How We Build

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Matthew Church

    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  When we think about this building, we think of the many parts that came together to make this such a beautiful church.  We have the brickwork, the plaster, the doorframes, the marble, the paint, and everything that fits together in just a particular way so as to make up this church building.  Those different materials and items had to be shaped and placed together particularly so that we could have a temple in which we worship God.  They didn’t simply exist and magically come together.  It took work.  But with the work accomplished, we can rightfully say that we are the most beautiful church in Genesee County, and one of the most beautiful in the Diocese of Lansing.
    St. Peter tells us in his first epistle that we are living stones, being built up into a spiritual house to offer acceptable sacrifice to God through Jesus Christ.  This building is important because it reminds us of what we are called to be.  We each have our different gifts and talents.  But when we are shaped and placed together, united in a single purpose, we form something beautiful that aids in the worship of God. 
    As we celebrate the Anniversary of the Dedication of this church, I wanted to share with you what the leadership team (me, Amanda Williams, Mike Wilson, and Jason Tower) discerned for how we will continue into the future as a parish; how we exist as the invisible temple that this visible temple makes present.  We, with the help of the Catholic Leadership Institute, worked hard over three one-day sessions in the fall, to make sure that we clearly understood and could articulate what makes St. Matthew Parish St. Matthew Parish, as well as how God calls us, not only statically, but dynamically, to continue His work of spreading the Gospel.  And I want to communicate with you our parish purpose, vision, values, and priorities, with the hope that we can each find ways to work together to be purposeful, guided by our vision and values, and working towards the priorities that we believe God has given to St. Matthew.
    The parish purpose and vision give us the “why” of St. Matthew.  Why do we exist as a parish?  What motivates us and moves us?  Our purpose, as discerned by my leadership team, “is to use beauty and truth to inspire and develop disciples to transform the secular order by the grace of God, for His glorification and the edification of man.”  That’s a mouthful, I know.  But basically, we focused on two of the transcendentals, beauty and truth, as a way that we form disciples.  And why are we trying to form disciples?  Because the world is not as it should be.  The world is not as God created it.  But we can work together, by His grace, to make it more like it should be, more according to the plan of God.  And this not only glorifies God, but also builds us up into the people God wants us to be.  You can see this purpose each week on the front page of our bulletin.  It’s meant to be a reminder to each of us of why we exist.
    As to our vision, the big view of what we want to be and accomplish, “We are a Roman Catholic parish in the heart of Flint that worships God with reverence, forms disciples, and serves the physical and spiritual needs of our neighbors in communion with the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.”  Our purpose could be applied to any parish.  Our vision puts our purpose in our particular context of where we are (“in the heart of Flint”) and what we do (“worships God…forms disciples…serves the…needs of our neighbors”).  But what we do is not by our own imagining, as if we create the Church.  Our vision happens within the context of the one Church that Christ established, which, as Lumen gentium states, “subsists in the Catholic Church.” 
    That vision is made manifest in our values as a parish.  The leadership team discerned three values of St. Matthew Parish that are important to everything we do: reverence; faithfulness; and family/community.  By reverence, we mean that we “strive to promote the awe and respect that is owed to God.”  How do we do this?  By following the rubrics the Church sets out for the celebration of the sacred liturgy; by allowing time for sacred silence so that God can speak in our hearts; and by appropriate posture and dress, so that the way we carry ourselves and present ourselves in parish life manifests how we live in wonder and awe in God’s presence.
    By faithfulness, we mean that we “support fidelity to the Magisterium and the 2,000 year history of the Church.”  So many love to be only what is happening now.  We stay faithful to what the Church officially teaches, and how that has been revealed to us by God over the entire history of the Church, not just before or after the Second Vatican Council.  How do we do this?  By incorporating legitimate liturgical traditions; by promoting orthodoxy and refuting heresy; and by striving to imitate Christ in all that we do.  In this way we show that we are truly Catholic: welcoming all that is good, while preserving the world as salt from all that is bad.
    Lastly, by family/community, we mean the value we place on every human life from natural conception to natural death.  How do we do this?  By supporting families of all ages; by welcoming families into our parish by what we say, but also by what we do; and by helping families create a strong domestic church, a strong place in their homes where God is present. 
    Based on these values, then, we are currently prioritizing the support of the Domestic Church, the family; evangelization and apologetics so that we can share the faith with others; and community outreach, so that we may serve Christ in the least of his brothers, as He says in Matthew 25. 
    So what?  A lot of ink was spilled, but does it make a difference?  Again, if we are going to continue to be built into the spiritual temple of God, then we have to have an organizing plan.  We cannot simply exist and hope that we’ll all come together, anymore than the bricks, plaster, paint, marble, etc. just existed and then came together without any effort.  All that we do as a parish should fit within these paradigms, paradigms that we did not create so much as discern that God wants us to use.  When you’re donating your money; when you’re volunteering; when you’re asking for this or that activity or program; all of it should fit into one of these categories that I have outlined for you today.  And if we do that, we will continue to grow as a parish, and form a new generation of disciples who will carry out the Great Commission which was given to us by Jesus Christ [who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God, for ever and ever.  Amen].

Understanding the Deeper Meaning

 Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

One tradition that exists in law enforcement is challenge coins (it’s also a military tradition).  A challenge coin is just a coin that has some representation of a unit or a department on it.  We don’t quite use challenge coins in law enforcement the same way that the military does (which often has an effect on whether or not you’re paying for your drinks).  But it’s a way to honor a person by sharing a part of the unit’s history.  As an example, about a year ago was given a challenge coin from the State Police Emergency Support (ES) Team (most people would think of it as a SWAT team) that honored the last ES Trooper who died in the line of duty.  This was an amazing gift which I treasure because it honors one of the ES team’s members who gave his all.
    But if you are not aware of that tradition, you may think the challenge coin is simply a nice, little knick-knack, but nothing more.  If you don’t know the background of the challenge coin, you may not give that gift the same importance that someone who knows what’s going on would.
    As we continue our Gospel readings on the Eucharist, we hear that the people do not understand the deeper meaning behind the miracle of the loaves and fish.  The people were amazed at what happened, but their understanding was limited to the physical reality that they sensed, rather than the metaphysical reality that required going beyond the simple five senses.  Jesus even tells them that they are looking for him simply because they liked eating the bread and fish, not because of a deeper faith.  And then Jesus uses that to springboard to teaching about the true bread from heaven, which is not an “it,” but a “who”: Jesus Himself.  
    For followers of Jesus, this problem of not getting the deeper meaning still exists.  It exists in a particular way among those who are not Catholic nor Orthodox.  So many Christians see Communion as simply bread and wine.  Yes, it has been prayed over; yes it is a reminder of Jesus’ presence, but they stop at the level of their physical senses.  But sometimes even Catholics forget, or perhaps were never taught, that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, though it retains those physical properties, but truly Jesus–His Body and Blood.

We, as Catholics, believe that a valid priest of Jesus Christ, who was ordained by the successors of the Apostles (the bishops), and who follows the prayer of the Church, intending to do what the Church intends to do, by the power of the Holy Spirit changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, not just for the time of that prayer, but as long as the bread and wine have those physical properties that are proper to bread and wine.  It looks like bread and tastes like bread, but it is no longer bread.  It is the Body of the Lord.  It looks like wine and tastes like wine, but it is not longer wine.  It is the Blood of the Lord.  
    This wasn’t some new invention of the Middle Ages, either.  St. Paul talks about partaking in the bread and cup as a sharing in the Passion of the Lord, which is what the Eucharist is: our participation in Jesus’ once-for-all sacrifice.  St. Ignatius of Antioch, who died around AD 107, says that the Eucharist is truly the Body of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, and a descendant of King David.  St. Justin Martyr, writing slightly later, says the same thing.  So, too, St. Ambrose and St. Augustine, in the fourth and fifth centuries (respectively) say that the Eucharist is truly the Body and Blood of Christ.
    It wasn’t until the eleventh century that controversy really arose about the Eucharist, and whether or not it was the Body of Christ.  Quickly, the Church re-iterated that it was, and solemnly proclaimed it in a the Fourth Lateran Ecumenical Council in 1215, using the word that has been codified: transubstantiation.  While this teaching was rejected by the Protestants as they sprung up in the 1500s, the Ecumenical Council of Trent reaffirmed the perennial belief that the Eucharist is Jesus, not just a reminder, not just a symbol, but truly our Lord’s glorified Body and Blood.
    That, of course, affects the way that we treat the Eucharist.  If it really is Jesus, then we are extra-careful with it.  We use precious metal to hold and house the Eucharist.  We do not give it to those who do not believe what we do, which is why Protestants and non-Christians cannot receive the Eucharist–they don’t believe what we do about the Eucharist.  Before we receive, we fast (currently the law is that we fast from all food and drink except water and medicine) for one hour before we receive Holy Communion.  And as we approach the Eucharist, we do so with profound wonder and awe, knowing that we are receiving, on our tongue or in our hands, the very same Lord who was born of the Virgin Mary, and who is now seated at the right hand of the Father.  We dare, only because He commanded us, to receive the King of Kings into ourselves.  We dare because He told us we needed to receive Him to have the spiritual strength to follow Him.  
    As a sign of our respect and reverence our hands should be clean if we receive in our hands.  And the Church invites us to bow before receiving the Eucharist (though some genuflect or kneel down).  The point is that we want to show reverence for the divine encounter we have, an encounter with God that is the closest we can get to God on earth; greater than even the best sunrise or sunset, or the best musical composition, or even the love of a spouse, or whatever other way the we might encounter God.  Nothing even comes close to just how truly awesome the Eucharist is.  St. John Vianney, the priest, said, “What the Angels behold only with awe, the radiant splendor of which they cannot sustain, we make our food, we receive into us, we become with Jesus Christ one same Body, one sole Flesh.”  He also said, “If we truly understood the Mass, we would die of joy.”  
    May we truly recognize that the Eucharist is not bread and wine, but our Savior, who chooses to humble Himself and make Himself vulnerable to us.  May we value and treasure the Eucharist as the greatest gift we can receive here on earth, because it is already a foretaste, a preview of heaven!