Mercy and Sacrifice: Friday of the Fifteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Exodus 11:10—12:14; Psalm 116:12-13, 15 and 16bc, 17-18; Matthew 12:1-8)

At first glance, it is easy to hear today’s Gospel reading and come away with the understanding that Jesus is giving us an “either/or” situation; i.e., mercy or sacrifice.  But we know the faith handed down to us by the Apostles is very rarely “either/or”.  Rather, it is almost always “both/and”.  The glass is always both half full and half empty.

In that vein, Jesus is not teaching mercy to the exclusion of sacrifice.  In reality, He is giving us an order of importance.  He is simply saying mercy should always go before sacrifice, and our sacrifices should never put a limit on mercy.

There is a story of Saint Francis of Assisi during a time that he and his followers were staying at a place called Rico Torto (or twisting river).

During this time, they were practicing the traditional Advent Fast.  Bear in mind the fasting disciplines of the Middle Ages were far more stringent than the fasting disciplines we have in the Church today.

As the story goes, one night Saint Francis awoke to the sound of a brother screaming, “I am dying!  I am dying!  Help me”!

Saint Francis approached him and asked, “What is it, brother?  Tell me.”

The brother suddenly became overcome with shame and embarrassment.  He answered, “Forgive me Father Francis, but I am dying from hunger.”

Saint Francis had pity on the suffering brother.  He ordered all the brothers to light torches and to go out into the night to gather whatever herbs and vegetables they could find.  Together they would prepare and enjoy a good, nutritious midnight supper.  Saint Francis humbly spared this one brother the humiliation of breaking his fast and eating alone.

After the brothers had finished supper, Saint Francis said to them, “You must avoid excessive mortification in the same way that you avoid excessive eating and drinking. For it is not the food that is sinful or the lack of food that is virtuous. Rather it is the excess that leads to sin and the moderation that enables you to persevere in penance, and it is true self-knowledge that enables you to know what is excessive and what is prudent in your own particular case.”

Ultimately, Saint Francis reminds us to not define our faith by our sacrifices, but rather allow our faith be defined by our mercy, which happens to be strengthened by our sacrifices. 

Jesus once said to Saint Faustina, “My daughter, speak to the world about My mercy; let all mankind recognize My unfathomable mercy. It is a sign for the end times; after it will come the day of justice. While there is still time, let them have recourse to the fount of My mercy; let them profit from the Blood and Water which gushed forth for them.”

When we offer up our meek sacrifices through the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross…the once and for all sacrifice of Jesus Christ that we profoundly participate in at every Mass, Jesus sacramentally takes our sacrifices as His own.  Then, we have the opportunity to truly profit from the merciful grace of the Blood and Water which gushes forth through the Eucharist and the sacramental life of the Church.  The merciful grace that we can then spread out into the world around us.

With mercy and meekness, let us take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

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Bless the Lord like Saint Benedict: Memorial of Saint Benedict, Abbot (Proverbs 2:1-9; Psalm 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7, 8-9, 10-11; Matthew 19:27-29)

Saint Benedict was born around the year 480.  He was the son of a Roman prefect during the time the Roman Empire was beginning to breathe its last breath.

Saint Benedict was sent to Rome to receive formal education from a nurse.  However, he was disappointed with education and discouraged by how vice was destroying the lives of those around him.

He met a monk named Romanus  of Sabiaco, who gave him advice about becoming a monk and gave him a monk’s habit.  Following this advice, he went to a large cave overlooking the blue waters of a beautiful lake.

Saint Benedict lived alone in this cave for three years, spiritually growing and maturing. He would later move to Monte Cassino, where he founded the monastery that came to form the base for the monastic life of the Catholic Church; including the religious order that continues to bear his name today, the Order of Saint Benedict.

During this time, the monastic philosophy of Saint Benedict was documented into what is referred to as the Rule of Saint Benedict.  This simple, but powerful rule of life continues to guide religious life 1,500 years later.  

Important spiritual contributions from the Rule of Saint Benedict include lectio divina (or sacred reading of the Word of God) and emptying ourselves so God’s grace can fill our hearts.

Through this, the life of Saint Benedict was full of miracles and other powerful signs of God working through him.

One time a poor man came to the monastery looking for some oil.  The monk in the monastery that was responsible for provisioning food refused to give any oil out of concern that there would be none left for the monastery.

Saint Benedict saw this as an extreme lack of faith in God’s providence.  He immediately knelt in prayer.  As he prayed, the oil jar miraculously filled with oil to the point that it overflowed onto the monastery floor.

In March of the year 547, Saint Benedict (having received a message from God that his mortal life would soon come to an end) requested that the grave of his recently deceased sister (Saint Scholastica) be opened so he may be buried with her.  

Pope Saint Gregory the Great describes the day of his death to us: “On the sixth day he [Benedict] had his disciples carry him into the chapel. There he fortified himself against death by receiving the Lord’s Body and Blood. As he supported his weak limbs with the help of his disciples, he stood with hands raised to heaven and drew his last breath while praying.”

Saint Benedict died on March 21st at Monte Cassino, Italy.  

Benedictine spirituality continues to remind us that we must always trust in the providence of God to fill us with His goodness, we must always be willing to empty ourselves in love for others.  In emptying ourselves, God’s grace will fill our hearts to overflowing, first in inspiration, but ultimately in contemplative love.

Saint Benedict truly gave up everything to follow the Lord.  In return, he received in excess of a hundred times more in the form of abundant grace, and he truly inherited eternal life.  In Saint Benedict, we have a true model of how to bless the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

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Commissioned for Marvelous Things: Thursday of the Fourteenth Week in Ordinary Time (Genesis 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5; Psalm 105:16-17, 18-19, 20-21; Matthew 10:7-15)

Our Gospel reading today is part of the commissioning of the twelve Apostles to go out to the lost sheep of the House of Israel to proclaim to them the Kingdom of God.

In a way, the prefigures the great commission of the Catholic Church, where we are to go out to all the lost sheep in the world around us to proclaim to them the Kingdom of God.

Or, as it says in the Catechism regarding the missionary mandate of the Church: “Having been divinely sent to the nations that she might be 'the universal sacrament of salvation,' the (Catholioc) Church, in obedience to the command of her founder and because it is demanded by her own essential universality, strives to preach the Gospel to all men: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age.’”

Archbishop Lori reminds us of this responsibility in his monthly challenge for July as he encourages us to put our faith into action.  He calls us to meet people where they are, loving them and serving them, and ultimately leading them into an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ through His Holy Catholic Church.  Our active involvement in this missionary mandate is critical to fufill the will of the Father.

As it says in the Catechism, “To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son's Church. The (Catholic) Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The (Catholic) Church is ‘the world reconciled.’  According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah's ark, which alone saves from the flood.”

It is up to us to initiate that reunification, just as the Apostles from the reading today.  Also, just like the Apostles, you are given great grace to complete this important mission.

Let’s take this month to discern who God has placed in your life to proclaim the Kingdom of God to.  Who comes to your mind?  In what ways is the Lord inviting you to evangelize to them?  In what ways do you find yourself ignoring this call to missionary discipleship?  In what ways do you turn away from people when it is inconvenient for you?  How can your outreach to the lost sheep in your life in turn bring you closer to the Lord?

Allow yourself to be like the Apostles in our reading today.  Find those who thirst in the world.  Find those who try to quench their thirst in the waste water of the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Bring them to the well of the Sacramental life Jesus established in His Catholic Church.   Bring them to the water Jesus gives that we may never thirst; the water Jesus gives as a spring welling up to eternal life.

Remember the words of Jesus: “Whoever gives only a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because he is a disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”  

And remember, through you, the Lord wants to do marvelous things.

Thanks be to God!

True Freedom: Independence Day (Genesis 23:1-4, 19; 24:1-8, 62-67; Psalm 106:1b-2, 3-4a, 4b-5; Matthew 9:9-13)

We often hear the claim that the United States was built on the foundation of Judeo-Christian principles and that we have always been a Christian country.  From a certain perspective, that is certainly true.  Though I have to admit, it is a concept that I personally struggle to completely buy into.

The American Revolution was heavily influenced by the Enlightenment movement that was taking place in Europe, which, among other things, represented a seismic paradigm shift to a more secular way to interpret the world, an interpretation that focused on personal liberty and rejection of authority…including the Catholic Church.

At least some of our founding fathers were not Christian at all, but rather Deists, at best, and many of them were actually Freemasons, which are extremely anti-Christian in their philosophical views.

In fact, there is a line in our Declaration of Independence that is specifically targeted against Catholicism.  

Fun fact for you, if this line had not been in the Declaration of Independence, there is a chance that Quebec (a very Catholic Quebec at the time) would have joined the American Revolution.  

As much as it has become a joke on the internet recently, without this line in the Declaration of Independence, it is quite possible that Canada really could be part of the United States.

The line from the Declaration of Independence I am referring to goes like this, “Abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies.”  

Just hearing the words, perhaps it doesn't sound so bad, but in fact, the cousin of the one and only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence was excommunicated for this one line.

The backstory of this line is that in 1774, the First Continental Congress of the American revolution condemned Quebec for “establishing the Roman Catholic religion and erecting a tyranny there”.  Circumstantial evidence that the founding philosophies of our country, at the very least, included a belief that Catholicism equates to ’tyranny’.

We see the unfortunate fruits of the Enlightenment philosophy and secular worldview, not only in statements like this one from the Declaration of Independence, but in many aspects of our lives today.   Our governments are broken.  Our society and culture are broken.  Perhaps even some of our families are broken.

We conflate liberty and freedom to the point that we are no longer free.  We must remember that liberty is the right to do what you want to do.  Meanwhile, true freedom is so much more powerful.  Freedom is the power to do what is morally right.  Freedom is the power to do the will of God.

When we choose to exercise liberty over freedom, we are not really free at all.  We become slaves to something.  At the highest level, we risk becoming slaves to…this country is slave to…human secularism.  

Human secularism is the fruit of the Enlightenment taken to its extremes.  This fruit of the Enlightenment has been promulgated by Freemasonry and sadly even many non-Catholic ecclesial communities.

But there is hope.  If we look back through the short history of the United States, we can see the fingerprints of Mary.  We see Mary forming a Catholic Culture within the one sole Catholic colony that bears her holy name still today as a state.  Maryland.  Mary’s land, a land where Catholic Culture was established, nurtured, and expanded into the new republic.

It was Catholics in the Maryland colony that initially fought for the Maryland Toleration Act, which allowed specific groups to practice their faith without the risk of retribution.

Components of the Maryland Toleration Act would later serve as inspiration for the first Amendment to the Constitution.

There is a pious legend of an apparition of our Lady at Valley Forge, encouraging the troops to continue on during some of the darkest days of the Revolutionary War.  

If the legend is true, then it most likely is not because the United States has some special role in salvation history.  After all, we are not Millennialists, nor are we Christian Nationalists.  It seems to me that it would be so we, each and everyone of us, could have the privilege of being Catholic today.   

In 1790, President George Washington would formally recognize the “important assistance” of Catholics in the Revolution.  In fact, there is wide-spread belief that George Washington, perhaps influenced by the events at Valley Forge, would die a Catholic and that the Mount Vernon estate contained a pastel painting of the Blessed Virgin.

Fast forward to the War of 1812, the United States was perilously close to defeat when the Battle of New Orleans started.  

Had England won this battle, the war would have most certainly been over and the existence of the United States extremely short.  

In a way, this was like the Battle of Lepanto for America, where Our Lady of Prompt Succor delivered a decisive victory over a hopelessly overwhelming force.

In 1815, General Andrew Jackson (far from being a Catholic), would state, “The divine providence of God through the intercession of Our Lady of Prompt Succor has shielded us and granted this stupendous miracle.”

While our country, our society, and our culture is currently captive to the real tyranny of human secularism, we must always remember where our true hope lies.  We must always remember where our true strength lies.  We must always remember where our true freedom lies.  We must always remember that reality is grounded in the sacramental life of the Catholic Church and through living out the beatitudes by the grace of God.  In short, to be like Matthew, to follow Him.

As we celebrate our independence today, let us truly be grateful that we live in a land where we have license to practice the faith of the Apostles to the fullest extent possible. 

Therefore, let us never, ever take the Eucharist, and the sacramental life of the Catholic Church for granted.

At the same time, let us always remember the ultimate source of our true independence:  the absolute Truth of Jesus Christ as He continues to communicate His Truth to us through His One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church.  Through the sacramental life, He speaks his peace to us.

As we enter now into the fullest expression of Thanksgiving possible through the Liturgy of the Eucharist, let us truly give thanks to the Lord for He is good to those who live in His freedom, His peace, and His Truth.  

Thanks be to God!