“People cannot hit what they do not aim for.”

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. – Walt Whitman: (1819 – 1892: was an American poet, essayist, and journalist.)

Gospel text: (LK 12:35-38)

Jesus said to his disciples:
"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."

Perhaps you’ve heard the old adage, “Always begin with your end in mind.” “End” in this case refers to one’s goal. Many people, of course, wander through life aimlessly, but Christians are meant to have Heaven as their goal, or end. In this case, repeating that adage to ourselves each day helps us to live each day for God, by recalling that we can only get to Heaven by living out our faith in God. This way of thinking approximates what Jesus is getting at in His parable.

However, there’s an immediacy to Jesus’ parable that’s missing in that adage. His parable reminds us of a sobering fact: that we know not the day nor the hour when our lives will end. The Master may come at an unexpected time. Therefore, we need not only always to be focused, but also to be vigilant, since the end we have in mind may confront us today.

“Love is always ready to deny itself, to give, sacrifice, just in the measure of its sincerity and intensity. Perfect love is perfect self-forgetfulness. Hence where there is love in a home, unselfishness is the law.”

“If you do not worship God, you worship something, and nine times out of ten it will be yourself. You have a duty to worship God, not because He will be imperfect and unhappy if you do not, but because you will be imperfect and unhappy.” ― Venerable Fulton John Sheen: (1895 – 1979: was an American bishop (later archbishop) of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio.)

Gospel Text: (LK 12:13-21)

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 the one who stores up treasure for himself
but is not rich in what matters to God."

I wonder if greed is not mostly a matter of insecurity. When we get greedy, we never have enough. Enough for what? To be happy? To feel safe and secure? To feel powerful? We can seem to forget that our only security comes from God. Our only happiness is in God. And our only real power is the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. St. Teresa of Avila wrote: “Whoever has God lacks nothing. God alone is enough.” And when God is enough for us, we find ourselves able to give of ourselves so that others can have the basic necessities of life.

Our life does not consist of the things we have, but the love God has for us. And even that we cannot keep to ourselves, but is meant for us to share. And no matter how much we share, we will never run out. May we trust in the riches of God.

“Your life is not meant to be used in exchange for mundane things like houses and cars but to purchase greatness.”

“The world says: "You have needs -- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor, envy and murder.” ― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

Gospel Text: (MT 22:15-21)

The Pharisees went off
and plotted how they might entrap Jesus in speech.
They sent their disciples to him, with the Herodians, saying,
"Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man
and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.
And you are not concerned with anyone's opinion,
for you do not regard a person's status.
Tell us, then, what is your opinion:
Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?"
Knowing their malice, Jesus said,
"Why are you testing me, you hypocrites?
Show me the coin that pays the census tax."
Then they handed him the Roman coin.
He said to them, "Whose image is this and whose inscription?"
They replied, "Caesar's."
At that he said to them,
"Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar
and to God what belongs to God."

God respects our freedom. This is why Jesus asked the Pharisees and Herodians in today's Gospel reading, "Whose head is this, and whose name?" Jesus poses a profound question that invites us to reflect deeper on the implications of their confusion concerning the many tensions between God and the world.

This tension between God and the world prompts us to ask the same question. We face the same dilemma in choosing between God and the world. How do we "give the Lord glory and honor" in the midst of our daily preoccupations in the world? How do we fully serve God in the midst of our many other secular and necessary obligations? Do we reject God when we work very hard for our families?

 Ultimately Jesus asks us the same questions he asked the Pharisees and Herodians in today's Gospel reading, "Whose head is this, and whose name?" "Whose image is stamped in our hearts, God or the world?"

Realistically speaking we are not being asked to let go of our belongings and properties to serve God only. Jesus asks us about our priorities in our lives. Do we give first priority to "giving the Lord glory and honor?" The question calls us to reflect on what we do and whether they lead us to or away from God.

St. Ignatius of Loyola calls this type of reflection "discernment." For indeed "Man is created to praise, reverence and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul. The other things on the face of the earth are created for man to help him in attaining the end for which he is created." (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, First Principle and Foundation.)

Our dilemma is not any tension between God and the world. Rather it is how we make use of the world in praising, reverencing and serving God.

"I cannot comprehend how any man can want anything but the truth."

"Each one of you has to be God's microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. The church will always exist as long as there is someone who has been baptized... Where is your baptism? You are baptized in your professions, in the fields of workers, in the market. Wherever there is someone who has been baptized, that is where the Church is. There is a prophet there. Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people." - Oscar A. Romero: (1917 – 24 March 1980: was a prelate of the Catholic Church in El Salvador, who served as the fourth Archbishop of San Salvador. He spoke out against poverty, social injustice, assassinations, and torture. In 1980, Romero was assassinated while offering Mass in the chapel of the Hospital of Divine Providence.)

Gospel Text: (LK 12:8-12)

Jesus said to his disciples:
"I tell you,
everyone who acknowledges me before others
the Son of Man will acknowledge before the angels of God.
But whoever denies me before others
will be denied before the angels of God.

"Everyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven,
but the one who blasphemes against the Holy Spirit
will not be forgiven.
When they take you before synagogues and before rulers and authorities,
do not worry about how or what your defense will be
or about what you are to say.
For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you should say."

Our lives as Christians have become more challenging, more complicated and even confused, with the plurality of messages in widespread media. Media in its varying forms is a very powerful tool in communicating messages which are received consciously and even unconsciously. Media can be a great vehicle for good; it can also be a great and effective vehicle to deliver false messages and values.

With the advent of modern technology and modernism, we get easily swayed by pleasure-seeking activities and self-serving culture. It is so easy to choose for comfort and greater convenience. It is so easy to forego Sunday mass and various religious activities because we are so busy with business, professional pursuits and pleasurable activities.

Media can be such a powerful tool for good or for evil. Though we know that morality is not determined by surveys and polls, our behavior can be so easily affected by what others and the world consider worthwhile and important.

In the Gospel reading today from Mass Jesus tells his audience that witnessing to him and Gospel values could bring many difficulties and opposition, even trials and persecution. He assures us of his continuing support and assistance:

 "Don't worry about how you will defend yourself or what to say. For the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you have to say."

“Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. - Don't be afraid.”

“You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” ― William Faulkner: (1897 – 1962: was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi.)

Gospel text: (LK 12:1-7)

At that time:
So many people were crowding together
that they were trampling one another underfoot.
Jesus began to speak, first to his disciples,
"Beware of the leaven–that is, the hypocrisy–of the Pharisees.

"There is nothing concealed that will not be revealed,
nor secret that will not be known.
Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness
will be heard in the light,
and what you have whispered behind closed doors
will be proclaimed on the housetops.
I tell you, my friends,
do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but after that can do no more.
I shall show you whom to fear.
Be afraid of the one who after killing
has the power to cast into Gehenna;
yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.
Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?
Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God.
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Do not be afraid.
You are worth more than many sparrows."

In the secular culture that surrounds modern Western man, the only image of Jesus that is acceptable is that of a spiritual teddy bear. The idea that Jesus makes demands or sets boundaries is incompatible with modern secularism.

What to make of today’s Gospel passage, then? Jesus declares: “I shall show you whom to fear. Be afraid of the one who after killing has the power to cast into Gehenna; yes, I tell you, be afraid of that one.”

Still, just three sentences later Jesus demands: “Do not be afraid.”

We pray that we have the courage to stand by Jesus and his values, come what may. 

“A church that suffers no persecution but enjoys the privileges and support of the things of the earth - beware! - is not the true church of Jesus Christ. “

"Without fear we sang in prisons 30 feet beneath the earth. We were terribly hungry, beaten, and tortured. The Communists were good at torturing us. We would say to each other, 'The Communists beat us very well - let us do our work well. Let us sing well.'" - Richard Wurmbrand, spent 14 years in a Communist prison in Romania during the Cold War

Gospel Text: (LK 11:47-54)

The Lord said:
"Woe to you who build the memorials of the prophets
whom your fathers killed.
Consequently, you bear witness and give consent
to the deeds of your ancestors,
for they killed them and you do the building.
Therefore, the wisdom of God said,
'I will send to them prophets and Apostles;
some of them they will kill and persecute'
in order that this generation might be charged
with the blood of all the prophets
shed since the foundation of the world,
from the blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah
who died between the altar and the temple building.
Yes, I tell you, this generation will be charged with their blood!
Woe to you, scholars of the law!
You have taken away the key of knowledge.
You yourselves did not enter and you stopped those trying to enter."
When Jesus left, the scribes and Pharisees
began to act with hostility toward him
and to interrogate him about many things,
for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.

The religious leaders of Jesus’ day liked to boast. The liked to build memorials to the prophets that their ancestors had stoned and killed. They liked to revise history to distance themselves from the responsibility of those who went before them, only to do the same thing in their lifetime.

They like to use their knowledge to twist the truth. They build a life and a future on falsehoods.

Jesus came, speaking the truth and went about doing good. This enraged them so much that they plotted against Jesus to put him to death, to silence him, to stop him from doing good. They thought that they had power over Jesus because they thought that they had the power to put someone to death. They boasted in their false righteousness.

Humility is not easily accomplished. Pride wears many disguises. Pride distorts the truth. Pride drives us to boast about things that we never done by ourselves, about achievements that we alone are responsible for and a false future that is not ours to give.

The saints that we honor today, St. John de Brebeuf, Isaac Jogues and their companion martyrs, overcame their desire to boast, to rely primarily upon their own resources and placed their future into God’s hands. When this lead to their death and martyrdom, then they took their rightful place beside Jesus, the Crucified Lord who rose from the death and the communion of saints.

Thus, let us rule out all boasting in our life!

“Don’t chase people. Be an example. Attract them.”

“Our beloved sons, the laity, can do much to help this diffusion of Catholic social doctrine by studying it themselves and putting it into practice, and by zealously striving to make others understand it. They should be convinced that the best way of demonstrating the truth and efficacy of this teaching is to show that it can provide the solution to present-day difficulties. They will thus win those people who are opposed to it through ignorance of it. Who knows, but a ray of its light may one day enter their minds.” - Mater et Magistra (“Mother and Teacher”), Pope John XXIII, 1961 #224-225.

Gospel Text: (LK 10:1-9)

The Lord Jesus appointed seventy-two disciples
whom he sent ahead of him in pairs
to every town and place he intended to visit.
He said to them,
"The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few;
so ask the master of the harvest
to send out laborers for his harvest.
Go on your way;
behold, I am sending you like lambs among wolves.
Carry no money bag, no sack, no sandals;
and greet no one along the way.
Into whatever house you enter,
first say, 'Peace to this household.'
If a peaceful person lives there,
your peace will rest on him;
but if not, it will return to you.
Stay in the same house and eat and drink what is offered to you,
for the laborer deserves payment.
Do not move about from one house to another.
Whatever town you enter and they welcome you,
eat what is set before you,
cure the sick in it and say to them,
'The Kingdom of God is at hand for you.'"

“One who is sent” is the literal meaning of the word “apostle”. Today’s Gospel passage, however, is not about the sending of the Twelve, but about the sending of the 72 whom Jesus sent ahead of Him as “advance men”. The 72 are to prepare people to receive Jesus. This is how we can relate this Gospel passage to our own lives as disciples. Very few members of the Church serve as successors of the apostles in the role of bishop, but every Christian is sent by Jesus to prepare others to receive Him. This fact is often overlooked today. There is a confusion still, so many years after the Second Vatican Council, between the roles of the clergy and laity.

The role of the laity in the Church is largely “outside” the Church, in that the laity carry the fruits of the Church into the wider, secular world. The word “apostolate” is all but obsolete today in referring to the work of the laity, but it needs to be reclaimed to describe the right and responsibility of the laity to engage the “world” with the Good News of Christ.