by SFXparish | Oct 22, 2020 | BLOG
Thus says the LORD: “You shall not molest or oppress an alien… You shall not wrong any widow or orphan. If ever you wrong them and they cry to me, I will surely hear them cry.” (Ex 22:20-22)
In our first reading today we hear how God commands his chosen people not to molest or oppress any alien people whom they encounter, for they themselves were once an alien people oppressed in Egypt. The Lord God continues: the Israelites are to do no wrong to any widow or orphan. Still the Lord God persists, for the Spirit makes it clear that God hears the cry of all those who are wronged and who have no voice. The world may not hear these cries, but the Lord says, “I will surely hear them…”
It is a very unfortunate affair that the Church must make a distinction between what are called “life issues” and “social justice” issues. God makes no such distinction. God hears the cry of all the afflicted. He hears the cry of the widow and orphan, the cry of the enslaved, the cry of the refugee; the cry of the child in the womb and we know how much he loves his little ones (Mt 19:14). We should be in fear if these little ones cry out to God from the womb against us.
Now as Catholics we should consider the affliction of all people in our nation and around the world. However in an election season we should also consider that we are not just any people. We are people of true religion, we are people of faith; we are children of God who must stand fast with the ears of God hearing what others ignore. We cannot forsake life in any form but especially we cannot forsake life in the womb because as God’s stewards we should surely hear the babes whom others do not hear.
Have you not heard “out of the mouth of babes… you have established a bulwark against your foes to silence [the] enemy” (Ps 8:2) and also “Wisdom … gave ready speech to infants” (Wis 10:21). If we do not hear the cries of the children in the womb and do not put them first in the voting booth, them tell me (please tell me) who else will? The world is not listening! The United Nations, the European Union, and the secularists of our own nation listen to the cries of the refugee, the immigrant, the widow and orphan, but have blocked their ears entirely to the unborn. We Catholics are the last remaining hope of waiting-to-be-born children. Do you not see this? Have you not yet realized this?
For this 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a work by the great Baroque Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens entitled The Virgin and Child Surrounded by the Holy Innocents (1618 – courtesy Wikipedia). This image is representative of the eternal joy of those children massacred by King Herod after the birth of Jesus (Mt 2:16-18). We offer it as representative of our present hope for those children massacred in the womb by our modern society and for your most earnest reflection during this election cycle.
True, we could have shown images of refuges crowded on boats, or hungry women and children. However, the world has been shown these images and has mostly acted. We also could have placed on our bulletin cover Ruben’s Massacre of the Innocents. In our time, it is these innocents that have yet to be sufficiently spoken for… and voted for.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Oct 14, 2020 | BLOG
Then they handed him the Roman coin. He said to them, “Whose image is this…” They replied, “Caesar’s.” At that he said to them, “Then repay to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and to God what belongs to God.” (Mt 22:19- 21)
Justice is giving to each person that which is due to him. God is a person, albeit a Divine Person, who is ever entitled to his own due. In truth, every good thing is due back to God because every good thing comes from God.
Now what good and sincere person who received a rich bequeathal from another good and sincere person would not be thankful and earnestly set out to please that person with a return from all that was given him. Only a thankless and covetous person would not want to please the generous person who bestowed a great gift upon him.
God, most generous, gives us many good things, but the greatest of these is LIFE. The life of man is especially precious because it comes with a promise of eternal life to those who gratefully repay their fruitfulness to God. Therefore, the best way that man can give God his due is to cultivate human life, and what is “human life” except each and every human life created with a rational soul at the moment of conception.
Now a good man will always cultivate human life by assisting the poor, the expectant mother and child, the widow, the orphan; his fellow man in need. However, in our time the good man is told that the expectant mother and child is not really his concern. Caesar or “the world” may still allow the good man to contribute to the health of the unborn child but also demands that he contribute to its death: Caesar wants to tax the good man to pay for abortions. Hence, Caesar no longer wants only a census tax to pay for the born; he wants a death tax to destroy the unborn. Mind you, Caesar has the sonogram; he can look inside the womb. He ought to ask his citizens the same question that Jesus asked about the Roman coin – “Whose image is this?” But Caesar is fearful that the answer will come back, “It is in the image of God”.
For this 29th Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a work by the French painter James Tissot entitled The Pharisees and The Sadducees Come To Tempt Jesus (1894; Courtesy Brooklyn Museum). Tissot was a prolific illustrator of the activities of Jesus and he offers many artistic insights into Jesus’ mission.
Here we see Jesus confronted in the public square by his religious enemies. Most of the postures of the Pharisees and Sadducees seem aggressive or angry, however one with hand-on-chin appears willing to ponder Jesus’ words, while another who hears raises his eyes to praise God. For His part Jesus raises His hands in brotherhood and invitation while His Apostles sit by as if stymied as to how to act amongst all these teachers of the Law. A beautiful olive tree overhangs the scene. Thus Tissot offers a sense of serenity, yet there remains a tension in this encounter that will soon lead Jesus to be condemned, first by Jewish authorities and then by Caesar.
Present day Caesar continues to be very suspicious of his good citizens – those of us who only desire to give back to God what is God’s.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Oct 8, 2020 | BLOG
The king said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside...” (Mt 22:11- 13)
In the Lord’s Prayer we petition God the Father by asking, “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Is it any wonder then that this once most pervasive prayer has become less so in a world that would appear to retort, “My will be done, in heaven as it is on earth”? For is it not true that we live in a time when we would prefer that God conform to us, rather than we conform to him.
Now it seems to be that the many people today who are giving up the practice of Christianity still believe in life-after-death. This is not surprising since pagans have always believed in life-after-death in one form or another. However, today belief in heaven is becoming very personal with as many notions about life-after-death as there are people to imagine them. However one thing that all these novel notions have in common is the removal of all or most moral conditions for the attainment of heaven. Each man has taken over God’s judgment seat and has granted himself amnesty. No savior, no redeemer, no priesthood is needed. Entrance into heaven is as easy as being born.
Perhaps it would be, if man were as holy as God. But heaven is a place of holiness because it is where God is. Thus, man must be made holy if he is to reside there. Yet, no man can achieve holiness on his own. He must be purified by Jesus Christ who perfected human nature in Himself and ascended into heaven to prepare a place for us (Jn 14:3). Without Jesus Christ there is no heaven for man.
On this 28th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we place on our bulletin cover the image of a wood-cut engraving by the Pre-Raphaelite painter, John Everett Millais, entitled The Marriage Feast (courtesy The Met). This was just one work by Millais in a series of parables crafted for a private patron.
Here we see the man, silent before the king, being removed from the wedding feast. His garment is tattered but this does not mean that he is poor. It is a symbol of the man’s unrepentance, for he has tried to enter into heaven without purification. In fact, his silence means that he will not confess his sins, yet in his stubborn pride still expects a seat at the king’s table. Yet his pride fails him and he lowers his posture and eyes before the king of heaven. Notice that there is no cheer over his removal. Even the guard who removes him does so gently and soberly.
Catholics believe and proclaim with the psalmist, “Holiness befits your house O Lord” (Ps 93:5) We believe that one must be holy to enter into heaven. For most of us who die with restitution still needed to be paid, there is purgatory or a “purging” of all that is not holy in us; “for you will not be released until you have paid the last penny” (Mt 5:26). Thankfully, our Lord is a kind and merciful creditor. He forgives our debts, as we forgive our debtors. Though our sins be as scarlet, nothing is impossible for God. But the grace of God is needed. No one can force open the gates of heaven, unless He be Jesus, the Son of God.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Oct 1, 2020 | BLOG
Finally, he sent his son to them, thinking, ‘They will respect my son.’ But when the tenants saw the son, they said to one another, ‘This is the heir… They seized him, threw him out of the vineyard, and killed him. (Mt 21:37-39)
Admirers of The Lord of the Rings will recall that great line J.R.R Tolkien put into the mouth of Gandalf the White when speaking to the Lord Denethor of Gondor: “Authority is not given to you, steward, to deny the return of the king”. Denethor was one in a long line of stewards whose duty it was to keep the kingdom secure until the rightful king would return. But Denethor had grown proud and lustful for power and his response to Gandalf portrays this: “The rule of Gondor is mine and no other’s”!
Tolkien, a faithful Catholic, once said that he despised allegory, yet even he could not prevent the Holy Spirit from working through his art to express Christian symbolism. In a way the exchange between Gandalf and Denethor points to the parable we read in this Sunday’s gospel, while along with this parable reaches far back to God’s original providence concerning man’s creation, existence, and purpose.
Recall the words of God to Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis; how God gave them dominion over the earth; how he commanded them to “cultivate and care for it”. God made them stewards of his magnificent creation and the first fruit of this stewardship was man’s naming all that was created (Gn 2:20); for he was made in the image of God’s mind and heart.
Sadly, we recall how our first parents were cast from their preternatural garden for being unfaithful stewards. Adam and Eve were caretakers of two holy trees – one for them (Life) and one for God (Knowledge or Revelation which belongs to God alone), but they forgot their stewardship and tried to usurp God’s tree for themselves. This was the first sin and man’s first failure of his stewardship which would be as a curse and harbinger to all men through all time who would, fallen from grace, make themselves kings of God’s domain in which they were meant tenderly to be children and heirs.
For this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a work by the Flemish painter Marten van Valckenborch entitled Parable of Wicked Husbandmen (1590). Valckenborch lived through the Beeldenstorm or the mob destruction of Catholic sacred images that occurred in 16th century Europe. Thus, he left Belgium for Aachen, France where he continued his landscape painting while taking up also religious allegory and symbolic painting of biblical parables.
Our painting is too panoramic for us to see the far left of the image where Valckenborch has painted the father in the parable sending off his son to take authority over the vineyard. In the right portion of the painting we see two workers carrying the plentiful fruit of the vineyard. In the bottom right of the image there are the tenants of the vineyard murdering the beloved son of the planter and owner of the vineyard. They are like those who to this day take from creation without sharing and who murder inside and outside of the womb.
Such self-proclaimed kings have declared themselves enemies of God and his Church. Let us pray for these enemies that they will remember that they were first made to be beloved children and heirs of the Creator.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Sep 24, 2020 | BLOG
“A man had two sons. He came to the first and said, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ He said in reply, ‘I will not,’ but afterwards changed his mind and went.” (Mt 21:28-29)
Man has free will. It is one of the two excellent powers in the human soul besides the intellect which God has given to man to form him in the divine image and to distinguish him from the animals. The great Greek philosopher Aristotle called man “rational animal” to indicate that man, although a physical creature needing nourishment and having material appetites, is also capable of reasoning beyond his basest desires to pursue a life of virtue.
Man’s freedom allows him to say in his heart and with his lips, “I will” or “I will not”, and then to act accordingly. However, because man struggles interiorly within his conscience he will sometimes act differently than what he has spoken. A person may say that he will help with some activity then in a moment of selfishness decide not to show up. The same person may at another time say firmly that he will not assist, but later does so because he knows how much his assistance is needed.
In today’s gospel reading God uses this deviation in man’s will to explain something important about the spiritual life: that it is the one who not only changes his mind, but the one who changes his life deliberately by following Jesus that finds the path to “righteousness”.
For this 26th Sunday in Ordinary Time we place on our bulletin cover a work by the Austrian Romantic painter, Ferdinand Georg Waldmuller entitled The Day Laborer with His Son (1823). Waldmuller painted in a style known as Biedermeier. While this style seems to display a realism because of its pastoral scenes, it lacks the serious and often somber expression of the bucolic life of say the realist Jean-Francois Millet. This is because Biedermeier is fundamentally romantic and its works portray an optimism, a cheer, and even a pious communal revelry that is thoroughly indicative of this Austrian movement.
In our work we see the father in today’s parable after a long day at work in the vineyard enjoying bread, meat, drink, and pipe. He is joined there by his son who for our purpose is the same son in the parable that came out to work with his father after initially saying that he would not. The father looks toward us with satisfaction and pride in his son. His young son places his right hand on his father’s left arm to get his attention to show him the butterfly he has caught in the field. The son has the look of one who wants to please his father in the same way that Jesus set out to please His. Behind them is a vast landscape of greenery signifying that their work has produced much fruit. The other son who said that he would come (but did not) is not in the scene. In a way that son is like the prodigal son of another parable who we can only hope at a later time will change his mind and return to his father’s vineyard.
If we have said “I will not” to God our Father in any way, there is still time to change our mind and say “I will” and then to do it. We have a perfect example of how to do this in Jesus, the one and only divine Son.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
by SFXparish | Sep 17, 2020 | BLOG
‘My friend, I am not cheating you. Did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what is yours and go. What if I wish to give this last one the same as you? (Mt 20:13-14)
When we think of a generous person we often think of one who is wealthy or of sufficient means who gives often to those in need. Therefore in religious terms when we speak of God’s generosity we recall his act of creation when he takes from his own great store of truth, beauty, and goodness to form a physical universe which has within it the sustenance necessary for all his living creatures.
Generosity also bespeaks a specific attitude of kindness in conversation and association. For example, a person engaged in an argument will be generous for allowing the other person to speak in his turn, one in authority will be generous for raising up those under his care, while a newsman will be generous in reporting all the facts regardless of his personal political position. Generosity in this sense is a sort of “principle of charity” in social engagement which betokens a never out-of-fashion truthfulness and courtesy to all.
In this Sunday’s gospel reading we learn more about God’s generosity. We read how God calls various people to come to work in his vineyard. These are not busy, working-people but those “standing idle in the marketplace”. This relates to those who have not yet taken up the call to work in the Kingdom of God. In this parable Jesus is specifically teaching the Jews who have a long-standing covenant with God (for their “daily wage”) to accept those who will now be invited by God to receive an equal wage of grace through His messianic mission. These others (non-Jews) may not have worked as long, not endured as long, but because of the generosity of God and their acceptance of God’s gracious invitation, will receive the same remuneration. The spiritual lesson for us today is that those of us who have received God’s grace should not be envious but glad for its bequeathal to others; for grace is not earned but freely given.
For this 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, we place on our bulletin cover a work by the great Dutch master Rembrandt, Parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard (1637). Rembrandt is the great practitioner of tenebrism where darkness prevails until it is itself prevailed upon by a single source of artistic illumination. (If fact, we have brightened Rembrandt’s original image so that the painted figures on our bulletin cover may be more easily seen).
Rembrandt portrays the landowner just as he completes his distribution of wages. The day laborers are all still standing in line. Yet already two who worked the longer day begin disputing with the vineyard owner for more pay. One puts out his hand to receive more, the second motions in anger to those behind him who have received equal pay and who are seen amazed and reveling in the generosity of the owner. The landowner puts his hand over his heart to indicate his sincerity to the unsatisfied workers while Rembrandt signals to us that the landowner is God by the blessing which the landowner offers over the wages that he gives.
The wages that God gives is grace. God distributes his grace in varying amounts as he sees fit. As his gracious children we are to celebrate when it is given – and as it is given – in equal or in greater amounts to others.
-Steve Guillotte, Director of Pastoral Services
