The Friar Podcasts - preaching prayer and spiritual reflections

Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him a long tunic. When his brothers saw that their father loved him best of all his sons, they hated him so much that they would not even greet him.

The toughest emotion to admit, and perhaps to deal with is jealousy. When we see someone who is treated better than we think we should be treated, or we want something someone else has, we can fine that jealousy creeps in.

And it can be hard to admit to another that we are jealous. Some fear that if they admit being jealous, they will appear weak or lacking. Admitting being jealous can even make things worse unless we also find a way to deal with jealousy. But there is an antidote to this, namely, gratitude.

This is the case because gratitude helps us to focus on what it is that we have, what is it that we should thank God for in our life. When we are jealous, it causes us to focus on what it is we do not have. And so being jealous can never feel good. It never provides a way to grow into a deeper spiritual life.

Moreover, being grateful is at the heart of Catholic spirituality, since the meaning of the word Eucharist is to give thanks. Moreover, dealing with jealousy by being grateful can indeed help us to get through the feeling be seeing that perhaps what we do not have is not really worth much at all.

Today's readings in many ways show the harmful effects that come from being jealous. The brothers of Joseph allow their jealousy of their brother Joseph to become hatred, so bad that they will not even talk to him. So many of the troubles of the Pharisees concern not their thinking Jesus was wrong, but rather because they became jealous of the way in which he was attracting more positive faith conversions than they were.

The bottom line is that so much of our faith grows when we can strive to see the good thing and the blessings that God pours out upon us. The spiritual life is not a competition, except to outdo one another in holiness. And when we learn that holiness is what Jesus desires for us, and we can be grateful for that, then the life-giving relationship with Jesus fulfills us completely.

Cursed is the man who trusts in human beings. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD.

I have a hard time trusting others. Even though things do not always go as well when I do things myself, I find it so much easier to only have to count on myself. This is not at all the best, especially in the spiritual life. Whom do you trust?

The first reading puts before us a very clear choice. Do we trust in human beings or do we trust in God? It can be easy to trust in human beings, because we can see them, hear them, interact with them. As for God? Do we trust in God? Do we allow God the pride of place in our lives?

Are we really able to place our whole heart and soul, mind and intellect into the hands of God and to do his will? Will we go wherever it is that God wishes us to go? Does our trust in God become so deep that the life of the gospel bubbles up from inside of us so that we witness to all that Jesus can do in the lives of his people?

Jeremiah, the prophet in today's first reading, hears the word of God, trusts in him, and tries to rally the people into the same trust. It does not go so well. People simply do not listen to Jeremiah, they do not heed his words. He has heard clearly what it is that God wants him to say to the people, but the people to whom he speaks do not wish to listen.

Even Jeremiah struggles in his circumstance in life, sometimes wishing he could stop preaching the word, as it has brought him trouble. But, the love of God is so powerful and the ways in which God stirs up the heart of Jeremiah there is no other choice for Jeremiah other than to proclaim his word.

The season of Lent provides that perfect opportunity to ask God to help us to have more faith in Him. Sometimes the way is not clear, the road is tough, and it is difficult for us to know what God wants. But if we find ourselves unwilling to trust in God, it is even harder.

But when it is the case that we can look back over our lives, and in doing so finding every reason to believe God and to rely on Him, then we too become like Jeremiah and find ourselves welling up with love of God and his grace to do the very things that deepen our relationship with God.

All of this comes down to seeing the purpose of Lent. When we can believe that Jesus is the way, then at that time the choice is really no choice at all.

Remember when you were a little kid, and a grown-up or a friend was telling you something you did not want to hear, and you put your hands over your ears and said, "I can't hear you!" While certainly much more serious, that is what the people are saying to Jeremiah as they seek to kill him.

They do not want to hear what Jeremiah wants to say. Or, even when they ask him to tell them what it is that God has said, they do not really want to do what God wants them to do. They are simply hoping that what they want to do and what God tells them to do magically come together.

Sometimes, though, we can be the same way with God. When we hear something we should do, say from the gospel or the Church, we too can cover our ears in hopes that we will not have to do anything. Or, we can be in a situation where we just hope that what God wants aligns with whatever we have already decided we want.

At least in my life, when this happens, it is usually because I am being asked to do something I do not want to do. Or, the message from God seems too difficult or will require too much sacrifice. So, I cover my ears.

But why? Why do I do this? How often has it been the case that God has not wanted for me what is best? When has God ever led me astray? When is it that I have ever not received the good news and grace from God when I listened to him with an open heart and uncovered ears?

Though it is not in our readings today, perhaps we should make this prayer ours today: If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts!

Wash yourselves clean! Put away your misdeeds from before my eyes; cease doing evil; learn to do good. Make justice your aim: redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea, defend the widow.

Justice is when people get what they deserve. While we can think about this definition and think it refers only to those who do wrong things getting what they deserve, it also refers to people receiving the things they deserve: food, clothing, shelter and health care, and the opportunity to obtain them. And because of our failure to do these things, we must set things right.

Our concern with justice must be a concern that people receive the things they need to live. People need to be treated in a way that values their dignity. It must be the case that we treat people the way we do because we recognize the connection between what they deserve as human beings made in God's image and likeness and our vocation to be disciples of Jesus.

If there is anything, however, to remember during this season of Lent is the invitation from Jesus to celebrate the sacrament of confession. We can be made clean by the love, mercy and forgiveness of Jesus! We can receive the grace of the Holy Spirit to cease doing evil. We can receive God's gift of wisdom to learn to do good.

Lent is a time of justice, either because we "redress the wronged, hear the orphan's plea and defend the widow", or because we recognize that Jesus did not only treat us with justice, but tempered his justice with his mercy so we could be saved.

This was a reflection given to the Saint Louis Chapter of the Lay Dominicans on Sunday, March 5, 2023. The topic was the Eucharist, the Body of Christ. Using John 6, there is a movement from the multiplying of the loaves to Jesus as the bread of life, to the Eucharist itself, when disciples are told unless the eat the flesh (in the Greek sarx) of the Son of Man and drink his blood, they have no life in them.

Every time we celebrate Mass, then, it is the case that we participate in the divine liturgy in heaven. Jesus gives himself to us at Mass, body and blood, soul and divinity. But the gift is a subject, a person, not an object. That means that the gift of Jesus in the Eucharist is for the very purpose of so changing us at Mass that we can then witness to the power of Christ's love in the world.

There must, then, be a connection between seeing Jesus at Mass in the Eucharist and see Jesus in the least of his brothers and sisters. So if John 6 is a movement into deeper and more profound understanding of Jesus as the Bread of life, then the second "act" is to move from 1 Corinthians 12, which declares the believers of Jesus, the Church, to be the body (soma in Greek) of Christ, members of a community bound together by love.

We are in fact, then, connected to each other. Using the words of Mother Teresa, which connect our unhappiness to the forgetting we belong to each other, it becomes clear that there is a profound connection between our worship at Mass, which leads to our conversion, and the recognition of Christ in the poor which leads to our conversion to become more like Christ. The Spirit has poured out upon us many gifts, and that we are a community of believers, the Body of Christ, to Matthew 25, where our celebration of Mass so changes us that we see Christ in the Eucharist and in the least of his brothers and sisters.

done evil; we have rebelled and departed from your commandments and your laws. We have not obeyed your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, our fathers, and all the people of the land.
Justice, O Lord, is on your side;

O LORD, we are shamefaced, like our kings, our princes, and our fathers, for having sinned against you. But yours, O Lord, our God, are compassion and forgiveness!

I find this first reading today resonates with me. I often feel that this is what I say too often to God. I am shamefaced at my sins, and I seek his forgiveness. Then when I think of the gospel, I find that in addition to this, I find myself judging others all too often.

And there is an interesting thing about judging. Often we judge others for doing the very things we do not like in our own life. Rather than seek God's forgiveness, admit our own faults and failings, we can find it easier to focus our own attention on others. We hold others to a standard we do not hold ourselves to in our lives.

Our hearts and souls are only able to receive God's forgiveness to the degree we are willing to forgive others. "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful." "Stop judging and you will not be judged." "Stop condemning and you will not be condemned." "Forgive and you will be forgiven."

Ok. So we know what it is we must do. So we know have to do it.

Beloved: Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.

Too often I think the feeling is that following Jesus should be something easy. Further, following Jesus should be something that makes everything go perfectly in our lives. If we follow Jesus, we should experience goodness. All the time. Everywhere. Hardship? Not at all.

But living the gospel, following Jesus, being authentic in our faith, that is not easy. If you have paid attention to just the daily Mass readings for yesterday and the day before, you know that. There simply are going to be times where the gospel brings hardship to us.

Are you ready for that? Do you think you can bear your share of the hardship? If you are only thinking of what you can do yourself, the answer, of course, is no. We cannot bear the hardship of the gospel on our own. It is not easy to be faithful to the gospel, because sometimes we do not want to be nice to others, to forgive, to imitate Jesus, to stand up for what is right in the face of harm.

But the good news of the gospel is that we do not need to do this on our own. We have "the strength that comes from God." We simply need to accept God's love, God's grace, and God will give us the strength we need. God also surrounds us with a cloud of witnesses, both on this earth and in heaven.

So when you are faced with the unbelievable challenge of standing up for what is right when it is hard to do so, when you are called to feed Jesus when you see him in the poor, or to deal with that situation, circumstance or person that is difficult, know that you never do this on your own. You have the strength of God to help.

Readings for Today

It is much easier if we can keep people in black and white categories. The good guys over here, the bad guys over there. The people I agree with I will care for deeply, the people I do not like can be on their own. My friends here, my persecutors there. And on an on.

And increasingly around the world, and certainly here in the United States people are put into groups we like and groups we do not. And heaven forbid we actually talk to each other or try to understand each other. See, it is easier to live in a black and white world, because it does not require me to think. It does not force me to consider complexities. It can be all about me.

And we see this over and over again. But for Jesus, this is not the way it should be. It is not the way it is at all. There are two great commandments: love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. Except with Jesus' view, there is a catch. Everyone else is our neighbor. Everyone. No exceptions.

And that is what Lent is for. I do not know about you, but I am still working on both of the great commandments. I need to love God more, so that I can love neighbor more. I am not at all where I need to be, or where God wants me in either case. But the good news is that Jesus does not give up on me, and Jesus does not give up on you. He died for you and me. And we need no more than that.

Do I indeed derive any pleasure from the death of the wicked? says the Lord GOD.  Do I not rather rejoice when he turns from his evil way that he may live?

I am not going to lie. There are times where I wonder if I am really serious about repentance and conversion. It is often the case I confess the same sins over and over again. Do I really have the desire to turn away from sin?

I think I do. But what is more important, does God have the desire to forgive? What seems most important is to recognize that God is kind, merciful and loving. And more than anything else, God wants us to be saved. Just as it is the case that God did not need to create, God does not need to save either.

It is rather, that God wants to create, wants to forgive, and even for the same reason. God is love. It is not that God loves, but rather that God is love. So when God creates, it is because God is love. And his desire for us to be saved comes from the fact that God is love.

And so we need to remember this when we sin. Even though it may feel like we are making no progress in the moral life, we need to remember that it is God who pours out the grace to help us to turn away from sin. It is God who is the one who gives us the ability to turn away from sin.

So do not hesitate to go to confession, even if you are feeling like you are always confessing the same sins over and over again. For God does not rejoice in your death, but in your life.

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.

"Queen Esther, seized with mortal anguish, had recourse to the LORD. She lay prostrate upon the ground, together with her handmaids, from morning until evening, and said: "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, and God of Jacob, blessed are you. Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand."

Queen Esther is in a bad situation. The king has signed a decree to have all the Jews killed. Mordecai, who raised her, tells her that her becoming queen may very well have been God's providence for just this moment. She has to tell the king she is Jewish. And she is seized with mortal anguish.

For to share that she is Jewish, to the king, could very well mean the end of her life. Can she stand up for her faith, even in the face of death? Or will she succumb (maybe even understandably so) to her fear and remain silent.

I cannot remember ever facing such a situation, but in thinking about the martyrs, I must admit that I have thought about whether I could bear such a crown. Or, would I fail to stand up for my faith?

But it is the case that we can find ourselves faced with choices each day that require courage. Maybe confronting a coworker who tells ethnic jokes. Perhaps standing up for someone who it being made fun of or bullied. Maybe sharing my position on a "hot button" issue where I have a chance to defend Church teaching.

All of these examples can fill us with anguish. But each of these examples can become times where we say yes to God by cooperating with God's grace. Through prayer, fasting and almsgiving we can summon the ability to cooperate with God's grace. To do so is what this Lent is for in our lives.

On the friar, you can listen to our homilies (based on the readings of the day) and reflections. You can also ask us to pray for you or to pray for others. You can subscribe to our website to be informed whenever we publish an update.