The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year A – Homily

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The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, Year A
Deuteronomy 8:2-3, 14b-16a
Psalm 147:12-13, 14-15, 19-20 (12)
1 Corinthians 10:16-17
John 6:51-58
June 14, 2020

It has been a while since we have been able to gather together physically to celebrate Mass.  We have each had to deal with the Coronavirus according to the circumstances of our own lives. 

Many have been stuck home.  We haven’t enjoyed it.  That should be a reminder to always pray for those who are permanently homebound.

There are the health care workers who needed to keep going to work to help the sick.  We thank you.  We are also grateful for grocers and all in the food and essential items supply chain who kept working so we could have what we need.  Thank you to all of you.

We are thankful now that we are able to gather for Mass but even as we do, we are mindful of those with health issues who continue to stay home to avoid the risk of illness.  We pray for them.

We are not the first to face affliction.  We hear from Moses of the affliction the Israelites faced in the desert.  Their affliction lasted forty years.  We have been thirteen weeks without public Masses in our “desert” of isolation and social distancing. 

How have you fared?  God watched the Israelites to see if it was their intention “to keep his commandments.”  Have you kept the faith?

Here we are.  So, yes you have faith.  You have come hungry for what God has to offer.

Of course, God never stopped feeding us.  Yes, we couldn’t gather together in church for Mass.  For those with computers and smart devices, you could join us by livestreaming.  If you couldn’t join us that way, I hope you were able to watch Mass on TV.  It isn’t the same as coming in person but you could listen to the readings and participate as the sacrifice of the Eucharist was celebrated.  God still came to those who desired him in spiritual communion.

We participate in the Eucharist, we participate in the Blood of Christ, the Body of Christ by opening ourselves to God.  We participate by opening our ears and our hearts to God’s word.  We participate by listening to the prayers with our heart and soul.  We participate by offering sacrifices in our lives for the good of others. 

We do all this in livestreaming, TV, or radio Masses.  It wasn’t the same as coming in person but God fed us with spiritual communion for our efforts.  We thank God for the grace He has given us during this time.

Today we come together to celebrate the Eucharist as the source and summit of who we are. 

The second Sunday after Pentecost is always the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ in the United States. That’s today.

Today we celebrate the bread of life.

Today we hear Jesus say, “I am the living bread that came down from Heaven; whoever eats this bread with live forever.”  He speaks of living forever in Heaven. 

Has your time without the Eucharist deepened your appreciation of what we receive in the Eucharist, the Bread of Life?

Jesus told the crowds that they must eat his flesh to have life within them.  This confused them.  In fact, it might even seem repulsive.  Was He telling them to be cannibals?  Who would to do that?

Jesus tells us, “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood you do not have life within you.”  How do we do this?

We eat his flesh and drink his blood in the bread and wine we receive.  When we start Mass, it is ordinary bread and wine.  We offer the Eucharist.  It still looks like bread and wine but the substance within has changed. 

We call the change “transubstantiation.”  It’s a big word.  We don’t use this word for anything else.  Sometimes we think we should use everyday words so we know what they mean.  However, what happens in the transubstantiation has no other parallel.  There is nothing like it.  It should be a unique word. 

It is something very special.  It is the source and summit of who we are as Catholics.  The bread and wine have become the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

How do we know this?  Today we hear in the gospel that we must eat his flesh and drink his blood but how do we know this happens with the bread and wine?

The answer is simple.  We know it because Jesus said so at the Last Supper.  Holding the bread, He said this is my body.  Holding the cup of wine, He said this is my blood. 

We pray in the Eucharistic prayer that the Holy Spirit come upon the gifts of bread and wine so that they become the Body and Blood of Jesus.  We don’t know how except that it is by God’s power.  That’s enough.  It is a mystery of faith.

Yes, it is a mystery but our souls tell us it is true.  How much have you missed receiving the Eucharist?  If it was still just bread and wine, do you think you would have missed it?

We believe because God has given us faith.  We thank God for the faith He has given us.

We long for the Eucharist as “true food’ and “true drink.”  We long for life with God.  We thank God for all that we celebrate in the Eucharist.

Techniques to Listen to God

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I offer this article in response to a comment posted by Brennan to my article, “Is God Angry With Us?”.  I thank Brennan for his comment, which follows:

“Well said! Like you have said in previous posts, you would think now would be a good time to try and LISTEN to God? I know on one of your first posts during the shutdown you mentioned that.  Are there any specific techniques you use though, to slow down your thoughts in your mind in order that you can listen to God? With so much going on in society, all this mass media and all these voices, what are some good ways we can silence our mind so we can truly hear God? It almost reminds me of the Mass reading from yesterday in the book of Kings where Elijah went to the mount in Horeb and there was the great wind, earthquake, but God’s voice was not in those powerful forces, rather in a small silent whisper.”

The passage he mentions in yesterday’s reading is 1 Kings 19:9a, 11-16, which is one of my favorites with God coming in “a tiny whispering sound.”  His question asking about specific techniques to slow down our thoughts in order to listen to God is right in line with hearing God in the tiny whispering sound.

I’m going to frame my response in three parts, remote, proximate, and immediate.  Most people want to know the immediate part, how do I slow down the thoughts, preferably stop the distracting thoughts so I can listen to God right now.  I’ll give a suggestion or two in a moment but first a word about remote and proximate preparation.

Remote preparation is the lifelong part.  We need to cultivate a life of prayer.  God is always with us.  God is always ready to listen.  God is always willing to speak to us.  We need to work on being open to hearing God.  Here I think about what St. Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, “pray without ceasing.’’  This doesn’t mean that we pray by saying words of prayer 24 hours a day.  It means we need to strive to always be aware of God, to have an ongoing relationship with him..

Proximate preparation is leading up but not the immediate moment of prayer.  Here I think of two things.  First, is to have a place dedicated to prayer in our homes.  The second is to do what we can to not overload ourselves with too much information.  For example, I have heard multiple times during this Coronavirus time, that it isn’t good to watch the news all the time.  It is good to watch enough to be informed but not so much that it consumes us with too many thoughts.

Now, the immediate part.  First, we should realize it can be difficult to leap right from the busyness of our lives to expect to hear God in the silence.  The remote and proximate preparation help but we still need help to focus ourselves, asking the Holy Spirit to help us quiet our thoughts.  There’s the first immediate step, asking for the Holy Spirit to help us listen.  Depending on how long you intend to pray, a devotional prayer (Rosary, chaplets, etc.) may help slow your thoughts down. 

For my final suggestion, I first make a distinction about meditative and contemplative prayer.  Meditative is using spiritual reading, from the Bible or other spiritual source in prayer.  However, we in meditative prayer, we do not read it like one reads a book (several pages at a time).  Meditative prayer invites to read a few lines, maybe even just one or two, and then pause to reflect on it as inspired by the Holy Spirit.  This gives us something spiritual to focus our thoughts on. 

Contemplative prayer uses no material.  It invites us to set aside all our thoughts and, instead of thinking, just focus on being in God’s presence.  I think what Brennan is asking about lies more in the area of meditative prayer but with a hint of contemplative prayer. 

The form of contemplative prayer that I am most familiar with is known as “centering prayer.”  You can search for “centering prayer” and find lots of material on the Internet.  I actually have an app on my phone for centering prayer.  In very basic terms, one starts with an opening prayer (the app provides one), a bell chimes, and the phone app counts for twenty minutes.  At the end of twenty minutes, the bell chimes again, and a closing prayer is offered.  PLEASE do NOT start with twenty minutes if you try centering prayer.  Start with a couple of minutes and work up to twenty.  Of course, one will want to know what to do for the twenty minutes.  This brings me to my specific suggestion in answer to Brennan’s original question.  One chooses a sacred word (I use “Jesus”).  You slowly repeat it, handing your thoughts over to God.  When a distracting thought comes into your head, ignore it.  In true centering prayer, you ignore all thoughts and focus on God’s presence.  If your goal is to listen to God, then you do need to listen to the voice that is his.  If you are doing this for centering prayer, as your thoughts calm, you stop repeating your sacred word and simply sit in the presence of God.  If distracting thoughts came up, simply start repeating your sacred word again.

I hope this helps you in prayer.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff 

Is God Angry With Us?

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“Is God Angry With Us?” This is the question that began a comment posted on my blog. It is an important question. It is a question a lot of people may be asking. I think the best way to begin this is by quoting the comment Wanda sent to me because I think it expresses a lot of what we might all be thinking. So, I thank Wanda for her comment.

“Is God angry with us? Between COVID19, the economy and loss of jobs along with people truly needing food and unable to afford it, along with the murder of George Floyd and justified public unrest, it feels like God is either punishing us or has turned his back on us. Please help us understand these heart wrenching current events and how our faith can help us deal with all of this. I know He loves us but with all current global events, I feel abandoned. Thank you for your guidance.”

So, is God angry with us? Does He have reason to be? In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep me commandments.” Our society is not doing well in keeping the commandments. Many don’t even try. Some have even rejected the commandments. God does not give us the commandments for his benefit. He doesn’t gain anything by it. God gives us the commandments for our benefit because He loves us. If God were like us, I think He would have every reason to be angry.

Yet, we must remember God is willing to forgive. We think He wants to punish us. He allows us to suffer the consequences of our choices, our sins, so that we can learn from them. People think of God in the Old Testament as a punishing God. However, every time the people repented and called out to God, He rescued them. There is no limit to God’s love. Jesus shows this to us in the way He lives out John 15:13, “No one has greater love than this, to lay one’s life for one’s friends.” (For more on our struggle to forgive and to feel forgiven, see my presentation, Why Is It So Hard to Forgive?)

So why is there the Coronavirus? Did God cause it? It is causing much suffering with the illness itself, the shutdown costing jobs, and people struggling to have enough food and to pay their bills. Why does evil happen? I don’t know if God caused the virus. I tend not to think that. The Coronavirus is a mutation of a previous virus. These mutations can happen naturally. However, I think God is using the Coronavirus to get our attention.

God is active in the response to the Coronavirus. Wanda mentioned people not having enough food. There I think of the love I have seen in how many people are donating food to local food pantries. I have seen stories of youth having food drives. I saw that a youth this week took up a food drive for his birthday and gave the food to the local pantry. This is what it means to love our neighbors. We love because we are first loved by God. (see my article “Where is God’s Hand in the Coronavirus?”)

What about the murder of Mr. George Floyd? God did not cause that. That was a human choice. However, the response of peaceful protesters is beginning to bring change for the better. This does not justify the murder but the fact that change is beginning to happen gives us hope for a better future. We should be sad over what has happened. However, if we only look at this one act, we might lose hope. God sees the big picture. God knows how to change things. We need to listen to God. We need to be a voice for what is right in God’s eyes. This is a stressful time. That affects us (see my article “A Stressful Time”). The stress affects how we deal with things. We cannot handle it on our own. We need God.

Has God turned his back on us? Has God abandoned us?

God does not turn his back on his people. If you read the Old Testament, there are multiple times when God stepped back from his people, not because He wanted to. No, it was the people who had abandoned God. He allowed them to do that. He allows people today to make their own choices. We call it free will. However, whenever the people repented, God rescued them. This is what gives us the hope we really need.

We should be able to count on others. We should be able to have human hope in others. We should help one another. We should love as God calls us to love but our true hope is not dependent on other people. Our true hope is in God. Jesus is the one who is our savior (see my article, “Who is Our Savior?”).

These are challenging times. We don’t understand. We live in the here and now. Many people have lost any sense of the transcendent, that there is more than what we see in this world, there is a God who loves us. I know it is hard because I share the struggle. I would love to fix everything. Yet, I don’t know how. God does not ask any single one of us to fix it all but He does ask each of us to do our part. Then, God will multiple our efforts thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold.

God will not abandon us.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

Got Questions?

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Those of you who are longtime readers of my blog know that sometimes I can go months without writing here on my blog except for posting my Sunday homily. Those long gaps are never my goal. I very much enjoy writing these articles. I just struggle sometimes to find the time to write.

I have had more time to write this year as well as do more presentations in my new assignment as a Parochial Vicar. I am grateful to be able to do this. The silver lining in the cloud of the Coronavirus for me has been to have time to write more articles than I ever imagined. I think I have averaged two to three a week not counting posting my Sunday homily.

This means I have covered a lot of material. At times, I thought I would run out of ideas but somebody would ask a question and I would turn it into a blog article. At other times, the Holy Spirit has provided the ideas. I remember about a month ago, I thought I had run out of ideas. I was finishing up an article and had no idea what I would write about next. I prayed and within fifteen minutes, I had three new ideas. Thank you Holy Spirit!

Normally, something I read (I love to read spirituality/theology), gives me an idea, the Holy Spirit does, or someone asks a question. I got the idea down on scrap paper and then make notes over anywhere from one day to a week until the Spirit tells me to write.

So, why am I telling you all this? Well, one reason is so you know how seriously I take this ministry of my website and blog. This is not something I do on a whim or take for granted.

The second reason is, well, I need ideas. After writing so much during the Coronavirus, I have seemed to have run out of ideas. (I do have a couple of ideas in my head but I think they might ideas for full video presentations. I do have one idea for a blog article but I need to find some information for that.)

So, I asked the Holy Spirit for ideas. Today, the Spirit seems to be saying ask the people. So, this is your chance to ask questions. You can do so by where it says “comment” at the end of this article. You can type your question or comment and send it to me. It will come to me but it will not show on the blog until I approve it (I get a lot of spam). If it is a very simple question, I might answer it right away or it might take days or even longer depending on your question. If I get a lot of questions, it will take a while. Of course, with churches opening up for Mass again (THANK YOU LORD!) I might not have so much time to write. Please be patient.

So, what questions have you wanted to ask about our faith but haven’t had the chance? This isn’t meant for you to try to stump me. I’d like to know what questions you have that come from your heart and soul.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

Knowing Our Faith

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How much do you know about our faith?

How would you quantify how much you know? Would you base it on how many prayers you have memorized? Do you know what all Ten Commandments are? Do you know when to genuflect, bow, sit, and stand at Mass? How much do you know about what’s in the Bible?

Or you measure how much you know about our faith based on what grade you stopped attending Sunday school or Catholic school in?

We certainly memorizes prayers including the Our Father and Hail Mary. We should know the Ten Commandments. However, most of the questions I asked above are about quantity of facts, i.e knowledge. Knowing these things is important but are the facts enough?

Knowledge is important. We need to memorize prayers. We need to know what to do at Mass. We need to know about the Bible. However, it is not just about memorization. Think of it this way, how many gifts of the Holy Spirit are there? The answer is seven. One of the gifts is knowledge. It doesn’t stop there. There are also gifts of understanding and wisdom. This should tell us that knowledge alone is not enough. Knowledge is important. It is how we begin to learn. Yet, to truly know anything, including our faith, we need to grow beyond facts and memorization to questions of meaning? Why do we believe it?

Yet, with our faith, we don’t do well at this. You probably learned the Ten Commandments as a child. Do you know what they mean? Do you know how to apply the commandments to all aspects of your life?

Unfortunately, we tend to think we learn everything we need to about our faith as young children. So, we stop learning. It might be at a certain grade level. Often, it is at Confirmation (unfortunately, sometimes even earlier). We think we have learned what we need to because we think we just need to know the facts and what to do at Mass. I know because this is what happened to me.

Children need to learn the basics. This starts with prayers and facts. As we grow older, we begin to look at why things are. Unfortunately, many stop going to religion classes before then. However, this is precisely when we would start learning what our faith really means for us. Learning about our faith should be a lifelong activity.

Of course, I feel like I might be preaching to the choir. You probably won’t be reading this if you don’t have an interest in learning more about our faith. Perhaps what I write today will help you encourage others to learn more about our faith in God.

Each person has their own level of knowledge and understanding. It’s not just a question of how much but what. For instance, in the evaluations about my recent webinar, Praying With the Trinity, one person said they are learning more than they did in all their years of Catholic school while another person said they learned nothing new. Certainly, I hope people learn new things but probably the two comments that most express what I try to do in the presentations were, “Make me ponder even more about the Trinity” and “I have a much better understanding of the Trinity.”

When we do this, hopefully we grow in understanding and appreciation for what our faith offers.

How do we learn? Traditionally we learned about our Catholic faith in Sunday school or Catholic schools. Often, parents would drop their children off at the beginning and pick them up when it was over, leaving it to the classroom teacher. Now, with online learning, parents can get involved. Parishes are starting to invite the parents to join the children at faith formation activities. Parishes also are more and more offering faith enrichment opportunities for adults. People can go online or read books to learn at their own pace.

However, learning about our faith is not just a matter for the physical classroom or the Internet. Life in general can be the greatest classroom. Life is where we put our faith into practice. Thus, it can be a good place to learn about our faith.

Sunday school or Catholic school should not be the first place we learn about our faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls parents the primary catechists of their children (paragraphs 2223-2226). Why? Because the home should be the first place we see faith in action. It can be saying grace before meals. It can be praying the Rosary together. It includes making weekly attendance at Mass a central part of family life. It can include reading Bible stories to little children. Parents can teach their children to make the Sign of the Cross and to teach them prayers like the Our Father. This is what by “domestic church.” The home should be the first place a little child sees faith in action.

What do you do to learn about your faith?

Parents, how do your children see you put faith into action?

I don’t know if there was anything new for you in this article. This article is more about encouraging you to learn and grow in your relationship with Jesus.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

How Do We Look at the World?

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How do you look at world? How many people want to know what the world can do for them? They make everything they do about themselves.

They are interested in what makes them look good (pride). They are interested in what brings them material wealth (greed and envy). They are willing to put others down to make themselves look good. They are more concerned about material wealth for themselves than for the needs of others.

As part of this they look for bad in others just to put them down. I don’t think they necessarily do this to hurt others. I think they might put others down to help them feel better about themselves. Here I think of the Parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector in Luke 18:9-14. Specifically, I think of verse 9 where the Pharisee “thanks” God that he is not like the rest of humanity.

As part of this putting down of others, we see stereotyping. We lump people into categories. It might be by race, ethnicity, or religion. If they see some people in a category doing something wrong, they assume everyone in that category must be like that.

Of course, none of what I have said above is how we are called to act or think as Christians. We are to be concerned for the needs of others. We need to lift others up. Jesus tells us the greatest commandment is to love God. The second is to love our neighbor. We love our neighbor when lifting them up.

Who is our neighbor? Jesus speaks of loving God, our neighbor, and who our neighbor is in Luke 10:25-37. The Jews and Samaritans did not get along but we are called to love even those who we don’t get along with (hopefully this changes things so we get along).

We lift them up by helping them in their need. We pray that they see the love that motivates us and embrace God’s love. In turn, they lift others, maybe they even lift us up.

I think this is all the more important right now. We are experiencing an especially stressful time because of the Coronavirus. The good news is that things are getting better. The number of new cases is down. Things are beginning to open back up. However, we still are limited in what we can do. How much stress do you feel right now? How are you dealing with the reopening? The stress affects how we respond to whatever comes our way. We need to lift one another up.

It doesn’t matter where we are from. Whether we have always lived in the same town or if we have moved across the world, we are all children of God.

It doesn’t matter what language we speak. We are all children of God.

It doesn’t matter whether one believes in God or not. God loves everyone as his children.

It doesn’t matter if a person is disabled. God loves them and we are called to love them.

Our human dignity does not depend on the color of our skin, race, ethnicity, disabilities, or any other tangible criteria. The dignity of all life comes from God for it is God’s image that we are created (Genesis 1:26-27).

It starts at conception when a unique individual is formed in their mother’s womb (see “Biology Makes Me Pro-Life”). It continues to the point of natural death.

We need to treat everyone with the dignity they deserve. In doing so, we lift them up. We lift them, we lift each other up in God’s love.

Yet, we live in a world troubled by violence. People feel threatened. That effects how we respond to bad situations. We need to protect ourselves but we pray that we do so in a way that makes the situation better, not worse.

There have been numerous protests going on around our country following the killing of Mr. George Floyd. Excessive force was used. Most of the protests have been peaceful as people called for all to be treated with dignity. Unfortunately, some protests have been hijacked, turning violent and into looting. We pray for peace.

We need to pray that we all love one another.

We also need to pray for the police to always respond appropriately in difficult situations with the minimum (hopefully none) level of force necessary. Yes, some police cross the line of appropriate level of force. Most do not. Please don’t lump the good police officers in with the bad.

I mentioned that at times we feel threatened and that affects how we respond. The same is true for police. At times they really are threatened. That affects how they go into every situation. I say none of this to justify what police do. I say to remind us how much we need to pray for them (St. Michael the Archangel is the patron of police officers). We pray for them to have the gifts from the Holy Spirit of knowledge, understanding, wisdom, and right judgment, along with the courage to respond to each situation they face in accord with God’s Will

We pray for cooler heads to prevail. We pray for the dignity of all life. We are all children of God. As we seek to love God may we also love all our neighbors.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

The Most Holy Trinity, Year A – Homily

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The Most Holy Trinity, Year A
Exodus 34:4b-6, 8-9
Daniel 3:52, 53, 54, 55 (52b)
2 Corinthians 13:11-13
John 3:16-18
June 7, 2020

Our celebration of Pentecost last week brought our Easter Season to a close and we resumed Ordinary Time.  The liturgical color for Ordinary Time is green but today we are wearing white vestments.  We will again wear white vestments next Sunday. 

Why? Because we celebrate two special solemnities.  Next week we will celebrate the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ.  First, this week we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity.

The Trinity, three persons, one God.  It is a mystery.  In fact, it is a central mystery of our faith.  It is who God is to us.

Yet, we should realize that we can’t expect to fully comprehend God.  We are humans.  God is, well, God.  God is infinite.  God is eternal.  God is thus mysterious.  That does not mean God is not real or that we should give up on trying to know God.  No, God wants us to know him.

In our reading from Exodus today, God came down to Moses “in a cloud.”  I don’t see it as a rain cloud or a thunderstorm.  If you want it in physical terms, I point to the white puffy cloud in a beautiful blue sky.  In the sense of mystery, I see the cloud as that which we cannot see through, what is within the cloud remains hidden, mysterious.

This passage comes shortly after Moses comes down from the mountain and finds the Israelites in sin, worshipping a molten calf (Exodus 32). 

In Exodus 33:18, Moses asks God, “Please let me see your glory!”  In verse 20, God says to Moses, “You cannot see my face, for no one can see me and live.”  God is mysterious.  We cannot fully comprehend God.

Then, in today’s reading from Exodus (chapter 34), the LORD passes by without Moses seeing God’s face.  Moses can only look towards God after He has passed by.  When Moses does, he sees the glory of God and “at once bowed down to the ground in worship.” 

We cannot see the fullness of God in this life.  Yet, we can recognize the majesty, the infinite grace of God, and bow down in worship. 

We bow down physically in our worship with our genuflections and bowing.  Yet, we should understand this is not simply a physical gesture.  It should symbolize our bowing in our heart and soul to God.  We stop trying to make ourselves great and give it all to God.

The Trinity is a mystery to us.  We cannot fully comprehend three persons being one God.  We don’t have to.  We believe in faith, faith that we have received as a gift from God.

I could say a lot about the Trinity.  Last Wednesday, I gave a webinar presentation, called Praying With the Trinity (www.renewaloffaith.org/trinity) where I spoke for almost an hour about the Trinity.  Don’t worry, I’m not going to talk that long here.

What will I say?  The Trinity is about relationship.  It is the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  It leads us to appreciate our relationship with God and it is model for our relationship, one based on love, with other people.  We are, as Paul says in the second reading, to “encourage one another, agree with one another, live in peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

God shows us love by giving his only Son for us.  God does this so that we might be saved through him.  God desires to save everyone who “believes in him.”

What does it mean to believe?

To believe in Jesus, to believe in God, is not to just say we believe.  It is not just a matter of giving God one hour at Mass a week.  It is not just calling Jesus Lord.  To believe in Jesus calls us to make him the center of our lives.  Yet, we do not do this on our own.

Paul reminds us, “No one can say, “Jesus is Lord” except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3b).  Faith is a gift.  The Trinity is a mystery.  The transubstantiation of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood is a mystery.  In faith, we believe in these mysteries.

So, what are we to do in our prayer and worship to honor the Trinity? 

How do we begin and end our prayers?  With the Sign of Cross, invoking the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 

We reverence the Trinity in our prayers at Mass.  We certainly think of Jesus in the Eucharist.  We also worship the Father as many of the prayers of Mass are addressed to the Father.  Lest we forget the Holy Spirit, in the Eucharist we invoke the Holy Spirit to come down upon the bread and wine so that they may become the Body and Blood of Jesus. 

Yes, the Trinity is a mystery.  However, just because it is a mystery doesn’t mean we forget about it.  In faith we believe.

The Battle Against Sin

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Earlier this week I wrote an article, “Is There Still Sin in the World?” I ended that article by referring to the battle against sin and said I would write an article about battling sin. Well, here it is.

I will do so in the context of the Seven Deadly Sins. In 2010, I wrote a series of articles on the Seven Deadly Sins. All that I wrote then, applies here.

Rather than repeat that information here (you can just click the links above), I will focus on how we respond to sin. How do we change our behaviors so we stop sinning?

Ultimately, the answer lies not in ourselves. We cannot overcome sin on our own. We need the grace of God. As soon as we sin, we need to turn to God for help. God doesn’t expect us to change on our own and then come to him. He wants us to always come to him immediately. God is eager to show us his mercy (see the story of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11-32).

However, that doesn’t mean we don’t need to put effort into changing ourselves. How do we stop being greedy, envious, and slothful (spiritual laziness) just to name a few of the deadly sins?

We need to turn to “virtue.” I think virtue is a word we don’t hear much today. We may not even know what the word really means. The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines it in paragraph 1803, “A virtue is an habitual and firm disposition to do the good.” (see paragraphs 1803-1811 for a longer discussion of virtue.)

What does that mean? In simplest terms, it means that we stop bad habits and start good ones. Yet, as Christians, we recognize that we cannot do this on our own. We need God. When we go to Confession, we say an Act of Contrition that includes that we “firmly resolve with the help of your grace to sin no more and avoid whatever leads me to sin.”

How many times do we try to change but fail? How many times do we resolve to lose weight but fail? Or maybe we lose weight but then gain it back. Why don’t we lose weight? We don’t we keep the weight off? Because we don’t change our habits for the long-term. Maybe we eat less for a couple of weeks. Maybe exercise for a couple of weeks but we fail to make it our habit. Maybe it is because we are weak. Maybe it is because we don’t want to change. We need God’s help to have the firm disposition we need.

With regards to eating, one of the Seven Deadly Sins is gluttony (we must often think of gluttony in terms of food but we might have other ways in which we also over consume that we need to work on). What is the virtue that helps us against gluttony? Temperance (for all the “remedies” to the deadly sins, I have read The Catholic Way: Faith for Living Today by Bishop Donald W. Wuerl (Doubleday: New York. 2001. pages 247-251).

Temperance is the virtue where we recognize that we don’t need everything we want and we learn to moderate our consumption to a reasonable level based on need. When we do this with food, we can lose weight and keep it off. I know this is true because, since the beginning of Lent, I have been losing weight. During Lent, it was somewhat else as I made eating less part of my Lent. I have continued to lose a few pounds since Lent ended but it has been harder because my old habit of snacking and eating too much wants to come back. I succumb to it at times. I need to continue to work on developing the virtue of temperature. I need God’s grace.

If you are guilty of the sin of pride, work on the virtue of humility. Being humble doesn’t mean we don’t do good. It means recognizing the good that we do comes from what God has given us. Humility means acknowledging that we can’t do it all on our own. We give credit where credit is due, whether it be to God or other people.

What about greed (often listed as “avarice)? The virtue we need is “liberality.” No, we don’t need to be liberal. In this case, liberality refers to “detachment” and recognizing we don’t need everything we want. We change our habits to no longer be dependent on having lots of stuff.

Do you struggle with envy? How can you change your habits to focus on the virtue of love?

Do you struggle with lust? Then you need to work on the virtue of chastity. What I am trying to show here is a positive behavioral approach. When we look at the sin and the commandments, we often take a negative approach. We think about what we cannot or shall not do. Is it not a better approach to focus on a positive virtue than to dwell in the guilt of sin? (My video presentation, Are They Rules or a Way of Life? parallels this approach, presentation runs 57 minutes).

That leaves sloth and anger as the last of the Seven Deadly Sins. Here, Bishop Wuerl does not offer positive habits that are explicitly listed as virtues. For sloth, he points us to diligence. In being slothful, we fail to fulfill reasonable expectations. Diligence calls us to do what we promise and what is reasonably asked of us. For anger, Bishop Wuerl points us to “meekness,” one of the Beatitudes given by Jesus in Matthew 5:1-12. Rather than resenting others, Wuerl says, “Meekness is the right ordering of our appreciation for the good things God has given us and others, and the simple recognition that it all comes from God and should be a source of joy and satisfaction for everyone, not resentment and anger.”

I hope this helps you to turn from sin to virtue with the help of God’s grace.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

New Video – Praying With the Trinity

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Last night I hosted a live webinar called Praying With the Trinity. Here is the description, “The Trinity is three persons yet one God. It is a mystery that may be hard for us to comprehend. How can God be three and yet one? They form a perfect unity. In this video, Fr. Jeff discusses each person of the Trinity, their relationship to one another, and we how invoke the Trinity in our own personal prayer as well as the prayers at Mass.”

The video recording is now available on my website at www.renewaloffaith.org/trinity (runtime 53 minutes).

Peace,

Fr. Jeff

Is There Still Sin in the World?

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There has been sin in the world since the beginning of time. One only has to read three chapters in the Book of Genesis before one comes to the story of the first, the original sin. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit. Sin did not end there. One chapter later (Genesis 4), Cain kills his brother Abel. Then comes the days of Noah when God sent a flood to cleanse the earth of sin.

Throughout history people continued to sin. David had relations with Bathseba. The Israelites continued to sin and so God let them be defeated and taken into exile in Babylon.

Today, we don’t hear much about sin. It would be wonderful if sin was stopped. Unfortunately, it hasn’t stopped. What has happened that people have lost their sense of sin.

What is sin?

In paragraph 1849, the Catechism of the Church Church offers the following, “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law” (bold and italics my emphasis).

Sin offends God. It goes against the natural order (reason and truth) that God has established. This has been lost by many who think there is no truth and/or no god.

For something to be a sin, three things must be considered. The action must involve grave matter, the person must have full knowledge that it is grave matter, and the person gives their full consent to the action (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1857). Full consent means that a person is not guilty of sin if they were forced against their will to participate in the action. Full knowledge means the person must know that it is considered grave matter. The lack of full knowledge and/or consent does not change whether it was right or wrong (i.e. grave matter). It only changes the person’s culpability.

What about grave matter? How is it determined? There are people today, relativists, who say there is no real truth. To them, everyone gets to determine their own truth. We believe there is “truth.”

We can see truth in three forms, objective, subjective, and revealed. Objective truth can be factually demonstrated. A very basic example would be that 2+2=4. Nothing can change that. With moral objective truth, I bring up the commandment, “Thou shall not steal.” Stealing is bad in its very nature as routed in greed (see Deuteronomy 4:6).

The intention is to act against another. I emphasize intention thinking of something I just read about a police officer who was summoned to a store for a robbery. He asked the woman who was accused of the theft what she took and why. She said that she stole a few eggs to feed her family. The police officer went in and paid for the eggs. Her circumstances were of dire need. Circumstances do not redefine right and wrong. The ends do not justify the means. Stealing is stealing but culpability may be affected.

This leads towards “subjective truth.” Subjective truth involves our perception. Perhaps the facts cannot be established as absolute. It is a matter of opinion. (In the above example, the woman’s circumstances can be objectively established. She needed help.)

Revealed truth is “revealed” by God. God has given us the gift of reason by which we can arrive at much of the truth. However, reason alone is not enough to arrive at all truth. This is why God chooses to reveal his truth to us. God does this through the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Knowing God’s love for us as we see Jesus hang on the Cross, we can count on what God reveals to us.

Then, why do we sin? Here I include Paul’s words in his Letter to the Romans, “We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold into slavery to sin. What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I concur that the law is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. The willing is ready at hand, but doing the good is not. For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if [I] do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Romans 7:14-20).

We desire to do good but the flesh draws us to sin. We sin because we see some pleasure or benefit in the action. It is not our goal to sin. That is not the pleasure. Often, it is based on physical pleasures. This is often the case in sins of adultery. It can also the case when our sins come from greed, the pleasure of physical wealth.

So, how do we battle against sin? That will be the topic of an upcoming article.

Peace,

Fr. Jeff