Cadets

Fourth Sunday of Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  Over the past ten or so years, the Michigan State Police has re-vamped its Cadet Program as a way to get young men and women connected to the State Police while still college-aged.  Part of the expectation is that they use the time (for which they get paid) to make sure they are physically fit enough to be admitted to recruit school.  Recently I was present when a few cadets, including our two cadets at the Flint Post, did a baseline assessment of their physical fitness.  They had to do 32 sit-ups and 30 push-ups (each within a minute), do a vertical jump and reach at least 17.5 inches from their vertical arm extension, and do a half-mile shuttle run in 4:29.  Most cadets don’t simply do this physical test cold: they work at surpassing the standard before they take the test.  But if they don’t pass it at first, they have more opportunities before they are accepted to reach the physical standard and hopefully enter the 20-week academy to become a Michigan State Police Trooper.
    Just as the cadets have to keep their eyes on the goal of becoming a Trooper, the Church sets before us today the goal of making it to heaven.  For the gradual today we pray Psalm 121: “I rejoiced when they said to me: let us go to the house of the Lord.”  For the tract we heard Psalm 124: “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, that stands forever.”  And we will return to Psalm 121 at the Communion Antiphon, as we hear: “Jerusalem is built as a city, strongly compact.  It is there that the tribes go up, the tribes of the Lord.”  Of course, while the psalmist had the earthly Jerusalem in mind, God, the divine author, had the Jerusalem above in mind.  We rejoice because we go on pilgrimage through life towards heaven.  And when we trust in the Lord, nothing can shake us, because we are like heaven, which endures even as the ages pass.
    St. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, also references the Jerusalem above, which is like Isaac, whereas Sinai, the mountain of the law, references the earthly reality.  The Apostle challenges us not simply to look to the rules, but to the freedom that comes from allowing God’s grace to transform us, and the freedom that comes from conforming our wills to God’s.  During our Lenten pilgrimage, we do well to keep this in mind.  Our goal should not just be not eating meat on Fridays, or certain extra prayers, or generosity to the Church and the poor through almsgiving.  Those practices, like the law, do not save in and of themselves.  But when we utilize those penitential practices to live a life more like Christ, that is, allowing those practices to put to death in us anything that does not come from God, we gain freedom because we live as God created us: in accordance with His will.
    It can be so easy to keep the law mentality that St. Paul critiques in the epistle.  We set out penances for ourselves and presume that they will save us.  We take on a Pelagian mentality that we earn our salvation by the good works we do, and God simply approves of our struggle and rewards us for it.  But our penitential practices, like the law, does not save.  Christ saves us; we do not save ourselves.  But we follow God’s eternal law and we chastise ourselves with Lenten practices in order to discipline our flesh and realize that all too often we live more like an animal, by instinct and drive, than like a child of God, living by following the will of God and the higher ends of the spiritual realm.  
    We don’t teach, like the Manichaeans, that the body is evil, but we do know that it operates under the weight of sin and concupiscence, and desires things we should not desire, or desires things at inopportune times.  We strive to live, not just by bread, but by the Word of God.  We pray because we need communion with the Father to ignore the temptations of the devil.  We give alms because generosity with others, especially those who will not return payment, makes us more like our heavenly Father who makes the sun shine on the good and the bad, and makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust.  

    And just like the cadets not only have to work out to be able to do their push-ups, sit-ups, and run, but also have to eat well to stay in shape, we hear the miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish in today’s Gospel, which starts out the famous Bread of Life discourse, which is St. John’s treatment of the Eucharist (rather than the synoptic Gospels which focus on the Eucharist at the Last Supper).  The Eucharist is the spiritual food that we need, not only to help us during our Lenten penances, but also to help us on our pilgrimage to heaven.  When we receive Holy Communion in a state of grace, God strengthens our souls to more easily choose the good and reject the bad.  He gives us the Body and Blood of His Son, Jesus Christ, to transform us and make His will our own more and more.  
    We are all cadets, not striving to be Michigan State Police Troopers, but striving to be the saints that God called us to be in Holy Baptism.  To do that, we have to keep our mind on our heavenly goal, and eat the right spiritual food that will strengthen us towards our divinely-appointed end.  May our Lenten practices and our worthy reception of Holy Communion keep us in good spiritual shape so that we can appear, without trepidation and with a clear conscience, at the judgement seat of our Lord Jesus Christ, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns for ever and ever.  Amen.   

New Levels

Fourth Sunday of Lent

    In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.  A few people in the parish know that I play the online game, Clash of Clans.  For those who know, I’m Town Hall 17.  For those who don’t, probably best not to wonder too much.  It’s a game on the phone or tablet where you collect resources, build and defend your village, and war with other plays to get more resources and collect special rewards.  It’s not a role-playing game, but just a fun, online pass time that gives me a distraction a few times a day when I can use a rest for my brain.
    Inevitably, as I get close to getting to the highest level for all my buildings and troops (maxing out, we call it), they release new levels and new things which moves the finish line farther away.  For example, just as I was about to complete most of my buildings for Town Hall 16, they added Town Hall 17 and new upgrades on most of the buildings, which means I had to start saving resources to get to the next level.
    All this “nerding out” does have a point.  In our Gospel today, and to a lesser extent in the epistle, we have different layers that lead somewhere else.  In the epistle it’s a bit simpler: we start with the story of Abraham and Sarah and their slave Hagar.  Now, Abraham and Sarah and Hagar were all real.  They lived life as the Bible describes, including Sarah “convincing” Abraham to have relations with Hagar because Sarah was barren, and Hagar giving birth to Ishmael.  But then God allows Sarah to give birth to a son Isaac after she has relations with Abraham.  And, like the good soap opera which it sounds like, the two women who bore sons to Abraham don’t get along.  But St. Paul notes that this true story was also a foreshadowing of the Law of Moses (represented by Hagar and Ishmael) and the Law of Christ (represented by Sarah and Isaac.). But it also points to the earthly Jerusalem (again, represented by Hagar and Ishmael) and the heavenly Jerusalem (again, represented by Sarah and Isaac).  Just when you think you understand one story, it’s taken to the next level.  And the epistle, as I mentioned, is the easier reading of the two.
    In the Gospel, we have all sorts of levels going on, some of which are directly mentioned, but some of which only make sense in the broader Biblical and theological context.  We start with Passover in the Book of Exodus (the anniversary of which is the time in which the Gospel takes place).  Hopefully we remember what happened: the Israelites put the blood of the unblemished lamb on the doorposts of their houses in Egypt, so that the Angel of Death would pass over their houses.  God established it as a liturgical feast to be celebrated every year as the making present of the past event of the thing that made Pharaoh free the Israelites from slavery.  That’s the first level.
    The second level is the Gospel today, which takes place around the feast of Passover.  In the Gospel, Jesus miraculously multiples five barley loaves and two fish into enough for 5,000 men, not counting women and children.  After this miracle, and after the Lord flees from the Jews who wanted to make Him King, because it was not yet His hour, Christ gives the famous Bread of Life discourse, teaching us that if we wish to have eternal life, we must eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Many of the Lord’s followers reject this hard teaching and walk away, but He doesn’t change what He says or even modify it.
    But, the multiplication of the loaves points to something which is coming up: the Last Supper.  Christ gives His Apostles, His first bishops, a new liturgy, connected to the Passover, but superseding it, in which ordinary unleavened bread and wine, which were used in the Passover, becomes His Sacred Body and His Precious Blood.  Christ uses language to assert that this is a new rite for His new Church, and asks that they repeat this ritual in His remembrance.  This is level three.
    But we’re not done yet.  Because the Last Supper points to and intimately connects to the offering of the truly unblemished lamb, the Lamb of God pointed out by John the Baptist, on the cross on Good Friday.  The Eucharist, the sacrament of the Flesh and Blood of our Savior, first preached in John, chapter 6, was instituted on Holy Thursday, but is the unbloody presentation of what happened on Good Friday.  The Precious Blood of the Lamb of God save, not only the first born in Egypt, but all of God’s people in all time and space whom God has chosen.  Death is conquered when Life Incarnate dies on the tree, and Christ gives us a way to access that conquest of death each time we receive the Eucharist in a state of grace.  Level four.

Ghent Altarpiece

    But wait; there’s more!  Because the Eucharist, the re-presentation of Calvary in an unbloody manner on the altar points to the heavenly Jerusalem (connecting us with the epistle) where Christ eternally offers Himself to the Father in the wedding banquet of the Lamb of God, the heavenly worship to which the Mass points.  This is the fifth level.  The beautiful bottom panel of the Ghent Altarpiece shows the Lamb, pierced with blood flowing into a chalice, on an altar, with a cross nearby, with angels and saints around the altar worshiping and singing, which brings together most of those levels in one artistic rendition.  
    In the Scriptures, so many things connect together, and so many Old Testament true stories point to New Testament fulfillment and realities, which themselves prepare us for heaven.  May our Lenten sacrifices keep taking us deeper and deeper into our understanding of what God has revealed, until we hopefully see the final fulfillment in the kingdom of heaven, where Christ lives and reigns with God the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God for ever and ever.  Amen.  

On Pilgrimage

Feast of the Presentation of the Lord/Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary
    [In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen].  On this past Christmas Eve, Pope Francis opened the 2025 Jubilee Year, choosing as its theme “Pilgrims of Hope.”  There are numerous opportunities to gain plenary indulgences during this Jubilee, including pilgrimages to our Cathedral in Lansing, to two of the three churches on the pilgrimage to Kentucky that we hope to do in June, or to certain churches in Rome and Jerusalem.
    We hear in our Gospel of the first pilgrimage of our Lord to Jerusalem for the two-fold purpose of celebrating the purification rites for a woman who had given birth, in accord with Leviticus, chapter 12, and the redemption of the first born son, from Exodus, chapter 13.  Our Blessed Mother offers the sacrifice for her purification, and our Lord is given back to God as the firstborn son, remembering how the angel of death passed over the Israelites who marked their lintels with the blood of the lamb.
    This idea of pilgrimage to the Temple, for various reasons, finds its root in the Old Testament, which our Lord fulfilled.  Generally, a good Jew would travel to the Temple each year at least for the Feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Booths.  The temple signified the dwelling place of God, and so all the people would travel to God’s home to be near Him and to thank Him for freedom from slavery and the life of the firstborn (Passover), for the blessing of produce and giving of the law (Pentecost), and the blessing of the harvest and exodus from Egypt (Booths).  But in each case, one traveled to be near God.

Simeon and the Christ Child

    In Christ’s first pilgrimage, the Holy Family did not, technically speaking, need to go to the Temple to find themselves close to God.  They had God with them at all times!  And yet, they still humbled themselves to obey the Law.  Yet, in that Law, God came into His temple in a new way, unlike even when He dwelt in the Temple of Solomon in His presence with the Ark of the Covenant.  By their humility, the Holy Family participated in the fulfillment of the prophecy of Malachi that we heard in the first reading/epistle: “there will come to the temple the Lord whom you seek.”  And in the fulfillment of this prophecy, another promise is fulfilled, that to Simeon, whom God promised would not taste death until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah, His Anointed One.  And from that fulfilled promise, Simeon also prophesies that Christ will be the rise and fall of many in Israel, and that a sword of sorrow would pierce Mary’s Immaculate Heart.  
    So how are we on pilgrimage to God?  Our life is meant to be a pilgrimage, not to Lansing, or Kentucky, or Rome, or Jerusalem, but to the heavenly Jerusalem, the Temple not made with hands.  Bethlehem to Jerusalem is a 5.5 mile walk.  You could easily get there and back in a day.  But Jerusalem was built on a hill, and so there were ups and downs.  This time of year in Jerusalem it is around 60 degrees, but there is also rain at this time of year.  So the Holy Family maybe dealt with sun or rain.  Likewise, in our life, which passes before God like a day, there will be ups and downs.  Some days trying to live as a disciple and love God and neighbor as He commanded will be easy; other days it will be difficult.  There will be sunny days where we are full of smiles while following the Lord and there will also be rain when we feel like God has absented Himself from our life, or like the cross He has allowed us to carry seems too heavy.  But you can’t get to the destination of a pilgrimage by stopping.  Sometimes little breaks may be necessary for rest, but the point of the pilgrimage is to keep moving.  
    And as we go towards the heavenly Jerusalem, we, too, should seek the purification of God.  Sin darkens our soul.  It makes us unworthy of temple worship, unworthy of being in God’s house because our actions have communicated that we don’t want to be with Him, and prefer our own ways to His.  It clouds our intellect so that we cannot understand what God wants us to do and how He wants us to love Him and others.  But God offers us purification through the Sacrament of Penance.  He washes us clean by His Precious Blood so that we can enter the Temple and bask in the warmth of His presence.  
    Pilgrimages are also based on hope.  We hope that we will arrive.  Nowadays, as we travel by car or bus or plane, or sometimes all three, our travel is less unsure.  But pilgrimages were historically a matter of walking, and you didn’t know where you might stop, or how safe the way was, or even if you would arrive.  So on our pilgrimage to heaven, we have to have hope.  We hope that God will protect us from anything that seeks to do us harm.  We hope that God will help us arrive at our final destination.  We go from what is seen, our starting point, to what is unseen, our destination.  In the end, until Christ returns in glory, only God knows who arrives safely, unless God grants the Church a knowledge that some have already arrived (our canonized saints).  But we hope that our loved ones are there, cheering us on, encouraging us not to give up, not to turn aside to other false gods or paths that lead away from God, and to persevere through the hills and valleys, the sun and the rain.  
    May this Jubilee Year inspire in us the hope that we will arrive in heaven someday, where Christ will welcome us all as parts of the Mystical Body of the Son redeemed in the Temple forty days after His Birth, the Light of Salvation for all peoples, Jesus Christ[, who with the Father and the Holy Spirit is God for ever and ever.  Amen].

Backwards and Forwards

Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Church

Today we have the great joy of celebrating the Anniversary of the Dedication of St. Pius X Catholic Church.  We have the chance to exclaim with the psalmist, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”  This may seem odd that we would take a day to celebrate a building.  But as Catholics, we know that the material world has been redeemed in Christ and sanctified, and what is visible has become a way for the invisible to be communicated.  Bricks and mortar are no longer bricks and mortar, but are elements that remind us that each of us plays a role in building up the kingdom of God.

But how do Catholics view a church building?  While this sense has been lost by many, a church building is not about functionality.  Church buildings do not exist simply so that people can stay protected from the rain and snow, the heat and the cold.  Our church building is a temple for the True God, which points us back to the Temple that King Solomon built (we heard about that in our first reading today, and it was alluded to in the Gospel).  And that temple points us back to the Garden of Eden, the place of paradise where humanity and God could dwell in peace and harmony.  But it also looks forward to the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple not built by hands, eternal with God.

The temple was divided into different parts.  There were different courts, or areas where people could gather to pray.  Then there was the sanctuary, where the priests could go and offer sacrifices, some of which went to God, some of which went to the priest, and some of which were given back to the people.  Then there was the Holy of Holies, the inner sanctuary, where the High Priest could go, once a year on the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, and ask forgiveness for all the sins of the previous year.  

In our own church building, we have different areas.  We have the narthex, sometimes called the gathering space, where people are welcomed to the church each time they come to Mass.  This is the place where we can speak to each other and find out how each other has been since the last time we saw them.  Then we have the nave, the place where the pews and the choir are, the place where we have devotional candles set up.  This is the place of prayer, where our focus changes from talking to our neighbor to talking to God, the best friend of our soul, who rejoices with us in our joys, and comforts us in our sorrows.  Then there is our sanctuary, the raised area where the Word of God is proclaimed and the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross at Calvary is re-presented for us.  This is a place that is proper to the priest, but into which other commissioned extraordinary ministers of the Word and of Holy Communion, and servers are invited in during particular parts of the Mass to assist the priest.  And at the head of our sanctuary is the Tabernacle, the Seat of Mercy of God, which holds our reserve Blessed Sacrament.  Christ remains here with us, always interceding for forgiveness for our sins before God the Father.  

But our church also points back to the Garden of Eden.  No, this doesn’t mean we get to be naked in church; no one wants that!  But it is meant to be a place of peace and harmony with God.  In this building God speaks to us directly, as He spoke to Adam and Eve, helping us to know what His will is for us, both as a Church and as individuals.  God also feeds us, as He gave Adam and Eve every good food for their sustenance.  God gives us the Body and Blood of His Son, the bread of eternal life, which sustains our souls as we try to follow Jesus.  And in the center of this Garden of Eden is the tree of life, the Crucifix, from which we are able to receive eternal life because of the sacrifice of Jesus, the unblemished Lamb, whose Blood speaks more eloquently than that of Abel, the son of our first parents.  That is why the Crucifix plays such an important role in our faith and in our church: because it is the source of immortality for all who believe and unite their lives to it.

But our church also looks forward to heaven.  In fact, in the Mass, the veil that separates heaven and earth is pulled back, and we are able to anticipate here on earth the glory and peace of heaven.  As the Book of Revelation says, those who have been redeemed sing, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Hosts” to God the Father and to the Lamb who was slain but lives.  We worship with all the angels and saints, of which our few statues, and in the future our icons, will remind us.  We see those here on earth who worship God, but we probably do not see the myriad, the thousands upon thousands of angels and saints who join with us in worshipping God.  In this church we also anticipate heaven we are also called to leave the fallen world behind, and so we are invited to “lift up our hearts” from the fallenness of our world to the perfection of heaven.  

That all sounds nice, but how does it affect us?  How does our understanding of the church building help us follow Jesus?  It changes the way we behave, the reason why we try to keep quiet in the nave, so that everyone can pray to God in the silence of our hearts; the reason why we don’t chew gum or drink coffee as if this were simply an auditorium.  But it also gives us a reason to return each week.  Who here doesn’t need a break from our fallen world?  Who here doesn’t want to have communion with God?  Who here doesn’t need time away from technology and the cacophony of sounds to have time with God in the silence?  I know I do!  And, as we have a chance to be refreshed by God, we can then better respond to our fallen world, and share the love and the truth that Jesus calls us to spread as He calls us His disciples.  

So while we celebrate a building today, we celebrate a place that prepares us for heaven, and allows us in our own time to taste a little of eternity.  And that is certainly good news for us, who need to hear God and be fed by Him.  And for that reason, we can all say, “How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord God of Hosts.”

Filling a Niche in the Temple of God

Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome

St. Peter

St. Simon

 One of my great blessings in life has been to travel to Rome several times.  I first went there through a study abroad program when I was a junior in college.  My most recent trip was in 2013.  Each time I go, I try to stop by all four of the Patriarchal Basilicas: St. Peter, St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. Mary Major, and St. John Lateran.  In that last basilica, the Pope’s cathedral church, whose dedication we celebrate today, there are huge niches going up the nave of the church.  And in each niche is a larger-than-life marble statue of the apostles: Peter with a book and the keys of the kingdom of heaven; Simon with a book and the saw by which he was martyred; St. Jude with a spear; St. Paul with a book and the sword by which he was martyred; St. James the Greater with the pilgrim’s staff; St. Thomas with a carpenter’s square; St. Philip with a cross and stepping on a dragon; St. Matthew with a large book and standing on a bag of money; St. Bartholomew with a knife and his flayed skin (the tradition of how he was martyred); St. James the Lesser with a small book and a staff; St. John with a book and eagle; St. Andrew with the style of cross that bears his name.  All of these statues add to the grandeur of the pope’s cathedral, and I’m always in awe and inspired every time I go to visit.  It is refreshing to see these princes of the church and think about the effect that these twelve, mostly uneducated, men had on the history of the world!

St. Jude

St. Paul

            St. Paul reminds us that we are the temple of God.  As I mentioned when we celebrated our own anniversary of the dedication of this church, we are the living stones which make up the temple of God, and we all have a role in helping each other, because no one stone alone makes a grand building.  But today, as we celebrate the Dedication of St. John Lateran, I would like to encourage us to think of the temple of God as having niches which are ready for each of us.

St. James the Greater

St. Thomas

            The first thing we have to do is fill that niche.  The apostles didn’t get their large, marble statues for running away at the crucifixion.  They got those statues because after they ran away they came back.  And they preached Jesus all throughout the known world and invited others to follow Jesus and change their lives to the way that Jesus wants us to live.  All but one died for this proclamation.  Even the one who was not martyred, St. John, died in exile on Patmos.  If we wish to fill the niche of the heavenly Jerusalem, the temple of the Lamb, with our persons, then we too are called to follow Jesus, even if we have abandoned Him before, and proclaim Him to others, inviting them to follow Jesus.

St. Philip

St. Matthew

            To often, though, our “statues” are covered with cobwebs, dirt, dust, and filth.  And it’s at those times that Jesus has to come in and clean us off.  There are two ways this happens: the good way, where God invites us back to Him and we respond, confessing our sins to God through the priest in the Sacrament of Penance, and allowing God to take a warm rag to clean us off; or the bad way, where God, who had still invited us to return to Him, respects our free will to choose against Him, and allows us to choose Hell over Him, assigning that niche to someone else.  I’m sure we want to occupy the niche that was made for us, and yet how often do we neglect to make regular confessions?  Advent is coming up, and many people go to the communal penance liturgy where we have multiple priests, but adults should go at least four times per year.  I myself confess every few weeks, for the forgiveness of my sins, and to grow in holiness, and make sure that I will fill that niche that God has set aside for me in His temple.

St. Bartholomew

St. James the Lesser

            The second thing is to imagine what item would be associated with us?  What item would represent our life, as so many of the statues have items that represent their deaths?  Maybe it’s a telephone because we call our friends and family to make sure they’re doing well.  Maybe it’s cooking utensils because we volunteer at funeral luncheons, breakfasts, or dinners.  Maybe it’s a rake or shovel since we help out with cleaning the church grounds or the cemetery.  Maybe it’s a book because we teach others about God or write about God.  The options only depend on how we life our lives as disciples of God, and what we do to further the Kingdom of God. 

St. John

St. Andrew

            God has set a place aside for us in His heavenly temple.  We won’t be marble statues, but we will be adding to the beauty of the temple of God and offering Him constant worship.  By following Christ, we will gain a spot in the heavenly Jerusalem, and will gladden that city of God, the holy dwelling of the Most High, because we will be where He created us to be: in heaven with Him.  But let’s make sure that we get there, because the road is narrow to salvation, and wide to perdition.  Only by doing our best to stay, all of our life, on that straight and narrow path, and then returning to God to confess our sins when we stray, will we be able to enjoy a place in the temple of God and truly be a masterpiece, even more awesome than the apostle statues at St. John Lateran.