Shawn The Baptist - Sunday Scriptures

A Marriage Proposal from God

In today's Gospel, some of the Jewish leaders try to trap Jesus in what appears to be a debate about marriage laws. However, the supposed question is really a subtle attack on the teaching about the resurrection. Jesus of course does not fall into the trap. Rather, as he so often does, he turns the tables and uses it as an opportunity for teaching. However, Jesus' answer to the question might create even more questions for us. He says simply that in heaven there is no marriage.

Given all the beautiful things the Church teaches about marriage, what is Jesus trying to say here? If marriage is so holy, why would there not be marriage in heaven? The key here is to understand that when we acknowledge that marriage is a sacrament, we are saying that it is a sacred sign. It is a sign that points to something else. In the case of marriage, the sign of the love between spouses in this world is meant to point us to the love of God.

The reason that there is no marriage in heaven is because in heaven it will be as though we are all married to God. The intimate union of life and love shared between spouses is only a foreshadowing and small part of the infinite love of God we are all meant to experience in heaven. This truth helps make sense of the celibate vocation as well. The celibate priest or religious forgoes the earthly sign of marriage to point to the heavenly reality.

In this month of November, we begin by recognizing all the saints. They remind us that heaven is our goal. Let us pray that during this month we might stir up a great desire for heaven, to pray for the poor souls in purgatory, that one day we will all be together at the heavenly marriage feast.

Priesthood Sunday

This Sunday the Church gives us a day to celebrate priesthood. It also happens that All Saints Day is tomorrow. As we look at the history of the priesthood we are thankful for all the great saints that God has called to this ministry and the many ordinary priests that have impacted our lives.

When we look at the beginning of the New Testament priesthood, we of course look at the apostles. If one were going to pick the perfect group of people to lead a new church, one can hardly imagine picking this group. One would expect to find Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes. Certainly if one were looking for someone perfect, the Blessed Mother would have been the ideal priest. Instead we find this imperfect and sinful bunch of fishermen, tax collectors, zealots, and even traitors. What was Jesus thinking?

Perhaps his was thinking that he wanted it to be perfectly clear that the Church will not achieve its mission and be successful because of the superb and perfect leadership of its priests. No, the Church is what it is today solely because of Jesus Christ, the one perfect high priest. Priesthood Sunday is necessarily a celebration of the priesthood of Jesus.

As we look beyond the apostles, we find quite a diverse group of saints who were priests. We've got great intellectual powerhouses like St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Augustine. We've got humble confessors like the Cure of Ars and heroic martyrs like St. Maximilian Kolbe. Yet, probably the priests that are most special to us are the ones we have known, the ones that have touched our lives.

Today we are grateful for all those priest who have been there to help us when we're down, to share our joys, to provide wise counsel, and to provide the sacraments. Priests have always been just your average sinners that God chooses to do something miraculous. Pray for them today. Pray for more of them. Most of all, be thankful today for the gift of the priesthood.

The Beautiful Hands of a Priest

We need them in life's early morning,

We need them again at its close;

We feel their warm clasp of true friendship,

We seek it while tasting life's woes.

When we come to this world we are sinful,

The greatest as well as the least.

And the hands that make us pure as angels

Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

At the altar each day we behold them,

And the hands of a king on his throne

Are not equal to them in their greatness

Their dignity stands alone.

For there in the stillness of morning

Ere the sun has emerged from the east,

There God rests between the pure fingers

Of the beautiful hands of a priest.

When we are tempted and wander

To pathways of shame and sin

'Tis the hand of a priest that absolve us.

Not once but again and again.

And when we are taking life's partner

Other hands may prepare us a feast

But the hands that will bless and unite us,

Are the beautiful hands of a priest.

God bless them and keep them all holy,

For the Host which their fingers caress,

What can a poor sinner do better

Than to ask Him who chose them to bless

When the death dews on our lids are falling,

May our courage and strength be increased

By seeing raised o'er us in blessing

The beautiful hands of a priest.

The Fight, The Race, and the Faith

In today's second reading, St. Paul writes to his beloved disciple Timothy and offers a sort of farewell address. In summing up his life, St. Paul beautifully states that he has "fought the good fight," "run the race," and "kept the faith."

St. Paul reminds us that this life is not all about peace and contentment. It's a fight, a battle. We've got to fight and fight hard and it will at times be tough. Today we often make the mistake of thinking that if there is conflict that something has gone wrong. St. Paul promises that there will indeed be conflict. St. Paul did not die at peace with all men; he had real enemies...and so will we. The point is not avoid having enemies, but to make sure that we have the right enemies.

Related to fighting the good fight, St. Paul urges us to run the race to the finish. Life can be long and monotonous like a marathon. We might be tempted to get tied and stop running, to give up. We've got to keep running, to get past "the wall" and catch our second wind.

Finally, St. Paul tells us that he kept the faith. As he is near his death he has no possesions. He doesn't even have his freedom. Objectively speaking it would appear that he has nothing to "leave behind" to Timothy. Yet, despite this, St. Paul does have one treasured possesion that he has faithfully kept. He has kept the faith. This is what he leaves to Timothy and it is what has been left to us. The faith is our great inheritence. We pray that when we die, we can also be proud to have passed on the faith to our children, that we can say with St. Paul that we too have fought the good fight, run the race, and kept the faith.

A God of Opportunities

Sometimes it seems as though God does not hear our prayers. We pray and pray about things that are really important but there seems to be no answer, or at least not the answer we want. We might be tempted to grow weary and quit praying. We might even get mad at God. This reminded me of the movie Evan Almighty from 2006. There is a great scene where Evan's wife and "God" sit down to talk. Joan had prayed that God would bring the family closer together, but things don't seem to be going well. "God" (Morgan Freeman) then has this wonderful line:

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?"

Sometimes God's answer to our prayers is just such an opportunity. We've all marveled this past week at the minors who were rescued in Chile. Interviews have shown that the minors learned two very important things while they were trapped. They learned that they needed God most of all and, secondly, that they needed other people. One can hardly think of two more important things in life to realize. Yet, how many of us would have prayed that God trap us in a mine for two months for God to teach us this? This difficult situation actually turned into one of God's "opportunities."

We may not ever be stuck in a mine, but each of us needs to find time to learn the important things in life, like God and family. The next time you're praying for something, don't be surprised if God chooses to answer your prayer with one of his famous "opportunities."

Today we read in our gospel about 10 lepers who are all healed by Jesus. However, only one returns to thank Jesus. He knows who to thank.

A normal person sleeps inside on a nice soft bed. Not Scout. Scouts like a challenge because it brings out the best in us.

Jesus Christ died for our sins because we really needed to be saved, to go heaven. Jesus died that he might give us the Church, his bride.

The Monty Python Black Knight embodies denial. Discover insights from this classic scene about facing our own wounds in life.

The Cost of Discipleship

Jesus gives us several hard sayings in today's gospel that make it sound pretty tough to be a disciple. "Hate your father and mother...take up your cross...renounce all your possessions." In the middle of these sayings he gives us two parables. If you build a tower, you need to make sure you have enough resources. If you go into battle you need to know if you have the strength. Jesus asks us today if we have what it takes to be a disciple.

The truth is that it's not easy to be a disciple of Jesus. We like to think that everyone goes to heaven and that we can kind of just go with the flow and be alright. Jesus has something else in mind. Every athlete knows that if you want to win that you've got to work hard. There are no trophies given out just for showing up. Shouldn't we expect that the prize of eternal salvation would require at least the amount of effort we put into an athletic competition?

The good news is that we don't do this all by ourselves. We do have the resources to finish; we do have the strength to fight because Jesus fights with us. Let us resolve to do our part and not treat our faith as cheap. Let us fight hard to win the heavenly crown.  It's worth the cost.

Discipline is the Key to the Narrow Gate

We tend not to like discipline. It brings up unhappy memories of being punished for breaking the rules. Yet, our 2nd reading today tells us not to begrudge the discipline of God. Rather we should be thankful that we have a loving father that corrects our mistakes. God knows that the only way we can grow in holiness is for him to discipline us when we do things that are harmful to ourselves and others.

However, in addition to this discipline that is imposed for doing wrong, there is another kind of discipline. There is the discipline that we might choose to impose on ourselves...self-discipline. Athletes do this all the time in order to get better and grow stronger. The same is true for the spiritual life. If we expect to become spiritually strong then we've got to do more than we're doing.

Jesus tells us plainly in the gospel that we should strive to enter by the narrow gate. Many, he says, are not strong enough. I'm starting a weightlifting program right now in order to make my body stronger. I've learned that if all we ever do is lift our own bodies then our muscles get used to this. It's no big deal. We have to try to lift something that is almost too heavy for us so that our muscles can wake up and realize that they need to get stronger. In the spiritual life we also have to stretch ourselves. Let's resolve this weekend to add some new exercises for our souls, to stretch ourselves spiritually to lift more than we think we can. Only this way can we hope to have the strength to enter the narrow gate.