17th Sunday After Pentecost

2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1
Matthew 15:21-28

Do you remember what the Apostles said right before the Ascension? “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

The Apostles were clueless.  You know that, right?  Three years hanging out with the guy, and they still didn’t understand.  They heard him tell the Pharisees, “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, give unto God what is God’s”. And so many times, He indicated to all who would hear that the kingdom was spiritual, not political.

And here they are, asking, “When will you take political power?”

That’s the context of this Gospel today.

They’d gone about 50 miles, from near the Sea of Galilee, which is in Israel, to the area of Tyre and Sidon, in modern Lebanon.  But Lebanon was not populated by Jews; it was not part of Israel, so the Apostles would’ve said, “Why are we talking to them? They’re not our people”.  So Jesus said to them, “Well, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the House of Israel”. 

Mind you, he’d already healed a centurion’s servant. He’d already said that whoever believed in Him would have eternal life. They knew that he wouldn’t reject a gentile who needed help.  But still they said, “Send her away”.

Just like the widow who begged the unjust judge to help, this Canaanite woman begged Jesus to help her daughter. And Jesus responded to her faith and healed her daughter.
However, I want to revisit the concept of Jesus being sent to the lost sheep of the House of Israel. That was His primary mission.  Where does that leave us?

Some 600 years earlier, speaking through the Prophet Jeremiah, God said, “The days are coming… when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah … I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people”.

In his Epistle to the Romans, Paul likens the Jews to a tree, a tree from which some branches have broken off.  But he also speaks of Gentiles – that’s us – being grafted onto that same tree.  And, do you remember the words of the Anaphora – the Eucharistic Prayer?  “This is my blood of the New Covenant”.

In the days of Jesus, the Israelite religion had taken many forms.  There were the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Zealots, the Samaritans, the Essenes, and a handful of others not even mentioned in the Bible. And there was a branch of that Israelite faith that centered around a crucified carpenter from Nazareth.  After the destruction of the Temple in the year 70, only two of those groups survived – the Pharisees, who developed into Rabbinic Judaism, and New Covenant Judaism, which came to be called Christianity.

The Old Covenant had the sacrifices of the Temple. 1 Corinthians 10 shows us that the New Covenant has the Sacrifice of the Eucharist.

The Old Covenant had the Passover, where a Lamb was eaten to remember how God had freed them from the bondage of Egypt.  The New Covenant has Jesus, our Passover Lamb, who is eaten to remind us how God has freed us from the bondage of Sin.

The Old Covenant had the Levitical Priesthood. Hebrews Chapter 7 tells us, “The Priesthood being changed, there is necessarily a change in the law”. We have the Priesthood of Melchizedek.

The Old Covenant had the High Priest entering the Holy of Holies once a year, on Yom Kippur, to make atonement for the sins of the people for one year’s time.  Hebrews Chapter 9 tells us that the New Covenant has our High Priest, Jesus, entering the Heavenly Holy of Holies only once, making atonement for all, for all time.

The Old Covenant had the Law of Moses. It starts with the Ten Commandments, but adds to them so that there are a total of 617 commandments.

The New Covenant has the Law of Love.  Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first Commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”.

Yes, we are, in reality, New Covenant Jews. And like the Jews of the Old Covenant, we are a chosen people.

The Old Covenant Jew was the people through whom the Messiah, Christ, would come to save the world.  The Old Covenant Jew was set among the nations to be an example of worship of the One True God amongst a sea of believers in Pagan Gods.  The Old Covenant Jew was set among the people of the Earth to be a beacon of morality, of righteousness (who sometimes failed).

The New Covenant Jew is, as Paul puts it, One New Man in Christ, a new people who have the privilege and duty of taking that same Christ to the whole world – whether our world is our workplace, or across the sea. The New Covenant Jew is today still set among the nations to show the worship of the One True God. And the New Covenant Jew is still set to be a beacon of morality – even if we, too, sometimes fail.

How do we show the worship of the one true God?  Just as we read in the Book of Ezra, we publicly proclaim scripture in our Liturgy.  Our Priests offer the Sacrifice on the Altar. Even the architecture of our churches, our temples, is a mirror of Solomon’s Temple.
 
So, how do we apply all this?

·       Love God by practicing the Beatitudes
·       Love our neighbor by practicing the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
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On those depend the whole Law and the Prophets.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2025/10/we-are-new-covenant-jews.html

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

19th Sunday after Pentecost
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When I was a boy, my father had a friend who was a hard man.  I’m not saying that he was a bad man, just hard.  Life had been hard on him.  His younger brother had died after being struck by a car. And as a result of that, their mother became mentally unstable, and she spent years in a mental institution. He grew up being just like his father, a hard man. Never one to show compassion, he was not one to think of the other guy, except when the goals of the other guy were the same as his.  

In his seventies, he lost his wife to cancer.  And then he got cancer.  He spent his final months in a hospice run by Franciscan nuns. 

He told one of his nieces that in the hospice, it was the first time in his life that he felt loved.
Our Lord’s words in today’s Gospel are, “Be merciful, as your Father in heaven is merciful”. Those Franciscan nuns obeyed Him. And the fruit of that mercy was that this dying man, a man who had a hard life, this man who had a hard heart - he felt loved for the first time in his life.

Sometimes, though, it’s just difficult for us to be merciful. We let our emotions get in the way of doing what we should. We want vengeance. We want the other guy to pay for the evil he’s done. But what does Jesus say? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.  That’s just living out the Second Great Commandment - “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”. And then he tells us, “Love your enemies and do good to them”.

Greek has three words meaning love. The first is eros (ἔρος). It’s where we get our word erotic, and it’s a love that’s associated with passion. Pope Benedict points out that it’s not just the love of a man for a woman, it’s also the love for music. It’s the love for the arts. It’s the love you have for anything that you’re passionate about.

The second type of love is philia (φιλία). It’s a feeling of affection, the love between friends.  It’s the Phila in Philadelphia, the city of Brotherly Love.

The third type is agape (ἀγάπη).  It’s a love that’s a choice, it’s an action, not a feeling.  When the Apostle John says “God is Love”, this is what he’s talking about.  In that great chapter on love in 1 Corinthians, “Love is gentle, love is kind”, that’s what Paul is talking about.  And when we are told to love our neighbor, to love each other, and to love God, it’s not eros, and it’s not philia.  It’s agape.

All of this answers the question of WHY we’re called to love.  But there’s still the question of HOW.

Our Prokeimenon points us in the right direction. “The Lord is my strength and my song of praise, and He has become my salvation”. The Lord will strengthen us to love. How do we tap into it, though?

In Romans, Paul tells us, “Do not conform yourselves to this age but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect”. It’s our responsibility to do the work, and God will provide the grace to give the results.  

What are the steps?

First, pray.  Paul says, “Pray without ceasing”.  Make your life a prayer.  Practice the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy – not as a work,  but as a prayer.  Pray set prayers like the Rosary. 

The next thing is reading the Bible. Read the weekly readings from your prayer book, “Hear Me, O Lord”. Read the Psalms & Proverbs. Meditating on them can reach deep into your soul. 
If you think you can’t understand, you’re not alone.  In Acts, we read the story of when Philip meets an Ethiopian Eunuch reading the book of Isaiah. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading, and the eunuch replied, “How can I understand if nobody explains it?”. Of course, Philip explained it.  But what he realized is that sometimes we need an explanation.
Jesus promised the Apostles that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth.   And those Apostles became the first bishops.

That truth into which the Holy Spirit led them is the traditional understanding of scripture, of our faith.  Where do we find it? You can start with the Brief Catechism on page 10 of your prayerbook, “Hear Me, O Lord”.  From there, you can read the Catechism of the Catholic Church or our Ukrainian Catholic Catechism, “Christ Our Pascha”.
Take one of the Beatitudes each week and ask yourself how you can live it out in your daily life.
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And then, as your mind is renewed, just make your actions reflect the faith that is forming your inner being. Show God’s love, God’s agape to all.
As our Lord tells us, “Your reward will be great. You will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked”.

Remember, Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
Go, and take every opportunity to be merciful.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2025/10/be-merciful-as-your-father-in-heaven-is.html​

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

Baptism homily (Baby “Michael”)
(Readings are Rom 6.3-11 Matt 28.16-20)
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Do you realize that you’ve just witnessed a miracle? 
Today, Michael has had the devil driven from him. On his behalf, his godparents have rejected Satan and affirmed Christ, and he has been joined to Christ. 

He was anointed with oil 

• The forehead was anointed so that “the mind might be opened to understand and receive the mysteries of faith.” 
• The breast was anointed so that he “would love the Lord with all your heart.” 
• The shoulders were anointed so that he “would accept Christ’s yoke.” 
• The ears were anointed “for the reception of the voice of the divine Gospel.” 
• And his hands and feet were anointed so that he would “raise your hands towards the holy place and always act justly,” and “walk in the ways of Christ’s commandments.” 

Then, he was baptized, as our Gospel says, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit”. As Christ said, “You must be born of water and the spirit”.  He has been born again. 

And then, to top it all off, he has been sealed with the Spirit through Chrismation. This is a public witness that you now belong to God! It is through the Holy Spirit that we live and serve God. Through all this, Michael has been brought from man’s natural state of separation from God, from spiritual death, into communion with God, into eternal life. He is now able to become a partaker of the Divine Nature! 

As the hymn reminds us, “all you who have been baptized in Christ, you have put on Christ”. 
Michael, my new little brother, today is the first day of your eternal life! Welcome to the family!
Now, parents, and godparents, how does this affect you?  Does this simple reception of the Divine Mysteries mean that Michael is set for eternity? Well, no.

You are the first catechists that Michael will have.  You are to show him how to live a Christian life.  You have the primary task of overseeing his formation as a Christian, a Catholic.  You must be sure to get him to church on Sundays and Holy Days. And, all the while, while he is learning the faith, you must be deepening your own faith, your own devotion to Christ; for how can you impart your faith to him if you don’t nurture it? 

Some years ago, I was honored to serve as cantor for the funeral of a deacon who’d also been a high school teacher of mine.  When I told a friend of mine that he’d passed, his response was, “He didn’t just teach me history.  He taught me to be a man”.  So, I say to you, don’t just teach Michael the facts of the Faith, teach him to be a Christian.
And, if you need help, talk to us, to the priests and deacons.  That’s why we’re here, to help you grow.


In the Gospel reading, our Lord told the Apostles to make disciples of all nations.  And that’s what we are – disciples – students of righteousness, of truth, of Christ!  A child newly baptized is like a sponge, ready to absorb all spiritual truth.  But we adults also can absorb these truths, and we can support others in absorbing these truths – in being true disciples.
Glory be to Jesus Christ!!!

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

When the Lord God brought Israel out of Egypt, he didn’t just give the Ten Commandments.  He gave the Law of Moses, instructing them not only how to live, but how to worship Him.  He gave explicit instructions to build His Tabernacle - His dwelling place where he would meet His people.  

He gave instructions that the Tabernacle include images - images of angels - angels, because there were no human souls yet in heaven.  Those images were on the veil and on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant.  


Later, when constructing Solomon’s Temple, giant statues of Seraphim were placed in it.  And, in some of the synagogues from later in Israel’s history, shortly before the birth of Christ, archaeologists have found icons depicting biblical events, just as we have icons of biblical events and the life of Christ.

But, some misinterpreted the prohibition against making idols as a prohibition of any sacred painting or statue.  In the 7th century, Muhammad included that understanding as one of the tenets of Islam. As a result, during the Muslim conquests that followed, some Christians started to hold that prohibition as a tenet of their faith. That group, the iconoclasts, advocated destroying icons. The doctrine was called iconoclasm.


Finally, a Church Council was held in 787, in Nicea - the same place that gave us the first part of the Creed. After much debate, the decision was made that, yes, indeed, the use of sacred images, of icons, was part of the Faith, and always had been.  We celebrate those Council Fathers today. 

But the battles continued for nearly 60 years longer, until, on the First Sunday of Lent in 843, when, at the conclusion of yet another council, the council fathers marched into Hagia Sophia - the great cathedral in Constantinople - and restored the icons.  Iconoclasm was defeated, and the Sunday became known as the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

So, what’s so important about icons?

When we use incense, our worship engages our sense of smell. Hearing the scriptures, the liturgy, and the hymns - that engages our sense of hearing. Receiving the Eucharist, we use our senses of taste and touch.  The psalmist said, “Taste and see that the Lord is good”. We are to worship God with all our senses, and icons complete that circle.
Icons have been called “windows into heaven”. Hebrews gives us mental pictures of the heroes of our faith who came before Christ. Their actions are described, and we can imagine those actions. With icons, in a sense, we can see those saints. 


In the chapter before our Epistle reading in Hebrews, we read this: “You have approached Mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and countless angels in festal gathering, and the assembly of the firstborn enrolled in heaven”.  When we come to worship, we are surrounded by “the assembly of the firstborn in heaven”.  And the icons are here to remind us of that. They allow us to have a glimpse of that assembly!

For centuries, literacy was a rare thing; only the rich and educated could read.  Icons filled the gap, teaching the faith to those who could not read.


Think of one of the common icons of the Resurrection.  It depicts our Lord standing on two doors - He’s broken the gates of Hell.  Below that, we see a figure of a man, bound in chains; and Revelation tells us that Satan is now bound, bound until he is released at the end of time, before his final defeat. Surrounding Christ are saints from the Old Testament, including His ancestor, King David.  And He is raising a man and a woman from the grave - Adam and Eve.
Some years ago, I was at a retreat. The focus of the retreat was Eucharistic Adoration.  Adoration is a wonderful devotion, of course, but it’s a western practice. At one point, I approached the retreat master, a Dominican Friar, and explained to him that I was Byzantine.  I asked if Adoration had a parallel in our tradition.  Without hesitation, he replied praying with icons.


St. Basil tells us, “The honor paid to the image passes to the prototype”. Citing this, the Nicene Council Fathers continued, “he who does worship to the image [of Christ] does worship to the person represented in it”.

To sum up, God gave us icons so we could use our sense of sight in worship.

• They allow us to see images of Jesus and the saints.
• They allow us to see that we are part of a great assembly, worshiping the God of the Universe.
• They show us scenes from scripture and the lives of the saints, teaching us our faith.
• Praying with them, Christ and the saints are made present to us. The honor paid to the icon is passed to the person represented.
  
  
  

My brothers and sisters, let us rejoice that our Lord wants us to engage all of our senses in Divine Worship.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2025/10/god-wants-us-to-worship-him-with-all-of.html​

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross - 2025

Gal 2,16-20
Mk 8,34-38;9,1

I want you to picture in your mind what Pope John Paul II looked like right before he was elected Pope.  A virile man, still relatively young looking.  Only 58 years old, he still was physically active, a skier, a hiker.

Then, three years later, an assassin’s bullet nearly took him out.  Once he healed from the bullet, he may have been slower, but he kept going.

Now, think of what he looked like, twenty years later.  His body racked with Parkinson’s disease.  HIs mind was as sharp as ever, but his body was failing. Sometimes, you couldn’t understand what he was saying because of the illness. He had offered his body as a living sacrifice.

You may ask what Jesus meant when he said, take up your cross.  Our beloved John Paul shows us.

A few verses earlier in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus had told His close disciples, His inner circle, that he must suffer greatly and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and rise after three days.  But here, He’s speaking to the crowd, not just his disciples.
Denying themselves? They could understand that. There was an ascetic tradition among the Essenes, one of the groups of Jews at that time. But pick up their cross? The cross was a Roman tool of torture and execution, and picking it up would have come across to them as an invitation to be tortured and executed. 

Indeed, there were some who, in the years to come, were to be tortured and executed.  Throughout history, that has occurred again and again. And, it happens in some places even today.

But, at least at the moment, that’s not required of us in our society. Yet, to use our Lord’s words, we do live in a faithless and sinful generation. Violence, government corruption, all manner of sexual sin. We have to be prepared to suffer.

What is the value of suffering?

There are 3 ways

1. It contributes to our salvation

St Peter of Damascus writes: “By way of trials and sufferings we must purify the divine image in us in accordance with which we possess intelligence and are able to receive understanding and the likeness to God”. 

“By way of trials and sufferings we must purify the divine image”.

Not only do sufferings purify the divine image in us, we begin to see what’s important in this life. We learn to let go of the unimportant things. Suffering helps us lose our attachments to things of the world. Sometimes one sees in the elderly the desire for release from this life; why? Certainly, they can just be tired, but also they may have lost their attachment to many of things of this world.  Suffering willingly accepted can bring about that same detachment - a detachment which leaves us room in our souls, our lives, to develop holiness.

2. It can directly help others

The most perfect example of this truth is our Lord himself.
Of course, the sufferings He endured on the Cross bought our salvation.  And Isaiah wrote in his Suffering Servant passage, “By his stripes we are healed”.
There are examples of suffering helping others drawn from daily life, too.  
Think of the mother who forgoes a meal so that her children can eat. 
Think of someone with an elderly parent,  a parent who’s difficult at times. Yet that son or daughter takes care of that parent, enduring abuse. As much as love can underlie that care, there can still  be suffering.

Or again, the parent with a gravely ill child. This loving parent often, despite the suffering in seeing their child suffer, will put on a brave face; the parent will show love and compassion - and strength - and this strength borne of suffering will give hope to the sick child.

3. It completes Christ’s afflictions

We hear the phrase “Offer it up”.  How can offering up our suffering do any good?
St Paul wrote to the Colossians, “Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church”.  
How does it add? How can anything be lacking in Christ’s afflictions?

Well, think of the sun. 93 million miles away, yet we still feel its heat.  If you put a piece of paper on a sidewalk in the sunlight, nothing really happens.  But, if you use a magnifying glass, you can focus the heat from the sun and make that paper catch fire.

There is nothing lacking in the power of the sun, but that magnifying glass gives it a focus; it completes what is lacking.

There is nothing lacking in the power of Christ’s afflictions, but our sufferings, when offered as a sacrifice, give His afflictions focus; they complete what is lacking.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us that Original Sin “is a deprivation of original holiness and justice, but human nature has not been totally corrupted: it is wounded in the natural powers proper to it, subject to ignorance, suffering and the dominion of death, and inclined to sin - an inclination to evil that is called concupiscence”  In telling us to take up our cross, our Lord is telling to accept the suffering that is part of being being human and turn it into something good.
Turn your suffering into

• A tool for your own salvation
• A tool to directly help others
• A tool to complete Christ’s afflictions.

Check out Deacon's Blog

​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

1 Cor 1:18-24
John 19:6-11; 13-20; 25-28; 30-35

It is said that the Chinese have a curse, “May you live in interesting times”.  It’s meant as an insult, of course, but the Fourth Century really was interesting times.  It began with the Domitian Persecution, the worst persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire. 

But that period soon ended.  In 312, right before the Battle of Milvian Bridge, the Emperor Constantine had a vision.  He saw a cross in the sky, with the words, “In hoc signo vinces” – in this sign, you will conquer.  After winning the battle, Constantine did indeed adopt the Cross as his symbol.  He issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity.  And, in 325, realizing that the Church had to be one in belief, he called the First Council of Nicea, the 1700th anniversary we celebrate this year.  From it came the first half of the creed that we’ll recite in a few minutes.

Saint Helena, Constantine’s mother, was already a Christian.  Once he made the faith legal, she set about discovering physical evidence of Christ. She went to Jerusalem, hoping to find the True Cross.  She found an old Jewish man named Judah, who told her that the Cross was buried under the Temple of Venus, which the Emperor Hadrian had built on Golgotha. She had the temple destroyed and had the area excavated. They found three crosses. 

At that time, a funeral procession was passing by.  To determine which, if any, of the three crosses was the True Cross, they touched the first cross to the dead body.  Nothing. Then, they touched the second cross to the body. Again, nothing.  Then, the last cross was touched to the body, and the person was restored to life!  Then, to be sure, they touched the Cross to a sick woman, and she was cured!!!  The patriarch lifted up the Cross for all to see, and the people cried, “Lord have mercy”!

I want you to think about that situation. To the typical Roman, the word Cross would not have had a positive meaning.  The cross was an instrument of torture. The cross was an instrument of execution. Death on the cross was reserved for the lowest of criminals. In fact, Paul says in the Epistle, “The message of the Cross is foolishness for those who are perishing”.

And here were Christians venerating a cross.  And that cross, that instrument of torture, of death, had restored a dead woman to life and healed a second woman!

Yes, the Cross is an instrument of torture, of execution, but it’s also an instrument of healing, of salvation.  Our Gospel today tells us how it became just that.  Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Christ ransomed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who hangs on a tree’”.  Jesus received that curse so that we might be blessed!

In our lives, we sometimes have to endure crosses that we would not choose, crosses that are at the time a curse, but God turns them into great blessings.

As often happens, in my late teens I started going my own way spiritually.  I began considering other religions, other philosophies.  It began during my senior year in high school, and within a few years, I pretty much was doing and thinking whatever I wanted to. 

About a month before my 20th birthday, when I was in music school in Boston, I received three free tickets to a concert.  I asked two friends, one black, one white, to go. As it happens, we got off the subway one stop too early, in the heart of a rough neighborhood. Within a few blocks, we were being chased by white kids who hated blacks.  The result was that my black friend ran fastest and was able to get away.  My white friend was pretty badly beaten, and I was hit atop my head with a baseball bat. Fortunately, we were helped by people driving past.
When I eventually returned to the dorm, I was shaken up; I suffered a mild case of PTSD for close to 20 years. As I calmed down, I realized that the attack was a message from God, that He was trying to bring me back home to Him.  It took a while, but I did get involved in a church back here a few years later.  And that started a chain of events that brought me to here this morning.

A very painful event of my life. A cross that I would never have chosen. A cross that God turned into blessings.  But, I exalt the cross given to me that He has used for His glory.
Have you ever been a caretaker for an elderly parent? Sometimes, in their weakness, they become cranky, demanding. Taking care of them can be difficult. It can be a cross.
What about you? Do you have terrible experiences in your past, things you wish you’d never have experienced? Did God bring good out of it?

Paul wrote to the Romans, “We know that all things work for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose”. YOU ARE called according to his purpose.
Think back over your life.  Think about how God has allowed all things to work for your good.  And exalt those crosses. Use it to bring glory to God.  And thank Him for it all.
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Check out Deacon's Blog

​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

16th Sunday after Pentecost
2 Cor 6:1-10
​Matt 25:14-30

When we hear the word “talent”, we normally think of the natural endowments of a person, as Webster puts it.  But in the Gospel reading, it refers to an ancient unit of weight, or its value in silver or gold.  As English speakers, though, it helps to realize that any gift we get from God becomes a talent in the first sense of the word. And it helps to recognize that any gift we get from God is as precious as gold.

David was just a shepherd boy, likely born out of wedlock – at least that’s what some Jewish sources suggest. But he had a talent.  He played the lyre – a type of harp – beautifully.  And that caught the ear of King Saul, and Saul added David to his court.. David used the talent God had given him.

At that time, Israel was at war with the Philistines, and their great warrior was a giant named Goliath.  I’m sure you’ve heard the story. The warriors, including the king, were afraid to go up against him; he was that big. But David? David had been a shepherd and he had no fear.  He told the king that he would fight the giant.  Saul tried to give his own armor to fight against Goliath, but David said no.  “I will fight him just as I have fought every animal who tried to steal my sheep”.

So David went out with just his sling and stones, with the talent God had given him. He fought against the warrior, the giant. He fought against Goliath.  And he surprised the army, he surprised the king, and he surprised Philistines.  With his sling and a rock, he killed Goliath.  David used the talent given by God.

In time, King Saul and his sons were killed by the Philistines in battle.  David became king. Using the warrior talents and the political talents God had given him, for forty years he led Israel. He expanded the country through conquest and through diplomacy. He was the greatest of all the kings of Israel.  David used the talent given by God.
The Gospel today talks about talents. 

The five talents that God will give us are our five senses.  They are our means of learning about the world around us.  And God will reward us for developing the talent that he gives us for understanding the world, for understanding the physical things of the universe and using that understanding to benefit humanity. 

The two talents are wisdom and action.  They can be thought of as learning about Him and using that knowledge to touch others.  It’s what I do when I’m up here, using the knowledge I’ve gained, the knowledge of Him, of His word, so that I can point you in the way to serve Him, as imperfectly as I might do that.  It’s what  Sunday School teachers do with their students.
The single talent He speaks of is, in a sense, the simplest, but it’s also the most important.  It is the ability, the obligation, to pray, to engage in spiritual warfare.

Have you looked around? The world we live in is becoming increasingly dangerous if you happen to express a belief that goes against the cultural norm.  We’ve all heard about Charlie Kirk, of course.  I’m not asking you to agree or disagree with anything he said.  But, ask yourself, did he deserve to die?  Do any of us deserve to be killed because we don’t follow the ideas of society? 

In our society, it’s almost assumed that it’s OK to react with violence towards someone who disagrees with you.
THAT. IS. DEMONIC.

It’s what the Nazis did.  It’s what the Communists did.  It’s what the supporters of slavery did in our own country two centuries ago.
How should we react?  Do we fight back?

As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “Our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places”.

Our land is sick, and God gave us the answer to that illness when Solomon’s Temple was dedicated.  On that day, he said, “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land”.

It’s up to us, the people called by his name.

What can we do? 

In your “Hear Me, O Lord” prayerbook, there’s a section called “Little Catechism”.  Learning the ideas in that little six-page section is a great starting place. Live the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. Live the Cardinal and Spiritual Virtues. In the section on the Liturgy, under “Third Antiphon”, you’ll find the Beatitudes.  Meditate on all those things, and really start living them.
That’s the Basic Training for our spiritual warfare.  But what about weapons?  Again, in “Hear Me, O Lord”, we have a battle manual for that warfare. Prayer. 

Another weapon in the battle is the Chaplet of Divine Mercy.  During the Consecration of the Eucharist, the priest prays, “We offer to you yours of your own on behalf of all and for all”, while the deacon lifts the Eucharist Elements. In the Chaplet, at the beginning of each decade, we pray, “Eternal Father, we offer you the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of your dearly beloved Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world”. 
When we pray the Chaplet, we tap into the power of the Eucharist!!!

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their land”.

My brothers and sisters, God has given us the ability to fix this land.
God has given us the privilege to fix this land.
God has given us the duty to fix this land.
It’s up to us.


St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray.  And do though, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.
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​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP 

EIGHT SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

​1 Cor 1.10-18
Matthew 14:14-22

During the Second Gulf War, we often heard about the city of Mosul in Iraq. But, did you know that it is mentioned in the Bible? Within the limits of the modern city, you’ll find the Ancient Assyrian capital of Nineveh. 

About 800 years before Christ, God called a man named Jonah to go and preach repentance to the people of the Nineveh.  What did Jonah do?  He ran away, getting on a boat heading west instead of going east.  When God sent a storm that was about to sink the ship, Jonah had the crew throw him overboard, telling them that he was running from God’s call.  

The Bible tells us that he spent three days and three nights in the belly of a big fish.  During that time, he had the chance to repent, to decide that he would follow the call.  So, when he was back on dry land, God called him again to go to Nineveh.  So effective was his preaching that there was widespread repentance and revival, even as high as the king!  And, as a result, God did not bring destruction to the city.

God had already given Jonah the skill and the knowledge to fulfill his calling, but he avoided it.  In our Gospel, the disciples had the skill and the knowledge to feed the five thousand, one of the Corporal Works of mercy.  And He gave them the means to do it, when they decided to actually obey him.  Not only did He give the means, the bread and the fish, but He even increased it so that they were themselves blessed when they obeyed.

Look at David. A poor shepherd boy. Some Jewish sources suggest that he was the result of his father engaging in an illicit affair.  His brothers appear not to have thought much of him.  But, he was a good musician, and so he caught the king’s attention.

When the Philistine Goliath challenged the Israelite forces to combat, nobody wanted to fight him.  He was a giant, standing nearly ten feet tall. Who would want to go up against someone like that? Not the king, not his army. Nobody - nobody except a little shepherd boy.  David had a mission, a mission to serve God by defeating Goliath.

You all know the story.  A kid, a sling, and some rocks.  Against a well-armored giant.  But, the Lord was on David’s side, and he defeated the giant. Eventually he became the greatest king in Israel’s history.

How does this apply to us? Are we called to fight giants, or preach in Nineveh?
The Bible speaks of three priesthoods.  

The first is the Levitical Priesthood. They were the priests of the Mosaic Covenant, with the task of ministering to the people of Israel in the Temple, with the Levites helping out in the temple worship.

The second is the Priesthood of the New Covenant.  Those priests minister in and to the Church, administering the Sacraments, with the Levites of the New Covenant, the Deacons, helping.

The third is first mentioned in Exodus, before the giving of the Ten Commandments, where the Lord says, “I will make you a nation of priests and kings”. In his first epistle, Peter says that we are a Royal Priesthood.  This is a priesthood that transcends the covenants, applying to both the Jew and Christian.  In fact, as the Fathers of Vatican II put it, when we are baptized, we share in Christ’s office of priest, prophet, and king.

The world.  That’s who we, as royal priests, are called to minister to. How? To begin with, we should practice the Corporal Works of Mercy and the Spiritual Works of Mercy.  These are some of the specific actions we can perform, but there is also the context of our ministry 
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul writes that God has given Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. 

That doesn’t mean that only the ordained - bishops, priests, and deacons - can function in these ministries.  

When David sinned with Bathsheba, the prophet Nathan - who was not a priest, confronted him, resulting in David’s repentance.

Think of St Catherine of Siena, a laywoman. More than 50 years ago, Pope St. Paul VI declared her a Doctor of the Universal Church, a teacher of universal significance.
One of the original Deacons, Philip, had four daughters who had the gift of prophecy.  
Paul repeatedly references Prisca and Aquila, two helpers of his in his apostolic work, and our Eastern tradition refers to Mary Magdalene as Equal to the Apostles.

And those ministries can even be filled by faithful non-Catholics.  We all know of Billy Graham.  Can we honestly say that he was not an evangelist?

But you may say that you don’t have the knowledge. St. Francis said, “Preach always.  When necessary, use words”.

If you have to use words, there are two solutions.  The first is to ask God to give you the words - and He will often give you just the right words for a specific situation.  Paul speaks of the Word of Knowledge and the Word of Wisdom, along with the Gift of Prophecy.

The other solution is study. Read the Catechism. Learn the Akathists and other prayers that are in your prayerbook.

God calls each of us to minister to those outside this building.  We do it in the Spirit, through the ministry gifts. And we do it with the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Will you answer the call?

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2025/08/why-should-you-use-your-gifts.html

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP 
​​

The First Six Ecumenical Councils

Last week we celebrated July 4.  That’s not a celebration of the signing of the Constitution or any legal document. Instead, it celebrates the day that the Thirteen Colonies broke from the British Crown by signing the Declaration of Independence.  That declaration is a declaration of principles, a statement of what we, as a nation, believe.

In the same way, the Church has made declarations of principles, although it took three centuries to get started.  Up to that time, Christians were just trying to survive and avoid persecution!

From the year 325 to the year 787, the Church held 7 councils, councils that came to be called Ecumenical Councils.  Of course, there were also regional meetings, just like there are local and regional government meetings.  But, those 7 Ecumenical Councils affected the entire Church, east and west, and the Eastern Orthodox Churches continue to hold them as foundational.  Since then, the Catholic Church has continued to hold Ecumenical Councils. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the most recent, the 22nd Ecumenical Council, Vatican II.    

Greek Orthodox Metropolitan Kállistos Ware has said that the first seven Ecumenical Councils established the basic faith of Christendom.  They are our Declaration of Independence.
Today, we celebrate the fathers of the first 6 Ecumenical Councils, all of which were held in the Eastern Roman Empire, in what is today Turkey.  All six ultimately dealt with the question of the Trinity and Christ’s divinity.  The creed we recite comes to us from the first two.

Once the Church declared, at the first council in 325, that Jesus was God, and at the second council in 381, that the Holy Spirit was God, it got messy.  They spent 250 years debating, and yes, fighting, about just how Jesus was both God and Man. Ultimately, the issues were not only theological but linguistic and philosophical too – and, some would argue, politics also played a hand in it.
 
The Third Council, in 431, was called to combat Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople. The Oxford English Dictionary defines his teaching as a heresy “by which Christ is asserted to have had distinct human and divine persons.” The Council responded by teaching that Mary is Theotokos – the Christ Bearer, or Mother of God, rather than the term Nestorius preferred, Christotokos, the Christ Bearer.  By Theotokos it is asserted that, from the moment of conception, He Whom Mary bore was God; the Divine did not descend upon the man Jesus, but that He was always God.

The Ancient Church of the East did not accept the council.  It continues to exist today, not in communion with any other Church, with only a half million members.

The Fourth Council was only twenty years later in a city called Chalcedon, and it defined Jesus Christ to be True God and True Man. One would think it would end with the definition that He had both a Human Nature and a Divine Nature.  But it didn’t. The issue was debated for another two centuries and a total of three Ecumenical Councils.  Those who rejected the council are today generally called non-Chalcedonian, or Oriental Orthodox. They believe that He has a single united nature, human and divine.  (I told you earlier that the issues would be not only theological, but linguistic and philosophical, didn’t I?)

The Sixth Council dealt with a heresy that admitted two natures, but said that He has only one will.

What the one-nature group and one-will group forgot was the words of St. Gregory the Theologian.  He said, “What is not assumed is not healed”.  Jesus certainly had a Divine Nature. For Human nature to be healed, He had to assume human nature. For Human will to be healed, he had to assume human will.

Now, remember I said that there was a political element?  The EMPEROR was a part of the one-will crowd.  In the 650s, two men were put on trial for teaching against it.  Pope St Martin I was found guilty, and he died on the way to exile.  St. Maximos the Confessor was also found guilty.  In 662, he was sentenced to exile, but also to having the removal of that which offended the one-will crowd– the tongue and his right hand!  He died soon after.

In its eleventh chapter, the Epistle to the Hebrews talks about Old Testament heroes of the faith.  Let me add Pope St Martin and St Maximos to that list.  Let me add the Fathers of the first Six Ecumenical Councils to that list. They all understood what Paul was saying to the Romans (10:4) - Christ is the End – the whole purpose of the Law. 
 
They understood what Jesus told the Samaritan woman – The TRUTH will set you free. 
As the writer of Hebrews ontinues, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, …. let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us”.

 The American Founding Father, Patrick Henry, said, “Give me liberty or give me death”.
Let us stand with Saints Martin and Maximos and the Fathers of all Six Councils.  Let us say, “Give me truth or give me death”.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2025/07/give-us-truth-or-give-us-death.html

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP 

​Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Feast of all the saints of Rus’ Ukraine

Romans 6:18-23
Matthew 8:5-13

Last Sunday’s Gospel spoke of the impossibility of serving two masters, and that one could not serve both God and mammon, or money. And our epistle this week is an elaboration on that idea.

The first master we could serve is sin, and when we are slaves of sin, we are freed from righteousness. Think about that. When you are a slave of sin, you can do nothing righteous. It doesn’t matter how “good” the action is, there is no righteousness in it.

The altruistic atheist rejects Christ, and is therefore a slave to sin. He may be wealthy and finance a childrens’ hospital to rival St. Jude’s. But, he’s a slave to sin, and there is no righteousness in his charitable works.

Take a great religious leader of another faith. Being of another faith, he rejects Christ, and cannot but be a slave to sin. All the good he does? There is no righteousness.

That’s what Paul is saying here. The ONLY way that we can be righteous is to be a slave to God. He writes to the Corinthians that God has made Christ our wisdom, our righteousness and sanctification and redemption

Some years earlier, he made a similar contrast in his letter to Galatians.

“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are plain: immorality, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, party spirit, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.”

Notice, though, when Paul talks about the works of the flesh, he’s talking about things we ought not do - immorality, impurity, dissension, drunkenness, and the like. But, when talking about the fruit of the spirit, he’s talking about who we are and can become - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

It all comes back to that promise of New Covenant that I’ve mentioned so many times. “I will make a new covenant, says the Lord, and I will write my law upon their hearts”. That’s the point - true righteousness comes from a transformation of the heart, and that transformation can only come from God.

Today we celebrate All the Saints of Rus’-Ukraine. In the Troparion, we sing to them, ‘monastics, martyrs, and staunch confessors”. A monastic is one whose heart has been transformed such that they sacrifice life in the world, life in society, that they can devote themselves in prayer for that world and for the salvation of their own souls. A martyr is one whose heart has been transformed so that they willingly give up their life as a testimony to the world of the grace of God. And a confessor is one who suffers for the faith without giving up their life, but that their heart has been so transformed that they consistently confess the Gospel in their life.

And the soldier in the Gospel? He understood what it meant to be a servant, a slave. As one with authority, he understood that to be under authority, one will obey the commands of his commander. And, to be a slave of God, one will obey the commands of God.

Being a Christian is being a slave to righteousness - not just in our actions, but also in our thoughts. Using adultery as an example, Jesus shows us that even contemplating it, thinking about it, is committing it in your heart. In other words, daydreaming about committing a sin has the same spiritual effect on your soul as actually committing the sin!

Later in Romans, Paul writes, “Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect”. And, to the Phillipians, he wrote, “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things”.

My friends, we all daydream. It’s part of being human, isn’t it. How do we turn this into our advantage?

When you daydream, decide what it will be about. Think about growing the fruit of the spirit in you. Think about showing love, having joy and peace. Dream about being patient and kind. Dream about having goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control

Take control of your dreams, of your thought life.

Dream about being a saint!

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2023/06/dream-of-being-saint.html

​​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost

Romans 15:1-7
Matthew 9:27-35

When we are first born, we inherit Adam’s sin - not the individual acts, but the sinful nature and spiritual blindness which resulted from the Fall of Man.  Through Baptism, that sinful nature, Original Sin, is healed.  But the blindness continues.  Paul wrote to the Corinthians “now we see as in a glass dimly, but when the perfect is come, we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall understand fully”.

Today’s Gospel gives us the easiest means of curing that spiritual blindness.  Just ask to see!
Is it that easy? Well, earlier in Matthew, Jesus tells us “Ask, and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you”.  


So, how do these blind men ask?  The first thing is that they were Israelites, not Gentiles - they recognized Jesus as Son of David, as the Messiah.  So, for one to ask to have their eyes opened today, they must be Christian.


Then, they cried out to Jesus.  They invoked Him as Messiah, just as we can call out to him by name.


They were direct.  They asked Him to have pity on them.  And then, they expressed faith that He was able to answer them.


Does this mean that we can say, “Hey Jesus, let me see”? No.


Remember the parable of the unjust judge and the widow.  The judge didn’t fear God, he didn’t care about his fellow man.  But, the widow kept demanding justice, and she wore him down, and he gave in.  


Certainly, we aren’t going to wear God down, but He wants us to persevere.  Through perseverance, we realize what we really want.  And, through perseverance, we form a place in our hearts to receive the grace that we’re asking for.


In the Church, both East and West, there’s a long tradition of invoking the name of Jesus, alone. 


The story is told of a priest who was posed a theological problem.  How did he respond? It wasn’t by hitting the books or asking another priest.  Rather, he went before an icon and prayed that simple prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner”.  After a period of time, Jesus answered his prayer and gave him the answer he sought.


And it’s not just to open our eyes to truth. In his commentary on The Lord’s Prayer, St. Maximos the Confessor writes, “When we call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, it is not hard for our conscience to be made pure, and then we are no different from the prophets and the rest of the saints. For God's purpose is not that we should suffer from His anger, but that we should gain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. So then, whether we are watchful in virtue or sometimes fall asleep, as is likely to happen because of our failings, yet shall we live with Christ. As we look up to Him with cries of distress and continual lamentation, it is He Himself that we breathe. Let us therefore put on the breastplate of faith, and take as our helmet the hope of salvation: then the arrows of dejection and despair will find no chink through which to wound us”.


St. Edmund had special devotion to the Name of Jesus, which Our Lord Himself taught him. One day when he was in the country and separated from his companions, a beautiful child stood by him and asked, “Edmund, do you not know me?” Edmund answered that he did not. Then, replied the child, “Look at me and you will see who I am.” Edmund looked as he was bidden and saw written on the Child’s forehead, “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” “Know now who I am,” said the Child. “Every night make the Sign of the Cross and say these words: ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.’ If you do so, this prayer will deliver you and all who say it from sudden and unprovided-for deaths.” Edmund faithfully did as Our Lord told him. The devil once tried to prevent him and held his hands so that he could not make the holy sign. Edmund invoked the Name of Jesus, and the devil fled in terror, leaving him unmolested in the future. 


And St. Hesychios the priest said, “Stones form the foundation of a house; but the foundation of sanctity - and its roof - is the holy and venerable name of our Lord Jesus Christ. A foolish captain can easily wreck his ship during a storm, dismissing the sailors, throwing the sails and oars into the sea, and going to sleep himself; but the soul can be sent to the bottom even more swiftly by the demons if it neglects watchfulness and does not call upon the name of Jesus Christ when they begin their provocations”.
In The Glories of the Holy Name, Fr Paul O’Sullivan tells us that when we pray the name of Jesus: 

1. We offer to God all the infinite love and merits of the Incarnation. 
2. We offer to God the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ. 
3. We offer to God all the more than 500,000 Masses and Divine Liturgies being celebrated in the world—for His glory and our own intentions.

So, let us go from here with the name of Jesus on our lips, not as a swear word, as is often the case in the world, but as an act of praise and as a prayer.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2024/07/call-on-jesus.html​

​​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP

12th Sunday after Pentecost

1 Cor 15:1-11
Matthew 19:16-26

What is a god? A god is to that which we give great, or ultimate importance. For the Christian, the one true God, three persons in one being, fits this definition. The First Commandment says, “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them".

Our God is a jealous god. It’s not that our having devotion to another god takes away anything from him; He’s perfect, after all. No. Our devotion to another god takes away from us, from what we can become because of Him. As our Lord said, “God so loved the world that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”.

That is the lens through which we should look at all that God has done and said. His ultimate purpose is we each have eternal life - the life of heaven. As Paul says, God “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”.

In our Gospel, we see a young man who lives externally the life of a Jew. He keeps the commandments: “‘You shall not kill; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not steal; you shall not bear false witness; honor your father and your mother’; and ‘you shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Yet, he knew something was missing.

He knew, at a very deep level, that he didn’t have eternal life. He obviously wanted eternal life - at least until he found out what it would cost him. When Jesus told him to sell all he had and follow Him, he realized that he couldn’t - or wouldn’t - give his riches away to the poor.

Was his devotion to the riches? Was it to the relationships that the riches afforded him? Was it the social standing? We don’t know, but whatever it was, it was his own personal god, a god he could not forsake.

Let’s look at a few more examples from the Bible of people choosing who, or what, they would have as their god.

The prophet Isaiah tells us the following. “How you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, You who have weakened the nations! But you said in your heart, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, And I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.’"

Lucifer, whom we know better by his title, Satan, or Adversary, fell because he believed he was greater than his Creator! He made himself his own god, and he took one third of all the angels with him.

At the same time, there was an archangel who chose to have his Creator as the God whom he would worship. He is called the Commander of the Heavenly Host, and his name means “who is like God?”. That name is Michael.

The third is the Theotokos. In just a few days, we will celebrate the completion of her time on this earth, the Feast of the Dormition. But earlier, much earlier in her life, the Archangel Gabriel came to her, calling her κεχαριτομένη, full of grace. He explained to her that, while yet a virgin, she would give birth to Christ, God with us. Think about that. She was maybe 12 or 13 years old. Although she was betrothed to Joseph, she knew that it was likely that he would divorce her, and that she would be stoned as an adulteress. But how did she reply? “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord. Let it be done to me as you’ve said”. She knew who her God was, and she chose to follow Him without regard to the cost.

At the end of this Gospel, Matthew records the commission Jesus gave to the Apostles - go into all the world, making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. The Church tells us that when we are baptized, we are baptized as priest, prophet, and king - sharing with Christ in those offices. So, we can say that we each share in that commission He gave to the apostles.

We are ambassadors for Christ.

Luke relates to us the story of Jesus sending out 72 disciples - not the apostles, just laymen, to visit towns, spreading the Gospel. He told them this.

“When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you. . . . When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’”

So, that’s

Bid them peace


Fellowship with them


Minister to them. Then, and only after those three things


Preach

Now, not all are called to preach. But all of us can bring peace, have fellowship, and minister in love.

We’re not required to give all our goods to the poor. We ARE required to bring peace, fellowship, and blessing.

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2024/08/you-are-christs-ambassador.html​
​

​I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

​By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP

14th Sunday after Pentecost

2 Corinthians 1,21-24;2,1-4
Matthew 22,2-14

​When our Latin friends come to the end of their liturgical year in November, they celebrate the feast of Christ the King and look at the second coming of our Lord. Today is the last Sunday of our liturgical year, but we don’t make as big a fuss as they do. So, it’s kinda appropriate that this, the 14th Sunday after Pentecost, just happens to come at this point.

We don’t talk much in our Rite about the second coming or the surrounding events. But ultimately, our Gospel addresses it.

The Wedding Feast is shown as having three callings. The first time the king calls, the people just refused to come. In the same way, when God began calling people at the very beginning, they refused to come to Him. Up until the time of Abraham, those responding to God’s call were few and far between.

The second calling resulted in some people ignoring the call and going about their own business. Other people did respond, but they responded negatively, killing the messengers. In the same way, some of the Children of Israel ignored God’s call, and went about their business. Others killed the messengers, God’s prophets.

Those hearing the parable would have known that he destruction that came about was in two stages. After the death of King Solomon, Israel was divided. The Northern Kingdom, which retained the name Israel, became more and more rebellious against God. After 200 years, in 722 BC, it was conquered by the Assyrian Empire.

The Southern Kingdom, which was called Judah, lasted a little longer, falling to the Babylonian Empire about 150 years later. And in the process, Solomon’s Temple was destroyed.

So, God’s call went out to the whole world. John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”.

Now, it’s appropriate that this Gospel reading comes today, at the end of the liturgical year. The Wedding Feast in the parable points to the end of history. We read in Revelation, chapter 19, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready; to her it has been granted to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. And the angel said to me, ‘Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’”

In the Gospel, the king notices a man at the wedding feast, one of those “whomever” was invited. But this man was not wearing the proper garment, and was thrown out. Imagine being invited to a wedding feast, and showing up in shorts and a tank-top. I imagine it would be a similar situation.

What kind of garment are we to wear at the Wedding Feast of the Lamb? The passage from Revelation tells us. “The fine linen is the righteousness deeds of the saints”. What righteous deeds? Well, to begin with, practicing out the Works of Mercy - both Spiritual and Corporal. Further, practicing and developing the virtues.

But those are external acts. Pope Francis writes, “I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since ‘no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord.’” And St Catherine of Siena tells us that God is head over heels in love with each of us.

Yes, God loves us. Of course, being human, we can never love as deeply, as completely, as God loves us. But we can cultivate our love for Him. And we are to love Him not only with the mind, but also with the heart, soul, and strength. We must engage our emotions in our love for Him.

The first way to cultivate our love, of course, is that we can receive the Sacraments. As the Paschal Communion Antiphon says, “Receive the Body of Christ. Taste the medicine of immortality”. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. And Confession is the restoration of our relationship with Christ.

The second is prayer. Pray scripture. Pray the psalms. Let the Holy Spirit speak to you through His Word. Pray the Rosary, or any of the other number of good devotions.

The third path to cultivating our love for God is praise. Psalm 149 says, “Praise the Lord! Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise in the assembly of the faithful. Let Israel be glad in its Maker; let the children of Zion rejoice in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing, making melody to him with tambourine and lyre. For the Lord takes pleasure in his people; he adorns the humble with victory”.

He takes pleasure in our praise, and He adorns the humble with victory. Another translation says “He will beautify the humble with salvation”.

Consider some of the things we say, or sing, in our Liturgy.

The First Antiphon says, “Shout to God, all the earth. Sing now to his name, give glory to his praise”. Shout, not speak, shout to the Lord.

The Third Antiphon says “Come let us sing joyfully to the Lord”. Not sing quietly, but sing joyfully.

The Tone Three Prokeimenon verse - “Clap your hands all you nations. Shout unto God with a voice of praise”.

And the first psalm of the Typica says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul”. This isn’t asking God to bless us, but telling us to bless the Lord - with our praise. He takes pleasure in his people!

When you say these things, don’t just repeat the words. Let them become a part of your mind, your soul. Don’t just say them, feel them!!

Let me close with Psalm 150

Praise the Lord! Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament!
Praise him for his mighty deeds; praise him according to his surpassing greatness!
Praise him with trumpet sound; praise him with lute and harp!
Praise him with tambourine and dance; praise him with strings and pipe!
Praise him with clanging cymbals; praise him with loud clashing cymbals!
Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!

https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2024/08/the-lambs-wedding-feast.html​

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.

By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP

15th Sunday after Pentecost
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2 Corinthians 4:6-15
Matthew 22:35-46

Love God and Love your neighbor.  Jesus tells us that on these two commandments hang the entire law and prophets.  Christian tradition considers love to be the greatest of the three theological virtues.  And our Ukrainian Catholic Catechism tells us that love is the Substance of the Christian Life.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St Paul describes this love. “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant  or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”.
Our Catechism says:

The most important virtue, born of faith, is the virtue of divine love, which is granted by God to the Christian as a new creation in Christ. The Evangelist John emphasizes that love is the essence of life in God: “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love” .

The virtue of love is not only the human capacity to love; it is the love by which God himself lives. This is why such love as the apostle Paul teaches is greater than all the other marks of the divine life in humankind, that is, greater than the other virtues. It is God’s greatest gift to us, which we have received in the Holy Spirit: “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us” 

Love has as its source God: it is the Love of the Father revealed in the Son and granted to us in the Holy Spirit (see Rom 8). Anyone who participates in this kind of Love becomes capable, in the Holy Spirit, of loving the Father as the Son loves him. They can also love their neighbor to the very end, for “no one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” .
The Venerable Metropolitan Andrey teaches: “Without love everything in the soul is dead, [for in such a soul] the will is not primarily directed towards true goodness, which is the highest good and simultaneously the ultimate truth, that is, the Almighty God.”

In and through God, the believer who has received the gift of divine love loves others and all of creation. Therefore, love of neighbor is an expression of love for God: “Those who say, ‘I love God,’ and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also”.
The divine love by which the Christian loves their neighbor, is selfless and sacrificial. “It does not insist on its own way”. This love manifests itself in the capacity to love even one’s enemies. It is precisely in this kind of love that a Christian reveals the face of the loving God who saves sinners through his love, and reconciles them to himself, transforming them into believers justified in Christ.


The substance and motivation for all of a Christian’s moral actions is love. Jesus Christ teaches us that the entire Law is contained in the commandment to love God and neighbor. Through the gift of divine love the Christian obtains “the freedom of the glory of the children of God” and fulfills the entire Law “for the one who loves another has fulfilled the Law” “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love”.
So, the Catechism gives us a good start on how to love our neighbor, but what about the first commandment, Love God? What does it mean to love God with our whole heart, soul, and mind?


In the definitions of the three, there’s a great deal of overlap.  It’s easiest to distinguish them by thinking of the mind as that part of us that thinks and reasons, the soul as that part that is destined for eternal life, and the heart as the seat of our passions, desires, appetites, etc.
How does all that translate into real life?


We are called to love God with every ounce of our being.  

With our mind - we are called to give intellectual assent to the Catholic Faith - not just those parts that make sense to us. Not just those parts that we find comfortable.  God is three persons in one Being.  What does that mean? Does it really make sense? No. It’s a mystery. But we have to accept it as true.  Or, more to the current debate, there are moral issues that the world tells us are OK.  But the Church has always taught that these issues are wrong.  If we say that the Church is wrong on these issues, if we follow the world rather than the Church, are we really loving God with our whole mind?

Loving God with the heart is where it gets really personal.  It means engaging your emotions in loving God.  Like I suggested last week, it can involve memorizing portions of scripture and repeating it throughout the day.  It can involve meditating on the words of our liturgy, our worship.  It may involve praying with icons, or sitting in church praying with the reserved sacrament.  And it can involve distancing yourself from those things which lessen your love for God.


Love God and love your neighbor.  As our Lord says, on these hinge the Law and the Prophets.
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https://uccreaderscorner.blogspot.com/2024/08/what-world-needs-now-is-love.html

I am blessed to be Dominican, a member of the Lay Fraternities of Saint Dominic. However, the ideas expressed in this post are my own and do not represent the endorsement of or position of the Order of Preachers as a whole.