Rev. James A. Wallace, C.Ss.R.

Jan 14 2025

Being Holy

A 2006 movie called Love, Actually has one of the best openings in recent years. It begins with two young people running toward each other and falling into each other’s arms, kissing joyfully. Then you see a mother being hugged by her two little girls, then two older women, perhaps sisters, embracing. As these scenes give way to others, you become aware all this takes place in an airport at the arrivals gate. Accompanying these images is a voiceover.

Whenever he feels down about the condition of the world, the speaker goes to the arrivals gate at Heathrow airport in London. Despite the fact that there is so much hatred and greed in the world, he says, Heathrow is one place where things seem different. At Heathrow love is everywhere.

All the while you hear this voice, you are watching people rush into each other’s arms. For a full minute you see the world as a welcoming, warm, loving place. You know it’s something of a set-up because who goes to meet people at airports other than family, good friends, people in a loving relationship? But isn’t this God’s plan for the world, what God wants most from us: love God; love one another.

The voiceover concludes by noting that right before the planes hit the Twin Towers in New York City, all the calls that went out were messages of love. People chose to have their final words be professions of love. Making that choice on a daily basis is what makes us perfect—that is, full-grown, complete, holy.

Consider/Discuss

Do you accept Jesus’ idea of what it means to be “perfect”?
If there is someone who has given me reason not to love them, can I pray for them?

Responding to the Word

We pray to God to continue to pour the Holy Spirit into our hearts so that we can love with God’s own love, when our own ability to love fails us. We pray that we can grow into that full maturity that we see in Jesus, who prayed for his enemies from the cross.

Jan 14 2025

Blessed Are They Who Walk in the Law of the Lord

We live in a country where we prize our freedom, cling to our right to choose, and even define our homeland as “the land of the free.” Today’s scriptures remind us that along with rights come responsibilities. We are to respond to our God who made us and calls us to be a people of the new covenant, ratified by the saving death of God’s Son on the cross.

“If you choose you can keep the commandments, they will save you,” says Ben Sira (Sirach 15:15). For the Jewish people the law was a blessing and those who chose to keep the law would be blessed with life. That choice is still before us today.

Jesus’ teachings reveal his wisdom in understanding the law of the Mosaic covenant. His grasp of what was at the heart of the law can be clearly found in the long form of today’s Gospel. While there is an option for a shorter version, spend some time with the longer reading (Matthew 5:17–37).

We are to live as kin in what has been called the “kin-dom” of God. In a world that justifies preventative strikes, Jesus forbids not only killing but even getting angry and bearing a grudge. He teaches that reconciliation takes priority over worship, that the prohibition against adultery extends even to looking with lust at another, reducing a person to an object for self-gratification. Finally, he asks us not to swear but to speak with simplicity and integrity.

Some might dismiss all this as impossible to achieve. But, as a young virgin was once told: “[N]othing will be impossible for God” (Luke 1:37).

Consider/Discuss

How does the “law of the Lord” influence my life?
Do I consider God’s law as increasing or limiting my freedom?
Can I accept the “bottom line” that Jesus is asking of his disciples?

Responding to the Word

We can pray for the Holy Spirit to open our minds to understand what is at the heart of Jesus’ teachings, and that we both discern what God asks of us and respond wholeheartedly. Thus we witness to others what it means to walk in the law of the Lord.

Jan 14 2025

A Little Salt, a Little Light, a Lotta Difference

One of the most common advertising strategies is showing what you can look like after you purchase a certain product or follow a particular program: a more pleasing shape, greater muscle definition, blemish-free skin, silkier hair, and so on. Jesus today offers two images to his disciples, salt and light, indicating what they can be if they follow his teachings. In both instances the benefits go to others.

Salt was important in Jesus’ time for preserving meat and for bringing out the taste of food. Its usefulness depends on its interacting with something else. When it doesn’t interact, it is useless. So, too, if a follower does not live in the world as a child of the kingdom, the world will be bland.

And not only that, but also blind, unable to glimpse God’s presence here and now. The disciples must show themselves to the world as followers of Jesus, rooted like him in the law and the prophets. With so much darkness due to hatred, cruelty, and greed, the disciple who shares bread with the hungry, helps shelter the homeless, clothes the naked, and does not live indifferent to the needs of others, will truly be salt and light.

In the coming weeks, we will continue to hear the Sermon on the Mount, a compilation of teachings that Matthew has collected to give us the program we are to follow so that the world may catch a glimpse now and again of the reign of God.

Consider/Discuss

Do you see ways in which you can bring savor and light to the world?
Do you recognize that Jesus is calling the church as a community of believers to dispel the darkness and gloom?

Responding to the Word

Pray that God will help you to recognize the gifts given to you and your community for the good of others. We also ask God to give us the humility not to feel threatened by the gifts of others, but to rejoice in them and encourage their use.

Jan 14 2025

Getting into the Kingdom

Billy Collins’ poem “The Afterlife” proposes that when we die, we will all go to the place where we always expected to go. And so, some will end up in the light, others before a judge; some will be singing in the choir, others seated around a food-filled table. He concludes somewhat wistfully, saying that the rest will just end up in their coffins, wishing they could return to do things they never did.

Matthew’s Gospel has a lot to say about the kingdom of heaven, beginning with the Beatitudes, which can be thought of as “Be-Attitudes,” ways of being in the world now that will get you into the world yet to come. They are not the usual rungs on the ladder to success that call for calculation, competition, and caring little for anyone other than oneself.

Being poor in spirit, mourning, being meek, hungering and thirsting for justice (God’s, not the usual brand meted out in our world), showing mercy, being clean of heart, making peace, and putting up with persecution—this can sound like an eight-step program for being losers in the world.

But to those who chose to walk these ways, Jesus declares, “Blessed are they,” and promises that “theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Or, as Paul puts it, God chooses the nobodies to work on, with, and through. It’s enough to make you search out another kingdom. Only there you might not end up being blessed, just wishing you could return to do things you never did—but should have.

Consider/Discuss

What is your notion of the kingdom of heaven?
To which of the groups Jesus names do you feel most akin? Which are least related to your life?
Which quality do you hear Jesus inviting you to take up?

Responding to the Word

We pray that we may become seekers of the kingdom of heaven now and learn the wisdom of God that was embodied in Jesus, a wisdom that will bring us to share in the “righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” that are to be found by living in Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Jan 14 2025

Living in the Light

During this annual week of praying for Christian Unity, it may be either consoling or disheartening to realize that from the beginning there were divisions in the church. In Paul’s day, the bickering arose in Corinth over rival loyalties: “I belong to Paul . . . to Peter . . . to Apollos . . . to Christ.” Paul tries to put an end to this from the start, asking the various factions, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:13).

Today’s readings remind us that the darkness of division, whether among nations, churches, or families, is not part of the kingdom of heaven. Diversity, yes; division, no. The light that Christ came and continues to bring is the light that allows us to look into the face of our brother and sister and see the face of God.

Jesus came into Galilee preaching the good news of the coming of God’s rule, proclaiming that God’s loving presence was here even now: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17). There is an urgency here, a call to repent, change, seek, and accept God’s rule in our lives. This call is as urgent for us today as it was then. As nations continue to build up arsenals of nuclear weapons, there is an unparalleled possibility of devastation on a global level.

Jesus continues to seek others to join him in preaching this gospel message. A divided community is a counter-sign, not serving to bring about the kingdom. The death of Christ was to heal such divisions. When we settle for division, we “empty the cross of Christ of its meaning.”

Consider/Discuss

Do I hear Jesus’ call to repent as if it is spoken to me?
Have I made peace with division in my life where there could be unity?

Responding to the Word

Turn to Psalm 27 (today’s responsorial psalm) and use it for meditation. Today’s short response can also serve as a mantra during the coming week: “The Lord is my light and my salvation.” We pray that the Lord deliver us from any division that threatens the body of Christ and that we live in the light and be a light for others.