Jump In! The Water's Great!!

First Sunday of Lent

            For many young children, and this was certainly true in my own life, there’s nothing quite as fun and as scary as water.  Right now we’d all probably love it to be a little warmer, so let’s think about a pool or a lake in the hot summer sun.  The adults are all in, splashing around, swimming, maybe diving if it’s safe.  And the little kid is waiting on the shore or on the patio, wondering if it really is ok to jump in.  All the adults say it’s fine, that you’ll naturally float.  And yet, it’s hard to trust that water.

            Water for the ancients was a sign of chaos and death.  In the beginning of the Book of Genesis, God separates the land from the water and orders the earth.  But the waters were still chaotic.  Imagine an early mariner trying to navigate the seas, when storms seem to pop up from nowhere, and currents take you places you do not want to go.  Even those who wanted to enjoy the water for recreation had to beware of the undertow and strong waves that could do real damage.

            This idea of the danger of water was reaffirmed in the story of Noah and the Great Flood.  Water becomes the agent of God wiping out the evil of the earth, and from which Noah and his family are saved by the ark.  And this is why St. Peter sees baptism as prefigured in the story of the Great Flood: in baptism, the elect go down, under the water, symbolizing the death of Christ, and then they rise to new life as they are pulled up from the water.  Just like Noah, Christians are saved from the destruction of chaos, this time not by a boat, but by Jesus Christ.

            With all this talk about baptism, you might think we’re celebrating the Baptism of the Lord. Even our Gospel passage is situated immediately after Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan by St. John the Baptist.  But that was over a month ago in January.  We’re still in Lent.  So why all this talk about baptism?

            This Lent is a microcosm of what happens to us after our baptism.  Just like with Jesus, as He was driven into the desert by the Holy Spirit after His baptism, so, too, after our baptism do we begin a time of wandering in the desert, guided by the Holy Spirit, waiting to come to the end of our penitential pilgrimage to the joys of the heavenly Kingdom. 

            After we are baptized, we have grace from God to follow him, which is why we often baptize children: because we know they need the grace so they can eventually make it out of the desert and into the oasis of heaven.  But let’s be honest, there are a number of times where, unlike Jesus, we fall to the temptations of Satan.  Still, our entire lives are trying to pass through the desert of a sinful world and make it to the oasis, the garden of heaven, after the example of Jesus’ 40 days in the desert.

            And, just like Jesus, who had angels ministering to him among the wild beasts, we, too have angels helping us on our way through this Valley of Tears.  Our post-baptismal time is not only a time of suffering and self-denial, but is also a time of joy as we celebrate happy occasions.  But, even with these happy occasions, the fact remains that we’re not at the destination yet, and that is the source of our sadness.  As St. Paul says, while we are in the body (here on earth), we are away from our eternal home (where our body will be free from all that limits us and drags us down). 

            So how do we make it through this desert?  How do we come to the oasis?  We progress in the desert as we progress in the spiritual life.  The more we say yes to God and no to sin, the further along we are.  Sometimes we’re like the Israelites, who were not far from the Promised Land, but who, because of sin, had to wander around a while because they lost their way by not trusting in God.  When we sin, we start walking away from God and away from heaven, and start walking to hell, which is exactly the place we don’t want to be. 

            So through our penitential practices, we’re trying to train the body to recognize the signs of approaching the Promised Land.  By denying ourselves good things, we train ourselves to recognize the One who is Goodness Himself, and from whom all things, which are good, get their goodness.  Through increased prayer, whether increasing the time with the Lord, or increasing the quality of time we spend with the Lord, we get directions for how to arrive quickly to that Promised Land and start receiving some of its goodness even here on earth.

            The good news is that Jesus has gone before us and blazed the trail for us through the desert.  If we follow His path, then we know we’ll arrive at the same place he did.  Of course, on that path is the cross, and some of us would rather avoid that.  But the only way to get to the resurrection is through the cross.  So if we want to share in the Paradise of Heaven, then we have to pass through the Desert of Suffering and unite it with Jesus’ own sufferings.  But, we’re not alone; we also have myriad of saints who can help us along the way, both by seeing where they went and how they arrived at heaven, as well as by their assistance through our prayers to them for their help in our own pilgrimage. 

            We, like the saints who help us, are called to help the catechumens as they prepare for baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist, and the candidates as they prepare to make their profession of faith, and are then confirmed and receive the Eucharist.  (At this Mass, we will send them to Bishop Boyea with our prayers as their desires for union with the Church are accepted by our local Good Shepherd).  In the back of the Church we have an opportunity to take a slip of paper with a name of a catechumen or candidate so that, as they prepare for full initiation, they know that we are supporting them as they prepare to join us on the straight and narrow road that baptism provides to the Kingdom. 

            Jesus Christ has shown us the way, because He is the Way, and the Truth, and the Life.  During this Lenten season of penance, let’s remember and recommit ourselves to following His Way, so that we can pass through this desert, this Valley of Tears, and come to the Paradise promised to those who follow Him faithfully.

Leprosy?

Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Sometimes people will ask me when I start preparing my homily.  We were taught at Sacred Heart to always take a look at the readings for the following Sunday by the previous Monday, at the latest.  When looking over them I tend to look for trends or themes in the readings, and then to mull it over for a good couple of days, letting the readings bounce around in my head and seeing what the Lord wants me to say.  Sometimes I end up zeroing in the Gospel, other times it’s a combination of two of the readings, and on rare occasions, all three readings seem to have a similar theme.

            Looking over the readings this past week, the theme of the readings as I looked them over seemed to be leprosy.  It’s a major point in our first reading and Gospel passage today.  But I wondered, ‘What am going to do with that?’  This is a homily, not a medical school lecture (although it is important to note that the leprosy the Bible speaks of could be a number of skin ailments, and was most likely not limited to Hansen’s Disease).

            What struck me were the two different approaches God takes to leprosy.  In the first reading, God tells Moses and Aaron that “‘The one who bears the sore of leprosy shall keep his garments rent and his head bare, and shall muffle his beard; he shall cry out, “Unclean, unclean!”  […] He shall dwell apart, making his abode outside the camp.’”  In essence, God is telling Moses and Aaron, and all the priests and scribes that will follow and interpret this passage, to ostracize the leper.

            And yet, when it comes to the Gospel, Jesus not only welcomes the leper into His presence, but even touches the man.  This seems the exact opposite reaction to God’s warning in the Old Testament.  It’s not hard to see how, as a Jew at the time of Jesus, it was confusing for this apparent carpenter’s son from Nazareth to claim He was God, yet at the same time seem to go against what God had said in Sacred Scripture.  It’s also easy to see how one of the early heresies of the Church, Marcionism, asserted that the God of the Old Testament was a wrathful, angry God and was a lower deity than the God of the New Testament, proclaimed by Jesus to be loving, forgiving, and welcoming to the outcast. 

            But, Jesus is the same God, of the same substance (hence we use the term in our Creed consubstantial) as God the Father.  They are distinct Divine Persons, but the same deity.  And we cannot separate the two into different revelations, as if the Old Testament is opposed to the New Testament.  Rather, the New Testament is the fulfillment of the Old Testament.  So what do we do with these two readings?

            In my meditation on these Scriptures, I found that leprosy could be interpreted allegorically to mean not so much a physical illness, but a spiritual illness.  And in general, we can refer to the illnesses of the soul as sin.  So what we’re really working with is the way God treats sin.

            God was slowly teaching His people, the Chosen People, about who He is, and how the world works.  As He taught them about leprosy, and how it distances people from the community, we can easily see how this is also true of sin.  One of the effects of sin is that it damages or ruptures our relationship with God and our relationship with each other, including even the rest of the created world.  Remember that all the world was in harmony in the Garden of Eden, but after Adam and Eve sinned, the whole created order was ruined, and even the plants stopped bearing fruit easily for our first parents, the animals, rather than being obedient and docile to them, started to either run away or to attack them, and even Adam and Eve started to desire each other not in accord with Divine Law, and so had to cover their nakedness.  Certainly, all was not totally ruined.  Adam and Eve were still carrying in them the image of God, but that image had been marred, and all creation felt the effects of the original sin.

            Jesus, as the full revelation of the Father, does not deny that sin damages or ruptures the relationship with God and with the community, but completes the message that God wanted to communicate, that He is also the one who can heal sin.  Yes, sin injures us and causes separation, but if we come to the Lord, then He heals us of our sins and restores us to a right relationship with God and with each other.  Sin does not get the last word, but grace does. 

            These two passages are not used to explain the Catholic teaching on the Sacrament of Reconciliation, but read allegorically, it can help us to understand that sacrament.  Because sin damages our relationship with God and with each other, we need someone who can represent both God and the community, and to heal what has been injured.  And so the priest, acting in the Person of Christ the Head, speaks for Jesus in the words of absolution.  And the priest, also because he is able to act in the Person of Christ the Head, who is Head of His Body, the Church, acts in the Person of the Church to welcome the sinner back to communion with each other. 

            The Good News is that God has shown us the effects of sin: damaging our relationship with God and with the community in the Book of Leviticus.  But He does not leave us to be forever separated.  In the Person of Jesus, God reveals that the separation does not have to be forever.  If we come to Jesus, through the Sacrament of Reconciliation, we can be forgiven our sins and returned to a right relationship not only with God, but also with each other.  May we utilize this great sacrament of God’s love and forgiveness regularly, especially in the approaching season of Lent, and thank God that He has given us the divine remedy for the spiritual illnesses the plague us. 

In the bulletin this weekend is last week’s response from Bishop Boyea to the Health and Human Services mandate.  This past Friday, the Administration proposed a compromise that it felt would address the major issues with which not only Catholics, but also Evangelicals and members of the Jewish community and others have grave concerns.  To this proposed compromise the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops replied:

“[The compromise] continues to involve needless government intrusion in the internal governance of religious institutions and to threaten government coercion of religious people and groups to violate their most deeply held convictions…The only complete solution to this religious liberty problem is for the HHS to rescind the mandate of these objectionable services.

We will therefore continue—with no less vigor, no less sense of urgency—our efforts to correct this problem through the other two branches of government…and we renew our call to the Catholic faithful, and to all our fellow Americans, to join together in this effort to protect religious liberty and freedom of conscience for all.”

Again, this is not a partisan issue: this is an issue of the Federal government, even in this new proposal, being allowed to force institutions and individual citizens to violate their consciences.  As Catholic Americans, regardless of which party we support, we should work hard to make sure that the government can never tell any institution or person: Catholic, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu or any person of faith to do something which is contrary to that institution’s or person’s faith.

"We're on a Mission from God"

 Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            Well, we all know that there’s a big game today.  To be honest, I’m not really a Giants or a Patriots fan.  I’ll cheer on the Giants tonight, mostly because I am a Payton Manning fan, and his younger brother, Eli, is playing for the Giants.  If I had my wish, the Detroit Lions would be playing this evening in the Super Bowl.  But, I suppose that if the Lions had played in the Super Bowl, and had won, then I would be coming back here, because we know that would be a sign that the end of the world was imminent.  

            But whether you’re a Giants fan or a Patriots fan, we all know that for each and every one of those athletes, their mind is on one thing and one thing alone: winning that game.  That is, as it were, their mission, and they’re probably hoping that they’re not on a Mission Impossible.

            What is our mission as Catholics?  As St. Thomas Aquinas parish and St. John Church and Student Center, we have a mission statement: “We are a Roman Catholic parish in a university community, joining students of all ages, joining people from all walks of life and from all corners of the world through Jesus Christ, our Lord.  As a Eucharistic people, we nurture spiritual growth through worship, evangelization, stewardship, education, service, justice, outreach and hospitality.”  This mission statement was crafted by members of our Parish Pastoral Council, which is a visionary board with the task of helping Fr. Mark with their advice of how the parish can fulfill that mission statement.

            But imagine being asked, “What is your mission?” on the street and trying to remember all of that.  It’s a great mission statement, but it would be hard to remember all of the wording.  Jesus, in today’s Gospel passage, give us His mission: “‘Let us go on to the nearby villages that I may preach there also.  For this purpose I have come.’”  Jesus’ mission is to preach.  And what is He preaching?  The Gospel, the Good News, of God’s love and Truth, made manifest in Jesus’ very Person. 

            This was also the mission of St. Paul.  We hear his words to the people of Corinth today in his first epistle: “If I preach the gospel, this is no reason for me to boast, for an obligation has been imposed on me, and woe to me if I do not preach it!”  Yes, it is a mission for Paul, but he also calls it an obligation.

            St. Paul has this obligation because he was called to be an apostle, one sent out by Jesus to preach Jesus, and Him crucified, as Paul says elsewhere, for the salvation of souls.  But what about us, who are not the bishops, the successors of the apostles?  What is our mission?  Well, if one part of the definition of the Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and we are members of that Mystical Body through baptism, then our mission is the same as Jesus’: to preach.  But we do not preach ourselves because we cannot save anyone.  Only Jesus saves.  So we preach Jesus: His Word, His Teaching, His saving Gospel.

            This was affirmed by Vatican II on the Apostolate of the Laity: “The Church was founded for the purpose of spreading the kingdom of Christ throughout the earth for the glory of God the Father, to enable all men to share in His saving redemption, and that through them the whole world might enter into a relationship with Christ.”  This is what the Church calls the apostolate, when each and every member, each in his or her own way according to the individual state in life, is acting towards that purpose.  “In the Church,” the document continues, “there is a diversity of ministry but a oneness of mission…[The Laity] exercise the apostolate in fact by their activity directed to the evangelization and sanctification of men and to the penetrating of the temporal order through the spirit of the Gospel.”  In other words, while our parish mission statement is certainly helpful, we can really pare it down to the final words of Jesus in the Gospel according to Matthew: “‘Go and make disciples of all nations.’”

            So how do we do that?  We know the what, now what’s the how?  To be honest, there are as many ways to spread the Gospel as there are people here.  We can do it through the way we act and talk at work, the way we relax, the media we promote, etc.  Each day God gives us new opportunities to share with people how important our relationship with Jesus is so that they want the joy and the love that we have found in Christ and His Church.  We are obliged, as was St. Paul, to make Christ known through our actions and through our words.  We can’t just choose one.  If all we do is act uprightly, that’s a good start, but we need to speak about Jesus to those who do not know Him at all, or those who do not know Him fully.  If all we do is speak about Jesus but do not let that influence our actions, then we need to show people by our deeds that the words we speak are not hollow, but change the way we live.

            One opportunity to preach the Gospel has been handed to us recently by the Federal Government.  The United States Department of Health and Human Services has declared that health benefit plans must include coverage for sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs, without an exception for those religions that teach that such coverage is contrary to its faith.  The Catholic Church in the United States will never comply with this mandate.  This nation is built upon the three-legged stool of the First Amendment.  Our precious freedoms of religion, speech, and assembly underlie everything this nation is, and everything this nation has ever accomplished.  Religious liberty gives the freedom to preach the Truth.  And the truth is that pregnancy is not a disease.  Nor is the natural fertility of a woman a disease.  Through the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and the Michigan Catholic Conference, the Diocese of Lansing is exploring a number of options, including litigation and Congressional reform.  As these efforts move forward, we Catholics should make clear to our elected officials the crucial importance of religious liberty, and we should pray daily for those who have the responsibility of making these decisions.

            By the laity taking an active role in politics, advising their representatives, regardless of political party, that we will not allow the Federal Government to infringe upon the conscience rights of citizens, we preach the Gospel.  By insisting that Christian people not be compelled to participate in immoral activity, we participate in the mission of Christ to stand up for the Truth. This is not a partisan issue.  This is our obligation, our mission, as members of the Body of Christ, to preach the Gospel, always and everywhere, even when it is difficult.