Our Work and Our Waiting

We are all familiar with the experience of feeling suddenly very sleepy. It might even have happened to you this week: after a big meal, for example; or reclining in a comfy chair; or listening to your uncle pontificate about something around the dinner table; or sitting through a long and boring sermon. Sleep is a basic human need, and sometimes drowsiness rushes upon us in an almost uncontrollable away. But there are certain times in which we *can’t* fall asleep – in which it is vitally important to stay awake. For example, a person who is driving or operating heavy machinery can't afford to fall asleep, nor can a security guard or soldier who is out on patrol, nor a college student pulling an all-nighter in order to finish a term paper. In those circumstances, sleep becomes an enemy of sorts – something that tempts us to not fulfill our task.

In the Gospel we just heard, Jesus also warns us against drowsiness: not of the body but of the spirit. He says, “Be watchful; be alert!” Elsewhere, he puts it more directly: “Stay awake!” He doesn’t literally mean that we can never lay down to sleep; rather he wants us to be on guard against the drowsiness that comes from worldliness. This Gospel, along with those we have heard the last few weeks, is ultimately a reference to the Lord’s Second Coming, when he will return at the end of time for judgment. But that raises a question: *how* are we to be watchful for such an event? What exactly are we supposed to *do*?

There’s a clue in the parable that is easy to miss. Jesus says that the Master of the house has gone away on a journey, but that he “places his servants in charge, each with his own work.” The servants attend to their labors as they await the Master’s return. What Jesus describes is the image of the Church – that is, of us, as we are now – caught up in the middle of the story, hard at work at present tasks, but awaiting eagerly his return. In other words, our work and our waiting are not opposed to each other; rather, we await Jesus’s coming precisely by attending well to the work presently before us.

Carl Spitzweg, The Night Watchman Asleep (c. 1875)

What is the “work” Jesus gives to us? It differs from person to person, but generally it is how the Lord calls us to holiness each day: 1) our devotion to him, first and foremost, by daily prayer, participation at Mass, and regular sacramental confession; 2) our fidelity to our vocations, which for most of you means your marriage, your children, and your family more broadly – to love them as Christ, to serve them as he serves the Church, and to teach and encourage them by word and example to come to love the Lord themselves; 3) our witness to the world of the truth of the Gospel, which involves everything about our lives: how we live, the goals we strive for, and especially how we attend to the poor and the needy, those with whom Jesus has a special solidarity.

The details of these vary for each of us, but broadly speaking, that is the work that Jesus has left us to do until he returns. Those tasks are not particularly extraordinary, and they are certainly not glamorous, but they are not supposed to be. It is in our daily duties – to the Lord and to each other – that we expectantly wait for the Lord’s coming. If we are honest with ourselves, we have to acknowledge that at times these duties become difficult, even mundane, and we in turn become lax in our attention to them. In short, we become drowsy – inattentive to our tasks and forgetful of just who has entrusted them to us while he is away.

So it is that Jesus says to us today, “Be watchful; be alert!” His words are a call to be roused from our drowsiness – not only to remember that he is coming, but to look more attentively to the work that he has given us. We have begun the season of Advent once again – a new liturgical year in the Church, and an opportunity not just to get ready for Christmas, but to apply ourselves with renewed focus and energy to the work the Lord has given to us.

Take a moment this week to consider those three tasks I mentioned earlier, what the Lord has charged us with. First, consider how Christ might be calling you to be renewed in your relationship with him. How is your relationship with God? In what ways could it be better? What could you give up to make more time for communication with him, for prayer? You’ll find in the back of church a small gift from our parish that might help you answer those questions. Second, are you being faithful to your vocation? Where is the Lord calling you to improve your love for your family, especially as a spouse or as a parent? Are you helping your family to love Jesus and his Church more deeply? Where can your love be more like the love of Christ: selfless, sacrificial, even suffering, if necessary? And finally, third, look to your witness to the world: how you spend your time, how you spend your money, what priorities you keep, and what relationships you prioritize. Ask yourself, do these things show the world that I am a serious Christian, or not? Am I living to serve the Lord, or myself?

Friends, we are all servants of the Master and to each of us he has entrusted important work until he comes again. Sleeping on the job is simply not an option, so let’s use this Advent to throw off the drowsiness that can creep in at times for all of us. We may not always have the Second Coming in the forefront of our minds, but our alertness and our attention to our daily labors – to *what* we do and *how* we do it – might make all the difference for how the Master will repay us when he returns.

"¡Viva Cristo Rey!"

In the living room of my rectory, I have on one wall an assortment of images and icons of saints that I have collected over the years, each of whom has a certain importance for me personally. There is St. Andrew, of course, with his X-shaped cross, as well as St. Peter and St. Paul, St. Benedict, St. Francis of Assisi, and more. The newest image though is of someone who lived much more recently: Blessed Miguel Pro.

Do you know that name? He was a priest of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, who lived and ministered in Mexico at the beginning of the 20th century. At that time, the government had adopted a new constitution aimed at the secularization of the country, which imposed atheism as the official state doctrine, and which sought to break the power of the Church. Church property was seized, priests and nuns were imprisoned, and monasteries, convents, and schools were closed. A groundswell of resistance, peaceful at first but ultimately armed as well, plunged Mexico into a period of civil war, known as the “Cristero” conflict, which lasted for more than three years.

In the midst of the persecution, Fr. Miguel and other priests continued to minister to people in secret, celebrating Mass and bringing them the sacraments. Fr. Miguel was eventually falsely accused of being part of an assassination plot, and without trial or evidence, was executed in 1927. He was one of dozens of priests, and tens of thousands total, who lost their lives in the Cristero War. The reason that I mention Fr. Miguel’s story today is because of his very famous last words. As he faced the firing squad, he held out his arms in the shape of a crucifix and shouted, “¡Viva Cristo Rey!” – “Long live Christ the King!” Those words were something of a rallying cry for those who resisted the Mexican government’s persecution, but they are most often remembered now in association with Fr. Miguel, who was declared a martyr and a Blessed by John Paul II in 1988. 

“¡Viva Cristo Rey!” “Long live Christ the King!” Those words are a reference to the feast we celebrate today. The Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe had been instituted by Pope Pius XI just a few years before the Cristeros, as a reminder to Catholics to hold true to this essential message of our faith: that Jesus is King. By that, we don’t only mean he is king for us in a spiritual sense, or that he will be our king in heaven. We mean rather that he is King *now*, and that this world, and all that is in it, is part of his kingdom – most especially, we ourselves, all that we have and all that we are. We acknowledge him as sovereign of all; we submit ourselves to his reign and authority in all things. That kingdom is not yet fully manifest, but it is already present. As St. Paul says in our second reading, all other powers and authorities are being made subject to him, with death as the final enemy. The world awaits that final revelation of the Lord’s victory, but as Christians we declare now that he is King, living out that truth – and if necessary dying for it, as Fr. Miguel did.

The martyrdom of Blessed Miguel Pro, SJ

While we may nod our heads in agreement to all that, if we are honest with ourselves, I think we have to admit that we are pretty fickle in actually living it out. We may well *believe* Jesus is King, but too often we *live* differently. We say he is King, but we use our time and energy to prioritize other things – to pursue other goals that have little to nothing to do with him or, even worse, stand in direct conflict to him. We say he is King, but we make choices that acknowledge other authorities – often, our own, by compromising our consciences and rationalizing what we know is wrong. We say he is King, but we fall short in the daily habit of prayer that is our lifeline with him, and we allow ourselves to be distracted or delayed or detained completely from coming to Mass, where he is present above all. We say he is King, but we allow ourselves to get swept up by earthly movements and worldly figures, who promise us happiness in ways apart from him, or who prey upon our fears such that we grow to doubt his providence and care.

All of those things are important areas for growth in our relationship with the Lord. I certainly include myself in all of it! But the Gospel today reminds us that there is an even more important measure by which we can demonstrate our fidelity to Christ: by loving him in others. The passage is interesting insofar as neither of the two groups recognized who had been present before them; both have to ask, “Lord, when did we see you…?” If Jesus were to appear before us today, as hungry or naked or as a strange or imprisoned, we would, I hope, immediately do whatever we could to help him – whatever he needed, we would provide, because we recognize he is our King! The point of the Gospel today is that he *is* appearing before us, not in such a way that we see him, but in no less real of a sense. In those who are hungry, in the naked, the stranger, the imprisoned … in the homeless, the depressed, the single mother, the unborn, the addicted, the sorrowful, the penitent, in anyone else in need, Jesus himself is present. And the standard of our fidelity to Christ as King – the standard upon which he will judge us – is not in any lip service we might pay, or any good intentions we might have, but whether we actually help him: whether we feed him, clothe him, visit him, welcome him – truly him, as he is present in those who are in need. How we minister to him is left to us, to do in different ways – but we have to actually *do* so, or else he will hold us accountable.

The Last Judgment mosaic (6th cent.), Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna

Friends, we all know it has been a difficult year, and so many people are in need, including many of us. When we are the ones who hunger and thirst, who are ill or imprisoned, then it is a comfort to believe that Christ is our King, because we know that he will heal every sorrow and right every injustice, in the end. But that belief is also a challenge because to hope in him – to say “¡Viva Cristo Rey!”, “Long live Christ the King!” – means also that we are putting the challenge to ourselves to live out that belief now, to serve him now, especially his presence in those who are in need. 

May the Presence of Christ in the Eucharist that we will celebrate open our eyes and open our hearts to serving him in the least among us.

The Right Kind of Fear

When I was pastor at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, one of the topics I most often discussed with our students were their plans for the future. Their dreams and expectations always inspired me: for example, to become a great doctor, to heal people; or to start a business, in order to build something of their own; or to be an engineer, to discover new technologies to make the future better. Often, I found that along with their dreams and hopes, these students were also motivated by a certain kind of fear: a fear of *not* reaching the goal they had. They knew that their goals were lofty and difficult to achieve, and so that fear also motivated them to work hard, to keep striving through difficulties in order to achieve what they desired.

Most of the time, we think of fear as bad, but a certain kind of fear – the right kind – can be good. Good fear motivates us; it challenges us. It spurs us onward to achieve what is difficult – what we might not do otherwise. We see the difference between these two kinds of fear in the Gospel today. Each of the three servants know that they have a demanding Master, one whom they are afraid of disappointing. The ones who receive five talents and two talents, respectively, have the right kind of fear; they intuitively understand that their Master expects a return on what he has entrusted to them, and so they get down to business. On the other hand, the servant who receives one talent is afraid in a bad way; he doesn’t know what his Master wants, and so his fear becomes crippling, leading him to do nothing. When he returns, the Master is angry with the idleness of the servant; he knew his Master was demanding, but instead he did nothing. And his inactivity is made all the worse when it is compared with the industriousness of the other two.

What the unfortunate servant lacked was a desire for greatness, and the right kind of fear that comes with it. In most areas of our lives, we want to be great. We don’t aim for mediocrity in our jobs, in our friendships, in our family relationships – we want greatness, whether we end up achieving it or not. But when it comes to our relationship with God, too often we settle for being just okay. We don’t want to be *bad*, per se, but we’re alright with not being the best. The question is why? What are we afraid of? Are we afraid of appearing foolish to others? Or perhaps the problem is something else. Perhaps we are afraid of being great – great disciples, great friends of Jesus, great servants of the Lord? Perhaps, like the servant who only received one talent, we are afraid of taking action, of being decisive in striving for greatness?

Andrei Mironov, The Parable of the Talents (2013)

The truth is that the Lord desires our greatness. He wants us to be great, but great in what really matters – in knowing and loving him, and in giving witness to him in how we live. Greatness in the earthly things of our life – our careers, our friendships, our families – are not in the end what he is truly interested in, because they don’t last beyond this world. But we were made for something beyond this earth; we have been created with an immortal soul that has the ability to know and love and serve him so that we may be with him in the next. In the end, that is the only kind of greatness that matters – the greatness of sanctity, of striving to serve the Lord at every moment and with every aspect of who we are. To do that we need a certain kind of fear – the kind that inspires us to boldness, to action, to strive through difficulties to achieve what we desire. It may be that we will make mistakes along the way; that’s okay – God offers us the chance always to begin anew. But what can’t be tolerated is inactivity, slothfulness – when we are afraid to seek his will or assuming that we have done what is necessary to satisfy him. It is then that we have to remember the warning of this parable: that the Lord expects us to be working hard until he returns because he will demand an account of what we have been given.

Friends, the Christian writer Léon Bloy once wrote: “The only real sadness, the only real failure, the only great tragedy in life, is not to become a saint.” That may seem like a high standard to strive for, but it is the same one Jesus gives us in the Gospel today. Jesus himself is ready to help us, of course – to give us the grace we need. But maybe he also is calling us to dream big ourselves and, like the students at the university, to be motivated by the fear of not achieving what he calls us to. As we prepare to celebrate the Eucharist in a few moments, let’s just make sure that what we are striving for, in the end, is not the greatness of earthly success, but the greatness of love, of sanctity, of Christian witness that will carry us to the life to come.

Word to the Wise

Can you tell me: what is the population of the state of Arkansas? How about: when was the city of Stuttgart founded? Do you know how many Catholics live in our diocese? You may not know the answer to any of those question of the top of your head, but with a few clicks on your phone or computer, you could find out very easily.

We live in an age of extraordinary access to information. Right at our fingertips, we can discover loads of facts about any topic that interests us. Indeed, experts say that information has become so available and omnipresent that it’s becoming like a drug – not only are we becoming overloaded with information, we are becoming addicted to it.

That’s not a good thing, obviously; too much information can overwhelm us or distract us from something more important. The poet T.S. Eliot once asked, “Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? The cycles of heaven in twenty centuries bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.” If he could write those words nearly a hundred years ago, how much truer we know them to be today. We may have access to all kinds of data but it seems increasingly our society collectively, and even we as individuals, are losing the ability to discern what is good and true, what is meaningful and beautiful – in short, wisdom.

Our Old Testament reading today, often attributed to have been written by King Solomon, describes how wisdom is the key to a life well-lived. Unlike plain information, wisdom forms the individual, helping us to choose well, to discern, to be prudent about the situation before us. Interestingly, the writer of the reading says that just as one seeks wisdom so too one finds that wisdom also seeks to be found; to seek wisdom is not a vain pursuit but the discovery of something precious and life-changing.

Often in the Old Testament, including in today’s reading, the virtue of wisdom was personified – treated less as a thing to acquire and more as a relationship with a divine being. Early Christians saw in this a foreshadowing of the Incarnation, of God becoming Man in the person of Christ. We gain wisdom, in other words, not so much by acquiring a certain kind of knowledge or by following a set of ethical principles, but by encountering a Person – the Person of Jesus Christ. As our reading today describes, the more we seek Wisdom – Christ – the more we realize he also is seeking us, seeking relationship with us, to teach and form us about how to live. 

Peter von Cornelius, The Wise and Foolish Virgins (c. 1813)

If true wisdom is this relationship with Jesus, then we also have to be aware of what can distract us from him. Today’s Gospel might be thought of as Jesus’s word to the wise about this very thing – how not attending to what is truly important can have disastrous consequences. We hear that the parable is set at a Jewish wedding feast with ten virgins awaiting the arrival of the bridegroom. In the ancient world, it was common for the groom’s family to prepare a wedding banquet. At the appointed time, the son would arrive and the bride with her attendants would process with lighted lamps from where she had been waiting to the wedding feast, where all would join in the joyous celebration.

In Jesus’s parable, the bridegroom is delayed; he has not yet arrived, and so the bride and her attendants, the ten virgins, must wait. The attendants know what their task is: they are to light the way for the bride when it is time for her to go and meet her husband. However, as the story tells us, while they know he is coming, they do not know when. Five of them are well prepared, bringing extra oil to light their lamps; five are unprepared. When the bridegroom finally arrives, the first five can fulfill their task and the second five do not. The five prepared virgins enter the wedding feast, while the foolish five lose their place in the procession and are locked out.

The early Church saw this parable as a stark reminder of how mere knowledge about Jesus – information about him, even faith in his coming again – was not a guarantee that one would be prepared for his return. Early Christians saw that some of their brothers and sisters, like the virgins who knew their task but failed to wisely prepare, became distracted, misguided, drowsy in their vigilance of waiting and preparing for Jesus’s coming. The same can happen for us. We can become overwhelmed with the information of the present world, of the world of the here-and-now, and so forget to stay focused on where true wisdom can be found: in praying fervently each day, in reading Scripture, in studying our faith, in practicing works of charity and forgiveness. All of these build up our relationship with God and reveal to us his wisdom. 

As we move into the latter weeks of the liturgical year, our readings look ahead to the end times. This is not because the end times are necessarily coming – they might be, I don’t know – but rather because we are called to hope in the coming of Christ and not the things of this world. Christians should *always* be living as if it were the end times, as if Jesus might come back next month, next week, tomorrow, in ten minutes. Why? Because by doing so, we live wisely, because we focus on Jesus, on he who is true Wisdom, Wisdom made Flesh. It can be easy to be distracted by the loudness of the events of this world, by the daily sources of endless information. But we must make sure we do not become like the foolish virgins, who grow distracted and drowsy to what really matters, and who find out too late they are unprepared. Instead, let’s use well whatever time we have, to prepare our hearts for the Lord’s arrival: to practice virtue, to grow in faith, to do works of charity, to serve the Lord where he is present in the poor and those in need.

Friends, may this Eucharist give renewed light to the lamps of our souls, so that like the wise virgins, we may not be found unprepared when the Bridegroom arrives.

Why We Pray

All Souls' Day (1888) by Jakub Schikaneder

The second of November is not a day that usually stands out on our calendars. But, as we know, this year is anything but usual. Each of us has had to consider in a new way the fragility of our lives – the fact that we are mortal and that tomorrow is not promised to us. And each of us knows persons who have died this year, from the COVID pandemic or from some other cause. In a special way today, as we celebrate this All Souls Day, we lift them up in prayer.

Grief is the natural consequence of our familiarity with death – both experiencing that of others and anticipating our own. We deal with that grief in different ways: we communicate with others about how important that person was to us; we hold on to our fond memories with them; sometimes we even continue to talk to them. As Christians, and especially as Catholics, we do something more, something even better and more loving for them: we pray for them.

Your presence at Mass today shows that you understand this. Our culture doesn’t know how to deal with death. It wants to tuck it away out of sight in denial; it can’t wrestle with it without falling into despair. But our faith teaches us that death, as painful as it is, is part of life, and specifically that part of life that leads us to eternal life. To pray for our deceased loved ones then is to express our desire to God that they should now participate in that eternal life. In other words, prayer for them is an act of love, and prayer at Mass – especially the offering of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass – is the greatest gift we can give to another. In prayer, and especially at Mass, we commend the faithful departed to the One who has conquered sin and death and who now lives forever.

I think we sometimes don't want to pray for the deceased because we think that means admitting they had faults; that they weren’t perfect. But to pray for our loved ones who have died doesn’t mean that we love them any less. Far from it! We live in a broken world, full of wounds and hurts, and that includes also all of us who live in it. We all have our sins and regrets and sorrows. While we pray to be free from those and absent of any guilt at the close of our lives, the reality is not always that way. We pray for our loved ones not because we do not trust in God’s mercy, but because we trust he might use our prayers precisely as a means for his mercy. And if, by the greatness of God’s mercy, our loved ones are not in need of our prayers because they are already in heaven? God doesn’t let those prayers go to waste; he helps us with them, or perhaps a soul who has been forgotten, who has no one else to pray for them.

Friends, in this very challenging year, it is good that we are here to pray for our loved ones, and to pray also for ourselves, that we might remember always what our faith teaches us about trials, grief, and especially death and eternal life. As we prepare to receive the Lord in this Eucharist, may he have mercy on all of us, living and deceased, and grant us his consolation and peace.

Our Friends, the Saints

What is your idea of happiness? Try to picture it. Maybe it is sitting on a warm beach with a cold drink in your hand; or spending time in nature, in the forest or the mountains; or about to sit down to a holiday meal. Pretty nice, huh? But now imagine that you’re alone – no friends, no family members, no relatives. That takes away some of the enjoyment, doesn’t it?

As human beings, we are innately social creatures. It is part of our nature to engage with our fellow human beings – to cooperate, to care for, to learn from and enjoy. To be sure, we all need and want “alone time” at times, but generally we need the companionship and solidarity of others. Our happiness here on earth– our flourishing as human beings – depends upon our association with others.

We don’t just need other people for happiness here on earth; we also need them to get to heaven. None of us can get there on our own. First and foremost, of course, we need Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer, through whom God has made it possible for us to be friends with him. Every grace that we receive and any spiritual merit that we have is the free gift of God given to us in recognition of his what his Son has done on our behalf.

While friendship with Jesus is what saves us, God desires to give us even more. He gives us the love of Mary, who besides her Son is our greatest helper and example. And, especially important for today, he also gives us the friendship of all of Christ’s friends, those whom we call the saints: the men and women up and down the ages who, though human like us, fulfilled the Lord’s will for their lives and so attained both happiness and holiness.

We have a tendency sometimes to think of the saints as relics of history, distant and unrelatable; yes, they were holy, but that holiness feels very far off from our reality, more like an idea than an example. That’s a mistake. The saints may have lived in times and places different from our own, but the fundamental human condition has not changed. They were much more like us than we might expect. We should think of them instead as our heavenly friends, real persons who walked this earth and who knew what it was like to struggle in the same ways that we do. And as the friends of Christ, as those who are with him in heaven, they not only provide us with an example but are ready to help us along our way.

The Holy Trinity and the Saints in Glory (c. 1735) by Sebastiano Conca

Like our earthly friends, we need the heavenly friendship of the saints both in good times and in challenging ones. In good times, the saints can help us grow in wisdom, learning more about their lives and how they sought holiness according to the circumstances of their day. By their example, we can understand more fully the call to holiness the Lord has given to each of us. And when times are more difficult, the saints do the same thing but they also intercede for us, helping us to receive the particular gifts that God gave to them in their journeys. That’s why, for example, St. Rita and St. Monica are great intercessors in difficult marriage and family situations, and St. Augustine or St. Vitalis of Gaza for those who struggle with purity, and St. Dymphna or St. Therese of Lisieux for those suffering from anxiety or fear. St. Francis can teach us about poverty of spirit; St. Teresa of Avila, how to pray; St. Isidore the Farmer, how to find God in your daily labors. 

And lest we think that all the saints lived long ago, some of the most powerful stories are those who lived in our own times. St. Gianna Beretta Molla teaches us about the value of self-sacrifice, when she refused to abort her child even though it meant her own death from cancer. Blessed Chiara Badano, born just a decade before me, showed us how to suffer illness joyfully. St. Josemaría Escrivá, a priest, wrote short aphorisms on how to find God in daily life. St. John Paul II, the great pope, was also a great disciple, showing us how to live one’s vocation as an adventure with Christ. I’d be remiss not to mention also Fr. Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus and just beatified yesterday, who surely has a lot to teach the Catholic men of today about the importance of helping immigrant families and living out an authentic Catholic faith in the face of injustice. 

The point, my friends, is that whatever your need or interest, there is a saint for you – there is a friend for you, waiting to guide and help you. Because greater than any image or idea of earthly happiness is the eternal joy of the saints in heaven. Jesus invites us to share in that – each of us, individually. But we don’t pursue that call by ourselves; we do it together, as the Body of Christ, and especially with the heavenly help of our friends, the saints. 

As we prepare for the Sacrament of the Altar, may their example and intercession encourage us to keep striving, that one day we may join their company.