lions win a Super Bowl before I die.  None of those will likely happen.  But hope is more than just wishful (or maybe even delusional) thinking.  Hope draws us to God and enables us to trust that what He said would happen will happen.
    The Chosen People in the first reading today demonstrated the opposite of hope: despair.  God had promised the Chosen People that they would gain their freedom from slavery in Egypt, and that He would return them to the land He promised Abraham.  To put today’s reading in context, it comes after the Ten Plagues, including the death of the firstborn Egyptians; after the Jews had left Egypt; after they had gone through the Red Sea and the Egyptian army had been drowned.  And still, because they are thirsty, they cry out, “‘Why did you ever make us leave Egypt?’”  Even though God had proved He was trustworthy, they doubted God to do what He said He would do.  But even then, God further proved that they could trust Him, and provided them with water in a miraculous way.

    The Samaritan woman, too, was a woman bereft of hope.  We probably missed the short sentence that St. John gave as a clue of her hopelessness: “It was about noon.”  We’re used to driving to Meijer’s or Costco to pick up whatever we need at almost any time of the day or night.  But in the time of Christ, to draw water during the hottest part of the day meant that you did not want to be around others, or maybe that they didn’t want you to be around them.  She’s living with a man who is not her husband, and her five previous husbands have left her.  She likely relied on the generosity of others to survive, or possibly worked in an unsavory occupation just to feed herself.  To the Samaritan woman, God seemed far away, and probably not worthy of trust.  But God comes to her, in the Person of Jesus, to give her hope, living water that gives eternal life.  
    As we sit here on this third Sunday of Lent, do we hope in God?  Do we trust that He will fulfill His promise?  God has promised that if we follow Him daily, eternal life is the consequence.  We cannot see eternal life right now, beyond slight glimpses.  But as we choose what God has revealed is good for us, do we do so with the confidence that as our actions show that we want God more, He will not leave us hanging and dash our hopes against a rock, like the Lions always seem to do?  
    Especially during Lent, when we focus on the price of our salvation–the death of Christ, we might struggle with despair a bit.  We might wonder if the abstaining from meat on Fridays, the fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and our daily Lenten penances make any difference.  Or we might think about just what pain Christ suffered for us, and think that we are not worth it.  But God comes to us, like He came to the Samaritan woman, to tell us we are worth the price He paid, and that the little ways that we turn aside from our own will in order to focus on doing God’s will can prepare us for heaven, even if it’s happening a little at a time or even if we struggle to do our penitential practices.  Through our penitential practices, we are meant to allow the grace of God to open up our hearts even more so that they can receive more of the love of God the Father through the Holy Spirit whom God gave us at Holy Baptism.
    And you, our elect, chosen for the Easter sacraments: as we celebrate this first scrutiny, God comes to you to strengthen your hope and help you to persevere.  Christ came to you when you needed Him, and gave you the desire for the living waters which give eternal life, the saving waters of baptism.  He didn’t avoid you because of your past sins, whatever they may have been.  He came to you who did not have the hope of eternal life, which God ordinarily grants through baptism, and gave you hope to live forever with Him if you follow Him for the rest of your life and grow in love of Him.  Maybe you, like the Chosen People, have doubted if God will really do what He has promised.  At Easter, as you pass through your own Red Sea as the water is poured on your head, and as the paschal candle, the pillar of fire, leads you from darkness into light, you will see that God does fulfill His promises, and will give you new life.  You need only hold on to that hope that He inspired in you.
    Hope does not consist in mere wishing.  Theological hope holds on to the promise that God will give us eternal life if we are baptized and follow Him to the best of our ability after baptism.  That hope does not disappoint, because it is grounded in the one who loved us so much that He gave us His only Son, who suffered and died for us because He did not want us to live in despair, but wanted us to have eternal life with Him in heaven.  Allow the Holy Spirit to continue to pour hope into your hearts so that you can reach the true Promised Land, eternal happiness with God in heaven.  

Don't Take It For Granted

Solemnity of the Epiphany of our Lord

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.].  One of the great country music singers (in my humble opinion) is Merle Haggard.  One of those hits was a song called “You Take Me For Granted,” and was a number one hit on the country charts.  The song talks about being taken for granted in a relationship, doing everything he can to make her happy, all the while she doesn’t seem to care (sounds like a country song, doesn’t it?). 
    One of the things that we may take for granted is being a part of God’s people.  Because the Church has been around for 2,000 years, we are used to a truly Catholic Church, a church that welcomes anyone to join her ranks, regardless of race or ethnicity.  But what we take for granted was quite novel in the beginning of the Church, and one of the ways that Catholicism started to peel away from Judaism early on.
    Because the Old Testament is clear that God chose a certain people.  God chose Abraham, and then promised to be his God and to make of Abraham a great nation through his son, Isaac.  And then Isaac had Jacob, and Jacob (also named Israel) had twelve sons, who became a nation great in numbers.  From that point on you could talk about a Chosen People, a People God had made His own.  And it was God’s original intent that, through this Chosen People the nations would see the glory of the Lord and be joined to them, and so salvation for all those God had created would come.
    From this Chosen People God raised up a Savior, Jesus Christ, a son of Abraham and Son of God.  And most of His ministry was among the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  There are a few foreigners who receive healings and miracles from the Lord (the Samaritan woman, the centurion, and the Syro-Phoenecian woman to name a few), but mostly Christ ministered among the Jews.  The first proclamation of the Gospel after the Ascension was to Jews who were gathered in Jerusalem for Pentecost, and thousands were baptized.
    But then Peter had a vision from God, where he was instructed to eat unclean animals, which Peter says he had never done, and God said not to call unclean what He had made clean.  Then messengers from Cornelius, a non-Jew (Gentile is the word) came and asked Peter to go to Cornelius’ house, and, upon arriving, Cornelius and his household showed signs of the Holy Spirit at work among them, so Peter baptized them, thus opening Christianity up to those who were not already part of the Chosen People.  The Apostles met in Jerusalem to confer about this, with the newest Apostle, Paul, who had also been spreading the Gospel among the Gentiles, and they agreed not to make Gentile become Jewish in order to call themselves a follow of Christ.

    That major change (Gentiles being able to become the people of God), however, was prefigured in what we celebrate today: the visit of the magi to the Holy Family.  The magi were non-Jews, Gentiles, likely from Persia or there about, and yet they were led to Christ as the newborn King of the Jews.  The Persians probably did not care much about the Jews.  They certainly had not cared about King Herod.  But something draws them to worship this newborn King, and offer Him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Joseph and Mary, probably taken aback, do not, however restrict them, but accept their gifts with appreciation.  Who knows?  Maybe Mary kept the myrrh and was going to use it for our Lord’s burial.
    We probably take for granted that we can be welcomed into the Church, even though we are not Jews.  But we shouldn’t.  We should give thanks that salvation was opened up to all nations by the new sign of the covenant, Baptism, which is also celebrated today in the Epiphany.  God did not need to open to salvation to those outside the people He had chosen as His own, but He lovingly did.  We do not have a right to be saved, and yet God extends His salvation to us because of His great love for us.  In the magi, all of the pagan nations that surrounded Israel were represented, and Christ’s mission to all peoples began, even as a small seed that wouldn’t bloom for some 30 years.
    The mission of the Church is to continue to bring into God’s People, the Church, all nations and peoples, so that they can be in a saving relationship with God.  Can God save people who are not baptized?  Certainly, He can if He wants.  But the only way we know we can start that process of salvation is through Baptism, and so our mission is to welcome others who are seeking the King of the Jews.  Often times, they are led by means that may be foreign to us, just as a good Jew would have never attempted to practice astrology, the means that the magi used to find Christ.  But it doesn’t mean that we should reject their searching, anymore than Mary and Joseph rejected the magi.
    In fact, our mission as Catholics, no matter what our vocation, is to draw people to Christ, and to help them see how Christ is already working in their life.  We call this prevenient grace, the grace that comes before.  No one ever seeks Christ on his or her own; Christ always manifests Himself in shadowed ways that draw the person to see the light of Christ’s life.  That person could be a Protestant or Evangelical who sees a need for someone to authentically interpret the Scriptures.  That person could be a Jew, who starts to recognize the ways in which our Lord fulfilled the prophecies connected with the Messiah.  That person could be a Muslim who is drawn to not only be a slave of God, but a beloved son or daughter in the Son of God.  That person could be an agnostic, hoping that there is a God, but not knowing if He can be found.  That person could be an atheist, who asserts that there is no God, but yet knows that our universe cannot explain itself.  All of those people need us to draw them closer to Christ.  We become like the star for the magi, leading them to worship the true God in His fullness.
    We can often take for granted how great our faith is, and what a treasure we have in the Church.  But God’s choice, His election of us, is pure gift, something that we could never earn, and to which we were not entitled, because we were not part of His Chosen People.  But God desires all to be save, and He asks us to cooperate in that work of salvation, by drawing others to Him.  Be a star to those around you, and lead them to Christ[, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen].

Our Approach to Others

 Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Parents here will recognize the time-honored teaching technique of repeating something in a variety of different ways with the same message.  If repeated enough, it can finally be understood.  And that is what we have heard from Jesus over the past few weeks.  Two weeks ago we heard the parable of the vineyard.  Those who came first were upset at those who came later, and yet were given the same payment.  Last weekend we heard the parable about the two sons.  The first was disobedient in words but obedient in actions.  The second was obedient in words but disobedient in actions.  This week we hear another vineyard parable, except this time, we hear about tenants who are supposed to care for the vineyard, but when the landowner sends servants to obtain the produce, they harass and kill them.  Finally, the landowner sends his son, but the tenants kill him, thinking that they will get his inheritance.

    These parables are probably being told towards the end of Jesus’ ministry before the crucifixion.  Two weeks ago the Gospel was from the beginning of Matthew, chapter 20.  Last week’s Gospel was Matthew, chapter 21, verses 28-32.  This week’s Gospel is Matthew, chapter 21, verses 33-43.  I say this because the beginning of Matthew, chapter 21 is the entry into Jerusalem that we celebrate each Palm Sunday. 

    And the point Jesus is making in all three of these Gospels has to do with the attitude of the Chosen People, and specifically the religious leaders like the Pharisees, scribes, chief priests, and Sadducees, to the proclamation of the Gospel, the Good News, by Jesus.  In the first parable, Jesus compares the attitude of the members of the Chosen People who are not rejoicing that sinners and Gentiles (non-Jews) are hearing God’s word and changing their lives to those who went to work early in the day, but then were upset when those who came later and especially those who came at the last minute got paid the same.  In the second parable, Jesus compares the sinners and Gentiles who, at first, reject God’s command, but eventually do it, and compares certain members of the Chosen People to the second son who says he’ll follow God’s command, but then doesn’t follow through and actually do it.  And in this parable that we heard today, certain members of the Chosen People are the tenants.  The servants are the prophets whom God sent to teach the Chosen People how to live.  The son is Jesus.  And the religious leaders do the same thing as the tenants: they kill both the servants and the son.  In all of these parables, Jesus is telling some of those who were listening that they were on the wrong path, and needed to convert and accept the Gospel.  And especially the religious leaders who heard this got angrier and angrier because they knew Jesus was talking about them (which is why the continued to conspire to put Jesus to death).
    So what does this have to do with us?  I would say that Catholics, in particular, can struggle in the same ways as those to whom Jesus was addressing His parables.  So often, especially in these days, Catholics have the mentality that, as long as we’re baptized and we’re not Hitler or Stalin, then we’re good; we’re on the right path.  But Jesus is telling us that, while baptism is important as the ordinary means of salvation and the way Jesus taught us to come into communion with God, it’s not like if we have our baptism card then we’re all set.  We are constantly called to deeper and deeper conversion, to deepen our love for and our understanding of God.  Each day there are parts of our lives that need to change to be more like Jesus; we’re never done.  Baptism can easily become for us like circumcision was for some of the the Jews at that time: as long as I’ve gone through it then I don’t need to worry about anything.  And that’s simply not how a relationship with God works.  If we truly love God, we try each day to be a better friend of God, not resting on our laurels of previously having a good day or week with God, or even simply on the fact that we’ve had our Catholic card punched.
    The other struggle we can have is based upon how we view welcoming others into the Catholic faith.  Sometimes we can feel like a person needs to have it all together before they can be invited to church.  Certainly, entrance into the Catholic Church requires that daily conversion about which I just spoke.  But Jesus didn’t tells sinners that they needed to be a saint before they could start following Him.  He called them to follow so that they could become a saint.  Now, to be sure, becoming a saint means configuring our life to Christ and starting certain actions and leaving other actions behind.  Jesus never pretended that a person’s sins didn’t matter.  But he didn’t let their sins stop the conversation about moving in the right direction.  The woman caught in adultery in John’s Gospel is a perfect example: Jesus doesn’t condemn the woman for her adultery.  But after not condemning her, He tells her to go and sin no more.  
    This is not to say that we can approach everything that Jesus offers no matter what.  If our lives are not right in major ways, we should not approach the Eucharist.  If we are in an irregular marriage; if we support (by words or deeds) abortion and/or euthanasia; if we have stolen something of significant value, then approaching Jesus in the Eucharist as if none of that makes a difference is not the way Jesus wants us to do things.  But, on the other hand, it also doesn’t mean that Jesus doesn’t want us to see us again our interact with us again until we get our lives right by our own strength.  We can’t do it on our own strength.  We need Jesus to convert our hearts, and therefore our lives, so that we can, once more, have communion with Jesus in the Eucharist.  
    Today Jesus invites us not to set up more barriers to interacting with Jesus than He does.  He calls us each not to treat baptism as a “get out of hell free” card.  He calls each of us–me and you–to deeper conversion each day, to pattern our life more on Jesus each day, so that we can turn away from sin, and be faithful to the Gospel.