33rd SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A
November 16, 2008
Matthew 25, 14-30

This week, after special feasts for the last two weeks, we come back to a parable from Matthew.  It is the parable of the talents given to different servants by their master, for their use and investment.

A ‘talent’ in the old days meant a measure of weight.  It was the heaviest weight in the measuring system.  It was used in measurements of gold, silver, iron, and bronze.  Later on, it meant a measure of money.  One talent, for Jews, was equivalent to 3,000 shekels, or ‘as much as a man could carry’.  In later times of Jewish history, and in the time of Jesus and Matthew, one talent was equivalent to 6,000 denarii (Roman coins).  6,000 denarii would be about the earnings of an ordinary worker for fifteen to twenty years.   It was in ordinary parlance ‘a ton of money’. 

PAUL’S EXPERIENCE OF THE RISEN JESUS:  PAUL WHO SAW JESUS

A strange thing happened on the way to Damascus…

SUMMARY

Paul had a life-changing experience when the risen Jesus met him on the road to Damascus. It stunned him for the rest of his life.  He instantly realized that there was something beyond both death as we know it, and life, as we know it now, and as we perhaps dream about it for the future.   The something beyond was a SuperLife.  It transcended the differences between life and death, and kept in the person what was valuable in both these experiences. Our outgoingness to others in life now, our outgoingness to God and others in our dying, met, and became a new kind of Outgoing Life.  Paul called it the life of resurrection.  It meant a way of living now, not just later on.  Paul instantly realized that all doublets that we think with, not just the death/life doublet, but also the good/bad, upper-class/lower-class, Jew/Gentile, now/then, here/there, patron/client, doublets, need to be transcended now, so we can begin to think in terms of, and really live the SuperLife now.  Jesus showed it to Paul, and gave him the conviction that through Jesus it was possible now for everyone, and in principle already given to everyone.  It would be a real openness and freedom.  It would be as if the resurrection had begun among us, and as if we were experiencing it working through us to make all humankind truly free. Paul’s mission was to set up groups that lived like this.  Paul, with them, had to learn what living this risen life –beyond all discriminations - really meant.

32^nd   SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME,
Consecration of the basilica of the Lateran
November 9, 2008

It might seem unusual, even a pity, to interrupt the flow of our readings from Matthew, to insert on this Sunday a special feast of the consecration of a church in Rome about which we, at this distance, have little information, and to which, let's admit it, we have little devotion.  This church, called the Lateran basilica, is the most ancient church in the world.  It was built originally between 311-314, and it has been rebuilt many times since.  It was consecrated on November 9, 318.  When November 9 falls on a Sunday, it takes over from the regular Sunday liturgy [just as All Souls' Day did last week.] 

31st SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A

Commemoration of all souls
November 2^nd 2008 

Today we break from our usual gospel texts, as it is November 2^nd, ‘All Souls' Day'. When it falls on a Sunday, it replaces the Sunday liturgy.  I think an anxious concern about what happens to our near and dear ones when they die is giving way to a calm confidence in the graciousness and understanding of a loving God.  People don't worry as much as they did once about Purgatory.  But the church does teach about it, and it is always worth wondering what that teaching really means now.

30^TH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME, YEAR A

October 26, 2008
Matthew 22, 34-40 

Today we listen to an argument between Jesus and some Pharisees.  They have literally ganged up against him, in a huddle, to see if they can embarrass him publicly.  They want to question him, to put him to a public test, in the hope that he cannot answer their question.  The gospel says that they ‘tempted' him - only they and the devil are said to do so in Matthew. 

November Virtue: Prayer

Patron: St Thaddeus, Apostle

Text: "We ought always to pray, and not to faint" (Luke 18:1)

RULE XI

PRAYER

JESUS is the center of all hearts, and no heart can find peace unless it be united to Jesus. He is the life of souls, and, therefore, a soul separated from Him is deprived of life.

In prayer the soul finds Jesus and is united to Him. In prayer man is so joined to God, both in spirit and in truth, that he seems to partake of His divinity and infinite happiness.

For this reason our Lord told us: We ought always to pray and not to faint (St. Luke 18: 1).   Jesus has furnished us many examples of this virtue, not that He had any need of prayer, since His soul was hypostatically united with the divinity and enjoyed the beatific vision, but because He was desirous of teaching us, that in prayer is found the powerful means of attaining salvation and sanctity.

Advent Meditaton
Traditional Meditations of St. Alphonsus 

St. Alphonsus wrote these mediations around the year 1750 but because of sickness and other pressing responsibilities he was unable to publish them until much later.  Each meditation follows a familiar format popularized by the saint.  The theme for meditation is proposed and reflected upon and, at the conclusion of the meditation, affections and prayers are also proposed as an aid to spiritual growth.