I remember
that about a year and a half ago, when I was out of the State, I was walking
around, minding my own business, when a person shouted, “Hey, Fr.
Anthony!” I turned and looked, saw
the person who shouted, and, more or less, stared at them, trying to recognize
who it was. They came up to me,
and they must have seen the gears in my head spinning, trying to figure out who
they were, and so they introduced themselves…again. It turns out it was a family I had known from an earlier
parish assignment. How embarrassed
I was at not recognizing them, but they were out of the context with which I
usually associated them!
We
hear about that same confusion today in the first reading and the Gospel. In the first reading, St. Peter is
explaining how Jesus is the Messiah for whom the Jews had been waiting. But they didn’t recognize him, because
their view of the Messiah was different from how Jesus presented Himself. Jesus was out of the context that they
were expecting.
And
in the Gospel today, Jesus has to convince the disciples that He’s not a
ghost. They were not expecting to
see Jesus in His glorified body.
This is even more surprising when we consider that this passage happens
right after Jesus reveals Himself to the disciples at Emmaus in the breaking of
the bread. And yet, the disciples
were still not expecting Jesus. He
has to show them His wounds, and then eat something. Jesus was out of the context that they were expecting.
But
Jesus explains clearly, as does St. Peter at Pentecost, that all of the teachings
of Moses and the prophets and the psalms refer to Him and what the Messiah
would have to undergo. The Word of
God, the Scriptures, bears witness to who the Word of God, Jesus, is.
Two
weeks ago, amid cries of “Hallelujah!” I challenged us to get to know Jesus
better through Bible studies, the “Catholicism” DVD series, youth group, and
many other ways. Have we taken
that Easter joy and run with it, or did we leave that joy at the doors of the
Church? St. Jerome, who translated
the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into Latin, famously said that ignorance of
Scripture is ignorance of Christ.
Based upon that formula, do we know Christ? Do we know the Scriptures? Knowledge of Scripture is usually associated with our
Protestant brothers and sisters, but the Bible is our family story, a gift of
Christ to His Church. Does that
mean we all need to get started on memorizing the whole book? No. But it does mean that we should be able to talk about our
main stories of faith, how they relate to Jesus, and how they apply to our
daily lives. Some of that is
provided here at Mass through the readings and the homily. But to truly know Christ through the
Scriptures, we cannot rely only on coming to Mass each Sunday.
Another
opportunity is through adult catechesis and formation. We have a full time staff member, Al
Weilbacher, whose job it is to create and promote opportunities for adults to
learn the faith in an adult way.
We’re not talking about sitting at a desk, being lectured by a teacher,
but by opening the Word of God, studying the teachings of the Church, and
seeing how they intertwine with your life. It’s not enough to simply drop off the kids at the school
each weekday, or drop off the kids at Religious Ed each week or attend the
confirmation sessions, for the adults here. For the kids, its not enough that you attend a Catholic
school or attend religious ed. classes.
That’s only the beginning.
Adults and children alike can and need to continue to grow in the
understanding of how Christ makes Himself present to us. If you are an adult and interested or
have ideas about how this best can happen, make sure you give Al a call or
email him. For students, contact
Michael Renauer, our director of youth ministry.
When
we do continue the lifelong mission of recognizing Christ, we are not surprised
to find Him in new places. When we
read the word of God regularly and learn about the teachings of the apostles
through their successors, the bishops, we come to see how all of the things
that belong to the Catholic faith are connected to and prepare us for seeing
Christ in our daily lives, and being prepared to see Him at the end of our
life.
On
the other hand, if we do not continue the lifelong mission of recognizing
Christ, then when He does appear to us, we will miss Him and the graces He
wants to give us to help us celebrate life more, and help us through the times
of trial and pain and loss so that they do not overwhelm us.
When
we study Scripture and the teachings of the Church, we get a better view of
Jesus and who He really is. It’s
all too easy, and I know this from my own life, to think that Jesus is just a
trumped-up version of me. It’s
much easier to think that Jesus is as strict, or as wishy-washy, or as tender,
or as stoic as we are. It’s much
easier to pretend that Jesus has to fit us. But, that’s the problem that St. Peter tried to address to
the Jews: they were waiting for a military king who would expel the Romans and
restore the Kingdom of David. Instead,
if they changed their views to fit with who Jesus is, as was promised in the
Scriptures, they would see that Jesus was the Only-Begotten, Son of the Father,
Suffering Servant, Friend of Sinners Messiah who had to suffer, die, and then
rise from the dead to save us, not from a foreign power, but from the power of
sin and death.
After
St. Peter’s speech, 2,000 more people came to recognize Jesus and believe that
He truly was the Messiah, and they changed their lives to believe in the one
about whom the Scriptures spoke and the apostles preached. Will we, the people of this parish,
this Diocese, and all who watch the Outreach Mass commit ourselves to studying
the Scriptures and the teachings of the apostles and bishops, so that we can
recognize Jesus Christ as He makes Himself known to us?
