Frequent Dying and Rising

Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

For as stupendous as raising someone from the dead is, it happens somewhat frequently in the Bible.  We heard about God raising the widow of Zarephath’s child through Elijah in our first reading, and Jesus raising the son of the widow from Nain in today’s Gospel.  Jesus also raises the daughter of Jairus, a synagogue official, and Lazarus.  After Jesus ascended into heaven, Peter raises a young girl named Dorkas (what an unfortunate name!), and Paul raises to life a person who falls out of a window after that person had fallen asleep because of how long Paul was preaching (there are dangers with preaching too long!).  I don’t know why, but I feel like that’s a lot of times.  About a month ago, I was given credit for raising someone from the dead by some of our firefighters, after I was riding with the firefighters and we responded to a call of someone having a heart attack, who seemed to miraculously wake up when we arrived (in reality, that person was an example of why you should never mix alcohol and a prescription narcotic).

But God truly does raise people from death on a regular basis, if we take time to think about it.  God raises from death those who are baptized.  In baptism, children, men and women are taken from being at enmity with God to being His children.  By baptism, people are buried with Christ–they die–so that they can rise with Him to new life.  By baptism, the old self has to die, like the grain of wheat, so that the new self, the person alive in Christ, can live.  

But that process of dying and rising does not stop on the day that we are baptized.  Each day we have the opportunity to die and rise.  It starts for some of us at the moment our eyes open.  At that moment we have the opportunity to die to our laziness and the comfort of our bed and rise to the new day that is before us.  There’s nothing wrong with hitting the snooze button if we have time, but at some point for many of us, we need to get up and get prepared for the day.  That’s why, at the beginning of my day, before my feet hit the floor of my bedroom, I say a short prayer: Mater mea, fiducia mea!–My Mother, my confidence!, and I entrust my entire day to Jesus through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  You could say any prayer that you like, but prayer is a great way to rise to new life.

Throughout our day there will be people trying to kill us.  Sometimes we are the people trying to kill others.  Hopefully not literally, but certainly figuratively.  What I mean by that is that we are all sinful, and we all give in to temptations, to not be disciples of Jesus.  Whether it’s others or ourselves, there’s gossip, slander, sharing secrets we have no business sharing, treating others as objects or as means to advancement, and the list could go on and on.  If we are the culprit, then we need to die to all of those sins.  We need them to be put to death, and Jesus does that by His suffering on the cross.  When we bite our lip, or treat someone kindly, we are dying to our fallen nature and its sinful tendencies.  If we are on the receiving end, then we die when we patiently suffer through them (correcting when necessary and prudent) instead of giving back what we received.  And whether we are putting to death our own tendencies, or suffering with Jesus because of others’ tendencies, new life, resurrection, is available for us, not only after our earthly life ends, but even on this side of eternity.

Because those who can accept suffering and unite it with Jesus do live happier lives.  They may still have the same sorrows, but they do not let the sorrows control their lives.  They cling to their new life in Christ, given to them in baptism, and live in the joy of the Resurrection, even in this vale of tears.  Which is the happier life: the one tossed about by uncontrollable forces, or the one who entrusts his or her life to God and stays on a steady course toward Him?

Everything in our nature rebels against death.  We were not made to die, but experience death because of sin.  We see that rejection of death and its power in our first reading and Gospel today.  But there is another kind of death, a healing death, a death to our sinful selves, a death in Christ, which is not contrary to who we are, but helps us to be the fullest person we were created to be.  May we allow our sinful natures to die with Christ on the cross, so that we can also rise with Him to new life, both in our daily lives, and especially in the life to come.

Mass is Boring!!

Third Sunday of Easter

            Sometimes, talking with the students, either at our parish school, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Lansing Catholic high school, I hear a phrase that I’m sure kids have been saying for a while.  I know I at least thought it, if not said it out loud: “Father, Mass is boring!”

            Certainly, there can be parts of the Mass that are not as involved.  Whereas good preaching can really lift up a heart to a deeper practice of the faith and a deeper relationship with God, bad preaching can often stagnate the faith and close people off to the graces that God wants to give them in the Mass.  I think part of the reason that people stop going to Mass is that there is not enough dynamic preaching: preaching the Gospel with real intensity, with real passion, in a way that people can understand.

            But, lest all the burden rest on the priests and deacons, I think it is also hard for people to really enter into Mass because entertainment is such a huge part of our lives, and we expect the same from Mass.  We used to having the newest, coolest things coming at us at every minute of every day.  There’s always a new YouTube video that we can’t help but watch, always a new song we need to download, and new level of Angry Birds to play.  And as we enter into the Church to prepare for Mass, we expect the same new, quick, flashy stimuli, just like the outside world gives us.   So it can be hard for us because the Mass is, more or less, the same every week.  Sure, the readings change and the homily changes (we hope!), but the big chunk of the Mass, the Eucharistic prayer, is always the same.

            In some ways, we can be like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Notice that they are actually talking about Jesus as they walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus.  They’re not just chatting about the weather, or the newest toga style, or the Roman government.  They’re talking about what has happened to Jesus in the past few days.  And yet, even though they were talking about Him, they fail to recognize Him as He walks with them on the road.

            It is only after Jesus opens the Word of God to them and breaks bread that they recognize that they had been talking to Jesus all along.  It is only after the Word and Eucharist that they are able to recognize how Jesus was made present to them.  And it is at that moment, when they realize who is at table with them, that Jesus’ glorified body disappears.

            We may not be hanging our heads in sorrow every time we come to Mass, but if we come waiting for the newest thing, then we are like the two disciples on the road.  We are not prepared for Jesus to manifest Himself to us.  The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is specifically a time for rest from the busyness of the outside world.  It is a time to relax with Jesus and see how He manifests Himself to us.  If we enter in wanting the music to be our favorite every time, or wanting some funny joke in the homily every time, in general, wanting to be entertained, then we are going to miss Jesus as He makes Himself known to us.

            Because in each and every Mass, Christ opens the Word for us as the Scriptures are read aloud.  We come to understand how the Son of Man had to suffer, die, and then rise from the dead by reading from the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, the Prophets, the Wisdom literature like the Psalms, the letters of Sts. Paul, Peter, James, and John, and the true story of Jesus’ life in the Gospel accounts.  That is Jesus making Himself present to us, fully present, in His Word. 

            But Jesus doesn’t stop there.  He also makes Himself sacramentally, yet truly, present in the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist.  We see, under the accidents, the appearance, of bread and wine, our God, risen from the dead.  He comes to us physically to be with us and nourish us so that we might have strength for the pilgrimage of life.  But if we only want to get in and out of Mass as quickly as possible, or if we want some new hit to wow us, then we miss the ordinary ways that Jesus presents Himself to us.

            It truly takes effort to notice Jesus.  It takes effort to celebrate Mass; not just for me, but for all of us.  As we enter in, it should not just be the standing, sitting, standing, sitting, standing, kneeling, standing, sitting, and standing that tire our bodies out, but if we are truly trying to see Jesus and know of His presence with us, our full attention has to be paid to the words that are proclaimed from the Scriptures, trying to get a peak at Jesus, as did Zacchaeus when he climbed that tree; our ears should be open to hear how Christ is made present to us in the breaking of the bread, as Christ gives Himself to us to consume; our hearts should be lifted up with joy to know that we are entering into the sacred re-presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus on the cross on Calvary, as well as the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, who conquered sin and death and sits at the right hand of God the Father. 

            Do priests need to preach to the best of their ability, making sure that the message of the Gospel is made accessible to new generations with new joys and sorrows, new quests for knowledge and truth?  Certainly.  But if we come to Mass expecting to passively receive, then Mass will be boring for us, because we are not putting in the effort required to see Jesus as He makes Himself present to us in this community, in His priest, in His Word, and in the Sacrament of His Body and Blood.  If we are putting forth effort to see and hear Jesus, then Mass will be tiring, not for lack of activity, but for all the activity we are putting in. 

            I’ll close today with the words of St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the great doctors of the Church, who realized that he could not see Jesus at first in his youth, because he didn’t make the effort to find the Lord, even though Jesus was right there in front of him:

“Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, late have I loved you!  You were within me, but I was outside, and it was there that I searched for you.  In my unloveliness I plunged into the lovely things which you created.  You were with me, but I was not with you.  Created things kept me from you; yet if they had not been in you they would have not been at all.  You called, you shouted, and you broke through my deafness.  You flashed, you shone, and you dispelled my blindness.  You breathed your fragrance on me; I drew in breath and now I pant for you.  I have tasted you, now I hunger and thirst for more.  You touched me, and I burned for your peace.”

Mistaken for the Father

Feast of the Baptism of the Lord

            It’s a pretty common occurrence, I think, that happens to many young men and women during adolescence.  It has certainly happened to me a number of times.  The phone rings.  “Hello?”  “Hi Rob, how you doing?”  “Actually this is Anthony.”  “Oh, sorry, you sound just like your dad!”  I know it also happened a at least a few times with my sisters picking up the phone, and the person on the other line thinking it was my mom.  While it can be frustrating for the young man or woman, there is a certain fittingness to the fact that the child sounds like his or her parent.

             As we celebrate the Baptism of the Lord today, we notice a similar series of events taking shape, albeit without the telephone, in our readings.  As we listen to the words of the Prophet Isaiah in the first reading, we hear God the Father promising to send a servant who will bring justice to the nations.  The servant will open the eyes of the blind, bring out prisoners from confinement, and bring those in darkness out from the dungeon.  This servant will be one upon whom the Spirit of the Lord rests, and with whom God the Father is pleased.

            To those who had ears to hear and eyes to see at the Jordan River, to those who had remembered this passage from Isaiah, Jesus’ baptism would have been a jaw-dropping moment.  Because just as Jesus came up from the water, the Spirit of God, in the form of a dove, came upon Jesus, and a voice from heaven said, “‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”  The prophecy from Isaiah was fulfilled in their hearing, and it is reaffirmed for us in our hearing today. 

But if you notice, God does not simply fulfill the prophecy.  No, he goes beyond its fulfillment.  He does not simply send the Spirit upon Jesus in a nebulous, invisible form, but allows the Spirit to take the form of a dove, so that all might see it.  And Jesus is not just the servant with whom the Lord is pleased, but Jesus is the servant who is the beloved Son of God, with whom God the Father is well pleased.  God’s abundant love is seen here, going beyond what the Chosen People were taught to hope for.  God outdoes His own promises, out of love for the people He has made His own.  And Jesus’ public ministry, the proof that He is the servant and Son of God, is Jesus opening the eyes of the blind, freeing prisoners from the slavery of sin, and bringing the light of truth and grace to those who were kept in.

Brothers and sisters, if we have been baptized, then we have been joined to the Body of Christ, and this prophecy, which was fulfilled in its fullest form in Jesus, also is meant to speak of us.  If Christ is the Son and servant of God who is called to open the eyes of the blind, free prisoners, and bring light to those in darkness, and if we are members of the Body of Christ, the Church, through our baptism, then we are also called to do the same.  When people hear our voices, they should hear the voice of Christ, the revelation of the Father; when they see our good deeds, they should see Christ present, and in seeing Christ, know of the Father’s love in action; when they hear us proclaiming the Gospel, and telling people to repent and believe because the Kingdom of God is at hand, they should recognize Christ, and in recognizing Christ recognize the Father, because Jesus is the manifestation of the Father in the world.

It is as if we were on the telephone, and because we are so like Christ, who is the full revelation of the Father, people mistake us for the Father’s beloved Son, not by the treble of our voice, or by the way we look physically, but because we are continuing the proclamation of the Good News: that God loves us so much, that He sent His only Son, so that whoever believes in Him might not perish but have eternal life.  Just as can happen with young men and women on the telephone, people should confuse us for Jesus when they come into contact with us because of our devotion as disciples to the Master.

Now, certainly this is a tall order.  But you have what it takes.  It is not limited to a particular race, gender, or those with good speaking abilities, or priests, or religious.  No, as St. Peter said in the second reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, “‘God shows no partiality.  Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly is acceptable to him.’”  We have the ability because we were baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, and we have a fountain of graces, ready to flow, if only we would accept it, and let it flow, rather than blocking it by embarrassment of seeming “extreme;” by false humility of thinking, “I can’t spread the Gospel because I don’t know enough;” or by sin which separates us from God.  Certainly we do have to work at presenting the truth of the Gospel in Love, and we must know Him about whom we preach, and all of us need to return to the Lord for forgiveness for those times when we have fallen into sin, but God has already given us all we need to spread the Gospel to all nations, so that they can be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and become members of the Body of Christ, and co-heirs of eternal life. 

We have a mandate from our Lord to preach the Gospel to all nations, and we must use both our words and actions.  We cannot hide behind an alleged saying of St. Francis that we only need to act.  We need both words and deeds, so that when people hear our words proclaiming Jesus as Lord by what we say and how we say it; so that when people see our kind deeds to the least brothers and sisters of the Lord by the actions of our daily lives, they do not see us so much, as see Christ.  I pray that all of us, by the graces given to us in our baptism, are so like Christ, that we can be known as the continuation of the His ministry, the manifestation of the Father’s love, even more than, when the kids are at their parents home, they can be confused over the phone for their parents.