Thirty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXXII per Annum A
12 November 2023

 The selection of St. Matthew’s Gospel comes from the section offering parables about watchfulness and preparedness for the coming judgment.  In this parable, Christ is the Bridegroom, the virgins are an image for the community of believers, an image for disciples, and the oil for lamps is an image of goodness or the performance of good works that should mark the disciple’s life.  After all, elsewhere in St. Matthew, at the Sermon on the Mount, we hear that good deeds are like the light of a lamp that must shine before others (cf. Mt. 5:16).  By showcasing in this passage the foolishness of going out to meet the bridegroom without preparing, the gospel calls us to be prepared and to consider whether our actions match up with our stated intentions to be disciples.  Are we ready to meet Christ the Bridegroom and to enter Heaven, imaged as a wedding feast?  Only those who are ready will enter.  As the gospel describes, “those who were ready went into the wedding feast…. Then the door was locked.”  Are we foolish and unprepared?  Are we carrying enough oil (good works)?

Our Catholic faith teaches us about the origin and the meaning of things in our world, and how to live well in this world.  Our faith also tells us about our end in this world and our destination beyond this life.  Thus, our Catholic faith highlights what are called the Four Last Things.  These four last things are death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell.  Let’s examine them briefly.  Being aware of our ultimate end goal can help us take the next step to be focused on the steps to get there.  I’m going to reorder the typical listing so that we end on a more hopeful note with Heaven.

    Death

    Death is a consequence of Original Sin.  Death is the event whereby the soul separates from the body; the soul lives on because it is immortal, while the body decomposes.  The soul is immediately judged and is rewarded with Heaven, punished with Hell, or sent for a time of cleansing to Purgatory prior to final arrival in Heaven.  We should always live as ready for death since, for the most part, none of us knows when, where, or how we will die.  Being aware of death and reflecting frequently upon it can give us impulse to avoid sin.  How foolish if we prepare our temporal, worldly affairs, by means of a last will and testament, but we leave our soul unprepared and open to being picked over and looted by agents of the kingdom of darkness and eternal death.  For people of Christian faith bodily death is not the end.  And death is not the greatest enemy.  Let me say that again: for people of Christian faith, death is not the greatest enemy.  Rather, the greatest enemy is a death for which we are unprepared since it may carry the consequence of an eternal death of the soul.  For this reason, a wise devotion in our Catholic practice encourages us to pray that the Lord spare us from what is called an “unprovided death”.  An “unprovided death” means a death that comes upon us suddenly and for which we are unprepared and found lacking because we have neglected our soul, we are not in a state of grace due to not having confessed our sins, and we have no recourse to the Sacraments at the time our end comes.

   Judgment

   Immediately after our death we believe we experience a judgment before Christ that is called the Particular Judgment.  It is called ‘particular’ because it is individual and comes to each of us at the particular moment when our death arrives.  The soul’s eternal destiny is decided and established at the Particular Judgment.  The soul that dies in baptismal innocence, that is, in a perfect state of grace, and having satisfied and repaired for the sins he has committed, experiences the eternity of Heaven directly.  The soul that dies in mortal sin experiences the eternity of Hell directly.  The soul that dies in the general state of grace but imperfectly so, that is, being guilty only of lesser sins, or needing to atone for the temporal punishment due to sins already confessed and forgiven, such a soul experiences the final purification of mercy in the temporary “place” we call Purgatory.  We should note that Purgatory is a temporary “place” leading eventually to entrance into Heaven.  Wisdom calls us to live each day in preparation for the judgment that will come after death.  Our prayer life, our service to others, our voluntary penances, our frequent confessions and worthy Holy Communions are all ways we seek to have enough oil for our lamps as we go to meet the Lord.  We also express belief in a judgment that is called the General, or the Universal, Judgment.  Unlike the Particular Judgment that comes to each soul individually, the General Judgment will be that day when the Lord returns at the end of the world.  At that time, he will call all the dead to rise, bringing new life to our separated bodies.  At the General Judgment we will experience the judgment we received at our death, only now as souls united to a resurrected body, experiencing bodily the glory and joys of Heaven or the pains of Hell.

       Hell

       The Book of Revelation teaches us that nothing unclean, nothing with the stain of sin, and no one who practices abomination and falsehood can enter God’s presence (Rev. 21:27).  Sin and God cannot coexist.  For this reason, our faith teaches us that the serious sin we call “mortal” separates us from God.  And, if we die with unrepented mortal sin, even just one, we are destined for Hell.  Hell is an eternal existence of separation from God, awareness of our foolishness in squandering God’s blessings, and an existence of torment and punishment.  The words of Scripture and of Christ himself describe Hell as a ‘place’ of unquenchable and everlasting fire, a bottomless pit, everlasting punishment, a lake of fire, and the outer darkness.  This truth of faith that sin offends God and deserves punishment is not unfair; rather, it is an expression of truth and justice.  There is no true justice if wrongdoing is not punished.  Likewise, on the flip side, there is no true justice if good doing is not rewarded.  Both are needed as expressions of authentic justice.  We should remember after all that, in God’s goodness, we are not required to remain in sin.  He has died to save us and He gives us every good thing so that we can be fully alive in Him.  God does not desire to send us to Hell.  That should give us confidence and hope.  Going to Hell would be our fault, not God’s.

         Heaven

         The eternal life of blessing and communion with God, described as a great wedding feast, is heaven.  Heaven is God’s full desire for us and it is the fulfillment of our desire too, because we have been made for God.  Those who die in the perfect state of grace or who, being in an imperfect state of grace have been purified in Purgatory, will enjoy perfect and everlasting happiness with God and all the angels and saints who worship around Him.  In Heaven the blessed enjoy the greatest gift and fulfillment of seeing God as He is.  This Beatific Vision of God refers to an active knowing and loving of God to our fullest capacity.  And it refers to being known and loved by God in return.  This is the destiny God desires for us and He has left nothing undone to provide this for those who are wise in being prepared.

The Collect of this Holy Mass states that we may be “unhindered” to pursue the things of God.  Are we truly unhindered if we aren’t prepared, if our souls aren’t ready to have the obstacle of sin removed from us?  In the psalm we prayed, “My soul is thirsting for you, O Lord my God.”  Does our preparedness reveal a real thirst for God, a real longing?  We are called to be prepared as people who have hope.  We are not called to an anxiety-filled preparation.  We have hope because of the Lord’s goodness.  He has told us in advance to stay awake and to prepare.  He has given us time to do so.  Furthermore, by his passion and resurrection, and the outpouring of his grace that comes to us in prayer and the Sacraments, he has given us all the gifts and tools necessary to be prepared.  If we say we are going to Heaven and if we say we desire Jesus, then let’s be wise about it before the door is locked.  For at a day and an hour we cannot know the cry will go out: “Behold, the bridegroom!  Come out to meet him!”

Twenty-Ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXIX per Annum A
22 October 2023

You’ve heard the phrase: Politics makes for strange bedfellows.  If you need a break from the strange bedfellows keeping the US Congress from being able to elect a Speaker of the House… then this gospel passage gives you a brief diversion.  In the gospel we have the strange bedfellows of the Pharisees and the Herodians.  The Pharisees view Roman occupation of Judea as an abomination and the Herodians adopt a more cooperative stance with living in the gentile Roman world.  Yet, these two groups come together in a very charged exchange with Jesus by which the Pharisees attempt to entrap the Lord in this well known dilemma of paying the census tax to Caesar or not.  The Gospel passage makes clear that the Pharisees are motivated by malice toward the Lord and they are seeking to test him and to entrap him.  They butter him up with flattery, “Teacher, we know that you are a truthful man and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.  And you are not concerned with anyone’s opinion.”  They ask: “Is it lawful to pay the census tax to Caesar or not?”  Now, this may not strike us as a really charged exchange, but it definitely is in the time of the Lord, for if the Lord answers “yes, it is lawful” then he will incite uproar among the Pharisees and their ilk by seeming to condone cooperation with Roman occupation.  If he says “no, it is not lawful” then he will be inspiring a tax revolt against Rome.  Rome historically dealt ferociously with such rebellions.

The ingenious response from the Lord is to ask for a coin that is used to pay the census tax.  Curiously, the Rome-rejecting Pharisees easily produce such a coin.  I guess they are more than willing to use the coin despite their protestations and religious purity.  In any event, we can learn a profound lesson by how the Lord dissolves their trap.  The Roman denarius coin bears the “ikon”, the Greek biblical text says, bears the “image” of Caesar, in this case the Emperor Tiberius Caesar.  The Pharisees and the Herodians easily identify that the coin bears the image and the inscription of Caesar.  The coin belongs to him, to the Empire.  The Lord then shifts the conversation away from the notion of cooperating in the tax.  Instead, the Lord maneuvers to make the focus about giving to someone what belongs to him.  In this case, Jesus says to give to Caesar what is his.

The Roman coin is stamped with the image of its owner, the one who has authority over it.  Jesus says to repay to Caesar what belongs to him. But he goes on to say, “and [repay] to God what belongs to God.”  Thinking about this Gospel image, we have a coin with the ikon, the image of Caesar.  It belongs to Caesar and should be given back to him.  But if we are to repay to God what belongs to Him, this begs a question: Where is God’s image? Where is it stamped so that we repay that “coin” back to Him?

In escaping their trap, the Lord teaches us a profound lesson about ourselves and about giving to God what He is owed.  And to grasp that we need to rest on the foundation of all that has preceded in the revelation of faith.  The Book of Genesis tells us a truth of creation.  In creation man is made, we are made, in God’s image and likeness.  Human persons are ikons of God.  Our faith tells us that, though we never lose the dignity of being made in God’s image, our likeness (that is, our “appearance”) is marred by the Fall, by the Original Sin we each inherit.  Though the image remains, our likeness to that image, our likeness to God, is disfigured by sin.  Our fallen nature, brought about by that first grave sin in the garden, carries the consequence of eternal separation from God.  By faith and baptism, our original holiness is restored, and the obstacle that bars our entrance to heaven is removed.  Thus, that is at least one reason why it is so important to be baptized, and quickly.  It’s a large part of why we baptize infants in our Catholic practice.  And so, I have some bad news for you, your kids are cute and all, but until they are baptized they are little pagans whose likeness to God has been disfigured!  That’s not so cute when it comes to heaven.  What about after baptism?  When in ongoing weakness we disfigure ourselves by sin, by the personal sins for which we bear guilt, confession restores our baptismal dignity long after we have been washed by the waters of regeneration.  And so, I have some bad news for us, we might look like disciples, but we are counterfeit “coins” for as long as God’s likeness is not visible in us, and not healed by confession.  When we commit sin and refuse the importance of confession we are fraudulent images.  In this, we aren’t giving back to God what belongs to Him.  In fact, God doesn’t accept sin as repayment for stamping us with His image.

This Gospel exchange takes place in the heated atmosphere of Jesus’ final days before he would lay down his life to pay all for us and for our salvation.  His words teach us of our innate dignity: that by God’s generous love He has stamped us with His own image, the image of His glory, giving us freedom, giving us the ability to use our minds, and to receive and to return His love.  And a repayment is expected.  The first reading teaches clearly that there are no other gods before the one true God.  We can’t make payment to idols, to other gods, and still have credit with the one true God.  The Gospel and the psalm tell us to give glory and honor to God, to give to Him what He is owed.  Living the life of faith and holiness guards our proper image and likeness and is the payment that gives to God what belongs to Him.  St. Paul says in his Letter to the Romans, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (6:23).

Sin mars the likeness of our image to God.  And sin is not the form of payment God accepts; it is not giving to God what belongs to Him.  The good news is that He Himself has paid the price to heal our sin.  In guarding our likeness to Him by faith and by striving personally for moral conduct, by using prayer and the helps He gives us in the sacraments, we are helping to populate the great census of Heaven.  By repaying to God what belongs to God, He pays greater dividends still by admitting us to eternal life in the Kingdom of His glory.

Twenty-Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXVII per Annum A
8 October 2023

 The parable of the wicked tenants is one of the Lord’s final parables before his passion, death, and resurrection.  In context, the Lord is speaking this parable in Jerusalem and in the face of mounting tension and opposition as factions seek to find ways to get rid of him.  Since we have heard a few parables lately, I think it is helpful to first recall this context and to recall to whom the Lord is speaking.  This parable takes place after the Lord cleanses the temple and curses the fig tree that did not have fruit, so we can observe that there are some dramatic things going on surrounding this parable.  After those episodes, the Lord returns to the Temple and the chief priests and the elders of the people, the religious authorities, are there and they want to know by what authority he is doing these things.  So, we learn in context, that the parable we hear today is directed to the religious leaders of the Jewish people.  To them, and not to a generic group or to the crowds, the Lord speaks this parable of the wicked tenants and the vineyard.  This parable sets up a confrontation with authority.  The Lord is speaking to the Jewish priests and religious leaders. He is speaking to them in the Holy City Jerusalem.  And he is speaking to them in the Temple.  That’s like putting several exclamation points on the notion of confrontation with authority.

We learn something of the background here by being aware of the prophecy of Isaiah, in which he uses the same image of a vineyard eight centuries earlier.  In fact, the Lord is making a direct reference to the prophecy of Isaiah in his use of this parable.  We heard that earlier prophecy of Isaiah in the first reading.  In it we find that God is the owner and lover of a vineyard for which He does everything so that it produces good fruit.  In Isaiah we learn that the vineyard is the people of Israel and also Jerusalem, the inhabitants of the Holy City.  Isaiah is here prophesying about the failure of the people of Israel to produce the good fruit of covenant relationship with God.  In producing wild grapes instead of good, that is, the bitter grapes of sin and lack of fidelity, Isaiah prophesies about the destruction of Jerusalem, this privileged place of encounter with God.

In referencing this parable, the Lord is not merely using a familiar image of agriculture.  He, like Isaiah, is offering a stinging indictment of the failure of the Holy City, its inhabitants, the people of Israel to produce the good grapes of holiness.  And the Lord is taking it right to the top by this confrontation with the religious leaders of the nation of Israel, the vineyard, from which God demands a good harvest for a worthy vintage.  With the Old Testament background in mind we can identify that this parable speaks of God as the vineyard owner.  He demands a yield of good fruit from his vineyard, that is from His people Israel.  He goes to great length to prepare his vineyard and to protect it such that there should be no reason it would not produce good fruit.  He sends his servants to announce the time of harvest and these can serve as an image of the prophets.  In all this we learn that Jesus is accusing the Jewish religious authorities of being the wicked tenants, who do their own thing with the vineyard, who yield bitter grapes, and who reject and kill the prophets and even the Son himself.  And that’s the twist of this parable.  That God would send His own Son to arrogant wicked tenants who are not serving His purposes for the precious vineyard, but who are doing their own thing with a vineyard that is not their own.  In this we have another lesson of the reckless generosity of God who goes to great lengths and does everything necessary such that His people will produce the fruit He requires and demands.  He sends His own Son knowing that he likewise will be rejected and killed, but he will become the chief cornerstone of the Kingdom.  The chief priests and the elders know that Jesus is speaking this parable about them.  If you read the whole passage you find just two verses after today’s passage this line: “When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they perceived that he was speaking about them.”

Born within the Jewish people, Jesus is the faithful Israel.  He establishes a new Kingdom, a new covenant.  This takes place in his Church called together from Israel and from all nations.  Thus, taking all this imagery together we should note this progression: The vineyard is the house of Israel.  The house of Israel is fulfilled in the Church.  Thus, the vineyard is the Church.  The Church is the fulfillment of that precious vineyard that belongs to God the Father, from which He demands the good fruit of holiness, and to which He sends His own beloved Son who dies for our salvation such that nothing should prevent us from producing that required fruit.  Nothing, that is, but our own arrogance and refusal in freedom to belong to the vineyard and to do what God demands.

We live in a time of immense arrogance.  Man places himself in the center of the universe, in the center of all things, and makes himself the reference point for whatever he wants to be true – even when that is a lie.  Fallen and arrogant man decides that things around himself must change and conform to what makes him feel whole and complete.  He foolishly says, it is not I who must change but it is the order of the world and even Christ’s teaching that must convert to me.  Sadly, even people who should know better fall right in line with this way of thinking and acting.  As predicted in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths.”  Today’s parable of the Lord is a direct confrontation with the religious authorities of the vineyard that is the house of Israel.  It doesn’t take much imagination to find a direct application to the religious authorities of the fulfillment of the vineyard that is the Church.  We live in a time of great confusion, arrogance, and cynicism.  With so much instantaneous mass communication you likely are painfully aware of the silly, confusing, and stupid things that even some of the Church’s religious leaders speak.  I know many of you are aware of this and you worry.  You are bombarded with feeling like leaders who should be helping you save your souls and helping you raise your children in salvation are working against you.  I can’t but conclude that our time is not much different in needing the confrontation that our Blessed Lord leveled against some of the top leaders of his time.  We have some wicked tenants in the vineyard.  I wish it was not so.  But it seems it is.  And the Lord has still laid down his life for us.  And we are not going to abandon him, even if some leaders seem bent on destroying the good grapes and planting seeds that are going nowhere but to destruction.  Take heart!  The stone rejected by the builders is the corner stone and it is wonderful in our eyes!  What did we hear in the second reading?  “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.  Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7).

We hear this parable in the month dedicated to the Holy Rosary.  My brothers and sisters, we can’t be unaware and we won’t be naïve about the wolves in sheep’s clothing that cause us suffering in the vineyard.  But that doesn’t mean that giving excessive focus to the crop of wild grapes becomes virtuous or wise either.  Spending too much of our time and energy in the echo chamber of gossip, watching YouTube videos, and reading blogs (even those that rightfully expose the empty talk that confuses us in our time) will not result in peace and a good harvest that God demands from us.  Even when it is a matter of hearing good teachers refute the bad teachers of our time, how many times – really?! – how many times do we need to hear the same good argument refuting the nonsense that disturbs us?  Again, we shouldn’t be unaware of the false teachers and we shouldn’t be unware of the good arguments that refute them.  However, how much time are we willing to give to unite ourselves in relationship to God?  Only that will save us and lead us to be good grapes.  For every time I am ready to hit play on the next YouTube video from that good priest, or for every time I am ready to type in the web address of that blog that speaks the authentic truth, am I willing instead to pray, to go to adoration to be with the Lord, to pick up the Rosary?  In this month of the Rosary, I want to challenge you to a new dedication to that prayer, a real weapon for our times.  Get here early to Mass and join in its public recitation.  If you don’t pray it at home, turn off the television and get doing that as a family.  Do it often, even daily.  If you have even just 20 minutes in a car ride, you have time to pray the Rosary.  You men and fathers had best be the ones taking the lead in making this happen in your families, to protect the vineyard of the domestic Church.  If there is resistance and complaining, who cares!  You lead.  Be the priest of your home and speak with your wife about age-appropriate ways to pray as a family.  Pray for the Pope and for our bishop.  Pray for all the bishops, no matter whether you think they are the good ones or the bad ones.  They need our prayers.  Only prayer and relationship with God will afford us peace in our times and only that will save us when the vineyard owner finally comes and puts those wicked tenants to a wretched death.  Our Lady is the premier model of faith and discipleship and of producing good fruit.  Pray for us, oh Holy Mother of God!  That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ!

Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXIV per Annum A
17 September 2023

Last weekend’s readings instructed us about the difficult work of confronting error and sin.  This is a work we are called to do and which we must do with the mind of Christ, with the approach of charity (or love).  When we must face the need to repent, when we ourselves are called to repent and change, we must not harden our hearts to that movement of God’s grace, to the call of His voice.  This weekend’s readings continue that theme, reminding us that mercy and forgiveness should mark our Christian life.  Our faith stretches us and challenges us to live by higher standards than the secular world proposes.

The readings today tell us that we cannot suffer any illusions about being Christian if we refuse to forgive and to show mercy to others.  The first reading describes a way of being and acting that is not of God.  Unfortunately, it also describes a way of being and acting for which Christians at times try to make excuses.  But no such excuses exist in God.  The first reading said, “Wrath and anger are hateful things, yet the sinner hugs them tight.  The vengeful will suffer the Lord’s vengeance….”  “Could anyone nourish anger against another and expect healing from the Lord?  Could anyone refuse mercy to another like himself, can he seek pardon for his own sins?”  Even we who are believers make excuses for our behavior, while condemning the behavior of others.  As God’s Word tells us: to the degree that we hug wrath and anger to ourselves, we are not living in God.  To the degree that we nourish anger and refuse mercy, we are really preventing ourselves from experiencing the mercy we need from God, if we are to be saved from a merciless Hell of our own making.

Jesus adopts this wisdom of the Old Testament and teaches that we must reflect God’s mercy if we belong to God.  Jesus’ teaching also erodes any false notions that we can be true Christians while mercilessly harboring lack of civility, lack of charity, and anger toward another.  Such behavior will not breed God’s life in us.  Instead it will breed death and eternal destruction.  Jesus teaches this by showing us the wicked servant who refuses to forgive a fellow servant’s debt, even though his own debt had just been wiped clean.  Jesus’ teaching tells us that it cannot be this way in his kingdom, the Church, because it cannot and will not be this way when his kingdom comes in its fullness in Heaven.  In the gospel, Peter thinks he’s being generous by offering to forgive seven times.  Jesus indicates his disciples must forgive seventy-seven times.  The reference to sevens is a way of indicating fullness or completeness, of saying that his disciples must extend God’s mercy and forgiveness many times – even every time.

Surely there is some catch here.  Surely there is some way around this, right?  No.  Not if one belongs to Christ.  Jesus warns that we cannot and will not be forgiven if we are unwilling to forgive others.  Jesus tells us clearly that we must be merciful as our Father is merciful.  And St. Paul explains why this is so.  He writes, “None of us lives for oneself…. If we live, we live for the Lord…. we are the Lord’s.”  We have been given the Father’s mercy at the price of the precious Blood of His only Son, Jesus our Lord.  If we take that gift, but hold onto wrath and anger, refusing to forgive others, then we make a mockery of the cost of the Blood of Christ.  We call cheap what is the most precious Blood of Jesus.

We must combat this tendency of our fallen nature to make excuses for anger, wrath, and vengeance.  These excuses show we rule our lives by sin instead of the grace of God.  When we hug wrath and anger to ourselves, when we hold on to that, we actually are hugging dysfunction, unhappiness, and eternal death all the closer.  It is a grand challenge to truly live as a Christian, aware of our own need to confess, repent, and experience God’s mercy, so that we can extend that mercy to others.  In our time many Christians live day after day in grave sin, compounding evil upon themselves because they refuse to experience God’s mercy in confession, or they rarely do so.  People sometimes say they don’t like confession, or they don’t come because they are nervous about telling a priest their sins.  This may be partially true.  But it may be more likely that people who stay away from confession perhaps recognize the hypocrisy in coming to the sacrament to expect forgiveness from God while they hold onto anger against others.  Perhaps infrequent practice of confession in our time is actually a sign that we need to form our lives around today’s readings, being willing to put away debts so that we can get on with the critical work of having our own debts forgiven.  We only have so much time to live according to God’s Word.  The first reading wisely reminds us: “Remember your last days, set enmity aside; remember death and decay, and cease from sin!”

Twenty-Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XXII per Annum A
3 September 2023

  I think it is important to keep in mind last week’s Gospel selection as we consider this week’s selection.  The two selections belong together.  They are sequential.  What we just heard from St. Matthew’s Gospel follows immediately upon what we heard from St. Matthew last week.  In last Sunday’s selection, the Lord asked his disciples to report who people think he is and then to report who they say he is.  Speaking for the group, Peter had a triumphant moment by professing correct faith that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.  In this triumphant profession of correct doctrinal faith Jesus says that Peter is a rock.  He is a large firm foundation upon which the Church will be built.

Following upon that correct profession of faith, in this weekend’s Gospel selection, the disciples – and we – learn still more.  We learn that another key aspect of having a firm foundation is living the correct faith and observing what it means to be a disciple, to be a student, who cannot make up his own moral foundation and teaching, but who must follow behind the Master.  This aspect of living the faith of a disciple goes hand-in-hand with the correct statement of doctrine, a correct faith.  What we believe matters.  And how we live matters.  These two weekend Gospel selections give us a fuller picture of the type of rock-solid foundation we need.  And what we learn this weekend about believing in Jesus and following him is that discipleship involves suffering.  We must change after all; and that is rarely easy or pleasant.

So important is this connection between correct doctrinal faith and the living of it, that following up his moment of triumph in last weekend’s selection, Peter has a particularly cringe-worthy and embarrassing low point in today’s selection.  The Lord instructs that he must go to Jerusalem where he will suffer greatly from the religious authorities and be killed.  This was not the idea that Peter and the others had in mind for the fulfillment of God’s promises of a Christ, a Messiah.  And so, Peter tries to reject the suffering that goes hand in hand with the Lord’s mission, and that goes hand-in-hand with being a disciple.  Peter pulls the Lord aside and rebukes him.  He pushes back on the teaching of suffering.  He rejects it.  He sort of wags his finger at Jesus and says, “Now, now, that wasn’t our expectation.  You need to agree with what makes sense to us.”  And Peter who had been given that name of “rock” just moments before now gets a new name: “Satan”.  The Lord firmly rebukes Peter.  And we need to hear that strong rebuke for what it is: “Get behind me, Satan!  You are an obstacle to me.”  A quick side note of interest: the Greek word for “obstacle” is a reference to a stone that causes one to stumble.  So, when Peter understands his proper place behind Jesus, that is, following Jesus, he can serve as the large rock-solid foundation stone of the Church.  But when Peter presumes to correct the Lord or to try to be the one who leads Jesus, he serves only to be a small stumbling stone.  When Peter presumes to lead Jesus, he in fact ceases to be a disciple.  The Gospel tells us that Peter and Jesus had been speaking to one another apart from the others.  When the Lord prepares to deliver his rebuke, “Get behind me, Satan”, the Gospel says that Jesus turned, meaning that he was physically putting Peter in his proper place; he was putting Peter behind him, where a disciple can actually be a disciple because he is in the place to actually follow the Master.

What does this passage, together with last Sunday’s, do for us?  Do we attempt the same failed method of discipleship that Peter attempted?  Do we maybe say the right things about being a Christian disciple, meanwhile we reject living what that means?  Do we sort of “rebuke” Jesus’ manner of showing us the way, the truth, and the life, by choosing our own way?  Do we reject some aspects of what our life ought to look like, how our life ought to be lived, while claiming to be a Christian?  Do we seek to take the lead away from Jesus and his Church by determining our own standards for living the faith?  Would there be any evidence if we were charged with saying the right things about the Lord (professing the correct faith) yet not living the way a disciple should live?  A significant area of life for our review, related to this passage is the following: Do I reject the difficulty that comes with converting, changing my life, and following behind the Lord?  Do I make excuses for my sin?  Are there things about being a disciple that I refuse to accept?  What inconsistencies in my life must I “die” to, so that I am not facing off with the Lord trying to tell him how things ought to be?

  Some specific examples may help our examination of conscience.  Am I the type of disciple who is here to use and to take, but I rarely give?   Do I think that being “busy” is a good excuse for laxity in prayer?  Because prayer can be difficult, does that absolve me from the struggle of dying to self and being with the Lord?  When I want to spend hours watching TV or surfing the internet, will I admit that I must die to those desires in order to make time to be with the Lord in prayer?  Would people who know me well be surprised if my social media profile indicates that “God is my all” or that the “Bible is my favorite book,” or that “I’m catholic”?  Do I justify my own morality in my use of the internet and what sites I visit?  Do I observe purity with myself and in relationships?  Am I working to acquire that virtue?  Will I admit that a disciple who follows the Lord should not choose cohabitation?  If married, am I married according to the sacrament in the Catholic Church?  What in my marriage, or what in the way I treat my spouse, does not reflect the type of sacrifice that is part of being a disciple?  Am I raising my children in the actual practice of the faith like I promised God on the day of their baptism?  Or is the family at Mass only when it is convenient or when it is a sacramental preparation year, when we expect our child to “get” something from the Church?  Do I support my child’s discovery of his vocation and do I encourage my child to consider the priesthood or religious life?  Do I have all the time in the world to know song lyrics and movie lines by heart but I’m far less saturated in God’s life-giving Word in the Bible?

I could go on and one with examples that indict both you and me.  The bottom line is this: What in my life is like Peter taking Jesus aside to rebuke him, telling him my terms for being a disciple?  Even if I say the right things about Jesus, like Peter did last week, what in my living of the faith is not in accord with dying to self and suffering to follow the Master and the narrow way that leads to blessing and eternal life?  This is the kind of self-reflection that needs to mark our lives.  And not just once, but constantly.  The Lord teaches us along with the apostles in the Gospel passage: “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  And he goes on to say, we will be repaid according to our conduct.  If we are trying to lead Jesus instead of follow him, then the repayment will not be pleasant.  My friends, this is not a light matter and the self-examination that needs to mark us is most serious.  Plenty of people can go astray, even if they don’t intend to, and even if we would consider them otherwise basically good people.  There is a risk that a person’s discipleship could be more something on the lips (what they say) while what they do shows them to be trying to lead the Lord rather than follow the Lord.  Just like the example of Peter, and whether it comes from among the ordained clergy, or the laity, or the consecrated religious, throughout the ages movements of disciples-in-name-only may call upon Jesus, “Lord, Lord!”, but they insist that Jesus be a different kind of Messiah, a different kind of Savior, one made in their own image and likeness.  This has happened throughout history.  In the first century, the Church was ravaged by a movement that rejected the divinity of Christ.  Even many bishops promoted that false teaching.  We are far less theologically sophisticated today, because now it is in vogue to make Jesus a Savior of inclusion and diversity who carries a pride flag instead of a cross.  It’s this Gospel passage playing out in 2023.  We can’t accept one part of discipleship (that is, the correct profession of faith) while rejecting the other (that is, living the right way).  Well, you can.  But you can’t do so while claiming to be a disciple of Jesus.  And if we attempt that false discipleship then we’d better get ready for a rebuke and a new name: “Get behind me, Satan!”

Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Assumption of the BVM
15 August 2023

    A formal part of Catholic faith is our belief that God has blessed Mary with certain privileges.  These privileges bring salvation to Mary and they come purely from the generosity of the Holy Trinity.  These privileges are an answer to the Original Sin of Adam and Eve, and so they are part of God’s plan to make it possible for mankind to have eternal salvation.  All the privileges of Mary stem from her first or main privilege, namely that God chose her in a singular way to be the Mother of God the Son in the flesh.  In the privilege of the Assumption that we celebrate today we express our Catholic faith that at the end of her earthly life Mary, having been preserved from sin from the first moment of her life and having chosen to use her freedom to live sinless her entire life, was rescued from the decay of the tomb and brought up body and soul into heavenly life.  You can find this doctrine already believed and celebrated liturgically in the fifth century.  Finally, being formally defined in 1950 by Pope Pius XII, this doctrine is thereby a dogma of the faith.

   In her Assumption we have one of the reasons for which we call Mary “blessed”.  In calling her blessed in her assumption, we join Elizabeth in the Gospel in proclaiming according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit that Mary is blessed among all women and blessed because of the fruit of her womb.  That fruit is our Savior, Jesus Christ, Mary’s Son and God in our flesh!

   A simple idea to help us appreciate the dogma of the faith that we observe today is this: That the ark of the covenant, and what the ark contains, belong together.  The contents of the ark of the Old Covenant were sacred: it contained God’s Word, the tablets of the Ten Commandments, it contained the rod of Aaron which had miraculously bloomed as a sign of priesthood, and it contained a vile of the mysterious manna from heaven.  By containing such sacred objects of God’s presence and power, the People of Israel rightly saw the ark itself as holy and as a place of encounter with God precisely because of its relationship with the sacred contents it contained.

   Likewise with Mary.  She is called the New Ark of the Covenant.  In fact, that image of the ark is invoked in the first reading from Revelation and moves immediately into a reference to Mary, the great sign of the pregnant woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve starts.  Mary as ark, contained the presence of God Himself as we heard in the Gospel passage.  That presence of God in her womb caused St. John the Baptist in utero to leap for joy, as we also heard in the Gospel passage.  Mary gave to God the Son his flesh, our human nature, so that he could save us, dying in our flesh and rising again to newness of life.  Furthermore, he grew in her, he was contained in her womb, like the ark contained the sacred presences of the Old Covenant.  But this time, the new ark contained not the Word of God on stone, but the Word of God in the new ark in flesh, Jesus the Christ.  It contained not the rod of Aaron that bloomed as a sign of priesthood, but in the new ark the Eternal High Priest himself.  It contained not a vile of that mysterious manna substance that was gathered from the desert floor by God’s People, but it contained the Bread of Life come down from heaven, the one whose flesh gives eternal life.  This is the ark of the new covenant and what it contains for our salvation.

   The ark and what it contains belong together.  Consider a different application but related imagery.  We wouldn’t put the Blessed Sacrament here on the altar but then have the tabernacle over there in the cry room.  The two belong together.  The tabernacle and what it contains belong together.  It is proper that after the Lord’s ascension into heaven, the ark – Mary – be reunited with her Son and brought to his dwelling place and this happens by a special privilege given to Mary by God.  This is what we believe in faith and what we celebrate in the Assumption.  We express faith that, in view of what needed to be accomplished in God the Father’s plan for our salvation, Mary was first saved by grace beforehand.  She was preserved from all sin in her conception and then, after a life of cooperation as the faithful and holy new ark of the covenant, that salvation that God gave her came to fruition such that, at the end of her earthly life, she was taken up body and soul into heaven.  God would not allow decay and corruption to touch her, the New Ark.  Since she had been saved from sin by a special grace, that means she was also saved from the consequences of sin, principal among those being death and the decay of the tomb.  May all of this about Mary serve to inspire us as disciples today to cooperate, like she did, with God’s grace so as to follow where the Lord has opened for us the way to heaven; a way she herself, we proclaim in faith, has followed.  Having been taken up body and soul into heaven we rightly say with the Psalm of this holy Mass: “The queen stands at your right hand, arrayed in gold!”

Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XIX per Annum A
13 August 2023

  Today’s first reading and today’s Gospel selection give us examples of theophanies.  ‘Theophany’ is a word that simply refers to a manifestation of God, an event by which God reveals Himself.  In fact, theophany has been a bit of a theme lately since last weekend’s observance of the Transfiguration is also a good example of a theophany.  In a theophany we have a manifestation of God’s presence and power in a sense perceptible manner.  Theophanies in the Old Testament are accompanied by the typical sense perceptible manifestations of wind, earthquake, and fire (cf. Ex. 19:16-19).  God revealing Himself to Moses on Mt. Sinai is a standard example of this, for when God comes to the mountaintop there is fire, there is wind that moves smoke up in a column, and the earth trembles.

Elijah in the first reading experienced a theophany when the Lord God decided to pass by him.  Those typical signs accompanied the event in the crushing wind, the earthquake, and the fire.  A unique contribution of this particular theophany is that the manifestation of God to Elijah is such that those typical signs of wind, fire, and earthquake are – in this instance – simply precursors to silence, the tiny whispering sound that mysteriously communicated the grandeur and the majesty of God.

The Gospel likewise presents us with a manifestation of God.  Keeping in mind the context of the passage can help us see this theophany.  After the miraculous feeding of the five thousand, the disciples are in a boat preceding the Lord across the Sea of Galilee.  That sea was a familiar place to the apostles, a place they often fished.  It is a large lake about 13 miles long and about 8 miles wide at its widest.  The passage tells us that the disciples were already a few miles into their journey offshore.  They were in a terrible storm.  And it was the fourth watch of the night, meaning it was between 3 and 6 in the morning.  This was a time on the water familiar to the disciples because it was a common time to go fishing.  We obviously understand that it was very dark out on the water and the storm made it very dangerous.

It is in this context that Jesus comes walking on the water toward them.  When the disciples are afraid and think they are seeing a ghost we get more evidence of this theophany, that Jesus is showing himself to be God.  Jesus responds to the disciples, “Take courage, it is I.”  That is a fine translation of the Greek text of St. Matthew’s account of this event.  It is an acceptable translation to suggest that Jesus is identifying himself (“It is I”).  However, we get more depth of understanding when we know that the Greek text can also accurately be translated as, “take heart, I am.”  The “I am” or “It is I” gives us a rich connection to other theophanies and that revelation to Moses from the Burning Bush of the Name of God: I am Who am.  In response to those who would dismiss this miracle as an optical illusion, as if Jesus was really walking on the shore or on a shallow sandbar, we can note Jesus’ use of “I am” to reveal himself precisely while walking on a stormy sea, in a place where his disciples are already several miles offshore, in a place where, when he doubts, Peter begins to sink down.  Is that use of “I am” significant?  You bet!  If there is any doubt, please see that the Lord uses it to reveal himself while breaking the laws of nature as he walks on water.  And the disciples truly get the theophany by the end because they say, “Truly, you are the Son of God.”

It doesn’t require much imagination to place ourselves into the lesson of this theophany of God showing Himself in the midst of a storm that tosses us about.  It doesn’t take much imagination to come up with a whole host of examples of things in life that we might call storms.  Our own character defects and weaknesses can be like storms.  We may feel overwhelmed by the setbacks we experience in our humanity.  Perhaps we face times of particularly strong temptation and it feels like we are drowning in sin.  We know the areas of our life where we are less than the disciples that we should be.  But we don’t always find the energy and the resolve to take a new step to breaking bad patterns and growing in virtue.  A storm may come from a bad decision we make with consequences we can’t undo.  Someone else’s sin may be a storm that impacts us or makes us a victim.  Times of grave social evil overwhelm us like storms.  Our storms may be worries we have for a friend or loved one.  Storms may come from illness and loss, where we are rocked by suffering and death.  We also can’t ignore that anytime we have a boat in Scripture we have a common image for the Church.  Various times in history show the boat, the barque of St. Peter, that is the Church, tossed about by waves and storms both internal and external.  History gives us ample evidence of leaders – from popes, bishops, and on down – whose immoral lives promote scandal and whose teaching fails to address the danger of heresy.  At other times the boat of the Church seems to suffer not so much from active threats but from weakness and lack of courage, as if she is just drifting about with no one’s hand on the rudder.  Our violent reaction to storms in life can reveal to us our tendency to believe a false idea that somehow life is supposed to be easy.  We don’t have that promise, especially not in our fallen world.  Recall that foundational, basic belief in Original Sin that tells us our world is fallen.  If we integrate that belief we know that things will not be easy in this life.  At times we uncritically adopt the notion that we’ll have a utopia in this life or that the march of history and progress means things are better simply because they are modern, and so our time must surely be the best.  That’s pure insanity.  Take a look around and see how everyone’s face is in a screen while they starve for real and meaningful human relationships that always elude them on that misnomered sphere of social media.  Things are better simply because they are modern?  That’s insanity.  And maybe one of the most fearful lessons of this passage (I almost hesitate to mention it): sometimes the Lord may call us, like he did with Peter on the water, to come INTO the storm, to leave the comparative safety of the boat to come into the storm for some mysterious purpose only the Lord knows.  Yes, there are hosts of storms in life from all manner of directions and sometimes too from the places we think least likely to be stormy.  But at the same time, there is Jesus in the midst of them, and he’s there to reveal Himself.  Therefore, we are called to avoid being people of doubt and little faith.  We are called to avoid being people of distraction who are primarily known for focusing on the waves, while taking our eyes off the Lord.  In the passage the disciples recognize Jesus as God because he is doing the things that God does in their Jewish Scriptures.  He treads upon the waves of the sea (cf. Job 9:8; Hab. 3:15).  He stills the storms (cf. Ps. 65:8; 89:10; 107:28-30).  And he reaches out to save his people (cf. Ps. 18:17; 144:7).  Yes, we do and we will face storms in life but the Lord Jesus is not a ghost for us either.  He is very much real, very much God, very much the one we need to call out to at the same time as we ignore and quiet the raging windy “voices” of life’s storms!

Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Dominica XVI per Annum A
23 July 2023 

  Our life as Catholics is fit into a hierarchical communion, a community with different gifts and areas of service, yet sharing one and the same faith and journeying to our common home of heaven.  We know that we do not call all the shots in the Church.  In fact, we call very few of them when you consider that we have higher authorities over us.

    Quite often we might struggle with life in the community of the Church.  There are aspects of our religious life that are mysterious to us.  Perhaps there are things we don’t comprehend and need to work in order to better appreciate.  There are things in our common life in the Church that leave us unsettled and disappointed at times, even downright angry.  We wonder about certain decisions that are made.  Some of the authorities over us don’t always seem very inspiring.  Maybe we wonder how and why they were even chosen to begin with.  Some seem to be unimpressive simpletons.  Some seem to have a thing with money, and you sort of wonder about that.  And still others seem to muddle the truth.  We may scratch our heads about the decisions of our chief leader.  How could he have chosen “that guy” for a special office and role?  Doesn’t he see how bad some of these choices are?  What could he possibly be up to?  What does our chief leader mean by some of the stuff he says?  It’s like he just won’t speak clearly.  Why doesn’t he do something to make things better, more like it should be?

    The chief leader of which I speak is, of course… Jesus!  Jesus is our chief leader.  It is Jesus who is the Head of his Body the Church.  It is Jesus who is the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls, as we read in 1 Peter 2:25.  It is Jesus who is the leader and perfecter of our faith, as we read in Hebrews 12:2.  It is Jesus who chose often unimpressive simple fisherman to be apostles.  It is Jesus who chose at least one who was a tax collector and another who had his hand in the money bag, the one who eventually committed great evil in betraying him.  It is Jesus who speaks in those mysterious parables, those teachings that are more than just images and stories, more than just comparisons, but rather stories with an unexpected twist.  Riddles we could say.  It is Jesus who speaks the parable today that forces us to contend with something unexpected and undesired: namely, that the kingdom is like a man who sowed good seed and in that field there is both wheat and weeds.  And more unexpected and undesirable to us, those weeds are permitted to be there even though they are sown by an enemy.  It is Jesus who employs this image by which the man who sowed good seed is not surprised that an enemy is also at work.  And it is Jesus who uses this image by which the man is patient to wait until final harvest for final justice.

    So, you know what that means, right?  If Jesus isn’t surprised by the weeds, and if Jesus is patient to await final justice at the harvest, well then, we don’t really get to act surprised and exasperated about the weeds in the Church.  We don’t get to exact immediate punishment and justice at all the crazy things we see in our time.  The Lord spoke this parable centuries ago.  It’s still an apt image today for life in the field of the Church.  Wheat and weeds.  And aren’t we just like the slaves of the householder in the parable?  “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?  Where have the weeds come from?”   And we go on just like the slaves, “Then we’ll go pull up the weeds, right?”  Nope.  The Master gives us not only the unexpected twist that there are weeds among the good seed, but also the further twist, “Let them grow together until the harvest.”  When we see evil and sin in the Church; when we see weakness from our leaders; when absolute confusion seems to reign; when heresy and immorality seem to be given a privileged spot; when the good and courageous leaders always seem to pay the price; when it seems like all we hear is that we are supposed to listen to and walk with those who reject Christ’s teaching and who give no sign of willingness to convert… there is that fire of indignation that arises in us like the slaves in the parable and we want to say, “Lord, if you’re not going to pilot the boat, I will.”  This parable just doesn’t let us have it that easy.  And it is a perfect lesson for our time.  If you are even casually aware of the state of affairs in the world and in the Church, the Gospel words of this parable are likely words we need to sit with and meditate upon for a good long time.

    Now I realize that this parable and what I am saying is not a complete template for how to navigate the multiple frustrations, or any one problem in the life of the Church.  By no means should anyone think that the lesson is that in the life of the Church there simply are no standards and we just turn a blind eye to error and sin and things contrary to the Gospel.  Not at all.  There are things that require courageous responses.  There are situations that need to be addressed.  There are wrongs that need to be rebuked.  And that does happen.  But also, it often doesn’t happen the way we would like.  This parable doesn’t really give us a comprehensive answer for how to handle the weeds in our time.  And the parable is not at all saying that the weeds will go without punishment and justice.

    There are topics and issues in our common life that have to be addressed.  That is true of every society of human beings.  The Church is no different in those challenges.  I’m not saying this parable tells us to ignore problems or to just dismiss them or to be naïve.  But I also don’t know how we answer all the challenges we see and the ones still to come.  What this parable can help us do is to focus on what we have authority to impact for the better, rather than focusing on someone else’s wrongs or what someone with higher authority needs to do.  This parable can make us contend with being a bit more sober about life in the field of the Church.  The parable can also help us marvel at the generous patience of the Lord.  And somewhere in that riddle of the parable we might pause just long enough to realize: You know, I better look inward first because through my sins I can be like a weed at any given time.  And had the Lord responded to the feverish calls to tear up the weeds at just the wrong time?  I myself might well have been, or well may be, pulled up and burnt.  And so, thanks be to God for the time for me to become good seed as a child of the kingdom!  Prayer, and frequent confession, and conversion, and good relationships in the faith, and the life of sacramental grace turn me from a weed into wheat.

The Lord is unlikely, it seems, to be chosen for the HOA field of the month award.  But his field will be the only one standing at harvest time and we have the time now to turn our focus and our energies more on becoming good wheat.  The alternative may be that we so focus on everyone else’s weedy-ness that we miss our own.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost (Traditional Latin Mass)

Dominica IV Post Pentecosten (Mass of the 1962 Missal)
25 June 2023

 IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

I have had a number of priestly assignments over the years.  And at times, other new tasks have been added to my main work as a parish priest.  You would think that after 24 years of being a priest I might be less surprised about new assignments.  But it seems the reaction is always the same in me.  A calling to do something new, to take on some new mission can be very unsettling and causes much introspection.  When I first hear the news of being given a new calling, a new mission for God’s Church and His people a common reaction takes place in me.  Quite spontaneously, I usually first think of all the reasons why I’m not qualified and why it won’t work.

 I don’t think that tendency is all that unique.  When God calls, don’t we quite frequently and readily first think of the reasons why it is not a good idea, the reasons why it won’t work?  That’s a human tendency that the Scriptures show us.  You see that tendency time and time again in the calling of so many prophets.  The calling of the Prophet Isaiah is such an example when he sees a vision of God’s Temple.  Isaiah experiences a call to a mission, to his vocation.  What is Isaiah’s first reaction?  He thinks of the reasons the vocation and mission can’t work.  “Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips.”  But God’s ministering angel comes with purifying fire, touches Isaiah’s mouth, and says “See, now… your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.”  Being made clean and forgiven by God Isaiah can then answer, “Here I am, send me!”  In other words, Isaiah’s unworthiness is a given.  Of course, Isaiah is unworthy and sinful and incapable.  The young prophet Jeremiah is also hesitant when God calls him.  He first responds that he is too young to have a vocation from God and that his young age means he won’t know what to do and what to speak.  God tells him not to think that way and reminds Jeremiah that He, God, will give him what he is to speak.  Yes, the person called is incapable and unworthy.  That’s not a newsflash!  The Scriptural lesson is that the call is God’s call and He’s the One who equips the person He calls. 

In the Gospel selection, Jesus calls Simon Peter as he begins to bring together his apostles.  Imagine how embarrassing it would be to be an expert fisherman, as Peter was, with a fishing business, having just returned after a long night of catching nothing, to then have a carpenter get into your boat and give you fishing guidance: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”  Simon Peter is actually qualified at fishing and he first notes his objection to put the nets in again, but with humility he is obedient.  Of course, we know that the Lord is preparing Peter for a new vocation, a new mission.  And in the face of a miraculous and large catch of fish, Simon Peter follows that human tendency to consider first how God’s call won’t work and how unworthy he is.  Falling at the knees of Jesus, Simon said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.”  Jesus indicates that he will guarantee Simon Peter’s mission and vocation when he tells him, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.”

To fulfill the call to be holy we each are given a vocation which defines the larger arc of our life and which carries with it dignity, duties, and responsibilities.  But God may also give us a particular work at various moments of life.  We can call this a mission, some thing to accomplish that requires specific attention and effort but which may not define our whole life or be long term, like a vocation is. What godly vocation and mission is yours?  What godly vocation and mission seems unlikely in your opinion?  What is God asking of you that you might first object to, raising the reasons why you are not qualified?  “God, I can’t be…” fill in the blank.  “God, I can’t do…” fill in the blank.  Like Simon Peter, what is God’s call to you to vocation and to mission that you think just can’t be?  You see, a lesson today is that we think more of ourselves instead of God.  And that’s a problem.  That common tendency reveals the error.  Do we really think the source of power for vocation and mission comes from ourselves?  We first consider our skill, our strength, and our preparation.  We need to first think of God and what He can do.  What He can do even with you.  Even with me.  Of course, we certainly need to have a healthy awareness of our limitations and our unworthiness.  Such awareness permits us to focus where we need to call out to God in prayer for what only He can provide.  The Scripture lesson for us today is not a call to ignore our inabilities.  Rather, the lesson is to think first and more about God’s abilities.

 What might this say to us in various examples of callings?  A child or a teenager might first fear to be a disciple among peers in school and in groups of friends.  You fear being rejected or standing out for being an example of Christian faith.  Trust that God will give strength in the lunchroom and in hallways or in your neighborhood.  You need only cooperate.  Someone dating might face the struggle to live that relationship in purity and chastity as is moral teaching.  If someone is a follower of Jesus he or she has a mission to stand against the societal trend of inappropriate behavior or of living together before marriage, marriage which, for a catholic, needs to take place in the Catholic Church.  Some young men may have a vocation to be future priests.  They might tend to say, “That can’t be me.  God couldn’t choose me with my sins.”  Oh really?  Peter seemed to think that too.  Listen to the voice of the Master, “From now on you will be catching men.”  Spouses have a vocation to sacrificial love, to be faithful to one another, and to be open to the gift of children.  But it’s not easy.  There are fears and legitimate challenges and exhaustion.  Raising children takes so much.  Spouses may want to doubt the call and think themselves incapable.  But the dynamic of the Scriptures today speaks to you: “Do not be afraid.”

Think more of what God can do in you.  Maybe the invitation of God is to be more generous or sacrificial in financial giving or in lending your own talents to some area of parish life or to some Christian work done out in the world.  Is your first response fear that you won’t have enough?  How can I give more from what little I have and with my debts?  Put out into the deep and let God’s power and work bless your generosity.

What vocation and what mission might God be giving you?  What is your first response?  Is it, “I can’t”?  Or is it, “God can”?  God’s grace equipped Peter for vocation and mission.  God’s grace filled what was lacking in him and transformed him for the task at hand.  If God can call and equip so many figures in salvation history and so many saints over centuries, He does the same with the vocation and mission that He gives you.  He says to us: Your wickedness is removed, your sin purged.  He says: Don’t tell me you are too young.  I’ll give you what you need.  The Lord says to us: Put out into the deep.  Do not be afraid.  May our response be to follow the Lord in generosity, trusting him with all that we have and all that we are.

IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER, AND OF THE SON, AND OF THE HOLY GHOST.  AMEN.

Solemnity of Corpus Christi

Sollemnitas Corpus Christi
Dt. 8:2-3, 14b-16a; 1 Cor. 10:16-17; Jn. 6:51-58
11 June 2023

 Today is our annual observance of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of the Lord, also called by the Latin name “Corpus Christi.”  Our faith in the Holy Eucharist is one of the most essential and defining doctrines we hold as Catholics.  We believe, without equivocation or adopting the language of mere symbolism, that the Holy Eucharist is the living Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.  It is the Lord’s Real Presence, whole and complete, in both the form of bread and wine, and even in the smallest fragments of particle or droplet.  It is the presence of the Lord given to us in sacramental form, by which we may be nourished by this gift when we receive it worthily in the state of grace.  We believe that the bread and wine at Holy Mass are changed in their substance.  They cease to be the substance of bread and wine, though the appearances remain unchanged, and become the substance of the Body and Blood of the Lord.  We believe this change of substance takes place by God and His power.  We believe this gift is made present to us only within the one true Church, established by the Lord and which responds to his command, “Do this in memory of me”, by using the words of consecration from the Last Supper and spoken by the ordained priest who shares in the one and same priesthood of the Eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ. 

That’s the quick summary of our catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist.  With that being said, I want to speak today about the Eucharistic Procession, which we will experience at the conclusion of the Holy Mass.  A few of you have asked me, “What is this for? Why are we doing this?”  That question tells me that I need to say “mea culpa, mea maxima culpa” because it’s an indication there has been some dereliction of duty on my part as Pastor.  You see, while it is not obligatory, it is customary and desirable that a procession takes place on Corpus Christi at the end of Mass as a way of offering more public witness to our faith in the Holy Eucharist, and doing so precisely outside of these walls.  We haven’t done this before on the Sunday observance of Corpus Christi (and honestly most parishes don’t do a procession) because, up until now, I have been unable to imagine how I would fit this extra thing into a tight Sunday Mass schedule.  Like many a traditional thing in the past 50 or so years the outdoor procession has been dropped or almost entirely disappeared.  Is our faith stronger for that?  Is our Church better off for that?  It sure doesn’t seem so.  In fact, decades now of studies report that many a catholic does not know or does not properly express the truth of our Catholic faith in the Holy Eucharist.  A Eucharistic Procession might aid the formation of our membership to have proper Catholic faith.  And, in fact, one can schedule a procession just about any time of year.  Perhaps we should do more of this throughout the year.  Perhaps we’ll see a stronger Church in part because of this devotion.  Perhaps we’ll see a world more converted too.

There are two ideas I’d like to highlight about the importance of a Eucharistic Procession.  Since we literally move together outside of the church in a procession, one can’t help but grasp the notion that we disciples are on a larger mission.  We are not disciples for ourselves only.  We are not to view our life as Christians as simply like a club membership lived conveniently packaged inside these walls.  Rather, we are on mission moving through this world as the Lord’s witnesses and we do so with his presence as our King.  On a day of procession, as the border dissolves between our coming to Mass within these walls and our more public walking outside with the Lord’s Real Presence, we can’t help but wake up to the fact that our duty in the secular realm is to organize our world and our affairs in greater harmony with God’s Kingdom.  We travel in a procession, as we journey through life, and we engage in the larger journey to the fullness of God’s Kingdom.  As we go outside in procession it serves as a reminder of the call to proclaim the Gospel and to live for Christ outside of the church walls too, in the public square.

And the public square is quite a battle ground, isn’t it?!  Have we become any better off these past many decades by ceding ground to secular forces and accommodating their claims by our silence that faith is purely personal and private and should be kept out of the public square?  Such claims are false both from a Gospel perspective and even a constitutional perspective.  The Lord says you are the salt of the earth and the light of the world (cf. Mt. 5:13-14).  Employing those images, he goes on to say that a “city set on a hill cannot be hidden,” and that light must be allowed to “shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Mt. 5:14-16).  And secularists and even some Christians say we should keep our faith private?  Hogwash!  Those would be totally bizarre images for the Lord to use if his idea for disciples – then and now – is that we keep our faith neatly packaged for observance inside these walls only.

Now I assure you that walking outside in June, in Oklahoma, IN VESTMENTS is not the most desirable thing for me.  You might echo that sentiment being dressed up for Holy Mass.  But consider just one value in this public witness, put into stark contrast by the nature of this feast falling in the month of June, as it typically does.  Consider what June has become in the secular world and the displays that are common and becoming ubiquitous around the world.  Those who observe secular June go out to march in celebration of disorder, in revelry like that surrounding the idol of the Golden Calf, and in narcissistic lust.  We go out in a procession of order, and prayer, and adoration of God.  In fact, by the Lord’s design and gift to us, we go out in procession with God Himself and not in idolatry.  Yes, how needed is this devotional practice in our time.  How much more should we organize such things and go on even longer processions, and in even more public areas!

The second idea I’d like to highlight about the importance of a Eucharistic Procession is that in this act of piety we celebrate that the Lord promised not to leave his Church, not to abandon us, or to leave us orphans (cf. Jn. 14:18).  And he has not.  He remains with us as he promised, by dwelling within us by the Holy Spirit sent from the Father and the Son.  He remains with us by His divine power when we make room for Him in our commitment to prayer.  He remains with us by the sacramental grace that resides in us.  And He remains with us in the most august Sacrament of the Altar, the Holy Eucharist.  He resides in all the tabernacles of the Catholic world.  He is here waiting for us to visit him.  Can you hear the invitation to commit to a time in our adoration chapel so that you bring life’s concerns and experience that, in fact, you are not an orphan?  He is here with us such that we can carry him in procession as a clear experience that He has not left us orphans as we journey through this life, as we seek to be faithful witnesses before hostile forces in the world.  Yes, a Eucharistic Procession teaches us these two important things: (1) As disciples we are called to go out on mission to transform our world; and, (2) we do not go out alone.  God is with us.  He has not left us orphans.

As a foreshadowing for us today, the first reading spoke to us of Moses’ instruction to the people, “Remember how… God, has directed all your journeying in the desert” (Dt. 8:2).  With renewed faith, and new zeal, and new excitement for a New Evangelization of the world God loves, and which our Lord came to save, let us go out after worthy reception of Holy Communion to be salt and light and to carry today quite literally the Real Presence of the God of the universe who does not abandon us or leave us orphans!