To watch Fr. Joe’s homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time: CLICK HERE!

Recently the comic strip, For Better or Worse, shared an episode of 13 year old Michael complaining to his mother, “Mom there is nothing to wear!”

“Michael,” his mother counters, “you won’t go shopping with me, and the last time I gave you money to buy you own clothes, you did not buy anything!”

A few moments later, Michael who is staring out the window, whines, “There is nothing to do.”

His mother reminds him, “Brian ask you to go swimming, your dad asked you if you wanted to go to town with him — and you turned them both down.”

Then with Michael plopped in front of the TV and the sound turned down.    Michael gripes, “There is nothing to watch.”

And mom says pointedly, “there are plenty of channels to choose from and you have video games to play.”

Then in the next panel, Dad comes home from his errands to find Michael sitting in a chair with a forlorn expression on his face.  “What is with Michael,” dad asks.

Mom deadpans:  “There is nothing to complain about.”

Today’s Gospel is about attitude and perspective.  Michael’s pessimism is his own making and his wise mother calls on it.

But on a deeper and more serious level, Jesus in our Gospel today asks us not to consider our failings and sins, the acts themselves, but the self-centeredness at the heart of our actions.

Says Sirach in our first reading today, ” If you choose, you can keep the Commandments.”

And let me warn you, spoiler alert:

• If we choose as a person, family, community, nation… we can be reconciled with God and with one another.
• If we choose, we can be kind, forgiving,  helpful, cooperative, supportive.
• If we choose, we can keep the Commandments and live the Great Commandment and live the Corporal & Spiritual Works of Mercy.
• If we chose, we can grow in faith, hope and love, and accept God’s grace to bring a bit of the Kingdom of God here on Earth, as it in Heaven.

This week, where will we choose, as person, family and parish the ways of God, at home, at work, in the community, in all those daily interactions that come our way again and again and again so we can really live…

To watch Fr. Joe’s homily for the 6th Sunday in Ordinary Time: CLICK HERE! 

This past Thursday, we celebrated Valentine’s Day.  A day that centers on our love for others.  Of course, our words of love need to be seen in our actions of love.  And in that vein, Jesus reminds us that we are here to love one another, especially our enemies.

The story is told about a Bishop from Vietnam: Francis Van Thuan, who was captured in 1975 shortly before the end of the war and imprisoned by the communist government for 13 years… 9 of which were in solitary confinement.  After his release, he took refuge in the Vatican.  From his time in prison, he learned a sage-like wisdom.  He taught that “we always run the risk of possessing a theory of love, but not enough of the art of love.”

To that end he shared a story from prison:

When I was in isolation, five police took turns so that there were always two guarding me.  The leaders had told them, “we will replace you every two weeks with another group so that you will not be ‘contaminated’ by this dangerous bishop.”  In the beginning, the guards did not talk with me.  They only answered with a yes or no.  I was terribly sad.  I started to love them, to love Jesus in them, smiling and exchanging kind words with them.  I began to tell stories of my trips abroad, of how people live in America, in Canada, in Japan, in the Philippines … about economics, about freedom, about technology.  This stimulated their curiosity, and they began asking me many questions.  Little by little, we became friends.  They wanted to learn foreign languages, French, English … and my guards became my students!

On one occasion, I had to cut wood on a rainy day.  I spoke to the guard, “can I ask you a favor?”  The guard said, “tell me. I’ll help you.”  I said, “I would like to cut a piece of wood in the shape of a cross.”  The guard said, “don’t you know it’s severely forbidden to have any religious signs whatsoever?” I answered, “I know, but we are friends, and I promise to keep it hidden.”  The guard pointed out that “it will be really dangerous for us.”  So I said, “close your eyes. I’ll do it now, and I’ll be really careful.”  The guard went away and left me alone.  I cut the cross and kept it hidden in a piece of soap — up until the time of my release.  This piece of wood, later placed within a metal frame, became my pectoral cross.

In another prison, I asked my guard, who had become my friend, for a piece of electrical wire.  Frightened, he said to me, “I learned at the Police Academy that when someone asks for electrical wire, it means they want to kill themselves.”  I explained to him, “Catholic priests don’t commit suicide.”  He asked, “but what do you want to do with electrical wire?”  I replied, “I would like to make a chain so I can carry my cross.” “How can you make a chain with electrical wire?  It’s impossible!”  I told him, “if you bring me two small pincers, I’ll show you.”  He said, “it’s too dangerous” and I reminded him “but we’re friends.”  Three days later, he came to me.  “It’s really hard to refuse you anything.  Tomorrow night, when it’s my shift, I’ll bring you a piece of electrical wire.  But you have to finish everything in four hours.”  The next evening, from 7-11, with two little pincers, we cut the electrical wire into pieces the size of matchsticks.  We put them together, and the chain was ready by the time the next guard came on duty.

I carry this bishop’s pectoral cross and chain with me every day, not because they are remembrances of prison, but because they represent my profound conviction.  They constantly remind me that only Christian love — not weapons, not threats, not the media — can change hearts.  It is love that prepares the way for the announcement of the Gospel.

The greatness of Jesus’s preaching (as we hear in today’s Gospel of the Beatitudes) is that no one escapes.  Jesus has something for everyone.

What is it for each of us… all of us… that we are being asked to address when it comes to loving one another, even our enemies.”