Weekend Warriors

What did you do last weekend?

Between cooking meals, doing the everyday laundry, and mowing the grass, our family went to the Friday high school football game, had a senior pictures shoot, attended the marching band competition, drove to taekwondo lessons, bought groceries, ran errands, completed the fall garage cleaning, and finished homework.  I couldn't wait until Monday so I could get a little rest. You may have had an even busier weekend if you play travel ball, have a dancer on the team, or were out of town for work. We squeeze so much into the weekend!

We also take the weekend for granted. Did you know that without God and His chosen people, the Jews, we wouldn't have a day of rest from the work of the world at all? Despite all that we have planned for our weekend, the reason we rest from work is for worship; to do the 'work of the people', the liturgy. Of course, we hear in Genesis that God rested on the seventh day. He gazed at all that He had made and called it "Good." He even called mankind, "Very good."

God chose Moses to ask Pharaoh to let His people go for three days into the wilderness so that they could worship the Lord (Exodus 5:3-9) and Pharaoh refused. Then, because Pharaoh would not comply, God told Moses to tell Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go forever. The plagues occurred every seven days; on the day the Hebrews were not allowed to worship the Lord.

Once the Hebrews were in the desert, God fed them with the manna. He told them to collect enough manna on the sixth day so that they could rest from work on the seventh and worship Him. The Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses specifically told the people to "Remember the Sabbath Day and Keep it Holy." The Israelites kept the Sabbath day for over a thousand years. Until Jesus' public ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension, the day of rest from the work of the world was Saturday; the seventh day, the day that God rested in Genesis.

However, the early Christians moved this day of rest from the last day of the week to the first day of the week because with Jesus came the New Covenant, a 'new creation', a New Testament. The day of worship became Sunday and Christians today are still supposed to rest from the work of the world in order to do the work of the people, the liturgy, on Sunday (or Saturday at sunset).

The bottom line is, we are blessed with a weekend in order to worship. If we do all these other things on the weekend, but we don't worship the way God instructed us to, then we are missing the purpose and point of the weekend entirely.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time A Cycle Homily by Fr Mathew

Ezekiel 18:25-28

Phil 2:1-11

Matthew 21:28-32

At my previous assignment I had a school. Therefore every week I had to do a children's Mass and a children's homily.  Every now and then I would invite a group of  children to the front for a special homily, One day I  brought a smoke detector and  displayed it during the homily. I told them it was a smoke detector. Then I asked them, "boys and girls, "do you know what it means when the alarm goes off?". One of the boys by name  David immediately raised his hand and said, “It means Daddy’s cooking dinner.”

Dads are often dissed, aren't they?

In 2007, Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit against God for breaching the contract. In the lawsuit he accused God of not protecting people from floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, contagious plagues," and the like. The lawsuit was dismissed by the judge on the grounds that God doesn't have a legal address; therefore he can't be summoned to appear in court.

God is in the dock. That is what we read in the book of Ezekiel. People complain against God, “The Lord’s way is not fair.” God challenges their complaint through the prophet: “Is it my way that is unfair or rather, are not your ways unfair?

God speaks through Ezekiel. If we commit inequities we will die in our sin. On the other hand if we turn away from our sins, we will live. Repentance and transformation is the central theme in the first reading.

Coming to the gospel, we see the same underlying idea. A father asks his first son to go out to  his vineyard and he refuses to obey ; but  later he repented and did go to the vineyard. He went to the second son and did the same. The second son said he would go, but did not go to the vineyard. Obviously it is the first son who carried out his father’s will.

It is interesting that in Matthew we don’t read the parable of the prodigal son. We read that parable in the Luke’s gospel. I find similarities between these two parables. The first son who initially refused to go out to the vineyard in today’s gospel is very similar to the youngest son in the parable of the prodigal son. Both didn't obey their father, but later repented and reconciled with their father. The second son in today’s gospel who said “yes” to his father is very similar to the oldest son who always obeyed his father. But he was reluctant to accept his youngest brother and refused to dance with his father.

Jesus addressed this parable to confront the fake spiritual life of  Pharisees who were very meticulous about religious practices.  Many a time we think that spiritual life consists in a bunch of religious practices. Don’t get me wrong; they are important. In fact there is more to our spiritual life. Christianity without conversion and transformation is like a dead horse.

God is not nearly as concerned about polite words and appearances. The Gospel is about repentance and change. But the Gospel is about more than change, it is about transformation, about being changed to be something more like God.

We who claim to be wonderful Christians -who go to church, read the bible, and stand for pro-life-  presume that we always say “Yes” to God,”  but there is a danger that we can become like the oldest son in the parable of the prodigal son who is arrogant, judgmental and contemptuous in his attitude toward his youngest brother and to his father. That is why there will so many surprises in heaven. We will see the least expected in heaven.

The second reading of Paul to the Philippines takes our reflection to a different realm and teaches us how we can grow in our spirituality by what we have been doing. When you wear a nice perfume, people recognize your presence and say, “you smell good. Tell me what kind of perfume you’re wearing?” I want to ask you this question: “do you smell like Jesus? ‘I doubt that any of us have ever given that question much thought.

Well, if you want to smell like Jesus, you can buy a perfume by name “Virtue.” It is made in California. They claim that if you wear that perfume, you will smell like Jesus.

So there you have it. You, too, can smell like Jesus. It may sound ridiculous, but it does lead us to a much more profound thought.  Max Lucado says in his book “Just like Jesus,” “God loves you just the way you are", writes Lucado, "but he refuses to leave you that way.”

Now there is a statement you can take home with you. “God loves you just the way you are,  but he refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be like Jesus”

Many of us like the first part, “God loves you just the way you are.”  We want God to accept us just as we are. And when we come to the second part we say, “Please leave me alone,.”  Because we hate change.

This is Paul’s message: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.  Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus."

When we do these things we are not far away from the Kingdom of heaven.

Life Teen Life Night "The Jesus Question" 09/21/14

"The Jesus Question"

I. The Jesus Question

A. Matthew 16:13-17 Jesus asks two questions:

• "Who do the people say that I Am?" John the Baptist, Elijah
• "Who do you say that I Am?" The Messiah, Son of the Living God

B. When God asks a question, we should pay attention.

• Ex. Genesis 3:8-10 Adam & Eve hid. "Where are you?"
• God already know every answer to every question. Why would he ask?
• God wanted Adam to know where Adam was. Shame, Fear, Guilt

C. If Jesus asked today (2014) in modern America, "Who do you say that I Am?"

• A Nice Guy; not THE nice guy, just A nice guy. Good Teacher, A Prophet
• These are 'accommodating' and 'tolerant' answers. Relativism.
• It's tragic that our culture wants to reduce Jesus to a Nice Guy
• Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. If He's not, He's a liar. A fraud. Crazy.

D. When we realize Jesus is EXACTLY who He says He is...

• The Bible becomes more than just an inspiring book. It's the inspired and Living Word of God. "Words have value depending on Who speaks them." M. Kelly
• The Church becomes more than just a human institution. "The Church is a sheepfold, the flock. Even though governed by human shepherds, are unfailingly nourished and led by Christ himself, the Good Shepherd and Prince of Shepherds, who gave his life for his sheep." CCC 754
• If Jesus is the Son of God, everything changes; our relationships, our activities and the way we spend our time, ourselves.

II. Jesus, through the Word of God, His Church, Life Teen, Bible Study, retreats & conferences, has the power to transform our lives.

A. We all desire happiness. It's is written on the human heart. Only in God will we find the truth and happiness we seek. CCC27

• If this is true, why do we sometimes avoid church, the Bible, Life Teen, etc.?
• Tweaking vs. Transformation. We don't really want our lives transformed.
1. "Dear God, please tweak this and that. Tweak my parents, siblings, teachers, etc.
2. God is not in the business of Tweaking. God is in the business of transformation.
3. Most of us have never really prayed a prayer of transformation. "O.k. I give you permission to transform me, my family, etc." It's a hard prayer.

"Imagine yourself a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first you can understand what he is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof. You knew those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But then He starts knocking the house about that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house than you thought of. He's throwing out a new wing here, putting in an extra floor there, putting up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself." Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis

B. How is God calling you to transform your life right now? Not your parents, not your teachers, not your friends - YOU.

Taken from "The Jesus Question" Lighthouse Catholic Media cd by Matthew Kelly

www.dynamiccatholic.com

25th Sunday in ordinary time: Fr Mathew's Homily Sept.21

Have you ever heard about a game by name “Zero-Sum Game?” A Zero-Sum Game is a game in which there are x number of chips on the table. In this game one person has to lose for another person to win.

We play this game in this world. Big winners live in mansions and drive expensive cars. They have boats and planes. They spend winters in Miami and spend summers in Maine. The winners get whatever they want and the rest of us get what is left.

In today’s gospel, Jesus turns the “Zero-sum game “upside down. Jesus explained the Kingdom of heaven with parables. It is a mystery to understand.

If you are planning to move to a foreign country, I am sure you would learn their customs and their rules to live as a good citizen of that country.

For us heaven is like a foreign country. Most of us would like to go heaven one day. So for us it is important to know some of the rules by which heaven is governed. We already know some of those rules. The Fist will be the last in haven. The more you are at the service of others, the more you become great in the Kingdom of God.

Here is another important rule for us to know before we go to heaven. It is called “the rhetoric of excess.”

Let me give you a great example for this rule, “the rhetoric of excess.” When we go to Portage (Kalamazoo), at the Westnedge exit, have you ever seen homeless people standing with a placard “I’m homeless, Please help me, and God will bless you?”

Every now and then I would give them a dollar. Onetime as I opened my wallet, I had only a twenty dollar Bill. So I gave that homeless man $20 dollar. When I told my friend about this he said I was crazy and it was too much money.

The British literary critic Frank Kermode (1919–2010) called this phenomenon “rhetoric of excess.” Our God practices the Rhetoric of excess. .” Our righteousness must be produced to excess. In the gospels, we can see many times this principle being practiced.

In the gospel, the apostles ask Jesus, “How many times should we forgive? “Seven times?

Jesus replied, seventy times seven. It means divine forgiveness, given and received, is beyond calculation or comprehension.

Or think about the good shepherd who abandons a flock of ninety-nine sheep in order to find one lost sheep. In the parable of the prodigal son God is like an indulgent father who welcomes back his indigent son with the best party that money could buy, despite the anger of the older son at such excessive generosity.

John compares God's kingdom to a wedding party with an outrageous excess of fine wine.  In the parable of the sower, God sows the seeds indiscriminately. God scatters all over the place without calculating the outcome.

I gave that homeless man my twenty dollar bill. It was an honest effort to imitate the excessive generosity of God by doing something that defied common sense or conventional wisdom.

One day you and I will be standing at the pearly gates.  Sunday school teachers and choir members – priests and deacons and bishops -- will get a big surprise when they go to heaven. They will expect to be kings of the castle. But there will be a lot of surprises. You will see a lot of people least expected..

 And when we go to heaven, we might just find ourselves standing in line at the heavenly gates -- with a drunk who came to Jesus on his deathbed standing IN FRONT OF US!  Surely I should go to the front of the line and he should go to the back." But God will remind us that he has been generous to us as well as to the other person. He will ask, "Are you envious because I am generous?"

A few years ago, at St. John Bosco I gave a homily in which I said that God’s love is unconditional. To make it more concrete, I said, "God loves George W Bush and Saddam Hussein alike" and a few in the congregation thought I was a heretic and pronouncing blasphemy.

  

Even long time Christians forget the fact that Our ways are not God's ways. We get furious when God deviates from our way of operating. Many a time the kind of God we believe in is very limited and finite and our image of God  is a projection of our own behaviors and perceptions from human experience.  Insisting on our personal freedom we sing with Frank Sinatra "I did it my way." On the contrary, when God does things His way, we resent and grumble about the mercy that God shows to whom he pleases. 

God's’s love is without limits. He pours out His Grace without reservation and without regard to who deserves it and who doesn't deserve it;  but we forget how we ourselves benefit from his mercy. If that bothers you, get over it. We , human beings,  may be unfair, but God is fair. God’s ways are not our ways.

These readings challenge us to see people and events in the world the way God sees them. Our automatic responses are egocentric. When we follow God's ways and practice the principle "Rhetoric of Excess," we're not that far from the Kingdom of heaven.

The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation(C.S. Lewis).

The Triumph of the cross Sept 14 Homily by Fr Mathew

Reading I: Numbers 21:4b-9

Responsorial Psalm 78:1bc-2, 34-35, 36-37, 38

Reading II: Philippians 2:6-11

Gospel: John 3:13-17

Mark Link SJ tells a story about two friends, Ann Thomas and Betty, who were at a garage sale. Ann couldn't find anything worth buying as she fumbled through many things displayed at the garage sale. Betty while looking around found a very antique cross among many junks and she thought it was a treasure. When she got home she was surprised to know the cross that was abandoned by everyone was made of silver and it was of immense value worth of thousands of dollars. Later when Betty’s seven year old looked at the cross he suddenly began to cry. “What’s the matter”, asked Betty. “Look at Jesus”, said the boy crying, “He’s on the cross and is in pain.”

Three people looked at the same cross: one saw junk, another saw treasure worth thousands of dollars and the third saw Jesus.

Many a time we are confused about the meaning of the cross in our salvation history.  Today’s readings throw a little light on this. In the first reading we hear about the ingratitude of the Israelites who turned against Moses by grumbling and casting aspersions on God. For their sin, they paid a big price; they were bitten by fiery venomous snakes and died a painful death.

The Israelites, being aware of their sins called to God and said, “We sinned, take the snakes from among us.” God instructed Moses to fashion a bronze serpent and affix it on a pole. The people are to gaze upon this symbol. Everyone who did was healed of their wounds.

My friends, this story tell us the profound truth about our life which is shadowed by the corruption of sin.  Doesn't the serpent that bit the Israelites in the desert point to the serpent in the Garden?  Are we not bitten by that serpent?   The little white lies, the sinful desires, the lusts, the laziness, the judgmental attitude that we harbor in our hearts against our brothers and sisters are indicative of the severity of that venomous bite of the serpent, sin..

That incident in Israel’s history became a prefiguring of Jesus Christ on a cross, lifted up, who became a symbol of wicked sin for us. Salvation, spiritual healing, re-birth comes from simply looking at Him, and, in that look, believing that hope comes only from trust in Him(John 3:14).

The cross is the intersection of God’s love. At the time of Jesus’ death on the cross, “the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top even to the bottom: and the earth quaked and the rocks were rent" (Matthew 27: 51). God deliberately tore the curtain of the temple that separated the Sanctuary from the ordinary people in the nave of the temple to make a point —that mankind's sins, which had cut us off from Him could now be forgiven through Jesus Christ's blood shed on the cross. It means there are no more  barriers that prevent us from having direct communion with God.

The cross is like a" medicine time capsule" that is being dissolved from time to time into the stream of our sick consciousness.. It has challenged us, our life, attitudes, prejudices, our arrogance and the profundity of our deviation from the very message of Christ. Fr Ron Rolheiser describes this in a beautiful way like this:

"Christianity is 2000 years old, but it took us nearly 1900 years to fully grasp the fact that slavery is wrong, that it goes against heart of Jesus’ teaching. The same can be said about the equality of women. Much of what Jesus revealed to us is like a time-released medicine capsule. Throughout the centuries, slowly, gradually, incrementally, Jesus’ message is dissolving more deeply into our consciousness.”

He continues “And this is particularly true about our understanding of the cross and what it teaches. For example: There have been popes for 2000 years, beginning with Peter, but it was only the last Pope, John Paul II, in our own generation, who stood up and said with clarity that capital punishment is wrong (independent of any arguments about whether or not it is a deterrent, brings closure to the victims’ families or not, or can be argued in terms of justice) Capital punishment is wrong because it goes against the heart of the gospel as revealed in the cross, namely, that we should forgive murderers, not kill them.”

Many a time we lose the meaning and the significance of the cross in our lives. I guarantee you many things will happen in the life of humanity with regard to our outlook and perspective of life in the years to come because of the cross.The cross will be "the guardian of our consciousness" which will help us straighten our life in conformity with the message of Christ.

August 31, 2014 Homily

By Father Mathew

A farmer went to town to buy a truck.  The salesman told him that the truck would cost $21,500.

So the farmer was about to write a check for $21,500, the salesman told him that it was the basic price and with options it would cost $25,500.

With reluctance, the farmer wrote a check for $25,500.

A few months later the salesman called the farmer and told him that he wanted to buy a cow.  The salesman came to the farm and the farmer said the price of the cow would be $500.  When the salesman was about to write a check for $500 for the cow, the farmer said, “Wait a minute, that was just the basic price of the cow.”

Then he gave the salesman a final bill which read like this: Basic Cow $ 500. Extra stomach, $75 Milk storage $100, Straw Cycle Compartment, $275, Automatic Rear Flyswatter$125, Natural Fertilizer Outlet$ 175; Total with all options $1,250

Whether you are to buy a car or a cow, you've got to get to what we call “the bottom line.”

What is the bottom line of following Christ?  In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer “When Jesus calls you to follow Him, He bids you to die.”

In 2003 the Church of Holy Cross was broken into twice.

The first time they stole some money boxes.  The second time they did something strange.  The Holy Cross Church has a huge cross.  The thieves unbolted the 4’, 200-lb. plaster Jesus from the crucifix, but left behind the wooden cross to which Jesus was attached.

They left the cross and took Jesus!  Perhaps we Christians, the followers of Christ, do the same.  We take Jesus and leave the cross behind.

Take up your cross and deny yourself and follow me.  That is the command He gave all his followers who want to walk in his footsteps.  It sounds a little hard, right?  The meaning of that verse is “expend your life.”

When I was a little young boy growing up among eight siblings, we didn't have any luxury as much as the kids have nowadays and my father used to buy ice cream bars once a year for us.  Since it was a very rare thing, one of my siblings wouldn't eat it, he wouldn't take a bite from it hoping that it would last forever.  Every now and then he would lick it.  Finally, it would melt on him, while we enjoyed our ice cream.

Recently I saw a video of a young girl of four years embracing her 1-year-old brother crying “You are so cute, I don’t want you to grow up.”

If you don’t use it, you will lose it.

In today’s second reading to the Romans, Paul says “you may discern what is the will of God.”  God has a plan for your life and my life.  Expend that life the way God wants of us.  If you don’t use it, you will lose it.  In other words, it means an open and honest relationship with God.  You are like a blank check – a blank paper – and God writes the value, God writes the numbers.  It is a daily quest to discover what God wishes of us.  I know it is not easy.

That is what happened to Jeremiah as we read in today’s first reading.  Jeremiah was open to God.  God said to him to become a prophet for him.  A prophet is the public conscience of people.  So he started talking about their real life which was against God’s will and so they didn’t like the prophet Jeremiah and they pushed him in a cistern and left him to die.  And Jeremiah laments “You duped me.”

What is it that God wishes you to do in your life as his follower? 

James Foley felt he was being called to become a journalist.  He wanted to tell stories about human misery.  As a journalist while he was in Libya he was detained for 44 days.  Later after his release from the detention in Libya in an interview he said “I began to pray the rosary.  It was what my mother and my grandmother would have prayed . . . my colleague and I prayed together out loud.  I felt energizing to speak our weaknesses and hopes together, as if in a conversation with God, rather than silently and alone.”  Later he was in Syria and he was kidnapped by the terrorists and he was beheaded.   That is how James Foley followed Jesus in his footsteps.  How do you feel being called by Jesus to walk in his footsteps?

Everything that blossoms dies.  We are in September, and summer is dying.  Summer will give way to autumn with its colorful trees.  Autumn will give way to winter.  During that time the whole place will be covered with snow.  Everything dies, even the germs die.  Winter will give way to spring with new life everywhere.  Everything that blossoms dies.  There will come a day when you and I will die.  We believe in more that death.  We believe in dying and rising.  That is why we place everything on the altar at the time of the offertory – our whole life we give to God.  By giving our whole life to God, we believe that we are born into the life that never, never dies.

Fr Mathew's Homily: A 23 rd Sunday

First reading from Ezekiel: If your brother dies in his sin, you will be held accountable. In other words, you are your brother’s keeper.

Paul reminds us that love, tested in immediate relationship with our neighbor, is the fulfillment of all laws. The dramatic sins of adultery, murder, and stealing are violations of the law of love as they reflect selfishness, manipulation, and egotism.

The gospel presents three strategies for conflict resolution: They’re confrontation, negotiation, and adjudication. In ecclesiastical terminology, adjudication is called excommunication.

The force of excommunication is lost on American individualists who have little allegiance to any group, including family.  Americans prefer to “go it alone” and “do it my way.”(Remember the song, “I did it my way”). “See if I care. I gotta be me

Without community and family one is effectively dead. When we exclude family and community, and only “I” matters, spiritually we’re committing suicide because God is Trinity, Family and Community.

What is sin? I am not asking you the Baltimore catechism definition of Sin! Sin is brokenness in our life. It’s a disarray and rupture in us and in our relationship with God.It is disharmony; it is isolation.

It's in this context Jesus says in today's gospel, ‘If two or more gathered in my name I will be there.” When there is harmony God is there because God is, as I mentioned before, Trinity: God is community, family, harmony and a flow of relationships.

What is hell? The real hell is disharmony, disconnection. It is the land of brokenness Some people think that heaven and hell start only after death. That is not true. Heaven and hell start here on this earth right now as we're alive.  When we are in disarray- when there is brokenness in our relationships whether in our families or communities, we start hell here.  

We initiate here either hell or heaven depending on our relationships and then it’s perpetuated here after our death. According to Teresa of Avila, our relationships in community and family are the indicators of our greater relationship to God than the heights of mystical prayer.

A few years ago, there was a picture in "Outdoor" magazine of two huge and beautiful mules that had died horrible deaths.  These two deer mules had gotten into a fight, locked horns, and could not get free. They died with horns tightly in place.

Let me tell you, there are a lot of people who have locked horns with someone, and as a result, are dying a slow, bitter and agonizing death.  We start dying here with horns pinned and that gradual spiritual death becomes complete after our physical death by ending up in real hell.

In his book “The Great Divorce”, C. S. Lewis, the great Christian apologist, draws a stark picture of hell. -According to him, hell is like a great, vast city, a city inhabited only at its outer edges, with rows and rows of empty houses in the middle. These houses in the middle are empty because everyone who once lived there has quarreled with the neighbors and moved.

Then, they quarreled with the new neighbors and moved again, leaving the streets and the houses of their old neighborhoods empty and barren. Lewis says, ‘That is how hell has gotten so large. It is empty at its center and inhabited only at the outer edges, because everyone chose distance instead of honest confrontation when it came to dealing with their relationships.

From this it is very obvious that reconciliation and harmony are “sine qua non” conditions in our spiritual life without which we can not enter heaven.

Reconciliation implies two people.  It may take many years to happen.  However, forgiveness can happen in two minutes. Why forgive?

A couple years ago, during one summer there was power outage in Mattawan. There was no electricity for five days in my house.

I have an old refrigerator downstairs in the basement, besides one I have in the Kitchen. I had kept some fish and meat in that old refrigerator in the basement.   For some reason, I had forgotten all about the meat and fish in the refrigerator in the basement during the outage.One day as I was going to the car garage through the basement I felt a foul smell.

I followed the odor, and it took me to that back room off the rectory basement. It was coming from the refrigerator.  When I opened its door, it almost knocked me over. I won't give you the gross details of what I saw and smelled - but I'm sure you can imagine it.  I spent the next two hours emptying and cleaning the refrigerator, and spraying Lysol into the air, and lighting candles and doing everything I could do… to get that smell out of the air.

Why should I forgive?  When I harbor anger and revenge and hateful thoughts, I am like that rotten refrigerator. We are like walking- rotting -open garbage bag emitting foul smell.  With that foul smell, do you think you can ever enter heaven?

Final thoughts: 

Here are a few questions for our reflection

---Do I have any unfinished business in my life with regard to my relationships to any members of my family or community?

---By evaluating my emotions with regard to my relationships, can I say there is no brokenness and rupture and disharmony in my relationship to my family and community and thereby to God?

---If I die right now, because I have started heaven here on this earth and because of my optimum relationship with my family and community, can I say I can claim heaven in the life after death?

---Because of my unfinished business with the members of family and community, am I walking around like garbage bag diffusing foul smell?

---If so what steps have I taken to dispose of that smelly garbage bag of hate and anger that I have been carrying around?

Teachable Moments

Our family was invited to a co-worker's home for dinner this weekend. When they were new to the company, we invited their family to our house and, now that they were settled, they reciprocated. We were looking forward to the dinner because their children are similar in age to ours and we knew they were a very faith-filled Christian family; homeschooling their children and even serving as foreign missionaries in the past.

Just as we were about to pray before dinner, our guest apologized to us for serving a meal that included beef and, because we were Catholics, he knew that we didn't eat meat on Fridays. Since it's August, I laughed because I thought he was teasing us. Then, I was confused because he was genuinely worried that he had offended us. What a considerate host and what a misunderstanding! I assured him that Catholics only refrain from eating meat on Fridays during Lent.

Then, seeing this as an opportunity to teach more about our Catholic faith, I told him that we deny ourselves each week during Lent so that, in a small way, we suffer because Christ suffered and died for us. This discipline is sometimes misunderstood even by Catholics. In Jesus' time and area of the world, fish was an inexpensive, everyday food. Beef was an expensive, specialty food. Today in our area of the world, it's just the opposite. Ground beef is relatively inexpensive and common. The practice of the early Christians who ate fish on Fridays was a way to deny the best foods for themselves on that one day of the week that Jesus died.  If we truly wanted to sacrifice and deny ourselves the best foods on Friday, we would not eat a specialty food like fish or shrimp. We'd eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches; a cheap, common food. Going to Red Lobster or a fish fry is yummy and enjoyable, but hardly a sacrifice.

Later, when reflecting on the evening, I was surprised again that our friends did not know that Catholics go meatless on Fridays only during Lent. It reinforced my awareness of what Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said, "There are not one hundred people in the United States who hate The Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they wrongly perceive the Catholic Church to be." Not that our friends hate the Catholic Church, they just don't know the beauty, dept, and timelessness of our faith. It's up to us to teach our family and friends during teachable moments like this one.

Learn more about Catholic apologetics so that you can teach and defend your Catholic Faith at work, school, the sports field, the playground, the gym, the neighborhood, the airport, the garage sale, the grocery, etc.