Beginning and Return

Fifth Sunday after Easter

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  For whatever reason, certain phrases sound more elegant and intelligent in foreign languages.  Instead of saying, “this for that,” it sounds much better to say quid pro quo.  Or instead of saying, “exactly,” one can say per se.  If you said, “a certain something that I can’t describe,” people would understand you, but you could also throw in a little French and say je ne sais quoi.  Perhaps, due to the popularity of mafia movies, we find ourselves used to asking in poorly-pronounced Italian, capisci? when we might otherwise say, “Get it?” 
    Likewise, when we speak about the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, we use a phrase from St. Thomas Aquinas which is exitus-reditus.  That certainly sounds much more erudite than beginning-return.  But no matter how we say it, we recognize its veracity.  Christ came to us from the Father (in the Incarnation at the Annunciation which we celebrated on 25 March) and then returned to the Father (at the Ascension, which we will celebrate on Thursday).  Christ existed before all time, but the Father sent Him to us, and then Christ returned to the Father.  The Lord tells the Apostles in John, chapter 14 that He goes to prepare a place for them, “‘so that where I am you also may be.’” And our Gospel also points to this coming and going, as Christ speaks to His Apostles in the Upper Room at the Last Supper.  He tells them that He has come from the Father and into the world, and is now leaving the world and returning to the Father.   
    But exitus-reditus doesn’t only apply to God the Son.  It also applies to us.  We, too, though not consubstantial with the Father, come from Him, and our goal is to return to Him.  Even with all our advances in science, the gift of new life still comes from the Father.  And once our parents conceive us, our goal, our end, is to return to the Father so as to be one with Him in heaven.  It’s back to the Baltimore Catechism answer that says it so poetically and succinctly: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life so to be with Him in the next.  

    So this middle time, the time between our exitus, our beginning, and our reditus, our return, determines how our return ends up.  To paraphrase Denethor from the movie version of The Return of the King, our experience at our return will depend on the manner of our return.  Because, as Christ affirmed in the Gospel of John, He is the only way to the Father.  We cannot return to the place the Father has prepared for us, unless we follow the pattern that the Father set out for us, made visible in Christ.  We are, as St. Peter affirmed in his first epistle, “‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,’” but our lives have to reflect that chosen status in order to receive the inheritance promised to us at our beginning.
    So do we recognize how to live like Christ in our day-to-day lives?  Do we give attention to the needs of others, rather than focusing only on ourselves.  We’re familiar with Catholic Charities, the North End Soup Kitchen, the St. Luke NEW Life Center.  Do we assist them?  Do we donate what we can, be it food, clothing, or other goods?  Sometimes I get new “secular” clothes.  When I do so, I try to make sure and donate older clothes that are in a similar style or that I know I don’t use that often, if they are in reasonably good condition, to Catholic Charities through the Hope in a Box box that is by the drinking fountain at the Beach Street doors.  When was the last time that you looked in your closet for clothes that you no longer wear?  Sometimes we have formal wear that we only use once or twice, but are there things that we never use, or don’t need to have, that others could?  St. Basil the Great once said in a sermon, “The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”  Our attention to those in need makes up part of the way that we show where we want to return to: heaven or hell.  
    Whether we use the fancy Latin phrase or not, we all came from the Father and will return to judgment by Him, when we will learn our eternal destination: heaven (likely after some time in Purgatory) or hell.  If we wish to return to the dwelling place the Father has prepared for us, that Christ promised us in the Gospel, then we have to follow the example of the great exitus-reditus of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  We have to follow the Way that He is: the one who gave up His life for our good.  It may not be in the red martyrdom of shedding our blood in imitation of Christ’s perfect sacrifice of His Body and Blood, but it may be in the white martyrdom of dying to our own wills and living according to the will of the Father.  No matter in which language we say it, living the life of Christ in our day-to-day lives will help us embrace the inheritance Christ won for us, whom the Father has adopted through Holy Baptism as His adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.  Who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen. 

Exitus-Reditus

Fifth Sunday of Easter

    For whatever reason, certain phrases sound more elegant and intelligent in foreign languages.  Instead of saying, “this for that,” it sounds much better to say quid pro quo.  Or instead of saying, “exactly,” one can say per se.  If you said, “a certain something that I can’t describe,” people would understand you, but you could also throw in a little French and say je ne sais quoi.  Perhaps, due to the popularity of mafia movies, we find ourselves used to asking in poorly-pronounced Italian, capisci? when we might otherwise say, “Get it?” 
    Likewise, when we speak about the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, we use a phrase from St. Thomas Aquinas which is exitus-reditus.  That certainly sounds much more erudite than beginning-return.  But no matter how we say it, we recognize its veracity.  Christ came to us from the Father (in the Incarnation at the Annunciation which we celebrated on 25 March) and then returned to the Father (at the Ascension, which we will celebrate in a few short weeks).  Christ existed before all time, but the Father sent Him to us, and then Christ returned to the Father.  And our Gospel points to the return, as Christ speaks to His Apostles in the Upper Room at the Last Supper.  He tells them that He goes to prepare a place for them, “‘so that where I am you also may be.’”  
    We come to know God the Father through God the Son.  St. Philip the Apostle, puts his foot in his mouth as he tells Jesus, “‘Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.’”  Probably the other apostles may have thought the same thing, but I’m sure they were glad they didn’t verbalize their desire.  Because Christ reiterates for them that He is the revelation of the Father.  The unity between Father and Son, even though they are different Divine Persons, is so strong that when one encounters one Divine Person, you encounter the entire Triune God.
    But exitus-reditus doesn’t only apply to God the Son.  It also applies to us.  We, too, though not consubstantial with the Father, come from Him, and our goal is to return to Him.  Even with all our advances in science, the gift of new life still comes from the Father.  And once our parents conceive us, our goal, our end, is to return to the Father so as to be one with Him in heaven.  It’s back to the Baltimore Catechism answer that says it so poetically and succinctly: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life so to be with Him in the next.  
    So this middle time, the time between our exitus, our beginning, and our reditus, our return, determines how our return ends up.  To paraphrase Denethor from the movie version of The Return of the King, our experience at our return will depend on the manner of our return.  Because, as Christ affirmed in our Gospel, He is the only way to the Father.  We cannot return to the place the Father has prepared for us, unless we follow the pattern that the Father set out for us, made visible in Christ.  We are, as St. Peter affirmed in our second reading, “‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,’” but our lives have to reflect that chosen status in order to receive the inheritance promised to us at our beginning.
    So do we recognize how to live like Christ in our day-to-day lives?  Do we give attention to the needs of others, rather than focusing only on ourselves.  As soon as the Apostles learned that the Greek-speaking or Hellenist widows lacked in care, they responded, in this case by creating the Sacred Order of the Diaconate, the first deacons.  God doesn’t necessarily ask us to create new groups, but to cooperate with those that already exist.  We’re familiar with Catholic Charities, the North End Soup Kitchen, the St. Luke NEW Life Center.  Do we assist them?  Do we donate what we can, be it food, clothing, or other goods?  Sometimes I get new “secular” clothes.  When I do so, I try to make sure and donate older clothes, if they are in reasonably good condition, to Catholic Charities through the Hope in a Box box that is by the drinking fountain at the Beach Street doors.  When was the last time that you looked in your closet for clothes that you no longer wear?  Sometimes we have formal wear that we only use once or twice, but are there things that we never use, or don’t need to have, that others could?  St. Basil the Great once said in a sermon, “The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”  Our attention to those in need makes up part of the way that we show where we want to return to: heaven or hell.  
    Whether we use the fancy Latin phrase or not, we all came from the Father and will return to judgment by Him, when we will learn our eternal destination: heaven (likely after some time in Purgatory) or hell.  If we wish to return to the dwelling place the Father has prepared for us, that Christ promised us in the Gospel, then we have to follow the example of the great exitus-reditus of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  We have to follow the Way that He is: the one who gave up His life for our good.  It may not be in the red martyrdom of shedding our blood in imitation of Christ’s perfect sacrifice of His Body and Blood, but it may be in the white martyrdom of dying to our own wills and living according to the will of the Father.  No matter in which language we say it, living the life of Christ in our day-to-day lives will help us embrace the inheritance Christ won for us, whom the Father has adopted through Holy Baptism as His adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

Follow the Head

 Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When I was in middle school and playing soccer, I often played defense.  While it was just a recreation league in the fall and spring, by the time we were in middle school, some of the opposing forwards (the offense) were getting much better at dribbling the ball, and using fancy moves to get past us.  One of my coaches, after seeing us struggle with this, said, “Always watch their hips.  They can’t go anywhere without their hips.  Whatever way their hips are pointing, that’s the way they’re going to eventually go.”  
    The same could be said about the head: we can’t go anywhere without it.  In fact, while you can lose certain parts of your body as long as you have your head, even if you had the entire rest of your body from the neck down, if you didn’t have your head, you’d be dead.  
    St. Paul in our second reading refers to Christ as “the head of the body, the church.”  This is more than simply a metaphor; it’s a reality.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, with Jesus as the head, the one who rules and coordinates the other members.  When we celebrate the Ascension, we say that we, in a mystical way, are already in heaven if we are connected to Christ.  That would not be the case if we were the Body of Christ only metaphorically.  
    That is why remaining with the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is so important.  That is why we need to stay connected to what the head tells us.  Otherwise, we risk getting separated, and then dying, as any body part does when not connected to the rest of the body.
    In a general sense, staying connected to Christ means staying connected to His Church.  Many people feel that it’s not a big deal to leave the Catholic Church for some other ecclesial communion (the phrase we use for other denominations, like Lutherans or Methodists or Evangelicals).  But if we leave the Church, then we’re leaving the Mystical Body of Christ, and perhaps separating ourselves from that living Body which is the Church (I say perhaps because God is the only judge, and the only one who knows with surety if we are connected to Christ).  But we know for sure that if we stay connected to the Church, then we are staying connected to the Mystical Body of Christ, the Body which is alive and which is in heaven.
    In a more particular sense, we stay connected to Christ when we follow His teachings, and we disconnect ourselves when we do not follow His teachings.  Again, many Catholics consider it no big deal when they disagree with teachings of the Church that need to be believed, or disagree with the moral teachings of the Church which need to guide the way a Catholic lives.  But we can’t go anywhere without our head, and so if we are believing something different than what our Head has given us, or living differently than how our Head has instructed us, we may find ourselves cut off from Him and, therefore, cut off from eternal life.
    We saw this recently with the Supreme Court ruling that abortion is not a constitutionally protected action.  I have numerous Catholic friends who said that every person should be able to have an abortion if she wants.  This is not what Christ has revealed to us (the Church has always held that abortion, the direct and intentional killing of an innocent human child before birth, is gravely contrary to what Christ taught us).  And if a Catholic worked to promote abortion, he or she would be starting to cut him or herself away from the Mystical Body of Christ.  That is why procuring or assisting at an abortion carries the penalty of excommunication: a person who does so loses communion, or union with, the rest of the Church.
    The same can be said for those Catholics who promote so-called homosexual marriage, or any sexual act outside of marriage, whether homo- or heterosexual.  Christ has revealed to us, through the Sacred Scriptures and through the Church’s unbroken teaching, that marriage is only between a man and a woman, and that sexual acts only should take place within marriage.  Any Catholic who acts or promotes policies otherwise is tearing him or herself away from the Body of Christ.  
    The same is true, as we hear from our Gospel, for those who willingly abandon the poor when they are able to help.  In the Gospel, Christ teaches us that we have a responsibility for our neighbor, as part of our obligation to love God and love our neighbor.  When we can help and we don’t, when we purposefully ignore assisting someone in a way that we are able, we start tearing ourselves away from the Body of Christ.  Does this mean that we need to give everyone asking for money a handout?  Or that we let every homeless person live with us?  No.  But it means we do what we can, whether individually, or through a larger organization like the St. Luke NEW Life Center or Catholic Charities, or through supporting a social safety net by the government for those who legitimately cannot work.  
    As I said earlier, no one on earth, be he a layman, deacon, priest, bishop, or even the Pope, will judge a person at the end of his or her life.  God is the only judge.  And yet, God has revealed that certain beliefs and decisions are consistent with following Him, and certain beliefs and decisions are inconsistent with following Him.  Stay connected to Christ through His Mystical Body.  Stay with the Church, not only through baptism, but through full acceptance of what the Church teaches on faith and morals.  Follow the Head, Jesus Christ.