At that time Herod the tetrarch heard about the reputation of Jesus and said to his court, ‘This is John the Baptist himself; he has risen from the dead, and that is why miraculous powers are at work in him.’

John the Baptist beheaded

Now it was Herod who had arrested John, chained him up and put him in prison because of Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. For John had told him, ‘It is against the Law for you to have her.’ He had wanted to kill him but was afraid of the people, who regarded John as a prophet. Then, during the celebrations for Herod’s birthday, the daughter of Herodias danced before the company and so delighted Herod that he promised on oath to give her anything she asked. Prompted by her mother she said, ‘Give me John the Baptist’s head, here, on a dish.’ The king was distressed but, thinking of the oaths he had sworn and of his guests, he ordered it to be given her, and sent and had John beheaded in the prison. The head was brought in on a dish and given to the girl, who took it to her mother. John’s disciples came and took the body and buried it; then they went off to tell Jesus. 

20th Sunday in Ordinary Time

August 18, 2013

INTRODUCTION – (Jeremiah 38:4-6, 8-10; Hebrews 12:1-4; Luke 12:49-53) Suffering and turmoil have been part of everyday life in the Middle East for centuries. Our first reading goes back 600 years befo Babylon, was successfully conquering all the nations that surrounded Babylon. The events we will hear in our first reading took place as the Babylonians were attacking Jerusalem. Jeremiah, one of the greatest prophets of all time, kept telling the Jewish leaders as well as anyone who would listen to him that it was useless for them to defend themselves; they should just surrender to the Babylonians or Jerusalem would be destroyed. Such talk was viewed as unpatriotic and Jeremiah was called a traitor. Many of the Jewish leaders decided to kill Jeremiah and they persuaded their king, Zedekiah, to get rid of the prophet. Zedekiah gave permission for Jeremiah to be thrown into a cistern to die. Later, Ebed-Melech, a Cushite (which means an Ethiopian), one of Jeremiah’s friends, persuaded the king to change his mind.

HOMILY – Today’s readings are not cheerful. First we heard of Jeremiah who was faithful to God in every way and who spoke God’s message to God’s people. He was rewarded by being thrown down a cistern and left to die. I’m sure some of us feel like Jeremiah at times. By the way, Jeremiah was correct. Because of the resistance of the Jews, the Babylonians completely destroyed Jerusalem and that led to the Babylonian Exile.

    In the gospel we hear of Jesus, THE greatest prophet ever. Luke tells us Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem knowing fully well what was ahead for him. Jesus described this in three ways: as a fire he wished to cast upon the earth, as a baptism he was to receive, and that he would be a cause of division. The fire and baptism he spoke of are vague: (1) fire can symbolize judgment, purification or discernment. It also could symbolize the fire of the Holy Spirit that came upon the apostles at Pentecost. What Jesus meant by fire is unclear. (2) Jesus also spoke of a baptism he would undergo. This is a strange symbol for Jesus to use, especially since he had already received the baptism of John the Baptist. The baptism he was to receive might be clearer if we recall that once Jesus referred to his suffering and death as a baptism when he asked James and John, two apostles who wanted the highest places of honor in God’s kingdom, “can you drink the cup that I am to drink or be baptized with the baptism that I shall undergo?” If baptism and fire are difficult to understand, we have no difficulty understanding Jesus when he talks about (3) the division that he would create. “Do you think that I have come to establish peace on the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division.” This word foretold the sufferings and even the martyrdom some of his followers would experience. Here Jesus focused specifically on division within families for family bonds were one of the strongest and most sacred bonds in the society of Jesus’ time. The example of division that Jesus chose illustrates that membership in God’s kingdom was even more important than family ties.

    Didn’t Jesus come to bring peace? Certainly! At his birth the angels sang “glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to people of good will.” When Jesus sent his disciples out on mission, they were instructed that when they entered a person’s house they were to say: “Peace to this house.” At the Last Supper he promised his disciples a “peace which the world cannot give.” After his resurrection, his first words to the disciples when he appeared to them were: “Peace be with you.” The greatest source of peace in my life is my relationship with God. Peace is more than just the absence of war, it is a figure for the many blessings that he and his ministry would bring to human beings. (Fitzmyer, Anchor Bible, pg 225) So when Jesus speaks of division, he is speaking of the ongoing battle between good and evil, between those who believe and follow him and those who reject him. It is Jesus’ intention to offer God’s forgiveness and love to all who would accept it. Division results from the fact that there will always be those who resist Jesus’ offer.

    This battle can go on even within our own selves – with part of us wanting to love God and follow his ways and a part of us wanting to go in the opposite direction. The second reading today from Hebrews encourages us to persevere in running the race and keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus for he is the true source of a peace that will have no end.

    We come here today with our challenges, our worries and struggles, whether within ourselves, or with our relatives or our neighbors, or our politicians or the world at large. Typically, we work to achieve some peace and stability in our lives, but I suppose there will always be challenges. So we come to our Lord for strength and guidance, for his love and for his peace. Amen.

From Rita Robinson Ring,

Co-founder of Shepherds of Christ

    God has chosen us, we are to turn to Christ with greater generosity, and as baptized Christians to grow in our knowing and loving capacity.

    God has put His handprint on us in baptism giving to us the virtues of faith, hope and love. These are theological virtues. We must pray to God for the increase in these virtues and we respond to the grace He outpours to us. In praying for the increase in faith we can see more and more the vision of the Heavenly Father. We can hope for our eternal salvation and help spread that hope in our lives to others and we can share more deeply in God’s loving activity – loving more supernaturally as we cooperate by responding to the gifts given by God of greater faith, hope and love.

    God is with us, God wants us to spread the good news, to turn toward Him in loving union performing good acts according to His will.

    Fr. Joe’s book teaches us about love and life in God. Fr. Joe’s book teaches us about the gift of the Mass and the Church, and about salvation history. We live more every day according to the scriptures in peace, love and joy. We know Jesus, we love Him. He is operating in us.

    We all seek happiness – Happiness is found in God –

    In reading the weekly scriptures and reading Fr. Joe’s homily – God’s loving self-communication to us will grow in our lives – as we respond in love to Him.

    This book and the scripture come alive in our lives every Sunday after we read the scriptures and Fr. Joe’s homily before Mass.

    God communicates His own life through grace and man in return gives himself to God and his fellowman in loving service.

    Happiness comes to us in dying to those ways not likened to God and rising in the spiritual life in that image and likeness of Christ.

    We love Fr. Joe’s jokes that help us to clear our minds and laugh and listen.

    He told me of a little boy who was drawing a picture in art class and the teacher said “Who is this?” And the little boy said, “It is God.”

    The teacher said, “Nobody knows what God looks like.” The little boy said, “When I get done – they will know.”

    In baptism we have been given a sharing in God’s life with this elevated knowing and loving capacity.

    It is up to us to pray to God for the grace to grow to know and love Him more – to be more and more likened to God.

    In the pages of Fr. Joe’s homilies we learn more and more about God, about loving God and loving others as ourselves – God is love – God is the source of love – We are to Respond to God’s love.

Excerpt from Response to God’s Love by Fr. Edward Carter, S.J.

    “... In reference to Christianity, God himself is the ultimate mystery. Radically, God is completely other and transcendent, hidden from man in his inner life, unless he chooses to reveal himself. Let us briefly look at this inner life of God.

    The Father, in a perfect act of self-expression, in a perfect act of knowing, generates his son. The Son, the Word, is, then, the immanent expression of God’s fullness, the reflection of the Father. Likewise, from all eternity, the Father and the Son bring forth the Holy Spirit in a perfect act of loving.

    At the destined moment in human history, God’s self-expression, the Word, immersed himself into man’s world. God’s inner self-expression now had also become God’s outer self-expression. Consequently, the mystery of God becomes the mystery of Christ. In Christ, God tells us about himself, about his inner life, about his plan of creation and redemption. He tells us how Father, Son, and Holy Spirit desire to dwell within us in the most intimate fashion, how they wish to share with us their own life through grace. All this he has accomplished and does accomplish through Christ. St. Paul tells us: “I became a minister of this Church through the commission God gave me to preach among you his word in its fullness, that mystery hidden from ages and generations past but now revealed to his holy ones. God has willed to make known to them the glory beyond price which this mystery brings to the Gentiles—the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory. This is the Christ we proclaim while we admonish all men and teach them in the full measure of wisdom, hoping to make every man complete in Christ” (Col 1:25-28).”

Excerpts from Guiding Light – Feed My Soul

p. 111 When Jesus said the two greatest commandments were about love: love of God and love of neighbor, the Jewish scholar asked Jesus another question: “And who is my neighbor?” You might recall that there was great animosity between Jews and Samaritans, so in introducing a Samaritan into the story, Jesus shows us “neighbor” could be anyone, even someone we despise.

p. 51 The conversation Jesus had about tragic events at the beginning of today’s gospel was interesting. Sometimes people think when something bad happens to someone it is God’s punishment. Jesus said that’s not always true. He does not try to explain suffering here, but he is telling us not to be complacent, which we sometimes are. We can’t think “well, if nothing bad is happening to me, it must be because I am so good.” He tells us we all need to repent, i.e., to work to be better than we are.

pp. 29-30 As we celebrate Jesus’ baptism, may we at the same time celebrate our own. May we rejoice in God’s gift of love and life given to us, and may we live up to the high dignity with which God has blessed us.

INTRODUCTION – (Jeremiah 20, 7-9) Our first reading from the prophet Jeremiah goes back to 600 B.C. It sounds as if Jeremiah expected people would be grateful to him for speaking God’s word to them. But they only hated him for it. The people ridiculed him, threw him in jail and even tried to kill him by throwing him in a well. We hear him complaining to God, “You duped me! You tricked me, God!”

    Jesus’ faithfulness to his mission would bring him suffering too, but Jesus did not feel tricked. He was well aware of what was going to happen. In today’s gospel, we hear him warning his disciples ahead of time.

HOMILY – (Matthew 16, 21-27) You can’t turn on the TV these days without hearing about politics. Will Rogers told a story you might enjoy that was about two politicians. One said to the other: “I’ll stop telling lies about you, if you’ll stop telling the truth about me.” Jesus would have made a lousy politician. Politicians are busy telling us how they are going to solve all our problems if we vote for them. Jesus is telling us if we follow him it’s going to bring us problems. “Whoever wishes to come after me must take up his cross and follow me.” Let us not assume from this statement that if we decide not to follow him, we’ll be without any problems. Having problems comes with being human. Problems and crosses are part of everyone’s life, whether they believe in Christ or not. Following Christ helps us deal with them more easily; the cross that we take up if we follow Christ will not defeat us but will bring us to resurrection.

    Religion and philosophy have always tried to understand the mystery of suffering, especially the difficult problem of why good people suffer. So many ways to explain suffering are out there. None of them can take away all the mystery from suffering. For me, the best answer is found in the gospel. Jesus, through his cross and resurrection, has given us hope in our pain and hopelessness and has assured us that if we follow him in faith, that can only lead to eternal glory.

    Peter had faith in Jesus as we heard in last week’s gospel. He had just finished professing that Jesus was “the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” The words were hardly out of his mouth when Jesus said that being faithful to his mission, that being the Messiah, would cost him his life, but he would rise again. That didn’t Messiah would rally the Jewish people, he would defeat the Romans who occupied their land, he would bring back the days when Israel had their own king. That the Messiah would have to suffer was just not in the plan according to Peter. He was pretty bold telling Jesus “that’s not going to happen to you. You’re our savior. How can you save us by suffering? Ridiculous!” Jesus scolded Peter whom he had just praised for his faith and called him Satan. He was not saying Peter was evil. He was telling Peter he was doing Satan’s job of being a tempter, trying to convince Jesus that being faithful to his mission would be a piece of cake. Jesus knew history better than Peter. He knew what the prophets before him went through – people like Jeremiah or Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist, who was put to death by Herod. He could see things more clearly than Peter. Jesus told him “you have a lot to learn. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.”

    We might wonder how Peter was expected to think like anything other than a human being. After all that’s what he was. Peter wasn’t the Son of God. But there was a way, and there is a way for us to think like God does; that is, to learn from God, to listen to him, to believe what he tells us. It’s the way of prayer and faith. Basically that’s no different than learning from any great teacher. When we learn from a great teacher, we absorb their thoughts, their insights, their perspective, their truth. We begin to think like them. When God tells us something and we listen and we believe it, we’re seeing and knowing as God sees and knows, even if we can’t fully understand everything at the time. We’re beginning to think like God does. Peter’s problem was he stopped listening to Jesus when Jesus started talking about suffering and he started to dictate to Jesus the way things were going to be. That’s when he got into trouble.

    We’ve been called to a life of prayer and faith. For us today, with freedom of religion, it is not as challenging for us to live that life as it was for those who followed Christ in the earliest days of the Church. People really did lose their lives and their fortunes for being Christians. We are blessed that we do not have to make the kind of life or death choice Christians did way back then. If we feel fortunate about it, shouldn’t we be willing to share our faith with others? One good way to do that would be to invite them to come to church with you or to come to our RCIA program which begins this Wednesday.

    Coming to Mass, as we are doing now, teaches us to think as God does. We listen to what God speaks to us in the Scriptures. We profess our faith in his word. As we struggle with our own crosses and difficulties, we celebrate how Jesus overcame his sufferings and his cross through the resurrection. In that event we are given a vision of God’s plan of victory for all who live in his grace. Amen.

 

                R. Tomorrow is the 22nd
                    Anniversary of the
                    Message Jesus gave to Fr. Carter.
 

July 31, 1994

Words of Jesus to Members of
Shepherds of Christ Associates:

"My beloved priest-companion, I intend to use the priestly newsletter, Shepherds of Christ, and the movement, Shepherds of Christ Associates, in a powerful way for the renewal of My Church and the world.

"I will use the newsletter and the chapters of Shepherds of Christ Associates as a powerful instrument for spreading devotion to My Heart and My Mother's Heart.

"I am calling many to become members of Shepherds of Christ Associates. To all of them I will give great blessings. I will use them as instruments to help bring about the triumph of the Immaculate Heart and the reign of My Sacred Heart. I will give great graces to the members of Shepherds of Christ Associates. I will call them to be deeply united to My Heart and to Mary's Heart as I lead them ever closer to My Father in the Holy Spirit."

- Message from Jesus to Father Edward J. Carter, S.J., Founder, as given on July 31, 1994,
feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola, Founder of the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits)

                    

Through Him, With Him, In Him

 

 

November 11, 2003 at 6:02 p.m.

  

November 11, 2003 at 6:07 p.m.

  

November 11, 2003 at 6:10 p.m.

  

November 11, 2003 at about 6:16 p.m.

  

November 11, 2003 at 6:30 p.m.

  

Image at 6:30 from internet camera when prayers started for the priests
(all pictures between 6:05 and 6:30 tonight as Fr. Carter tape was played)

  

Image at 7:00 when Shepherds of Christ prayers finished

      

 

Psalm 147: 12-13, 15-16, 19-20
  

Praise Yahweh, Jerusalem, 
Zion, praise your God. 

For he gives strength to the bars of your gates, 
he blesses your children within you, 

He sends his word to the earth, 
his command runs quickly, 
he spreads the snow like flax, 
strews hoarfrost like ashes, 

He reveals his word to Jacob, 
his statutes and judgements to Israel. 
For no other nation has he done this, 
no other has known his judgements.

 

 

 

"MASS IN CHINA WITH FATHER CARTER"

 

 

 

    

 
 

 

 

 

Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 23: 1-6

‘Disaster for the shepherds who lose and scatter the sheep of my pasture, Yahweh declares. This, therefore, is what Yahweh, God of Israel, says about the shepherds who shepherd my people, "You have scattered my flock, you have driven them away and have not taken care of them. Right, I shall take care of you for your misdeeds, Yahweh declares! But the remnant of my flock I myself shall gather from all the countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; they will be fruitful and increase in numbers. For them I shall raise up shepherds to shepherd them and pasture them. No fear, no terror for them any more; not one shall be lost, Yahweh declares!
                                                                                                                      

   Look, the days are coming,
      Yahweh declares,
   when I shall raise an upright Branch
      for David;
   he will reign as king and be wise, 
   doing what is just and upright
      in the country. 
    In his days Judah will triumph
   and Israel live in safety.
  And this is the name he will be called,
  ‘Yahweh–is–our–Saving–Justice.’ "

  

Psalm 23: 1-6

Yahweh is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 
In grassy meadows he lets me lie. 

By tranquil streams he leads me 
    to restore my spirit. 
He guides me in paths of saving justice 
    as befits his name. 

Even were I to walk in a ravine as dark as death 
I should fear no danger, for you are at my side. 
Your staff and your crook are there to soothe me. 

You prepare a table for me 
    under the eyes of my enemies; 
you anoint my head with oil; 
    my cup brims over. 

Kindness and faithful love pursue me 
    every day of my life. 
I make my home in the house of Yahweh 
    for all time to come.

 

Ephesians 2: 13-18

But now in Christ Jesus, you that used to be so far off have been brought close, by the blood of Christ. For he is the peace between us, and has made the two into one entity and broken down the barrier which used to keep them apart, by destroying in his own person the hostility, that is, the Law of commandments with its decrees. His purpose in this was, by restoring peace, to create a single New Man out of the two of them, and through the cross, to reconcile them both to God in one Body; in his own person he killed the hostility. He came to bring the good news of peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. Through him, then, we both in the one Spirit have free access to the Father.

 

     Mark 6: 30-34

The apostles rejoined Jesus and told him all they had done and taught. And he said to them, ‘Come away to some lonely place all by yourselves and rest for a while’; for there were so many coming and going that there was no time for them even to eat. So they went off in the boat to a lonely place where they could be by themselves. But people saw them going, and many recognised them; and from every town they all hurried to the place on foot and reached it before them. So as he stepped ashore he saw a large crowd; and he took pity on them because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he set himself to teach them at some length.

 

Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 22, 2012

INTRODUCTION – (Jeremiah 23:1-6; Ephesians, 2:13-18; Mk. 6:30-34) Our first reading is from Jeremiah the prophet who lived about 600 years before Christ. As I explain the reading, I’ll begin by explaining the second half. Jeremiah pronounces a solemn promise from God that begins with the words: “The days are coming says the Lord” The promise that follows these words is a promise meant to give hope to God’s people who had been scattered by the Babylonian invasion. It would be many days before God’s promise would be fulfilled – 50 years before the people could return to their homeland from Babylon and almost 600 years before the king whom God promises would arrive. We know the promised king was Jesus the Christ, an offspring of David who ruled God’s people with wisdom, establishing justice and security in the land. We still wait and pray for the promise of justice and security to be fulfilled. The first part of our reading uses an image that goes back almost 4000 years where the king was referred to as shepherd of his people. In the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, the king was considered to be the shepherd of God’s people. Most of the time the kings of Israel and Judah did not rule according to God’s laws. The gospel applies the same image of shepherd to Jesus who will faithfully lead God’s people as God desires.

HOMILY – Last week’s gospel ended with Jesus sending his apostles out to preach repentance, drive out demons and heal the sick. In today’s gospel, they return to Jesus to report how their mission went. Jesus recognized they all had a need for some rest and some quiet time. They were no doubt looking forward to just having him to themselves for a little while, but that did not happen. Jesus and his apostles had stirred up a great spiritual hunger and hope in many people and they came looking for their hunger to be satisfied. We notice that when the people found Jesus, he was not annoyed or too busy to for them. He was moved with compassion for they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus, first of all, satisfies their spiritual hunger by teaching them, giving them directions on how to live, how to love God and one another, encouraging them, perhaps helping them to understand the meaning of their lives. Today’s gospel is also preparing us for what is to follow, where we will hear in the next few weeks how Jesus satisfied their physical hunger in the multiplication of the loaves and fishes.

    Two ideas struck me as worthy of our reflection. Think how privileged the apostles were to have Jesus with them all the time. We have Jesus with us all the time too. But as St. Augustine famously said in his book, the Confessions, when he came to know Jesus: “You were with me, but I was not with you.” Like the apostles, we need to take time off just to be alone with him. We are doing that right now but going to Mass on the weekend is a minimum. I believe we also need to take time during the week. Without spending some quality time with Jesus during the week, the weekend Mass may not be so meaningful for us. Besides my daily Mass and the saying of the Divine Office, I usually try to spend an hour a day in some form of quiet prayer such as the rosary, or studying the Scriptures or just sitting quietly in Church. This is a great privilege for me and having this opportunity has been a great blessing for me.

    The second idea worthy of our reflection is expressed in the last words of today’s gospel: the people were like sheep without a shepherd and he began to teach them. Seeing Jesus as the good shepherd is one of the most popular ways to imagine him and one of the earliest ways Jesus was portrayed in Christian art. Psalm 23, “the Lord is my Shepherd,” is the best known and best loved of all the 150 psalms. Having Jesus as our shepherd presupposes we allow him to lead us; in other words, we allow him to teach us and continue to teach us. We are never finished learning from him. Many, many people in our culture went to Catholic schools. Some continue to stay active in their faith and others have put it in a drawer with their diploma and forgotten about it. This group feels as if they know all they need to know about religion. They are like some of the students I taught when I taught high school religion. Often students would complain, “why are we studying this stuff, we learned this in grade school.” It’s as if you can come to know all you need to know about Jesus with a few little lessons. We’re never finished learning. I love this quote from St. John of the Cross: “We must dig deeply in Christ. He is like a rich mine with many pockets containing treasures: however deep we dig we will never find their end or their limit. Indeed, in every pocket new seams of fresh riches are discovered on all sides.”

    For myself, I continue to be fascinated with the scriptures and continue to learn from them, even after studying them for over 50 years. You could say that I’m just a slow learner – and that may be true – but it’s also true that we can never exhaust the riches we can discover as we come to know our Lord more and more deeply.

    Jesus teaches us in many different ways, not just through the Scriptures. He teaches us in our daily prayers and meditation, in the Mass, in our interaction with others, in the saints, through the teachings of the Church, through spiritual books, even through the difficult challenges that life brings us. We call ourselves disciples. The word disciple means learner. When we’ve quit learning, we’ve quit being a disciple. The last line in today’s gospel tells me: if we want to have Jesus as our shepherd, then we must allow him to be our teacher. Jesus saw the people like sheep without a shepherd – so how did he shepherd them – “he began to teach them many things.”