From Sacred Heart
Epiphany of the Lord - January 8, 2012
Today’s Solemnity, the Epiphany of the Lord, was always observed on January 6th. It was made one of the moveable feasts of Christmas by the bishops of our country and several other countries for pastoral reasons. They wanted to give more of our people the opportunity to appreciate the importance of the event. Epiphany is often referred to as “The Christmas of the Gentiles,” Christmas itself as the coming of the Messiah for the Jewish people. That helps us appreciate why this day receives major emphasis among Eastern Christians, both Catholic and Orthodox, but the simple fact of the matter is that Jesus came for all people for all time.
The word Epiphany comes from the Greek and is used to describe the visit or appearance of a very important person like a king or a queen. In order to appreciate the coming of God in light of the Gospel account of the three wise men, I would like to quote from St. Augustine again from Matins in the Divine Office for this morning/Saturday morning. Here is St. Augustine speaking to us from the 4th century: “God is born a man to free man from his guilt. Man fell, God descended; man fell miserably, God descended mercifully; man fell through pride, God descended with his grace.” Then he continues: “My brethren, what miracles! What prodigies! The laws of nature are (suspended). God is born. A virgin becomes pregnant. The Word of God marries the woman who (has) known no man. She is now at the same time both mother and virgin. She becomes a mother, yet she remains a virgin. The virgin bears a son, yet she does not know man; she remains untouched, yet she is not barren. He alone was born without sin, for she bore him without the embrace of a man, not by concupiscence of the flesh, but by the obedience of mind (and heart).”
For our reflection, I would simply suggest that we think about the humility of God in choosing to become one of us. He could have accomplished his purpose in the blinking of an eye. He could have come to us as an adult. He chose to recapitulate the full experience of a truly human person like us. He chose to reverse Adam’s sin, prideful disobedience, by his humble obedience to the Father. He chose to undo the sentence of death brought through the sin of Adam by an atonement of a most horrible suffering and death. The ramifications of God’s humility in joining the human race make for endless refection.
I suggest too that we reflect on the reason why God could choose doing things the way he did. I submit that it was to allow us to save face. One of the prefaces at Mass put it this way: “In your living plan of salvation You came to our rescue by your power as God, but you wanted us to be saved by one like us. Man refused your friendship, but man himself was to restore it through Jesus Christ” (P 31; Sunday in Ordinary Time). A “Man himself would restore it” – in order for us to save face. What subtlety! What courtesy! What consideration! What sensitivity! What man destroyed in Adam, namely Original Justice, man restored in Jesus Christ.
This choice of God further underscores and bolsters human dignity, the thing we continue to undermine and diminish from the throwing away of innocent human life in abortion to the debasement of greed that plagues every level of human enterprise from obscenely overpaid CEOs of corporations, to corruption in unions to individuals like us giving importance in untold numbers of ways to crass things beneath our dignity. God was born in time in his Holy Nativity at Bethlehem and he showed himself in time in his Holy Epiphany to convince us that he loves us, respects our human dignity and calls us to live a life in sync with that dignity. Aren’t you glad the bishops wanted us to extend our meditation on the Holy Nativity of the Lord?
Christmas - December 25, 2011
Merry Christmas everyone! I had a priest friend who frequently made words in the English language his own by altering them a bit. For example he would say “remanent” for remnant. Well I still have the remanant of a severe cold this past week and the remanant resides in my voice. I sincerely pray that this Christmas is a special one for each of you and that God’s grace touches your heart in a needful way. We were blessed with a full Advent this year beautifully paving the way for that possibility. May your families be blessed with the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ. May your faith in his Mystical Body, the Church, be strengthened and restored if has grown thin. The Christmas name for Our Lord is “Emmanuel” a Hebrew name meaning “God is with us.” And He is indeed with us in His great Sacraments entrusted to his Church as he is present in the many graces he gives us for our own personal walk with him in this life.
It is important to remind ourselves that our faith in Christ and the Living Christ present in his Church bears the responsibility to give witness to others. We are called to do that by the way we live as well as by the things we say. In the Divine Office for Saturday, this morning/yesterday, we read from Isaiah “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings glad tidings.” The great prophet was speaking of the promised one Jesus Christ whose tiny feet were kissed by Mary and Joseph, washed by the woman in Simon the Pharisee’s house and dried with her hair, his feet who went up and down Galilee and Judea teaching, healing and forgiving and whose feet wound up nailed to his cross. Jesus Christ bore the glad tidings of our redemption and he has ordained, mandated, and instructed his followers to go and do likewise, “to the ends of the earth.” He also told us that we are a “city on a mountain” to be seen and heard.
Reflecting on the Isaiah reading, from the same Liturgy of the Hours, St. Augustine reminds us: “You would have suffered eternal death, had he not been born in time. Never would you have been freed from sinful flesh, had he not taken on himself the likeness of sinful flesh. You would have suffered everlasting unhappiness, had it not been for this mercy. You would never have returned to life, had he not shared your death. You would have been lost if he had not hastened to your aid. You would have perished, had he not come. Let us then joyfully celebrate the coming of our salvation and redemption. Let us celebrate the festive day on which he who is the great and eternal day came from the great and endless day of eternity into our own short day of time.”
Those words of Augustine come to us from the early fifth century A.D. Our motive for celebrating Christmas could not have been put more succinctly. It is something for each one of us to have in the back of his and her mind as we tuck into the turkey, or goose, or roast beef, or ham or whatever has come to anchor our celebration with gratitude for life and family and friends and faith that support our walk on earth.
May each of you have a strong hold on the true heart of Christmas to enjoy a truly Merry Christmas!
Fourth Sunday in Advent - December 18, 2011
As we come to the close of this all-too-brief beautiful time of Advent, we accomplish our introduction to the new Roman Missal with, I hope, a certain measure of satisfaction. As time goes on we will develop our ear for the unique language of the Liturgy of the Church and, I hope, develop a measure of appreciation. Coming to Mass is not meant to be like anything else we do in the routine of our lives. We are not the center of attention at Mass, God is. He commanded us very early in our existence as a human race that we were not to have strange gods before him. When we make ourselves the focus of our presence at Mass we are merely dredging up the oldest heresy of them all, idolatry – I – dolatry. The Mass in its timeless structure of readings from Scripture, and the celebration of the Lord’s Great Prayer and Action in the Holy Eucharist is his own perfect worship of God, the way God intends to be worshipped. Just as the Jewish Passover was always tied to the sacrificial action going on in the Temple, the new Passover of the Lord is tied for all time to the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. It is built upon the preliminary stages of Old Testament worship as it was shaped through the period of each separate Covenant between God and his chosen people. The Mass is the pure, true and perfect worship of God as part of the final Covenant between God and his people. That Covenant of Jesus Christ is the eternal and everlasting Covenant sealed in his blood on the cross and made present to us in its Memorial at Mass according to his command: DO THIS, as my memorial.
There are a few things I would like to point out again by way of the kinds of changes the new Missal tweaks, adjusts and changes in the language used. The first one is in Penitential Rite A at the opening of Mass with the happy return of the three-fold mea culpa, “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault” echoing as it does a need set forth by the sin at our origin: “Eve made me do it,” “The serpent made me do it,” coming down to the necessary “I did it.” If there is anything representative of our time it is the constant blaming others for what is our responsibility. That is obviated in the restored Confiteor.
Then there is peccata mundi – the Latin words for “sins of the world.” In the Mass Book, the Sacramentary that we just retired, it was frequently translated as “sin of the world.” It is a minor distinction but, again, an important one for our time. We can think about the sin out there in the world, but that often suggests “other peoples’ sin” not “my sins.” The simple distinction that translates the Latin accurately and precisely points out the sins of the world including my sins. Both in the new translation of the Gloria and the Agnus Dei – the Lamb of God - my sins are properly registered. It provides a nice balance for the mea culpa with which we begin Holy Mass.
Another tack of the new translation is to quote Holy Scripture accurately as in the “Under my roof” profession of faith in the Holy Eucharist before we receive the Holy Eucharist. “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and my soul shall be healed.” They are the words of the Gentile Centurion in the Gospel who asked Our Lord to heal his servant. Would that the words Our Lord said of the Centurion could refer to each one of us when we approach Holy Communion: “I have never found this much faith in Israel!”
Finally, there is the use of the languages that are part of the history of the Mass: Kyrie eleison – Greek; Agnus Dei – Latin; Alleluia and Hosanna – Hebrew; Maranatha – Aramaic. That is our heritage in the Mass. You are intelligent people. Never shy away from who and what you are as Roman Catholic Christians.
Twenty-Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time - September 25, 2011
I love today’s Gospel passage from Matthew 21:28 don’t you? It’s so me. It’s probably you too. When asked to do something, a favor, say no but do it anyway. Naturally I think it’s better than the other way – saying yes and not doing it. And then there are those other people, bright eyed and bushy-tailed who always say yes cheerfully and do it. I’m not on their planet. Frankly I have to point out that even Jesus went a little bit with those of us who grumble and imply no but do it anyway, at least it sounds that way to me. Remember Cana? The wedding feast? It is recounted in St. John’s Gospel, not St. Luke where one might expect it. How did John know about it? It starts out, “There was a wedding in Cana in Galilee and (experience goose flesh here) the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding.
“When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ Jesus said to her “So?” “Come on, my hour has not yet come. What do you want me to do about it?” It sounds an awful lot like “no” to me. “His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” You don’t think that’s the way it went? You’re probably right. We believe that Jesus never refuses his mother anything and he probably was not whining, grumbling or complaining here but setting in relief for us what would be the first act of his public ministry. As for our side, Jesus did say that the son who said no actually did what the father wanted. The other son was irresponsible and the father knew he couldn’t be counted on even though he was in the habit of always saying yes to brush his dad off for the moment.
The second reading today gives us St. Paul’s beautiful hymn to the Incarnation. Unlike Adam, our father of the human family, whose pride in thinking he could “be like God” got us into the mess of the original sin, Jesus, the New Adam, humbled himself to become one of us and drag us out of the mess. He became a “slave, obedient even unto death, even unto death on a cross (cf. Romans 5:14). The humility of God in becoming human and the humility of the God-Man Jesus Christ in coming to serve and submit even to death, sets a standard for us and serves notice on human pride.
In this way, the path of humility, Jesus shows us the way back to God. He shows us sinners his way back to the Father. The only way we come to God is to serve as Jesus did in the family of the Church. In his encounter with some of Israel’s leaders, Jesus found that in their vainglory and their presumed superiority they had no further need to hear God’s word or God’s servants. They said “no” and meant it. Jesus is hard-pressed to convince us that the path of humility is the only way to follow him. “Unless you become like a little child, you cannot enter the Kingdom of heaven.” Unless you can empty yourself of you, unless you can own up to your sins and ask forgiveness, there is no way of following him properly. You can go through with your little human protest and say “no” but you better be willing to “do it anyway;” God allows for that, but if you are irresponsible and try to come to God in some other way, your own way, you will be in trouble. He does not settle for the brush off, the brush off that says “yes” and doesn’t come through.
For homework you might want to mull over this question: Why should we not be surprised to find the account of the wedding at Cana in St. John’s Gospel account instead of expecting it in St. Luke’s account?
Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time - September 18, 2011
In typical fashion we tend to look at things from our own perspective. We generally do not put ourselves in the other person’s “moccasins” as the Native American axiom would have it. As to giving the other guy room to save face, we often opt for asserting our rights before doing that, just to let him know. And that’s the way we tend to “hear” today’s Gospel. We’ll get back to that.
I was with a friend and classmate – the two are not necessarily synonymous – at a good old German restaurant in Milwaukee, Kegel’s Inn on around 57th and National. We broke out of a clergy conference before lunch and opted to have it at Kegel’s. We hadn’t seen each other for a while and wanted to catch up. John’s parents were immigrants from Austria after World War I and he is fluent in German. We ordered something typical and for his optional side dish he asked for “rotkohl”, red cabbage. Well when the order came he got sauerkraut – what he deserved, actually, for showing off his German. I said, “Send it back; she’ll gladly get the red cabbage.” He said “No, that’s all right.” I encouraged him again to send it back. He said, “Your mother taught me to let the other person save face.” I said, “My mother? Really?” He said, “Yes, your mother.” I said, “Well I don’t remember that but it sure sounds like her.” In Scripture study we would call that “internal evidence” that a statement is true.
To let the other person save face. I know some people who never sit down in a restaurant without finding a flaw and sending a dish back. I don’t choose to go out with them again because it is always about them, their rights and their need to be right at every turn to reinforce a deficient self-image. To lord it over a waitress or clerk or a mechanic or a tradesman, or, even a professional, is their daily meat. They couldn’t feel alive unless they were criticizing, correcting or upbraiding someone.
So the landowner in the Gospel is unfair. God is the landowner in the Gospel. It’s about God and his munificence, his generosity, his largesse in including among his chosen people, the Jews, all other people in the world. The sharp guys following Jesus got the message and didn’t like it a bit. Jesus had to go.
The parable in today’s Gospel is also about Jesus and what he would do and did do for us. The name Jesus means “Savior,” and so indeed he is. He came to give his life as expiation in atonement for our faltering lives so burdened with our own self-absorption, always thinking about us. He would embrace death, a horrendous death, in order to restore eternal life to us. He would “become sin” as St. Paul says, in order to obtain forgiveness for our sins. We noted last week that the words of Jesus on the cross, “Father, forgive them they know not what they do” were intended not just for torturers in Jerusalem and executioners on Calvary or the crowds hurling abuse, but for every one of us. He died “peccata mundi” for the sins of the world, not just the sin of the world that belongs to everyone but me. He died for my sins.
Jesus came to teach us, to heal us, to show us how to draw the habit of generosity into our behavior so that we can become more like him and thereby open the way for his power to become effective in our world and also outfit us for the life of heaven. Our “good works” so much derided and even despised by some so-called evangelical Christians, are not our way to embezzle heaven, but a way to engage our free wills in activating our faith and moving us along the way to heaven. In God’s generosity he has allowed us to save face and enter a heavenly reward somehow looking like we deserved it.
Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time - September 11, 2011
Montgomery Clift was the first of the great “method actors” in the twentieth century. “Method Acting” was pioneered by the Actors Studio in New York. Clift played the part of a priest in the 1953 Alfred Hitchcock film “I Confess.” Hitchcock was Catholic and chose an on-location site in Quebec. Clift was not Catholic and spent two months preparing himself for a very credible portrayal of a priest, learning some of the little things that Hollywood always gets all wrong.
Clift played the part of Father Logan. The custodian of the parish murdered a man, went to confession to Father Logan and through the twists and turns of the plot Fr. Logan wound up accused of the murder. Bound by the seal of the confessional he faced capital punishment if convicted of the crime. The film is a great deal about forgiveness. The film drags on a bit but Clift’s performance, the outstanding black and white photography and the Quebec location make it truly moving.
Our presence at Mass, our devout reception of the Holy Eucharist and our being Catholic are about forgiveness. Forgiveness is a Gospel value at the heart of the teachings of Jesus Christ. We practice our faith, we come to Mass, in order to become like Jesus Christ. He became one of us to reveal God’s love for us, to explain it, to teach it, to show it, and to delegate and empower us to live it, and, as members of his Church, to be a sign of his presence in the world.
We hear Jesus Christ in the Gospel and his words are power; they bestow on us what they announce. Note how it is Peter who initiates a conversation with Our Lord on forgiveness. How appropriate! He will need forgiveness big time after his denial of Christ. At the Consecration of the Mass we offer the sacrifice of ourselves in union with the perfect offering Jesus makes of Himself to the Father at every Mass. “Father, forgive them” was an integral part of his sacrifice on the cross as it is in his everlasting, on-going offering of self on our behalf. At Holy Communion God gives his Son to us as a pledge that we are forgiven in the measure that we have forgiven others. That’s one of the reasons we begin the Communion Rite of the Mass with the Lord’s Prayer: “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” is our Holy Communion pledge.
At Mass Jesus gives us what we need in order to forgive. And he also gives that power to us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation when we go to confession to the priest. If you or I have a particular problem forgiving someone, it is a good sign that we need to go to confession to first have that healing power freed up in our lives.
People who drag around the big bag of garbage labeled: “refusal to forgive” wind up sick, physically sick often enough, but spiritually a wreck. Bitter, resentful and unforgiving people are no fun to be around. It is pretty hard to be a living sign of the presence of Jesus Christ and impossible to bring him to others if we are committed to a refusal to forgive. How are you doing on that score? Time for a tune-up? As my mother would say, “When was the last time you went to confession?” That got me thinking and got me going if I knew what was good for me
Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 21, 2011
I was asked to tape a Relevant Radio program last Friday with Archbishop Listecki on the priest in popular films. One of them we talked about was “The Keys of the Kingdom,” a 1944 film starring Gregory Peck. It impressed me as a kid and it was surely one of the multiple influences leading me to consider the Priesthood. What I liked about it I know now was the authentic and credible image of the priest that came through. Hollywood was impressed too because it launched a long and stellar career for Peck.
The first reading today and the Gospel are about the keys of the kingdom. Isaiah refers to the change of leadership in Israel to be brought about by God’s power. Divine authority establishes the Key for the house of David. It is the power of authority to open and to lock. Keys give control and bring things together. For Israel it meant authority passed on in the Davidic dynasty culminating in the birth of Jesus. Both Mary and Joseph were of the House of David and the power and authority given to David by God culminated with Jesus passed on by flesh and blood from Mary and by legal standing in society from Joseph his foster father.
In the Gospel we hear Jesus entrusting to Peter and the Apostles the authority for the people of the New Covenant. As the power of the keys was passed on in the royal line of David, Jesus, the Son of David, passes it on to Peter and the Apostles. But first he asks them what people think of him. And then he asks the disciples themselves what they think of him. What follows is Peter’s beautiful profession of faith. Jesus makes it clear that faith is a gift from the Father, a gift from God. We can desire it. We can ask for it. We can wait for it. And we can surrender to it. We can never deserve faith nor can we earn it. We can lose it.
At the heart of the authority question two facts remain: Jesus Christ established the authority of the Church as he placed it squarely on the shoulders and in the hands of Peter and the Apostles and their successors down through the ages. Jesus also backs up his authority with a solemn promise that the gates of hell will not prevail against his Church. That authority comes from Jesus Christ to an apostolic Catholic Church that holds his protection. That Church and that protection have held for 2,000 years.
When people find themselves on a journey to the Catholic Church, sometimes without even being aware of it, the key element is always their hunger for authority holding things together. It begins with a deeply felt need for truth ultimately coming to rest with the community that claims to speak Christ’s truth with authority. And that authority comes from Jesus Christ established with the means he has designated. Christ will never allow the successors of the Apostles to lead God’s people astray. And he will never allow the enemies of his Church to prevail against it.
Be sure to pray for the Holy Father and our Archbishop every day as we do at every Holy Mass. Benedict and Jerome and the other bishops hold the “Keys to the Kingdom” in solemn trust passed on to them in the same way that the power of the “Key of the House of David” was passed on to those in authority in the former Covenant, holding things together – on, holy, catholic and apostolic.
Do you see why it is so important to be familiar with, to know our Old Testament? For your homework open the Old Testament to the Prophet Isaiah, Chapter 22 beginning with verse 20. Read it several times.
Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - August 7, 2011
Thursday there was a funeral at Sacred Heart. The burial was in the second of Racine’s city-owned and operated cemeteries, Graceland Cemetery. Both of those cemeteries are very beautiful and for the first time my attention was attracted to the trees. There are many varieties of tree. Two trees that are out of vogue today because they are “messy” are the catalpas and the sycamores. Hang the mess they are both magnificent. The sycamores especially caught my attention because they have practically disappeared and yet they are indigenous to our area. Steve, the Director of the Cemeteries, told me that over seventy trees in Graceland had been vandalized. Criminals come in with chain saws and cut off the burl. Burl is a knot or clump of beautifully grained wood, an outgrowth on a trunk or branch used for veneer or for carving. For a tree lover like me, I was just plain sick to learn of one more violent desecration going on in our midst.
Some people feel strongly that similar outrageous acts occurred with the flawed implementation of our Mass after Vatican II. Since it occurred on the watch of Pope Paul VI they regard him with coldness and shunning. One of the minor flaws was the hasty translation of the Mass from Latin into English. This did not occur in other languages, French for example has a beautiful translation, so it can hardly be laid at the doorstep of Pope Paul. I mention him, by the way, especially yesterday, because he died on the Feast of the Transfiguration, August 6th, 33 years ago.
My own view first of all is that Paul VI is one of the special popes who qualifies him to called “Great” along with Pope John Paul II. Using the yardstick of history, a man is great if the changes he brought about are far-reaching and permanent. Elijah and Peter in today’s readings are classic examples of two giants who shrunk with some fear in their need to trust God. Paul VI is a saint in my book because of his courage and humility. Every day I pray the Divine Office, every day I offer Mass, I thank him for what he did for the Church. As a man who spent practically his whole career in the upper echelon of Vatican bureaucr, he knew that the forces not only voicing caution, which is a necessary thing, but those always opposing change of any kind, would have brought to a halt what needed to be done. The anxiety he experienced must have been a true martyrdom, a “white” martyrdom, just as the faith and courage with which he pressed on was of an heroic degree.
Rather than blaming Pope Paul VI for the tweaks and corrections we need to undergo now, we should thank him. He was the one who re-organized the Council at the behest of Pope John XXIII; he was the one who implemented all of the Council decrees and directions with lightening speed so they could not be reversed, and he was the one who gave the first commentary and interpretation of those decrees. In addition to thanking him we might pray to him that our efforts to correct and re-direct what he brought about for the Church by the grace and power of the Holy Spirit will touch the hearts as well as the minds of those of us striving to grasp the heart and soul of our Faith, Jesus Christ, His hand requiring our trust, His heart imploring our love, and His presence transfigured for us in the Sacraments and in countless other ways.
(For your homework I ask each of you to answer the question: “Why am I a Catholic?” I invite you to pray to Pope Paul VI, first of all, remember him with love and then ask his help for the prospering of our parish and for our efforts in implementing the corrections in the Mass text that we are being asked to set in place.)
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time - July 31, 2011
Cardinal Arinze, now retired, but a few years ago head of the Office for Divine Worship for the entire Church, said this about the Holy Eucharist: “The Holy Eucharist is the supreme act of worship for Catholics and the very heart of our religion. To allow the Holy Eucharist to exact its great power in our Christian vocation and mission, we have to carry out an act of worship directed toward God.” Cardinal Ratzinger in his book “The Spirit of the Liturgy” said that often our worship is directed not at God but ourselves making for ourselves our own version of the golden calf of Moses’ day.
The new translations of the Mass texts is then not an irksome change for the sake of change but an invitation to come to the Mass with a renewed sense in “spirit and in truth.” The truth of the matter is God is to be worshiped as he has instructed us to worship him, not as we “plan” and devise for ourselves. God instructed Moses and through him the people exactly how he was to be worshipped. First of all God desires and expects to be adored and worshiped and thanked. We are to do that on the Lord’s Day which was the seventh day, the Sabbath Day for the Jews of the Mosaic Covenant and the first day of the week, Sunday, the Lord’s resurrection day for people of the New Covenant of Jesus Christ. That God is to be worshiped is a matter of Divine Law, specified by the Law of the Church. He is to be worshiped in the way he has given us. And he is to be worshiped in spirit and in truth. That way is the Mass.
In his Eucharistic instruction Jesus commanded his disciples and us to “Do this in memory of me.” The Eucharist, then, is the heart of our worship as Cardinal Arinze reminds us. In last Sunday’s Gospel, remember that string of parables describing God’s Kingdom, his church, he concluded with this: “Every one who has been instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings from his storeroom both the new and the old” (Matt. 13:52). The Mass is made up of two parts, one from the old and one from the new. The Liturgy of the Word is a continuation of the Synagogue service of the old and the Liturgy of the Eucharist is the new of the Last Supper. The service in the Jewish synagogues was related to the sacrifices in the Jerusalem temple and the two aspects of word and sacrifice come together in every Mass.
Jesus is the priest at every Mass. He instructs us with his word and makes his one eternal sacrifice present for us in the Eucharist. The priest is his assistant, his own identity almost completely covered in the vestments he wears. Because the worship at Mass is the very worship of thanks and praise of Jesus himself, it is the perfect worship of God. It is God being worshiped thanked and adored the way he has chosen and directed not in a way of our choosing. The Mass is worship in continuity with the Old Covenant of Moses and in conformity with the New Covenant of Jesus Christ.
The new translation of the Mass texts for the Missal decreed by Pope Paul VI and expanded by Pope John Paul II is thus a third edition of the novis ordo that came after Vatican II. By coming at it from a new angle, so to speak, it is the hoped that we will pursue a deeper understanding of the Mass and observe it faithfully on the Lord’s Day with that deeper understanding growing each time. To conclude with the words of Cardinal Arinze: “There is nothing greater we do as Christians than the Mass. The only thing better is another Mass.” And we might add: the only thing better is another Mass with a better understanding and a deeper appreciation each time.
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ
Today’s celebration of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is new since the Second Vatican Council and its revised liturgical calendar. For centuries it was observed as Corpus Christi, celebrating the Body of Christ, while July 1st was the Feast of the Most Precious Blood. The texts for the Mass of Corpus Christi were composed by St. Thomas Aquinas way back in the 13th century. The sequence following the second reading, Lauda Sion, a beautiful Latin hymn, was part of his composition. The new liturgical calendar approved by Pope Paul VI brings the feasts of Corpus Christi and the Precious Blood together. Devotionally, however, we may still adore and honor Our Lord with an emphasis on either. Hence the month of July is still honored as the Month of the Precious Blood of Jesus Christ.
Sacred Scripture is filled with references to the Precious Blood as the price of our salvation, the purchase price poured out for us by God’s only Son. The Catholic cathedral in London, England, known as Westminster Cathedral – not to be confused with Westminster Abbey – is dedicated to the Precious Blood of Our Lord. There is a beautiful votive Mass in our Mass Book – the Sacramentary – honoring the Precious Blood of Christ. The Divine Mercy devotion also places emphasis on the Precious Blood of our Redeemer.
Pope John XXIII was devoted to the Precious Blood of Jesus and the self-sacrifice it implies. St. Gaspare del Bufalo founded the Society of the Precious Blood, a religious order for both men and women.
Archbishop Timothy Dolan wrote that on his ordination day a St. Louis Monsignor pulled him aside and said: “When you consecrate the wine everyday at Mass, look into it. You will see the reflection of your face. You will see your face reflected in the Precious Blood of Christ. Never let that reflection lose its profound meaning.” And the Monsignor gave him a prayer to offer before each Eucharist. It’s called “The Prayer of the Chalice” and reads this way: “Father, to you I raise my whole being, a vessel emptied of self. Accept, Lord, this my emptiness, and so fill me with yourself—your light, your love, your life—that these your gifts may radiate through me and overflow the chalice of my heart into the hearts of all whom I serve, revealing to them your joy, wholeness, and serenity which nothing can destroy.”
This Solemn Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ is an invitation to every baptized Christian to be so emptied and drained in love and service of Jesus Christ in a way that should not surprise and need not startle. Many of us have known people like that – people who are always thinking of and giving of themselves for others: a mother or father, a grandmother, a neighbor down the block. At Mass we offer ourselves as sacrificial victims united in the perfect offering of Jesus Christ reflected in the Chalice of his Precious Blood and in the Eucharistic Bread given for others.
You know and I know that the secret of true happiness is somehow found in the giving of self. Where discontentment and misery abound so does the holding back of self, along with somehow thinking that looking out for ourselves and taking care of “Number One” is the way to be happy. The misery of the Me-Generation, to the extent that it gives itself over to that mistaken notion, must constantly find ever more effective ways to anesthetize itself into oblivion when simple, sober service of others is the only solution. It all comes together in the life and ministry, the words and teachings of Jesus Christ and his on-going gift of himself in the Holy Eucharist.
Fifth Sunday of Lent
We are talking during Lent about the absolute necessity of a Catholic or any Christian to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Read: a personal commitment to Jesus Christ. We are talking about the absolute need to be committed and faithful to Christ if we want to know him on a personal level. The only way to know him is to be firmly committed to him. The kind of fidelity that Peter showed after whining about having toiled all day and caught nothing but came around to “If you tell us to go back out and cast the net back into the deep, we’ll do it.” And it is us that he told too, not to Peter and the Apostles only but to all his followers through the ages, and that includes us. Remember when Jesus said in another instance, “If you put your hand to the plow and look back you are not worthy of the kingdom.” A hand on the plow and an eye constantly looking back wastes time, waffles and leaves a wobbly furrow in their wake. Jesus was firm, even stern, on the need to be absolutely faithful to him. Why not?! Nothing else works!
We have been reading from the Book of Numbers in the Divine Office lately. It tells how after their liberation from Egypt the people did nothing but complain and gripe and moan to Moses. When they did come close to the Promised Land Moses sent in a small party of twelve to reconnoiter the situation because they presumed they would have to take it by force (Num 13). The party came back with a discouraging report that they would never be able to take the land from those dwelling there; they might just as well forget the whole thing, “It will never work!” They brought back some early grapes, i.e. “sour grapes.” What do you expect from people who were caught worshipping the statue of a calf…or money or football or going to the casinos, or having my hair done every week. What are your golden calves? I got ‘em and you got’em too. Mind you, God had instructed Moses that they were to go into that territory and take it and not worry about it, just do it. Only Caleb of that scouting party came up saying “We ought to go up and seize the land, for certainly we can do so.” (Remember another Caleb – James Dean in “East of Eden”) “We can do it,” Caleb said. Moses and Aaron hemmed and hawed and eventually the people turned on them to the point where their lives were in danger.
Read it in context in Numbers, Chapters 13 and 14).
Your homework is also to read and pray Psalm 78 and find out God’s disgust with people who do not believe him, do not trust him and who defer and delay their commitment to him. It held true for the ancient Israelites and it holds true for you and me today. If Lent is about anything it is to get off our drifting in neutral and follow Jesus Christ whole-heartedly. Read and pray Psalm 78 during the coming week.
The only way to hand on belief in Jesus Christ and faithfulness in his Church is to know him personally. And the only way to know him personally is to be fully committed to him. We have to be like Caleb, that brave scout with the minority opinion that following God’s way is the only way and that obedience to him will work out the way he promises it will. Fidelity. Faithfulness. When priests were leaving active ministry in droves, Blessed Mother Teresa said, “We were not called to be successful; we were called to be faithful.”
This week’s Catholic Herald has some marvelous reading material: Bishop Sklba’s column on the inside front page. Fr. Ronald Rohlheiser’s column on forgiveness – a take on it I bet you haven’t heard before. And then, on the very last page a German immigrant who was born during the war in Germany, suffered amazing survival with his parents and came here where he is a retired teacher and man of Catholic faith.
Third Sunday of Lent
Since Ash Wednesday I have been speaking about the necessity to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ if we expect to carry out in any way the mandate we have from Christ to spread his Gospel to the ends of the earth. In order to dispose ourselves for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ some elementary things are necessary. We have to truly hunger for and seek the discerning gift of Wisdom, one of the powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit we received at Baptism and full-force in Confirmation. In addition to feeling the need for the gift we have to ask for the gift of Wisdom on a regular basis so that it will come alive in our lives. Jesus who is the Eternal Wisdom of God will do for us what he did for the woman at the well in the Gospel. Here’s how the Preface puts it today: “When he asked the woman of Samaria for water to drink, Christ had already prepared for her the gift of faith. In his thirst to receive her faith he awakened in her heart the fire of (divine) love.”
The Scriptures emphasize for us that “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” We are not talking about craven or cowardly fear; we are talking about the fear of God that addresses him as “Father” according to Jesus’ word to us. That fear produces reverence for God and the things of God in our lives. A reverential fear of God surrounds our praise and thanks at Holy Mass.
For Catholics the crown and center of everything we do is the presence of Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist. Our personal relationship with Jesus Christ depends on our approach to the Holy Eucharist. The fall-off in participation at Mass on the Lord’s Day is a telling sign of why we do not and cannot form a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That in turn betrays a fall-off in faith in the true presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. And that in turn speaks of a fall-off in love for Jesus Christ as our personal Friend.
There’s an old axiom, “You can’t have faith and be fleshy.” The drastic change in sexual mores in Western society and the placement of sex in the category of recreational activity is just one of the over-riding reasons we cannot and do not develop strong personal relationships with Jesus Christ. We have to get serious about our embrace of the teaching of the Church on the Holy Eucharist, a teaching that is apostolic in origin, clearly present in the writings of the apostles but also in those whom the apostles brought to faith, the apostolic fathers of the Church.
So, here’s the equation. If a 12-year Catholic school education cannot produce strong committed Catholics it is because the witness of those using Catholic education for their offspring is not a strongly committed personal relationship with Jesus Christ, in particular with regard to the Holy Eucharist. I’m not speaking here only of parents but of priests and religious and lay teachers and grandparents and the whole cultural cocoon that is not sending the message because it has grown lax in reverence and fear of the Lord and has bought into the heretical notion that Holy Communion is simply a symbol that embodies no sacramental or authentic reality, namely, the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. As Catholics we cannot hope to have a robust personal relationship with Jesus Christ if we turn our backs on or treat casually his supreme gift of self in the Holy Eucharist, the Memorial of his sacrifice in the Mass and our true Bread from heaven?
Second Sunday of Lent
We hear Catholic parents frequently say, “We sent them through Catholic schools and they have left the faith.” That’s not necessarily where or how the deal is closed. It’s closed only when they, children or any adult, have experienced in the lives of their close family and extended family in the parish a clear sense that they have encountered people who have a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ. We have been talking about the requirements for that kind of relationship. First there is the desire for the gift of Wisdom, wisdom in getting life in balance and perspective. Jesus Christ is the very personification of Divine Wisdom. In praying for the gift of Wisdom we are praying for his presence in our lives. We referred to what Scripture says about the gift of wisdom and it speaks clearly: “Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom.”
One of the ways that fear of God manifests itself is in reverence, whether it be for grandparents or God. Jesus is the epitome of reverence for God. He has shown us and taught us how to relate to God, with the reverence we would pay to a father or mother. He taught us to call God “Father.” You know that is one of the reasons devout Moslems regard us as “infidels.” They think we are entirely too chummy with God who is far above and beyond us and that, as for a personal relationship, there is none. With reverence the Church invites us to pray the Lord’s Prayer at Mass with the words, “we dare to say… Our Father.”
It is at Mass that reverence comes strongly into play. We come to Mass not because we like or can tolerate the priest or that the music appeals to us. We come to Mass not primarily to ask God for personal needs and favors. We come to Mass because Jesus Christ is there. He is here. He is our Priest. We want to be with him. We want him to lead us in perfect worship of praise and thanks to God. It is Jesus Christ who offers the Mass; the Eucharist is the Memorial of his Sacrifice. In Hebrew the word Memorial doesn’t refer to remembering a past event, it means being present, being part of an on-going event. Jesus Christ offered himself once for all in a bloody manner, but his self-offering continues eternally on our behalf in obedience to the Father. We tie into that eternal, on-going sacrifice of Jesus Christ at Mass with Him as our Priest and our perfect Offering in sacrifice.
You know what a stole is, right? It is a strip of cloth worn around the shoulders and is the primary symbol of priesthood. As part of the self-generated un-authorized changes that took place after Vatican II we found priests wearing the stole on the outside of the vestment instead of underneath the chasuble. I did it; priests still do it. Priests for hundreds of years wore the stole not only under the chasuble but crossed over their breasts. Under the chasuble indicated “I am not the priest offering here,” and the stole crossed over his breast indicated “a bishop has a fuller participation in the Priesthood of Christ than I do as a priest and I am only the bishop’s vicar.” The proper way for a priest today is still to wear the stole under the chasuble because he is not the officiating, offering priest at Mass, Jesus Christ is.
Catholics come to Mass, people are reverent at Mass, the priest is reverent at Mass because Jesus Christ is present, not only to feed us with his body and blood at Holy Communion but to allow us to join into his one, eternal offering of himself for us in obedience to his Father. “Through Him, with Him, in Him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all glory and honor is yours Almighty Father, forever and ever.” Our faith begins and ends at Mass and it is at Mass that our personal relationship with Jesus Christ takes its rise and is sustained
First Sunday of Lent
In our desire to deepen our knowledge and love for Jesus Christ, we turn to him who is in every sense “The Holy Wisdom of God”, Jesus, the Hagia Sophia. Like Solomon of Old we begin our quest for a more personal relationship with Christ by asking for one thing in this life and that is the gift of wisdom. Jesus has made it possible for us to possess Him, his very self, He who is “The Holy Wisdom of God.” “I am with you always,” he assures us, “even to the consummation of the world.” “Unless you abide in me, you have no life in you.” “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.”
We turn to Scripture yet again for our pursuit of wisdom where it says: “Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Archbishop Dolan has pointed out that the words “Fear not” are mentioned 365 times in the Bible, so what’s going on?! The fear of God of which Jesus speaks is common sense fear, reverential fear, not craven or cowardly fear. It is the fear of the finite before the infinite. And that should make us stop and say: “Oh, Oh!” What is most characteristic of the times in which we live? – it is absolutely fear of nothing and no one; respect for nothing and no one. From the courtesies and rules of the road to respect for elders to the suitability of proper dress for times and places to the fracas (a noisy quarrel or row) in our state capitol the past three weeks, there is no fear of God nor fear of man anywhere to be found. Well, dear friends, you and I are going to have to rediscover fear of God if we want to come anywhere near to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom of God, who was obedient to his Father unto death, even death on a cross, if that would be required of him to back up the truth of what he had to tell us.
So, to recap: the Gift of Wisdom is the way to Jesus Christ. Fear of God is the beginning of Wisdom. You and I received the supernatural gift of wisdom at Baptism and then, full-force, at Confirmation. But it is a gift that has to be used to be worth anything at all. Cultivating the gift of reverential fear of God is something we all need to practice. Think about it. In former days we genuflected when we came into the Divine Presence in the Tabernacle. Today we don’t even bow. We used to kneel down and pray before Mass, just to check in and tell God hello and thanks and how much we love him. Today we huddle over the pew and chat with people around us. We used to come into the Divine Presence dressed, dressed. Today many come into the Divine Presence semi-dressed, or in “grunge chic” to use one current description. Perhaps the greatest of all the moves away from fear of the Lord is wide-spread disregard for the Lord’s Day, given to us by Divine Law on Mt. Sinai, ratified in the practice of Our Lord Himself, and thrown off liberally by people implicitly, and in some cases explicitly, tempting the wrath of God. The Bill Mahers of the world deliberately build their own lightening rods; most of us just get careless sometimes around electricity. I’m not trying to hang crepe here, I do feel moved on the First Sunday of Lent to give a wake-up call as a pastor must, if we are serious about getting to know, love and serve God in this world in order to be happy with him forever in the next. The first duty of the homilist is always to preach to himself. A just, holy and wholesome fear of the Lord is the place to begin, not according to me, but according to God Himself in his revealed word and in the example of Jesus Christ, the Holy Wisdom of God.
On a positive note, Fr. John Yockey, the pastor of St. Jerome Parish in Oconomowoc, is now one of the regular columnists in The Catholic Herald. Fr. Yockey beautifully situates the place of Catholic Stewardship for today. Be sure to give it a read.
Ash Wednesday, 2011
Can we be agreed, our Lenten journey’s objective is to grow in our knowledge and love of Jesus Christ? We were privileged to be fingered by him for all eternity in our call to his Covenant in our Baptism. Our Baptismal calling meant that we were entrusted with taking Jesus and his teaching and his revelation to others. To do that we have to know him thoroughly and love him above everything.
Why did God make me? He made me to know him, love him and serve him in this life and to be happy with him forever in heaven. The simple catechism question and answer doesn’t find improvement anywhere.
So, called by Jesus Christ, designated by him for all eternity in our Catholic Christian calling, we have our whole purpose in life spelled out for us. It is easy to fall out of alignment with that purpose and in doing so to become dysfunctional and unhappy people.
Lent is the Church’s invitation to come in for an alignment. Every Lent we are invited to come home to Jesus Christ and his Church and to come back to happiness in a way we have never done before. We have to get down to the business of finding the mind of Christ and beginning from there.
The great St. Louis de Montfort wrote a wonderful little book on Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Wisdom of God. Jesus Christ is the Hagia Sophia, the Holy Wisdom of God. Remember Solomon. Boy, I love that passage where God says to Solomon to ask for anything….and Solomon asks for the gift of wisdom. That came as close to blowing the mind of God as anything a finite creature could come up with. God was so impressed he made Solomon the wisest man in history.
You and I have to come before God and implore him, beseech him for the gift of wisdom because in doing so we will find the mind of Christ. Scripture tells us that Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. In praying for the gift of wisdom we are asking to begin the process of putting on the mind of Christ. And the first thing that will be acquiring is the gift of Fear of the Lord, a true gift of the Holy Spirit.
Remember, in praying for wisdom, we are praying for Jesus Christ to enter our lives. In praying for wisdom, we are asking the Holy Spirit to usher Jesus Christ into our lives so that we can “put him on” become like him and be empowered to carry out the mission he entrusts to us, namely, to bring Christ to others; and in doing that we will find and fulfill our purpose in life. We will discover a happier life. We will experience the greatest harmony in our lives possible in this life. We will be able to set aside bad choices, the destructive or addictive behaviors that we frantically choose in our natural search for harmony in life.
Agreed? Lent is given to us to deepen our knowledge and love for Jesus Christ. To begin, we are going to ask for the gift of wisdom, the Gift of Jesus Christ the Holy Wisdom of God. As a sign of our intention to put on the mind of Christ more fervently than ever, come forward now to receive blessed ashes.
On the Road to Lent
And so it is, we arrive at the Sunday before Ash Wednesday; our Lenten goal: to dispose ourselves for a closer personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The actual getting there will be the work of Our Lord Himself through the working of his Gift of the Holy Spirit. Our disposition is our contribution, however. It means, of course, humility, that clear understanding and recognition that we are not worthy of so great a gift as an intimate personal relationship with Jesus and that we cannot will it on our own. It means a simple and clear faith in Jesus Christ, knowing that an intimate relationship is his will for us hinging on that very specific word of his “abide.” “Whoever abides in me and I in him will bear much fruit because without me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him” (John 6:56). Who is our role model in cultivation of the proper disposition to receive our Lord into our lives on the most intimate, personal and real terms? It is his Blessed Mother Mary. Read the account of the Annunciation (Luke 1:26-39). As one who belongs to those generations who call her “Blessed,” pray the Canticle of the Blessed Virgin, the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55). Invite the Virgin Mary to lead you to Jesus Christ in the way she knows and loves him. Turning to her is the fastest, simplest and most direct way to Christ according to the great St. Louis de Montfort. Read his True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin and his Secret of Mary. Once you have found Jesus and know him on that level, be an “Andrew” for others and bring them to Jesus the way he did for his brother Simon, the boy with the fish and barley loaves and the Gentiles seeking an introduction. The big question being asked today is why, often after a complete education in Catholic schools, do our young people drift away from Christ and his Church? It is because you and I, parents and priests and teachers, have not “closed the deal” in passing on our Catholic faith. We share something about the externals of the faith, or we go through the motions of faith (or we do not) but we have not exposed our hearts to reveal an inner love affair with Jesus Christ and the Indwelling Trinity, either because we have little faith on that level or because we are too “private” or we feel it is something too intimate to share. We have to work on it folks! We have to change our approach! But we are the reasons; you can put all the other reasons in the compacter and toss them out. Only those who have the full conviction of their faith expressed in a strong personal relationship with Jesus Christ have anything to hand on to others. We can start by getting serious about Lent disposing ourselves for its invitation by prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Would you have only bread and water one day a week all six weeks of Lent? That’s called fasting. Can you find a dollar a day for the forty days of Lent to give to the Catholic Stewardship Appeal? That’s called almsgiving. Are you going to spend an hour a day, in one sitting or broken into sections, to place yourself in the presence of Jesus Christ just doing nothing but listening to him or perhaps reading a passage from Scripture or a spiritual book to hear him speak to you that way ? That’s called Prayer. The Sunday before Ash Wednesday is here, a day of decision.
Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time
As we gear up for Lent I encourage each one of us, me first, to make it our Lenten project to get to know Jesus Christ on a deeper and more personal level. St. Paul helps us on that score in the second reading today from his First Letter to the Corinthians: “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you.” So, in our search for Jesus Christ and a more profound relationship with him, we do not have to rent a de Mille movie from the fifties, we have to look within. We have to stop talking and let him speak to us in silence. The best prayer is the prayer of silence.
Meditation on the Mysteries of the Rosary is all about learning Christ. Rosary prayer presents the humility of God in the Mysteries on the Incarnation – the Joyful Mysteries, the heroic love of Christ in the Mysteries on the Redemption – the Sorrowful Mysteries, the tireless zeal of Christ in the Mysteries of his ministry – the Luminous Mysteries, and the wisdom of Christ in the Mysteries on his promises and our prospects – the Glorious Mysteries.
In terms of meditative reading, we have what the Church refers to as Lectio Divina, “Divine Reading.” We begin with the Gospels and bump our noses on some of the hard sayings of Jesus, the kind that we have in today’s Gospel. A preliminary exercise consists in clearing the clutter and the fixations of our minds on things like resentment, refusal to forgive the wrongs others have propelled our way and delicious thoughts of revenge or wishing evil on our persecutors that bog us down in fruitless rumination.
Some other reading material could include for very slow reading a daily passage from St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church and one of our great spiritual teachers. Her Life and the Interior Castle are classics. St. Edith Stein was converted from Judaism by reading Teresa of Avila and convinced to become a Carmelite whence she would be carried off quickly to a martyr’s crown at Auschwitz. Blessed Abbot Marmion is another great spiritual writer close to our age; his Christ, the Life of the Soul, is one of those spiritual books to savor slowly.
To know Christ Jesus has to be a primary goal of genuine Catholic Christian formation. That requires time and deliberate decision on our part. When we were baptized we were possessed by God; we became his very own possession. We seem to know a lot about possession by the devil from Hollywood’s point of view. Perhaps that’s why so many people believe the Devil really doesn’t exist. There is a current Anthony Hopkins film on exorcism making the rounds today - that strange and great Welsh actor. In the baptismal rite we have a brief prayer of exorcism today but nothing like it was in our former Catholic Latin ritual. Be that as it may, it is God who takes possession of us in Baptism. At that point God began his Trinitarian dwelling within us. And that’s when we became living Tabernacles. The Sacrament of Confirmation and beyond continued the unfolding of our lives in a constant communion with the God within. The Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist every week on the Lord’s Day and the Sacrament of Reconciliation every time we are in need of it foster our relationship with the Christ within.
Cultivation of our life with the Christ within takes effort. It is at least as deserving of the kind of effort we put into any other area of our lives. Think of the disproportionate time we spend sitting before screens, TV and computer and cell-phone screens, massive screens for sports, and then there are the talk shows and reality shows and all the vanity of our time. Lent is coming; give some thought to choosing how you will use that wonderful season of growth and grace this year.