June 1, 2008
Lift up your Hearts (Sursum Corda!)
Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A, June 1st, 2008
Do you notice anything different about this Sunday? The decor? Yes, it’s the first “green” Sunday since February 3rd! We had Lent, Easter, and some special feast days like Pentecost and Corpus Christi. Now we are back to Ordinary Time, to living our ordinary lives as Christians and Catholics, coming to Mass every Sunday (Sat eve) and lifting up our hearts to the Lord, seeking the grace we need to live all the teachings of Christ and the Church, to do the Father’s will so that we will eventually enter the kingdom of heaven.
Let us ground our faith on the rock of Christ, our refuge and our strength, and through him continually lift up our hearts to the Father. In today’s Gospel, the Lord tells us quite simply: “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock,” while the fool builds his house on sand. Is your marriage built on rock or sand? Is your family built on rock or sand? The rock refers to all the teachings of Christ and the Church, the Church that Jesus built on the rock of Peter’s faith (Mt 16:18).
When Jesus says, “these words of mine” what does he mean? He is referring to all the words he had just spoken on the Sermon on the Mount, very challenging words: teaching on love of enemies, turning the other cheek, renouncing anger, for “whoever is angry with his brother or sister, will be liable to judgement” (Mt 5:22). Teaching on marriage, divorce, and adultery, such as: “everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Mt 5:28). Who can possibly live all these teachings to perfection and build his or her life on this foundation? As the disciples once asked Jesus, “Who can be saved?” (Mk 10:26) Jesus replied, “for human beings (on their own) it is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible with God” (Mk 10:27) if we lift up our hearts to him.
I have heard that some people in Russell have had problems with floating foundations because their houses were built on wet clay or sandy clay (on sand instead of rock). As it was explained to me, a floating foundation will shift and crack, and it is very expensive to repair. A foolish builder doesn’t care if the foundation is sandy clay, but a wise builder will either pour a larger concrete footing for the foundation or dig deeper and put pilings into the ground underneath the foundation.
Yes, people take great care to make sure their houses are built on firm foundations. Why would you want your house built on rock, on a firm foundation, but let your marriage or family be built on sand? It doesn’t make sense, does it? But that’s what many people do. By refusing to base their marriage and family on all the teachings of Christ and the Church, they build on sand. One example of building on sand is basing a marriage on love as mere feeling instead of love as a choice. Love as a feeling is like sand disappearing through our fingers. Another example is basing a marriage on contraception rather than natural family planning (more on that next week). So when the devil comes, as he always does, to “huff and puff and blow the house down” (like the wolf in that fairy tale of the three little pigs), the marriage fails, the family breaks apart.
Although the sacrament of marriage is itself meant to be as immovable and unchangeable as solid rock, and families are meant to be a stronghold against all the huffing and puffing of the devil, we know that in our times unfortunately, there are many “rocky” marriages and broken families.
But whatever sort of ground you may be standing on, in whatever situation you find yourself, you are called to lift up your heart to the Lord. Isn’t that what you are doing here today at Mass? For those who enjoy stability in their marriage and peace in their families, you can lift up your hearts in thanks and praise to God. For those in troubled or uncertain relationships, who feel like the ground is shifting beneath their feet, who fear that the foundation will crack, the earth will open up and swallow them – you too are called to lift up your hearts to the Lord, with loud cries and tears if necessary, but always with hope and confidence.
The Lord knows about all our temptations to give in to anxiety, depression or despair; he knows that some days our hearts feel like cement blocks that we cannot possibly lift an inch. But he looks at our will; our effort to lift up our hearts. He will never deny the grace necessary to lift up our hearts if we come to him in our need, confessing our weakness, begging for his help. And when you feel weak, also trust in the rock of the Church, in the love and support of your brothers and sisters in the Church, who will also lift you up on days when you are feeling down.
Lift up your hearts – “Sursum corda!” is the original Latin from the opening of the Eucharistic Prayer. “The Lord be with you.” “And also with you.” “Sursum corda!” “Lift up your hearts!” “We lift them up to the Lord!”
I am quoting it in Latin because I want this phrase to stick in our minds, and sometimes hearing it differently will do that. The writer Dietrich von Hildebrand, whom Pope Pius XII called a 20th century doctor of the Church, used this phrase “sursum corda” as a teaching – that Christians should live in a continual ambience of “sursum corda,” of constantly lifting up our hearts to God throughout the day, throughout the week, in prayer, petition, thanksgiving, adoration, trust, and never, ever, letting the devil, depression or despair drag us down. “Sursum corda!” is a good motto for the “green” Sundays of “ordinary time.”
Sursum corda! Let us live the Eucharist! Remember the theme of this pastoral year that our archbishop chose to coincide with the Eucharistic Congress, the theme written in our weekly bulletin: “Together with Mary we live the Eucharist.”
Mary brought the child Jesus to the temple, and presented him, lifted him up, to the Lord. She lifted up her heart with her son, in praise and thanksgiving. When Jesus was lifted up on the Cross, Mary lifted up her heart to God in self-offering and agonizing prayer. When Mary shared in the Eucharist with the apostles, she lifted up her heart to the Father through Christ, with him and in him. Mary lived in a permanent state of “sursum corda.”
It breaks my heart to see at times the pain in people’s faces – tension in marriages, strained relationships in families. So to all of you I say, “sursum corda!” Lift up your hearts to God and put to flight the devil, depression and despair.
A few examples: there are some young people who fall into the temptation of thinking, “my parents don’t really love me. They’re too busy for me.” What? That’s a lie! Don’t let the devil drag you down! Sursum corda! Lift up your heart to the Lord! Your parents do love you, but they’re only human and sometimes they don’t know how to express it.
And then there are parents who think, “My kids don’t really appreciate me.” What? That’s a lie! Don’t let the devil drag you down! Sursum corda! Lift up your heart to the Lord! Your children do appreciate you, but they’re only human and sometimes they don’t know how to express it.
You feel like your wife nags you or your husband neglects you? Sursum corda! Do you get discouraged in your faith journey, thinking you can’t possibly follow the Sermon on the Mount and all the demanding teachings of Christ and the Church? On your own you can’t; with Christ you can. Sursum corda!
Take heart! Have courage! God is with you! He will never abandon you!
Let us also ask our Blessed Mother Mary to help us, for in union with her, we can and do lift up our hearts to the Lord in each Mass. With Mary we live the Eucharist.
What is the secret to living in a permanent ambience of “sursum corda,” to lift up our hearts to the Lord and to live all the teachings of Christ and his Church? (PAUSE) . . . The secret is to receive holy Communion with a felt need and genuine faith, and when possible, to extend the moment of Communion with a time of adoration. Last Monday I visited the convent of the Sisters of Jesus and Mary in Hull where they have perpetual adoration with an immense monstrance on their high altar. (By the way if anyone is interested in adventure, next Sunday, June 8th, the fifth annual Walking Pilgrimage to the Churches of Ottawa is taking place. We have special permission from the Sisters to visit the tomb of 2 Ottawa “saints” buried there – Fr. Alexis-Louis Mangin and Eleonore Potvin. See me for more details).
A time of adoration can extend the moment of Communion, the moment Jesus takes hold of our hearts to lift it up to his own. Do anyone of you remember the visit of the ark of the covenant of the Eucharistic Congress to St. Thomas Aquinas and the parish for an evening Mass with the CWL? It was sometime last year, but it seems so very, very long ago. On the ark, there is a striking icon of Christ risen from the dead: with one powerful arm oustretched he is lifting up Adam out of the tomb; with the other, he is raising up Eve – both at the same time like Superman! That’s what Jesus does for us in holy Communion: he raises us from the tombs of our depression; he lifts us out of the quicksand of our despair; he picks us up from the cracked foundations of our doubts. But we must receive him with a felt need and genuine faith. A “felt need” means that you know in your heart that you need God’s help in your life, and you believe that he is present in this sacrament.
He gives us all the grace we need to follow his commandments and the teaching of the Church, so that we can build our marriages and our families and our lives on solid rock, and enter the kingdom of heaven.
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