Ad Jesum per Mariam

What Are You Doing With the Time You are Given? Jesus Gives A Lesson for Our Spiritual Journey!

What Are You Doing With the Time You are Given? Jesus Gives A Lesson for Our Spiritual Journey! The opening of the Homily talks about a gesture that is performed each time the Gospel is proclaimed at Mass. It is important to understand this for our own Spiritual Journey because the Word of God is given to us in love. Regardless of whether the Gospel proclaims a stern message, or a tender message, the Words are given out of love. Hear more in the first few minutes of the Homily. Today’s Gospel is very challenging. Pilot did an act of cruelty. Some Galileans were slaughtered. As is often the case, when there is an experience of evil or tragedy, one of the most painful things about it is it is hard to understand. Evil cannot always be explained. And the pain of not understanding the “why” is often times even worse. When we attempt to understand evil, we often try to assign blame. What did these people do that God allowed them to be punished in such a way? What did I do that God allows this to happen to me? People are willing to say God is punishing those people. No! That is not what is happening! The earthquake, the tidal wave, the hurricane, the disaster that is coming is not caused by God wanting to punish people. That is not what is happening! These events are not happening because God is not happy with them! Again, no! That is NOT what is happening! Do You Really Think God Is Punishing People Exposed to Evil? The Lord says in the Gospel to the people: Do you think these bad things happened because they were bad? Do you think these people were worse than everyone else? Do you think God singled these people out? The Lord looks at the people around him . . . do you really think these people were bigger sinners than you? Note what the Lord is saying in the Gospel! If you are looking at the situation, do not think about what God is saying to those people! Ask yourself what God is actually saying to you! Human sin has produced a world in which bad things can happen! That is a truth! Why is there pain in the world? Because we humans have brought it upon ourselves. Hear more in the Homily! Jesus Provides Us With A Lesson The real point the Lord is making is this: Look to see how fragile your life is. Look and see how brief your life is. That is the lesson. The lesson is not to see what bad happens to others. It is to see how fragile life is in this world. If you recognize how fragile and how brief our time is in this world, then this leads to a question. What are you doing with the time you are given? Listen more within the Homily! Listen to this Meditation Media. Hear more within: What Are You Doing With the Time You are Given? Jesus Gives A Lesson for Our Spiritual Journey --------------------------- Image: The Accursed Fig Tree: French Artist and Painter: James Tissot: 1886 In the Gospel we hear about the accursed fig tree. --------------------------- Gospel Reading: Luke: 13: 1-9 First Reading: EPH: 4: 7-16

Duration:: 25m
Broadcast on:: 29 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

the Lord be with you, a reading from the Holy Gospel according to Luke. Some people told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood pilot had mingled with the blood of their sacrifices. He said to them in reply, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were greater sinners than all other Galileans? By no means. But I tell you if you do not repent you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen people who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them. Do you think they were more guilty than everyone else who lived in Jerusalem? By no means. But I tell you if you do not repent you will all perish as they did." And he told them this parable. There was once a person who had a fig tree planted in his orchard. And when he came and searched a fruit on it but found none he said to the gardener, "For three years now I have come and search a fruit on this fig tree but have found none. So cut it down. Why should it exhaust the soil?" He said to him in reply, "Sir leave it for this year also and I shall cultivate the ground around it and fertilize it. It may bear fruit in the future. If not you can cut it down." The Gospel of the Lord. When the Gospel is proclaimed at Mass, at the very end of the proclamation, the minister who has proclaimed the words of the gospel, in this case the Holy Deacon, concludes the proclamation by pressing his lips to those words and kissing them. It's a simple gesture which we often miss because we're busy sitting down. And yet it happens every single time that the Gospel is proclaimed at Mass. It's a small gesture. It's brief. We often miss it and yet it is not there by accident and we don't celebrate Mass without it happening. In that simple gesture there is in miniature a marvelous teaching and insight into the rich way the church understands sacred Scripture. First thing is this, the words of the Gospel are kissed every single time and so whether the deacon likes those words or not they get kissed. Think about your own life and your experience of words that have come to you. When you're hit with an inconvenient word and imposing word, a challenging or a demanding word, do you receive it with a kiss or does the heart perhaps flare up in anger? Note how we respond to words in many situations where we only want to listen to the words that are convenient, the words that are pleasant, the words that are even informative but when the word is challenging, when the word is demanding, oftentimes we'd prefer not to listen. Isn't that true? And so note the discipline here. Whether the word is uplifting or the word is off-putting, it is kissed. Whether the word affirms me or the word demands that I change, it is kissed. Whether the word is pleasant and joy-filled or whether the word is stern, it is kissed. And in that simple gesture with their discipline and the regularity of imparting that kiss every single time, the church is teaching us something. All of the words of Christ are given to us in love and it's not enough that we hear them. It is not enough that we listen to them. It is not enough that we know what He is saying to us. What matters as well is how we receive the word. I can hear the word of God and I can choose to ignore it. I can hear the word of God and I can close myself off to it. I can know what the Lord is saying and I could simply not do anything with it or I could receive it. And I could receive it in the spirit of the love with which it is given to me because it is given to me for my building and my transformation. Note how powerful that is. And so when the minister kisses those words, he does it not on his own behalf but on behalf of the entire congregation. The prayer that is said as the kiss is imparted is by the words of the gospel may hour, not my hour, sins be wiped away. The kiss is given on behalf of the entire community but only the minister does it because across most of our histories there were no such things as misalettes. And so people did not have the text in their hands and so they couldn't begin to kiss it. But note then that this is done not on an individual basis but it is the church saying we want to receive your word this way, oh Lord. The other thing is this, the gospel that was read today was not chosen by the deacon. It was already chosen before we arrived here today by the church. We have a fixed schedule and a regular order to the readings. And that's important too because it frees us from being at the mercy of Father's preferences. Otherwise you just be hearing our greatest hits. And you know let's be honest we all have those parts of Scripture that we enjoy and that we keep going back to. But the reality is all Scripture is important not just the parts I like. And so then there's the discipline that the church has of saying if the Lord has given us this treasure we're going to take time with all of it. Including the passages that are more challenging, including the passages that are hard to understand, including the passages that are difficult because they are not less important than the ones that we like. Note how much we've just said about how the church values the speaking of the Lord to us in and through the proclamation of the sacred text as we gather for Mass. That having been said then now we need to attend to the scriptures that we actually did here today. And we begin with that challenging section on the front end of the words of Jesus in our gospel today. Where he looks at his disciples and the crowds that are around him and folks have come up and given him the terrifying report of an act of cruelty and violence that punches Pilate. The same punches pilot who will eventually condemn Jesus on that original Good Friday 2,000 years ago has done. And for whatever reason a group of Galileans are slaughtered, they're murdered, their blood is mingled with the sacrifices they are going to offer. And as is often the case when there is an experience of evil or tragedy, one of the most painful things about it is that it's hard to understand. Evil can't be explained adequately. That is the truth. And the pain of not being able to understand why is oftentimes even worse than the pain of what one feels from the experience. And what happens when we are desperate to come to terms with something. When we're desperate to try and understand why something is happening, the tendency is often to assign blame. What did they do that God allowed them to be punished that way? What did I do that God is doing this to me? Notice how naturally it happens. You know, terribly, we see this time and time again when tragedy afflicts some part of the world. And there is always someone who is quick to say God is punishing those people. The earthquake, the hurricane, whatever it is the disaster is coming to them because God's not happy with them. No, that is not why it's happening. And so the Lord, now look at how the Lord turns that this report is given to him and immediately Jesus says, do you think that happened because they were particularly bad? Do you think that happened to them because in some way they were worse than everybody else? So bad that God was going to single them out for particular punishment. So the Lord looks at the people who are talking to him. You guys were from Galilee. Do you really think you're better than those guys were? Do you really think they were bigger sinners than you? And know what the Lord is doing? Don't look at them and say God is teaching them a lesson. If you're going to look at that situation, ask yourself what God is saying to you. Note how important that becomes because the tendency with a lot of these things is to push the issue, the difficulty away from us in a way that keeps us safe. And so the Lord continues. He multiplies the example. And when the tower fell, was that God punishing those people? No, it wasn't. The simple fact of the matter is human sin has produced a world where these things happen. And that is the truth. Why is there pain in the world? Because we've brought it on ourselves. We've built a world where the innocent suffer. We've built a world where tragedy happens. When it happens, it's not God uniquely singling anybody out. The issue is what do we do in this world that knows so much tragedy? And so it is then that the Lord says the real point of all of this is not to blame them and then walk away thinking I'm okay. The real thing is to look and realize how fragile your life is and how brief your life is. That's the lesson here. The lesson is not see how bad they were and look what happened to them. The issue is see how fragile the life that I have really is. See that I don't know when it's going to come to an end. See and recognize that my time has a limit to it. Everyone comes into this world with an expiration date. We don't know when it is, but it's going to happen. And when the Lord speaks that way, He's then saying if that's the case and you begin to see and are reminded of how fragile your life is, how brief it really is, then the question is what are you doing with the time that you've been given? Will you waste it? Because that would be the tragedy. The tragedy is not that those lives were cut short, but the tragedy would be if those lives were badly spent. But that's not a tragedy unique to them. That's a tragedy that comes to all of us, however our life ends. If our time has been badly used and badly spent, in the end, we come to nothing. And so note what the Lord says and He warns them, unless you repent, unless you change, don't worry about them unless you change. The ending that comes to you will be like that. However outwardly peaceful it is, it will be a destructive ending, an ending that doesn't have life. Jesus gives the warning not because He wants to scare people, but He does want us to recognize how serious it is that we take the limited time we've been given seriously. In His own way, this is what St. Paul is coming at from the opposite side of things. He writes now to the church in Ephesus that look at yourselves and first and foremost recognize that you are not neatly separable from one another, but that we're all caught up in something that we share. We belong to one another. You know, in a certain sense, the answer, the Catholic answer to the classic Christian question, "Brother, are you saved?" is, "Yes, we are." Because salvation is never a matter of individual salvation. Salvation is by definition always collective. The Lord doesn't save you and then you and then you and then me and now that we're all saved, He says, "Now I want to bring you together." That's not how it happens. The Lord saves us. And there is no being saved by the Lord that doesn't involve belonging to the people that He has saved. There is an intrinsic and inseparable connectivity that we all share by virtue of the fact that we are Christian. The simple truth of the matter is we're stuck with each other. So you guys are completely stuck with me and I'm stuck with you guys. I get the better deal. But you recognize that. And so St. Paul now is going to say because we all share this one life of Jesus Christ that we've all received, because we are all animated by and sustained by the same spirit, how we live individually matters for how we live collectively and how we live collectively matters for how we live individually. So note that St. Paul is not going to allow that easy answer. Look what happened to them as if it doesn't involve me. He's going to take that same sense of Jesus. You're all involved in this whether you like it or not. But now St. Paul is going to say and know what happens. The one who has saved us by his spirit has raised up some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be teachers, some to be evangelists and he goes down the list. But know what he is saying. Across the entire body there are many ways that the spirit works for the sake of the body, not for the sake of the individual person alone, but for the sake of the body. This profound teaching of St. Paul is something that we do well to really pause over and take seriously. Because St. Paul continues that the body itself must grow to maturity. What an interesting idea. What an interesting idea. That it's not just that I personally have to grow up spiritually. That I personally need to grow spiritually. But that together we need to grow up. Together we need to move forward. And all of these gifts and workings of the spirit are at the service of the body learning to grow to maturity in Jesus Christ. As the individual needs to grow to maturity in Jesus, so too does the group. What an interesting idea. And know how St. Paul is insistent on it. We have to stop being childish, he says. And this is vitally important because it's so easy to content ourselves with a childish understanding of our faith, a childish way of praying, a childish way of serving, merely selfish, merely naive, refusing to do the hard but important work of trying to understand the faith we have. And then making mature decisions with regard to how am I going to live it. To take that responsible ownership of what the Lord has given me in a way that says you're asking something from me Lord. What can I do for you? Notice how important that is. And how grown up that sounds. In this movement then where the Lord, even though he says unless you become like a child, you can't enter the kingdom, he does expect the child to grow up. He does expect the child to grow up. He doesn't expect us. He doesn't want us to remain immature in our faith. But the simple fact of the matter is for many of us we learned our faith when we were young. We were 12, 13 years old, we got confirmed and that was the last time we were in religious education. Now think about that. I grow up into adulthood, trained and skilled in all of these other areas of my life. I am an adult at work. I am an adult at home. And yet I am content with a child's knowledge of the faith, with a child's way of praying, a child's way of serving. And what do we become? We become a childish people. Our parishes can be childish. Our groups can be childish in that way. And that's not horrible. It's simply falling short of where God wants us to be. And so know how St. Paul is so insistent that we need to grow up. And how do we grow up? We begin by recognizing something. Something that is very important to St. Paul. He insists to every single one of us. What I love about St. Paul is he doesn't allow the exceptions that we like to give ourselves. So he allows no excuses. He allows no exceptions. There is no off the hook on this. Everybody he says, every single one of us has been given a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. And at first glance that sounds marvelous. I've got a special gift of the Holy Spirit. That's unique to me. That conforms to the reality of my person and my life. I've been given that. But St. Paul continues, that manifestation of the Spirit, unique to me, unique to you, individually given to you, is for the upbuilding of the body. It's not just for you. And the only way the body will receive that gift is if you give it. You know, we sometimes wonder, God, where are you? Why don't you help me? And the Lord is saying, I've given all of these gifts. Why are you not using them? The help you need has already been given. But the one who's received that gift is not using it, is not bringing it. This is the idea behind that parable of the fig tree. You know, with a frustrated landowner, I planted this tree in good soil. It's grown up, but it's given me nothing. It's had every chance to bear fruit, and it hasn't. And so the landowner is frustrated. Then let's dig it up and get rid of it, because it's doing no good. It's sucking the life out of the soil, but giving no fruit. And then the gardener comes, who says, you're right. Well, let's give it another year. Let's try again. Let's double down, care for it, and give it one more good chance to bear fruit. And if at the end, it still doesn't happen, then you're right. We have to lose the tree. And when the Lord speaks that way again, know what he's saying about us and his church, I've gifted my people with so much that they can go and bear fruit. And that should encourage us. It should not frighten us. The simple fact of the matter is the Lord has given us everything we need to become fruitful as his people. If we risk using what he has given us together, but that fruitfulness is not something that is merely individual, merely personal. It's something that we share. And as we live and use the gifts that God has given us, the body itself becomes stronger. The body grows. The body reaches maturity. And note how merciful the Lord is, because in a sense, this is Jesus saying to the justice of God, you're right. You're right. They've failed. But we're still gonna try. We're still gonna try. And that's the beautiful thing. However much I've got it wrong, if I'm still here, there's still a chance. However badly I've done this, if I'm still here, there's a chance to get it right. And note what the Lord promises, and I'll give you everything you need to get it right. I'll give you everything you need. But note is always conditioned on the fact that we are limited. Our time is limited. Our energy is limited. But note how beautiful it is. Within that limit, eternity can be won. Because that's the fruitfulness that Jesus calls us to. Not merely a fruitfulness in this world, but a fruitfulness into eternity itself. And we who might all be those fruitless fig trees here. Note how wonderful it is. The gardener is going to be on this altar. And he's going to come down to you, and to me. Note how wonderful it is, because this is not simply fertilizing us. This is him feeding us with himself. This is him pouring his life into us. Note how wonderful that is. So that here, today, in my fragile life, the fruitfulness of Jesus Christ is going to root itself. There is much to rejoice in here. In my limited time, eternity dwells in my heart. Why? That you and I together can grow to that full maturity in the life of Jesus Christ that unfolds into eternal joyfulness. The point is not the tragedy of the falling tower. The point is the life toward which we are fundamentally oriented and moving. Amen. [ Silence ]