The Good Word

Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time IIAugust 19, 2022Hello and welcome to the Word, bringing you the Good News of Jesus Christ every day from the Redemptorists of the Baltimore Province. I am Fr. Karl Esker from the Basilica of our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brooklyn, NY. Today is Friday of the Twentieth Week in Ordinary Time. Our reading is from the holy gospel according to Matthew:When the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a scholar of the law, tested him by asking, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”The gospel of the Lord.Homily We are all familiar with today’s gospel, perhaps too familiar. The Pharisees challenge Jesus to name the greatest commandment, and Jesus names two: Love of God and Love of Neighbor, and declares: “The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” As followers of Jesus, we wholeheartedly agree. But how do we put into practice the love the Lord, our God, with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our mind, and our neighbor as our self? There is the problem. We believe in God and accept that he created us and maintains us in existence together with all of the universe. Hopefully, we also believe that God loves us, because that is the principal message in our Scriptures. But how do we love God in return? How can we create a loving relationship with the God we cannot see nor touch, and can only hear indirectly through the reading of Scripture? One answer, of course, is prayer. We have the example of Jesus who often spent the night in prayer to God his Father. This was not so much saying prayers, as opening his heart to God in a personal dialog. Even when he gave his disciples the prayer we call the Our Father, he meant it more as a model to be meditated on than as prayer to be repeated. To pray as Jesus prayed, we need to reflect on each phrase and then speak to God what we mean by that phrase in our heart and in our lives. Besides prayer, Jesus gives us his second commandment – to love one’s neighbor as oneself – as an essential expression of the love of God. As the letter of John explains: “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ but hates his brother (or sister), he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother (or sister) whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” Of course, neither Jesus nor John is talking about being friends with everyone. They are talking about wishing and doing well to everyone. In his parable about the last judgment, Jesus points out giving food to the hungry and drink to the thirsty, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked and visiting the sick and imprisoned as acts of love of neighbor. We can also include the spiritual works of mercy: Admonishing the sinner, instructing the ignorant, counseling the doubtful, comforting the sorrowful, bearing wrongs patiently, forgiving all injuries and praying for the living and the dead. By practicing these corporal and spiritual works of mercy we put flesh and bones on our love of God. This is all much easier when we are feeling good and we are conscious of the love of God in our hearts. But when we feel like the dry bones in today’s first reading, it is much harder. The Jewish people in exile were suffering and in doubt of God’s love and faithfulness to them. To them and to us, God sent the prophet Ezequiel with the words: “O my people, I will open your graves and have you rise from them; ...then you shall know that I am the LORD. ... I will put my spirit in you that you may live, ...thus you shall know that I am the LORD. I have promised, and I will do it, says the LORD. We have to believe and to persevere in hope. Then the love of God and love of neighbor will blossom into eternal life.May God bless you.Fr. Karl E. Esker CSsRBaslilica of our Lady of Perpetual HelpBrooklyn, NY

In the middle of the Third Century, it was still illegal to be a Christian. That would not change until Emperor Constantine in 313. Still, the Church was growing and the Roman Emperors were getting worried. So much so, that Emperor Decius, in 250 A.D., issued an edict that every person in the Roman Empire had to sacrifice to a Roman god in the presence of a state official. They were then issued a certificate as proof saying that the sacrifice was offered. Many Christians moved to the countryside. Some obeyed the edict, even knowing that these Roman gods did not exist. Others purchased a certificate and avoided the sacrifice. Still others, refused to submit and were cruelly put to death.After being secretly ordained, Pope Sixtus II and a select group of companions would sneak into one of the catacombs that extended for miles under the city of Rome. Emperor Valerian, who succeeded Decius, sent soldiers into the catacombs to hunt them down. Perhaps they were drawn by the singing, but the Pope along with his deacon companions were all arrested and put to death. When St. Cyprian, bishop of Carthage in North Africa received the news, he wrote the following letter: “Valerian has issued an edict to the Senate to the effect that bishops, presbyters, and deacons shall suffer the death penalty without delay…I must also inform you that Sixtus was put to death in a catacomb on the sixth of August, and four deacons with him…Let all our people fix their minds not on death but rather on immortality…knowing that in this contest the soldiers of God and Christ are not slain but rather win their crowns.”These thoughts from long ago come to mind in light of our Gospel reading today. Christ says to us, “For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” We need to ask ourselves what is most important in our lives. If we rely too heavily on our physical appearance, we will be disappointed. Looks, as we know, are fleeting. If we place too much emphasis upon the accumulation of wealth, then all our efforts will have to be passed on to others after we die. If we are relying on our accomplishments, they, too, will fade away. Even St. Thomas Aquinas, after all his philosophical and theological insights, felt they were all “like straw” compared to the glory that will be revealed to us.Our love for God and neighbor is the only thing we will take with us when we die.Blessings,Fr. Kevin MacDonald, C.Ss.R.