Transfiguring Society

Second Sunday of Lent

In the afternoon of Ash Wednesday the nation was alerted to what became the most-deadly school shooting in US history in Parkland, Florida.  There were so many tragic pictures and videos, many of them the result of almost everyone these days having a phone or tablet that can take pictures.  Last weekend we prayed for both the survivors and those who were murdered at our weekend Masses, and we certainly need to keep that entire community in our thoughts and prayers.

In the hours and the days after the shooting, there were many suggestions on how to stop such a tragedy from happening in the future.  Different suggestions included more gun control legislation and more help for the mentally ill, among others.  I’m not here to endorse or reject any suggestion that was offered on news sites and television programs.  But as we celebrate today the second Sunday of Lent, we are given a few reminders from God that are very poignant given what has happened in our country in the past couple of weeks.

In our first reading, we heard from Genesis about the well-known almost-sacrifice of Isaac.  While child sacrifice sounds so foreign to us, it was not so foreign to Abraham, as it was practiced in many of the local, near-Eastern religions that surrounded Abraham in the land of Canaan.  Abraham’s faith is tested by God, to see if Abraham is willing to give his most precious treasure up for God.  But before the sacrifice, God stays Abraham’s hand, and provides a sacrifice in Isaac’s place.  In God’s stopping Abraham, we see that God never wants any of His children to sacrifice their own children.  Child sacrifice is condemned (as God will condemn it again and again when the Israelites re-settle in the land of Canaan, the Promised Land), but it also looks forward to when God will allow what He would not require of Abraham, the death of His Son, His “only one,” whom God loved above all.  St. Paul reminds us in the second reading that God did not spare His own Son so that we could be raised from the dead and have our sins forgiven.

From the Church of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor

In our Gospel, though, Jesus is not dying, but being transfigured, being transformed so that His body takes on the quality of a resurrected, not a crucified, body.  “His clothes became dazzling white,” and the prophets Elijah and Moses stood next to Jesus.  And the voice of the Father instructed Peter, James, and John, “‘This is my beloved Son.  Listen to him.’”  And in the transfiguration, we find the key to putting an end to the horrible destruction of life that so plagues our society.

So many of the suggestions to put an end to school shootings, no matter how good they are, treat only the symptoms, and not the disease that has infected the body of society.  The key to ending such horrors is to be transfigured by Christ.  We, individually, and, as more and more individuals are, collectively, have to be transformed by Christ.  Without this transformation, we will sadly see our past national carnage repeated again and again.

How can we be transfigured?  By being open to the work of the Holy Spirit to become more like Jesus.  That’s what the Sacraments are meant to do.  That’s what going to Mass is meant to do.  God wants to change us to be more like Jesus, and we need to be changed by God in order to find happiness and peace and wholeness, and therefore holiness.  Being transfigured by God is the medicine that wipes out the virus, rather than simply treating the symptoms.  

But to be transfigured a certain openness is required on our part.  God will not transform us without our permission.  St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the saints on our icons, said exactly that in Sermon 169: “God who created you without you, will not save you without you.”  If we come to Mass simply to put a butt in a pew, without any desire to hear God’s Word, to be formed and change our lives, no matter how long it may take us, then we will not be transfigured.  If we receive the Eucharist simply as something we were told to do since second grade, without first discerning if we should receive the Eucharist, then, as St. Paul says, we may be eating and drinking condemnation, not transformation, upon ourselves.  We should want to partake of the Body and Blood of Christ each Mass, because that very food transforms us, as St. Augustine also says in Sermon 227, “If we receive the Eucharist worthily, we become what we receive.”   But if we have committed a grave sin and have not gone to confession; if our marriage is not faithful to the teachings of Christ; if we’re chewing gum, reading the bulletin, checking email, or playing games during Mass, then we will not be transformed.  

And if we do not take the graces that we receive in the sacraments, especially baptism, penance, the Eucharist, and holy matrimony, and live them in our day-to-day lives, in the choices we make in our family life, in our jobs, in our driving, in as many aspects of life that we can think of, then we will continue to see horrendous images continue to plague us.  

How do we stop Parkland from happening again?  Formed by God, filled with His grace through the Sacraments, love your spouse more than yourself; love your children enough to be their parent, not their friend, and say no to them and love them even more when they want something destructive; reach out to the people who have just lost a loved one and remind them how much you and God care for them; live and model a life that is based on the Word of God, not the changing ideas and trends of a culture that is based solely on pleasure and opinion.  In short: be transfigured.

Imitation

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

A picture of me in my
"dress code"

It could be said that while I was in college seminary, I had a certain dress code that was always associated with me.  It was basically khaki pants, a polo shirt (buttoned-up all the way), with a cross on a chain around my neck.  It was kind of my style.  But I didn’t realize it was so associated with me until Halloween in my junior year.  I was studying in Rome, both with seminarians and non-seminarians.  We all lived in the same house, and we tried to observe American holidays to keep us connected, even while we were abroad.  We couldn’t really go trick-or-treating, but we did have a costume party.  A friend of mine, not a seminarian, came down the party dressed in khaki pants, a polo shirt (buttoned-up all the way), with a cross on a chain around his neck.  I saw him and asked him what he was going as, and he said a seminarian.  I told him it was a great costume, not knowing that he was, in fact, going as me.  Dave and I remain friends to this day, even though he went as me for Halloween.

Dave Berthiaume, who
went as me for Halloween,
pictured with his then-girlfriend
(now-wife), Annie

St. Paul said in our second reading, “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ,” but I’m quite sure he didn’t mean go trick-or-treating as St. Paul.  Yes, dressing up like someone is one form of imitation, but what is really meant is living a life through which Christ is reflected.  If we’re a husband or wife, it means loving our spouse and children with as close as we can muster to unconditional love.  If we’re a manager of people we treat our employees as Christ would have treated them.  If we’re a janitor it means that we clean to the best of our ability to honor God.  If we’re a student, it means we use and develop our God-given intellect to do our homework and prepare for college or a trade-school.  It is, as St. Paul also mentioned in the second reading, doing whatever we are doing for the glory of God.

When I pray with our student athletes, both from St. Pius X and from Powers, I always pray that they will use their talents for the greater glory of God and the honor of their schools.  But it certainly goes beyond sports.  Imagine if we did our jobs and lived our vocations with the glory of God and the honor of our company or family at the front of our mind!

As we prepare for Lent, with Ash Wednesday this upcoming Wednesday, that’s a great way to have a great Lent: keeping the glory of God at the front of our minds.  It can often get shoved to the back of our minds, and all the concerns of life clamor for more and more attention.  Think about illness (and we heard about it in our first reading and Gospel).  When someone is sick, it can be very easy to ostracize that person because the fear of contracting that illness moves to the front of our mind.  Last week when I was sick, I didn’t have leprosy, but I might as well have walked around shouting, “Unclean, unclean!”  And I don’t mind saying that the sick person, acting out of the love of God, probably shouldn’t want to infect others and so should take precautions to not spread the bacteria and viruses as much as possible.  While it was frustrating, it was good for me to keep myself away from my office, the school, and even limit my contact with the parish last weekend.  

But does the motivation come from what we think God would do, what would bring glory to God, or does it come from fear?  Again, I’m not saying we should ignore good hygiene practices and protect our public from preventable illnesses, but in our Gospel, Jesus is not scared by the leper, but treats the diseased person (and a very contagious disease at that) with respect and love.

There are always people that scare us that we can be tempted to not treat with the love of God, or not act in a way towards them with the glory of God at the front of our mind.  I remember in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s learning about AIDS and how, at that time, there was a lot of fear that even being remotely close to someone with AIDS could mean getting what was at that time a very scary and deadly disease.  But that didn’t stop John Cardinal O’Connor, the late Archbishop of New York, from opening clinics and even working with people who had AIDS to make sure that God’s children, no matter how scary AIDS seemed, received loving medical care.

There are probably people that scare us today, too.  I won’t hypothesize what situations or people scare you.  But I invite you, as I challenge myself, to truly consider in prayer if I treat the people or situations that scare me as an opportunity to imitate Christ and glorify God, or if I act out of my fear.  God does not call us to be naïve, but He doesn’t call us to be jaded, either.  

St. Paul invites us to be imitators of Christ.  No, that doesn’t mean we wear a tunic, grow a beard, and wear sandals.  But it does mean acting like Christ would in each of the situations that life presents to us each day.  If we all did things with the greater glory of God on our minds, I think our world would be a much better place.

Club or Family?

Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

In the 1990s, American Express had a slogan which was used to try and get people to obtain their credit cards.  That slogan was: “membership has its privileges.”  Some of us, many of us, probably belong to one sort of club or another which does give us certain benefits.  Membership at a Country Club means you can use their golf course and have access to their facilities.  Membership in some commercial clubs means you get perks for buying a particular brand or quantity of an item.  If you are a member of a frequent flyer program, eventually the miles you fly or the points you amass on your credit card can be used to get you a free trip to a certain location. 

It’s fun to be part of a club, and to receive those perks that you get from belonging.  Some people, though, have taken the mentality of belonging to a club into the church.  The church is just another social club to which they belong.  They were made members through baptism, and even though they didn’t get a card to show that they’re members, there are still perks to belonging.  Sure, the membership usually does have one day a year where all the members want to show that they belong: Ash Wednesday, when you get a black cross on your forehead to show that you’re a Catholic.  And many people today have the approach that their membership also gets them an exclusive suite in the heavenly condo association.  Of course, the flip of side of the social club membership approach to the church is that if you are unhappy or don’t like what is being said or done, you just move to a different social club that is more in line with what you want to receive in terms of rewards for membership.

This approach to our Catholic faith is poison!  It is detrimental to the entire church.  It is detrimental to our souls.  But it’s not new.  For the past two weeks and this week we hear Jesus talking to the Jews and telling them that just because they belong to a particular ethnicity and religion does not mean that their spot in heaven is assured.  I’m sure this wasn’t the approach of every Jew, but apparently there were enough people with this mentality that Jesus felt he had to address it, especially to the chief priests and the elders.  The slogan of Jesus for the past two weeks and this week, if we had to reword it, is: just because you are part of the Chosen People does not mean that you’re a shoe in for salvation.  All these other groups–tax collectors, prostitutes, pagans–are finding salvation because they accept Jesus as the Messiah. 

Today’s Gospel is almost exactly the same words as the passage from Isaiah that we heard in our first reading.  And the Jews would have known that pretty easily, especially the scribes and Pharisees.  And just as Isaiah was telling the caretaker of the vineyard, the Jews of his day, that they needed to actually care of God’s vineyard, so Jesus was telling the chief priests and the elders that they needed to stop killing God’s messengers who were sent to ensure the vineyard was being cared for properly, or else they would lose care of the vineyard themselves and others would be given the responsibility.  They would lose out on what they were supposed to have received.

The same message can be applied to us: baptism and membership in the church is not a “get out of hell free” card.  Just because we were baptized does not mean automatically that we are going to heaven.  It sets us on the path to heaven; it gives us help to get to heaven; it even facilitates the pilgrimage.  But it won’t get us there itself.  Baptism is the beginning of a responsibility to care for ourselves by growing in relationship with Jesus Christ, so that heaven feels like home by the time we die.  If we don’t follow through on that responsibility, then heaven will be foreign to us, and won’t be the place we want to go. 

Instead of a social club mentality, we should have the mentality that the church is like a family.  Being part of a family does carry with it some perks: we belong; we are loved; we may even have a rich family that provides us with a nice inheritance.  And as Catholics we do belong to God; we are loved by God; and God has set aside for us His grace and His life so that we can become more like Him.  And the more we are like Him, the more heaven seems like home.  But families are only as strong as long as they love each other.  And families can only love each other (at least in a real way) if they know each other. 

If we are going to be part of God’s family, then we need to know God.  And that doesn’t happen by sleeping with a Bible and Catechism under your pillow (which wouldn’t be very comfortable anyway!).  We might as well tell our students that to learn how to divide fractions, understand great works of literature, unlock the marvels of creation, play an instrument, or excel in sports, that they should sleep with a math book, Romeo and Juliet, a test tube, a saxophone, and a pair of cleats.  Knowing God happens by opening that Bible, reading who God has revealed Himself to be.  Knowing God happens by studying our faith.  Now, I know we’re all super busy.  And we certainly can’t do it all.  But more often than not, we probably do nothing.  And if we do nothing, then we don’t know God.  And if we don’t know God, then we’re not really being an active part of that family.  And if we’re not being an active part of that family, then God will respect our free will, but will find others who will care for the vineyard.  God will never turn us away, but he won’t force us to love Him, either.  The choice is ours.  Will we care for His vineyard?  Will we be an active part of God’s family?