Uploading Christ's Program

Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe/Last Sunday after Pentecost

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen]. While I now bristle at an app update taking more than 20 seconds, I am old enough to remember the days where, to play a game on the computer, you had to insert the floppy disk, and wait for it to load.  Or when you had to sign-on to the internet by getting your dial-up going, and hope that there was a good signal.  I remember starting software updates at night, because they were going to take hours, hoping that the install didn’t stall out, and you got the blue screen of death which meant you had to do a hard restart and do the process all over again.
    As we come to the last week of the liturgical year [in which we celebrate Christ the King], we are reminding about the kingship that Christ should have over our lives.  St. Paul says [in his letter to the Colossians] that we have been transferred from the power of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God.  And our Gospel points us to the end of time, when Christ will return to fully establish His Kingdom, which was inaugurated in His earthly ministry, His Passion and Death, and His Resurrection and Ascension.  
    But perhaps we feel like that transfer from the power of darkness to the kingdom of the Son has stalled a bit.  It’s like we inserted that floppy disk when we were baptized to install the new program in our lives, but it hasn’t finished the installation yet, and maybe our screen in life even seems frozen up.  We’re waiting for Christ to return.  Maybe even we see signs that Christ Himself prophesied would mean the end was near, but Christ hasn’t returned yet.  We still wait in joyful hope for the return of our Savior, Jesus Christ, as St. Paul says to St. Titus.  
    In the meantime, we have an opportunity to make sure that Christ’s program downloads more and more into out souls and into our lives.  Each day we have in this “already, but not yet” of the kingdom of God allows us to make sure that we model our lives more and more on the life of Christ, so that we can say with St. Paul, “It is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me.”
    The temptation is to hedge our bets, and try to guess the time of Christ’s return.  Christ, in Matthew 24 [the Gospel we heard today] describes some of the signs that will indicate His return.  But the same Christ also says that we will not know either the day or the hour.  Still, He advises us to ready ourselves, so that whenever it does happen, Christ will find us prepared for His return.  Sometimes we can so concern ourselves with figuring out the signs, that we forget about living the life of a disciple.  If we live as a faithful follower of Christ, it won’t matter when the end comes, because our lamps will be trimmed like the five wise virgins, and we will welcome Christ the Bridegroom, and enter into His wedding feast in heaven.
    So how do we prepare ourselves?  The Lord lays out part of the judgment in [our Gospel today from] Matthew 25.  How did we care for the least of His brothers?  Did we feed the hungry?  Did we give drink to the thirsty?  Did we welcome the stranger?  Did we clothe the naked?  Did we care for the sick?  Did we visit the imprisoned?  These are the Corporal Works of Mercy, and they are not optional for a disciple.  Their execution may look different depending on our vocation.  After all, what mother or father has not fed a hungry child, or clothed him or her (or possibly even a spouse who didn’t know how to dress himself?), or cared for the sick?  For spouses and parents, the more challenging works may be how to prudently welcome the stranger (how many times do we hear as a young child about stranger danger?).  But think about it in our own parish.  If we see someone we don’t know, do we take the time to welcome them to the parish?  We don’t have the scare them by swooping in like a hawk anytime we see someone new (there are plenty of bad examples of people being turned off to the faith because those who approached them saw them merely as numbers to add to the flock, rather than people who may be searching).  But do we ask them if they want to sit by us, or if maybe they need help following the Mass because it’s been awhile since they last went, or maybe they’re unfamiliar with the prayers?  That may be more natural for me, as a priest, as I greet people after Mass, but I can continue to work on it.  Maybe for me as a priest the challenge is more how to clothe the naked, or feed the hungry.  Some of the corporal works of mercy will always challenge us, while others will come to us more naturally.  But we should work at incorporating them all into our life whenever and however we can.
    Sometimes God gives us opportunities to exercise those corporal works of mercy, and we only need respond.  There’s a story about a woman named Wanda Dench who, eight years ago, texted a person she thought was her grandson about Thanksgiving plans.  The grandson had changed his number without telling grandma.  So instead of her grandson, she texted a young man named Jamal Hinton who was in high school.  They figured out the error, but then Jamal asked if he could still come over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Even though Wanda didn’t know Jamal from Adam, Wanda texted, “Of course you can. That’s what grandmas do…feed everyone.”  And for eight years, they have spent Thanksgiving together.  I don’t know if Jamal needed a free meal, but he probably needed somewhere to go for Thanksgiving, otherwise he wouldn’t have asked.  There may have been numerous reasons not to allow Jamal over.  But Wanda felt called to have Jamal over, and it has become a beautiful story of generosity.
    Christ will return in glory, “to judge the living and the dead,” as we proclaim every Sunday in the Creed.  When exactly, we don’t know, but it will happen.  Until then, Christ invites us to live out the Corporal Works of Mercy as part of following Him, so that when He does return, He will find us ready to welcome Him as our triumphant King.  As St. Peter says in his first epistle:
 

The end of all things is at hand.  Therefore, be serious and sober for prayers.  Above all, let your love for another be intense, because love covers a multitude of sins.  Be hospitable to one another without complaining.  As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God’s varied grace…so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong glory and dominion forever and ever.  Amen.

The Other Works of Mercy

Twenty-third Sunday in Ordinary Time

Hollywood has recently become very good at remaking movies.  Sometimes the movies are the same basic movies, but sometimes the remakes take a different spin.  Some of the remakes I’ve seen and are quite good, like “True Grit.”  Some are good, but have slightly different story lines, like “Ben Hur.”  Others I have seen and think the original was better, like “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  Sometimes I wonder if people today realize that “Planet of the Apes” originally included Charlton Heston rather than James Franco.

For the past few years we have been talking a lot about mercy, especially during the Jubilee Year for Mercy that Pope Francis proclaimed.  And during that year most people focused (and rightly so) on the Corporal Works of Mercy: feed the hungry; give drink to the thirsty; shelter the homeless; visit the sick; visit the prisoners; bury the dead; give alms to the poor.  These still remain important parts of our faith.  It’s not like we can stop doing these things because the Jubilee Year for Mercy is over.  

But there are also the spiritual works of mercy, and I wonder how many of us know what they are?  The Spiritual Works of Mercy are: counsel the doubtful; instruct the ignorant; comfort the sorrowful; forgive injuries; bear wrongs patiently; pray for the living and the dead; admonish the sinner.  This last Spiritual Work of Mercy, admonish the sinner, is especially apropos for today’s readings.  

In the first reading, God admonishes the Prophet Ezekiel that he is to warn the wicked of their behavior.  If he doesn’t, then not only shall the wicked die for his or her sin, but also Ezekiel, because he failed to warn that person.  This admonition is also given to priests every year in our spiritual reading.  Because we are shepherds, we have the responsibility to make sure people know how to make good choices (virtue and grace) and how to avoid bad choices (vice and sin).  If we fail to do that, then we will also bear the same punishment as those who make bad choices and sin.  This is why so many of the saints consider the priesthood not a reason to boast, but a reason to fear for the final judgment.  

But admonishing the sinner is not only for priests.  Jesus, in the Gospel, tells his disciples that when someone sins, especially when it’s against you, to tell the person his fault, and hopefully that person will listen.  But, Jesus gives more advice in case the person doesn’t listen.  He then encourages the wronged party to bring in other people who can attest to the sin, hopefully convincing the person of the wrong that has been done.  But if that doesn’t happen, then (and only then) involve the Church.  If they don’t listen to the Church, then it’s time to stop trying to convince them, and instead, simply pray and fast for that person.

Admonishing the sinner is not, of course, easy.  Especially with certain sins, people prefer sinning to following God’s plan.  And when confronted with God’s plan, people sometimes don’t take it too well.  Sometimes, though, the fault is also with the person admonishing.  Sometimes people want to get back at the person, or rub that person’s fault in his or her face, rather than acting out of love.  That is why what St. Paul says in the second reading is so important: “Owe nothing to anyone, except to love one another; […] Love does no evil to the neighbor.”  Love doesn’t mean that sin is not sin; love doesn’t mean do whatever you feel like doing.  But it does mean that if we are correcting sinful behavior, we are doing it for the right reasons: out of love.  Parents do this all the time with bad behavior.  If a child uses violence against another, that child may have to have a time-out, or maybe even be spanked (not abused, though).  But if that is done out of love to help the child, then it can truly be a work of mercy, so that the child doesn’t continue to use violence, or escalate that violence as the child grows older.  

Still, you might wonder how to admonish well.  The USCCB website gives this advice: “In humility, we must strive to create a cutler that does not accept sin, while realize that we all fall at times; Don’t judge, but guide others towards the path of salvation; When you correct someone, don’t be arrogant.  We are all in need of God’s loving correction; We should journey together to a deeper understanding of our shared faith; ‘Remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.’”  Those are all very good practical pieces of advice for how to admonish a sinner.

Today the Lord invites us to be our brother’s keeper, to help keep people from sin, or bring them back from sin if they have fallen.  May we do this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, and be willing to accept this Spiritual Work of Mercy with love, knowing that we all have responsibility for and with each other to live according to God’s plan for happiness and holiness.