Sunday Meditation: Setting the World Ablaze

In the Twentieth Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year C, Jesus continues His sermon that has run in Chapter 12 of Luke’s Gospel with an enigmatic, if not paradoxical, statement.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

"I have come to set the earth on fire,

and how I wish it were already blazing!

There is a baptism with which I must be baptized,

and how great is my anguish until it is accomplished!

Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth?

No, I tell you, but rather division.

From now on a household of five will be divided,

three against two and two against three;

a father will be divided against his son

and a son against his father,

a mother against her daughter

and a daughter against her mother,

a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law

and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law."  

~Lk 1:49-53

 

What fire is Jesus talking about?  What division will be brought about?  Fr. Geoffrey provides a great explanation for answers to both questions. 

 

I think the division Christ will bring is self explanatory.  Setting the world ablaze is more difficult.  Here is that that quote from Malachi 3:1-3

Now I am sending my messenger—he will prepare the way before me; And the lord whom you seek will come suddenly to his temple; The messenger of the covenant whom you desire—see, he is coming! says the LORD of hosts.  But who can endure the day of his coming?  Who can stand firm when he appears?  For he will be like a refiner’s fire, like fullers’ lye.  He will sit refining and purifying silver, and he will purify the Levites, Refining them like gold or silver, that they may bring offerings to the LORD in righteousness.

Purification!  Christ is the fulfillment of the purifying messenger God will send.

Cardinal Blasé Cupich has an interesting pastoral take on this passage, a prophetic gift of the spirit. 

This reminds me of the Protestant pastor and theologian, Dr. Walter Brueggemann, who wrote a work I admire that runs along these lines, The Prophetic Imagination.  I had a post on Dr. Brueggemann’s passing.  Cardinal Cupich’s point is that when we speak in our families with prophetic voice on hard issues, the division that comes with justice is likely.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: "I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”

 

 

Here is a new song by Ben Walther, “Ablaze,” inspired by the St. Catherine of Siena quote, “Be who God meant you to be, and you will set the world on fire.”

 

Oh I like that.  I was thinking of my beloved St. Catherine when I read Jesus’s statement in today’s Gospel.  Now if you want to hear Ben Walther speak about this song, he was interviewed by a wonderful Catholic song writer herself, Sarah Hart.  Check it out.  

 

Ablaze by Ben Walther

 

“By his grace we are conceived to be mercy, to be peace, to be light amidst the darkness. In his image we are made, to be brilliant, to be great, to present the world his likeness,

 

Let’s set the world on fire, let’s raise his banner higher. Let’s set a broken world ablaze. Oh. Let’s hear a generation proclaiming his salvation with every breath and endless praise; and set the world ablaze.

 

All aflame but not consumed, we are burning with the truth, for his presence makes us holy, fanning flickering to flame till his love is what remains; for to him belongs all glory.

 

Let’s set the world on fire, let’s raise his banner higher. Let’s set a broken world ablaze. Oh. Let’s hear a generation proclaiming his salvation with every breath and endless praise; and set the world ablaze.

 

Set the world ablaze.”

 

Anyone that honors St. Catherine of Siena, has a special place in my heart.  I will have to look for more of Ben Walther’s music.

 

Meditation on the Feast of the Assumption: The New Ark

This has been a different Feast of the Assumption than normal for me.  About ten days ago I noticed that my mother’s pulse oximeter was reading a resting pulse in the 120’s.  She had not been feeling well for a while, and I was stumped as to why.  My first thought was that there was something wrong with the oximeter.  So I took out the blood pressure machine and measured her pressure, and there too the pulse was wildly high.  I did it a number of times to convince myself that it was true.  Her resting pulse was ranging from 105 to 125, and never slowing down.  I called the pacemaker doctor and made an appointment for weeks out.  He also had me activate a machine that communicates with the pacemaker and then sends the data back to office.  Later that day I received a call from their technician to pull up the appointment to the nearest opportunity.  That nearest opportunity was two days later.

That appointment was last week.  After interrogating the pacemaker, he found that my mother had been in A-Fib for three weeks, and there was no sign of it correcting.  He scheduled an Electrical Cardioversion procedure.  Someone described it to me as if stopping the heart and zapping it back up.  I don’t know if that is quite true, but they do zap the heart with electricity.  That procedure was scheduled and performed today, the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  I thought it quite coincidental that my mother might actually be dead for a second and brought back to life on the bodily assumption of Christ’s mother. 

It all went well.  She came right out and her pulse was a steady 70, and has been since the procedure.  Let us meditate on the Assumption.  First, today’s Gospel reading.

 

 

Mary set out

and traveled to the hill country in haste

to a town of Judah,

where she entered the house of Zechariah

and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting,

the infant leaped in her womb,

and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit,

cried out in a loud voice and said,

“Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb.

And how does this happen to me,

that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

For at the moment the sound of your greeting reached my ears,

the infant in my womb leaped for joy.

Blessed are you who believed

that what was spoken to you by the Lord

would be fulfilled.”

 

And Mary said:

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord;

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

and has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children forever.”

 

Mary remained with her about three months

and then returned to her home.  

~Lk 1:39-56

 

That is one of my favorite passages in Luke.  Dr. Scott Hahn beautifully explains the Biblical basis for the Assumption of Mary. 

 

The Blessed Mother, carrying Jesus in her womb, is the new Ark of the Covenant!

 

Meditation: “And how does this happen to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

 

For the hymn, let’s go with the lovely “Immaculate Mary.”

 

Let me take this moment to thank God for today’s outcome with my mother’s procedure.  And to thank all my friends who helped pray with me for this outcome.

Sunday Meditation: The Treasure of the Heart

This Sunday, the Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time of Year C, we are still in Chapter 12 of Luke’s Gospel where Jesus, the apostles, and the multitude are walking toward Jerusalem.  Jesus continues His sermon on the treasure of your heart.  There are four things to meditate on in Christ’s sermon: the treasure of God’s kingdom, the faith required to obtain it, the preparation required as a result of faith, and the responsibility that comes with the gift of faith.

 

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.

Sell your belongings and give alms.

Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy.

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

 

“Gird your loins and light your lamps and be like servants who await their master’s return from a wedding, ready to open immediately when he comes and knocks.

Blessed are those servants whom the master finds vigilant on his arrival. 

Amen, I say to you, he will gird himself, have them recline at table, and proceed to wait on them.

And should he come in the second or third watch and find them prepared in this way, blessed are those servants.

Be sure of this: if the master of the house had known the hour when the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into.

You also must be prepared, for at an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come.”

 

Then Peter said,

“Lord, is this parable meant for us or for everyone?”

And the Lord replied,

“Who, then, is the faithful and prudent steward whom the master will put in charge of his servants to distribute the food allowance at the proper time?

Blessed is that servant whom his master on arrival finds doing so.

Truly, I say to you, the master will put the servant in charge of all his property.

But if that servant says to himself,

‘My master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the maidservants, to eat and drink and get drunk, then that servant’s master will come on an unexpected day and at an unknown hour and will punish the servant severely and assign him a place with the unfaithful.

That servant who knew his master’s will but did not make preparations nor act in accord with his will shall be beaten severely; and the servant who was ignorant of his master’s will but acted in a way deserving of a severe beating shall be beaten only lightly.

Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more.”

   ~Lk 12:32-48

 

Again this week I go to Fr. Tim Peters who walks us through this difficult passage with great skill.

It is of paramount importance to set the treasure of your heart on the proper things.  That is the big take-a-way. 

For the pastoral homily I turn to Fr. Peter Hahn from a homily he gave eleven years ago.  The details may be dated, but the message is universal.

 

So are you comforted or afflicted by today’s Gospel?

 

Sunday Meditation: “Do not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you the kingdom.”

 

Let us enjoy John Michael Talbot’s “Lilies of the Field.”

 

 

So seek ye first the kingdom of God

And the wealth of His righteousness

For wherever your treasure lies

There will you find your heart

 

That is so lovely.

Faith Filled Friday: Memorial of St. Dominic

Today, August 8^th, is the Memorial of St. Dominic de Guzman, founder of the Order of Preachers, commonly referred to as the Dominican Order.  But the official name is the Order of Preachers, and all Dominican religious have an “O.P.” suffice after their name.

 

As you may know, I am a Lay Dominican.  (Actually I am about three months from being fully professed!  It’s getting here!)  If you don’t know what a Lay Dominican is, I explained in detail about four years ago.   As a Lay Dominican, I have a special devotion to St. Dominic, and I have read three biographies, and in the middle of a fourth.  If you are looking for biography of St. Dominic to read, I recommend this one, St. Dominic (Cross and Crown Series of Spirituality) by Sister Mary Jean Dorcy O.P.  

 

Some of the other biographies may be more detailed or may have more hagiography, if that is what you like, but none are better written than Sister Mary Jean’s.  Her prose is extraordinary. 

To commemorate his feast day, I thought today’s Office of Readings from the Divine Office was captured St. Dominic the man beautifully.  Let me post it.

 

Second reading

From various writings on the history of the Order of Preachers

He spoke with God or about God

 

Dominic possessed such great integrity and was so strongly motivated by divine love, that without a doubt he proved to be a bearer of honor and grace. He was a man of great equanimity, except when moved to compassion and mercy. And since a joyful heart animates the face, he displayed the peaceful composure of a spiritual man in the kindness he manifested outwardly and by the cheerfulness of his countenance.

 

Wherever he went he showed himself in word and deed to be a man of the Gospel. During the day no one was more community-minded or pleasant toward his brothers and associates. During the night hours no one was more persistent in every kind of vigil and supplication. He seldom spoke unless it was with God, that is, in prayer, or about God, and in this matter he instructed his brothers.

 

Frequently he made a special personal petition that God would deign to grant him a genuine charity, effective in caring for and obtaining the salvation of men. For he believed that only then would he be truly a member of Christ, when he had given himself totally for the salvation of men, just as the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, had offered himself completely for our salvation. So, for this work, after a lengthy period of careful and provident planning, he founded the Order of Friars Preachers.

 

In his conversations and letters he often urged the brothers of the Order to study constantly the Old and New Testaments. He always carried with him the gospel according to Matthew and the epistles of Paul, and so well did he study them that he almost knew them from memory.

 

Two or three times he was chosen bishop, but he always refused, preferring to live with his brothers in poverty. Throughout his life, he preserved the honor of his virginity. He desired to be scourged and cut to pieces, and so die for the faith of Christ. Of him Pope Gregory IX declared: “I knew him as a steadfast follower of the apostolic way of life. There is no doubt that he is in heaven, sharing in the glory of the apostles themselves.”

 

I suspect this came mostly from Jordan of Saxony's writings on St. Dominic or perhaps from his canonization.

St. Dominic pray for us.

Sunday Meditation: Storing Up Treasure

In the Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time in Year C, while on the way to Jerusalem, Jesus is confronted with a man who wants Him to get the man’s brother to share his inheritance with him.  Jesus reacts by oddly saying he is not the man’s judge.  Why is this odd?  Well Jesus is everyone’s judge.  Jesus goes on to tell those on pilgrimage a parable about a foolish rich man.  The homilists below will explain the parable, but what I can’t come to a conclusion to is whether the moral of the parable is directed at the man in the crowd wanting his share of his inheritance, at his brother who has hoarded the inheritance, or at both. 

 

Someone in the crowd said to Jesus,

“Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.”

He replied to him,

“Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?”

Then he said to the crowd,

“Take care to guard against all greed,

for though one may be rich,

one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

 

Then he told them a parable.

“There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest.

He asked himself, ‘What shall I do,

for I do not have space to store my harvest?’

And he said, ‘This is what I shall do:

I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones.

There I shall store all my grain and other goods

and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you,

you have so many good things stored up for many years,

rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’

But God said to him,

‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you;

and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’

Thus will it be for all who store up treasure for themselves

but are not rich in what matters to God.”

   ~Lk 12:13-21

 

Fr. Tim Peters provides goes into the Gospel passage in great detail.

 

 

So do you own your car or does your car own you?  Do you go out and rent storage space?  Storage space seems to be the perfect analogy to increasing barn space.  Are you filling your space with earthly goods or with God’s treasures?  Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

I thought this was an excellent pastoral homily by a new homilist to my blog, Archbishop Edward Weisenburger, newly installed in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

 

His Excellency, the Archbishop has quite a presence at the ambo.  So much is packed into that six minute homily.  Still no one offers a thought on who Jesus is directing His parable.  The easy answer is both.

 

 

Sunday Meditation: “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”

 

 

John Michael Talbot offers us a hymn performed live, “Only in God.”

 

My stronghold my Savior

I shall not be afraid at all

My stronghold my Savior

I shall not be moved

Only in God is my soul at rest

In Him comes my salvation