Am I at the Right Movie?

Vigil of the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    When I was a child, I went to a movie with my dad.  We were going to see the new “Star Trek” move that had just come out.  Not long after we arrived, the lights went down, and we got ready for the beginning of the movie.  The music that started to play was different than I expected, but I thought maybe it was on purpose.  And then, as images started to display on the screen, there was the image of two babies that had just been born.  Again, not what I expected, but I thought maybe it was doing a flashback to some character’s birth.  In fact, they had put the wrong movie in the theater, and we were being shown “Twins” with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito; very different from “Star Trek.”
    Perhaps you had a similar feeling as you sat down and started to listen to the first reading.  What does David and the Ark of the Covenant have to do with the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary?  And that confusion was likely continued in the psalm response, and we sang, “Lord, go up to the place of your rest, you and the ark of your holiness.”  Then, as the second reading started, you probably felt like we were back on track, as we spoke about Jesus taking away the sting of death.  And our Gospel at least indirectly mentions Mary when it talks about the womb that carried and the breasts that nursed Jesus. 
    But the first reading and psalm response have everything to do with Mary, at least in a spiritual sense.  The literal meaning is that David had taken the Ark of the Covenant, which the Israelites had made on their sojourn to the Promised Land, and kept as they entered the Promised Land, even taking it into battle during the reign of some of the Judges.  But it had really been left out of the newly developed kingdom that Saul ruled.  So David brought it into his newly captured capital city of Jerusalem, and then has the priests and people offer worship to God.  Eventually, that Ark would end up in the Temple that Solomon would build after the death of his father, King David.
    What was in the Ark of the Covenant?  There were three things that God commanded Moses put into the Ark: a golden pot with manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the tablets of the Law.  They were still in there as the Levites carried the Ark on their shoulders with poles into Jerusalem.  But what does this have to do with Mary?
    The early Christians understood Mary as the new Ark of the Covenant.  Think about what (or better, whom) Mary carried with her: not the law written on stone tablets, but the author of the Law, who was God’s law made flesh; not the budding staff of the first high priest, but the Eternal High Priest Himself; not the manna which God had given the people in the wilderness, but the True Bread from Heaven, as we have heard over the past few weeks in the Gospel according to John. 
    And even the first reading is, in some sense, duplicated in the Gospel of the Visitation.  Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, her cousin, who lives just outside of Jerusalem, in a village we now call Ein Kerem.  The new ark is on the move, just as David had it brought to him.  As David brings the Ark of the Covenant with him, he dances before it.  John the Baptist, in the womb of Elizabeth, leaps for joy before Mary, the new Ark.  Elizabeth says at the Visitation: “How is it that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”  David says, after God promises to raise up a dynasty for him, “‘Whom am I, Lord God, and what is my house, that you should have brought me so far?’”  So Mary has everything to do with our first reading and psalm, because she is the Ark of the New Covenant.  In fact, when I was in Israel as a seminarian on pilgrimage, I remember visiting a church in Abu Ghosh called Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, and is said to have been built around the place where the Ark of the Covenant rested until King David took it to Jerusalem. 

Statue of Mary at Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant

    

While Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, par excellence, we, too, are invited to be arks of the new covenant.  Yes, Mary is the New Ark because she carries Jesus, the new Law, the Eternal High Priest, and the Bread from Heaven within her, but we are called to hear the word of God, and carry it and observe it in our daily lives.  In that way we become arks of the covenant.  Mary both carries Jesus in her womb, but also hears the word of God and observes it, so she is doubly blessed, most blessed, in fact, among women and men. 
    So no, you weren’t hearing the wrong readings.  David and the ark have everything to do with Mary.  As we celebrate this Mass, we join David and the Blessed Virgin Mary in heaven, as heaven joins with earth in every Mass, and we sing and make music and worship God, uniting ourselves to Christ’s one perfect sacrifice, that truly took away the sins of the world, and instituted a new and everlasting covenant that is not only celebrated in Jerusalem on earth, but the Jerusalem that is above: heaven.  

How God Heals Us

 Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Catholicism is a sense-experience religion.  When you come to Mass you can see beauty, especially in this church.  You hear different prayers throughout the Mass.  You smell the incense burning in the thurible.  You taste the Eucharist on your tongue.  You sit, stand, and kneel at different parts of the Mass.  Ours is not a quietist religion where you simply sit and think of God.  Worship of God and the practice of the faith in our day-to-day life involves the entire person, body and soul.

    We involve the body and soul because that’s what our Savior did.  We heard it in the Gospel today: there was a man who was deaf and mute.  Jesus takes him aside, and rather than simply willing the healing, He puts His fingers into his ears, spits, and touches the man’s tongue.  He then groans, looks up to heaven, and says, “Ephphatha!  Be opened!”  I don’t know what exactly the deaf and mute man was expecting, but I’m not sure that I would have expected that!
    It’s important to see that our Lord comes to heal.  One of the early Greek titles of our Lord was 𝛴𝜔𝜏𝜂𝜌, which means “savior,” but also has a context of healing.  We tend to think of salvation in merely spiritual terms, saving our souls, but Christ knows that we are a union of soul and body, and so healing one has an impact on the other.  How many people in the Gospels came to Christ with a physical malady, but ended up healed in body and soul, with their sins forgiven as well as their illness healed?
    That ministry of healing did not end when our Lord ascended into heaven.  He continues to heal us.  Again, we tend to think of the healing that our souls need, but sometimes our bodies need healing, and the Lord does that as well.  One of my classmates, Fr. Mathias Thelen, has a charism of healing, which, as he always says, is God healing through him.  There are a great number of people whom God has cured, healed of infirmities, or eased the pain.  We also require these types of miracles through the intercession of one who has a cause of sainthood.  And those stories not only involve healing the body of that person, but also bolster our faith in how God works in our everyday world.
    But it’s good not to put God in a box, and put limits on how He can heal us.  At least from time to time, God heals us in an unexpected way, or maybe even a way with which we’re not that comfortable.  Again, think about the man in the Gospel.  Imagine yourself being taken aside by our Lord, and you have a confidence that He is going to heal you.  You’re looking forward to being able to hear and speak.  You will not longer be stuck mostly in your head.  And then you see Jesus take his fingers, and put them into your ears.  Okay…a little awkward, but maybe some touching of the ears was expected to cure the deafness.  But then, He spits and touches your tongue!  Now we’ve gone into the realm of the unexpected.  I can’t remember a time where I let someone touch my tongue, though, granted, I’m not mute.  Still, I think it’s at least plausible that this healing was not in the manner that the man expected.  But the man was healed, and was so grateful that he couldn’t keep his mouth shut (it had been, after all, shut for so long before that!).  
    How is the Lord trying to heal you?  Sometimes it can come in unexpected ways.  Maybe we’re not having people put fingers in ears, spitting, and touching our tongues.  But are we open to how God wants to heal and save us?  Our eternal salvation was won in a very unexpected way: by the death of our Lord on the cross.  It was so unexpected, almost none of His followers bothered to be with Him in His last hours.  And the disciples are doubly astounded when He shows up alive, after they knew He had been crucified.  
    But our healing that comes to us in our everyday life from God can also be unexpected.  Some couples take a little while to find their spouse, and it can often come after serious heartbreak.  But that heartbreak with the wrong person sometimes leads to the right person, the spouse God wants for you.  To use sports as an analogy, sometimes you have to go through serious pain to become a better athlete.  Sometimes a parent needs to discipline a child, perhaps even with a spanking, to help the child understand what not to do (which will help the child be a better person and disciple).  Sometimes a friend needs to speak a harsh word, or take drastic actions, in order to truly help the friend move on from a bad habit.  
    Those are all negative, but healing can happen in positive unexpected ways, too.  No matter how we experience the unexpected, it can often be in those ways that our Lord heals us and helps us to grow.  God continued to help His Church grow through St. Paul, who had previously persecuted the Church of God, hence St. Paul’s acknowledgement that he is the least of the Apostles.  But God’s grace, which took a persecutor and turned him into a martyr, did the work; it was not in vain.  
    Do not be afraid to ask for healing from God.  Have faith that God can heal whatever ails you, whether it’s physical or spiritual malady.  Healing may not come how you expect it, or maybe not even when you expect it, but it will come, as a gift of God: the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Union With God

 Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Fr. Zach Mabee, who used to serve here in Flint (and who is probably best known as the tallest priest in the Diocese of Lansing), likes to share funny memes on Facebook.  His full time job is teaching at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, but some days he posts so many memes that you would think that posting memes is his job.  Anyway, he recently posted one meme that said, “Why would you say ‘half a dozen’ when you can literally say ‘six’?”  It is interesting to think about how we use a phrase when we can use just one word.

    The same could be said about the Eucharist.  Sometimes we refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as the Eucharist, but we often refer to the Eucharist as Holy Communion.  Perhaps not as long as “half a dozen,” but still it’s another term for the same reality.
    The word Eucharist comes from two Greek words, 𝜀𝜐 and 𝜒𝛼𝜌𝜄𝜍, which, when put together, means “give thanks well,”  The Eucharist is the way that we give thanks to God well, because it is Jesus’ perfect sacrifice that unites us to the Father and opens heaven for us.  The Mass, where we celebrate the Eucharist, is our prayer of thanksgiving that Jesus gave us.
    But we do also rightfully call the Eucharist “Holy Communion.”  We all know what holy means: set aside for God or belonging to God.  Communion is also a common word, which comes from the Latin word comunio, or union with.  When we receive Holy Communion, we have union with Christ, and, therefore, union with the entire Trinity.  How often do we think about this reality: that when we worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are becoming one with God?
    St. Paul affirms this teaching in the sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He writes, “whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”  Certainly, receiving Jesus into our bodies in the Eucharist is joining ourselves to the Lord.  Later, in that same letter, in chapter eleven, he encourages people to think about (he uses the word discern) whether or not they should join themselves to Christ through Holy Communion, because those who partake of the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…[and bring] judgment on himself.”  He even goes on to say that the reason that “many” are ill and dying, and some are even dying, is because they are joining themselves to Christ when they shouldn’t be.  
    The Eucharist isn’t something that we should receive only out of habit, without considering the state of our soul.  We do not want to join a life that is objectively and gravely contrary to the same Person that we are receiving.  Communion means that we are, in the major ways, one with the other.  Think about it in terms of marriage.  Married couples sometimes have disagreements, but they are not necessarily major.  But if, hypothetically speaking, a husband were to forget his wife’s birthday, or their anniversary, that union might be damaged in a major way, and the man may find himself sleeping on the couch; hypothetically speaking, of course.  Because of the major offense, they do not engage in union with each other in the marital act, because that spousal embrace means that they are one, while forgetting such important dates denotes a lack of union or care for the other.
    So for us as Catholics, following what St. Paul says, we are to discern whether or not we should have Eucharistic union with Christ, or if we need to be reconciled to Him first.  Again, going to the marriage analogy, forgetting an important date is bad, but it does not mean that reconciliation cannot take place.  There should be an apology, and then possibly roses, or chocolates, or some gesture of contrition.  So with God, when we have failed to live according to His teachings in major ways, we first need to reconcile before we can have that great and Holy Communion that God gives us in the Eucharist.  We cannot ignore that wound that we caused without causing a greater wound.  Go back to the marriage analogy: telling your wife she has a birthday every year or that you’re always married when you forget those important dates does not help.  Just so, we cannot receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin without making a sacrilegious union with God, seeking to unite our sinfulness to His holiness.
    We shouldn’t approach Holy Communion and receive the Eucharist if we have any unforgiven mortal sin on our soul.  Recall that mortal sins are sins that are grave, that we know are wrong, and that we freely choose to do anyway.  Neither should we receive Holy Communion if our life is, in a public way, contrary to what Jesus (whether in Scripture or through the official teaching of the Church) teaches us is part of following Him.  
    What are some major ways of rejecting God?  The Ten Commandments are a good rule of thumb.  Yes, that includes taking God’s Name in vain, or unnecessarily skipping Mass on Sundays.  It also includes the offenses against our neighbor, like murder (including abortion), adultery or sexual sins, stealing when it involves a larger value, and lying under oath or to legitimate authority.  Living in a public way contrary to Christ is not only working publicly against Church teaching, but includes not being married in a way that is recognized by the Church (whether it’s a first marriage outside the church, or a second marriage without an annulment).
    Union with Christ means that we are in union with all that Jesus teaches us as necessary for salvation, whether in what we believe or in how we live.  That is also why non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they often reject one or more of the official teachings of the Church in faith and morals.  But if they do believe everything that we do, not only about the Eucharist, but about the pope, the sacraments, the Bible, the moral life, etc., then they should become Catholic, at which point they can receive Holy Communion.

    The point of all of this is that God wants communion with us through Holy Communion.  But in order to receive Holy Communion worthily, our lives need to be conformed (at least in major ways) to His way of life.  When we are conformed to Christ in major ways, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, becomes our strength to continue to following Christ day-by-day.

Ruined Crème Brûlée

 Tenth Sunday after Pentecost
  

 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of my favorite desserts, that I almost never get because it’s usually quite expensive is crème brûlée.  There’s something about the custard that is smooth and tasty, and ten the hard, caramelized sugar layer.  And then, if it’s really good, there’ll be a few berries on top, maybe even with a little whipped cream.  But imagine if you were dipping your spoon into the custard dish, mouth watering in anticipation of the mix of flavors about to explode in your mouth, and then you see a hair, or a fingernail.  Yuck!  Something so small, so insignificant, but it ruins the whole dish!!
    We hear our Lord today addressing the proper attitude in prayer.  And what ruins the prayer of the Pharisee was his pride.  We don’t hear our Lord say that the Pharisee was greedy, dishonest, or adulterous.  So we have no sense of his guilt.  But his prayer is tainted, ruined, by his pride; by puffing himself up and gazing inward, rather than gazing towards the Lord in humility.  The tax collector, on the other hand, while his physical eyes are not looking toward the Lord, his heart and his mind certainly are pleading with God for His mercy.  Christ tells us that the tax collector went home justified, not the Pharisee.  This should be no surprise, though, as the prayer of the Pharisee was not seeking justification–right relationship with God–while that was the far-off hope of the tax collector in his prayer.
    As a quick tangent, I mentioned last week that I have watched “The Chosen,” a new series that presents the Gospels.  It has made me think about certain passages in a new light, not changing what they mean, but changing maybe the background.  And I can’t help but wonder if this parable was based upon the prayers that Jesus had seen from a Pharisee, and perhaps from St. Matthew himself, one of the most famous tax collectors in the Gospels.  Perhaps St. Matthew, even as a disciple of our Lord, still felt the pain of his former profession, and the shame that accompanied that profession from most Jews, and had made that prayer himself: “‘O God, be merciful to me a sinner.’”
    Ok, back to the main thread.  Pride really is something that can ruin our prayer.  We see it in the way it is mentioned in the Gospel: I think I am better than someone (or everyone) else.  We can also see it when we feel we have to take our salvation in our own hands, or on our own terms.  That quintessential American virtue, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps, while helpful in our civil life, is deadly in our spiritual life.  But pride, in any form, can ruin our prayer, since it seeks to put ourselves in the place of God.
    Pride can also rear its ugly head in terms of our relations with others, as it did with the Pharisee in regards to the tax collector.  Both were praying; both were worshipping the Lord (at least in theory).  But the Pharisee elevates himself over the tax collector.  St. Paul reminds us that we receive different gifts from the Holy Spirit, which are all meant to build up the Body of Christ.
    But how often do we play the comparison game about which gift is better?  St. Paul mentions different manifestations of the Holy Spirit, namely, wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, mighty deeds, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, and interpreting tongues.  But all are meant to work together for the good of the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.  It is easy, though, to fall into the trap of thinking that our gifts are more necessary.  Or maybe to think that someone else’s gifts are more necessary and ours aren’t that important.  Instead, we are invited to utilize the gifts that we have, whatever they may be, so that Christ may be all in all.  
    Even we priests can fall victim to this at times.  While we love and support each other as brother priests, it is easy to wish that we had the gift of that priest in that parish to raise money easily.  Or that priest whose parish is growing substantially in numbers.  Or maybe our homilies are ok, maybe B- caliber, but we wish we had the gift of that priest in the neighboring parish whose homilies are more in the A range.  The devil loves to get us with pride, and say that we are better than others, or that we wish we had other gifts than what God gave us.  It is the age-old temptation given to Adam and Eve, to try to replace God with ourselves because we know best.
    Instead, we utilize our gifts as God has given them to us, not just priests, but all of Christ’s faithful.  God calls us not to worry about what gifts the other person has, but to use the gifts that God gave us to do what He has called us to do.  It’s like Peter and John at the end of John’s Gospel.  We don’t have to worry about the other person, we just follow Jesus.  
    So this week, let’s work on asking God to help us live the virtue of humility, and asking God to stamp out in us the sin of pride.  In prayer we should turn to God, rather than praying to ourselves and self-promoting like the Pharisee.  In all things we should welcome the gifts of others, and do the best we can with the gifts we have received.  Don’t put hairs and fingernails in your crème brûlée; don’t ruin your prayer or your spiritual life with pride.  In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  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!

Justice and Mercy

 Ninth Sunday after Pentecost
    

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  The saints are often known for pithy quotes that make one think, or sometimes chuckle.  For example, St. Theresa of Avila is quoted as saying to the Lord, “If this is how you treat your friends, it is no wonder you have so few!”  Or St. John XXIII, who had a particularly good sense of humor, would say to God each night before he went to bed, something to the effect of “Dear Lord, it’s your Church; you take care of it.  I’m going to bed.”  Or St. Theresa of Calcutta, who said, “I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle.  I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”    I bet we all can or have once had the same feeling.
    St. Paul reminds us today that “God is faithful and will not let [us] be tried beyond [our] strength.”  This is a good thing to remember in our day-to-day life.  We do not have to give in to our temptations; we do not have to sin.  God gives us what the scholastics called sufficient grace, or the power of God which is required to say no to temptation.  Certainly, venial sins may pop up which are simply due to weakness of our character or pre-dispositions, but when it comes to knowingly being tempted to commit a venial or a mortal sin, we do not have to give in to the temptation and act contrary to God’s will.
    But how often do we call upon that grace?  How often do we call out to God to save us in time of temptation?  Or how often do we rebuke the temptation as having no power over us?  In our daily temptations, we can turn to the Lord, and then rebuke, mentally or verbally, that temptation as not being from God.  Sometimes out-loud is especially effective, because it gets us out of our head.  
    The other option, giving in to temptation, leads to consequences.  It’s a kind of spiritual law of physics.  Just as for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, so in the spiritual life, for every sin to which we acquiesce, there are consequences with which we might have to deal.  It is true that sometimes God can withhold that consequence, for a time or for ever, but He can also let the consequence of sin (which is death) affect us.  
    St. Paul mentions that in his epistle as well.  He mentions the fall of the twenty-three thousand as a consequence of immorality, or those who died by serpents on the way to the Promised Land.  And in our Gospel, we hear our Lord prophesying the destruction of Jerusalem, because the city did not recognize the time of its visitation.  
    We tend to look at these things as punishments.  We think that God is striking this person or that person down because of evil.  But, from other parts of the Gospel, it’s not quite that simple.  Our Lord himself, when talking about the tower that fell, or those who were killed by Pilate, argued that they were no more guilty than others.  Only God knows how, why, and when to allow the consequences of sin to catch up with a person or a group of persons.  And His patience is always for the purpose of allowing for conversion, as St. Peter says in his second epistle.  
    There’s a rather horrible contemporary hymn that was written, and which was very popular in my first assignment, called “The Canticle of the Turning.”  It’s a kind of very, very loose paraphrase of the Magnificat written to the melody of an Irish bar song (sort of the example of everything wrong with contemporary hymnody).  The refrain states, “My heart shall sing of the day you bring / Let the fires of your justice burn.”  I don’t know about you, but if I have the choice between God’s mercy and God’s justice, I will take God’s mercy every day, and twice on Sundays, as the saying goes.  
    But what we want to receive, we need to give to and desire for others.  Our Lord’s teaching on loving our enemies is one of the tougher teachings of the Gospel.  It’s easy to immediately want what we consider to be justice, for the other person to get their just desserts.  How often when I am driving do I see a car run a red light, and I opine, sometimes out-loud, that I hope that there’s a cop around to pull them over.  I can tell you it’s not so much because I’m concerned about my own safety or the safety of others that I want that person pulled over (which would be fine), but because I want that drive to be punished for breaking the rules, which I strive so hard to follow.  If we want to receive mercy, we need to show mercy.  If we want others to have Divine Justice, then we need to be prepared for it to fall upon us as well.

    There is a small chapel on the Mount of Olives, overlooking the city of Jerusalem from the west, called Dominus Flevit, which, for those whose Latin isn’t that sharp, means The Lord Wept.  It’s called that because it is the place (or at least it’s around the place) where today’s Gospel took place and the Lord wept over Jerusalem.  It’s one of my favorite chapels, because as you attend Mass, you see the present-day city of Jerusalem.  But you see it through a wrought-iron image that includes a cross and a host over a chalice.  Outside of pandemics, I would guess that chapel is used every day.  It’s a great reminder for us that the Mass is the prayer of reconciliation of Jesus to the Father, pleading for, not just Jerusalem, but the world, which should be seen through the mystery of the Eucharist.  May our hearts be moved daily to show the mercy of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

What We Offer to God

 Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    While the news has moved on to what it considers to be “juicier” stories, there was quite a bit of digital and literal ink spilled about the US bishops recently, who decided to write a document on our belief in the Eucharist.  Of course, the press focused on the political issues, especially with a baptized Catholic as president of the United States.  But the document that the bishops are drafting goes beyond Catholic politicians, and is meant to help teach us about the Eucharist.  Given that our next few weeks of readings will be focusing on the Eucharist anyway, I thought I would get a head start, and preach about the Eucharist.
    If you look at stats about how many Catholics actually believe what the Church teaches on the Eucharist, it’s pretty depressing (at least if you work for the Church).  From a survey taken in 2019 or so, I think it’s something like 33%.  That’s horribly low!  So the need is there.  I’ll try not to make this too academic, though.
    Before we get to the Eucharist in itself, we can look at what we’re giving God.  In today’s Gospel, the people are hungry, and Jesus wants to feed them.  But there’s only five loaves and two fish.  Still, God takes what the people has, miraculously multiplies it (this whole junk about sharing is trying to force a different message into this Gospel, rather than reading what the Gospel truly says), and then returns it to them.  And in our first reading, bread is brought to Elisha, who multiplies it for the people to eat.  So the people bring what they have and offer it to the Lord, who makes it enough for all who desire to eat.  
    At face value, what we offer for the Eucharist is bread and wine (aren’t you glad it’s not bread and fish??).  When we think of why we use bread and wine for the Eucharist, there is, of course, the reality that bread and wine were common items in Judea at the time of Jesus (and well before that, and well after that, as well).  Bread and wine were also already part of the sacrificial system of the Jews.  There was showbread, which was in the presence of the Lord in the inner temple.  And there were also libations, drink offerings, poured out to God.  So bread and wine were common, not only for food, but for sacrificing.
    But when we look at what we use for the Eucharist, there’s also the reality of how bread and wine are made, which also helps us understand something of why they are used for the celebration of the Mass.  Think of how bread is made.  For our Eucharistic bread, the hosts, it can only be made from flour and water.  Flour comes from wheat which is finely ground.  After baking the mixture of flour and water, we have unleavened bread.  
    Wine is made from grapes.  But you can’t just leave grapes on your counter and magically get wine (you’ll get raisins, I suppose).  You have to crush the grapes in a wine press, and let the juices ferment.  Then you get wine.
    In his 2006 homily on the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, Pope Benedict spoke about the cooperation between God and humanity that is required to get bread and wine that we use in the Eucharist.  God has to provide the fertile fields, and even the water itself in order for wheat to grow.  But then we need to grind the wheat to make the flour.  God has to provide rain and sun for the grapes to grow on the vine, but then we have to press the grapes.  So what we need for the Eucharist is a cooperation between us and God, which is the original intent of God in the Garden of Eden: God and humanity working together to sanctify the world.
    Another text called The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles, which was written around the year 100, also says, “Even as this broken bread was scattered over the hills, and was gathered together and became one, so let Thy Church be gathered together from the ends of the earth into Thy Kingdom.”  The gathering of the different heads of grain is itself an image of the diversity of the human race coming together, and then being offered to God for Him to bless and transform it into something new.  
    But beyond the bread and wine that we offer, Jesus invites us to give all of who we are to Him, to allow Him to transform us into something new.  From the beginning, in the sacrificial system, humanity was invited to give God their all, represented by some earthly thing.  So we, as Catholics, are invited to give all of who we are, and unite it to the bread and wine offered by me on your behalf to God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  We are invited to give God the good and the bad.  Did you have a horrible week, where nothing went right, where you lost friends or family, where the car broke down, where it rained every day on your vacation?  Offer it to God!  Did you have a great week, where you hit every green light when you were late, when your kids and grandkids visited, where you received an unexpected compliment or word of praise?  Offer it to God.  
    God wants all of it, the good and the bad.  He wants to transform it from something simply earthly, to something heavenly, like the Eucharist.  But He will not transform what we do not give Him.  If we do not give Him our life, the daily ups and downs, then they remain simply ours; they remain earthly and limited.  But if we give him what has happened since the last time we came to Mass, He will bless it, transform it, and return it to us as something that helps us draw closer to Him and experience the heavenly life.  
    The invitation has been extended.  Today, and at every Mass you attend, offer to God whatever you have, no matter how little you think it may be.  Let God transform your daily life, as He will shortly, through my ministry, transform the bread and the wine we offer Him, into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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.

Judging Books and Wine

 Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  One of the early lessons we learn as a child is never judge a book by its cover.  There are many stories (some true, some invented) which seem to give credence to this maxim.  I don’t read a ton, but I can tell you that I often decide whether or not I want to pick-up a book by the cover.  There was also a story a year or so back about how wine labels have changed to try to encourage people (especially those of the female persuasion) to buy the bottle without knowing what the wine tastes like.  
    Our Lord seems to be saying that we should judge a book by its cover.  After all, good fruit equals a good tree; bad fruit equals a bad tree.  Doesn’t seem too complicated, and seems to make perfect sense.  And I’m certainly not here to contradict the words of the Son of God.

    Having said that, it’s not quite as simple as: doing bad things makes you a bad person.  Pope St. John Paul II reminded us: “We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures, we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of His Son, Jesus.”  Which of us hasn’t sinned?  And yet, we do not want to be defined by our sins, but by the love of God.  
    Even St. Paul today in the epistle spoke about the conversion of the Romans, how they had been slaves to sin, but they were now slaves of God.  If St. Paul would have defined the Romans by how they had acted before their conversion, he would have simply written them off as damned.  But instead he called them to new life in Christ.  So how do we understand the words that we heard in the Gospel?  
    Part of it, I believe, has to do with a reading of the other parables of our Lord, rather than this one.  In another place, Jesus talks about the weeds sown among the wheat.  He says to let the weeds go until harvest time, when they can be sorted from the wheat.  That sorting would only take place when the “fruit” of the stalk of wheat had come to fruition, when the harvest was ready.  But, at that point, you would be able to tell the good fruit from the bad fruit, the weeds from the wheat.  And perhaps this is what our Lord means when He talks about He says that we can judge a tree by its fruit: it is only at the end that it becomes apparent what the fruit is.
    Think about it in terms of your own life.  Unless you are the Blessed Mother, you have, like me, had moments in life of which you are not proud, where you wandered away from the love of God and His law.  At that moment, you and I were not bearing good fruit.  So, perhaps we should be cut down and thrown into the fire.  And yet, God did not do that.  God was patient with us, like the farmer in the Gospel parable who sees the fig tree not bearing fruit, but waits one more year to see if it bears fruit.  God is patient with us so that we can stop being slaves of the flesh, slaves of immorality, and start being not only slaves, but friends of God.  
    Does this mean that we rest on our laurels, and just coast until the end of life?  It is interesting that, no matter what times weekday Masses are celebrated, it does tend to be older people who attend.  There is a certain sobriety that comes when you realize that you have more years behind you than you have in front of you.  But that seriousness, that wisdom of being a senior, can be had by us now, and not just about going to Mass.  The danger with putting off true and deep conversion until the end is that we never know when our particular end will be.  I could die any day, and Jesus could return any day.  If I am in the habit of delaying my conversion, the change of my heart for our Lord, then I could be caught unawares, and the judgment may come to me like a thief in the night.  
    Each day we are invited to, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “work out our salvation with fear and trembling.”  We do battle and put the old man to death, while trying to be receptive to the grace of God which makes us new men and women in Christ.  Inasmuch as we do this, we are, likely bearing good fruit, which is a good sign.  Inasmuch as I strive for holiness by the grace of God, I am pointing towards heaven.  And, making a regular habit of confession, and perhaps knowing a very short but good act of contrition in case of extreme danger, God knows that I am doing my best to stop being a slave of sin.
    But even in our attempts to follow Jesus, that sin of apathy, or we might say sloth, can creep in.  ‘I am doing what I can, and I may not be perfect, but at least I’ll get to Purgatory,’ we might say to ourselves.  As one professor in seminary told me, humans often have a way of not getting their target, so aim for heaven, in case you fall a bit short.  Don’t aim for Purgatory, because if you miss, well, you get the picture.  
    Further, our Lord reminds us that lip service is not enough.  Words are cheap, and actions speak louder than words.  Even the demons know the truth, but they reject it.  We can know the truth, but do we embrace it?  Do we strive to go by the grace of God on the narrow way to salvation, or do we figure that, because we are in the Church that Jesus founded and have received the sacraments, we don’t have to worry or respond to the gift of salvation each day?  
    “The wages of sin is death,” St. Paul tells us (in grammar that only works in Greek).  If we embrace the death of sin in this life, we know what will await us in the next.  Our fruit, at the harvest of our particular judgement, will be bad.  But if we embrace the life of our Lord each day, our fruit, at the harvest of our particular judgement, will be good, and we will enjoy eternal happiness in the kingdom of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Chosen, Not the Series

Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    When I was in elementary school, one of the biggest highlights of the day was recess.  At our small parochial school, St. Mary in Williamston, whether it was warm or cold, we would play soccer on the asphalt parking lot.  But, before we could play, we had to choose teams, which meant that the captains had to pick whom they wanted for their team.  Of course, the captains would always pick the best players first, and it was a great ego boost if you were picked early, rather than being picked last.
    We hear about a lot of choosing today, in all three readings.  God chooses Amos to prophesy, though Amos wasn’t really looking to be picked.  Jesus picks the Twelve Apostles, and sends them on their mission to assist Jesus in proclaiming the Gospel.  And St. Paul, in our second reading, reminds us that we have been chosen “before the foundation of the world, to be holy.”  Do you consider yourself chosen?
 

The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio

   God did choose you.  He chose you, not only for life, but for holiness, and for witnessing to His life, love, and truth.  You were chosen for holiness and witness when you were baptized.  At that moment, your life was not about you, but about the mission, about showing by the way you live and what you do that you belong to God and that true happiness is not found by giving in to passing pleasures, but by restraining ourselves, dying to ourselves, so that we can live most freely for God. 
    From baptism to your confirmation, you were being prepared for the mission.  You were (hopefully) being taught the basic truths of the faith, and being schooled in virtue so that you could more easily choose the good and reject what is evil.  You may have not decided to be chosen (many were baptized as infants), but you also didn’t decide to be born; that choice was made for you.  And your parents hopefully loved you enough to decide which foods you could eat to help you grow into a healthy human being.  Again, you didn’t decide that for yourself, but your parents wanted to give you the best foundation possible in both your earthly and your spiritual life.
    When you were confirmed, you didn’t decide whether or not you were chosen.  You were already chosen in baptism, and nothing can stop you from being chosen from that point on.  Each person, after baptism, has a seal, a character, that is indelible, which cannot be washed away.  So many children are wrongly taught that confirmation is them choosing to remain Catholic.  Once a  person is baptized, that person is always a baptized Catholic, whether that person chooses to live the faith or reject the faith.  Confirmation, is where you stand before God and His Church and say that you are ready to witness that life of Jesus in your own life, and that you are ready to share with others the faith you have received.  And God sends His Holy Spirit upon you to make that witness possible.  God confirms His original choice of you and continues to give you the means by which you can respond to that choice. 
    Perhaps this is a new message for us.  Perhaps you’ve never heard this before.  But you have been chosen.  Amos was accused of choosing himself, of belonging to a prophetic guild (think of it as a club for prophets).  But, he tells the pagan priest, Amaziah that he did not volunteer, but God chose him to speak God’s word to the Israelites so that they could turn away from their sins and live for God.  Perhaps you feel like you’re not stepping forward to witness to God by your words and deeds.  But God wants you anyway to speak His Word to a world that needs to hear it.
    Perhaps you do feel chosen, but you don’t feel equipped for the mission.  You might be like the Twelve Apostles, whom Jesus chose, but then who needed some time spent with Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit before they were ready to witness to Jesus.  The Apostles weren’t the smartest people.  They came from different political backgrounds, and would compete with each other for the place of honor.  But, through spending time with Jesus, hearing His truth, and by the gift of the Holy Spirit, they were empowered to proclaim Christ by their lives and by their deaths (St. John the Apostle was the only one who was not martyred).  The same can be said for us.  If we want to live according to our Divine election, we need to spend time with Jesus, and ask Him to stir up into flame the gift of the Holy Spirit that we received at Confirmation. 
    No matter whether we feel chosen or not, St. Paul says that we are, chosen to exist for “the praise of [God’s] glory.”  As a married person, as a parent, as an employer or employee or retiree, as a priest, as a deacon, as a sister or brother, as a child, as a student, in every walk of life, we have been chosen, and our eternal salvation depends on the response to that choice.  We may witness in big ways, or we may witness in small ways, but may God encourage us as those He has chosen for His team, which, in the end, is the only team that will win.