ARCHIVES JUNE AND JULY 2001
Monsignor Benjamin Franzinelli's Homilies and Reflections
God Needs His Marys and Marthas too
Our Help Must be as Wide as the Love of God
Solemn Feast Day of the Body of Christ, Corpus Christi
Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
The Holy Spirit Gate-Crashes no Man's Heart
GOD NEEDS HIS MARYS AND MARTHAS TOO
Sunday, July 22, 2001
First Reading:
Responsorial Psalm:
Second Reading:
Gospel:
Both are serving God. The lesson we learn today is not only about Hospitality, but what is more important and necessary in our Christian life style.
We saw the rewards of hospitality as portrayed in the first reading. Abraham welcomed the Lord in the person of strangers passing by. In the course of their conversations, Abraham talked about his great desire for an heir. His hospitality was rewarded in the prophesy that Abraham's wife, Sarah, even in her old age would bear him a son.
When Jesus came to that home in Bethany it was a great day; and Martha was eager to celebrate it by laying on the best the house could provide. So she rushed and fussed and cooked; and that was precisely what Jesus did not want. All he wanted was prayerful listening, they listening to him and he listening to them, a quiet, unhurried moment.
Jesus had turned aside to Bethany to find a place of calm away from the demanding crowds if only for an hour or two; and that is what Mary gave him. And it was what Martha, in her kindness, complained about. Jesus was prompted to say, "One thing is necessary" - quite possibly this means, "I don't want a big spread; one course, the simplest meal is all I want." Just come and share your life with me and allow me to enrich your life with mine. Mary's hospitality received praise from Jesus and Martha's did not.
Yet not to fault her, she, too, was offering hospitality but of a different sort.
Martha did what was customary for women in a Jewish household, at that time, as we saw with Abraham. We find that today in many households. But Jesus teaches us that the essence of hospitality is paying attention to the guest. The rest is optional. That is what is necessary for our Christian way of life. Mary offered her presence and her eager attention, praying and listening to her special guest.
The message of this Gospel may help us to understand the need for a balance in serving the needs of those we love.
What does it mean to you in the kind of world we live in? Mary and Martha loved Jesus and He loved them. Whomever you love, and whoever loves you [be it husband, parents, children , relatives or dear friends] - what are you in the habit of doing when they come to visit invited or uninvited?
So often we busy ourselves with the hospitality of food and pay minimal attention to the guest; it is an exchange of goodies rather than exchange of the heart, a sharing in your respective lives - your hope, your pains that you have a need to share with someone else who loves you. Generous hospitality demands receiving Christ into your lives by listening in a prayerful mode and responding with generous action.
OUR HELP MUST BE AS WIDE AS THE LOVE OF GOD
(Fifteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time)
First Reading:
Responsorial Psalm:
Second Reading:
Gospel:
As often as I have read this Gospel of the Good Samaritan, I come away feeling sorry for the victim. Feeling sorry for the victim does not help the person hurt.
Let's be honest with ourselves before God, isn’t that the way it ends. An accident on the street, a stranger in trouble, what is our reaction? Are we not more like the priest and Levite?
The question, "Who is my neighbor?" was genuine.
What is Jesus’ answer to you and I; Jesus says to us--"Go you and do the same."
We must help a person even when the victim has brought the trouble on himself, as the victim had done.
Our help must be as wide as the love of God.
The help must be practical and not consist merely in feeling sorry. No doubt the priest and the Levite felt a pang of pity for the wounded man, but they did nothing. Compassion, to be real, must be expressed in deeds.
Have you ever been on the side of the victim hoping and praying that someone would stop, or that you did something dumb and needed help? More often than not - who stopped, who offered the helping hand? Was it not someone of another Faith, other than an active, practicing Catholic, no more probably a Protestant, Jew, Moslem, or non believer.
Moses reminds us today that if you would hear the voice of God, God is not far away; no, it is something very near to you, already in your mouths and in your hearts - you have only to carry it out.
St Paul told us today that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. That it is in him and through Him that all things are reconciled and peace [reigns] because of His Sacrifice on the Cross. For us it is that we are the image of the invisible Christ, as Christians, through whom a better world for tomorrow depends ... We are the Good Samaritans who recognize the needs of our neighbors near and far.
We must look at Jesus and try to look like him. To be His image. To represent Him.
SOLEMN FEAST DAY OF THE BODY OF CHRIST, CORPUS CHRISTI
Sunday, June 17, 2001
First Reading:
Responsorial Psalm:
Second Reading:
Gospel:
In the United States: The Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) - Solemnity
First Reading:
Responsorial Psalm:
Second Reading:
Gospel:
The Book of Genesis this morning tells us about the history of tithing. The Letter of St. Paul has given us the oldest testimony of the words used by Our Lord at the Last Supper event of the Eucharist, "This is my Body that is for you,” ...and the same with the cup, "Do this in remembrance of me". Very similar to the words of today. The Gospel speaks of the Miracle of the Multiplication of the loaves and fish; the occasion is a meal and the direction to sit and share - the potential of Community. It is a special meal and different because of Christ’s discourse, teaching - revealing God to His People.
All three lessons this morning speak of a meal. We celebrate this Solemn Feast day of the Body of Christ at this Sacred Meal of the Sacrifice of the Mass. We acknowledge, Corpus Christi, the Body of Christ, Christ’s Real Presence, that He has given Himself to us as food and drink as an act of love, uniting Himself to us by physically entering us, and sharing His Life with us with the pledge of Resurrection and Unity. This is Communion.
This Solemn day is celebrated traditionally, especially in the Western European countries and Latin nations, with processions honoring the Eucharistic Body of Christ. To adore and celebrate God’s Presence, especially in the Sacrifice of the Mass, and the Adoration of the Eucharist in the Tabernacle is right and good, but there is a another critical dimension of that this feast of Corpus Christi that must not be neglected.
The Body and Blood of Christ is a creator of Communion. The Word is properly used yet not totally understood. When we say we are going to receive Communion, Communion implies "a coming together", God with us, making us a together people, a community. God’s purpose is to assist us to love one another. In order for this to happen we are called to concern ourselves about others. First, those of us united by Baptism and the Sacraments, and then reaching out to others who are unfamiliar with our faith or who have misunderstood.
Evangelization is what our Holy Father speaks about so frequently as the dimension neglected in The Eucharist. The Body and Blood of Christ is a Communion. This COMMUNION is to take place in a real experience - to unite us, bind us to one another. God calls us to eat together, at a Sacred Meal, Holy Mass. Our Lord’s voice shouts out to us to love one another as He has love us in Holy Communion. Holy Communion is given to us for the building up of a relationship to God and to one another, COMMUNITY. God has given us Himself to form community and not merely to save your personal soul. Your soul shall be saved in spirit of obedience to our Lord’s mandate to love one another.
We live in a world of contradictions and the most dangerous is the heresy of Individualism. Today it is the undermining political and social philosophy of our times. It is the catch word for our Democracy and remains the Heresy, the error preached in this secular world which contradicts our faith and compromises our Christian morality.
The principle purpose of God in giving us His Body, to share His Life with us, to love one another, to be a community, to be a Communion.... is to help each other to succeed, to work to save one another’s soul.
Individualism, “me myself and I“, “me and mine” philosophy contradicts God’s Plan. Remember the Gospel story ... the people were told to sit and share the little they had with one another . With the Word of God to inspire them, it opened their minds and hearts. See how blessed they were to have so much left over when it appeared they had nothing but a few loaves and fish. Which was the greater Miracle? Multiplication of Food or Conversion of Hearts.
Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Trinity
Sunday, June 10, 2001
The Holy Trinity - Solemnity
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Second Reading:
Gospel:
Today's celebration of the Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Trinity we give glory to our one God, in Three Divine Persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
This Mystery of our Faith is at the heart and center of our spiritual life. Every liturgical prayer begins and ends in our profession of faith in the Trinity. We did that at the beginning of Mass. Whatever can be said of the Father, can be said of the Son and the Holy Spirit. Their distinction is in their relationship. That relationship has a purpose; that purpose is to make all things one: reconcile all creation.
What I see in this profound mystery is a beautiful lesson which has to do with Love. The kind of love that we all hunger. Not a sensual love but a love of the giving of oneself to another. God the Father loves us, so He sent His Son, Himself to us to be one like us in every way. Then the Father and the Son, Jesus, gave us the Spirit of God, who is God himself, Father and Son. That is the Holy Spirit.
Look at this and see the dimension of Love that God teaches us and seeks to evoke from us in our relationships. Take marriage, marriage calls for two distinct persons to commit themselves to one another with an unconditional love. No longer two persons but one. When our God calls us to love one another as He has loved us, it is hard for us to understand what that love is all about; that the love God wants from us is beyond us. God would not ask us to do something that we are incapable of achieving.
The power and ability to love as God expects is given us at Baptism and grows within us with every sacrament. It is a love that gives of oneself unconditionally like in marriage. It is a love that unifies, becomes and is made one in mind, in heart, and in body. Is not that what marriage is suppose to be and become.
The Trinity is the exemplification of that love, the Trinity is the example of what our love should be. It is possible to us because we have the Holy Trinity in the Spirit of God within us by virtue of our relationship, made to the image and likeness of God. We cannot understand it but it is there.
It binds us together as a people, as Catholic Christians. When you have the proper love operating within you, when you say the Creed, when you make the sign of the Cross, when you begin or end your prayers glorifying the Trinity - Father. Son and Holy Spirit - you’re asking God to love you and with the same breathe, you’re asking him to help you love one another, especially those whom you have been committed to love, even those who may have hurt you or been unlovable. That is the kind of love the Trinity prescribes for all of us.
The Holy Spirit Gate-Crashes No Man's Heart
"If you love me, keep my commandments; and I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper to be with you forever, I mean the Spirit of Truth. The world cannot receive him, because it does not see him or know him. But you know him because he remains among you and will be within you." To John there is only one test of love and that is obedience. It was by his obedience that Jesus showed his love of God; and it is by our obedience that we must show our love of Jesus.
Saint John never meant love to just a sentiment or emotion. The expression of love is always moral and is shown or revealed in obedience. We know all too well about those who talk and claim their love in words but who, at the same time, bring pain and heartbreak to those whom they claim to love. There are children and young people who say that they love their parents, and who yet cause them grief and anxiety. There are husbands who say they love their wives and wives who say they love their husbands, and who yet, by their behavior and inconsiderateness, their irritability, and their thoughtless unkindnesses bring pain, the one to the other.
To Jesus real love is not an easy thing. It is shown only in true obedience. But Jesus does not leave us to struggle alone with the Christian commandment to love God and Love one another. He would send us another Helper, the paraclete, the Holy Spirit. So what Jesus is saying is: "I am setting you a hard task, a tough assignment and I am sending you out on a very difficult engagement. But I am going to send you someone, the "parakletos", the Spirit of my love who will guide you as to what to do and enable you to do it."
We cannot receive the Holy Spirit unless we want to receive the Spirit of God and we cannot receive the Holy Spirit unless we wait in expectation and in prayer for Him to come to us. The Holy Spirit gate-crashes no man's heart; He waits to be received. So when we think of the wonderful things which the Holy Spirit can do, surely we will set apart some time amidst the bustle and the rush of life to wait for his coming. “If any man loves me, he will keep my word; and the Father will love him, and We will come to him, and We will make our abode with him. He who does not love Me does not keep my words. And the Word which you hear is not mine, but it belongs to the Father who sent Me.”