The Nativity of John the Baptist

The Church calendar celebrates only three birthdays: Jesus on December 25, Mary on September 8, and John the Baptist on June 24.  All three are immensely important in the story of our salvation, which is why we honor the day each of them were born with great joy and thanks to God.

John the Baptist was an amazing person. The story of his birth, as told by Luke, parallels that of Jesus.  There was an angel, and a name for the child given by God, and something of the miraculous since John was born to an elderly couple.  Clearly, this was a special child and there was great rejoicing, both at his birth and at the Visitation, when Mary and Elizabeth praised God for all that the Lord had done for them.

John was the great prophet who prepared the people for the coming of the Messiah.  He preached fearlessly, calling people to baptism and repentance from their sins.  When Jesus appeared, John was the one who pointed him out as the Lamb of God, and directed all to follow Jesus.  John’s life ended suddenly because he was faithful to his call to proclaim the truth, despite the price, even when speaking to the great men of his day.  Clearly, God had a plan for John’s life, and his life was marked by the humility of one who knew he was a servant of Someone greater.  John was filled with the Holy Spirit, who enabled him to remain faithful from his time of preparation in the desert to his death in a jail cell.

Jesus said that no one born of woman was greater than John the Baptist, yet Jesus went on to say that the least in the Kingdom of God was greater than he.  John was the bridge between the Old Testament and the New.  His life was all about preparing for the coming of the Lord.  He baptized Jesus at the Jordan, yet John died before Jesus gave His life on the cross and John was not a witness to the Resurrection.  Nor was he in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit and he did not share in preaching the Good News to the world, as the apostles and other believers did.   

But each of us are witnesses to Jesus and are in the Kingdom of God.  In many ways then, we are more blessed than John was, or as Jesus said, we are greater than John, since we have been given a share in Christ.

We too, then, can believe that the Lord has a plan for our life.  Like John, we need to witness to the Lord in our actions and words.  We have to put God first and to live as a servant of Jesus with humility, as John did.  Humility is not weakness.  It is a strong, powerful virtue that comes from knowing who we are and who we are not.  We are not God.  We are not in charge of our lives.  We are servants.  We are children of God.  We are brothers and sisters of Jesus.  And like John, we need the Lord to increase, and we must decrease.  It is God’s will we seek, not our own. 

John lived a faithful, humble, powerful life because he was filled with the Holy Spirit.  We too have received the Holy Spirit through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation, and the Spirit is eager to come to our aid any time we ask.  When God asks much of us, the Lord always supplies what is needed through the gifts and fruits and working of the Holy Spirit within us.

It is John’s birthday we remember today, and rightly so.  But because of our place in the Kingdom, we know that what God did through and for John, God can do for us as well.  What we need is the willingness to be a faithful, fearless servant like John, living only for Jesus, giving all that God asks. May God grant each of us such blessings.

Eleventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

The Kingdom of God is a great mystery, but it is all important.  We profess to desire its coming each time we pray the Lord’s Prayer.  Jesus told us to seek first the Kingdom of God and all things then will be given to us.  The Kingdom is not a place.  Instead it is all about God’s will and the importance of God’s will being done not just in heaven, but everywhere, including within each and every one of us, since Jesus as told us that the Kingdom of God is within us.

In today’s gospel, Jesus likens the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed, something very small and seemingly unimportant.  But when the tiny mustard seed is planted and grows, it is transformed into a strong, sturdy mustard bush.   Compared to the majestic cedar, the central image of Ezekiel’s prophecy, a mustard bush is without much merit.  A mustard bush is not much to look at and since they were plentiful, mustard bushes were not worthy of note.  But God likes small and unimportant, and when given permission, the Lord can do great things from something and someone seemingly insignificant.

When we seek to do God’s will, we further the Kingdom of God in our world and in our lives, often in small matters.  But that is enough for God, who is able to do so much more than we could ever imagine, whenever we give God permission.  Perhaps in looking back, we can see the hand of God at work, but most times, as St Paul says in today’s second reading, we walk by faith and not by sight.  We have to trust that when we say yes to whatever God asks in any situation, the Lord will take it from there and further God’s Kingdom in ways that remain invisible to our eyes.

God can do anything.  Nothing is impossible for God.  Yet, the Lord needs the humble cooperation of people like Mary of Nazareth and Simon Peter, like Teresa of Calcutta and Maximilian Kolbe, and like you and me.  When we seek to say yes to God in small things, we grow in virtue, opening up the possibility of the Lord trusting us later with bigger things.  Regardless, we know that God needs our willingness to plant either mustard seeds or shoots of cedar.

St Paul reminds himself and all of us that we will give an accounting to the Lord, the Judge of all, at the end of our lives.  We will receive recompense for all that we have done.  At that time, it will be asked, did we seek God’s will?  Did we do all that the Lord asked of us?  Were we faithful, and when we were not, did we trust in God’s mercy and begin again? 

Each of us individually, and all of us together, have to seek the Kingdom of God and God’s righteousness first in our lives.  That frees God to work and to accomplish all that God desires.  The Lord needs us.  May we seek the blessing of the Father, the mercy of Jesus, and the guidance of the Holy Spirit each day of our lives, so that the Kingdom of God may grow both in our world and within us.

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

We have the good and the bad, the best and the worst, in today’s Scripture.  Fortunately, God is present in the best as we see in the story from Mark, as well as in the worst, as we see in the story from Genesis.

What a consolation it is to know that doing the will of God makes us brother, sister, or mother to Jesus.  The people surrounding Jesus must have grinned from ear to ear when they heard that, as undoubtedly Mary, His mother, did, as she humbly heard Him from outside.

Doing God’s will needs to be our one desire, at all times and in all things.  At times, we fail to do that, sometimes miserably, but “with the Lord there is mercy and fullness of redemption,” and our God is always a God of second chances.

We learn that in the first reading from Genesis 3.  Adam and Eve have sinned.  They did the one thing that God told them not to do. We have done the same thing since we too share in the effects of original sin.  But God does not abandon them.  Instead, the Lord God calls to the man and the woman and asks some serious questions: Where are you? Who told you sinned? Why did you do such a thing? God wants to teach them, not shame them.  God knows that if they consider what they have done, they will realize that it was wrong, and as God continues to speak to them, they will grow in hope for the future, even as they feel the consequences of their sin.

God knew where Adam was, of course.  And Adam had been naked all along and never felt the need to hide before this, so there is obviously more going on here.  God wants Adam to think about where he is now that that has sinned.  God might as well have asked, “So what now?  What do you think?  Was that worth it?  What are you going to do next?”  We would do well to think of the Lord asking us the same questions after we have sinned.  The questions are meant to be helpful, to lead to repentance and to change.  Answering them honestly, we are ready to start over again, to do what God asks.

God’s second question points out to Adam that he has within him the ability to recognize when he has done something wrong.  God designed us with a conscience, the knowledge of right from wrong, and to have the experience of regret when we have disobeyed.  We need to pay attention to our conscience and then set about to make things right again, rather than try to avoid and forget.  God wants to speak to us when we have sinned, and when we are honest in response, we begin to let the Lord put us on higher ground.

The last question which the Lord God addresses to Eve is perhaps the one most needed, “Why did you do such a thing?” Again, when we are honest, instead of being blaming others, as Eve did, and Adam before her, we can grow in virtue.  Once we know our weaknesses, the holes that we can fall into, we are able to be on guard and to do what we can to avoid the possibilities of sinning again.  This is a life-long process, but God is always willing to offer us the grace we need to make progress. 

There are gifts, then, that we ought to ask the Lord to give us.  First, we need the desire to do God’s will more than anything else in our life.  Second, after we have sinned, we need to set aside fear and shame, and instead seek an honest conversation with the Lord, ideally one that leads to a celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.  Third, we need to ask for perseverance, for the willingness to get up every single time we fall.  We need to recognize the whisper of the evil one to give in, to not worry, to take a break from being good.  If we are to be like a brother, sister, or mother to Jesus, we cannot afford such temptations.  Instead, it has to be God’s will, no matter how many times it takes. What is better than being like a brother, sister, or mother to Jesus?

The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ

The first reading from Exodus recounts the story of God’s covenant with the Chosen People which was sealed in blood.  Moses takes the blood of sacrificed bulls and pours half of the blood on the altar, offering it to the Lord God, and then sprinkles the people with the other half of the blood.  God and God’s people are joined together in blood as the people promise to obey all that the Lord God had commanded.

In the second reading from the letter to the Hebrews, Jesus is the high priest who enters into the sanctuary and pours out His Blood in the perfect and never ending covenant.  Jesus, through the power of the Spirit, offers Himself as the sacrifice that wins for us our redemption, for He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. 

In Mark’s gospel, at the Last Supper, Jesus gives the cup to His disciples, saying, “This is my blood of the covenant, which will be shed for many.” His Body and His Blood, which will be offered up as He dies on the cross, are given to them on the night before He died, and are given to us, each time we celebrate the Eucharist as He commanded to do in His memory.

The Most Holy Body and Blood unites us to the Lord and to one another. The Eucharist is a foreshadowing of our sharing in His divine life in heaven.  As we receive Jesus in the Eucharist, we are made strong and we are washed clean.  United intimately to the One who loves us, we love Him in return, by loving and serving each other and all those in need.