Treasuring the Word of God

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Earlier this week I was speaking with a friend I have known for a few years now.  I wouldn’t say I know him really well, but continue to get to know him in the few times when we see each other throughout the year.  He asked me how St. Matthew was doing, and I mentioned how we’re growing.  He told me that he attends a Protestant community, but then opened up and told me that he was baptized Catholic, and even was an altar server.  He said that he never really liked going to Mass.  At this Protestant community he enjoyed the music, but then also mentioned how he really enjoyed the Bible study that the community puts on for adults and kids.  He then shared that he never remembered his dad ever opening up a Bible, and how strange that was, and how he makes sure that his children know the Bible well and he, as their father, shares that with them.  After he had shared this, he had to get to something else, but I said we should sit down and talk about his experiences more when he has a chance.  We’ll see if that ever happens or not.
    Are we familiar with the Word of God?  St. Jerome famously said, while commenting on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, that ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.  How familiar are we with the Scriptures?  Do you as parents, especially fathers, take leadership in sharing the Word of God and unpacking it for your children?
    The Bible is our book as Catholics.  The Catholic Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, decided which books would be in it.  Holy Mother Church chose to include the books that the Jews venerated as God’s revelation to humanity, and chose to include four Gospel accounts of the life, Death, and Resurrection of Christ, letters from some of the Apostles, and the Apocalypse of Saint John, also called the Book of Revelation.  God didn’t send down a list on papyrus.  Those whom God called to act in the name of Christ and with His power, the bishops, discerned which writings were consistent with what Christ had revealed and the Apostles had passed down, and which were inconsistent, or even simply not necessary for salvation.  What a scandal that a Catholic wouldn’t feel comfortable with a big part of how God has revealed Himself until he left the Catholic Church!  

    When we starve ourselves from the Scriptures, we are like the young girl who is at the point of death, or the woman with the flow of blood.  We need Christ to heal us and raise us up.  If we are so near death from lack of familiarity with the Word of God, then sometimes it takes another to bring about the resurrection of our faith life.  In the Gospel it was the young girl’s father who pleaded with the Savior to heal his daughter.  Fathers, you often have an important role to play in reinvigorating the life of faith in your families, especially your children.  But I would also say mothers play such an important role in modeling familiarity with the Word of God as well.  
    Sometimes we can bring ourselves to Christ and the Scriptures, because we know they will bring us healing.  We have tried everything else, all the other doctors that are available to us.  We have tried every other kind of wisdom, but have found it lacking.  But in the Word of God, if we have faith in its power, as the woman had faith that she could receive healing even if she only touched the clothes of the Lord, we can find the healing we have desired that we have found nowhere else.  But we need to have faith in the power of God’s Word.
    Now, I know that Catholics often point out, and rightly so, that God’s revelation does not limit itself to the Scriptures.  The Bible itself is part of a greater revelation, because the Bible comes to us not from itself, but from the living Tradition of the Church.  And certainly we should also learn what the popes and bishops have taught us throughout the two millennia of the Church’s history, especially that which is part of the deposit of faith.
    But that deposit of faith always finds its roots in the Scriptures.  Not everything that the Church teaches explicitly connects to a particular passage, but everything at least implicitly connects to the Scriptures.  From our belief in the Trinity, our Blessed Mother’s immaculate conception and assumption, the seven Sacraments, and all that is part of Christ’s one Church, we find either direct or indirect evidence of it in God’s revelation through His Word.  The Church Fathers knew this all too well.  If you read any of the Church Fathers, they quote the Scriptures fluidly through their own writings.  The Bible was a story with which they were intimately familiar and through which they could understand the truths of faith.  One of the great fruits of the Second Vatican Council was a call to return to familiarity with the Scriptures that the Church had during the time of the Church Fathers.  We are still growing in that fruit of the Council, but it was a great blessing of the Holy Spirit, nonetheless.
    So many Catholic families need healing from the Word of God.  So many Catholic families are at the point of spiritual death because they do not read the Bible.  Today, reach out to the Lord to find healing in the Word of God.  Allow the Word of God to raise you to new life through its power and its wisdom.  May your children never say of you, as my friend did of his father, that you never opened the Bible for them and helped them know and love the Word of God, the loving communication of salvation from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  

Cars and Jerusalem

Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  While this is my eighth year living in Vehicle City, I will admit that I’m not a car guy.  That is to say, I don’t get cars and how they work.  I know how to use them, but if I were to pop the hood, I wouldn’t know how everything is supposed to work together.  I know there are things like spark plugs, carburetors, belts, fans, etc., but how they are all supposed work together is beyond me.  My grandfather, who worked tool and die at Fisher Body in Lansing for most of his adult life, probably would just shake his head at my ignorance, if he were alive today.
    But when we don’t understand how something is supposed to go together or function properly, we can easily miss when something is amiss.  We might have a sense that something is wrong (is my car supposed to sound like that?), but we couldn’t really tell you if something was really wrong, or what it might be.  

Church of Dominus Flevit

   That’s sort of what Christ bemoans in the Gospel today.  This is the time when the Lord weeps over Jerusalem because she does not realize the time of His visitation, the presence of the long-awaited Messiah, the Prince of Peace.  There is a beautiful church just outside the old city of Jerusalem called Dominus Flevit, Latin for the Lord Wept, that recalls this Gospel passage and could have been the place where the Lord wept over Jerusalem, because you can see much of the old city from this elevated point outside.  There is a chapel that has an iron grate, which stands between the viewer and the old city, and the grate has both a chalice with a host, as well as a cross seemingly overlaid over the landscape of modern Jerusalem.  
    Jerusalem had a particular destiny, as the king’s city, to welcome the Messiah when he came.  But because of the hardness of their hearts, most did not recognize the Lord as their long-awaited Messiah, and they missed the opportunity to welcome the Prince of Peace into His city.  So, because Jerusalem rejected peace, the Redeemer prophesied that war would come the city and stone would not be left upon stone, a prophecy that was fulfilled some forty years later when the Romans sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the ancient city, and took away many of the treasures that were there.
    We, too, are meant to recognize the Messiah when He comes.  Of course, we recognize that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, as far as the macro scale goes.  We know we’re not waiting for His first advent, but His second advent, His return in glory.  But do we recognize His third advent, how he comes to us each day, month, and year?  Do we recognize what God is trying to do in our life?
    If we don’t, we might still arrive at the destination the Lord desires for us: heaven.  But it will be much harder than it has to be.  A blind man may reach his destination by wandering around and bumping into obstacles.  But it helps if he has a guide to make sure he doesn’t fall into holes, or lose his sense of direction and start walking towards a destination he doesn’t desire.  So, too, for our salvation: if we are not attentive to God, we might still make our way to Him.  But it will be much easier and less dangerous if we attend to how God communicates.  How does God communicate?
    First, we can look to the Scriptures.  St. Jerome famously said, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”  By reading the Bible, whether as a whole or in a guided Bible study or at least the more prosaic parts (I know the genealogies of the Old Testament can be tough to get through), we come to see how God works.  We see His special love for the poor, the widow, and the orphan.  We see how He often chooses those whom the world considers losers or worthless to accomplish His mighty deeds.  We see how He calls people to follow His will, and gently (and sometimes not-so-gently) reminds them to come back if they have wandered away.  
    Secondly, we can look to the Church.  The Church takes all the Scriptures and reads it in the light of Christ and salvation.  Our Holy Mother Church teaches us what we need to know about how to be saved, which is really just teaching us how to follow Christ.  She helps us to recognize, through saints and reflection on God’s revelation, how God is working, and how His voice sounds, as opposed to the voice of the world, which can often sound more enticing.
    Thirdly, we can look to prayer.  A daily habit of prayer doesn’t meant that life will go smoothly for us.  But it does mean that through the ups and downs of life, we can better see what God is doing because we’re asking Him on a regular basis, “What are you doing, Lord?”  In prayer we should take time to bring our joys and sorrows, our understanding and our questions to God.  But we should also make time to listen, silencing our minds as best we can to allow God to speak to us and enlighten us with His plan, which, as God said to the prophet Samuel, is not always what we would do.  
    When we come to know God’s will, we can have peace.  Not simply a peace that means we are not struggling, but a peace knowing how the struggle will work out, or at least that it will in some way work out in a way that God has directed for our salvation and the salvation of the world.  The saints show us this peace time and time again, even in the midst of violent persecutions, because they know that whatever God allows will somehow give us the opportunity to grow closer to Him, even to the point of shedding our blood, if necessary.
    Throughout life, we might not understand how everything fits together and works out.  It might seem as foreign to you as the inner workings of a car seems to me.  But if we are attentive to Christ’s presence in our life and in the world, we are more likely to understand, and cooperate with God’s will, rather than working to frustrate it or simply wandering around in the dark.  Lord, through your word in the Scriptures, through your Bride, the Church, and through our daily commitment to prayer, help us to know your will, to love your will, and to embrace your will.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

What Good is the Word?

Third Sunday in Ordinary Time–Sunday of the Word of God

    This year, Pope Francis has inaugurated a new focus for this third Sunday of Ordinary Time.  He has decreed that the third Sunday of Ordinary Time is especially to be centered on the Word of God.  In his Apostolic Letter that created this celebration, Pope Francis writes, “without the Scriptures, the events of the mission of Jesus and of his Church in this world would remain incomprehensible.  Hence, Saint Jerome could rightly claim: ‘Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.’”
    For Catholics, especially of a particular age, the Scriptures may be a bit foreign.  Indeed, some of you have even told me that, while growing up, you were discouraged by priests, nuns, and others, from reading the Word of God.  While we do have some active Bible study groups here, some of you may be thinking: what good would it do me to read the Bible more?  I’ve gotten along without it just fine for this long!
    The Word of God, as divinely revealed in Sacred Scripture, and faithfully communicated and interpreted through the teaching of the Church, is meant to be the guide for our life.  In the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation, entitled Dei Verbum, of the Second Vatican Council, the Church teaches:

both [sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture], flowing from the same divine wellspring…merge into a unity and tend toward the same end.  For Sacred Scripture is the word of God inasmuch as it is consigned to writing under the inspiration of the divine Spirit, while sacred tradition takes the word of God entrusted by Christ the Lord and the Holy Spirit to the Apostles, and hands it on to their successors in its full purity, so that led by the light of the Spirit of truth, they may in proclaiming it preserve the word of God faithfully, explain it, and make it more widely known. […] Therefore both sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture are to be accepted and venerated with the same sense of loyalty and reverence.

When we sang, with the Psalmist, “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” what we were saying is that the Lord illuminates the path that I am to take towards heaven.  The Word of God gives us a great light, whereas without it we walk in darkness.  It brings us “abundant joy and great rejoicing.”  It gives us freedom from the yoke of sin that burdens us.
    The Word of God is also meant to bring about the unity of Jesus’ followers, and all those who are created in the image and likeness of God.  Humanity tends towards disunity; it is, we might say, the communal law of entropy.  Even in St. Paul’s time, he writes that divisions are creeping in among the Christians of Corinth: “each of you is saying, ‘I belong to Paul,’ or ‘I belong to Apollos,’ or ‘I belong to Cephas,’ or ‘I belong to Christ.’”  When we are left to our own machinations, we tend to divide.  The Word of God, given to us through Sacred Scripture and faithfully interpreted by the teaching office of the Church, holds together what Satan wants to sift apart.
    Lastly, as we hear from our Gospel today, the Word of God calls us on to mission.  Jesus, the eternal Word (in Greek: Logos) of God the Father, calls the first apostles, Simon and Andrew, and also James and John, and invites them to follow Him, so that He might make them “fishers of men.”  It’s not as if the Word of God is meant to stay stagnant in our lives.  It is meant to change us, and to urge us on to making other disciples.  If our engagement with the Word of God doesn’t draw us to make other disciples, then we’re not getting all that God wants to share with us through His Word.
    Now, I know, those are a lot of high-level ideals.  But does the Word of God make a difference in my real life?  It can, if we are open to its effects.  In the first way, it helps us to make decisions on how we spend our time and money, helps us to know how to interact with others, and assists us in making both big life decisions and the smaller daily decisions by shining the light of Christ on the path we are seeking to travel, to see if it’s a good path or a dangerous path.
    In the second case, there are a lot of people who claim to follow Jesus, but the Word of God can help us evaluate whether their encouragements of what to believe and how to live are truly from God and live up to His wisdom, as expressed in Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church.  Both are necessary, as we see Christian communities who were historically founded on the Scriptures as the only rule of faith, now allowing and sometimes even promoting activities which are in direct contradiction to the Sacred Scripture.  We avoid division by staying faithful to the Word of God as expressed in the Bible and faithfully interpreted by the apostles and their successors, the bishops, teaching in union with the Pope. 
    In the third case, the more that we hear the Good News expressed in the Word of God–that God loves us, God has a plan for us, God forgives us, God has saved and is saving us–the more we want others to hear that news.  Bible studies cannot be ends in themselves, but should push us to share with our family and friends and neighbors that Good News, and how following God can change our lives for the better. 
    Today God reminds us that His Word is light, unity, and mission.  May our hearing of the Word of God, and our daily engagement with it, bring that light, unity, and mission to our lives, that we may share that light, unity, and mission with those that we encounter each day.

Where's Jesus?

Third Sunday of Easter

           

Some of you may remember a series of books that either you, or your children owned, or maybe even they own one now.  The series was called Where’s Waldo, and these books were picture books.  The point of each illustration was to find a little guy named Waldo, who was in a red and white striped shirt, with a red and white striped stocking cap on and glasses.  Some were easy, some were hard.  For me, it was a great way to pass the time waiting in a doctor’s office, or on a long road trip.

            Our main concern in this life should not be where’s Waldo, but should be where’s Jesus.  You don’t have to buy a set of picture books looking for a guy in a white tunic with a red sash over it, hidden among other people and scenes.  Our vocation is, rather, to find Jesus as He makes Himself known to us.  One primary place to find Jesus is in the Scriptures.

            That’s what St. Peter did as he spoke to the Jews in our first reading today.  Having been filled with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter proclaimed to the people that Jesus was the Messiah, and that He had been raised from the dead.  St. Peter saw Jesus in the Old Testament, in the only Scriptures that existed at that time.  He saw Jesus in Psalm 16 as he quoted King David: “…because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption.  You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.”  St. Peter, who had likely read that Psalm countless times as an observant Jew, saw it in a new light, saw the reference to Jesus, who was not allowed to see corruption, nor abandoned to the netherworld, but raised up. 

            The disciples on the road to Emmaus have Jesus Himself open up the Old Testament for them, showing them how it refers to Him.  And while they do not at first recognize Jesus walking with them, their hearts burn within them as He helps them to understand how Jesus fulfills all the prophecies of the Old Testament.  Who knows exactly what passages Jesus explained to them, but we can see from the very beginning, in Genesis, how a redeemer is promised as God tells the serpent, in Adam and Eve’s presence: “‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; He will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel.’”  That offspring, striking the head of the serpent, is Jesus. 

In our Eucharistic Prayer that we hear today, the Roman Canon, we hear three important persons from Genesis that refer to or prefigure Jesus: 1) Abel the just, the son of Adam and Eve, who offered a pleasing sacrifice to God, and was yet killed by his own brother, Cain, just as Jesus offered Himself as the acceptable sacrifice, as He was killed by his own; 2) Abraham, our father in faith, whom God asked to sacrifice his beloved, his only son, Isaac, though at the last minute an angel stayed his hand, just as God offered His beloved, His only Son, Jesus, but did not stay His hand; 3) Melchizedek, the king of Salem, which means king of peace, who appears without any lineage, without beginning or end, and is priest of the Most High God, though not of the Levitical priesthood, and who offers bread and wine, just as Jesus, the True Priest, without beginning or end, changes the bread and wine we offer into His Body and Blood, “a holy sacrifice, a spotless victim.”

Or perhaps Jesus spoke to the disciples on the road about the suffering servant chapters of Isaiah, chapters 49, 50, 52, and 53, describing the suffering of Jesus.  Or maybe Jeremiah 20, where all gather to attack the just one and cause trouble for him on every side.  Or maybe Wisdom 2, where the wicked plan to attack the just man, because he is obnoxious to them, and calls himself a child of the Lord, and reproaches them for transgressions of the Law.  Or maybe he explained how Hosea 6 says, “‘Come, let us return to the Lord, For it is he who has rent, but he will heal us; he has struck us, but he will bind our wounds.  He will revive after two days; on the third day he will raise us up.’”  Or maybe he quoted for them Zechariah 12:10: “and they shall look upon him whom they have thrust through, and they shall mourn for him as one mourns for an only son, and they shall grieve over him as one grieves over a firstborn.”

Some of those passages or chapters may sound familiar, as we read them during Lent.  But these are just scratching the surface.  Jesus reveals Himself though the Word of God, the Scriptures.  But can we find Him?  Do we have eyes to see and ears to hear?  Whether it’s the Old or the New Testament, do we come to know Jesus through reading the Bible?  It’s not always easy, but it helps us to know Jesus better.  And for those tricky passages we offer Bible studies, or small faith-sharing groups, to help you to recognize Jesus better and better each time you read the Word of God. 

St. Jerome said that ignorance of Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.  Do we know Jesus?  Is our view of Jesus consistent with how He revealed Himself in the Word of God?  Do we read the Word of God?  And if we do, do our hearts burn within us as Jesus is made known?  If you don’t read the Bible every day, now is the time to start.  Start with the New Testament, just one chapter per night.  I read the entire New Testament in a year, and the entire Old Testament in a year.  It’s doable.  And, especially for those tough passages, pick up a good Bible Study, or join one, or see what the Catechism says about those passages with the Scripture index in the back.  If we are open to the Word of God, which always is meant to prepare us for Jesus making Himself known through the breaking of the bread, the Eucharist, then our lives will be changed, for the better, and we won’t have to hunt for Jesus, but we will recognize Him in the ways He reveals Himself to us.

Recognizing Jesus

Third Sunday of Easter

            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?