Holy Week Hope

Dear Friends:

The Days Leading up to Easter, known as Holy Week, are a special time of year. Depending on whether Easter is “early or late” the weather can still have the cold dampness of winter, or the smell and sense of spring. Either way, every year Easter arrives, ready or not.

As you can imagine, for priests, it’s not only a busy time of the year, but one that “packs a lot of Church” into a few days. Oftentimes, after all the planning is done, and in between services, I take some time to reflect on my own spiritual life and that of our parish, reminding myself that it’s God’s Church, and at the end of the day, we are all in God’s hands.

Although a bit different this year than last, with some more hope on the horizon, these days always give me material for prayer, people and circumstances that I like to put before the Lord and listen to His guidance. We spend so much of our time talking. Holy Week gives us a chance to listen.

For some, these days are an opportunity to reflect on where we are broken in body and soul. Holy Week provides an occasion to spiritually enter into sacred space in our minds and hearts to meditate on just how fragile and hallowed all life is. And while this might sound a little sad and depressing, it is all preparation for healing and rebirth - all in the Resurrection of Jesus.

According to Gary Jansen, author of Life Everlasting: Catholic Devotions and Mysteries for the Everyday Seeker and Station to Station: A Journey through the Stations of the Cross, the most dramatic, and maybe the most spiritually challenging day of Holy Week, which begins on Palm Sunday and ends on the evening before Easter, is Good Friday. He notes that on this day hundreds of millions of people around the world will commemorate—through fasting, prayer, and attending church services—the suffering, crucifixion, and death of Jesus. Yet, you don’t have to be Christian to observe this deeply solemn and reflective time.

On Good Friday, we encounter Jesus not as God or the leader of a religion, but as a simple, fragile and broken man. Nowhere in the accounts of His life is He more human. On this day, there are no miracles. No sermons. No parables. There’s no walking on water, no turning water into wine. No one is healed and no demons are cast out. The blind, listening to the commotion as Jesus drags His cross through the streets of Jerusalem, never regain their sight. On Good Friday, we find Jesus—once someone’s Son with scraped knees—raw and broken. He is, like all of us, vulnerable and subject to great pain.

Jansen adds, that regardless of the humiliation and the physical abuse that Jesus endures, He never behaves in typical human ways. When Roman soldiers beat Him, He doesn’t curse His tormentors. Jesus doesn’t fight back, doesn’t make a grandstand or charge His followers to riot on His behalf. After His friends abandon Him, including Peter, one of His closest allies, He doesn’t cast judgment. Instead, He accepts them for who they are.

In the midst of great loneliness, Jesus prays. Standing before His accusers, He remains calm. Bleeding from the brutal assault to His body, Jesus forgives His attackers. As He hangs from a cross, He doesn’t think about Himself. Instead, He turns His focus to His mother, brother, and sisters. In His endurance, courage, compassion and death, Jesus not only offers us the ultimate example of grace under pressure, but He shows us what it means to be truly human.

Oh that we could be more like Him, not only this Holy Week, but every week!

Given the division in our world, and some days, even in our Church, we might all do well to set aside time in these holy days to reflect on how we respond not just to our own suffering, but to the pain of everyone who falls and scrapes themselves against the rough concrete patches of life. We might do well to honestly assess how we react when people humiliate us, curse us, call us names, or make fun of us. We might internalize that pain, and struggle with that sense of abandonment, but in the end, can we join that suffering to His? Can we accept and love those who harm us for who they are? Can we entrust them to the loving arms of Mary, Most Holy, asking her intercession?

In the end, it seems to me that if we don’t yearn for and try to emulate the endurance, courage, and compassion of Jesus, who not only offers us the ultimate example of grace under pressure, but shows us what it means to be truly human, then these days are nothing more than a charade, devoid of meaning, absent true devotion and nothing more than an empty show.

It’s my prayer for you and for me too, that this Easter, perhaps unlike any other, that when the stone is rolled away from the place of darkness, and the light of new understanding and appreciation begins to shine in our hearts, that we will truly be transformed in His Resurrection!

Blessings, today and always!

Fr Bob

What Makes a True Prophet?

This weekend, we listen to God's word delivered from the book of Deuteronomy. The underlying message is to listen to God, obey Him, and love Him with all your heart, soul, and strength.

Jesus taught that this was the greatest command. Everywhere we go, we should seek to love God. We are reminded that this attitude should pervade our worship, prayer, Bible reading, and relationships.

Interestingly, over the years, God has called people to help us focus on these challenges to listen to God, obey him and love him...but how do we know that those called are authentic? I guess the question more simply asked is: How can you tell a true prophet from a false one?

Surely, we've all heard of prophets...people like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel - strange, charismatic figures whose words continue to inspire and convict us, but who are safely confined to the biblical era. We might also speak of other exceptional people like Mother Teresa as prophets, but I believe that such people are really few and far between.

Over the years, we have also seen that there are many people who claim to be prophets, but in fact are not. False prophets are all around us. They can be described as liking to be hero-worshipped, power-hungry and will not listen to Godly advice which is against their evil intentions.

Usually, they like to surround themselves with a "cult" of followers they can easily control, are spiritually empty and will always say yes to any un-godly instructions or advice. They are known to manipulate their ignorant followers either by force or subtly through false prophecies oftentimes putting fear into their disciples by threatening them that such members will not prosper if they leave.

False prophets wage war against true children of God by assassinating their characters, gossiping about them, sharing fake news, all in an attempt to cause confusion within the body of Christ.

So, how can you tell a true prophet from a false prophet? The question is not only important for us but was just as urgent for the audience that our text from Deuteronomy addresses.

After Moses - the pre-eminent prophet - dies, those ancient Israelites wondered how will they know the will of God? So how will they know who speaks for God? And more importantly, how do we? We hear in the Scripture:

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people; you shall heed such a prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15).

God promises not to abandon the people to their own devices. From time to time, God would call a prophet to speak God's word to the people. This passage, however, came to be understood over the centuries as an eschatological promise...And eschatological is just a fancy term that simply means, what happens to us and everything in the end.

This concern about the end times does not seem to be at the heart of the matter for us in our readings today. The issue is not the end of the ages, but the present time, when we are in the muck and mire of everyday life. As God's people today, we still need to know who speaks for God.

So...in your mind, who speaks for God? There are lots of people who claim to speak for God today: prosperity preachers, self-help gurus, radio and TV preachers, religious bloggers galore, some politicians and perhaps even some of you...but who to listen to? Who speaks to God?

How do you distinguish between a true prophet and a false prophet? Deuteronomy gives us some guidance:

1. The true prophet does not seek to be a prophet. From Moses' long protest against God's call to Jeremiah's objection that he is "only a boy," no prophet in the Bible wants to be a prophet. It is something, instead, that they do because they cannot avoid God's call.

2. The true prophet seeks neither self-promotion nor riches. Many of the prophets put aside pride and dignity in order to engage in bizarre sign-acts, like walking naked in the streets of Jerusalem as we read in Isaiah 20 or lying prone on the ground for weeks on end as we read in Ezekiel 4.

3. The true prophet speaks God's word, not his or her own. Over and over again, the prophets declare, "Thus says the LORD." And they most often speak words that are uncomfortable, to say the least - words of judgment for their own people. True, they also speak words of comfort and hope, but almost always on the other side of judgment. The prophets are not advocates of the power of positive thinking... Their hope rests on God alone, not on their own power or worth.

4. The true prophet bears a "family resemblance" to what has come before. The prophets speak new words into new situations. While the Holy Spirit moves in new and unexpected ways, if the prophet's words contradict what we already know of God from Scripture, and our long-standing tradition, then the prophet should be suspect.

5. The true prophet and the false one too are known by his or her "fruit." Jesus himself warns, "Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits."

In short, we can ask:

• Does the prophet (or preacher) lead others to be disciples of Jesus or of themselves?

• Does his or her preaching lead to repentance and transformation or to complacency and self-absorption?

Who speaks for God? The answer requires discernment and prayer. Scripture gives us some guidelines, and there are more than what I have shared here.

In all that we do, of course, we are called each day to hear and discern the voice of God.

Further, as we hear and study God's Word, and as we are given the great privilege and the responsibility to proclaim it ourselves, as Catholic Christians, we too are called to do so with a healthy dose of humility, pointing always to Jesus, our great prophet, priest, and king, our brother, our Savior, and our friend!

RSM

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us at St Teresa of Avila!

Among the many rich symbols of this festive day are lights … because as Christians, we believe that Jesus is the light of the world and the birth of Jesus our Savior is celebrated at Christmas.

Despite putting white and colored lights in our windows, on our trees, in our creches, and sometimes even on our sweaters … interestingly, we really can’t see light – we can only see by light. The only way that we can see into what makes up light is through a natural phenomenon like a rainbow or a prism that refracts light into its various colors to reveal the beauty hidden within light itself.

That’s a great image for Christmas, the birth of Jesus, the light of the world. Jesus, our light, provides us the prism through which our reality, our circumstances, our lives can be viewed.

Our human journey of light begins here at this creche and ends at that cross, but both his birth and his death give us life – life eternal. Surely, there are many steps in between those two ends … and the road on this pilgrimage is filled with twists and turns, and as this year has demonstrated, with many unknowns … but we do not walk it alone.

Our faith reminds us that as a Christian community, we journey with others … even with the difficult people in our lives.

It’s that light of Christ that can give us the prism through which we can see others as God sees them.

It’s that light of Christ that allows us to see through COVID, sickness and even death … to see the eternal beauty that lies beneath every human life.

It’s that light of Christ that gives us hope!

Christmas challenges us in a world so prone to the temptations that Jesus refused: possessions, prestige, and power – to become childlike. For Jesus, children were the bigger picture. In their innocence they model for us adventure, exploration, imagination and joy!

This Christmas, in addition to being pre-occupied with giving gifts to others, take some time today to love yourself … because you are God’s gift too!

It's my prayer, and that of all of us who serve here at St Teresa, that each of us can better see all things by Christ’s light, because when that prayer is realized, we will truly celebrate a Merry Christmas today and every day!

RSM