Tag: Erin Madden

**Due to server issues, this post was not published on 8/11/21, so we are posting it now.**

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them.” 

I cannot help but reflect on this line from today’s Gospel in light of how I spent the past week. I had the immense blessing of accompanying a local youth group (not even my own youth group, but that’s a different story for another time) as a chaperone for their week-long mission trip in the mountains of Tennessee. I could go on and on about my experience but I just wish to offer a few short thoughts for all of you. 

Our group was small but mighty – five teens and two adult chaperones. That’s it. There were no other groups spending the week with us either. But wait, there’s more. Our group was split in half and sent to two different job sites every day: one group of four people and another group of three. Everywhere we went, Christ was with us despite our small numbers and it was evident in the work that we did and the way we spent our week. 

A good portion of our mission trip was spent doing construction work, specifically building a ramp off of a lady’s deck. The first day that my group was on the construction site, we were blessed to spend 1.5 hours talking to the lady we were serving. We talked about a number of different things – she shared about the area of Tennessee we were in, we shared some of our experiences back home, etc. In the middle of our conversation, she stops mid-sentence and says, “You guys make me want to become Catholic.”

We hadn’t mentioned our Catholic faith to her or talked expressly about our beliefs. Yet she could still tell we were Catholic by our presence at her home, by our words and by our actions. Christ was certainly present with the five of us that day in that moment and He made His presence known!

Shouldn’t it always be that way, though? Shouldn’t people be able to tell that we are Catholics by the way we go about our lives each day? We shouldn’t have to put “Catholic” in our social media bios (#whoops, my bad) or say the words, “I’m a Catholic” for people to know who we are and in Whom we believe. 

My brothers and sisters, let’s take a good, hard look at our lives and question whether or not others would be able to tell we are Catholics. Let us make sure that Christ is present wherever we may go and that we can make His presence known to others by our lives. 

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One of the newer memorials in the Roman Catholic Church, today we celebrate Saints Martha, Mary and Lazarus. Previously, only Saint Martha was celebrated on July 29; however, back in January, Pope Francis ordered the inscription of all three saints into the General Roman Calendar. 

We are familiar with the raising of Lazarus – one of the more popular Gospel readings for funerals especially – but we can often overlook Martha and Mary in this passage. Upon hearing that Jesus is coming, Martha goes to meet Him on the journey. She leaves her home, her sister Mary and all the people who had come to comfort her over the death of her brother to go meet her friend Jesus. Note that Mary sat at home.

Surely it was Martha’s faith that prompted her to go meet her friend, as displayed by her opening words to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. But even now I know that whatever you ask of God, God will give you.” She could not have known the Lord’s intentions, which He shared with His disciples earlier in verse 11 before arriving at Bethany, saying, “Our friend Lazarus is asleep, but I am going to awaken him.” Yet she had to have known that something was going to happen. Being a friend of Jesus, she had most likely heard – if not witnessed for herself – some of the Lord’s miracles and so she had faith that the same could have been done for her brother. We know how the story ended. 

Let’s take a quick look at Mary in the other option for today’s Gospel, though. Martha, again, goes to welcome the Lord but it is Mary who steals the show in this passage. Martha busied herself trying to be a good host while her sister busied herself with the Lord. Exasperated, Martha asks her friend to ask her sister to help her with the housework but Jesus offers a quiet rebuke instead, “Mary has chosen the better part and it will not be taken from her.”

Both ladies in these respective passages know who the Lord is and it drives their actions. Martha goes to meet Jesus, knowing that He is a great miracle worker. Mary knows who Jesus is and so she chooses to sit at His feet and be with Him. 

Know who Jesus is and let Him drive the actions of your life. 

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“Are you alive in Christ?” There was a decently loud response from the crowd, a rumbling of “Yes.” 

Fr. Agustino Torres wasn’t satisfied with that response, though, and so he asked again, even louder this time, “Are you alive in Christ?” A louder “Yes” resounded through the crowd. Still not good enough, though. 

“ARE YOU ALIVE IN CHRIST?” Finally, a thunderous “Yes” rolled through the field house along with loud screaming and applause. 

This sequence of questions and responses took place last weekend at a Steubenville Youth Conference during the Sunday morning homily. There were about 1,000 people in that field house who, yes, were certainly alive in Christ at that moment. It’s hard not to be after all that had happened over the weekend. 

Fr. Agustino cautioned us, though, as we still needed to be alive in Christ after we left the conference and every day after. 

So what does it mean to be alive in Christ? Each person’s journey, their following of Christ, is going to look a little different so every person’s answer is going to be different and that’s okay. 

Generally, I would say that being alive in Christ has a few main pieces, such as: prayer, Scripture and the sacraments. All of these graces will give us the strength to be in relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ and to truly be alive in Him. 

How does all of this relate to today’s Scripture readings? I look toward the Gospel and I am reminded of some simple truths of our faith. The person of Jesus Christ, the person that we are alive in, so many people in his day sought to put Him to death because what He was teaching was so counter-cultural. Does this fact remind you of anything? As Catholic Christians, most of what we believe and teach is counter-cultural and our culture tries to cancel us – to put our beliefs to death, in a way – for doing so. 

Even as the Pharisees were seeking to put Jesus to death, many people still chose to follow Him. Many people were alive in Christ as they followed Him! 

This is a reality that we must face if we are truly to be alive in Jesus, that people will seek to pull us down. But our strength lies in the graces that we receive and in the person who is greater than all things. Our strength, our life, lies in Jesus Christ. 

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I remember studying today’s Gospel passage all the way back in high school – my sophomore year spring semester New Testament class, to be exact. 

We obviously spent a lot of time studying the Sermon on the Mount – Jesus’ pinnacle teaching in the Gospel according to Matthew, in which He taught the disciples (and, by extension, us) on a number of different things. 

While I don’t remember every single word that poured forth from my teacher’s mouth that semester, I do remember spending a lot of time on today’s Gospel – the Teaching About Retaliation. 

Any modern-day interpretation of this passage is just downright strange and a little otherworldly. If you get slapped across the cheek, offer the other side as well? No thanks, hard pass. Why would anyone willingly offer to get slapped once, let alone twice? The other examples that Jesus offers, like someone suing for a cloak and then also handing over a tunic, just make things even weirder. 

The teachings were pretty countercultural at the time, too. Remember, the Jewish people followed the law given to them by Moses. Their law said, “‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,’” meaning that if someone plucked out your eye, you got to pluck out their eye as punishment in return. 

If you read the footnote for this passage, it says, “The Old Testament commandment was meant to moderate vengeance; the punishment should not exceed the injury done. Jesus forbids even this proportionate retaliation.” 

Let’s pause and take that last statement in. Jesus doesn’t want “even this proportionate retaliation” and He certainly doesn’t want retaliation that goes above and beyond the initial hurt or injury. That must mean He doesn’t want us to retaliate AT ALL. Hence offering the other cheek or the tunic as well, the exact opposite of retaliation. 

What I think this passage offers to us today is the opportunity to reflect on how we respond when we are hurt by another person, no matter what kind of hurt it is. While we may not yet be up to the level of offering our other cheek, are we at least “slow to anger and abounding in mercy” (Psalm 145:8), remembering that our heavenly Father does the same for us when we hurt Him as the result of our sin? Or do we answer with a sharp tongue and lash out with our hurt feelings? 

After a moment of reflection, do not be afraid to ask the Lord to work within you, to invite Him into those moments of hurt and to guide your response in those moments. 

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Today’s First Reading tells a beautiful story of healing with a powerful and yet often-overlooked role player – the archangel Raphael. 

When it comes to the three archangels, Michael and Gabriel seem to get most of the attention. I mean, Michael’s job is literally to defend us against Satan while Gabriel heralded the coming of the Messiah, the Son of God. But there is very little known about Raphael … until we turn to the pages of the Book of Tobit. 

The book’s namesake, Tobit, had gone blind and suffered for years; however, he was not the only one in need of healing as a woman named Sarah had suffered many misfortunes at the hands of a demon. Both ultimately found themselves begging for death to end their respective plights. 

Enter the archangel Raphael, whose name means “God heals” or “Divine healer.” To make a long story short, with the help of Raphael, Tobit sees again and Sarah is no longer tormented by a demon. What powerful works of healing!

Not only are the angels and archangels powerful intercessors for us in times of need but they show us the mighty works and wonders of God, who can heal every affliction of ours – great or small. 

We are all in need of healing in some way, shape or form. Maybe some of us need physical healing from an illness or injury like Tobit. Maybe we are in need of mental, emotional or spiritual healing like Sarah due to wounds of sin, our fallen human nature or other evils. Unlike Tobit and Sarah, though, we should not beg for death as an end to our suffering but, rather, have hope in our Lord Jesus who conquered sin and death, hope for healing. 

We certainly can – and should – pray to the angels, archangels and saints to intercede for our healing because who better to ask God on our behalf than the ones that are closest to Him in Heaven? But that also doesn’t mean that we should stop praying and asking God for our own healing. After all, He is the Divine Physician and He wants to hear from His beloved sons and daughters. 

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Don’t look now but Ash Wednesday is around the corner. Are you ready for Lent? My guess is that there are some of us still scrambling to decide what it is we will give up for Lent. 

While Lent is seen as a 40-day preparation period for Easter, a little preparation is also helpful for Lent itself, i.e. evaluating our spiritual life, what is keeping us away from God that we might need to sacrifice, etc. Today’s readings serve as a beautiful reminder as to why it is that we even need a season of Lent, especially the First Reading. 

This passage from Genesis picks up right after the Fall of Man, where God confronts Adam and Eve for their actions and starts laying out the consequences: Eve will have pain in childbearing, Adam’s work will be tiresome, they’ll eventually suffer death and they’ve been banished from the Garden of Eden. 

I studied this passage numerous times in college and even spent this past summer teaching my high schoolers about it, so I could break out some heavy theology and start quoting Hebrew to explain the spiritual significance for all of us. I’ll spare you, though. What the entire Chapter 3 of the Book of Genesis really boils down to is this – it is the moment that humanity needed a Savior. 

The journey of Jesus’ Passion, Death and Resurrection began in the very moment of Adam and Eve’s disobedience, when they eternally separated themselves (and you and I, by extension) from a life lived in union with God. There was only going to be one way that that eternal union would ever be restored: Jesus Christ had to offer his life as a sacrifice for all mankind and open the gates of Heaven for all of us. 

This is what we remember on Easter Sunday (and every Sunday) when we gather together at Mass. This is what we spend 40 days preparing for, this great moment of our redemption. Together, during Lent, we can reflect on Jesus’ unconditional love for us, shown by His sacrifice, and we are invited to participate in it through our own penance, sacrifices and suffering. 

During these upcoming 40 days and all the days after, I challenge you to examine your life through the light of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. What is holding you back from living in relationship with Him? What sins of yours did He willingly die for, so that you could be with Him in Heaven one day? Identify those things and work to root them out of your life so that, together, one day we may enjoy the reward of eternal life.

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It is said that the only two constants in life are death and taxes. I would add a third to this list – suffering. 

Suffering is a natural part of human life. We all suffer at some point in our life whether physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually – and often more than once. Just look at our world in the past year, where we’ve seen plenty of suffering. 

Being Catholic doesn’t mean that we are immune to suffering. In fact, some of us may suffer more than others. However, being Catholic means that our suffering takes on a different meaning. 

Today’s First Reading from the Book of Hebrews speaks on suffering in some pretty harsh terms: “publicly exposed to abuse and affliction,” “joined in the sufferings of those in prison” and “confiscation of your property.” And, all of these things took place after one was “enlightened,” which is an ancient metaphor referring to Baptism.

If this is the kind of treatment that we can expect after we are baptized and welcomed into the Church … yikes. Why would anyone willingly volunteer (or volunteer their children) to be baptized if suffering is what we can expect? 

Do not despair, though, for Romans 8:18 reads, “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are as nothing compared with the glory to be revealed for us.” While we have suffered in the past, are suffering in the present and may suffer in the future, we have the hope that is given to us through Christ on the cross – that, much like Jesus’ suffering brought about our redemption and eternal life, our own suffering can be transformed, with the help of God’s grace, for His greater glory. 

There is even more hope offered to us in this First Reading. It’s not all doom and gloom but, rather, speaks of “knowing that you had a better and lasting possession” and “… those who have faith will possess life.” It speaks of the great peace and comfort that we can have when we suffer, knowing what God can do with our hurt and pain. It speaks of future glory, not of past or present struggles. 

This is what we have to hold on to. It’s not always easy to change our perspective, our way of thinking. However, if we can become more disposed to give our sufferings over to God, He can and will do beautiful things with them. Trust in Him. Trust in His hope, trust in His mercy, trust not in misery. 

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