Items filtered by date: Wednesday, 24 August 2022

Reclaiming our Inheritance

(24^th Ordinary Sunday: Exodus 32:7-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32)

The Pharisees and scribes, in today’s gospel, complained about Jesus. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” They would never do such a thing. For them, it was disgusting!

Jesus offers no apology. Instead, he tells three parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son. They are all about the joy of finding what was lost, and welcoming back the repentant sinner.

It is only the third parable, however, that depicts a sinner, the younger son squandering his inheritance, swallowing up the father’s property with prostitutes, as the older brother bluntly states.

In the first reading, God complains that his people are worshiping a molten calf. (Remember that they squandered their gold to create it.) He is so enraged that, in speaking to Moses, he calls them “your people,” and “stiff-necked.”

At La Salette, Mary’s language is similar. “If my people refuse to submit.” She is not enraged, quite the contrary; but she wants her people to be aware of the danger they face unless they humbly seek God’s mercy.

They once had a rich inheritance of faith, but they cast it away. Today, sadly, we can see the same reality. We ourselves need to acknowledge, claim ownership of, and take responsibility for our fallen nature, as part of a people that tends to supplant our Creator, with the false god represented by the golden calf.

To the extent that we share that attitude, we need to avail ourselves of the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, humbly confessing our sinfulness to our Father and reclaiming our inheritance. After that, far from separating us from our people, our La Salette vocation calls us to imitate Jesus, who welcomed sinners.

Each of the three parables begins by identifying a person, the real protagonist, who has lost something precious. The intensity of their loss passes over into their frantic searching or, in the father’s case, deep longing, and is revealed still more forcefully when the lost becomes the found.

This is how Jesus wants us to feel. This is what Mary came to accomplish, by her merciful apparition, and by the commission she has given to us.

Wayne Vanasse, and Fr. René Butler, M.S.

The Wisdom of La Salette

(23^rd Ordinary Sunday: Wisdom 9:13-18; Philemon 9-10, 12-17; Luke 14:25-33)

When was the last time you thought about God in these terms: omnipresent, omnipotent, all knowing, all seeing? In that context we easily understand the question raised in Solomon’s prayer in today’s first reading, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends?”

The answer is simple. On our own, we can’t. This is why Solomon adds, “except you had given wisdom and sent your holy spirit from on high.”

Of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, the first is wisdom, which bears a special relation to faith. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. (1914-2000) explained this as follows: “Where faith is a simple knowledge of the articles of Christian belief, wisdom goes on to a certain divine penetration of the truths themselves.”

The deeper we enter into our faith, the more our faith will guide us. In particular, Jesus speaks to us in today’s gospel about carrying our cross. You will recall that St. Paul wrote, “The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18).

Jesus took on our flesh and followed the way to Calvary, in order to teach us not to be dominated by the flesh. Without the mercy and grace of God and the working of the Holy Spirit we would find the cross to be too heavy a burden to bear.

The apparition and message of La Salette are situated in this same tradition. Mary bears the crucifix on her breast. She weeps over those who are perishing due to their lack of faith. She helps us to judge the things of the world (the signs of the times) in the light of our highest end, our salvation, to which we draw closer when we respect the things of God.

She knows, as stated in the first reading, that “the corruptible body burdens the soul and the earthen shelter weighs down the mind that has many concerns.” She is not unsympathetic to her people’s suffering and anxiety, but she wants us to look beyond. She is a wise Mother.

We are all called to contemplate God. In Mary’s company, the Holy Spirit’s gift of wisdom will guide us ever closer to fulfilling that noble ambition.

Wayne Vanasse, and Fr. René Butler, M.S.