“As the Lord spoke to me, the spirit entered into me.” This is true for the prophets in a special charismatic way, but this is true for all those who have faith. Whenever we listen to the Word of God with faith, it is the Spirit Himself who enlivens us and causes us to know God from within. The Word of God, the word of the sacred scriptures, is so important, that I’m tempted to preach always and only on that for the rest of my life. The experience of God’s living Word was at the beginning of my own conversion and what inspired me to give my life for the Gospel. You have to have stopped at least once in your life to consider what exactly faith is. Commonly, when we say that we believe, we mean that we espouse a certain opinion – we think something is true, we think that God exists, or we think that Jesus is our Savior. While those are things that we believe as Christians, an act of faith is something much more focused. Faith is a special ability that we have from our baptism. It is the ability to listen and hear the Word of God, the Bible, the sacred scriptures, as coming from God. St. Augustine reminds us that the voice of the Holy Scriptures is the Holy Spirit. When we listen with faith, we are listening for the voice of the one speaking, the Holy Spirit, “As the Lord spoke to me, the spirit entered into me.”
Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
Christians must recall death frequently. They must recall the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, they must recall those who have passed before us, prayerfully interceding for them, and they must recall their own mortality. This is not because they are morbid, but because death is at the heart of all drama: human and Christological. Christians, however, do not have the same perspective on death – faith is the power to see death as God sees it. It is a challenge to remain in that perspective, however, because we are constantly tempted to consider our current lot in life permanent. The truth about our lives, that our life in this world is temporary, can be liberating and healing. As we attach ourselves to Jesus in faith – especially when it is challenging or involves suffering – it is actually a way for us to begin our healing from death. When we no longer have any reason to hope as human beings because all possible solutions have been exhausted, as in the case of the woman in today’s Gospel, we must still hope in God. With that act of hope, as through the crucible, our hearts experience divine healing from this present world that is passing away. That’s a very different perspective.
Solemnity of Most Sacred Heart of Jesus
The Catholic Church only celebrates two human organs in the liturgy. We could try to think about what other organs could have been celebrated: “blessed are the feet of those who spread the Gospel,” we could celebrate the Holy Feet of the Apostles. In the Book of Numbers, it says that Moses, “spoke with God face to face, and that he beheld the likeness of God” so we could celebrate the Luminous Eyes of Moses. We talked about anger and its effects yesterday. Apparently the ancients believed that excessive anger would cause your liver to produce too much bile. So, since St. Francis of Assisi was so peaceful, we could celebrate the Immaculate Liver of St. Francis. What organ would you say the world values most today? I would say that most people value the brain above all. We don’t celebrate the sacred brain of Jesus though – even though His brain most certainly is Sacred.