Reflection for the 11th Ordinary Sunday 2024

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God”

Today we re-enter Ordinary Time and the wearing of the Green. We had six weeks of Rose and Purple, ten weeks of White, and a brief week of Red.

Driving out to the Seminary and the Men’s Retreat was so refreshing. The land alive with growth, and on beautiful green display.

Holy Church uses green to convey a call to growth in our Kingdom citizenship. Not only that, it dedicates the majority of the weeks of the year, twenty-five in all in our Church, to growing.

In a beautiful way the call to growth is made imperative in today’s readings and gospel. Let’s look at that call.

In our first reading Ezekiel proclaims God’s promises of hope. He will restore Israel and plant it securely to grow and prosper. What had been broken and withered, reduced to nothing, will live again.

God likens Israel to the tender shoot from the top of the Cedar. We may not necessarily find cedars around us, but almost all types of evergreens put out tender shoots. Even the prickliest ones produce bright green, soft, fragrant shoots.

In Ezekiel, God does as He promises. The imperative things, that is the vitally important and crucial things authoritatively commanded, God Himself carries out. Israel had no power to restore itself, no army or political power. Israel is ‘new.’ So, out of His tremendous love and forgiveness, He will re-establish them. The imperative is from God and done by God.

Jesus Who came to usher in the Kingdom changes things up for us. Using nature and growth we see a different imperative. The focus is now on us.

God has scattered the seed – what we covered in the past few weeks – His sacraments and the depth of His Word given us, He has implanted in us by Jesus and has given us a place to dwell, His Holy Church, symbolized by the mustard bush the largest of plants with large branches, where the birds of the sky can dwell in its shade.

As Jesus states: Of its own accord the land yields fruit. The imperative remains from God but now it must be done by us. Growth in ourselves and in the Kingdom is dependent on us. We must yield fruit.

So, we are to grow ourselves: our sanctification growth into the image of God filled with complete self-giving love. We are to evangelize, to draw people into the Kingdom. It is imperative!

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Word of God 2024

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and without Him not one thing came into being. 

Two weeks ago, we began considering the word mystery and the fact that we are now in a short transitional season between the fifty days of Easter and the start of ‘Ordinary Time’ next week.

We have already considered the mysteries of the Holy Trinity and the Body and Blood of Jesus. Today we consider the mystery of the Word whose Solemnity our Holy Church has instituted.

All these mysteries flow out of Pentecost which is their lynchpin. The power of the Holy Spirit and His gifts are given to us so we may better appreciate and draw grace from our contemplation and celebration of the mysteries of God’s Being, Feeding, and Word.

We are so privileged, for our Holy Church is the only one that believes and teaches that the Word of God proclaimed and taught has sacramental effect in our lives.

Many of us likely have a vague recollection of what sacramental effect is. It has been a while since catechism class. So, a little refresher.

A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of God’s inward and spiritual grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification and salvation. Sacraments give sanctifying grace, and each gives a special sacramental grace through the merits of Jesus Christ Who instituted them.

Catechism of the PNCC 280, 283, 284.

That is a beautiful definition, and it covers a lot, but to make it more accessible let’s consider sacraments this way: God has great love for us and His love is so powerful that it changes us in the most remarkable and essential of ways. It causes us to grow into the image of His beloved Son Jesus and to become those who, when they appear before Him, are embraced just as the Father embraces His Son Jesus.

So, God has this love, but it must be transmitted, we need an infusion of His love, and it must occur in real, recognizable ways. Think of the sacraments as food for eternal life. We need to receive this food so to be filled and satisfied.

God’s Word Who is Jesus filled the world with all goodness at creation. His Word filled the people of Israel on their journeys, and His Word fills us today for through the Word people learn and grow, we are fed, filled and are enabled to confidently approach the throne of grace.

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds 2021

And they went with haste, and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. And when they saw it they made known the saying which had been told them concerning this child

At our three Holy Masses of Christmas we saw references over and over again to Jesus as the light of the world, the light of heaven breaking into the world to change it forever.

We can certainly see how the Lord’s love and mercy have changed us. We no longer live in fear. Our life is eternal, the gates of heaven and all its light are opened to us. We have forgiveness of sin, we have a new relationship with God and to each other.

We who were once strangers and afar off are bound together in a new family, the family of the Church. We are given two important missions by God that spread the light of Christ.

Our first mission is to grow in our personal sanctification, to become more like Jesus, to walk better in His ways. We receive power and strength to do that through the many graces we receive both sacramentally and in living our everyday walk of faith.

Our other first mission, for it is equal to the necessity for sanctification, is to build the Kingdom of God right here and right now.

On Christmas 1919 Bishop Hodur addressed his congregation and spoke of the gap between the very materialistic view of the world, a world only concerned with bodily needs and wants, and the Savior Who came to build up both the body and the soul. He called this materialistic focus an illness, for the worldly do not perceive the wholeness God offers us in Jesus. They limit themselves by their deafness to His word and way.

Jesus pointed to the Kingdom and called us to build. We are to call people out of where they are, out of deafness, to what they can be, not only as individuals, but as a society.

This is the example we celebrate today on this very special Solemnity in our Holy Church – the Humble Shepherds, the Ubogich Pasterzy.

The Shepherds whose life was limited to the care of earthly material things, their flocks and pay and duties, encountered heaven. They met Christ Jesus their Lord and Messiah, God. They met Him as we meet Him each time we come to Holy Mass, participate, pray through the Eucharist, and receive Him. They were left with the same choice we all have. What will I do for my sanctification and for the building of the Kingdom?

The Shepherds set forth to announce and build the Kingdom. In the world’s eyes they remined poor, but in God’s eyes they became whole and rich. Let us decide to as well, as we renew our commitment to God’s mission for us. 

Reflection for the Solemnity of the Humble Shepherds 2020

Elevation.

But when the kindness and love of God our Savior was revealed, He saved us. It was not because of any good deeds that we ourselves had done, but because of His own mercy

Much in the realm of Theology has been written about elevation, the ability we have, because of Jesus, God among us, to approach God and to become like Him.

In Orthodox Theology, this process is called Theosis (also referred to as deification, or divinization, or illumination). It is in essence the transformative process by which we grow into likeness to, or union with, God. Human beings – that’s us – can have real union with God and become like God in the way we love as well as in our holiness. 

Our goal is to become perfect in our love, to love as God does, through His grace and the awesomeness of His redemption. We might also call this sanctification – a process of growing godward.

In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote: 

He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine…

St. Paul, writing to Titus, goes on to say: God poured out the Holy Spirit abundantly on us through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that by his grace we might be put right with God and come into possession of the eternal life we hope for.

Today we encounter the feeble and filthy – the Humble Shepherds stationed out in the field. Like us, God poured out His grace upon them, revealing to them this opportunity to not only go and see, but more so to become, to be elevated.

As with us, they had the choice. Literally, chill in the field or go and see. By trusting God and going, by saying yes, they came to see and understand.

Those Humble Shepherds were elevated. They became dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating with energy, joy, wisdom and love. What a great model to follow.

We have been called, and I also offer a special word in this moment to all those called in a special way to be priests and deacons of our Holy Church. Each of us must decide whether we will go and see. If we say yes, we will see and understand. Having seen and understood, we will become dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating with energy, joy, wisdom and love.

I want that. Do you want that?

God’s grace and mercy are such that this opportunity is ever present. Elevation, illumination, becoming like unto God is a chance awaiting our yes. Let us pick it up and move forward with energy, joy, wisdom and love just as those Humble Shepherds did.