Putting God Off

Second Sunday after Pentecost

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  I struggle with a bad habit.  And it manifests itself in two primary ways.  In one situation, I see some dirty dishes on my counter that can’t be washed in the dishwasher.  I know it will only take me about 5 minutes to clean them, but I don’t feel like it, so they sit on my kitchen counter until I get disgusted enough to actually clean them.  In the other situation, I have folded my clothes and they are in my room, ready to be put in my dresser drawers or hung up in the closet.  It will take me all of 5-10 minutes to do this.  But I’m tired and just want to go to bed, so I put it off as long as I can.  
    When it comes to these bad habits, the weight of inaction doesn’t seem to make much of a difference.  But the Gospel alludes to another way that we can procrastinate, and that is with our faith.  All the invitees to the banquet have reasons to delay attending.  And the reasons make sense as to why one would not go.  But the point of the parable is that the banquet is so important, that even those legitimate reasons make skipping out the wrong choice, because they may be left out for good.
    I can’t find an original source, but there’s a quote floating around the internet about procrastination that bears hearing: “Procrastination is the arrogant assumption that God owes you another chance to do tomorrow what He gave you a chance to do today.”  When it comes to doing the dishes or putting away laundry, maybe it’s not that bad.  But how many times do we think about or talk about truly growing in our faith with God, only to put it off until tomorrow, which God never promises we will have.
    Obviously, there are some ways in which one has to delay certain good spiritual desires.  For example, a stay at home mom may want to go to daily Mass, but with six kids that may not be practical.  She may have to wait at least until the kids can get in and out of the car and their appropriate car seats themselves.  But what is stopping her from taking a little time to look up the readings for the day and thinking about those readings as she cares for her kids and her house.  A dad may want to pray the Rosary each day with his family, but he works nights and the kids are all in bed after he leaves for work and then are up mostly when he is sleeping.  But what is stopping him from saying a decade or two on his way to and from work, and asking the rest of the family to pray while he catches up on his sleep?
    We have to make realistic goals that conform to our vocation.  God does not call married couples to follow all the monastic hours.  But He does want couples to pray together every day in some way.  God does not give every person the ability to go to Mass each day, or even to make a holy hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament each day.  But He does want us to offer up our daily sacrifices in union with the cross of Christ, whose perfect sacrifice is made present in an unbloody way in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar.  Simply a quick, “God, I offer this to you” is a great way to accept your invitation to the banquet, and not make an excuse, however plausible you think it is, for not attending.  Or maybe, right after you wake up, you pray your morning offering, so that you have the intention of uniting everything you experience with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  

St. Paul

    Making little changes, and capitalizing on little opportunities may not seem like much, but daily little practices add up and can change the entire trajectory of one’s life.  By doing what we can, no matter how great or how small, we open ourselves up to more and more of God’s grace, until the areas of our life that we have not given over to God slowly transform into the actions God would take were He in our shoes.  When St. Paul wrote in his epistle to the Galatians, “It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me,” that didn’t happen all at once.  In fact, even after the Lord appeared to him, and Ananias healed Paul’s blindness, Paul went into Arabia for three years.  I would guess that the Apostle to the Gentiles had to slowly change his mind to more conform with Christ and work out how he could accept the Gospel and then share it with others.  But because he did those daily spiritual practices over three years, he could so identify with Christ that he became an icon of the one whose Gospel he proclaimed.  
    True transformation rarely happens quickly, and never happens if we put it off for tomorrow.  What if, as Garth Brooks sings, tomorrow never comes?  Based upon how we lived today and all the yesterdays that came before, would we be welcomed into the banquet?  Or would God say that we had other priorities, and that we will never taste of His banquet?  “Procrastination is the arrogant assumption that God owes you another chance to do tomorrow what He gave you a chance to do today.”  Don’t put off living your faith more deeply, according to your vocation.  Accept the invitation to the banquet, and prepare for the heavenly life now, with God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

The Blessing!

Solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God

            Well, here we stand, at the beginning of a New Year, the Year of our Lord 2012.  On New Year’s Eve people around the world stayed up late to be awake at the moment we changed from 2011 to 2012, made New Year’s resolutions, perhaps kissed loved ones, and hoped that this new year will have fewer sorrows and more joys.  In essence, they were asking God to pour out His blessings upon them and their loved ones.

            The theme of blessing is unmistakable in today’s readings.  Our first reading begins with the Lord telling Moses to tell Aaron, the newly ordained priests of the covenant of Sinai, how to bless the Lord’s people: “‘The LORD bless you and keep you!  The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!  The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!’”  And God promises that when the priests do this, the Lord will truly bless them.  And in our responsorial psalm we hear the invocation of God’s blessing.  Even our second reading, though it does not contain the word “blessing,” talks about the true blessing of how “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to ransom those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.”  St. Paul talks to us about our blessing of being made sons and daughters in the Son of God.

            But what is a blessing?  We use the word all the time, but do we understand it?  The word itself comes from two Latin words, bene and dicere, meaning to speak well.  When we bless people, we certainly speak well of them.  Still, when we talk about God’s blessing, we are talking about God whose Word is effective.  A blessing is not just a wish for good things, but when it comes from the Lord, it is an effective way of communicating God Himself through certain words.  Of course, blessings are not magic.  We must be open to the blessing to be able to receive the goodness that it is meant to convey.  But as long as we are open to the blessing, God’s grace is conferred upon us for our benefit.

            I would suggest that for the New Year, as we seek God’s blessing, God’s goodness, that we take this celebration as our starting point.  Today we celebrate Mary, the Holy Mother of God.  We celebrate the human woman, the highest honor of our human family, who said yes to God in all things, and so merited to be the Mother of our Redeemer, Jesus Christ.  And because Jesus is fully God, we rightfully call her the Mother of God, not just the mother of Jesus, as some heretics would do in the fourth century.

            Since Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing, as St. Paul reminds us in our second reading, because by His death and resurrection He has made us heirs to eternal life, and as the true High Priest has truly communicated God’s fullest blessings to us in having the courage to cry out, “Abba, Father!”, we should look to Mary to receive the fullness of these blessings, because it is only through Mary’s yes to God that we were able to receive the greatest blessing: Jesus our Savior.

            Now, do not confuse me.  I am not elevating Mary over Jesus, as if there is a quaternity rather than a Trinity.  We only believe in One God in Three Persons, and Mary is not a part of that Blessed Trinity.  But, we receive the grace of Divine Love in its fullest expression through Mary, and so it is through her that we receive Christ, even in our daily lives.  This is what that pious phrase, “To Jesus, through Mary,” means.  It means that, while we have access to the Father in Christ, we have access to Christ through Mary, His Mother, who is always leading us back to Jesus, and reminding us as she did at the Wedding at Cana, “Do Whatever He Tells You,” the very words we have in our Cana Chapel (here) at St. Thomas.  While our Gospel today spoke of Mary keeping all the mysteries that happened at Jesus’ birth, and reflecting on them in her heart, she does not keep our prayers to herself, but presents them to her Lord and her Son in faithful trust.  And what Son can refuse the prayers of so loving a mother?  Surely the author of the commandment “Honor your father and mother” would not refuse the request of His Mother, especially since her will is now united in heaven with the will of God.

Our Lady of Perpetual Help

            Catholics, for centuries, have turned toward the Mother of God, and since that day that Jesus gave Mary to us as our mother as He told His beloved apostle John, “‘Behold your mother,’” we have not ceased to turn to Blessed Mary, ever-Virgin to plead our cause and to present our prayers to her Son.  We need only think of the rosary, the Angelus, the first Saturdays, the brown scapular, and devotions to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, La Virgen de Guadalupe, Our Lady of Sorrows, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and so many others.  Sadly, many of these faded after Vatican II.  But as Pope Bl. John Paul II reminded us so frequently, that was not the Council’s intent.  With the words of his papal motto: Totus tuus—Totally yours, our late pontiff reminded us of the love we should have for Mary.

            In this New Year, let us be bold in asking God for His blessings.  Let us approach Him as we would a loving Father.  And how many times, when wanting something from our earthly fathers, have we, wisely, asked our earthly mothers to intercede for us so that we may obtain the good things we need and want?  May we make our requests for blessings through the intercession of our Blessed Mother each day, by uniting our lives to Christ through her.  May her name be on our lips as we rise each morning, and in thanksgiving for her assistance as we fall asleep each night.  For me it is as simple as the pious prayer, Mater mea, fiducia mea: my Mother, my confidence at the beginning of the day, and a hymn to Mary, usually the Salve Regina, as I go to bed.  Or we can make our own the Morning Offering, as I do when I put on my scapular: O my God, in union with the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer thee the Precious Blood of Jesus from all the altars throughout the world.  O my Jesus, I desire today to gain every indulgence and merit I can, and offer them, together with myself, to Mary Immaculate, that she may best apply them in the interests of thy Most Sacred Heart.   O Precious Blood of Jesus, save us!  Holy Mary, mother of God, mother of the Church, and our mother: pray for us!