Picking Up Your Cross

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

About 6 years ago when I was assigned to St. Gregory, we had a big hospital a couple of blocks away which we were charged to visit when someone called for a priest. It was always a toll to be responsible for a hospital and knowing your day could be thrown for a loop if the hospital cell phone went off, but I have beautiful memories of ministering there.  On one particularly day in the late afternoon I was walking over from our parochial school to the rectory.  I was tired.  It had been a long day, and it wasn’t remotely over.  To this day sometime between the time school ends and the evening work of the parish begins, I like to squeeze in some quiet time in the late afternoon to gear up for that night’s ministry.  On that particular day, it was not meant to be.  I was exhausted, and I was headed into our residence to disconnect for a short while from the parish but our receptionist handed me a message.  Someone had died over at the hospital and the nurse called asking for a priest.  At that moment, I must confess, two very selfish thoughts crossed my mind, “why didn’t they call before the person died,” and “why were you giving me the message if I’m not on call?”  The priest who was on call had already left on another sick call, so I was on deck.  It never ceases to amaze me that when the Lord calls me at the most inopportune moments (i.e. when I selfishly don’t want to do things) the more grace he sends my way and the more grace I witness through no particular action of my own.  It’s all Him.  I got in the car and drove over to the hospital not knowing the details of the situation that I was going to confront.  I walked into the ICU and the nurse introduced me to the mother of the patient.  The mother?  Yes, the mother of a 27-year-old young man who had died. (The particulars of his death are not important; the fact that a mother lost her son unexpectedly is.)  Through her tears, this mother explained to me what had happened and she could barely get her words out.  It was a heart-breaking scene and even though she didn’t know me and even though she wasn’t even Catholic, as I would discover, she grabbed me, embraced me, and just starting sobbing.  She asked me to go in and say a prayer for her son.  I offered the prayers as this mother caressed her child much like Mary did hers.  I’ve been in many hospital rooms, ICU’s and ER’s, but this particular scene is still raw, still unnatural, and yet in some odd way filled with the Lord’s presence despite the tragic circumstance. I don’t remember what I said.  I do remember that they thanked me, the nurse who called thanked me, and as I was walking out of the hospital I started kicking myself because at first I did not want to go.  My selfishness almost deprived me of such a most grace-filled moment.:  “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mark 8:34)

Yes, out of necessity I was pressed into action that day, but to truly follow Christ and be Christ for others, we must constantly deny ourselves to allow him to do his good work in us.  To profess faith in Jesus, like Peter did, means that we have to back that faith up with action.  St. James makes that quite clear in the second reading.  Faith without works is dead.  We cannot proclaim Christ as Lord if we don’t deny ourselves DAILY and carry our crosses.  This is not an either/or proposition.  We cannot have one without the other.  Faith and works go hand in hand.  I couldn’t have been a minster of grace to that mother if I wouldn’t have taken a deep breath, offered my exhaustion to God, and carried the cross that was handed to me.  And here’s the kicker:  that tragic scene at the hospital would’ve brought down anyone without faith.  It gave me a second wind for the day.  When you see the hand of God tangibly working through the good works you do, you just want to do more.  When you see what a graced filled life you can live when you deny yourself and start putting God and the other first, you start looking for crosses to pick up.  Today our Lord is calling you to put the needs of others before yours.  There are poor people in the streets.  Pick them up.  There are sick people that need visiting.  Pick them up.  There are brothers and sisters who mourn.  Pick them up.  There are women that are contemplating an abortion.  Pick them up.  There’s a young person who may feel lost.  Pick them up.  There are many Catholics who are questioning their faith or the Church because of the scandals.  Pick them up. There are so many crosses around us that need picking up.  But there’s one cross that the Lord has given to you.  One cross that is only for you.  Only you can carry it (with His help of course) and only you can identify the purpose of this cross.  And when you find that cross that is particularly your own which may seem too heavy to carry, just know that His grace will suffice, the rewards will be heavenly, so do not be afraid:  deny yourself, approach that cross, and pick it up! 

Are You Listening To Me?

"And immediately the man's ears were opened, his speech impediment was removed..." (Mark 7:35) 

Let's get this out of the way right at the top: women think that men don't listen. You hear this a lot when couples are arguing, but priests aren't immune from this either. I come from a family of very talkative women, and all you have to do is ask any of them the simple question, "How are you?" and you will get a very lengthy response which is inevitably followed up by the question, "Are you listening to me?" Cause you see, since they have monopolized the conversation and haven't allowed you to utter a word, they don't think you're listening to them. Ok, maybe I'm trivializing communication between men and women just a tad, but it is extremely important in any relationship. The question of whether or not we're listening, as annoying as it may be, is actually a valid one because if we aren't listening we cannot respond. Such is the case with our relationship with the Lord, he has so much to tell us, so much to for us to do, but we turn a deaf ear and only listen to the parts that will not cause us to drastically alter our lives.

 
In the gospel today, the people bring a deaf mute to Jesus. The Lord places his fingers in the poor man's ears and touches his tongue and says, "Be opened!" The man's ears are opened, and he begins to speak as well. Upon hearing the Word of God, the former deaf mute is compelled to respond to that Word. The question the gospel presents to us today is: do we listen and consequently respond to God's Word? The problem is that like in any relationship, we turn a deaf ear when we don't want to listen. We think that when we come to mass we've heard it all before especially when it's a gospel we've heard countless times. During homilies, we smile and laugh when the priest says something we agree with, but play deaf and dumb whenever he challenges us with something radical or life changing. Here's the thing, the Word of God is not static. It is very much alive and has something new for us every single time we hear it. We cannot block out those things we do not want to hear or do not want to deal with. Christ is telling us to be open to whatever he has in store for us. Be open to the promptings of his Spirit. Be open to embrace the challenge of his Divine Word. Once we listen, we are able to respond. The Word applies to every aspect of our lives and applies equally to every one. Today we must admit that we are at times deaf to what the Lord wants to tell us and ask him to open our ears, our minds, and our hearts to joyously accept his will in our lives. 

Back to Basics

It occurs to me that the times we are currently experiencing in the universal Church demand a so-called “back to basics” approach.  I have yet to encounter a person who has told me that they are leaving the Catholic Church because of the current scandals.  Quite the contrary, I’ve seen people who have put out into the deep waters that Christ calls us to in search of that elusive holy life.  I’ve seen and read about people who want to get more involved in their Church and rediscover the beauty of their faith.  They are finding the religion that St. James speaks of in today’s second reading.  And this is where the back to basics approach comes in.  St. James tells us: “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God and the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained by the world (James 1:27).”

Even if we haven’t left our religion during this summer, we have no doubt questioned it, its precepts and its leaders.  St. James defines pure religion as caring for the other, in this case, those most vulnerable during the time of the first Christians: the orphan and the widow.  Then James sums it up by beautifully stating something that I and so many preachers have been hammering home the last few weeks: our call to be holy.  We are to keep ourselves “unstained by the world.”  And this is key particularly after a week in which we have seen such a fractured Church:  a Church that has been divided into left and right as if political parties ran it.  It calls to mind Don McLean's musical lyric: “I saw Satan laughing with delight.”  The devil is rejoicing seeing a splintered Church, a Church that is doubting its leaders, dabbling in conspiracy theories as if we were living in an Oliver Stone film, and running from the very reason Christ brought the Church into existence: to love those who need to be loved with the love of God that has been poured out into our hearts and to be a light for all nations.

Satan can laugh all he wants but the music has not died.  Despite our best efforts to destroy the Church from within (and I’m talking about bishops and priests here), the work of the Church continues.  Mass is still being celebrated.  The poor are still being fed.  Our children are still being educated to be disciples. The sick and the widows are still being visited, and the orphans, well, we can do much better in that department if only our government would let us, but I digress.  Faith in Christ is growing stronger in the face of adversity and we are being transformed from being mere hearers of the words to being actual “doers of the word.”

This is why I said last week in my homily that the future of the Church is found in the pews.  You must take leadership of the Church because you ARE the Church.  We priests and our bishops need to be taken down a few pegs and start washing feet again. Clericalism is a diabolical sin that has plagued the Church for way too long and it only serves to separate us the clergy from being true servants to the people of God.  There was a brilliant essay penned yesterday by George Weigel who is a magnificent Catholic writer in which he concludes “that the Church is being called to a great purification through far more radical fidelity to Christ, to Catholic teaching and to Catholic mission. Bishops who have failed in their responsibilities as teachers, shepherds and stewards have typically done so because they put institutional maintenance ahead of evangelical mission. Keeping the institutional Catholic machinery ticking as smoothly as possible, by compromises with truth and discipline if necessary, was deemed more important than offering others friendship with Jesus Christ and the sometimes hard truths the Church learns from Christ.” 

It truly is time to get back to basics and pursue a religion that is pure and undefiled.  It is a time to return to the basic evangelical love and mercy of Christ which made us fall in love with this extraordinary faith.  It is time for the laity to take up the mantle of leadership within our Church and help us restore the beauty of Catholicism.