BIG C CATHOLICS

Fr. Charles Irvin Revelation 7:2-4; 9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Matthew 5:1-12 They didn’t set out each day to change the world. They didn’t think of themselves as persons of power, people who could influence our culture and the powerful media elite or the shapers of public opinion. They didn’t want to do anything more than simply go to work, do their jobs, care for their families and maybe help a few other people besides. Most, if not all of them, would wince if anyone called them saints. Most if not all of them would rather be thought of as ordinary folks, people who just wanted to do their job and do it with caring concern for people other than themselves. So, then, what is holiness? And who are saints? Perhaps we need to change our mental pictures of who they are and how they behave. And perhaps, too, we should examine what we think God wants of us. These Beatitudes we just heard. Did we hear them or did we just listen to them without hearing? Note that these Beatitudes speak of...

Fr. Charles Irvin Deuteronomy 6:2-6; Hebrews 7:23-28; Mark 12:28-34 HEAR O ISRAEL, THE LORD IS OUR GOD, THE LORD ALONE! This cry struck a deep chord in the true sons and daughters of Israel. Throughout their long and turbulent history this cry always forced the Jewish people back to a consciousness of their origins and their national purpose. This was the cry of Moses when God first formed the Israelites into a nation. It is the First Commandment… the re-forming commandment when every restoration of Judaism was needed. There came a time when ideas and concepts about God and about who He was were attempted to be concretized. All such attempts, both long ago, and even now, fail. They fail because God is free to be who He is in His mystery and cannot be restricted by our human and limited conceptualizations. For instance, there came a time when the Jewish people saw God as exclusively identified with the Promised Land, with the land flowing with milk and honey. Only those living...

Msgr. Bernard Bourgeois Americans like things summed up easily and in few words. We like short news bytes and easy to understand directions that pop up on our phones. Simple, quick, and easy are words we live by. At first glance, today’s Gospel from Mark offers such a summary for today’s Catholic. A scribe asks Jesus, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Here is Jesus’ answer: " You shall love the Lord, your God , with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind." This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is like it: " You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments." Simple, quick, and easy—love God and love neighbor. It sums up everything Jesus teaches and is thus the center of the law of Christ. As anyone who takes faith seriously knows, these two commands of Christ are anything but simple, quick, and easy. They’re easy to say and even to believe; they are some...

Fr. Charles Irvin ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Back in the late 1700’s a man named John Newton, an alcoholic libertine and a man committed to destroy the Christian faith, was by the grace of God, rescued, restored, healed, and given the sight to see what he was and what God wanted him to be. He wrote a hymn with words you will recognize: "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see." We could spend the rest of this day discussing the various types and forms of blindness along with answering the question “Who is really blind, and who really sees?” From my perspective, the most debilitating form of blindness is that found in folks who think they see the truth when they really don’t. There’s no more pitiable form of blindness than one who thinks he or she has all of the right answers, who thinks he or she knows all that one needs to know about God, about Jesus Christ, about the Chu...

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) Successor of the Prince of the Apostles. Sovereign of the Vatican City State. Primate of Italy. Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman Province. Bishop of Rome. Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church. Vicar of Jesus Christ. There can be no doubt as to who is being described by this impressive list of titles. The ambitions of James and John don’t even come close. Still, you’ve got to give them credit. Although by this point Jesus has already predicted his passion three times, the third coming immediately before today’s Gospel, James and John seem to be in a state of denial. All they can see is that Jesus is the Messiah, the real deal, destined for glory, and they want to be part of that, to be great by association. No time like the present, then, to jockey for position, to set themselves up to share the honors in a place of privilege. Jesus basically w...

Fr. Charles Irvin Today’s readings present us with the question “Why is there suffering?” For those of us who believe there is a God, the question then becomes “Why does God permit suffering? Does God inflict suffering upon us, as some scripture passages suggest, or is suffering permitted by God due to the nature of the world He has created? Given the fact that I have only ten or fifteen minutes in which to address those questions, I will not even attempt to answer them here. Any answers I might give you in this short period of time would be simplistic at best, thus inviting simplistic responses, all of which would not be helpful us and would only expose us to ridicule from those who do not believe in God at all. I will therefore deal today with the question “How do we respond to the fact of suffering?” Do we respond passively and simply stoically accept suffering when it comes our way, or do we actively face it and even enter into it so as to come out on the other side as better...

Fr. René J. Butler, M.S. La Salette Missionaries of North America Hartford, Connecticut ( Click here for Sunday’s readings ) The answer is: A quiz show in which three well-read persons with excellent memories and reasonably good reflexes compete to win the most money. The correct question is: What is Jeopardy! ? Because they know and remember a lot of stuff, the contestants are considered really smart. They usually appear to be intelligent as well, which is not necessarily the same thing. They are clever. But, are they wise? They may well be, but this is not a requirement; in fact, since wisdom implies a capacity to ponder, it could even be a disadvantage, when rapid recall is of the essence. Which is better—to be well-read and clever (and maybe win lots of money), or to be wise? Today’s readings leave us in no doubt. Wisdom comes first; the rest may or may not follow. Where is wisdom to be found? Our spontaneous, common-sense response would be: “from experience, of cour...

Fr. Charles Irvin Wisdom 7:7-11; Hebrews 4:12-13; Mark 10:17-30 We have all heard the phrase: “Money is the root of all evil.” But scripture never calls money inherently evil. In fact, wealth is often portrayed throughout God’s Word as a blessing from the Lord. Think of Abraham or Solomon or other biblical figures. Matthew was a rich man. So was Zacchaeus. In today’s gospel reading about the rich young man we find St. Mark reporting: Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said to him, ‘You are lacking in one thing. Go, sell what you have, and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ The bible reports several people whom Jesus especially loved. One was Lazarus, the man He raised from the dead. Jesus, the gospels tell us, loved him along with his sisters, Martha and Mary. St. John the Apostle was another Jesus especially loved. Several times he is referred to as “the one Jesus loved”, or the Beloved Disciple. And there was of course His own mothe...