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Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time
August 20, 2023 — Year A
Readings: Is 56:1, 6-7 / Ps 67 / Rom 11:13-15, 29-32 / Mt 15:21-28
by Rev. Nixon Negparanon, Pastor
A man was walking close to a steep cliff, lost his footing, and plunged over the side. As he was falling, he grabbed the branch of a tree that was sticking out about halfway down the cliff. He managed to hang onto the weak limb with both hands. He looked up and saw that the cliff was almost perfectly straight and that he was a long way from the top. He looked down and it was a long, long way down to the rock bottom. At this point, the man decided that it was time to pray.
He yelled out, “God, if you are there, help me.” About that time, he heard a deep voice coming from high up above that said, “I’m here, my son, have no fear.” The man was a little startled at first by God’s voice, but he pleaded, “Can you help me?” God replied, “Yes, I can, my son, but you have to have faith. Do you trust me?” The man answered, “Yes, Lord, I trust you.” God said, “Do you really trust me?” The man, who was trying to hold on, replied, “Yes, Lord, I really trust you.”
Then God said, “This is what I want you to do. Let go of the limb. Trust me; everything will be all right.” The man looked down at the rocks below, then he looked up at the steep cliff above him and yelled, “Is there anybody else up there who can help me?”
Brothers and sisters, in last Sunday’s gospel, we heard that Jesus chastised Peter for having so little faith. In today’s gospel, he honors a pagan woman for having great faith. The comparison between Peter and the woman gives us a valuable instruction. We naturally assume that Peter, a Jewish man and close follower of Jesus, must have a great advantage over a Gentile woman who had never even seen the Lord.
Peter was one of the children of Israel; he belonged at the table. He had never eaten anything profane or unclean in his whole life, and that can be found in Acts 10:14. The woman was an outsider. She was looked down on by the Jews as unclean and unworthy, one of the dogs. She had no business claiming some right to the Lord’s favor. However, the woman outshines Peter in the one thing that truly matters: faith – a strong, persevering, humble faith.
The Israelites, Abraham and his descendants, were given a unique privilege. They were the first people to whom the Lord chose to reveal himself. As Moses told the people when they were on the verge of entering the Promised Land, “You are a people sacred to the Lord God. He has chosen you from all the nations on the face of the earth to be a people particularly his own” (Dt 7:6).
The idea sometimes arose among the chosen people that, since they were specially chosen by God, other peoples were excluded from His love. They misunderstood the favor of God as a kind of ethnic superiority. They thought that being a physical descendant of Abraham was more important than living by Abraham’s faith. The prophets thought otherwise.
As we see in today’s first reading, Isaiah clearly proclaims that foreigners too, if they joined themselves to the Lord and followed the covenant, would find a place with the Jews in the house of the Lord. Indeed, the Lord reveals that His plan includes everyone. “My house shall be called a house of prayer for all people.”
The Canaanite woman in the Gospel shows that this prophecy came to be fulfilled. If she had gone to the temple in Jerusalem, she would have been strictly forbidden to enter. However, now that Jesus had come into her neighborhood, there was no need for her to go elsewhere in order to be counted among God’s people. She found salvation by putting her faith in Jesus. She honored Him as the Messiah, crying out to Him, “Lord, son of David.”
In order to benefit from the beautiful example of this woman of faith, we must first identify and overcome the sin of prejudice in our hearts. How easily we fall into an attitude of superiority over others. Prejudice prevents us from seeing the goodness of other people, simply because they fall outside of our narrow criteria of goodness. The problem is on display in the scornful attitude of the disciples. When the Canaanite woman begged Jesus to heal her daughter, their prejudice came spilling out in their words, “Send her away.” They would not put up with being pestered by a “dog.”
Brothers and sisters, whenever we let this sort of attitude take hold of us, whenever we are saying or thinking about anyone, “Send her away” or “Send him away,” we shut ourselves in a small box, where we breathe only the stale air of our own opinions. Prejudice is an offense against the dignity of others, but it is also a self-imposed limitation on our love. Ultimately, it is a rejection of the love of God.
This is not what we have learned from Jesus Christ. He fills us with His spirit of love, so that we may be free from slavery to sin. Jesus’ own attitude toward the Canaanite woman is revealed to us only gradually. He never closes His heart to her, of course, but He does subject her faith to a series of tests. At first, He is simply silent, then He tells her that His mission is to the Jews. When she persists, falling before Him and pleading for His help, He tells her that it is not fitting to throw the food of the children to the dogs.
This sort of language is jarring to us. It sounds like an intolerable insult, like a slap in the face. In fact, in the context of the times, it would have not sounded nearly so harsh. Jesus’ point is to distinguish between the Jews and the Gentiles.
The Jews are the first to be fed with the message of salvation. The word “dogs” here refers not to street dogs, but to little domestic pets. They live in the household, but they are not children of the family. However, Jesus’ statement may have struck her in a remarkable way. The woman gently turns his own words against him. The insult suddenly becomes an argument in her favor.
With no hint of offense or discouragement and with no attitude of entitlement, she makes a claim based on her strong faith. The banquet of the Lord is so great that even to receive a few crumbs falling from the table will be enough to heal her daughter. The Lord finds this declaration irresistible. He immediately proclaims what He had in mind all along, that this woman is not a dog. She is an admirable woman of great faith. His harsh treatment of her has brought out the best in her.
This wonderful episode shows us what great faith really looks like in practice. It is not a matter of belonging to the right social class. It does not depend on mastering all the properly religious words and rituals. It does not seek to prove to anyone that we are holy or deserving of divine favor. Great faith is persevering and humble.
Sometimes the Lord is silent and does not say a word in answer to us. Sometimes He reminds us of our insignificance or our weakness or our unworthiness. None of these are obstacles to us if we have faith. They simply purify us of all self-importance and make us more ready to receive the Lord’s favor. Nothing is impossible for us when we have great faith, because nothing is impossible for the Lord in whom we trust.
KEEP READINGFifth Sunday of Lent
March 26, 2023 — Year A
Readings: Ex 37:12-14 / Ps 130 / Rom 8:8-11 / Jn 11:1-45
by Rev. Mr. Mark De La Hunt, Permanent Deacon
From today’s Psalm we hear, “I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in His word (Ps 130: 5-6).” It is a good Lenten practice to ask ourselves, Do I trust God? Do I understand what is meant by divine providence? When my future is uncertain or I am experiencing suffering, darkness, death, or discord in my life, do I trust that He hears and answers my prayers? Today’s gospel clearly affirms that in God’s plan, “[S]uffering and death are not meaningless (Martin 200).”
On Hallow’s forty-day Lenten series, Jonathan Roumie shared a story that illustrates how God, in His providence makes good come from suffering. Fr. Walter Ciszek, a Polish-American Jesuit priest who was doing clandestine missionary work in the USSR, was imprisoned in a Soviet Union labor camp for twenty-three years. While in prison, he struggled with the seeming crushing of his dream to spread the faith. Despair came upon him, until he surrendered to God in the midst of his imprisonment, forced labor, and nutritional and spiritual deprivation.
How did Fr. Ciszek’s Catholic faith enable him to move from despair to helping the other prisoners “find God and attain eternal life (Hallow)?” A key insight was that he came to realize that “God is in all things.” He wrote, “To see His will in all things was to accept each circumstance and situation and let oneself be borne along in perfect confidence and trust. No danger could threaten me, no fear could shake me, except the fear of losing sight of Him. The future, hidden as it was, was hidden in His will and therefore acceptable to me no matter what it might bring.” This quote is from his autobiography, “He Leadeth Me,” which he wrote in peace and comfort in America. His autobiography is accomplishing his dream of spreading the faith much more effectively than if he had not suffered as he did.
Now let’s look at the gospel for a message on trust in divine providence. When Jesus receives word from Mary and Martha that Lazarus is ill, does He go and heal him as Mary and Martha expected their intercession to bring about? No. Listen to the oddness in these two verses. “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. So, when He heard that he was ill, He remained for two days in the place where He was (Jn 11:5-6).” Jesus, who is God, loves them and hears their prayer request to heal Lazarus, but does not do it. Why?
Jesus gives us a couple of reasons. After telling the disciples that Lazarus has died, He says, “I am glad for you that I was not there, that you may believe (Jn 11:15).” At Lazarus’s tomb, He tells His Father that He is praying out loud “that they may believe that you sent me (Jn 11:42).” Jesus delayed so that people would come to believe He was sent by God and has power even over the grave.
Dr. Brant Pitre shares the reflections of three saints on Jesus’ delay. They shine a light on divine providence that Mary and Martha, in the sorrow of the moment, could not see. St. Peter Chrysologus explained it this way: “For Christ, it was more important to conquer death than to cure disease. He showed His friend His love not by healing him but by calling him back from the grave. Instead of a remedy for his illness, He offered him the glory of rising from the dead (Sermon 63:1-2).”
My favorite of the three reflections Pitre shared may be from St. Andrew of Crete. He imagined Jesus at Lazarus’s tomb saying, “Lazarus, Come out!…As a friend, I am calling you; as Lord I am commanding you…Come out! Let the stench of your body prove the resurrection. Let the burial linen be undone so that they can recognize the one who was put in the tomb. Come out!…Come out of the tomb….(And here is the clincher….) Teach them how all creation will be enlivened in a moment, when the trumpet’s voice proclaims the resurrection of the dead (Homily 8).” St. Andrew was alluding to 1 Thessalonians 4:16, which tells of an angel blowing a trumpet when Jesus returns on the last day and the dead being raised at its sound. This spiritual truth is sung at the Easter Vigil in the Exultet, “Let the trumpet of salvation sound aloud the mighty King’s triumph!”
The third reflection was from St. John Chrysostom. He points out that, “Many are offended when they see any who are pleasing to God suffering anything terrible…They do not know that those who are especially dear to God have it as their lot to endure such things as is the case with Lazarus, who is a friend of Christ but was also sick (Homilies on John).”
God knows the big picture. We do not. Mary and Martha did not. While they just wanted their brother healed, Jesus wanted to draw more people to Himself by showing that He has power even over death. Through divine providence, Mary and Martha received a gift much greater than what they asked for.
The saints seem to get this, and so they do not fret over their suffering or impending death. St. Pope John Paul II, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Gianna Beretta Molla, and the aforementioned St. John Chrysostom come to mind (Pitre). They could live lives of heroic virtue because they trusted that God’s providence would bring about a greater good out of their suffering and death.
In raising Lazarus from the dead, we see Jesus vastly exceed that for which Mary and Martha prayed. This teaches us to trust that God hears our prayers and sees our tears (remember He wept with them). We have been doing extra fasting, abstinence, prayer, and charity for five weeks, but do we trust that God is doing something with our efforts? If you have not noticed any change or transformation in yourself, it may be that like Mary and Martha you are focused on looking for what you asked for instead of looking for what God chose to do. Ask Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, to reveal what the Father has done and is doing in you.
Here is another true story about providence, and this one is from a friend of mine named HV. He was a 16-year-old when his family had to flee their home country of Vietnam. HV remembers suffocating heat worsened by standing shoulder to shoulder on a boat with other refugees. People began to die around him as they had no water for three days. Ultimately, his family arrived in Virginia Beach. HV had no friends, could not speak English, and struggled with American culture.
Growing up, HV’s parents had prayed the rosary regularly with him and his siblings. His father had even taken him to a seminary to apply for the priesthood. (He was turned down.) Nevertheless, the awfulness of his family’s refugee experience led him to decide that God did not exist. Like Fr. Ciszek, though, HV came to see God in all these things.
His family survived the boat trip and were now living, in HV’s words, “in the greatest country on earth.” He ended up marrying, having children and becoming an engineering manager. He and his wife served the youth in their parish, and he served in the Knights of Columbus. And on September 25, 2021, the man who was turned down by that Vietnamese seminary, was ordained with me and is now a permanent deacon. And, by the way, his easy-going manner and sense of humor made him the class favorite and enviably, my family’s favorite as well. His parent’s prayers were heard, and God made a greater good come about for his family from the evil of war than if it had never happened.
My last sharing is from the Litany of Trust by Sr. Faustina Maria Pia of the Sisters of Life in New York. It was prayed in Hallow’s 40 Day Lenten challenge. She wrote that, “The Lord knows that we don’t have what it takes on our own. He comes to us with great love. He sustains us at all times, even when we are not aware of Him.”
Let’s close with part of the Litany so that you can continue to pray your own form of it these last days of Lent. I invite you to respond in your heart after each petition, Jesus, I trust in You. “That You are with me in my suffering…Jesus, I trust in You. That Your plan is better than anything else…Jesus, I trust in You. That You always hear me, and in Your goodness always respond to me…Jesus, I trust in You. That you give me all the strength I need for what is asked…Jesus I trust in You. That you can deliver me from resentment [and] excessive preoccupation with the past…Jesus, I trust in You. That my life is a gift…Jesus, I trust in You. That I am Your beloved one…Jesus, I trust in You.”
Brothers and sisters, make the saints’ trust in divine providence yours and, with God’s grace, move your Lent from doubt to confidence and from struggle to peacefulness. God is in all our experiences and so our future, no matter what it holds, is the best. Amen.
Citations
Hallow App. Lent #Pray40 Part 1: Imitation of Christ. Week 5 Tuesday and Wednesday reflections. March 2023.
Peter Kreeft. Food for the Soul – Reflections on the Mass Readings for Cycle A. Word of Fire 2022.
Fr. Mark Toups. Lenten Companion, A Personal Encounter with the Power of the Gospel. Ascension Publishing 2023.
Fr. Francis Martin & William T. Wright IV. Catholic Commentary of Sacred Scripture. The Gospel of John. Baker Academic, 2015.
KEEP READINGFifth Sunday of Easter
May 15, 2022 — Year C
Readings: Acts 14:21-27 / Ps 145 / Rev 21:1-5a / Jn 13:31-33a, 34-35
by Rev. Nixon Negparanon, Pastor
Today is the Fifth Sunday of Easter. Each Sunday after Easter, God’s messages through the readings help us in living our everyday lives. The main theme of today’s readings is that Jesus’ disciples are recognized by the people around Him because they follow His commandment of love.
There are four elements through which Jesus wants to make His presence among His disciples during His lifetime and after His resurrection. These four elements are: the cross, prayer, Eucharist, and love.
The first element is the cross. Jesus says, “Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after Me, is not worthy of Me.” (Mt 10:38, Lk 14:27) Crucifixion was a form of Roman punishment during Jesus’ time, especially for criminals and rebels. When persons were condemned to be crucified, a part of the sentence was that they should carry the cross on which they were to die, to the place of execution.
For us, to carry the cross is a figurative expression which means that we must endure whatever is burdensome, trying, or is considered disgraceful in following our Lord, Jesus Christ. The cross is the symbol of doing our Christian duty, even at the cost of the most painful death, just like Jesus Christ, who obeyed God and carried out His work for the salvation of all, though it required Him to die upon the cross in order to do it.
The second element is prayer. Jesus says, “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Mt 18:20) The best secret to unanswered prayer for whatever we need, is asking it in Jesus’ name, and not in the name of revenge, of consolation or pleasure, of an easy way out, of fame or shame, of good works or recompense for charitable donations.
First and foremost, our prayer must never be selfish. Selfish prayer cannot find an answer. We are not meant to pray only for our own needs, thinking of nothing and no one but ourselves. We are meant to pray as members of a Christian community. When prayer is unselfish, it is always answered. Let us always remember that the answer to our prayers is not according to our wish, but the will of the Father through Jesus Christ. That is why we should not separate ourselves from His Son.
The third element is the Eucharist. Matthew 26:26 says, “While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it and gave it to the disciples and said, ‘Take and eat. This is My body.’” At the Last Supper, Jesus eats a Passover meal with His disciples in view of His passion, death, and resurrection. The bread now is Jesus’ body, being broken and given to His disciples and to all of us. The wine is now Jesus’ blood, poured out for the redemption of the world. At Mass, the bread and wine are substantially changed by the power of the Holy Spirit into the body and blood of Jesus. The bread that we eat is not a symbol of Christ’s body, but really is His body.
The last element is love. Jesus says in today’s gospel, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.” (Jn 13:34) Jesus gives us this new commandment that we should love one another because He loves us. This teaching of Jesus about loving one another takes different forms.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22:39) Ordinarily, for Jewish people, a neighbor is only a fellow Jew. But for Jesus, the term neighbor includes any individual who is in need of help. That is what we understand in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Every person in need, whether he lives next door or a town away, whether she is beautiful or ugly, is a neighbor.
Jesus asks His disciples to use as a measure in loving other people, the love they have for themselves. They are to treat another person as their own flesh and bone. That is not an easy thing to do. We normally have different standards for ourselves as compared to others. The natural tendency is to give ourselves first priority or utmost care and to provide others with less or even no attention. By asking us to love a neighbor as our own self, the Lord simply is helping us overcome what we call narcissistic tendencies. We all belong to the one body of Christ, and we need to behave like we really are part of one another.
In today’s gospel, Jesus presents an even more demanding version of the commandment to love. He says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 13:34-35) The Lord teaches His disciples to use as their standard for loving, not only their love for themselves, but His love for them. He knows that our way of loving can easily be tainted with selfish motivations. Hence, He challenges us to love one another according to the way He has loved us.
But the question is, what is this Christ-like love? It is a love that is agape. A love in spite of and not “love if” or “love because.” Agape is unconditional love: a love that is not motivated by how lovable the other person is. It does not say, I’ll love you if you become valedictorian of your class, or very successful. Or I’ll love you if you can afford to buy me a beautiful car, etc. It is love for even the unlovable, including the poor and one’s enemies. His love is self-sacrificing, unselfish, unselective. The love of Jesus is also not merited love which is bestowed on those who possess adorable qualities. It never says: I love you because you are considerate. I love you because you are faithful.
We are all called by Jesus to do the same thing: to love each one not because he or she is lovable, but in spite of the fact that he or she may not be lovable. We are to love even our enemies and sinners also.
There was a little girl who was born without an ear. She became a shy and introverted person. There were times when she would go home crying because her classmates made fun of her. When she became a teenager, her mother took her to a surgeon who performed an ear transplant on her. The operation was successful, and she became a normal and happy person. Not long after, she had a boyfriend. After several years, they decided to get married. On the eve of her wedding day, she went inside her mother’s room to thank her. As she embraced her, she noticed something strange, something absent. She realized that beneath the long hair of her mother was a missing ear. She cried and said, “It was you! All these years you didn’t tell me it was you.” The mother replied, “I didn’t tell you because I didn’t want you to be sad for me. I did it because I want you to be happy, to see you happy with your life. You don’t lose something when you give it to someone you love.”
I recently received a text message from a friend that will make us reflect about life and love. It says, “LIFE is a four-letter word that is very meaningful. L stands for love. I stands for inspiration. F stands for forgiveness. E stands for everlasting. No matter who, what, where, and when you found life, always remember, only God can satisfy your life.”
KEEP READINGSeventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
February 20, 2022 — Year C
Readings: 1 Sm 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23 / Ps 103 / 1 Cor 15:45-49 / Lk 6:27-38
by Rev. Nixon Negparanon, Pastor
His advisors, because of his being friendly even to his political enemies, criticized President Abraham Lincoln, and he quickly answered, “Am I not eliminating my enemies by making them my friends?”
Everyone here has, at one time or another, been wounded by someone, or at least we believe we have been hurt or offended. Every one of us carries the scars from just living and the way in which life can be cruel and hurtful at times. Because of this, we can accumulate a tremendous burden of resentments, grudges, hatred, and anger. We all know someone who has nursed a grudge for years, and who is consumed with their anger, justified or not. (more…)
KEEP READING[Following is the text of Bishop Knestout’s September 26 letter to the Diocese of Richmond]
Dear Faithful of the Diocese of Richmond,
Today we continue the celebration of the bicentennial jubilee of our local Church. This Mass commemorates St. Vincent de Paul, the patron of the Diocese of Richmond, and recognizes the Catholic presence in the Western Vicariate of our diocese. (more…)
KEEP READINGSolemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(Vigil Mass, Dec. 7)
December 8, 2016 – Year A
by Rev. Salvador Añonuevo, Pastor
Readings: Gn 3:9-15, 20 / Psalm 98 / Eph 1:3-6, 11-12 / Lk 1:26-38
This morning, while the famous Holy Name of Mary Hymn Sing Ministry was singing Christmas carols at Oakwood Manor, one of the residents there whom everyone calls ‘Captain Jack’ reminded us of what happened on Dec. 7, 1941. Today is December 7, and, although I’m not much of a history person, I memorized this a long time ago because we were so close to where it happened: Exactly 75 years ago today, in a small island in the Pacific, the skies were aglow and there was ferocious activity, but it was not any type of celebration. The Japanese Imperial War Machine bombed Pearl Harbor. Twenty-four hours later, fires were still burning, men were being taken out of partially-submerged ships, and the shock of war had touched not only American soil, but that of all Allied countries – and that includes the country where I was born and raised: the Philippine Islands. (more…)
KEEP READINGFourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
January 31, 2016 – Year C
Readings: Jer 1:4-5, 17-19 / Ps 71 / 1 Cor 12:31-13:13 / Lk 4:21-30
by Rev. Louis Benoit, Guest Celebrant
Jesus goes to his hometown and proclaims the Good News of healing and liberation, and the people are impressed. But then they begin to say, “Wait a minute! Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Isn’t he the carpenter’s boy? Where did he get all this? We know where he comes from.” They begin to question. Jesus points out to them that sometimes people outside Judaism have greater faith than these people inside Judaism. And this really gets the people riled up! They want to throw him over the edge of the hill where the town is built, but he goes through their midst and is gone…
Of course, the tragedy is that Jesus, God incarnate in a human person, is among them and they don’t see it. Their vision is too narrow, and they miss it. (more…)
KEEP READINGSolemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
May 17, 2015 – Year B
Readings: Acts 1:1-11 / Psalm 47 / Ephesians 1:17-23 / Mark 16:15-20
by Rev. Salvador Añonuevo, Pastor
It has been said that those who know where they are going, why they are going, and how to get there, are blessed, indeed. Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Ascension of the Lord, Holy Mother Church reminds us of the Great News that we who became Sons and Daughters of God when we were baptized should know exactly where we are going. (more…)
KEEP READINGFifth Sunday of Easter
May 3, 2015 – Year B
Readings: Acts 9:26-31 / 1 Jn 3:18-24 / Jn 15:1-8
by Rev. Salvador Añonuevo, Pastor
As we all know, we are living in a wireless world. Everything seems to be wireless. This microphone on the lectern is not wireless, but even if I step away from that microphone, you can still hear me, because I am using a wireless microphone on my neck. Even the microphone that Phil [choir member] is using is wireless, so he can go around the church and you can still hear him. (more…)
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