Beloved: Demas, enamored of the present world, deserted me and went to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Luke is the only one with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is helpful to me in the ministry. I have sent Tychicus to Ephesus. When you come, bring the cloak I left with Carpus in Troas, the papyrus rolls, and especially the parchments.
Alexander the coppersmith did me a great deal of harm; the Lord will repay him according to his deeds. You too be on guard against him, for he has strongly resisted our preaching.
At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it.
The Word of the Lord.
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Our first reading captures the story of three Christians with different experiences of faith.
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The first was Demas.
Demas was once a believer; Paul wrote about him in his earlier letters. But sadly, Demas became, “enamored with the world.”
For some reason, he lost his faith…and, by extension, his soul.
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Then there’s Saint Mark.
Mark and Paul once ministered together, but Mark abandoned Paul on one of their early missionary journeys, perhaps out of fear of persecution.
Paul calls upon Mark from his prison cell in Rome, where the two are eventually reconciled and later martyred.
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Finally, there’s Saint Luke, whose feast day we celebrate today.
Paul says that Luke was, “the only one with me.” He was consistently faithful and never gave up.
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Three Christians. Three different stories.
One lost his faith. Another struggled with it. Another was steadfastly loyal.
Each remind us that faith comes at a cost.
May the Lord give us the strength we need to be faithful, whatever the cost may be.
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Image credits: (1) (2) Christianity Today (3) Verbum Bible
Someone in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, tell my brother to share the inheritance with me.” He replied to him, “Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?” Then he said to the crowd, “Take care to guard against all greed, for though one may be rich, one’s life does not consist of possessions.”
Then he told them a parable. “There was a rich man whose land produced a bountiful harvest. He asked himself, ‘What shall I do, for I do not have space to store my harvest?’ And he said, ‘This is what I shall do: I shall tear down my barns and build larger ones. There I shall store all my grain and other goods and I shall say to myself, “Now as for you, you have so many good things stored up for many years, rest, eat, drink, be merry!”’ But God said to him, ‘You fool, this night your life will be demanded of you; and the things you have prepared, to whom will they belong?’ Thus will it be for the one who stores up treasure for himself but is not rich in what matters to God.”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Saint Ignatius, whose feast we celebrate today, was part of the second generation of Christians. He was the bishop of Antioch, located in modern-day Turkey, and might have known the Apostle John personally.
Little is known about Ignatius of Antioch, aside from his pastoral letters which he wrote to several Christian communities on his way to Rome, where he was martyred. We can still read the text of his letters today.
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One of the great insights Ignatius offers us is the early Christian belief in the Eucharist.
In his Letter to the Romans, he writes, “I have no taste for corruptible food nor for the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ… and for drink, I desire his blood.”
Elsewhere, in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans, he writes, “The Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.”
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Ignatius offered his life for this belief. Because of his witness, and other Christians like him, the sacrifice of the Mass has been handed on to us today.
May he intercede on our behalf that we, too, would see Christ fully present in the Eucharist, profess our faith publicly, and find creative ways to hand on our faith to the next generation.
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Image credits: (1) Reasonable Catholic (2) EarlyChristians.org (3) Franciscan Media
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the necessity for them to pray always without becoming weary. He said, “There was a judge in a certain town who neither feared God nor respected any human being. And a widow in that town used to come to him and say, ‘Render a just decision for me against my adversary.’ For a long time the judge was unwilling, but eventually he thought, ‘While it is true that I neither fear God nor respect any human being, because this widow keeps bothering me I shall deliver a just decision for her lest she finally come and strike me.'” The Lord said, “Pay attention to what the dishonest judge says. Will not God then secure the rights of his chosen ones who call out to him day and night? Will he be slow to answer them? I tell you, he will see to it that justice is done for them speedily. But when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
The Gospel of the Lord.
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Several months ago, a woman stopped me after Mass and pleaded with me to visit her husband in the hospital and to anoint him. He had suffered a stroke and was in a coma with massive brain damage. Survival didn’t seem likely.
I arrived in the ICU shortly thereafter. The family and I gathered around him and we began to pray. As soon as my thumb soaked in sacred oil touched his forehead, he woke from the coma and looked right at me.
I completed the prayers of the Sacrament of Anointing and left.
Two days later, his wife came to Mass and told me that the doctors did a brain scan and discovered that all the brain damage had disappeared. He had a few days of physical therapy and strolled into Mass a week or two later.
It was literally a miracle.
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In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells a parable about a persistent widow, who is in dire need of a just decision. She badgers a corrupt judge day and night until, finally, he gives in and answers her pleas.
The Lord encourages us to have that same type of persistence in prayer. If a corrupt official can do something good for another person, then how much more can God do for us?
Consider the miracle that I witnessed in that hospital ICU a few months ago. God still acts in our world today.
But how many of us have had what feels like an unanswered prayer? We asked God for something, but didn’t get what we had hoped for.
Sometimes we’re left feeling, “If every prayer isn’t answered the way we want, then why persist at all?”
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Perhaps it’s helpful to clarify what prayer is. Prayer is, above all, about communication with God.
Experts say that 90% of a healthy relationship is rooted in communication. This is true in marriage, in families, in friendship, and also in our relationship with the Lord. It’s how we share our heart with God – and how he speaks with us.
Interestingly, when trouble or stress arises in a relationship, experts say it’s better to over communicate than to under communicate. When we need something from the Lord, be persistent. Tell him over and over again, trusting that he is listening.
Sometimes the answer is, “yes.”
Sometimes it feels like, “no.” But, God is simply answering us in a different way.
Other times, the answer is, “not yet.”
This is true in the case of the widow in today’s Gospel. I imagine she’s storming heaven’s door, just as she’s pestering that judge.
God was listening to her pleas! He was ready and willing to answer her prayer…but she had to wait until the judge had a change of heart. Three were involved in getting this widow what she wanted: the widow herself, God, and the corrupt judge.
I wonder how many prayers go unanswered – not because God doesn’t want to give us what we ask for – but because there’s a corrupt judge; the people the Lord taps to help us are either unwilling to help or are unaware of our need.
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Think about what happened in that hospital ICU just a few months ago.
God was ready to heal that person. But he used the Sacrament of Anointing to do it. If I decided not to go, or if I waited another day, then that family’s prayer might’ve gone unanswered.
It would not have been because this family didn’t pray. Not because God didn’t listen. But because the person whom God chose to help them didn’t show up.
That experience was an important lesson for me in ministry: never underestimate how often God may use us to answer someone else’s prayer.
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How often do we think about ourselves as God’s hands and feet in the world?
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As Saint Teresa of Avila once wrote, “Christ has no body but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes with which he looks compassionately on the world. Christ has no body on earth but yours.”
Maybe you’re the one God is choosing to help answer someone’s prayer today. But we need a softened heart and eyes of faith to see what God sees and to act accordingly.
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Image credits: (1) www.cbn.com (2) Patheos (3) Ever Thine Home
