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Sign & sacrament

04 Aug 2013 - Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

What does it mean to be free? For some it’s a matter of not being trapped in oppressive circumstances, like an unsatisfying job, a difficult relationship, or an illness. For others it’s the ability to find ways to live creatively within those situations. Some say freedom is about having choices. And there are those who think it’s simply being able to do whatever they want. Christians believe Christ has freed them to discern what is truly important: to be generous rather than selfish, caring and kind instead of indifferent and cruel, truthful, not false. Use your freedom to choose what is good. For more “Sign & sacrament” material, search the Prepare the Word database by today’s scripture reading, a particular theme, or a special occasion.

Freedom choice

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Exploring the word

04 Nov 2012 - Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The old parlor game asks: If you knew you were going to die tonight, what would you do today? Variations abound. If you found out you had an incurable disease, which decisions would you make now that you’ve been putting off? If you had one last chance to say or do something for the people you care about, what would it be? If the world were going to end next week, how would you fill (or empty) this week’s calendar? We can add: If you had the chance to shape the future of the world this week, for whom or what would you cast your ballot? Yes, it’s another Election Day on Tuesday, and as always there’s a lot for thoughtful people to consider. The main question is this: What criteria do we Christians use in discerning and shaping our future? How do faithful people choose? Your answer to all these questions of ultimate concern should be the same: Love. That’s not a hippie reply, though even some churchgoers may be tempted to bat it away with impatience as such. Love sounds vague and mushy but only because we live in an age when love stories have been reduced to rushed escapades of sexual attraction and indulgence. Real love stories take more time and require more investment and not a little sacrifice. It’s not a matter of boy-meets-girl but human-need-meets-divinely-ordained-response. When an educated man came to Jesus with a question of ultimate concern such as those listed above—if you had to govern your life according to one commandment, which would it be?—Jesus did not hesitate to respond with love. He certainly didn’t mean romance, and he intended nothing vague or mushy at all. Jesus spelled out in great detail what he meant by love in his ministry and teachings. Care for the stranger, widow, child, and the poor. Heal human misery, rid society of its demons. Feed the hungry, give your clothes to the naked. Welcome the outsider, forgive the sinner. Befriend your enemy. Refuse to participate in the ways of violence. Stay close to God, the source of love, in prayer and obedient listening. Do you have any doubt as to how to do that? If you’re clear that your primary allegiance is to God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, you’ll know how to live, choose, value, and vote. Some religious groups will pass out preselected voting cards, but for those who attend to the gospel, that is unnecessary. Your process is: pray, listen, love, choose—it’s the same procedure you’re obliged to follow in every hour of your life and in every interaction. If you would shape the future as God would have it, the only method is love. Related scripture links Gospel parallel: Matt. 22:34-40 Love your neighbor: Lev. 19:18; Rom. 13:9; Gal. 5:14; James 2:8 Other words on love: John 3:16; 13:34-35; Rom. 13:10; 1 Cor. 13:1-13 Catechism links Shema’ teachings: CCC 200-202; 228; 368; 459; 575; 2055; 2083; 2093-2094; 2196

Authors Alice Camille

Love care forgive choice love your neighbor

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26 Aug 2012 - Twenty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

The theologian Rudolf Bultmann didn’t start it, but he was the one who stated it most memorably. Everything Jesus says or does is intended to lead us to the moment of decision where we throw in our lot with him or refuse. Surely we have choices to make every step along the discipleship road. Come follow or stay behind. Seek peace or take up the sword. Serve God or money. Build on rock that lasts or on sand that slips away. Tend to the dead or choose the way of life. Open your eyes or remain blind. Get up and walk or stay where you are. Go up to Jerusalem or return to Galilee. Seek the Kingdom or settle for the world. Either we are for Christ or against him. Jesus doesn’t allow a shift into neutral or a response of “no comment.” And let’s be clear: Any decision we make has consequences. Joshua offers the people a similar clarifying decision at the start of their new life in the land of promise. Their last choice was 40 years ago and it wasn’t much of a decision: slavery over freedom. On the other side of the desert experience, however, they’re now a liberated people, which means they're free to choose. Do they want and intend to be the people of God? If not, they can go another way right now. The only unacceptable answer is to say yes and do no. This hypocrisy, of course, is what the tribes wind up attempting, and that explains the rest of the Hebrew story: war, destruction, exile, and national ruin. After Babylon comes the moment of decision once more. Do you want to join the faithful remnant and return to the land as God’s people, or stay away? The cycle begins again. The decisive question continues to be posed because each new generation has to address it. We can be baptized and still say no. We can receive our First Communion and have our faith ratified at Confirmation and still retreat. We can journey with Jesus as members of his church and determine one day that we’ll go no further. We can be faithful churchgoers all our lives yet at the critical hour, when our testimony is called upon, we may waffle and stammer and look away, making a lie of it all. Are you with me or do you want to leave? Jesus asks. Saint Peter’s answer remains the best, but we can only repeat it if we mean it. Life is here. Love is here. Challenge is here. The cross is here. Forgiveness is here. The choice is ours. Related Scripture links Moses lays down the choice: Deut. 30:19-20 Other wives and husbands: Col. 3:12-21 Other moments of decision: Ruth 1:11-18; Jdth. 9:1-14; Esth. 4:12-16 Passion predictions toward Jerusalem: Luke 9:22-27, 43-45; 18:31-34 Jerusalem as prophet’s destiny: Luke 13:33-35 Peter is led, not always willingly: John 21:18-19 Catechism links Moment of decision: CCC 1696 Human freedom: CCC 1730-1742 Peter and Jesus: CCC 440; 1336

Authors Alice Camille

choice decision Freedom Rudolf Bultmann

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Sign & sacrament

10 Jun 2012 - Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi), Cycle B

Life makes extravagant promises when we are young, or so it seems. We can have anything! We can go anywhere! We can be anyone! As time goes on, the promise of life seems to shrink down to more modest, if disappointing, proportions. Life turns out to be short, resources have limits, and we have to make wise choices. God, whose existence and love have no natural limits, chose to pour out that infinite life for our sake. If you’re looking for extravagant promises, there’s only one promise keeper. Come to the table this weekend.

promises choices

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22 Jan 2012 - Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

What’s more important: your family or your job? In most cases and in many situations we’d choose the welfare of our families over work—although the two often go hand in hand. The reason many of us stumble in balancing the priorities of work and family is precisely this: It’s hard to secure one without the other. What, then, might compel you to choose against both family ties and livelihood? It would have to be something far greater than an ordinary opportunity to put so much of value at risk. That is what the sons of Jonah and of Zebedee do on a particular workday in Galilee. Peter and Andrew leave their nets and James and John say good-bye to their father when Jesus invites them to join him. Something greater than business-as-usual weighs in the balance here: The reign of God and the time of its fulfillment are right now. This decision won’t keep till tomorrow. All four abandon everything that has sustained them to reach for this startling chance. By contrast, in the story of Jonah, Nineveh gets 40 days to consider which way to go: pursue their present course of destruction, or turn and possibly be saved. Down to the last cow in that great Assyrian city the choice is made to repent and throw their nation on the mercy of God. That’s a good bet—if you believe that God’s mercy is greater than all of human sinfulness. God’s ways are many: sometimes sudden, sometimes gradual, but all lead to joy and salvation. The trouble is, we never know the day nor the hour, so are we willing to take the chance that we still have time to weigh the odds of personal or corporate extinction? Are we going to let yet another invitation to follow Jesus slip past us? Because time does foreclose eventually. This world is passing away—for some of us sooner than we suspect. Tomorrow we have the opportunity to make another choice: It’s the annual day of prayer and penance for life. We Catholics are asked to do what we can to acknowledge the gross violation of human dignity that legal abortions uphold. Some will pray, others do penance, some will do both. What is life worth to us? What are we willing to sacrifice to uphold its sacred character? Related scripture links The hour in John's gospel: 2:4, 4:21-26, 5:25-29, 7:6-8, 30, 8:20, 12:23-32, 16:1-4, 16-33, 17:1-5 Paul and parousia: Rom. 13:11-14; 1 Cor. 15:20-28, 50-56; 1 Thess. 4:13-5:11; 2 Thess. 3:6-12 Christ all in all: 1 Cor. 15:28; Col. 3:11 Call of the other disciples: Mark 2:13-17, 3:13-19; John 1:43-51 Catechism links Vocation: CCC 1-3; 541-546; 823-828; 836; 1546-47 Discipleship: CCC 531-533; 551-553; 783-786; 1691-1696 Conversion: 821; 1423; 1426-1439; 1451-1454

Authors Alice Camille

choices Penance

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Exploring the word

10 Apr 2011 - Fifth Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

“O MY PEOPLE, I will open your graves and have you rise from them.” Are more wonderful words to be spoken in all the world? No loss is as great as what death takes from us. No sorrow is as deep as when our loved ones “go before us, marked with the sign of faith.” None of us remains untouched by death for long in this life, and all of us are delivered into its domain in the end. Like Mary falling down in the road before Jesus, we will weep for our losses. Like Martha voicing her indignation to Jesus with clenched fists, we will rage against the dying of the light. And like Lazarus himself we will find our bodily limitations eventually overwhelmed by accident or illness, age, time, and circumstance. We will close our eyes on this world once and for all. Yet God has authority over the grave and can literally wake the dead. Even more: “I have promised, and I will do it, says the Lord.” The same God who rescues a people from slavery, exile, and the darkness of sin vows to remove the sting of death. We will not fail to die, but death won’t have the last word. The grave can’t hold us. We will see the glory of God when the voice of love cries out to us by name: “Come out!” And we’ll be unbound to enjoy the full freedom of the children of God at last—and forever. Let’s be clear: The Lazarus experience is more than a finale at the edge of eternity. Just as Ezekiel foretold that the exiles of Babylon would be freed from the grave of captivity, we can be free of anything that impedes our liberty right now. Are we paralyzed with anxiety about the future; addicted to substances that call all the shots in our days; trapped in relationship dynamics that wound and don’t heal; wrapped in memories of the past that enshroud us in what was and make us unavailable for what could be? God pledges freedom from oppression if we would only “trust in the Lord,” as the psalmist says. But perhaps it’s not weakness and circumstance that contain and constrict us. Maybe it’s the deliberate choices we make, the steps we take daily that encourage our progress on the road to ruin. Sin, too, is a prison from which we must escape, as Saint Paul understood. If Christ is in us, he declares, we are cheerfully dead to sin and can enjoy a vigorous new life in the Spirit. Freedom from fear, from sin, and ultimately, from death? No grave can bind us, no walls contain us, when God holds all the keys. Related scripture links Death as terminal in the Old Testament: 2 Sam. 14:14; Pss. 6:6, 30:10, 88:11, 115:17; Isa. 38:11, 18 Maybe death is not as final as it seems: Pss. 16:9-10, 49:16; Wisd. 3:1-4 Jesus reopens the question of death: Mark 12:27; Matt. 22:32; Luke 20:38 Epistles confirms the futility of death: 1 Cor. 15:26; Rom. 6:9-11; 2 Tim. 1:10; Heb. 2:14-15 Choose life: Deut. 30:19-20 Catechism links Resurrection of the dead: CCC 715; 988-1014 Resurrection of Jesus: CCC 627-628; 640

Authors Alice Camille

lazarus Trust spirit Resurrection choices

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Exploring the word

13 Mar 2011 - First Sunday of Lent, Cycle A

WHICH WOULD YOU choose: a debate with the tempter of souls or the sublime company of angels? Most nice people do not hesitate to voice their preference for the latter. That reflex, though, comes too easily, the “right answer” instead of the true one. The reality is, humanity has fundamentally and regrettably chosen the infernal side of the debate—and we choose it again, oh, at least once an hour. The first conversation in the Bible is with God. God blesses the first couple in chapter 1 and gives the first commandment—thou shall not eat of that tree!—to the man in chapter 2. Yet neither man nor woman seek the companionship or council of God again in the story. They actively hide from their Maker in fact. It is God who seeks them out, significantly after their free betrayal of the sole commandment. We imagine God might have interrupted the woman’s tête-à-tête with the serpent or insinuated the divine presence between the woman and man before the great betrayal was complete with the transfer of the forbidden fruit. Respecting human freedom, God remains silent through both transactions. God, who speaks first in the story, awaits a response from us. Original sin is the unhappy result. We still have choices to make daily: to embrace the guardians of heaven or to dicker with demons. When we choose violence, prejudice, judgment, falsehood, idolatry, or infidelity, we’re breaking commandments that deny us access to the blessings God freely bestows on us and wants us to have. Each time we cause harm to our neighbors or ourselves, we’re disregarding that primary commandment of Jesus to demonstrate our love for God in loving people. Every hour of history the solution is the same: Talk to God. Listen to the divine word. But each hour far too many of us incline an ear to that “Pssst! Hey buddy!” coming from the tempter’s direction. In the synoptic gospel tradition, Jesus reenacts the Genesis moment of crisis—though not in a lush garden surrounded by creature comforts. No, Jesus stands in a wilderness, hungry and weary from fasting. And unlike the first couple who had each other for support, Jesus is alone. The evangelists show us Jesus effectively in the same position we are today: suffering the result of a fallen world that is no paradise, where each of us endures the profound isolation and hunger that is the literal fruit of sin. The debate with the tempter begins—but something is different this time. Instead of being swayed by his sweet lies, Jesus clings to the word of God. The devil finds such company intolerable. When he departs, the landscape is flooded with angels, and desert becomes a paradise. Good news as we enter the Lenten desert ourselves! Scripture links The Satan in the court of God: Job 1:6-2:10 Other mentions of the Satan in Hebrew scripture: 1 Chron. 21:1; Zech 3:1-2; Wisd. 2:24 Other gospel references to the Satan: Mark 3:23-27, 4:15, 8:33; Matt. 12:26-29, 13:19, 39, 16:23, 25:41; Luke 8:12, 10:18, 11:18, 13:16, 22:3, 31, 53; John 8:44, 12:31, 13:2, 27 Catechism links Devil: CCC 385-412; 538-540; 550 Concupiscence: CCC 1264; 1426

Authors Alice Camille

original sin choices paradise Devil

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Is “right to die” movement the right course?

02 Mar 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

When it comes to achieving inner peace, most of us would agree with the psalmist’s refrain, “Only in God is my soul at rest.” But what about wanting to put the body to eternal rest at the end of life? Is it moral to help the terminally ill end their lives? Banned everywhere but Oregon until 2008, the idea appears to be gaining traction and it is now legal in five states. Its advocates, who have learned to shun the term “assisted suicide,” believe that as baby boomers watch frail parents suffer, support for what they call the “aid in dying” movement will grow further.In January a district court in New Mexico authorized doctors to provide lethal prescriptions and declared a constitutional right for “a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying.” Last May the Vermont legislature passed a law permitting it, joining Montana, Oregon, and Washington. This spring advocates are strongly promoting “death with dignity” bills in Connecticut and other states.Public support for assisted dying has grown in the past half-century but depends in part on terminology. In a Gallup Poll conducted last May, 70 percent of respondents agreed that when patients and their families wanted it, doctors should be allowed to “end the patient’s life by some painless means.” In 1948 that share was 37 percent. Yet in the same 2013, poll only 51 percent supported allowing doctors to help a dying patient “commit suicide.”About 3,000 patients a year, from every state, contact the advocacy group Compassion & Choices for advice on legal ways to reduce end-of-life suffering and perhaps hasten their deaths. Giving a fading patient the opportunity for a peaceful and dignified death is not suicide, the group says, which it defines as an act by people with severe depression or other mental problems.But overt assistance to bring on death, by whatever name, remains illegal in most of the country. Opponents say that actively ending a life, no matter how frail a person is, is a moral violation and that patients might be pushed to die early for the convenience of others.“The church teaches that life is sacred from conception through to natural death,” Archbishop Michael J. Sheehan of Santa Fe, New Mexico told legislators at a recent breakfast as he criticized the court decision there. “This assisted-suicide thing concerns me,” Sheehan added. “I foresee dangerous consequences.”Homily hint: A helpful Catholic contribution to this important ethical question is found in this article on the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ website.“The outcome of our society's debate on physician-assisted suicide may depend on how well we communicate—and act upon—a similar message," the article says. "We are living at a time when some doctors and lawmakers think that the best solution for some patients' suffering is to give them lethal drugs for suicide. Catholics committed to the dignity of each human person must insist: 'Kill the pain. Not the patient.' " Source: An article by Erik Eckholm for the New York Times

compassion choices michael j sheehan right to die

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Homily themes

18 Mar 2012 - Fourth Sunday of Lent, Cycle B

"The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to light." All the readings this week speak of the importance of choices and their consequences. God gave the Israelites a chance to heed the prophets, but they "scoffed" at them, and so Jerusalem went up in flames. As it frequently does, the Gospel of John offers a stark choice between believing in Jesus and living forever or doing what those who "preferred darkness to light" did by not believing and therefore facing condemnation. The Letter to the Ephesians offers alternatives as well: Realize that "by grace you have been saved through faith," not by your own work or initiative. The psalmist gets into the choices act as well: Let me never forget you, Lord! These decisions boil down to one thing: recognition--recognizing the Word of God incarnated in the Son of God as a free gift of God. That is the challenge to believers then as it is now.

Authors Joel Schorn

recognition choices

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Homily stories

29 Jan 2012 - Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

One of the earliest pictures my brother took was of me back in 1955, a half century ago, dressed in my Hopalong Cassidy outfit with hat and six shooter and holster. I was kneeling as my brother Tony, an Indian, shoved a lance through my body. For a while I really wanted to be a cowboy. That was before I wanted to be a priest and after I wanted to be Captain Video. We all go through periods in our lives when we wonder about our life choices. There are times when we need to change course or follow a dream in a different direction. We need God's help then. Other times we remain content with who we are. God is with us then, too. The worst scenario, of course, is when we feel trapped with no way out. That's when we really need God. Scripture reminds us of that today. What is right for one may not be right for another. Some of us can handle our choices alone. Others need God's help. We are also reminded not only to respect others and what they are called to do, but also to support them. Whatever our relationship, ours can only be a Christian's response to them. With authority Jesus radically brought about change in people when needed. So, too, we need each other. We need the community of the church to help us make the right choices on our life's journeys. We must speak for one another with the same courageous authority with which Jesus speaks. We need each other's help.

Authors Father Dominic Grassi

life choices

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