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Posts Tagged ‘Grace’

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Winning the World, One Friend at a Time

In 04 Fr. John McCloskey on 2013/10/24 at 12:00 AM

As the Catechism reminds us, winning converts should be a constant concern for all Catholics: “The true apostle is on the lookout for occasions of announcing Christ by word, either to unbelievers… or to the faithful.” (#905) How then should we go about it? God pours out his saving grace in many ways, but he normally requires, and we could even say desires, the willing collaboration of his sons and daughters in this joyful task. The famous Catholic philosopher (and convert) Dietrich von Hildebrand said that we should look upon all people we encounter as Catholics “in re” (in fact) or “in spe” (potentially). I agree.

Admit it: Don’t you from time to time think about sharing with your neighbor, your friend, your family member, your colleague, the joy that is in your heart, the fullness of our faith in the Catholic Church? Perhaps some of you have had the wonderful experience of being the godparent or sponsor of a friend whom, by God’s grace, you have guided into the Church. You know then the joy of being God’s instrument.

This delight is always a cause for holy celebration, but particularly in the present threatened circumstances of our culture. Has there ever in the Christian era been a more joyless, aimless, lonely society than our own, one which appears to have gained the whole world but has forgotten its own soul? On the other hand, have there ever been three consecutive Roman pontiffs who have so incessantly and hopefully proclaimed the Gospel in all its fullness, addressing the fallen yet redeemed world’s hopes and anxieties so completely?

Continue reading…
http://www.catholicity.com/mccloskey/winning-the-world.html

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Catholic Prayers by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/08/23 at 12:00 AM

 • One of the great riches that I discovered within the Catholic faith when I converted was the vast number of ancient and beautiful prayers that are part of our liturgical and spiritual heritage as Catholics.

• In my early days as a Catholic a friend of mine gave me a book of Catholic prayers and devotions that is full of such things, and it’s a book that I use every single day.

• Those of you who come to daily Mass may see me carrying it around. It’s a little blue book with tattered edges that is obviously very well used.

And I’m sure many of you who are a little older than me still have an old daily Missal somewhere that has a few holy cards tucked within it and that bears the marks of daily use.

• Growing up as a Protestant, we had very few such formal prayers. When we wanted to pray,we usually made up a prayer on the spot, which is beautiful way to express the deepest desires and longings of our heart to our Lord and is certainly a wonderful way to pray.

• But what I like about the ancient and traditional prayers of our Catholic faith is that they, too, express the desires and longings of our heart, while at the same time conveying our theological beliefs as well.

• In fact there’s an old expression in the Catholic faith: lex orandi lex credendi, which means “the law of prayer is the law of belief.” In other words, if you want to know what we believe as Catholics, just read our prayers, because our prayers are expressive of our theology.

• One of my favorite prayers in our Catholic faith is the Salve Regina, the “Hail Holy Queen”, because it’s a beautiful expression of whom we believe Mary to be and the powerful intercessory role she plays in our lives.

• And the last line of the prayer is my favorite: “Pray for us, most Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”

• The promises of Christ, of course, are endless joy and peace in Heaven, and in this prayer we are asking Mary to help us reach this most important goal of salvation.

• Now as Catholics we believe that salvation is a free gift from God that Christ procured for us through His suffering, death and resurrection. Salvation is not something we earn by our own merits. Salvation is a gift of grace that we receive, and with which we must cooperate.

• The primary way that we receive our Lord’s saving grace is through the seven sacraments of our Church. The 7 sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Marriage, and Holy Orders, are vehicles of God’s saving grace.

• In considering salvation sometimes our Protestant and Evangelical friends are fond of asking us: are you saved? The answer for us Catholics is actually YES! We were saved at our baptism. And we are saved every time worthily receive one of the sacraments!

• The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches us that Christ Himself is at work in the sacraments, and that they do not depend on the holiness of the minister or of the recipient.

• “From the moment that a sacrament is celebrated in accordance with the intention of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spirit acts in and through it, independently of the personal holiness of the minister. Nevertheless, the fruits of the sacraments also depend on the disposition of the one who receives them.” (CCC #1128)

• Now that last point is so important! While the sacraments convey grace simply by being performed correctly, if we want to receive the full benefit of grace, we must be properly disposed to receive the sacraments.

• And our readings today give us the key to how we properly dispose ourselves so that the grace of the sacraments will bear fruit in our lives.

• The Gospel today speaks of the authority of Christ. As Jesus speaks in the synagogue in Capernaum, the Jews are astonished at the authority that Christ shows in His teachings, and even the unclean spirit in the possessed man is subject to His authority.

• In the first reading we are told of the importance of listening to the Lord, and the responsorial psalm encourages us not to harden our hearts when we hear the Lord’s voice.

• The point that is made in all of these readings is that we must open our hearts to the Lord. In humility we must be willing to submit ourselves to His authority and try to live according to His will. This humble submission to Christ is the key to being properly disposed to Him.

• The responsorial psalm we have today is Psalm 95, which is known as the Invitatory Psalm. In other words it is a psalm by which God invites us. In particular, our Lord is inviting us into a life of grace.

• Catholic clergy and religious are required to pray a collection of psalms and prayers every day known as the Liturgy of the Hours; Psalm 95 is the first psalm that we pray every day.

• Psalm 95 is a simple reminder of Who God Is, what He’s done for us, and how we should respond to His generosity. As such, it is a great preparation for the day.

• Psalm 95 tells us to be joyful and grateful before the Lord. It calls us to humbly bow in worship before the Lord, and most importantly it encourages us to listen to Him, to submit ourselves to Him, and to open our hearts before Him.

• Doing these things – following the prescriptions of this psalm – is the very best ways that we can dispose ourselves to receive the grace of the sacraments!

• Specifically, if we want the sacraments to bear fruit in our lives, we must be willing to accept the authority of Christ and His teachings. There is a certain obedience that is required of us.

• Simply put, we cannot expect that the grace of the sacraments will be efficacious in our lives if we choose to live in a way that is contrary to the teachings of Christ as expressed in Sacred Scripture and in the constant teaching tradition of the Church.

• And so if you are living in a way that goes against Church teaching, such as through an illicit relationship, the use of contraception, or even through the failure to forgive someone who has hurt you, as your pastor I beg you to stop because you’re missing out on God’s grace.

• God desires to save each and every one of us from our sins, but He will never force Himself upon us. And if we obstinately cling to our grave sins, then we cannot cling to our Lord’s saving grace that comes to us through the sacraments.

• That being said, obedience alone is not enough to be fully disposed for the grace of the sacraments. As Psalm 95 tells us, we must also be thankful and joyful.

• When we go to receive the sacraments, most especially Holy Communion, we must strive to be recollected and conscientious. We must strive to approach the altar with praise and thanksgiving, with full knowledge that when we receive the Eucharist, we are receiving the gift of salvation: Jesus Christ Himself under the appearance of bread and wine.

• My dear friends, the Catechism teaches us that the sacraments are necessary for salvation (cf. #1129). With this in mind let us try to properly dispose ourselves for receiving them through humble obedience and a joyful sense of gratitude.

• And in this process, let us commend ourselves to the prayers of our heavenly mother, Mary: “Pray for us Most Holy Mother of God, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”

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Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2013/05/31 at 12:00 AM

• In looking for a word to describe what happens to the bread and wine at Mass as they are consecrated into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ, St. Thomas Aquinas created the word transubstantiation.

• The first part of the word, trans, means to change or cross over. The latter part of the word, substantiation, is the Latin word for substance. St. Thomas, of course, understood substance in the philosophical sense used by Aristotle.

• If you’ve ever studied metaphysics, you know that Aristotle said that all things are made up of substance and accidents. The accidental qualities of a thing are what can be perceived with our physical senses: color, texture, taste, smell, etc.

• Substance, on the other hand, is the metaphysical quality that makes a thing what it is. For example, our altar here at St. Ann’s is different from the altars at St. Vincent’s, St. Patrick’s, or St. Gabe’s.

• But even though they look vastly different, we all know and recognize an altar when we see one. Aquinas and Aristotle would say that these particular pieces of furniture possess a certain “altarness” if you will. That is the substance of this furniture.

• Some of you may be wondering why I am giving you a metaphysics lesson today at Mass. It is because we cannot fully appreciate what we as a church are celebrating today without a little metaphysics.

• Today is the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. It is Corpus Christi! Thus, today is the day we celebrate and give God thanks for the great gift of the Eucharist.

• Here at Mass ordinary bread and wine are brought forward and placed on the altar. Then during the Eucharistic Prayer, the priest prays that the Holy Spirit will come down upon the gifts. This is known as the epiclesis – and you will hear the bells ring once to signal this.

• From there we enter into the most important and solemn moment of the Mass. Jesus Christ, through the priest, utters the words of institution: “Take this, all of you, and eat it: this is my body which will be given up for you.”

• And “Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in memory of me.” And again, bells ring to signify what is happening.

• Through these words the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ. The substance of the bread and wine change, but not the accidental properties. That’s why St. Thomas used the word transubstantiation – because only the substance changes.

• So even though the bread still looks and tastes like bread, and even though the wine still looks and tastes like wine, they are no longer bread and wine, but really and truly the Body and Blood of Christ.

• As Christ makes abundantly clear in the Gospel today, the bread and wine are not symbols of His body and blood. He says: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven,” and “the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”

• And again Christ says: “For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”

• This is not magical, it’s metaphysical – and it certainly is miraculous. And it is a tremendous gift that we should never take for granted, but rather we should constantly give God thanks and praise for the gift of the Eucharist.• Moreover, if we truly believe that the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ, then we should also take great care to receive Holy Communion worthily.

• Of course this means that we should never receive Holy Communion when we suspect that we may be in a state of mortal sin or if we know in our conscience that we are living our lives in a way that is contrary to God’s commandments or the Church’s teachings.

• Receiving Holy Communion worthily also means that we should do our best to be prayerful, recollected, and reverent when we come up to receive. As you kneel at the altar rail to receive our Lord, think about Who it is that you are receiving! It is the Lord!

• He loves you so much that not only does He come to you, but He allows Himself to be bread and wine to be consumed by you, and so we are called to receive Him as a bride receives her bridegroom!

• But, my friends, even beyond ensuring that we understand what the Eucharist is and that we receive Holy Communion reverently and in a state of grace, today’s feast calls us to a change that is analogous to the change that takes place at the consecration.

• As the bread and wine and changed at the consecration and cease to be what they were before, so too must be allow ourselves to be changed as we participate in the Mass and receive Holy Communion.

• When we come to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, we must allow ourselves to be offered up with Christ, identifying ourselves with His sacrifice. We must see ourselves in the bread and wine as they are offered up.

• The old man of sin that reigns within all of us must die so that we can put on the new man of grace and virtue. While we will still look and sound like we always have on the outside, on the inside we must be completely renewed. There must be a sort of spiritual transubstantiation that takes place within us.

• In the Mass, my friends, we are called to unite our hearts and minds and wills with that of Jesus as He offers Himself to the Father for our sakes.

• And the better that we identify ourselves with Christ’s sacrifice and allow ourselves to be offered up with Him, the more the old man of sin within us dies, the more efficacious Mass becomes for us – and the more we grow in a holiness that better disposes us to handle our daily tasks and duties, as well as our crosses.

• As we honor our Lord’s Body and Blood today, let us give thanks to God for this most efficacious of gifts.

• And let us earnestly seek to unite ourselves ever more closely to our Eucharistic Lord as He offers Himself up in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass so that we may become more like Him whom we worship.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy Reid, Pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church, Charlotte, NC

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Christ’s Message is Mercy

In Uncategorized on 2013/04/03 at 6:19 AM

For this Mercy Sunday, and excerpt from a previous Sunday re God’s Mercy

The Gospel narrates the story of the adulterous woman whom the Pharisees want to stone. Instead, Christ forgives her, and those who accused her disperse, intimidated by Jesus’ bending down to write on the ground with His finger.

In his homily, the Holy Father recalled that, before this story, Jesus had retired to the mountain to pray and later had gone down to the Temple where everyone listened to him. In the end, they left him alone with the woman. “Jesus’ solitude!”, he said. “It is a fruitful solitude—both that of His prayer with the Father as well as the other, so beautiful, … of his mercy toward this woman. This is the Church’s message today.”

“There is a difference between the people,” he continued. “On the one hand are the people who come to listen to him and before whom He takes a seat and teaches. These are the people who want to listen to Jesus’ words; the people with open hearts, in need of the Word of God.” Nevertheless, “there were others who didn’t listen, who could not listen. Among those were the ones who had gone to him with that woman, wanting him to condemn her. … I also think we are like this people who, on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but, on the other hand, at times, like to be cruel to others, isn’t that right? To condemn others, right? This is Jesus’ message: mercy. On my part, I say it with humility; this is the the Lord’s strongest message: mercy. He himself said: ‘I did not come for the righteous’. The righteous can justify themselves. … Jesus came for the sinners.”

For example, think of the gossip after the call of Matthew: ‘but that one keeps company with sinners!’ And He has come for us, when we recognize that we are sinners. But if we are like the Pharisee before the altar—’Oh God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of humanity—greedy, dishonest, adulterous—or even like this tax collector.’—then we do not know the Lord’s heart and we will never have the joy of feeling this mercy! It is not easy to trust in God’s mercy because it is an incomprehensible abyss. But we must do it!”

The Pope explained that sometimes people say to priests: “’Oh, Father, if you knew my life you wouldn’t say that.’ ‘Why? What have you done?’ ‘Oh, I’ve done bad things.’ ‘Good! Go to Jesus; He likes you to tell him these things. He forgets. He has the special ability to forget. He forgets them, kisses you, embraces you, and tells you only: ‘Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.’ He only gives you this counsel. A month later we are the same … We return to the Lord. The Lord never tires of forgiving us, never! We are the ones who get tired of asking forgiveness. Let us ask for the grace to never tire of asking forgiveness, because He never tires of forgiving us. Let us ask for this grace.”

VIS 130317

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“The Mass is an action of God”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2013/02/08 at 9:15 AM
Isn’t it strange how many Christians, who take their time and have leisure enough in their social life (they are in no hurry), in following the sleepy rhythm of their professional affairs, in eating and recreation (no hurry here either), find themselves rushed and want to rush the Priest, in their anxiety to shorten the time devoted to the most holy Sacrifice of the Altar? (The Way, 530)

The three divine Persons are present in the sacrifice of the altar. By the will of the Father, with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit, the Son offers himself in a redemptive sacrifice. We learn how to personalize our relationship with the most Blessed Trinity, one God in three Persons: three divine Persons in the unity of God’s substance, in the unity of his love and of his sanctifying action.

Immediately after the Lavabo, the priest prays: “Receive, Holy Trinity, this offering that we make in memory of the passion, resurrection and ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ.” And, at the end of the Mass, there is another prayer of homage to the Trinity of God: “May the tribute of my service be pleasing to you, o Holy Trinity; and grant the sacrifice that I, who am unworthy, have offered to your majesty, may be acceptable to you; and that through your mercy it may bring forgiveness to me and to all those for whom I have offered it.”

The Mass is, I insist, an action of God, of the Trinity. It is not a merely human event. The priest who celebrates fulfils the desire of our Lord, lending his body and his voice to the divine action. He acts, not in his own name, but in persona et in nomine Christi: in the Person of Christ and in his name.

Because of the Blessed Trinity’s love for man, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist brings all graces to the Church and to mankind. This is the sacrifice announced by the prophet Malachy: “From the rising of the sun to its setting my name is great among the nations, and a fragrant sacrifice and a pure offering is made to me in all places” [1]. It is the sacrifice of Christ, offered to the Father with the cooperation of the Holy Spirit — an offering of infinite value, which perpetuates the work of the redemption in us and surpasses the sacrifices of the old law. (Christ is passing by, 86)

[1] Mal 1:11 [

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The Unpreached Sermon: “a layman thinking like a priest”. Part II

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/01/05 at 9:11 AM

Let me tell you what he and she has done to themselves:

1. You live in a world of make-belief.  God has commanded us to worship Him (third commandment), but you have decided that, for you, the command is optional.  We are are nothing compared to God and we simply do not have a choice or right to reject a divine command.  The Church has made it relatively easy to obey this directive by mandating Sunday Mass (two hours at most out of one hundred and sixty eight) yet, in your crass stupidity you have decided that you will worship Supreme Being according to your own whim.  That is unrealistic!

2. This makes you the unwisest of people.  The divinely-set goal for humans is to be united with God for all eternity.  You, by amassing mortal sin after mortal sin, have shown a total lack of wisdom.  (A wise person knows what is important and valuable and acts on it appropriately.)  At this rate, no matter what worldly success you achieve, you will be a total failure in spiritual matters and that is what really counts against you.  A truly wise person knows this.

3.  Your salvation (goal) is at risk every second of your life.  You don’t know when you will die, and if you die loaded with serious sin, you will have objectively chosen hell for yourself.  Death is not the exclusive activity of the elderly; many, many younger people die through sickness, accident, life-style and crime.  If you are young it is true that you will likely be alive a year from now, BUT, it is not guaranteed, and that’s the problem.  It is rather dumb to risk hell for whatever activity you have decided is more important than Sunday Mass.  “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and suffers the loss of his soul.”  Sometimes people will take risks for noble reasons such as to save lives, but to risk your soul for mere two hours a week is neither realistic nor wise.

4.  You have cut yourself off from God.  (If you have unconfessed mortal sin today, do not come up for Holy Communion because that would be a sacrilege which is a worse sin than skipping Mass.)  The only grace you can legitimately pray for is the grace of repentance through Confession.  While you live, Christ can forgive a million mortal sins, if repentant.  After death, there is no mercy available, only judgment.  The game is over and you have either won or lost.

5. Your spiritual life has probably been further ruined because failure to attend Mass regularly is often the result of other habitual sins that make Mass attendance seem useless.  Bishop Fulton Sheen used to say that no one left the Church because he sat down and examined its doctrine and found them to be false.  It can’t be done.  The underlying reason, he said, was habits of serious sin such as marital infidelity, alcoholism, drugs, pornography, etc…

If you are in this very negative situation, my words are spoken in persona Christ.  He may be offering you that grace of repentance because He knows you do not have long to live.  Or you may actually feel a terrible burden combined with fear of the future.  If Christ is speaking and calling you today, don’t be dumb and ignore it because the Bible tells us that He will loose patience with stubborn sinner who consistently ignore His grace and they become spiritually hard-hearted.

Christmas is a great day for family and feast but I will be here after Mass today to hear Confessions and forgive you in the name of Christ for as long as anyone wishes to come.   This would be your greatest Christmas gift.

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The Unpreached Sermon: “a layman thinking like a priest”. Part I

In 08 Musings by Jack Reagan on 2013/01/05 at 12:00 AM

My dear friends in Christ,

Christmas is spiritual joy because it is the beginning of our redemption. God the Son has taken on a human form so as to represent humanity in the process of atonement. Yet, because He remains God, His future sacrifice on Good Friday will be acceptable to God the Father.  Without Christmas and Good Friday, no one, regardless of how well he has lived on earth, could ever get into heaven.  Without Christ original sin would condemn us all to hell.  Something to be grateful for to say the least.

The next part of this sermon some of you might not like.  Let me preface it by stating that when a man is ordained a priest (assuming the correct understanding, motives and intentions) he become an alter Christus (another Christ).  In his spiritual ministry he acts in persona Christi (in the person of Christ).  Thus in every Mass and Sacrament, it is Christ Himself in operation through His duly ordained priest.  Now I am speaking in persona Christi because I am responsible for the spiritual welfare of all of you.

Christmas is also a time of sadness. When I look out and see the extra crowd of people  at the Mass, I know that many of you are either Christmas-Easter “Catholics” or you are intermittent and casual Mass attenders.

(In all my years of attending Christmas and Easter Masses, I have never heard the slightest reference to the lapsed Catholics sitting right in front of the priest.  I wonder if Christ Himself would have ignored the loss sheep.)

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Ability to Choose by Fr. Reid

In 05 Homilies by Fr. Reid on 2012/05/18 at 11:11 AM

• Of all of the characteristics that set man apart from the rest of the natural world, our ability to choose is the most fundamental.

• In His great love and solicitude, the Creator has endowed man with the capacity and the freedom to make decisions for himself. So unlike the animals, we are not bound to act according to instincts. We are not bound to act even according to our emotions.

• Rather, we can exercise our intellects to assess any given situation and then decide upon our course of action.

• Our Lord gave us this capacity and freedom not simply because He loves us. Ultimately, our Lord gave us this capacity and freedom so that we could choose to love Him in return, for love is always a choice – not simply an emotion.

• As we learned last Sunday, our love for God is best shown through obedience to Him and His most adorable will. God gave us the capacity and freedom to choose so that we would choose to obey His will in every situation, and thereby show our love for Him.

• For every act of obedience to God and His divine will is in essence an act of love. And not only do we show our love for God by our obedience to Him, but we are ennobled and made holier by choosing God’s will over our own.

• Throughout the course of a normal day, each of us is confronted with hundreds of decisions we must make, many of which are decisions of little consequence, such as what shoes we will wear.

• Other decisions, such as what we eat or how we carry out our work, may affect our health, livelihood, and well being, and therefore are decisions that we weigh with more gravitas.

• But even more important than these decisions affecting our health and livelihood are the moral choices that we must make,  specially when we are confronted with the temptation to sin. This, of course, is the theme of our readings today.

• The good news is that if we do choose to sin, we know that our Lord will show us His mercy and forgive us if we are truly sorry for the sin. Our Lord will even forgive the gravest and most serious of sins if we are truly sorry for them.

• But even though God will always forgive the contrite sinner, there is always a price to pay for our sins, for every sin we commit – no matter how big or small we may think it is –damages us and those around us.

• The Catechism teaches that: “Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity” (CCC #1849).

• “Sin is an offense against God…. Sin sets itself against God’s love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become ‘like gods,’ knowing and determining good and evil” (CCC #1850).

• “Sin is thus ‘love of oneself even to contempt of God.’ In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation” (CCC #1850).

• The Catechism goes on to teach us that: “Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations, which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil” (CCC #1865).

• So by using our capacity and freedom to choose in a sinful manner, we undermine our capacity and freedom to choose in the future.

• Any sin that is committed repeatedly distorts our judgment so that good and evil are not as readily apparent. We see this most starkly in people whose consciences are sufficiently deadened to enable them to regularly commit the gravest of sins, such as abortionists or prostitutes or hardened criminals.

• But we also see this phenomenon in the not-so-hardened sinner who has learned to justify his or  her sinful behavior, such as a student who regularly cheats on tests, or a couple who contracepts, or a teenager who routinely lies in order to avoid punishment.

• Furthermore, any sin that is committed repeatedly enslaves us, robbing us of the freedom to say no to it. Anyone who suffers from an addiction is living proof of this truth. Simply put, the more we commit a sin, the more likely we will commit it again.

• But while sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, it cannot destroy man’s moral sense at its root (cf. CCC #1865). On some level, man always retains some capacity – as mitigated and corrupted as it might be – to choose.

• Thus, my brothers and sisters, it is of utmost importance that we make a fundamental choice to obey God in order to protect ourselves from the consequences of sin.

• Our readings today set up a dichotomy between the first Adam, who by his sinful life unleashed a spiritual death upon all of his progeny, and the new Adam: Jesus Christ, who by His death made life possible once again for all who choose to follow Him.

• We see in the stories from our first reading and Gospel how each of these Adams confronted temptation. The first Adam, in a fit of pride, was seduced by the evil one, while Christ humbly countered temptation with the spiritual tools of prayer and fasting.

• Holy Mother Church gives us these readings today on this 1st Sunday of Lent as a means of strengthening us and preparing us for our Lenten journey, through which we hope to imitate Christ through the spiritual practices of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving.

• She gives us these readings at the beginning of this holy season of self-renewal as an encouragement for us to choose to be like Jesus Christ, the new Adam, rather than the first Adam who fell from grace.

• This fundamental choice of the spiritual life is one that we must make every day, for every day we are confronted with temptation. Temptation to sin is and always will be a constant in our lives. It’s never going to go away.

• So we must learn how to exercise our free will to say no always to temptation so that we might avoid the devastation and horror of sin.

• To help us in this battle, we have the spiritual tools of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving, which unite us more firmly to God, strengthen our wills, and increase our charity.

• These spiritual tools help us make reparation for our sins, and they help to undo the damage caused by our sins. As such, the practices of prayer, fasting, and alms-giving are absolutely indispensable for any of us who have repeatedly fallen into grave sin.

• And so, my brothers and sisters, as we begin our way through the desert of Lent, let us be firm in our commitment to increased prayer, fasting, and alms-giving. But even more importantly, let us be firm in choosing to serve God, and God alone.

• May our Lord, in His mercy, strengthen us all against every temptation this Lenten season.

Copyright 2011 by Reverend Timothy S. Reid

Reverend Reid is pastor of St. Ann’s Catholic  Church in Charlotte, NC

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“Place everything in God’s hands”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2011/12/14 at 9:11 AM

As well as having given you abundant and effective grace, the Lord has given you a brain, a pair of hands and intellectual powers so that your talents may yield fruit. God wants to work miracles all the time – to raise the dead, make the deaf hear, restore sight to the blind, enable the lame to walk… – through your sanctified professional work, which you will have turned into a holocaust that is both pleasing to God and useful to souls. (The Forge, 984)

Your boat — your talents, your hopes, your achievements — is worth nothing whatsoever, unless you leave it in Christ’s hands, allowing him the freedom to come aboard. Make sure you don’t turn it into an idol. In your boat by yourself, if you try to do without the Master, you are — supernaturally speaking — making straight for shipwreck. Only if you allow, and seek, his presence and captaincy, will you be safe from the storms and setbacks of life. Place everything in God’s hands. Let your thoughts, the brave adventures you have imagined, your lofty human ambitions, your noble loves, pass through the heart of Christ. Otherwise, sooner or later, they will all sink to the bottom together with your selfishness. (Friends of God, 21)

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“Off to a fresh start!”

In 01 Daily Meditations on 2011/09/07 at 1:11 AM
We are continually experiencing our personal inadequacies. Moreover, there are times when it seems as if all our failings come together, as if wanting to show themselves more clearly, to make us realize just how little we are worth. When that happens, what are we to do?

Hope in the Lord.1  Live by hope, full of faith and love, the Church says to us. Be of good heart.2  What does it matter that we are made of clay, if all our hope is placed in God? And if at a certain moment you should fall or suffer some setback (not that it has to happen), all you have to do is to apply the remedy, just as, in the normal course of events, you would do for the sake of your bodily health. And then: off to a fresh start!…

When we are faced with weaknesses and sins, with our mistakes even though, by God’s grace, they be of little account — let us turn to God our Father in prayer and say to him, ‘Lord, here I am in my wretchedness and frailty, a broken vessel of clay. Bind me together again, Lord, and then, helped by my sorrow and by your forgiveness, I shall be stronger and more attractive than before!’ What a consoling prayer, which we can say every time something fractures this miserable clay of which we are made. (Friends of God, 94-95)

[1] Ps 26:14
[2] ibid