B - Solemnity of Christ the King

Recently I watched a show about the early pioneers.  Those individuals and families who traveled westward in covered wagons in search of a new life in a new promised land.  Their journeying would take them by way of long, rugged and dangerous paths including the California Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, and by other routes.  At times they were forced to leave behind items they could no longer carry, scattered along the way. And many had to leave behind family members and friends too – the ones who had lost their lives before journeys end.  We hold these pioneers in high esteem since they not only speak to us of the nation's brave history but present to us a strong, rugged, individuality, a self-sufficiency and toughness that are a hallmark of the American spirit.    Their experience of dirt, grit, blood, sweat, and tears were far from the luxuries of a kingly palace or hall.   

As you may know I was born in England.  You may not know though that my school was but two streets away from Buckingham Palace and it was not unusual for my friends and I to head over to the palace at lunch time.  On occasion we would stumble upon a parade of horses and carriages, and we would witness the pomp that accompanies the life of a Queen.  We saw her several times, as well as, other members of the royal family, looking regal and majestic.   

We may very well say that the English have their royals and we – well we have our rugged individuality which expresses our freedom, and the liberty to pursue happiness.  Though we cherish and exalt these worthy ideals, they also signal for us a deep need, to not only cherish and exalt, but to reverence and worship.   For while it is certainly true that we were made for love, for prayer, and for the pursuit of truth, we were also made to worship.  This drive and need to worship is built into our very DNA, we will worship; for we do not have an option, we do not have a choice.    It is like eating and drinking and breathing.  It is knitted into the very fabric of our being.   But what is it that we worship – a queen, a king, an idea, or something or someone else?   Some people worship a career, or the authority that comes along with lofty positions or public acclaim.  Some we know worship money, or power, or a perfect house, the idea of a perfect family, or a skill or ability, or nothing but A grades. Some worship at the throne of stardom or social media, or YouTube and TikTok, spending hours in attendance, like a courtier before a king’s throne. These areas of life can become millstones, weighing us down, or signs that lead, not to a promised land, but a barren wilderness.  For true worship is meant for, is designed for God alone.  We were made to worship the one true God and to know him and grow to love him more deeply over our lifetimes.   

As we approach the end of the year, our readings include apocalyptic scenes that speak of the end times and of the final revelation.  In our first reading Daniel has a vision of one like the son of man.  The one who receives, dominion, glory, and kingship.  Our Lord is that King but how fortunate are we to have a King who does not pass by riding in a carriage on the way to a banquet to which we have not been invited.  We have a King who meets us and joins us on our journey. A king who himself knows blood, sweat, tears, pain, loneliness, and betrayal.  It is easy to declare him as our King, for so he is.  More challenging though is making him truly the Lord of our Lives since by doing so we may recognize what needs to change in us, and what we may need to leave behind.    

We do have a king but this king desires more, wants more than just subjects, he wants to be the Lord of our lives.  To be at the hub from which all activities of life fan out like spokes in a wagon wheel, each one nourished and empowered by the Spirit.   Part of our journey to the promised land requires of us to relinquish that which prevents us from moving forward – past sin, old grievances, long held anger at God, missed opportunities pondered and constantly revisited, and the list goes on.   Like those early settlers we too must leave aspects of our lives scattered behind on our own spiritual trail.   

Is Jesus really the Lord of your life and mine? If so, what do we need to jettison, to abandon, to bury, in order for the Kingdom to be revealed?  This is the question before us – something to ponder and consider.  This journey ends with the arrival at the promised land where we will no longer be called pioneers, sojourners, or pilgrims, but saints.   Looking back, we will see all that we had abandoned and left behind, so as to make this King the Lord of our lives.  

Lord Jesus, King of the Universe, help us to see clearly that which holds us back and prevents us from journeying forward.  Give each of us the courage and strength to let go of all that binds us, grace us with the faith to trust you, and to make you the Lord of our lives. Until we too, God willing, arrive at the promised land.  Amen. 

Deacon Peter Bujwid, Saint Agnes 
Arlington, MA. 
Sunday 24th November 2024

B - Twenty Fifth Sunday on Ordinary Time

 Perspective – it paints the way we see the world around us.  In the gospel we read how after following Jesus for three years, hearing his preaching, witnessing miraculous healings, and being privy to private instruction, the disciples still did not get it – their perspective was still misaligned.  As Jesus would begin the last chapter of his life, we find them arguing about who is the greatest among them.   They just didn't get it.  These, his chosen, were still playing politics, wedded to their long-held perspective that it was power, authority, respect, and greatness that meant something, that held value. 

We know that our Christian life demands of us something entirely different.  Our second reading lists some of the qualities we are to have and hold.  These are forged in a wisdom shared with us by way of the Holy Spirit.  We are to be peaceable, full of mercy, sincere and bearing good fruit.  We are to be constant and to control our passions. This is not the way of the ungodly as we hear in our first reading.  Their perspective is that life is short and meaningless and so they seek pleasure and power while there is still time.  And they do not need to be reminded, warned, or corrected of their erroneous and self-destructive ways.  And if they are, they will see this as an affront and so may respond with a mighty, heavy and unrestrained hand.  As then, so today. Just try to share the perspective that marriage is only between one man and one woman, or that the unborn have dignity and value and a God given right to life.  The hackles rise as the sleeves are rolled up.  The message of life is not everywhere welcome. 

Power, authority, respect, and greatness - the distractions of this world that many pursue with a passion.  We love our apostles since they were similarly deluded and shackled.  But ultimately, they grew to understand. The apostles show us that despite a rocky path, persistence and courage elicit change – a change in life and ultimately a real change in perspective.   

This week we are invited to shift our perspective – to change our position to more clearly see the truth of it and to 'get' what Jesus is telling us.  But what is the engine of this change and how do we go about finding the new freedom that comes with it? The answer is – prayer time.  I heard a priest share recently that in hearing the same sin confessed multiple times, he typically asks the penitent to describe his or her prayer life.  Most, he notes, reply that they pray 10 minutes a day.  “10 Minutes”, he exclaimed, “that is for 4th graders.”  To him 10 minutes of prayer each day did not cut it.  So how long should we pray each day?  Bishop Fulton Sheen, whose famous TV shows can now be seen on YouTube, encouraged a holy hour every day.  This is echoed by Bishop Robert Baron of modern-day social media fame.  He writes, “when people invest in the presence of God their lives change, period.”  He encourages us to, “Sequester some time every day to focus on the Lord.”   To change from a worldly to an eternal perspective, you and I need to be disciplined in our prayer life, not compulsive but placing ourselves, as we are, in the real and living presence of God.  We bring to prayer that which we are, that which we encounter in life, and that which we read in the Word of God.   We must discipline our prayer life in the same way we discipline other areas of our life – going to work, studying, making the bed, washing the dishes, and so on.  The author Malcolm Gladwell writes of the 10,000-hour theory – the time any beginner must spend to become an expert.  10,000 hours seems so many, but we pray when we rise in the morning.  We pray before each meal, we pray during prayer time, we pray as we lay ourselves down to sleep.  Following the encouragement of Brother Lawrence, a 17th Century Carmelite brother, we practice the presence of God at each moment throughout the day, so each moment becomes a prayer.  We can soon become a 10,000-hour master.   There is a well-known adage in clerical circles that a cleric who does not pray should wear a T-shirt that says, “I don’t pray, stay away”.  Meaning a lack of prayer makes a clerical life hollow and fruitless.  But this is not just for clerics since, by virtue of our baptism, we all carry a priestly responsibility and duty and none of us should lead a hollow and fruitless life. 

We are encouraged by the lives of the apostles, who slowly and painstakingly grew in understanding until the moment the spirit washed over them.  From that moment, their perspective on the world would change for ever.  We are in possession of that same Holy Spirit.  We are to bestir this spirit by means of a disciplined prayer life.  We are to pray as a people determined to meet and know the Lord.  The disciples radically changed their perspective from the worldly to the eternal, despite their stubbornness, by staying close to Jesus.  We can do no less – in fact we must, at any cost, do the same.    

Saint James and Saint John – pray for us.  

Deacon Peter Bujwid, Saint Agnes 
Arlington, MA. 
Sunday 22nd September 2024

B - Corpus Christi

Antonio had been a wealthy man once.  Now he lived as a beggar in the streets of Lisbon.  His appearance was unappealing, his clothes old and many-layered.  He used plastic carrier bags to carry his worldly possessions and often he would be seen going barefoot.  His days were spent hanging out and asking for help from tourists and the locals alike.  At times he would do well and was able to afford something to eat and drink.  Most nights though he would find his old cardboard boxes and make for himself a shelter in one of the shop doorways.  As long as he did not oversleep this appeared to work, as few would bother him once it grew dark.  At times some good Samaritan would offer extra help, for which he was grateful.   

Isabella was a local shopkeeper and would frequently see Antonio and would occasionally and cheerfully buy him breakfast along with a hot drink. Antonio really had no one to speak with and so he would enjoy the exchange of a few friendly words with Isabella.  Late one summer morning Isabella was coming out of her store and was surprised to see Antonio’s makeshift shelter still in place, for he would typically take it down before the shops opened.  Having bought breakfast she went over to deliver it only to find that Antonio was unresponsive and had quietly passed away.  An ambulance came and took him, and the Police cleared his cardboard house and removed his bags from the doorway.    In speaking with one of the Policewomen, Isabella would learn to her great astonishment that Antonio, far from being poor, was astonishingly wealthy, for thrust deeply into one of his pockets was a diamond of such caliber and beauty that, if he had chosen, Antonio could have lived quite a different and comfortable life.  For whatever reason Antonio had left his wealth untouched.

So many of our baptized brothers and sisters live in ignorance of the riches given to them which, like that diamond, remain untouched.  For others it is not ignorance but a personal choice to live in poverty, in shop doorways, alone, shoeless, and cold at night.

As the baptized we are all profoundly rich and are further doubly blessed to be in the catholic family.  God gives us his word so that we can grow in his love and knowledge.  Jesus gives us the sacraments so we can pursue holiness.  The Holy Spirit, poured out upon us, motivates, and guides our hearts, minds, and spirit so we can remain in Christ as Christ remains in us.  We are rich – and our ultra wealthy portfolio rests on a rock.  A diamond of such caliber and beauty that so many do not believe it.  The infinite God has humbled himself and taken on a form by means of which we can consume him and bring him into us.   Many remain poor, struggling to believe this central tenet of catholic teaching.

I suppose all surveys need to be looked at closely but while a 2019 Pew Survey found that only one third of US Catholics believed in Transubstantiation, a more recent Georgetown study has noted that two thirds now do.  This is good news as we prepare for the National Eucharistic Revival to be held this July (2024) in Indianapolis. 80,000 men, woman and children are expected to converge and together pray, praise and worship.  Can you imagine 80,000 voices all together and as one praising God and acknowledging the truth of the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ with us in the Holy Eucharist.   Can you imagine the loud and united AMEN!

We are to die to ourselves; we are to die to a life that is selfish or spiritually bankrupt, we are to die, but let us not die poor, cold and hungry for we are given all we need to live full, complete, purposeful, and rich lives.

Our friend Antonio would live and die poor while carrying a diamond deep in his pocket, untouched, unused, far from the light that would make it sparkle with life and that would make him a very rich man.  Let us dust off the diamond of our baptism and polish this gem by way of a faith driven and sacramentally rich life. As we continue with this Mass, and in accordance with His instructions, we prepare ourselves to consume His body and His blood.  By this He makes us rich, gives us life, light, comfort, and peace.   

The answer to true poverty is only Jesus Christ, fully and completely present here in the sacrament of the Mass – body, soul, and divinity, fully present, all loving, and simply and deeply desiring you and me.   AMEN 

Deacon Peter Bujwid, Saint Agnes
Arlington, MA.
Sunday 2nd June 2024