FIFTH SUNDAY OF LENT, 2022
The True Mission of Jesus
Two weeks ago I suggested that old fashioned Catholics tend to assume that Jesus Christ’s Church exists mainly to teach that old time religion, and that new fashioned Catholics tend to assume that Jesus Christ’s Church exists mainly to listen to the signs of the times. These false alternatives correspond to those who think that the main thing Jesus of Nazareth did in His earthly ministry was teach, and to those who think that the main thing Jesus of Nazareth did in HIs earthly ministry was listen. He did in fact, both teach and listen, but the main thing He did was superior to both teaching and listening. His Church, therefore, has both teaching and listening to do, but her main task is superior to both teaching and listening.
In today’s Gospel from chapter eight of St. John, the Lord does not give a discourse on the proper use of human sexuality. Nor does He listen to whatever excuses or explanations the woman caught in adultery might have had. He simply forgives her sins, and gives her the Grace to start over. The fussily moralistic Scribes and Pharisees, who wanted only to condemn the sinner, are magnificently confounded by the simple, brilliant challenge “Let the one among you without sin, be the first to cast a stone”. On the other hand, He has no interest in hearing the sinner pour out her story, with whatever explanations or excuses she might have had. He simply gives the command “Go now, and sin no more”, giving with that succinct command the Grace to fulfill the command.
Having confounded the Scribes and Pharisees, and then commanded and enabled the woman caught in adultery to start a new life, He resumed His march to Jerusalem, where He would perform that saving action that rises infinitely superior both to teaching and listening.
Jesus of Nazareth did, as I say, both teach and listen. Yet, even in his teaching and listening there is not an impatience, but an urgency that seems to me to put a limit to both of those activities. Respectable people want teaching that is full of nuance and finely crafted distinctions, but His teaching insists upon people making a decisive choice: either you are committed to living in the Kingdom of God, or you are not. Decide! Respectable people want the listener to hear their whole story patiently, but He insists, again and again, that people get to the point; or, rather, two points: What do you want Me to do for you? What are you going to do with your life after I help you?
Jesus of Nazareth teaches like a man with an urgent mission. Jesus of Nazareth listens like a man with an urgent mission, a mission that is basically neither to teach nor to listen, but to DO a very particular something.
I vividly remember my college introduction to philosophy. We read Plato’s account of the trial and death of the philosopher Socrates. Some people remarked on how much Socrates reminded them of Jesus. I, the happy contrarian, remarked on how little Socrates reminded me of Jesus. For Socrates, conversation was everything, and his trial and death were an unfortunate interruption of his conversations. For Jesus of Nazareth, important though His conversations were, His trial and death were infinitely more so. His mission was precisely to face mankind’s condemnation and to share in mankind’s death, and to do so in order to win my - and your - eternal life. For this reason, while I would not risk a broken fingernail for Socrates, I would risk death for Jesus of Nazareth. Socrates was honestly seeking truth. Jesus is Truth - the Way, the Truth and the Life. Socrates’s death stopped his quest. Jesus’ death fulfilled His life.
Jesus of Nazareth lived a life of intense drama, during that brief interlude, three years at most, between His baptism in the Jordan and His Death on the Cross. It was dramatic, because it had a clear purpose. That purpose embraced both teaching and listening, and utterly transcended them. It was easy to mistake Him for a teacher, and some did so. He was occasionally called “teacher”, or Rabbi; but He seems to have found that title slightly annoying. His ministry was not one long conversation. It was a mission, and the mission was to die, as the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world. Recall that John the Baptist so hailed Him at the very start of His ministry! He would teach and He would listen; but, above all, He would die, offering Himself on behalf of humanity, beloved and sinful, trying so hard at times and yet falling so terribly short. Above He would die on behalf of humanity, that humanity might be enabled to live forever.
The death of Socrates is a sad tale. The death of Jesus of Nazareth is not. Socrates’ death ended his work. Jesus’ Death only marked the beginning of His true work. In Socrates’ death, human stupidity and malice extinguished a light that shone for a while in our darkness. In Jesus’ death, the Savior used even human stupidity and malice to light a flame that burns brightly in the darkness, and that the darkness will never overcome. Socrates did not resist his death. Jesus of Nazareth positively embraced His. He knew that in Him the prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled, that God “will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He poured out His soul to death, and was numbered with transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for transgressors” (Isaiah 53:32). His Death, embraced with perfect love for the Father and for humanity, contained His Resurrection, as Isaiah foresaw. His candle, apparently brief, would seem to go out; only to become a blazing, inextinguishable torch on the Third Day.
The brief ministry of Jesus of Nazareth, especially the last phase of that ministry, is a very deliberate and resolute hero’s quest, seeking not a golden-fleece or golden apples, but death. The quest begins in beautiful Galilee, a land which is green and lovely to this day, and then goes up to high Jerusalem (and Jerusalem really is high, in that generally low country), to death and to true glory. On the way to Jerusalem there are some detours. On the way Jesus does some teaching. On the way Jesus does some listening. Always, however, His face is set for Jerusalem.
Finally Jesus of Nazareth finds Jerusalem, and declares both His love for Jerusalem, and His deep sorrow for her sins. For Jerusalem, for the Jewish People, for all the Gentile Peoples, for you, and for me, He makes the same declaration. How deeply He loves us all; and how deeply He sorrows for all our sins! Then He enters the City to make Himself the healing remedy for all those sins.
Having entered the City, Jesus of Nazareth seems deliberately to create a crisis, a crisis that can only end in His death. He, who had already puzzled those who are eager to use “self-defense” as an excuse for fighting, with His teaching about turning the other cheek, now puzzles pacifists, as he goes after the Temple’s well-to-do merchants physically, carrying out something of a one man riot. Respectable people of every age always deprecate physical violence, especially when that violence is aimed at respectable people! It was at that moment that many respectable people decided He had to go. He was, perhaps, making a point about violence serving genuine justice; certainly He was advancing His quest for death, and death on a Cross. Prudent teachers of wisdom would not have done that. Prudent helping professionals would not have done that. He did it.
Because He did it, Jesus of Nazareth ended up before Pontius Pilate’s tribunal. He, Who had worked many miracles, did no miracles there. It was His hour, and the hour of darkness at the same time. In that hour, human stupidity and malice would assert themselves. In that hour, His Love and Faith would assert themselves. Which are stronger, the Third Day would show.
Jesus of Nazareth taught at some times, and listened at others. Above all, however, He made Himself the Sacrifice for the sins of struggling humanity, sins piled up and stinking from Adam and Eve until Judgment Day. Above all, He made Himself the Lamb of God, Who takes away the sins of the world. The Church of Jesus Christ, following Him, must both teach and listen. Above all, however, she is to make present His Sacrifice, and the forgiveness He won. More than a teaching Church or a listening Church, she is to be the Church that offers the unbloody Sacrifice, the Holy Mass in which the Love and Power of Jesus Christ’s Sacrifice are truly made present. She is to be a Eucharistic Church. With the power of the Eucharist, she is also to be the Church of Penance and Reconciliation, which says, again and again, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and from now one do not sin anymore”
Both that forgiveness and that new life are made possible by the Love and Power of His Sacrifice. Therefore, above all, the Church is to be the Voice in the world which says “Behold the Lamb of God! Behold Him, Who takes away the sins of the world!”
SECOND SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME, 2022
Wedding at CanaAs we enter Ordinary Time, we face reentry into the ordinary difficulties of our spiritual life. One of those difficulties is that of hearing the “Good News” of the Gospel as genuinely news. Haven’t we heard it all before?
Yes and no.
We have probably heard it all before, but it is doubtful that we have paid close attention to it all before. When we pay close attention to the Gospel, we are still surprised.
Consider today’s Gospel from Chapter Two of St. John. We have heard it so often that we forget how very strange it was that the Lord Jesus began His sacred ministry by saving a wedding party. Not healing a leper. Not expelling a demon. Certainly not raising the dead. He started with saving a wedding party from the disaster of running out of wine.
Well, of course, someone might say. He wanted to start modestly.
But pay attention to the text. The way in which He saved the wedding party is distinctly immodest. It was boldly extravagant. There were six stone jars, each holding 20 to 30 gallons of water. All that water was changed into wine - indeed, into excellent wine. Suddenly the wedding party had 120-180 gallons of excellent wine. 120-180 gallons! The amount of wine was so much in excess of what was required that we can’t help being surprised at the extravagance of the gesture. Surely He, in His perfect wisdom, had His reasons for the boldly extravagant gesture, but He felt no need to explain them. All we can say is that He did what He knew the occasion required, and let ourselves be surprised.
I have read the Gospels many times, and I say confidently that this sort of thing happens again and again in the Gospels. You simply never know what Jesus of Nazareth is going to say or do. He defies stereotypes.
Of all the stereotypes about the Lord Jesus, the most tiresome is “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” Quite frankly, meekness and mildness in the ordinary sense is not particularly noticeable in Jesus of Nazareth. He is gentle very often, but not always. He is not usually meek, if by “meek” one means modest and retiring. He astonished listeners, the Gospels tell us, by speaking with authority. He never said “In my opinion”, still less “in my humble opinion”. He said what He meant to say straightforwardly, and without apology. Nor is He usually mild, if by “mild” one means always backing off from a fight. Calling certain people “whitened sepulchers, clean and white outside, and full of dead mens’ bones and filth within” was practically begging for a fight.
Don’t misunderstand me. In His perfect wisdom, the Lord Jesus always said what people truly needed to hear. Most of the human race is poor, or sad, or suffering - and too often all three. For the poor, He says what the poor most need to hear, affirming their dignity before God. For the sad, He says what the sad most need to hear, declaring “blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted”. For the suffering He says what the suffering most need to hear, “Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest”. Most of the human race, most of the time, needs to hear the message of Divine Mercy and Compassion. Most of the time, that is how the Lord Jesus speaks.
But not all the time.
The Church quite rightly emphasizes the Lord Jesus bringing Mercy and Compassion to the poor, the sad, and the suffering. Poverty, sorrow, and pain - these three things embrace most of the human race at any given moment. Most people at any given time need the touch of Divine Mercy and Compassion.
In His wisdom, however, the Lord Jesus knows that there are some who are headed for hell, and they need something of a slap on the face to wake them from their fatal sleepwalk. Almost no artist has tried to depict the Lord Jesus saying to some men “You brood of vipers!”. I know I wouldn’t dare. Yet what makes Him saying those words truly terrifying is that in saying them He spoke the truth. Only when that truth was admitted, could those to whom He addressed those words receive the saving Mercy and Compassion of God. What artist would dare depict the look on the Savior’s face when He said to other men “Hypocrites!” Again, I wouldn’t dare. And, again, what makes Him saying that word to them truly terrifying is that He spoke the truth. Only when that truth was admitted, could those men receive the saving Mercy and Compassion of God.
I recommend that between now and Easter you read at least one of the Gospels, and try to read it as though you were reading it for the first time. You will find it extremely interesting, and much of that interest will come from being surprised again and again by what Jesus of Nazareth decides to say and do. After surprising words and actions, you will be further surprised that He seldom explains His words and deeds. That, in itself, is hardly “meek and mild”, in the usual sense of those words. One quite striking thing about the Gospels is that Jesus very clearly does not feel any obligation to explain Himself to anyone - save to His Father, Who needs no explanation.
Sometimes, as you read the Gospels, you will find Him not being angry at things that you think should make Him angry. At other times you will find Him furious at things that do not seem to call for fury. He follows His own rules, it seems, speaking and acting with authority, and not like the scribes.
It is remarkable. To Judas, about to betray Him, He says gently “Friend, what you are going to do, do quickly” To Peter, expressing his horror at Jesus’ prediction that He would have to suffer, be rejected, and be put to death, Jesus says “Get behind me, you satan!” Jesus weeps over Jerusalem, about to put Him to death. About Bethsaida, that simply won’t listen to Him, He says that Sodom will be better off than it at Judgement Day.
Christian Doctrine is, of course, rooted in the Gospels. I suggest, however, that you read at least one Gospel between now and Easter, with a view less to drawing theological conclusions than to tasting the flavor of the Gospel, thereby tasting the flavor, if I dare use the expression, of Jesus of Nazareth.
Part of His flavor is unpredictability by human standards. Another part of His flavor is practicality. He is never mysterious for the sake of being mysterious. In expelling demons, for example, He indulges in no incantations or strange rites. He says simply “Shut up, and go away” And they do. He neither flaunts His power, nor plays at false modesty. He simply says what needs to be said. What makes Him seem mysterious is simply that we don’t know what He knows. He knows exactly what needs to be said and done. We do not, and are surprised and perplexed. For some reason, known to Him but not explained by Him, the wedding feast at Cana needed 120-180 gallons of excellent wine, and that’s that.
In reading the Gospels, you will find that we are told only what we need to be told, not a word more. The Gospels have an extremely low percentage of fat. In all the Gospels, we have a few stories about his infancy, one about his childhood, and then nothing until Jesus of Nazareth is about 30. We are curious, and we should be surprised. Legends and myths are full of stories about the hero’s remarkable and precocious childhood. The Gospels, by their silence, at least suggest that, apart from one incident, the childhood and youth of Jesus was entirely unremarkable and not at all precocious. He was not recognized as a gifted and talented child, full of promise for the future. That is surprising. Then, suddenly, at about age 30, He gets baptized by John the Baptist, and things start happening. That, too, is surprising. No wonder people in His town asked “Where did He get all this?”
Time is running out. For all my flaws, I have the good trait of being willing to talk on and on about Jesus of Nazareth, my Savior and yours. I find it slightly impious, frankly, that there are those who resent being kept at Mass for more than 45 minutes, but I don’t want to strain patience by asking anyone for much more than an hour of Divine Worship.
Read the Gospels! You will find some moral teaching, but surprisingly little, actually. The Lord Jesus gave a few moral teachings, and those are to be taken very seriously, but mostly He seems to have assumed that, with the foundation of His teaching and the help of His Spirit, we could figure morality out. The main thing for Him was that we should believe in Him, trust His Father, and receive His Spirit.
Believing in Him, trusting in His Father, and helped by His Spirit, we will be truly moral people, but our morality will puzzle and annoy common moralists, as much as His morality puzzled and annoyed common moralists. Common moralists of Jesus’ of Nazareth’s time and place, having heard too often for their own good about keeping a distance from bad company, were puzzled and annoyed by His eating and drinking with sinners. Common moralists of our time and place, having heard too often for their own good about pacifism, might well be puzzled and annoyed by Jesus of Nazareth getting along surprisingly well with Roman soldiers, indeed, better with Roman soldiers than with Jewish priests!
What will our morality be like, after we read the Gospels? How will we describe it to others? All that can be said is that we will have learned a little about what Jesus of Nazreth is like, that the right thing to do is not always the obvious thing to do, and that His way of life is not to be reduced to simple platitudes or to rigid moralisms.
“Well,”, someone might demand of us, then what is being a Christian all about?
We can only say that it is about getting to know Jesus Christ and then, as Mary so wisely advised the waiters in today’s Gospel, doing whatever He tells us.
TWENTY-SECOND SUNDAY OF ORDINARY TIME
"Be Doers of the Word, and Not Hearers Only"
Don’t just stand there, do something.
We have all heard that saying.
“Be doers of the word”, writes St.James in today’s Epistle, “and not hearers only, deluding yourselves”
“Just do something” often leads to doing something stupid, or even something wicked. Doing anything that comes to mind is not the best response to any situation. If you, unguided and untrained, don’t have any idea what to do, better wisdom might be “Don’t just do something, stand there” (as Sir Laurence Olivier is said to have remarked to a hyperactive overactor).
St. James is not telling us to do something, in the sense of doing any old thing at all.
“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deluding yourselves”
We are to do what God’s word tells us to do. In order to do that, the first thing is not doing, but hearing. Hearing that does not lead to doing is useless, but doing without hearing is downright dangerous. First be trained, and then put that training into practice.
First hear God’s word, and then, helped by His Grace, set out to do it.
The first thing is simply to come and listen.
There are those who look down on you because you are here, and not out there doing something. They are wrong to do so. You need to have some idea what to do. You have come to hear God’s word, in the first part of Holy Mass, and to participate sacramentally in the Lord Jesus’ Death and Resurrection, in the second part of Holy Mass. With such guidance and strength, you can both know what to do in life’s situations, and have the strength to do it.
The importance of the first part of the Mass, the Liturgy of the Word, is usually underestimated. Before going up to the Altar of God, to share sacramentally in Jesus Christ’s Death and Resurrection, we need to hear God’s promises and commandments. Before going forth to do some good in the world, we have to learn about what the good actually is. The first thing, before talking or acting, is to be quiet and listen to God’s word. Doing the word must, God helping, follow, but listening to God’s word is first.
In a sense, just listening to God’s word is the most important thing the Church can do. The Eucharistic Liturgy that follows, being the worship of Jesus Christ Himself in which His Mystical Body mystically joins, is the summit of our activity, but we only know what and Who the Holy Eucharist is by listening to God’s word. Salt that does not flavor the world by action is useless, but to be flavor and not poison we need to know what we are to do and to avoid, and we know that by listening to God’s word.
Visiting Brazil, that rather wonderful, if troubled country (but, surely “wonderful but troubled” applies to the USA too!), I was struck by the number of storefront evangelical protestant churches in every city and town I visited. I sought statistics, and discovered that in some parts of Brazil Catholicism is already no longer the majority religion. A young Brazilian priest, who left the Catholic Church in his adolescence and then came back, explained it this way “If you wanted to start a labor union, you went to a Catholic priest, but if you wanted to know about Jesus Christ, you went to an evangelical minister” The Church there, and in many other places, blundered badly. “We need to do something!”, her leaders thought, not altogether wrongly. We can’t let the Communists be the only people who act for justice! Indeed, we cannot. So far, those leaders were right. Then they made their mistake. They thought to themselves “After all, the only difference between them and us is that we pray while we seek justice, and they don’t” The only difference? That is all the difference in the universe, the difference between seeking God’s justice and human theories about justice, the difference between seeking justice and seeking a mix of revenge and power. As Catholics, we learn what justice is from the Lord Jesus Christ, and not from Karl Marx or anyone else. The moment that Church leaders started to think of seeking Justice primarily, with Jesus Christ sort of a heavenly cheerleader, they blundered fatally. We are to seek Jesus Christ, period and exclamation point. The more we find Him, the more He shows us what we need to do, and how to offer the world the healing medicine of God’s justice, and not a poisonous brew of revenge and power hunger. If the first thing we do as Christ’s Church is not listening to God’s word, and the last thing giving the Father thanks and praise through Jesus Christ, then our Christianity sinks to being only a decoration for our politics.
To get into action as quickly as possible is tempting, just as enthusiastic soldiers might want to fight before they are properly trained. Doing so would only get them killed. Wanting to leap right away into social and political action, from workers rights to right to life, is tempting; but for the work to bear lasting fruit for good it has to be God’s work, and to be God’s work it has to be rooted in simply listening to God’s word, and simply getting to know God through the One Whom He has sent, Jesus Christ our Lord, true God and true Man.
Jesus Christ, true God and true Man! That - someone will exclaim - is only theology! There is hunger in the world, there is war in the world, let’s do something real! Without good theology, however, so called “real action” all too easily turns to hatred. Good theology teaches us that sin originates not in unjust structures, but in the human heart, including your heart and mine. Without that good theology, those who work to change structures only inject hatred into themselves. Full of hate, all they can do is criticize. Everyone, from the Bishop to the Altar Boy gets their increasingly venomous criticism. They no longer worship God, because everything that doesn’t feed and express their hate is a waste of time. They refuse to celebrate at Christmas and Easter, and indeed on every Sunday. They exclaim that we can’t celebrate while so many are oppressed, forgetting that it is only through celebrating the Love of God, poured out in Jesus Christ, that we can be guided and enabled to change the world without becoming agents of hate.
To change the world without becoming agents of hate - how is that possible?
It is possible when, guided by God’s word, one discovers that the heart is Catholic Social Doctrine is the conversion of the human heart. There are indeed unjust social structures, but to change those without changing the human heart is merely to exchange one set of unjust social structures for another, possibly worse, set of unjust social structures. In 1910, for example, the people of Mexico rose up against a corrupt and unjust regime. After a decade and half of terror and slaughter, they settled down, exhausted, under a very different, but significantly worse, corrupt and unjust regime. History tells this sad story again and again. The brilliant non believer George Orwell told this story in his fable “Animal Farm” Nothing of lasting value can be built on hate. As the great St.Maximilian Kolbe, martyr for charity, observed, “Only love is a creative force” There is no greater Love than that of the Lord who teaches us in His word, and gives us Himself in His Sacraments. Catholic Social Doctrine begins with the Bible and the Mass. Catholic Social Action begins with the Bible and the Mass.
In the USA, Mexico, Brazil, and everywhere there truly are unjust social structures that need to be changed. That change must, absolutely must, begin in the right spot, if it is to be change for the good. Change for the good must begin in the human heart. In today’s Gospel from chapter six of St. Mark the Lord Jesus reminds us that what pollutes man comes not from outside him, but from inside him, from his heart, that is to say, from his thoughts and desires.
I have done what I can all my life to fight Marxism in all its forms, because it insults the human race. It imagines Man to be little more than a robot, whose behavior is produced by his environment. If only we could get the right environment, we could have perfect people (this is why Marxists so vehemently opposed Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics both, since these suggested that evolution is not just a matter of environmental effects). How little and pathetic Marxists think human beings are, when they suppose that it is only socioeconomic conditions that make people unhappy, such that they can’t help being unhappy in some conditions, and couldn’t help being happy in perfect conditions. The human heart means nothing to Marxists.
Mankind, however, is much greater and more complex than Marxists (or, for that matter, dogmatic Darwinians) imagine. Man is not just a material and economic being. He has a heart. He has a soul. What makes individual human beings and whole societies unhappy is something in the heart and in the soul. That “something” that lies at the root of all our unhappiness is sin.
This is why I am a Christian, and a preacher of Christianity. I have been saved from deep unhappiness. I have been saved not by any social programs, but by the Man Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ Who enables me to say to myself “James, you’re kind of a mess, but you must be loveable, because Jesus Christ loves you, and He knows what He’s doing”. It is Jesus Christ Who enables me to say to you “Friends - and I do call you friends - I love you, not because you aren’t a mess - which you are - but because Jesus Christ loves you, and He knows what He is doing” In Jesus Christ I can accept myself, and be comfortable in my own skin. In Jesus Christ I can accept you, and love you as you are. Jesus Christ has saved me, not some socioeconomic master plan. Saved in Jesus Christ, I can take action in the world. This action may well have social and economic dimensions, but it is, above all else, action against sin.
The secularized world laughs at that word. That just means that it is not ready to accept the correct diagnosis - and how can there be effective treatment without correct diagnosis? A doctor who started aggressive treatment without a proper diagnosis would be a foolish menace indeed. Just such a menace are those who set out to act in the world without guidance from the word of God. Misdiagnosing humanity’s unhappiness, they prescribe disastrous cures.
How useless it is to seek to change societies without changing people! To change structures without healing human selfishness is merely to engage in an expensive, and often bloody, game of musical chairs. As long as the Ego reigns supreme, as long as everyone thinks himself the center of the universe, social justice is an impossibility. As long as the heart of man remains radically selfish, from it will flow thefts and murders in various forms, whatever social, political and economic structures there are.
The late Spanish lay preacher Carmen Hernandez recounted an episode from her youth, when, in a huge chemical plant, a gigantic pipe carrying ammonia exploded, sending poisonous gas into the neighborhood. People were being evacuated. Good. That had to be done. Injured people were being cared for. Good. That had to be done. At some point, however, someone had to enter that cloud of ammonia and patch up the blasted hole in the pipe, and shut off the continued flow of poisonous gas.
There it is. There are structural changes in policial, economic, and social life that are desirable. Good. It should be done. But until someone shuts off the source of poison, new political, economic and social structures will become corrupt and oppressive, and probably quite quickly. There is, in fact, Someone Who is able to shut off the poison of sin in the human heart. He does it through His word and His Sacraments. To be here with an open mind and heart, letting him go to work, is the true foundation of social justice.
Be doers of the word, and not hearers only. To be truly good doers, however, first be good hearers. First of all, come and listen to what the Lord has to say.
What the Lord has to say is this. You are made to love and to be loved, but do not know how to do either well. Don’t be afraid. The One Who made you became Man in Jesus Christ, to show you God’s love for you, and to touch you with God’s love for you. He promises you love and life. All you have to do is want to love. Want to love, and He will show you how, if you keep coming to His lessons. Loved by Him, you can love others, and find your happiness in that loving. Power? Who needs it, when one has Love? Wealth? Who needs it, when one has love? First of all, come - and let Him love you.
Be doers of the word, which is to say, live in Love. You can do that when you have first received God’s Love, and that gift is given in the hearing of His word.
TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME:
The News.
I hope people have noticed how seldom I preach about “The News”. Ever since college days, when the campus chaplain had far too much to say about the presidential election of 1988 (I am proud to say I haven’t watched a presidential “debate”, that unique and weird piece of performance art, since that year) I have dreaded “headline preaching”. I am here to preach about “The Good News”, on the supposition that this will enable people, little by little, to find their own ways of applying “The Good News” to “The News”. The Good News is that Jesus Christ has conquered sin by His sacrificial death on the Cross, has conquered death by His glorious Resurrection on Easter Sunday morning, and through Faith and Grace makes it possible for us to unite ourselves to both victories. By Faith and Grace we have access to forgiveness of all sin truly repented, rejected, and resisted. By Faith and Grace we have access to the Resurrection of the Body and the life of the world to come. The first business of the Church’s preaching is to proclaim this good news. A recent study of Italian Catholics, still 80% of the population, showed that they mostly do not believe in the Resurrection of the Body. This indicates that two generations of Catholic preaching in Italy has been essentially useless, for, as St. Paul says, if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, our Faith is useless. Apart from convincing me that I have nothing to learn from any representatives of the failing Italian Church, this convinces me even more than before that every sermon, on whatever topic, has to include a proclamation of the Mystery of Faith: Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.
As noted, I am reluctant to preach much about The News, and probably more reluctant now than ever before. That said, there are sometimes circumstances that require me to say something from the pulpit about The News. I have been, for example, as some have noticed, reticent to say much about The Virus. This is deliberate. I am a bit repulsed when clergy take on the role of public health officials, as I would be if public health officials took on the role of clergy. Still, it is possible, and, given new diocesan protocols about The Virus, necessary for me to say something about the vexed issue. I say this as someone who has heard from people with various strongly held positions, sometimes quite emotionally presented. While seeing much merit in the various positions, and while not wanting to take sides, I am pressed to say something, and that something is the following:
i . Obey their requests regarding what you wear and what you do on their turf.
Ii. On common ground, such as church, respond sensitively to their concerns, as accommodatingly as reasonably possible.
Iii. On common ground, such as church, respect instructions from competent authority designed to help defend the common good. In light of the most recent diocesan directives, that means being masked in the Communion Procession, and while giving Holy Communion.
iv.. Be patient with disagreement, since much is entirely unknown about The Virus, and since much that is known is only tentatively known. Being tentatively known, it is subject to revision, a state of affairs that legitimately produces a wide variety of defensible opinion.
Not by way of direction, but simply to be clear, I have been vaccinated myself, with the Pfizer vaccine, which has been judged to be ethically permissible by competent ecclesiastical authority. One person responded to me so ferociously on that point that, at an earlier age, a fight might have ensued. Don’t be like that. My duty of visiting people who may be more vulnerable, combined with the moral evaluation from the Holy See’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, led me to make that decision. It is my decision. I feel no need to defend it further, nor do I feel any need to urge it further upon you. Seek competent, personal medical advice, don’t rely too much on winds from the information cloud, and make a conscientious decision. It will be your decision. I assure you that you can make the decision to accept the vaccine with a good conscience, but, given the murkiness of various relevant considerations, I cannot say that it is morally obligatory to do so. It is your decision. I only urge that you make it well, with prayer, good information, and the counsel of wise, stable people.
On the other hand, I have decided not to wear a mask except as required by owners of private property, or by those lawfully responsible for public property, and when visiting people who are more vulnerable. Thus, I will readily wear a mask in homes where I am asked to, in businesses that request it, in institutions that require it, and, following the Bishop’s current directives, when giving Holy Communion. Otherwise, I will not wear the mask. In this decision I was guided by professional medical opinion I trust. I was also guided by my conviction that people’s morale, such an important part of health, is not helped by an atmosphere of perpetual crisis, an unhealthy psychological atmosphere which the highly visible sign of the mask, in my personal judgement, tends to encourage. I feel no need to defend that decision further, nor do I feel any need to urge it further upon you. I only urge that you make your decision on this subject with prayer, good information, and the counsel of wise, stable people.
Well, that’s that.
As said above, I am increasingly reluctant to preach about “The News”. It does sometimes happen, however, that there is an item in the news of sufficient magnitude that it is likely that people will be thinking about it during Mass whatever I say, and that therefore, I should say something about it. Such an item, I think, is the disastrous end of America’s war in Afghanistan.
Back in the day when “Confirmation Age” (that distracting, but seemingly inescapable concept) in our Diocese was junior year in high school, I had occasion to break up an after school fight between two young men in the Confirmation class. I had sensed the mounting tension between them, and, anticipating an explosion, I kept an eye on them after class. Sure enough, the explosion came. I didn’t run to break it up, figuring that they needed to let a little bit of their built up aggressive energy out of their systems, but I did walk at a decent pace. By the time I got to them, the fight had already gone to the ground (as fights are wont to do), but the kid on top readily obeyed my instructions to get off his opponent, and the kid on bottom seemed a little relieved that the battle was over so quickly. He was a decent kid, but wracked with self doubt. Graduating from high school and going to university did not help him deal with that self doubt. Getting his undergraduate degree also did not help him deal with that self doubt. He didn’t feel that he accomplished anything much by graduating from high school (as he said “it really takes more effort not to graduate”). He did not even feel that he accomplished anything impressive by earning his bachelor’s degree (I don’t remember in what field). After graduation, he joined the Marines. Finishing Marine “boot camp” was the first thing I had seen help him with his self doubt; that, he regarded as an accomplishment.
I lost touch with him for several years after that, until one day, when he unexpectedly called me, to let me know that he was fully recovered from his injuries. “What injuries?”, I naturally asked. He proceeded to tell me the story of a firefight in Afghanistan. He told it so vividly that I almost felt like he was reliving it. It seems he was badly wounded, but so keyed up on adrenaline that he just kept firing, and would have bled to death if his sergeant hadn’t noticed and taken action. He seemed so worked up at that point in the story that I was a little alarmed, but, as he talked about his long convalescence, he gradually calmed down, and even got a little funny. All in all, the conversation was constructive, and even a pleasant surprise.
I regret that I lost touch with him again.
I wonder how he took the news of our defeat in Afghanistan?
This is not the time, and emphatically is not the place, for finger pointing; but neither is this time, still less the place, for euphemisms. In the good old English phrase, a spade should be called a spade.
Defeat.
Defeat, like anything else, can be handled well or badly.
With the Lord’s help, we can handle it well.
In 2001, an apposite year, a fine German scholar, Wolfgang Schivelbusch, wrote a book I read in a 2003 English translation, THE CULTURE OF DEFEAT - ON NATIONAL TRAUMA, MOURNING, AND RECOVERY. I have been rereading it of late.
It is said that the winners write the histories of wars. This saying is highly debatable. What is much clearer to Schivelbusch is that the losers write the best novels and poems. His book is a comparative study of how the American South after 1865, France after 1870, and Germany after 1918 responded to defeat. Apart from Native Americans and White Southerners, who experienced what it is to be ground down militarily by overwhelming force, Americans have tended to regard victory as their birthright, apparently bouncing back after the Vietnam debacle to giddy optimism with remarkable speed. The apparent bounce back was so quick that there was little effort to deal with the tragedy and humiliation of Vietnam with works of art - novels, poems, and movies. To be fair, there was some. For example, the end of the movie “The Deer Hunter” was one of the finest cinematic moments I have seen, and the whole movie successfully accomplished a true catharsis. After a second defeat, with many fewer American dead (mercifully), but spread over many more years of effort, it may be more necessary to deal with trauma and mourning through wise use of imagination and creativity, and come to a more deeper and more lasting catharsis.
Schivelbusch’s three examples of responding to national trauma and humiliation, the American South after 1865, France after 1870, and Germany after 1918, should put us on guard. All three “nations” found imaginative and creative ways to deal with their defeat, and all three got back on their feet, but all three did so in ways that were partly (in Germany’s case largely) unhealthy. Our imaginative and creative response to defeat has to be guided. For us here, that means guided by Christian Faith and Christian principles. The most essential of those principles is Charity. That Charity, however, absolutely needs the support of Faith. Before we can charitably approach the task of national healing, we have to be able to say with Josuha’s Isreaiites “”Therefore we also will serve the Lord, for He is our God”. We have to be able to say, with Psalm 34, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and those who are crushed in spirit He saves” We have to be able to come to Lord again and again for guidance and instruction, saying with St. Peter “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of Eternal Life”
Hearing the words of Eternal Life will help us find the right words for dealing with the national trauma we are currently facing in this temporal life.
Rereading Schivelbusch’s book after 18 years causes me to affirm a suggestion of his that I was not ready to affirm in 2003. He asked, “could it be that . . . America’s post-September 11 war fever is really a response to an earlier and still unresolved defeat?” In 2003 that question annoyed me, but now I wonder if he might have been right. Perhaps America never really dealt adequately with its traumatic Vietnam experience. If so, this might be the time, with God’s help, to use our imaginative and creative abilities to recover in a lastingly healthy way from long ago Vietnam, as well as from all too recent Afghanistan, to learn deep lessons about ourselves and our world, and to learn to walk more humbly with our God.
I wonder. As a loyal and patriotic Christian American, I wonder if we never really came to terms with our memories of Vietnam. With the last, intense phase of the Cold War in the early 80s (I had no doubt that my generation was going to have to fight World War III, and am lastingly grateful that we did not), we had a lot to keep us busy. Then, after the end of the Cold War - less our victory, in truth, than our overweight and poorly conditioned opponent’s fatal heart attack - we seemed to be absolutely and forever on top of the world, the universally acknowledged (though, as events proved, hardly universally loved) superpower, unquestionably the world’s leader, militarily, economically, and culturally. With all that, who wanted to think about the fading memories of traumatic Vietnam? Yet the memories remained, not healed by being ignored. Suddenly, the deeply criminal attack of September 11, 2001, ripped open a national need, not just to respond to that particular attack, but to exorcise the memory of defeat with a wave of world transforming victories.
Well, the wave of world transforming victories didn’t happen.
Now what?
Hope and humility.
Humility. We are not in fact invincible, nor are we called to rule the world.
Hope. We have done great good in the world, and, with God’s help, we will do more. His help is ours for the asking. Dare we ask? As we embark on our creative work of healing, dare we resolve to take to heart these famous words from Micah, “He has showed you, o man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
We can, in our hearts and minds, resolve the trauma of defeat, and the mourning of loss, in such a way we will be better for it, as individuals and as a nation. We can emerge from a time of healing - for it is not the work of an hour or a year - not, indeed, as doctrinaire pacifists, but as more humanely sceptical of the notion of world transforming wars, and more dedicated, under God, to the fulfilling of another verse from Micah, “And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Micah 4:3)
Even as we reaffirm our Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ’s Paschal victory, a triumph over death that promises our own Resurrection and entry into an eternal Kingdom, not made by hands, may we dedicate ourselves, with the Lord’s assistance, to making this world something of a true image of the world to come, a world in which, again, “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more”
Amen. Amen.
FIFTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME
THE IMPORTANCE OF REGULAR DAILY PRAYER
In this Sunday’s First Reading, the Lesson from chapter seven of the Prophet Amos, we learn that Amos was not a professional prophet, but a shepherd who was called by the Lord to speak His message to His people. In the biblical sense, Prophecy is not some kind of sacred fortune telling, but passing on a message received from God. The Prophets of the Old Testament, the Apostles of the New Testament, John the Baptist as the link between the two Testaments, and, especially, our Lord Jesus Christ, all declare to God’s people His message.
I think that the message of God’s prophets to God’s people can be summed up in Mary’s words at the Wedding Feast of Cana in chapter two of St. John’s Gospel, “Do whatever He tells you”. To do what God tells us is the core of spiritual and moral life. Knowledge of what God commands and the strength to fulfill His commands, are both received in prayer. A Christian is, above all, someone who prays.
There are two basic kinds of Christian Prayer, public and private. The Lord Jesus specifically commands His disciples to pray publicly, with the words of promise “Wherever two or three are gathered in My Name, there am I in their midst” He also commands them to pray privately, with the words “You, when you pray, go into your bedroom, and when you have shut your door, pray to Your Father, Who is hidden” This verse is from a passage in chapter six of St. Matthew in which the Lord rebukes the strangely contradictory practice of the Pharisees, in which they would make their private prayers in public. The Lord Jesus, Who regularly joined in the divine worship of synagogue and Temple, is hardly speaking against public prayer. Rather, He is telling His disciples to keep their private prayer private.
By virtue of Baptism, the Christian, having within himself the Spirit of Jesus Christ, can, at any time and place whatsoever, appeal to the Throne of Grace, through the Mediation of our Savior Jesus Christ. The Christian should exercise this sacred power every day, at least two times a day.
The theme for today’s Sermon is that private prayer need not be, and ought not be, chaotic prayer. In particular, even for private prayer it is very useful, in fact nearly necessary, to have set times for prayer, and set forms for prayer. Today, I address set TIMES for prayer.
Regarding public prayer, of course, it is instantly obvious that there must be set places, times and forms for prayer. Since for private prayer there is no need to coordinate with others, it is not absolutely necessary to have set times or forms for prayer. Still, set times and forms for prayer are very useful for private prayer, above all simply to ensure that we do it. If we pray only when we feel like it, and when nothing else is going on, I fear that very many days we will not pray at all. If we pray with no set forms at all, I fear that, when we are distracted, or under severe stress, we will not pray at all. Set forms give us the ability to pray when we cannot come up with our own words. Set times, embedded into our daily schedule, give us the ability to pray despite the business of our lives.
To the importance of set times for private prayer, the Sacred Scriptures testify abundantly. Our Lord Jesus Christ’s mind was constantly aware of the mystical, though unseen, presence of His Heavenly Father, yet even Jesus had set times for prayer. We read in Matthew 14 and Luke 6 of the Lord Jesus setting aside whole nights for prayer. The Gospels tell us that He did that on the night before His sacred and saving Passion and Death. In chapter 10 of Acts of the Apostles, we read that St. Peter received the divine revelation of the abolition of the Old Law’s rules of “Kosher” during his prayer for the “Sixth Hour” of the day (six hours counted from dawn, so basically Mid-day prayer). In Psalm 119, 164, the Psalmist declares “seven times a day do I praise you”; and in chapter 6 of Daniel we learn that Daniel kneeled for prayer three times a day.
It is good, and with the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ entirely possible, to spend the whole day in a religious frame of mind. Beyond that, however, it is necessary to pause for direct and intentional worship of God at regular times every day. The Lord Jesus Christ commands it, and He Himself, as well as His Apostles and Prophets, give examples of it.
For most of us, most days are busy. For all of us, all days are full of distractions. The only way to make sure that private prayer takes place, amidst daily business and distractions, is to schedule it. I urge you to schedule prayer into your day.
Daily prayer is vital to Christians for two reasons.
Set times for private prayer make it possible for us to spend the whole day in a religious frame of mind. If we try to spend the day that way without pauses for prayer, we will certainly fail. The pressure of business is too great, and the variety of distractions too abundant. Only through the discipline of MAKING time for prayer, at least in the morning and in the evening, can we hope to spend the day religiously. To use a metaphor, I suggest that by deliberately pausing for prayer, we enter the River of Divine Mercy. Once we have entered, the current carries us along, but we do have to make the effort to enter. We do have to make the effort to pray.
For our daily prayer times to have full effect, we should put some physical effort into our prayer as well. What we do with our bodies affects our minds. Our minds are more easily bent toward the things of God when we have put our bodies in postures of prayer. If possible, I recommend that at least you start your daily Morning and Evening Prayer kneeling. You might then stand up or even sit down, but start kneeling, if you can (if you can’t kneel, bow down). The Lord Jesus gives us an example of this. Matthew 26 and Luke 22 both attest that the Lord Jesus knelt to pray. Acts 22, Acts 21, and Ephesians 3 all attest that His Apostles knelt to pray. To go with the physical gesture of kneeling, at least for the start of your private prayers, I recommend a normal place for your private prayers, marked by a crucifix, perhaps, or some other sacred image. Visual images, like physical gestures, help us collect and arrange our thoughts for prayer.
So, set times for daily prayer are needed, first for enabling the mind to pass the whole day religiously, and secondly for making the strong and sincere Acts of Faith which obtain the Lord’s promised blessings.
I have to warn you that the devil does not want you praying twice a day, morning and evening. He will make sure that you are tempted every day not to pray. I can testify from personal experience how easily we are tempted not to observe our set times for prayer. It is often inconvenient to break off what we are doing for prayer. Daily prayer requires discipline, and we rebel against discipline. Isn’t it enough just to pray when we feel like it? No, it isn’t, since feelings of religious enthusiasm are God’s gift to beginners, and to people He knows need special help, but are not meant to be our daily experience (any more than miracles are meant to be our daily experience) Discipline and duty are meant to be our daily experience, for these truly form and demonstrate character.
Daily private prayer is both the surest single sign of true devotion to God, and the best safeguard for true devotion to God. Vehemently, therefore, the devil wants to keep you from doing it.
I must repeat, emphatically, that the true test of devotion to God is not occasional surges of emotion, but daily obedience to His commandments. There is something disturbingly self-indulgent about the thought that one should pray only when one feels like it. Naturally, this is a common thought today, since ours is a self-indulgent age. Away with any form of self-discipline! Our absurd civilization worships perfect bodies, even as the majority of its members get flabbier and flabbier. Even its idolatry demands a self discipline of which it is increasingly incapable. Eternal life, too, demands a self discipline, the self discipline to show up and receive what the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
Naturally, in such a civilization, many will reject my emphatic advice, as a physician of souls, to practice the self discipline of set times for personal prayer. They reject regularity of prayer as something too formal, and unworthy of their notice, not realizing that regular, private prayer is the very medicine they need for health and happiness. From the starting point of rejecting daily private prayer, they fall into increasingly grave defiance of God’s holy, and saving will.
Friends, do not let anyone persuade you from daily morning and evening prayers. Through them you put on armor against the devil’s weapons. Through them, you pray for, and obtain, the daily bread of the Divine Mercy and Grace. Without them, you will quickly become weak. Even if you don’t feel weak, you will be weak. You will be like Samson, after he allowed Delilah to shave his head. When the Philistines attacked, he thought he had his old strength, but was easily overcome, almost without any resistance at all. I tell you, the path to hell begins with neglect of daily, personal prayer. First, people who think that they are good Catholics omit their morning and evening prayers, supposing that Sunday Mass is enough. Then they will omit Sunday Mass, supposing that a good intention of obeying God’s will is enough. Then they will find the idea that God actually commands and forbids certain, specific things irksome, supposing that a generic intention of being a good person is enough. In that state, they start to do things utterly contrary to what God directs in the Sacred Scriptures and Sacred Tradition, doing evil while thinking that they are, somehow, good people, simply because they have a vague notion that good is preferable to evil. In that state, if someone shows them that what they are doing is clearly contrary to Sacred Scripture and the Church’s Tradition, they will throw away both Scripture and Tradition, rather than stop heading towards the cliff. True evil began with something that they thought was unimportant, the simple privilege and duty of praying every day.
On the other hand, it is impossible - IMPOSSIBLE - for a Christian who prays every morning and evening, with both heart and lips, to go far astray. Every morning such a Christian receives the Spirit of Jesus Christ to start the day in God’s way, and every evening such a Christian receives the Spirit of Jesus Christ to turn him back to God’s way.
Very seriously, the devil will start his offensive against you precisely on this point. He will work to keep you from pausing for prayer, morning and evening. As St. Peter urges, “Resist him, solid in your Faith!” Let nothing - absolutely NOTHING - get in the way of your morning and evening prayers. A new friend, an exciting book, an interesting movie (there are few), a new job, traveling: all of these are not bad at all in themselves, but they become bad if we let them get in the way of our morning and evening prayers. Be firm! With the Lord’s help, be firm in adhering to your morning and evening prayers.
Your morning and evening prayers remind you of the active presence in your life of your Lord and Savior. Your morning and evening prayers strengthen your resolve to walk the narrow way that leads to Eternal Life. Your morning and evening prayers reassure you of the hope held in store for you in Heaven. Your morning and evening prayers, joined to Sunday Mass and occasional Penance, keep you from falling into mortal sin.
People you know might notice that you pray, but they cannot know what happens in your personal prayers. They are not supposed to, since these prayers are to be private. Little by little, however, they will start to take some comfort just from you being around, because there is something special about you. They will not see your private prayers, but they will see the good works your prayers empower, and will begin gradually so suspect ANOTHER at work in your life. Then they will glorify your Heavenly Father, and perhaps begin to seek Him, beginning to pray themselves. All this will happen through your private prayer, which is hidden; but your Heavenly Father sees what is hidden, and one day will reward you for it openly.
Amen. Amen.
FOURTH SUNDAY OF EASTER, 2021
“I am the Good Shepherd. And I know My sheep, and My sheep know Me.”
The Lord’s knowledge of HIs sheep is not intellectual knowledge about their body mass and chemical composition. It is the knowledge that only comes from loving someone. Love takes many forms, but in all its forms Love is the only way to know someone well. Hatred is distorting, but love is clarifying. Truly hateful people are always going to be mysteries, mysteries of iniquity, because no mere human being could possibly love them, and therefore understand them. No matter how many books are written about Hitler, Stalin or Mao (the founders, respectively, of German, Russian, and Chinese lower case “national socialism”), they will always remain incomprehensibly opaque. On the other hand, not all adversaries are hateful, and it is possible to have a certain kind of love for a strong, dangerous, but fundamentally honorable opponent. The formidable Sultan Saladin’s military secretary, Baha ad-Din, wrote with understanding about Richard Lionheart, greatest of crusaders, because he had a level of respect and admiration for him, dangerous adversary though he was, that amounted to a sort of love. Love, therefore, being the only path to understanding human beings truly, it follows that only perfect Love understands human beings perfectly. Only the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, loving us perfectly, understands us perfectly.
We don’t love ourselves perfectly, most of us uneasily mixing genuine self-love with self-indulgence and even self-loathing. Not loving ourselves perfectly, we don’t understand ourselves perfectly, and accordingly do self-destructive things, sometimes gravely so, and sometimes only modestly so (like the long walk in the sun last Sunday which got my nose so badly sunburned - “All that nasal surface area requires special protection”, my brother tells me) There is, however, One who does love us perfectly, and therefore understands us perfectly, and can be trusted.
I find this line of thought extremely consoling. The devil has a certain intelligence, but, having thrown away eons ago all capacity for love, he cannot truly understand the human beings he seeks to corrupt and damn. He has some successes, certainly, but vastly more disappointments. How often has he thought he had someone well in hand, only to be baffled by unexpected reserves of Faith, undetected stores of Hope, and well-hidden capacities for Love? The devil is more easily foiled than we realize. The Good Shepherd, on the other hand, loving us perfectly, understands us perfectly. He loves us better than we love ourselves, and therefore understands us better than we understand ourselves. That being the case, whenever I do not grasp why He asks something of me, I can rest secure in the knowledge that whatever He asks of me is for my good, and better for me than my own desires.
Now, one of the things he asks of me is that someday I die to this world. I am confident that He asks this because He knows with perfect clarity that only through first living and then dying in this world can I become what human beings are meant to be, a participant in divine life. That death in this world is part of God’s plan for us is traditionally something Catholicism has emphasized with the saying “Memento Mori - Be Mindful of Death.” In Catholicism we pray in front of the image of the Crucified Lord, recalling that it is through the Cross that He came to the Resurrection. It is through the Cross, our mortal death, that we also will come to the Resurrection. It was in this spirit that St. Francis of Assisi could speak of “Sister Death”
This aspect of Catholicism disturbs some people.
An undergraduate at a certain music school told me recently that, for a particular class about classical opera, he and other students were e-mailed a trigger warning that the next opera in the syllabus, Giacamo Puccini’s “Suor Angelica”, might be disturbing to some students, since it dealt with both Catholicism and Death (an opera that has death in it is hardly a novelty, so I wonder how frequent those trigger warnings have to be). “What is one to make of this idiocy?”, he asked. Well, I said, I intend to make a sermon out of it!
That well-groomed and sensitive scions of the postmodern upper middle class might find death and Catholicism disturbing does not surprise me. Death is scandal to the prosperous of every generation, but few other generations have a had a guiding elite so complacently convinced that it stood on the summit of all human history. (Rome’s senatorial elite might have been comparable, smugly considering itself “the better portion - maior pars - of the human race”). All generations past have been more or less evil and foolish, they seem to say, in so many words, but now we understand what the world should be like! When you think that human history has been one long, agonizing labor to give birth to you, the notion that you will die and pass away, like everyone before you is an intolerable scandal. Best not to think about it.
A young monk I know once exclaimed that, at the first Funeral Mass he celebrated, he wanted to put a skull on the pulpit to remind everyone what the occasion was really about. I’m not sure that he really meant this, but he had a point. The Funeral Mass is not about “celebrating life”, but it is about facing death. Someone we love has died. Someday we will die ourselves. We hate both facts. Is there a way for either fact to be redeemed? Here the Catholic Faith declares “There is! The Eternal Word of God assumed true Human Nature in Jesus Christ, and truly, definitively, and absolutely died, dead as a doornail (Dickens in “Christmas Carol” has a brief aside wondering why we should consider doornails particularly dead). He then conquered death, Body and Soul. For Him Death was merely the Passover to perfect life, a life of sharing, Body and Soul, in God’s own life. That sharing in God’s own life that belongs to Him by Nature, is offered to human beings by adoption, through Jesus Christ, as sons and daughters of God. For those who are so adopted (by Faith and Good Works, and by Baptism and Holy Eucharist), death is also merely a Passover to perfect life, a life of sharing, Body and Soul, in God’s own life.”
Death can either be ignored or faced. If faced, one has to ask, “Can anything be done about this?” The Catholic Faith hastens to answer this question as follows: “As a matter of fact, something has been done. Because of Jesus Christ, we who believe are already God’s children. Now, ‘what we shall be, has not yet been revealed. We do know that when it is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.’” First face death, and then hear the good news that there is an antidote to death, Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me, and I will give them Eternal Life.” All we have to do to receive this Eternal Life is open our mouths to be fed, rather like little birds. Some birds found a cranny in the rectory in which to build a nest. It is interesting to watch them. The Lord is ready to feed us. We merely have to open our mouths, which is to say, we have to have Faith. Someday Faith will yield to experience, as we see the Lord as He is, and become like Him, forever rejoicing in the pasture of divine life.
Let us, brethren, seek that pasture, in which we will rejoice forever in the glorious company of all the Saints. All of the Church’s sacred Liturgies are an invitation to that happiness. So, brethren, Courage! May the Lord strengthen our Faith. May He, even more, strengthen our Love, for loving Him is the way we make progress on our journey through this life, and then through mortal death, into God.
May no adversity keep us from inwardly rejoicing at our destiny in Christ Jesus. May no troubles along the way make us forget the goal of our journey. Indeed, may no pleasant moments along the way make us forget the goal of our journey! Only a very foolish traveler would be so caught up in a delightful stop along the way as to forget where he is going.
We are going to Heaven, which is to say, we are journeying into God. This journey will lead us through death to Eternal Life. We can make this journey confidently as long as we have faith in the Good Shepherd, Who has laid down His life for the sheep, Who willed to die for His flock, Who made Himself the Sacrifice to open the way to Eternal Life, and Who is now risen from the dead, living and reigning with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever.
Amen.
Alleluia!
Our Faith: Mystical, But Very Physical
One of the major themes of the Gospels is eating and drinking. In this Sunday’s Gospel from Chapter 24 of St. Luke, the Risen Lord Jesus eats some fish with His stunned disciples on that first Easter evening, sharing an Easter meal with them. This fits with His decision to make His disciples’ primary act of worship, until He comes again in His true glory, eating some bread and drinking some wine, a sacred meal.
I confess to having an instantly skeptical reaction to any claims of mystical prayer. I acknowledge the reality of mystical prayer, of course; yet it bears remembering that the Lord Jesus did not say “Wherever anyone thinks mystically about Me, there am I within him”. Rather, He said “Wherever two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst”. He does, indeed, tell us to pray privately as well, but gathering for prayer is privileged. It is about the gathering of His disciples that He says, “There am I in their midst”. It is said that once upon a time a certain English Cardinal remarked that the problem with “mysticism” is that it starts in mist and ends in schism. This is too harsh, but it carries more than a grain of truth with it. Authentic mystical prayer begins with clarity of thought, and not vacuity of thought. More importantly, authentic mystical prayer is rooted in the prayer of what we do together. Authentic mystical prayer flows from the Liturgy. This is why St. Teresa of Avila, one of the Church’s greatest teachers of mystical prayer, said “I would die for the smallest ceremony of the Church”. Even the most ordinary gathering of Christians for prayer carries with it that awesome promise “Wherever two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in their midst”.
Of all those gatherings for Christian Prayer, the most important is the Holy Mass. About the celebration of the Lord’s Supper we have an explicit command from the Lord “Do this in memory of Me”. About the eating of the Lord’s Body and the drinking of the Lord’s Blood, in forms of Bread and Wine, we have an explicit promise, “Whoever eats My Flesh and Drinks My Blood will live forever” In all of the Gospels, in the Lord’s Supper Narratives of Matthew, Mark and Luke, and in the Bread of Life Discourse in John, the Lord Jesus makes it clear that for His disciples, until He comes again in His true glory, the primary act of worship is eating some Bread, mystically but truly His Body, and drinking some Wine, mystically but truly His Blood, until He comes again.
I have a strong aversion to excessively spiritual talk. We human beings, to understand ourselves and our world, must end in the spirit, but we must begin with the flesh. In dealing with human acts, it is best not to start with cloudy intentions, but with the flesh and blood reality of what someone is doing. The instant one turns away from abstract blather to what is being done physically to a new human life, the immorality of abortion becomes instantly clear. I hate religion that starts with some phrase about seeking “the transcendent”. In Christianity, the Eternal Son of God assumed Flesh, and became wonderfully and forever Immanent. It is through His Flesh and Blood Incarnation that we are saved. Our Faith is intensely physical, in that sense. As its central celebration, our Faith has the Incarnation extending physically into our place and time through the mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist.
Is Christianity more like Chess or more like Boxing or Wrestling? That seems like a strange question, of course, but bear with me. Chess is all about ideas. Christianity embraces ideas, but it is rooted in deeds, tender deeds and terrible deeds, and sometimes terribly tender deeds - caring for a baby, dying on a Cross, embracing a leper. Christianity is more blood and sweat than ideas; or, rather, it begins with blood and sweat, and this beginning gives its ideas both a solidity and a dramatic beauty far beyond those of any merely abstract intellectual system. Mike Tyson is supposed to have said that everyone has a plan until he gets punched in the face. I like that, frankly. I want a system of life that can handle getting punched in the face, a system of life that has, if you will, a granite jaw, and can therefore afford to turn the other cheek. Christianity is about diving into this world’s physicality with the good news of a divine plan that can’t get stopped by any number of punches in the face. We Christians are to dive into this world’s physicality after the example, and with the presence, of the Lord who for us dived and still dives into this world’s physicality, becoming Incarnate, and now becoming our Food and Drink, unto Eternal Life.
Sometime ago Hollywood brought out the “blockbuster” “Gladiator” As a history fan, I wondered, yet again, why, when history has so many fascinating true stories, Hollywood needs to come up with totally ridiculous fake stories. If you want to make up a story, do fantasy, but leave history alone. Well, you’re hardly here to hear about that! After I recovered from my intense initial annoyance, the movie, set in the Rome of the late 2nd Century A.D., got me thinking along the following lines. Emperors were big in Rome in the late 2nd Century, but they haven’t been around in Rome since the late 3rd Century. The evil grotesquery of gladiatorial games was big in Rome in the late 2cd Century, but they, thank Heaven, died out in the early 5th Century A.D. Chariot racing was big in Rome in the late 2nd Century A.D. but it died out in the mid 6th Century A.D. There was however something that many people in late 2nd Century A.D. Rome, too many for the comfort of the icily intellectual dictator Marcus Aurelius, did once a week. They are still doing it once a week in Rome. People are also still doing it once a week here.
We have a Christian witness from late 2nd Century Rome, the lay teacher Justin, who wrote to the milder Emperor Antoninus Pius to explain what Christians believe and do. This is what he said Christians in Rome did every Sunday:
“On Sunday all of us, whether from the City or from the fields, gather together in a suitable place, and the accounts of the Apostles and the writings of the Prophets are read, as long as time permits. Then, when the Reader has finished, the Presider speaks to us and exhorts us to the imitation of such excellent things. Then we all stand up together, and offer prayers . . . When the prayers are finished, bread is brought forward, together with wine and water; and the Presider offers prayers and thanksgiving with all his might, and the People say ‘Amen’, and among those who are present at the Eucharist there is distribution and Communion, and it is sent to the absent through the Deacons . . . for we do not receive this as common bread or common drink; but just as the Word of God because Flesh, and Jesus Christ our Savior had Flesh and Blood for our salvation, just so we are taught that the food and drink which are, by the prayer containing His words made Eucharist, and by a change nourish our flesh and blood, are the Flesh and Blood of the same Incarnate Jesus”
This is the Church’s enduring Faith, rooted in the Lord’s own words and deeds. We are not only Flesh and Blood, but we truly eat Flesh and Blood, and our eternal Salvation and lasting happiness begin with Flesh and Blood. By the Lord’s Flesh and Blood we are saved, all together. By the Lord’s Flesh and Blood we are nourished, all together. By His Flesh and Blood Resurrection unto eternal life is promised to us, yes, even to our flesh and blood. For ours is not a religion rooted in deep thoughts drifting lonesomely in the cloud. Our is a Religion rooted in flesh and blood, in struggle and tears, in muscle and in laughter, and rising from these to great thoughts, thoughts truly great because they are so rooted. At the heart of all we believe and do, after all, is not a Man who wrote a great book (though there certainly are men who write great books!), but a Man Who walked among men, Who physically touched people with Divine Power, Who was brutally killed on Friday afternoon, and ate a fish Supper with His friends on Sunday Evening.
Praise to Him!
Amen.
Alleluia!
In this Sunday’s Lesson, or First Reading, from Chapter 36 of II Chronicles, we have a statement of a theme reiterated frequently in the Books of Judges, First and Second Samuel, First and Second Kings, and First and Second Chronicles. This is simply that sin kills the People of God, and that the Lord punishes sin for a medicinal purpose, to shake His people out of sin before it destroys them. The Lord’s punishments, even the most catastrophic ones, such as the capture of Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the Exile of the Jerusalem’s inhabitants, were decreed, according to Divine Providence, only to save God’s People from extinction by calling them back to their true selves. Once they returned to their true selves there was always divinely decreed restoration, such as King Cyrus of Persia allowing the descendants of Jerusalem’s exiles to return to Judea.
This is how St. Patrick learned to view his own life. As a young man sin was killing him. The Lord punished him for his sin, but only to rescue him before sin destroyed him utterly. The Lord, in His Providence, allowed young Patrick to experience the catastrophe of being carried off by Scotti slave raiders (from what is now called “Northern Ireland, but in those days was called “Scotia”). Patrick recognized that Providence decreed this so that, as a slave in the field tending his master’s sheep, he could discover the true self his sins were smothering. When he had discovered his true self, Providence decreed Patrick’s escape and return to Britannia. Famously, of course, Patrick would later experience the Lord’s call to return voluntarily to Ireland, as Bishop and Apostle.
HOMILY, SECOND WEEK OF LENT
In today’s First Reading we have the most remarkable proof of Abraham’s obedience to the Lord. The Letter to the Hebrews tells us that Abraham’s obedience to God was credited to him as righteousness.
How obedient are we to God?
The Lord instructs the Chosen People of the New Covenant, Holy Church, through the Sacred Scriptures, as well as Sacred Tradition. Sacred Tradition is something deeper than words, as it is embodied primarily in the worship of the Church. Occasionally a Pope or a Council make a statement about what Sacred Tradition includes and does not include, but Sacred Tradition is not primarily a collection of magisterial documents. Sacred Tradition is primarily the People of God down through the centuries engaged in Divine Worship, especially the Divine Worship of the Divinely given Sacraments. I cannot tell you to read Sacred Tradition. Instead, I urge you to participate in Sacred Tradition, by joining the Divine Worship of the People of God.
I can, however, urge you to read the Sacred Scriptures. Do not read them without participating in the Church’s Worship. Read the Bible and participate in the Church’s worship. Read the Sacred Scriptures and participate in Sacred Tradition.
In speaking to you, I presume I am not speaking to people who never or hardly ever open a Bible. Such people, when they do open the Bible, usually find it dull and uninteresting. This is quite natural. To open the Bible without any knowledge or guidance is a little like attending a Baseball game without knowing the first thing about Baseball. There is a lot going on, but none of it will make sense to you, and, consequently, you will probably become bored quite quickly. If someone has initiated you into Baseball, so to speak, so that you know the basics, the game will come to life for you. Similarly, a lot goes on in the Bible, but almost none of it will make sense to the uninitiated, who will therefore speedily get bored. On the other hand, if someone has initiated them into the Bible, so that they know its basics, the sacred texts can come to life for them. Just handing out Bibles has long seemed to me a nearly hopeless missionary technique. Effective missionary strategy must be to attract people into a Christian community, in which they can be introduced to the Sacred Scriptures, as well as to Divine Worship. People need to be initiated into the Sacred Scriptures.
In speaking to you, I presume I am speaking mainly to people who have been initiated into the Sacred Scriptures, people who have discovered the beauty of the Lord Jesus’ parables and miracles, as well as the beauty to be found in the Psalms and in the Prophets.
It is one thing, however, to recognize the beauty of Scriptural words and deeds, and quite another to put that beauty into practice.
Consider the Lord Jesus washing His Disciples’ feet during the Lord’s Supper, on the night before His Passion. To the gesture of washing their feet, He added the admonition that He did this to give them an example of how, among them, every form of leadership must mean humble service to each other. Everyone in the room must have noticed the beauty of the Lord’s gesture. Everyone in the room must have admired it. Did everyone there admire it enough to put into practice? Evidently not, considering that Judas was there. For some, the admirable gesture and the teaching that accompanied it did not have a practical effect on their lives. For the gesture and teaching to have practical effects in life, obedience was required.
Surely there is a lesson here for us. We hear the Lord’s saving Word often. We know it fairly well. We admire it; but do we obey it?
For many Christians the Bible is wonderful, except that it is too strict. Without putting it into words, they feel that they ought to be able to admire the Bible without obeying it. Perhaps we are like that sometimes. It is pleasant to feel religious. It is pleasant to talk about our Faith. In the end, however, feeling and talk are useless without action, and action requires the self-discipline of obedience. It is obedience that makes Christianity practically effective in our lives and in the world. Too often, perhaps, we delight in the beautiful vision our Faith puts in front of us and shrink back from the hard work our Faith requires of us.
For some, to speak frankly, Christianity is just part of the decoration of respectable, middle class life (though this number is decreasing, as respectable, middle class becomes progressively secularized). Having received an expensive and prolonged education, they feel that they are wise and understanding people. It simply does not occur to them that the Gospel of Jesus Christ still has quite a bit to teach them, teaching that will change how they live. No. Their manners and tastes, their opinions and conduct are precisely what they would be if they were not Christians at all. They value good manners and are usually reasonably kind because that is good manners. Their Christianity is part of the decoration of life. Their attitude is essentially worldly, and their conduct essentially selfish. They admire the Gospel. They obey those Gospel teachings that are easily obeyed and explain away those which are not easily obeyed. Such people a century ago would have come to Church every Sunday more or less willingly, graciously declaring their approval for what went on there. Today, since manners have changed, they will come more or less willingly only at Christmas and a handful of other occasions, but with the same attitude of conferring a favor on the Lord by voting “Yes” to Him. Distantly admiring the Gospel, but never imagining that they are required to make an effort to obey it, they leave the Gospel without practical effect in their lives.
To continue speaking frankly, for others Christianity is just decoration for their political interests. Their real loyalty is to a political party or to a political movement. When they read or hear the Sacred Scriptures, they grab hold of those things that agree with what they already think, and ignore, or explain away, those things which do not agree with what they already think. For them the Bible is simply God’s big “Thumbs Up” for their party, movement, or ideology. That the Sacred Scriptures might require of them a higher obedience never occurs to them. Without quite realizing it, they allow their party, movement or ideology to judge the Sacred Scriptures, rather than allowing the Sacred Scriptures to judge their party, movement, or ideology. Their ideas and conduct are precisely what they would be had the Bible never existed. That the Lord’s word is to be obeyed, and not merely mined for material to support what they already think, would be a shocking notion to them. Mining the Gospel for sound bits, but never imagining that they are called to make an effort to obey the Gospel, they also leave the Gospel without practical effect in their lives.
There are others, more attentive to the Gospel, whose response to its commands is, “It is too hard! I just can’t do it - at least not now. Maybe later when I am older and wiser, or more settled, or healthier - or something! But not now! It is too much for me. God will understand.” Some of these people, to do them justice, have actually attempted to take obedience to God’s word seriously. They have wanted to imitate the saints. They have made a start more than once but found themselves backsliding. They have repented and started over again several times, only to fall yet again. They admire the Gospel, and would like to obey it, but are tired.
Certainly, I have experienced this.
When one feels tired of the battle of spiritual life, it is time for what might be called a “gut check”. You say you want holiness - how much do you really want it? If you really want it, keep fighting for it. That is biblical language! “Fight the Good Fight of Faith!” and “I have Fought the Good Fight”, writes St. Paul to Timothy. Honestly, if in truth you hate your sins and want to love God, then God will give you the Grace to overcome your sins and start to love Him. I have exp