Stewards of the Gospel: Friday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time (1 Corinthians 9:16-19, 22b-27; Psalm 84:3, 4, 5-6, 12; Luke 6:39-42)

Our theme of stewardship continues this week as Saint Paul challenges us to be good stewards of the Gospel.

As some of you know, preaching was one of my greatest hesitations in discerning Holy Orders. I have never seen myself as a public speaker, and throughout my life I have avoided public speaking by almost any means necessary.

I understand now that, in doing so, I was not being a good steward of the gifts God had given me. Praise God, I see that now—and woe to me that I did not see it sooner.

I have also come to understand the great imposition Paul speaks of. I prefer to look at it as a privilege. I have the privilege of standing before you to preach the Gospel. Yet that privilege carries with it a grave responsibility—a responsibility so serious that I believe Paul chose to describe it as an imposition.

To be a faithful steward of the Gospel, I cannot simply stand here and tell you what makes you feel good or what makes me look good. Sometimes I have to deliver a difficult message. Sometimes I have to preach something I know you would rather not hear. Sometimes I have to risk looking like a hypocrite as I challenge you to live a Gospel that I myself sometimes struggle to live up to.

That is precisely what it means to be a slave to the Gospel.

If I am only willing to preach the Gospel when it is comfortable, convenient, or well received, then I am not truly serving the Gospel. And if I am unwilling to proclaim the difficult truth, then I have no business standing before you—even in the easy moments.

That said, stewardship of the Gospel does not belong only to those in Holy Orders.

Every one of us has been entrusted with the Gospel. Every one of us has been given the responsibility—and the privilege—of making Christ known.

We become good stewards of the Gospel by the way we live, the words we speak, and the way we serve. We become good stewards by participating fully in the sacramental life of the Church and by making God’s love visible. We become good stewards by giving others an example worth following and by inviting them to encounter Christ alongside us in the Sacraments.

When our lives begin to reflect the Gospel, we become capable of sharing that Gospel with others.

We share it through charity, justice, and our works of mercy. We speak about our faith when the opportunity arises, not with arrogance or condemnation, but with gentleness and respect. We become more deeply involved in the life of our parish.  Through the ministries of the parish, we strive to make God’s love visible beyond these walls.

We feed the hungry. We comfort the sick. We accompany the lonely. We welcome the stranger. We make room for those who feel as though they have no place. We become instruments of reconciliation when relationships are broken. We become signs of peace in a world that desperately needs it.

None of this is reserved for priests or deacons.

This is the work of every Christian.

All of us have been entrusted with the stewardship of the Gospel. What that stewardship looks like will be different in each of our lives. But the responsibility is the same: we have received something precious, and we are called to do something with it.

Saint Paul says that he makes full use of his right in the Gospel so that he might win over many and save at least some.

Notice that he does not say it will be easy.  He simply says that the Gospel is worth it.

And so the question for each of us is not whether we have been given gifts. All of us certainly have.

The question is whether we are willing to give those gifts back to God.

Are we willing to spend our time, our talents, our treasures, our comfort—even our reputation—for the sake of the Gospel?

Are we willing to speak when silence would be easier, to serve when serving is inconvenient, to forgive when forgiveness is painful, and to love when love costs us something?

To “make full use” of our place in the Gospel requires willingness, discipline, and courage. And above all, it requires a determination to do everything—not for our own recognition, comfort, or glory—but for the sake of the Gospel.

We have been entrusted with the greatest message the world has ever received: For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish but might have eternal life.

That message has been entrusted to us so that we might carry it, live it, proclaim it, and hand it on.

That is the challenge, the invitation, and the reward of stewardship: that through our small acts of faithfulness, God may use us to win over many—and perhaps save at least some.

Brothers and sisters, do not be afraid.

Let us become the stewards Christ calls us to be—faithful with what we have received, courageous in what we proclaim, generous in how we serve, and relentless in our commitment to the Gospel.

Blessed are we as we proclaim to the world, how lovely is your dwelling place, Lord, mighty God!

Thanks be to God!

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Measure Out Generously: Thursday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time (1 Corinthians 8:1b-7, 11-13; Psalm 139:1b-3, 13-14ab, 23-24; Luke 6:27-38)

The primary theme of our Gospel reading today is forgiveness.  Jesus exhorts us to love those who hate us, bless those who curse us, pray for those who mistreat us, and to let go of what was taken from us.  In short we are to stop judging and condemning, instead forgiving and giving without measure.

In this vein, Archbishop Lori issues his monthly challenge.  He said, “To forgive others can be very difficult at times, especially when someone repeatedly offends us. Jesus tells us there is no magic number that limits our obligation — our desire to forgive and show mercy to others must be boundless, just as God’s mercy toward us is infinite. We pray in the Our Father, ‘Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ Our very salvation depends on our willingness to forgive, for God will forgive us in the measure that we forgive others.”

Our own life experiences probably tell the story that a life that includes deep resentments leads to a life of futility and unhappiness.  

The Archbishop asks the following questions:  Are there people in your life whom you find difficult to forgive for past offenses? Do you sometimes find yourself saying the words “I forgive you,” but holding on to the hurt like a grudge? What steps can you take to move to true forgiveness?

He challenges us to make a list of the people in our lives — past and present — whom you find or have found difficult to forgive, and to sincerely pray for them each day.

Someone recently gave me the following prayer that can be used for these types of situations:

“God, help me to forgive (insert name).  He/she is yours now.  Please give him/her everything I want for myself.  Give him/her love, happiness, joy, and freedom, and especially You, God.  Please help him/her be everything he/she would like to be.”

Jesus reminds us that the measure with which we measure out, not just forgiveness, but also  love, happiness, joy, and freedom to others will be measured out to us.  Let us measure out generously.

In the spirit of forgiveness, guide me, Lord, along the everlasting way.

Thank be to God!

Mysteries of God: Friday of the Twenty-second Week in Ordinary Time (1 Corinthians 4:1-5; Psalm 37:3-4, 5-6, 27-28, 39-40; Luke 5:33-39)

Today, Saint Paul urges us to be stewards of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Stewardship is a word we are familiar with. It is a way of life rooted in the recognition that God is the source of every good gift we have received. We are called to receive those gifts with gratitude, cultivate them responsibly, share them generously and justly, and ultimately return them to the Lord.

We often think of stewardship through the lens of time, talent, and treasure. We recognize the blessings God has entrusted to us and seek to share those blessings with others through our service, our generosity, and our other works of mercy and charity.

But Saint Paul speaks of something more: the mysteries of God.

In the late second century, the Early Church Fathers began translating the Greek word mysterion, meaning “mystery,” into the Latin word sacramentum, meaning “sacrament.”

For the Latin Rite, we speak of the seven Sacraments. In many of the Eastern Rites, they are still called the Holy Mysteries. In the Byzantine tradition, for example, the Lord provided His Church with seven chief means of salvation—the Holy Mysteries.

Saint Paul tells us to be stewards of the mysteries of God.  In doing so, he gives us a profound responsibility to be stewards of the Holy Sacraments.

If the Sacraments are truly the mysteries of God, then how we approach them matters. How we celebrate them matters. How we teach them matters. How we protect them matters.

The seven Sacraments derive their power and efficacy from the Paschal Mystery—the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Every sacramental celebration leads us back to Jesus Christ on the Cross. Every grace we receive through the Sacraments comes to us because Christ offered Himself completely for our salvation on the Cross.

The Sacraments are not merely religious ceremonies. They are true encounters with Jesus Christ on the Cross.

The more deeply we understand what Christ has done for us, the more deeply we will approach the Sacraments with gratitude. And the more grateful we become, the better stewards of these sacred mysteries we will be.

We must insist upon the proper matter and form of the Sacraments.

There is a reason the Church does not simply make up the Sacraments as we go along.

There is a reason we cannot substitute crackers and grape juice for the matter of the Eucharist. There is a reason we cannot baptize with coffee. There is a reason we cannot simply rewrite the words of Absolution. There is a reason we cannot add to, remove from, or alter the Mass according to our personal preferences.  There is a reason the Church teaches what she teaches about Holy Matrimony and Holy Orders.

These things are not arbitrary rules invented by “out of touch” men in Rome.

The Sacraments belong to Christ. They do not belong to us.

We are not their owners. We are their stewards.

A steward does not have the authority to take what has been entrusted and remake it according to personal preferences or the whims of the world. A steward's responsibility is to guard faithfully what belongs to the master.

That is precisely our responsibility with the Holy Sacraments.

The Sacraments are not ours to reinvent. They are Christ's gifts to His Church, and we have been entrusted with protecting their integrity.

We must approach the Sacraments with reverence, prayer, and awe.

The Sacraments are not empty rituals. They are not merely beautiful traditions handed down from previous generations.

They are sacred encounters with Jesus Christ.

Our external actions should reflect the reality of what we believe internally.

If we truly believe that Jesus Christ is present, then our behavior should proclaim that belief even when our lips are silent.

Reverence is not about putting on a show. It is about allowing our bodies, our minds, and our hearts to acknowledge what is actually happening.

Do not let the extraordinary become ordinary.

We come to Mass routinely. We hear the same prayers. We see the same rituals. 

And because we experience these things so frequently, it is natural to become accustomed to them.

But at the same time, we must never become casual about them.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. The Sacramental life is the very breath of the Church.

Through the Sacraments, God bridges the infinite and the finite. The God who created the universe stoops down to meet us in tangible, visible ways.

Nowhere else can we encounter Jesus Christ in the way we are privileged to through the Sacraments.

We must resist the temptation to treat it as ordinary.

Because when we lose our sense of awe, we risk losing our appreciation for the gift.

When you walk into a Catholic church, remember where you are—and remember Who you are with.

You are entering the house of God.

You are coming into the presence of Jesus Christ.

You are entering a place where the King of the Universe has chosen to remain with His people in the Blessed Sacrament.

The Sacraments are not about creating an experience that satisfies our personal preferences. They are about and true and authentic encounter with Jesus Christ.

The Mass is not something we attend merely because it is our obligation. Rather, it is our participation in the worship of heaven.

Saint Paul challenges us to more deeply understand the gifts we have been entrusted with, more faithfully guard them, more reverently celebrate therm, and more powerfully proclaim them.

Through the Sacraments, the salvation of the just comes from the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

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