A Plethora of Disciples

Thirteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    In the 1986 comedy, “Three Amigos,” starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short, there is a scene where the the main villain, El Guapo asks his second in command, Jefe, “Would you say I have a plethora of piñatas?”  Jefe responds, “A what?”  El Guapo answers back, “A plethora.”  Jefe tells El Guapo, “Oh yes.  You have a plethora.”  El Guapo then questions Jefe, “Jefe, what is a plethora?…If you told me I have a plethora, and I just would like to know if you know what a plethora is.”  In case you were not prepared for a vocab quiz today, a plethora is defined as a large or excessive amount of something.

      So we now know what a plethora is.  But do we know what the word disciple means?  Because today’s first reading and Gospel focus in on being a disciple, whether of the prophet Elijah in the first reading, or of Jesus in the Gospel.  And we here probably consider ourselves disciples.  But do we know what it means?
    Our English word disciple comes from the Latin, discipulus, meaning a student, scholar, or follower.  But being a disciple was more than that in the ancient world.  Being a disciple meant that you sought to live like the master, and make his or her way of life your own.  We don’t often think of students becoming like every teacher or professor they have (indeed, sometimes students really dislike their teachers or professors).  But disciples were, in some way, self-selected.  You could choose which master or teacher you wanted to follow.  But when you did make that commitment, it wasn’t about 9 hours in a classroom each day, or a 18 weeks of meeting twice or thrice each week.  Choosing to live as a disciple meant a life-long commitment, even living like the master after he or she was gone.
    So when we talk about Jesus’ disciples, that is the mindset in which they sought to follow Him.  But, as we heard today, sometimes people didn’t want to make that entire commitment, or Jesus wanted to make sure that they knew with what they were getting involved.  Following Jesus, we hear today, is even more important than burying one’s own family, or saying farewell to one’s family.  And it means that one may have to give up external stability, like a set place to rest one’s head.  But does it still mean that today?
    Being a disciple today is slightly different, but the idea of commitment is no different.  Jesus has to be our number one priority, if we wish to be the disciples God wants us to be.  It doesn’t necessarily meant that we won’t have any home, or that we cannot have time with our family, or even bury family members.  But it does mean that we make our life not about ourselves and our desires, but about Jesus.
    Consecrated men and women, whom we often call “religious,” do take vows to live as a disciple in a more radical way.  They give up a family of their own, a bank account of their own, and even choosing how they want to serve, through the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.  Diocesan priests also make the promise of celibacy, and seek to live a simple life, detached from their possessions (even though they have their own bank account), and promise respect and obedience to their bishop and his successors. 
    But being a disciple is not just for consecrated men and women, and priests.  Being a disciple is the commitment our parents made for us, or we made for ourselves, at baptism.  Our parents promised for us, or we made promises, to live like Christ to the best of our ability, no matter what our vocation.  Christ became our Master so that it would no longer be I who live, but Christ who lives in me, as St. Paul said. 
    So who do we put first in our lives?  Whose rule do we follow?  We’re here today, at Mass, so we are at least giving Christ this time.  But do we do so every week, or only when we feel like it?  Is going to Mass our biggest priority, or is going to Mass at a certain time our biggest priority? 
    Whose voice do we hear first, and to whose voice do we respond?  The voice of Christ, or the voice of our preferred political party?  Let me let you in on a secret, even while certain political parties espouse ideas which are gravely antithetical to being Catholic, no political party can claim the obedience we owe to Christ.  Yes, we are sometimes called to choose the lesser of two evils (as long as we’re not choosing a political party because of evil policies they advocate or adopt), but our allegiance to this or that party should be way down the list, with our allegiance to Christ at the top, and then probably family, country, and friends. 
    With the decline in religious observance in this country, it is interesting that people have not jettisoned obedience that we would normally give to God; they have transferred it to something else.  There is a need to give someone our entire loyalty built into us.  So if we don’t give it to God, we will give it to someone or something else.  Recently, I think many people have transferred religious submission of will and intellect to political parties, such that disagreement with the latest political platform is akin to heresy. 
    Do we truly live as disciples, or are we only living in a shell of what that word means?  When it comes to major issues of our day–abortion, euthanasia, so-called homosexual marriage, racism, service of the poor, when to receive or not receive Holy Communion–are our positions formed by the Gospel, or by the politician we like the best?  We use this word “disciple” a lot, and often for ourselves.  But do we really know what it means?

Finish Strong!

Solemnity of Pentecost

In high school track I was a short distance runner.  I usually ran the 100m dash, 200m dash, 100m relay, and/or 200m relay.  I always said that as far as running went, if I wasn’t done in 26 seconds or less, something had gone horribly wrong.  But at one meet, perhaps because my track coach was a sadist, he asked me to run a 400m dash.  I had never run it before, never trained for it before, and had no desire to run it.  But, coach was telling me to run the event.  And how bad could it be?  It was only once around the track.

As the gun fired to start us, I tried to set a pace that I felt would make me competitive in the second heat.  Even though I wasn’t prepared for it, I didn’t want to lose and embarrass myself or my team.  So I pushed it.  After about 200m, I realized just how long 400m was as my legs started to ache.  The two things which were competing to win at that point were the fatigue in my muscles and my pride not to lose.  As I crossed the finish line, I think I got third.  What I remember more vividly was that my legs felt like jello, and I was sure I was going to fall down.  But, I had given it everything I had, and had finished strong.

Today, as we come to the end of our Easter Season and celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, we should want to finish strong.  Of course, we’re not totally done with life, but we are done with the Easter Season.  And we finish our Easter Season the way that the Apostles began their public ministry: with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

We hear about that gift in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, a story with which we are likely pretty familiar.  There is a great wind, and then the Holy Spirit appears over the heads of the apostles and disciples like tongues of fire.  Immediately the disciples are compelled to speak about Jesus and how He was raised from the dead and offers us new life in Him.

As Catholics we may be a little uncomfortable with the Holy Spirit.  God the Father is someone we’re familiar with, but we can often keep Him at arm’s length, since He seems so mysterious.  Jesus is someone with whom we’re much more familiar, we know the stories from His life, but even He can seem a little distant, since He is seated at the right hand of the Father.  But He tends to be the focus of most of our prayers.  But the Holy Spirit–that’s the one who seems to make things go out of control.  Maybe we’ve even seen people who claim to have the Holy Spirit and they do what we consider “weird” things like speaking in tongues or having the gift of prophecy.  Perhaps we’re not that comfortable with the Holy Spirit.

But we need not be afraid of the gift of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit is the one who continues the ministry of Jesus in the Church.  He does give some people special gifts like speaking in tongues, prophecy, healing, etc., but He also showers His gifts upon all believers.  And we hear about some of those gifts that we can experience in the Scriptures.

At the Vigil Mass the first reading was from Genesis, and was the Tower of Babel.  The people all want to get to God on their own terms, but God makes them speak all different languages.  The unity of the people is not based on God, but on becoming the masters of their destinies, and so they are scattered.  But in the story of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit helps the people to have access to God by hearing the Good News of the Gospel of Jesus spoken to them in their languages.  And we experience that in our own way today: our Gospel was proclaimed in Latin, the mother-tongue of our Latin Rite church, and some of our petitions this weekend will be proclaimed in the languages of our parishioners, including Malayalam (from India), Tagalog (from the Philippines), Spanish, German, Arabic, and Italian.  And while perhaps we don’t all understand all these languages, they reflect the diversity of our cultures, and yet the unity of the faith, because what we believe is the same, no matter in what language it is proclaimed.

The Holy Spirit also gives us each gifts to build up the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church.  We all have certain gifts to build up our parish, our diocese, and the universal Church that the Holy Spirit encourages us to use.  Some of us garden and do yard work, some teach, some cook, some comfort the sorrowing, some serve as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion or Lectors.  I am sure that some of our parishioners, besides being called to these ministries, are also called in the future to a vocation to the priesthood or diaconate, or to consecrated life as a sister or nun.  

The question for us is whether or not we are willing to respond to the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit may lead us to new circumstances that are unfamiliar for us, just as the foreign lands to which the apostles went were unfamiliar to them.  But if it is the Holy Spirit calling us to them, then we know it is for the building of the Church and the spreading of the Gospel.  Do not be afraid of the Holy Spirit, but be open to His gifts, and then, with the courage the Holy Spirit gives us, use all that we have to continue to ministry of Jesus in the world!