Nuts!

 Sunday within the Octave of Christmas
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Probably my favorite mini-series is the HBO story, “Band of Brothers,” about the Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Paratroopers in World War II.  Episode 6 deals with the Battle of the Bulge, and there is a scene of the paratroopers at Christmas, pinned down and surrounded at Bastogne.  The soldiers have dug foxholes, as best as they can, in the cold, hard ground, with snow all around them.  There is not enough ammo.  And while there is tree cover, the Germans continue to pepper the Army paratroopers with mortars that blow the tops of the trees from their trunks.  Many of the soldiers lack adequate winter gear.  It was not a great situation.
    In one scene, Col. Sink addresses the men of Easy Company: “Men, General McCauliff wishes us all a Merry Christmas.  What’s merry about all this, you ask?  Just this: we’ve stopped cold everything that’s been thrown at us, from the north, east, south, and west.  Now, two days ago, the German commander demanded our honorable surrender, to save the USA encircled troops from total annihilation.  The German commander received the following reply: ‘To the German commander: nuts!’”

Col. Sink addressing Easy Company

    As we are assembled on this Sunday within the Octave of Christmas, perhaps, honestly, we’re feeling like the men of Easy Company.  It certainly has been an interesting year.  I know that early in the year there were inquiries about, and even a possible visit from, the Institute of the Good Shepherd providing future sacramental needs for those who attend this Mass, and then Bishop Boyea announced that some guy, unknown to most, if not all, here, was going to become the new pastor.  What was this priest like?  Did he celebrate the Extraordinary Form?  Was he kind?  Was he orthodox?  What did this mean for St. Matthew as a part of the Catholic Community of Flint?  Maybe you’re feeling like the jury is still out on this new pastor.
    And then we had the infamous Traditionis custodes.  I know that it was a time where we wondered what would happen.  We heard about some dioceses where the Extraordinary Form was cancelled entirely and immediately.  Or some had one last celebration before being shut down.  I know it was tough to wait, but our bishop lovingly allowed us to continue to celebrate according to the usus antiquior, and even came out to celebrate the Sacrament of Confirmation for us.
    And then last weekend we had the responsa ad dubia from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments.  That seemed like another bomb, and right now Bishop Boyea has said that we’ll keep to the status quo while he further reviews the document.  And that’s just on the worldwide scale.  In our own daily lives we have attacks and frustrations with which we have to deal, sometimes even from family and friends.  Maybe we feel like Easy Company, surrounded by enemies, not having adequate amounts of ammunition or winter clothing, with trees exploding to the left and right.  Sometimes it probably feels like friendly fire, instead of from the enemy.  So what do we do?
    First and foremost, this is a time of great spiritual benefit.  Whenever things are most difficult and frustrating, there is the opportunity for the greatest spiritual growth.  Yes, our Lord did many great things (healings, exorcisms, even raising people from the dead) while He was ministering around Judea.  But His greatest accomplishment was achieved through His Passion and Death, and subsequent Resurrection.  We can choose to capitalize on this time, or we can let it go to waste.  Do we let these struggles draw us closer to the Cross of Christ, or do they push us farther away from Him?  Do our challenges encourage us to embrace Holy Mother Church all the more, or do we look for consolation in those who have walked away from the Church of Christ, which is necessary for salvation?  Just as St. Catherine of Siena and St. Bridget of Sweden, or St. Theresa of Avila and St. Robert Bellarmine became great saints that proved the holiness of the Church even in the midst of schisms and heresies, so we have the opportunity to become great saints today.

    Secondly, the saint who would be celebrated today except that his feast day is on a Sunday, St. Stephen, is a great example of the power of prayer to change hearts and situations.  Recall that St. Stephen was one of the first deacons of the Church, appointed by the apostles themselves.  St. Stephen starts preaching Christ immediately in Jerusalem, and getting into debates and arguments with the chief priests and scribes.  Even though Stephen encounters many attacks on the identity of Jesus, Stephen counters their arguments at each turn.  This infuriates others so much that he is put on trial, and then condemned to be stoned to death.  His death, in the Acts of the Apostles, is very similar to the death of our Lord.  
    Standing at his death, and consenting to it, was a man named Saul.  No doubt the Church in Jerusalem was nervous about their future.  This man Saul was starting to round up the disciples of the Lord and imprison them for heresy.  No doubt, as they came together for Mass, they implored the Lord to save them from their enemies.  They likely fasted and prayed that their persecution would come to an end.  And it did, in the most likely way ever: Saul was converted, and became the greatest missionary in the history of Catholicism.  This was probably not what the Church in Jerusalem had in mind; but it was much better.  And I like to imagine that St. Stephen, in heaven, was pleading with the Lord to give Saul that extra bit of grace that would change him from a persecutor to a promoter of the faith.  
    There has been no small amount of blogposts written, and Facebook articles shared, and opinions expressed, some from true experts, some from those who only claim to be experts.  Imagine if those same people, instead of being Social Media warriors, used that time for prayer and fasting for Holy Mother Church (and, I imagine, some of them do).  Imagine what great graces could be accomplished, in us or in others.  We could be the Stephens imploring God’s grace upon the Sauls of our day.
    The reality is that we are at battle, but most of all with the world, the flesh, and the devil.  We are surrounded, and we often don’t always think that we have the equipment that we need to be successful.  But we do have the food which sustains our souls, which pushes us to be the saints God calls us to be in the times God calls us to be, and that is the Eucharist.  In the Eucharist we find the sustenance to keep fighting, not to surrender, and to suffer through some devastating attacks.  But just as the men who made up Easy Company and who braved the cold of Bastogne for a cause greater than themselves, so we, men and women, can brave these times, remaining in the loving embrace of Holy Mother Church, and become a Greatest Generation of our own in the Church.  
    At the end of Episode 6 of “Band of Brothers,” explanatory notes are given.  They read: “On December 26, 1944, General Patton’s Third Army broke through the German lines, allowing supplies to flow in and the wounded to be evacuated.  The story of ‘The Battle of the Bulge’ as told today, is one of Patton coming to the rescue of the encircled 101st Airborne.  No member of the 101st has ever agreed that the division needed to be rescued.”  God will help supply us with all we need.  Sometimes, no matter how exhausted we are, we have to keep fighting.  He has given us the victory already, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen. 

What Makes Us Catholic

 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Due to my retreat I had tried to get ahead of the game and write my homily before I left, which I successfully did.  And then Friday the sixteenth happened.  So, back to the drawing board.
    This past Friday morning, as I was finishing up our usual Friday morning adoration, I received a text from a brother priest of mine in the Diocese who knows how to celebrate the Extraordinary Form, or whatever we’re going to call it from now on, about Traditionis custodes, the new Motu Proprio.  We spoke after the 8 a.m. Mass about the details and the law of the new document (this brother priest is also a canon lawyer).  I then called Bishop Boyea, only to be reminded by his secretary that he is on retreat this week with the bishops of Michigan and Ohio.  I then had time to read over the document myself.
    I have to admit that, even though I only started celebrating according to the Missal of St. John XXIII a couple of months ago, my heart ached at what looks like more restrictions (we’ll see what Bishop Boyea has to say when he gets back with me).  Even in this short time I have come to see the beauty and transcendence of this form of celebration.  I will say that I also think that a priest can celebrate according to the Missal of St. Paul VI beautifully and transcendently, in its own way.  We’ll have to see what future lies in store for us, though I neither want to freak you out with specious speculations, nor presume that everything will be exactly the same.
    But Pope Francis, who is our validly elected Supreme Pontiff, Vicar of Christ, and head of the Universal Church, also reminds us of important points about our Catholic faith, that I believe are worth speaking about here.

   The first is a general point about what makes us Catholic.  We are Catholics because we believe that Jesus founded His Church in a particular way, namely, upon apostolic foundations, with the successor of St. Peter as the Prince of the Apostles, and the visible sign of unity and head of the apostolic college.  Certainly I understand and sympathize (suffer with you) in feeling hurt by our Holy Father, and likely there are feelings of anger, betrayal, or others.  But to say that the pope is not the pope, or that we do not owe him religious submission of will and intellect because he has hurt us, because he has made decisions with which we do not agree, in a matter that is not de fide or part of the moral life of the Church, is not Catholic.  As your spiritual father I understand your pain, but also want to warn against a schismatic attitude that can separate you from the Body of Christ, which is the ordinary means of salvation.  We will continue to see what this new document means, but we have to do so with respect for Pope Francis, lest we endanger our immortal soul.  Does this mean that this legislation of his is the best or even simply right?  I think we can reasonably disagree in charity with this legislation.  But he is still our pope, allowed for us by Christ Himself.  And if St. Catherine of Siena can give that same respect to popes who were wrongly living in Avignon, we can give respect and pray for Pope Francis.  I certainly mention his name every time I pray the Roman Canon.  If you want to be in a parish that is schismatic, separated from visible unity with the Church, then this is not the parish for you.  We are Latin Rite, Roman Catholics, and too many martyrs died to uphold the papacy for us to reject it because of what we consider a hurtful and wrong piece of legislation.  I invite each of you to storm heaven with your prayers, and pray a Chaplet of Divine Mercy for Pope Francis.  
    Secondly, Vatican II.  The jokes about the Spirit of Vatican II being the scariest Halloween costume are funny because they contain a bit of truth.  Many people have taken Vatican II to mean a variety of things which the Council Fathers never intended nor desired.  I was born in 1983 (yes, I’m young), so I have only known a post-Vatican II world, and I have seen some of the negative effects of wrong implementation on the Church.  Many people saw Vatican II as a jettisoning of everything that had come before.  
    But Vatican II, especially in the Constitutions, and even in some of the documents which have less authority (e.g., decrees and declarations), was not a rejection of what came before, but a re-application of what came before.  Lumen gentium itself contains over 200 quotations and 92 references to Pope Pius XII.  As you look through Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, there is a beautiful collection of citations from Sacred Scripture, St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, and the conciliar documents of Trent and Vatican I.  I didn’t have time to count them all, but the references to solid Catholic saints, previous holy popes, and previous councils, is impressive.  
    Further, Pope St. John XXIII, whose missal we use, declared it to be an ecumenical council, and it was confirmed and approved, in the ways ecumenical councils need to be, by Pope St. Paul VI.  So we cannot ignore Vatican II and its documents, without ignoring an ecumenical council called for and confirmed by the successor of St. Peter.  To do so would be to make the same mistake as Luther, Zwingli, Melanchthon, and other so-called reformers of rejecting what we don’t like and keeping what we do.  St. Augustine says this of the Gospel, but the same could be said for ecumenical councils, that if we accept what we like and reject what we don’t like, we do not have faith in God but in ourselves.  
    Further, while everyone likes to quote Lumen gentium, 16 which says that those who, “through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, yet sincerely seek God and moved by grace, strive by their deeds to do his will as it is known through them through the dictates of conscience” can be saved, there is another quote, I would say that is even stronger, about the necessity of belonging to the Church.  Lumen gentium, 14 says, “Whosoever, therefore, knowing that the Catholic Church was made necessary by Christ, would refuse to enter or to remain in it, could not be saved.”  I think all here know that the Catholic Church is a necessary connection to Christ (inasmuch as our Lord Himself said that persecuting His followers was persecuting Him as He spoke to Saul on the road to Damascus).  In the same way, then, we must hold fast to the Church, even when the barque of Peter seems to be adrift and taking on water, or risk damnation, as Vatican II clearly teaches.  
    I know these are hard days.  I know that it seems like the Church may want to abandon us.  But, St. Paul tells us, that we are not called to fear, but to have courage.  And Jesus reminds us in the Gospel, to do whatever it takes to be saved, even if it means suffering greatly.  We can likely see ourselves in the boat in Mark 4 with the apostles, as the storm is pounding us, and the waves are breaking over the boat, so that it seems like it will capsize.  But our Lord is in the boat, and He will not let it sink.  Our duty, even in our pain, frustration, and betrayal, is to stay in the boat with Christ, hold fast to Him, and have faith that He will see us safely to the harbor of heaven, where God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, reign eternally, world without end.  Amen.