Clarifying Confirmation

Sixth Sunday of Easter
    When it came to my own reception of the Sacrament of Confirmation in 1998 as an eighth grader, I think I had a fairly faulty understanding of what the sacrament really meant.  I remember reading facts about the gifts of the Holy Spirit (not a bad start) and a book that had examples of the saints who lived out the faith in more modern times (also, not a bad thing).  But I seem to remember some sense that Confirmation meant that I was choosing to still be Catholic and become an adult in the faith.  
    In my experience as a priest, I know that this mentality continues to this day.  Not as much here at St. Matthew, but in previous parishes young men and women would tell me, when asked what Confirmation meant, that they were choosing to be Catholic for themselves, since their parents had made the decision for them when they were baptized, and they were becoming adults in the faith.  But the choice to be Catholic happens when one is baptized.  Certainly, one can choose (sadly) to walk away from the faith after baptism, but that person will always be Catholic.  And an eighth grader, or a young high school student is far from being an adult, though they certainly can make more adult decisions than a younger child.

    So what does Confirmation mean?  Is it, as some have said, a sacrament in search of a theology?  We hear about a kind of confirmation today in the first reading, when the Apostles Peter and John go to Samaria and lay hands on those who had previously been baptized so that they could receive the Holy Spirit.  We do receive the Holy Spirit in baptism, but Confirmation gives us a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  And, in the Latin Rite, it is most often bishops, the successors of the Apostles, who still confer the Sacrament of Confirmation.
    But what is that sacrament about?  Why have it?  All sacraments draw us ever closer into the inner life of the Blessed Trinity.  They bring us closer into the love that is shared between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  All sacraments make the Blessed Trinity present to us to remind us that God has not left us orphans, but dwells within us.  Through Confirmation, we grow in our union with Christ, who gives us union with the Father and the Holy Spirit.  
    But, even while we grow in the life of the entire Blessed Trinity through the Sacrament of Confirmation, we receive a seal, a character, an indelible mark that gives us access to the Holy Spirit as our Advocate.  While we don’t use the term advocate as much anymore, the understanding of an advocate, or a Paraclete (the Greek word) is a defense attorney who pleads our cause.  The Holy Spirit pleads our cause before the Father, and defends us against the accuser, the devil, who seeks to separate us from the Father.  
    But the advocate also gives us strength and defends us as we encounter other humans who either are curious about the Gospel or antithetical to it.  The Holy Spirit gives us words to explain our faith.  He helps us to “be ready to give an explanation…for a reason for your hope,” as St. Peter said in our second reading.  The Holy Spirit strengthens us to share why following Christ makes a difference.  That is why, in the old rite, Confirmation was described as making young men and women “soldiers of Christ.”  They were to win the world for Christ by word and deed, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
    But St. Peter also helps us understand that the Holy Spirit gives us the grace to suffer for the Gospel.  Sometimes following Christ means that we will suffer.  We might lose out on promotions, or not be able to engage in certain social events, or maybe not play on all the sports teams we want to, or maybe even lose friends or family because they don’t accept our Christianity in general or our Catholicism in particular.  In addition to physical suffering, those situation are also suffering for the Gospel, and the Holy Spirit gives us courage “to suffer for doing good, if that be the will of God.”  
    God gives us the sacraments to give us more of His life, His grace, to observe the commandments which Christ gave us, as the sign that we truly love God.  In particular, God gives us the Sacrament of Confirmation to strengthen what we received in Holy Baptism.  May God stir up the flames of the Holy Spirit in our hearts to witness, by word and deed, to the joy of the Gospel, and the true love of the Trinity, into which God drew us first through Holy Baptism, and into which we are called to delve more deeply each day of our life.   

Exitus-Reditus

Fifth Sunday of Easter

    For whatever reason, certain phrases sound more elegant and intelligent in foreign languages.  Instead of saying, “this for that,” it sounds much better to say quid pro quo.  Or instead of saying, “exactly,” one can say per se.  If you said, “a certain something that I can’t describe,” people would understand you, but you could also throw in a little French and say je ne sais quoi.  Perhaps, due to the popularity of mafia movies, we find ourselves used to asking in poorly-pronounced Italian, capisci? when we might otherwise say, “Get it?” 
    Likewise, when we speak about the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity, we use a phrase from St. Thomas Aquinas which is exitus-reditus.  That certainly sounds much more erudite than beginning-return.  But no matter how we say it, we recognize its veracity.  Christ came to us from the Father (in the Incarnation at the Annunciation which we celebrated on 25 March) and then returned to the Father (at the Ascension, which we will celebrate in a few short weeks).  Christ existed before all time, but the Father sent Him to us, and then Christ returned to the Father.  And our Gospel points to the return, as Christ speaks to His Apostles in the Upper Room at the Last Supper.  He tells them that He goes to prepare a place for them, “‘so that where I am you also may be.’”  
    We come to know God the Father through God the Son.  St. Philip the Apostle, puts his foot in his mouth as he tells Jesus, “‘Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us.’”  Probably the other apostles may have thought the same thing, but I’m sure they were glad they didn’t verbalize their desire.  Because Christ reiterates for them that He is the revelation of the Father.  The unity between Father and Son, even though they are different Divine Persons, is so strong that when one encounters one Divine Person, you encounter the entire Triune God.
    But exitus-reditus doesn’t only apply to God the Son.  It also applies to us.  We, too, though not consubstantial with the Father, come from Him, and our goal is to return to Him.  Even with all our advances in science, the gift of new life still comes from the Father.  And once our parents conceive us, our goal, our end, is to return to the Father so as to be one with Him in heaven.  It’s back to the Baltimore Catechism answer that says it so poetically and succinctly: God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this life so to be with Him in the next.  
    So this middle time, the time between our exitus, our beginning, and our reditus, our return, determines how our return ends up.  To paraphrase Denethor from the movie version of The Return of the King, our experience at our return will depend on the manner of our return.  Because, as Christ affirmed in our Gospel, He is the only way to the Father.  We cannot return to the place the Father has prepared for us, unless we follow the pattern that the Father set out for us, made visible in Christ.  We are, as St. Peter affirmed in our second reading, “‘a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,’” but our lives have to reflect that chosen status in order to receive the inheritance promised to us at our beginning.
    So do we recognize how to live like Christ in our day-to-day lives?  Do we give attention to the needs of others, rather than focusing only on ourselves.  As soon as the Apostles learned that the Greek-speaking or Hellenist widows lacked in care, they responded, in this case by creating the Sacred Order of the Diaconate, the first deacons.  God doesn’t necessarily ask us to create new groups, but to cooperate with those that already exist.  We’re familiar with Catholic Charities, the North End Soup Kitchen, the St. Luke NEW Life Center.  Do we assist them?  Do we donate what we can, be it food, clothing, or other goods?  Sometimes I get new “secular” clothes.  When I do so, I try to make sure and donate older clothes, if they are in reasonably good condition, to Catholic Charities through the Hope in a Box box that is by the drinking fountain at the Beach Street doors.  When was the last time that you looked in your closet for clothes that you no longer wear?  Sometimes we have formal wear that we only use once or twice, but are there things that we never use, or don’t need to have, that others could?  St. Basil the Great once said in a sermon, “The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry; the coat unused in your closet belongs to the one who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the one who has no shoes; the money which you hoard up belongs to the poor.”  Our attention to those in need makes up part of the way that we show where we want to return to: heaven or hell.  
    Whether we use the fancy Latin phrase or not, we all came from the Father and will return to judgment by Him, when we will learn our eternal destination: heaven (likely after some time in Purgatory) or hell.  If we wish to return to the dwelling place the Father has prepared for us, that Christ promised us in the Gospel, then we have to follow the example of the great exitus-reditus of the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.  We have to follow the Way that He is: the one who gave up His life for our good.  It may not be in the red martyrdom of shedding our blood in imitation of Christ’s perfect sacrifice of His Body and Blood, but it may be in the white martyrdom of dying to our own wills and living according to the will of the Father.  No matter in which language we say it, living the life of Christ in our day-to-day lives will help us embrace the inheritance Christ won for us, whom the Father has adopted through Holy Baptism as His adopted sons and daughters in the Son of God, Jesus Christ.

No Golden Age

Fifth Sunday of Easter
    We often tend to think of the early Church as perfect, where everything went as the apostles wanted it to go, where it was easy to follow Christ, and there were no struggles.  Today’s first reading should let us know that it was not as easy as we may have imagined.  Yes, the Apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit, and many Jews were joining the Church by becoming baptized.  Even Greeks were seeking baptism and following Christ as His disciples in His new Church.  But the Greek-speaking Jews (St. Luke uses the word Hellenists) started to complain that their widows didn’t seem to get the same care as the Hebrew widows.  It also sounds like the Apostles had their hands full, and perhaps had too many responsibilities, which made their service less than it could have been.
    So, they created a new set of ministers in the Church, deacons, who would receive the Holy Spirit, and would take over the mission of service at table from the Apostles, so that the Apostles could focus on prayer and preaching the Gospel.  They chose seven men, including St. Stephen, to fill this new office in the Church.  We know the rest of the story: Stephen also starts preaching, and ends us getting stoned to death.  More and more persecutions start, and St. James the Greater, the brother of St. John, is martyred.  Antagonism becomes more and more heated between the members of the early Church and the Jewish leaders, who thought that Jesus was a heretic and led people away from God.  So maybe it wasn’t quite as easy and perfect as we so often imagine.
    Why mention this?  Because we ourselves experience difficult times in the Church, but it helps to know that it’s never been easy for the Church.  There are always new challenges and new opportunities for the Church.  There are always periods of growth, and periods of decline, whether from internal or external forces.  Even as we may be convinced that we are not in a golden age of the Church, there truly has never been a golden age: each epoch of history had its own joys and struggles to which the Church had to adjust.

    And while God desires all to be saved, and we know the ordinary path to salvation runs through baptism and daily living the life to which Christ calls us, God has also allowed periods of decline, not only in one parish, or one diocese, but sometimes every across countries.  The example that comes to my mind most often is North Africa.  North Africa, because of its connection to Rome, had been a vibrant area of the Catholic Faith.  Some of the greatest saints and theological writers had come from there, including St. Athanasius, St. Anthony, St. Cyril of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, and St. Augustine of Hippo.  There were struggles, as many of those saints had to deal with heresies that would spring up from time to time, but the faith was strong.  But then, the barbarians from Europe swept across much of North Africa from the west, and the newly formed Islamic religion came from the east shortly thereafter, and Catholicism was more or less snuffed out entirely in the matter of a hundred years or so.  Why did God allow this?  I couldn’t tell you.  But allow it He did.  Did it mean He loved North Africa any less than the rest of the world?  Certainly not.  But those few who remained had to adjust to a new way of living their faith in the midst of fewer structures and more regular persecution.
    How does the Church survive such struggles?  We stay faithful to Christ and following Him, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, and we live up to our call to be “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own,” as St. Peter said in our second reading.  We ask the Holy Spirit to guide us, and follow the Apostles, as the Church did in our first reading.  We do not give in to the temptation to let our hearts be troubled, but have faith in God–Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–knowing that God’s ways are sometimes mysterious, but are always for our good.
    In our own diminishment as a parish, we can easily fall to the temptation to despair, to not trust in God’s plan.  But, as we prepare to meet this Wednesday, I would invite you to do what the Church has always done during difficult times: pray and trust in the Holy Spirit.  That’s why I invited you last week to pray the novena to the Holy Spirit, asking for His guidance for our parish, whatever the will of God may be.  And, as I also said last week, I don’t know exactly what that will might be; we will discern it together on Wednesday, given the facts that we have, and using the reason that God gave to us to help us to follow His will. 
    But the key is that, whatever you decide to recommend to Bishop Boyea after this Wednesday’s meeting, God calls us to remain faithful to Him and continue to not only say that we are Catholic, but show it by our actions, both in this parish and in the wider community.  People are still hungry to know the love of the Father, and Jesus reveals that to us, and He calls us to reveal Him to others.  No matter how the realities of the structural church change and call for adjustments, if we follow the Holy Spirit and live as disciples of Christ, we can have the confidence that we will one day see the Father, and be enveloped by His love in the kingdom of heaven.  There is not golden age of the Church.  There is simply the streets of gold upon which we hope to walk in heaven, as a result of our fidelity to Christ through all the days of our life on earth.  That is our ultimate goal, and the Holy Spirit will help us to get there.

What is Truth?

 Sixth Sunday of Easter
    “What is truth?”  It may not be the best thing to quote Pontius Pilate at the beginning of a homily, but as we hear about the Holy Spirit today in the Gospel, and how He will “‘teach you everything and remind you of all that [Jesus] told you,’” it seems an appropriate question.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, the Advocate who pleads our cause against Satan, the father of lies.  
    While we may have a general internal understanding of what truth is, it may be harder to define.  Truth is what is real, what is actual.  Truth allows us to interact with the world in a way which allows us to succeed.  Truth exerts itself and demands obedience, even if we don’t want to give it.  For example, the truth about gravity may be inconvenient, and we may want to ignore it, but if we jump off a cliff, hoping to go up, we will be sorely disappointed (and probably dead!).
    But truth isn’t only about physical realities.  Truth concerns both what is available to our senses, and what is beyond our senses, we might say both the physical and the metaphysical.  Pope St. John Paul II wrote an entire Encyclical about truth called Veritatis splendor, the Splendor of Truth, and writes that truth “enlightens man’s intelligence and shapes his freedom, leading him to know and love the Lord.”

    Truth is not up for debate.  Truth, like God, simply is, which is why it makes perfect sense for Christ to say in the Gospel, “‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life.’”  Because of the Incarnation, we can say that truth is not merely a set of propositions; truth has a face.  
    Truth does not change over the centuries, even if our understanding of it does.  Truth does not change depending on the type of government, or the political party in charge.  Truth is a light in the darkness that helps us walk on safe paths, without which we can often stumble and fall.
    But society for the past decades has struggled with truth.  Society has questioned if there even is such a thing as truth, has denied that there is truth altogether, and now can often only speak of voicing “your truth,” as if it changes not only for every time, but even for every person.  But if truth is different for every person, then communication is altogether impossible, as words presume a set meaning, an expression of a real idea, not simply our own invention of ideas based upon what we want something to be.  And this trend of questioning truth has found its way even into the people who profess, week after week, belief in God who is Truth Itself, and who reveals the truth about Himself to us out of love.
    It is vogue now, as it often has been in every century of the Church, to question this or that Church teaching, not for the purpose of understanding it more, but for the purpose of rejecting it.  Because some truths are hard for a given culture and time.  In the fourth and fifth centuries, as we came to understand Jesus Christ more, we discovered that explaining who Christ is could be difficult, but the easier answer didn’t account for who Christ had to be to save us.  He is fully God and fully man, unbegotten, consubstantial with the Father.  It would have been easier to say, like the heretic Arius, that Jesus was simply a special creature of God, above us, but not God.  That would have seemed to have been better to preserve the oneness of God.  But then, if He was not God, He could not save us.  But then, if He were not one of us, He would not be under the cost of disobedience that we acquired through sin.  And so we held to the hard truth, that Jesus Christ is one hundred percent God, but one hundred percent human, and that God, while one, is a Trinity of Three Divine Persons, while still one in substance.
    Lies are often easier, and less complicated, at least at first.  It’s easier to say, “Yes, I love this food!” that looks more like the charcoal you use in a grill.  And yet, even those “white lies” as we call them can lead to hurt and pain when, as most often happens, the truth is discovered (in this case when it’s discovered by your spouse that swallowing has suddenly become quite difficult).  And that’s just with small issues.  Imagine being told, “I love you,” by a person who is just using you.  You think that he or she really cares for you as a person, and you give yourself to him or her, trusting that you will not be betrayed, only to have that hope dashed against the rocks and your heart broken by someone who was not concerned about you, but only about him or herself.  
    Many times we know what the Church teaches, but we don’t want to accept it, because it was hard.  It was likely hard for those first Christians, especially those who were Jewish, who saw their faith as simply the right way to be a good Jew, to accept the truth revealed by the Holy Spirit to the Apostles that being a follower of Jesus didn’t require circumcision or the following of dietary laws that had been given by Moses.  It was hard, but it was the truth.  And the truth was revealed and preserved by the Holy Spirit, using the cooperation of the Apostles.  It wasn’t simply that old men wearing pointy hats decided to go one way, as is so often parroted when the Church holds fast to an unpopular teaching.  
    But just as gravity forces itself upon the individual, whether he or she likes it or not, the truths of our faith are also as stubborn; they cannot be wished away.  So if we wish to have a happy life, which comes from following the truth, not only here on earth but especially if we hope to go to heaven, we are called to subject ourselves to the truth, even when that’s hard.  If we wish to call ourselves follows of Christ who is the Truth, then we are called to follow the truth as revealed through the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church, no matter how hard it may be.  Ask the Holy Spirit today to help you know the truth, for the truth will set you free to be the person you are made to be, in the world as God made it.

Doh!

Fifth Sunday of Easter

    When I was growing up, my parents did not let me watch “The Simpsons” because, I suppose, they thought it too crude and disrespectful.  So, of course, when I was in college seminary, and “The Simpsons” came on TV, I was definitely going to sit down and watch it.  And if you’ve watched “The Simpsons,” or even if you haven’t, you’re probably familiar with the character Homer Simpson, the lazy, glutinous, well-meaning, and sometimes philosophizing dad.  Homer has a quintessential word, or maybe grunt is a more appropriate word, that is associated with him: doh!  You might imagine Homer hitting his head while he says it, which gives it the proper context, a grunt and action of futility and frustration.
    If Jesus was Homer (and that comparison, obviously, is an absurd one), when St. Philip said, “‘Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us’”, Jesus would have said, “Doh!”  For three years Philip had been following Jesus each day, seeing the miracles, hearing the teaching, and now, at the Last Supper, Jesus is giving His farewell address before He dies on the cross.  Jesus comes to His great unveiling to the Apostles of His unity with the Father and says,  “‘If you know me, then you will also know my Father.  From now on you do know him and have seen him.’”  And what does Philip say?  “Jesus, just show us the Father and we’ll be good.”  It’s like the teacher saying, “2 x 3 = 6,” and then the student saying, “So wait: what’s 2 x 3?” 
    Jesus reveals the Father in everything He does.  Jesus is not the Father, but He is the revelation of the Father, so that we no longer have to wonder what the Father is like.  We see it in Jesus.  Jesus only heals at the will of the Father.  Jesus only teaches what the Father wants taught.    Jesus loves with the love of the Father.  Jesus only suffers because that is the will of the Father.  No one can truly come to the Father without the Son.  This is the basis of our claim, that, if not true, would be pure arrogance: Jesus is the only means of salvation.  He is, as St. Peter said the second reading, the “cornerstone,” upon which the entire heavenly kingdom is built.  Without the cornerstone, the whole building collapses.  Without Jesus, there is no heaven for us.  With Jesus, we have a place in the heavenly temple.
    But that revelation of the Father through Jesus continues in our day.  Bishop Barron is coming out with a new series on the sacraments, and I was able to get a sneak peak at episode one, about the sacraments in general and baptism in particular.  Bishop Barron quotes Pope St. Leo the Great: “What was visible in our Savior has passed over into his mysteries.”  That last part of the sentence in the original Latin is: “in sacramenta transivit.”  Mysteries was another way of saying sacraments, and, in fact, in the Christian East, they still refer to the sacraments as mysteries.  But the point is that we see the Father through Jesus, and we see Jesus especially through the sacraments.  The sacraments are our opportunities to encounter Jesus in a powerful way.
    And yet, how often do we think: I wish I could just talk with Jesus?  I wish I could see Jesus?  I wish I could hear Jesus?  As Homer would say, “Doh!”  Through the sacraments of baptism, penance, the Eucharist, confirmation, holy matrimony, holy order, and anointing of the sick, we encounter Christ in a way that He gave us, and through our encounter with Christ, we encounter the Father.  The sacraments are not “church graduations” after we pass a class.  They are opportunities that we can encounter God, a new beginning of, and the fruit of, a relationship that we have with God.
    Why did Philip miss what Jesus was saying at the Last Supper?  Why was Philip confused after Jesus said, “‘If you know me, then you will also know my Father’”?  How Philip was expecting to experience the Father was not the way the Father was revealing Himself.  And maybe, more often than we’d like to admit, we miss it, too, because we want to experience the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit on our terms. 
    How often do we come to Mass expecting to be entertained, or to feel something, or to “get something out of it”?  We can equate those with encountering God, and sometimes we do encounter God in that way.  But we can want the Father to reveal Himself on our terms, in our ways rather than His ways.  I know watching Mass on live-stream, as great of a blessing as it is, brings with it even more challenges to paying attention, participating, and really offering ourselves to the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  But right now, this is how Jesus is revealing the Father.
    Like St. Philip, we all want to encounter the Father.  Like St. Philip, that happens through Jesus, and therefore especially through the seven sacraments which flow from Jesus’ Mystical Body, the Church.  May both you and I, no matter what, cling to Jesus and the ways that He reveals to us the love of the Father in heaven. 

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Mass of the Lord’s Supper

One of my major complaints about movies today is that Hollywood no longer knows how to tell a new story.  Many of the movies that have come out recently are either telling a story that’s already been told (like in a comic book), or continuing with a story that was told earlier (like the new Star Wars movies).  I was recently chastised by an older friend who was appalled both that I liked the new “True Grit,” and that I had never seen the original “True Grit” with John Wayne.  

But the great things about the movies that stick with us is that they tell a timeless tale.  In any movie that works, there is a decisive event, which leads to a challenge, and that challenge must be overcome to find success.  As I understand literature, the comedies are the stories where the success involves the life of the hero; tragedies are the stories where the success involves the death of the hero.

Human redemption is not simply a story, but it is the basis for all good stories.  Salvation history, writ large, is about the decisive event (the Fall of Adam and Eve), and God reconciling humanity (quite a big challenge because of our stubbornness and our attraction to sin), and God overcoming our challenge by the Death of His Son, Jesus.  Of course, in Jesus, we find both tragedy and comedy, as Jesus both dies, but then lives again.  

In salvation history, redemption is always tied up with death, either literal or metaphorical.  In our first reading, we hear about the redemption of Israel from the slavery of Egypt by the death of the lamb, which also saves them from the death of the first born, the tenth and most drastic plague.  And as Jesus institutes the Eucharist (which St. Paul talks about in the second reading), He gives His apostles a way to connect, not only simply to remember, but to connect to His death, which He anticipates in His early celebration of the Passover.  Perhaps that is why God inspired the Psalmist to say: “Precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his faithful ones.”  Psalm 116 seems to see the necessary connection between death and redemption.

The Eucharist is precisely redemption given to us as food and drink.  In the Eucharist, Calvary is given to us under the appearance of bread and wine as Jesus gives His Body and Blood for us.  That is why the Church asks that a crucifix occupy a most central place in the sanctuary: so that we can see and be drawn to the love that we receive on our tongues and in our hands.  

Redemption involves death, but God turns death on its head so that death actually becomes an opportunity for life.  We will see this on Saturday night and Sunday, but we also see it in Jesus washing His apostles’ feet.  Jesus does not literally die when He washes the apostles’ feet, but He dies to elevating oneself and what should be.  He is the Lord, they are they servants, and yet He makes Himself their servant.  He is the Rabbi, they are the disciples, but His teaching involves elevating them, rather than Himself, and then He says that just as He has done, so they should do.

Bishop Boyea washes Fr. Anthony's foot at his
presbyteral ordination

It is easy to pass over (if you’ll pardon the pun) the depth of this event.  Every Holy Thursday we hear about Jesus’ washing His apostles’ feet, about Simon Peter resisting because it’s unbecoming, but then overcompensating by saying he wants his hands and head as well.  But remember this: Jesus would wash the feet of Peter, who would, that same night, deny even knowing Jesus.  Peter would not die to his fear, to his pride, and so death, which is what sin is, would enter his soul.  Judas also had his feet washed, the same Judas who that same night would find the temple guards and lead them to Jesus to betray Him.  Everything in Jesus’ human will must have screamed against treating Judas, the betrayer apostle, the same as John, the beloved apostle.  But He died to that temptation so that He could live in obedience to the Father.

It would be to facile to simply say, “serve others.”  What Jesus did on Holy Thursday, in the washing of the feet and the institution of the Eucharist and the ministerial priesthood, is much stronger than “do good for others.”  Jesus invites us to be a part of the grand story, the grand reality, of our redemption.  But as we are reminded, redemption, our own redemption, involves death.  Perhaps the death of our bodies (there continue to be armies of martyrs crowned with the palm of victory), but more likely the death of our wills, where we let go of what we want, where we let go of what the world says is right, and we hold on to dear life to the will of God, which is often not what we want and not what the world says is right.  

Tonight we have the opportunity not only to remember what Jesus did, not only to recall our redemption in Christ, but also to actually participate in our redemption.  As we receive the Eucharist, we receive Jesus’ death for us.  And if we allow the Eucharist to do the work that it is meant to do, we can participate in the great story of human redemption.

Catholic Super Powers

Sixth Sunday of Easter

It is likely not a surprise to anyone who attends St. Pius X Catholic School, that the principal, Mr. Kaplan, has a favorite superhero, and that superhero is Batman.  That’s a fine superhero, though, as I believe the TV show “The Big Bang Theory” pointed out, he’s a rich guy who works out a lot and has a lot of cool tech-toys.  So, as superheroes go, he’s not number one in my book.

Probably my favorite superhero would be Captain America.  I probably like him the best because I’m Captain America before he received the Super-Serum which gave him amazing strength, stamina, and intelligence.  He also has that special shield that is bullet proof and always seems to spin back to him like a boomerang.  For me, I’m just too lazy to do the work to give me a chiseled body like Captain America. 

I think most kids dream about being a super hero.  We all want to have a special ability that sets us apart from the rest.  Whether it’s Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman, Storm, or any one else, we want to have special gifts that allow us to do special things.

What we hear in our readings today is that those who are baptized have received a special gift.  This gift doesn’t give you superhuman strength, a magical lasso, or the ability to control the weather.  The special gift, the special power we might say, is the gift of the Holy Spirit.  

Philip, in our first reading, went down to Samaria.  Philip is likely the Deacon who was appointed by the apostles as one of the first seven deacons.  Filled with the Holy Spirit from his baptism and his ordination, he does great signs, including curing those who were paralyzed or crippled.  After Philip baptizes people in Samaria, Peter and John, the apostles, give them a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit, which is the precursor to our celebration of the Sacrament of Confirmation.  

In the Gospel, Jesus also promises to send the Holy Spirit to the Apostles.  He will be another Advocate, another Person to plead their cause.  The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, who will remain with the Apostles even after Jesus leaves earth.  The Holy Spirit will teach the Apostles all that they need to know.

The Holy Spirit, the Sprit of truth, continues to remain with the successors of the apostles.  The Holy Spirit protects the pope, the prince of the apostles, and the college or group of bishops, the other successors of the apostles, from teaching the Church anything that is false when it comes to what we should believe, or how we should live.  That is one exercise of special powers from the reception of the Holy Spirit.

Another exercise of special powers from the Holy Spirit is given to priests and bishops, and allows them to act in Persona Christi capitis, in the Person of Christ the Head, and allows them to exercise Jesus’ authority and power when it comes to the sacraments.  It is not by my own holiness, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit that I am able to perform the miracle of changing bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus.

But the special power of the Holy Spirit is not limited to the ordained.  It is not only deacons, priests, and bishops who receive special powers from the Holy Spirit, but every person who is baptized and confirmed.  What are those powers that all the baptized and confirmed receive?

We all have the ability to offer our lives as a priestly people (as Deacon Joe preached last week) to God the Father through Christ the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit.  That is no small power.  All the baptized and confirmed have access to God and to give Him the acceptable sacrifice of their lives, united with the bread and wine at Mass, and throughout the week.  

All the baptized and confirmed have the ability to avoid mortal sins, and to continue an unbroken relationship with God.  Mortal sin destroys in us the theological virtue of charity, and severs us from a saving a relationship with God, which can only normally be repaired through sacramental confession.  But because of our reception of the Holy Spirit, we are not doomed to fall into mortal sins.  We can reject Satan and his lies and temptations, and be faithful to God throughout our lives.  Fidelity to God is possible by the power of the Holy Spirit, and we all have the ability.

And those are just two exercises of the power of the Holy Spirit.  Everyone who is confirmed has received the sevenfold gift of the Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord.  Some have the gift of healing, the gift of prophecy, the gift of speaking in tongues, and others, which are all given for the building up of the Church.  

We don’t have to be Captain America or Storm to have superpowers and to fight evil.  If we are baptized and confirmed, we have the power of the Holy Spirit to help us to fight evil and live as God called us to live.  

Continued Presence

Sixth Sunday of Easter

"I have been, and always will be, your friend."
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

            It’s interesting the effects that friends have in our lives.  They can open us up to new experiences, which we can then make our own.  For example, when I was in elementary school, my best friend got me interested in Star Trek.  And once I had been exposed to it, I couldn’t get enough.  I loved the Original Series, The Next Generation, and Deep Space Nine.  I’ve seen all the movies.  One memorable scene is from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.”  Be warned, this is a spoiler alert.  Towards the end of the movie, in order to get clear of an impending explosion, Spock has to enter a radioactive room to get the warp drive working again.  But before he does so, he merges his mind with “Bones” McCoy, the ship’s doctor, which becomes important in the next movie, “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.” 

            While there is no merging of minds, Jesus, in the Gospel we heard today, promises to send an Advocate who “‘will teach you everything and remind you of all that I told you.’”  This promise, made during the Last Supper, is fulfilled at Pentecost.  But because of the greatness of this gift, the Church, two weeks earlier, starts focusing on the Person of the Holy Spirit.

            The Holy Spirit is the continued presence of Jesus, after He ascends into heaven, which we, in this diocese, will celebrate next Sunday.  He is the continuation of Jesus’ work on earth among the disciples.  He instructs, leads, and protects the Church.  The Spirit ensures that the apostles and their successors will continue to preach Jesus’ words, and not their own.  The Holy Spirit as Advocate, the one who speaks for another, is the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise to St. Peter, that the gates of the netherworld would not prevail over the Church, so that she would never teach as part of the faith nor as part of Christian living what was contrary to the will of God.  Sure, there have been individuals who have been grade A sinners in Church leadership, but, by the grace of God, they never taught anything major, probably because they were so concerned with their own, sinful lives.

            We need a guide to help us understand Jesus’ words.  The Word of God needs unpacking.  One of the great error of Protestantism is that the Scriptures are clear, and that any person can understand them simply by opening up and reading.  Reading Scripture is a beautiful and necessary thing, but we need a guide.  Because sometimes Jesus is literal, like when He says, “This is my body.”  Other times he uses figurative language, like when He says, “If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.”  We need the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the guidance that was promised through the Church, to understand what God is making known through His word.  Otherwise, we end up straying from Jesus and just creating our own thing, which sometimes can be very weird.  Origen, a late second-, early third-century Catholic scholar, went to a weird place when he interpreted Jesus’ words to cut off the part of you that causes you to sin (he struggled with sexual sins, to give you some idea).  This was a theologian who knew Scripture, but he veered away from the right understanding of it, which causes some irreversible damage.

            We see the early Church dealing with understanding properly the Word of God in our first reading.  The big controversy, even at first among the apostles of Jesus, the ones He had ordained to govern His Church, was whether or not Gentiles has to become Jewish first to become Christians.  Did Gentiles have to be circumcised?  Did they need to wear Jewish clothing?  Did they need to keep the dietary law?  The very men who had walked with Jesus for 3 years and listened to all He said in public and private were not sure.  But, gathering together, in prayer and discussion, they decided that Gentiles did not have to become Jewish, but did have to follow some basic rules with their roots in Judaism.  And they make it clear that they needed guidance: “‘It is the decision of the Holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities.’”  This was the basis for the 21 Ecumenical Councils that would follow later: the bishops convene in prayer and discussion to be open to the Holy Spirit to continue Jesus’ work in the world.

            So how open are we to the Holy Spirit’s work in the Church today, which includes both the hierarchy and the lay faithful.  We say the Prayer to the Holy Spirit each Sunday, but do we mean it?  Do we really want the Holy Spirit to be active in our lives?  Are we like wet clay that can be formed by the Holy Spirit, or are we hardened so that our lives are not open to formation by the Divine Potter?  If we are open to the Spirit, then the Gospel will spread like wildfire, as it did in the early Church, to whoever is open to the need for a Savior.  If we are not open to the Holy Spirit, then we become obstacles to God’s truth and God’s love in the world.  May we truly mean what we say as we make our Prayer to the Holy Spirit: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.  Send forth your Spirit, and they shall be created, and you shall renew the face of the earth.”

We Have (the Holy) Spirit, Yes We Do!!

Sixth Sunday of Easter

            “Be sealed with the Gift of the Holy Spirit.”  These are the words that Fr. Mark said to the 28 people who were confirmed at the Easter Vigil just a few weeks ago.  They are the words that our 8^th and 9^th grade students will hear next school year when Bishop Boyea confirms them.  These are the words that call down the Holy Spirit upon the baptized, just as Sts. Peter and John gave the Holy Spirit to those who had accepted the Word of God in Samaria, after they had been baptized.

            Does this gift of the Holy Spirit change those who receive it?  Does the Holy Spirit matter?  Of course!  By the anointing with the Sacred Chrism and the laying on of hands, those who have been confirmed are united to the Blessed Trinity in a new way!  They are little christs, little anointed ones, just as Christ, the anointed one, was filled with the Spirit.

            Sadly, we can block the many graces that the Spirit wants to give to us, the seven-fold gift of: wisdom, understanding, reverence, knowledge, counsel, right judgment, and wonder and awe in the presence of God.  We can say no to these gifts.  We can say no to the courage, the excitement, the joy that are the gifts that should be poured upon us when we are baptized and confirmed. 

            How often do I see those gifts going unused, like birds that long to fly but are locked in a cage that gives them no room.  How often do I see people come to Sunday Mass as if they are going to a funeral!  How often do I see people coming forward to receive the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord, Jesus the Christ, the Anointed One, without joy on their faces!  It’s not that we always have to feel happy or have a smile on our face.  That will only happen if we are welcomed into heaven.  But, we can always be joyful that we are able to participate in the anticipation of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb of God, the Antechamber of Heaven.  That’s what we get the opportunity to celebrate each week.  And if we are truly celebrating, then we are not dour, but delighted.  Imagine how much fun the Open Houses that we attend would be if everyone acted their like they do at Mass!  Not much at all! 

            The Holy Spirit gives us life, gives us breath.  It is like the vision of the dry bones from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel.  Even though the bones are put back together, and the sinews and muscles are all on the bones, they bodies need the Spirit of God breathed into them in order to live.  We need that same Spirit or else we are nothing but a collection of bones, muscle, and organs walking around like zombies.  We need that Spirit!

            We need the Spirit to be able to give an explanation “to anyone who asks…for a reason for [our] hope,” as St. Peter says in our second reading.  The same Spirit that allowed the Apostles, Blessed Mother, and disciples gathered in the upper room at the first Pentecost, to proclaim the Gospel, the Good News, to the Jews gathered in Jerusalem; the same Spirit that sent Philip down to Samaria to preach and baptize those who were willing to accept the Word of God; that same Spirit dwells within us and wants to renew the face of the earth by our testimony and witness to the Gospel of Christ.  It is like the fizz in a shaken pop bottle that is just waiting for the tiniest opening to explode out of us. 

But we have become good at keeping the lid on.  We have become good at quelling the Spirit so that we don’t have to give an explanation for our faith.  We can be like adolescents in the faith.  We don’t know much and we’re afraid of sharing what we have for fear that we are different, that we upset the apple cart.  We may not have joy, but at least we’re comfortable where we’re at, and we don’t want to challenge anyone else, let alone ourselves.  Just like adolescents we don’t want to be different.  We want to the same as everyone else.  But that’s not what the Spirit calls us to.  As St. Paul says in his letter to the Romans, “Do not conform yourselves to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and pleasing and perfect.”  Do not be the same as the world, because if we are, then we do not have the Spirit of God, since, as Jesus says in today’s Gospel, the Advocate, the one who stands up to defend us and gives us words to speak as we proclaim the Good News, that Spirit the world cannot accept, “because it neither sees or knows him.” 

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love.”  If we have the Spirit, we have power.  Not power which dominates, but power that serves by proclaiming the freeing love and redemption that is ours in Christ Jesus.  To show that we have the Holy Spirit do we all have to quit our jobs and go off to Pacific Islands, Saudi Arabia, or unknown jungles in South America to preach conversion?  No, we have plenty of opportunities right here in East Lansing, Okemos, and the entire greater-Lansing area.  There are people who do not know Jesus and who need to.  There are people who know Jesus and have been baptized, but who have not yet received the full inheritance of the Spirit that is their right as children of God in confirmation.  The more we are willing to bring Christ to our work place and even in our own homes (where, sadly, I fear He is sometimes absent!!), the more will we transform this world to be more like the Kingdom of God that Christ instituted by His own presence here on earth. 

The more we pray on a daily basis for the gift to recognize the times when the Spirit is calling us to bring Jesus into a particular conversation or situation; the more we are proud to be Catholics and bring that into the public sector, rather than being ashamed of having different rules and different views that so many others; the more we open ourselves up to the Spirit rather than blocking Him by our fear and our sins, the more we will have that enduring joy and peace that Christ promises to us. 

And so, as we prepare for Pentecost over the next two weeks, may our prayer be an invitation to the Holy Spirit to make His dwelling in us, fill us with His power, and help us to be alive with Him rather than just dry bones rattling along in life. 

Come, Holy Spirit,

Fill the hearts of your faithful

and enkindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your Spirit

and they shall be created

and you shall renew the face of the earth.  

Amen.

"VENI SANCTE SPIRITUS REPLE TUORUM CORDA FIDELIUM
COME HOLY SPIRIT FILL THE HEARTS OF YOUR FAITHFUL"
From Monte Cassino Benedictine Abbey, Italy

Cornerstone

Fifth Sunday of Easter

            This past week, and especially Friday night and Saturday evening I was asked a question by a number of parishioners: “Father, is the world going to end?”  And, while we know by faith that one day, God will create a new heaven and a new earth, we also know that this will be the consummation of God’s love for humanity, welcoming into heaven those who have lived as his faithful disciples.  But, about when it will happen, even Jesus, while He was on earth, said we do not know the day nor the hour.  Still, he also tells us in today’s Gospel, “‘Do not let your hearts be troubled.’”  And really, if we are living as disciples of Jesus, then we have nothing to fear.  The only reason to fear the end times is if we are not being good disciples, and if Jesus is not the center, or you might say the cornerstone, of our lives. 

            “‘Behold, I am laying a stone in Zion, a cornerstone, chosen and precious.’”  “‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.’”  “‘Like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house.’”  These quotes all come from our second reading today, and focus on minds on construction.  St. Peter tells us that we are in the midst of a great construction effort: the building up of the house of God, with Jesus Christ Himself as the cornerstone.  We are being put together into one large building: the household, the temple of God.

            As we build up our own house, our very selves, we are also contributing to the larger complex, almost as if the overall goal is a condominium complex, made up of many smaller houses.

            What matters most for us and for the complex as a whole is the foundation.  Without a good, strong foundation, the rest of the house, and indeed, the complex, is in danger of collapsing or nothing protecting us from the tornados of life.  What is the base of who we are?  It’s easy to say Christ, because we know that’s supposed to be the right answer.  Besides, when asked a religious question, we have this tendency to think that Jesus is always the right answer.  But, if we’re honest, we may have to pause to take some time and think about it.  If you’re a type A personality like me, too often the temptation is for my plans to be the foundation of my life.  Sure, we can say that Jesus is the cornerstone of my life, but in the day-to-day experiences of life, to whom do I turn more for giving me a solid base?  My plans or God’s plans?  Likely, all of us struggle with this a little.  Or perhaps our struggle is with money being the foundation, or prestige, or power.  Whatever our temptation, there are other stones, better looking stones, that want to be established as the foundation to our house.  But, to have a house which can stand the test, not only of time but also of eternity, Jesus, the stone rejected by the builders, must become our cornerstone.

            Another important fact is to realize that our house is two stories: the basement or earthly floor and the heavenly or first floor.  The foundation that we lay here on earth greatly impacts how the first floor turns out.  Jesus tells us that in His Father’s house there are many dwelling places.  He goes to prepare a place for us.  But, we cooperate in building that level, too.  Jesus has the plan for us of how to construct it, but we have to follow those plans.  Otherwise, we build the basement floor on earth, and, if we get that wrong, we don’t build up towards the heavens, but rather down towards eternal perdition. 

            By our actions while we are building this level of the house, we establish a good foundation upon which a nice, stable first floor can be built, or we weaken the foundation and end up building down.  By every good deed we do in response to God’s grace, we cooperate with the Master Builder to prepare our place in heaven.  But, by every sin that we commit contrary to God’s grace and will, we undermine the very end for which we are striving. 

            Sometimes the construction of our own spiritual house happens quickly.  Reading this Gospel in preparation for the homily, my mind went to the funeral of our own parishioner, Alex Powell, a young man whom we commended to the Lord on May 12^th.  What a short time the Lord gave him for construction.  And yet, the more stories I heard about his own life and response in faith, especially during extreme pain and suffering, the more I came to know about a strong foundation that had been laid in preparation for the first floor.  Sometimes the construction takes longer, not for any lack of virtue, but simply according to the mind of God.  My mind also went to Dave Gagnier, who greatly assisted this Student Center, especially with the Liturgy, during his life.  In either case, what is important is not so much the time it takes, but how strong that foundation is in Christ.

            If Christ, the stone rejected by the builders, the chosen and precious stone, is our foundation for our lives, then we rest secure in the strength of the base of our spiritual homes.  If not, then as long as we have breath we have a chance to strengthen that foundation so that, at the end of our lives our hearts will not be troubled because we will be prepared to allow God to build up for us that first floor heavenly dwelling place.  If Christ is the foundation of our lives then we will look forward to hearing, “‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father.  Inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’”