Reflection for the Eighth Monday of Ordinary Time

Today’s Readings: Sir 17:20-24; Ps 32:1-2, 5, 6, 7; Mk 10:17-27

The readings today encourage us to live good lives while on this earth. The author of Sirach tells us to “turn again to the Most High and away from your sin.” While we are in this world, we have the most incredible ability: the ability to use our minds and our consciences to change our lives. Angels have minds but the cannot change. Animals do not have minds and consciences, so any change for them is a result of instinct. They cannot change in the same way that we do, and they don’t have the everlasting consequences that ours do. When we change, we can affect our immortal souls. We move ourselves closer to or further from God, and thus move closer to eternal happiness or eternal punishment.

The importance of changing in this life is reinforced a few lines later. “Who in the nether world can glorify the Most High in place of the living who offer their praise? … No more can the dead give praise than those who have never lived.” Once we die we can no longer change as when we were living. At that point, we have made all of the choices that we will be able to make.

Jesus tells us that living this virtuous life will be a difficult task in today’s Gospel. “For men it is impossible” to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, “but not for God.” God will give us the grace that we need, provided that we do our best to love him and to serve him. Jesus tells us that to serve God, we must follow his laws. Not only that, but we must detach ourselves from all worldly things and trust only in God. God will be our treasure.

Let us do our best to love God and to follow his laws, the laws he gave us in order to help us be happy. In doing so, we have our best chance at entering eternal happiness in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Reflection for the Seventh Saturday of Ordinary Time

Today’s Readings: Sir 17:1-15; Ps 103:13-14, 15-16, 17-18; Mk 10:13-16

We get something very special in Sirach today: a creation story! Creation stories are not limited to Genesis; they appear throughout the Bible. This story focuses on the creation of humanity. God “from earth” created us “in his own image.” While we are linked to the material world through our bodies, we are also linked to God because we were created in his image: we have an immaterial and rational soul. The reading states that God “filled them with the discipline of understanding.” He gave us knowledge of the spirit. He filled our hearts with wisdom, and showed us good and evil. He created us with a desire for Him, and says to us, “Avoid all evil.”

This story emphasizes that God created us in a special way. We are not mere animals, but we also aren’t angels. He gave us many gifts: understanding, wisdom, knowledge of good and evil, and a desire for Him. We have these things because God created us in his image and gave us a spirit. All of us have this spirit; all of us were created in God’s image, even the smallest of us. When Jesus saw the disciples hindering the children he rebuked them! The children desired to come to Jesus, to love Him. They were more in touch with the image of God within themselves than many of the disciples, because they could recognize the goodness in Jesus and flocked to him.

Jesus then tells us that we all should embrace the Kingdom of God as these children. What does this mean? It means that we must learn again what many of us have forgotten: to avoid all evil so that we might recognize and pursue God with all of our hearts. Then we are able to follow the greatest commandment: “you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Dt 6:5)

So today, let us try to love God with every part of ourselves.

Reflection for the Seventh Friday of Ordinary Time / Year I

Today’s Readings: Sir 6:5-17; Ps 119:12, 16, 18, 27, 34, 35; Mark 10:1-12

The reading from Sirach today tells us to test our friends, and to not be too ready to trust them. It then tells us why: not all people who initially seem to be our friends actually are our friends. But when you find a true friend, we must cherish that friend. “No sum can balance his worth.” St. Aelred of Rievaulx wrote a short book called Spiritual Friendship. In the third part of the book, he outlines just how to do this: we test the trustworthiness of the potential friend slowly and by a progressive revelation of ourselves to him or her.

While this understanding of friendship is much more general than marriage, one of these cherished friendships should be at the heart of every marriage. “A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure… A faithful friend is a life-saving remedy…” Spouses become a sturdy shelter under which a family can be built, and in which they can help one another grow. Spouses treasure each other with all that they have, with their treasury of love always growing. Spouses help each other get into heaven—saving the eternal lives of one another.

This bond of friendship is the bedrock upon which a marriage must be built. Mutual love for God and one another allows them to grow in these wonderful ways. The book of Sirach says that one “who fears God behaves accordingly, and his friend will be like himself.” By loving God and one another, they become more like God every moment that they are together.

In marriage, this friendship is sealed by God himself in the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony. The man and woman publicly pledge to God and the world that they will stand by one another, and work for the salvation of themselves and their brand new family. They promise to be the best of friends. God joins them together, and nothing may separate them.

Reflection for the Seventh Monday of Ordinary Time / Year I

Today’s Readings: Sir 1:1-10; Ps 93:1ab, 1cd-2, 5; Mk 9:14-29

“O faithless generation, how long will I be with you? How long will I endure you?”

The disciples could not drive the demon out of the boy, because they did not have the faith. Jesus, Peter, James and John are just coming down the mountain from the Transfiguration—an intense experience of prayer for Jesus, and an intense confirmation of faith for Peter, James and John. The other disciples, though, weren’t there. They had faith, but not enough.

Jesus, after casting out the demon, explains to his disciples that prayer is required for this sort of demon to be driven out. But Jesus just said they did not have the faith necessary. Which one is it? Both. Prayer and faith work together. Prayer increases our faith, and faith improves our prayer.

This faith can allow us to do wondrous things, Jesus says it could move mountains, but it also can give us something even great: true understanding—the ability to see things as they are. Seeing things as they are—this is what wisdom is.

When has the story of the wise sage on the mountain ever ended with him telling us to do something in order to fix some problem? The wise sage helps his visitors to see clearly what they already know, what they already have seen in an obscured way.

Faith and prayer helps us to see God, who created all things and gave humanity wisdom. If we have a relationship with Him, properly established through prayer and faith, then we will be able to see other people and the material things of this world as they truly are.

Reflection for the Sixth Sunday of Ordinary Time / Year A

Today’s Mass Readings: Sir 15:15-20; Ps 119:1-2, 4-5, 17-18, 33-34; 1 Cor 2:6-10; Mt 5:17-37

The readings today are all held together by God’s law. The first three readings keep talking about how God has given us his commandments. In Sirach, we learn that man is given the choice to follow this law, and God never commands us to do something unjustly. The psalm tells us that those who follow God’s law are blessed. St. Paul tells the Corinthians that we must speak Wisdom, and that the Holy Spirit will teach us this wisdom, which is the law and the Mysteries of the Kingdom. But what is the law? The first three readings, for me, never told me what the law is, just to get ready for it.

The Gospel reading, finally, answers this question. Jesus tells us all about the law. We must follow the commandments, but not only that—Jesus challenges us to go further! Not only are we not to kill, but we must not even be angry with each other! We must be reconciled to one another in order to enter the kingdom. Jesus gives adultery, divorce, and oaths the same treatment: adultery is possible even by looking at another with an impure mind, divorce is not permissible as it causes adultery, and we must let our “yes” mean “yes and our “no” mean “no.”

Jesus spends more time on the topics of purity than any individual topic in the Gospel. Purity is essential for any practice of virtue, yet it is attacked more than almost any other. Only those who are pure in body and mind are capable of focusing on the things that truly matter. They are capable of seeing what things are good and bad, because they can see the true nature of the thing more clearly than anyone else. The beatitudes tell us that the pure in heart shall see God, so we should all strive for this purity.

Modern culture makes this nearly impossible. With the prevalence of pornography, “hooking up” and casual sex, divorce and infidelity, so many negative and evil influences pull us away from purity. It is a huge challenge to remain pure in today’s society. But it is worth it. When we are pure, when we can see things as they truly are, and when we can truly see God, only then will we be truly happy. Even better: when we are pure in heart: all the other commandments become easy. Our yes will always mean yes, our no will always mean no, we will be able to love our neighbor and to forgive those who offend us, and we will be able to see others as children of God.

Not only does purity bring happiness, but it allows us to more easily practice other virtues which bring even more happiness.