These reflections are a result of more than 40 years of ministry as a Roman Catholic priest. Most of these years I spent in the Diocese of Charlotte which covers Western North Carolina. Now I am retired, and live in Medellín, Colombia where I continue to serve as a priest in the Archdiocese of Medellín.
Responsorial Psalm (Psalm 94)
R. The Lord will not abandon his people. Your people, O LORD, they trample down, your inheritance they afflict. Widow and stranger they slay, the fatherless they murder. R. The Lord will not abandon his people. And they say, “The LORD sees not; the God of Jacob perceives not.” Understand, you senseless ones among the people; and, you fools, when will you be wise? R. The Lord will not abandon his people. Shall he who shaped the ear not hear? or he who formed the eye not see? Shall he who instructs nations not chastise, he who teaches men knowledge? R. The Lord will not abandon his people. For the LORD will not cast off his people, nor abandon his inheritance; But judgment shall again be with justice, and all the upright of heart shall follow it. R. The Lord will not abandon his people.
For people of faith, this pandemic gives rise to many doubts . . . Where is God? Why has God abandoned us? We’re suffering and God doesn’t care? The Book of Psalms, the original hymnbook of the church, can be very helpful. The psalms remind us that “the Lord will not abandon his people.”
Responsorial Psalm
R. God upholds his city for ever. Great is the LORD and wholly to be praised in the city of our God. His holy mountain, fairest of heights, is the joy of all the earth. R. God upholds his city for ever. (Psalm 48)
God’s holy mountain . . . mountains have always captured the religious imagination. Humanity has always chosen mountains to build shrines and temples and houses of prayer. Native Americans as well knew the sacredness of mountains. Today we celebrate Saint Kateri Tekawitha, the first Native American to be canonized. She is known as the “Lily of the Mohawks.”
The picture today is the Mountain of the Six Grandfathers in the Black Hills of South Dakota which is sacred to the Lakota people. The land was stolen from Native Americans when gold was discovered there, and it was later turned into Mount Rushmore.
New moon and sabbath, calling of assemblies, octaves with wickedness: these I cannot bear. Your new moons and festivals I detest; they weigh me down, I tire of the load. When you spread out your hands, I close my eyes to you; Though you pray the more, I will not listen. Your hands are full of blood! Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. (Is 1:13-17)
To think that God would get tired of us and all our religiosity perhaps is too much for most believers to handle. But the Scriptures are very clear. What God wants is not for us to be “religious” but rather to act with justice: to redress the wronged, hear the orphan’s plea, defend the widow. Perhaps it takes a football coach and his team to teach the church to “learn to do good.” As Nick Saban and the Alabama football team said so elegantly: “All lives can’t matter until black lives matter.”
On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil, and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear.” (Mt 13:1-9)
The parable of the miraculous harvest reminds us that the harvest is brought by God. Besides look where the sower does his sowing: the middle of the road, among the rocks, and among the thorns. Silly sower . . . none of us would do that. We prepare the ground for our summer garden. We weed, we sweat, and take great care and great pride in our bumper crop of summer tomatoes. If the parable has something to do with the Kingdom of God . . . then there’s no time to waste. Sow the word wherever we can and leave the harvest to the Lord.
The painting is The Sower by Vincent Van Gogh.
Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? Who will go for us?” “Here I am,” I said; “send me!” (Is 6:8)
The call of the prophet Isaiah is remarkable for the eagerness with which the prophet responds, “Here I am, send me!” Today is the feast of Saint Benedict. The Rule for Monasteries which Benedict wrote invites us all to the school of the Lord’s service.
Today's picture is the mural of Saint Benedict from Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana.
