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

Jan 06 2025

Focus, Focus, Focus

Losing focus can be dangerous to your health. A man recalled in an interview how he had taken his eyes off the road for only three seconds to check his cell phone, when he smashed into the car in front of him. An expert on the addictive nature of digital technology suggested that when driving, cell phone owners should throw it out of reach in the back seat of the car. Cell phones are a danger to our focus on the road.

Jesus shifts how we usually focus on him today—not as preaching or teaching or healing or shepherding, but as casting fire on the earth; not as peacemaker but as divider. This might not make us too happy. Who wants an incendiary Jesus torching the land, or Jesus the homebreaker causing trouble in our family relationships? But Luke’s focus on Jesus cannot be tossed aside

Like Jeremiah, Jesus had to tell people what they didn’t want to hear: that Jerusalem was going to be destroyed, that it wasn’t enough to think God would protect the citizens simply because they laid claim to the temple, the law, or the Sabbath. Laying claims didn’t matter if you didn’t live them. Laying claim to Jesus means living as a disciple of Jesus, keeping your eyes on Jesus as our “leader and perfecter of faith.” Faith ties, not blood ties, are what matter. Jesus came to bring into being a new family through his saving death and resurrection. That’s the faith focus.

Consider/Discuss

Have you ever had an experience of losing focus when navigating, or being called to, the digital world (cell phone, Internet, texting)?
What is Jesus calling our attention to, when he says he has come to set the earth on fire, or to bring division, not peace?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, you came to enlighten the eyes of our hearts so that we might see you as our leader, hear you as the very Word of God, and follow you along the way you have led. Do not let us grow weary and lose heart, but set our spirits afire with your life-giving Spirit.

Jan 06 2025

Mary, Mother of Hope

The feast of the Assumption offers hope. What has been done for Mary will be done for us. Our God, the Creator of all that is, has intended from the beginning that creation would share in the fullness of light and life. God’s purpose is to bring all creation into the life of the Trinity.

Today’s readings are rich in images of being lifted up. In Revelation, we find the image of the child being caught up to God and God’s throne, safe from the threat of the dragon intent on devouring the child. Paul writes to the Corinthians that just as Christ has been raised up, the first fruits, the beginning of the harvest, so too in him all shall be restored to life. And the Gospel gives us Mary’s great prayer, her only extended speech in scripture, when she sings her song of praise to God: “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord . . . (who) has lifted up the lowly.”

The Assumption of Mary also lifts us up in hope. What has been done for her will be done for all of us who have been redeemed by Christ, if we commit ourselves to dying and rising with him. She is the mother of and model for all disciples. Her words at the Annunciation, “Be it done to me according to your word,” began a life of surrender to God’s will. This yielding led to her being taken into the presence of God, where she prays for us in union with her Son.

Consider/Discuss

Can you see in this feast a promise of hope for all who are faithful to the Lord?
Can you see a challenge to surrender to God, who will lift you into the fullness of life?

Responding to the Word

Mary, help us to find Christ, knowing that when we “do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5), we follow your example of surrendering our will to the Father. Give us the hope that springs from a trusting faith in the Father and shows itself in love for one another.

Jan 06 2025

Trustworthy Servants of a Trustworthy God

The author of Hebrews calls our attention to the faith of Abraham. Abraham’s faith showed itself in his willingness to depart from his home and leave his kin, to trust a promise that his descendants would outnumber the stars, and to be willing to trust God to provide even when God asked him to sacrifice the son who guaranteed the promised future. Through all this, a covenant was initiated.

Moses and his people trusted God to take them from the slavery of Egypt to freedom. God’s trustworthiness was shown over the coming centuries, not only by leading them into a promised land, but into a covenantal relationship that found itself renewed again and again, despite Israel’s infidelities.

With Jesus came a new covenant in his blood, and a call to his followers to replace any fear they might have with an abiding trust in the Father to give them the promised kingdom. He spoke about having a fidelity that would characterize them as good servants in the household of faith. The hallmarks of this fidelity would be watchfulness for the master’s return, a commitment to guarding the treasures of the household and caring for its members, and an abiding bond among those who serve.

The stakes of being a good servant are great: either to earn the respect of the master on his return or to lose it, to receive the gratitude of a master who would serve them or to see only sadness and disappointment in his eyes.

Consider/Discuss

How do you respond to the call to be a trustworthy servant?
What form does service to the Lord and the divine household take in your life?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, you have promised that if we are faithful in serving you, as you have been in serving the Father’s will by your life and death, then you will invite us to recline at table on your return and you will wait on us. Help us to find in this promise good reason to serve you.

Jan 06 2025

Lasting Riches

What are your three major worries? What gets you tossing and turning at night? Money? Family? The future? Work? Then the book of Ecclesiastes is for you. There is some comfort in its world-weary wisdom. All is passing—life, love, property, worries. What good does it do to worry yourself to death? Death will come soon enough when God turns us all back to dust (that’s a little of the psalmist thrown in, for further emphasis). Now, into the week!

Thank God for Jesus. He certainly is a wise teacher in today’s Gospel, sidestepping a request to get involved in family bickering over an inheritance. His work was about getting people into the kingdom, not getting people to share the family gold. Even so, Jesus draws a lesson from this situation for the crowd: Avoid greed. Don’t reduce your life to what you accumulate.

To bring it home, he tells about a rich man so sure he is going to be around tomorrow that he plans on stockpiling all his goods for himself so he can “rest, eat, drink, and be merry” for the rest of his days. But God has other plans for him.

Jesus’ wisdom: Be rich in what matters to God. Colossians agrees: Think of what is above, of Christ at God’s right hand, of the glory that awaits you. Make Christ your all and God your treasure. Remember that the goal is transformation, not accumulation. So, put on that new self; put on Christ.

Consider/Discuss

What have you changed by worrying?
Do you accept Jesus as your teacher? What is he trying to teach you today?

Responding to the Word

Jesus, teach me to place my life and the lives of those I love in your hands. Help me to be rich in what matters to God, and to put on the new person who is the fulfillment of the Father’s plan for me. Give us all wisdom of heart.

Dec 17 2024

Persisting in Prayer

In this delightful story from the book of Genesis, Abraham is presented as being on such intimate terms with God that God not only talks things over with Abraham, but responds to Abraham’s gentle nudging. Notice how Abraham first “draws nearer” to God, asking if God will really sweep away the innocent with the guilty. Then he increases the pressure: “Should not the judge of all the world act with justice?” Quite of bit of chutzpah there! In the end, God momentarily yields to Abraham’s persuasive—and persistent—intercession.

Jesus urges his disciples to persist in prayer to God, after teaching his prayer to them. This great prayer is the basis for our approaching God with persistence. We are told to call God Father, and then to make two prayers of praise and three petitions to God. Those praying move from blessing and praising God’s name and sovereignty to asking for our most basic needs: bread, forgiveness, and deliverance from evil. Jesus follows the gift of his prayer with advice and encouragement.

His advice is to persist; his encouragement is to remember that God is a father who loves his children. God will not refuse the gift of the Spirit to those who have been buried with Christ and have already been raised with him in baptism. As the author of the Letter to the Colossians reminds us, God brought you to life along with Christ even when you were dead in sin. How could God refuse us anything that was truly good for us?

Consider/Discuss

Do you have confidence that God will hear your prayer?
Do you ask for the Holy Spirit to help you in your prayer?

Responding to the Word

Lord, may I come to know the truth of the words of today’s response: “Lord, on the day I called for help, you answered me.” May we rest peacefully in that assurance that we have received a Spirit of adoption that allows us to cry, “Abba, Father.”