Catholic Caucus: Daily Mass Readings, 11-03-03, Optional, St. Martin de Porres

For your reading, reflection, faith-sharing, comments and discussion.

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From: Romans 11:29-36

The Conversion of the Jews (Continuation)

[29] For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable. [30] Just as you
were once disobedient to God but now have received mercy because of
their disobedience, [31] so they have now been disobedient in order that
by the mercy shown to you they may also receive mercy. [32] For God has
consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all.

[33] 0 the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How
unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

[34] "For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his
counselor?"

[35] "Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?"

[36] For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be
glory for ever. Amen.

Commentary:

29. God never goes back on anything he promises; therefore he continues
to call the Jews to enter the chosen people. He does not take account
of their disobedience or their sins: he will love them with an
everlasting love, as he promised the patriarchs and in line with the
merits accruing to them for their fidelity (cf. Rom 9:4-5). It is this
very immutability of God's love that makes it possible for "all Israel"
(v. 26) to be saved. God's calling, which is eternal, cannot cease; but
we for our part can reject his call. The immutability of God's plan is
reassuring to us: it means that even if we abandon him at any point, we
can always return to our earlier fidelity: he is still there, waiting
for us.

33-36. God's admirable goodness, to both Jews and Gentiles, permitting
them to disobey and then talking pity on them in their wretchedness,
causes the Apostle to pour out his heart in words reminiscent of the
Book of Isaiah: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than
the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than
your thoughts" (55:8-9). The designs of divine Providence may
disconcert us, may be difficult to understand; but if we remember how
great God is--he is beyond our comprehension--and how God's power and
faithfulness overcome any obstacle man may place in God's way we will
realize that the very things which seem to frustrate his plans actually
serve to forward them.

The correct attitude of man to the designs of God is one of humility.
This will lead him to realize that the mysteries of God, which are
intrinsically clear, seem obscure to us, simply because our mind's
capacity is limited. Therefore, as Fray Luis de Granada reminds us, we
must avoid saying that "something cannot be because we cannot
understand it [...], for what is more in conformity with reason than
to think in the highest way of him who is the All-High and to attribute
to him the highest and best nature that our mind can conceive? [...] So
it is that our failure to understand the sublimity of this mystery has
a trace and scent of something divine, because, as we said, God being
infinite must necessarily be beyond our comprehension" ("Introduccion
Al Simbolo De La Fe", Part IV).

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

From: Luke 14:12-14

Attitude to the Poor

[12] He (Jesus) said to the man who had invited Him, "When you give a
dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or
your kinsmen or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return,
and you be repaid. [13] But when you give a feast, invite the poor,
the maimed, the lame, the blind, [14] and you will be blessed, because
they cannot repay you. You will be repaid at the resurrection of the
just."

Commentary:

14. A Christian acts in the world in the same way anyone else does; but
his dealings with his colleagues and others should not be based on
pursuit of reward or vainglory: the first thing he should seek is God's
glory, desiring Heaven as his only reward (cf. Luke 6:32-34).

Source: "The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries". Biblical text
taken from the Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries
made by members of the Faculty of Theology of the University of
Navarre, Spain. Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock,
Co. Dublin, Ireland.

FEAST OF THE DAY

Martin de Porres was born in Lima, Peru around the year 1579. He
was the illegitimate son of a Spanish grandee and a native
Panamanian. Martin's father did not recognize him as his son until
after Martin was eight years old. Martin's father abandoned his family
when another child was born, so Martin, his mother, and his sister
were forced to live in poverty.

At the age of twelve, Martin was apprenticed to a barber-surgeon. He
learned how to cut hair and the basics of medicine and surgery.
Martin took his medical knowledge and set out to serve the needy.
After several years, he applied to the Dominicans to be a "lay
helper." He applied for this position because he did not see himself
as worthy to be a religious brother. Martin was accepted and worked
for nine years nursing the sick and caring for the poor. His
Dominican brothers recognized his example of prayer, penance,
charity, and humility and asked him to make a full religious
profession.

Martin spent the rest of his life as a Dominican brother offering his
services to all with no prejudice about race or economic status.
During his lifetime, he was instrumental in founding an orphanage,
raised money for the poor, was known to bilocate and have
miraculous knowledge, and sometimes worked instantaneous cures
of an illness. He died in 1639 and was canonized by Pope John XXIII
in 1962. Martin de Porres is the patron of social justice and people of
mixed races.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

However great the work that God may achieve by an individual, he
must not indulge in self-satisfaction. He ought rather to be all the
more humbled, seeing himself merely as a tool which God has made
use of. -St. Vincent de Paul

TODAY IN HISTORY

753 Death of St. Pirminius, first abbot of the Benedictine monastery
at Reichenau (located in modern Germany).

TODAY'S TIDBIT

St. Pirminius, mentioned in today's historical fact is important
because one of his writings, book entitled "Scarapsus," is the earliest
known writing to contain the Apostles' Creed as it is worded in its
present form.

INTENTION FOR THE DAY

On this feast on Martin de Porres, someone who experienced racial
discrimination in his own life, but would not let it effect how he
treated everyone he met, please pray for more racial harmony in the
world.

Thought for the Day

Nothing makes us so prosperous in this world as to give alms.

-- St. Francis de Sales

BUMP!

November 3, 1534: The British Parliament passes the Supremacy Act, officially making England Protestant and putting the English monarch at the head of the nation's church (see issue 48: Thomas Cranmer).

November 3, 1600: Richard Hooker, an Anglican rector whose book Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity is a classic on the relationship between church and state, dies in England.

November 3, 1966: John Lennon tells reporters that his band, the Beatles, is "more popular than Jesus," touching off a firestorm of controversy.

Words of Encouragement

Title: The Inspired Word! Author: Mark Shea Date: Monday, November 3, 2003

Luke 24:46-47 Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

A cursory reading of the Old Testament does not give the reader the sense that the writers were thinking "Someday, Jesus of Nazareth will be crucified, die and rise from the dead, so I better write these mysterious things about parting Red Seas and bronze serpents in order for people to have useful images of baptism and crucifixion in their heads when he comes." On the contrary, much of the Old Testament was written by "men moved by the Holy Spirit" (2 Peter 1:21) but not by men who necessarily understood they were so moved nor by men who understood where the Spirit was pointing them. The author of the Song of Song, for instance, gives no indication he was writing a book that would be a goldmine of images for understanding Christ the Groom and his Bride the Church. Most likely, he thought he was just writing a wedding ode for a king. But since God was inspiring him, he had wound up writing a wedding ode for The King of the Universe. The same goes for the rest of Scripture. The Spirit of him who suffered and died inspired the whole thing from beginning to end. And since the Spirit is God, he knew how to write the story so we could see, as Augustine said, that the New Testament is hidden in the Old and the Old Testament is only revealed in the New. Today, thank God for the riches of Christ, hidden in his word.

Homily of the Day

Title: My Ways Are Not Your Ways Author: Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D. Date: Monday, November 3, 2003

Rom 11:29-36 / Lk 14:12-14

One of the perennial mistakes we make is trying to figure out what God is thinking and why God did this or didn't do that. It gets us in all kinds of trouble, sometimes even causing us to doubt that God really cares for us or even bothers to give us a second glance after creating us. That's the bad idea that the deists of the enlightenment wandered into, and there are plenty of equally bad ideas about God still making the rounds.

The crunch can come when we face a tragedy like the cancer death of a little child or the freeway death of a devoted mother of eight. And we can really go over the top when we think about the Holocaust or the thousands of bodies in mass graves in dozens of countries around the world. "I want answers, and I want them now!" we may in effect be saying. If so, we're wasting our breath, for our time is not God's time, nor is our schedule God's. Paul says it in today's first reading: "How inscrutable his judgments, how unsearchable his ways."

So what are we left with? Both our faith in the goodness of God and our personal experience, part of it directly intuitive, that God abides with us and never leaves, and that his love for us is undying. In the words of the poet, "That's all you know, and all you need to know."

Lies with Wings 11/03/03

Jesus, Mary & DaVinci with Elizabeth Vargas to be telecast tonight on ABC, is living proof that some in the media will stop at nothing to generate controversy in the drive to capture viewer interest. Based on the best-selling novel, The DaVinci Code, the program claims to "investigate" the controversial contentions of that Dan Brown book.

What the program does, in fact, is further perpetuate Brown's outrageous and sacrilegious conjectures under the guise of "investigative journalism".

Most critics agree that Brown's book is basically a thriller driven by historical conjectures whose primary purpose is to fascinate and capture readers. Probably the most outrageous and sacrilegious claims made by Brown are that Our Lord was married to Mary Magdalene, that they had a son together, and that Mary and the son fled Jerusalem after the Crucifixion.

It should not surprise anyone that authors and artists feel free to trash sacred religious traditions and the sensitivities of the faithful in the name of artistic and literary freedom. Such freedom is applied to artistic expression of all kinds in our present anti-religious environment where the sacred is an easy target for giddy authors and artists looking to spur controversy and make an easy buck. Unfortunately, it is clear that preventing such outrages is unlikely given the mainstream media's distaste for "censorship". (Mel Gibson's The Passion of Christ not included).

The problem here is that presenting a television "investigation" of the preposterous theories of a fiction author gives those theories wings. A public unable to separate fact from fiction, that has rushed to eat up Mr. Brown's novel, is being led to scandalous, sacrilegious debates and discussions on topics whose very essence is an abomination. To have a television program pretend to seriously consider these issues is simply to give flight to those conjectures and further spit upon sacred doctrine.

With the media biased against the sacred and in favor of demystifying and secularizing religious issues, the added public hype of a best-selling novel cannot but seem to make for hot television. But it is abject exploitation of the public to paint all of this as serious investigative journalism and scholarly debate when the main goal is controversy and ratings cheaply purchased by offending the people the mainstream media least cares about offending.

Catholic League representative Joseph Feo argues that the program claims to be objective discussion, but is actually a presentation of speakers who either believe Brown's conjectures outright or at least believe that they are plausible. Feo notes that speakers such as the Reverend Richard McBrien of Notre Dame are not always representative of traditional Catholic doctrine but are conveniently quoted to provide a false air of authenticity.

Imagine if a best-selling novel came out which claimed that people who favored abortion, "gay" rights, or divorce were all devil worshippers and inherently evil. Imagine if such a novel claimed that a legendary, but deceased, "gay" rights leader or feminist icon was involved in some horrible conspiracy and was a fraud, actually favoring faithful Catholic beliefs and indeed spying for the opposition. Would ABC News decide that it was a good idea to present an investigative discussion of these claims? Probably not, since cries of outrage and defamation would ring across the land and across ABC's bottom line.

However, ABC does not appear worried about the political, social, or fiscal fallout from offending Christians in general and Catholics in particular, the "who cares?" group everybody loves to trash. In discussing Brown's novel, Amazon.com's review states, "though some will quibble with the veracity of Brown's conjectures…therein lies the fun." Elizabeth Vargas, the anchor of this program adds, "for me, it's made religion more real and, ironically, much more interesting." Therein lies the problem: as long as it is fun and interesting, hey, who cares about offending religious people?

St. Martin's Story [Martin de Porres]

The Word Among Us

Monday, November 03, 2003

Meditation
Romans 11:29-36

Words are probably the most powerful tools anyone can have. It’s through words that we do most of our communicating, and it’s with words that we are best able to describe other people, situations, or experiences to those around us. Usually, we have no problem finding just the right words to use, but there are times when words fail us. It seems that as powerful as they are, they too can fall short.

Throughout his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul is very precise in his use of words to describe who God is, what he has done for us, and how he wants us to live. Today’s reading, however, is one of those rare situations in which Paul is at a loss for words.

Read the last few verses of this passage. Don’t they sound just a little bit vague, intangible, or unclear? It’s not Paul’s fault, really. The real problem is with our limited vocabulary. We use words such as omnipotence, mercy, and love to describe God, but they still can’t fully capture the essence of the God we are trying to describe.

Scripture tells us that a common prostitute was much closer to understanding the mercy of God than an educated Pharisee (Luke 7:44-50). Job was far more reverent toward God after the Holy Spirit opened his eyes (Job 42:5). When Isaiah had his vision of heaven, his view of God and of himself changed radically as well (Isaiah 6:1-6). In each of these instances, words alone could not convey what these people experienced deep in their hearts. Our experience of God is instrumental to our understanding of him. If we want to know about the “depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God,” we need to open our hearts to receive divine grace and power.

“Lord, we know that our human minds are unable to fully understand who you are. We need your grace. We humbly sit at your feet and ask you to pour your grace upon us so that we might know you as you deserve to be known.”

One Bread, One Body

<< Monday, November 3, 2003 >>

St. Martin de Porres

Romans 11:29-36

Psalm 69:30-31, 33-34, 36-37

Luke 14:12-14

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MISERY OR MYSTERY?

“...how inscrutable His judgments, how unsearchable His ways!” —Romans 11:33

The Lord has said: “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways” (Is 55:8). That we are so different than God is initially seen as a problem. We even wish that God was more like us. However, if we joyfully accept God’s transcendence and mystery, we can begin to look behind the worst situations and see the hand of God. This fills us with hope rather than discouragement.

For example, what if you invited several poor and handicapped people to dinner but never received any invitations to their homes? Here you are — lonely, eating by yourself, and feeling sorry for yourself. But if you have the mind of God (see 1 Cor 2:16), you begin to rejoice, for you see that you are in a wonderful situation in which “you will be repaid in the resurrection of the just” (Lk 14:14).

What if you are like Paul, in “great grief and constant pain” because your nation is alienated from God? (Rm 9:2) The Lord, however, can enlighten the eyes of your heart (Eph 1:18) to see that He is working together for the good even in the worst circumstances (Rm 8:28).

When we see even the worst of things in God’s way, we exclaim: “How deep are the riches and the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How inscrutable His judgments, how unsearchable His ways!...For from Him and through Him and for Him all things are. To Him be glory forever. Amen” (Rm 11:33, 36).

Prayer: Father, fill me with joy because of Your mystery.

Promise: “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.” —Rm 11:29

Praise: St. Martin lived his life in humble service by caring for the poor and the sick, and spending entire nights in prayer. He immersed himself in the mystery of God and ministered God’s love through miraculous healings and counseling other Christians.

Homily of the Day

Homily of the Day

Title:	My Ways Are Not Your Ways
Author:	Monsignor Dennis Clark, Ph.D.
Date:	Monday, November 3, 2003

Rom 11:29-36 / Lk 14:12-14

One of the perennial mistakes we make is trying to figure out what God is thinking and why God did this or didn't do that. It gets us in all kinds of trouble, sometimes even causing us to doubt that God really cares for us or even bothers to give us a second glance after creating us. That's the bad idea that the deists of the enlightenment wandered into, and there are plenty of equally bad ideas about God still making the rounds.

The crunch can come when we face a tragedy like the cancer death of a little child or the freeway death of a devoted mother of eight. And we can really go over the top when we think about the Holocaust or the thousands of bodies in mass graves in dozens of countries around the world. "I want answers, and I want them now!" we may in effect be saying. If so, we're wasting our breath, for our time is not God's time, nor is our schedule God's. Paul says it in today's first reading: "How inscrutable his judgments, how unsearchable his ways."

So what are we left with? Both our faith in the goodness of God and our personal experience, part of it directly intuitive, that God abides with us and never leaves, and that his love for us is undying. In the words of the poet, "That's all you know, and all you need to know."