November 2024: Points to Ponder

Points to Ponder

Solemnity of All Saints
1 November 2024

The phenomenon of the saints and of Christian holiness gives rise to a sense of wonder that has always existed in the Church and cannot but amaze even an attentive lay observer, especially today in a world continuously and rapidly changing, culturally fragmented in values as well as in customs. From wonder is born the question: what makes faith incarnate in all the latitudes, in the different historical contexts, in the most varied categories and walks of life? How, without the dynamics of power, enforced or persuasive, can there be so many saints, so different yet so consonant with Christ and with the Church? What is it that impels people freely to accept the fertile seed of Christianity that subsequently develops into such diversity and beauty in the unity of holiness? What a difference there is between globalisation, such a buzzword today, and the catholicity or universality of the Christian faith and of the Church which lives, preserves and spreads that faith!

The international scope of Catholicism, not sought for power but for service and salvation, is confirmed by the saints, men and women who come from the most varied historical backgrounds.The world is changing, yet the saints, while changing with the changing world, always represent the same living face of Christ.

The saints are like beacons; they show men and women the possibilities open to human beings.

 

Reflection by Cardinal Jose Saraiva Martins 

 

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Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time 
3 November 2024

We all struggle to try and get our priorities right. We need to be able to sift out what is more important from what is less important. This is perhaps all the more needed today when so much comes at us from so many different directions. Today’s gospel reading is the story of a scribe who wanted to get his priorities right. He came to Jesus to know which of all the more than six hundred commandments of the Jewish Law was the most important one. In reply, Jesus gave him more than he asked for, not just the first of all the commandments but the first and the second of the commandments. Jesus seemed to be saying that these two commandments were inseparable. What they have in common is the commandment to love; what distinguishes them is the object of that love, God in the case of the first commandment and neighbour in the case of the second. Also the quality of the love differs, God is to be loved with all our heart, soul, mind and strength; the neighbour is to be loved as ourselves. God alone is worthy of the total love of our being, but such love must flow over into the love of our neighbour. The journey in love to God leads us to the other; in loving God we are caught up in God’s love for others. Today, at least in our western culture, it is the first commandment rather than the second that is more liable to be neglected. Yet Jesus implies that our relationship with God is at the heart of all other relationships.

 

Fr Martin Hogan Parishes of Finglas,
Finglas West & Rivermount. www.tumblr.com/frmartinshomiliesandreflections

 

 

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Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time
10 November 2024

The poor widow divested herself of everything. In her poverty she understood that in having God, she had everything; she felt completely loved by him and in turn loved him completely. What a beautiful example this little old woman offers us!

Today Jesus also tells us that the benchmark is not quantity but fullness. There is a difference between quantity and fullness. You can have a lot of money and still be empty. There is no fullness in your heart. This week, think about the difference there is between quantity and fullness. It is not a matter of the wallet, but of the heart. There is a difference between the wallet and the heart … There are diseases of the heart, which reduce the heart to the wallet … This is not good! To love God ‘with all your heart’ means to trust in him, in his providence, and to serve him in the poorest brothers and sisters without expecting anything in return.

Faced with the needs of our neighbours, we are called to deprive ourselves of essential things, not only the superfluous; we are called to give the time that is necessary, not only what is extra; we are called to give immediately and unconditionally some of our talent, not after using it for our own purposes or for our own group.

Let us ask the Lord to admit us to the school of this poor widow, whom Jesus places in the cathedra and presents as a teacher of the living Gospel even to the astonishment of the disciples. Let us ask for a heart that is poor, but rich in glad and freely given generosity.

 

 

Pope Francis
The Angelus, St Peter’s Square, November 2015

 

 

 

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Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time
17 November 2024 • World Day of the Poor

Fear stalks us daily. The world in which we live can undermine our trust in God. It is easy to become attached to things of this world, even though they give us only a fleeting pleasure or temporary security before they pass away, disappear, or vanish. Since our heart is made for God, for the infinite, when we become attached to something, not of God, the result is fear. This is a fear of the future and a fear of the unknown. But with God, we know the ending, and we know what awaits us. Listen to those words: ‘Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.’ All that we see and enjoy around us will pass away, but not Christ’s promises, namely the promises of eternal life – of paradise.

The grace of God ripens us. The moment we are baptised, we are made ready to see God. But there is a lesson, and it might be a bit scary. When Jesus spoke about the fig tree in today’s Gospel, he may have thought of another fig tree – the one that bore no fruit, withered, dried up and died. Christ shocked them that time. We don’t know when Christ will pass by the fig tree of our life, looking to pick the fruit of our virtues. However, we can be assured of this: The time will come. Our baptism has made our lifetime a time of harvest. You have all eternity to rest in the house of the Father. The lesson: Bear fruit now; live virtue now. Christ came to give life and give it abundantly.

 www.epriest.com

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Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe
24 November 2024

95 years ago Pope Pius XI said that he wanted to establish an annual liturgical feast precisely so that we could all gain ‘much strength and courage … to form [our] lives after the true Christian ideal.’ He said that if Christ is truly our king, ‘He must reign in our minds, which should assent with perfect submission and firm belief to revealed truths and to the doctrines of Christ. He must reign in our wills, which should obey the laws and precepts of God. He must reign in our hearts.

In short, for Christ to reign, he must be King of my time, of my family, of my wallet, of all parts of my life. Living in his kingdom will inevitably make us more like the King we know, we love, we serve, and he has sent us out to announce. 

Today, Jesus wants us to make a personal choice for him. He asks each of us, as he asked Pilate, ‘Do you say that I am a king on your own or because others have told you about me?’ It’s not enough for him to be the King of ‘others’ or even the King of the ‘universe.’ It’s not enough for the pope, or the priests, or the Catechism to proclaim him sovereign Lord. It’s not adequate, in order words, even that the whole Church in heaven and on earth acclaims him as the Saviour and Lord. Jesus wants each of us personally and intimately to say and mean, ‘thy Kingdom come,’ rather than just doing so because others have told us about this reality. 

 

Fr Roger J. Landry
 www.catholicpreaching.com