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Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
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Last week the Church offered us the Books of the Maccabees for reflection. This week we are offered the book of Daniel that we rarely reflect on too. In the year 587 B.C the Babylonians took almost all the Jewish people from their homeland to captivity in Babylon. Under different Babylonian kings such as Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, the Jewish people suffered great abuse and persecution in exile but never abandoned their belief in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Today in Our First Reading we hear the Babylonian King Belshazzar threw an extravagant party for hundreds of his noble men, officers and their wives. There was plenty of wine, food and entertainment, as the crowd “praised their gods made of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone.” The scene painted is of power, self-indulgence, and carousing.
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If you’ve ever looked at old pictures or home movies you notice how much has changed, say from the 70’s or 80’s and if you’re a movie buff, you’ll notice that the one constant through the decades is also change. It’s nostalgic for us to look back at the old cars, radios, tv’s, phones, and stereos…and we also recognize how people and organizations have changed too, including religious and political leaders, and even our parishes or physical churches that we’ve gone to each Sunday…. Change is part of life on earth and in both readings from Daniel and Luke, we receive a clear message which should cause us to wonder, how do we prepare for the change that the Word of God speaks to us about today?
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Thomas Marton once said” “Love seeks one thing only, the good of the one loved.” What he is saying here is that true selfless love is caring, giving and putting the other person’s happiness before one’s own, without expecting anything in return.” In today’s Gospel, we have Jesus who had been observing those who were bringing their tithes into the temple basket. The rich people showed up with pride to donate from their surplus, but Jesus notices this poor widow dropping in the only coins she had left in her life. Under normal circumstances many of us would have only noticed rich people or those we consider to be important; most likely we would have missed out on recognizing the poor widow. The widow, according to Jesus, did not only donate coins, but she did it with a selfless heart. She didn’t calculate what she will be left with but gave all.
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We followers of Jesus we have a strong desire to follow Him. We desire to share a very close relationship with Jesus. Our longing is to have that close union inseparable by anything here on earth. All these are desires to be Holy. There are elements of our faith that help us in building our close union with God. One is his Church. The Church is our new Temple. We encounter God, listen, and speak with him. As usual, every gathering carries with itself principles and guidelines to direct the activities carried on. The new Temple-Church carries with herself certain practical rituals that pertain to her and how to conduct prayers rightfully. In addition, we are part of this temple and even more we are “temples of the Holy Spirit (1Cor 6:19)” too.
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In these days the Church invites us to reflect on readings from a set of books we rarely read from - the two Books of Maccabees! Our First Reading today is taken from the First Book of Maccabees. Set in the small city of Modein, the reading tells the powerful story of faith, zeal, and unwavering commitment to God’s covenant by the Jewish people in the face of intense religious persecution. King Antiochus Epiphanes wanted the Jewish people to abandon their ancestral religion and embrace foreign religions. Mattathias and his sons resisted the religious and cultural imposition. He led a fierce struggle for the Jewish people to stay with their religious beliefs, values, and practices.
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Mother St. Theresa of Calcutta once said; “God doesn't require us to succeed; he only requires that you try.” On my first time to visit United States thirty years ago, we had a provincial assembly at Notre Dame, the provincial at the time, what he asked me to do made me sit up straight. He invited me to give a talk to two hundred some American Holy Cross priests, about my experience as an indigenous Holy Cross living with American expatriates. Everything about me and within me was screaming, oh no, what am I going to say, will they even listen, I felt like telling him please save me from the embarrassment. One priest who realized my predicament, just told me Fulgens you can do it, try. I ended up powering through it well.
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