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.

Sweet, Juicy Fruit

 Fifth Sunday of Easter
    When I was young I had a bad encounter with chocolate (I ate too much), and so I tend not to eat very much chocolate candy.  I’ll do the occasional Snickers bar, but when it comes to Hershey’s chocolate bars or kisses, or other types of pure chocolate candies, I tend not to eat them.  What I do love is fruit.  Especially berries, but also grapes, apples, oranges, pears, kiwi, pineapple, mangoes, etc., I tend to satisfy my sweet tooth with fruit.

    So when Jesus starts talk about grapes today, He has my attention!  We’ve heard this Gospel numerous times before, and Deacon Dave even mentioned it last weekend when he mentioned Jesus saying to us, “‘I am the vine, you are the branches.’”  Often times we focus on remaining connected to Jesus, and that is certainly important.  As Jesus reminds us, we cannot do anything good without Him.  
    How do we stay connected?  We read the Word of God, the Bible; we pray daily; we go to confession regularly and worship God at Mass at least each Sunday and Holyday; we serve Jesus in our service of the poor.  Think about how much time we devote to all sorts of other things, but how much time do we devote to Jesus?  
    But, rather than talking about remaining connected to Jesus, today I want to focus on the result of staying close to Jesus.  What happens when the branches stay connected to the vine?  You get grapes!  Sweet, delicious grapes!  The grapes are the fruit that are produced by staying connected.  So Jesus promises us that if we remain in him, then we will bear much fruit.  If we don’t bear fruit, then we will be thrown into the fire, like a brach that no longer produces grapes.  
    How do we bear fruit?  So the word “Catholic” is thrown around as is being baptized means that a person doesn’t need to do anything else  Sometimes in my mind I start wondering if I ever saw the person at Mass, if the person read the Bible regularly and prayed daily.  I wonder how much the person cared for the poor and the marginalized.  It is easy, as St. John reminded us in the second reading, to love “in word or speech,” but bearing fruit means loving “in deed and truth.”  
    It some ways it used to be easier to be Catholic.  We had external markers that at least gave an appearance of our faith.  When Betty Baptist invited Charlie Catholic over for dinner on Friday night, Charlie made sure to say that he couldn’t have meat.  Many families spent part of Saturday morning not on the soccer field, but in the confessional.  And, to the extent possible, many Catholics avoided any sort of menial work on Sundays.
    Those externals don’t necessarily mean that you’re bearing fruit.  You can abstain from meat and not love Jesus; you can go to confession but not be truly sorry; you can avoid work on Sundays but not do it to grow closer to God.  But bearing fruit does mean that our life is different.  
    I know we don’t like to be different.  But being Catholic means being different, just as Jesus was different.  It means being patient with the person who cut in right before the construction zone starts.  It means not participating in the office gossip about the employee who doesn’t seem to get along or get the job done.  It means treating all people, regardless of race, gender, religion, sexual-orientation with respect and dignity because all of us are created in the image and likeness of God.
    But being different also means that we avoid taking God’s Name in vain.  It means being here, at Mass, every Sunday, whether we feel like it or not, or whether we think we’re getting anything out of it or not, because our time during Mass is about worshipping God well more than it is about us “getting” something.  Being different means that we help women to choose life rather than abortion; that we conceive a child according to God’s plan rather than through artificial means like in vitro fertilization or surrogacy.  It means we give time, talent, and treasure to taking care of those who cannot care for themselves.  Those are all ways that we bear fruit, though there are, of course, more.
    Do we do it perfectly?  I know I don’t!  I try to be, but realize that I am not always a paragon of discipleship.  But when I fail, I turn back to the Lord, asking for His mercy in the Sacrament of Penance, and with true sorrow and a desire to sin no more with God’s help, I start again, to stay connected to Jesus and bear fruit.
    It’s easy to say, “I’m Catholic.”  You can say that without doing much of anything else.  But in order to bear fruit, as Jesus asks us to, we have to respond to the graces God gives us by remaining with Him on the vine.  And Catholics bearing fruit is exactly how this, and any parish, can grow, so that we, like the "church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria” that we heard about in our first reading, can be “built up and [walk] in the fear of the Lord, and…[grow] in numbers.” 

Catholic Identity

Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time

A parishioner was recently asking me about my work with the Michigan State Police.  In the midst of the conversation, I started to talk about how, for law enforcement officers in general, their work is their life.  That’s not to say they don’t have hobbies outside of work, but simply that their work changes who they are, how they see people, and how they act.  One example: if a cop goes out to eat, even off duty, he or she almost always will sit facing the entrance, if at all possible, to see what’s going on, who’s coming in, etc.  The same could be said for being a mother: it changes how you see things, and you’re always a mom, even if the child doesn’t necessarily belong to you.  And I’m sure there are others whose identity changes how they relate to the world they encounter each day.

I bring this up because the same should be able to be said about us as Catholics, as followers of Jesus.  Being Catholic is not a matter of belonging to an ancient club, with dues, with old rituals, with hierarchy, that provides certain privileges.  Being Catholic is not only about coming to Mass one day each week.  Being Catholic is, as St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, having the same attitude as Christ.  And when we have that same attitude, it changes everything we do.

A statue of King David
from Jerusalem

Even before Jesus, we can see what that looks like in our first reading.  David had been anointed by the Prophet Samuel to take over for King Saul after Saul was dead.  David’s fame and power kept growing, while King Saul’s fame and power was waning (remember that he had disobeyed the Lord, which is why the Lord’s favor left him).  Because of this, King Saul wanted to kill David, to get rid of his rival.  So David had to flee.  But King Saul pursued David.  And that’s where our first reading comes in today.  David is hiding from King Saul, but finds him asleep, along with all of his men.  David could have killed King Saul (Saul’s spear was in the ground next to King Saul’s head), but didn’t.  David’s advisor, Abishai, told David to kill King Saul, so that he could be king instead.  But David rejected that advice, and did no harm to the king that the Lord had anointed.  

That course of action makes no sense outside of faith in God.  If you come upon a man who is hunting you, who is bent on your destruction, and you have the chance to take him out, that is the best thing to do.  David could have become king and ruled over all Israel.  But it was not God’s will, so David did not do it, even though, from the wisdom of the world, it would have ensured success.

Jesus, the Son of David, tells us in the Gospel: 

“love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.  […] Give to everyone who asks of you….Do to others as you would have them do to you….Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful….Stop judging…[s]top condemning…[f]orgive.”

That’s not the way to make it in a cutthroat world, the world in which Jesus lived, the world in which we live.  That’s not the smartest plan for someone who wants to be powerful, in control, determining his own destiny.  But that’s the attitude of Christ.

Being Catholic is about living in our daily circumstances like Jesus would live.  It means loving enemies, praying for those who hurt us, being generous with our material goods, being merciful.  Those actions, and everything that Jesus teaches us, is meant to become a part of us, so that, again paraphrasing St. Paul, it is not longer we who live, but Christ who lives in us.  Being Catholic is about becoming like Jesus, not so that we can earn God’s love, but as a result of God’s love.  Being Catholic should be in us as a part of who we are, which changes who we are, how we see people, how we act.   

When we approach people, we should try to see a person created in the image and likeness of God, and love them.  When we are struggling with a co-worker or a family member, our first instinct should be to pray for that person.  When we’re at the grocery or department store, or dealing with customer service, we should treat them as we would want to be treated.  When someone wrongs us, we should try to extend mercy to them, just as our heavenly Father extends mercy to us.  All of those things should flow from us because we are followers of Jesus, because we are Catholic.  Even more to the core of who we are than a job; even more to the core of who we are as a mother or father, we are followers of Jesus, and that should impact the way we live.  

Imagine for a second that our actions flowed from our identity as sons and daughters in the Son of God.  Imagine how different our world would be if we stopped acting out of a worldly mindset where we are in competition with each other for every last scrap, and where if we don’t take someone else down, that they could take us down.  Imagine if we had the same attitude as Christ.

Catholic Diversity

Twentieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

            If there is one value that modern-Americans hold dear, I think the virtue would certainly be diversity.  We don’t want to be the same.  We want variety.  After all, it’s the spice of life!  We want everyone to feel welcome.  In fact, we take diversity to an extreme by mandating that no one can say another person is wrong, or that his or her choices are bad.  Otherwise we lose diversity.  In some countries, like Canada, even simply calling certain actions and lifestyles bad can get one thrown in jail for “hate-speech,” and can get one branded as a bigot.

            So today’s readings probably seem strange to us.  Why all this attention on foreigners?  What’s the big deal?  Doesn’t God love everyone, no matter what?  Why does Isaiah make such a big deal about the Gentiles, that is, any non-Jew, ministering to the Lord, loving His Name, and becoming His servant?  Why does St. Paul say that he ministers to the Gentiles “in order to make my race jealous and thus save some of them”?  Why is Jesus so mean to the woman who simply wants her daughter freed from the torment of a demon?  Why this talk of, “‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel’”? 

            We have to remember that God didn’t call every nation to Himself at first.  He chose Israel, the Jews, as a nation “peculiarly his own” as Deuteronomy says, with the word that is so hard to pronounce.  Deuteronomy continues that it was not because the Jews were the largest, or the wisest, or the fiercest nation on earth that they were chosen.  Rather, it was because they were the smallest, the weakest nation on earth that God chose them.  Why?  Why choose the smallest to begin salvation history?  Why not choose other nations at the same time?  To be honest, we don’t know.  That is only known in the mind of God.  It is the mystery of divine election.  All we can do is have faith in a loving and omniscient God and know that His choice is always for the best.  And it doesn’t simply have to do with salvation.  Why did God allow you married couples to marry each other?  Why not someone else?  Why did God give you the children that He did, with all their gifts and talents and their shortcomings?  We don’t know.  We simply worship the God who is Love and pure Wisdom itself.

            But getting back to salvation, God reveals through Isaiah and St. Paul and Jesus that even though He chose a particular nation as His own, that nation was called to invite others into the special relationship with God, the covenant.  The Jews were not supposed to be elitists.  They were supposed to bring the blessings of a right relationship with God to the other nations so that they might be joined to this nation that God chose and also receive His blessings.  But the Jews, time and time again, did not even value their special relationship with God, and rather than inviting the other nations into their relationship with God, chose to turn to pagan gods, no-gods really, and make themselves one with the other nations.  And so, as St. Paul says, because of the disobedience of the Jews, the Gentiles are able to be grafted onto the tree of Israel through Jesus, who made the two one, and share in the joys of a right relationship with God, receiving the same mercy that God first showed to Israel. 

Jesus does this with the Canaanite woman.  He tests her faith to see if she has the faith which Israel is supposed to have.  We may not like the words, but those words, spoken from God Himself, are the exact words which allow the woman to say that “‘even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.’”  Even Gentiles should be receiving the overflow of love that God has poured upon Israel.  And, based upon her faith, the requirement of every action of God in a person’s life, including our own, the woman’s daughter is freed from possession.

We as a nation, “enlightened” as we are, celebrate diversity.  For too many it is the good upon which all other goods are based.  This is the extreme, and extreme which is not virtuous but actually vicious.  When we condemn those who speak out against people doing evil deeds because that’s just the way they are; we need their variety in order to be truly diverse, we pervert the idea of proper diversity, which only welcomes all that is good.  We welcome every person, but not everything that person might do.

On the other hand, we go the other extreme when we feel like it and try to judge when we have “enough” diversity.  Recently, Bishop Boyea joined with the other bishops of Michigan in  support of immigrants and undocumented persons.  While recognizing the legitimacy of a nation to protect its borders and keep out those who seek to do it harm, the reality of the situation is that there are thousands of people who have never known anything else but life in the United States, even though they or their parents may have arrived here illegally.  Most of these people are not drug dealers or criminals, but very helpful members of society who pay taxes and often take jobs than many other natural-born Americans choose not to take: the dirty jobs, if you will.  And yet there is a real push to deport all those who entered the country illegally to be deported, even if that means that it separates a family, or causes American citizens who are children to be sent back to their parents’ mother countries.  The bishops and I are not saying that we have all the answers.  But we do have to ensure that whatever our actions at a national and State level, they respect the dignity of the human person, the right of a family to be united, and the proper diversity that immigrants bring to our nation.  Any serious student of the history of the Catholic Church in American recognizes that we are a community of immigrants, some who came legally, others who came illegally, and who were not welcome on these shores by many of the Americans who came before us.  We were not the kind of “diversity” that the Americans of that day wanted. 

God’s love is poured upon His Chosen People, both Israel of old, and the new Israel, the Church, who has been grafted on to the olive tree of God.  But that love is meant to be poured out upon others so that they, too, will experience the joy, the love, the warmth of a right relationship to God through the Body of Christ, the Church.  Let us truly be Catholics, not just in name but in deed, so that, while not welcoming any action or deed that is morally wrong, we welcome every person to join with us in the properly diverse, that is, catholic, Church that is our family.