All That Matters is Love

 

Deacon David Previtali · All that Matters is Love

Homily for the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 31, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 22:28-34. Theme: All That Matters is Love 

It’s so appropriate that we are hearing today’s Gospel about the Great Commandment of Love as we prepare to celebrate All Saints Day on Monday, November 1. Because holiness, sainthood, is 100% all about love. But as you know, love is a word that we speak so easily and throw around a lot in the English language. We use it in so many different ways and about so many different kinds of things that it can be hard to explain just exactly what we mean by it. 

So, I started doing some research about it in the lives of the saints. And in doing so, I discovered that instead of describing or defining love, they simply tell us that it looks and acts like Jesus of Nazareth. And you know, that makes a lot of sense to me because the Scriptures inform us that God is love and that Jesus was this God of love present among us in visible bodily form. So, this means that if we want to know how to love, if we want to learn how to practice love in what we say and what we do, then we need to turn to the example of Jesus. 

Now of course his life was very different from ours, so we’re not talking about a literal imitation of Christ. But to become like Jesus - or as St. Paul puts it, to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” - means to take on his attitude, to get into the sentiments of his heart, and to look up to him as our most important role model. And this is exactly what every single one of the saints did. So often when the stories of the saints are told, we get a mistaken idea that they always were perfect in every way. But honestly, nothing could be further from the truth. Because the reality is that they were just like you and me and many of them started off even worse than we are in many ways! 

Most of them were ordinary everyday Christians with their fair share of triumphs and struggles, joys and sorrows, good days and bad days. But we can also find among them those who were drug addicts, prostitutes, murderers and thieves. More than just a few had originally been greedy business people, conniving lawyers, crooked politicians, or corrupt clergy. 

Here I tell brief stories about St. Vincent de Paul, St. Philip Howard, and St. Mary of Egypt. 

They are available only on the audio version of this reflection.

But, at some point in their lives, every saint, no matter who they were or what they were, encountered Jesus Christ up close and personal in some dynamic way. And that’s when everything began to change. Bit by bit, day by day, the heart of Jesus, the mind of Jesus, the outlook of Jesus began to be gradually formed within each and every one of them. They show us that the power of God’s grace can turn a person around from being a skeptic into a believer, from living the lifestyle of a sinner into that of a saint. And their conversion experiences teach us that two things are indispensable in this process of transformation: the Gospels and the Eucharist. 

It makes a lot of sense to me that the Gospels are vital for the modeling of ourselves after Jesus Christ because where else would we go to learn about him? All four of the Gospels hand on to us what Jesus really did and said when he lived on planet Earth. And then the other books of the New Testament take up the task where the Gospels leave off and help us to actually put into practice what we learn in the Gospels. Just this morning at his Mass, Pope Francis said this very same thing in his homily. He urged Catholics to read, reread, and be passionate about the Gospel because when we do this Jesus, the Word of the Father, enters into our hearts, he becomes intimate with us and we bear fruit in Him. 

What he is saying is that when we read the Scriptures with faith, and that's the key - with faith - they have the power to change us if we allow it because, unlike ordinary human literature, they have the power of God within them. God’s Word can reach down inside us to touch and soften even the most selfish of hearts. For example, the once-egotistical and extremely-hedonistic St. Augustine was converted to Christ after 30 years of wayward living by simply reading and pondering just one verse from the Letter of St. Paul to the Romans. 

And as for the importance of the Holy Eucharist, well that makes total sense to me as well! I mean, how can we hope to grow in love if we don’t go as often as we can to receive the God of Love, who is truly present in Holy Communion? The more we receive Christ the more we become like him and the more he can love others through us. This is why the saints found any way they could to receive the Eucharist frequently. Each of them knew that without Christ living in them, they were just one step away from becoming again what they used to be. I know that on those days when I cannot receive the Lord in Holy Communion, I really feel the lack of spiritual strength within me. I find it more challenging at those times to love God and others as well as I should. 

The great mystic, St. John of the Cross, tells us that when we finally come before God at the end of our earthly lives, the only thing that will matter to him is how much and how well we have loved. In other words, our eternity will depend upon how much and how well we have sought to become more and more like Jesus in this life, so that we can enter the Kingdom of God to be with him and those we love forever in the next.

St. Vincent de Paul
 

St. Philip Howard

St. Mary of Egypt

Master, I Want to See!

 

Deacon David Previtali · Master, I Want to See!

Homily for the 30th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 24, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 10: 46-52. Theme: Master, I Want to See! 

The Gospels are filled with eye witness accounts of Jesus curing many people of various kinds of illnesses and conditions. So when an evangelist such as Mark includes a particular healing story in his Gospel, it’s because he’s singling it out as something for us to really pray over and reflect upon. Today’s healing miracle is definitely one of those stories. Mark doesn't want us to focus exclusively on what Jesus did for Bartimaeus, but rather on what he wants to do for each one of us. Jesus' healing touch can free us from moral and spiritual blindness so that we can safely and clearly make our way through this life to the joys of Heaven. 

While physical eyesight is obviously vital to all of us, living with moral blindness is really much more dangerous. Our moral vision is called “conscience” and it enables us to choose good and avoid evil, to clearly see right from wrong. But if we do not take care of forming our consciences correctly, enlightened by God’s Word, we will gradually fall victim to moral blindness. This doesn’t happen all at once but is a gradual process. Moral vision, like many forms of optical degeneration, develops within us over time and becomes more blurry each time we make bad moral choices. 

If not kept in check we can suddenly find ourselves doing things we never thought we would do. Consider the terrible tragedy of the person who harms another without remorse, of the pathological liar who becomes unable to speak the truth, of the gossip monger who can ruin a person’s reputation without batting an eye, and the cheating spouse who loses no sleep over repeated acts of adultery. Such people have allowed themselves to become so morally blind that they have no sense of loyalty, no attachment to truth, no sense of shame, no healthy regrets. Imagine what a terribly dark world such morally blind people must live in! 

Moral eyesight of conscience is something that we all have but it isn't something that we all have properly formed and developed. A healthy conscience formed according to the moral teachings of Christ is like having 20/20 vision. When presented with options in life that are not all of equal goodness in value, it enables us to choose what is good and reject what is evil. It informs us when we fail to love, when our lives are going on a wrong track, or when we are headed for destruction. Contrary to modern pop psychology, when we feel shame or experience guilt it’s actually a sign that our conscience is alive, healthy and well. These feelings are like a moral GPS system built within us, directing us to pathways that will lead us to happiness both here and hereafter. 

There is another type of blindness that is also dangerous and destructive: the blindness of unbelief. While it’s not precisely the same as moral blindness, they are very closely related and often go hand in hand. For the spiritually blind, the only realities of life are those that they can see, hear, taste, touch, smell or study in a science lab. In other words, it means the lack of faith in God and in the Unseen World he has created.. Those who suffer from spiritual-vision degeneration find themselves especially lost when it comes to the challenging struggles of life such as holding onto hope at the loss of a loved one or enduring and surviving the trauma of a broken relationship. The spiritually blind have no hope and often find themselves caught up in some form of addiction. This is why the success of 12-Step Recovery programs rests upon their non-negotiable insistence on spiritual surrender to a Higher Power. Spiritual vision restores us to reality. 

As opposed to moral or spiritual blindness, our baptism-induced faith-vision gives us the supernatural eyesight to look beyond our senses, beyond the world around us, and see the God who created it all. 

• Faith-vision allows us to know that we are more than just randomly assembled pieces of flesh and bone. That we are more than our DNA, more than our physical traits, more than our fleeting emotions and feelings, more than the animals who lack an immortal rational soul. 
• Faith-vision informs us that each one of us has a purpose on Earth and a destiny far beyond this planet. It enables us to see that no matter how others might see us or judge us, God sees who we really are from the inside out, loves us and calls us to live with him forever in Heaven. 
• Faith-vision allows us to see more in ourselves than others see. 

Physical sight comes through our eyes; moral sight comes through our conscience; and spiritual sight comes through our faith which means our belief and trust in God. As we ponder the healing story of Bartimaeus, let’s thank the Lord for the gift of all three and resolve to take care of them equally, so that our lives might be the best that they can be, both here and hereafter.

Through Him, With Him, In Him

 

Deacon David Previtali · Through Him, With Him, In Him

Homily for the 29th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 17, 2021. Gospel of St. Mark 10:35-345. Theme: Through Him, With Him, In Him 

In today’s Gospel, the brother-apostles, James the Greater and John, try to pull off a self-promotion maneuver behind the backs of the other 10 apostles. Having misunderstood the ancient prophecies about the promised Messiah, as did many Jews of their day, they think that Jesus is to be a Warrior-King who has come to conquer the Romans and build the new Great Kingdom of Israel. Due to their assertive and fiery temperaments these two sons of Zebedee were nick-named “sons of thunder” by Jesus himself, and apparently, they also thought quite a bit of themselves because they don’t simply ask Jesus for a favor. Instead, they demand that he do what they ask of him! 

Jesus does grant the first part of their request: to be intimately united with him in his reign in the Kingdom of God. But poor James and John had absolutely no idea what they were really asking. Jesus was to enter into glory by offering up his very life and these two brothers would be called upon to do the same. After the Resurrection, they preached Christ as Lord and Savior to all who would listen. And as a result, they shared the same chalice of suffering that Jesus endured. Like him, they would offer up their lives to God for the sake of the Gospel. St. James the Greater would become the first of the apostles to die for his faith in Christ about 20 years after the Resurrection. His little brother, St. John, would undergo torture and exile for the sake of the Kingdom, being the last surviving apostle. He died around the year 100. 

You know, James and John fundamentally had the right idea. They wanted glory with Jesus and were willing to stand with him to attain it. But they misunderstood what this meant and went about it in the wrong way at first! The two brothers seem to have forgotten that Jesus has already told them that the way to happiness, the way to reign with him in the glory of the Kingdom, was to follow his example and serve the needs of others. And so our Lord repeats this lesson in today’s Gospel and says: “Those who wish to be first must become last and make themselves the slaves of all...I have come not to be served but to serve, and to give my life as ransom for many.” 

Like James and John, this is a lesson that we all need to remember and put into practice in our everyday lives. We need to avoid their worldly ambition and be motivated by ambition for the Kingdom. We don’t have to be persons in authority or someone with an impressive position to have prestige in the Kingdom of God. Our greatness is not in what we do but in how we do it. Every human occupation and endeavor, every social level of living and working that is upright and good, is something that can make us great for the Kingdom of God! The way this can happen is by doing everything through Jesus, with Jesus and in Jesus. In this way we can have within us the same attitude that was in Christ. 

When we carry out our normal everyday duties through Jesus it means that we intentionally offer everything we do as a gift of love to God the Father. Our prayers and our professional duties, our joys and our struggles, are all offered to him through the pierced hands of Jesus his Son. In this way the gift of our lives becomes joined to the gift of Jesus’ life given out of love and becomes something beautiful for God. 

When we do everything with Jesus it means that we are mindful of the truth that we are not walking through life alone. We have the Lord as our companion throughout the day and can speak with him heart-to-heart. He is walking with us, working with us, praying with us and resting with us. When we join ourselves to Jesus in this way everything we do takes on a deeper spiritual meaning and becomes mystically united with all that he did when he lived on planet Earth. 

Finally, when we go through our daily routine, with all its ups and downs, all its ins and outs, we seek to do so in Jesus. This means that we consciously try to carry out our daily actions as if it were Jesus actually doing them. It means that we try to interact with others in the same manner and with the same kind of attitude that Christ has shown us. This means we strive to have an outlook of servanthood, an attitude of humility, a way of doing to others as we would like them to do to us. 

A simple way to mindfully live and offer up our daily lives through, with and in Jesus is to make a special prayer from the Mass part of our own personal daily prayer. At the highpoint of the Liturgy, the priest and deacon elevate the consecrated Gifts of the Eucharist above the altar, raising them up to God the Father. This symbolizes the unselfish act of Jesus the Servant giving up his life as a ransom for us sinners. We can make the words of this prayer our own and offer our day up to God for others by using the very same words: “Through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours, almighty Father, for ever and ever.” And seeing the good intention of our hearts united with Christ his Son in the Eucharist, God the Father will surely reply to our prayer. “Amen!”

He Went Away Sad...

 

Deacon David Previtali · He Went Away Sad...

Homily for the 28th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Oct. 10, 2021. Letter to the Hebrews 4:12-13; Gospel of St. Mark 10:17-27. Theme: He Went Away Sad... 

In today’s Gospel a young man who has made his way up in the world asks Jesus a question that I think we all have deep within us, whether we word it in the same way or not: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The first part of Jesus’ answer is clear and direct, “Keep the commandments.” This is advice he gives to all of us in general because the commandments are our common pathway to living with God. But we’re not all the same and so the second part of Christ’s answer is tailor-made for each one of us, just as it was for that rich young man. 

He was living a basically good life. According to the ancient Jewish way of looking at things he was doubly blessed since he was both wealthy and religious. And yet something was holding him back. Jesus was able to look into his heart to see what that “something” was. He told him that he was lacking in one thing, and that “one thing” was interior freedom. He had paralyzed himself in a lifestyle of prestige and position, and was unable to hear the Lord calling him to a different way of living, a new way of looking at life. He was possessed by his possessions. They held him so tightly bound to planet Earth that he just couldn’t let go and follow Christ to the Kingdom of God. 

We each need courage and trust to come before Jesus and ask him what more we need to do to grow and develop in our own relationship with God. Through gut-honest prayer we each need to ask Him to look at us, to look within us, and to tell us what it is that is holding us hostage. Jesus will open our minds to see who we really are inside and enable us to identify what is taking the Lord’s place of honor in our hearts. We each have something that holds us back, that stands in our way of true discipleship. The key that will unlock our chains is to identify whatever this might be and then stake steps to deal with it. 

Maybe it isn’t money or possessions like it was that young man. Maybe it’s pride, lust or arrogance; maybe it is envy or a hurt that we refuse to forgive, a memory that we just won’t let go of. Maybe we’re in a wrong relationship or caught up in some destructive behavior that we don’t feel strong enough to break out of. Or could it be a fear that if really live our relationship with Christ we’ll lose someone or something that we are desperately clinging on to? Yet if we truly yearn for eternal life, then we need to honestly take this kind of a personal inventory and ask ourselves: what is it that keeps me from giving myself completely to Christ? What is holding me back? 

The description of the Word of God in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews can help us with our personal diagnosis and its remedy. It reminds us that Scripture is like a two-edged sword that can perform spiritual surgery and cut out whatever is infecting our full following of Jesus. This is why Pope Francis constantly reminds us to read at least a small portion of the Gospels daily. He knows that God’s Word has the power to penetrate into our hearts, to dig deep into our consciences, and to root out whatever it finds there that does not belong to Christ. Like any medicine, however, it works over time and so must be taken in daily dosages. But if we persevere in this spiritual treatment, we will indeed experience gradual healing and find ourselves becoming more and more free. 

Jesus had offered the rich young man a pathway to freedom, but he preferred the familiar security of his chains. He preferred an existence of temporary happiness to that of eternal joy. He couldn’t let go of the gold in his hand, so to speak, in order to grasp the hand of his Lord. And so, he went away sad. Let’s not be like that. Let's not walk away from Jesus sad because we can't let go. Let’s drop whatever holds us back and take Jesus’ hand and follow Him, so that He can lead us through life - with all its ups and downs - and finally bring us to the joy of eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Servants of Love, Servants of Life

 

Deacon David Previtali · Servants of Love, Servants of Life

Homily for the 26th Sunday of Ordinary Time, October 3, 2021. Genesis 2:18-24, The Gospel of Mark 10:2-12. Theme: Servants of Love, Servants of Life 

Our first reading from the Book of Genesis presents us with a very intriguing story about the first man and the first woman. Many people scoff at it because it seems like such a fairytale. But they make this mistake because they treat this story as if it’s a recounting of history as we 21st-century people would tell it. When reading the Scriptures we have to remember that God’s Word comes to us in various forms and styles of literature. Today’s Genesis passage was written in the poetic story-telling language of ancient Middle-Eastern culture. Through the use of symbolism it teaches us who man and woman are meant to be for each other through the bond of marriage. It’s a truth which Jesus himself ratifies in today’s gospel. So let’s revisit the story and see what God is revealing to us through its symbolism. 

As the story opens we come upon God as a kind of hybrid sculptor-surgeon-inventor, who labors to find just the right complement to the male human being he has formed. If we place ourselves in the story and let our imagination guide us, I think we can almost see the damp primordial mist creeping through the garden and feel a gentle breeze swaying through the lush greenery of Eden. And there, in the midst of it, we see God bending gently over Adam who is in a deep peaceful slumber. The Lord removes a rib from his side and lays it carefully upon the soft ground. As we continue looking on in utter amazement, we see that the excised rib is transforming into the detailed figure of a female, the first woman. Adam awakens and we see him turn his head to the side, We hear him exclaim that his existence is enriched and his life is now complete! The two of them, Adam the Man and Eve the Mother of the living, have received each other and become one through the intentional action of a match-maker God! This Genesis story is telling us that it takes three to get married and enjoy life together: man, woman, and God.” 

We are told that the first that woman came from the side of man. And so, we need to ask what this symbolism might mean. Why was she created from his side? Why not his head? Why not his foot? Well, because in the ancient culture of Genesis, to be made from the man’s head would mean that she was his superior. And to have been formed from his feet would designate woman as man’s inferior. So you see, to proclaim that woman was created by God from Adam’s side is to say that male and female are companions, equal in their partnership as husband and wife, equal in their dignity as creatures of God. This was a completely revolutionary idea in ancient times! 

The fact that our Genesis storyteller has God creating Eve from a rib rather than any other body part is also very significant. Again, recalling that we are dealing with Hebrew symbolism we have to ask: why a rib? What do ribs do for the human body that might give us a clue? As we all know, ribs form a cage, a protection, for the body’s two most vital systems: the heart and lungs. The heart is of course a universal symbol of love; the lungs, symbols of life. Without lungs we have no breath, no existence. Without a heart, we have no love, and a life without love is barely worth living. And it’s in these two realities of love and life that we find the very reason and purpose for marriage. 

Spouses are to be servants of love, servants of life to one another. They are to put the welfare of their beloved before their own, finding a kind of happiness in focusing on the needs and desires of the other. They are to give deeper meaning to each other’s lives, to each other’s existence. And they are also to be servants of life by receiving and nurturing any children the Lord might give them as the flesh and bone signs of their bonded-love. So you see, there are some fundamental and important truths that God is teaching us through this most ancient of Old Testament stories. It’s all about the equal dignity of men and women and their mission as a couple to be living signs of love and life in a world that desperately needs to hear it and to see it in action. 

For this very reason, Jesus elevated the natural union of civil marriage into the supernatural union of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony for his disciples. Through this sacrament He offers married couples all the grace, strength and power they need to be servants of love, servants of life. Through matrimony he empowers them to love as he loves and to live as he lived. This grace, strength and power is theirs for the totality of their lives together as husband and wife. All they have to do to receive it is to be as docile and open to God’s Presence and God’s action in their lives as were Adam and Eve on that mysterious first day in the Garden of Eden.