Living the Paschal Mystery

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.]  Sometimes we use words in the Church that are very important, but whose meaning is not always clear.  For example, in December we celebrate the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  But many Catholics think that it refers to the Annunciation, when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Blessed Mother, while it really refers to our Blessed Mother’s conception without original sin.  Another phrase that is especially important today is Paschal Mystery. 

The place from which Jesus ascended in Jerusalem

    The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the Paschal Mystery as, “Christ’s work of redemption accomplished primarily by his Passion, death, Resurrection, and glorious Ascension.”  Today, as we celebrate the Ascension of our Lord, we celebrate the closing out of the Paschal Mystery.  Paschal means related to the Passover, and Mystery, in this sense, means the great work of God that is invisible, but which was manifested in visible ways (the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord).  Christ’s Passover saved us from death and brought us from slavery in sin to freedom in the heaven, just as the Jewish Passover saved them from the angel of death wiping out the first born in Egypt by the blood of the unblemished lamb, and inaugurated their flight from Egypt, that place of slavery, into the Promised Land.
    But while the Jewish Passover happened some 3,450 years ago, and the fulfillment of that Passover in Christ happened some 2,000 years ago, God does not relegate the Paschal Mystery to the past.  No, we celebrate it each time we come to Mass, and especially each Sunday, the Lord’s Day, as we enter into the moments of our redemption in a mystical way, and participate, as it were, in our own redemption because we join ourselves to Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension at each Mass.  We do not simply remember what Christ did for us; God through visible signs, allows us to join in what Christ did for us so that we can share the fruits of that Paschal Mystery, which is resurrection and glorification. 
    But as disciples of Christ, God calls us to live that Paschal Mystery each day of our life, and not just in the church building.  Each day we have the opportunity of living out in ourselves what Christ did once for all some 2,000 years ago.  This is what St. Paul means when he says in the first chapter of Colossians: “in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ on behalf of his body, which is the church.”  So how do we live each day in the Paschal Mystery?  How do we participate in Christ’s Passion, death, Resurrection, and Ascension?
    We participate in the Passion and death of the Lord in our daily lives through the sufferings that come to us.  We don’t have to seek out suffering.  It readily makes itself available to us.  Suffering, by itself, is a lack.  But suffering united to Christ’s becomes redemptive by participating in His Paschal Mystery.  We all have various sufferings each day.  Maybe we hate our job; maybe our family drives us up a wall; maybe our sports team lost; maybe gas is more expensive than we would like it to be; maybe we lack trust in our political leadership.  However we experience it, we suffer daily.  But when we unite it to Christ, when we suffer in obedience to the will of the Father and seek not to do our own will, but “the will of the one who sent me,” we participate in redemption, both of ourselves and of the whole world.  This is what the sisters meant when they would say, “Offer it up.”  Now, I know we can use that phrase to basically mean, “stop whining,” but in its truest sense, that phrase reminds us to live out the Paschal Mystery, to suffer (the passion) and die (the crucifixion) to what we want and offer that pain to the Father, who receives it as an offering of love. 
    We participate in the Resurrection when we see God change our suffering that we have offered to Him into new life.  This is when we offer up that bad driver and find that our heart actually grows in love and mercy for whoever he or she may be.  This is when someone at work commends us and maybe even gives us a raise when we think they don’t notice the work we do.  This is when the child who has brought you to the brink of insanity and tested your patience to its last limit runs up to you, smiles, and gives you a hug saying, “I love you, mommy.”  When we offer our sufferings to the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit, God transforms them into something which gives new life, just as the Father transforms ordinary bread and wine into the Body and Blood of His Son through the power of the Holy Spirit when we offer them to Him. 
    Our participation in the Ascension is something finds its fulfillment when the end of our earthly ministry is over, just as it did the same for Christ at the end of His earthly ministry.  Christ’s Ascension is His glorification, because the Father raises Christ up into glory at His right hand.  For us, the fullness of the ascension happens when we have done everything we can to offer our lives to the Father, when He has given us new life through those sufferings united to Him, and when He welcomes us into glory in heaven.  Christ led the way for us, but He wants us to follow Him–in His suffering and death; in His resurrection; and lastly, in His Ascension.  God does not keep glory for Himself, but shares it with us, according to our nature.  What a joy to allow God to raise us up to the fullness of who we are meant to be, a reality which can only be completed in heaven. 
    But that’s our hope, a hope based in following Christ, not just in His teaching (but certainly those), but also in His Paschal Mystery.  May we rejoice in this Paschal Mystery each time we assemble for Mass, and especially on the Lord’s Day, but may we also live out that Paschal Mystery every day of our lives, suffering and dying with God, allowing God to raise us to new life, and waiting for God the Father to glorify us with His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns in the unity of the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever.  Amen.  

Doubts and the Synod

Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the jobs of a shepherd is to make sure the flock stays in good pastures and is protected from the wolves.  Good pastures are those that feed the soul well, not with junk food that tastes good going down, but which doesn’t actually nourish the body.  The wolves need not be people, though they sometimes can be, but can also be ideas which are dangerous to the flock.  And, to be clear, I do not intend any of what I am about to say to be a personal attack.  Personal attacks, called ad hominem, are logical fallacies.  Plus, if we look at the ideas, rather than the person, our effect can be much longer lasting.
    Recently, five cardinals wrote a set of doubts, or dubia, to the Holy Father concerning the synod.  The five questions regard whether Divine Revelation can change based upon current cultural or anthropological ideas, whether so-called same-sex marriages can receive blessings, whether synodality is a constitutive dimension of the Church, whether sacramental ordination of women can be conferred, and whether repentance is a necessary aspect of sacramental absolution.
    To be clear, I don’t claim to be a Doctor of Theology.  I have a Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology from the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome and a Master of Divinity degree from Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit.  I am nowhere close to as well-educated as the eminent cardinals who raised the doubts to the Holy Father.  But I do feel well-qualified enough to help guide you as your shepherd on what the faith is.  I don’t have time to expand on all these dubia, but wanted to respond to a few, namely so-called same-sex marriage, and the ordination of women.  I will also end by talking about the synod.  Some answers may seem more obvious than others, maybe all of them will seem obvious, but as your pastor I want to make sure that you know, to the best of my ability, what the Church teaches so that you are not confused and led astray by false ideas.
    First, blessings of same-sex unions.  From the beginning, as Pope Francis affirmed, marriage is between a man and a woman, for a life-long union, open to the procreation of children by natural means.  No government can change the definition of marriage, since government is not the creator of marriage.  The Church cannot change the definition of marriage because the Church is not the creator of marriage, either.  The Church is simply the steward of what God has revealed to us, especially through Christ.  And when it comes to blessings or prayers of blessings, those are times where God gives His approval or sets apart for sacred purpose persons, places, or objects.  To be specific, the Church says that blessings are types of “sacred signs that resemble the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church’s intercession [by which] men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions of life are sanctified.”  The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith explained in 2021 that the Church does not have the authority to give blessings to unions of persons of the same sex, affirming that any blessing has to conform to the design of God, which same-sex unions do not.  It even went so far as to say that we cannot bless sin, which may seem obvious, but affirmed that homosexual unions are sinful.
    That same response did rightly affirm that persons with homosexual attractions can receive blessings individually if they are living in accord with the Gospel.  And while that may seem uncaring, love cannot be true love if it is separated from the truth.  Love does not allow the other to do that which is destructive to one’s salvation.  It also does not meant that there is no room in the Catholic Church for those who have a homosexual attraction.  Catholic means welcoming to everyone, and we do welcome every person, and encourage them, even as we encourage ourselves, to follow Christ more closely in every aspect of our lives, including our sexuality.  But we cannot bless any situation which is in direct opposition to God’s design. 

    Secondly, on the sacramental ordination of women.  From the beginning, sacramental ordination has been reserved to men, not because men are better (the Church strongly affirms the equal dignity of men and women); not because men are holier (the holiest person in human history is a woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary); simply because it was the will of God according to His Divine plan.  This was affirmed in the Apostolic Letter Ordinatio Sacerdotalis by Pope St. John Paul II in 1994.  The pontiff wrote: “Wherefore, in order that all doubt may be removed…in virtue of my ministry of confirming the brethren I declare that the Church has no authority whatsoever to confer priestly ordination on women and that this judgment is to definitively held by all the Church’s faithful.”  Sounds pretty settled, right?
    Of course, someone questioned it, and so the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to that doubt and wrote, “[The teaching on the reservation of priestly ordination to men] requires definitive assent, since…it has been set forth infallibly by the ordinary and universal Magisterium…[and since] the Roman Pontiff, exercising his proper office…has handed on this same teaching by a formal declaration, explicitly stating what is to be hold always, everywhere, and by all, as belonging to the deposit of faith.”  So, no room for doubt.  It belongs to the deposit of faith and cannot be changed.  Not by anybody at any time.
    So why these and other questions?  What is the point of the synod?  I know that there are some theories that there are people who want to try to change Church teaching.  I’m not so naïve to say that no one fits into this category.  I’m sure there are some who are attending the synod hoping to change things, things which cannot be changed.
    But I also want to hope, and I truly believe, that some of this is simply to engage in a conversation about issues which many consider closed issues.  There is a benefit to engaging in conversations with people who do not believe the same way we do, even on settled matters, like the Divinity of Christ.  Isn’t that the point of evangelization?  And yes, sometimes we’re evangelizing our fellow Catholics.  We don’t fail to engage the subject, as long as we stay in the truth and do not deny the doctrine that others are questioning.  So I’m not one to say that the synod has no point.  Perhaps this is a desire at the highest level to evangelize those who are baptized Catholics, but who do not know the fullness of the faith that has been taught.  Perhaps not.  But there is at least a way to see these questions being discussed at the synod in a positive light. 
    When we hear about these dubia, I encourage us not to immediately demonize those who question.  Rather, educate yourself about what the Church teaches: not from the media, not from hearsay, but from official teachings of the Church like the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  If we hold fast to the teachings of the Catholic Church, those things that cannot change, then while the waves break around us, while the storms batter us from without or within, we will be safe in the Ark of the Church which will bring us safely to the harbor of the saints in heaven, where we will worship our Triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Amen.

How God Offers Mercy

 Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    There is a kind of parable told about a man whose house was in the path of a flood.  The waters were starting to cover the roads, and a patrol car came by to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The water kept rising, until it was up to his porch.  A rescue boat came by to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The waters kept rising, until it was up to his roof.  A helicopter hovered over his house and offered to take him to safety.  “No thanks,” he said, “God will save me!”  The waters kept rising, and the man drowned.  Standing before the judgment seat of God, the man asked the Almighty why He didn’t do anything to save him.  God said, “I sent you the patrol car, the rescue boat, and the helicopter to save you.  You didn’t want my help.”  
    God is merciful.  We hear it again and again in our readings.  Our first reading mentions the mercy of God after Moses pleads for the people.  The verses of our responsorial psalm is the prayer King David wrote after he realized he had sinned greatly by committing adultery with Bathsheba and then having her husband, Uriah, killed in battle.  St. Paul recounts in our second reading how God treated him mercifully, even though he was a blasphemer and arrogant.  And in our Gospel, Jesus speaks about how the mercy of God goes out, seeking the lost to return him to wholeness, in three parables of His own.
    God is merciful.  But do we accept how He sends His mercy?  God’s mercy was shown in a most perfect way in the Incarnation.  Jesus revealed the mercy of God.  And yet, we rejected Him.  The very people God had chosen to be His own; the people who had the prophets, telling the people about the savior God would send them; the people who knew God’s revelation from Genesis to Malachi; many could not accept God’s merciful presence in the Incarnation because it was not the way they wanted to receive God’s mercy.  And so Mercy Incarnate took upon Himself the justice that should have been meted out to us because of our sins.  As Isaiah prophesied about Jesus: “He was spurned and avoided by men, a man of suffering, knowing pain, Like one from whom you turn your face, spurned, and we held him in no esteem.  […] We thought of him as stricken, struck down by God and afflicted.”

    How does God offer us His mercy?  He offers it through the Sacrament of Penance.  This is the ordinary way that God forgives sins.  Can He forgive in other ways?  Certainly; He is God.  But God told His apostles that they would have the power to loose and bind, the power to release people from their sins.  Why would God give a power if He didn’t intend that power to be exercised?  
    The Church has discerned two ways in which a person may be sorry: perfect and imperfect contrition.  Perfect contrition is when sorrow for sin “arises from a love by which God is loved above all else.”  That is, we recognize how our sins have offended our God and our relationship with Him, not because of any effects it may have on us, but simply because it is contrary to who God is, and “breaks the heart” of the Beloved.  Imperfect contrition is when sorrow for sin is “born of the consideration of sin’s ugliness or the fear of eternal damnation and the other penalties threatening the sinner.”  In other words, imperfect contrition is more so the sorrow that comes from knowing that we will, eventually, get caught, and have to pay the price for our sins.  As I reflect on my life I would like to hope that I am moving towards perfect contrition when I sin, but I am often at least partially sorry simply because I don’t want to suffer the consequences of my sins.
    In the Sacrament of Penance, God transforms our imperfect contrition into perfect contrition so that we might be forgiven.  But through the Sacrament of Penance, God also reconciles us with the Church and with each other, which is why confession to a priest is necessary.  Standing alone in our home or in the woods, we can certainly ask God for forgiveness.  But each sin, no matter how private or personal, also affects the other members of the Body of Christ, to whom we are connected by Baptism.  So we also need to ask forgiveness from them, and the priest is authorized by God to act in the name of the entire Body, including the head (Jesus Christ, who, as God, is the only one who can forgive sins) and the other members.  
    This way of receiving God’s mercy is not as popular now as it has been.  But do we seek this ordinary way of being forgiven by God?  Or do we reject it like some of the Chosen People rejected the Incarnation?  God is seeking us out through the Sacrament of Penance.  He is looking for us while we are still a long way out, so that He can run to us and restore us to our status and sons and daughters in the Son of God.  But are we like the man in the parable at the beginning of the homily today: convinced God will save us, but not open to the way that He wants to do so?  If it’s been a while since you’ve been to confession: do not be afraid.  The confession of your sins is merely the means by which God conveys His mercy.  Let God save you in the way He has chosen.

Simple, and Yet Complicated

 Thirty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time

    So simple, and yet so complicated.  Love God and love your neighbor.  It’s as easy and as difficult as that.  And even simply understanding the two great commandments is key to being on the right path to heaven, as Jesus tells the scribe in the Gospel today.  But, while it’s easy to say that all we have to do is love God and love our neighbor, it does require some unpacking.
    First of all, we need to understand what love is.  Modern culture is less than helpful when it comes to defining love.  We are told: love is never having to say you’re sorry; love is a feeling or an emotion; what is love? Baby don’t hurt me; love is love; to quote a somewhat contemporary movie: “Love is like oxygen.  Love is a many-splendored thing.  Love lifts us up where we belong.  All you need is love.”  
    Love, though, from a Catholic point of view, and I’m stealing here from Bishop Barron, is willing the good of the other.  Love is an action that pursues the true happiness of the other.  To quote St. Paul (a bit more solid than a secular definition), “Love is patient, love is kind.  It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury.”  Love means working for the good of the other, even when it means the denial of personal goods.  And if we want an image of love, we need look no further than Jesus on the crucifix, which is love made incarnate.  Jesus acted for our good, even when it meant His own death, just so that we could enter heaven and have eternal happiness.  That is certainly willing the good of the other, acting for the good of the other.
    So how do we love?  St. Augustine says, “Love, and do what you will.”  Does this mean that we can do anything as long as we feel like it’s good for the other?  No, and Augustine would not agree with that.  If God is love, as the Scriptures say in St. John’s first epistle, then there is a measure of what love does, which cannot contradict the nature of love.  I cannot say that I am loving God or neighbor if it involves breaking a commandment.  I cannot say that I am loving God or neighbor if my actions go against something we are taught as a matter of faith or morals in the Bible or authoritatively by the Church.  If God is love, and Jesus is God, and the Church is the Mystical Body of Jesus Christ, then when the Church teaches something with authority (as a matter of faith and morals), we are learning what love is, and how to love (and sometimes what love is not, and how not to love).  
    So how do we know if we’re loving God and loving our neighbor?  Do we will the good that God desires?  Do we will the true good of our neighbor, not just acting in a way that makes our neighbor feel good?  Sometimes homilies can be a bit broad and vague, so let’s break it down a little further.
    If you skip Mass out of laziness or prioritize something else (e.g., sports) as more important than worshiping God, you are not loving God fully.  You may love God in other ways, but you are not loving God in that way.  If you reject one of the dogmatic teachings of the Church, or think that the Church cannot tell you what to do in a particular area of your life, like the bedroom, then you are not loving God fully.  You may love God by giving your obedience of faith and morals in other areas, but you are missing out on loving God as God wants to be loved.  
    If you give someone the bird while driving, you are not loving your neighbor fully.  If you gossip about your fellow employee who gets on everyone’s nerves, you are not loving your neighbor fully.  If you see you neighbor falling into sin and do not correct him or her in a charitable and prudent way, you are not loving your neighbor fully.  If you have sex before marriage or live with your girlfriend or boyfriend, or even fiancé before marriage, you are not loving your neighbor fully.  In all those ways, and many more, you are not willing the good of the other.  It may feel good; it may feel very good.  But it is not, in the end, the actual good of the other.
    Family life is a great analogy for understanding love.  You cannot say you fully love your spouse if you hold back in an area of your life from him or her, or do something that you know upsets your spouse.  You may love in other ways, but you are not fully willing your spouse’s good.  Or if you let your children do whatever they want, like eating ice cream every day for dinner, or never making children go to school or help clean the house, you are not fully loving your children.  You may love them in other ways, but you are not fully willing their good, since the good of the other often includes not following every desire that we have.  Love–willing the good of the other–does not always feel good, but it is always directed toward what is truly good.  
    Sometimes we struggle at knowing what is truly good, and that is what makes loving God and our neighbor so difficult.  We can easily confuse what is good and what is delightful.  The best guide for knowing what is truly good is God, and God has spoken to us to help us know the good through the Scriptures and through the Church.  If you’re ever wondering if you are willing the good of God or your neighbor, look towards the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  Those two books will help you to know if you are being truly loving, and if you are “not far from the kingdom of God.”

What is Love...Baby Don't Hurt Me

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

If you were to say the phrase, “What is love?” to a certain generation of people, they would immediately think (or say or sing), “Baby, don’t hurt me,” and would, if not too beyond the pale, probably start bobbing their head side to side (and even if they couldn’t, they would want to).  It’s almost a conditioned response, like Pavlov’s dog drooling when a bell rings.

Today Jesus gives us the two greatest commandments, and they both focus on love.  The greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind.  The second commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves.  In both of these cases, we are called to love.  This makes perfect sense, as, if we look at the object in all Ten Commandments that God gave to Moses, the first three deal with love of God (thou shalt not have other gods besides me; thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; and the Sabbath rest), while the other seven deal with love of neighbor (Honor thy father and mother; thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife or thy neighbor’s goods).  

In theory, love is easy.  We all probably know that loving God is most important (especially because we’re here at Mass), and we know we need to love our neighbor.  In the theoretical realm we are with Jesus 100%.  But as it gets down to the nitty gritty, things can seem much more complicated.  We can truly start to wonder, “What is love?”

After all, we use the word for lots of things and people: I love my parents; I love my spouse; I love my siblings; I love my friends; I love pizza.  But if we love pizza in the same way we love our parents, something is off.  And if we love our friends in the same way we love our spouse, that tends to lead to trouble.  So love is not so clear a word to understand.

Love today often means a kind of respect for another person’s choices whatever they may be, as long as that person’s choices do not affect me personally.  Love seems to mean that anything goes, as long as person really desires something or someone, no matter what objective reality, or even the Church or Bible says.  People can try to rationalize all sorts of behavior by stating that God loves us, as if the love of God turns a blind eye to anything fallen or sinful.  People are very quick to say, as they’re rationalizing something contrary to Catholic faith or morality, “God loves me as I am,” to which I quickly respond, “But He loves you too much to leave you as you are.”  God’s love is a divinizing love; it is a love that seeks to make us like Himself, which means it is a love that calls us to reject all that is sinful and broken in us.  We cannot appeal to the love of God to support the killing of an elderly person in euthanasia; we cannot appeal to the love of God to support sex outside of marriage; we cannot appeal to the love of God to support doing that which is contrary to God’s law or the natural law.

And that divinizing love, because it is who God is, does not stop with God.  It begins with God, and the love we have for God has to be the most important, but to truly be the love of God, it also has to extend to our brothers and sisters.  St. John says it this way in his first letter, “whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.  […]whoever loves God must also love his brother.”  We are given a challenging example of that in our first reading: “‘You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens yourselves in the land of Egypt.  […] If ever you wrong them and they cry out to me, I will surely hear their cry.’”  Now, before you tune me out because you think I’m going to support one political party or another, let me make this clear: I am not supporting a Republican or Democratic Party platform.  The Church supports both the right to immigrate, as well as the right of states to legitimately limit immigration.  The following are quotes from Paragraph 2241 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent that they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. […]

Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants’ duties toward their country of adoption.  Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens. [emphasis original]

We can civilly discuss all day current policies in place in the United States.  But the key is whether or not our approach to immigrants is one based in love.  And as Catholics we should especially consider the plight of immigrants, even as we protect our own country, because the words from Exodus could very easily be changed to: You shall not molest or oppress an alien, for you were once aliens from Italy, or Ireland, or Germany, or Poland.  If we can stand before the judgment seat of God with a clear conscience on the way we speak about and treat immigrants, and that it was based on love of God and neighbor, then we have nothing to fear.  But so often, our idea of love, whether it comes to immigrants, or to other moral issues, needs to be purified by the Word of God and the teachings of the Church, so that it truly reflects the love of God which seeks to make us like Himself.