Friends, this Sunday, I want to talk to you once again about faith. As I’ve said before, faith is the most misunderstood word in the religious vocabulary. And both the first reading and the Gospel today shed very interesting light on the nature of faith, which is not a kind of superstition—believing in any old nonsense—but rather an attitude of humble trust in the ways of the Lord.
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14:55
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14:55
Love for the Poor
Friends, Pope Benedict XVI memorably told us that the Church does three essential things: It worships God, it evangelizes, and it serves the poor. This week, the first reading from the prophet Amos and the Gospel parable of the rich man and Lazarus bring that third task vividly to mind—and they are meant to bother us. Are you indifferent to the sufferings of the poor? What are you doing, concretely, to help them?
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14:50
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14:50
The Use—and Abuse—of Power
Friends, for this Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time, I want to focus on the first and second readings. When read together, they give us a very good sense of Catholic social teaching in regard to the question of power. The Church’s position here is a subtle one. It doesn’t demonize political and economic power; after all, God is described as all-powerful, so power can’t, in itself, be a problem. But it is very much concerned with how we use that power.
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14:50
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14:50
Christ, and Him Crucified
Friends, this year, the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross falls on a Sunday, so we have the great privilege of reflecting a bit more deeply on this marvelous and, frankly, disconcerting and odd feast. The Roman cross was a horrific, terrifying symbol of tyrannical power. And yet the first Christians emerge exalting the cross of Jesus. They don’t hide it or pretend he died some other way; on the contrary, Saint Paul says, “I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” How do we begin to explain this?
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15:39
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15:39
Are You Ready for Serious Discipleship?
Friends, for this Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, we’re reading from the fourteenth chapter of Luke—and it is very serious spiritual business. A lot of us sinners are satisfied with a low-level spirituality of following the commandments. But in this extraordinary Gospel, Jesus challenges us to move into the upper levels of the spiritual life: “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.” This is meant to be a kind of shock therapy—a deeply challenging message about what serious discipleship entails.
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