July 5, 1998Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time |
by John Joseph Cardinal Carberry
O Jesus, our great high priest, hear our humble prayers on behalf of your priests. Give them a deep faith, a bright and firm hope, and a burning love which will ever increase in the course of their priestly life. In their loneliness, comfort them. In their sorrows, strengthen them. In their frustrations, point out to them that it is through suffering that the soul is purified. Show them that they are needed by the Church, needed by souls, needed for the work of redemption. O loving Mother Mary, mother of priests, take to your heart your sons who are close to you because of their priestly ordination and because of the power which they have received to carry on the work of Christ in a world which needs them so much. Be their comfort. Be their joy. Be their strength and especially help them to live and defend the ideals of consecrated chastity. Amen.
1) Isaiah 66, 10-14
2) Galatians 6, 14-18
3) Luke 10, 1-12. 17-20
Everyone is inadequately prepared. We are sent into the world without a walking stick, traveling bag or sandals.(3) We are, however, sent two-by-two. Each of us must contribute to the spreading of the gospel to the best of our ability. If, of course, it were only up to us we might be doomed to failure. But, "The Lord's power shall be known to his servants"(1) "All that matters is that one is created anew."(2) We have been created anew in baptism. We are free to hold nothing back in our service, for only in our service do we imitate the love of God in Christ.
Next Sunday the reading's will be: 1)Deuteronomy 30, 10- 14; 2)Colossians 1, 15-20; 3)Luke 10, 25-37.
May the favor of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Amen.
(Taken from Second Reading for 14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, July 5, l998)
Indeed the favor of the Lord is upon us! The three Scriptural readings indicate this clearly.
Jerusalem is a metaphor for home where we feel at rest in God. In Paul's message to the Galatians, he says we are all in Christ by our willingness to claim the cross as Christians. In the Gospel, we are called forth like the seventy-two to go out there and cause Satan to collapse. We have been called just as surely as the disciples of old.
Dear Friends,
Before I conclude my time with you, I need to answer a question some one asked me last week. "What are those two brass things doing in the sanctuary?"
Their purpose is to serve as a reminder of the approaching millennium. You recall that the Pope, John Paul II, has asked us to spend three years preparing for the Jubilee year 2000 which will conclude this millennium and usher us into the next millennium in the year 2001. He also suggested that each year be dedicated to one of the persons of the Trinity. Consequently, the first year, 1997 was the year of faith dedicated to Jesus Christ. The brass triangle with the cross at the top and streams of water flowing from it represents Christ's redemptive act and the seven sacraments as our way of participating in His work of redemption.
The second brass piece has the Dove at the top of the triangle of fire representing the Holy Spirit and the gifts poured out as fire upon the earth. This year, 1998, is the year of Hope dedicated to the Holy Spirit. Next year we will get a third brass piece dedicated to the Father, as the year of love, to complete our Trinitarian work of art. These works of art were commissioned by the Missionary Oblates at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville. Large representations of these brass pieces can be seen lighted at night along Highway 15 near the Shrine. They have been part of the Way of Lights since 1997. If you have further questions about these works of art, you may ask Fr. Roger.
And so as I leave you, I pray that these brass pieces serve as at least one of the reminders of God's gentle and everlasting love for you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Be assured of my prayer for you as I ask yours for me that we will both grow in our faith, hope, and love of God and each other.
Fr. Tom, OMI
Even if you seldom give a thought to patriotism, the celebrations of the Fourth of July is an occasion to give that topic some attention. It's Independence Day, the 222 birthday of our country.
From our history lessons in grade school most of us probably remember three facts about the original Fourth of July: It was a sweltering, hot summer in Philadelphia in 1776. The delegates from the thirteen colonies signed a document written by Jefferson that declared independence. And they rang the Liberty Bell in the tower of Independence Hall, proclaiming freedom. You wonder if that's where we got the expression, Let freedom ring. (Yes, it's also in that old patriotic song, My Country, 'Tis of thee.)
We pride ourselves on our freedom. And in many ways we are free, at least as free as any people on earth. But freedom has a price, a big one. People are not free who are afraid to leave their homes at night, or allow their children even in daytime, to play in the neighborhood. People are not free when they cannot change jobs or advance in employment on their merits. People are not free when economic factors are biased toward a few with wealth and power rather than toward people in general.
Freedom demands responsibility. We need to be responsible about schools, about the environment, about treating all people fairly, and putting family life first.
Freedom is a gift from God. Responsible behavior is our way of keeping and guarding that gift.
Frs. Earl and Gilmary
We need to examine our behavior during Mass to discover if our actions and words are true ritual or merely routine.
During the Mass we follow certain rituals (gestures, actions, and words) which express this reverence and gratitude. These rituals are symbols that have a deeper meaning. Through them we act out our beliefs, values, and deepest concerns. When we celebrate the Eucharist, our actions and words, whether communal or personal, express this reverence and respect we have for God and His saving activity. There is, however, the possibility that because we perform these rituals over and over again, they can lose their meaning and become routine.
Routines are gestures or actions that we perform for specific, practical reasons, but which generally do not express our beliefs or concerns. We all have routines that we follow, such as when we get ready for work or school. We usually do the same thing over and over again without really thinking about it. These activities do not have any deep symbolic meaning outside of helping us leave our homes on time.
Because we essentially do the same thing in Church each week during the Mass, there is always the possibility that our rituals can become so familiar that they become routine. Actions, gestures, and words which ought to express our faith become mere habits, activities which we take for granted, and we can end up performing them matter of factly. We need to examine our behavior during Mass to discover if our actions and words are true ritual or merely routine.
(On the First Sunday of Advent, November 28/29, 1998, the Catholics throughout the United States will begin using a new lectionary, the book of scripture readings used at Mass. It will be a new and better translation of the Sacred Scriptures, and some new and different readings will be added. In preparation for this momentous and important event, this column will share with you some of the Introduction for this new Lectionary.)
On the night before he died, Christ gathered with his disciples to celebrate the Last Supper. There, he took bread and wine and gave it to them as the everlasting sign of the new covenant in his blood (Lk 22:20). From that night onward, "the Church has never ceased to celebrate his paschal mystery by coming together to read what referred to him in all the Scriptures (Lk 24:27), and to carry out the work of salvation through the celebration of the memorial of the Lord and through the sacraments," (Lectionary for Mass [LFM], 10).
In the earliest days of the Church, the apostles gathered weekly for "the breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42). St. Luke reminds us that the first of Jesus' followers still observed the cycle of Scripture readings in synagogues as a regular part of their worship (Acts 13:14ff). As well, when Christians gathered within the homes of the apostles, the Scriptures were read and preached about at length (Acts 20:9). Whether Greek or Jew, Christians read widely from the Pentateuch, the Law and the Prophets and paired these with the Gospels and the letters of the apostles as a regular preparation for the celebration of the Eucharist (Justin Martyr 1 Apol. 67). -- An Introduction to the Second Edition of the Lectionary for Mass.
The assigned readings for this Sunday and last Sunday give us some very appropriate Scriptural text to provide a frame of reference for this weekends celebration of Independence Day. In this Sundays second reading from Galatians we hear -" All that matters is that one is created anew. Peace and mercy on all who follow this rule of life." Gal 6:15 Last Sunday we heard or read -"It was for liberty that Christ freed us. So stand firm, and do not take yourselves the yoke of slavery a second time!" Gal. 5:1
The biblical notion of true liberty is based on the belief that we are "created anew" when we receive the Holy Spirit through baptism, and then, hopefully, we are led by the Spirit though the unfolding of our lives, especially in discernment regarding the choices we make and the direction our lives take if we yield to the Spirit's inspiration. How fully one is led by the Spirit may be measured by the degree that such a person enjoys the fruits of the Spirit as revealed in the same letter to the Galatians -"But if you are guided by the Spirit, you are not under the law..." In contrast the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control... If we live by the Spirit, let us also follow the Spirit." (Gal. 5:18, 22, 28)
This weekend we celebrate and give thanks for our country's heritage of liberty. We citizens of the U.S.A. enjoy many dimensions of liberty that millions who live elsewhere do not. Religious liberty is a precious gift, the right to worship and practice our faith without outside interference. May we celebrate and give thanks this weekend for the blessings of freedom we are privileged to have in both the secular and religious domain, and recommit ourselves (Eucharist-renewing the covenant) to follow the Holy Spirit to realize even more profoundly the liberty for which Christ freed us.
Today's Gospel, and the Epistle, call us to a sense of mission. Only St. Luke's Gospel has a mission of the Seventy-two, and the number 72 is symbolic. The mission of the 12 represents the Church's mission to Israel, and the mission of the Seventy-two, to all of the world. A call to mission is part of each of our lives, through our Baptism. The call is initiated by Christ himself, and we respond to the call. In the Gospel, the disciples respond to Christ's call. In the same way, He calls each of us daily to be witnesses and missionaries in the communities where we live: to those who do not know the Lord, or the those perhaps whose faith has grown weak, to anyone who needs an encouraging word of Faith. We never know exactly how we are going to affect the person next to us. Our example is a powerful part of evangelization. Lack of example (or worse, bad example) is just the opposite. Since the Gospel speaks of the mission to the nations, we need to be aware of the Church's missionary activities worldwide, and to see how the life of the Church is far beyond our borders. We participate in that work through our prayers, and our involvement in the Mission Co-Op of our diocese each year.
Lastly, the Gospel this Sunday calls us to support with our prayers and encouragement vocations to the priesthood and religious life: that particular call to service and witness situated within everyone's call to holiness and mission.
Recent gatherings of Eucharistic ministers brought up a perennial question: What do you do if someone wants to dip their host into the Precious Blood? The bottom line is: Is "intincture" (dipping the host) an approved way to receive Holy Communion? The U.S. Catholic bishops have explicitly told us not to encourage this way of receiving. Most of the breads used for Eucharist are very flimsy and break off faster than a graham cracker in milk, so the chances of pieces falling into the chalice and onto the floor are greatly increased. It is nerve-wracking for Eucharistic ministers to move their purificators around quickly for use as a drop cloth. Will some people continue to use this method? Probably. Are there issues for a few of us around contagion and immune systems? Of course. Here is a last question: Can the New Testament Greek be translated to "take and dip" instead of "take and drink"? I think not. July is traditionally a month of devotion to the Precious Blood of Jesus. Perhaps receiving from the cup more frequently and with reverence would be a concrete expression of love for the Lord who gave his all for us.
