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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay HughesRelated Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

Great crowds turned out to hear Jesus preach, teach, and heal. From the start, however, he encountered opposition. He might have dealt with this opposition by becoming a grim faced prophet of impending doom. Instead he told a story to show that despite opposition, despite the seeming futility of so much of his work, there was every reason for confidence — and joy. We know the story as the Parable of the Sower and the Seed. It is been transformed in the telling, however, from a story about seed to one about different kinds of soil.Fr. John Jay Hughes explains this, and much more, in the second talk in his series, A Journey Through the Parables. There you will find also a discussion of the sensitive subject of change in the Church. Can the Church change? Should it change? What did the great 19th century English convert, John Henry Newman, at the end of his long life a cardinal, say about this topic of change?The opposition and suffering which Jesus experienced caused him to warn his followers that they too would encounter suffering: “You will suffer in the world. But take courage! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Elsewhere in John’s gospel, however, Jesus speaks about God loving the world: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son” (John 3:16). Fr. Hughes deals with this seeming contradiction, which can be found elsewhere in the gospels, by showing that the word “world” is being used in two different senses.Finally, you have heard, surely, about Jesus’ Seven Last Words from the Cross. Do you know what the Seven Last Words of the Church are? In the second of Fr. Hughes’ talks on the parables, you will find out.

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

Related Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

THE LESSONS OF THE MAGI
Epiphany. Matthew 2:1-12.
AIM: To present the story of the Magi as a paradigm of the Christian life.

Who were these “magi” who were guided to the infant Jesus by a star? Where did they come from? Where did they go? We do not know. To make sense of the story, we must pay attention to its symbolism. Read in that way, we find that the story has five stages. The magi, whom we also call the wise men, saw; they searched; they found; they worshiped; and they returned home. Let’s take each stage of their journey in turn.

They saw.
A farmer kept a flock of tame geese which freely roamed the farmyard, always looking down for food. One day the farmer saw that the geese were nervous and restless. They were looking up. In the sky he saw the reason. It was autumn. Wild geese were flying south. The farmer’s geese flapped their wings and made a lot of noise. But they did not fly away.

Many people are like that. Something unusual happens to raise their minds from life’s routine. They become aware of greater possibilities, a higher call. But they fail to respond. The opportunity passes. The old routine resumes. The wise men were different. They were not content with looking up.

They searched.
Doing so required courage. How their friends must have mocked them. “Following a star? What on earth for? Have you taken leave of your senses?” To set out in the face of ridicule, on what seemed like a fool’s errand, took courage. Sooner or later, it always takes courage to be a follower of Jesus Christ. His standards cannot always be made reasonable, or even intelligible, to unbelievers. At times the follower of Jesus Christ must have courage to swim against the stream: to say No when everyone else is saying Yes; or Yes when all others are saying No; to appear to reasonable, prudent people reckless, even crazy. The wise men had such courage. They set out on their seemingly mad search, and persevered in it until –

They found.
For this they are rightly called “wise men.” To the clever people who mocked them they seemed mad. In reality they possessed, along with courage, the truest wisdom there is: the spiritual insight to recognize the unique call of God, and to follow it regardless of the cost. As their search neared its end, our gospel reading tell us, “They were overjoyed at seeing the star.” They had reason for joy. They were successful. They were vindicated. It was they who had been proved wise; their critics were the fools. From the wise men’s point of view the search had been all theirs. In reality it was God who was seeking them. That was crucial: for the wise men, but also for us – as we see in a child’s story.

This little one came home in tears. When the child’s mother had dried the tears, she heard the reason for them. “We played side-and-seek. I hid. No one looked for me.” When you are only three, that can be crushing. “No one looked for me.”

Someone is looking for you – right now. God is looking for you. He is drawing you to himself, as he drew the wise men by the star. If only you will look up, and be bold, you will find him. And then, like the wise men, you too will be overjoyed. To know that, even now, God is looking for you, drawing you to himself, is already cause for joy. The wise men’s joy is not the end of the story, however. When they finally arrived at the end of their journey –

They worshiped.
Their worship was not merely reciting prayers by memory or from a book. They offered the best they had. The person who has never learned to worship like that is poor indeed. How sad when the Mass, for many Catholics, is merely the boring fulfilment of a legal obligation. No wonder such people habitually come late and hurry away early, complaining that they ‘get nothing out of it.’ If that is your problem, do what the wise men did. Offer God the best you have: something precious, costly. Then you will discover, even if only for a few fleeting minutes, the indescribable joy of self-forgetfulness, the joy of true worship.
After the wise men had worshiped –

They returned home.
They go back to the people who had mocked them when they set out. But they return home changed. They have been touched by their experience, touched by God. They have a message for those who thought themselves wise, but turned out to be foolish.

We return home from church each week, from our encounter with Jesus here in the Eucharist. We too have been touched by God. We too have a message for others. It is this. God is not far off. In all our sorrows, in all our temptations, sufferings, difficulties, and joys, God is with us. God is close to us always – even when we stray far from him. We imagine that we must storm heaven with our prayers to get God’s attention. And all the time it is God who gives us the ability to pray. It is God who is searching for us, leading us onward, drawing us to himself. That is the message. That is the gospel – the good news.

And when we grasp this good news, the story with its five stages begins again: the seeing, the searching, the finding, the worshiping, the return home. This is the story of the Christian life: the royal road by which untold millions have walked, the road God wants you to walk – and me – for the remaining fifty-one weeks of 2008, and for as many more weeks and years as our journey may last. Until it ends in Him; and journeying and searching and struggle are over, because we are home: where there will be no more weariness, no more discouragement, no more sickness or suffering, no more death. Where God himself will wipe away all tears from our eyes. Where we shall see Him face to face.

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Over the last 20 years, mutual funds have become very popular. Half of all households in the United States own at least one mutual fund. But despite their widespread use, very few individuals actually understand what a mutual fund really is or the benefits they provide. Basically, a mutual fund is a financial company that takes your money and my money, puts it all together, and hires a team of professional money managers to make the investment decisions. So this is great. Instead of you or I trying to make all of the difficult decisions like what investments to buy, how much to invest, or when to sell, the mutual fund company does that for us. That’s called professional management, which is one of the biggest benefits offered by mutual funds. By using a mutual fund, you’re shifting investing responsibility from yourself to the mutual fund company and taking a less active role in the investment process.

If I ask you to invest money in stocks and bonds tomorrow and you’re like most people, you probably wouldn’t know where to start. Using a mutual fund helps an investor to address the challenges of diversifying a portfolio. Now if you were going to invest $300 or $400 this month, relatively speaking, it’s a small dollar amount and you’re somewhat limited as far as what you could do with it. Sure you could buy a few shares of Coca-Cola stock, or a CD or savings bond at your local bank, but that’s about it. The challenge is if you put all of your money into Coca-Cola stock, your whole fate and fortune is dependent on how this one company does; and we all know about the stories of Enron and WorldCom. The average mutual fund on the other hand, invests in 40 or 50 different investments, all in one fund. That means your money gets spread across many different areas, which gives you exposure to investments that you couldn’t have purchased otherwise and could help increase your returns. It also means that if some of the investments in the mutual fund don’t perform as well, there are other investments to balance things out, which could lower your risk. This is called diversification.We had talked about the importance of it earlier in the program, but again, diversification is just a fancy word for spreading your money in a lot of different areas so that you participate in areas that are doing well and limit yourself in those that aren’t doing as well. Basically, your diversification determines the amount of risk you’re taking and your overall performance. In order to be properly diversified using individual stocks, you would usually have to buy 10 or 20 stocks in each of the different areas. That alone is unrealistic for most individuals. But with a mutual fund, you could simply buy one mutual fund in each area and achieve complete diversification with a lot less effort. So the big advantages of using mutual funds are professional money management and diversification.
I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

Related Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

MARY, WOMAN OF FAITH
Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Num. 6: 22-27; Gal. 4:4-7, Luke 2:16-21
AIM: To present Mary as the model of trusting faith in the new year.

A new year! What will it bring? Some great success? Humiliating failure? Unexpected happiness, or sudden loss? Dramatic change, or just more of the same? Illness, suffering, or death? We cannot know what the new year will bring. The one certain thing about the future is its uncertainty.

As we venture into the unknown, the Church gives us, on this New Year’s Day, a feast in honor of Mary, the Mother of God. Does this mean that Mary is as important as her Son, equal even with God? Of course not. A glance at today’s readings dispels any such idea at once.

The first reading contains the beautiful formula of blessing that Jesus would have learned as a boy in the synagogue school at Nazareth. It remains today the common property of both Jews and Christians. The second reading mentions Mary, but does not name her. “When the fullness of time had come,” Paul writes, “God sent his Son, born of a woman …” That was Paul’s way of saying that Jesus was truly and completely human, as he was also truly and completely God. The gospel mentions Mary twice, but tells us simply that she “kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart.”

Why does the Church dedicate this first day of the new year in a special way to Mary? Because Mary is, in a unique way, the woman of faith. While still in her teens, Mary was asked by God to venture into an unknown future, filled with suffering, the purpose and end of which she could not possibly understand in advance. We think of the angel’s message to Mary, that she was to be the mother of God’s Son, as something wonderful. To Mary, however, it meant being an unmarried mother in a little village, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, and where gossip was rife.

Did Mary understand the reason for the angel’s message, and where her assent would lead? How could she? Luke tells us that even years later, when Mary and Joseph found their twelve-year-old son in the Temple at Jerusalem after a frantic three-day search, they still “did not understand” Jesus’ words to them about having to be in his Father’s house (Lk 2:50).

The next three decades would bring Mary much more that she did not understand, and could not understand. She continued to trust God nonetheless. In trusting faith she endured her greatest suffering, and for her the most incomprehensible, as she watched her Son die a criminal’s death on Calvary. The final glimpse we have of Mary in the New Testament shows her to be still the woman of faith: joining with the friends of Jesus in prayer in the upper room at Jerusalem, before the outpouring of God’s Spirit at Pentecost, as Jesus had promised. (Cf. Acts 1:24)

The Church sets Mary before us today because she, like us, needed faith to journey into the unknown; because her faith can inspire in us the we faith we need for our journey into the unknown; and because Mary’s prayers support us on our pilgrim way.

Let me conclude with some words which evoke this trusting faith. They were written in England a century ago. As you listen, you may wish to imagine them being spoken to you by Mary, the woman of faith, as you cross the threshold of a new year.

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown. And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than a light, and safer than a known way.’”

[M. Louise Haskins; quoted by King George VI in his Christmas broadcast, 1939]

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Let’s talk about renting versus owning a home. Everyone has heard the saying that renting is throwing money away, and that can be true, but I have also seen plenty of people throw money away making bad home purchases or purchases that were not right for their situation. It’s important to always let your situation dictate whether it’s better for you to rent or own. Let’s look at some of the drawbacks of each choice, as a comparison.
What are the drawbacks of renting?
1. If you are renting, you don’t own anything. You’re not building any equity or ownership each month. Owning serves as a form of forced savings. For someone who owns a home, part of their monthly payment is usually going towards the principal, so they are building ownership.

2. By renting, you miss out on any potential appreciation of your home over time. Ask anyone who bought a house 10 or 20 years ago what they paid and they will tell you their home increased significantly in value.

3. Rent keeps going up each year as a result of inflation, like any other items you might purchase. If you own a home and have a 30-year fixed mortgage, your housing payment should not go up that much over time. Owning growth investments like real estate protect you from the effects of inflation; but by renting, you are not protected.

4. There are no tax benefits for renting. By renting, you miss out on the tax deductions associated with owning a home, namely the deductions for mortgage interest and real estate taxes. Many people greatly over state how important the deductions are, but none-the-less, the tax treatment of owning is an advantage. You should never buy real estate or get a mortgage simply for the tax deduction, but if you are going to buy, then the deductions can help lower your costs. But again, only if buying already makes sense for you.

After covering the drawbacks of renting, it may seem like everyone should own; but let’s take a look at the other side of the story before you make up your mind.
What are the drawbacks of owning?
1. Owning a home costs a lot more than renting. To start with, there are significant transaction costs just to buy and sell, as we addressed earlier. Most people forget about all of those costs once they are in the home, but they’re there. Between the closing costs to buy and the costs for selling, you need a home to go up by more than 10 or 15 percent just to break even; and that’s before looking at the monthly expenses. The total monthly costs can be high enough to strain any budget between the mortgage, real estate taxes, homeowners insurance, and not to mention, the costs for maintenance, repair and utilities. High monthly housing costs have prevented many individuals from making financial progress in other areas, like saving for retirement or paying off credit card debt.

2. Owning a home is a lot less flexible than renting. When you’re renting, you can pick up and move whenever you want. If you are relocated for your job, want to move to another area, or simply change where you live within the same area, there are virtually no costs associated with moving from one rental to another. If you own a home and want to or have to sell it, you have to go through the costly and time-consuming sales process. I have seen many people who have bought homes and move frequently lose out financially because of all the costs associated with these transactions.

For most people, my advice is, owning your own home is financially in your best interest as long as you think you will be there for at least five years. If you are going to live somewhere for two to three years, you would be better off renting and saving money in the meantime. Really take the time to think about your location and career and family life over the next three to five years to get a better sense of what to do. Life is unpredictable. Try to really clarify what is important and what the most likely outcome will be, so you can make the best decisions possible. If you did make the wrong decision, don’t be-rate yourself. Learn from it and move on. Everyone makes mistakes!
I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

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Blog Author: Fr. John Jay Hughes

Related Audio Course: A Journey Through the Parables

Feast of the Holy Family, Year A. Col. 3:12-17; Mt. 2:13-15, 19-23.
AIM: To give the basis for true happiness in the new year.

We stand on this Sunday after Christmas on the threshold of a new year. What will the year 2008 bring us? We cannot know. All of us hope that it will be a good year. It is this hope which inspires New Year’s resolutions.

The Church helps us to form our resolutions by placing before us, in today’s second reading, an exhortation to people who have just crossed the most important threshold this side of heaven: baptism. Baptism gives us new life, the life of God himself, who is in Christ Jesus. The people to whom Paul wrote that exhortation were baptized by immersion. As they emerged from the baptismal water, they put on new clothes. The clothes symbolized the garment of Christian living. That new life which Paul describes for them can serve as a model for our New Year’s resolution. It has three aspects.

1. “As the Lord has forgiven you, so must you also do.”
The people to whom Paul was writing had just received, through baptism, God’s precious gift of forgiveness. Like all God’s gifts, this one is meant to be shared. If we don’t share it, we lose it. Here are some questions for questions for reflection and self-examination:

As I approach the threshold of a New Year, am I conscious of my unworthiness before God? that it is only by his goodness and mercy that I have been spared to experience a new year at all? that I can stand before God today, that I will be able to stand before him in judgment only in reliance on his mercy, not on my good character or good conduct record?

Only if we have this consciousness of falling short, of moral failure, is there any chance of happiness in the new year. The First Letter of John tells us: “If we say, ‘We are free of the guilt of sin,’ we deceive ourselves … But if we acknowledge our sins, he who is just can be trusted to forgive our sins and cleanse us from every wrong.” (1:8f)

Perhaps you’re thinking: ‘I can’t see my sins; I think I’m doing OK.’ If you’re thinking that, you are probably measuring yourself not by Jesus Christ, but by others. Don’t bother looking around at others. Look up, at Jesus as he hangs on the cross, and you will soon see how far you fall short, how little you deserve his love. Jesus gives you his love nonetheless. It is not a reward for services rendered. It is a free gift. He asks you to share this give with others. This brings us to our first New Year’s resolution:

To see myself as a sinner, but forgiven; and to share this gift of forgiveness with others.

2. “Be thankful”, Paul tells the newly baptized. They had every reason for
thankfulness. In the waters of baptism their lives had been changed. Here are some more questions for self-examination:

Am I a thankful person? Does gratitude come naturally to me? Or do I find it easier to grumble and complain? For many people grumbling is easier. They have a gloomy view of life; they expect things will turn out badly. That is why so much of our news is bad. People are interested in bad news. It confirms what many already believe. Good news doesn’t get much coverage. Here is a recent example:

A couple of weeks ago a correspondent sent me by e-mail an article from a British newspaper reporting that thousands of Iraqi refugees in Syria were returning to their country because of the improved security situation in their homeland. The article went on to say that their return was especially significant because their decision to return to Iraq was irrevocable. Syria would not permit them to change their minds and come back.

Why, I asked myself, was I learning from a British source about this good news? – good news for the long suffering Iraqi people, and good news for the brave American military whose efforts had contributed to improved security. For several days I looked for some report of this positive development in our own media. I finally found it, briefly reported on an inside page in the newspaper. Bad news from Iraq is reported on the front page, under big headlines. Good news is buried, if it is reported at all. Bad news, it seems, sells. Good news does not.

Jesus came to proclaim good news! He does not gloss over any of the evil in the world. How could he when it brought him to the cross? But Jesus Christ knows that the power of good is stronger than the power of evil. That is the message of Easter — and we celebrate a “little Easter” every Sunday. The risen Lord proclaims good news. It is by the power of this good news that we live. God’s free forgiveness is part of this good news. Forgiveness tells us that we need not drag behind us an ever lengthening trail of guilt. God’s forgiveness enables us to begin anew. This brings us to our second New Year’s resolution:

To concentrate in the New Year not on the bad, but on the good; and to be thankful.

Let no day pass without counting your blessings. That will enable to you fulfill Paul’s exhortation in our second reading: “Sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, with gratitude in your hearts to God.” A person who is looking always for the good is looking for God. Only if we do that can we find happiness in the year ahead. Finally, Paul writes in our second reading —

3. “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus …”

There is the rule for Christian living. Can I do this, say this, for Jesus Christ? Can I offer it to him, be glad he is with me as I do or say it, that he sees me and hears me? Only if we can say Yes to those questions can we find happiness in the New Year. This gives us our third New Year’s resolution:

Whatever I say or do, I shall say or do it in the name of the Lord Jesus.

As you cross the threshold of the New Year, take with you Paul’s exhortation to newly baptized Christians. It will give you the basis for true happiness in the coming year. But take something more — the picture of the Holy Family in our gospel reading. Like many today — tragically many — they are refugees, fleeing from danger. They cannot know what lies ahead, save that it will be difficult. Soon they will disappear. Save for one glimpse of Jesus as a twelve-year-old in the Jerusalem Temple, we know nothing of his boyhood, adolescence, and early manhood. Those are the hidden years. From what we know of Jesus later, however, it is not difficult to fill in the gaps. As a boy, in adolescence, as a young man, Jesus was learning to apply Paul’s three principles:

— Forgiveness: can we imagine that Jesus ever bore a grudge?
— Thankfulness: even as a child, much more as a man, Jesus had a sense of unbounded wonder and gratitude at the greatness of his Father’s blessings to him, and to others.
— Doing all for God: that was Jesus’ guiding principle at every age.

Those three principles, which guided Jesus’ life from childhood, are his New Year’s gift to you. Take them with you as you cross the threshold of the New Year, and then it will be a truly happy New Year. Because it will be, for you personally, a year lived in, with, and for him who loves you more than you can ever imagine: Jesus Christ, your savior and Lord; but also your elder brother, your lover, and your best friend.

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Welcome to Get Smart about Investing. Industry risk is very important to understand when investing. Industry risk is the risk that something will only affect companies within a specific industry. For example, what if the government wants to impose tougher regulations on drug companies? This would not affect your investments in the financial or industrial fields, but it would affect your investments in drug companies. Another example of industry risk would be a severe weather condition that affected the American agricultural industry. Again. it wouldn’t affect a giant software company or big bank, but it would have a direct impact on food and agriculture companies. Industry risk can be managed by investing in different industries. For example, by dividing some of your investments between industries like technology, financial services and transportation, you can protect yourself from the risk of concentrating all of your money in one industry. Look at what happened to so many people in 2001 and 2002, because they were completely invested in the technology industry. Industry risk is a main reason for the significant losses they suffered. Take a look at your portfolio today to make sure that you have no more than 20% of your portfolio invested in any one industry.

I’m Greg McGraime and Now You Know!

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