15th Sunday in Ordinary Time (cycle C)

In the Gospel from Luke today we hear the well known story of the Gospel from St. Luke of The Good Samaritan. Samaritans and Jews were enemies. Those who should have been the responsible ones to help where the Jews, but they passed the man by. The Samaritan was the one moved with compassion to take care of the man.

It is through our faith and the practice of our faith in our participating in Sunday Mass that we are also moved to help those who are so much less fortunate than ourselves.

Last week I introduced you to what I am calling THE SYMPHONY OF THE MASS. We reviewed the Story on the Road to Emmaus. St. Luke constructs the story as a road map for us to follow to show the structure of the mass.
1. They gather together
2. They tell their story and recall what Jesus had said
3. They share a meal – the breaking of the bread
4. They return to Jerusalem to share their great news that Jesus is not dead, but that he lives and we have seen him.

This is our road map to see the mass in Four Parts with Introductory Rites and Concluding Rites.
1. THE INTRODUCTORY RITES: – We gather together
2. Welcome
3. Blessing – sign of the cross
4. Call for forgiveness – Lord, have mercy…
5. Gloria
6. Opening Prayer

2. We tell our story: LITURGY OF THE WORD (scriptures)
a. Old Testament BCE = Before the Common Era (Christian era)
b. A letter from St. Paul
i. Gospel from Luke, Mark, Matthew, John
ii. Homily

1. We share a meal – LITURGY OF THE EUCHARIST
2. a. Offertory Procession to bring forth the gifts of the community
b. Preparing the Altar
c. Preparing the Gifts – washing of hands
D. CONSECRATION of the bread and wine through the priest praying the sacred words of TRANSUBSTANCIATION (bread, wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ)
e. Holy Communion – Prayer before Communion
Come, the meal is prepared, this is Jesus, our Lord and Brother, who gives us himself as food for our life journey that
we will be food for others…Lord, I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed.
f. Concluding Rites – we are sent forth to go into the world to tell the Good News
a. Prayer after Communion
b. Announcements
i. Blessing
ii. d. Sending Forth – “Go In Peace to Love and Serve the Lord in one another.”
d. Closing Song -DO NOT leave until the ministers have left.
(When you leaving early you have not totally attended mass and therefore have committed a mortal sin, in legal terms)

8 Sunday in Ordinary Time

Authentic discipleship requires undivided faith commitment. A person can not be divided between wealth and God. Matthew knows this and tries to teach the people this lesson. We have often heard it said, “a house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Jesus goes a step further and says that a person can not have two masters – God and wealth. Real discipleship demands complete trust in God’s gratuitous grace.
For centuries it has been tried that wealth and abundance is the way to security and peace. In our heart of hearts we know this to be false and yet like out ancestors before us we still seek after it. Jesus is not trying to say that we don’t have concerns about what we are to eat, what we are to wear, and where we are to sleep. However, he warns that if we place to much trust in accumulating these things, as history has shown, wealth crumbles before the unconditional love of God.
The Israelites in our First reading today had to learn this lesson the hard way. In an earlier chapter from the prophet Isaiah Yahweh promises them wealth, prosperity, and a good life ahead if they obey his ways. However, their leaders did not obey God’s ways and they fell into captivity for many long years.
Nevertheless, in today’s account the prophet is once again announcing Good News, that even though the people had given up hope that God had not forgotten them,
even though that is what had come to pass. Instead, we hear this very tender language being used by Yahweh, that even if a mother could forget her baby He would never forget us.
“Even should a mother forget, I will never forget you.” Such loving, tender, comforting words we hear from our loving Father – God.
The problem is far to often we don’t heed the warnings that Matthew tries to give us in today’s gospel message. Try as we might to keep our eyes and goals focused on the Lords Will for us, we inevitable drift back trying to find security in wealth, power, and war. Wealth can mean many things: money, possessions, job, willingness to step on others to get what we want, and yes, even our health. Failing to remember that death comes to us all.
It’s not that Jesus is being so hard nosed about this, he understand even better than we do our human needs. He tells us just look at nature and find there a clear example of how God looks after his world. Until we come along and mess it all up with our terrible greed, power politics, and instiable desire to control the world’s natural resources; foolishly I might add, we are destroying the vary nature that God created for us to live in. The unspeakable horror of poverty caused from lack of shared wealth and resources is the primary cause of the deaths of millions of our brothers and sisters around the world.
And even right here in our back yard we focus to much on ourselves leaving us little time to see and act on the needs of those around us, including the two subjects that we are talking about this week – human trafficking and HIV/AIDS. We are witnessing parents throwing away their children, selling their children or disowning them for having HIV disease. Human trafficing is worse than ever, and we still see and hear about far to many young adults who are being thrown out by their parents. It makes God’s words for us all the more important, even if a mother forget her child, I will never forget you.
But how long will it take us to learn this lesson, as Jesus says, we can not serve two masters – God and wealth. It simple cannot be done and more often than not mistakenly wealth wins the day.
The central issue here is where we locate our faith, our security, our ultimate value, in things or in God. Sure we have tough times, like we are going through right now and we find ourselves challenged to keep our faith in the Lords goodness and care over that of seeking security and the future in material wealth, and all that means.
The Gospel is laying out a clear choice for us today: continue on the disastrous path we have been on for centuries or follow the Prophet Isaiah and Matthew’s call to seek first the reality of the Kingdom of God, and all else will flow from that. For centuries our ancestors and ourselves have been on a destructive path in choosing our security in wealth and power rather than in Gods abiding love.
Perhaps it is time for us to give God an equal opportunity again. God promises to
be with us always, through the good times as well as the rough times. He does this best
in giving us the Eucharist, where he comes and gives us himself in his entirety to be food and drink, to nourish both body and soul. That is why we are here today, because deep down in our hearts we know that this bread and this wine are the real gift of life, the body and blood of Christ Jesus. AMEN.

Human Trafficking

Dear Family,

“War”, “Murder”, “Starvation” — those are powerful words. When we hear them, we immediately feel emotions like fear or sorrow or anger. That’s because we know something about the awful reality behind those words. We know the human suffering that war, murder, and starvation causes.

But what about the words “Human Trafficking”? When you hear those words, do any strong emotions rise up inside of you? Fear? Sorrow? Anger? Probably not. That’s because most of us know little about human trafficking and what that means to so many people who are victims of this terrible thing that is going on right here in our own community, in our state, in our country.

Once a person of faith understands what those two words describe, she/he is filled with anger and feels a need to put a stop to it.

I hope that after seeing the video on human trafficking this weekend you will have a greater awareness of this injustice and will join me in the months ahead in doing something concrete for people who are forced to work and forced into prostitution.

Please read the statement by our bishops on human trafficking that is in your bulletins today. Then in the days ahead, let us unite as a parish community and make our voices heard throughout the land.

Peace and All Goodness
Fr. roger
Pastor

Available for Loan

BOOKS
THE SLAVE NEXT DOOR – K BALES
NOT FOR SALE – DVID BATSTONE
A CRIME SO MONSTROUS – B SKINNER
VIDEOS
LIVES FOR SALE
STOLEN CHILDHOOD – NIGHTLINE
SEX TRAFFICKING IN AMERICA – PRIMETIME
FIELDS OF MUDAN
ONE BORDER – ONE BODY
DYING TO LIVE
INVISIBLE CHAINS

Web sites

http://Browardcoalition.org/humantrafficking

http://Flcathconf.org

http://Browardprevention.org

http://Kristihouse.org

http://Stophumantrafficking,org

HHS then human trafficking google
Dcf state of fl initiatives human trafficking – google

http://Acf.hhs.gov/trafficking

http://Catholiccharitiesusa.org

http://Sharehope.org

http://Humantraficking.org

Flastateuniversity – google

http://Stopenslavement.org

http://Frc.org

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

With all that is happening in our country with people loosing their jobs and homes, and what we see happening in Egypt these past few weeks is a challenge to all of us to ask the question, “What would Jesus do?”
The proposed budget cuts from the Republicans goes against all that I hold sacred in the Lord’s teachings of caring for our poor, marginalized, and down trodden. The Gospel today calls us to not just be Christians in name only or when its convenient; we must go much deeper to the very core of our being, our soul, where God dwells.
Our first reading from the Hebrew Testament Book of Sirach calls to mind the law of Moses. Following these laws had saving power. In the early church it took on the notion of what true wisdom is. In Latin it was called ECCLESIASTICUS, meaning Church Book that set up the laws for how people are to live in harmony with God. Once again, thousands of years later God has delivered his people from the bondage of slavery.
He goes a step further and put before the people a sort of challenge, “Before man are life and death, good and evil, which ever he chooses shall be given him.” There is no room for compromise here. Sirach makes clear what the choice is and what it means for us today.
St. Paul talks about true wisdom and that it is given to those who desire to live by it through the power of the Spirit.
Today’s Gospel from Matthew is a rather strong one for us to hear in our times, however it was not strange to the people he was writing for in his community. Everyday presents itself with new and demanding challenges for each of us. Jesus shows us how shallow the scribes and Pharisees are in knowing the doctrines of the Law of Moses, but their actions speak much about how far they are from the truth and wisdom of the law. We see all to often in the Gospels how they play around with Jesus and try to entrap him in what he says, but more importantly, what Jesus doesn’t say.
The main controversy that rattles the cages of Matthews community was between the Jews and the Christian followers of Jesus. Some believed that once you accepted Christ that the law of Moses was no longer in effect. For Matthew, this couldn’t be further from the truth. The Mosaic law is now to be interpreted through the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord which moves it to a much deeper level of truth in action, not leaving it at the surface level or its dismissal.
The lines we hear in the Gospel today are from the Ten Commandments which were given to Moses on Mount Sinai and the people had followed literally for thousands of years until Christ’s coming. They were so caught up in the letter of the law that they missed the Spirit of the law, which is what Jesus was teaching. Some of the things that we hear from Jesus today seem rather impossible to do or to live up to. Not so, what Jesus is teaching is that we look beyond the law to its deeper meaning. It was not enough for Jesus just to say don’t steal, he wanted us to realize that stealing means so much more. It goes deeper than just things to how one looks at and practices the law in the Spirit as Paul reminds us.
To be well articulated in the doctrine of the law did not make you a good and holy Christian, it was more important that you live in your day to day actions the spirit of the law that ultimately will bring you into closer union with God. For Matthew, how one lives is the real sign of what one believes.

We have put before us the choice between life and death, good and evil, fire and water, which ever one you choose will bring eternal life or damnation. Damnation doesn’t mean hell fire and brimstone but rather unrest, lack of peace, leading to a belief that God really doesn’t care about me. What we might refer to as the miseries of the day.
While on the other hand, Jesus offers us life eternal in peace and harmony with God, ourselves, others, and nature itself. Jesus gives us the example of fully committing yourself to a life of peace and good will among all God’s children. We cannot call ourselves true followers of Jesus if we do not stand up for the rights of the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten in our society. Like Jesus said, we must stand with the poor, the widow, and the orphan.
Like the mother who is struggling with two jobs and still doesn’t make enough money to properly feed and cloth her children or to provide them with good health care instead of running into an emergency hospital room when her child is sick. Or the working class man who has worked for so many years for a company that is all to willing to throw him aside so as not to have to pay a decent salary and provide health care for his family.
That is why it is so important for us to look deeper into the meaning of the ten commandments and see their application to our life situations today.
Working class citizens are hard working people who strive to make life better for their children and the children of others who need their help. The poor don’t want a hand out, they want a hand up to get back on their feet and be able to take care of their families. They don’t want an unemployment check, as some would have us believe, no, they want a job! We are a proud nation, a good nation, now is not the time to be turning our backs on these little ones, as Jesus calls them. It is not good enough to look at the problems and then walk away believing there is nothing I can do about them.
We see the courage of the young people in Egypt standing together, standing firm in their desire to live free, to prosper and enjoy the fruits of their labors. A regime has fallen, there are more to come I am sure of it.
We are good people but the Gospel calls us to be GREAT people, and in some ways we do that very well here at St. Maurice as we look at the 27 missions that we support around the world with our hard working hands. However, there is much to be done.
Today’s readings are all about how we put the things we say we believe into action. Christianity is not a theory or a sometimes practice when its convenient for me. Christianity is a way of life, and as such it must be lived radically.
Every time we celebrate the Eucharist it challenges us to live out our baptism call 24/7. Each Mass helps our conversion to go deeper and wider, more radically rooting our lives in Jesus. President John Kennedy said at his inaugural address 50 years ago, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country?” I say, “Don’t ask what Jesus is doing for you, but what are you doing for Jesus?” It’s a simple and yet very profound question, “What would Jesus do?”