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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.
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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:
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.
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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.
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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.
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By Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OP
15th Sunday after Pentecost 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. 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.
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Deacon Lou Pizzuti, OPA member of the Ukrainian Orthodox clergy located at Saint John The Baptist Church in Syracuse, NY. His apostolate is homiletic catechesis . Categories
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Header Photo - glass window from St. Dominic’s Church in Washington, D.C. Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.
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