Thursday, September 29, 2016

I've Been Waiting Sooooo Long

Deacon Tom writes on….
“I’ve Been Waiting Soooo Long”


Today’s readings remind us that we are not patient people. When things are going badly, we cry out to God for help, and it never seems to come soon enough. The Prophet Habakkuk cries out for God’s help to end the violence and destruction that are plaguing the people of Judah. But God “does not intervene”.

Being faithful to God when we are experiencing sickness or despair, when we have lost someone we love, or when we are fearful of what the future holds is very difficult. Our hearts and minds struggle to feel God's presence. What we really want though, is to have our fears calmed, our financial problems resolved, our relationships mended, our illnesses cured, and for our loved ones to remain with us forever.

Difficult, perhaps, even as impossible as it seems, it is in these most painful times we are called to wait on God and to know that we have a share in that vision he told Habakkuk to write down.  What is that vision that Habakkuk wrote down on the tablets? WOW! The text doesn’t say! All it says is that the vision….. “still has its  time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint.

Habakkuk’s vision and prophecy came to completion in the person of Jesus Christ. He entered our human drama in answer to the Prophet’s cry, “How long, O Lord?” God not only hears our cries but he even shares in our suffering and pain. It is during these very moments of intense suffering, when we are utterly helpless, that we begin to understand the very vision Habakkuk referred to, the vision that will not disappoint that God has in store for us, eternal life, where our tears will be tears of gladness and all that God has in store for us surely will not disappoint.  

To make this vision of Habakkuk’s ours we, like the Apostles, need to pray for an increase in faith so that the miniscule seeds of faith rooted deep within may sprout and blossom and enable us to realize the life that is ours to come, the reward of eternal life promised even to us unprofitable servants if only we have done all that we have been commanded.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom



Thursday, September 22, 2016

The Prophetic Tradition

Deacon Tom Writes,
The Prophetic Tradition


The Prophet Amos who speaks to us in our first reading today was a shepherd of Tekoa in Judah during the prosperous reign of Jeroboam II from 786-746 B.C. For several weeks now we have heard him speak of the injustices against the poor and the complacency of the people of his day. Like all prophetic messages, his was very unpopular. Amos told the people that there would be a day of reckoning for how they treated the poor. He foretells a time when God would destroy Jerusalem and send his people into exile. The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in 597 B.C., an event history records as the Babylonian Captivity.

Amos belonged to a very special group of Old Testament authors known as the Minor Prophets. Included in this genre of very irritating people are Hosea, Joel, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Prophets were irritating because they delivered unpopular messages. The messages they delivered were not their own, but God’s. Prophets encouraged the people to return to God and be faithful to him. Not surprisingly, these individuals also foretold the dismal consequences that awaited the people of Israel for their prideful disobedience. Inherent in the prophetic message, however, was always a call to turn away from sin and return to the love of God.

It has been thousands of years since the Old Testament Prophets spoke out against the evils of their times. Yet the passage of time has not silenced their message. There are people today who continue to speak those messages that no one wants to hear. The message that the poor are being treated unjustly, that immigrants are being exploited, that people are being victimized by unjust wars, that we today, like the people of Amos’s day, or like Lazarus in today’s gospel, do not see the injustice and suffering of those around us. It seems that the real sin we all face today in our comfort and our abundance is that the poor and the needy have become invisible to us or worse yet, we have become indifferent to the “cries of the poor”. We have pushed the suffering souls to the fringes of our society so that our paths will seldom cross or our eyes will ever meet.

Let us give thanks for the likes of St. Teresa of Calcutta, Nelson Mandela, Thomas Merton, Sr. Helen Prejean, Desmond Tutu, Henri Nouwen, Jean Vanier,  St. John Paul II, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dorothy Day to name but a few faithful and courageous souls whose lives and witness have helped keep the embers of the prophetic tradition smoldering in our times, who have helped enlivened the spirits of so many others to continue to do the irritating work of the prophets who have gone before us. May we listen to their words and respond faithfully to the "cry of the poor".  

Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Stealing From The Poor


Deacon Tom Writes,
“Stealing from the Poor”


Pope Francis made the statement recently that “…wasting food is like stealing from the poor.”  In addressing the plight of the poor in this way, the pope follows in the footsteps of the Prophets and Jesus who had great compassion and affection for the poor. The Prophet Amos cries out about the unjust ways that the merchants were cheating the poor by fixing the scales to overcharge them for their daily portions of wheat and grain. But no one listened!

Jesus has a soft spot for the poor. He’s just like his Father in this regard! When he tells the story of the dishonest servant in the gospel, he recognizes how cleaver that servant was in providing for his needs after his master discharges him. Jesus laments the fact that the worldly are more prudent in providing for their physical needs than the “Children of the Light” are in satisfying their spiritual needs.

The lesson Jesus teaches us today and Pope Francis reaffirms is that we must be trustworthy with what we have been given, whether it is with our time, talent, treasures or our daily bread. As Disciples of Christ, we are not to squander or waste any of the gifts that God has given us. We are to use what we have wisely and prudently share with those in need. We need to make an honest effort to be faithful servants and always be mindful that we can trust God to take care of us and provide for our needs.

God’s love for the poor is reflected throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus came to serve the lowly and bring the Good News to the poor, the“anawim” whose only possession was their hope in Yahweh. Our Lord calls us to follow his lead and do the same. One way we can be better servants is to appreciate all the food we have each day and to manage it so that little or none goes to waste. Then, too, we might send a couple of dollars to Catholic Relief Service as they try to keep up with the desperate needs of the refugees in Syria, the Middle East, and around the world as a sign of our gratitude for our daily bread.

These readings today call us to reflect on how much imagination we put into bringing about the God’s Kingdom. Do we see the poor being abused and cheated in any way today and point it out, refuse to participate in evil, seek to put an end to unfair and unjust practices? 

You see, the words of the Prophet Amos apply to those who seek to do justice too:  the Lord, “will never forget a thing they have done.”

On this Catechetical Sunday, a special “Thank You” to all the teachers in our Religious Education Program for all that you do to teach God’s Word to our children. May God shower you with his grace and peace.


Enjoy the day!

Deacon Tom

Amazing Grace

Deacon Tom Writes,
“Amazing Grace”


Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

John Newton wrote these words after he experienced God's unmerited favor to lost souls. They flow from a heart cleansed of its own sordid past and immersed in God’s healing graces.

Grace is part of the mystery of God’s relationship with us, the high point of his creation. God is gracious (as in God is grace), and so he bestows grace upon us and indeed all his creation. It is freely given and nothing we do can earn it. This is so because before we can even think of doing a good act, God’s grace must first stir within us the desire to do that good act. God’s grace moves us into action; that action then draws us ever deeper into a profound relationship with God.

The 20th century theologian, Karl Rahner, defined grace as “God’s personal self-communication to humankind generally and to each individual”. In other words, grace is God communicating his own personal self to us. This is an amazing reality in itself: God is always seeking to communicate with each and every one of us!

Our human existence is marked by mortality and experiences sin and guilt. Grace operates in our lives to help us desire our salvation, to help us seek out a deeper and more personal relationship with our creator, and indeed, to be in communion with him so we can be healed and forgiven. Grace is the operative principle that enables us to, “work out your salvation with fear and trembling” as St. Paul instructed the Philippians. 

Most of us today are desperate for God’s healing, compassionate, sustaining, yes, amazing grace in many aspects of our lives… for physical or emotional healing, to mend broken or hurting relationships, to calm our worries, fears, and anxieties about so many things. It seems that we have found ourselves in a world where injustice, ignorance, intolerance, and apathy surround us and we feel helpless to respond. Now perhaps more than ever before we need God’s grace to enlighten our consciences and guide us on our journey so that we may be instruments of his love, mercy, and compassion. 

Today’s gospel is a reminder that we all can get lost along the way. We can easily turn our backs on God’s amazing grace to do things “My Way” in the words of Frank Sinatra. We have lost something precious and need to get busy trying to find it. We have all lost the original state of grace we had when God made us. By living in the light of Christ and cooperating with the many graces that are given to us in our lifetime, we can be confident that grace will guide us every day of our life and when life’s journey ends, “Grace will lead us home”.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom

Image Credit: commons.wikimedia.org

Thursday, September 1, 2016

The Cost of Discipleship

Deacon Tom Writes,
The Cost of Discipleship


Take up thy cross, the Savior Said
If thou wouldst my disciple be;
Deny thyself, the world forsake,
And humbly follow after me.

These words from an old hymn capture the essence of our Gospel today. For in today’s Gospel Christ tells us that in order to be a true disciple, we will have to put some “skin in the game” so to speak. Being a disciple of Christ will cost us some relationships, some status, some sleepless nights. For Jesus did not take on our human nature to sit around the fire and sing Kumbaya. Quite the opposite as we heard Christ say several weeks ago "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

We have been listening to Luke’s gospels for a number of weeks now. He has been leading us into a deeper relationship with Jesus by telling us to separate ourselves from the things of this world and to work for treasures that will last. Indeed, Luke urges us to set ourselves apart from all that would separate us from God.

I know that this is difficult to do. We live in the physical world and we work hard to gain the pleasures and comforts that it offers. Yet, we cannot lose focus on the spiritual realities that guide and govern our lives and give them their due. We cannot forget those who lack the basic necessities of life just because we are well fed and have a roof over our family.  We cannot be insensitive to those who are refugees just because we are safe and sound here in our country. We cannot forget the lonely, the suffering, the addicted, and discouraged just because we are healthy, befriended, and living the good life.

Taking up our crosses daily requires our willingness to surrender some of our creature comforts, some of our leisure time, and some of our self-centered way of thinking.  We need to place an emphasis on our spiritual life and well being so that we may be sensitive to the needs of those who are less fortunate than we are. This death to self by loving and serving others as Christ did is the one sure way to begin a life in the spirit in order to grow in the awareness of the needs of those we are called to love and serve. Again, growing our spiritual lives is not an easy task but one that will have its own reward in this life and in the world to come.

Enjoy the day!
Deacon Tom