IS YOUR ETERNITY SECURE?
November 24, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

These last chapters of Luke’s Gospel give the details of the crucifixion. For the crucifiers, Jesus was an object of absolute ridicule. As a king, He was laughable. This whole thing was intended to be a mockery of the fact that He was a king. He had no army. He had no sovereignty over anything or any place. He had meager and minimal followers.  He had conquered no other nations.  There was nothing about Him that looked as if He was a massive power. They are treating the Son of God with as much dishonor as they can muster;  with as much disrespect and disdain and shame as they can possibly generate.

The Old Testament is clear about blasphemy. It says this in Leviticus  24:16, “Anybody who blasphemes My name shall die.” It is a capital crime to blaspheme the name of God.  These men are blasphemers. That is exactly what they are doing. But in a perverted twist they accuse Him of being the blasphemer deserving death. They spit in His face and beat Him and slap Him. Certainly, our Lord had every right to judge them, every right to destroy them on the spot. We may ask why God’s patience is so great? The answer comes in the scriptures, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,” says the Lord, “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.” All the disrespect and dishonor was predicted by the prophets centuries before the birth of our Lord. When you run out of patience, God does not. He is far beyond us, infinitely beyond us, in how He thinks and how He acts.  The stunning contrast at Calvary is the contrast  between the merciless insults of the crowd and the merciful intercession of Christ.

All the sneering, all the mocking,  all the abusive sarcasm is built around this idea that Jesus claimed to be a king. Before they bring Him to Calvary  they put a robe on Him, put a reed in His hand and jammed a crown of thorns on His head.  And it continued when they got him to the cross because He was crucified with two thieves, but they made sure to crucify one thief on one side of Him and one thief on the other side of Him so it would mirror, in a mocking way, a king with his two most important courtiers, one on his right and one on his left. And then they ridiculed Him with sarcastic language; saying that, if He was a king, maybe He should exercise some of His great power and come down from the cross. They mocked him, saying “He has saved others, let Him save Himself if this is the Christ of God, His Chosen One.”

Historically when people were crucified,  their crime was posted and since Jesus committed  no crime there could be no crime posted over Him. So Pilate decided what was going to go on the sign. In John 19, Pilate wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. “Jesus, the Nazarene” “The King of the Jews.” It was written in Hebrew, Latin and Greek. The chief priests and the Jews were saying to Pilate, “Do not write the King of the Jews, but that He said, “I am King of the Jews.”  Pilate answered, “What I have written I have written.”  Pilate wouldn’t change it because this is Pilate’s way to mock them. They had mocked him.  They blackmailed him into executing a man he knew was innocent. Even his wife said wash your hands of this innocent man. Pilate said multiple times, “I find no fault in Him.”

Dear brothers and sisters, contrary to everything that was done to the son of God, He says, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they’re doing.”  He asks God to provide forgiveness for them.  Now, Jesus spoke seven things from the cross. He spoke to one of the thieves and said,  “Today you’ll be with Me in paradise.”  Then He spoke to His mother and John and said, “Behold your mother,  behold your son,”  and gave the care of His mother to the apostle John. Then He said, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” And then He spoke to the soldiers and said, “I’m thirsty,” and they gave Him the sponge. He then spoke to Himself and said, “It is finished.”  And then he spoke to God and said, “It’s at thy hands I commit my spirit.” His first words were words seeking divine forgiveness for the world’s most wretched sinners.

With the death of Jesus, the story of the King of the Universe does not
end. On the day of Pentecost, 3,000 Jews in Jerusalem were converted to Christ and baptized and the church was begun. Within a few weeks another 5,000 men and eventually, tens of thousands of  people in Jerusalem embraced the faith of Jesus Christ. There must have been many of those who came  to Christ in those weeks after the resurrection who were there in that crowd. The church was born out of the people who stood at the foot of Calvary and mocked the Son of God. They became the first church.  Not only that, the soldiers were converted.  As we heard in today’s Gospel, verse 47,  when the centurion saw what had happened, he began praising God saying, “Certainly this man was innocent.” And Matthew says,  the centurion and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus said, “Truly, this was the son of God.”  In Acts 6:7, “The word of God kept on spreading.” The number of the disciples continued to increase greatly in Jerusalem. Now it is in our hands to pass on this Good news of Salvation. He is truly the King of the Universe who died for the forgiveness of our sins. He prayed for us on the Cross, “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing.”

IS YOUR ETERNITY SECURE?
November 17, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

We are very close to the end of the liturgical year. In fact, next Sunday, we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It is also the 34th and last Sunday of the liturgical year. So, as usual at this time, the Church invites us to think about the end of things. The scripture readings of this second to last Sunday are filled with apocalyptic visions and warnings. The word 'apocalypse' simply means uncovering, a stripping to essentials. In today’s first reading from the book of the prophet Malachi, the author addresses the perennial problem, namely, why do evildoers prosper and the just suffer. He tells them that the end of the world and the day of judgment will be terrible for the evil-doers, but it will be a joy for the faithful.

Our world is only temporary and our own lives in this world will not last forever. The plans we make must always take our final destiny into account. In today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel we find Jesus in the Temple at Jerusalem. It is quite near the end of His public life. The people around Him were awestruck by the beauty of the stonework and the wealth of offerings being made by pilgrims to the temple. To most Jews, it was a place made to last forever. It was, so to speak, the “soul” of the Jewish faith, the focal point for all Jews everywhere - just as Rome is for Catholics. The comment of Jesus was blasphemous for some. “All these things you are gaping open-mouthed at now - the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another: everything will be destroyed.”

Jesus, of course, was absolutely right. As the result of a rebellion by the Jews against the Romans, Jerusalem was besieged and the city and Temple utterly destroyed. The Holy of Holies, a place so sacred that only the high priest could enter it once a year, was ransacked and the sacred vessels carried off as booty. All that is left of King Herod’s mighty monument in Jerusalem today is the “Wailing Wall.” The unthinkable had happened. And, for many Jews, including Jews who converted to Christianity, it must have seemed like the end of the world. The emphasis shifted from expectation of an early return of Jesus to focusing on how fruitfully to spend the time of waiting.

Jesus lists three kinds of phenomena, which might induce people to believe that the end of all things was coming. “Take care not to be deceived,” Jesus warns us today, because many would come using His name saying, “I am he” - false Messiahs and salvation-gurus. Jesus’ advice: have nothing to do with such people. Secondly, Jesus warns, many events will seem like the end but they will not be. “When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened, for this is something that must happen but the end is not so soon.” Jesus predicts wars between and within nations. There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines … fearful sights and great signs from heaven. Finally, Jesus speaks of the special threats hanging over His own followers. “People will seize you and persecute you; they will hand you over to the synagogues and to imprisonment, and bring you before kings and governors because of my name Many of the early Christians thought that persecution was also a sign that the end of the world was coming. Jesus, however, reminds us that it is an integral part of the Church’s ongoing life. And so it has been.

To conclude: Yes, there will be an end of time. To many people the end of the world is tragic. Christianity, however, thinks otherwise. It is not an end but rather a beginning - an event not to be afraid of. Our fear is natural because of the unknown but our fear could also mask a lack of firm belief in the resurrection. The Gospel tells us that we are to get ready for that day when God will call us to Himself. Our faith tells us that there is no need to live in fear and anxiety regarding the future. Rather, we are to focus on the present time, on today, the here and now. Jesus promises His followers abundant sufferings and persecutions. If they bear the sufferings for Christ’s name they will earn true life, eternal life in heaven. For this reason the Church wants us to examine ourselves today regarding the response we have to such circumstances. We are invited to seek and find Him in all things, in every person, in every place, in every experience. He will surely come in His glory and majesty to judge the whole human race, as we hear in today's Responsorial Psalm, “The Lord comes to rule the earth with justice.” So, we are called upon to prepare ourselves for the future by loving and serving others at every possible occasion. Today’s Gospel reading is prophetic in nature and was applied to the days of Jesus. But it is also applicable to us in today’s situation. It invites us to be prepared to receive the Lord worthily without any fear. We are called to persevere in our living faith and look forward in hope.

Not knowing when our individual time will expire is not meant to frighten a person - unless they need to be frightened to live a good life - but it should motivate us to be prepared. It should give us hope in any type of trial; that our time and trial now is temporary, but eternity is forever. Embracing this way of living gives us hope and confidence, that no matter when our time expires, our lives are secure. The world and its false securities are passing realities. In the end, the love of God is all that remains. That love is reciprocal; God has loved His human creatures and awaits a loving response. He comes to assist us, making our response possible and helping us to persevere in that loving response until the end. This is the Good News of today.

WHAT? NO MARRIAGE IN HEAVEN?
November 10, 2019
Deacon Dennis Walters

Most of us have known elderly couples who have been married to each other for 50, 60,
70 years and more. Some of you are among them. For couples who truly love one another, the
death of a spouse raises a host of questions, such as: If there’s no marriage in heaven, will I be
reunited with my spouse there? What will the relationship be like? If I was married to more thanone person in this life, how will I relate to them in heaven? And so on.

Such questions are outside the point of today’s Gospel reading, but they’re what many
people want to know. The passage deals with the resurrection of the body; marriage is the lure
the Sadducees used to get Jesus to discredit himself. To demonstrate that bodily resurrection is
silly, they ask him an absurd question: If the same woman becomes married to seven men on
earth, whose wife will she be in your supposed heaven? Jesus not only answers that question,
but cites the only Scriptures they accepted to prove that bodily resurrection (and by extension
heaven) is in the Torah, since God is not God of the dead but of the living.

Which still leaves open our questions about marriage and heaven. In his answer to the
Sadducees, Jesus says that those who are judged worthy to attain to the resurrection of the just
“neither marry nor are given in marriage.” People in heaven aren’t married; they’re like angels,
who have no need to marry. That bothered my mother a great deal, because she longed to be
reunited to my father, who had died twenty-three years earlier. Is Jesus really saying that the
relationship formed through a long marriage doesn’t exist in heaven?

In this world, marriage is the covenant bond between a man and a woman for two
purposes: procreation of the species, and the union of the spouses. In Genesis, God’s first
command to human beings was to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.”
Heaven doesn’t require populating, because those who are there never die; the human race in
heaven is complete. So for that purpose, marriage isn’t necessary. The death of the spouses ends their covenant commitment on earth. But the end of the covenant doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the union.

In this world, the union of the spouses shows itself in numerous ways, not only sexually
but also in expressions affection, personal service, time spent together, and communication in
words and in silence. That union is not just physical, but primarily spiritual. The habits of love
that create it can be so profound that the passing of one spouse from this life can attract the other to follow soon after. That sort of thing happens in many long marriages, even pagan ones.

Because the love between spouses is spiritual, it doesn’t die, because the spirit that holds
it doesn’t die. When a soul enters heaven, it brings with it the knowledge, character traits,
personal strengths, virtuous habits, and merits of good actions — but all purified, perfected, and expanded. All the ignorance, personal failures, sinful inclinations, selfishness have been burned away, and every good thing the person was capable of doing on earth is perfected. Most of all, the soul’s capacity for love will be free of the personal limitations and egoism that held it down on earth. The soul will be free to love God first and foremost, and everyone else in heaven, especially those it loved on earth with a more pure, more intense, and more passionate love than would be possible here.

In heaven, husbands and wives will recognize each other. To recognize means to “know
again,” but in a much deeper and more intimate way there than was possible here. Here, we
know one another only partially; we’re always mysteries to one another — mysteries even to
ourselves. There, all is light, and what we know is infused with the light of God’s knowledge of
us. We will see His grace, His gifts, His love, His very Self present in each other, and others will
see the same in us. What we recognize there will be more good, more true, and more beautiful
than anything we could possibly have known here. That knowledge will be always new, and
always complete.

“What if I loved and was married to more than one person? How will I relate to them in
heaven?” On earth, we can love many people in different ways. But married love is exclusive;
that is, the covenant of marriage excludes everyone except the spouse you’re married to. There,
because the covenant of marriage is ended, all loves will be inclusive. We will rejoice in the fact
that all love extends to all others; and even if on earth we preferred one spouse more than
another, in heaven our love for each will be full and complete. Jealousy will not exist.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus says that people in heaven are not married. But, in one sense,
they are. Through the prophets, God says that he marries His people: “Your maker is your
husband,” He tells Israel; “I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Is. 54:8; Jer. 31:3). Jesus
Himself is the divine Bridegroom. We form the Bride to whom He has given Himself, body and
soul. Heaven is a wedding feast, and everyone there is in the bridal party. Our job on earth is to
make ourselves ready, “for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself
ready” (Rev. 19:7). Come, then, Lord Jesus!

IS YOUR HEART TRANSFORMED IN THE PRESENCE OF THE LORD?
November 3, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Luke is telling us the story of Zacchaeus, but it's really the story of God. The story of the purpose God fulfilled in Jesus Christ. The last sentence, verse 10, of today’s Gospel is the most important truth laid out in Scripture:  that God seeks and saves sinners.  In Matthew 1:21, the angel says, upon announcing the birth of Jesus, “You are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."  At His birth it was clear that that is why He came. In 1 Timothy 1:15, Paul writes, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost.” And then Proverbs 8:17 says, "Those who diligently seek Me will find Me." This Gospel tells us that Zacchaeus somehow wanted to see the Lord. He found Jesus, invited Him to his house and the whole household was saved.

Let's meet the sinner of the story. Verse 1 states, "He came to and was passing through Jericho. Now  there was a man there named Zacchaeus,  who was a chief tax-collector and also a wealthy man.” Now his parents had good intentions for him when he was named at birth.  Zacchaeus means clean, innocent, pure, and righteous. But in his life he defied the intent of his parents and became unclean, guilty, impure, and unrighteous. Clement of Alexandria, one of the church fathers, said that Zacchaeus became a very prominent Christian leader  and ended up a pastor of the church in Caesarea,  later to be succeeded by none other than Cornelius,  the centurion. He proved himself. His parents gave him the right name.

This is the sixth time in Luke’s Gospel that our Lord has an encounter with a tax collector. Every Jewish person paid a third of their average income to the  theocratic kingdom in order to fund the government. Verse 3 tells us that Zacchaeus was interested in Jesus. He was trying to see who Jesus was. Everybody heard about Jesus. He had probably heard about the fact that Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead. Is he curious? Sure he's curious. Is it more than that? Sure it's more than that. He has a dissatisfied heart.  He knows he's alienated from God.  He knows he has no eternal life.  He knows that he's overwhelmed with guilt and sin. He knows the kind of man he is. Now he had two problems. In verse 3 there is a big crowd and he is a small man. But he's determined to see Jesus;  setting aside all sense of embarrassment this wealthy little guy, this chief tax collector climbed a tree to get a glimpse of Jesus.

Now we meet the Savior in verse 5.  "And when Jesus came to the place," the place where he was sitting in the tree, "He looked up and said to him,  'Zacchaeus come down.'" The Lord said his name. This is a reminder that the Son of Man knows who He's seeking. It reminds me of Nathanael in John 1 when Nathanael said, "How do You know me?" And He says, "I knew you before you ever showed up." He knows His own. And He says, "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." But it was an irresistible call, because verse 6 says, "And he hurried and came down and received Him gladly." It is like "Today is the day of your salvation.  Today I must stay at your house." This is what we call divine necessity. It is predetermined before the foundation of the world. Zacchaeus never could have anticipated anything like this because he knew he was a defiled person. No one who considered himself righteous or clean would ever come near him, let alone near his house, and worst of all, eat a meal with him. It would have been the first time any righteous, clean, noble, respected person had come to his house. His job had put him in the category of the wretched,  the despised and the rejected,  the category of those people who are the unclean and the untouchable. That alienated him and isolated him because he robbed his own people’s money through this tax. And he feels the weight of that and the guilt.  He can't worship.  He can't go to the temple. He can't get atonement offered for him. So he was isolated from God. He was isolated from religion. He was isolated from hope. He received Jesus with joy.

In verse 8. "And Zacchaeus stopped and said to the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, half of my possessions I will give to the poor and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I'll give back four times as much.'" You've got a man who is a professional thief who has now become an instant philanthropist.  It doesn't say anything about Jesus confronting his sin. But the Son of Man has come to his home. In fact, in verse 10, He says, "The Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”  In that transformation he became a noble, wonderful and very generous person. If you go back to Leviticus 6:5, or Numbers there is an Old Testament prescription for restitution: one fifth of the amount to be given to whom he has wronged.  So this was pretty much the Jewish standard. In the case of an ordinary robbery you paid back double, that is, twofold. But Zacchaeus is going to give four-fold back to people. Exodus 22:1, if you robbed someone with violence and destruction,  a fourfold response was required. He went to the max. He said, "I've done this, I've done it violently, I've done it destructively. I will gladly pay back the max." He is demonstrating the maximum obedience of the law.

Dear brothers and sisters, what does this Zacchaeus story tell us? It is a story of a transformed heart. Our every encounter with the Eucharistic Lord should lead us to this transformation, to feel the joy that we are in the presence of the Lord. I pray today will be the day when He calls our name, comes to our house and brings salvation. Let us open our hearts and receive Him gladly

IT'S NOT A JOKE!
October 27, 2019
Deacon Dennis Walters

If it weren’t for the fact that Luke tells us at the beginning what the point of the parable in today’s Gospel is, we’d almost think that Jesus was beginning a joke: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.” Of course, this is not a joke. But like a joke, the characters are stereotypes. They’re stock characters, one a foil for the other.
It’s worth remembering that when we reflect on these characters. They’re extreme examples of a type.
Consider Pharisees, for example. They first emerged as a religious movement around the time of the Maccabees, roughly 150 years before Christ. The name means “one who is separated,” whether from pagan unbelievers or from fellow Jews who didn’t observe the Law of Moses. Their devotion to the Law was so intense that for them the perfect Jew was one who applied to himself all of the purity laws that priests in the Temple observed while ministering there. In other words, the perfect Jew acted at home as if he were in church. It was thanks to the Pharisees that a canon of Hebrew scriptures (beyond the first five books) emerged, and that an oral tradition about its meaning and application developed in Judaism - and continued into Christianity. It was thanks to Pharisees that Judaism coalesced into a religion after the exile. And it was thanks to the Pharisees that Judaism survived the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D., because it was they who formed the basis of the Rabbinic Judaism that exists today.
In Jesus’ day, many Pharisees were genuinely devout and some were open to Jesus’ message, like Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea. But others were Jesus’ harshest critics, and were among those
determined to crucify Him. Perhaps over time the separateness of the Pharisees had made them into a snobbish class. In any case, such was their reputation for haughtiness toward common folk that Jesus could pose a Pharisee as a typical example of hypocrisy, one that His audience would appreciate.
Or consider the tax collector. He was a pariah of Jewish society, regarded as a collaborator of the hated Roman occupiers, gouging simple folks out of their hard-earned money and enriching himself in the process. Although the Gospels indicate that a few could respond to Jesus’ message, many were doubtless worthy of the contempt they received. Our modern attitude toward tax authorities is not much changed from what it was then.
So these characters are stereotypes to make a point. In the story, the Pharisee as a type is anyone who - as the Greek puts it - prays toward himself. He’s self-sufficient, oblivious of his total dependence on the grace of God. His prayer is inwardfocused. He addresses God, but his attention is on himself and what he does to demonstrate his holiness; plus, he compares himself positively to others he thinks less holy than himself. If I were an honest man, I would admit that I’m a lot like him. I remind God (and myself) that I’m an orthodox Catholic who knows his faith, not like those cafeteria Catholics who pick and choose what they want to believe. I go to Mass several times a week, I pray and read Scripture daily, I tithe regularly, I avoid pornography. I don’t cheat on taxes, I’m faithful to my wife, and my police record is squeaky clean. I’m not like homeless people, or drug addicts, or con artists. I wouldn’t be so bold as to say so publicly, but - really - my place in heaven is secure.

The tax collector as a type is anyone whose prayer is outward-focused. He also addresses God, but pleads for mercy because he is who he is. He makes no claim to holiness. Quite the opposite. He knows that what he does for a living exposes himself to temptations of all sorts, and he sometimes gives in. He’s aware of his social position, and admits that he deserves it. He has nothing he can offer God except his own miserable self. If I were an honest man, I would realize that I’m a lot like him. My weak human nature seems to pollute everything I do. I want to love God, but my heart is inclined away from Him. My heart is inclined to put myself on a pedestal, inclined to want fame and money, inclined to promote my own comfort, inclined to give myself all the goodies I can afford. If I were honest, I’d admit I have nothing that God could want, aware that I’m absolutely dependent on His grace, on His mercy. Because that’s what I am, a sinner.
Jesus concludes the story by saying that the tax collector went home justified, but not the Pharisee. What does that mean? It means, ironically enough, that the sinner was the righteous one. He admitted the basic truth about himself, grieved over it, and begged God for what he most needed and what God was most eager to give him. The other didn’t. Even though what the Pharisee said about himself was probably true as far as it went, it was also false. It was an act - hypocritical because the Pharisee’s good actions masked the sin in his heart, his pride.
Pride is no joke. It is the root of most sins. It can turn the best things I do into coals for Hell’s fire. If I’m an honest man, I have to admit that I’m proud of what I’ve made of myself. But if I’m truly an honest man, I also have to admit that what I’ve made of myself is fit for Hell unless it comes under the mercy of God, who alone can give it what it’s worth in His eyes. I stand in prayer as a sinner, because I’m in absolute need of His mercy.
So are we all.
 

PERSISTENT PRAYER CHANGES HISTORY
October 20, 2019
Deacon Dennis Walters

Even before Roe vs. Wade made abortion on demand legal in the United States, pro-life activists were campaigning against it. Some campaigns were large protest marches, like the annual March for Life in January. Some were lawsuits challenging how abortion facilities operate. Others involved sit-ins, arrests, and jail time for participants. Because some tactics appeared threatening to women seeking abortions, in 2004 a group of Christians in College Station, Texas, organized a campaign of prayer and fasting in groups over an extended period of time called 40 Days for Life. The object was to seek to effect change through prayer.
The model for that approach appears in our first reading, the story of the battle of Israel against Amalek. In Exodus, the Israelites had been in the Sinai wilderness only a few months and were still learning how to survive in that environment. The Amalekites were nomads who already occupied the Sinai peninsula; to them, the Israelites were invaders competing for scarce food and water. Indeed, the battle seems to have been about water.

Earlier, the Israelites had encamped at Rephidim, a wadi, or dry riverbed. There, they murmured against Moses over his failure to provide water, so the Lord worked a miracle to provide it. He had Moses strike a rock with his staff, and out came massive amounts of water, enough to slake the thirst of several thousand people and their animals. Perhaps the Amalekites got wind of it. At any rate, they harassed Israel enough that Moses assigned Joshua and a force of men to engage them in open battle. Moses himself would go to a hilltop with his brother Aaron, the priest, and an elder named Hur where they could observe things, and invoke the Lord’s protection for Israel.

Such a position would also let the Israelite soldiers see Moses interceding for them, and take courage from it. Which may be why Moses took the dramatic prayer posture he did, his arms raised above shoulder height, the palms of his hands open toward heaven. That position is characteristic of someone deep in prayer; the gesture connotes sincere pleading for God’s intervention. But even a healthy man can’t maintain such a posture for very long.

His arms grow tired, so he lowers them to rest, then raises them again. Perhaps the soldiers below would notice when Moses lowered his hands, which meant that he had stopped praying, and so they would lose ground; then, when Moses raised them again, they’d take heart and attack more vigorously. Perhaps also Moses’ prayer would actually falter when he tired. But he and his companions could see the pattern of movement on the battlefield, and so Aaron and Hur held Moses’ arms up for him, and the prayer continued without letup. With that visible prayer support, Joshua “mowed down” the attackers.

Experience shows that coordinated prayer can change history. Scripture contains several examples, such as when King Hezekiah prayed for deliverance from Sennacherib’s siege of Jerusalem, and his prayer was answered. In October 1571, Pope St. Pius V attributed the victory of the Holy League against the Ottoman Empire at Lepanto to the recitation of the Rosary for Mary’s intervention. There are even examples from American history. At a time when the American colonies seemed on the verge of abandoning religion altogether, the first Great Awakening, a colony-wide revival, occurred. It led to other later revivals, including the Charismatic renewal in both Protestant and Catholic churches in the mid-20th century. At Fatima, Mary herself asked for prayer in hopes of sparing the world a second world war, and for the conversion of Russia.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story whose point is to emphasize the need to keep praying without giving up. In it, he uses what in logic is called an a fortiori argument; that is, if you can accept a weak conclusion, then logically you must accept a stronger one. So, if you’re willing to accept that a corrupt judge can render justice because a little old lady with her cane pesters him for it, how much more should you accept that an incorruptible and infinitely just God will render justice if we’re willing to keep asking Him. The key is persistence in the asking.
We need to persist in prayer as individuals, but persistent group prayer is often more effective. That’s why we organize prayer chains and prayer campaigns. Jesus promised that “if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:19). We need to be careful of expecting immediate results, or of being content with shortterm answers to long-term problems. God does sometimes answer prayers speedily, as Jesus says. But His plan generally unfolds gradually, and certain problems take decades or even centuries to resolve because of human intransigence. If we’re not praying constantly for justice, the implication is that we’re not that committed to it.

Prayer does change history. As a current example, consider the success of the 40 Days for Life campaigns. Since 2004, around 61 countries have adopted that prayer and fasting approach, involving over a million volunteers. These campaigns have succeeded in shutting down over a hundred abortion facilities, prompted nearly 200 abortion workers (like Abby Johnson) to quit their jobs, and (by their count) have influenced upwards of sixteen thousand women to keep their babies. Impressive, but the prayer battle continues.

Israel lost ground in battle unless his supporters kept Moses’ hands upraised in prayer. Jesus cautions His disciples to pray always and not lose heart when results seem disappointing. He expects faith, not only from individuals but from the Church as a whole. The question that He asks in today’s Gospel should pester our hearts: “When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?

WHAT DO YOU SEEK FROM THE LORD?
October 13, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

There is an amazing miracle that involves the simultaneous instant healing of ten people, ten people with the most terrible disease. When the Jewish leaders deny the powerful miracle  of Jesus, they deny a demonstration of divine power that is unmistakable and undeniable. Nor could they deny His compassion and sympathy  toward those who suffered. In Christ, God was  manifesting His compassion as much as His power because  the miracles Jesus did were miracles of mercy on people who suffered.

Jesus then demonstrates on this occasion, what the  people would have assumed would be the lifting of a divine curse because such a horrific disease was viewed as a divine judgment. They believed that God even used leprosy as a punishment. Religiously and socially defiled in every way; with no family, no job, no friends, no worship, no hope, they were walking illustrations of sin. The Jews had a reason that they saw it as a curse of God. Naaman was a leper by divine punishment. Uzziah was a leper by divine punishment. And so here is Jesus overturning divine judgment. In Luke 5, with a similar kind of miracle, He told him not to tell anybody, but that was long ago.  Here, He doesn't tell them that because it's getting very close to the Father's timetable for the Cross. As in the case of all of Jesus' miracles, this instantaneous and complete miracle of 10 people is an astounding story of ingratitude. It is also a wonderful story, more importantly, of gratitude, worship and salvation.

In verse13 it says,  "They raised their voices., ‘Master’.” They knew His reputation. They may have known it from the massive healings that He had done in His Galilee ministry, or from His healings in the Judean ministry. His reputation was widely known. This was their only hope. This was their only chance.They had no way out of their dilemma. There were no cures. There were no solutions. Their faith was meager but they were desperate men. And so they said, "Have mercy on us.” He simply said to them in verse 14, "Go and show yourselves to the priest.” Priests were like health inspectors and they knew that they had to have the healing verified to fulfill the obligation of the law and they did it. They had the basic faith in this healer. As they were going, they were cleansed. At least, the men would be living testimonies to the power of Jesus' divine power. The priests would have to validate that publicly.

Were they cleansed because they believed? Not exactly, but he chose to cleanse them. Look at verse 15,  "Now one of them, when he saw that he had been healed, turned back." Think about all the implications of now being able to go back to family, friends, life. But he saw more than that. He understood the real implications of what had just happened. And what was that? He had been in the presence of God and he wanted more than physical healing. He went back embracing the full potential of getting from God what he knew he really needed. His heart was longing for a relationship with the divine Healer. He wanted to give himself to that divine Healer. He wanted to prostrate himself before the divine Healer as a sinner, and worship and adore Him, as well as praise Him and thank Him. He wanted something more than just a physical healing. He's not content with just the physical. He understands the reality of his alienation and need for reconciliation to God.

So he came back and he did three things. First at the end of verse 15 we read, "Glorifying God with a loud voice.” Verse 16, “fell on his face at His feet.” He worshipped Him. And he knew, but
they all knew, Samaritan and Jew, that God alone was to be worshiped.  He took a worshiping posture. And, thirdly: gave thanks to Him. He knew that it was God in Jesus that had given him this gift. He could not restrain his praise, he could not restrain his worship,  he could not restrain his thanks,  but his posture was saying,  "I want a relationship with You, I want everything You have to give." He knew he was in the presence of God. Interesting way to look at that: What were the other nine guys doing? They were moving toward the priests, maybe with the idea that they’d go to the temple, because you ultimately had to go there to make the sacrifices that are required of one who's been cleansed. They didn't have any interest in Jesus anymore. And they walked away to their dead, blind, cold religion with no more interest in Jesus at all. They got what they wanted out of Him.

But most significantly this one man who returned knew where to worship God, where God really dwelt. And where God really dwelt was in Jesus Christ. That was the real temple. He recognizes that wherever the compassion of God is, God is. Wherever the power of God is, God is. Wherever the grace of God is, God is. And that's where Jesus is and so that's where God is. Jesus is the true temple. God doesn't dwell in Jerusalem; He dwells in Jesus. He knew he had come face-to-face with God. He returns to seek what his soul really desired and needed, salvation. He's a Samaritan. He's a foreigner. He can't go into the forbidden, inner court of the temple, but instead he walks right back face-to-face with God Himself and goes into His own Holy of Holies worshiped in humility and joy. And in verse 19 the story reaches its wonderful ending, "And He said to him," knowing what he wanted, "Rise, your greater faith, has saved you.”

Dear brothers and sisters, Jesus really doesn’t have anything to offer you and me on a permanent basis unless it's eternal life and salvation. That is what we want to hear from the Lord just more than physical healing, “Rise Your faith has saved you.” With humility we can ask Him to give us healing, give us food, deliver us from evil. But everlasting life is the best thing that we can seek from the Lord.

FANNING YOUR GIFTS INTO FLAME
October 6, 2019
Deacon Dennis Walters

Have you ever worked on a long-term project that seemed to be going nowhere, and wondered whether your involvement was worth the effort?
In the early 1980s, I served as a religious volunteer at a close-security prison south of Ann Arbor. I’d had no prison experience before; and at first, my only duty was to play guitar for Catholic services. Shortly after I began going weekly, I became the only volunteer for services. Between three and six inmates would attend; I’d do a Scripture reading, give a short reflection, and converse with the inmates until it was time to leave. Then, for about six weeks, all inmates stopped coming. Just as I thought of giving up, a few men began to show up again; and gradually a few more joined them. So I kept going into the facility each week for those few.
In today’s second reading, St. Paul writes from prison in Rome to a protégé of his, Timothy, to encourage him in his role as a leader of the Church at Ephesus. Timothy was a Greek, a convert to Christianity, and considerably younger than Paul. He didn’t have Paul’s intellectual background; yet Paul recognized in him the talents that would make him a good leader - if he could get past his own insecurities. Paul had placed Timothy in charge of cleaning up some doctrinal and pastoral messes in Ephesus, and Timothy would need all the moral courage he could muster to complete the job he had been given. In his first letter to him, Paul outlined the scope of the task that Timothy was facing. In this, his second letter, Paul tries to tell Timothy that he has what it takes, as long as he uses the gifts of God that he received through Paul’s “laying on of hands.”
Everything Paul tells Timothy about using his gifts can apply to us in using ours. Every baptized and confirmed Catholic has received gifts from the Holy Spirit. To repeat: you’ve been given gifts from the Holy Spirit that you are supposed to use for the Church in the context of your everyday life. These gifts build on your natural talents, but they are primarily ways that the Holy Spirit communicates Himself through you. In Confirmation class, you learned their names:  wisdom, understanding, counsel, knowledge, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord.
You might say, “Wait a minute. I work in an office. I change diapers. I build houses. I drive tractors. These gifts - wisdom, understanding, all the rest - they sound like gifts that teachers or preachers would use. They don’t fit me. I’m not a teacher or a preacher.”
Actually, you are - and they do fit you. Don’t forget that the first followers of Jesus weren’t teachers or preachers. They were fishermen. Probably, what most attracted people to them was the fact that they were fishermen, people with real-life experience who could speak their language. One of the most spiritually gifted men I know is a building contractor with a large family. If you’re a parent or the head of a family, you lead a “domestic church.” When you make faith-filled decisions for the good of the family, you exercise the gift of wisdom. When you teach your children the basics of Christian morality, you exercise gifts of understanding and counsel. When you pray and work for their welfare, you exercise fear of the Lord.
These are the gifts that Paul urges you to “fan into flame.” How? By using them, and by asking the Lord to help you use them better.
Just as Paul had to remind Timothy that “God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control,” so he has to remind us. Among Christians - and, according to research statistics, among Catholics especially - moral cowardice is a problem. Our culture spews propaganda messages that tell us that we’re bigots, haters, deplorables. It says that Catholic teaching is medieval, that the Church should update its doctrine, that its sexual morality is flat-out wrong. If we hear these things often enough, we begin to believe them. We think we don’t know our faith well enough to defend it. We’re told that it’s irrational, so we keep it private. We can’t tell others that their behavior is wrong, because who are we to judge? We don’t want to offend people. We’ve become ashamed of our testimony.
That is not the spirit we’ve been given.
In the gifts of the Spirit, we’ve been given power. The power of God doesn’t often show itself dramatically. Not usually in ways that result in mass conversions or spectacular miracles, perhaps, but in something better - the quiet urge that implants itself in a soul and grows like a vine, rooting itself in the crannies of the heart. Wisdom, understanding, knowledge, and counsel typically work that way, gradually over time. Fortitude - courage - is a gift for combating the cowardice that keeps us silent, and it takes our will to use it. Piety and fear of the Lord anchor us in the Holy Spirit; but, like the others, need persistent cultivation. If the gifts we’ve been given have lain dormant, fanning them into open flame will take time. But as long as there’s a glow of faith, persistent fanning can revive them. As Habakkuk might say, God’s vision has its time; it presses on. The rash person gives up and loses out; the just person succeeds through faith.
About once a year, the prison administration would present volunteers with certificates of appreciation. I never knew whether my volunteer efforts had any effect on the men I served until, in what must have been my tenth year, one evening the men presented me with a hand-drawn certificate of appreciation. It made me an “honorary lifer.” Of all the certificates of appreciation I received, that was the most precious. It showed that the power of God was quietly at work.
 

ARE YOU GETTING THE SPIRITUAL POINT?
September 29, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

You know, a good storyteller makes things unforgettable and our Lord is the best. It is an unforgettable story that Jesus told of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man was thinking that he was going to Heaven, but ended up in Hell. It was equally shocking to him that the poor beggar, Lazarus, was in heaven. This was contrary to all expectations at the time of Jesus. Verse 19: "Now there was a certain rich man,  who habitually dressed in purple and fine linen living in splendor every day. And a certain poor man named Lazarus laid at his gate, covered with sores and longing to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table.”

In the view of the Pharisees and the religious leaders of Israel, the rich man was singularly blessed by God. He's the symbol of a God-blessed life in Israel. In this parable, Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel. They had a convenient theology that accommodated their wealth and prosperity viewpoint. Pharisees believed in heaven,  hell  and judgment but none of them expected that they would end up in hell. This parable is a warning to these people by the most compassionate, loving, gracious and kind Lord Jesus Christ about the reality of where they might end up.

The religious leaders said to Jesus, in Matthew 12:38: “Show us a sign to believe you.” He showed a sign. He raised Lazarus from the dead, the same name He gave to the poor man in this parable, and then He raised Himself from the dead. When Lazarus came out of the grave, the religious leaders said, "Tell the people it's a lie," and when Jesus came out of the grave, they met together and said, "We have to fabricate something to tell the people this is a hoax." They didn't believe, though there was thesign of all signs, the very resurrection of Jesus Himself.

Now, as we unfold the story,  we're going to find out what it's like to be in hell and why this man went there. First of all, there are three features in the story:
 life, death, and life after death. You have a poor man and a rich man. Extreme riches, extreme selfindulgence, a lavish lifestyle, ostentatious display - the rich man's got it all. In contrast, verse 20, "A certain poor man,"beggarly, worthless," with no future and with no recovery. The rich man has family, friends, royal clothing, lavish lifestyle,  feasting, gladness, splendor, honor; he needs nothing.The poor man is alone,  despised, humiliated, shamed, in rags, crippled, sores, repulsive, miserable, hungry; he needs everything. One has the best life.  One has the worst life imaginable.

The situation changes after death. The poor man then becomes rich; and the rich man becomes poor. You have a poor man on the outside of the house and you have a rich man on the inside. Then comes death, and you have a poor man on the inside and a rich man on the outside. You have a poor man with no food and a rich man with all the food he can possibly need; but then you have a poor man at the great heavenly banquet and a rich man with absolutely nothing. You have a poor man who suffers and a rich man who is satisfied; and then you have a rich man who suffers, and a poor man who's satisfied. In life you have a poor man who is humiliated, a rich man who's honored. Then after death you have a rich man who is humiliated, and a poor man who is honored. You have a poor man who wants a crumb,  a rich man who feasts; and then you have a poor man who's at a feast, and a rich man who wants a drop of water. You have a poor man who has no dignity in death, not even a burial. You have a rich man who has dignity in death. Then you have a poor man who has dignity after death  and a rich man who has no dignity after death, not even a name mentioned in this parable.

The story is not about Lazarus’ experience in heaven. It's not about what it's like to be alongside Abraham at the heavenly banquet because it's not about him. This is about experience in hell and how people get there unintentionally. This is the testimony of a man from hell, a warning from hell by an occupant and his message is,  "Please tell my brothers something that'll keep them from coming here." It is a story that is imaginary. It is a story that Jesus Himself invented as He did so many stories to make a spiritual point. There's nothing in the Bible that indicates that people in hell are watching the activities of heaven. And there also is nothing in the Bible to say that when somebody dies, the angels carry them to heaven.

Dear brothers and sisters, the rich man ended up in hell because he is wicked;  because he's so selfindulgent. He has no love for,  no sympathy for, no interest in, no compassion toward this suffering man. He is asking Abraham, "Send Lazarus with water to cool my tongue, if not send to my home to warn my brothers about this place.” He still saw Lazarus as somebody that was so low that, if anybody was going to leave heaven to come to hell, it should be Lazarus. There's no humility in hell. There's no brokenness in hell. Abraham said, “You did not provide for Lazarus, and he cannot provide you the relief that you are looking for.” The question is, “How religious are you if you do not love your neighbor as yourself?” It is a beautiful story that Jesus told the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Israel, and to us, with one intention: to warn them and us not to go to hell. Hell is denied by many and preached by few because it makes people uncomfortable. Hell has been reduced to a swear word, used by unbelievers not believers. But the Lord tells us that it is real.