Good Catholics or Good Citizens: Thursday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time (Galatians 3:1-5; Luke 1:69-70, 71-72, 73-75; Luke 11:5-13)

Are we called to be good Catholics or good citizens?

I have a feeling the “stupid Galatians” were being neither of these when Saint Paul wrote the letter from which our First Reading is taken.

In his rebuke of the Galatians, Saint Paul asks a question that each of us should consider: “Who has bewitched you?” In other words, who or what has influenced us to place our politics above the Truth of Jesus Christ—the Truth preserved and taught by His Holy Catholic Church? Who has inspired us to put our personal beliefs, desires, and preferences above that same Truth?

We live in a time when both ends of the political spectrum continue to drift further and further from the Truth of Jesus Christ. We live in a time when we are increasingly encouraged to trust government rather than God, to place corporations and special interests above people, and to value money over love.

Some might call this patriotism. Others might call it sin.

Ultimately, the Lord calls us to find the proper balance of faithful citizenship: to recognize our legitimate obligations to civil government while always maintaining the primacy of our duties to our Blessed Lord and His Holy Catholic Church.

At the heart of the Knights of Columbus is the understanding that faithful Catholics are faithful citizens. We need to internalize that truth, believe it, and live it out in every aspect of our lives.

In his monthly challenge, Archbishop Lori says:

“I challenge you to study how the Knights of Columbus, at the time of its founding and throughout its history, has combated anti-Catholic bigotry and shown there is no conflict between love of God and love of country.”

He then points to The Knights of Columbus: An Illustrated History as an excellent resource for doing so.

Archbishop Lori then asks several questions that are worth considering. “Do we obey civil law and legitimate authority, even in smaller matters, or do we tend to rationalize our infractions? Do we fulfill our civic duties, such as voting? And when we vote, do we consider moral issues beyond our own personal self-interest?”

These are important questions because we are ultimately called to live every aspect of our lives as faithful Catholics. That means living out the teachings of the Church at all times—even when doing so is inconvenient, even when it is difficult, and especially when our pride tempts us to believe or behave differently.

Our Catholic faith does not end when we walk out of Mass. It should shape how we live as husbands, fathers, neighbors, workers, Knights—and citizens.

So, are we to be good Catholics or good citizens?

The answer is that we are called to be faithful Catholics who are faithful citizens. Our love of country should never compete with our love of God. Rather, our love of God should guide and purify the way we love our country and serve our fellow citizens.

Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel; He has come to His people…those who are faithful citizens through the lens of His Holy Catholic Church.

Thanks be to God!

Guardian Angel: Memorial of the Guardian Angels (Exodus 23:20-23; Psalm 91:1-2, 3-4ab, 4c-6, 10-11; Matthew 18:1-5, 10)

The Catechism of the Catholic Church reminds us: “From its beginning until death, human life is surrounded by their watchful care and intercession. Beside each believer stands an angel as protector and shepherd leading him to life.”

That means beside each of us right now is a protector, a shepherd, and a companion. Through the sacramental life, we share in a deep spiritual relationship not only with our Blessed Lord, but also with our guardian angel. As Origen of Alexandria wrote, “the humblest believer is attended by a personal angel who stands directly before the face of God.”

Often, we are tempted to view our guardian angels like superheroes—waiting in the wings to dramatically rescue us from physical danger at the last second.

The reality is much quieter, yet far more profound. They are silent spiritual companions. They protect our souls, encourage repentance, bring inner peace, strengthen us against temptation, and walk with us intimately in prayer.

So, how can we cultivate a healthy, vibrant devotion to our guardian angel and ultimately grow closer to God? Here are four practical ideas to consider:

First, turn to guardian angels constantly in prayer. Ask for their intercession as we trudge the road of happy destiny. They help us hear the voice of God in moments of confusion, feel the comfort of grace in moments of indecision, and experience peace in moments of anxiety, always pointing us down the path God has laid out.

Second, entrust guardian angels with your intentions. Ask your guardian angel to take your most pressing needs straight to the throne of God. Picture your guardian angel approaching and standing at the heavenly altar, holding a gold censer. Picture your guardian angel offering a great quantity of incense, along with your prayers, on the gold altar that is before the throne of God.  Picture the smoke of the incense along with your prayers going up before God from the hand of your guardian angel.  Have faith the Lord received it.

Third, practice holy mindfulness. Be respectful and aware of the pure, holy presence of guardian angels. Acknowledging that we are never truly alone fosters a healthy reverence, promotes modesty, and gives us supernatural strength in the face of temptation.

Fourth, adopt an attitude of profound gratitude. Thank God for assigning us this faithful companion who constantly witnesses our lives, inspires us to repent when we stumble, encourages us when we need hope, and helps us steer clear of evil.

At the same time, we must be vigilant and avoid the spiritual pitfalls that even well-intentioned Catholics sometimes fall into. The landscape of modern angelic devotion can be cluttered with New Age practices, superstitions, and other forms of idolatry.

Our prayers to our guardian angels must always remain strictly intercessory. Our practices should never involve magical formulas, mantras, or crystals. We should never attempt to name our guardian angels or assign them unauthorized roles. Ultimately, we must always examine our devotion through the lens of the Catholic Church, ensuring it remains deeply grounded in Apostolic Tradition.

On this important feast day, we hear in a special way:  Behold, the Lord sends an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which He has prepared.  The Lord has put angels in charge of you, to guard you in all your ways.

Thanks be to God!

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You are the Christ of God: Friday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time (Ecclesiastes 3:1-11; Psalm 144:1b and 2abc, 3-4; Luke 9:18-22)

Our Gospel today gives us Luke’s account of a conversation we recently heard in Matthew: Jesus asks His Apostles, “Who do you say that I am?”

Peter answers, “You are the Christ of God.”

Matthew tells us that Peter calls Jesus the Messiah, and Jesus responds by declaring Peter is the rock upon which He will build His Church. Luke tells the same story, but his emphasis is much different. After Peter’s profession of faith, Luke points toward the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Why the difference?

First, we should remember that Christ and Messiah are the same title. “Christ” is Greek for “anointed one,” while “Messiah” is the Hebrew equivalent.

That indicates Matthew and Luke were addressing different audiences.

Matthew was writing primarily to Jews. His Gospel constantly connects Jesus to the Old Testament, showing how Jesus fulfills the promises and prophecies God had given to Israel. His readers already knew the stories of Abraham, Moses, David, the Temple, the sacramental life of the Old Covenant, and the promises of a coming Messiah.

Luke, on the other hand, was writing primarily for Gentiles. At the beginning, he addresses Theophilus (which means "lover of God" in Greek).  Throughout his Gospel he explains the Jewish customs and emphasizes that Jesus has come not only for Israel, but for all nations.

Matthew is speaking to people who have been waiting for the Messiah for generations.

Luke is introducing people to the concept of the Christ.

Luke tells us that Jesus began to speak about His passion, His death, and His resurrection. And then (the very next verse following our Gospel) He tells His disciples:  “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

This reminds us that the Messiah is not the king who conquers through worldly power.  He is the King who conquers through sacrifice.

That distinction is especially important for Luke’s Gentile audience. The Jewish people already had a sacrificial framework through the Passover. They understood that sacrifice was connected to covenant, forgiveness, and reconciliation with God.

The Gentiles needed to learn this.

They needed to learn that the crucifixion was not simply a bloody execution of an innocent man.

They needed to learn that Jesus Christ on the Cross is the pivotal moment of salvation history.

They needed to learn that Jesus offers Himself as the perfect sacrifice and in the process establishes the New and Everlasting Covenant.

And this is where Matthew and Luke come together.

Matthew emphasizes the Church.  Luke focuses on the Crucifixion.  The reality is that we cannot have one without the other.  The Catholic Church is born from the sacrifice of Christ.

The Mass is not simply a memorial service where we remember something Jesus did long ago. The Mass draws us into the one sacrifice of Christ. At this altar, we unite ourselves—our joys, our sufferings, our struggles, and our own sacrifices—to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

That is why the Cross is at the very heart of our faith.  That is why Saint Paul says we preach Christ crucified.

Peter answered correctly when Jesus asked, “Who do you say that I am?”

Jesus is the Christ.

Jesus is the Messiah.

Jesus is the Anointed One.

Jesus is the King.

But Jesus is a King whose throne is the Cross, whose victory comes through sacrifice, and whose Kingdom is made present through the sacramental life of His Catholic Church.

If we truly believe that, then Jesus’ command to us is clear:

“Take up your cross daily and follow me.”

The Christian life is not about avoiding the Cross.

It is about following Christ to the Cross—and through the Cross to the Resurrection, which is the Paschal mystery that we participate in at every single Mass.

Let us ask for the grace to take up our own crosses, to unite them to His, and to follow Him all the way to the promise of the Resurrection.

Through the Mass, we as the Church of Jesus Christ cry out, “Blessed be the Lord, my Rock!”

Thanks be to God!

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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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