Saints of God…

…the Lord be with you!

My first reaction to today’s Gospel (Matthew 5:17-37) was this is really long, and who in the name of all that is holy can keep all these commandments! The first reading (Sirach 15:15-20) however gives me hope “If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you; if you trust in God, you too shall live.” To be honest, sometimes I choose not to keep the commandments. However, there are times when I want to keep the commandments, but don’t. So, I guess I’m going to trust in God, at all times.

And maybe that is the point. No one can keep all the commandments all of the time. The Good News is that Jesus did not come to abolish the law or the prophets but to fulfill them! Jesus’ life of obedience saves my life when I am disobedient. I must trust HIM, and perhaps I can live His commandment to simply “Love God, and love my neighbor as I love Myself.” Love fulfills the law! (Since yesterday was Valentine’s Day, what a great Valentine’s gift if even a day late!)

Perhaps this is the whole point of these readings a few days before we start the season of Lent. Lent might be a time for us to fast from the idea that we can be perfect. Lent might be a time for us to feast on the truth that we are loved by God even when we fail. Lent might be a time to pay God’s love for us forward by showing our love for our neighbor through Fasting, Praying for others, particularly the poor, rather than ourselves. Lent might be a time to Donate a bit more to charity or the offertory collection here at the parish. Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving are wonderful ways to open ourselves to receive more of the love of God that God desires to give us.

Today’s Psalm Response is “Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord.” Perhaps the readings are trying to remind us that the Law of the Lord is Christ; the Word, the Law made flesh. As we prepare for Lent, let’s not be overwhelmed with all that we are supposed to do, and let’s not be discouraged when we fail at what we desire to do. This Lent, let’s put our trust in God, in Christ, for God promises that we too shall live.

– Fr. Steve

My Dear Friends,

Father Steve often says the Rite of Baptism can also be referred to as the Rite of Naming, meaning that this is where the name that our parents have chosen for us is publicly proclaimed within the walls of the chuch where we are about to be baptized. We are not a nameless person just going through a ritual, but rather publicly named child of God and claimed by Christ as a true member of his Church. This is only the beginning of our existence within the Church and the threshold of our journey of faith.

In our Gospel today, Jesus takes that all a bit farther. Jesus does not give us advice in today’s Gospel. He gives us an identity. “You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world.” Before we do anything, before we accomplish or stumble, Jesus names who we are because of Him.

Salt and light are not self-originating. Salt only works when it is ground down and given away. One of the many uses of salt is for it to be used as a seasoning, enhancing the flavor of what has been set before us. Light is never its own source—it burns because something else is consumed. Both are costly. Both lose themselves to give life.

This is deeply Eucharistic, and profoundly Franciscan.

St. Francis understood that Christ is the true Salt and the true Light. As salt seasons food by disappearing into it, so our Christian life is meant to be hidden in Christ, not displayed alongside Him. When the Gospel loses its savor, it is not because the world is tasteless—it is because we, as disciples, have lived up to life he has placed before us. the cross that makes salt salty.

Jesus warns us plainly: “If salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?”

In times past, salt that lost its potency was thrown onto roads to be trampled underfoot. In theological terms, this is the danger of a faith that keeps its name but loses its substance—Christianity without conversion, light without heat, devotion without obedience. Francis feared this more than poverty or persecution. He warned the brothers that nothing dulls the soul faster than comfort without repentance.

Then Jesus turns to light: “A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.”

This is not a call to perform holiness, but a reminder that true holiness is a light that shines within us all. Light reveals what is real. It exposes and heals at the same time, light does not exist for itself. Notice where Jesus places the lamp—not in the hand of the disciple, but on the lampstand of the world. The Church does not exist for its own illumination. It exists so the world may see clearly enough to find God.

And the final line anchors everything theologically: “That they may see your good deeds and give glory to your heavenly Father.”

Our good works are not moral achievements; they are sacramental signs. They point beyond themselves. If people stop at us, the light has failed. If they arrive at the Father, the light has done its work.

Francis lived this by radical humility. He called himself a “lesser brother” not as poetry, but as theology. He knew that only what is small enough can be transparent enough to let divine light pass through without distortion.

To be salt and light, then, is not to be louder or brighter. It is to be cruciform—ground down, given away, set aflame by charity. The needs lives so conformed to Christ that God becomes credible again.

So our Gospel asks us this question today: Have I trample the salt or savored the salt of my gift faith? Have I let the light of Christ within me dim or have I allowed to shine brightly? Has my life made Christ more visible to anyone? If the answer is even quietly “yes,” then the salt still has its taste, and the light has not been hidden, and that is grace enough for today. Our parents name us, but Jesus claims us.

Peace and All Good,
– Fr. Zack

Saints of God…

…the Lord be with you!

Today begins the week of prayer for Christian Unity. In the opening prayer for today’s Mass we prayed, “…hear the pleading of your people and bestow peace in our times.” Given the division going on is our world, our country, and our church, I can’t think of any more urgent prayer: “Peace in our times.” But what would this peace look like.

First, peace is NOT defined as the absence of war or conflict. Peace (in the Biblical sense) is that we live in RIGHT RELATIONSHIP with God, one another, creation, and ourselves. It seems to me that this notion of right relationship is the reason why the Church has selected the Gospel according to John’s account of the Baptism of Jesus only one week after we celebrated the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord.

Baptism is a defining event in most, if not all Christian denominations. If a person seeks full communion with the Catholic Church, we more often than not do not rebaptize as long as the baptism was done with water and the words “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit” were said. But what exactly does Baptism do, and why did Jesus need to be baptized if He was/is sinless?

I like to say that Jesus entered the waters of the Jordan river clean and symbolically took upon Himself the sins of humanity. His was not a baptism of repentance (since He had no sin to repent of) but rather was a Baptism of solidarity with sinners which all of us are. We are baptized into Christ’s baptism of solidarity, and at the same time cleansed of original sin. As we say in the Creed, “…one baptism for the forgiveness of SINS.” Sin divides us; the grace of Christ heals and unites us.

All of us need the healing, forgiving grace of Christ. And with that healing and forgiving comes the mandate to live as a healed forgiven person in the world. Our primary identity is Christ…not following any particular political leader or party; not defining ourselves through the lens of gender or sexual identity. As St. Augustine wrote, “Rejoice O Christian, for by your baptism YOU are more than a Christian, YOU are CHRIST Himself.”

This week let’s look on all the people we encounter as other Christ’s. If we begin to look at one another differently then maybe we will begin to treat each other differently. This week, when we plead for the unity of all who call themselves Christian, let’s ACT like Christ Himself.

– Fr. Steve