THERE IS JOY IN FINDING THE LOST
September 15, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Luke 19:1-9 is the story of Zacchaeus. The story concludes in verse 9 and the message of the story is given in verse 10, “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.” That God came in human form to seek and save sinners is the heart of the Christian message. It sums up the whole purpose for the incarnation. That’s basic to the Christian faith. 

You remember that prior to the Fall, God walked and talked with man in the cool of the day and immediately after their sin in Genesis 3:8-9. It says that God came into the garden to talk with man, and man and woman were hidden, and God said, “Where are you?” And from that point on God will always be seeking lost men and women. In one of the most beautiful Old Testament texts, the prophet Ezekiel, quoting God in 34:16, says, “I will seek the lost, bring back the scattered, bind up the broken and strengthen the sick.” Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.” Not in physical essence but in character, in nature, in essential being, in attributes. And if God is a God who seeks lost men and women, then Christ is a Savior who seeks lost men and women, for Christ reveals God. Christ is God.

In fact in the incarnation story in Matthew 1:21, the angel told Mary “You shall call His name Jesus for He shall, “save His people from their sins.” His very name is the name of a Savior. He came to save. He came to call sinners to repentance. That’s the heart of the Gospel. 

Now we know from today’s Gospel Luke, more than any other Bible writer, is emphasizing that Jesus came to save the lost. It is at the heart of everything Luke has in mind in his Gospel. it is simply understood by noting Luke 15:1-2, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to Him to listen to Him.” There is a typical reaction, and both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  They had no heart for the outcast, no heart for the sinner, no heart for the lost at all. They are in stark contrast to the character of Christ, stark contrast to the heart of God. But people who had bad reputations, criminal elements, robbers, murderers and prostitutes came to listen to Him. 

As they came, He received them, He embraced them, He loved them, He forgave them, He gave them eternal life, and this outraged the religious leaders. Now this is the audience. And He teaches them three parables: the story of heaven's reaction when the lost are found. These are simple, straightforward, earthy stories that everybody identifies with. The first story is the story about a lost sheep. The second story is about a lost coin. And the third story is about a lost son. When the father reenters the mind of this lost son, the story moves  from a shameless request and a shameless rebellion to a shameful repentance. His repentance begins with an honest assessment of his condition of destitution, helplessness, no resources to live, and impending death. He’s ready to go back to his father that he knows to be merciful, generous, and compassionate, and kind even to his workers. This son broken. He’s alone. He’s sad. He’s penitent. He has nowhere to go. Now he believes in his father’s love and care. What a beautiful picture of our heavenly Father.

 Dear friends All three  parables follow the same pattern:  lost, sought, found, restored, and celebrated. The parables only have one basic point, the joy of the shepherd who sought and found the lost sheep, the joy of the woman when she found the lost coin and the joy of the father when the lost son returned. All three parables tell that they call their friends in order that you and I might understand the tremendous breadth of joy and depth of emotion they are feeling. They can’t celebrate alone. It’s too thrilling. It’s too wonderful. It’s not something they can quietly say in their hearts. They call together a large group of people for a great celebration because their joy is so profound. Then Jesus gives the application of the parable for us “I tell you that in the same way, there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.” In other words, there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents to the extent that God calls for a celebration. 

Dear brothers and sisters what a tremendous truth is exposed in these 3 parables. The emphasis again is on the seeking heart of God who seeks until He finds that one that is lost and then whose rejoicing cannot even be contained until it is spread throughout the angels of heaven. What a tremendous thought. God is not like Pharisees and scribes. He doesn’t grumble about sinners. Our Lord doesn’t despise sinners. He loves sinners. He doesn’t seek to keep them away, He seeks to bring them in. the joy of God shared by all who are in His presence, all who know His heart and rejoice with Him. it’s the joy of God over the salvation of a soul.

HUMILITY: ACTION, NOT FEELING
September 8, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

Jesus is addressing the crowd who is following Him, hearing Him and seeing His miracles and being attracted to Him and is in the process of deciding what to do with Him. His words reveal the extreme character of discipleship: the language is unmistakably absolute, definitive, severe, you might say. But this is not anyone speaking other than God Himself; God incarnate, the Lord, Jesus Christ. He establishes the standards of discipleship. Our Lord's words, frankly, weren't very friendly; they were frightening. They weren't even comforting; they were threatening. They certainly weren't easy; they were hard. His invitations to salvation; while motivated by love and compassion, filled with grace and mercy, offering forgiveness, peace and joy were still demanding at what anybody would say is a very extreme level. In fact, the Old Testament tells us that the commandments are all summed up in one great commandment, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength." And that's what Jesus is calling for, a dominating love, a surpassing love, a love beyond all other loves, a supreme love. And He is thwarting superficiality. He had this large group of followers. Most probably some were nominally committed, some just out of curiosity. This Gospel passage makes it clear that as He raises the standard, makes the demands more absolute, more exclusive and more extreme to be His disciple; the superficial disciples begin to drop off.
As you move through the book of Acts, in chapters 11, 14 and 15, you find disciples and Christians becoming

synonymous. And so, really, this section is about how one becomes a true disciple. This is how you come to the banquet of God, this is how you come to heaven, this is how you receive eternal life. Becoming a disciple of Christ is not an invitation to add something to your life. It is a call to salvation, a rescue from hell to heaven. And what Jesus asks for here is so amazingly extreme. I mean, the language in what we just read is very extreme: hating your family, carrying your cross, hating your own life, giving up all your own possessions. It is an attitude of extreme commitment.

Let me tell you some of the other things that Jesus said. Matthew 10:34, "Do not think that I have come to bring peace on the earth. I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword.” Jesus is saying it'll cost you everything. That is the extremity of true discipleship. First, being Christ's disciple demands abandonment of past priorities. Secondly, it demands an assessment of present powers. Thirdly, it demands allegiance to future potential.

That seems contrary to what the Bible teaches because we're commanded to love everybody. We're commanded, for example in Exodus 20:12, to honor our parents. Certainly that implies loving them. We're told in Ephesians 5:25 to love our wives. And we're taught to love our children. And the best way, maybe, to clear that up is in Matthew 10:37, "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me."It's about loving more and loving less. That's essentially what that love-hate concept is conveying. This is a call to love no one the way you love God. What He is saying is that when you come to Me and you want to be My disciple, you will love Me to the degree that it makes all other loves and all other loyalties subordinate. And whenever our family comes into conflict with the Lord, our love for the Lord dictates what we do. We cannot serve two masters. It is not that we hate them in actuality as if they had no place in our hearts. In the context of the first century, of course, this was pretty clear to them because, when a Jewish person made a commitment to Jesus Christ, he would immediately alienate his family. When a Muslim or Hindu becomes Christian their families may not agree with their decision. Alienation of the worst kind can occur in that situation. In our Western culture we sometimes struggle to understand what this means, but it is still true when you come to Christ from a different religion.

Dear brothers and sisters, to be a Christian is a call to salvation where we have to give up everything in terms of relationships and possessions that hinder our love of God. It is not a call to a superficial kind of response. The kingdom of God is a treasure that is valuable, the pearl is that priceless. We should have the beatitude attitude to be a true disciple, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” That is what St. Paul did when he said, “everything I had I considered manure.” He had respect, a good reputation, position as a scholar of the Jewish religion and wealth. When he encountered the Risen Lord, he was completely transformed and left everything to be a follower of Christ.

HUMILITY: ACTION, NOT FEELING
September 1, 2019.
Deacon Dennis Walters

Suppose you’ve been invited to a banquet, such as a wedding reception or an awards
dinner. You come into the hall and claim a spot for yourself and your family front and center
nearest the main table. As other guests come in, someone asks you to move, since your table was reserved for someone else. Other tables nearby have already been claimed, so you have to find an empty one at the back of the hall. You tell yourself, if you had taken a spot farther back to start with, you could have avoided this embarrassment.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus has been invited to the home of a prominent Pharisee for a
Sabbath dinner. Dinners such as this were times for getting family and friends together for food
and conversation. The host would decide who were the most prominent guests, to be placed on
either side of himself at the main table; everybody else could choose his place at side tables, and
if the host was someone important there would be a scramble for places as close as possible to
the main table. The “lowest” place would be at the ends of the side tables farthest from the host.
As a rabbi, Jesus probably would not have been seated at the head table, more likely in a middle
position at one of the sides. The host would want him to say something to everyone, and such a
position would make it easy for Jesus to face both the host and the other guests.

One irony here is that while Jesus was being carefully observed by the Pharisee’s guests,
He was observing them. The self-effacement He recommends appears at first to be self-serving:
you humble yourself in hopes of getting noticed. If you take the high seat, you might get bumped out; but if you take the low seat to start with, the host might move you up, and everyone else would get to see how important you are. The moral: Either you humble yourself or you get humiliated.

Note that Jesus speaks of humbling oneself in terms of doing something; he says nothing
about feeling humble. Commenting on this Gospel passage from Luke, Fr. Raniero
Cantalamessa, former preacher to the papal household, says that “humility does not seem to be a question of feelings — of feeling bad about ourselves — but rather a question of concrete action. It is not a matter of words but of actual deeds.” Obviously, real self-effacement — real humility — has no selfish motivation; it doesn’t manipulate the situation to get some satisfaction. Humbling ourselves by taking the lowest place is something we do without thinking about what we get out of it; “it is self-abasement without self-interest or calculation.”

That’s maddeningly hard to do. When it comes to humbling ourselves, few of us ever
have pure motives. We’re usually not aware that we’re sitting on our high horse until someone or some circumstance tells us to get off of it. To quote Fr. Cantalamessa again:

“When it is we who descend, we lower ourselves only from a false or pseudo-height, a
height to which we were unlawfully elevated by pride, vanity, anger, and so forth. Thus,
humility is always a ‘negative’ virtue because it condemns the base instinct in us to
elevate ourselves above our neighbors.
“In this sense it is correct to say that humility is truth. Humility reestablishes the
truth about ourselves; it acknowledges that our place is not over others but under them.”

Or, to return to Jesus’ parable to the guests, our place is not at the head of the table but at the
foot. Especially when it comes to where we stand before God, we have no right to claim any sort
of preference. We’re humble when we admit — and take — our rightful place. Regardless of our
social standing, we’re all equally sinful, and our position should be that of the tax collector in
another of Jesus’ parables, at the back of the Temple pleading, “God, have mercy on me, a
sinner.” True, all of us are invited to the heavenly banquet in the kingdom of God. But to occupy
a high place at that banquet, it is up to God to put us there.

Fr. Cantalamessa makes the intriguing point that humility is “the twin sister of charity.
…When the apostle says that charity is not ‘boastful or arrogant or rude,’ he means that charity is humble, and humility is charitable.” In effect, Jesus makes the same point when he admonishes the host not to hold banquets for people who can return the favor, for then he has his reward. Rather, he should invite people who can’t repay him: the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. Humility holds itself out in service-love to others without expecting notice or payback.

Humility is a crucial virtue — Scripture says that God opposes the proud but gives grace
to the humble (Jas. 4:6). But it can be tricky, a delicate balance between overweening self-love
(or pride) and inordinate self-hatred (an inverse sort of pride). Both focus on the self, not on the other or what is to be done. How to strike the right balance? The advice of the saints is to pray for the grace to act humbly, then take the lowest place as unobtrusively as possible.
And don’t think twice about it.

WHAT IS YOUR ETERNAL PERCEPTION?
August 25, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

The question, “Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?” understands that He's been talking about salvation,  which is synonymous with entering the kingdom. Saved from what? It’s eternity that we're talking about here. It means being saved from God's wrath. His question is, are just a few really being rescued from divine judgment, rescued from eternal damnation?

When someone posed this question, Jesus was in the last year of His ministry; only a few months before His death.  As He goes, He performs miracles.  He overpowers demons.  He overpowers disease and sometimes He overpowers death;  He draws massive crowds. He is still the most fascinating person ever to be seen or heard. But the true believers are very few. In fact, the national leadership rejected Him. Part of that crowd is indifferent to the message. All of those initial,  Messianic, exhilarating expectations that the followers of Jesus had, that He was going to sweep in and establish the kingdom and all the nation would fall at His feet, was changing.  The idea that He would overpower the Romans and establish the  kingdom promised to David was fading.

Now they are getting the idea why He came.  He came to save and that's why the question was asked in verse 23,  "Lord, are there just a few who are being saved?" They realized that His ministry was about salvation.  That's what He was preaching. Look how Jesus answered. He said, "Strive to enter by the narrow door."  It's irrelevant what the number is. He asked a qualitative question; He answered on the quality of life. Strive means to fight, to compete or to battle. If you want to be saved,  then the war is on. He said, "for many,  I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able."  Because  They will not fight to defeat their own pride, self-righteousness, love of sin, their own will, their own desire to control their lives. We don't often hear or see a good witness from priests, including myself, preaching or striving to receive salvation, battling to be saved.

This is an invitation that is intended to make the sinner panic. There are a few words in this passage that need explanation. First: The Lord's invitation calls for spiritual exertion. It's a narrow door. The door is metaphorical, there is no physical door for His kingdom it says  you have to give up everything. The Bible says  deny yourself,  be willing to give up all your possessions, be willing to come broken, penitent and contrite. Most people find it much easier to go through the broad door.  You can carry all your junk through there. You can take your sin, your selfishness, you don't have to worry about confessing your sin. But that broad road leads to destruction. It is an invitation to abandon ourselves completely to God and His sovereign grace and purpose. Salvation comes to those who lose the battle; who give up their sinfulness, who pound their breasts and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” So the Lord's invitation begins with a command to fight for salvation. A superficial approach to Christianity will not gain us salvation.

We could call His second talking point temporal desperation. Once the door is shut, you are standing outside and begin knocking on the door saying, “Lord, open the door for us.”  This is the idea that there's a sense  of desperation here we're talking about or urgency because we have limited time. Go back to chapter 12: 20, the rich fool was going to tear down his barns and build bigger barns to store all his grain and goods - very selfish. And he said to himself, “Soul you have many goods laid up for many years to come eat, drink, and be merry.” God said, "You fool, this very night your  soul is required of you and now who will inherit what you have prepared." That explains the limitation of time. And Paul in 2 Corinthians 6:2-3 says it as clearly as it can be said, "Behold now is the hour of salvation." Tomorrow, you don't know.  Our Lord's invitation then demands exertion,  the battle of the soul, and a sense of desperation because time is very limited.

There's a third element to His invitation. Let's call it union or relation. Verse 25 says, When they cry “Lord, open the door to us?” He will answer, "I do not know where you're from.” It's exactly what the bridegroom said in the parable of the virgins. In short He is saying, “If you are not united to Me in My death,  burial and resurrection I don't know where you're from. You're not from My kingdom. You're not part of My family. Depart from Me all you evildoers. I don't have any relation with you.”  This is the most pathetic response imaginable: that departure is eternal. This is the final sentence.

Dear brothers and sisters, He calls for exertion,  desperation, and union; and finally, the word “perception,” eternal perception. Verse 28 then says, "There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And our Lord says you have to have an eternal perspective. Salvation is nothing about personal success, personal purpose or ambition; nothing about health;  nothing about wealth; nothing about prosperity; it is about your eternity. The Gospel is not about this life. It's about eternity. And the language again is vivid and figurative. It says, those who are shut out are going to be experiencing weeping and gnashing of teeth. This is the grinding of remorse. Hell is about remorse.  It's about agonizing regret. And so Jesus says, you need to come into the kingdom by winning the war over yourself. You need to come into the kingdom soon, urgently, because you don't know how much time you have. You need to come into a true union with Jesus Christ  by faith and good works. And you need to have a view of eternity and understand  that this salvation is about your forever; so the tone of this entire invitation is really a very serious warning.

A LESSON IN READINESS
August 11, 2019
Fr. Bosco Padamattummal

The Bible teaches that the Lord Jesus Christ will come to earth someday to bring human
history to its end, to take the righteous to be with Him, to establish His kingdom and to
punish the wicked, it features the culmination of all redemptive history.  This is how the
world as we know it ends. The Bible is as clear on His Second coming as it was on His
first coming. In fact, the return of Jesus Christ to this world in the future is a cardinal
doctrine of the Christian faith. We profess it at every Sunday Mass. verse 40, "You too be
ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect.”

In connection with the Messiah, Son of Man was a title of Jesus Christ mentioned in the
OT chapter 7 of the book of Daniel. In verse 13 Daniel said, "I kept looking in the night
visions and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming." In
Mark's Gospel, chapter 2:10, He said to this man, "Your sins are forgiven. Arise, take up your bed and walk. In order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins.” Mark 2:28 says, "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath." Mark 14:61 says, "The high priest said to Him, 'Are You the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?'  He said, 'I am and you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven.'" And that is a direct connection to Daniel 7:13-14. Today’s Gospel is the reminder: You better be ready for the Son of Man is coming in an hour when you don't expect. This is powerful motivation.

Matthew 16, is the parallel to the Gospel we heard. He tells us that, "For the Son of Man
is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels and will then recompense
every man according to His deeds."  "And what would a man be profited if he gained the whole world and forfeited his soul? What will a man give in exchange for his soul?" So, you see, the Lord Himself uses His Second Coming as a motivation for people to respond to the Gospel. He is the Messiah. As the Son of Man, He forgives sin, is Lord
even over the Sabbath, and is the one to return and establish the glory of His kingdom.
In the message from today’s Gospel it is written as in Hebrews 10, "We ought to
stimulate one another to love and do good works, and all the more as you see the day
approaching."

The Lord gives us four analogies for readiness, the first one involves clothing. In the first
half of verse 35 it says, "Be dressed in readiness." Let your loins be girded. This passage goes back to Exodus 12:11, the angel of death was going to come and it was moving time. After four centuries in Egypt, Israel was leaving Egypt. God was going to deliver them.
Do you remember what He said? "You must eat the Passover but you must eat the
Passover quickly and with your loins girded and your sandals on.” We're moving out. So,
He is saying that you don't know when it's going to happen. You better be ready to move to the promised land. 1 Peter 1:13, "Gird up your minds for action.”

The second analogy involves lamps, “keep your lamps lit." This is no time to be fumbling
and stumbling. Be alert, be aware, be watchful, have everything ready. Remember the
story in Matthew 25, the parable that Jesus told about the ten virgins. They were the
bridesmaids to the bride and they were supposed to be ready for whenever the
bridegroom came. It's a metaphor about the lack of preparation by some of them. The
bridegroom came, the wedding took place, the door was slammed in the faces of the
virgins who had no oil and Jesus is saying by that story, "You don't know when the
bridegroom is coming and you better be ready or you're going to be left outside.

The third analogy is of servants. “Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on
the alert when he comes.” And the final analogy is that of a thief. "If the head of the
house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his
house to be broken into." Once the Lord used these metaphors, they all started
borrowing it from Him. To motivate the people about the second coming. 2 Peter 3:10,
"The day of the Lord will come like a thief."
Dear brothers and sisters, How do we get ready? First of all, we need to come to Christ.
And be diligent to be found by Him in peace, and blameless."