22 June 2022 - costumes

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing,

but underneath are ravenous wolves.

We put ourselves at risk if we are too credulous toward teachers and too undiscerning towards supposed prophets. There is a way in which conformity of external appearance is easy. One can superficially act like a Christian in order to blend in and gain acceptance. We know this because we ourselves have probably done so to some degree. We've probably felt compelled to act a part we have not yet achieved by conversion of life, not for the sake of the conversion, but simply to fit in. And if we have done this with motives that aren't really so bad, imagine what those with fewer scruples might do. 

What is in it for the wolves? They find a flock that is well trained in obedience, ready to follow even when they do not fully understand. Jesus told his flock that they would need to become like little children in terms of their trust in the Father. But if the wolves can appropriate this obedience and this trust to themselves they will have a constant supply for their ravenous appetites. In a less bad scenario they prey on the sheep merely by using them to assert their own superiority. But we know it can be much worse than this. For this reason it is necessary that we not confuse the promises we have about the guidance of the Church by the Holy Spirit with any individual.

By their fruits you will know them.

The sheep costumes that wolves wear have seams. There will be bad fruit they refuse to acknowledge, a lack of true repentance coupled with excuses for why this must be so. Above all they will insist that the costume is perfect, that there is nothing that needs to change about them, and that it is rather the attitude of the flock that is problematic. Real prophets and teachers wear no costumes. They don't present a false face to the world. They bear good fruit that comes from the heart. But to the degree that they aren't yet converted they are humble about it, unsurprised by their own sinfulness, always transparent about their own limitations lest they become in some way a snare to the flock.

Just so, every good tree bears good fruit,

and a rotten tree bears bad fruit.

It is the case that no one is as all good or all bad as these trees. But to what are our lives tending? Is Jesus at work within us helping us to bear fruits of repentance? Is the Holy Spirit manifesting his fruits within us? Without help our fruit always ends up imperfect and finally rotten. Rather than cover over our faults with costumes the invitation to us is to be more and more open to the life of Jesus within us, making us genuinely good. When we do detect bad fruit it is a call for us to seek repentance and conversion, to change while there is time to change.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down

and thrown into the fire.

In order for Jesus to abide in us we need to abide in his word. If we become forgetful of it by our own negligence we will not find ourselves excused for our ignorance.

Go, consult the LORD for me, for the people, for all Judah,

about the stipulations of this book that has been found,

for the anger of the LORD has been set furiously ablaze against us,

because our fathers did not obey the stipulations of this book,

nor fulfill our written obligations.

But again, if the word of God is calling us to bear better fruit than we yet have, this should not be seen as a condemnation, but an opportunity to bear fruit worthy of repentance. He himself desires to help us to know what is expected, in a way that false teachers cannot confound, and he himself will give us the power to carry it out.

Standing by the column, the king made a covenant before the LORD

that they would follow him

and observe his ordinances, statutes and decrees

with their whole hearts and souls

May the Lord himself turn our eyes from what is vain, incline our heart to his decrees, and by his way give us life.

Kutless - Word Of God Speak

Matt Maher - The Heart Of Worship

21 June 2022 - choose only one

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Do not give what is holy to dogs, or throw your pearls before swine,

lest they trample them underfoot, and turn and tear you to pieces.

We must not be overly casual with that which is meant to be sacred. Dogs and pigs aren't in a position to show due reverence to what is holy or to have any kind of appreciate for the value of pearls. In such a condition it places both them and ourselves at risk to try too aggressively to share the treasure we have found. Much better to progress by degrees and let the grace of the mystery gradually make dogs and swine more and more human and capable of understanding. No wonder that the Church reserves reception of the Eucharist her members, to those who ought to be less likely to profane it. No wonder the early Church kept the entire liturgy of the Eucharist as reserved for the baptized and had the catechumens leave the worship space after the liturgy of the Word. We do want the world to join us around the altar of the Lord. But we don't want to place sacred things in the hands of those who will most likely scoff at them. 

There is a certain sense in which the pearl of great price must be found be each individual. It is somehow a part of this process of discovery that the value becomes truly evident. This does not mean that we conceal everything from outsiders. We are meant to share what we have been given precisely to the degree that others seem ready to value and treasure it. If they are not receptive we can remain at the level they understand, and try to engage them with aspects of the faith that they recognize as valuable, for instance, by leading with beauty. After all, there is still some degree to which we ourselves are like dogs and swine before the pearl of great price, still a vast degree to which we underestimate the value of the treasure we have found. We would not wish ourselves to be left in this condition. And God will continue to draw us. So too must we draw one another as we are able, and as they are able to respond.

Do to others whatever you would have them do to you.

This is the Law and the Prophets.

The golden rule contains within it all possible spiritual and corporeal works of mercy. We are meant to address ourselves to all the needs and hungers of the world especially in the ways we have been uniquely gifted to do so. Chief among these priorities is finding a way to communicate the deep value of the pearl of great price to the world. It is important precisely because it is not obvious and the opposite path appears so natural and easy.

Enter through the narrow gate;

for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction,

and those who enter through it are many.

How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life.

And those who find it are few.

The gate is not narrow primarily because of the effort required, for in the truest sense, Jesus already paid our price of admission. It is rather as narrow as Jesus himself, in the sense that Jesus himself is the gate for the sheep (see John 10:9). It is as narrow as the historical specificity of Jesus himself, and what he did and taught. Which is the same as to say that there is no other name under heaven by which we may be saved (see Acts 4:12). It means that we don't get to set the terms and conditions ourselves. We are not to append or subtract anything from the core Gospel of Jesus himself. The gate cannot be Jesus plus that one sin which we are reluctant to release. It must finally be his will entirely or nothing at all. What we need to keep in our minds is the value of what is on the far side of that gate. The pearl of great price is worth selling all that we have and more. And it will finally cost nothing less. If we find ourselves still more fixated on the things on this world, the muck and mire of swine and of dogs, let us look to the pearl that can illuminate our hearts and humanize us. Let us listen to the word of God calling us home.

Let us pray that the Lord would fortify his Church to be a place where the glory of his name can be made known. Let us beg him to raise up a remnant from Mount Zion dedicated to his praise. The world values the Church so little that they would come against it with arrow and shield and siege-works. We who know the value of it must plead with the Lord to give it the help which he himself desires to give so that it may eventually reach even those now hostile to it with the Gospel of peace

I will shield and save this city for my own sake,

and for the sake of my servant David.

Dan Schutte - I Found The Treasure

20 June 2022 - mercy rather than judgment

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

Rather than stop judging we Christians tend to redefine the concept more and more narrowly until almost nothing actually qualifies as judgment. Perhaps if we heard someone say, "You're definitely going to hell for that" we would recognize an instance of something problematic. But even then, if they just added, "Objectively speaking", because they don't know the state of the heart, they would probably get a pass. It is of course absolutely true that we don't know the state of anyone's soul before God and that we ought not act like we do. But this command to stop judging goes further and we know it.

On the one hand we need some form of judgment to assess the morality of actions, especially to ensure that we ourselves act well. To a lesser extent we need this ability for those under our care, and even to assist those in our sphere of influence. We need it to help us when we must make our best guess about the character of another, for example, during an election.

On the other hand, judgment quickly becomes weaponized in our hands. Warning signs of this happening include when it becomes a basis of comparison between ourselves and others. When we find ourselves feeling smug or superior because of our thoughts about others we can be sure that we have gone astray.

You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first;

then you will see clearly

to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye.

We are meant to be able to help others with judgment that is truly sound. But the only way to do this is to first recognize all of the things in ourselves that are worthy of judgment, that we are in fact, like Paul, the chiefs of sinners (see First Timothy 1:15). When we realize the degree to which our own lives are utterly dependent on mercy we will be motivated to measure out the mercy we show to others lavishly. When we realize the generous way in which the Lord reads our own motives and actions, when we hear, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do", we will be more ready to imagine the motives of others as generously as possible. It is when we are able to show this sort of love to others that our own meager perceptions of right and wrong, our own finite and limited judgments, might have some value.

For as you judge, so will you be judged,

and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

If we want God to show mercy we must ourselves be willing to be merciful. We must really live as though we believe that mercy is the standard in which we believe, which we desire both for ourselves and others. We can do this, not because of a position of moral superiority, but because we ourselves have been shown mercy. It is a Gospel law that what we want for ourselves with must give away. What we desire to receive we must sow in the world. 

Do we desire that others discover the mercy of God? Or do we take a secret delight when we judge them worthy of condemnation? If we have taken comfort in the faults we impute to others the Lord wants to help with that particular beam in our own eye. Until that is gone all we are likely to find in others are problems that are actually in fact our own and not theirs. Once the beam is removed we will be able to help others cautiously, as fellow sinners who know our own liabilities, with the delicacy and compassion necessary for our help to actually be beneficial.

We often try to insulate ourselves from the demands of the Gospel by comparing ourselves to others, imagining that we are not so bad, compared to the evil ways and idolatry of the world around us. But if we remain fixated on the faults of others we will not be listening when God has words to speak to us about the ways in which we ourselves need to change. The moral high tower is a place only of rot and decay. Finding out all the ways in which the world is wrong will not spare us if we ourselves are worthy of judgment.

they did not listen, but were as stiff-necked as their fathers,

who had not believed in the LORD, their God.

The beauty of the command of Jesus not to judge is that when we finally learn to obey it we do not discover ourselves standing in judged and condemned but that we have instead opened ourselves to receive the mercy that Jesus was waiting to show us, but in which, until that moment, we had no interest. Let's let these barriers of judgment collapse, because they are not actually doing anything to protect us. May Jesus himself reveal the heart of mercy which always wills our good, so that we can then show that same mercy to others.

Help us with your right hand, O Lord, and answer us.

Vineyard - Help Us Our God

Davis Ruis - Mercy Is Falling

19 June 2022 - you are (not) dismissed

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Dismiss the crowd

so that they can go to the surrounding villages and farms

and find lodging and provisions;

for we are in a deserted place here.

The crowds had received teaching about the kingdom of God and those who needed it received healing. The disciples seemed to believe that was sufficient for them to call it a night, and to send the crowds away, to leave them as individuals to fend for themselves. This is often also as far as our modern churches manage to get. We fill people with teaching, we do our best to address their spiritual and physical needs with healing, and then send them out. But do people enter as isolated individuals and leave just as alienated and isolated? Do people enter hungry for something more and then leave still forced to search for that mysterious something alone?

He said to them, "Give them some food yourselves."

Jesus desired to gather people around him, to make a space where there could be true fellowship, a place where strangers could become sisters and brothers. To do so he would set a banquet before the people, but it couldn't be any ordinary meal. Mere table fellowship itself would not be enough to bridge the deep divides between people, the deep brokenness at the center of their hearts. 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures (see Psalm 23:1-2)

Jesus was the good shepherd who could truly answer the deepest hunger of the human heart. Only he himself could command the crowds to sit and truly address them at the deepest level of their being. Yes, there was literal bread and fish shared, but also something more, something deeper, the connection to a lifeline from heaven. This was foreshadowed by Melchizedek who was the king of Salem, that is the king of peace, and who brought out bread and wine which he offered in his capacity as priest. It was in this same capacity that whatever Jesus himself offered would avail for the peace of those who would receive it, primarily in the offering of the Eucharist, but also in these symbolic feedings in a foreshadowing that was still a participation. Why the centrality of the Eucharist? Because it was by the one offering of Jesus to the Father that the brokenness of sin could be healed, that relations between both man and man and man and God could be restored. Jesus himself offered a heart perfectly disposed and opened to communion. What he himself desired was to feed the crowds with this same heart. Then they too could experience communion, being united to the Father and Son in the power of the Spirit. Then they too could experience the peace that Melchizedek foreshadowed, but which Jesus actually conveyed after his resurrection with his word, "Shalom."

Are we content to go to our churches simply to learn and hopefully find crumbs to address our immediate concerns? Or do we truly go to avail ourselves of the great treasures of communion and peace? When we truly taste these realities we begin to experience the peace that David described when he spoke of the Lord as his shepherd. But the communion made available for us goes far beyond what any Old Testament saint could experience. Our shepherd is truly present in every mass, in countless tabernacles throughout the world. His sacrifice is made present again and again to advance our peace and salvation and that of the entire world.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,

you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.

Do we leave mass still looking for something else to satisfy our deepest hunger? We need not be too embarrassed to admit if this is sometimes true. Our faith in his presence is often present, but not as much of a powerful force of motivation in our lives as we would like. But he himself would like this faith to grow in us. He himself does not desire to send the crowds away, but rather to unite us in a feast of which only he can be the center.

On this mountain the LORD of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined (see Isaiah 25:6).

Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles - Lauda Sion (Sequence)

Humbly We Adore Thee

Matt Maher - Adoration

18 June 2022 - the King of peace

Today's Readings

(Audio)

You cannot serve God and mammon.

Maybe if we realize the degree to which we are serving mammon rather than it serving us we will be motivated to free ourselves of its tyranny. If there is a empty vacuum where the true King and master is meant to be in our lives we will find mammon eager to fill that void. Earthly treasure, in whatever fashion it appeals to us, pride, comfort, excitement, and pleasure, among its forms, will have nothing to keep it in check and prevent it from running amok in our lives. We begin to imagine that it is such things that can fundamentally make us happy, and then, shortly, that we can't be happy without such things. Before long we are unwilling to compromise on them even if it seems God would have us do so. We discern by our base priorities that such a call couldn't be from God if it conflicts with what we ourselves desire.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life,

what you will eat or drink,

or about your body, what you will wear.

Even the most fundamental of our desires, of concern for the most basic of necessities, will end up doing more harm than good if they exist without reference to God. If food and drink and clothing come first the only way to really ensure that we always have enough is for us to run the entire universe in its every aspect and control perfectly all events of history. By contrast, if God himself comes first we can know that the our "heavenly Father knows" that what we need, and not only knows, but cares. We can enter into a calm and a peace so great that from a selfish mammon-ruled paradigm it seems irresponsible.

Can any of you by worrying add a single moment to your life-span?

We are not told not to plan, nor not to take prudent actions to prepare. We are told rather not to worrying, which is a feeling that pretends to be planning but does nothing productive. It is actually a paralysis of analysis wherein we spend time in loops of thought that we pretend somehow of themselves can change our situation. When instead God is on the throne we use the gift of discernment, make decisions, and trust God. We are open to being redirected by him if things change. When the Kingdom comes first we are not only allowed but called to cast our cares on the God who cares for us (see First Peter 5:7). We are called to not allow our hearts to be troubled or afraid (see John 14:1). One reason for this is because we are more open and receptive to the voice of God when we can hear him over our own fears and doubts.

Learn from the way the wild flowers grow.

As Christians we can be content with a simplicity that seems naïve to a secular world. We can live in the confidence that our Father knows what we need. We do not have to act like it is all up, whereas there is nothing for the pagans but to do just that.

Is worry a problem for us? Let us lean more into seeking first the Kingdom. When we seek first the Kingdom trust in the King becomes more of a reality for us. He becomes for us someone who genuinely desires that we cast our cares upon him. We are then open to receive the gift of the word of peace that he himself gives, the gift that can finally conquer the fear in our hearts.

Aside from seeking the Kingdom and its King there is nothing else that works or even helps. The more we try taking things into our own hands, and attempt to perfectly guarantee our own futures, the more we will find that those things have become idols that rule us and eventually ruin us. The initial tribute they demand is worry. But they are not worthy of tribute. Let us throw off our idols and serve the true King.

God says, ‘Why are you transgressing the LORD’s commands,

so that you cannot prosper?

Oslo Gospel  Choir - You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

17 June 2022 - holy habits, batman

Today's Readings

(Audio)

Jesus said to his disciples:

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth,

where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal.

Most of us aren't hoarding wealth or living on massive piles of gold like Smaug the dragon. We generally don't think of our lifestyles as excessive. And that may well be true. We may live what appear to be lives of moderation and yet still have hearts that are fixated inordinately on things that can only provide temporary satisfaction. There can be idolatry even without obvious excess. In proof of this we see that treasure is not always about literal wealth. Think of the Gospel we recently heard where people preferred to have their reward from how others saw them. This was where their treasure was, and it was doomed to fail eventually. We should ask ourselves, what is our treasure? What sorts of things do we imagine ourselves to be unable to live without?

But store up treasures in heaven,

where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal.

Storing up treasure in heaven means we must do more than pretending to care or tacitly acknowledge the primacy of heavenly things. We have to learn to actually care about them more than the merely earthly. We need holy habits to help make putting first things first possible and, eventually, easy. We only get holy habits with the help of the Holy Spirit, for they are his gifts and his fruit in our lives. 

For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

We can assess where our treasure is stored and our hearts are dwelling simply enough. What place does the Kingdom have in determining how we spend our time, talent, and treasure? What priority do the sacraments have in our lives? Do we contribute regularly to the Church and good charities? Do we cultivate friendships that build us and others up in the Lord? Now, most of us will hear about time, talent, and treasure and immediately feel guilty that we aren't doing enough. And then we quickly realize we can't possibly do enough and start to despair. But it isn't about the quantity, it is about the quality. And the quality comes from the priority or primacy of what we place first and the way that informs our subsequent decisions and logic.

The lamp of the body is the eye.

If your eye is sound, your whole body will be filled with light;

We can train ourselves to grow accustomed to the light or we can remain in darkness. It is all a matter of the things to which we allow ourselves to be consistently exposed. We perform, as it were, behavioral conditioning on ourselves by our choice of those things to which we give attention. The light may seem harsh and jarring at first, but the more we come into it the more we will find it empowers us to live in greater freedom. By contrast the darkness seems easy but it leaves us constantly spiritually stumbling and, as it were, stubbing our toe. Jesus himself is our main source of light, and his word is a lamp to our feet. Let us learn to let him and his word illuminate our hearts. 

Thereupon all the people of the land went to the temple of Baal

and demolished it.

They shattered its altars and images completely,

and slew Mattan, the priest of Baal, before the altars.

If there is anything in our lives that is taking the place of God let us tear down the altars and images and idols and make space for God to reign. Then we can be like the people in the first reading, who, with the city quiet at last, rejoiced.

Brenton Brown - Lord Reign In Me

16 June 2022 - prayer posture

Today's Readings

(Audio)

In praying, do not babble like the pagans,

who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

The context of Christian prayer is not meant to be babbling or even bargain or negotiation. Forgetting this, we tend to feel the need to perform in some way, to be persuasive, to say or do things just so in order to win over a disinterested or perhaps hostile deity.

Do not be like them.

Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

We come before a Father who loves us and knows all of our needs. This might make us wonder, why pray at all? Why not just leave things up to God himself since he already knows what we want to ask? It is more for the sake of opening us to what God wants to give than for opening God to give what we want to receive.

The mental posture of prayer calms and purifies the soul, and makes it of more capacity to receive the divine gifts which are poured into it. For God does not hear us for the prevailing force of our pleadings; He is at all times ready to give us His light, but we are not ready to receive it, but prone to other things.

- Saint Augustine

God desires us to pray in order to strengthen our relationship with him, to increase our affection for him. He delights to give good gifts to his children. Many gifts he has already given without consulting us.  But he reserves some of these gifts until his children ask. He knows that these gifts he desires to give are for our good. But he wants to give his children some agency in receiving them, to help them to grow into maturity where they learn to will what he himself wills and so become more like him.

Our Father who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name,

We pray to a Father, not a distant deity or a tyrannical ruler. In order to really occupy the Our Father with our entire being we need the help of the Holy Spirit who makes the fact of the fatherhood of God a reality for us. The Spirit himself is the one who teaches us the holy fear that allows us to hallow God's name, to treat it as precious, to not risk offending against the one who is so deserving of our love.

thy Kingdom come

The coming of the Kingdom is phenomenon that occurs in two different dimensions. The first is the inner reality of the heart. It was in this sense that Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you" (see Luke 17:20-21). But it would be inadequate to merely see the Kingdom as something internal and subjective, something that could be complete while the world continued in its ruinous ways. The priority of the Kingdom is the changing of hearts. But it is changed hearts that can change the world. When Jesus finally returns to restore his kingdom fully it will only be those whose hearts have changed that are fit to live within it. Hence, asking for the coming of the Kingdom asks also for all that is necessary for that complete restoration of the hearts of men and women and of the world itself.

thy will be done

We are called to prefer God's will to our own. Here, then is the heart of prayer, where are warped human nature is refashioned by God himself into the image of his Son. We learn to trust God in the midst of our own suffering, just as Jesus did in his agony in the garden. His will may contain many things which we would have preferred to avoid. But when it is truly his will for us it will also contain a resurrection which we could not otherwise attain. There may need to be a dying to our old self and our old ways. But this is only so we can live more fully the new birth of our baptism.

Give us this day our daily bread

We are meant to learn to trust God for our needs. When we internalize this we will be protected from the temptations of the evil one to make bread out of stones in the desert, or to grumble and put God to the test when we don't get something exactly to our preference. We need first the bread of his word to be in us, and then we will be able to trust in him to provide provisions enough for our needs.

There are several dangers to our relationship with God: unforgiveness of others, the temptations of the world and the flesh, and the lies of the devil. When we are protected from these there is nothing that the world can truly do to harm us. 

Let us go to the Father who is waiting, who is longing, to pour out his good gifts upon us. Let us open our hearts to receive what he wants to give so that we can become the people we are meant to be, children of the Father, and citizens of the kingdom.

We conclude with the humble suggestion that if someone was fully able to pray the Our Father with appropriate focus, desire, intention and surrender, that they might in virtue of that prayer do greater things in the world than Elijah or Elisha or even Jesus himself, for he said, "whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father" (see John 14:12).

Matt Maher - As It Is In Heaven