Mark 10:45

Tag: Jesus

  • In This Sign, Victory: Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

    Philippians 2:6-11

    In the early 4th century, the Roman world hovered on the brink of civil war. Constantine, fighting for control of the empire, looked into the ancient sky and to his amazement saw emblazoned the cross of Christ along with the words in hoc signo vinces, “In this sign, victory.” This became the insignia of Constantine’s army, who went on to secure the empire for him by crushing his rival Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian bridge.

    Contrast that to a time centuries later when, during the Second World War, a Nazi official attending a dinner party remarked that he much preferred the ancient pagan gods to the God of the Christians. To him, true godhood was found in the image of the commanding, conquering Zeus; not the suffering, crucified Christ.

    It seems that such disparate views remain to this day. On the one hand, the cross is arguably the most popular icon of Christianity; its silhouette dots our landscape, adorns our homes. We enshrine it in jewelry and even trace its outline our bodies. On the other hand the cross conjures up images of humiliation, rejection, suffering, and failure. We use it as a put-down, calling people or things a cross; we complain of the crosses we bear; we pray that they are taken away.

    It is a mistake to see these views as opposed; they are in fact two sides of the same coin. On this feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, let us contemplate more deeply what the cross signifies.

    First, the cross is a sign of obedience. As we read in Philippians, Jesus Christ was glorified, but only by emptying himself, taking the form of a slave, and humbly accepting even death on a cross. Thus, the cross is a sign of defeat, but it is the defeat of self-will through obedience to the will of God; it is the triumph of Christ-like selflessness.

    Second, the cross is a sign of love. In fact, the cross combines the greatest commandment – to love the Lord God with our whole heart, soul, and mind and our neighbor as ourselves – with the greatest love – to lay down our lives for one another. The suffering is obvious; a love so deep requires that we die to ourselves. Yet the triumph is equally obvious: this love is deeper than death and unites us with the Trinity, who is Love itself.

    jesus-3149505_640Finally, the cross is a sign of victory. It is the apparent irony seen throughout salvation history that God works for good by turning evil upon itself. It was Pharaoh who pronounced the curse by which his own people would most suffer: the death of every firstborn. In the desert it was the emblem of the serpent, reminiscent of the one whose envy brought death into the world, that would be lifted up on a tree as a sign of healing and life. It was Caiaphas, plotting to have Jesus executed, who unwittingly prophesied that it was better for one man to die than for the whole nation to perish. It was the Roman governor Pilate who first asked “What is truth?” and then went on to write the truth fixed to the top of the cross: Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. Ultimately it was those in power, both nation and empire, who lifted Jesus up on the most humiliating instrument of death only to watch helplessly as he transformed it into the instrument through which death itself would die and by which the truly repentant would, like the Good Thief, receive the gift of eternal life with God.

    In hoc signo vinces; in this sign, victory. We adore you, O Christ, and we praise you because by your holy cross you have redeemed the world.

  • The Greatest Gift: Memorial of St. John Chrysostom

    Ephesians 4:1-7, 11-13

    St. Paul urged us to live in a manner worthy of the call we have received (Ephesians 4:1). Sounds like good advice, but very general. How do we do that? What are we to do? Perhaps we can get insight by seeing how a saint did it. Since today we remember St. John Chrysostom, let us take a look at his life and see if we can formulate an answer.

    John was born in Antioch around the year 347, the son of a military commander who died as a young man. His mother, a pious and devout woman, raised him in the faith and saw to it that he had the best education possible. A naturally gifted speaker, he studied under Libanius, a pagan but the greatest orator of his time.

    Following the custom of the age, John was baptized at the age of twenty. Drawn to the life of the desert monks, he spent four years in a monastery and two more in a cave as a hermit. The physical demands of that life proved too much, so he returned to Antioch.

    Soon ordained to the diaconate, John spent the next five years refining his skill as a homilist, becoming so good that upon ordination to the priesthood he was appointed preacher to the bishop. Over the years the grace of ordination infused his natural ability as an orator to produce not only a passionate, articulate man, deeply in love with Christ, but also one unafraid to speak his mind in words that either warmed like a gentle flame or raged like a firestorm. In his great love for the poor he once gently reminded the people, “Do not judge the poor man, do not seek an account of his life, but free him from his misfortune.” Another time, moved to righteous anger he scolded, “You are large and fat, you hold drinking parties until late at night, and sleep in a warm, soft bed. And do you not think of how you must give an account of your misuse of the gifts of God?”1

    Some call that brutal honesty, others tactlessness; John called it truth and knew as our Lord did that even when bluntly spoken, truth has a way of drawing people to itself. So it did; over the years John’s preaching won hearts in great number. But there was more than that. His authenticity was so appealing. All could see that he practiced what he preached. Like our Lord, John led a pious, austere life; gentle with penitents, generous to the poor, and loving to all, even when love meant bringing a whip to the Temple.

    Also like Jesus, John made his share of enemies, chief among them the emperor’s wife and some very powerful clergy. Their dislike turned to outright hatred when three things happened: First, he was appointed bishop of Constantinople, the emperor’s city, over the empress’s choice; second, he instituted a reform of the clergy who he believed were lax in their pastoral duty; and third, he turned his stinging eloquence loose on the debauchery and immodesty of society, up to and including the empress and her friends.

    Not surprisingly, his enemies fought back. Unlike John they didn’t fight fair, seeing to it that he was charged with false crimes, convicted, and banished as far away as possible. Although vindicated in time, John was getting on in years and the physical cruelty of his guards more than sufficient to bring about his eventual death. Bishop John died on the road to exile on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, September 14th, 407.

    Chrysostom means “golden mouth.” It was a name given him long after his death in homage to his giftedness as a preacher. But this was a man blessed with many gifts: great intellect, resilience, compassion, a deep love of God, and keen insight into human nature, to name just a few. Yet, as great as they all were, the greatest of all was the gift of grace given as St. Paul said, according to the measure of Christ’s gift (Ephesians 4:7). Grace builds on nature, enabling us to use our natural gifts for our own good and that of the world. Consider its effect in the life of John Chrysostom: Raised by a holy, faithful mother, baptized as a young man, driven by the Spirit into the desert, preaching the gospel to the all who would listen, struggling against arrogant, worldly power and suffering the passion and death of his own Calvary road in exile. Grace empowered him to live a life not only devoted to Christ but configured to him.

    jesus-3499151_1280Surely his was a life lived in a manner worthy of the call. But the question remains, what about us? Are we to be another St. John Chrysostom? On one level, no; the gifts given to him were his and his alone. God doesn’t want another St. John Chrysostom. But on another level, yes, the gifts given to us are ours and ours alone and God is calling us to sanctity. We are sanctified to the degree that we take advantage of the same grace that was available to John, not to do what he did, but to do as he did. If we do not preach the gospel from a pulpit in a church we still preach it from the pulpit of our lives. Every day, we are the only homily someone will hear. If we do not shepherd a church or diocese we still have a flock; family, friends, everyone we meet. We are to teach, feed, love, and serve them as Christ did. If we do not bear the cross John bore we still take up our own and unite it to the suffering of Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.

    St. John Chrysostom teaches us that living in a manner worthy of the call we have received is using the gifts God has given us, infused by the grace he alone can give, to bring out of our diversity the unity that raises the Church to mature manhood, the full stature of Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

    St. John Chrysostom, pray for us.

    1St. John Chrysostom, 21st homily on 1 Corinthians

  • No Longer Judas: Tuesday of the 23rd Week in Ordinary Time

    1 Corinthians 6:1-11; Luke 6:12-19

    What images cross your mind when you hear the name Judas? Over the centuries, the name Judas has become synonymous with a person who seems to be your friend but eventually turns on you; who betrays you in some way. The first goat, the one that leads the others inside a slaughterhouse, is nicknamed “the Judas goat.” I have even heard that, at least at one time, it was illegal to name a child Judas in Germany.

    Yet, as the gospel today reminds us, Jesus selected Judas as one of the Twelve. People have wondered about this throughout the centuries. Why would Jesus do this?

    Although we cannot know what was in the mind of Christ, it does help to pay particular attention to the words used in the gospel. Luke says that Judas became a traitor, implying that he didn’t start out that way. At some point during his time with Jesus, the heart of Judas changed. John the Evangelist says that the breaking point came when Jesus revealed himself as the true Bread whose Body and Blood must be consumed in order to gain eternal life. As the disciples of Jesus begin to desert him, John subtly brings up Judas, saying that Jesus knew from the beginning the ones who would not believe and the one who would betray him (John 6:64).

    However the change within Judas occurred and whatever the reason for his betrayal of our Lord, the real issue for us concerns how we ourselves respond to the challenge of following Christ as his disciples. In what way is my own name Judas? What is the teaching of Christ that we find particularly hard to accept? If it isn’t the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, maybe it’s his command that we love our enemies, his teaching that we must be servants of all, his teaching through St. Paul that we simply put up with injustice or let ourselves be cheated (1 Corinthians 6:7), or any one of a dozen other commands he left us that run counter to our fallen human nature.

    The tragedy of Judas runs deep, for Judas is not just the name of a historical man whose betrayal put Christ on the Cross. My name and the names of every sinner ever born are also on that crime; even Peter, who declared his undying fidelity to Christ and then three times denied that he even knew him. Moreover, the tragedy of Judas is not that he was unrepentant; to the contrary, Matthew wrote that Judas deeply regretted what he had done and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders (Matthew 27:3). The real tragedy of Judas is that he allowed himself to give in to despair after his sin by declaring himself his own judge, jury, and executioner (Matthew 27:5).

    This is exactly what St. Paul counseled against in 1st Corinthians when he reminded those who had once betrayed Christ through their own grievous sins: That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11).

    jesus-284515_640Our gospel closes with this beautiful image: Everyone in the crowd sought to touch him because power came forth from him and healed them all (Luke 6:19). In every sacrament, especially the Blessed Sacrament, Christ continues to allow us to touch him, to behold his power, that it may cleanse, heal, and sanctify all who hope in him. It is only through this power that we are no longer Judas; we are redeemed.

  • The Call of Simon: Thursday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

    Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.

    Luke 5:4

    I remember once talking with a man about the diaconate. When I asked him if he would consider serving Christ as a deacon he shook his head and said, “No.” When I asked why not, he replied with an embarrassed laugh, “I’m not worthy of anything like that!”

    People tend to associate the call to service with their own sense of worthiness. Simon himself said to Jesus in today’s gospel, Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man (Luke 5:8). Even Moses could not approach the Most High without the proper purification (Exodus 40:35).

    Moreover, people also tend to avoid growing closer to Christ and his Church due to their own sense of unworthiness. Some come to Mass but refuse to go to Confession because they believe they are unworthy of forgiveness; others avoid the Church entirely because they feel unworthy to approach God at all.

    But worthiness is never the issue. When the man told me that he wasn’t worthy of a calling to the diaconate, I replied, “That’s right. You aren’t.” As I hoped, that got his attention so I continued, “No one is. I’m certainly not! The call to serve isn’t about worthiness; it’s about putting our reservations aside and casting out into deep water.”

    Simon had worked all night and caught nothing. He was probably tired, irritable, and not inclined to go anywhere but home. However, the man who asked him to cast out in deeper water was the same man who had just healed his mother-in-law (Luke 4:38-39). Simon didn’t know Jesus very well yet, but he knew there was something about him that demanded attention. Despite his reservations, he obeyed. We know the result; they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing (Luke 5:6).

    God gives so abundantly not because we are worthy of it but because he loves so abundantly. While his love demands nothing, it does request that one thing over which he gave us total control: Our own free will. When we place our will in God’s hands, especially in the face of doubt, fear, or reservations, our Lord will never be outdone in generosity.

    laos-1929858 (1)It was Simon’s willingness to put out into deep water and lower his nets despite his reservations that yielded him not only an abundant catch but more importantly the grace to see that the one who sent him was not to be called “Master,” but “Lord.” This is the same Lord before Whom we kneel as we say, “O Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, Speak but the word and my soul shall be healed.”

  • Christ the Teacher: Tuesday of the 22nd Week in Ordinary Time

    Luke 4:31-37

    Take a moment and try to recall the one teacher who you considered the best you ever had. What was it about him or her that was so remarkable? I’ve asked a few people, and the answers seem to fall into two main categories. First, the teacher loved what they taught and second, they loved who they taught.

    Albert Einstein once defined genius as the ability to take the complex and make it simple. Similarly, some teachers are able to take a subject, no matter how difficult, and explain it in such a way that anyone can understand it. Not only that, their love for their subject is contagious; students may find themselves loving a subject they never thought they would even like. One woman I spoke with told me that she actually began to look forward to doing her algebra homework.

    Christ the Teacher had this same genius; we see it in the gospel today and throughout his ministry. Luke says that people were astonished at his teaching because he spoke with authority (Luke 4:32). He was such a master that he could distill the entire law and the prophets into the challenging simplicity of the single command, Do to others whatever you would have them do to you (Matthew 7:12) and he so enlightened the disciples on the road to Emmaus that their hearts burned within them (Luke 24:32). Above all, even the greatest teacher can only bring subjects to life figuratively, but Christ brought his subjects to life literally; the physically dead, the spiritually dead, and as in today’s gospel, those who had their dignity taken from them even by demons.

    This brings us to the second gift of a master teacher: Love for their students. When I asked one woman what subject her favorite teacher taught, she replied, “It didn’t matter. It wasn’t her teaching, it was the way she treated us. We wanted to do well for her just because she cared so much about us.”

    Christ the Teacher was the perfect model of this love. Everything he did was for our benefit, to the very pouring out of his own life. This was his life lesson par excellence: That there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends (John 15:13); and he taught this not on a mountain, in a synagogue, or on a boat, but from the classroom of the Cross.

    The truly selfless teacher is not as interested in what they have to give as they are in what their students take away with them. The lessons are only as good as what the students learn. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Tell me and I will forget. Teach me and I will remember. Involve me, and I will learn.” Two of the great lessons that Christ the Master Teacher came to teach were the true meaning of love and the infinite dignity of the person and he involved humanity in three ways: First, by taking our flesh and living among us; second, by calling us to change our lives and follow him unreservedly; and third, by giving us the very life of God in perpetuity through the sacraments.

    jesus-304899_640Contemplate the humility, the patience, and the genius of this teacher. In our very flesh God himself becomes incarnate; in the Scriptures he consistently speaks to us; in the form of simple bread and wine, blessed and broken, he veils himself and enters into us, all done out of pure, gratuitous love that seeks only to raise us from wherever we are to a place closer to him for all eternity.

    The degree to which we show him that we have learned these lessons is the degree to which, as St. Paul said, we have the mind of Christ.

  • Pastors of Souls: Tuesday of the 19th Week of Ordinary Time

    If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray,
    will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills
    and go in search of the stray?

    Matthew 18:12

     

    Many years ago, the parish of St. Patrick’s in downtown Chicago was in real trouble. Mass attendance was so paltry that it didn’t seem possible to keep the doors open any longer. Seeing this, the new pastor, Father Jack Wall, took action. He roamed the neighborhood, met its people, and got to know them. He walked into its large apartment buildings, knocked on doors, introduced himself, and invited everyone to join him for Sunday Mass. (1)

    Over time, his efforts bore fruit. The pews began to fill. Father continued inviting, hosting events and dinners at the parish, and always welcoming newcomers. In just a few years, the pews overflowed; St. Patrick’s grew from about 4 families to 4,000! (2)

    At first, it might have seemed like trying to stay open was a losing proposition. Why not simply close St. Patrick’s and transfer her members to nearby parishes? Of the few parishioners left, most would have accepted reality and moved on, although some surely would have been lost.

    jesus-1167493_640The answer can be read between the lines of our Lord’s question in today’s gospel: He doesn’t want any to be lost. He wants the shepherd to go out and find them. Even one.

    The Church takes the Good Shepherd’s intention so seriously that the highest of all her laws is the salvation of souls (3). Moreover, she has decreed that each pastor is responsible for the care of every soul within the boundaries of his parish (4). Catholic, non-Catholic, it makes no difference. Every soul matters to Christ; therefore, every soul matters to his Church.

    Let us pray for the success of our pastor and every pastor throughout the world as they continually strive to seek the lost and bring them home – wherever and whoever they are.
    (1) http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1989/11/12/page/230/article/the-resurrection-of-old-st-pats
    (2) https://www.catholicextension.org/our-leadership

    (3) Canon 1752

    (4) Canon 519

  • Remember the Babushkas: The 19th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Cycle C

    Wisdom 18:6-9; Hebrews 11:1-2, 8-19; Luke 12:32-48

    When the Communist Party under Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia in 1917, a brutal anti-religious campaign began. Over 100,000 clergy were shot or imprisoned, seminaries closed, religious literature banned, and atheism exalted. By 1939 only 100 churches remained open; the rest – about 60,000 – were confiscated, desecrated, and turned into everything from museums and warehouses to public bathrooms.

    Yet by 2011, a survey of religious practice showed that Russia was the most God-fearing nation in Europe, with 82% of her people believing in God. How did religious belief survive despite over 70 years of oppressive persecution? The Russian people and the Church knew the answer: The babushkas1.

    So who were they? Well, “babushka” in Russian means “grandma.” The babushkas were the elderly women who kept the flame of faith alive during those terrible years. They are a testament to the kind of faith that is spoken of in today’s readings.

    What kind of faith is that? The kind that expresses itself in prayer and action; vigilant and resilient, it finds ways to survive even the toughest conditions, like those of the ancient Jews. It was a mean, difficult existence as a Jewish slave; life was hard and only got harder when they asked for freedom. Yet they never gave in; instead, they quietly passed on the faith to their children and prayed in secret. Similarly in Russia. Life for Christians was obviously very hard; still, the babushkas never gave in. Rather, they took action at home and in public. Because Soviet mothers were forced to work, babushka stayed home with the kids and used that time to quietly teach them the faith. In public, where they were dismissed as harmless and irrelevant, the babushkas crept into the deserted, desecrated churches, lit candles, and prayed for deliverance. It didn’t happen overnight, but for both the Jews and the babushkas, the strategy paid off.

    We can learn from them for we have challenges, too. We aren’t enslaved by any foreign power, but our society has virtually enslaved itself to the relentless pursuit of pleasure, if not decadence. We aren’t suppressed by an atheistic government but we, especially our young people, do seem to be infected by a kind of spiritual apathy best summarized by a twenty-something who said to me, “I don’t care if God exists or not.”

    So these are tough times too but we can rise to the challenge; we can show that resilient and vigilant faith that Christ is looking for. Perhaps you’re a grandma or grandpa; as our congregations age we have more and more of them. Fine. Be babushka. If your own kids aren’t teaching the faith to your grandkids, then you do it. Bring them to Mass if you can. If your kids forbid it, find an indirect way. Watch movies with the grandkids that touch on spiritual themes or read them the classic books that do the same. Challenge them; get them to think about the important issues facing them. However you can, teach them the self-giving love of Christ. When all is said and done, what is more important than that?

    Equally important, none of this is going anywhere without prayer. God has the power to deliver us but he wants us to pray, to ask him for help. The Hebrew slaves prayed, the babushkas prayed, Jesus himself prayed before all of the major events of his life. So we are called to pray, to lift up our hearts to the Lord and ask for his intervention.

    We know that, but we also know that prayer isn’t easy even in the best of times. We get distracted, feel like God is far away, put off praying, or get discouraged. These only get worse when we’re going through hard times.

    hands-4051469_640The answer to all of this is given by Jesus in the gospel and can be boiled down to one word – vigilance. If you sense that you are distracted in prayer, then let that become your prayer. Say, “Lord, see how weak I am. I can’t even focus on you now when I need you the most!” In your weakness Christ will be your strength. If you feel like God is far away, remember: God doesn’t move, we do. Weak faith causes us to drift. We strengthen it with exercise, so pray more, not less; attend Mass more often; see him in Adoration. If you find yourself putting off prayer, remember Christ’s words: At an hour you do not expect, the Son of Man will come (Luke 12:40). Also, remember his reaction to finding people not doing what he asked; it did not go well for them. Finally, when you’re discouraged remember Abraham and everything he went through. In faith he left his native land, wandered homeless, and nearly lost his only son. As if that wasn’t enough, he was never allowed to actually live in the land he was promised. Those are pretty good reasons to be discouraged! Still, no matter where he was, he always built an altar and sacrificed to God. He could lose his home, his son, and the land of his inheritance, but he never lost heart; he remained faithful, prayerful, and vigilant to the end. So can we.

    The gospel closes ominously: Much will be required of the person entrusted with much, and still more will be demanded of the person entrusted with more (Luke 12:48). The question is, what have we been entrusted with? The answer is faith. What is the demand? That we live it out and pass it on. It seems hard because it is, but when all seems lost remember the babushkas. On the one side, the government and force of the Soviet Union determined to wipe out the faith; on the other a group of elderly women working and praying to preserve it. The Soviets never had a chance.

  • A Tale of Two Mountains: The Transfiguration

    Daniel 7:9-10, 13-14; 2 Peter 1:16-19; Luke 9:28b-36

    The evangelists Matthew, Mark, and Luke all write of the Transfiguration of our Lord. While they share many aspects of the event, the version from Luke we heard today is distinct in some important ways. Let us begin by briefly considering what they have in common and then see how Luke’s unique perspective deepens that.

    All three men place the Transfiguration just after Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Messiah and the announcement by our Lord of his upcoming passion. Recognizing this, the Church set the feast of the Transfiguration on August 6, exactly 40 days before the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. Thus, the Transfiguration must be understood in light of the paschal mystery and the recognition that Jesus is the Christ.

    With this in mind, let us consider the events of the Transfiguration the authors have in common. First, Jesus, along with Peter, James, and John ascend the mountain. Next, Jesus appears in brilliant light, accompanied by Moses and Elijah. Peter begins to speak but the Father’s voice is heard from the cloud, “This is my beloved (chosen) Son. Listen to him.” Finally, Jesus is alone with the apostles again.

    These basic facts reveal several things. First, the Transfiguration is the Father’s own confirmation of Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of Man as foretold in Daniel. Note that the voice from the cloud does not speak to Jesus but to the apostles. Second, it is at the same time a visible sign of future glory and a foretaste of the beatific vision. Moses and Elijah, alive in the spirit, stand in the presence of Christ, who shines with the bright light of God. Third, it is a consolation to the apostles, who have witnessed hostility, rejection, plots against Jesus, along with no little misunderstanding and confusion on their own part. Finally, it is a sign that the law and the prophets find their ultimate meaning in Christ and therefore in love – both love of God, since Christ went to his death in obedience to the Father’s will, and love of neighbor, since his life was poured out for the many.

    jesus-3149505_640What is unique to Luke in the Transfiguration is the dimension of prayer. Only he tells us that Jesus ascended the mountain to pray. Luke properly understands it as a tale of two mountains: On the one, the unnamed mount of Transfiguration, the prayer of Jesus results in a glorious vision, he dazzling white, his face shining, his Father speaking to the apostles awakened. On the other, the mount of Gethsemane, the prayer of Jesus will end in the passion, his face sweating blood, his Father silent, and these same apostles sleeping. Luke is clear: We cannot have the glory of the Transfiguration without the suffering of the cross. In Christ, the two are inextricably bound. What’s more, this is the cost of discipleship; later in Luke Jesus will say, Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:27)

    Beyond this, the context of prayer adds depth to the experience of the apostles on the mountain and informs our own. Earlier, I mentioned that the vision given to the apostles was a consolation. We too can receive consolations in prayer. Perhaps you recall a time that you have attended Mass, knelt in Adoration, or sat in quiet contemplation and suddenly had a strong if not overwhelming sense of God’s presence. No wonder Peter asked about setting up tents! Our second reading showed how deeply the vision was ingrained in him; we can feel the imagery and power of it in his words years later.

    Of course no mountaintop experience lasts forever; sooner or later we have to come down. And we will have our share of desolations as well; times we pray as Jesus did: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me (Matthew 27:46)? But always, no matter how dark the valley, we also have those most consoling words of Luke after the vision was over: Jesus was found alone (Luke 9:36).

    Who could ask for more than the Light of the World?

  • We Have Met the Enemy: Monday of the 18th Week in Ordinary Time

    Numbers 11:4b-15; Matthew 14:13-21

    On September 10, 1813, after defeating the British on Lake Erie during the War of 1812, Commodore Oliver Perry famously said, “We have met the enemy and they are ours.” A century and a half later, the cartoonist Walt Kelly made a different point when he changed this to “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”

    We in the Church tend to be our own worst enemy. In fact, we have centuries of experience at it. Take for example the scene we just read from the book of Numbers. First the people reminisce about the “good old days” in Egypt when they had plenty to eat, somehow forgetting the fact that starving people make poor slaves. These same people then complain about being famished and at the same time complain about the manna they are freely being fed by the hand of God. The irony isn’t lost on Moses, who is so angered by the whining that he actually prays to die rather than lead these ingrates another step of the way. If that isn’t a house divided then nothing is.

    We see a second, more subtle example in the gospel reading from St. Matthew. Jesus hears of the death of John the Baptist and seeks time away from the crowds, perhaps to mourn the loss. Is he allowed to? Absolutely not; the people follow right behind wanting more healing, more miracles which, in his infinite mercy, Jesus does. However, the disciples don’t appear angry but do seem to have had enough; they try to talk Jesus into sending the crowd away. After all, the people got what they wanted; now it’s late and they need to go. Again, a house divided.

    It would be easy to dismiss this divisiveness as examples of what people only do under pressure, but that isn’t true. Time and again, history shows that when the world isn’t attacking the Church, the Church is attacking herself. We see it in every parish; we see it in ourselves. Perhaps these lines sound familiar: “What a boring homily”; “That musician is terrible”; “If I ever work on this committee with so-and-so again, I swear I’ll quit”; or “If they don’t like the way we do things around here, then maybe they should go somewhere else!”

    That isn’t the way of Christ and it isn’t the way of his Church. Our business isn’t to get people out, it’s to bring them in; not to tear them down, but to build them up; and not to get fed up with them, but to get them fed.

    The root of the problem is our passion and our pride. It was in his frustration that Moses cried, “I cannot carry all these people by myself, for they are too heavy for me.” God never demanded this. It was the enemy within telling him that he alone must carry the people; telling the crowd that they were starving in spite of the manna; telling the disciples that no one could feed a crowd so big.

    eucharist-1591663_640Jesus could; Jesus did. He “took” the loaves and fish, “looked” to heaven, “said” the blessing, “broke” the loaves, and “gave” them to the disciples. If that sounds a lot like the actions of Jesus instituting the Eucharist, that’s because it is. In feeding the multitudes, Jesus showed that only God could carry the world; only God could unite a house divided. The Eucharist foreshadowed by Christ in the gospel is the sacrament of unity; it is the antidote to the enemy within that seeks to divide.

    We have met the enemy, and it is us; let us go up and meet the victor, for it is Christ.

  • Familiarity Breeds Love: Friday of the 17th Week of Ordinary Time

    Matthew 13:54-58

    As part of a pilgrimage to Italy, we were privileged to visit all of the major cathedrals in Rome. It was very easy to be bowled over by their beauty. They were truly a feast for the eyes; majestic and overwhelming. I remember visiting St. Mary Major while daily Mass was going on. As all the tourists walked around admiring the magnificence, the local people went to Mass and, when it was over, simply got up and left. To me, this was a wonder to explore; to them, it was just “their church.”

    It reminded me of the old saying that “familiarity breeds contempt.” Not that the people were in any way contemptuous of their church; they weren’t. I just mean that to them St. Mary’s was “home,” a familiar place, one many of them had known all their lives.

    However, there does seem to be some contempt for Jesus in the questions and attitude of the people in his home town. They had known Jesus most of his life and seem somewhat bemused as they ask one of the most crucial and ironic questions in the gospel: Is he not the carpenter’s son? (Matthew 13:55). From our perspective we might wonder at their wonderment; this is the Son of God, announced by the angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But those asking the question weren’t reading the gospel; to them, this was Jesus, who grew up among them. They knew his mother, they knew his family, they knew him.

    Or did they?

    It’s human nature to want to know things, and to think that we do. We’re used to learning; we’ve done it from birth. But our intellect is limited; no matter how much we know about anything, certain aspects remain hidden from us. We see this in our own relationships. If you’re married, think of your spouse; if not, perhaps brothers, sisters, or other family. Think even of places, like this church. We know them, right?

    Yes and no. Although we do know a lot, there are limits, things we can never know. Take even the most familiar person. No matter how well we know them, they will ultimately remain a mystery simply because we cannot know their inmost being – their soul. At church we can see the pews, the walls, the statues, the tabernacle, the hosts inside it, but the supernatural realities also remain a mystery: the substance of the bread and wine, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the Real Presence of Christ. Hidden from our senses, these are revealed only to the eyes of faith.

    church-4365346_640The complication is that our senses can actually keep us from seeing the spiritual reality. We become so preoccupied with what they’re telling us that we miss what lies beyond them. When I walked through St. Mary Major I saw every artistic and architectural wonder she could reveal but missed the revelation that all of it pointed to, the greatest one possible – Christ in the most holy Eucharist. As for the people at Mass, they were also at risk of preoccupation, not with works of art but with their own thoughts or problems. In either case, the task before us is to concentrate on the glory being revealed to us, for it alone is the more lasting and soul-satisfying.

    The key to success is faith; the free assent of our mind and submission of our will to divine revelation. When faith guides where senses fail we find that familiarity breeds not contempt but love, that familiarity is not a barrier to a deeper experience of God but actually the road by which we enter more and more deeply into it.