Called Beyond Coziness

As we change seasons and the beauty of creation shines forth with the new colors of the leaves, many of us enter into a season of comfort and coziness. Sweaters come out (but the sandals may stay on here in Colorado), pumpkin-spiced beverages are everywhere, and we settle into a routine of football weekends (even if they come with painful, last-minute field goals). But with this weekend’s first reading, we are not shown comfort or coziness; rather, we are reminded that we must not become complacent. How should we act if we are to avoid becoming complacent?

I believe we can find an answer first in today’s psalm—and beyond that, we need not look any further than the walls of our own church.

How does today’s psalm move us to live not in complacency but with awareness and intentionality? In our first stanza from the psalm, we hear the psalmist tell us to keep the faith, secure justice for the oppressed, and give food to the hungry. The first of these calls, to keep  the faith, is not just a check list of things to do (e.g., come to Mass, pray before meals, go to confession occasionally). Keeping the faith also includes the following two calls from the psalmist to secure justice for the oppressed and give food to the hungry. These two calls are a bit more difficult to live out since they are calls to come out of ourselves and to serve those who are, as Pope Francis would say, on the peripheries of society. Sure, we can do that with donations of our money, which would have a been a good first step for the rich man in today’s Gospel—but as the Church, we must go beyond a monetary donation and consider  how we can serve those less fortunate and be a voice for the oppressed, not only in our own community but the world.

Even with this, as Catholics, our call is not to just live our faith through prayer, sacraments, and service to others. In fact, if we look at the full psalm, we realize that the psalmist is telling us that it is the Lord who keeps faith forever, secures justice for the oppressed, and gives food to the hungry. So, then, what must we do to not become complacent? We must have hope in the Lord, who does these things, and give “praise [to] the Lord, my soul!” If we desire not to become complacent, we must ask ourselves: In our faithful prayer and service, do we give praise to the Lord?

When I think of giving praise to the Lord for his great works, my mind immediately goes to the walls of our church here at Immaculate Heart of Mary, where we have the words of our patroness, Mary, as she greets her cousin Elizabeth: “Magnificat anima mea Dominum,” or “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (Luke 1:46). Mary is the prime example of not becoming complacent and giving praise to the Lord for the great things he does. She teaches us that if we are to truly live out our faith, we must go with haste to proclaim his greatness. When she hears that she is to be the mother of the Savior, she doesn’t immediately jump to building a cozy place to spend the next nine months; instead, she “arose and went with haste” (Luke 1:39) to her cousin Elizabeth to proclaim the greatness of the Lord to her and serve her who was also with child in her old age.

Mary is our example of how to “praise the Lord,” for it is not just through our prayers and service to others but in going out of our comfort in haste to serve and “proclaim the greatness of the Lord.” We can learn many things from Mary about how to move out of that comfort in order to live and share our faith in this world that is hurting. I encourage you to reflect on Mary’s words in the Magnificat and how the Lord might be calling you to move from living comfort to living praise.

In order to dive deeper into the example of Mary, who is the first evangelist, I would invite you all to join me this Wednesday for our first night of a new series we will call To The Heart, where we will talk about the Magnificat and how these words of Mary can be an example for us to live out our faith by proclaiming the great things the Lord has done. This night and future To The Heart nights will take place on the first Wednesday of each month at 6:30 pm (after the 5:30 pm First Wednesday Mass) in the Church, and will also be available via our parish’s YouTube livestream.

As we enter into this season of coziness and football, enjoy it! But don’t forget that we are created for greater things and that we are called to follow our Mother’s example and go in haste to proclaim the greatness of the Lord.