Christmas 2021: The Romans declare a census and God invites with his glory

 Friends

Peace be with you. And Merry Christmas! Christ is born for us and we join the angels in singing “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace to people of good will”. 

One of the things that astounds me about the way God works versus the way humanity works is that humanity likes to mandate things. Ever pulled up to a stop light late at night right when it is turning red and there isn’t another car in sight? Did you feel frustrated? Why do we have to follow the law when it isn’t protecting anyone? It’s just making me another minute or two later to get into my bed. But there could be a camera pointing at me. There could be a police officer hiding somewhere just waiting for this scenario and, suddenly, instead of missing a minute or two of sleep, I’m missing 30 minutes, a hundred dollars, and a whole lotta peace. So, I  just sit there and wait while grinding my teeth. 

As I was praying over these readings, I noticed something I’ve never really paid too much attention to from the Gospel of Luke. The reading starts off with a census, or an enrollment as St. Luke calls it. The enrollment is a mandatory return to your hometown to make sure no one is being missed during the tax collection. It appears, you would have to go back to you or your husband’s town of birth until the census is complete and then you’d get a signal that you could go home. Mary goes there with Joseph at some point after she’s already three months pregnant. How do I know that? Because St. Luke said she spent three months with Elizabeth, John the Baptist’s mother, before returning home. Maybe, in fact, she had to return home because of the enrollment. They likely travelled through Capernaum, down the Jordan River, through Jericho and Jerusalem before getting to Bethlehem. Imagine, if you can, starting somewhere up by Postville, walking over to Gutenburg and following the Mississippi River until you got to Bellevue and then walking from there through Springbrook to Andrew because that’s where you were born. I think that would roughly be the equivalent of how far they walked. As I said, they stayed in Bethlehem until they got the all clear because they were forced to by the government. It’s not clear if the all clear came before or after the birth of Jesus because this isn’t a story about a census, despite how entertaining that would be. It’s a story about a humble birth of the most powerful messiah and Lord to ever be born. It’s a story of contrasts.

In contrast to this forced relocation, there are shepherds out in the fields, most likely to the east of Bethlehem, so let’s imagine they’re in that valley that is a mile or so to the East of Andrew. Now, remember for a second that, in the Old Testament, King David was a shepherd in Bethlehem. He may very well have worked in these same fields with the ancestors of these sheep. It says a single angel appears to them to tell them the details we just learned, that a child is wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger back in town who is messiah and Lord. It says that the glory of the Lord appeared with the angel, which is quite striking because, since the time of King David’s Son, King Solomon, the glory of the Lord only appeared in the Holy of Holies in the Temple in Jerusalem. The last detail that we learn is that these same shepherds find themselves surrounded by countless angels singing Glory to God in the highest. 

What is the response of the shepherds? This is why I wanted us to hear both the reading for Mass at night and Mass at dawn: because we have to hear how they reacted. The angel didn’t force them to go to Bethlehem. Instead, they say, “Let us go, then, to Bethlehem to see this thing that has taken place, which the Lord has made known to us.” They choose to freely go. Now, when they do, there’s something important that happens. They share with Joseph and Mary about the angels that appeared to them singing glory to God in the highest. It says here and in a later verse that “Mary kept all these things reflecting on them in her heart”, leading some to speculate that it was Mary herself who related this story to St. Luke for his inclusion in the gospel. Recently, someone asked me how we know any of this took place, how we can know that there’s truth in these infancy stories considering the gospel writers don’t join until much later. I think St. Luke is telling us how: because he may be working with original sources. 

But, secondly and more importantly, what happens to the shepherds after they see Jesus? It says they go back to their flocks glorifying and praising God. They have had a transformation. Shepherds are laborers staying out in the weather and constantly having to protect their flocks. It’s possible their job has been made harder because of people like Jesus, Mary, and Joseph because the “in town” places they where could have kept their flocks were being used as guest rooms while the enrollment was going on. Shepherds weren’t known for their holiness of life. Quite on the contrary, they would have been rough both in their appearance and in their manor of life. These guys would have known how to swear and how to fight to protect their flock. They’re tough. And they return glorifying and praising God from Bethlehem. This is significant because the name Bethlehem means “house of bread”. So, they freely go to the house of bread  and witness the real presence of their messiah and Lord in the person of a tiny baby wrapped in swaddling clothes. You’d think it would be the glory of God as manifested by the angel or the heavenly chorus of angels singing Glory to God in the highest that would have changed their life but, no, it was witnessing Jesus in the manger that causes them to return and, at least for a time, glorify and praise God. 

Each sunday, we are given a choice whether we want to return to the house of bread that is the church to witness the real presence of Jesus. It’s given to us freely. We took God up on his offer today and praise and glory to God for that. Can we freely choose to do it again next week?

3 A C: Let go of anxiety in favor of joy

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

One of my favorite scenes from the musical Come From Away tells the true story of a group of people from a country in Africa that were flying to the United States on September 11, 2001. The attacks started happening while their plane was over the Atlantic so they got rerouted to a small town of nine thousand people named Gander in Newfoundland, Canada. The poor African passengers had no one that could speak their language so they exited the plane and boarded the provided buses several hours after landing in Gander with a certain reluctance and anxiousness. They were bused out to a camp the Salvation Army had set up in the middle of nowhere. The Salvation Army workers, wanting to look professional and impressive to their visitors, had dusted off their old uniforms, which only added to the anxiety the African people felt. They worried they were being taken out to the middle of nowhere to be executed but they couldn’t understand their bus driver and their bus driver couldn’t understand them. Finally, the bus driver noticed that the woman sitting next to the man who seemed to be in charge was fearfully clutching a Bible. He knew he couldn’t read the words to her but he counted on the fact that Bibles have a common order and number system. He found Phillippians 4:6, which is a part of our second reading for Mass, and pointed to it while handing the Bible back to the man. The man, in his language, heard St. Paul say, “Be anxious for nothing” or, as it is translated in our second reading, “Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.” And, as it says in the play, that’s when they started speaking the same language, a language of joy and hope translated by an Apostle who lived 2000 years before them. 

What’s making you anxious today?

Are you worried about the omicron variant and wondering if it’s going to mean that, once again, some members of your family won’t feel safe gathering with everyone else? Are you anxious about interest rates increasing and the cost of everything going up? Are you worried about Archbishop Jackels talking about the need for pastoral planning to happen in our Archdiocese, meaning we may have to close parishes? Are you anxious about a confrontation you recently had with friends or coworkers that has made the relationship tense or has made you so angry that it seems like the only thing you can think about? Are you worried about a friend’s health or your own health? 

There are points where anxiety can’t be easily overcome by pointing to Phillippians 4:6. With all due respect to St. Paul, just telling someone not to be anxious doesn’t always make the anxiety go away. Sometimes we need to talk to a professional and get help. And that’s okay. We need to do what we can to keep removing the stigma attached to people talking to counselors and psychologists and psychiatrists. Anxiety and depression can’t always be removed simply by willing it to happen or telling it to go away. We need to and help and support, not mock or belittle, people who have anxiety. 

Still, there are times in our lives when anxiety is more situationally based and less having to do with the chemicals in our brains. In those situations, I think St. Paul offers us the perfect antidote. Begin by rejoicing in the Lord always and in all things. In the good weather and bad weather, in the hard relationships and in the deep friendships, in things we do well and in things we do poorly, rejoice in the Lord always. St. Paul says joy and kindness should be the hallmarks of Christians. Instead of anxiety, when it arises, say a prayer to God and then trust that God will answer that prayer. 

Have you prayed to God about what is causing your anxiety? If so, remember that prayer isn’t your way of ordering God to do it your way but your way of asking God for help while understanding that it is always about God’s will and not our own. I’m sure I’m not the only one who has been praying for God to take away the coronavirus ever since March of 2021 but it’s still here. How can we be people of joy and kindness despite its continued presence? If you’re worried about the cost of things increasing and how it will affect your business or your ability to get necessary things, how can you find joy and hope in possibly having less? If you’re worried about your parish closing, have you prayed to God asking him to send more priests while encouraging your sons and grandsons to consider it? Have you talked about the church in a way that makes them want to be a part of it or are you constantly running down the Archbishop or me or Fr. Dave or the church in general? I should make it clear, by the way, that Archbishop Jackels doesn’t have a secret list of parishes he intends to close and that there is much work to get done before any decision on any parish will be made. What we would be wise to do if this is our concern is to bolster the identity of our parish and not get anxious and, therefore, defensive. We should be even more joyful and even more kind. We should be inviting people to be a part of our parish and welcoming those who are here. We should be looking for ways to serve the poor and shelter the homeless. We can’t get angry and spiteful and expect the Archbishop or anyone else for that matter to see in us a parish that really deserves to stay open. 

Over and over again, what inspires me about that small town of Gander on September 11, 2001, is that they responded to a very anxious situation with nothing but joy and kindness. On this Gaudete Sunday, let’s take St. Paul seriously, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I shall say it again: rejoice! Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near.”

CTK - B Revealing that Christ is King not you or anyone else.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Our second reading today comes from one of the most befuddling books in the Bible, the Book of Revelation. It is both the last book sequentially and chronologically, meaning it contains the last words you hear andis believed to be the last book written historically. It’s attributed to St. John who protected and accompanied Mary, Jesus’ Mother, after Jesus’ Ascension into heaven. St. John gets the credit for writing the last gospel, three New Testament Letters, and the Book of Revelation, making him one of the most prolific and diverse writers in the Bible. There are some scholars, however, who say that it was probably not written by St. John himself but by a community of disciples he helped to form. Nonetheless, for simplicity I’m going to say it was St. John. In the end it doesn’t really matter because, regardless, it is Sacred Scripture and, therefore, worthy of our reflection, despite the fact that most priests really hate having to do so. 

Let’s face it: the Books of Daniel and Revelation are hard to understand and even harder to explain. They have been abused historically by charlatans to scare people into giving them their money and their property and their loyalty since the end of the world will make the money and property worthless and will mean people are scared enough to follow a leader over a cliff. I think that’s why it’s important we take some time today, on Christ the King Sunday, to read them. 

So, let’s get something straight: The point of apocalyptic literature in general and the Book of Revelation in particular isn’t to make you afraid. The word apocalypse comes from a Greek word meaning to open the curtain. That’s why, when we translated the word “apocalypse” from Greek into Latin and, eventually, English we used the word “revelatio” or “revelation”. It is a revealing of the truths of God. And what is being revealed? Part of the challenge of answering that question comes from the fact that there are certain particular truths that are being revealed to seven particular churches with certain particular problems. For instance, the first church listed is in the town of Ephesus, a town in modern day Turkey. St. Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesisans and we know it is, therefore, an important and ancient center of Christianity. In Ephesus, at the time, they had figured out who was a real Christian and who was a fake one and they had not tolerated the evil done by fake ones. However, St. John also says, “I hold this against you: you have lost the love you had at first. Realize how far you have fallen. Repent, and do the works you did at first.” What were the works they did at first? Why did they stop? The people at the time would have known but, unfortunately, we don’t. The other issue, that may be related to this, is that this was written during a time of persecution. So, the writer deliberately uses coded language intended to protect the readers from being discovered if this ends up in the hands of the Roman authorities. 

Nonetheless, there are certain things that we can learn from this piece of apocalyptic literature, especially from the first chapter, which is the origin of the  second reading for today’s Mass. In it, Jesus has three important qualities. He is faithful witness, firstborn of the dead, and ruler of the kings of the earth. He also has three relational qualities: He loves us, freed us from our sins, and made us into a kingdom of priests for God. Lastly, St. John says he has three temporal qualities or time qualities, he is, was, and is to come. A trinity of trinity descriptive words. St. John is grappling with the notion that the Word existed at the beginning of creation with the Father and the Spirit, yet was incarnated, fully God and fully human, for a period of time on earth in the person of Jesus Christ until he ascended into heaven, and he remains with us in love but will also come again as judge of the living to take the faithful to his kingdom of peace. St. John is revealing, pulling back the veil on, the trans-historical nature of Jesus and the particular ways throughout history that Jesus has revealed himself. He does this by reminding us, first and foremost, that he loves us, he freed us from sins, and made us into a kingdom. I think that’s done deliberately because judgment can seem so frightening. I’ve worked with people who are aware that they are going to die sooner rather than later. One that I continue to think about was a woman who went to Mass every day she could and prayed the rosary constantly. She insisted on being anointed immediately after she had her fatal diagnosis. When I finished anointing her, she admitted she was frightened because she wasn’t sure she had been good enough to get to heaven. I told her that none of us have but that it didn’t matter because Jesus has been good enough for us all. I tried to assure her that she had shown faith by coming to Mass and being anointed but her daughters admitted to me when we prepared her funeral that she shared the same concerns with them, that she didn’t feel worthy of heaven. The daughters, who had stopped coming to church long before and whose lives had gone in very different directions than their mother, sort of made fun of her in a way that almost made it seem like they figured she was foolish in believing God would have any qualifications for getting into heaven. As I walked away from the funeral home, I wondered who was better off: the one who struggled to be one hundred percent certain that she was saved or the ones who figured they were owed it because at least they weren’t Hitler. 

St. John, in the second reading, gives a very brief account of what the second coming will be like. Borrowing from the Book of Daniel in the first reading, he says Jesus will be the one coming in the clouds and “every eye will see him, even those who pierced him. All the peoples of the earth will lament him.” I think, in today’s world, we tend to think of the spectacle of it all and maybe be tempted to see thunderstorms or hurricanes as pointing to the reality and the closeness of this event. St. John was less concerned about the “coming in the clouds” part and more wanting us to focus on what our reaction will be when we see the King coming in the clouds. He says that we will look on him, even those who pierced him, and lament him. He’s saying that we will see how our sins contributed to the need for the crucifixion. We will see the wounds in his hands and his feet and see the gossip we spread about others piercing him. We will see the wounds from the crown of thorns and see the times we didn’t feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, or shelter the homeless. We will see his scourged back and see the times when we tried to be our own king, the king of our own castle, when we put liberty over obedience and license over what is morally right. 

St. John thinks that that revelation either has happened, is happening, or will happen for everyone. He hopes that, for the majority of his listeners, it has already happened but he knows that some are starting to fall back into former lives of sin. He hopes that the evangelizing work that is happening will bring more to see Christ as their King and they will come to love him as much as they are loved and forgiven. But he knows that, for some, it will only be when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds that they will lament the loss of the opportunity for conversion. They’d been obstinate during their lives in their refusal to come to know the one who is, who was, and who is to come and they’ll likely continue being obstinate even when he is standing right in front of them. Where we are along this continuum. Do we already lament the sins we have committed knowing how they have pierced Christ the King or do we still have more work to do? Are we so settled in our conviction that we are saved that we don’t recognize the sins we committ today and tomorrow and the next day all the away until the end of our life as needing to be lamented, as worthy of being spoken to a priest in confession? Have we allowed our own arrogance, our own need to be in total control and have total say over everything that happens in our life that we have stopped looking for the one coming in the clouds and, if so, how can we remind ourselves that Christ is King?

30 OT B: Like Jesus, we are called to fulfilll God’s plan for us in our weaknesses.

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    About every other week during the past couple of months, I’ve been accompanying Julie Schmidt, our DRE, and some parish volunteers down to the public school and walking the kids who want to participate in our after school Faith Formation activities back to the Kruse Center. The last time we did it, it was a bit cool and rainy but, until then, it’s been fun for two reasons. First, the weather has been absolutely smashing, which makes for a great excuse to take a half hour or so and go for a walk. But, the other reason is that, when we walk past the daycare kids, I get identified with the most-high God. That’s right. The little kids think I’m God…and I’m kind of okay with that. Actually, it makes me chuckle because it happens so often with little kids and they seem to unlearn it just as quickly. None of the kids walking over to Faith Formation, for instance, greet me at the school by saying “Hi God!” but their little brother or sister might have just done so. I generally just respond that I’m not God, I just work for him. But I think that’s even harder for them to understand so I don’t push it. 

    I hear stories about priests who would be very comfortable being identified with God. I tend to associate that with the priests ordained prior to the Second Vatican Council: meaning guys ordained in the 1950s and 1960’s. Though, I’ve met younger guys who had a sense of self importance that they felt was integral to priesthood. I worry when I see it because this was the era of rampant sexual abuse in the church. The good old days when priests could do no wrong weren’t always all that good for some people. 

    Priests aren’t called to image God, even though, like all people we were created in the image and likeness of God. A priest is called another Christ or to be in the person of Christ or “in persona Christi” in Latin. I think that’s what makes our second reading from Mass kind of challenging today. The writer to the Hebrews is comparing Jesus to the high priest, a comparison the Jewish listeners to this homily would have understood that may be a bit challenging to us. The high priest took care of the Temple and offered the sacrifices there. He had a bunch of rules that he had to live by and would have been revered for his holiness. He also would have had to have been related to the ancestral tribe of Levi, one of the brothers of the Old Testament figure Joseph. The writer says that there are two ways that Jesus is like the high priest. First, the high priests aren’t above other people but they sympathize with them because they also have to offer sacrifices for their own sins. In the past few passages, the writer has been talking about how important it is for us to not confuse Jesus with a pagan god or an angel because he came down from heaven and was a human being like us. Jesus, though without sin, is like us and we know that because he took on our sins and offered them up to the Father. I appreciated how the writer says of the Old Testament priesthood and Jesus that, “He is able to deal patiently with the ignorant and the erring for he himself is beset by weakness…” Secondly, Jesus is like the high priest because he was called to this position by God. Now, this is significant because of how he was called. Whereas, the temple high priests had to be both holy and of the tribe of Levi, Jesus was not of the tribe of Levi. He was of the Tribe of Judah, meaning he couldn’t be a Temple high priest. However, the writer to the Hebrews points out an example in the Old Testament of a righteous high priest named Melchizedek who ministered before the birth of Levi and is still remembered reverently by the Jewish people. He’s even mentioned in the first Eucharistic Prayer, which I’m going to pray at this Mass. So, he says that Jesus is a priest in the order of Melchizedek instead of Levi. Melchizedek took bread and wine, gave thanks to God, and gave it to Abraham and it was credited to him as an act of righteousness. 

    I think it’s significant that the writer to the Hebrews isn’t saying that Jesus’ priesthood is so much better than the priesthood of the Temple high priests. I would have expected him to say that but he at least begins by pointing out similarities between the two before he starts to highlight the differences. As a priest, I am grafted onto the Old Testament priesthood through this priesthood of Jesus Christ. And, at baptism, each of us were called to a priesthood, not the ministerial priesthood that I exercise, but the priesthood of all believers. That means we share in these same things that Jesus did as well. We sin. I sometimes get frustrated when I hear people talking about Christians as though we think we are so much better or holier than others simply because we call a sin a sin. I believe sin exists and, indeed, that all have sinned and fallen short of of the glory of God. I believe that sinful acts should be confessed and that people who sin are always capable of repentance and forgiveness. But people who come to church are seeking to be holy, not already there. We sin just like those who don’t come to church. 

Still, I wonder if the second part is as much of a challenge for you as it is for me. Jesus is like the high priest because he was called to this role by God. God had a plan for him that included his high priesthood to be carried out by the forgiveness of sins of the world offered by his own personal sacrifice on the cross and being through a personal calling instead of a tribal relationship to Levi. And God has a plan for you as well. God planned for you to be a husband or a wife or a single person. God gave you gifts to be a farmer or a construction worker or a teacher or a politician or whatever way you use those skills for employment. I’ll be painfully honest, perhaps a little too honest at this point, and admit that this part is a weakness for me. I love being a priest but don’t always love being a pastor. When I have a meeting with people complaining about things I don’t think are worth getting as angry about as they are or people wanting to turn things into power struggles, it makes me want to leave and go to a different assignment. This struggle I feel is similar, I would guess, to someone having a difficult time in marriage or at work: is it worth sticking it out or is it time fish or cut bait? What if God called you to that marriage? Would it change how you treated each other or how willing you were to walk away? What if God called you to that job? Would you let a owly coworker or boss move you somewhere else? It’s always possible that God is moving you somewhere else. If there’s abuse in your relationship, God would want you to leave that relationship. If you find corruption in your workplace that is systemic and is beyond your ability to root out, God would want you to leave that workplace and find another. But, that decision should be the result of prayer and consultation with other trusted advisors like your family and close friends and maybe even me. 

Oh, and by the way, I do plan to be here for at least another 9 years because I do believe God called me here. He didn’t call me here because I’m perfect. I’m not. He called me despite my imperfections so that he could show his own perfection through this imperfect person, which is so often the way God works. He has a plan for you and is carrying out that plan right now. It might not be as exciting or fun as you wish it could be but that’s okay, It’s still your plan. We may feel like we don’t have the skills to do it but, in our imperfections God’s perfections shine through. I am not God because no human being is God, despite what the kids at daycare will tell you. I sin. But, I know God has a plan for me just like he has a plan for you and a plan for each one of those precious little voices yelling “Hi God!” from daycare. Do we trust in the plan of God despite our sinfulness or do we sometimes forget God’s plan because of it?

29 OT B A sympathetic God

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

In the 1992 movie, Leap of Faith, comedian and actor Steve Martin stars as a traveling evangelist with a troupe of musicians, a circus tent, sound and light technicians and even a behind-the-scenes person listening into conversations of those congregants in attendance so Jonas, Steve Martin’s character, can reveal to them their ills and make them think it’s being revealed to him by God. When he’s revealed by the local sheriff to have had a rather sordid past involving shoplifting, possession of marijuana, grand theft auto, selling fraudulent art works, and passing bad checks, it looks like the jig is up and Jonas has been revealed as the con artist he is. But, after a deliberate pregnant pause, Jonas responds, 

“Everything you’ve said it absolutely true. Yes, I ran with a bad crowd that taught me to smoke weed and steal. I hung out in bars and I hot wired cars. I grew up mistreated so I lied and cheated. I learned hard crime and I served hard time. I have walked that crooked road and I have danced with the demon Satan. I’ve been down in the gutter and looked up into the face of God. I say to you, if you wanna give up the bottle, who you gonna talk to? Someone who’s never touched a drop? If you wanna give up womanizing, who you gonna talk to? Some pale-skinned virgin priest?”

I watched this movie at a pivotal moment in my life and remember thinking that it was a fairly accurate critique of priesthood. Similar sentiments have been offered regarding things like marriage prep and men in the pro life movement. How can an unmarried priest do marriage prep? Or how can men tell women that they aren’t allowed to have an abortion if they’ve never been pregnant or given birth. Now, if you follow this line of reasoning, it does become a bit ridiculous. Would you insist that every doctor has to have had your condition in order to be treated for it? Or would you say to a firefighter that they can’t put out your house fire unless they have also had their house on fire? 

Still, I get the critique that it’s easier to believe someone can help you if they can sympathize with what you’re undergoing than if they seem somehow above you or completely disconnected from you. In the second reading, the writer to the Hebrews wants to emphasize this about Jesus. After spending the majority of chapter 4 comparing and contrasting Jesus with the greatest Old Testament figure, Moses, he shows how Jesus is an even better high priest than Moses. If the high priests were super holy and Moses is even holier than them, it would be surprising to hear that there’s anyone who could be even holier than Moses. But, as the writer to the Hebrews says, Jesus is just such a high priest. The reason he is better is, despite coming down from the clouds, he is not unable to sympathize with us despite being without sin. He became human so that he could know fully what it is like for us. He even knows the depth of human depravity because he suffered and died. 

We want a savior who is like us but also slightly better than us. I think this is true in a lot of things. It would be hard to take piano lessons from a virtuoso. We’d probably rather take them someone who knows what it’s like to struggle to learn how to play. Or if we want to learn to build houses, we should probably learn from someone local who does it rather than someone who builds mega mansions for the rich. There are only a few mega mansions but, as anyone who has tried to buy a house locally knows, we need more people building houses. The challenge always is that, while we want someone who we can sympathize with, someone we can relate to, someone with whom we can have a beer after a long day; we also want someone who can actually teach us something because they know the trade. We may not want to learn from a virtuoso but we probably do want someone to teach us piano who is more advanced the plunking out Three Blind Mice with one finger. We may want to learn how to build houses locally but we don’t want to learn from someone whose hair has a little extra curl in it because of the number of times he’s tried to do wiring when he should have called in an electrician.

    That’s why Jesus is sympathetic but is also without sin. We may not want some pale skinned virginal priest helping us with womanizing but you know who is even worse? A womanizer. Someone who hasn’t kicked the habit himself trying to tell you how to kick the habit. We need someone who can relate to our problems while also not being bogged down by them. 

    I sometimes wonder if this is why we don’t have more people coming to confession. I wonder if some people don’t come because they’re concerned with how I will react if they tell their sins because their sins are more than missing their prayers or saying bad words. And, even though I can assure you that I’ve worked for several years for college students, you know, the years we do especially stupid things, I get it. If you’re worried that the priest is going to run out of the confessional screaming “I need back-up on this one!”, you may not be willing to come. The only thing I can say is that, despite hearing confessions for nearly 20 years, I’ve never been shocked or scandalized by what people have told me there. I’ve only been grateful because you trust me enough to say it. It is always an experience of setting aside Fr. Dennis for a moment and letting Jesus work through the imperfect servant that I am. If I am not a testament to the fact that Jesus can forgive in broken humanity, I don’t know what is. 

    Which is exactly why I think Christianity is different than other religions, why I think it is a fuller understanding of who God is. Jesus is not above us. He is relatable. He’s fully human. He lived a life very similar to ours but lacking in one thing only: sin. If we’re going to turn to someone who is relatable to help us overcome sin to get to know the Father, we need someone like him. The challenge for us is do we take the time to get to know him. Do we take the time in prayer to relate to him. There have been times in my life when I’ve assumed someone is too important or too knowledgeable or too much of a celebrity to pay any attention to me. But that’s not Jesus. He is relatable. He wants to get know you and wants you to get to know him. Are we open to this type of relationship with him?

22 OT B: Show no partiality to others or to ourselves

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

For some reason, during the heart of the pandemic, I watched a filmed version of a concert called American Utopia by a man named David Byrne. Now, this is definitely not a concert for everyone. In fact, I would bet most of you would shut it off in the middle of the first song. I know a person who refuses to even get that far because the performers don’t wear shoes or socks and you can see their bare feet. It’s politically liberal and there are some really weird songs in it. Still, I started watching it and was prepared to hate it but there was something kinda captivating, kind of beautiful, about it. If the name David Byrne sounds familiar, it may be because he was in an 80’s rock band called Talking Heads. And, sure enough, at one point in the concert, David Byrne grabbed his guitar and started singing Once in a Lifetime, one Talking Heads biggest hits. As a kid, when I would hear this song, I had no context to what Byrne was singing. But, as I prayed over the second reading for today, I found the words to this song sort of floating through my head…

And you may find yourself living in a shotgun shack

And you may find yourself in another part of the world

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife

And you may ask yourself, "Well, how did I get here?"  

St. James begins chapter 2 of his letter by saying that, if we have the faith of Jesus Christ, we should not show partiality toward a rich or poor person. What’s interesting is that he goes on basically to say that we should show partiality to the poor. The next two verses say, “But you dishonored the poor person. Are not the rich oppressing you? And do they themselves not haul you off to court? Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name that was invoked over you?” So, what is James really saying? I think it’s easy to want to associate with rich people. We see them driving a nice car or living in a nice house, maybe inviting us to come to the vacation house they own. They’re attractive people with nice clothes, nice faces, and nice personalities. Then we look over at poor people who are asking for financial help or asking for a ride because their old beater of a car is broken. They aren’t beautiful, of course. I think that’s why St. James says that we probably should favor the poor: because we naturally want to be around the rich. They have better stuff. 

St. James offers two reasons why we should be aware of this unconscious bias, if you’ll allow me to insert a phrase he doesn’t use. First, because the rich have power, they can haul you off to court. If you can be seduced into favoring rich people, so can the police and the government. A rich person can build walls to protect the outside world from knowing they’re fighting but a poor person is exposed. And, hopefully, the rich have fewer things to fight about because they have a large automobile, with a beautiful house and a beautiful spouse. This is, in many ways, a pragmatic reason to not show partiality: because the rich are powerful and they can use that power against you so don’t get too close or too far from them. 

But the second thing St. James says, which I think poses the greater challenge from a faith perspective, is that, if we are going to have the heart of Jesus, we have to operate under the law of freedom. Now, what exactly is the law of freedom? We can’t be so attached to our possessions or the things of the earth that we lose sight of our true home in heaven. The truth is that both the rich and the poor can lose sight of this. I know people who are very poor who do nothing but lament that they lost something, some store has closed or some building was torn down. I know part of this has to do with struggles to deal with historical change but I think there can also be a kind of idolatry that happens when people can’t imagine something needing to change. I’m reminded of some groups on social media where all people do is look at old, dilapidated buildings and click their tongues at how sad it is or claim that someone should buy it and make it into a home.

St. James, therefore, wants to make sure that, when people come to a Christian gathering, we show no partiality to who they are or what they have because we don’t don’t want them to show partiality to us simply because of who we are or what we have. Even if we’re rich, there is someone richer with a larger automobile, a more beautiful house, or a more beautiful wife or husband for that matter. 

In the past few weeks, we’ve been taking a few extra collections to help people in need. I heard someone remark that they were visiting with someone who complained about how we’re always asking for money for yet another group. I tend to smirk at these comments because it’s not like someone is forcing you to donate. I often wonder if the comment is really a sign of guilt that the person hasn’t donated more to Haiti or the victims of hurricanes or for the unborn. But I also wonder if, perhaps, the person has a misplaced sense of charity. They see their donation to their church as a gift to a charity and say that donation should be enough. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad people donate to their parish. We couldn’t keep this place open without it. However, I hope we can also see that there’s at least a level of selfishness if that is our only gift to a charity. St. James sees the law of freedom tied to mercy. He says, “For the judgment is merciless to one who has not shown mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment.”

I’m guessing we’ve all found ourselves, at one point or another, asking “how did I get here?” How did my priority become keeping a large automobile or a beautiful house with a beautiful spouse. The question St. James wants us to ask ourselves is: do all these things get in the way of our care for each other and, if so, how can we put our priorities back where they should be?

22 OT B Be doers of the word not hearers only

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    One summer in seminary, I went to a bar with a group of seminary students from various denominations who were all studying hospital chaplaincy. We were all involved in a summer program called CPE, or Clinical Pastoral Education, and were at a wrap-up conference processing what we had all learned. In general it was not a great use of time so we decided to unwind and complain a little at a local watering hole in the town that was hosting us, Grinell. I remember feeling a little out of place as we walked in, wearing a dress shirt and pants in what most people would call a dive bar. After a couple of drinks, I was about ready to head for the door when I felt this hand on my shoulder and heard a voice from someone standing behind me say something like “I’ve been listening to what ya’ll have been talking about and I want to let you know I think it’s terrible that you’re here and that you’re all going to hell.” Somewhat stunned, I started to turn around but I knew already that the person was a forty or fifty year old woman who had been playing pool with two men nearby. Some women sitting with me who were training to be ministers in other denominations started to engage her by asking her questions about herself and she calmed down a bit and admitted she didn’t practice her religion anymore because she felt she was just too sinful. She said, in fact, that anyone who would hang out in a bar was just too sinful to go to church. I listened for a while and, when there was a lul in the intervention, I said to her that it was possible to come in and have one or two beers and then leave. Unfortunately, either because I was a man or because I was Roman Catholic I’m not sure, that must have triggered her because she got angry again and told me that was impossible. You only go to a bar to get drunk and do sinful things and we were all sinners for being there. I had had enough at that point so I decided to leave. The next day, when I talked to some of the people that stuck around, they said they tried to continue to engage her because she was so broken but it was futile. She was unwilling to admit the possibility of anyone entering that bar and entering the kingdom of heaven. The pastor she had growing up had taught her that and there was no changing her mind. Still, there are times when I’ve wondered if more of my time was spent in the local bar getting known and trusted by the people there, if there would be more conversions than by just sitting in the confessional hoping people would show up. But if I did that, what would you all assume about me?

We begin this week with the book of James, a book that could be summed up with the phrase “Be doers of God’s word and not merely hearers.” This book is often invoked by Catholics to answer the protestations of our Lutheran friends who will misquote St. Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians by saying “We are saved by faith alone”. The trouble is that each letter had its own purpose. Whereas St. Paul was worried about people believing that they could be saved without faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus, St. James is worried that some believe that salvation means you don’t need what is classically referred to as “charity” or love. If you get a chance today or tomorrow to sit and read the entire first chapter of James, you may be struck by two things. First, like our Lord in the gospel today, St. James believes that evil comes from the inside of a person not from someone else’s influence. St. James would not be in favor of the excuse that the devil made me do it. Second, St. James believes that faith is a free gift offered to us by God but that, if we don’t put that free gift to use, it will be wasted. He says it’s like a person who looks at himself or herself in the mirror and, when the person walks away, she or he forgets what she or he looks like. That used to sound impossible to me until I lost my hair and, yet, still have dreams where I do have hair. I wake up and quickly realize that it was a dream because I had hair and, therefore, I’m not going to be late for my final exam in biology. Somewhere in my subconscious mind, I’ve forgotten what I look. 

So what’s the solution? St. James concludes this chapter with the same two suggestions we hear at the end in the second reading; “To care for widows and orphans in their affliction and to keep oneself unstained in the world.” So, care for those who have no one else to care for them and, yet, remain holy and unstained by the world in the process. It is possible to do both. We can care for people who may be rough around the edges or who are sinners, while also keeping our lives focused on holiness. The truth is that a lot of people who walk into bars do so because they intend to sin, to drink to excess or hook up with someone or get into a fight with someone. And you probably should be concerned if your priest was spending a lot of time down at the bar claiming to be doing so to get converts. Priests can be alcoholics too. Still, I think it’s too easy and too comfortable to use concerns about contact with some place or someone as reasons why we don’t treat someone with love. Keeping ourselves undefiled has more to do with what is happening in our heart, than it does with where we are at or to whom we are talking. Are we seeing the image and likeness of God in every person we meet and the God who is always with us even in the dark valley and the shadow of death or are we too worried about seeing the devil to be doers of the word and not merely hearers?

21OTB Don't just be subordinate, love one another like Christ.

Friends

Peace be with you. 

One of the hardest weddings I ever did happened in a previous assignment and is something I will always regret doing. I have never refused to perform a marriage. Sometimes, if one of the people need an annulment and I have to tell couples “not yet”, they decide there are easier solutions than getting married in the Catholic Church. Still, this was a different scenario. All throughout the preparation, there was something off about the couple. They needed a different sponsor couple than our normal ones for him to feel comfortable talking with any of them. It had to be someone he already trusted and knew. He answered almost all the marriage questions with unsure instead of agree or disagree, including whether he was almost always relaxed around his future spouse. They both always had excuses but they tended to be pretty flimsy ones. He’s shy. He doesn’t trust people. He doesn’t trust people because his parents were bad role models. It took until after the wedding for things to become clear for me what was happening. The groom was isolating the bride from all her friends, even moving her to a whole new town far away from everyone she knew. He was driving everyone who cared for her away, including me after the wedding. He would pick a fight with one of her friends and then go and tell her that they were mean to him and she shouldn’t talk to them anymore. And, wanting to make the marriage work and find a way to fix him, she always did it. I tried to contact her after the marriage but she blocked me on her phone and all social media and we still talked to each other since sadly. 

Still, I think of her on this weekend when we hear Ephesians 5:21-32, “Wives, be subordinate to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church”. For some people, that’s all they hear when they hear this reading. And there is many a preacher who is willing to stand up and say that St. Paul clearly meant that the man runs the show in a family, that he is in charge and the woman and any children they may have have to listen to him. However, be very careful if you decide to accept that interpretation because, when preachers interpret St. Paul that way, they are missing his entire point. 

Let’s look, first, at how St. Paul starts the passage. He says to everyone “Be subordinate to one another out of reverence for Christ.” This should be a clue that St. Paul is doing something different here. It’s mutual subordination that he is seeking, not a one-sided subordination. To demonstrate this, he writes the two verses I quoted before about wives being subordinate to husbands, which was a common belief in the middle-eastern culture of his time. But what he says next is shocking because he also imposes demands upon the husbands. “Husbands love your wives, even as Christ loved the church and handed himself over for her…” He repeats over and over again that husbands should love their wives. I think we may be tempted to say the poor wife who is called to be subordinate gets the raw end of the deal and that definitely is true if we don’t understand what Paul means by love. Love isn’t just a warm feeling for St. Paul. Love is an act of the will that commits you to a certain life. And what life are husbands committing to? To die to your self and all your selfish desires and everything aside from focusing on what is best for your wife. You see, we don’t hear it this way but dying to your self should be harder than being subordinate. It’s supposed to sound more difficult but, as I say, because we tend to think of love as a touchy feely emotion instead of as a commitment to put the other person’s needs and wants before our own, to put their well being, their livelihood, their everything before our own, we distort what St. Paul says and, instead, justify seeing the man as being the head of the household, the one that makes all the decisions when, in fact, husband and wife are meant to be equals, each subordinate to the other. 

Now, I know some of you may protest that, if there is no singular person who is in charge, that means the couple is essentially a ship without a pilot. First, it doesn’t mean that there can’t be division of labor. A husband may look at his wife and realize she’s a better cook or cares more about cleanliness or is better at maintaining their vehicle than he is and they may decide those are areas she is better in charge of. And a wife may look at her husband and realize he’s better at dealing with lawncare or better at organizing the family finances or better at cooking than she is and the two may decide that those are going to be his gifts. Those kinds of decisions are good to decide early into the relationship and also good to communicate about while the relationship goes on and changes with time. But, also, if there are children that come about as part of the union, it’s even more important for the kids that the parents be in charge of the kids while subordinate to each other. Parents who are not on the same page when it comes to discipline or education or religious involvement or even involvement in sports will not only frustrate themselves but make their children miserable. When parents support each other in their decisions, they will at least have one other person telling them they’re sane despite possible protests from the children and it’s good for the kids to see a model of healthy adult relationships.

I hope you can hear how this passage, Ephesians 5:21-32, not only shouldn’t be a justification for spousal abuse but should be one of the main arguments about how Christians can’t tolerate it. If you are in an abusive relationship, I hope you are getting the help you need. Please, when you are safe, contact Catholic Charities for help or, if it’s really bad, call the police. And, if you are an abuser, whether it’s verbal or physical in nature, please know that, by, justifying it because of these and similar passages, you are abusing God’s word for your own ends. Today is the day to recommit your life to the gospel. Get the help you need to die to yourself so you can rise with Christ. 

Assumption 2021: Mary’s power is from God not from her workout routine

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Today we fill in an important part of the story of what happened after the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, namely, what happened to his mother. Now, in some ways, this may seem kind of insignificant and impossible given that we’re 2000 years away from all of it. There’s not much written in Sacred Scripture about what happened to Mary after pentecost. Granted, we also don’t hear much about the death of any of the Apostles, but that seems to be because that could distract us from seeing the apostles in the mission that Jesus gave them after his death, to be sent to spread the gospel to all nations. We do hear about the death of St. Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles, but that’s in part to show that witnessing to Jesus’ life may involve witnessing to his death and it’s part of the conversion of, arguably, the greatest apostle, St. Paul. Yet, I would argue, there’s a significant theological point being made by the early church in the fact that we never hear about the death of Mary either in Sacred Scripture or in the tradition. I know some would say that’s because, like the Apostle’s, the Sacred writers were laser focused on the death and resurrection of Jesus and didn’t want to do anything that could distract from that. But, I’d like to suggest there’s a more profound reason that we can hear in our first reading and gospel today that should color our understanding of who Mary was and is for us. 

In the first reading from the Book of Revelation, St. John is describing a vision he is receiving of the birth of a child. Like much of Sacred Scripture, its meaning is disputed among scholars with some saying the woman is Mary and others saying the woman is meant to collectively represent the Jewish people. Being Catholic, I tend to be able to say “both/and '' when others say “either/or”, so I can say that the woman is Israel and believe Mary is the fullness of their representatives. As a clue to this, the reading starts by saying that the temple will be opened and God’s people will see the Holy of Holies, the place where only the High Priest would go to offer the sacrifice and come face-to-face with the Most High God. That “place” is Mary. She is the holy of holies, the Sacred Tabernacle where the most high dwells. She is unique in this gift because she was called upon to be the Mother of God. So Mary, as the fullest representation of Israel, as the new ark of the covenant and the place where the most high dwells, is pictured in the first reading also as the embodiment of pagan goddesses. It says she is clothed like the sun with the moon under her feet and twelve stars in a crown. It’s like St. John is saying that everyone who believed the earth to be a goddess or the stars to be gods were confusing a revelation God was giving them for the true revelation God would give them through Mary in the person of Jesus Christ. Mary is both the fullest revelation of what it means to be part of the people of God, Israel, and brings the clouded, imperfect revelations God tried to make to the pagan world in their deities. This passage is why we no longer look with fear upon the theologies of indigeounous peoples, for instance, but, instead, see God revealing to them in an imperfect way the mystery he revealed fully in Jesus.

At this point, Mary, in her fullest representation of the role of Israel with the clothing of this pagan goddess, gives birth to a son, despite the presence of the evil one who sought to kill the son during delivery. Notice that there is pain in delivery, despite the fact that Mary is born without original sin and, therefore, should have been spared the pain of childbirth given to Eve after the fall. This is because Mary still lives in a world tainted by sin and the presence of the devil is there as a testament to this fact. Nonetheless, notice that, even though things appear their darkest as the devil is set to consume the child being born to this woman, God simply takes the child to heaven to rule at his right hand. The evil one may be able to condemn a third of the people, but he is utterly powerless to stop the salvation of God offered to us in Jesus Christ. 

Yet, the story doesn’t end there. It could have, but it doesn’t. It goes on to describe what happens to the woman in that she was taken to a place in the desert that was prepared for her by God. Now, this is again a double meaning because we know that, around the writing of the Book of Revelation, there was a persecution of both Jews and Christians happening in which they were being forced out of Jerusalem into the desert. Indeed, the Book of Revelation was written in a kind of coded language that only Christians, at the time, would understand because of a conflict with the Romans. The Christians were thrown out of Jerusalem with the Jews when the Jews tried to get rid of Roman rule between 66 and 73 AD. Later, they tried again, in 115-117 AD, which is when they believe this Book was written. They won’t be allowed back into Jerusalem after this time and, when they try to take back Jerusalem in 132 AD, the Jews will be permanently expelled until 1948, with the modern State of Israel. At the time of the writing of this book, Christians had been forced out of the city of Jerusalem and were living in the desert to be kept safe. However, Mary was not among them. So, then the woman of Revelation takes on a greater significance because, if this woman is both Mary and the Jewish people, there’s a double meaning in the final verse of our reading. The Christian people were provided a place by God in the desert and Mary, likewise, is provided a special place. As in the story of the Exodus, the desert is a place of testing but also finding favor with God. God provides for his people in the desert just as God has provided a safe place for Mary when he took her body and soul to be with himself. 

    That’s the significance of Mary’s song in the gospel. It’s not a braggadocious pop song like pretty much all modern music. It’s Mary recognizing and explaining the place God has provided for her. Mary’s sings “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord; my spirit rejoices in God my Savior for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant. From this day all generations will call me blessed: the Almighty has done great things for me and holy is his Name.” Mary’s name is blessed because God’s name is blessed. Mary rejoices because God has looked with favor upon her, not because she is so important or because she has worked so hard to accomplish so much. Mary rejoices because God has blessed her. Her name will be called great because of God. 

    I think one of the things that causes some people to fear the Catholic church’s reverence for Mary is because they fear she takes away from reverence for God. However, over and over again, and even in her Glorious Assumption, Mary gives all the glory to God for the good things that happen in her life. Indeed, today we celebrate God for letting Mary be the mother of his Son, Jesus, and inviting her to be assumed body and soul into heaven. Great things can happen to us too, like they happened for Mary, if we seek them from God and don’t just assume he doesn’t have the time for us or has more important things to focus on than our needs or our dreams. In fact, God has a dream for you, for your welfare not your woe. Ask God to reveal that dream to you and then ask him to help you know how he is going to bring it about. Then be prepared to say with Mary, “The almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name!”  

17 OT B Preparation for unity

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

In order to become a priest, you have to take a certain number of college credits in philosophy. In fact, most priests either majored or minored in philosophy because of this. I found this out during my first semester at Loras and was a little surprised. I assumed I’d be spending most if not all my time learning about theology, the study of God. When I asked why we were studying philosophy, I was told that it was hard to explain but that I was just supposed to trust it was important. Being somewhat of a hands-on type of person, there were plenty of times in those first couple of years when I wondered why I was thinking about whether I could think about thinking about thinking. A couple of years in, I asked again why we were learning so darn much philosophy and the same priest told me that the concepts underlying philosophy would be the basis for some of the concepts in theology. I could appreciate that answer and I could definitely see that to be true but I was at least a little skeptical because a lot of concepts would clearly never be used and I honestly prayed I could one day forget Aristotle's definition of four causes or Kant’s theory of the categorical imperative or the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. I had a sense that, other than a passing negating reference like this one, I was almost certainly never going to drop the phrase "categorical imperative" into the middle of a homily. It wasn’t until I was taking a class with a group of Lutheran and Presbyterian seminarians, that I realized why we studied philosophy. We were studying a part of Matthew’s gospel and taking turns offering a brief sermon on the passage. Being the only Roman Catholic in the group, I was already nervous that they'd all accuse me of too much works theology. One of the other students preached about how, since Jesus didn’t mention some act in a particular passage, he must have been fine with doing it. I raised my hand and informed her that she was relying on an argument from silence for one of the main points of her sermon and, as we all know, an argument from silence is the weakest form of argument. The preacher shot me a confused and angry look as though I just called her a bad name. Thankfully, the Lutheran professor intervened and told her I was right that her sermon wasn't logical and she then informed me that they didn’t have to take philosophy so I should be a little more careful in assuming what everyone knew. 

In the second reading, St. Paul is writing to his disciples from prison, exhorting them to believe in the same things that have landed him there. Scholars believe St. Paul dictated this letter to someone outside his cell who brought it to Ephesus and possibly other towns as well. His focus is on unity, as you can hear so clearly in the seven words following the word "one". St. Paul starts off chapter four talking about five traits that will foster this unity. He exhorts his readers to live lives filled with “humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another through love, striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.” Let’s briefly spend some time with each of these. 

Humility, in both the Greek of the Bible and in English, has the same root word as dirt or earth. To be humble means recognizing that we all came from dirt and that no one should be better than anyone else. It doesn’t mean sitting by and watching someone make mistakes but, instead, recognizing it could just as easily be you if you do decide to correct them

Gentleness, I learned, doesn’t mean being a wimp. It is a balance between being too angry and never being angry at all. It means seeking peace but correcting in a fraternal manner when provoked. We don’t have to let our house be burned down but we can stop the people from doing so without burning theirs down as well. 

Patience means recognizing that someone else’s timeline may be longer than ours, although it does recognize that there is a timeline. There are some things that have to get done by a certain time. 

Still, I think there’s a reason St. Paul next lists, bearing with one another through love, because sometimes people have idiosyncrasies that patience struggles to overcome. Have you ever become annoyed when someone repeatedly uses a phrase like “like” or “um” in a sentence. I did that one day and, the very next day, I was in a meeting and I was very nervous. Towards the end of the meeting, one of the people stopped and said, “I’m sorry this might be the fact that I haven’t had enough coffee or sleep but would you mind not clicking that pen?” and I realized I was doing it without really thinking about it. The fact that he didn’t explode at me or simply make fun of me later but asked me to stop and made me aware of this fault in a way that didn’t embarrass me and was loving was a great example of bearing with one another through love. 

St. Paul finishes this list of qualities we need for unity with striving to preserve the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace. This is ultimately a reminder that unity is a charism, a gift of the Holy Spirit, that is given to us in our desire for peace. 

In this world, there are a lot of divisions, divisions in the church, divisions in our parish, divisions in our family, divisions in our country, and, if we’re honest, probably even divisions between the person we are and the person we’d like to be. As you hear these five qualities that undergird Christian unity, what is one of them you most need to ask the Holy Spirit to increase in you or your family or our parish or our church that will help increase the unity the Holy Spirit is bringing about?

16 OT B Christ is the peace that puts the pieces together

 Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    Yesterday, Pope Francis released a rather controversial letter called a Motu Proprio. A motu proprio is a letter issued by the pope on his own initiative. In fact, that’s what the phrase motu proprio means “on his own initiative”. This Motu Proprio is identified by the first two words in the Latin original, “TRADITIONIS CUSTODES” but it may also be called in English “On the Use of the Roman Liturgy Prior to the Reform of 1970”. It seeks to regulate when it is appropriate to celebrate the Latin Mass that was common before Vatican II and who gets to determine when and where that ritual can take place. Pope Benedict set forth his own Motu Proprio on the same topic when he was the Pope saying a priest can decide on his own if he is asked by a significant number of the faithful, which was later clarified as 35 people, whether he wanted to celebrate the so-called pre-Vatican II Mass. Pope Francis appears to be concerned about some developments that have taken place since Pope Benedict released his Motu Proprio and is seeking to reign a few people in. He leaves the decision of who can determine who and where a Roman liturgy prior to the reform of 1970 up to the bishop of a diocese. From what I can gleen, there are people who only attend a Latin Mass in what Pope Benedict called the Extraordinary Form and deny the validity of the Mass of Vatican II, or the Ordinary Form. Now, I am sure there are some who deny the effectiveness of Extraordinary Form as well, by saying that the people who go don’t understand what’s going on because it’s all happening in Latin but that’s different than saying that the Vatican II Mass is from the devil and modernist and a sign of the apocalypse, as I’ve heard from some people who exclusively attend the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy. Now, I know that not everyone who attends the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy believes this and that there are, indeed, people who attend it because of the reverence of the Extraordinary Form versus some of the irreverence that we’ve probably all experienced at Vatican II Masses. But, from what I can discern from this brief letter written on his own initiative, the concern Pope Francis has is that our prayer has become a source of division. 

    St. Paul is, likewise, concerned about divisions in the church in Ephesus, though his concerns are very different. At the end of the first chapter of this letter, which we don’t get to hear on Sundays but is worth a read, St. Paul says there is a division between the circumcised and the uncircumcised, in other words between Christians who were Jews first and Christians who were not, who were Gentiles first. It appears the Jewish-Christians are still following some if not all of the ritual purity laws of the Old Testament and it has become a source of division for the community. The Gentiles, who were not raised with these same laws, are being told by some that they aren’t as good Christians because they aren’t following all the laws. St. Paul, in verses eight and nine of chapter two says, “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not from you; it is the gift of God; it is not from works, so no one may boast.” It’s clear that St. Paul is saying that the Old Testament works of the Law are not what saves you but Jesus alone has saved you. And, unlike those who may be tempted to believe themselves somehow better Christians if they keep following the laws of the Old Testament, St. Paul says that this is being deliberately done this way so that we may not boast. In other words, it’s not a competition as to who can follow more of the rules. Salvation is freely offered to us apart from works of the law. 

    St. Paul continues to build on this in the section that we read, which talks about peace, p-e-a-c-e, in a way that I find intriguing. What is peace? In a family, peace may be thought of as a meal where no one leaves the table in tears. Peace is often seen as the absence of conflict or, in the context of a country, the absence of war. The time between World War I and World War II is often referred to as the “peacetime years”. When St. Paul uses the word peace, he doesn’t mean simply the absence of conflict, but the bringing together of warring people into one community. So, St. Paul says in the second reading, when humanity was divided between Jew and Gentile, all people were justly condemned because of original sin and our personal sins. But, his unearned salvation has brought about peace, the bringing together of Jew and Gentile into a brand new entity called the church. St. Paul, in fact, will use the image of the body to help what St. Paul is saying is that Jesus is the peace, p-e-a-c-e who brings our pieces p-i-e-c-e-s together. He does this through humility, through admitting that we couldn’t save ourselves from our sins but have to rely entirely on him.

    Unity is, therefore, an important part of what it means to be a Christian and it can only be cultivated by Christ himself, by bringing the pieces together. It’s important to note that unity is not uniformity. Pope Francis still allows for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy, he just wants to make sure it doesn’t become the norm, the Ordinary Form. And he wants to make sure the Bishop is still the shepherd of the diocese and that rogue priests don’t lead to further division in the very act that should bring us together, our prayer. 

    In the last forty to fifty years, it’s become quite common for people to be critical of the liturgy, saying they prefer more modern music or more traditional music or a new church or an older church. I’ve worked with people for funerals and weddings and anniversary Masses where people demand things take place that have no place during Mass. I think, if we’re to take St. Paul seriously, if we want to experience the peace that brings the pieces of the church together, we have to set aside these kinds of demands and let Jesus transform our hearts. We have to come to Mass without demands and expectations and just let Jesus be in charge. Let the words of the opening prayer speak to our hearts 

Show favor, O Lord, to your servants

and mercifully increase the gifts of your grace,

that, made fervent in hope, faith and charity,

they may be ever watchful in keeping your commands.

Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,

who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

one God, for ever and ever. Amen

14 OT B Finding strength in weakness

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

Recently, a priest friend was telling me about an email he received relatively early in a previous assignment which said “I prayed that the bishop would assign someone here with half a brain and I guess I’m going to have to keep praying.” Now, please don’t take out your phones and start sending me similar emails. At the time, my friend was really hurt by the email, not because he felt particularly close to the writer or because of how caustic the remark was, but because he felt like the guy was right. He never felt like he was suited to be a pastor, that he had the organizational and leadership skills capable of dynamically giving a strong vision for success to several corporations at once. He wasn’t particularly good looking, didn’t spend enough time preparing his homilies, didn’t visit the sick and find shelter for the homeless. He didn’t visit the school classrooms or respond as quickly to phone calls or emails as people wanted. He could easily list all his failures and struggled to find much he could call an accomplishment. He was a bit in a funk. 

As my friend was talking, I had two reactions. First, I could sympathise. At several points in the past year, I have felt like I could get this same email but that you folks are just a lot more patient and kind. But, secondly, I thought of our second reading for today. St. Paul puts forth one of his more difficult to understand theological perspectives that, I think, is central to understanding his theology. And, as I transition from focusing my homilies on the first reading to the second, this is a good place to start. In the early part of this letter, St. Paul writes about how there are these “super apostles” who are great public speakers and who are very good looking and whom everyone loves. But, these “super apostles” tend to say only the things people like to hear, not necessarily what people need to hear. They are the priests who fill their homilies with jokes or safe theological messages focused on personal improvement and never seem to get around to preaching the hard truths of the gospel. St. Paul, on the other hand, feels compelled to teach about how salvation is offered to us by faith in Jesus and cannot be earned and everyone says that he’s just too serious or not interesting or not entertaining. It appears that, while St. Paul is getting this outward criticism of his ministry, he’s also getting some kind of bodily ailment like headaches or a fever or soreness. It may be because, as St. Paul said in a previous part of this book, he’s been beaten twice and almost stoned to death once. That had to take a toll on his body. St. Paul connects his physical ailment with his rejection by the people as a “thorn in the flesh”. Still, he doesn’t lash out at the people or see it as an indication that it’s time to move on. Both of those reactions would be the flight or fight reaction common in the animal kingdom. Instead, St. Paul says he “glories” in this weakness because, in it, he is made strong. What St. Paul is saying is that, because of this thorn in the flesh, any success in terms of evangelization and the church will not be seen as his action but, as it is, the action of God. And he thinks that is just the bees knees, if you will. 

Let’s compare this to the way the world handles failure. First, we make fun of people who fail. There are television shows that feature home videos of people who fail while an audience laughs at them. We make fun of people who are bad at sports or school or work and we probably talk about those people to others and laugh at them. Or, if we don’t make fun of people, we may try to say that the failure is actually a success. We give out participation trophies to every kid, even the one who sat by the fence and picked his nose the whole game. This is probably good when the child is in kindergarten but there comes a point when we need to be able to admit that people have weaknesses. We don’t want to hurt people’s feelings but not everyone is a gold medalist and, by confusing the perfect and awe inspiring with the mediocre and utterly disastrous, we are losing our eye for beauty. 

St. Paul says, instead, to glory on our weakness, glory in the email that says they are still praying for a pastor with half a brain because that means people will look to the true leader of the community to be our guide. They won’t seek the leadership of perfect human beings from imperfect human beings but will rely entirely on the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to lead us to himself. We glory in our weakness to make room for the strength of Christ in our lives. 

Pentecost B - The Spirit unites us in diversity of gifts but always in truth.

 Friends

Peace be with you. 

On my recent pilgrimage in the footsteps of Jacques Marquette, I read in his biography that, at the time of his death, he could speak six different native American languages along with his native French. It started when he arrived in Quebec where he learned three and continued when he was assigned to Sault Ste. Marie along what is today the American/Canadian border. He sought to meet and get to know Native Americans in order to learn their language as a way to evangelize. While living and evangelizing members of the Ojibwa Tribe, he met a member of the Illinois Tribe who was seeking to trade with them. He talked with him, learned his language, and, in the process, Marquette became convinced that there was, among the Illinois tribe, an unusually large understanding of the notion of God as creator, which he could use to explain the incarnation, God coming among us. So, when Joliette needed a spiritual advisor to explore the Mississippi River, it was obvious the polyglot preacher would be a good companion. But, Marquette was intent on reaching out to the people of the Illinois Tribe, not only because of their openness to the creator, but because of the numbers purported to be in the tribe. He met with Tribal leaders in several places in this area. All along, when the group would encounter a Native American Tribe, he would seek out anyone who spoke Illinois, as that was more prevalent than the other five languages he spoke and he knew he wasn’t going to have the months and years necessary to learn their language. It was on his return to St. Ignace, Michigan, where he had established a tribal settlement with the Ojibwa that he got sick somewhere near present day North Utica, Illinois, close to Chicago. He celebrated a Mass there for 5000 members of the Illinois Tribe and, despite being sick, evangelized them and even established a make-shift chapel. When he left them, he promised that either he or someone else would come to continue his work. Unfortunately, Marquette died on the trip back and it would be several years before his dream of a mission in North Utica. However, if you travel there today, you will find St. Mary’s Church, what used to be St. Mary’s Mission, dedicated in to the memory of the Immaculate Conception, an feast Marquette especially cherished, and you will find priests continuing to reach out to the people to let them know of the truth of the gospel. 

Today is Pentecost, a time when we remember the Holy Spirit coming upon the Apostles as tongues of Fire. It gives them the power to speak in tongues. Notice something that happens in the first reading. The Apostles speak but the people in each of these groups hear them in their native language. Now, it’s possible that Peter spoke in Parthian and James spoke in Mede and John spoke in Elamite and so on until everyone had someone speaking in their native language. However, it appears more like somehow the Holy Spirit bestowed a gift on the people similar to the way universal translators work on Star Trek, which, if you don’t know what that means, let me explain. On Star Trek, no matter what language the Alien species speaks, it gets automatically and instantaneously translated to English. Imagine we’re standing in New York by a group of people who only speak Spanish, another who only speak Chinese, another who speak only Arabic, and a group speaking only an African language and suddenly an announcement is made where everyone could understand it. That’s Pentecost. But, as great as the idea of a universal translator is, it is the content of the translation that’s important. They are learning of the mighty acts of God. And, right after this, Peter stands up and makes the first Papal Encyclical in chapters 2 and 3 of the Acts of the Apostles and he is understood by them all because of the Holy Spirit. 

Our readings reveal to us three related aspects of the Holy Spirit. First the Spirit unites us, as it did at Pentecost. But, in the second reading, St. Paul emphasizes that the Spirit unites us with a variety of charisms. Each of us have been given different gifts for building up the body of Christ. It’s a kind of unity that allows for the diversity necessary for the health of the body. If each of us had the charism of administration, for instance, then everyone would be a leader and no one would be led. If everyone were given the gift of prophecy, which tends to have a kind of harsh warning quality to it, it could lead to the kind of conflict that happens on a political talk show. The Spirit gives a variety of gifts to recognize and celebrate the diversity of the community. This means we shouldn’t be jealous or mock someone else’s gifts but we should celebrate them, even if they make us feel a little uncomfortable. Sometimes, we may be around someone who seems to have faith that is so simple, almost foolish, in this complex world. Instead of mocking them or gossiping about them, we should celebrate someone who has been given the Spirit’s gift of faith. 

The final gift the Spirit gives to us is that the Spirit leads us to truth. Truth comes from the Father and is the inheritance of the Son. But, if we have faith, it is offered to us by him in the Spirit to us, the adopted sons and daughters of God. In a world that celebrates all things as being only subjectively true, your truth versus my truth, the Spirit tells us that truth is truth. Marquette knew this better than anyone. He knew that, by spreading the gospel among the various Native American tribes to whom he was called, he was offering them the truth of salvation through Christ. We need to hear this message today more than ever. And we need Catholic schools, like Marquette, that are free to teach the truth of the Gospel along with the truths of math and science, sports and drama. 

The Spirit is powerfully unitive, but in a way that fosters diversity. Let’s pray that the Spirit will unite us as members of the Body of Christ in truth while fostering the diversity of Gifts she offers. 

Thoughts on the relationship of parochial schools and catholic schools.

 Friends

    Peace be with you.

    I've spent a fair amount of time in my life reflecting on the importance of Catholic schools and whether they are important in today's world. At points, I must admit, that I have come to the conclusion that Catholic schools are an expense the parish is forced to subsidize for a majority of people who have a tangential (at best) relationship to it. Many people send their kids to Catholic schools but do not attend Sunday Mass or have much to do with the Catholic church in general. The majority of Catholic school students who graduate from Catholic schools do not attend or participate in the Catholic Church after graduation. There are other factors, too many to list really, that made me question why we spend so much time and energy keeping a school system afloat that seems doomed to failure. 

    But the more I reflect upon it, the more I have been forced to change my mind. Fundamentally, I think there should be schools where people who do not want their children to learn about religion can send their kids, which I think is one of the benefits of the public school system. However, I also believe that parents who want their kids to learn in an environment that integrates religion into learning, in this case Catholic Christianity, should be able to send their kids to a parochial school. And it is to a religion's advantage to want to teach children because they CAN integrate the spiritual life within each class. My experience in a public school was that religion could only be mentioned derogatorily. When a history teacher mentioned the crusades, religion was at fault. When a science teacher talked about a heliocentric vision of the universe, it was always juxtaposed against the church's more fundamentalist geocentric model and the Aristotle trial would inevitably be brought up. If a literature teacher were to assign the Scarlet Letter, for instance, religion would be brought up as a source of paranoia and bias. There was no context involved in these discussions, no offering the church's or religion's point of view. It seemed the point was to quickly denigrate religion and then move on. 

    Religious schools can fill in the gaps that public schools are forced to leave out. We can talk about how Copernicus, a Catholic monk, was actually the first to propose a model of the universe where the sun was at the center and that the issue with Galileo had as much to do with struggling to deal with the literalism of Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli as anything else. We can say that Pope John Paul II has apologized for the whole affair and said it marks an ugly time for the church and we can show how, consistently, Catholic schools are on the forefront of science and scientific discovery. We can talk about the complexities of the crusades and how it as much had to do with the growth and strengthening of Islam and talk about how Christianity used to be a stronghold in North Africa but was largely wiped out by Islamic violence. We can talk about the Battle of Lepanto and show how Christianity in Europe had to defend itself against this same group of violent Islamists. And, we can talk about the theology of the Puritans and show where it came from and what parts of the Bible is exploited to come up with it's worldview. We can look into the history of Christianity and see connections between it and previous groups in a way that the public school simply cannot out of fear of being seen as partisan. 

    This is not meant to say that a parochial school should be entirely opposed to a public school or that one is inherently better than the other. Actually, I think balancing cooperation with some charitable competitiveness is the best relationship possible. If one school needs the help of the other, I think it is in both school's best interests to offer it. If they can collaborate on some athletics that neither school seems to be able to field, that is best for the kids in both schools. What I find unhelpful is when one school, either the public or the parochial, seems to make it a goal to dominate the other. Most of the time it is the larger public school dictating to the smaller Catholic school what classes or sports or extracurricular activities it is willing to share. I do know of one situation, however, where a Catholic school made sure a public school was not built in their town out of fear that they would lose kids to it. And, more recently, there have been allegations of public money being given to private schools to the detriment of the public schools. But that is a separate column for someone with more expertise than I. I also don't find it helpful for the two schools to essentially disown each other and refuse to collaborate at all. That sets the students, staff, and administration against one another and creates and fuels hostility between the schools. 

    So, what does a relationship balancing cooperation with some charitable competitiveness look like if not the above? I'd suggest that the schools cooperate when they can and seek to support one another when they can't. If one of the schools has a class or sport or extracurricular activity that they're willing to share, they should inform and welcome the other school to send some students. And if one school needs help in academics or extracurricular activities, they should inform the other school and ask for their help. Encouraging collaboration among teachers and coaches for students of both schools to learn together when they can would benefit the schools and the entire community. When there are competitions, strongly encourage students and fans to cheer for each other. Make sure your coaches and players know that this is a different type of game, closer to a brother playing a brother where the point cannot be to humiliate or alienate because you're going to have to live together afterwards. Perhaps even be willing to remove players, parents, or students who seem more intent on turning it into a grudge match than a charitable competition. 

    In the end, I think it has to be a relationship built on mutual respect. There are going to be subjects and activities that are proper to each school that the other simply won't be able to participate in. But where cooperation is possible, it not only helps to foster good will between the students but between their parents and the whole community in general.