Fourth Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

23 December 2023

Reflecting on Luke 1: 26-38

This Advent I’ve been inviting students to think about this question: With which one of the Advent and Christmas saints do you most resonate? For some, the answer is quick, almost before I can ask the question. ZECHARIAH! said my friend. “What? How can you know so fast? I didn’t even ask the question yet!” “I just know,” she said.

It’s a wonderful meditation. Are you like Joseph, quietly and kindly protecting and providing for your family? Are you like the shepherds, who, after seeing the angels and hearing their tidings of great joy, raced the five miles to Bethlehem to see for themselves the things which had come to pass?

As I read this familiar (and yet still so shocking) gospel account of the Annunciation, I think of my niece, Lauren. St. Luke says that Mary, immediately after her encounter with the Angel Gabriel, set out alone from Galilee to travel ninety dangerous miles to the hill country of Judea in order to be with her aged cousin, Elizabeth, now six months into her pregnancy.

She came to serve her, and stayed three months with her and Zechariah in order to assist her aged cousin with the birth.

I have a niece like this. If I called Lauren at 6am on Christmas Eve and said, “Lauren, I’m having ten people for dinner in twelve hours, and I just can’t do it,” her response would be, “Aunt Kathy, I’m getting in the car right now. It’s ninety miles. I’ll bring breakfast.”

That’s how I picture Mary. Young, beautiful, full of love for her family. I hope you have a “Mary” in  your life. Or is that you?

Meditate on the Advent/Christmas saints. Is there one who especially speaks to you?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Third Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

16 December 2023

Reflecting on John 1: 6-8, 19-28

Are you a voice crying in the desert? It’s frustrating to have a message you’d love the world to hear, and you try to shout that message into the world. But all you hear in reply are crude jokes and snide remarks.

Are we just too sophisticated for the gospel, even here in 2023, when the gospel has never been more desperately needed? Or is it just that people don’t read more than the headlines, and they decide from there what their position is?

It must be so heartbreaking to be a great journalist, to labor for a year on a piece that sees the light of day for one news cycle, and to hear the deafening silence of your audience, clicking past your work for the next cat video.

I think about John the Baptist. I wonder if his diet of locusts and wild honey, and his scratchy garment of camel’s hair, was really just to draw people’s attention from whatever diversions they were enjoying and to draw them out to the desert.

I know for sure that the desert, with its stunning landscapes and fascinating insect life, wouldn’t hold my attention if I could somehow get WIFI and cellphone reception.

I’m sure I’d find some flashy desert video to watch instead of actually tasting and breathing the real thing.

John had a message, a truth that he had found, and he was willing to make himself look ridiculous in order to get the attention of those who needed to hear it so badly. He went to Herod’s dungeon because of that Truth. He died for that Truth.

And if you listen very carefully, you can hear him preaching still.

What would you love to shout out to the world?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Second Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

9 December 2023

Reflecting on Is. 40: 1-5, 9-11

What an image that is. Mountains and hills dissolving into straight, easy paths to walk? Deep valleys raising up so that people of all degrees of mobility can easily pass through them? Isaiah must have had some experience with rugged and unnavigable terrain in order to offer such a delicious image.

He spoke these words of comfort—that geographic boundaries would dissolve so that the Exiles could return to Jerusalem in peace—in order to encourage those who were afraid to set out for home after fifty years of exile in Babylon.

These aren’t words just for a long-ago people. They make perfect sense for us, too. What important life challenge are you afraid to embark on right now? What has the Spirit been nudging you towards? Take Isaiah’s words to heart so that you can achieve that to which you deeply sense you have been called.

Imagine if those Exiles had not been nudged by that beautiful image. There would have been no Second Temple, no restored priesthood, and no descendants of David (Mary and Joseph) to travel to Bethlehem under orders of the Emperor so that the prophecy of Micah might be fulfilled: “But as for you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you One will come forth from long ago, from the days of eternity (5:2,3).

Think back on the bold moves you had the grace to make in your life. You stayed up late and finished that term paper when you were aching for sleep. You got married. You had kids. The same God with you then is with you now. Step out, and watch the mountains move.

What grace has God given you in your life?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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First Sunday of Advent – Cycle B

2 December 2023

Do you love Advent? I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t. And these days, after reading Barbara Brown Taylor’s exquisite book Learning to Walk in the Dark, I think I know why. After the long days of summer and the fading lights of fall, we’re finally ready to give in to the dark. Advent gives us permission to stay in the dark for four delicious weeks (although this year we only get three weeks and half a day(.

Something there is that doesn’t love the dark, but there is another part of us that craves it. Even the most roaring extrovert is grateful to crawl under the covers and let the night come in, with its healing dreams and restorative quiet.

And it is in the dark, of course, where we keep watch the best. The stars guide sailors to safe ports, and the changing shapes of the moon give expression to our own spiritual shifts, from consolation to desolation and back again.

This Advent I’m trying something new, and my soul is ready for it. I’m going to spend more time in the dark. I’m going to watch the darkness give way to the dimmest violet―an Advent color, by the way―in the early hours of the morning. I’m going to sit in the pitch dark―or at least as dark as our over-lit urban landscape allows―and listen for coyotes and night song.

It was, after all, in the night watch when the angels appeared in the sky, announcing the birth of the Savior and singing their Glorias to highest heaven. Just think: if the shepherds had been huddling in a cave, taking refuge by a lantern, they might have missed the greatest moment in the history of the world.

It’s getting dark. It’s time to go outside.

What sacred memories do you have of meeting God in the dark?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Solemnity of Christ the King, Savior of the Universe

25 November 2023

Well, we’ve completed another spin around the sun, this time with the gospel of Matthew as our guide. Next week, on the First Sunday of Advent, we’ll begin all over again, with the gospel of Mark telling its own unique story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Before we leave Cycle A, let’s remember some of the people we met in Matthew’s gospel, for each of them has their own mark on our lives.

It’s only Matthew, of course, who tells us so much about St. Joseph! He’s the one who knows that Joseph was such a good, holy, compassionate, merciful man that, when he learned that his betrothed was already with Child, but before the Angel Gabriel visited him to tell him how that came to be, he decided to divorce her quietly rather than subject her to execution, which would have been his right, according to Leviticus 20: 1-12.

St. Peter gets more attention in Matthew, and it’s here that we learn that it will be upon the faith of Peter that Christ will build his Church (16:18-19). Most of the biblical characters we meet in Matthew we have already met in Mark, the earliest of the four gospels. But it’s the portrait of Jesus as Teacher, as Preacher, as the Compassionate, Merciful One that is so beautiful, and so unique to Matthew.

Jesus becomes exasperated with the Pharisees so often in this gospel that, finally, he says to them, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy,  not sacrifice’” (9:13). He’s quoting the Old Testament prophet Hosea here (6:6), which must really have rankled those experts in all things Jewish.

What is your favorite story of MERCY from Matthew’s gospel?

Kathy McGovern ©2023 www.thestoryandyou.com

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Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

18 November 2023

Reflecting on Matthew 25: 14-30

When I ask myself who the people are in my life who have used the talents given them, I always go first to the musicians who make our Sunday worship so beautiful. Consider what it takes to be a choir member. Remember all those cold Monday nights last winter, when you snuggled in with the kids, a warm dinner, and a good book? The reason that the music at Mass the following Sunday was so beautiful is because the members of your choir (and their director) went out into the cold night for a long rehearsal.

Think of the skills a choir member needs. It starts with recognizing that 5 gifts have been given: a pleasant singing voice that can stay on pitch. A sense of rhythm. A disciplined nature. A good musical memory. A supple brain that is willing to be trained to learn the connection between the notes on the page and the music that is sung.

You only have two of the gifts, you say? Beautiful choirs are full of generous musicians who have been given two of those gifts. I’ll bet that those who place themselves in that number would be amazed to see how much their investment in the choir has earned over time. Every gift they give us grows in ways they will never see.

And now, ahem, you say you just like to sing in the shower? Well, I guess we’ll all have to sneak over to your bathroom and listen. OR, you could invest that voice in your parish choir. It’s fun, it builds lifetime friendships, and it builds up the Body of Christ.

Instrumentalists, accompanists, composers, directors, choir members. Thank them today.

What particular gifts are you using to build up the Body?

Kathy McGovern© 2023

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Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

11 November 2023

Reflecting on Matthew 25: 1-13

Here’s the thing about parables: you can’t look to the right or the left. You have to stare straight down the middle, to the point of the parable, and not obsess about, for example, why it’s GOOD that the bridesmaids with enough oil withheld the needed oil from the others, hence causing them to be left forlornly out in the cold.

I’ve wondered about those five bridesmaids who refused to share their oil quite a lot. Could they enjoy the wedding feast, knowing that their “foolish” friends would not be coming? Did they miss their friends, and regret not finding creative ways to share the oil so they all could gain admittance?

I remember that good feeling of sharing, in grade school, my sandwich (and COOKIES!) with a friend who forgot her lunch. And OF COURSE I was more often the receiver of that kindness than the giver. So this parable hits a nerve.

While we’re at it, what about that guy who finds a huge treasure in his neighbor’s field, hides the treasure, then sells all that he has to buy the field, so he can “find” the treasure on it (Matt. 13:44)? Stare straight ahead, don’t look at the glaring ethical problem there. The point of the parable is similar to the point of today’s parable: the kingdom of heaven requires absolute single-heartedness. Sell what you have, keep your oil lamp lit, don’t let anything distract or deter you from obtaining heaven.

Don’t make parables walk on four legs, advises theologian Randy Alcorn. In other words, don’t make them do more than they are made to do. Oh, and do everything to be happy with God in heaven.

What single-heartedness do you practice in order to go to heaven?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

4 November 2023

Reflecting on Matthew 23: 1-12

Jesus has much to say about the religious authorities whose hyper-vigilant attendance to the Law was choking the beauty and grace from the covenant God made with the Jews.

Jesus hits the nail on the head today when he tells the crowd to do what they are told, but not what they see the “teachers” doing. Oh, boy. Matthew’s gospel remembers Jesus saying, many times, “Go and learn the meaning of mercy, not sacrifice (9:9-13). He is MERCY. The Pharisees are SACRIFICE.

I read a piece by a Denver physician in response to someone asking if doctors worry about their patients when they go home at night. She recounted a story about one time when she got a call after hours about a patient. She was shopping at Dick’s Sporting Goods when the hospice nurse called, saying that her dying patient was having breakthrough pain. She needed to fax a prescription for increased pain medication stat.

She asked the clerk for the nearest fax machine. The clerk left her station and the two of them raced to the basement of the store, to the warehouse office. She faxed the prescription, and within minutes the patient was out of pain, with his grateful family at his side.

Did the clerk at Dick’s take a Hippocratic oath to serve humanity? Would the doctor have been within her vows to go home and fax the prescription there? For me, to willfully ignore the person in front of me who needs care is to be a hypocrite, which is the opposite, curiously, of the word Hippocratic. Doctors, and clerks, and train drivers, and parents, are never hypocrites when compassion, not rule-following, is their guiding star.

What individuals can you think of whose compassion inspires you?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

28 October 2023

Reflecting on Matthew 22: 34-40

Well, the Pharisees are now 0-2 in their attempts to trick Jesus. They’re determined to give it another try, though, so they have a Lawyer ask him a question that would give any Law-abiding Jew a long pause.

What’s the greatest commandment? The Lawyer certainly knows that the Torah provides 613 commands, and the rigidity of observance of every one is the sign of a good Jew. Can you imagine? 613 ways to fall short, every single day. Imagine what grace it was to meet Jesus, who could parse it all down to two things:

  • Love God with everything you are
  • Love your neighbor with all the compassion and attention you give yourself.

The first one would have brought affirming nods. Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-9, the familiar Shema, the prayer that observant Jews pray six times a day.

Mary and Joseph did a good job training Jesus up in the faith. All parents are admonished, in this chapter from Deuteronomy, to impress this Law upon the hearts of their children, and, of course, it’s deep in Jesus’ DNA.

But Jesus isn’t letting them off with just the familiar commandment to love God. He makes sure they hear the second commandment (Leviticus 19:18) too, and it’s here that he reveals his prophetic character.

The prophet, someone said, is like sand in your swimsuit. Jesus is determined to make us uncomfortable. Love God? Check. Love your neighbor as yourself? That’s the challenge of our lives. But Jesus won’t let the Lawyer, or us, off the hook. There is no loving God without giving the human race the same compassion and attention we give ourselves.

How exasperating. Pharisees- 0, Jesus- 3.

What ways have you found to love others as you love yourself?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time – Cycle A

21 October 2023

Reflecting on Matthew 22: 15-21

How embarrassing. Those wily, smarmy Pharisees thought they had the perfect trap for Jesus. They began by revealing that they already knew much about his extraordinary character. From his miracles and parables they had to admit that he didn’t pander to people of any particular status, and that he was bluntly honest about the hypocrisies of those in religious power.

So, they began by flattering him. No, YOU don’t care what anybody thinks. YOU are pure as the driven snow. (Their sarcasm drips off the page.) And then they set their trap: we know that YOU wouldn’t do anything unlawful for Jews to do, so, what about the tax demanded by the Romans? Would you pay it? Hmmm?

And then he set the trap for them. “Show me the coin used to pay the tax.” And they took it out of their pockets. Jesus was kind not to humiliate them right there, but, when they thought about it later, they must have blushed. Jews were forbidden to carry Roman coins, because the coin that circulated in Israel at the time of Christ was stamped with not one but TWO images of the Roman emperors.

The front of the coin showed the head of Tiberius, and the back had the head of Augustus, with the Greek inscription, “God Augustus Caesar.“ So, for a Jew to carry a Roman coin it meant that that person was breaking the first commandment, “Thou shalt not have false gods before me.”

Jesus doesn’t ask them how they reconcile their public personas with the obvious hypocrisy of caving to the culture. We don’t get to grin too hard, lest he should ask us the same question.

What parts of the culture are the most tempting for you?

Kathy McGovern ©2023

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