There are sins that announce themselves with a crash, and others that pass almost unnoticed.
This morning’s Gospel is concerned with the second kind.
The Pharisees have not forgotten religion. Quite the contrary. They have remembered it down to the mint and rue in the garden. They have measured, counted, tithed, arranged and observed. Yet Christ tells them that amid all this careful attention they have managed to walk straight past something enormous: judgment and the charity of God.
Perhaps that is a useful danger to carry into prayer this morning.
We can become so busy doing the things that can be counted that we fail to notice the things that cannot.
And so, before the lists and appointments and obligations of another day begin, we ask God to teach us what is worth noticing.
OPENING VERSE
Lord, open my lips.
And my mouth shall declare thy praise.
INVITATORY
Antiphon: Come, let us praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalm 94 (95)
Come let us praise the Lord with joy:
let us joyfully sing to God our saviour.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving;
and make a joyful noise to him with psalms.
For the Lord is a great God,
and a great King above all gods.
For in his hand are all the ends of the earth:
and the heights of the mountains are his.
For the sea is his, and he made it:
and his hands formed the dry land.
Come let us adore and fall down:
and weep before the Lord that made us.
For he is the Lord our God:
and we are the people of his pasture and the sheep of his hand.
Today if you shall hear his voice,
harden not your hearts:
As in the provocation, according to the day of temptation in the wilderness:
where your fathers tempted me, they proved me, and saw my works.
Forty years long was I offended with that generation,
and I said: These always err in heart.
And these men have not known my ways:
so I swore in my wrath that they shall not enter into my rest.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Come, let us praise the Lord, for his mercy endureth for ever.
PSALMODY
Psalm 107 (108)
Antiphon 1: My heart is ready, O God; my heart is ready.
My heart is ready, O God, my heart is ready:
I will sing, and rehearse a psalm in my glory.
Arise, my glory; arise, psaltery and harp:
I will arise in the morning early.
I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people:
and I will sing unto thee among the nations.
For thy mercy is great above the heavens:
and thy truth even unto the clouds.
Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens,
and thy glory over all the earth:
That thy beloved may be delivered.
Save with thy right hand, and hear me.
God hath spoken in his holiness:
I will rejoice, and I will divide Sichem, and I will mete out the vale of tabernacles.
Galaad is mine: and Manasses is mine:
and Ephraim the protection of my head.
Juda is my king:
Moab the pot of my hope.
Over Edom I will stretch out my shoe:
the aliens are become my friends.
Who will bring me into the strong city?
who will lead me into Edom?
Wilt not thou, O God, who hast cast us off?
and wilt not thou, O God, go forth with our armies?
O grant us help from trouble:
for vain is the salvation of man.
Through God we shall do mightily:
and he will bring our enemies to nothing.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 1: My heart is ready, O God; my heart is ready.
Canticle — Isaiah 61:10–62:5
Antiphon 2: The Lord hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,
and my soul shall be joyful in my God:
For he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation:
and with the robe of justice he hath covered me,
As a bridegroom decked with a crown,
and as a bride adorned with her jewels.
For as the earth bringeth forth her bud,
and as the garden causeth her seed to shoot forth:
So shall the Lord God make justice to spring forth,
and praise before all the nations.
For Sion’s sake I will not hold my peace,
and for the sake of Jerusalem, I will not rest,
Till her just one come forth as brightness,
and her saviour be lighted as a lamp.
And the Gentiles shall see thy just one,
and all kings thy glorious one:
And thou shalt be called by a new name,
which the mouth of the Lord shall name.
And thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God.
Thou shalt no more be called Forsaken:
and thy land shall no more be called Desolate:
But thou shalt be called My pleasure in her,
and thy land inhabited.
Because the Lord hath been well pleased with thee:
and thy land shall be inhabited.
For the young man shall dwell with the virgin,
and thy children shall dwell in thee.
And the bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride,
and thy God shall rejoice over thee.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 2: The Lord hath clothed me with the garments of salvation.
Psalm 145 (146)
Antiphon 3: I will praise my God all the days of my life.
Praise the Lord, O my soul, in my life I will praise the Lord:
I will sing to my God as long as I shall be.
Put not your trust in princes:
in the children of men, in whom there is no salvation.
His spirit shall go forth, and he shall return into his earth:
in that day all their thoughts shall perish.
Blessed is he who hath the God of Jacob for his helper,
whose hope is in the Lord his God:
Who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all things that are in them.
Who keepeth truth for ever:
who executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong:
Who giveth food to the hungry.
The Lord looseth them that are fettered:
The Lord enlighteneth the blind.
The Lord lifteth up them that are cast down:
The Lord loveth the just.
The Lord keepeth the strangers,
He will support the fatherless and the widow:
and the ways of sinners he will destroy.
The Lord shall reign for ever:
thy God, O Sion, unto generation and generation.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Antiphon 3: I will praise my God all the days of my life.
SHORT READING
Deuteronomy 4:39–40a
Know therefore this day, and think in thy heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and in the earth beneath, and there is no other.
Keep his precepts and commandments, which I command thee.
SHORT RESPONSORY
I will bless the Lord all my life long.
I will bless the Lord all my life long.
His praise shall ever be upon my lips.
All my life long.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.
I will bless the Lord all my life long.
GOSPEL OF THE DAY
Luke 11:42–46
But woe to you, Pharisees, because you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and pass over judgment, and the charity of God. Now these things you ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
Woe to you, Pharisees, because you love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and salutations in the marketplace.
Woe to you, because you are as sepulchres that appear not: and men that walk over are not aware.
And one of the lawyers answering, saith to him: Master, in saying these things, thou reproachest us also.
But he said: Woe to you lawyers also, because you load men with burdens which they cannot bear: and you yourselves touch not the packs with one of your fingers.
BENEDICTUS
Antiphon: Let us serve the Lord in holiness all the days of our life.
The Canticle of Zachary — Luke 1:68–79
Blessed be the Lord God of Israel;
because he hath visited and wrought the redemption of his people:
And hath raised up an horn of salvation to us,
in the house of David his servant:
As he spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets,
who are from the beginning:
Salvation from our enemies,
and from the hand of all that hate us:
To perform mercy to our fathers,
and to remember his holy testament,
The oath, which he swore to Abraham our father,
that he would grant to us,
That being delivered from the hand of our enemies,
we may serve him without fear,
In holiness and justice before him,
all our days.
And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest:
for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways:
To give knowledge of salvation to his people,
unto the remission of their sins:
Through the bowels of the mercy of our God,
in which the Orient from on high hath visited us:
To enlighten them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death:
to direct our feet into the way of peace.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.
Antiphon: Let us serve the Lord in holiness all the days of our life.
INTERCESSIONS
Christ our Lord teaches us that love of God cannot be separated from justice toward our neighbor. Let us ask him to make our faith fruitful in charity.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For thy Church: preserve her in truth and holiness, and make her always a refuge for sinners, the forgotten, the burdened, and those seeking their way home.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For the Holy Father, our bishops, priests and deacons: grant them wisdom to teach the truth courageously and tenderness to carry the burdens of those entrusted to them.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For those who govern nations, cities and communities: turn their attention especially toward those who have little influence, wealth or voice.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For our work today: keep us honest in small duties without allowing small duties to become an excuse for neglecting the greater demands of justice, mercy and love.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For our homes and families: make us quicker to help than to criticize, quicker to forgive than to keep accounts, and willing to carry one another’s burdens.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For those whose burdens have become genuinely heavy—the sick, the grieving, the lonely, the unemployed, the frightened, the exhausted, and all who care for someone they love: send them help in forms they can actually feel.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For those who have died, especially those forgotten by the world: receive them into the light and peace of thy presence.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
For ourselves: give us eyes to see the duty we have overlooked, the person we have passed by, and the small act of charity that lies within reach of our hand today.
Lord, teach us to love what thou lovest.
OUR FATHER
Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.
CONCLUDING PRAYER
O God, whose commandments lead us not into bondage but into the freedom of charity, grant that thy grace may go before us and accompany us throughout this day.
Keep us faithful in little things, but never let us use little things to hide from the greater duties of justice and love.
Give us willing hands for the burdens of our neighbor, patient hearts in our homes and work, and eyes attentive to those whom the world passes by.
Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.
BLESSING
May the Lord bless us,
protect us from all evil,
and bring us to everlasting life.
Amen.
THE PARADOX OF THE DAY
The smallest religious duty becomes enormous when it excuses us from love, while the smallest act of love may carry more of heaven than we know.
CHESTERTON FOR THE MORNING
“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
— G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Chapter VII, “The Eternal Revolution”
A CHESTERTONIAN MEDITATION
The Things We Pass Over
There is something wonderfully comic about mint.
It is a vigorous little plant. Anyone who has planted it in a garden knows that it does not require much encouragement. Mint has the confidence of an invading army. Give it a corner of the garden and before long it begins negotiations concerning the neighboring provinces.
And yet in today’s Gospel the Pharisees are carefully measuring their mint.
One can almost see the scene: leaves counted, portions separated, everything properly accounted for.
There is nothing wrong with this.
That is precisely what makes Christ’s criticism so uncomfortable.
He does not say that they should stop doing the small thing. He says they have allowed the small thing to distract them from the great one.
They tithe the mint and the rue.
And they pass over judgment and the charity of God.
We tend to imagine hypocrisy as deliberate fraud. Sometimes it is. But there is another sort that is much easier for respectable people to acquire. It consists not in doing obviously wicked things but in becoming extraordinarily conscientious about the wrong things.
A man may polish the brass plate on his front door while someone inside the house is lonely.
A committee may produce a magnificent policy about helping people while making it nearly impossible for an actual person to receive help.
A Christian may win an argument about charity and lose his temper with his wife.
We may answer every email, pay every bill, finish every form, keep every appointment and cross every item from the list—and somehow pass over the human being standing beside the list.
The Pharisee’s problem was not that he noticed mint.
His problem was that he noticed mint better than he noticed men.
That danger has not disappeared.
Indeed, modern life has equipped it with electronics.
We have machines specifically designed to tell us what requires our attention. A bell sounds. A number appears. A red dot materializes. Something buzzes in a pocket. A calendar announces that in fifteen minutes we must attend to something else.
We have perhaps constructed the most elaborate system in human history for ensuring that we never forget anything except what matters.
Christ interrupts this machinery with a remarkably physical accusation.
“You load men with burdens which they cannot bear: and you yourselves touch not the packs with one of your fingers.”
There is a whole theology in that finger.
Christ does not merely condemn burdens. Life contains burdens. Duty itself can be heavy. Parenthood is heavy. Marriage can be heavy. Work can be heavy. Caring for an aging parent is heavy. Illness is heavy. Grief is heavy.
Christianity has never promised a life without weight.
It has promised something stranger.
It has commanded us to help carry one another.
The scandal in the Gospel is not simply that the load is heavy. It is that the man who has placed it upon another man’s shoulders will not extend even one finger to steady it.
One finger is not much.
That is exactly the point.
The Kingdom of God repeatedly enters the world through things that do not look like much.
A cup of cold water.
A widow’s coin.
A little bread.
A little wine.
A child.
A carpenter.
A cross that looked to the Roman Empire like one more execution on an ordinary Friday afternoon.
We are often waiting for an opportunity to perform some grand act of Christian charity while God has placed a very small handle on somebody else’s burden directly in front of us.
Perhaps it is washing the dishes when it is not technically our turn.
Perhaps it is telephoning someone we know is alone.
Perhaps it is listening to the same story from an elderly parent for the fifth time and receiving it as though it were not the fifth.
Perhaps it is giving an employee a little patience.
Perhaps it is noticing that the person who says, “I’m fine,” has said it rather quickly.
Perhaps it is simply refusing to add another stone to a load already heavy enough.
Saint Paul gives us another image this morning.
The fruit of the Spirit.
Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness. Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-control.
Fruit is an interesting thing because it cannot be manufactured by argument.
One may write a regulation requiring an apple tree to produce apples, but the tree will remain unimpressed.
Fruit appears because something is alive.
This is why Christianity cannot finally be reduced to keeping the rules correctly, even though rules have their place. Christ himself says that the Pharisees should not have left the lesser duties undone.
But the purpose of the Christian life is not to become a perfectly maintained filing cabinet.
It is to become alive in Christ.
And living things bear fruit.
This gives us a useful examination of conscience.
Not merely: Did I keep the rules?
But: What is growing here?
Does my presence in my home produce more peace or less?
Does my speech leave people with more hope?
Does my religion make me more patient with inconvenient people?
Does prayer gradually make me more willing to forgive?
Are kindness and self-control becoming easier—not easy perhaps, but more natural—because Christ is becoming more alive in me?
That is a frightening examination.
It is also hopeful.
For fruit grows slowly.
Nobody stands over an apple tree on Tuesday demanding to know why Wednesday’s apple has not appeared.
God works patiently.
And this brings us to Chesterton’s angels.
“Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.”
It is a joke, of course.
But Chesterton’s best jokes open trapdoors into theology.
Pride is heavy because pride must carry itself everywhere.
The proud man must carry his reputation, his importance, his grievances, his status, his victories, his injuries, his entitlement and his careful record of what everybody else owes him.
No wonder he has no finger free for somebody else’s burden.
Humility is lighter.
The humble man has discovered the astonishing possibility of forgetting himself for five minutes.
And in those five minutes his hands become available.
This is one of Christianity’s great reversals.
We imagine that the important man is the man whose burdens are carried by others.
Christ tells us that the great man is the one who stoops to carry theirs.
The world builds thrones.
Christ washes feet.
The world asks how many people report to you.
Christ asks whose burden you touched with your finger.
The world keeps score.
Christ notices the widow’s coin.
Perhaps this is why the Psalm this morning is so wonderfully practical:
God “executeth judgment for them that suffer wrong.”
He “giveth food to the hungry.”
He “looseth them that are fettered.”
He “lifteth up them that are cast down.”
He “keepeth the strangers.”
He supports “the fatherless and the widow.”
This is not an abstract God.
He is forever doing things for particular people.
And therefore the closer we draw to him, the harder it becomes to remain abstract ourselves.
Prayer should eventually produce fingers.
Hands.
Feet.
Bread.
Telephone calls.
Forgiveness.
Patience.
A chair pulled out for somebody.
A burden made slightly lighter.
The optional saint of this day gives the thought another dimension. Callistus knew something of burdens. Tradition remembers a life that passed through slavery, disgrace, hard labor and eventually service to the Church. Whatever the complications of his story, Christianity remembers him not chiefly for the burdens laid upon him, but for what grace made of the man who carried them.
That is another Christian paradox.
A burden may crush us.
But a burden carried with Christ may also cease to define us.
And sometimes the person who has carried a heavy load becomes precisely the person who notices when somebody else is staggering.
There will be mint in our lives today.
There should be.
There will be bills and schedules and meetings and chores. There will be things to measure and things to finish. There may even be forms that require a signature in three different places for reasons known only to Providence and the person who designed the form.
Do them.
Christ does not tell us to neglect them.
But every so often, look up from the mint.
Look across the desk.
Look across the kitchen.
Look down the street.
Look at the person beside you.
Someone may be carrying something heavy.
And perhaps heaven is not asking you to solve it.
Perhaps heaven is only asking for one finger.
Lord Jesus Christ,
keep us faithful in the little things,
but never let us pass over the greater things.
Teach us justice.
Teach us charity.
And when we meet someone carrying a burden today,
give us the grace to put out a hand.
Amen.
Chesterton Radio