TWENTY-SECOND Sunday
Deuteronomy 4,
1-2; 6-8; Psalm 15; James 1, 17-18. 21-22. 27;
St. Mark 7, 1-8. 14-15. 21-23
Brothers
and Sisters in Christ,
"Empty is the reverence they do me
because they teach as dogmas mere human precepts." (Mk 7: 7)
Outrage over animal experimentation and silence in the face of the
human holocaust of abortion. Proliferation of the sexist and abortifacient Depo
Provera, Norplant and pill as millions languish in ignorance of the methods of
natural birth regulation, the most effective and healthiest means of spacing or
delaying births. Though more Americans go to church services each week than go
to sports events in an entire year such reverence is empty while mere human
precepts are taught as dogmas and the eternal laws of God are spurned and
ignored.
The false gospel of "niceness" condemns
those who speak out against the glorification of fornication, whether homosexual
or heterosexual. A human precept, that of never offending anyone under any
circumstances to seek human respect, has been transformed into a commandment,
while God's law of chastity is ignored. The false gospel of the culture of death
enshrines the evil "choice" of one human being to murder another in the
womb, while God's eternal commandment "thou shalt not kill" is
forgotten.
There will be no forgetting on the day of
judgment, for then the secrets of all hearts will be revealed. On that day there
will be no concealing the "wicked designs that come from the deep recesses
of the heart: acts of fornication, theft, murder, adulterous conduct, greed,
maliciousness, deceit, sensuality, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, an obtuse
spirit." (Mk 7: 21-22) It is such actions as these of which Christ
says: "This people pays me lip service but their heart is far from
me." (Mk 7:6) Their cry of rebellion is like that of the devil:
"I will not serve."
| The Jewish people and their spiritual leaders viewed Jesus as a rabbi.
(Cf. Jn 11:28; 3:2; Mt 22:23-24, 34-36) He often argued within
the framework of rabbinical interpretation of the law. (Cf. Mt 12:5;
9:12; Mk 2: 23-27; Lk 6: 6-9; Jn 7: 22-23) Yet
Jesus could not help but offend the teachers of the Law, for he was not content
to propose his interpretation alongside theirs but taught the people "as one
who had authority, and not as their scribes." (Mt. 7:28-29) In
Jesus, the same Word of God, that had resounded on Mount Sinai to give the
written law to Moses, made itself heard anew on the Mount of the Beatitudes.
(Cf. Mt 5:1) Jesus did not abolish the Law but fulfilled it by giving
its ultimate interpretation in a divine way: "You have heard it was said to
the men of old...But I say to you..."(Mt 5: 33-34) With this same
divine authority, he disavowed certain human traditions of the Pharisees that
were "making void the word of God." (Mk 7:13; cf. 3:8)
(CCC 581) |
Christ commanded the
Apostles "go teach all nations". (Mt 28:19-20) They do so
today in the Church and in her teaching authority, the Magisterium. To turn a
deaf ear to the teaching Church is to turn a deaf ear to Jesus Christ the Lord
for he said to the Apostles and to their successors, the pope and his brother
bishops in union with him, "He who hears you, hears me."
I
look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet
Christ in the liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
(See also paragraphs 582, 2196 in the Catechism of the Catholic
Church.)
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TWENTY-THIRD Sunday
Isaiah 35, 4-7; Psalm 146;
James 2, 1-5; St. Mark 7, 31-37
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
"And
they brought to him a man who was deaf and had an impediment in his speech...And
taking him aside from the multitude privately, he put his fingers into his ears ,
and he spat and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and said
to him, "Ephphatha," that is, "Be opened." And his ears were
opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly." (St. Mark 7. 32-35.)
The Gospels are
filled with the evidence of the sacramental system initiated by Christ. As
incarnate God he uses physical reality, the gifts of God's creation, as signs to
bear the grace of supernatural life. All of creation is wrapped up in the
proclamation of redemption.
In his preaching the Lord Jesus often makes use of the
signs of creation to make known the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. (Cf. St. Luke 8. 10.) He performs healings and
illustrates his preaching with physical signs or symbolic gestures. (Cf. St. John 9:6; St. Mark 7:33 ff.; 8:22
ff.) He gives new meaning to the deeds and signs of the Old Covenant,
above all to the Exodus and the Passover, (Cf. St. Luke
9:31; 22:7-20.) for he himself is the meaning of all these signs. (CCC 1151) |
In the Baptismal ritual the priest continues this ordering of creation
as a sign of salvation when he repeats the blessing "Ephphatha!
Be opened!" over the ears and mouth of the newly
baptized child. May the Lord open our ears to truly hear the Gospel and our
mouths to proclaim our faith to the glory of God the Father.
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together,
we "meet Christ in the liturgy"---Father Cusick
(See also paragraphs 1151 and 1504 in the Catechism of
the Catholic Church.)
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TWENTY-FOURTH Sunday
Isaiah 50, 4-9; Psalm 116; James 2,
14-18; St. Mark 8, 27-35
Brothers and Sisters in
Christ,
The Church has pored over the Holy Scriptures for
nearly two thousand years, and has received the Old Testament from the Jewish
people, who themselves have loved and studied the Word of God from the time of
Abraham around 1700 BC. Jesus himself interpreted the Scriptures for us, so tat
we might fully understand that he is Messiah and Lord. His Lordship is
established by his victory over sin in his suffering, Passion, death and
Resurrection.
The Church remains faithful to the interpretation of "all the
Scriptures" that Jesus gave both before and after his Passover:
"Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and
enter into his glory?" (Lk 24:26-27, 44-45) Jesus'
sufferings took their historical, concrete form from the fact that he was
"rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the
scribes," who handed "him to the Gentiles to be mocked
and scourged and crucified." (Mk 8:31;
Mt 20:19) (CCC 572) Faith can
therefore try to examine the circumstances of Jesus' death, faithfully handed on
by the Gospels (Cf. Dei Verbum 19) and illuminated
by other historical sources, the better to understand the meaning of the
Redemption. (CCC 573) |
We look to the Scriptures where the Lord reveals
himself so as to nurture our relationship with him. Read and ponder the
Scriptures daily, particularly in the sacred Liturgy where Christ truly speaks to
us again and again if we will hear him.
I look forward to
meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the
liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
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SUNDAYS 25 - 27
TWENTY-FIFTH Sunday
Wisdom 2, 12. 17-20; Psalm
54:3-5, 6-8; James 3, 16 - 4, 3; St. Mark 9, 30-37
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
The way in which
a people welcomes the least among them determines their own goodness.
When the Apostles, giving in to pride, begin to argue among themselves
as to who among them is the greatest, the Lord calls a child into their midst and
thus begins to teach them the contradiction of the Christian life:
"If any one would be first, he must be last of all and servant of
all." Every one who would be saved must welcome and love the
smallest unborn child, the least of the poor, the abandoned, the rejected.
This humility and selflessness is a necessity of life in Christ
because authentic charity will never fail to inspire it. One cannot love others
in the proper way unless one is first prepared to disregard oneself enough to
care for and love others by serving them before one serves oneself, by seeing to
others' needs before one seeks to satisfy ones' own needs.
Charity is evidence of the indwelling of God himself in the person of
the Holy Trinity, for "love has been poured forth into our hearts by
the Holy Spirit who has been given to us."
Christ died out of
love for us, while we were still"enemies." (Rom
5:10) The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make
ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor
as Christ himself. (Cf. Mt 5:44; Lk 10:27-37;
Mk 9:37; Mt 25:40, 45) The Apostle
Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: "charity is patient
and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does
not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things,
believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." (1`Cor 13:4-7) (CCC 1825) |
I look forward to meeting you here
again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy" -Fr.
Cusick
(See also paragraphs 474 and 557 in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
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TWENTY-SIXTH Sunday
Numbers 11, 25-29; Psalm 19: 8, 10, 12-14;
James 5, 1-6; St. Mark 9, 38-43. 45. 47-48
Some think that the preaching of the Church should not include the
mention of hell. The Church requires the priest or deacon to preach on the text
of te Scriptures, and in our Gospel not only does the Lord mention the existence
of hell, he goes on to describe this state of final and everlasting separation
from the love and goodness of God. The Church, in faithfulness to the Lord,
teaches about the existence of hell and preaches about it because the Lord
himself spoke of its existence.
To have a distaste for the
discussion of hell or the reality of evil is the choice of the individual. We
are called, though, not merely to be good such that we have a distaste for evil
or for speaking about it; we are made to be holy as God is holy, and therefore to
be satisfied not merely with being good but, much more, to long to be saints.
The saints faced the reality of hell by taking responsibility for their moral
choices and for availing themselves of Christ's mercy in Confession and the
Eucharist on a frequent basis.
The Lord teaches the people in
our Gospel about the reality of hell in order to inform them that they must take
responsibility for their actions and realize that they can choose to be eternally
separated from God and all that is good. He teaches that free and wholehearted
service to the poor, the hungry and the thirsty are the good works which reflect
interior holiness. He teaches that scandalizing those whose faith is weak is a
mortal sin, punishable by the greatest of penalties. We are to avoid sin and
scandal by rejecting the near occasions of sin. And if we fail to root sin out
of our lives, it is by our own choice that we "go to hell, to the
unquenchable fire."
Jesus often speaks of Gehenna, of
"the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the
end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body
can be lost. (Cf. Mt 5:22, 29; 10:28; 13:42, 50;
Mk 9:43-48) Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will
send his angels, and they will gather...all evil doers, and throw them into the
furnace of fire,"(Mt 13:41-42) and
that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you
cursed, into the eternal fire!" (Mt 25:41)
(CCC 1034) |
There is no middle way: we either go to heaven, perhaps by way
of a purification from our attachment to sin, called purgatory, or we are
consigned to hell "where their worm does not die, and the fire is
not quenched." These are words of love, given to us while there is
still time to reform our lives.
I look forward to meeting
you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy"
-Fr. Cusick
(See also paragraphs 1034 in
the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
(Publish with permission.) The "Gospel of Nice" or
the "Gospel of Christ"
By Father Kevin M. Cusick
In our times has arisen
a false Gospel, the "gospel of Nice" which has won many hearts and minds to its
misguided ethic. Among those are many who mistake such for a kind of
Christianity. To think that assuaging the feelings of others is most important,
kinder or more loving for others than seeking their salvation, is not truly love
at all.
The "Gospel of Nice" never mentions "hell" because it might hurt
another's feelings and never corrects another for fear of losing human respect or
friendship. Such a false ethic values external conformity to God's Laws over
internal assent to the truth with the intellect and will. A false irenicism
seeks an illusory peace by placing God's will for the salvation of all mankind
second to pleasing the human craving for approval or pursuing the desires of the
human will run amok.
The Church's mission given by the Lord is very clear:
the salvation of souls is the highest law of the Church. This end guides every
other decision in the life of the Church. Along with this are the means given by
Christ to the Church for her role in the world. Scripture and Tradition stand
together as the sources of Revelation, the truth which guides the Church in
matters of faith and morals.
Some think that the preaching of the Church
should not include the mention of hell. The Church requires the priest or deacon
to preach on the text of the Scriptures, and in our Gospel not only does the Lord
mention the existence of hell, he goes on to describe the pain of this state of
final and everlasting separation from the love and goodness of God. The Church,
in faithfulness to the Lord, teaches about the existence of hell and preaches
about it because the Lord himself spoke of its existence.
To have a distaste
for the discussion of hell or the reality of evil is a natural inclination. The
Gospel, however, is about the natural transformed by and informed by the
supernatural. In order to "come to full stature" in the Lord we must go beyond
nature with its wants and needs and know clearly what is evil so as to reject it
and to love what is God so as to accept and do it. We are called, not merely to
be good such that we have a distaste for evil and for speaking about it; we are
made to be holy as God is holy, and therefore to be satisfied not merely with
being good but, much more, to long to be saints. The saints faced the reality of
hell by taking responsibility for theit moral choices and for availing themselves
of Christ's mercy in Confession and the Eucharist on a frequent basis.
The
Lord teaches the people in His Gospel about the reality of hell in order to
inform them that they must take responsibility for their actions and realize that
they can choose to be eternally separated from God and all that is good. He
teaches that free and wholehearted service to the poor, the hungry and the
thirsty are the good works which reflect interior holiness. He teaches that
scandalizing those whose faith is weak is a mortal sin, punishable by the
greatest of penalties. We are to avoid sin and scandal by rejecting the near
occasions for sin. Every intention of sorrow for past sin should include a firm
intention to avoid the people, places and things that have led us to sin in the
past. And if we fail to root sin out of our lives, it is by our own choice that
we "go to hell, to the unquenchable fire."
Jesus often talks of Gehenna, of
"the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse
to believe and to be converted, where both soul and body can be lost. (Cf. Mr.
5:22, 29; 10:28; 13:42, 50;; Mk 9:43-48) Jesus solemnly proclaims that He "will
send his angels, and they will gather all evil doers, and throw them into the
furnace of fire." (Mt 13:41-42) and that he will pronounce the condemnation:
'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!' (Mt 25:41)" (CCC 1034)
The Church teaches the truth of Christ. There is no middle way: we either go to
heaven, perhaps by way of a purification from our attachment to sin, called
purgatory, or we are consigned to hell "where their worm does not die, and the
fire is not quenched." These are words of love, given to us while there is still
time to reform our lives.
(See also paragraph 1034 in the Catechism of the
Catholic Church.)
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TWENTY-SEVENTH Sunday
Genesis 2, 18-24; Psalm 128; Hebrews 2, 9-11;
St. Mark 10, 2-16
Brothers and Sisters in
Christ,
The Church in the United States grants more annulments
each year than are granted in the rest of the world combined. It is legitimate
to question these numbers and many are doing so. Human error, misjudgment and
insincerity are constant factors in such a sensitive area. But aside from this,
Christ's teaching on the indissolubility of marriage, that it is exclusive and
for life, stands and is built upon the truth that there is no such thing as
marriage without the entire and sincere gift of self, man for woman and woman for
man.
The
married couple forms "the intimate partnership of life and love established
by the Creator and governed by his laws; it is rooted in the conjugal covenant,
that is, in their irrevocable personal consent." (Second
Vatican Council, Gaudium et spes 48, 1) Both give themselves
definitively and totally to one another. They are no longer two; from now on
they form one flesh. The covenant they freely contracted imposes on the spouses
the obligation to preserve it as unique and indissoluble. (Cf.
Code of Canon Law, 1056) "What therefore God has joined
together, let not man put asunder." (Mk 10:9; cf. Mt
19:1-12; 1 Cor 7:10-11) (CCC 2364) |
It is because of this truth, that God has made
marriage the total gift of self at each moment and unto death, that Pope Paul VI
spoke for Christ when he taught in the document Humanae Vitae, (HV), that every use of artificial contraception is a moral evil.
By
safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the
conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its
orientation toward man's exalted vocation to parenthood." (Cf.
Humanae Vitae 12) (CCC 2369) Periodic continence, that
is, the methods of birth regulation based on self-observation and the use of
infertile periods, is in conformity with the objective criteria of morality.
(HV 16) These methods respect the bodies of the
spouses, encourage tenderness between them, and favor the education of an
authentic freedom. In contrast, "every action which, whether in
anticipation of the conjugal act, or in its accomplishment, or in the development
of its natural consequences, proposes, whether as an end or as a means, to render
procreation impossible" is intrinsically evil." (HV 14) (CCC 2370) |
There can be no total gift of self without the
mutual giving of fertility.
Called to give life, spouses share in the creative power
and fatherhood of God, (Cf. Eph 3:14; Mt 23:9)
(CCC 2367) A particular aspect of this responsibility concerns
the regulation of births. For just reasons, spouses may wish to space the births
of their children. It is their duty to make certain that their desire is not
motivated by selfishness but is in conformity with the generosity appropriate to
responsible parenthood. Moreover, they should conform their behavior to the
objective criteria of morality: When it is a question of harmonizing married
love with the responsible transmission of life, the morality of the behavior does
not depend on sincere intention and evaluation of motives alone; but it must be
determined by objective criteria, criteria drawn from the nature of the person
and his acts, criteria that respect the total meaning of mutual self-giving and
human procreation in the context of true love; this is possible only if the
virtue of married chastity is practiced with sincerity of heart. (GS 50, 2) (CCC 2368) |
Marriage "until death do us part" begins
with the total giving of spouses in each marital act. Only such love is open to
the grace of God by which marriage is made faithful, generous and life-long.
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as,
together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
(See also CCC 699, 1244, 1261, 1627, 1639, 1650, 2380,
2382)
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SUNDAYS 28 - 31
TWENTY-EIGHTH Sunday
Wisdom
7, 7-11; Psalm 90, 12-17; Hebrews 4, 12-13; St. Mark 10, 17-30
Brothers and Sisters in
Christ,
Called away from the world and all it holds and called to God. These
are detachment and vocation, constants in each of our lives.
We are called
away from some things in our world, as the Lord called the rich young man away
from his possessions. We are called toward the Lord Jesus, to follow him
unreservedly, as the young man was unable to do when he walked away in sadness
from the Lord who beheld him with love.
Our vocations differ, whether to be
priests and religious or laity, single or married. In order to respond
wholeheartedly to each of these callings some things must be left behind so that
one can make room for God in one's heart and mind.
Jesus enjoins his
disciples to prefer him to everything and everyone, and bids them "renounce all
that [they have]" for his sake and that of the Gospel. (Lk 14:33; cf. Mk 8:35.)
Shortly before his passion he gave them the example of the poor widow of
Jerusalem who, out of her poverty, gave all that she had to live on. (Cf. Lk
21:4) The precept of detachment from riches is obligatory for entrance into the
Kingdom of heaven. (CCC 2544).
The gift of vocation is for one's own
sanctity and others, that all may see God. All are to practice some form of
detachment in their use of the things of this world, for the God who gave this
world and all it holds calls us to himself by means of these things.
All
Christ's faithful are to "direct their affections rightly, lest they be hindered
in their pursuit of perfect charity by the use of worldly things and by an
adherence to riches which is contrary to the spirit of evangelical poverty." (LG
42, art. 3) (CCC 2545)
"How hard it will be for those who have riches to
enter the kingdom of God." (Mk 10, 23)
The Lord grieves over the rich,
because they find their consolation in the abundance of goods. (Lk 6, 24) "Let
the proud seek and love earthly kingdoms, but blessed are the poor in spirit for
theirs is the Kingdom of heaven." (St. Augustine, De serm. Dom. in monte.)
Abandonment to the providence of the Father in heaven frees us from anxiety about
tomorrow. (Cf. Mt 6:25-34) Trust in God is a preparation for the blessedness of
the poor. They shall see God. (CCC 2547)
Peter began to say to him, "Lo,
we have left everything to follow you." Jesus said, "Truly, I say to you, there
is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or
children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a
hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and
children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life." (Mk
10, 28-30)
Married men and women leave behind the pursuit of wealth and
material things to love and support their chidlren should God so bless them.
Priests leave behind wife and family to work singleheartedly for the Kingdom.
Men and women religious renounce all personal money and property as well as
marriage in order to follow Christ most perfectly in this life.
Let us pray
for all that they may follow their vocations with generosity and joy, and for
ourselves that we may hear the Lord when he calls us and be prepared to
generously follow him.
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as,
together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
(See also CCC 1618, 1858, 2728. )
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TWENTY-NINTH Sunday
Isaiah 53, 10-11; Psalm 33, 4-5,
18-20, 22; Hebrews 4, 14-16; St. Mark 10, 35-45
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
When you pray, do you
"ask for the world"? Don't stop there, ask for heaven as well!
James and John approach the Lord boldly: "Teacher, we want
you to do for us whatever we ask of you." Our Lord's invites them,
"What do you want me to do for you?" They have repeatedly experienced
his supernatural powers and they have deep faith that he can grant their greatest
wish: not only a place in the next world, but nothing less than seats at his
right and his left in the kingdom!
St. Teresa of Avila teaches the
proper attitude for us as we approach the Lord with our requests: "His
Majesty knows best what is suitable for us; it is not for us to advise him what
to give us, for he can rightly reply that we know not what we ask. "(Mansions, II, 8)
Our focus in prayer is properly
the Kingdom, to seek the coming of the Kingdom as our Lord taught us. But the
door to the heavenly reign is through suffering and service. The Lord will be
glorified in heaven because he is the suffering Servant, whose suffering is the
perfect offering which will take away the sin of the world. When we pray for a
high place in heaven, how little we realize that we are also asking for a share
in the cup of the Lord's suffering and baptism into his servanthood. Jesus is
the Lamb of God and we are blessed to be worthy to receive him, to
be"called to the Supper of the Lamb". (The
Communion Rite in the Order of Mass.)
St.
John the Baptist hailed the Lord as the Lamb of God, the perfect
sacrifice for sins. The priest does the same in the liturgy, as he holds the
consecrated host aloft and repeats the proclamation of the Baptist, inviting all
to adore the Eucharistic Lord.
After agreeing to baptize him along with the sinners, John
the Baptist looked at Jesus and pointed him out as the "Lamb of God, who
takes away the sin of the world." (Jn 1:29; cf.
Lk 3:21; Mt 3:14-15; Jn 1:36) By doing so, he
reveals that Jesus is at the same time the suffering Servant who silently allows
himself to be led to the slaughter and who bears the sin of the multitudes, and
also the Paschal Lamb, the symbol of Israel's redemption at the first Passover.
(Isa 53:7, 12; cf. Jer 11:19; Ex
12:3-14; Jn 19:36; 1 Cor 5:7) Christ's whole life
expresses his mission: "to serve and to give his life as a ransom for
many." (Mk 10:45) (CCC 608)
|
If we share the desire of James
and John for a high place in heaven, to be a great saint, perhaps our first
prayer should be for the grace to accept our own share in the Lord's suffering,
to accept the crosses that are given to us, not merely the ones we choose for
ourselves. This is to be servants in imitation of the Lord and for his sake, not
seeking a return but seeing in Christian dignity its own reward and the vocation
to be "other Christs".
This dignity is expressed in readiness to serve,
in keeping with the example of Christ, who 'came not to be served but to serve.'
If, in the light of this attitude of Christ's, 'being a king' is truly possible
only by 'being a servant', then 'being a servant' also demands so much spiritual
maturity that it must really be described as 'being a king.' In order to be able
to serve others worthily and effectively we must be able to master ourselves,
possess the virtues that make this mastery possible. (John Paul II,
Redemptor hominis, 21). |
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as,
together, we "meet Christ in the liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
(See also paragraph 608 in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.)
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THIRTIETH Sunday
Jeremiah 31, 7-9; Psalm 126; Hebrews 5,
1-6; St. Mark 10, 46-52
Brothers and Sisters in
Christ,
Christ walks the streets of the ancient city of
Jericho in our Gospel, already thousands of years old in his own day. With his
disciples and a great crowd following him, our Lord is leaving the city and
Bartimaeus the blind beggar calls out to him in dire need: "Jesus, son
of David, have mercy on me!" His prayer, of abasement before the divine
Goodness, teaches us to recognize our own utter neediness before almighty God.
The blind, the handicapped, all those who labor under physical suffering are
blessed, for they have a constant reminder before their eyes of their complete
dependence upon God and of the primary need for forgiveness of sins and the
promise of eternal life. The gift of prayer is given so that we might respond
with honesty to God, with unclouded recognition that every one of us is a
Bartimaeus, suffering from blindness, physical or spiritual, and that we need the
mercy of God to enlighten us, give us the true vision to see ourselves as we are
and to accept the mercy and life of God to fill our emptiness. Our Christian
love draws us in prayer and in life to make an effective offering of self, after
the Lord's example. (CCC 459)
In the living
tradition of prayer, each Church proposes to its faithful, according to its
historic, social, and cultural context, a language for prayer: words, melodies,
gestures, iconography. The Magisterium of the Church (Cf. DV 10) has the task of discerning the
fidelity of these ways of praying to the tradition of apostolic faith; it is for
pastors and catechists to explain their meaning, always in relation to Jesus
Christ. (CCC 2663) |
There is no other way of Christian prayer than Christ.
Whether our prayer is communal or personal, vocal or interior, it has access to
the Father only if we pray "in the name" of Jesus. The sacred humanity
of Jesus is therefore the way by which the Holy Spirit teaches us to pray to God
our Father. (CCC 2664) |
But the one name that contains everything is the one that
the Son of God received in his incarnation: JESUS. The divine name may not be
spoken by human lips, but by assuming our humanity The Word of God hands it over
to us and we can invoke it: "Jesus," "YHWH saves." (Cf. Ex 3: 14; 33: 19-23; Mt 1: 21) The name
"Jesus" contains all: God and man and the whole economy of creation
and salvation. To pray "Jesus" is to invoke him and to call him within
us. His name is the only one that contains the presence it signifies. Jesus is
the Risen One, and whoever invokes the name of Jesus is welcoming the Son of God
who loved him and who gave himself up for him. (Rom
10:13; Acts 2:21; 3:15-16; Gal 2:20) (CCC
2666) |
This simple
invocation of faith developed in the tradition of prayer under many forms in East
and West. The most usual formulation, transmitted by the spiritual writers of
the Sinai, Syria, and Mt. Athos, is the invocation, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on us sinners." It combines the Christological hymn of
Philippians 2:6-11 with the cry of the publican and the blind men begging for
light. (Cf. Mk 10: 46-52; Lk 18:13) By it
the heart is opened to human wretchedness and the Savior's mercy. (CCC
2667) |
I look forward
to meeting you here again next week as, together, we "meet Christ in the
liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
(See also CCC
548, 2616.)
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THIRTY-FIRST Sunday
Deuteronomy 6, 2-6; Psalm 18;
Hebrews 7, 23-28; St. Mark 12, 28-34
Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Christ reveals the
eternal desire of God to engage us most intimately, in the depths of our hearts,
in the whole of our minds, with every fiber of our strength. "You
shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and
with all your mind, and with all your strength." (Mk
12, 30)
St. Francis de Sales aids us in our
meditation.
Would it not have sufficed to publish a permission giving us leave to
love him?...; he makes a stronger declaration of his passionate love of us, and
commands us to love him with all our power, lest the consideration of his majesty
and our misery, which make so great a distance and inequality between us, or some
other pretext, divert us from his love. In this he well shows that he did not
leave in us for nothing the natural inclination to love him, for to the end it
may not be idle, he urges us by his general commandment to employ it, and that
this commandment may be effected, he leaves no living man without furnishing him
abundantly with all means requisite thereto." (Treatise on
the love of God, book 2, chap. 8). |
Many may command our obedience in this life, but
none shall command us so sweetly: to love infinite Love. And never shall any
return what is commanded as God ever does. He commands us and invites us not
only to love, that prize which we most desire in this life, but by loving now to
look forward to eternal enjoyment the infinite fires of a love which burns
higher, brighter and greater than any love this world can offer.
How is this love of God fulfilled? How do we begin to make a return
to God of the infinite and redeeming love revealed in Christ Jesus? In a very
practical way. A way that is open to every man and woman. The "Way"
of Christ in the keeping of the commandments. The first of the Ten Commandments
calls us to the love of God and the other nine give us practical guidance as to
how we think, and speak and act in love of God every day.
God has loved us
first. The love of the One God is recalled in the first of the "ten
words." The commandments then make explicit the response of love that man is
called to give to his God. (CCC 2083)
The Roman
Catechism: "The first commandment embraces faith, hope, and charity. When
we say 'God' we confess a constant, unchangeable being, always the same, faithful
and just, without any evil. It follows that we must necessarily accept his words
and have complete faith in him and acknowledge his authority. He is almighty,
merciful, and infinitely beneficent...Who could not place all hope in him? Who
could not love him when contemplating the treasures of goodness and love he has
poured out on us? Hence the formula God employs in the Scripture at the
beginning and end of his commandments: 'I am the LORD.' "
(CCC 2086) |
I look forward to meeting you here again next week as, together,
we "meet Christ in the liturgy" -Fr. Cusick
See also CCC 129, 202, 228, 575, 2196,
(Publish
with permission.) http://www.christusrex.org/www1/mcitl/