Daily HOMILY for November 4, 2015: Wednesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

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Wednesday 31^st Week OT Charles Borromeo

St. Luke’s Institute

November 4, 2015

CROSSES GETTING OUR ATTENTION +++++++++++++++

Ø  It is the carrying of our individual crosses that can press us into an awareness of where God is meeting us on the road of life

Ø  Without crosses we might well take little notice of God, much less develop a relationship with him

Ø  We are called to notice and respond when the way of the cross merges with paths of our own choosing and changes our journey abruptly

Ø  Encountering a cross on our journey can be like an unexpected storm

Ø  Confusing though it may be, there is a stark promise beneath the weight of any cross we bear

CROSSES & THEIR GIFTS ++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  We usually experience the cross and its promise in the concrete reality of our lives

Ø  Crossbeams of illness, sudden death, hopelessness, unabated grief, and incomplete understandings are all familiar crosses upon R shoulders

Ø  Broken relationships and hope turned to affliction weigh down our hearts

Ø  2 become conscious of the cross we carry, as well as 2B moved by cross of others, is to become connected 2 the action of God thru the community

Ø  Life demands that we both carry our cross and to help others to do the same

Ø  Besides alleviating someone’s pain & building community, there’s a 3^rd fruit in carrying others’ burdens, the doing of it lessens and deepens the meaning of our own crosses

CONCLUSION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  The way of the cross is present in some form every day our lives

Ø  The consciousness we have of many small changes of heart on our journey invites us to surrender the crossbeam in this moment, when I feel most vulnerable

Ø  It also invites us to carry it for others when the living memory of God moves us to acts of compassion

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Daily HOMILY for November 3, 2015: Tuesday of the 31st Week in Ordinary Time

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Tuesday 31^st Week OT

The Institute

November 3, 3015

TYPES OF OPPORTUNITIES ++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  “Opportunity knocks only once,” the saying goes

Ø  One ought to be alert, ready, and available when the knock comes

Ø  Missing an opportunity is regrettable, but those alert and ready to take it are the blessed by our culture

Ø  Today’s Gospel, though, complicates things & and invites us 2 consider whether culture’s version of opportunity & blessedness matches that of the K/G

PRIORITIES  +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  We hear, “Blessed is the 1 who will dine in the K/G”

Ø  This pronouncement at table prompts Jesus to tell a story about those who are invited to the dinner

Ø  A 2^nd opportunity comes a-knockin’ for those first invited and they seize it

Ø  With sights set on prosperity and enjoyment on this 2^nd opportunity, they find themselves too busy and therefore unavailable 4 the blessedness of dining in the Kingdom

Ø  The poor, though, and the blind, the lame, the alley and hedgerow dwellers are available

Ø  Because they have nowhere else to go and nothing to lose, they are ready for real opportunity with nothing else to distract them

Ø  Can we learn from them?

APPLICATION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  Paul seems to think so and offers good advice to all who desire to recognize the K/G when it does come a-knockin’

Ø  He advises, “Don’t B haughty. Associate w/ lowly”

Ø  That means establishing bonds of mutual affection among us, honoring each other

Ø  With regard to those who might be labeled “lowly” among us, we might try to see things from their perspective

Ø  Or we might not disdain performing lowly tasks

CONCLUSION +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Ø  If we take Paul’s advice, if we say with the psalmist, “I busy not myself with great things,” then a great opportunity is sure to present itself to us

Ø  It may come a-knockin’ in some veiled form this very day.

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Daily HOMILY for October 28, 2015: Wednesday of the 30th Week in Ordinary Time

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Wednesday 30^th Week OT / Sts. Simon & Jude

The Institute

October 28, 2015

ABSTRACT OR REALISTIC ART? ++++++++++++++++++

• ¬ You have no doubt been to an art museum and found yourself gazing at a painting for a long time
• ¬ Do the art pieces you single out for deeper looks tend to be realistic or abstract?
• ¬ For example, might you linger longer w/ Rembrandt’s realistic self-portrait or w/ Picasso’s abstract Guernica?
• ¬ W/ realism you are presented with one clear look
• ¬ W/ abstract art U R given a presentation that can B taken different ways & from different angles  
• ¬ ABSTRACT OR REALISTIC CHURCH? +++++++++++
• ¬ In Luke’s Gospel, he is very realistic, very clear
• ¬ Jesus prays & then names his Apostles, including Simon and Jude, the saints we celebrate today
• ¬ They immediately respond to Jesus’ call to be with him in prayer and to work alongside him
• ¬ The picture is one clear look, very realistic 
• ¬ The 1^st reading from Ephesians, on the other hand, is rather abstract, but no less “work of art”
• ¬ It describes foundation of a building being made up of Apostles & prophets w/ J as cornerstone 
• ¬ “Building” includes Jews & Gentile in its structure
• ¬ Paul gets even more abstract by including all of us in the structure, “In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit”
• ¬ So I’m asking, “Hmm, where am I in this wall or that flooring or that ceiling?”

OUT OF THE MEUSEUM +++++++++++++++++++++++

• ¬ Whichever artistic genre we’re drawn to, realistic or abstract, the inner beauty of either, of who we are as Church, who we are as the body of Christ…
• ¬ Becomes enfleshed at this table of the Eucharist
• ¬ For here we are “no longer aliens or strangers”
• ¬ Because we are one with Jesus as Simon and Jude were
• ¬ Here we are one with Jesus as his own flesh and blood  

CONCLUSION ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

• ¬ Today it’s time to take artwork – realistic or abstract – off museum wall…
• ¬ And see it come alive at this table!

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