April 8, 2011
Posted in pastor
at 6:00 am
As Lent wraps up, I would like to encourage everyone to be reconciled with God in preparation for Easter and the joy that God wants to share with us. I know that many people have been to confession at our parish reconciliation service, but for those who have not, I urge you to seize the opportunity! We have confessions in our parish before every Mass. And for those who might be shy, there are confessions available at St. Pat’s downtown, and in the neighboring parish of Metcalfe.
In addition, for those who might confess their sins only once or twice a year, consider all the grace you will receive through more frequent confession. Pope Benedict recently said this about the beauty of this sacrament: in an age characterized “by noise, distraction and loneliness, the penitent’s conversation with the confessor can be one of the few, if not the only occasion to be truly heard and in profundity.” Confession can serve as “drive-thru” spiritual direction, a practical way to seek comfort and advice in our spiritual lives. God wants to offer to us as individuals, families, a parish, and to our world, true joy this Easter. But we must repent and believe in the Good News!
In Christ, Fr. Tim
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April 3, 2011
Posted in Homilies
at 9:00 am
Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year A, April 3rd, 2011 – By Father Tim McCauley
On the Easter Vigil of March 22, 2008, in a somewhat sensational case, Pope Benedict baptized the Muslim journalist Magdi Allam. Here is a quote from his conversion story: “Yesterday evening I converted to the Christian Catholic religion, renouncing my previous Islamic faith. Thus, I finally saw the light, by divine grace . . . The miracle of Christ’s resurrection reverberated through my soul, liberating it from the darkness in which the preaching of hatred and intolerance . . . were privileged over love and respect of ‘neighbor’”.
“I finally saw the light . . . my soul was liberated from darkness.” Words spoken by a Muslim convert to Catholicism, words that could have been spoken by the blind man from the Gospel. Today’s Gospel contains allusions to baptism, very fitting as Easter approaches, the day on which we will renew the vows of our baptism. Unfortunately, for so many Christians and Catholics baptized as infants, we don’t appreciate this gift and miracle the same way that adult converts from other religions experience the encounter with Christ.
We are blind and must learn to see Christ anew! The blind man’s journey toward enlightenment is a metaphor for our own Lenten journey of conversion to Christ through the Word of God. In his apostolic exhortation on the Word of God, which has been helping to guide our Lenten journey, Pope Benedict recommends a way of praying with scripture called lectio divina or sacred reading, a simple method that you can all practice at home (highlights are also in the Pastor’s message in the bulletin).
“It opens with the reading (lectio) of a text, which leads to a desire to understand its true content: what does the biblical text say in itself?” Well, what does today’s Gospel say in itself? What was the intention of the author? First, John the evangelist is reporting a true historical fact: Jesus healed a blind man. John also wants to develop the surrounding controversy to make the point that just as the blind man “sees” the divinity of Jesus, so do the Pharisees stubbornly choose to remind “blind” to Jesus’ true identity.
In praying lectio divina, it is helpful, but not necessary, to have a Bible with notes. I like the Ignatius study Bible (show), the Navarre Bible (show), and the Baker Bible commentary (show).
Concerning today’s Gospel reading, the Ignatius study Bible remarks that John shows the slow development in “sight” or awareness of the blind man. He begins by referring to Jesus as a “man” (Jn 9:11) then “a prophet” (9:17) then someone “from God” (9:33) and he ends us worshipping Him as “Lord” (9:38), in a gradual process of illumination much like that experienced by Magdi Allam in his realization that this man and prophet Jesus is also God.
Pope Benedict continues, “next comes meditation (meditatio), which asks: what does the biblical text say to us?” So we can all ask ourselves right now (and take time to pray with this text at home): what does today’s Gospel text say to me? Are there ways that we are blind to Jesus Christ in our lives? That’s something we can all take time to pray about on our own . . .
The third stage of lectio divina is prayer (oratio), “which asks the question: what do we say to the Lord in response to his word? Prayer, as petition, intercession, thanksgiving and praise, is the primary way by which the word transforms us.” I found this comment by the Pope interesting; it was not immediately self-evident to me: “prayer is the primary way by which the word transforms us.” This means that our listening to the Word of God, at Mass or at home by reading Scripture, must be translated into prayer. Well, what kind of prayer to God does today’s Gospel inspire?
We can turn to other Scripture for inspiration. Remember the prayer of another blind man who was asked by Jesus, “what do you want me to do for you?” He answered, “Master, I want to see!” (Mk 10:51) I want to see you, Lord! Or:
that I might see myself as I am, as you see me. That you will take the log of pride out of my eye, that I might see others as you see them, with love, compassion, patience. We might pray in the words of Moses who said to God, “Do let me see your glory” (Ex 33:18) or the apostles who said to Jesus, “Show us the Father” (Jn 14:8).
The fourth stage of lectio divina is contemplation (contemplatio), “during which we take up, as a gift from God, his own way of seeing and judging reality, and ask ourselves what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us?”
I’m reminded of a heartwarming movie from the U.S. bishops top ten list of 2010 which I recommend called Flipped. It’s a tale of innocent love of two children growing up in the fifties.
Juli falls in love with Bryce at first sight, but to him, she is his annoying neighbour and that’s it. One day his grandfather who lived with him, and got to know Juli and her family, spoke to his grandson about her, saying, “Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss…But every once in a while, you find someone who’s iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.”
Bryce says to himself, “Iridescent? Juli Baker had always seemed plain to me until now. The way she talked about what it felt like to be up in that tree (there’s a sycamore tree she used to climb to get a view of the whole town) – to be held above the earth, brushed by the wind – who in junior high school talks like that? This weird feeling started taking over in the pit of my stomach and I didn’t like it . . .” Could it be love?
After six years of living across the street from Juli and going to the same school, Bryce finally “sees” Juli for who she is and realizes how much he is drawn to her. What was making him blind for 6 years? Why was he so immature, self-centered, unaware, ungrateful?
Could we be like that in our relationship with Jesus Christ? “He had always seemed plain to me. I’ve known Him for years, ever since I was baptized. Yeah, he’s a nice guy, I suppose, but not that interesting.”
Why are we so blind, so immature, self-centered, unaware and ungrateful that we don’t “see” Jesus Christ for who He really is? He is a man, a prophet and from God. He is God, the Son of God. Everything He did in life was for me and for you, that you and I might love Him. He made Himself a fool for us. He suffered hunger and thirst and temptation in the desert for love of us. He was tortured and killed for love of us. And how do we respond? “He had always seemed plain to me . . . a nice guy . . . who finished last.”
What a tragedy to go through life without love, without discovering the one love that matters, God’s love for us in Jesus Christ! So many of us have only heard about Jesus, or we tend to see Him through other people’s eyes. This Lent, “awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead!” (Second Reading, Eph 5:14) and say to Christ, “Let me see you with my own eyes.”
But this is only possible through prayer such as lectio divina. We open our eyes to the Word of God in Scripture for, as St. Jerome said, “ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ”; thus, knowledge of scripture is knowledge of Christ, a “seeing,” an encounter with Him, not in the “plain clothes” of the letter of the Word, but the iridescent beauty of the Spirit, of His inner life, His heart.
The blind man healed by Jesus passed from the darkness of blindness to sight. The Muslim man baptized by Pope Benedict (by his own testimony) passed from the darkness of ignorance “to the authentic religion of truth, of life and of freedom.” For those of us baptized as infants, our darkness is not one of ignorance, but rather of indifference and self-love, like the character of Bryce in the movie “Flipped.” He had to pass from the darkness of immaturity and self-centeredness to realize first how much he was loved by another (outside and beyond himself), and second, to respond to this love.
This is the path of conversion; this is the journey of Lent. Yes, Lent is a time with Jesus in the desert, listening to the Word of God. But it is also a journey with Jesus from Galilee to Jerusalem, to His Passion, death and Resurrection, in which we share by our baptism. This Easter, as we renew the vows of our own baptism, why can’t we say, like the newly baptized Magdi Allam, “The miracle of Christ’s Resurrection reverberates through my soul” and makes it luminous . . . iridescent . . . “ The fourth stage of lectio divina is to pray and and ask ourselves, as Easter draws near, “what conversion of mind, heart and life is the Lord asking of us?”
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