Good morning. I’d like to take a few moments to speak with you about some changes. I’ll be taking a break from recording new material. Programming through the end of the church year will be pre recorded from the 2019 homilies and will continue to follow the Churchill calendar, but I’ll return in five weeks with a new homily for Christ the King on November 20th. I know many of you are new listeners and I’m delighted that you’re opening your hearts to my teaching and my preaching. I know it’s always a privilege for me to imagine that you allow me to enter into you and to awaken in you the awareness that you need and I need in order to be in this world as God intends us to be.

So thank you for listening. I’ve been doing this for 35 years in Dallas on a radio program and those have been wonderful years and to be able to reach out to more people has been exciting and I’m filled with some enthusiasm about it. So I pray you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard so far and you’ll listen to me a couple years ago and see how I sounded then. And then I’ll be back with you on the Feast of Christ the King on November 20th. You’ll be able to continue hearing my weekly homilies on our homepage@pastreflectionsinstitute.com you can continue hearing my homilies by subscribing to our podcast, recently renamed Finding God in Our Hearts. Anywhere you find your podcasts, thank you and God bless you.

The following program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. Welcome to Finding God in Our Hearts. The following production Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a weekly program of deep spiritual insight on Scripture, revealing the indwelling presence of God. We appreciate your listenership and if you find this program valuable, please subscribe and share with your friends. This program is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you make your donation@pastoralreflectionsinstitute.com Foreign Good morning. Today we celebrate the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

The opening prayer Almighty ever Living God, increase our faith, hope and charity. Make us love what you command so that we may merit what you promise through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever. Amen. A reading from the book of Sirach, 35th chapter 12 to the 14th verse and 16th and 17th verse. The Lord is a God of justice. He knows no favorites, though not unduly partial toward the weak, yet he hears the cry of the oppressed.

Lord is not deaf to the wail of the orphans, nor to the widow when she pours out her complaint. The one who serves God willingly is heard. His petition reaches the heavens. The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds. It does not rest till it reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly and affirms the right. And the Lord will not delay the word of the Lord.

The Lord hears the cry of the poor. A reading from the New Testament from St. Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy 4, 6, 8, 16, 18 Beloved, I’m already being poured out like a libation. At the time of my departure is at hand. I’ve competed well, I have finished the race. I’ve kept the faith.

From now on the crown of righteousness await me, which the Lord, the just judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, but to all who have longed for his appearance. At my first defense no one appeared on my behalf, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that through me the proclamation might be completed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every threat and will bring me safe to his heavenly kingdom.

To him be glory forever and ever. Amen. The Word of the Lord. Hallelujah Verse God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ and entrusting to us the message of salvation. The Gospel for this Sunday is taken from St. Luke 18:9th through the 14th verse.

Jesus addressed this parable to those who were convinced of their own righteousness and despised everyone else. Two people went up to the temple area to pray. One was a Pharisee, the other was a tax collector. The Pharisee took up his position and spoke this prayer to O God, I thank you that I’m not like the rest of humanity, greedy, dishonest, adulterous, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week. I pay tithes on my whole income.

But the tax collector stood off at a distance, would not even raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast and prayed, O God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, the latter went home justified, not the former. For whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles will himself will be exalted. The Gospel of the Lord Sam, Satan, any of us that have lived a long time Know that relationships are one of the most important things we’re engaged in in this life. And they’re difficult. They weren’t made to be simple.

They were made to take us to a place of joy and ecstasy and then to the darkest place of confrontation with our shadow. It’s no different in terms of our human relationships, in a sense, from our relationship with God. It is supposed to be as intimate and as real as our relationship with each other. That was God’s plan, to reveal himself as an intimate, personal God. Unfortunately, I spent most of my life not turning to God, asking him to reveal himself to me. But I went to my church, the Catholic Church, which was very effective in helping me know about him, told me who he was.

And then when I watched what the priest did in the parish, I figured, well, that’s what God does. That was risky. But I kind of gave it over to the priest that preached in the church that taught and didn’t think that much about spending time getting to know this personal God who claims to be my father and my brother and my wisdom. But that’s what I’ve spent my last 10 years, now that I’m entering into my eighth decade. The 70s were rich for me because I was retired for those 10 years, and I was able to wonder and ponder and listen and think and ask questions. And the God I see now is so different than the God of even ten years ago.

The teaching is the same. I haven’t found him to say something that just totally disregarded everything I learned. But the understanding has changed. There’s been wisdom given, which is his promise. So when you think about us being poor, you know, blessed are the poor. That’s part of the scriptures today.

It’s not anything about poverty. It’s about admitting that we don’t know that we need something more than just our own mind and energy and strength to accomplish the things that we’re here to accomplish. We. We’re needy. And the need might sound like, you know, well, we never know what to do. So we ask God to tell us what to do.

That seems to be the way the church approaches it. You know, we don’t know enough about a moral situation as far as the right answer. So we go to the church, and the church will tell us, well, this is what you have to do without even fully knowing what all the circumstances are, because none of us can know all the circumstances and all the parts of a complicated moral decision. It’s difficult. And so rather than look for the simple answers, what I’ve learned to do. And what I think God’s plan has always been is turn to me in your unknowing, if that’s the word, let me give you the insight, let me give you the wisdom you need.

And then you have this thing that the church teaches but doesn’t seem to lean on very much. And that is we have this God given dignity and right to make our own choices, our own decisions. When it comes to moral issues, most people have problems with their relationship, with their religion or with God over moral issues. What we can do, what we can’t do, not so much over who God claims to be, because what he’s claiming is so mysterious that it can’t be understood logically anyway. He’s always been here. He’s the awesome, most complete, most powerful force in the world.

And yet he said, I’d like to stay with you and marry you and get to know you. I mean, it’s what you can’t do both those things. And then he says something that the church never, I think, quite said to me and that was, I’m not here to tell you what to do. I’m here to show you what is, and I trust you to make the right decision. I know you can make the right decision. I’m here to help you do that.

And it’s more than just wisdom that I’m giving you. I’m giving you a power. If you want to imagine what is the power that God gives us? What is the thing that we need most? Well, let’s just underscore the word need first because we know that sin entered the world. And sin is tricky.

Sin is really a disposition. It’s not so much an action. But the best way to describe sins is certain actions are sinful and other actions aren’t. It’s more difficult to talk about intention or belief or faith. But instead of looking at sin as a list of no’s, let’s look at a disposition that might best be described as autonomy. The first book of Genesis talks about sin in probably the healthiest, most effective way.

It’s not talking about just disobedience. Yes, Adam and Eve disobeyed and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They broke the rule, but what were they doing? They were caught in an illusion, alive from some strange figure that was there saying, you know, that’s not really what God wants you to do. He wants you to know everything. He wants you to be strong.

He wants to be tough, you know, so go ahead and ask God for the gift of this Tree, which is the knowledge of good and evil, so that you’ll know what’s right and what’s wrong. Black and white, binary thinking. It’s what we all want. It’s what the church gets caught in. All religions get caught in that. This is good, this is bad.

That was the danger in their disobedience. The act of disobedience was maybe typical of children on people unknowing. You’re told not to do something. Sometimes it makes you want to do it. But the thing it was is about what they chose because it sounded so good. I can be all that God wants me to be on my own, and he’ll be so pleased.

I mean, I don’t know a person that doesn’t have a struggle with that idea. It shows up all the time when something bad happens. And you say, well, oh no, I did some bad things in the past. I’m being punished. Something happens, it’s good. And you say, well, just because I was praying all these days and I did all this extra work and I’m in a charitable institution, no, it’s not that kind of cause and effect kind of thing.

It’s not that simple. Yeah, those things are partly true, partly false. That’s the danger of that. Black and white, right and wrong, autonomy. So what we hear in the first reading then is a statement from God. And it’s so clear what he’s saying.

I’m God and you’re human. Your humanity, the word human and humus, which means earth and humility are all connected. You are not enough of your. You’re not enough. I don’t expect you to be enough. I don’t expect you to figure out everything on your own.

I don’t. So I’m there to promise you that if you long for me in your life to be a source of wisdom, I will be there 100%. And when you pray for something, if you believe that I will answer it. I will answer this prayer and I’ll answer every prayer you ever ask, except that I know you. And he knows that if he gave us the power to achieve anything we wanted by praying to God and asking him for it, and he would answer every prayer, we would be egomaniacs. And that’s the great danger.

Too much self, too much spirit, not enough earth, not enough groundedness, not enough human. So this promise is beautiful in the first reading because it says that I will always do this. Always answer your prayer and your prayer when it leaves. A hungry, longing heart, not someone who’s full of themselves. Asking for more strength. That doesn’t work because I’ll only give you what is good for you.

But when the prayer doesn’t seem to be answered, I love the image. It’s like a force that’s going around and floating in the air until it’s going to come to its proper goal. And what is the goal? Whatever you prayed for, the answer will be what’s best for you. It’s that simple. What’s best for you?

What more would you want? Paul underscores in the second reading his dependence on God. He had a pretty rotten past when you think about he was a Pharisee and going around holding capes of men that were slaughtering Christians, believers in Christ because they were the enemy. And he got through all that because of what? Because of God’s mercy. Because of his desire to open his heart to who he really was and what he was really doing.

And he accepted it. He saw I was so wrong. And when we see the faults that we’ve made and we own them, and then we ask for help, it’s going to be there in a way that’s spectacular. So whatever trauma that must have caused him as he was converted to Christianity, he got through because of forgiveness, because of God’s mercy, because he was there because to listen to his prayer. And he must have prayed, please forgive me. And he was another thing about Paul that’s so fascinating.

He always had this one sting of the flesh that he couldn’t get rid of. And God took care of that. How? Not by removing it. By saying, my grace is enough for you. You got to learn to deal with that.

So then we go to the prayer in the last gospel, in the gospel reading, two prayers. I love these prayers. I love the prayers. I’m sure you say the guys. One sits there and the words of the scripture are so interesting. He prays to himself.

Now, when I first used to read that, I thought, well, he’s whispering. No, he’s praying to himself. He is the source of everything. He is the righteous one. He has made an effort, a sterling effort, to do every rigid law, rule, fill it, make it go. Because he wants to be better.

Why does he want to be better? Well, maybe he thought God wants me to be better. I don’t think so. He wants us not to sin and to turn to him. But we don’t have to be better to receive him. We just have to want him and need him.

But here’s the interesting thing about the man, the Pharisee, sitting there praying to himself, saying thank God, I’m not like the rest of these creepy, awful people. It says that he despised everyone. Why would anyone despise everyone that’s struggling or trying kind of psychology 101. Whatever you think of yourself, however you see yourself is the way you see everybody else. I don’t care how it works. When you see yourself as a struggling, beautiful human being trying to do their best, trying to love, and you accept that and you feel that you are valuable, you will see that same value in everybody else.

If you see yourself as nothing, as worthless, and you have to struggle and find ways to make yourself pleasing to the world, to God. That incessant desire to be better is so often of unfortunate, unsuccessful way of getting past self hatred. So here’s a man who’s struggling to be perfect, do the right thing, do everything that’s good, avoid everything bad. And he finds himself at a distance from everyone. He’s alone because he’s separated from God, from everyone. And then there’s a tax collector.

You know, the simplest, humblest, easiest thing for us to accept. I shouldn’t say easy. For some it’s so hard, but because it’s in our nature, it is easy. Lord, I just wish I was better. I wish I’d like to be better. I’d like to be better at relationships, I’d like to be a nicer person.

But I can’t do it on my own. So mercy is a requirement, is a request. Not just to be forgiven, but to be filled in an unworthy state with all the power, all the strength we need to be extraordinary. But once we think that extraordinary self is somebody really special and better than the people around me, you’re in trouble. Humility is a statement, when you read it in the dictionary, that says thinking of yourself as less than someone else, that’s a little risky. It’s about thinking yourself as you really are.

Sa the closing prayer. Father, you have shared with your people the obligation to teach who you are, to celebrate your presence within us, to worship you, bless all ministers, all churches, that they can effectively awaken people to the beauty of your desired, to directly communicate with us and to have this intimate relationship. So we’ll find that the ultimate goal of like, of all spiritual journeys, is to come into a deep personal connection where life and wisdom flows between us. That’s our goal, that’s our hope. That’s what we believe in. Amen.

The music in our program was composed and produced by Ryan Harner for this show. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is funded with kind donations by listeners just like you. You can make a one time or recurring tax deductible donation on our website, pastoralreflectionsinsinsinsinstitute.com we thank you for your listenership and your continued support. Without it, this program would not be possible. Pastoral Reflections with Monsignor Don Fisher is a production of the Pastoral Reflections Institute, a nonprofit in Dallas, Texas, dedicated to enriching your spiritual journey. Executive Producer Monsignor Don Fisher Produced by Kyle Cross and recorded in Pastoral Reflections Institute Studios.

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