1. -- Lanie LeBlanc OP - 6th Sunday, 2/16/2025
2. -- Dennis Keller OP - 7th Sunday, 2/23/24
3. -- Fr. John Boll OP - 6th Sunday, 2/16/2025
4. --
5. --(Your reflection can be here!)

*****************************************************
1.
*****************************************************
Sun. 6 C 2025

God speaks volumes to us in our readings this Sunday. The selection from the Book of Jeremiah tells who is cursed and who is blessed according to God’s criteria while the writing of Luke addresses what we conceptualize as some of the beatitudes. Familiar readings such as these sometimes get just our surface attention, however.

My mind, however, quickly found myself standing in the middle of two cheering sections, maybe at the beginning of a race. The cheering sections were competing against one another, to try to gain my attention. The groups shouting seemed to represent the values of society vs. God’s ways. That led my mind straight to the native American legend of the two wolves. Re-reading these two selections gave me thought as to which crowd will I listen to, which will influence me most, and which will I feed by my active and passive agreements.

There are many choices we all face every day. Each one pushes us, even if gently, to one group/ crowd/ viewpoint or the other. In the end, where will our choices lead and ultimately leave us?

Blessings,
Dr. Lanie LeBlanc OP
Southern Dominican Laity
lanie@leblanc.one

Seventh Sunday of Ordered Time February 23, 2025

1st Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; Responsorial Psalm 103;
1st Corinthians 15:45-49; Gospel Acclamation John 13:34; Luke 6:27-38

After a Sunday of Beatitudes that changes everything, we run into a very difficult Gospel. Love your enemies! Wow, how hard is that? Last Sunday was not really easy. At least not if we listened and applied the next iteration of God’s Law. In Deuteronomy we heard a lot of thou shalt nots. In the beatitudes we heard a lot of “you’ll be happy if you are such and so.” Actually, the Law we call “of Moses” carries that same reasoning – a guide to life that you may be happy and live a long life. I believe we’ve been led to believe the law is about after life and just pain and a restriction of freedoms. If we read the whole text, we’ll discover that the Creator wanted his creation to enjoy three great gifts – reason, free will, and a heart that guided the reason to happy choices of action. The God who knows us in and out, up and down, in season and out of season knows what makes us happy and what destroys the freedom of our hearts which inform our minds and are sources for free will. God is not threatening us with perdition or punishment. God wishes our happiness. Our God is God who is like the Father of the prodigal son, always looking down the road for us to come home to him.

The beatitudes of last week are statements by Jesus, the Son of God/Son of Man, telling us we will have a shot at happiness if we are poor. That means we are poor in our hearts even though we have billions or only a few bucks. Happiness has to do with relationships of discovering our Father, our Creator, and the image and likeness of God in one another.

That image and likeness message makes the beatitudes, especially their impact on social justice issues, reasonable. Even the encouragement to love our enemies who harm us, our families, our environment, our nation is about that. I have experienced that love heals broken hearts, mends depression, and makes whole what has fallen into pieces in life. But it takes unselfish love, committed love, an unconditional love. It is not about that radio station – WIIFM, What’s In It For Me.

The first reading from the first book of Samuel is about that. David had been such a great warrior for King Saul. Saul became very jealous of the adulation David enjoyed because of his military successes. Saul went to war with David and his warriors. Killing Saul as he lay sleeping would have solved his problems. That is what the wisdom of the world insists. David realized that killing Saul would be contrary to God’s anointing of Saul as King. He had been anointed by Samuel at God’s direction. It would be an affront to God to kill him. He could have eliminated his enemy, but David honored the anointing. Saul relented of his vendetta. There came an uneasy peace between David and Saul. The times have changed. Or have they? I wonder, as I volunteer working with abused and neglected, if those abused can ever forgive and love their abuser. The cultural error that women are lesser than men are the foundation such evil domination exercised by depraved men. Offenders rob their victims of dignity and worth in an effort to enslave them. Such enemies are difficult for the abused to love. So, also the victims of war. The urgency of peace for all: the heroic love for those who harm us seems beyond our ability and our will. Yet, for us to be happy, Jesus says we are to be peacemakers. It is certainly a challenge to our Christian living.

Dennis Keller Dennis@PreacherExchange.com
 

******************************************************
3.
******************************************************
2025-02-16 Homily for a University congregation
SIXTH SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME Year C

Jeremiah 17:5-8; Psalm 1; I Cor. 15:12,16-20; Luke 6:17,20-26

Will your studies and the degree you achieve,
save you?
Will that Job/Career you so desire to attain,
give you life, meaning, and purpose?
Will the connections you develop personally and professionally keep feed you?
Will that loving relationship with your spouse
give you life to the fullest?

Before you answer, ........
All these things are good and are blessings.
So is being rich, full, happy, and of good reputation.

Also know, that being poor, hungry, weeping and hated
are not goals to be sought after in life.
Yet still, they can bring one blessing.

(This is not abject poverty, homelessness, starvation, malnutrition, desperation, or oppression. These we fight against in the work of Justice and Charity)

So how do we understand what Jesus is teaching?
The Church gives us insight
in the First reading that has been paired with the Gospel.

Jeremiah 17:5-8
Thus says the LORD:
Cursed is the one who trusts in human beings,
who seeks his strength in flesh,
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a barren bush in the desert
that enjoys no change of season,
but stands in a lava waste,
a salt and empty earth.

Blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD,
whose hope is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted beside the waters
that stretches out its roots to the stream:
it fears not the heat when it comes;
its leaves stay green;
in the year of drought it shows no distress,
but still bears fruit.

What is the difference between these two trees?
Both live in the desert
Both experience no change of season,
Both live in the heat and drought
The difference is one stretches out its roots to the stream.
The stream of living water - who is God

My favorite example. Is about making toast.
In large Dominican communities there are often two toasters right next to one another.
Say I wanted to make toast for all the brothers.
I put slices of bread in both toasters
and push down the leavers.
I come back two minutes later and One has toasted the bread,
(Bless that toaster)
but the other, has done nothing. (Curse that toaster)

What do you think is the difference between the two toasters?

Of course! one is plugged into the source!
The other is not
If it were plugged in, it too would produce Blessed Toast.

Another example,
lets say you never plug in your smart phone to charge it,
what would happen?
- It would run out of power, and it would become
nothing more than an expensive paperweight!

The blessedness of being poor, hungry, weeping and rejected
is in our connection to the Lord,
these things require dependence on God
and that opens us to receive God’s life.
(Thus we celebrate Lent and Advent every year
- to train us in these blessings)

The blessings of riches, fullness, happiness, and of good reputation is in their submission to and service of God.
If we make them more important than God,
they run dry, wither, and become burdens and Idols
- without life in them.

When your studies, degrees, Jobs, Career, Profession, connections, and relationships with your spouse, family and friends, are lived in and for Christ they become constant sources of life from him.
In him, even our poverty, hunger, weeping and rejection
are transformed into opportunities to receive
an even greater life in him.

So as we keep our roots stretched out to the living stream. Who is Christ, we experience the fullness of life now and forever!

Fr. John Boll OP