How many are tired of mid-term politicking? Anyway, if polls are accurate, the day after the election, half the country will be happy and half will be unhappy.
Do you know how politicians in Colonial America sought feedback from their constituencies. They sent their assistants to local taverns. They were told to “go sip some ale and listen to the conversations.” Assistants were dispatched at different times to different places. “You go sip here” and “I'll go sip there.” The words “go sip” morphed into the word “gossip.” Maybe that’s what polls are. We'll know better on Wednesday.
Sometimes we ask ourselves: what’s the one thing I want to be remembered for? Or, if I could change one thing I said or did, what would I change? Or if I could rescue one item from my burning house, what would it be? And so on. Such questions may reveal what’s really important to us.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus was asked “Which is the first of all the commandments?” A tricky question. The scribe is asking Jesus to prioritize the commandments. Without hesitating, Jesus reveals what is most important to God by quoting the She’ma, a daily prayer still recited today by Jews:
“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is Lord alone! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” That prayer is the farewell address of Moses to his people in the passage from the Book of Deuteronomy today. Think about it. What would be our farewell letter to those we love?
Then Jesus adds a quote from the holiness code in the Book of Leviticus:
“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
The scribe responds to Jesus: You are right…to love God and to love your neighbor is worth “more than all burnt offerings and sacrifices.” I always thought it amusing that the scribe says to Jesus, “you're right.”
In the letter to the Hebrews, the author speaks about Jesus Christ, our high priest, who through his death and resurrection opened up to all humankind eternal life with God.
Yes, in the mystery of death is eternal life. God called you and me out of nothingness for a specific purpose in this earthly life and an unimaginable future in a heavenly life. The crucified/risen Christ anticipates this future that can be ours.
I would like to suggest how we might begin to experience our future by becoming more aware of the presence of God as we go about our daily routine: yes, working, shopping, traveling, exercising, eating with family and friends.
A contemporary author emphasized the importance of the present moment in this poem:
I have no yesterdays … time took them away;
tomorrow may not be, but I have today.
Make the most of today; practice random acts of kindness.
Take time today to pray; it brings us closer to God.
Take time to be friendly and hospitable; it’s the source of much happiness;
take time to work; it’s the price of success.
And take time to do acts of kindness; it’s the key to heaven.
Yes, we don’t know whether we will have a tomorrow, but we do have today. And so, make the best of it.
One way to make the best of the present moment is to begin practicing the presence of God. The great masters of Christian spirituality say this practice is an art. And where better to begin than in the liturgy we are celebrating now.
Yes, we can experience the presence of the divine all around us in nature and in people, but we encounter the living Christ in a privileged way in this liturgy. The Risen Christ is present as we gather together in his name: remember the words, wherever two or three gather in my name, there I am in their midst. Christ dwells in each of us, through our life of discipleship with him. That is why hospitality is so important when we gather for the liturgy. We connect with one another as sons and daughters of God our Father, disciples of Jesus, in a way that expresses the unity of the mystical body of Christ, our global faith community.
The living Christ invites us through the presider to worship our heavenly Father. It is really Christ who invites us to sing and pray with him in our worship of the Father.
We also encounter the living Christ in the word. Yes, we hear the voice of the reader but it is Christ who is speaking to us. We ought to be listening with open ears and open hearts: listening attentively because Christ has a word, perhaps a single word, that is meant for each of us, a word that hits home.
And then the living Christ reveals his presence to us in the reality of his body and blood which he offers to us as spiritual nourishment.
Our Catholic tradition teaches us that the bread and wine truly become the reality of Jesus Christ. It is a mystery—not fully explainable. Then Jesus Christ offers us himself in the meal we call communion. This is an intensely personal and communal moment in which we are deeply united with Christ and also with all who share this sacred meal in this community and in our worldwide faith community. Communion links us through the sacramental body of Jesus Christ to his mystical body.
Yes, this liturgical gathering connects us to a worldwide faith community.
And if we can experience the presence of the living Christ in this liturgy, then we will be able to begin practicing the art of the presence of God more readily in our daily routine.
I conclude with a story about parents who asked their children “how was your day?” in a very different way. As they tucked their children into bed each night, they asked: “Where did you meet God today?”
And the youngsters told their parents, one by one:
a teacher helped me,
I held the door open for an elderly person,
I saw a bush with lots of flowers.
And the parents told the children where they met God too. The stuff of that day became the substance of their family evening prayer.
May God grace us abundantly so that we can practice the art of the presence
of God as we go about our daily routine of working and shopping and traveling and exercising and eating with family and friends. And then we will make the best of the present moment.[
