Aligning Our Work Ethic to God’s Will

July 13th, 2017

Thursday of the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
Gen 44:18-21, 23b-29; 45:1-5; Mt 10: 7-15
Deacon Larry Brockman

One of the foundations of our American society is a good work ethic. It’s that conviction we have that we can do wonderful things if only we find our thing and apply ourselves to it judiciously. Early on, we are all taught that if we go to school and learn a skill or expertise to our liking; then we can do it; we can become self-sufficient and successful in society and make our own destiny. We even pray that God will bless our efforts to do whatever it is that we want to do. We are taught that we are free to choose our vocation and run with it.
But our readings today add some twists to that whole idea of living life that way. Because the stirrings inside of us to discover “our thing” are a battle between God’s word and spirit on the one hand; and the devil and his forces on the other hand. If our primary motivation for what we do is “self” fulfillment; then the devil is winning that battle, and we need to be cautious. But if our motivation is based on seeking God’s will for us, then we can be comfortable we are on the right track.
Today’s readings have some interesting perspectives for us about this battle. In the Gospel, Jesus says: “Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give”. Yes, each of us has received gifts that we have not had to pay for. They are our talents; our likes; and even our limitations. So it is quite natural for us to move towards those things we are good at and away from the things that limit us; we are drawn to the things God has graced us with. But then there is the other part- “without cost you are to give”. So, these talents are not just for us, but for the benefit of others as well.
Therein lies the key to discerning how we use what we were given without cost. For example, the disciples were given the power to cure and drive out demons. It was not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of those who needed it to recognize the Kingdom of God. In today’s world then, a financial adviser’s success in the eyes of God is not whether he makes a lot of money for himself, but rather, whether he helps a lot of people. This kind of discernment is needed in each of our lives- doctors, lawyers, accountants, plumbers, teachers, engineers, whatever.
Now sometimes we have a feeling of being trapped in life. Despite our best efforts, we look back on life and we see that we are in a job or career or situation where we sense that things are not right. Our inner voice tells us we are on the wrong track. And we resist making a change because we are afraid. Just what can we do?
Well there’s another major message imbedded for us in today’s reading on the story of Joseph and his brothers. Our lives, from God’s perspective, are a “zero sum” process. No matter how disastrous your experience in life is up to now; if you are humble enough to recognize and repent of your mistakes, then God views the process going forward as more important than whatever has happened in the past. Not only that, God can turn disaster into triumph for you.
And so, as we listen to the deplorable mess that Joseph’s brothers caused by selling their brother Joseph into slavery and lying to Jacob; we see how God turned the whole situation around. Joseph becomes Pharaoh’s right-hand man, and in Joseph’s own words: “It was really for the sake of saving lives that God sent me here ahead of you.”
So, no matter how disastrous you may think your situation is, take heart, because God is there for you with a solution. It may mean some pain- certainly Joseph and his brothers felt pain. But he is there for you nevertheless. It is never too late to get on God’s page for you.

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When People of Faith Pray Together

July 6th, 2017

Thursday of the 13th Week in Ordinary Time
Gen 22: 1b-19; Mt 9: 1-8
Deacon Larry Brockman

“When Jesus saw their Faith…”. That really caught my attention this morning. Picture the scene in your mind for just a moment. Jesus gets off the boat and a large crowd approaches him with a paralyzed man on a stretcher. Then try to capture just what there might have been about “them”, the people who were carrying the man, that projected great Faith? Was it their great numbers, their enthusiasm, their persistence? This, by the way is the same incident described in Mark, the one where the paralytic was lowered through the roof. So yes, these people were determined and persistent.

Or was it something that Jesus could just sense in the air- an intangible group sense of sincerity, hope, trust, even deferral amongst the people. Maybe it was all of these things. Think of a time when the sense of a crowd that you observed spoke more than anything else.
Now we too, are a people of Faith. We are sincere, committed, believers. We come together, we pray together, we know each other, we support each other, just as the people in the small town of Capernaum did. And all of us, yes every single one of us, has our share of trials and sufferings that we bear. And when we pray, we usually pray for specific solutions to our trials and specific reliefs of our sufferings. After all, that only makes sense.
Now all of us know someone we would like to collectively lower into Jesus house and ask for a healing just as the people bearing the paralytic did. They had one and only one thing in mind: this poor man was paralyzed and they sincerely wanted to see him cured. We would have only one thing in mind: our friend or relative is suffering greatly and we really believe that Jesus can heal them.

Now call back the vision of this incident in your mind. Much to everyone’s surprise, Jesus does not heal the paralytic at first. Rather, he forgives his sins. Think about that for a moment. Jesus, who is God made man, and who can look into the minds and hearts of all of the people there and the poor paralytic, decides that what is really needed is forgiveness of this man’s sins. How many times do we pray on behalf of someone else and feel that our prayers are not answered? Well, those folks who lowered the man to Jesus must have felt the same way.

The cynics in the crowd, the religious leaders, noticed this immediately, and accused Jesus of Blasphemy. You see, they believed that nobody but God could forgive sins. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe that Jesus was playing games with those people. I believe his immediate response, the forgiveness of sins, was what God mandated. But given the challenge, Jesus used the situation to make an important point: that it was easier in human terms to forgive sins than to heal a paralytic. And so, Jesus went on to cure the paralysis to make the point that he was God.

Nevertheless, we can miss a major teaching in this incident if we concentrate on the cure and not Jesus’ first response. The fact is that our prayers, especially the sincere, faithful prayers of groups of people- people like families suffering as a result of the illness or infirmity of a loved one; or communities suffering from the effects of some man made or natural disaster; or groups suffering the effect of discrimination- their prayers are heard by God and they are answered. But they may not be answered in the way all of us hope or expect.

If we are lucky, we are sometimes enlightened on how God answered our prayers. We sense that things came out for the best sometime later. But in the short term, our faith may be tested. Isn’t this exactly the case in the story of Abraham and Isaac in the first reading?
So, I urge all of us to hang in their when we pray together as a group- for our families, our community, and for our nation. God hears our prayers, always, when we pray together with great faith and sincerity.

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Burnt Offerings In Today’s World

June 8th, 2017

Thursday of the 9th Week in Ordinary Time
Tob 6: 10-11; 7: 1b-e, 9-17; 8: 4-9a; Mark 12: 28-34
Deacon Larry Brockman

Wouldn’t you love to hear Jesus say these words to you: “You are not far from the Kingdom of God.” Just what was it about the Scribe that prompted such a compliment from Jesus:

Well, the essence of it is this: This Scribe understood that loving God and neighbor with his heart and mind is worth much more than any sacrifice he might offer up. I think it’s worth digging into what all of this really means to us today.

First, notice that Jesus’ compliment is not over the words as much as it is how he read what was in the Scribe’s heart. Jesus senses that the Scribe really understands the meaning of love of God. He had internalized it; it was integral to his being. And that is probably because Jesus had gone through that experience himself. He had gone off into the desert after his Baptism by John and came back dedicated to loving God and neighbor. That was the essence of his preaching- the greatest commandment. So, Jesus could relate to how the Scribe projected his words; there was a sort of “kinship” in Spirit between them.

That kinship addresses what wasn’t said more than anything that was said. What wasn’t said, but what was meant, was that love of God and neighbor means deferring one’s self. And this deference is motivated by a love of God so strong, that His will, not one’s own, is one’s primary focus.

By contrast, consider the idea of sacrifices of burnt offerings. That’s hard for us to imagine. After all, we don’t do anything like that these days. We don’t slaughter, burn, and sacrifice animals as an offering to God.

But just for a moment consider the motivation of these Old Testament burnt offerings. These sacrifices were done to gain favor with God. Someone would offer God his best ram in a burnt sacrifice in the hopeful expectation that God would do one of the following: forgive him a transgression; heal him from some infirmity; or help him to achieve some goal. You get the picture- they were kind of directed at fulfilling something for the person making the offering. The focus of the burnt offering was on one’s own agenda.

Jesus turned all of this upside down in the Gospel. His sacrifice was not to gain favor with God- He already had favor with the Father. He sacrificed his own life for all of us. Jesus deferred to God’s will always- such was his love of God and neighbor.

Now while it is true that we don’t burn sacrifices to gain favors; we do, in fact, focus many of our prayers and petitions on our agenda, and we even make incredible sacrifices for our loved ones and children. We ask for favors for ourselves- a healing, success in the work we do, help in finding a suitable partner. And we extend those prayers and petitions for others. We even do many things for others in deference to ourselves. We ask the Lord to heal our friends and family, bless the work they do, and bless their relationships. We help them when they are in need. There is nothing at all wrong with any of that- as far as it goes.

But, our focus in all of that needs to be on trusting in God and loving others even if it means deferring our own interests. Oftentimes that means trusting God in difficult situations to the point that we give up control. That is hard- and indeed, it was hard on Jesus.

I go to the hospital to help the chaplain two days a week. I see people all the time there who have made incredible sacrifices for other people. These sacrifices have stressed them out so much that they have affected their own health. Even when they are suffering, they are trying to maintain control of everything that is going on in their lives. This is done out of a real sense of responsibility. But, they are like the folks in the Old Testament who offered the best of what they had as a burnt offering hoping God would favor them, so that they could maintain control.

God sometimes has mysterious plans that we don’t understand. We have to love God enough to trust that when we reach our own limits it is necessary to trust the love and providence of God. At some point we have to let go and let God take over. We can’t be in control of complex situations when we are incapacitated ourselves. Rather, we have to love God enough to trust in his mysterious providence and let God be in control. Our motivation has to be love of God and neighbor, not love of our plan for our neighbor.

It is with this trust in God that we will be truly close to the Kingdom of God.

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On Being Sons of God!

June 1st, 2017

Thursday of Seventh Week of Easter
Acts 22: 30, 23: 6-11; Jn 17: 20-26
Dc. Larry Brockman

Such a beautiful prayer!

We just heard Jesus’ prayer at the Last Supper on behalf of us all. By this time in his life, Jesus’ prayer relationship with the Father had been nurtured and fine honed. And even though Jesus was still fully human, and had all the same limitations we have as humans, He was able to see God’s mission for him with ultimate clarity. This prayer displays how his mission relates to all of us.

I was particularly struck by this line: “Father, they are your gift to me.” That is because that line kind of sums up the Love Jesus has for all of us. This man is about to suffer incredible pain and indignity at the hands of evil men and institutions all because he was faithfully preaching the truth of God’s love for all of us. And even our representatives on earth at the time, the Apostles, didn’t understand that. One of them was about to deny him, most of them were about to hide from him, and one of them was about to betray him. And yet, He sees them, and us, as God’s gift to him. That’s how much he loves us.

He goes on to say what he wants for us- that we may see the glory of God as he sees it. He wants to share the Kingdom of God with us This is essentially a prayer in which Jesus appeals to the Father to share his divine son-ship with us. For Jesus says: “And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one.” In this way we are being offered the role of adopted sons and daughters of God.

That is an essential truth of our faith- that we are sons and daughters of Jesus who will share in the glory of God himself in the resurrected state after the Last Judgment. The glory that we have now as humans is a sharing in the glory of son-ship if we believe and follow Jesus.

Jesus opens this prayer to the Father by revealing to us how we might accept the offer of son-ship. For he says: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you.” First, we are have to believe in him; and second, we have to be unified. Our unity is established by membership in the Church, and by the effects of the Eucharist, Holy Communion, that we share in common each time we come to Mass.

It is good for all of us to reflect on the deep meanings of Jesus discourse. Consider these questions: Will I deny Jesus, hide from him, or even betray him going forward in my life? Or will I repent, as 11 of the Apostles did, believe in him, and accept his offer of son-ship? And will I act in unity through the Church to spread God’s offer by word and deed to all mankind.

That reflection, hopefully, is a beautiful prayer of Thanksgiving for Jesus prayer and love of us.

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Being a Witness for Christ

May 28th, 2017

Ascension
Acts 1:1-11; Eph 1: 15-23; Lk 24: 44-53
Dc. Larry Brockman

You know, I experienced a kind of “aha” experience when I first read the readings for today.

When Jesus was alive and living amongst his disciples, his prayers and meditations and communications with God the Father were very much like our own are right now. Jesus was bound by the same limitations that all of us have as mere humans because Jesus was fully human. But over time, and with constant prayer and meditation, Jesus came to know God the Father and trust in him. His relationship with God became very close- much closer than ours. And Jesus came to know who he was- the Son of God and the Messiah. But still, he was like us, so his ability to communicate with the Father remained limited. As a result, there was a lack of clarity, of certainty, of completeness in his knowledge and in his words. Jesus’ ability to communicate God’s plan to us was thus limited. Notice that he even admitted that when he said that “Only the Father knows”.

But after the Resurrection, Jesus was fully divine, and had full knowledge of God and everything God the Father knew. And so, Jesus words after the Resurrection are powerful and direct messages to us, unfiltered and unencumbered by any of his former human limitations. That’s what makes the post Resurrection accounts in the Gospels over the last six weeks so special. The words convey important messages to us and they convey them in a manner that we can understand within the human limitations that we have. They are direct words from God. Such is the case for the Ascension.

In today’s account from Acts, Jesus finds the Apostles still in a state of doubt and uncertainty about what his role as the Messiah was all about. They wanted to know if the Kingdom of Israel was going to be restored right then. Jesus answer is very cryptic: “It is not for you to know”. You see, he is not talking about a worldly restoration of a Kingdom at all. Rather, he is talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. Then he tells the Apostles that they will be empowered by the Holy Spirit and that they are to be his witnesses over the entire world.

Do you know what it means to be a witness for Jesus? It means two things: First, it means that the events in the Gospel need to be retold, repeated, and remembered for all in the future. The promise of salvation and everlasting life needs to be repeated. But it also means that the way of life that Jesus admonished needs to be lived by his witnesses. His witnesses need to bear witness to both his testimony and his way of life.

The Gospel of Matthew says something similar. First, Jesus says that all power has been given to him on heaven and earth. This statement validates that Jesus is now fully divine and has full knowledge of God the Father and His will. Then Jesus says that the Apostles must go forth and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This direction from Jesus is one of the most direct messages from God that we have received. It is after the Resurrection, after Jesus has been fully empowered and is no longer encumbered by human nature.

So, this is what all of us have been commissioned to do: To be Witnesses for Christ, and to convert the World by Baptizing all nations. And Baptism means confessing our sins, repenting of them, and dying to self. Through Baptism we are all reborn by water and the spirit to a new life dedicated to Jesus and the Church.

Now, all of us have this mission; not just some of us, but all of us. It is a life-long commitment and mission.

In the very beginning of his Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul commissioned the first Christians in Ephesus by blessing them and sending them forth to perform this Baptismal Mission. It was a beautiful blessing that requested that the Ephesian converts be given wisdom and knowledge of God,and that they work through the Body of Christ, His Church. All of you gathered here today are part of the body of Christ, his Church. You are the witnesses of both the events of the Gospel and the way of Christ for this community. You have been blessed with the knowledge and wisdom of Christ.

Many of your companions will be depressed, disheartened, or even despairing in the face of old age and physical or mental impairments. But your Faith as Christians can save them. You are the witnesses that they need to realize that God loves them and has an incredible future in store for them. You are their messengers of hope and a joyful future. Amen.

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Waiting “A Little While” Longer.

May 25th, 2017

Thursday of Sixth Week of Easter
Acts 18:1-8; Jn 16: 16-20
Dc. Larry Brockman

“A little while and you will no longer see me, and again a little while later and you will see me”. These were puzzling remarks to the disciples. And even more puzzling was Jesus’ explanation. “Amen, amen, I say to you, you will weep and mourn, while the world rejoices; you will grieve, but your grief will become joy.”

Surely, the words that Jesus spoke in today’s Gospel were intended for his Apostles and disciples. The first little while thus corresponds to the time leading to his Crucifixion; and indeed, after that Jesus would be gone from them and all would seem lost.they would be weeping and mourning. And the second “little while” refers to Jesus appearances after the Resurrection. Indeed, their grief would turn to joy.

But Jesus’ words in this Gospel were also ultimately directed to all of us. For the “little while” that we live in this world, we will not “see” God the Father nor His Son in the same way that the disciples and Apostles saw Jesus in the flesh. The world and its disciples have in fact rejoiced in that, because Jesus did not “restore” any Jewish Kingdom nor did he establish any theocracy. The secular world, under the orchestration of the devil, continues to play havoc with mankind whenever and wherever it can. And so, we weep and mourn and we suffer, not unlike Jesus suffered at the hands of evil men.

But for those of us who follow Jesus, our sorrow will turn to Joy because we will see God “in a little while”. Compared to eternity, any lifespan here as a human is just a little while. And so any pain, suffering, or boredom we have to endure in this world is just for “a little while” in the end.

Recently I saw a man in the hospital suffering from an incurable disease. He had listed himself as a Catholic but had rejected the Church and God 30 years ago. He rejected God because his father suffered greatly, and despite his fervent prayer for his father, His father died. The man could not forgive God for what happened to his father. It has been that way for 30 years.

Now, he is suffering from an incurable disease himself and is facing the end of life. He has denied God and is in a panic. I could sense the horror and despair that he was feeling as he shared his life with me; he was scared that he could not be reconciled with God. I prayed over him and told him about God’s infinite mercy.

Fortunately, all of us believe in a God who is infinitely merciful; a God who loves every creature he made, and is always trying to get us back in harmony with Him. He will forgive us anything, as long as we forgive anyone who wronged us. The mercy and love of God are always there for us going forward as long as we repent and embrace Jesus beginning right now.

And the best part is that although we may have to grieve for a while, our grief will be turned to joy in just “a little while”.

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Passing On Our Heritage

May 9th, 2017

Benediction
Dc. Larry Brockman

Last Sunday, 130 children made their First Communion here. And this coming Sunday, another 130 will make their First Communion here. It’s a very special time for these children and their families because the core of our Catholic Faith is being passed on to the next generation.

You see, we are all called at Baptism to live as witnesses to our Catholic Faith. Witnesses are those who actively display their Faith and spread it to others. Witnesses are not reclusive, they are not silent. Witnesses are active in this world; they are very much part of the world. But today’s society is corrupted with doubt and cynicism and secular values. Our children need food for their journey. They need the Eucharist.

Today, we are gathered to adore and worship Jesus who is truly present body and soul and divinity In the Eucharist. It is essential that we all recognize that the Eucharist is the life giving food that sustains us in our journey as evangelizers in this world.
When Anna notified all of us about today’s Benediction, she described the first apparition at Fatima some 100 years ago. The light of Christ touched those children. We can be touched by Christ in a similar way when we consume the Eucharist. It penetrates us to the core; and can enable us to do God’s will for us. It is our food for the rest of our journey. Let us pray that all of us will truly believe that:

Lord, shed from us all vestiges of our unbelief. So that the light of Christ will consume us in the Eucharist And give us the courage and the power To vanquish the evil in our midst, by our words and deeds in your name. Amen.

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Let God Be Your Teacher

May 4th, 2017

Thursday of Third Week of Easter

Acts 8:26-40; Jn 6: 44-51

Dc. Larry Brockman

“They shall all be taught by God”.  These are Jesus’ words at the beginning of the Gospel- a quote from the prophets.   

Now I am sure that most of us glossed over that when we heard it.  Of course we are all taught by God. Really?   

One of the things we discover about those who teach us at a very early age, is that to learn, we have to listen, and believe what the teacher tells us without question.  Likely our first teachers were our parents.  And fortunately for most of us, we blindly accepted the words and instructions of our parents as toddlers.  We believed; we had faith.  And so we learned the basics- how to talk, how to walk, how to eat, how to love.   

Then we went to school.  We believed that the pattern in the book is an “A” just because we were told so by the teacher.  We also believed that the sound of an “A” is “ah”.  And so, we learned to read.  Indeed, we accepted a lot about what our first teachers told us without question.   

This is the sense of what it means deep down when Jesus quotes the prophets:  “They shall all be taught by God”.  God’s word on everything is the absolute truth.  If we want; we can be taught by God by believing on Faith what he tells us because we can absolutely trust God.   

But the fact is that as we grow up,  we learned that our other teachers could not be trusted absolutely.  There were times that our parents, teachers, and other folks in authority either didn’t know the truth, didn’t tell the truth, or didn’t understand the truth adequately.  Similarly, there were things that we discovered were ambiguous- the truth wasn’t clear sometimes.  And so, we learned to “think for ourselves” and to pick and choose to believe from what we heard. 

Unfortunately, many folks have applied this rationale to the things that God wants us to learn about him.  We test everything God tells us sort of like we test the things we hear from other sources.  And when we test it, we use our rationale.  It’s as if we put our thought process ahead of the wisdom of God.   

Real Faith is coming to believe in what God has told us simply because God has said so.  We cannot always reason it out; some of it is a mystery.  That is why Jesus says we need to have faith like a little child.   

Now the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunoch that we just heard is a great example of accepting on Faith what God has to say.  Here is a man who is totally foreign to the Jews.  He has somehow been attracted to the Jewish Scriptures, and is seeking the truth.  Jesus talks about such a person in the Gospel.  “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him”.  That is what happened to the Ethiopian- God was drawing him to the truth.  And Phillip opens his eyes to what it all means by relating the prophecy of Isaiah to all that happened to Jesus.  What faith this Ethiopian man had- he truly had the Faith of a child.  He accepted the word of God without challenging it.   

This Gospel addresses some of the most important elements of our Faith.  We are all called to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, rose from the dead, and gave us the Eucharist as the bread of life.  All of us are called to live a Christian life daily, and to be witnesses to the world.  We are called to live in the world- not to withdraw from it.  But to live in this secular world with conflicting values and voices, we need all the help we can get.  Jesus promises us that He is bread of life in this Gospel.  The Eucharist is that bread of life, and it is available to us as often as we seek it.  When we really believe that Jesus is present to us in the Eucharist,  and relish those few moments after we receive Him, then we will be given all the strength we need, all the graces we need, to be Christian witnesses in the face of an ever increasing secular world; to bear our share of the hardships which life brings us; to love our neighbors as ourselves; and to forgive as God forgives us. 

And those who truly believe like this will live forever.

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Living in Real Faith

April 20th, 2017

Thursday of the Easter Week

Acts 3:11-26; Lk 24: 35-48

Dc. Larry Brockman

How strong is your faith?  Do you really believe all the church teaches about Jesus Christ?  Do you believe that God the Father sent His only Son to share our human condition, to be fully human and fully divine?  And do you believe that Jesus, although God, endured the incredible suffering and humility of the Cross?  Do you believe deep down in the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting for each one of us?  You know, all of what I just asked is part of our creed, isn’t it.  And on Easter, we were all asked to reaffirm our belief.  So do you really believe?   

Or do you hold back in reserve and kind of doubt some or all of the creed?  Before you answer too quickly, consider this.  Does doubt surface when you are confronted with your own mortality?  When you think about dying, do you wonder whether this is really all there is to life.  Or do you relish the idea of life in the Kingdom of God.  Chances are, when you think about dying, even the most faithful of us have twinges of doubt.  Maybe it is just fear of the unknown, but it might also be some doubt.  So, just how do we “cast out all fear” and embrace the unknown with real, genuine faith?   

You know, when you come right down to it the Apostles were incredible teachers on the matter of real faith.  They truly acted as all of us do- with doubt in the background.  During his lifetime, Jesus told the Apostles about the coming Kingdom of God; and he shared with them three times that the Son of Man would have to suffer horribly and die at the hands of evil men, only to rise on the third day.  But the Apostles didn’t get it; they were confused and Peter even tried to admonish Jesus not to say such things.  It just didn’t make sense that the Messiah would have to suffer.  Yes, the Apostles, the folks chosen by Jesus to spread the faith, had lots of problems exhibiting real faith.   

And right at the beginning of the Easter season, as our readings tell us the story of the Resurrection, even there we see doubt from the Apostles.  The Emmaus brothers tell the rest of the Apostles about their encounter with Jesus.  Jesus reenacts the Last Supper with them, offering bread and wine- his own flesh and blood.  And then breaks down the scriptures that predicted all that had happened to him.  It was only then that they recognized Him.  Jesus had just presided over the first Mass after the Resurrection.   

But the Apostles were incredulous- how could this be.  And then, Jesus is miraculously standing amongst them.  Jesus can read their minds, their body language, their doubt, and so he challenges them to touch him and see for themselves.  Then he eats a piece of fish- something a ghost cannot do.  Yes, it is the risen Jesus; he is a real, living person.  And Jesus then commissions the Apostles to be his witnesses to spread the good news of the gospel to everyone- everyone.   

And so, it finally begins to dawn on them.  The whole thing is really true- all of it; the incarnation, the call to repentance, the coming of the Kingdom, the suffering and death, the resurrection of the Body, salvation offered to all, and life everlasting.  It took a whole lot of convincing, but they all finally got it.  God so loved man that he sacrificed his son, and if we follow after him and take up our crosses, we will die physically, but only to be raised from the dead and live forever in the Kingdom of God.  They finally came to believe.   

That brings us to the first reading today.  Apparently the crippled man came to believe as well.  And the Apostles, now fully convinced and living in faith, were able to bring him to health through Jesus power.  And then they proclaimed that:   “God raised up his servant and sent him to bless you by turning each of you from your evil ways.”   

So, if you really believe, then you will turn from whatever evil is in your life, mend your ways, and follow after Jesus.  You don’t have to understand everything; you just need to believe in it because there is so much more to life than what this world offers.  There is life everlasting in the Kingdom of God.  And that is all that matters. 

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Making the Works of the Lord Manifest Through You

March 26th, 2017

Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 Sam 16: 1b, 6-7, 10-13a; Eph 5: 8-14; Jn  9: 1-41

Dc. Larry Brockman

Blind from birth!  In Biblical times that kind of defect was considered the consequence of the sins of the parents.  But we hear very clearly from Jesus’ own lips that this blind man’s blindness was not a consequence of their sin; but rather: “It is so the works of God may be made visible through him”.  Just how?   

Well, have you considered that in a way, all of us are “blind at birth”?  The great St. Augustine made this observation, and I quote:  “For the blind man here is the human race.   Blindness came upon the first man by reason of sin: and from him we all derive it.   That is, man is blind from his birth” – end quote.  Yes, we are all blind to God’s message not by virtue of our sins or our parent’s sin, but because of Original Sin- the sin of Adam.  We are born into the world prone to sin, and we are of the world unless we make a conscious decision to seek God; unless we make a decision to be enlightened about things that are not of this world.   

And so, St. Paul speaks about that enlightenment.  We were once darkness, he says. That is the darkness that comes from being children of the world.  Children of the world seek the things of the world- it’s comforts, it’s pleasures, and it’s works, in the hope that it will bring happiness and satisfaction.  The problem is that at some point in our lives we realize that things of this world really can’t bring happiness.   

All of us are prone to limitations- whether they are from our minds or our bodies or our environment.  And eventually these limitations take over.  In other words, we lose our loved ones, or we lose our agility, or we lose our minds or both; and eventually we die.  And if all there is to life is life in this world; then life to the fullest in this world will all have been in vain.    But if we live in the Lord, it is then we are living in the light of the Lord.  Paul goes on to tell us that we should live as children of the light “Which produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth”.   

Now Jesus also says this directly in the Gospel:  “We have to do the works of the one who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work”.  So, Jesus is telling us that while we live, our mission is to do the works that the Father desires for us.  We have to do that while we live, because after we die we will not have an opportunity to choose him- we will have already made that choice in our lifetimes.   

It is only after Jesus gave that advice that he heals the blind man.  Jesus heals the blind man, a symbol of all humanity, as a sign of the path to salvation that He the Christ will provide.    Notice that he mixes his spittle with the dust of the earth, forming a kind of clay; just as the origin of life emanated from clay in the creation story.  But it is clay that uses Jesus spittle, symbolizing the effect of God’s creating Word coming from his mouth mixed with the dust of the earth.  And so, this blind man goes to the waters of the pool of Siloam, which means “sent”.  This prefigures Baptism, for the blind man emerges from that pool in a new life.  He is able to see, he is able to understand,  and he is sent forth to do his mission.  And this is the process each of us experiences- Baptism, a new life in Christ, and a mission selected by God for us.   

The blind man’s mission, of course, is to be a witness for Christ in front of the Jewish Establishment.  This he does fearlessly, only to be rejected by them, thrown out of the temple.  Jesus invites him to follow him as the Christ, which he does.   

And so, let all of us reflect on our salvation process.  For we were all called, as was the blind man, to go and be Baptized, and then sent from Baptism to be witnesses for Christ by doing his will for us. 

Lent is our opportunity each year to reflect on our mission.  Have we responded “yes” to our Baptismal rebirth in the Church?  Have we rejected the things of darkness, which are solely of this world and embraced our mission to shine the light of Christ in the world around us?   

Because the blind man represents all of us our positive response to the Lord at Baptism and in our lives is the way the works of the Lord will be made manifest to all.  We who believe and follow are the body of Christ, and we will be the light of the world till the end of time.

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