Angry Woman Meme

Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

    It’s a little old now, but there’s a famous meme where a woman is sitting at a table, yelling and pointing, while a white cat, sitting at the table, ostensibly across from her, has a snarky look on its face.  People put in all sorts of dialogues between the woman and the cat, some of which are pretty funny.  If I were to make a meme based on today’s readings, the woman would say, “God calls sinners!”, while the cat would respond, “He calls them to repent.”  
    After all, in all three readings, we hear about sinners whom God calls.  In the first reading, God calls Isaiah to be His prophet, to speak for Him.  But Isaiah knows that he is a sinner.  So he says, “‘Woe is me, I am doomed!  For I am a man of unclean lips, living among a people of unclean lips!’”  In the second reading, St. Paul acknowledges that he is not worthy to be called an apostle, because he persecuted the Church.  And finally, in the Gospel, Jesus calls St. Peter to follow Him, but Peter demurs, saying, “‘Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.’”  
    God knows that Isaiah, and St. Paul, and St. Peter, were all sinners.  God’s omniscience cannot be fooled.  But He does call each of them to do His will: Isaiah to speak for God as His prophet; St. Peter to be the first pope and head of the apostolic college; St. Paul to be the Apostle to the Gentiles.  And with each person–Isaiah and Peter and Paul–God offers them His mercy.  Isaiah receives an ember, touched to his lips, which takes away his sins.  Jesus asks St. Peter three times if he loves Him, and then gives Peter the mission of caring for Jesus’ flock.  St. Paul, who loses his sight when he encounters the Lord on the road to Damascus, regains his sight and is baptized through a follower of Jesus, Ananias.  
    So yes, God calls sinners.  And yes, He forgives their sins.  But He does so in order that they repent and change their ways, which is exactly what Isaiah and St. Peter and St. Paul did.  They left behind what the old man in them, the old Adam, to be exact, and they put on the new man, the new Adam, Jesus Christ, and lived according to His will, rather than their own.  God didn’t call them to Himself so that they could go back to their old ways.  God didn’t want Isaiah to use his speech for sinful matters.  God didn’t want St. Peter to go back to fishing.  God didn’t want St. Paul to return to persecuting His Church.  He met them where they were at, yes, but He led them to a new place, a new mission.

His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George

    In our laziness, our sloth, we can miss that second part.  We’re very happy that God meets us as we are.  It warms our heart that God would choose us, sinners though we are, to share in His life.  But when it comes to leaving the past behind, and going where God wants, no longer just where we want to go, we balk at the change and choose to remain in our past.  This is why so many people love the horrid hymn “All Are Welcome.”  It’s the first part of the call of Jesus to any person.  He welcomes sinners and tax collectors to dine with Him; that is true.  He does not condemn the woman caught in adultery, or the Samaritan woman at the well.  But the story doesn’t end there.  He tells them not to sin anymore, and gives them, by His presence, what they need to change their life to conform to His.  It is as His Eminence, Francis Cardinal George, used to say, “All are welcome, but on Christ’s terms, not their own.”  
    Today, as we admitted Jenna, Raegan, and Skyler to the Order of Catechumens, we saw the witness of one whom Christ called.  Ladies, you, like all of us before we were baptized, have original sin.  Original sin is an obstacle that following God as He desires.  But God has overcome that obstacle to invite you to follow Him by becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ.  God met you where you were, but now He calls you deeper into relationship with Him, to put out into the deep waters that might be scary, and which take you way from anything in your past which is not of God.  But He doesn’t leave you alone as you put out into the deep waters. He goes with you, and we also, now that you are a catechumen, promise to support you, pray for you, and help you as you prepare for baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist.  
    We stand before you as those whom the Lord has also called, though we are sinners.  And we do not claim that we follow Christ perfectly.  But each time we fall, each time we sin, Christ reaches out for us again, and encourages us to put that behind us as He forgives us in the Sacrament of Penance, and strengthens us to say yes to Him and no to anything contrary to Him and His teachings.  He has called us, too, to deep waters, and sometimes we fear to go with Him, but He calls us, and we hope to follow as best as we can.
    Because the Lord doesn’t want us to wallow in our sins of the past.  He doesn’t want us going back there because our sins don’t give us life.  They don’t give us happiness.  They don’t allow us to be the people He has called us to be.  Only by following Christ, by making His life our own, by living according to what He has taught us through the Scriptures and the Church can we truly be happy and be fully ready for heaven at the end our life.
    So you, and we, are sinners.  And God has called you, and us, to leave that sinfulness behind.  He desires to burn away our sins like with the Prophet Isaiah; to open our eyes like St. Paul; to call us to leave behind our old way of life like St. Peter.  May you, and we, have the courage to answer that call, repent, and be faithful to the Gospel.

Union With God

 Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time
    Fr. Zach Mabee, who used to serve here in Flint (and who is probably best known as the tallest priest in the Diocese of Lansing), likes to share funny memes on Facebook.  His full time job is teaching at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, but some days he posts so many memes that you would think that posting memes is his job.  Anyway, he recently posted one meme that said, “Why would you say ‘half a dozen’ when you can literally say ‘six’?”  It is interesting to think about how we use a phrase when we can use just one word.

    The same could be said about the Eucharist.  Sometimes we refer to the Body and Blood of Christ as the Eucharist, but we often refer to the Eucharist as Holy Communion.  Perhaps not as long as “half a dozen,” but still it’s another term for the same reality.
    The word Eucharist comes from two Greek words, 𝜀𝜐 and 𝜒𝛼𝜌𝜄𝜍, which, when put together, means “give thanks well,”  The Eucharist is the way that we give thanks to God well, because it is Jesus’ perfect sacrifice that unites us to the Father and opens heaven for us.  The Mass, where we celebrate the Eucharist, is our prayer of thanksgiving that Jesus gave us.
    But we do also rightfully call the Eucharist “Holy Communion.”  We all know what holy means: set aside for God or belonging to God.  Communion is also a common word, which comes from the Latin word comunio, or union with.  When we receive Holy Communion, we have union with Christ, and, therefore, union with the entire Trinity.  How often do we think about this reality: that when we worthily receive the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, we are becoming one with God?
    St. Paul affirms this teaching in the sixth chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians.  He writes, “whoever is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.”  Certainly, receiving Jesus into our bodies in the Eucharist is joining ourselves to the Lord.  Later, in that same letter, in chapter eleven, he encourages people to think about (he uses the word discern) whether or not they should join themselves to Christ through Holy Communion, because those who partake of the Eucharist unworthily “will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord…[and bring] judgment on himself.”  He even goes on to say that the reason that “many” are ill and dying, and some are even dying, is because they are joining themselves to Christ when they shouldn’t be.  
    The Eucharist isn’t something that we should receive only out of habit, without considering the state of our soul.  We do not want to join a life that is objectively and gravely contrary to the same Person that we are receiving.  Communion means that we are, in the major ways, one with the other.  Think about it in terms of marriage.  Married couples sometimes have disagreements, but they are not necessarily major.  But if, hypothetically speaking, a husband were to forget his wife’s birthday, or their anniversary, that union might be damaged in a major way, and the man may find himself sleeping on the couch; hypothetically speaking, of course.  Because of the major offense, they do not engage in union with each other in the marital act, because that spousal embrace means that they are one, while forgetting such important dates denotes a lack of union or care for the other.
    So for us as Catholics, following what St. Paul says, we are to discern whether or not we should have Eucharistic union with Christ, or if we need to be reconciled to Him first.  Again, going to the marriage analogy, forgetting an important date is bad, but it does not mean that reconciliation cannot take place.  There should be an apology, and then possibly roses, or chocolates, or some gesture of contrition.  So with God, when we have failed to live according to His teachings in major ways, we first need to reconcile before we can have that great and Holy Communion that God gives us in the Eucharist.  We cannot ignore that wound that we caused without causing a greater wound.  Go back to the marriage analogy: telling your wife she has a birthday every year or that you’re always married when you forget those important dates does not help.  Just so, we cannot receive Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin without making a sacrilegious union with God, seeking to unite our sinfulness to His holiness.
    We shouldn’t approach Holy Communion and receive the Eucharist if we have any unforgiven mortal sin on our soul.  Recall that mortal sins are sins that are grave, that we know are wrong, and that we freely choose to do anyway.  Neither should we receive Holy Communion if our life is, in a public way, contrary to what Jesus (whether in Scripture or through the official teaching of the Church) teaches us is part of following Him.  
    What are some major ways of rejecting God?  The Ten Commandments are a good rule of thumb.  Yes, that includes taking God’s Name in vain, or unnecessarily skipping Mass on Sundays.  It also includes the offenses against our neighbor, like murder (including abortion), adultery or sexual sins, stealing when it involves a larger value, and lying under oath or to legitimate authority.  Living in a public way contrary to Christ is not only working publicly against Church teaching, but includes not being married in a way that is recognized by the Church (whether it’s a first marriage outside the church, or a second marriage without an annulment).
    Union with Christ means that we are in union with all that Jesus teaches us as necessary for salvation, whether in what we believe or in how we live.  That is also why non-Catholics cannot receive Holy Communion: they often reject one or more of the official teachings of the Church in faith and morals.  But if they do believe everything that we do, not only about the Eucharist, but about the pope, the sacraments, the Bible, the moral life, etc., then they should become Catholic, at which point they can receive Holy Communion.

    The point of all of this is that God wants communion with us through Holy Communion.  But in order to receive Holy Communion worthily, our lives need to be conformed (at least in major ways) to His way of life.  When we are conformed to Christ in major ways, Holy Communion, the Eucharist, becomes our strength to continue to following Christ day-by-day.

Gone and Yet Here

Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord

    If there’s one thing that has proliferated during our pandemic, it’s memes.  Memes, if you’re not familiar with the word, is a picture, often with a short phrase, that’s intended to be humorous.  One that came to mind today (which I saw in April but would have also been appropriate earlier this month!) was: Anyone else feel like life is being written by a 4th grader right now?  “And there was this virus, and everyone was scared.  And then the world ran out of toilet paper.  Yeah, and then there was no school for like a month, and then it snowed.”  If we bring it up to the present day we could also include murder hornets and, sadly, the recent floods in central Michigan and wildfires near Grayling.  It does certainly sound like a bad story!
    As we go through the main points of the Gospel, it may also sound a little like a disjointed story.  You can imagine trying to explain the Gospel to someone who has never heard it before: There’s a virgin, Mary, who conceives a Son.  But it’s not conceived with her husband, but by the Holy Spirit.  And Mary’s Son, Jesus, is also God’s Son, but he’s not half-God and half-human, he’s fully God and fully human.  And Jesus heals people and walks on water, and multiplies bread and fish for the hungry, but then He dies on the cross.  But then He comes back from the dead, not like a zombie, but in a glorified body which can pass through doors.  And He visits some people during 40 days after the Resurrection, but then ascends into heaven.  But He’s not really gone, because His Body is the Church. 
    Christianity holds in tension so many things: Mary who is mother and virgin; Jesus who is God and man; Jesus who truly dies, but is truly risen from the dead; and what we celebrate today, Jesus ascended into heaven, but did not leave us orphans without His presence.  He’s gone, but He’s still here.  After all, we heard it at the end of the Gospel today: “‘behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.’”
    So how is Jesus still present with us, if, as we heard in the Gospel, He ascended beyond our sight into the heavens?  There are two ways.  The first we’ll celebrate next Sunday on Pentecost.  When the Ascension was celebrated when it should be (on Ascension Thursday, 40 days after Easter), we could point to the first novena in the church.  This is where you can insert the bad joke, where a Franciscan, a Dominican, and a diocesan priest are all asked individually by a layman, “Is there a novena for a Ferrari?”  The Franciscan, when asked, answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The Dominican, when asked, likewise answers, “What’s a Ferrari?”  The diocesan priest, when asked, answers, “What’s a novena?” 
    A novena is 9 days of prayer, usually for an intention.  There are nine days between the Ascension and Pentecost, and the Blessed Mother, Apostles, and disciples were praying for those nine days to continue the work of Jesus, without really knowing what they should be doing.  And their prayers are answered by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, where all gathered in that upper room are empowered to preach the Gospel.
    The Holy Spirit continues Jesus’ presence in the world.  Through the Holy Spirit, the Good News is still preached, freedom from sin is still granted, the hungry are still fed, the sick are still healed, the dead are still raised.  All that Jesus did on earth continues through the work of the Holy Spirit.  Sometimes that happens directly by the Holy Spirit, but sometimes it happens by people empowered by the Holy Spirit, like the first Apostles and disciples, who continue that work through the Church.
    And the Church is the second way that Jesus’ presence is continued on earth.  The Church is the Mystical Body of Christ, and is present in heaven with Christ at the right hand of the Father (what we call the Church Triumphant), is present in Purgatory, awaiting the time when they will be ready for heaven (what we call the Church Suffering), and is present here on earth, as St. Paul says, working out our salvation and trying to live the life of Jesus daily (what we call the Church Militant).  The Church continues the teaching of Jesus, frees people from sin through the Sacrament of Penance, feeds the hungry of body through food pantries, and feeds the hungry of soul through the Eucharist, heals the sick through the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick, and prays for the resurrection of the dead in the funeral rites and Mass.  And in many more ways, the ministry of Jesus in Judea 2,000 years ago continues throughout the world.
    And that’s you and me.  Our call through baptism and confirmation is to continue the presence of Jesus in whatever way that we can.  People are no less hungry for Jesus than they were 2,000 years ago, and Jesus can satisfy their hunger through the Holy Spirit working through us as the Church. 
    Yes, there is that tension, that Jesus is both gone and present here on earth.  But His presence on earth is both the work of the Holy Spirit and us, in cooperation with the Holy Spirit.  This week, let’s make sure that our lives reveal that Jesus is alive and that, while He ascended into heaven, He is still working and active here on earth!