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Exploring the word

15 Feb 2015 - Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

It’s worth noting: We’ve spent five weeks already in chapter one of Mark’s gospel. So far, Jesus cast out a man’s demon, healed a woman’s fever, and then took on a whole village’s suffering. Now Jesus is confronted by a leper, or at least a man who endures an ailment disfiguring enough to make people afraid of catching what he’s got. This fellow suffers in two directions: physically and also socially. Science tells us that skin is the largest organ of the body. It’s also the only organ people can see. So unlike a heart condition or stomach ailment, when your skin is sick, it’s pretty obvious. Everything happens with Mark’s usual imperative. The leper wastes no time making his request known, and Jesus responds immediately. The language is strongly emotional: the Greek words imply that Jesus feels both compassion and anger regarding this man’s predicament. Since Mark is the earliest record we have of the Jesus story, people must have remembered that Jesus wasn’t just a blasé fixer or cerebral point-maker in his dealings with human pain. He feels it, and he’s offended by it. This isn’t the way things should be in the Kingdom he is announcing. Today we hear a lot about “compassion fatigue.” So much global suffering gets reported that we can’t seem to care about it anymore. We get all those solicitations with pictures of needy children, and we avert our eyes because there’s just so much of it. Human history is always one more war, one more conflict, one more ethnic/racial/ religious group abandoning their homes and running for their lives. There’s always another epidemic, another famine, a flood or drought or hurricane or earthquake. We send our dollars. But it seems like our best efforts slip into a black hole of need. It’s easy to get discouraged and to want to change the channel on the world’s everlasting lament. There’s no evidence Jesus ever experiences compassion fatigue. On the cross, struggling for each breath, Jesus takes pity on the thief next to him who shows remorse, and heals him with words of forgiveness. He looks out from that same cross and sees people screaming for his blood and feels that same pity, asking God’s forgiveness for them too. There seems to be no end to the capacity of genuine love to care and respond to the world’s need. So one more leper, one more blind man, one more grieving mother, one more sick daughter—and Jesus still sees the misery of each one and wills the end of their suffering at once. So let’s not lose heart. Ash Wednesday is this week. It’s another opportunity to peel the calluses off our love, and to begin again. Hope to see you there.

Authors Alice Camille

Compassion Ash Wednesday

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Sign & sacrament

24 Aug 2014 - Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

In the wake of devastating earthquakes, there often follows criticism that homes, schools, and public buildings had obviously not been built properly to withstand such events. Jesus uses similar imagery to describe the condition of those who rely only on the facade of doing good as their claim on salvation. He says it’s not enough to call him “Lord.” It’s not even enough only to “drive out demons” and do spectacular deeds in his name. All of that is good showmanship; it’s curb appeal, but if that pretty life is not built on the rock-solid gospel values of compassion, forgiveness, justice, and love, then one might rightly worry about the shifting tectonic plates below. We cannot control the changes and dangers in the world, but we can choose where we build and on what foundation.

Forgiveness Justice Love Compassion

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Sign & sacrament

17 Aug 2014 - Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

Religious prejudices and tensions between Jews and their Gentile neighbors are highlighted in the gospel story where a Canaanite woman asks Jesus to heal her daughter only to receive a stern rebuke. Tensions are exposed, but at the end of the day, the Canaanite woman finds a way to break through and Jesus responds with admiration and compassion. The lesson for all of us is to seek the path beyond our own prejudice to the point where admiration and compassion rule the day in our interactions with others. Let your prejudices be teachable moments! For more “Sign & sacrament” material, search the Prepare the Word database by today’s scripture reading, a particular theme, or a special occasion.

Compassion Prejudice

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The inner word

27 Jul 2014 - Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

As Solomon knew, developing an understanding heart takes grace. What makes sense to your mind may give your heart a jolt, like the question: How do you give everything to God? What is left for you? The answer: God loves you, so in turn loving God’s commands makes you whole. Give everything of yourself. God graces you more than you know, more than your life’s experience. You are connected.

Love Compassion Grace

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Sign & sacrament

22 Jul 2012 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

A grade-school kid spent the whole of a summer playing school in the neighborhood. Didn’t she get enough of the classroom during the academic year? The girl insisted it wasn’t for herself that she maintained her street-corner “classroom.” She was teaching younger children down the street how to read. Why? “Because they don’t know how,” she said simply. Sometimes the ignorance of others compels the teacher in us all to come forward. Jesus couldn’t walk away from a crowd that demonstrated a need to learn. Another name for the divine teacher is Compassion.

Compassion Teaching

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Exploring the word

06 Nov 2011 - Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle A

“I DON’T GET anything out of prayer”: This frequently heard lament in the world of pastoring includes many variations: “I don’t get anything out of going to Mass/going to Confession/attending parish missions/believing what my faith teaches/practicing the responsibilities of my religion.” Being Catholic altogether may seem extraneous to living a good and moral life. Everybody can produce a saintly atheist friend as exhibit A for the power of common decency. Needless to say, we do all this—partake of sacraments, remain faithful to prayer, attend to church teaching—not for any immediate cosmic “hit” of spiritual gratification. Once in a while we may get one. The lion’s share of the time however—the grace of the hour, as it were—goes into storage under our account. We’re investing in a relationship, and like any relationship, the proof is often in the history. At 22 I began praying in earnest after a lifetime of seemingly empty ritual behaviors and fruitless spiritual practices. For 11 months I made room for praise, thanks, and intercession. It still felt meaningless—as if feelings were the goal. Then, in the 12th month, it was as if heaven opened up and grace overwhelmed me. I did nothing differently in that month than I’d done all year, but it took a year’s investment to see a return on that self-gift. The relationship, practiced in patient fidelity, finally revealed its depth. If we dig deep enough, we can all come up with such stories. Like the love between family members, that sense of nearness didn’t become normative. It receded once more to the background, but its impact remained. When we’re faithful to the relationship with the Holy, we put oil in our lamps for when we need it. Moral courage is stored there, as is access to wisdom, compassion, and the willingness for self-sacrifice. When darkness arrives and the oil is required, it will be there for us. One thing is certain: The hour of darkness comes into every life. We’ll have to wrestle with loss and loneliness, failure and betrayal, fear and weakness, anxiety for those we love trapped in the web of human brokenness. Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister writes about the charism of consistency in her little book The Breath of the Soul: “When we’re lonely or depressed or agitated or frightened, the material is of little or no help at all. Then, the things we own or collect may actually be part of our problem. What we really need then is the anchoring that only the spiritual can bring. We need the awareness that though life is not in our hands right now, it is surely in the hands of a God who loves us.” The time to learn consistency is not in the hour of crisis but in today’s calm waters. Related scripture links Sheol: Gen. 37:35; Ps. 89:49; Job 17:13-16; Isa. 14:9-11, 38:18 Hades: Matt. 11:23, 16:18; Luke 10:15; Acts 2:27; 1 Cor. 15:55; Rev. 1:18, 20:13-15 Gehenna: Luke 16:23 Trumpets: Isa. 27:13; Zech. 12:14; Matt. 24:31; 1 Cor. 15:52; Rev. 8:2-9:21, 11:15-19 Clouds: Dan. 7:13; Rev. 1:7 Paradise: Gen. 2-3; Song 4:13; Neh. 2:8; Isa. 11:6-9; 51:3; Luke 23:43; Rev. 2:7 Catechism links Hell: CCC 631-635; 1033-1037; 1861 Heaven: CCC 325-6; 1023-1029 Final Judgment: CCC 668-679; 1021-1022

Authors Alice Camille

joan chittister prayers darkness Wisdom Compassion

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Homily stories

10 Nov 2013 - Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

THE WIDOW of one of my best friends calls regularly to tell me how much she misses him, and inevitably she will break down in tears. After more than two years nothing is more important to her than the assurance that she and her husband will one day be together in heaven. She asks if I believe they will be, and I assure her it is so. The tender prayers at the funeral Mass remind us again and again, “We shall be reunited.” We know that some of the persons dearest to Jesus were widows and orphans because, like the poor, they had, in Jesus’ culture, no one on whom to depend but God. The gospel today has the ring of theological debate, an argument over the truth of resurrection, but for the grieving among us the need now is not orthodoxy of dogma but compassion, a shoulder that absorbs tears, an ear that listens to funny old stories and laughs again and again, a friend who allows another’s grief its own dignity and time. My friend is just one of so many left behind at the hands of war, street violence, a flood or fire, an illness—it really doesn’t matter. There are so many who feel abandoned.

Authors Father Larry Janowski O.F.M.

Compassion Heaven widows orphans

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Homily stories

14 Jul 2013 - Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

EACH MORNING when we scan or listen to the news, we expect to hear something sad. Suffering and crisis take prominence in our news stories, while stories that talk about heroism or share a personal story of compassion are rare. There was a recent story of a bicyclist who was struck by a car and later died from the injuries he had suffered. Initially the headline caught my eye because it was a tragic death on the city’s streets and the story also included a few lines about the nurse who saw the accident and tried to help. She jumped out of her car with a towel and sweatshirt to care for his wounds and try and save him. Others also tried to assist. The tragedy of course is that a human life was lost that evening, but strangers gathered to save a person they did not know. They were the good Samaritans that evening among all the others who may have passed up the bicyclist. The nurse later reached out to the cyclist’s family and friends to let them know that in his final hours he was not alone.

Authors Clarissa Aljentera

Suffering Compassion Samaritan

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