Truth: Proposition and Person

Fourth Sunday after Easter
    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Math is not my thing.  Math is good, but it’s not something I focus on or am drawn to in my life.  There were many days in high school that I wondered whether I would ever use what I learned in Algebra I, Geometry, or Algebra II later in life.  But today, at even if just in this homily, it seems like math is once again useful.
    The math that came to mind when reading over the Gospel was the Transitive Property of Equality.  This law states that if A is equal to B, and B is equal to C, then A is equal to C.  What does that have to do with the Gospel?  Well, our Lord states that when the Spirit of truth comes, He will teach us all truth.  But the Christ Himself also says, “‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’”  So the Spirit of truth will lead us to truth, but Christ is truth, so the Spirit will lead us to Christ.
    Pope Francis, may he rest in peace, emphasized this point in his weekly audience in May 2013, when he said:
 

Jesus himself told his disciples: the Holy Spirit “will guide you into all the truth”, since he himself is “the Spirit of Truth”.  We are living in an age in which people are rather sceptical [sic] of truth.  Benedict xvi [sic] has frequently spoken of relativism, that is, of the tendency to consider nothing definitive….And yet Jesus is exactly this: the Truth that, in the fullness of time, “became flesh”, and came to dwell among us so that we might know it.  The truth is not grasped as a thing, the truth is encountered.  It is not a possession, it is an encounter with a Person.

We often think of truths like we think of mathematical laws: propositions that explain reality.  But truth cannot be limited to propositions, but desires to be encountered in the Divine Person of our Lord.
    We can try to limit truth to mere propositions.  We might say: you must believe this fact; or you must live in that way.  But for Catholics, these propositions do not exist simply as Platonic ideas in a far away heaven.  For Catholics, our beliefs and our morality reveal to us who Christ is, which is important because Christ reveals who we can be to us.  Gaudium et spes, the Pastoral Constitution of the Church in the Modern World from the Second Vatican Council puts it this way: “The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light….Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear.”

    And the Church Fathers from the earliest times recognized this revelation of who God desires us to be so clearly.  At the end of this month, we will celebrate in this church, with our Orthodox brothers and sisters in Genesee County, the 1700th anniversary of the First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea.  At this first ecumenical council in the life of the Church, the 318 bishops affirmed that Christ is consubstantial with the Father (‘𝜊𝜇𝜊𝜊𝜐𝜎𝜄𝜊𝜍 is the Greek term; we say consubstantialem in Latin), rather than what the heretic Arius taught, which was that Christ was an exalted part of God’s creation, but merely a created being.  But the fathers recognized that if Christ was not co-equal God, then He could not save us.  As St. Athanasius said, “God became man so that man might become God.”     So Christ reveals to us, in this proposition of truth, that we are those saved by God Incarnate.  We encounter the mystery of God-made-man, which allows us to understand that we are worth saving, that God would come to us and take on our human nature so that our human nature could be united to God.  While there are propositions that are true, we can more easily reject cold axioms.  But if Truth is a Person, then our connection to that axiom becomes a relationship with a brother, an opportunity to love and be loved and become the fullest version of ourselves, revealed by the one who created us.
    And Truth in flesh calls us to go deeper than merely the recitation of facts or axioms.  This becomes clearer when you think about your spouse or your best friend.  I could tell you that my best friend has brown hair, is six-foot-something tall, is muscular, works for the State Police, is married with children, likes to joke around and poke fun at me for mediocre homilies.  You might know those facts, but if you haven’t met Anthony, you wouldn’t fully appreciate who he is and how he is.  I could list all the facts in the world, but the encounter with him gives a reality that stating facts never could.  The same is truth for our faith: we could give all the facts about our Lord, but until you encounter Him, you cannot truly love Him, and only in encountering Him can that love blossom so that it gives us the fullness of joy that God desires for us.

    Yes, the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Father and the Son to the Church, leads us to understand propositions and axioms of how God made the world and how we are to live in it to find happiness.  But the Holy Spirit leads us to so much more than that!  The Holy Spirit leads us to encounter the Truth that surpasses propositions, because the Truth is not an “it” but a “He,” a Person that loves us, has shown us how to be truly happy, and that desires our love in return, Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  

Working Out With God

Passion Sunday

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Two Thursdays ago I met up with Sgt. Anthony Dent to work out with him and some other Troopers and Cadets of the Michigan State Police.  Anthony likes to push me when we work out, and I think one of his proudest moments working out with me is when his workout made me throw-up.  This particular workout was in the cross-fit style, and had us paired up, going against other pairs of Troopers and Cadets.  For the workout, each pair would share the following exercises in this order, not moving on to the next exercise until the previous was completed: 100 burpees; 100 calorie row; 100 barbell thrusters; 100 ab-mat sit-ups; 100 push presses; 100 box jumps; 1-mile run with a 14-pound medicine ball.  The first set was a challenge.  The second set started to kick my butt.  The third set and following got much harder, until I couldn’t even do the box-jumps, but had to substitute 2 box step-ups for every 1 box jump.  As each set progressed, Anthony did a greater percentage of the exercise.  I even had another sergeant help me with the box step-ups, because I was very gassed.
    When it comes to salvation, we might feel like we just have to muscle through and do it ourselves.  God gives us the rules (the workout), and we have to do it in order to get to heaven (rest).  While I’m loathe to compare Anthony to God, because he already has a very-healthy sense of self-worth, what we often find is that the harder we try to keep up, the more we fall behind.  We give it our all, but get more and more tired, until we are exhausted and don’t feel like we can do anything else.  And, unlike working out with others, you can’t have someone else do the exercise for you.
    So today’s first reading provides a great reminder for us: Christ already saved us!  His sacrifice, not ours, however good they may be, won reconciliation for us and the Father.  Before Christ, we tried all sorts of things to be saved: living according to the law, offering different sacrifices that God Himself had told us to make.  But that old covenant, written in stone, could not bring us into right relationship with God.  As the Apostle says elsewhere, it was only a tutor for us, to know how wrong our passions led us astray.  The new covenant, sealed in the Precious Blood of Christ, opened for us our eternal inheritance of heaven.  
    But so often, we try to do it all ourselves.  We live as if our entrance into the heavenly Temple depends only on us and our moral rectitude.  But if we live that way, we become more and more tired, are able to do less and less, and end up in failure.
    So, does that mean we can say that we simply believe in the Lord, confess that the Savior died for our sins, get baptized, and then never worry about going anywhere other than heaven?  While that is what some of our Protestant brothers and sisters seem to espouse, that is the other extreme, which we also need to avoid.  Rather, virtue lies in the middle between trying to earn our salvation (which we cannot do) and presuming our salvation (which we should not do).  Our response is to put faith in what God has done (which we could never do) while also working out our salvation with fear and trembling, to paraphrase St. Paul.
    Our good actions find their goodness inasmuch as they are connected to Christ.  By themselves, they do no more than the blood of goats or calves.  But if we unite to the cross our daily efforts to live in according with the covenant written in our hearts, prophesied by Jeremiah and fulfilled by Christ, then we will get somewhere.  We will advance in holiness because our efforts are now connecting to the “effort” that truly made a difference, the sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb of God.  To go back to my cross-fit analogy, it’s as if God has already done the entire workout and won us the prize.  But He wants us to engage in it because it will help us become more like Him.  Still, He knows we cannot do it all on our own, so He’s right there, by our side, picking up our slack, doing what we can’t, and encouraging us to do more than we think is possible, because all things are possible with Him.
    That is the day that Abraham saw from afar and in which he rejoiced.  Abraham longed for the day when God would close the gap that we had created by our disobedience.  He looked forward to a time when he would not simply have to act by faith, and presume his own efforts would be enough.  He rejoiced in God accomplishing what no mere human could: defeating sin and death and opening up eternal salvation.  And Abraham’s faith was not disappointed.
    So, by all means, in these last two weeks of Lent, may we not slack off on our Lenten disciplines and penances.  Work hard to put to death all within us that is not of God.  But do so knowing that God has already saved us; salvation doesn’t depend on us.  But God does want us to cooperate with Him in the work of salvation, complete the race, and enjoy the prize of eternal rest with the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Amen. 

Incremental Growth

Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

(l-r) Anthony and Fr. Anthony

    When you have a goal, sometimes it’s easy to want to be at the end result, rather than being satisfied that you have done today what you need to in order to achieve that goal.  My best friend Anthony is very strong and very much in shape.  And when I started lifting weights over a year ago, I wanted my body to look like his.  I wanted the big biceps and pecs.  Now, if Anthony were to stand up next to me today, you would see that I have not yet achieved that goal.  But, I am bigger than I used to be, with better defined muscles.
    When it comes to our spiritual life, it is easy to fall prey to the same mentality, that we should achieve the goal immediately.  We read the lives of the saints, which helps us because we see in them the goal of living our baptismal promises.  But then we realize that we’re not at their level yet.  This can push us onwards, or it can also lead to a bit of despair, because we can worry that we will never achieve our goal because we haven’t achieved it yet.
    As we hear the call of the first Apostles–Andrew and John, and then Andrew invites Peter–we can see them searching for a more meaningful life, searching for the Messiah and desiring to associate themselves with Him.  To use the weight-lifting example, it’s as if St. John the Baptist says about Jesus, “Look at that guy flex!” and Andrew and John are amazed enough to follow a new leader, and Andrew even invites his own brother to join in.
    But Jesus doesn’t lay out for them everything that will happen, either to Himself or to them.  He doesn’t unfold how life will fully be like following the Messiah and being part of His inner circle.  He doesn’t explain that He’s going to wander around Judea and Galilee preaching and performing miracles.  He doesn’t tell them that He will forgive sins, which is reserved for God, or heal the blind, sick, and lame, and even raise a dead girl to life.  He doesn’t tell them that the Pharisees are not going to be fans, and are going to dog Him and His followers everywhere they go.  He doesn’t tell them that He will walk on water, multiple bread and fish for five thousand, or ride triumphantly into Jerusalem.  He certainly doesn’t tell them that the same crowd that joyously welcomes Him to Jerusalem for the upcoming feast of Passover will call for His crucifixion, which He will undergo, abandoned by most of His disciples. 
    He doesn’t tell them that they will be called Apostles, and will be the new patriarchs of the new Israel.  He doesn’t tell them that they will heal people and exorcise demons in His Name.  He doesn’t tell them that they will, more often than not, lack understanding of His teachings.  He doesn’t tell them that they will be sent out, rather early in the game, to preach His arrival.  He doesn’t tell them that one of the most trusted friends will betray Him for money, while the leader of His trusted friends will even deny knowing Him. 
    What does He say?  “‘Come, and you will see.’”  And Andrew, John, and Peter will stay with Jesus that day.  All that would happen, both to Christ and to the Apostles, is contained in that simple phrase, “Come, and you will see.”  He knew they weren’t ready for everything yet, that they had to slowly prepare for everything, so He didn’t share everything yet.  Just like, when I started lifting weights, I didn’t try to bench 205 lbs. (my current best).  When I started, I think I was lifting 75 lbs. and feeling the burn.  If I would have tried 205 lbs. when I started, I would have failed, and maybe given up.  But I persevered, and now am trying to get up to 225 lbs. 

NOT Fr. Anthony or Anthony

    God doesn’t give us everything all at once, even when we might desire to know it.  Like so many things in nature, the growth happens slowly, organically, methodically.  Yes, sometimes there are spurts of growth, but if the weight of the final goal was placed upon the embryonic beginning, it would crush the start so that the finish would never happen.  I think about it in terms of my own parents’ marriage.  In 1979, when my parents said, “I do,” they had no idea that my dad would convert to Catholicism and be baptized; that he would eventually become a deacon; that they would have three kids; that one kid (me) would fall eight feet, head first, onto a concrete floor (I know some of you are thinking, ‘That explains it!’); that one would be in a horrific car accident that would require weeks of hospitalization and rehab, and leave scars over her arm; that one would have difficulty with her hips at a young age, and then require lots of trips to the ER and breathing treatments for asthma; the time and effort they would put in to caring for their moms in their last days of life; that they wouldn’t both be able to be close to their fathers at the end of life due to COVID.  I’m not sure any couple could handle that at the age of 21 and 19, or any age.  But they have gone through all that and more, taking things one day at a time with Jesus, and seeing where He leads them. 
    Striving for holiness is a day-by-day affair.  We are not saints all at once, but each day choose to say yes to God and no to anything opposed to Him.  If you want to be a saint, then commit yourself, just for each today that you have, to stay with Jesus that today.  After the numerous todays that you spend with Him and cooperate with His grace, you’ll see the difference.  Your end will be determined by the daily decision you make to remain with Jesus.  Where does God want to lead you?  “Come, and you will see.”