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World at Prayer blog
Reflections of Family and Faith
"The family that prays together stays together." - Venerable Patrick Peyton
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Let me be honest with you: while preparing this homily I had to look up for more details about Simon and Jude the apostles. Not because I'm a terrible Catholic, okay, maybe partly that, but because these two apostles are essentially footnotes in the Gospel story. Simon gets just one description: "the Zealot." Jude gets confused with Judas Iscariot so often that he has basically spent two thousand years saying, "No, not that Judas. The other one." Yet here we are, celebrating their feast day. Not of the famous ones. Not just Peter and John. But Simon the political radical and Jude the perpetually mistaken.
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Every day we hear about or encounter the tensions that exist among family members, neighbors, co-workers, and even within our own hearts—one of these is the tension between trying to discipline the desires of the flesh and the presumption that we can do whatever we want because God is merciful. When Paul wrote today’s reading to the Romans, it was to guide two groups of people who were at odds with one another in following Jesus. At that time, there was a growing confusion in the Roman Church… a phenomenon that continues to occur in each generation, often revisiting the same topics.
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Last week I received a text message from my friend Joel. It began by asking if I was going to be watching the Notre Dame game football game and then took an unexpected turn when he asked me really good question: about how many of the people I know--who are Catholic are serious about their faith…as opposed to just going through the motions? That’s a great question for each of us to consider, whether directed to ourselves, our families, or friends? Are we or those closest to us serious about our faith in Jesus Christ and if so, how?
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
Picture this: a young woman named Sarah spent her entire childhood waiting. Her father whom she was extremely fond of, was a traveling salesman who would leave home for months at a time, always promising to return on specific days. Sarah would sit by the window with her mother, both of them dressed nicely, both of them ready for him. Her mother would prepare special meals, keep the house immaculate, and they would wait. Sometimes he showed up on time, sometimes a bit late. Sometimes he didn’t. When he did, he stayed for a few days and left again. Sarah’s mother taught her that love meant being perpetually ready, and perpetually disappointed.
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
There is a scene I want you to imagine, it is not in Scripture, but it feels like it could be. It’s late at night in a family kitchen. The lights are dim. A mother sits at the table with a cup of cold tea in front of her. Upstairs, her teenage son has locked himself in his room again. The two haven’t really spoken in days. Every word turns into an argument; every silence feels like a wall. She’s exhausted, she’s tried counseling, prayer, conversation, but tonight, she’s run out of ideas. And yet, she does something quiet and holy. She sets another plate at the table. Just in case. She decides that even if he doesn’t come down soon, she will be ready when he does. That small act, invisible to the world, is an act of faith. Not the sentimental kind that expects a miracle by morning, but the kind that refuses to stop preparing for one. We have all been either that mother, setting the table for her son, or the teenage son who locked himself up in his room. That’s the spirit Paul is talking about when he says Abraham “believed against hope.”
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Holy lives of inspiration | Why pray?
We Christians in the 21st century have had to endure over 400 years of the debates between Protestants and Catholics, in particular the debates over faith and good works. And, as is often the case in these types of ongoing confrontations, I think we have allowed ourselves to be forced into hardened positions where we buy into characterizations that we shouldn’t actually believe. In particular, when you listen to these Protestant and Catholic arguments over faith and good works, both sides seem to depict faith as a mostly internal, almost intellectual state, a mental adherence to a set of doctrines.
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