Who are the Jews?

By Fr. Victor Feltes

“What’s a Jew,” I asked my dad as a boy. “Where did you hear that,” he countered. I had seen a TV news report about Palestinians in a street slinging rocks at Israeli soldiers. I recalled this memory recently when two parishioners called to ask the same question I once had. So who are the Jews?

We read in the Old Testament about God making covenants with Abraham and his descendants. God changed the name of Abraham’s grandson Jacob to Israel and from his sons come “The Twelve Tribes of Israel.” God used Moses to lead these tribes from Egypt into the land which is now the country of Israel. From one of those twelve tribes, Judah, the Jewish religion (Judaism) and Jewish people (Jews) have their names.

Jesus, Mary his mother, his apostles, and his earliest followers were Jewish. Many Jews believed Jesus was their long-awaited “Anointed One” or Christ. Other Jews, however, rejected him. The Jewish leaders conspired and pushed the Romans to crucify him, yet Jesus died due to the sins of all mankind. After his resurrection, the Jews and non-Jews with faith in Jesus Christ came to be called “Christians.”

In our day, a person could be Jewish in two ways: religiously Jewish, Jewish by descent, or both. Someone now identifying as religiously Jewish believes in the Old Testament and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but does not believe that Jesus was the Christ, God’s eternally-begotten Son, or that he rose again from the dead. Religious Jews are usually of the Jewish race as well, since Judaism draws few converts. On the other hand, a person may be racially Jewish and not practice Judaism. This is how it is possible for someone to be, for example, a Jewish atheist or a Jewish Christian.

All peoples are called to the New Covenant in Christ and his Church. St. Peter preached Jesus as Christ and Lord and risen from the dead to the Jews at Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…” The Vatican II document on non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, notes, “Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the Gospel… Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers…” If the world seems to bear irrational hatred towards Jews, Catholics, and other Christians, perhaps this is because we are God’s people in special ways.

Psalm 22 Fulfilled

Palm Sunday
By Fr. Victor Feltes

A thousand years before Christ’s Passion, King David was inspired by the Holy Spirit to pen the Twenty-Second Psalm. Jesus quotes this psalm’s opening words from the Cross: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Psalm 22 contains passage after passage prophetically predicting details of Good Friday.

It foretells how Christ’s enemies would deride him: “Scorned by men, despised by the people… they mock me with parted lips, they wag their heads: ‘He relied on the Lord; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, if he loves him.’”

It reveals what Jesus would endure in his chest, mouth, limbs, and back: “My heart has become like wax, it melts away within me. As dry as a potsherd is my throat; my tongue cleaves to my palate… They have pierced my hands and my feet; I can count all my bones.”

It predicts what all four gospels writers record the soldiers did: “They stare at me and gloat; they divide my garments among them, and for my vesture they cast lots.”

Despite expressing great anguish at feeling as if God were distant throughout these sufferings, the psalm declares hope in deliverance, a restoration to life: “I will proclaim your name to my brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise you. …All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord; All the families of nations will bow low before him… The poor will eat their fill… And I will live for the Lord; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.”

These accurate prophesies have been realized in God’s Church, where our Lord is with and in his Eucharistic people proclaiming his resurrection to every land and generation. The Twenty-Second Psalm was fulfilled in Jesus Christ and he continues today to fulfill it in our midst.

His Manifest Devotion

2nd Sunday of Lent
By Fr. Victor Feltes

How could Abraham do what he did? He fully trusted in God, and through this trust he and us were greatly blessed. God had promised descendants to Abraham through his son, Isaac, declaring, “Through Isaac descendants shall bear your name.” Because of the miraculous birth his son and other experiences with God, Abraham believed the Lord could and would keep all his promises.

So when Abraham reached the mountain of sacrifice, where the Jewish temple would be built about 900 years later in Jerusalem, he told his servants (in a passage omitted from our first reading): “Stay here with the donkey, while the boy and I go on over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” The Holy Spirit tells us in the Letter to the Hebrews that Abraham “reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead, and he received Isaac back as a symbol.”

After Jesus was transfigured and proclaimed by the Eternal Father to be his beloved Son, “as they were coming down from the mountain, [Jesus] charged [Peter, James, and John] not to relate what they had seen to anyone, except when [he] had risen from the dead. So they kept the matter to themselves, questioning what rising from the dead meant.” The sacrifice of Isaac, in which Abraham’s son was spared, foreshadows the sacrifice of Jesus offered by God the Father for us.

Upon staying the hand of Abraham, the Lord’s messenger said, “I know now how devoted you are to God.” After Christ’s sacrifice, we now know how devoted God is to us. St. Alphonsus Liguori agrees with St. Thomas Aquinas in saying, “God loves man just as if man were His god, and as if without man He could not be happy; ‘as if man were the god of God Himself, and without him He could not be happy.’”

Such is God’s devotion to us. And brothers and sisters, as St. Paul writes, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but handed him over for us all, how will he not also give us everything else along with him?” So let us fully trust God as Abraham did, and through this well-founded trust be greatly blessed and greatly bless others as well.

Growing In Christ’s Likeness

5th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

This Sunday’s readings feature Job, Paul, and the mother-in-law of Simon Peter. What do these three people have in common? Let’s consider each in turn.

In our first reading we hear from Job who, like Jesus Christ and Mother Mary, suffers greatly despite his innocence. “I have been assigned months of misery,” he says, and troubled nights have been allotted to me. My days [swiftly] come to an end without hope.” At one point, Job’s wife even tells him to “curse God and die!” Yet, despite his painful, honest questions, Job never disobeys. He never renounces the Lord.

Next we hear the Apostle Paul telling the Corinthians how and why he preaches the gospel. Paul insists that preachers have a right to payment for their work, just like others who do valuable labor. He asks, “What then is my recompense?” What is his repayment or reward? “That, when I preach, I offer the gospel free of charge so as not to make full use of my right in the gospel.” What is Paul saying? How is he repaid by not getting paid? Paul says he makes himself “a slave to all so as to win over as many as possible… All this I do for the sake of the gospel, so that I too may have a share in it.”

Lastly, we hear the story from Mark’s Gospel about Simon Peter’s sick mother-in-law. She lays in bed in Capernaum enduring a severe fever. Having just cast out a demon at the synagogue, when Jesus enters the nearby house of Simon Peter and Andrew along with James and John, they immediately tell him about her condition. Jesus approaches her, grasps her hand, and helps her up. The fever leaves her immediately and she waits on them. It seems she had been eager to serve, only her illness had prevented her. Something which Job, and Paul, and Simon Peter’s mother-in-law have in common (besides all appearing in today’s readings) is sharing a likeness to Jesus.

We see Jesus in our gospel driving out demons and curing the sick. If he had been charging fees for his healings, Jesus might have soon become the richest man in Capernaum. If he had announced that he was the Messiah and called men in the region to take up arms with him, Jesus could have soon been seated upon a Jerusalem throne. Instead, though everyone is looking for him, Jesus withdraws alone to a deserted place to pray. Jesus Christ was not called to be great in worldly wealth and power (in the pattern of Herod, or Pilate, or Caesar) but to be a suffering servant. He had not come to be served but to serve, giving his life as a ransom for many.

This is the path to Christ’s glory, which he calls others to share. So the innocent victim Job undergoes a “dark night” when his physical and spiritual consolations are stripped away. Would he still love God and goodness when no longer tasting their rewards? Through Job’s trials his love is purified to become more like Christ’s in his Passion. And St. Paul, like Jesus, does not labor for earthly riches but takes the form of a slave. He ministers for the love of souls and to share in heaven’s reward which this world cannot equal. And Simon Peter’s mother-in-law is eager to serve as she is able, agreeing with Jesus that it more blessed to give than to receive.

It’s too late in time for your name or mine to be written in the Bible, but if in the end our names appear in heaven’s Book of Life, our Christian lives will have shared some likeness to the life of Jesus Christ.

Obey Christ For Abundant Life

4th Sunday of Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

The people of Capernaum witnessed the authority and power of Jesus, “He commands even the unclean spirits and they obey him.” The demons are mere creatures, but Jesus Christ is Lord. Will we heed and obey him? According to Catholic exorcists, a good confession is more powerfully effective than an exorcism. This makes sense. It is difficult to root out demonic influence in a person’s life when the person is siding with the demons in rebellions against God through grave sin. But once that person comes to Confession — repentant, seeking to sin no more — they are rejecting those sins and the demons lose some in-roads.

I once received a request from an unmarried, non-Catholic couple to help them with spiritual disturbances occurring in their home. They were hearing strange noises and voices, seeing and finding inanimate objects moving about, and their dogs were behaving strangely. Unless they were lying to me (and I can see no purpose in them lying) the couple sometimes witnessed phenomena together, which rules out the possibility of these being mere hallucinations. I visited and spoke with them, blessed their house, prayed for them, and blessed them.

When I reached out to them some months later, they said they had been thinking about contacting me again. They said that following the house blessing things had gotten better — quieter, for a time — but then the disturbances resumed and maybe worse than before. So I came back and blessed their house and both of them anew, but I admonished them again, just as I had before, that it was gravely important that they cease fornicating. I told them God’s will for them was either to marry, to live separately, or to live chastely like a brother and sister. Behaving otherwise is to lie with one’s body; simulating a permanent gift of self without vowing that same commitment before God and the world.

That man and woman and I did not know whether spiritual disturbances had occurred in that house before they moved in. However, I can see why the Lord might permit these unsettling signs for the couple’s own good: to deepen their faith in spiritual things, to help them recognize their sin, and to motivate them to change. I believe my first blessings had some effect to reveal to these non-Catholics that such blessings hold power and to validate me as a messenger. Yet these blessings did not make the disturbances go away forever since that would do them little good; making the symptoms disappear without curing the underlying disease. The couple was grateful for my visits, but I do not know what they went on to choose.

Jesus manifests his full authority over demons. “He commands…the unclean spirits and they obey him.” So one might ask, “Why doesn’t Jesus simply constrain all of the demons now, making them completely incapable of doing anything?” I suppose some imagine that without any demons there would be no further evil in the world, but temptations and sins would still remain. As St. James writes in his New Testament letter, “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.” Would our temptations be less if the demons were no more? Quite possibly. So why does Jesus allow them to prowl about the world at all? It must be for our greater good and glory, for “God works all things for the good of those who love him.” Why was Satan allowed to tempt Jesus in the desert if not for Christ’s glory and our greater good? And notice how once Jesus said, “Get away, Satan,” then the devil left him. Jesus Christ offers each of us the grace to do his will, but will we heed and obey him?

Someday, I would like to write a book imagining modern-day America if it suddenly became impossible to commit the vast majority of sins. How would people react to God the Father decreeing that much more of his active will must be done on earth as it is in heaven? My story would describe the initial disruptions for a society in which the markets for immoral things evaporate overnight, and many other goods and jobs (like door locks and security guards) are no longer needed. Then I would tell how much society would benefit from the abolishment of sin. Imagine all of the wealth wasted on sins or on repairing sins’ effects instead being spent more usefully; not to mention the greater peace people would enjoy from never being willfully mistreated anymore. Yet my narrative would also note how much people would complain; for instance, they would insist upon their “rights” to speed or curse or lie, or to misuse their bodies or their money however they desire. They would denounce God for his tyranny, and wail and grind their teeth. For these people, it would be like a hell on earth.

In Deuteronomy, Moses proclaims to the Hebrews, “A prophet like me will the Lord, your God, raise up for you from among your own kin; to him you shall listen.” God declares about that prophet, “[I] will put my words into his mouth… Whoever will not listen to my words which he speaks in my name, I myself will make him answer for it.” Jesus is that promised prophet raised up from his own people, the Incarnate Word of God. “People were astonished at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority and not as the scribes.”

Jesus does not instruct us in order to control us. He does not command us so that he may dominate us. Jesus declares, “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that [you] might have life and have it more abundantly.” In this age, we are free to disobey God like the demons did. But in the age to come, such sins will no longer be permitted. If we die as friends of God, before we can enter heaven our love for sins will need to first be fully purged. God shall not force his enemies into heaven against their will.

Brothers and sisters, Christ is Lord. He is here to help us, not to destroy us. So choose love over sin, end your rebellions, and encounter him in the confessional. Heed his authority, obey his teachings, and embrace the more abundant life Jesus is offering you.

A Protest Against Paradise

We’re Called To Follow Jesus Together

3rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

Imagine four teenagers growing up in the same small town. They’re seniors in high school and play on the same varsity football team together. What are the odds of all of them going on to play and eventually being inducted into the Hall of Fame? The odds are tiny. Not many players are drafted by the NFL and fewer still get their names enshrined at Canton, Ohio. This scenario would require an incredible concentration of athletic talent emerging in the same place at the same time.

In today’s gospel, as Jesus passes by the Sea of Galilee, he sees two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting their fishing nets into the sea. When Jesus says, “Come after me and I will make you fishers of men,” they abandon their nets to follow him. Walking along a little farther, Jesus sees James and John, the sons of Zebedee, mending their nets in a boat. Jesus calls them too and they leave to follow him. What were the odds of these four, young, uneducated men, living and laboring together in the same small seaside town, going on to become some of the Church’s greatest saints?

Was this all arranged through divine providence? Had God been gently guiding the course of history to prepare for the day of their calling by Christ? Or, can Jesus do great works with anyone who answers his call? Yes and yes. “God works all things for the good of those who love him,” preparing, and calling, and making them fruitful when they follow him. Look at the Prophet Jonah. Just one day’s preaching in an enormous city accomplished the people of Nineveh’s repentance, delivering them from destruction. Had God been preparing the Ninevites’ minds and hearts for that day, or did God graciously empower Jonah’s words? Yes. God prepares to do great things with us in our free cooperation with him.

There is another interesting reflection found in the calling of Simon, Andrew, James and John. These four fishermen already knew each other. They were coworkers in business together, two pairs of biological brothers, and familiar friends. These future-apostles began as Jesus’ disciples already sharing close relationships with one another. Not all twelve apostles knew each other before they followed Jesus, but they came to know each other very well. And when Jesus would send them out on missions he did not send them out alone, he sent them two by two. Jesus understands that such community and friendship is important for Christians to support each other and grow together.

Consider again the Prophet Jonah. At first, he fled alone from doing God’s will. And then, from the dark depths, he feared to die alone. Reluctantly, he came alone to preach at Nineveh, yet he still refused to forgive and pray and hope for the Ninevites’ salvation. After Jonah’s dreams were dashed (that is, when the Ninevites were not destroyed) he became angry and wished to die alone. Imagine if Jonah had had a Christian friend accompanying and supporting him. Someone to caution him to do God’s will. Someone to comfort him as he faces death. Someone to challenge him to forgive his enemies. Someone to encourage him to see the goodness in his own life and in other people. Jonah could have greatly benefited from having a companion like that.

Jesus knows Christian friendship and fellowship helps us become saints together. So cultivate such community. If you lack it, pray for it and actively pursue it. Reach out to people, have phone or video chats, invite them out to lunch, or have them over for coffee. Find fellowship in “That Man Is You,” or with our Knights of Columbus, or in our parish ladies’ group. Stick around after Masses to chat with people in our vestibule. If you see someone new at church, please make them feel welcome. Christ calls every one of us and plans to make us fruitful as we cooperate with him, but it is unlikely Jesus is asking you to follow him all by yourself. He calls us to follow him together.

The Middle Man

2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Chinnappan Pelavendran

God calls every individual to build a close relationship with him. Time and time again, the Bible narrates the call of God: to Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and many others. In the New Testament, we have the call of Mary at the Annunciation, the call of Peter and his companions at the lake, the call of Matthew the Tax Collector, the call of Paul and others. God called them and they responded to him by sacrificing everything to obey his invitation.

In our relationship with God, and other people, we may need someone to connect one person to another to get through an issue. In my culture in marriages, there is a middleman who plays a very important role between two families about to come together Sometimes, to buy an important property like a piece of land or a used car, there is also a need for such a middleman. The role of middlemen ensures a cordial interaction between the two parties who are coming together in a new relationship.

In the first reading from the book of Samuel, we saw the old priest, Eli play the role of a middleman to connect the little boy, Samuel to Yahweh. In the first chapter, Hannah, the mother of Samuel had promised to dedicate her son to the Lord’s service. (1st Sam 1:11) Yet Samuel never knew anything about the Lord, therefore the person of Eli had to tell him how to connect with the Lord. Eli played his role as a middleman very effectively and the boy Samuel discovered the Lord.

In the gospel today, John the Baptist played the same role of a middleman to connect Andrew to the Lamb of God, and, through Andrew, Simon Peter. John instructed them to make them know Who was among them: John the Baptist identifies the Messiah in Jesus and tells his disciples that He is the Lamb of God. He also encourages them to be the followers of Jesus. These disciples in their turn invite others to come to be with Jesus on his mission.

We see people who have set out to play the role of Eli and John the Baptist in the lives of others. In the first place, the parents must play this very important role for their children. I can remember how my parents and my grandfather used to hold my hands while going to Church every day. Today, I see myself as a Catholic priest.

Apart from parents, we also have teachers, leaders, advisers, priests, and so on who are placed to be the Eli and the John the Baptist of our time. Many of us have guided engaged couples and been sponsors at baptisms. The very big question is: Do you direct the little “Samuels” placed under your care properly? Do you point out the Lamb of God? When we have played our roles well, it is left for God to know what to do with the boy Samuel and for the Lamb of God to know how to change Simon’s name.

God’s call is a gift and this call is given to every person. We must respond with readiness to work for him. He has called people to be missionaries, preachers, teachers, and office workers, builders of families, social workers, nurses, and persons who could be his instruments of peace. Are you listening to His call? Are you listening to the “Eli” or the “John the Baptist” that God has placed in your life?

From Creation to this Cradle

Christmas, the Nativity of the Lord
By Fr. Victor Feltes

Before all time’s beginning,
before creation’s making,
was our Lord, who is living.

Omnipotent, all-knowing,
unlimited, all-loving,
the self-existent Being.

This eternal deity
was not solely unity,
but divine community.

Father and Son, self-giving,
Spirit from both, proceeding,
Trinity, ever-living.

Though God could not be more great,
goodness loves to propagate,
so he opted to create.

The Lord said, “Let there be light,”
“earth” and “sky” and “day” and “night,”
“man” and “woman” in his sight
and in each did he delight.

Blessing us was his concern,
gifting gifts we did not earn,
minds to know and hearts to yearn
so we’d love him in return.

Like all things, he made us good,
yet, as God, he understood
human beings sadly would
freely choose to sin;
distaining the divine,
disturbing our domain.

Dissolution, desolation.
Division and dismay.
Despair and death.

Behold how in our world and lives,
sins stab and slice and scar like knives.
But our Lord lowers his lifeline,
a long thread throughout our timeline.

After the Flood and Babel’s tower,
God’s plan was launched with Abraham.
Summoned by the Higher-Power,
he journeyed to the Holy Land.

God vowed to him to give that earth,
to bless all peoples through his name,
and cause his barren wife to birth
a boy who would extend his fame.

Isaac was that wondrous son,
received back as from the dead.
His sacrifice was left undone;
as God supplied a ram instead.

(Note in Abraham’s descendants,
the Messianic lineage,
persons presenting precedents
repeated on the Gospel page.)

Next, from Isaac, Jacob came,
and suffered much from sinful deeds.
To “Israel” God changed his name,
and through twelve sons a kingdom seeds.

This tribe then west to Egypt fled
and grew up becoming many,
until from slavery God led
to “the land of milk and honey.”

For this nation, God appointed
from Bethlehem to kingly throne,
shepherd David, God’s anointed,
one with a heart after his own.

He was betrayed, mistreated,
but overcame each enemy.
God pledged there’d always be seated
a true son of his dynasty.

King Solomon, the peaceful one,
built with wisdom beyond compare
God’s temple in Jerusalem
for everyone from everywhere.

Isaiah’s prophesies foretold
and his consoling words record
how every nation would behold
salvation from our bridegroom Lord.

Then Babylon’s empire came
and took the Jews captive by sword.
But God removed his people’s shame
when to their homeland he restored.

These ups and downs had set the stage
for one night prepped thousands of years.
Between the old and current age,
the Son of God on earth appears.

It’s simple for our little ones,
the way in which our Savior comes.

A stable full of yellow hay?
Kids see a perfect place to stay.

Tiny Jesus is in his box,
asleep beside the sheep and ox.

His mom and dad on Christmas day,
as still as statues, kneel and pray.

That manger scene lit by a star
draws friends to Christ from near and far.

Our children lack experience
but maintain pure, sweet innocence.

They see with awe and gentle joy
our God become a baby boy.

Now that you and I are older,
we recognize complexity;
what Christ’s parents had to shoulder,
the burdens of humanity.

Joseph and Mary were displeased
when turned away from that hotel
and then unpleasant odors breathed
while giving birth where livestock dwell.

Stress-filled was that nativity,
mixed with their joys, feelings of dread,
as they combatted poverty
and unseen forces wished them dead.

The way of Christianity
is not promised to be easy,
but life with Christ, our deity,
has mercy, grace, and great beauty.

Our little ones are right in this,
though much in our world is amiss,
it’s right and wise to reminisce
on Christmas Day and feel great bliss.

Now to conclude, let us review:
God’s great goodness is real and true,
an ancient love that’s ever new
and through Christ’s birth comes into view.

So come to Mass — yes, please do!
His family’s less when lacking you.

The Fearfulness & Faithfulness of Mary & Joseph

Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception
By Fr. Victor Feltes

After our first parents ate the forbidden fruit, when they heard the sound of God walking about in the Garden of Eden, they hid themselves among the trees. The Lord God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?” He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” Did Blessed Mary the New Eve or St. Joseph her husband ever feel afraid? Indeed, Scripture records several such occasions.

In today’s gospel, at the Annunciation the Archangel Gabriel comes to Mary saying, “Hail, full of grace! The Lord is with you!” “But she was greatly troubled at what was said…” Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.’”

Later, when Joseph learned of Mary’s unprecedented pregnancy, he either suspected her and feared she was unworthy of him, or he believed her and feared he himself was unworthy of her and this holy child. “Since (Joseph) was a righteous man and not wanting to expose her to shame, (he) decided to divorce her quietly.” Such was his intention when an angel appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.”

After the birth of Christ and the visit of the magi, Joseph was told by God’s angel in dream to flee with Mary and Jesus into Egypt. Once the murderous King Herod had died, the angel told Joseph in another dream to return to the land of Israel. “But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of Galilee” and resettled his Holy Family in the town of Nazareth.

In another episode from the Gospels, when Jesus was 12 years old Mary and Joseph lost track of him during their family pilgrimage to Jerusalem for Passover. They found him on the third day engaging with the religious teachers at the temple. When his parents saw him, they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Son, why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been looking for you with great anxiety.”

That’s four incidents of fearfulness in Mary, Joseph, or both, which are clearly referenced in the Gospels. What are we to make of this?

Jesus Christ had holy parents on earth. At this Mass we celebrate how Mary was sinless from the moment of her Immaculate Conception and full of grace throughout her life. Joseph her husband was a righteous and virtuous man. However, both Mary and Joseph sometimes experienced fear. This shows us that feeling fear is not the same as sin or lacking in faith.

Realize and remember that faith is not primarily a feeling. Though it is nice when our feelings line up with our beliefs, sometimes they won’t match. You can believe one thing while feeling something else and still choose to act faithfully. For example, you can believe that commercial air travel is safe. Perhaps you have seen the data showing that flying compared to other modes of ground-based travel is, mile-for-mile, safer by far. When the moment comes for you to board your important flight, you might feel natural anxiety. But if you get on that airplane anyway, your faith in flight is on display. You trust in the pilots, in the aircraft, and in what you know, and this trusting faith enables you to reach your good destination.

Mary had such trusting, loving faith in Joseph. One night, her husband woke from sleep and told her he had received another message from God’s angel in a dream; they were in danger from King Herod and must quickly escape to Egypt. Mary had not beheld Joseph’s dream, but whatever she was feeling she trusted him and took the flight with him into Egypt, and her acceptance of this hard thing enabled their salvation.

Mary also had trusting, loving faith in God. St. Elizabeth praises her faith at the Visitation. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth cries out, “Most blessed are you among women… Blessed are you who believed that what was spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled!” Years later, during Jesus’ public ministry, a woman in a crowd called out to him, “Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed!” Jesus replied, “Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.” The Blessed Virgin Mary can be called “most blessed among women” because of her enduring faithfulness — she hears God’s word and keeps it.

It is essential that we not only hear God’s word but also faithfully obey it. Jesus declares, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven.”

Mary and Joseph loved and trusted God and each other, and God loved and trusted them to raise our Lord. Their faithfulness on earth is now rewarded with heavenly glory. God has entrusted them with shares in the spiritual care of his people on earth today. St. Joseph is the patron and protector of the entire Church, and St. Mary is the spiritual mother of every Christian. Ask Mary and Joseph to pray for you and ask Jesus to give you his grace to be always faithful despite whatever you might feel. For faith in Christ is not so much about feelings but about loving and trusting Jesus enough to be faithful to him.

Three Parables About God’s Vineyard

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Fr. Victor Feltes

For a third Sunday in a row, we hear Jesus telling a parable featuring a vineyard. First, there was the parable about the generous vineyard owner who hired more and more laborers throughout the day and paid them all the same amount. Then, there was the tale of a father who asked his two sons to go and work in his vineyard. Today, Jesus refashions the Prophet Isaiah’s allegory (which we heard in our first reading) into a story about a vineyard owner’s wicked tenants. In these parables, Jesus tells us what “the Kingdom of Heaven” is like.

His stories prefigure how the Gentiles would join the Jews as the people of God’s Kingdom. For example, like vineyard workers called late-in-the-workday, God calls the Gentiles long after he called the Jews, yet both are offered the same wage of salvation. The wayward, Gentile, pagan peoples were like the son in the parable who at first denies his father but later changes his mind and faithfully serves him. And the religious leaders of the Jews were like those wicked tenants who betrayed the vineyard owner, mistreated his messengers, and ultimately murdered his son. Because of this, those leaders’ roles of leadership were taken away and given to others in Christ’s Church to produce more fruit for God.

Gospel parables are profound, inspired stories which contain more than one true meaning. Jesus’ vineyard parables not only describe what the Kingdom of God is like for groups of peoples but for individual persons as well. For instance, Jesus’ Parable of the Generous Landowner teaches us that it is not too late for a sinner to repent, answer God’s call and serve him now, while it is still day. His Parable of the Two Sons teaches us that doing the right thing is better than merely saying the right thing. Faithful obedience to our Father God means actually following through. And today’s Parable of the Wicked Tenants teaches us that even those who labor or have authority in God’s vineyard must act justly towards God and his servants. Blessed are those who respond to the Lord, profiting of the precious opportunity he has made possible for us.

Jesus’ parables foreshadow peoples entering God’s Kingdom from all lands. Today, we can see this realized in his Church. Look at us, Americans in Wisconsin, with a pastor of German ancestry ministering alongside a priest from India, and all of us worshipping the God of Israel together. Jesus Christ, the stone rejected by the builders, has become the cornerstone of a new Temple made of living stones, people from every land. By the Lord has this been done and it is wonderful in our eyes.

The Prophet Isaiah once proclaimed a song of his friend concerning his vineyard: “A vineyard on a fertile hillside. He spaded it, cleared it of stones, and planted the choicest vines (to make it fruitful); within it he built a watchtower (to protect it), and hewed out a wine press (to delight in its fruits).” Isaiah’s friend was the Lord God, whose vineyard was Old Israel, which contained the cherished plant of his people. Jesus Christ’s Church, his Bride, is the New Israel; not defined by soil or blood but open to all people. God protects her, makes her fruitful, and delights in her. He delights in us and makes us one. This is Jesus Christ’s desire for every person in our world. May the whole world come to know Christ in his Church and know the peace of God.

The Keys to the Kingdom

21st Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

The great doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo taught that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and that the Old Testament is revealed in the New. We see an example of this in our readings. In the days of the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord chose “Eliakim son of Hilkiah” to become chief steward of the royal house, that is, prime minister for the reigning Davidic king. The Lord declared, “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.” The holder of this office possessed plenary power under the king throughout the kingdom. He reportedly carried a visible key indicating this authority that he would pass on to his successors.

In our gospel today, when Jesus asks his disciples, “Who do you say that I am,” Simon answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” And Jesus replies, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church.” Jesus changes Simon son of Jonah’s name to “Rock,” or “Petros” in Greek, which we render as “Peter.” In the entire Old Testament, God only changed the names of three people: Abram to Abraham, Abram’s wife Sarai to Sarah, and Jacob to Israel, so the changing of Simon’s name is a big deal in salvation history.

Jesus then declares to Peter, “I will give you the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in Heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in Heaven.” In the Old Testament, the Lord gave Eliakim “the key of the House of David” and authority to open and close. Likewise here, Jesus Christ the new Davidic king gives Peter “the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven” and authority to bind and loose. Eliakim’s power extended throughout an earthly kingdom, but the Lord promises Peter that his earthly decrees for the Church will also be confirmed in heaven. Eliakim would become, in the words of the Lord through the Prophet Isaiah, “a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem and to the house of Judah.” St. Peter became the Church’s first “pope,” a title that comes from the Greek word for a “papa” and an office held today by Peter’s successor, our Holy Father Pope Francis. Jesus knew that without a visible shepherd his Christian flock would inevitably scatter. Like Moses for the Hebrews in the desert, or like King David for God’s people in Israel, Christ establishes a chief shepherd for his Church on earth through his popes, beginning with St. Peter.

Yet, this highlight moment in Simon Peter’s life is immediately followed by a humbling event in St. Matthew’s Gospel, which will be our gospel reading next Sunday. Jesus starts revealing to his disciples that he must suffer greatly from the Jewish leaders, be killed, and be raised on the third day. So Peter takes Jesus aside and begins to rebuke him, saying, “God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you!” Jesus turns and says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! (That is, “Get behind me, Adversary!”) You are (being) an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Notice how Jesus here reproaches Peter differently than how he rebuked Satan in the desert, to whom he said, “Get away, Satan!” Jesus does not cast Peter away. He tells him to “get behind me,” that is, ‘Follow me again.” Whenever you or I go wrong, Jesus calls us to follow him anew.

For what was Peter praised by Jesus and for what was he corrected? First Jesus tells him, “Blessed are you, Simon…. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.” But later Jesus reproves him, “You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” Peter was praised for accepting the truth God had revealed and rebuked for trying to substitute his own ideas for God’s will. In today’s second reading, St. Paul reflects, “Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How inscrutable are his judgments and how unsearchable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor?” Our Catholic Faith is a revealed religion with infallible teachings about what is true and how we are to live. Who could discover all of these things correctly apart from Christ’s one Church built on rock? Jesus says, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself… and follow me.” To get fully behind Jesus Christ, always accept what God has revealed to us through his Holy Catholic Church.

The Voice & the Noise

19th Sunday of Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

When God visits the Prophet Elijah at Mt. Horeb the Divine Presence is preceded by powerful winds, quaking earth, and raging fire. Yet the Lord is not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire. Then there is a tiny whispering sound. Hearing this, Elijah goes forth to speak with God. In today’s gospel, Jesus calls Peter to “Come” forth to him out of the boat. Peter begins walking on the water, but seeing how strong the wind is he becomes frightened, begins sinking, and shouts “Lord, save me!” Jesus immediately stretches out his hand, lifts him up, and speaks to him. There is a common theme in these two episodes. In these encounters with God, Elijah and Peter must distinguish the Divine Voice from the noise. God is speaking to us, or he would like to. How can we listen without getting distracted or misled?

What do the demons want? They want the worst for us. They don’t want us listening to the Lord. They want us fully preoccupied with less important things. They want us too afraid or too discouraged to take good steps forward. How much time do we waste obsessing on things that don’t matter? How often do we worry about things that won’t happen? And how easily do we accept the lie that life cannot be better, that there’s nothing we can do? When our eyes and ears drift away from Jesus we sink. He chides us, ‘O you of little faith, of small trust in me, why do you doubt?’ Today I wish to share three great mens’ true discernment stories.

My first story is one about the 19th century saint, John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests. His humble holiness and miraculous ability to read souls made crowds flock to his small French town for confessions, which he would hear for hours on end. His faithful fruitfulness made him a target of demonic harassment. Apparently, typical temptations were ineffective against him, so sometimes they would assault him as he tried to sleep at night, but Fr. John would take this as a good sign. It usually meant some “great sinner” was coming to town the next day to be reconciled to God in the confessional.

I have encountered people whose emotions very much did not want to go to confession or attend a spiritual retreat yet they could think of an actual good reason not to go. So they come, and experience God’s grace, and it’s more wonderful than they imagined! Who do you think was influencing their feelings in hopes they would not come encounter and listen to God? Emotions can be helpful and powerful fuel in your gas tank, but let your informed conscience and sound reason hold your steering wheel.

My second discernment story is about our former bishop, Cardinal Raymond Burke. He saw a need for a richer devotional culture in our diocese and felt peace and joy in the thought of establishing a pilgrimage shrine. He has a personal devotion to Our Lady of Fatima and initially pursued a shrine dedicated to her 1917 Portuguese apparitions, but nothing was coming together. So he revised the plan, opting to create a Marian shrine dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe and her Mexican apparitions in 1531. With that adjustment, everything began falling into place; a donation of beautiful land and financial contributions resulting in the shrine we know today. So not all obstacles come from the enemy. Some hindrances can be God’s providence to channel us into doing his will.

Midway through my time in seminary, I really believed for good reasons that priesthood was my calling, yet I still could easily question my vocation. (How could I be sure?) I would go in circles doubting myself with no greater clarity or benefit. So I decided to say to God, “Lord, this is my fair warning and my RSVP: I intend to continue towards ordination, but if that’s not what you want please make it obvious or impossible for me. If it’s not your will, I don’t want it to happen.” I left it to him, and after that I felt much more peace, and here I am now. Peace is a strong sign that you’re doing the will of God.

My third discernment story is about of St. Joseph. You will recall that when he learned that Mary was with child (either because he doubted her and thought her unworthy of him, or else because he believed her and thought himself unworthy or her and her holy child) Joseph concluded he should not be Mary’s husband. However, it only took an angel’s visit in one night’s dream to get Joseph back on the right track. This is because Joseph was a just man who wanted to do whatever God willed. God is supremely intelligent, powerful, and creative; so he can provide a clear sign if he needs to. However, having a heart and mind open to doing God’s will is a necessity.

You cannot see God’s signs with your eyes closed shut. You cannot hear him if you refuse to listen. God prefers to speak to us with a tiny whispering Voice, but if we ignore him he may allow some disruption in our lives. Those figurative winds, earthquakes, and fires are supposed to get our attention so that we will heed him and listen to his Voice. Our psalmist says, “I will hear what God proclaims; the Lord — for he proclaims peace. Near indeed is his salvation to those who fear him…” Fearing God is not about terror, but regarding and respecting him. Those who do, seek God’s will. They hear his Voice and listen, and thereby gain his blessings.

Jesus Saves Us From Sinking

19th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Chinnappan Pelavendran

God’s presence is usually felt in tiny and small ways. He comes to us in gentle, little ways, and He will be with us when we need him the most. Jesus expects from us the openness to call on him for help and he will be there to support us and guide us. He wants us to be aware of his voice in our life, which often goes unnoticed. Jesus is always there with his guiding and supporting hands.

The background of the first reading is that, after the death of Solomon, the northern tribes broke away from the tribe of Judah and from its priests. They formed an independent country called Israel. As the years passed, many of the Jews in this country lost their Faith in Yahweh. Their seventh king, Ahab, married Jezebel, the daughter of a pagan king. He allowed her to build a temple for her god Baal and then she encouraged him to take part in idol worship and immorality. During this time, the prophet Elijah was sent by God to Israel to bring His people back to true worship. Having faith and confidence in Yahweh, he defeated and killed the 450 pagan priests of Baal on Mount Carmel.

For this reason, Queen Jezebel sent murderers to kill the prophet Elijah. However, God saved him from the dangers and gave him food through an angel. He fled for forty days and forty nights to Mount Horeb. Once there, he realized that the presence of God was not in the thunder, earthquake, or fire but in a tiny “whispering sound.” Elijah acknowledged God’s presence by covering his face and coming out of the cave where he had taken shelter. The first reading remains us that we have to experience God’s presence in our lives. We must listen carefully to everything going on around us because we encounter God in all the small events of our life. Failure, as well as success, offers us the opportunity to feel the presence of God, who saved the Prophet Elijah’s life.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus approaches his disciples walking on the water. The disciples are terrified by seeing someone walking on the water so they cried out in fear. Jesus reveals himself to them, saying “Courage, it is I. Do not be afraid.” Encouraged by the words of Jesus, Peter is the first to respond. At his invitation, he walks towards Jesus across the water, but his courage fails and begins to sink. Jesus reaches out his hand to him and saves him. The Gospel ends with Jesus calming the storm and being acknowledged as the Son of God by the disciples.

“Courage! It is I Do not be afraid.” Jesus speaks these same words to us every day in our life. The gospel invites us to deepen our faith and maintain our focus on Jesus. We need to fix our eyes on Jesus.

We need to realize that the presence of Jesus is always with us. He gives us peace even in the storms of life. The storms of anxiety and worries about the future, storms of sorrow, storms of doubt, storms of tension, storms of anger and despair, storms of temptations, and storms in family relationships. So, try to feel the presence of God always in your life.

We need to imitate the short prayer of sinking Peter, “Lord, save me,” or the prayer of the mother of the possessed girl, “Lord, help me,” or the blind man’s prayer, “Son of David, have mercy on me,” or the repentant sinner’s prayer, “Lord have mercy on me a sinner.” We must begin every day by offering all our day’s activities to God and asking for His grace to do His will. Then we must conclude every day before we go to sleep by asking God’s pardon and forgiveness for our sins.

Great Rewards From Small Deeds

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time
By Fr. Victor Feltes

The Old Testament Prophet Elisha was the immediate successor to the Prophet Elijah, ministering as a traveling prophet and wonderworker in the 800’s BC. One day, he came to a town of northern Israel called Shunem in which lived a “woman of influence.” Other Bible translations of this same text describe her as “prominent, influential, and wealthy”—“a great lady.” Curiously, she along with her husband go unnamed in the text. Perhaps, as with “the beloved disciple” in the Gospel of John, this is intended by providence to encourage us to envision ourselves in her place.

This great lady urges the prophet to dine with her. He accepts, and thereafter, whenever passing through that town, he would visit to eat there. So she says to her husband, “I know that Elisha is a holy man of God. Since he visits us often, let’s arrange a little room on the roof and furnish it for him with a bed, table, chair, and lamp, so that when he comes to us he can stay there.” Her husband apparently agreed, because sometime later Elisha lodges in that new room overnight. They may have been simple accommodations but Elisha really appreciated them.

While staying there, Elisha asks his servant to call the woman. Once she stands before him Elisha asks his servant to say to her (apparently in her own language): “You have troubled yourself greatly for us; what can we do for you? Can we say a good word for you to the king or to the commander of the army?’” She replies, “I am living among my own people.” By this response, she is expressing that she lives contently and secure, far removed from the royal court and its concerns. Her needs are satisfied. She has not shown Elisha hospitality to win favors from him. She receives him because he is a prophet. She receives him because he is a righteous man. She serves him because she knows he is a holy man of God.

Later Elisha asks, “Can something be done for her?” His servant, with great confidence in the prophet, replies, “Yes! She has no son, and her husband is getting on in years.” So Elisha has her called again and once she stands at the door, Elisha promises, “This time next year, you will be fondling a baby son.” She replies, “My lord, you are a man of God; do not deceive your servant.” Yet, the woman would conceive, and by that time the following year she had joyfully given birth to a son as promised. From God, she receives the prophet’s great reward.

Jesus says, “Whoever receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward.” And what of goodness shown toward those of lesser stature? “Whoever gives but a cup of cold water to one of these little ones to drink because the little one is my disciple—amen, I say to you, he will surely not lose his reward.”

Sometimes, Catholics look at our great saints and imagine we must do extraordinary things to be holy and greatly blessed. Thinking that such great deeds are beyond them, they despair of ever becoming saints themselves. In the late 1800’s, young St. Therese of Lisieux felt that way too, but then she found her “Little Way” to holiness. Her little way to great holiness was to do many little things for the right reason, with the right heart, that is, with great love.

In her highly recommended autobiography “Story of a Soul”, she writes:

“Miss no single opportunity of making some small sacrifice, here by a smiling look, there by a kindly word; always doing the smallest right and doing it all for love.” “You know well enough that our Lord does not look so much at the greatness of our actions, nor even at their difficulty, but at the love with which we do them.” “Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.” “To pick up a pin for love can convert a soul.”

Like the great lady of Shunem and St. Therese of Lisieux, realize and remember that doing many little things for the right reason, with the right heart, out of love, will surely not lose its reward.

The New Manna

Solemnity of Corpus Christi
By Fr. Victor Feltes

In the Old Testament, God freed his people with the Prophet Moses. The Hebrews in Egypt were slaves to Pharaoh since birth, but God’s mighty works through Moses liberated them. Though he had led them through the waters of the Red Sea their journey was not yet completed. They were still in the arid desert and God wished to lead them into his Promised Land, “a land of milk and honey” he had promised to their ancestors. God had already blessed his people, yet he wished to give them his even fuller blessings there.

How were the Hebrew people sustained for forty years in the desolate Sinai desert? What did they eat to survive? Every day, God made fine flakes appear on the ground around their camp. These flakes were “white, and tasted like wafers made with honey.” Upon seeing them the people asked, “What is this?” (in Hebrew, “Manna?”) Moses told them, “It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.” Without that manna they would have starved to death. God’s people ate this bread until they entered the Promised Land.

Here we see things and events of the Old Testament foreshadowing events and things of the New. In the New Testament, God liberates his people with Christ Jesus his Son. We all were slaves to sin, Satan, and hopeless death, but God’s mighty works through Jesus Christ freed us. He has led us through the waters of baptism; however, our journey is not yet completed. We possess renewed life in this fallen world but God wishes to lead us into his Promised Land of Heaven. God has already blessed us, yet he wishes to give us his even fuller blessings there.

So how are we to endure as we walk through the present desert of this world? Every day, in churches like this one, God offers us the Bread that has come down from Heaven. Jesus says, “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.” He gives us himself in the Eucharist. People see the Blessed Sacrament and wonder, “What is this?” It is the New Manna; the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.

In addition to Sacred Scripture, the Early Church Fathers attest to this. These theologians living in the first centuries of the Church teach and document what the earliest Christians believed about Jesus Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist. For instance, shortly after 100 AD, St. Ignatius of Antioch said, “The Eucharist is the Flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ.” Around 150 AD, St. Justin Martyr taught, “The Eucharist… is both the Flesh and the Blood of that incarnated Jesus.” St. Augustine of Hippo wrote in the early 400’s that, “Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body.’ For he carried that body in his hands.” And there are many other examples of such teaching from that era.

This is what Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church has always believed and taught, and God has affirmed its truth here and there by Eucharistic miracles throughout the centuries. In the Old Testament, God’s people ate the manna until they entered the Promised Land. Had they not regularly eaten of it, they would have died from starvation. This reflects how important faithfully receiving and promoting the Holy Eucharist must be for you and me.

Never neglect Sunday Mass. To skip Mass from Saturday evening through Sunday night (without a grave reason for doing so) is to prioritize something else above of Jesus, spurning the Lord who commands us to keep his day holy. Let Jesus Christ be first in your life through faithfully worshipping and receiving him at Mass. And opportunities to worship and receive our Lord at Mass are not limited to the weekends.

If your schedule permits, I welcome and invite you to try weekday Mass, celebrated at St. Paul’s on Monday through Friday at 7:15 AM and mornings at St. John’s on Mondays, Thursdays, and First Fridays. Weekday Mass is only a half-hour long, it features a homily, and is among the best devotions for drawing closer to Jesus.

Are any of your friends or relatives interested in our Catholic Faith? Invite them to come with you to Mass or bring them to that other great way to encounter our Eucharistic Lord: Eucharistic Adoration.

What greater treasure do we have than Jesus, truly present in the Eucharist? Let us treasure him as we ought and introduce this treasure to others. Strengthened by his food, our Lord would bring us all together into his Promised Land of Heaven.